In a recent announcement Microsoft have "capitulated" and will use the Chrome browser engine in future releases of MS Edge, with more frequent updates. MS will continue to offer additional features and enhancements in Edge over those found in Google Chrome.
According to reports, Google Chrome and Chrome based browsers now have about 80% of the browser market. By comparison, the number 2 browser, Firefox, has about 9% of the market.
Google have been adding features into their services, such as YouTube, that require Chrome browsers to work or work faster. One such "feature" added an empty "tag" to YouTube videos that, allegedly, did nothing in Chrome but required extra processing in other browsers such as Edge that had the effect of increasing the time needed for a video to load. Other "alleged tricks" included adding additional JavaScripts that slowed data processing on non-Chrome browsers. No-one is directly accusing Google of sabotage but it may be that Google now has such a dominating share of the market that they simply do not care about the compatibility of their services with other browser engines.
Despite the "big gorilla" analogy, Google have forced improvements in protocols used by the Web. For example, by developing their own HTTP protocol Google has forced the industry body that governs web protocols to twice upgrade HTTP to incorporate the newer and better Google protocols.
According to reports, Google Chrome and Chrome based browsers now have about 80% of the browser market. By comparison, the number 2 browser, Firefox, has about 9% of the market.
Google have been adding features into their services, such as YouTube, that require Chrome browsers to work or work faster. One such "feature" added an empty "tag" to YouTube videos that, allegedly, did nothing in Chrome but required extra processing in other browsers such as Edge that had the effect of increasing the time needed for a video to load. Other "alleged tricks" included adding additional JavaScripts that slowed data processing on non-Chrome browsers. No-one is directly accusing Google of sabotage but it may be that Google now has such a dominating share of the market that they simply do not care about the compatibility of their services with other browser engines.
Despite the "big gorilla" analogy, Google have forced improvements in protocols used by the Web. For example, by developing their own HTTP protocol Google has forced the industry body that governs web protocols to twice upgrade HTTP to incorporate the newer and better Google protocols.