> Heck, most of them think the Internet is Chrome.
In the end Google has achieved something that Microsoft couldn't with Internet Explorer, and won the Browser Wars.
Google managed to aggressively advertise their browser by optional install "offer" within Windows installers of software. And they were aiming exactly at all those who couldn't tell the difference between the web browsers and who were conditioned by more experienced family members, friends etc. to just blindly click "Next Next, Finish". Thus, that was an easy win.
Being here when we had choice between Gecko, Presto, Trident and later WebKit/Blink makes me sad how easily the IT world allowed this nearly 100% monoculture to happen. There are still other browsers but chances that we return to variety and choice of rendering engines are low.
What annoys me the most about this is that we as web developers have been here before with IE and managed to get out of it. Then we immediately forgot that lesson and helped Chrome be the new IE in a new coat by adopting ”modern web API’s” that were in fact proprietary Chrome API’s with low respect for the standards process, until every other browser was forced to accept it as a standard. All those ”Safari/Firefox are lagging behind” or ”best supported in Chrome” wasn’t in our best interest or even, from a standards perspective, particularly true.
Not just allow, they cheered it on.