Chrome attained its user base not by merit but by paying third party Windows installers to bundle it.

Forcing it down users’ throats at the world’s most popular website might have helped. Slightly.

Yep. Google has been incredibly aggressive in promoting Chrome over the years, including practices similar to those Microsoft gets lampooned for doing the same with Edge.

The thing is that most of this is invisible to people who already live within Google’s bubble which is probably why they don’t get called out for it. The promotion is visible mostly to those of us who don’t, and it gets irritating.

This is complete nonsense, it's a post hoc copium where you're trying to dishonestly rewrite history from your personal hatered.

Chrome was better than competition pretty much all its lifetime and there's plenty of historic articles to prove it, no matter how much your emotions refuse to accept the history.

You can argue the merits of a product without personally attacking people.

The only personal insult to everyone here is such blatant lying and rewriting of history. And it's telling about the bottom barrel culture of the internet that you're angrier about having someone called out as a liar they are instead of actual lies.

We were there and we didn't install Chrome via some made up toolbar installer, but because it was significantly better than what Mozilla and Internet Explorer offered.

I am plenty calm, I do not know what gives you the impression I am angry. You, however, absolutely need to ease off the gas. You can’t talk to people like this here. You are being needlessly hostile and taking swipes at people. Treat people with respect or just don’t bother commenting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html