![]() A year later, in August 1996, with the release of Internet Explorer 3, a browser war was on. But in August 1995 Microsoft released the first version of Internet Explorer based on an NCSA Mosaic license. Netscape’s popularity peeked in 1996 when it held around 80% market share. Third, Netscape introduced new approaches to testing and distribution of web browsers by releasing frequent beta versions to users in order to test them and get feedback ( Yoffie & Cusumano, 1998). ![]() Second, Netscape introduced many technological innovations such as on-the-fly page rendering, JavaScript, cookies, and Java applets ( Berghel, 1998). First, it was a natural followup of Mosaic as it was developed by the same people. Several factors are believed to have caused the fast adoption of Netscape by users. This collapse in Mosaic’s popularity was concurrent to the rapid rise of Netscape Navigator which was released in December 1994 and managed in less than two years to reach around 80% market share (different sources cite somewhat different numbers). Amazingly, by the end of 1995 its popularity plummeted to only 5% of the web browser market ( Berghel, 1998). Moreover, it was the first browser to be cross-platform including Windows and Macintosh ports. The factors contributing to Mosaic’s popularity were inline graphics, which showed text and graphics on the same page, and popularizing the point and click method of surfing. Not long after the release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 it became the most common web browser, keeping its position until the end of 1994. However, one cannot rule out the large effect of the Google brand and the marketing effort that was invested as factors that contributed greatly to the realization of Chrome’s technical potential. Thus Chrome’s rise to dominance is consistent with technical superiority. Also, based on a survey of 254 users, the features pioneered by Chrome ahead of its competitors tend to be those that the users consider more important. In a nutshell, we find that Chrome is indeed technically superior to other browsers according to most commonly-used benchmarks, and has maintained this superiority throughout its existence. As far as we know our work is by far the widest study of its kind. To do so we downloaded all the versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer that were released over a period of five years, and compared them using a set of benchmarks which together provide a rather comprehensive coverage of browser functionality and features. In particular, we wanted to assess the technical quality of chrome and compare it with the quality of its rivals. Our goal is to explore the technical aspects, and see whether they can explain the growing popularity of Chrome. ![]() The reasons for this shift are most probably a mix of technical reasons and marketing reasons. In recent years we have witnessed such a shift (albeit somewhat protracted) from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to Google’s Chrome. The competition between browsers has led to several “browser wars”-periods of fierce competition between different web browsers that are characterized by technological innovation and aggressive marketing, typically leading to the eventual dominance of one browser and the fall of another. Over the years different browsers have competed for the user’s choice. The first web browser (which was in fact named WorldWideWeb) was developed at CERN as part of the The open nature of the web makes it possible for different browsers to co-exist, possibly providing different features, user interfaces, and operating system support. The most notable use of the Internet is the World Wide Web (In order to consume information from the web, one must use a web browser to view web pages.
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