EU's New Tech Laws Are Working; Small Browsers Gain Market Share (reuters.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet's Google, Microsoft and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies. The early results come after the EU's sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers from a "choice screen." [...]
Cyprus-based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250% in March -- one of the first companies to give monthly growth numbers since the new regulations came in. Founded in 2016, Aloha, which markets itself as a privacy focused alternative to browsers owned by big tech, has 10 million monthly average users and earns money through paid subscriptions, rather than selling ads by tracking users. "Before, EU was our number four market, right now it's number two," Aloha CEO Andrew Frost Moroz said in an interview. Norway's Vivaldi, Germany's Ecosia and U.S.-based Brave have also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation. U.S.-based DuckDuckGo, which has about 100 million users, and its bigger rival, Norway-based Opera (OPRA.O), opens new tab are also seeing growth in users, but said the choice screen rollout is still not complete. "We are experiencing record user numbers in the EU right now," said Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, which counts over 324 million global users.
Under the new EU rules, mobile software makers are required to show a choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones. Previously, tech companies such as Apple and Google loaded phones with default settings that included their preferred services, such as the voice assistant Siri for iPhones. Changing these settings required a more complicated process. Apple is now showing up to 11 browsers in addition to Safari in the choice screens curated for each of the 27 countries in the EU, and will update those screens once every year for each country. While DuckDuckGo and Opera are offered in Apple's list, opens new tab in all 27 countries, Aloha is in 26 countries, Ecosia is in 13 and Vivaldi in 8. Google is currently showing browser choices on devices made by the company and said new devices made by other companies running Android operating system will also display choice screen in the coming months. A Google spokesperson said they do not have data on choice screens to share yet.
Cyprus-based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250% in March -- one of the first companies to give monthly growth numbers since the new regulations came in. Founded in 2016, Aloha, which markets itself as a privacy focused alternative to browsers owned by big tech, has 10 million monthly average users and earns money through paid subscriptions, rather than selling ads by tracking users. "Before, EU was our number four market, right now it's number two," Aloha CEO Andrew Frost Moroz said in an interview. Norway's Vivaldi, Germany's Ecosia and U.S.-based Brave have also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation. U.S.-based DuckDuckGo, which has about 100 million users, and its bigger rival, Norway-based Opera (OPRA.O), opens new tab are also seeing growth in users, but said the choice screen rollout is still not complete. "We are experiencing record user numbers in the EU right now," said Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, which counts over 324 million global users.
Under the new EU rules, mobile software makers are required to show a choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones. Previously, tech companies such as Apple and Google loaded phones with default settings that included their preferred services, such as the voice assistant Siri for iPhones. Changing these settings required a more complicated process. Apple is now showing up to 11 browsers in addition to Safari in the choice screens curated for each of the 27 countries in the EU, and will update those screens once every year for each country. While DuckDuckGo and Opera are offered in Apple's list, opens new tab in all 27 countries, Aloha is in 26 countries, Ecosia is in 13 and Vivaldi in 8. Google is currently showing browser choices on devices made by the company and said new devices made by other companies running Android operating system will also display choice screen in the coming months. A Google spokesperson said they do not have data on choice screens to share yet.
Web Devs Hate It (Score:1)
I'm sure web developers love having to make sure their sites work and display correctly on even more browsers.
The reality is that most won't support all these new browsers, which will lead to poor experiences using those alternative browsers, and likely many giving up on them.
Re: Web Devs Hate It (Score:2)
You still have to make it work in Safari.
Re: (Score:1)
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Most of them are running Blink by way of Chromium. It's not the problem you imagine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Web Devs Hate It (Score:4, Insightful)
And that is the actual state of affairs. Of course the large browser makers try to poison the discussion and try to misrepresent themselves as the good guys, when really they are the problem.
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I doubt that most web developers would even care if their site did not work on anything other than the absolute latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Apple Safari.
Of course the EU can say, "You can use any browser that you want." but can the EU REQUIRE BY LAW that web developers make their sites compatible with every type & version of web browser under the Sun?
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I doubt that most web developers would even care if their site did not work on anything other than the absolute latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Apple Safari.
Of course the EU can say, "You can use any browser that you want." but can the EU REQUIRE BY LAW that web developers make their sites compatible with every type & version of web browser under the Sun?
The EU can force websites to respect the HTML standards, both under accessibility laws and under laws against anti-competitive behavior. If the mainstream browser makers are incapable of following standards, then that is their problem. All the small ones do follow the standards or they would be out of the market.
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I doubt that most web developers would even care if their site did not work on anything other than the absolute latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Apple Safari.
Of course the EU can say, "You can use any browser that you want." but can the EU REQUIRE BY LAW that web developers make their sites compatible with every type & version of web browser under the Sun?
The EU can force websites to respect the HTML standards, both under accessibility laws and under laws against anti-competitive behavior. If the mainstream browser makers are incapable of following standards, then that is their problem. All the small ones do follow the standards or they would be out of the market.
Insert obligatory XKCD graphic here -> https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
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Not with the IETF process. For industrial "standards", sure.
Re: Web Devs Hate It (Score:1)
They are all Chrome derivatives and since they all use the same engine, the real question is what value do they add. It is not like these browsers were not possible before, I have Chrome, Firefox and Opera on mobile and they all have their quirks but I am more worried that these are opportunistic as legislation makes it harder or even impossible to detect and remove certain malicious browser activity (are they spying or actually providing a VPN/proxy)
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For now they mostly add value as a market. They enable small companies to exist and potentially add value technically, when their funds allow. If the browser choice screen increase usage, it will enable a series of small companies to hire developers and 1) create a community of codebase derivative users, 2) maybe start contributing technical differences. Any contribution to the chromium source codebase that is not from Google is a good thing as it diminishes, even if slightly, the main method Google has fo
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Have your browser conform to standards.
If it doesn't, well, you're not IE6. Nobody gives a fuck about being compatible to you!
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For developers, you need to test on baselines for engines. That is firefox and chromium. Engines underneath are Gecko and Blink/Webkit.
Almost everything else other than palemoon is built on top of those engines. So this isn't a problem of any meaningful variety for web developers.
Farce (Score:1)
Vivaldi: Chrome
Brave: Chrome
DuckDuckGo: Chrome
Opera: Chrome
DuckDuckGo and Ecosia aren't weren't using. The results are no better than Google. And their pages are just trash. Google still does that mostly right.
Re: Farce (Score:3)
False. Safari and Chrome were both forked from the same source. Safari just got a lot less love.
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I can press Ctrl+Tab in opera and switch to the most recent tab.
If I do it in Chrome, I see "the next tab" with no option to change that behavior.
So to me, Opera is a differet browser, even though it is based on Chromium, thank you.
Vivaldi also tries to add stuff from Presto.
You have conveniently skipped Firefox.
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Didn't see it in the article. But Firefox is Firefox. It is the only other modern browser out there. Waterfox and Pale Moon are based on versions of it.
"working" (Score:2)
They are working in that the laws are being followed, but for whose benefit are they working? The metrics that matters are:
1. Have browsers innovated and improved in a positive manner?
2. Is there actually a tangible and real benefit to the public?
3. Has it made life for web developers and web users better?
3. Is user privacy more protected or less?
Just telling me some BS that browser market shares have shifted is of no material significance.
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The shift on browser market share is a necessary first step for any of the metrics to be affected.
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1) Yes. As in not having braindead cretins like at google who have killed MRU tab switching
2) Yes, also corps are more accepting of various browser choices
3) At least for me it did
4) You mean are we more protected when NOT using a browser by a company that makes money on advertisements? A tough one...
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2. No
3. No
4. No
Nothing is new. Everything 'new' is just Chrome with an addons suite built in.
Google and Cloudflare block real alternatives (Score:2)
Obligatory XKCD (Score:1)
By an AI (Score:2)
The lack of a subject/object in the clause suggests this was written by an AI, or translated into English by an AI.
Chrome Market Share (Score:3)
And how much of that market share shift is Chrome gaining users on iOS devices?
Because fuck me if this ends up being a repeat of the PC desktop, where Google browbeats everyone to the point that the vast majority of users are all running Chrome.
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I run chrome because... it is a company's policy.
F*CK arrogant cretins at Google who have effectively killed "most recently used" tab switching.
And also f*ck idiots at Microsoft, who did the same, even though their own bloody OS does switch between tasks in that very manner.
Long live Firefox and Opera.
A solution to no problem (Score:2)
Somehow, amazingly, I have managed to install FOUR different browsers, even without a "choice" screen. Isn't that amazing?!?
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But why does the line need to be shifted at all?