Today, I go back to Firefox as my preferred browser. But not without reservations.
I really liked Chrome. It was simple, very fast and, well, hip. It was the cool offering from a technology company who had arguably almost as much of a fanboy following as its somewhat-rival Apple. Google was, in the early 2000s the trend-setter. But, like everything, and especially true of anything to do with technology, times change.
In the past few days I've noticed what surely must be a compromise to the power of money. Boardroom deals have surely been put into play. Chrome no longer seems to support the Ad Block extension. Oh, I still have it installed...it just doesn't do what it is designed to do anymore. All ads are coming through on all sites that have them. This is not acceptable to me. But surely, I think, I knew it was gonna end sometime. Blocking all ads, as Ad Block did so well for quite a while now, not just for me, but the millions of others using it...the corporations that now dictate the way the web works would have none of it.
Firefox now seems to be the only browser where Ad Block is still doing its thing. So, until Firefox too is swayed by the greedy corporate bastards, it's my default browser. Again.
Firefox was maverick when it first appeared on the scene in the early 2000s. As the de facto replacement for the by-then-obsolete Netscape using the same Mozilla recipe, it was easy to get used to, fast, fully-customizable, and offered robust support for emerging and continually-updating embedded technologies such as Flash and Java. Most importantly though, it solidly set the standard for browsers to remain free. Though it's taken for granted today, browsers at the turn of the millennium were on the cusp of becoming what at least the Big Two were pining for: a fee based product or remaining a totally free, full-featured software tool.
The late '90s Browser Wars pitted the then-leader Netscape Navigator against the upstart, yet heavily funded and ubiquitous Internet Explorer. Netscape had been, throughout its Golden Era of the mid-nineties slowly but steadily pivoting its product towards a suite of proprietary web tools which were more and more price tag oriented. Microsoft and its infinitely powerful crystal ball (or Bill Gates' pact with the Devil perhaps) foresaw the future of the web. It knew costs of development and deployment of its browser software was dependent on support from the greater (and growing) web developer community that chose to enable their sites for optimization for only a few browser technologies. Microsoft needed to ensure IE was their primary focus. This would ensure IE's popularity among PC users and thus, by association, Window's continued dominance in the choice of PC manufacturers selection for operating systems.
For me, my ultimate browser preference has always been for the least intrusive, quickest and simplest option. Yet I also want support of developers and add-on apps. What's more, it has to be slick-looking and cool. I want it all.
My first real web browser was a Mosaic version of the NCSA developed software. I think it was supported by the University of Wisconsin, or something like that. Before this nearly everyone was relegated to using America Online's proprietary portal.
Less an actual browser and more like one of their then standard forum interfaces it provided users like me with a mirrored virtual WWW. Only AOL pre-selected sites would be offered and in a format compatible to its software. Once independent ISPs caught on and AOL lost its hegemony, people were free to choose their own browser software. But let me tell you, by saying "people" I'm not using that identifier as one would today. Today, that term would refer to the current market of internet users. And today that literally means virtually everyone. But back then "people" using the internet were still predominantly white, Western, male, young and well, by the nature of the beast, geeky.
When Netscape came on the scene it seemed like it all made sense now. Netscape, if I recall correctly, was the first to integrate FTP, Newsgroups and the WWW into one package. And when web-based email started emerging, it simplified all your tools into one relatively slim package. Very important in the hard drive rationed, memory budgeted, CPU taxed world of the 1990's PCs.
Internet Explorer came out sometime in the late nineties (I'm writing all this without checking reference material such as Wikipedia...I'll do an UPDATE at the end to let you know how accurate my memory is) and it just seemed to put Netscape to bed. For me at least. I was reluctant, at first, to adhere to the new trend. Even simply calling Bookmarks "Favorites" seemed weird and alien. But it grew on me. And others, apparently, since it grew in popularity to eventually win out on this round of the wars and Netscape trod begrudgingly yet progressively into the sunset.
Yet it started to become more and more encumbered and less adaptable for my tastes. I think it was version 6.0 where it started already looking and performing like a hurdy gurdy in a techno band. I ditched it for Firefox and imported my "Favorites" into now-nostalgically named "Bookmarks" once again.
Chrome came out at a time when GUI interfaces still clinged to semi-3D shaded accents for application controls (back button and the like) and it seemed too 2D and plain. But it got the tabs concept "right" and won me over to using them. It was undeniably fast as well. Plus, it was a Google product and I was a Google fanboy.
But not allowing users to utilize technology which limits the intrusive and corrosive behavior of those who see the web as merely a way to inject more Capitalism into our short lives? To further exploit us into being no more than fodder for the greedy Corporate Machine? To kowtow to the Old World archaic Imperialistic attitudes and subject users to manipulation, subjugation and forced obsequity to the Powers that Be?
This is not a tool I'll use. Because the web must remain, forever and always, FREE, as our Forefathers Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreesen and Al Gore intended.
We now pause for a brief commercial message...
NOT!
UPDATE: My timeline is pretty much accurate but I made sure that Chrome had both AdBlock and AdBlock Plus (two different ad blockers) and it's all good again. So I guess the Chrome Era marches on.