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2016-07-05 05:13:20
The world s most popular computer programs are becoming less boring
Jul 2nd 2016
BROWSERS, pieces of internet software that people probably spend more time with
than they do in bed, have long been boring affairs. Save for occasional
innovations such as tabs, these programs have remained fundamentally the same
since the release of Mosaic, the first mainstream browser, nearly a quarter of
a century ago. Just four browsers account for nearly all users: Apple s Safari,
Google s Chrome, Microsoft s Internet Explorer and Mozilla s Firefox. It is
difficult to tell them apart.
New, more interesting browsers have started cropping up. In August internet
users will be able to download the first full version of Brave, the brainchild
of a co-founder of Mozilla. Mozilla itself is working on a new type of browser
which will give users suggestions on where to navigate next. Both are only the
latest in a series of such efforts: last year Microsoft unveiled Edge, meant to
replace Internet Explorer; March saw the release of Cliqz, a browser developed
in Germany; a month later came Vivaldi.
If most browsers are boring and unwieldy, it is because they are expected to do
more than ever before: not just surfing the web, but editing documents,
streaming music and much more besides. As a result, priority is given to
stability and ease of use. Too many fiddly buttons could scare away novice
users. Innovation is outsourced to developers of plug-ins , which add features
to a browser.
Building a new browser from scratch is a fiendishly difficult and expensive
undertaking. Only Apple, Google and Microsoft have the money and resources to
throw at developing a fast engine , as the core of a browser is called. Their
dominance also scares off investors. Few venture capitalists are foolhardy
enough to invest in a product that needs to take on three of the world s most
powerful tech companies. Mozilla is a non-profit which partially relies on
volunteer developers and donations.
Insurgents are trying to overcome the obstacles in three ways. To reduce
development costs, their products are based on existing open-source projects,
such as Chromium, which also powers Google s Chrome. They get money from angel
investors, who have an appetite for risk. And most important, they aim their
products at niche segments. Brave, for instance, is for surfers who prize
privacy. It can block annoying online advertisements and privacy-invading
trackers , which lurk on websites to follow users around. Cliqz also blocks
trackers and is integrated with a new search engine. Vivaldi pitches itself as
a browser for power users . It is packed with customisable features and comes
bundled with an e-mail client.
Such small browser-makers do not need the scale of their competitors to make
money (Chrome has more than 1 billion users). Both Vivaldi and Brave say they
can break even with a few million users apiece. The easiest source of revenue
is search deals. Companies such as Google pay roughly one dollar per user per
year to be the default search engine on rival browsers. Vivaldi is also
experimenting with charging firms to be featured on its home page. Brave is
trying to subvert the dominant online-advertising model: it blocks intrusive
advertisements such as self-starting videos, replaces them with less irksome
ones and shares the revenues with publishers and users.
The market for browsers has grown large enough to sustain such niche players.
But the chances that these small fry will turn into big businesses are low.
Most people will continue using the boring browsers if only because they are
too lazy to install a slightly more interesting one.