On the design concept of Firefox and Chrome

As you can see, I have always been a heavy user of Firefox. So I write about Firefox is absolutely not a few articles, such as the previous days of this article, it is very detailed on why I choose Firefox browser.

In recent days, the browser market is a smoke. The first group of netizens held a funeral for IE6, followed by Microsoft's official announcement that IE9 would be the perfect supporter of HTML5, the world's fastest Opera10.5 on schedule, and that when all this dust has yet to be settled, Firefox is being criticized for having difficulty overstepping the 25% market share. Immediately Mozila also quickly counterattack, saying that Firefox is less efficient than other browsers in JS not because of poor technology, but because other browsers support JS is far from perfect Firefox. It's really hilarious that you came to me.

As far as I am concerned, the most interesting browsers in these mainstream browsers are two, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. These two browsers I basically are in sync update the latest Nightly/dev version, they also have some understanding. As for opera, this is indeed a very powerful browser, there are many innovations, but unfortunately, he is not suitable for me, and I obviously can not be able to comment on what I do not know.

Whether it's Firefox or Chrome, now that they have a considerable number of extensions, the proper use of these extensions is almost all the functionality you need. If it's just about the functional point of view, it's not fair to jump to conclusions about any browser that doesn't have an extended installation. Therefore, I will be as objective as possible, from the perspective of these two browser design concepts, to comment on it.

Interface

The interface is the first feeling that the software brings to the user, the quality of the interface also determines to a large extent whether a user who first touches the software is still interested in using it. The default interface of a software is the most representative of its design concept. This view of mine has never changed since the comments on this interface are of course the first.

Firefox and Chrome show a lot of differences, as shown in the screenshot above. I'm using Firefox (nightly beta is called minefield) 3.7a3pre and Chrome 5.335.1 Dev, all set back to their default interface. Their current version may have a certain change in the interface with the original version, but the core design philosophy is unchanged.

I'm really not interested in doing things like the size of the back button, and so on, which is the study of requirements analysis and interaction design, and it's probably just a change in user experience, not a change in user behavior habits. These details are often not directly related to their core design concepts. So let's just start with the focus.

1.1 Label

As pictured above, it's chrome, and here's Firefox. The position of the tab bar must be one of the most obvious differences, except that Chrome displays the default content when it opens a blank page.

Firefox's label bar is more traditional; he is placed below the address bar and bookmarks Bar, and the tab bar is directly after the content of the page, and each tab bar splits a different page. Chrome's Tab bar is a bold innovation, and he even replaces the original title bar; The tab bar is placed at the top of the browser, followed by the address bar and the bookmarks Bar, because the tab bar is the title bar, and each tab page is divided into a different browser.

Firefox is a very traditional design. Many tabbed browsers are already using this design long before Firefox appears. By default, the bookmark bar is placed above the tab bar, and after clicking, the browser begins to display the content of the page in a different tab. So, each of the Firefox tags is divided into different pages.

Chrome's Tag bar design is really amazing, but it feels really comfortable when you're familiar with it. He boldly merged the tab bar with the common title bar; After opening a new label, the first thing you see is a regular toolbar, then a bookmark bar, and clicking on the Bookmarks Bar will show you the contents of the page directly on the current tab. So I said earlier that Chrome is a different browser for each tab style.

The chrome design may have something to do with the security of a standalone process on every tab, but more importantly, the design highlights the unique design concept of chrome: All the browser's features are designed to better showcase the content of the Web page.

Obviously, Firefox has not been able to show us anything special through its own interface.

1.2 Search

As usual, the top half is chrome, and the lower part is Firefox.

A very important part of the web is search, and search is Google's forte. So again we see Chrome's sweeping improvements to the address bar search.

Browse record search for the address bar, which is the function of two browsers. Just type in the address bar and the browser will search for results and display from your browsing history and bookmarks. This is a very convenient management model, after all, with the Internet time accumulation, bookmarks will be more and more.

Their differences are also very obvious

Firefox is still a traditional setting, the address bar searches for local browsing data, and searches for Web content in a separate search box. If you enter text directly in the address bar, Google's luck will be invoked by default. Open the results site directly. Chrome integrates the regular address bar with the search bar, and it can be done in a unique address bar whether you want to search for information on the local browser or on the web. The address bar directly enters text to call Google to search for the content and display the search results.

The chrome design is fun and bold. For those who are accustomed to the design of the standalone search box, this consolidation may be confusing for the first time, but the good news is that Chrome is ready enough to tell the user that this is the search you want.

I think that the integration of Chrome is far more than the traditional meaning of the Address bar and search box, there is the local browsing data and network search results, no matter what users need, all just in the same address bar to complete the search. It is also possible to say that Chrome is deliberately downplaying the boundaries between local data and web search. In addition, the design for small screen users is also very meaningful.

In this regard, chrome simplifies the user's search action, presumably to make the user feel that the search is not isolated, but a part of the network. Whether it's a Web page you've visited, a bookmark you've collected, or just a little bit of an impression, or you want to know the answer to the question, the latest advice, all can be done in a search box. From the Google.com home page that only a search box can be seen, this and Google's simple philosophy is fully consistent.

1.3 status Bar

Still the top half for Chrome, below for Firefox.

The status bar is an important part of the browser, where users can see the loading progress of the page and preview the connection location. Of course, you may also see the use of certain features of the browser.

The status bar for Chrome and Firefox can be said to be completely different.

Firefox's status bar is the general status bar, you can display the page load status and preview the connection, the right side will show some of the installed extension of the icon to facilitate the switching of its running state. The new version adds a load progress bar to the Status column. Chrome doesn't really have a status bar, he only shows when it's needed, and other times are hidden. But you can still see the basic two features of the status bar: page load status and connection preview.

I'm not sure if Chrome's hidden status bar was first, because opera has a similar feature. Admittedly, such a design does make it possible for browsers to display more Web content, and users don't have to take the time to study what the long status bar is all about.

Obviously, this time we can easily come up with the chrome design concept: The browser is just to show the content of an auxiliary tool. A hidden status bar makes it easier for users to focus on a Web page, only to focus on when they need it, without having to pay extra attention.

Firefox's status bar design is almost the same as most other browsers, and there is a lot of functionality. It's just that he allows the Extender to add icons to the status bar for the convenience of the user, so you can see that the Firefox status bar in the image above has a row of buttons, but they are all added by the extensions I have installed, none of which is the icon of the browser itself.

Until then, Firefox has finally begun to show something unique about itself: The browser's interface can be customized according to the user's needs.

1.4 Interface Summary

I wonder if you have ever heard of the principle of the Omega Razor? If not, there is a fairly detailed explanation on the Interactive encyclopedia. The idea of an arcane razor is, in fact, easy to understand, and he boils down to one sentence: "Everything should be as simple as possible, not simpler." ”

Chrome's interface design, it is the principle of the Austrian razor to the extreme, and this also with Google's own business philosophy is inseparable.

As much as possible to simplify all the elements of trouble, save the cost of user choice. This is what Chrome does with its interface design. And it's this simplicity that gives chrome an amazing audience, and almost everyone is impressed by his unique designs. All this design looks bold, but it really is the result of a user-led approach that is as simple as possible.

All of Firefox's designs are consistent with people's traditional knowledge of browsers, and he's not trying to change anything fundamentally. But we can still see something from that, which is just mentioned, the interface of on-demand customization. With almost every little-experienced Firefox user, his browser interface is different. If you want, you can completely customize Firefox and Chrome.

And this is what Firefox brings us.

Now the results are clear.

Chrome said: "The browser interface should be as simple as possible, everything should be based on user behavior to make the most significant simplification." Firefox thinks: The browser's interface should be as flexible as possible, everything can be based on the user's needs for the most significant customization.

Do you like the simple, or on-demand customization?

Again how gorgeous interface, finally also rely on the function of the browser itself. Only by analyzing the core functions can we have a better understanding of the real purpose of the interface design that they use now.

As mentioned earlier, although understanding the interface is the fastest and most effective way to study their design concepts. But no matter how gorgeous the interface, are based on the browser's own functions, whether it is a concise interface, or a complex interface, the ultimate goal is the same: in order to facilitate the user to use its functions. And these are all features of a browser.

So in this article, we're going to start analyzing the different features of the browser.

two, characteristic

Browsers can have a lot of functionality, or only the most basic of the Internet. And it all depends on his design philosophy. The impact of this design concept on browser functionality can permeate every vein in the browser.

Whether it's Firefox or Chrome, they have a considerable amount of expansion to enhance their capabilities, so it's dangerous to make a quick conclusion about any of these browsers at any time. But correspondingly, the extension is also a good entry point, both browsers have their own very different ideas.

It's worth noting that the extensions are always unofficial, so it's important to be careful not to attribute the design concepts presented in some extensions to the browser.

Because the function is always a relatively abstract concept, and can not like the interface to rely directly on the two map can be analyzed. Therefore, for the functional article, I will be from three aspects, for the most concerned about the browser features to start the analysis.

2.1 Engine

Why is the engine first in line?

The engine is not only the most important feature of the browser, but also the extent to which he supports the extension. What the engine brings is more than just a browser.

We already know that Chrome is using the famous Open-source engine WebKit, and Firefox is using a gecko that has almost become Mozilla's own development.

WebKit is an open-source, lightweight web page rendering engine driven by Apple, based on Khtl. WebKit, with its high efficiency, lightweight code, excellent standard support, and low memory consumption, is now used by a variety of browsers. Gecko, an engine developed by Netscape, now belongs to the Mozilla Foundation. The Gecko engine has undergone several reconstructions so far, and the current version is also stable and efficient, while the special XUL interface allows for an effective extension of functionality.

WebKit is a very famous engine, Chrome is not the first to use his browser, and obviously not the last one. His footprint is not only in all operating systems, but also in any mobile phone, and the default browsers for Symbian S60, WebOS, iphone and Android all use WebKit as their core.

WebKit has always been known for its small, refined code and high performance for low memory usage, and for a long time is the best engine to support the standards of the consortium.

Also worth mentioning is that Chrome also uses a called V8 engine to do JS processing, and this V8 really live up to expectations, in a variety of tests ahead of other browsers.

Then Google will choose WebKit as Chrome's core rendering engine, and its core philosophy is easy to understand: it is important to keep the browser simple and efficient, and to faithfully restore the original effect of the Web page.

In contrast, Gecko no webkit so lucky. Gecko has always been so bloated and so criticized, until the latest version, that is, FIREFOX3 began to change markedly. But gecko because of its relatively complex code, has not been able to completely change its memory usage and efficiency are higher than the WebKit status quo.

One of the biggest advantages over Webkit,gecko is that he supports more things. WebKit can only be used for rendering HTML, and Gecko, in addition to HTML rendering, provides an xml-based user interface generation engine: XUL. XUL is widely used in Firefox to generate a variety of UI interfaces, including all kinds of mainstream extensions. Also thanks to the use of XUL, we can easily change the appearance of Firefox into anything.

While it is not possible to overcome webkit in efficiency for the time being, Firefox's choice of gecko is not unreasonable: it is important to maintain a high degree of customization of the browser's capabilities.

2.2 Content

Content is actually the Web page that the browser renders. A Web page is designed to publish content, and the purpose of the browser is to show it to the user. But different browsers, the rendering of Web pages may also be the ultimate effect can vary, so there is the standard of the consortium to standardize these browsers. So you see the thing in the picture above, the ACID3 test. The closer the score is to 100 in the test, the higher the level of support the browser has for the standard.

Chrome from the day it was born, has always been in the acid test to maintain a very high score, the figure of 100 is his masterpiece; Firefox has been working hard, but even if I have used the latest version, the current ACID3 test can still stay at 91 points. While the difference of 9 points may be meaningless in practical applications, it has a deep meaning: whether you admit it or not, Chrome is more loyal than Firefox to restore the original design of the page.

But this problem, we can also turn it over to think. Is every user willing to browse the site as the Web designer thinks?

For example, the famous minimum font size problem: English Web pages are in accordance with the size of the 9px design, which is nothing wrong, but the Chinese text at least to reach 12px to be able to see the comfortable, so this will be at some time some trouble. It's easy to fix him by setting the minimum font size in the browser. In this regard, Firefox as long as in the options can be changed, and Chrome apparently also considered the problem, so he set the default minimum font size directly to 12px, does not provide settings in the option.

Perhaps some would think of expansion. Indeed, using extensions, or modifying a configuration file, chrome can also use 9px of text. But again, this is not what the software was designed to do.

As opposed to Chrome, Firefox began to take into account the confusion of the content of the Web page may be caused by users, so fireofox relative to chrome more attention to the user's browsing habits.

2.2 Extended

Extension program, this is our attention to the heavy content. A browser's capabilities, even in how powerful, often difficult to meet the needs of everyone, so there are a variety of extensions to appear. Today, extensions have largely affected the user's use of browsers.

Firefox has been known since the start with its massive expansion program, and some of its famous extensions are now quite influential; Chrome is no less of a weakness, and the current expansion is now claiming to be half the size of Firefox.

However, it must be emphasized again that the Extender is always developed by a third party and does not represent a browser's design philosophy. Given that Firefox's extensions are mostly years older than Chrome, it's not appropriate to compare them even with the same extensions.

But fortunately, we are here to study the main browser. Therefore, we can also from several different aspects to resolve the browser to the extension of the things.

2.2.1 Independent Settings

One extension to be able to do is easy for users to use, if only to temporarily deactivate an extension to need to modify the configuration file, then I think there is no one would like to continue to install other extensions on this browser.

Chrome has a separate extension page that allows you to browse and disable the extensions you have installed. If so, the extended option will open in a newly opened page. Firefox is a dedicated extended window that allows you to browse and disable extensions that are currently installed. If so, the extended option will be displayed in a new window.

Maybe two sentences are awkward, but from the above we can easily see the difference. All of Chrome's extension-related settings are displayed in the main browser window, almost as a Web page, while Firefox benefits from the use of XUL, each with a separate setup interface.

The trend of

2.2.2 expansion

Both Chrome and Firefox have a wide variety of extensions, and one statistic is clearly not shown. But there's a simple way to look at the popular extensions on the official homepage.

Chrome's hottest three extensions are: advertising filtering, Gmail mail checking, and search enhancements. Firefox's hottest three extensions are: AD filtering, online video downloads, personalized skin. 2.2.3 Extension Type

This is almost the easiest part of this article, because it's supposed to be something that can be done on an extended web page.

But unfortunately, the Firefox extension page is quite perfect, not only has the classification, but also has the user to share the collection; The Chrome page is so shabby that all the extensions are completely unclassified, and it's just that the Web page is not finished as an excuse.

According to my survey, the general result is this:

The expansion of

Chrome is mainly supported by Web browsing, and most of it is related to Google's services. Firefox has a wide variety of extensions, based on a variety of functional extensions, often associated with a wide variety of web sites. Summary of 2.2.4 Extensions

Chrome did not support expansion at the time of its initial release, but the user's voice was very high. And his expansion was in anticipation. After all, it's a late start, and it can't be compared to Firefox in terms of expansion, but the mainstream of Firefox is already a substitute for chrome.

In the first three points, I think that Chrome doesn't think that expansion is essential, but that extension is only a supplement to browsing behavior.

Firefox has supported expansion from the outset, and over the years it has built up a huge number of users with powerful extensions. With the support of Gecko for XUL, Firefox has incredible flexibility, and almost all kinds of features are constantly emerging.

Firefox believes that expansion is a very important part of the browser and that a good extension can improve the user's browsing experience.

2.4 Summary

We have studied so much before, also analyzed so much, for these two browser different features, should have a general understanding of it.

The engine was first, and now I think I've got the results. The choice of engine is the first step in a browser design, and it has a very far-reaching impact on the various features of the browser.

If you remember the one we mentioned in the last article about the idea of an arcane razor, then he will continue to work on the chrome design concept at this point.

For Chrome, we already have a simple, browser-enabled browser, and the end user is easy to get started with and can use it to meet most of his requirements. For the browser's ultimate goal: to display the content of the Web page, he can achieve quite perfect. If the user has any feeling inconvenient place, also can use the extension to satisfy.

Firefox in the selection of the engine when the expansion of the browser to consider the impact of the second is the content of the Web page display. Firefox's default settings are close to most common browsers and can be easily used, and Firefox can also be extended to suit the browsing habits of different users if they need it. So the expansion of Firefox is big

So now we can finally conclude

Chrome to faithfully present the content of the Web page as the primary goal, the expansion of the user-oriented browsing. Firefox to ensure that the user's browsing habits for the primary purpose, expand the aspect to improve the user browsing experience.

Do you like to be simple or practical, or do you like to be flexible?

No matter how gorgeous chrome is, don't forget that Google is always a commercial company. For a commercial company, all of its actions have a unique business purpose, and it is this commercial purpose that has prompted the advent of Chrome and has forced Chrome to choose a completely different truth from Firefox.

Firefox has opted for a slightly more sophisticated but highly customizable approach to user habits, while Chrome has opted for simplicity and simplicity from the user's point of view.

So now there's only one question left: Why are they designing this way? Especially in the browser when the majority of users in the use of IE, how to use the strategy to be able to compete with IE?

The top image is from my blog's access statistics. Nearly 60% of users are using different versions of IE browsers, and Firefox is now 23.8% (5.2% of that Mozila is a variety of Firefox beta and revision), and Chrome's share is less than 12%.

Can be seen even now, IE is still very strong, but to break such a strong, just blindly publicize their products without a core concept of support, it can end up with a small audience and marginalization of the results. But it doesn't seem that Firefox and Chrome have become like this.

This article tries to analyze the different marketing strategies of Google and Mozilla from the angle of market behavior, because the opinion of this paper is based on some of my own marketing experience, if there is not enough objective place, also hope to forgive.

Third, Market

Although Mozilla is a non-profit organization, but Google is a real listed company, all his actions from the root, are for some of their own business purposes. Even organizations like Mozilla face the test of the market.

The simplest example is how Firefox can snatch market share from IE users when the browser market is saturated.

Only when we understand their respective market behavior can we really understand the core design concepts of these two browsers.

3.1 Historical Behavior

Although I have not always liked to study history in my school days, we still have to start analyzing what they have done in the past. Because only read the history, understand what they have done in the past, can understand the two browsers appear at the beginning of the purpose.

3.1.1 Firefox Chapter

Firefox's initial release was born in 2002. That era, IE was almost the only mainstream browser, almost everyone thinks, IE is the network itself. At that time, the only one can compete with IE, is a variety of different IE Shell browser. Firefox's predecessor is the complex Mozilla Suite, a browser with features like mail, IRC, and HTML editors. But the Mozilla Suite has not received widespread attention. It was in this context that Firefox was born. Firefox changed the huge, bloated image of the Mozilla Suite and replaced it with a small browser with the most basic features and a large number of add-ons. Firefox's initial propaganda was clearly targeted and purposeful: faster, more secure browsers. This is clearly aimed at slow and IE6. This approach does have a good effect in the early stages. Mozilla used to work with Google to promote Firefox, which Google estimates has cost at least millions of dollars. But with the advent of Chrome, Google has been phasing out this collaboration. Firefox early promotion is not smooth, the main problem at that time most of the pages are designed for IE6, these irregular code is difficult to normal in Firefox display. But with the gradual increase in Firefox's share, the situation has now improved markedly. After the advent of powerful rival Chrome, Firefox chose not to blindly imitate, but to continue to expand the original advantage. 3.1.2 Chrome article

The initial beta version of Chrome was born in 2008 and was released at the end of the year. At this point IE is not the only Internet, user name gradually began to realize that the world outside IE is also wonderful. At this point, in addition to Firefox and Opera,safari has also launched a version of Windows. Google this is the first time to launch a browser, he used to support the promotion of Firefox, but then threw himself into the development of chrome. Initially, the extended functionality was not supported when the extended Chrome was originally released. Until version 4.0 support. Chrome from the launch, with its beautiful and concise appearance, powerful and practical and everywhere for the user to consider the function, quickly accepted by the user. In the area of publicity, this is also the focus, fast and simple. Chrome's campaign for Firefox still uses the same theme, which is faster and easier to use. Chrome's initial promotion didn't go well. The main reason is that some IE and Firefox users do not feel the desired results after use, so instead reuse the original browser. This phenomenon has become history with the release of the official version of Chrome. The current development of Chrome is still steady, in keeping the original quick and simple features as far as it is, providing a richer user experience. 3.2 Strategy Analysis

Now we know what these two browsers have done in the past. So we're starting to try to analyze their strategy now.

Note, however, that the strategy here is for the company to which it belongs.

3.2.1 Mozilla

Firefox's original opponent was IE6, and the network that the user perceived at the time was the world of IE. So Firefox's top priority is to make the user understand that IE is just not a good browser. In fact, Mozilla is doing this, the initial publicity is almost directly directed at IE.

Because IE was almost the only competitor at the time, all of Firefox's strategies were for IE. What Firefox has to do is to try not to drastically change the Internet access habits of IE users at the same time, than IE has a greater advantage.

Mozila chose to use the Gecko engine for the obvious drawbacks of IE6. The characteristics of this engine have been studied in medium. So now, we can use SWOT simple analysis of Firefox in the launch of the current situation, the following I list the most important points

Faster, more secure, more personalized, more functional disadvantage extended features require user manual installation, not suitable for novice users some users have been dissatisfied with IE, want a better browser threat to a large number of sites temporarily can not display

The results of this analysis, Firefox is facing a great deal of difficulty, because it is impossible to snatch the market share of IE from a large number of unprofessional users. But even so, the slogan "Faster and safer" is attractive to any Internet user, and this is the first step to success.

There is a good strategy is to use those who are dissatisfied with IE users as a starting point, to start a targeted publicity. That's what Mozila did. At this time to use Firefox is a lot of technology and the Internet has some understanding of users, and Firefox at this time another selling point: personalized, they deeply fascinated. So this initial batch of users, became the preacher, began in other IE user group viral Word-of-mouth marketing.

A typical heavy user thinks that browsers should always conform to their internet habits, even if they are browsing the web. Firefox caters to their tastes.

This group of heavy users is very important for Firefox. They have the energy, also have the ability to study the fun of the expansion, and then to the people around the two publicity; Similarly, they often have a certain technical ability in web development, can gradually change the environment of the network, and most importantly, such a heavy user, The loyalty of Firefox is often very high. And these heavy users to carry out two propaganda, other users also see the "faster, more secure" class of slogans, began to create a trust in Firefox.

Firefox's user base is using such a way to accumulate gradually. So, to keep these heavy core users, the idea that Mozilla used to advertise in the first place is still affecting Firefox: a high degree of personalization, and functional customization on demand.

At this point, the slogan that Firefox uses to advertise a lot more "faster and safer" has become less important because he has met a more formidable competitor.

3.2.2 Google Chapter

Unlike Mozilla, a non-profit organization, a commercial company in a business society will not do anything without interest. So it is with Google.

IE6 's popularity has been the result of a large number of websites that can only be accessed using Microsoft's browsers. This is clearly not a good thing for Google, which has a huge ambition: the result of this continued development is that the Internet will become more and more closed. Google wants to see a standard Internet.

The advent of Firefox at this time brings hope to Google. With Google's help, Firefox does not live up to expectations, greatly promoting the standardization of the Internet. But gradually, Google has a bigger ambition: the cloud. On this point, you can refer to my previous article "Software network Trend", only in such a large environment, Google's interests can be maximized.

Based on this factor, Google has launched a number of services: Gmail, Greader, Gearth and so on, and constantly cultivate user loyalty, until Chrome appears.

Chrome has chosen WebKit as its engine from the start, and the characteristics of this engine have been studied before. But at the same time, he also used V8 as a JS engine, and boldly enabled the sandbox sandbox technology, can only be used in relation to IE, "faster, more secure" real change.

At this point, we can try to continue to analyze what chrome is facing

Advantage Real fast and safe, simple and practical interface, Google brand disadvantage temporarily did not expand, personalized difficult opportunities for users have recognized the Internet Explorer there are other browsers, the network gradually standardize the threat of Firefox's heavy user loyalty is very high, ie itself is also constantly improving

At this time for Google, is really a best time, is also a worst era. Good is that the user has begun to realize that IE is not the only Internet, which saves a lot of duplication of publicity costs; But the bad is a lot of mastering the technology of Firefox heavy users will always use Chrome to compare, and finally come up with a better than Firefox conclusions.

Without creating a bigger market in a short period of time, chrome must snatch market share from the gap between IE and Firefox. In contrast, IE users have the lowest degree of loyalty. So Google decided to do the same for IE users directly.

These IE users often do not like the cumbersome settings, which is the reason they will always use the system's own IE as a browser.

By virtue of its own great advantage, as well as its idea of user-friendly, Chrome quickly picked up a lot of light users, they like the direct use of this can bring a significant improvement in the browsing experience of a simple browser, they do not have to worry about the same as before Firefox need trouble to find extensions to install.

In the same vein, some Firefox users are turning to chrome, but they can't tolerate the need to recreate the browsing habits that have been developed on Firefox. To keep these potentially important core users, Google also launched an extension on Chrome to meet the different needs of users.

But obviously, that's not what Google initially expected, because some of the extensions already have a significant impact on Google's biggest source of interest: advertising. One of the most straightforward evidence is to go to the Chrome Extender library to search for "Adblock" to find dozens of extensions that look exactly the same, and this is only likely to be the result of Google's laissez-faire development.

While Chrome's performance has been somewhat disappointing in terms of expansion, his original design philosophy has not changed: it's simpler than IE, but it can bring a better browsing experience.

3.3 Game

Under the same market rules, both Firefox and Chrome are trying to exploit more market share. And this, is the game. Analysis of the two companies game strategy, can make us more comprehensive understanding of all this.

The rules of the game is very simple, the same market, who can preempt a greater market share than the other, who is the winner. This is a game of complete information.

Through the previous analysis, we already know that Firefox and Chrome fundamentally have a completely different concept, and this design concept is based on the understanding of the market has been formulated, have their own different pertinence. So now, is this strategy still playing a role?

Let's take a moment to forget about what happened before, and focus on the present, and point at the first piece of pie chart that represents the share of different browsers. IE occupies 60% of the share, and Firefox has about 23% of the outstanding record, chrome on my blog only less than 12% of the share.

This is the current market situation. Both Firefox and Chrome have their own fixed user base, which has often used two of browsers at the same time, and has made its own choice to continue to nibble on the opponent's market share is more difficult, but for two also rely on the Internet from IE to rob users to start a browser, There are still a lot of things to do now.

This is a game that needs to take into account that IE is also in constant progress. Now let's assume that by using the browser to improve our efficiency, we can bring a 1 increase in market share, so we can get a table

continue to improve efficiency remain unchanged IE also become faster 00IE completely unchanged 1-1

This result is common to both Firefox and Chrome. Obviously, the efficiency of the browser must continue to improve, otherwise it will be passive. Faster, however, is paramount for two of browsers.

For Firefox, he can continue to maintain the original highly customizable interface, but it also means that it will be a problem for users, but also choose to imitate chrome, sacrificing some personalization to bring a truly simple user experience, thereby reducing the user's choice of costs.

In this case, we do not need to use the form, we can explain the situation. Such a change may lead to some of the new light users, but will lose the original core users, a completely failed strategy.

Firefox is improving the user's browsing experience by improving the interface, but the final option will still be given to the user. In the interface, Firefox design concept has always been consistent with the initial promotion.

Then there's chrome. He can also choose to keep the existing idea, or choose to bring more choices to the user while keeping the current interface as the default interface. However, no matter how friendly and easy to design, such customization will bring new users a cost of learning again. But if you're just adding some personalization and streamlining the options to just one button, you can effectively avoid this disturbing situation. This is the current theme of chrome.

Chrome has increased user customization of the interface in an appropriate way, but there is little room for choice. This is still the same as the original design concept.

Iv. Summary

Thank you for your support, my analysis is finally over. If you can seriously see here, then you should have a clear understanding of the different design concepts of Chrome and Firefox, and why you choose this idea for your browser. Here's a quick summary of what I mentioned in the previous three chapters

for Firefox, his initial face is only IE market, so he created what IE did not, that is, a high degree of customization of the interface and function, so that the browser to adapt to the user's internet habits, and to attract heavy users to carry out two promotion. For Chrome, he faced the dual challenge of IE and Firefox, but chose to let IE users see what they liked, the simplicity of the interface and the power of ease of use, to attract mildly users who were unwilling to waste too much time on their browsers.

This is the biggest difference between the two browsers in terms of design ideas. Thanks again for your support.

Source: http://www.lolibeta.com/pc/1352.html