Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Google Chrome Approaching World Domination?

Posted: 22 Feb 2015 03:54 PM PST

A few moments ago a reader was having difficulty with an ad on my blog. I occasionally get complaints, and most of the recent ones involve non-US ads. The reader said the problem went away when he switched over to Chrome from Internet Explorer.

That got me wondering what browsers people were using to read my blog. Here are the results from a 20-minute, mid-Saturday snip.

Mish Readers by Browser

The above is publicly available on Stat-Counter which tracks my traffic.

If you wish to take a look, click on the "View My Stats" button (not the number) at the bottom of this page.

Since inception I have had over 102 million hits (the number shown).

I switched over to Stat-Counter from SiteMeter long ago, for numerous problems that I still see people complaining about. Stat-Counter keeps track of all kinds of things as does Google Analytics.

Search Engine Traffic

Search engine traffic (if someone found by blog via a search rather than a bookmark) looks like this.

Mish Traffic by Location

Browser War Over?

I did a search for the term "browser war" and discovered this December 19, 2014 ZDNet article: Did the browser wars finally end in 2014?

The modern browser wars began in earnest in 2004, when Mozilla Firefox challenged Internet Explorer's complete and utter market dominance, successfully growing from zero to several hundred million users in less than five years.

Google took over in 2008, introducing its Chrome browser, which caught up with Firefox by 2012.

The fighting might have finally ended in 2014.

Over the past decade, a lot has changed: Mobile devices now outnumber traditional PCs, and the desktop browser has become much less important than mobile web clients and apps. Apple's mobile Safari and Google's Chrome are now major players, Mozilla is in a time of major transition, and Microsoft is still paying for its past sins with Internet Explorer.

And in 2014, all those players seem to have dug in to well-entrenched positions. Here's an end-of-year status report for each one.

Google Chrome: On a Path to World Domination

Google, it turns out, would love to have the dominant market share that Internet Explorer did back in its heyday, without the performance and security nightmares associated with IE.

The company is using a move straight out of the Microsoft playbook from the 1990s, using its dominant free services (Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube, in particular) to push the Chrome browser, and adding capabilities that require Chrome apps, which are designed to create the same type of lock-in that Microsoft's ActiveX enforced in the early days of the Web, minus the horrible security flaws.

If that screenshot reminds you of "Best viewed in Internet Explorer 6," you're not alone.

The strategy seems to be working. While other browsers are remaining flat or declining in share, Chrome is still ascending, albeit more slowly. According to Net Applications, Chrome was in use on 20.6 percent of desktop and notebook PCs and Macs at the end of 2014, up from 16.4 percent at the beginning of the year. At StatCounter, which measures usage, Chrome crossed the 50 percent mark this year and now accounts for more web-based activity than Internet Explorer and Firefox combined.

Internet Explorer: Still No Respect

Microsoft's biggest problem at this point is maintaining compatibility with older IE versions that don't hew to modern standards. This year the company announced plans to drop support for all but the latest version of Internet Explorer, a policy that would bring it into parity with most of its rivals. The trouble is, that policy doesn't take effect until January 2016.

Meanwhile, Internet Explorer is still despised by developers, who rightfully resent having to build in hacks for all those old but still supported versions. Despite the fact that recent versions of Internet Explorer are remarkably standards-compliant, there are still sites that don't work properly in IE, usually because whoever built the site designed it to run on Chrome or Safari and didn't even bother testing it with Internet Explorer.

Mozilla: An Uncertain Future

For the past three years, Mozilla has been living high on the hog, thanks to a search deal with Google that paid $300 million a year for the past three years.

That Google deal expired in November. As the clock ticked down, Mozilla announced a new five-year (U.S.-only) search partnership with Yahoo but pointedly resisted specifying its terms. A look at Mozilla's balance sheet raises questions about its long-term prospects, especially as it tries to move aggressively into the mobile sector with its own Firefox OS.

It hasn't been a great year for Mozilla. In March, Firefox Vice President Johnathan Nightingale publicly threw in the towel on a long and expensive development effort to build a touch-capable Firefox for the Windows 8 Metro interface. That same month, co-founder Brendan Eich became CEO but lasted less than two weeks before resigning over a controversial political donation.

Safari: Apple's House Browser

In the beginning, Safari was introduced on the Mac as a way for Apple to break its dependence on Internet Explorer.

And then a funny thing happened: As mobile devices became more important, mobile Safari on iOS became more important than its older sibling on the Mac. Apple has sold far more iPhones and iPads than MacBooks and iMacs at this point, and sales of mobile devices are continuing to grow faster than Macs.

And Safari is actually being used on those mobile devices. Yes, there are third-party browsers (including Chrome) in the App Store, but they're forced to use the Safari rendering and JavaScript engines, which means Apple has complete control over the web browsing experience.

Opera: Hanging On

For several months this year I've used Opera as my default desktop browser. The experiment was designed to see whether an independent alternative based on the Webkit rendering engine could succeed.

Overall, it hasn't been a completely unsuccessful experiment. There's a lot to like in the new Opera, although a few key features, including the ability to sync bookmarks and passwords, are still missing. More importantly, some sites that were designed to work best with Chrome or Safari fail in mysterious ways in Opera. The failure rate is worse than with Internet Explorer 11, in my experience.

Unfortunately, the most messed-up pages are those I see when I try to use Opera to visit ZDNet. In particular, our new commenting system is almost impossible to use with Opera. That means I either have to use another browser or ... stop reading comments. Decisions, decisions.

It's pretty clear to see where this is headed. Firefox has some major issues. Opera is not in the picture at all, and Microsoft is headed that way.

Addendum

Out of further curiosity, I did a Google Analytics view of readership sessions for the month of December 2014. In December, every country in the world visited my blog at some point except for Turkmenistan and 9 countries in Africa.

Top 10 Visits by Country

Those are sessions. Page hits are about 1.5 times higher.

For all of 2014, every country in the world visited this blog.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Tspiras Claims to have "Won a Battle, Not the War"; Greece to Combat Tax Evasion; Illusion Shattered; Another Bailout?

Posted: 22 Feb 2015 11:54 AM PST

On Friday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras backed down on nearly every promise made to the Greek electorate except one, to stay on the euro. After so much tough rhetoric, the question is why?

I believe the answer is the Greek primary account surplus vanished, making it impossible to honor all commitments made.

Simply put, Greece had to choose between staying on the euro and honoring the other campaign promises.

Greece Attacks Tax Evasion

On Monday, Greece will submit its reform plan to eurozone officials. At the heart of the deal, Reforms Will 'Combat Tax Evasion'.

Greece will crack down on tax evasion and streamline its civil service in its bid to secure a bailout extension, minister of state Nikos Pappas says.

The government is working on a package of reforms that it must submit to international creditors on Monday. If the reforms are approved, Greece will be granted a vital four-month extension on its debt repayments.

Mr Pappas said the reforms being proposed would take the Greek economy "out of sedation". "We are compiling a list of measures to make the Greek civil service more effective and to combat tax evasion," he told Greece's Mega Channel.

Illusion Shattered

Streamlining civil services will reduce expenses, but it's hardly what the leftist government promised. Combating tax invasion was a campaign promise, so make it two campaign promises kept for those keeping an official score.

Nonetheless, those expecting Tsipras to immediately honor all pledges, just had their illusion shattered.

Reuters reports Greece Readies Reform Promises.

Top Marxist members of Tsipras's Syriza party, a broad coalition of the left, have so far been silent on the painful compromises made to win agreement from the Eurogroup.

But veteran leftist Manolis Glezos attacked the failure to fulfill campaign promises. "I apologize to the Greek people because I took part in this illusion," he wrote in a blog. "Syriza's friends and supporters ... should decide if they accept this situation."

Glezos, a Syriza member of the European Parliament, is not a party heavyweight. But he commands moral authority: as a young man under the World War Two occupation, he scaled the Acropolis to rip down a Nazi flag under the noses of German guards and hoist the Greek flag, making him a national hero.

A government official said Glezos "may not be well informed on the tough and laborious negotiation which is continuing".

The opposition pounced on the climbdown from promises that have raised huge expectations among Greeks. "No propaganda mechanism or pirouette can hide the simple fact that they lied to citizens and sold illusions," said Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the socialist PASOK party.

Friday's agreement merely buys time for Greece to seek a long-term deal with the Eurogroup. Euro zone members Ireland and Portugal have already exited their bailouts, but Greece faces yet another program - on top of bailouts in 2010 and 2011 totaling 240 billion euros - when the extension expires.

"Once you get them into the safe space for the next four months, there'll be another set of discussions which will effectively involve the negotiation of a third program for Greece," Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Saturday.

Troika by Any Other Name Smells Just as Bad

Six days ago in Greek Negotiations and Philosophical Questions I asked Does "Troika" by any other name stink as bad?

My answer was "Beauty is in the nose of the beholder. But logically, the answer is yes."

Keep Talking Greece has some interesting Excerpts from a Statement Made by Glezos.

"Renaming the Troika into Institutions, the Memorandum of Understanding into Agreement, and the lenders into partners, you do not change the previous situations as in the case renaming meat into fish.

The people voted in favor of what SYRIZA promised: to remove the austerity which is not the only strategy of the oligarchic Germany and the other EU countries, but also the strategy of the Greek oligarchy.

Some argue that to reach an agreement, you have to retreat. First: there can be no compromise between oppressor and oppressed. Between the slave and the occupier is the only solution is Freedom.

But even if we accept this absurdity, the concessions already made by the previous pro-austerity governments in terms of unemployment, austerity, poverty, suicides have gone beyond the limits."

Third Bailout Coming

On February 11, I discussed the need for a third bailout in Third Greek Bailout? Another €53.8 Billion Needed? Primary Account Surplus Revisited.

That explains the comment made by Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan yesterday. "Once you get them into the safe space for the next four months, there'll be another set of discussions which will effectively involve the negotiation of a third program for Greece."

"Won a Battle, Not the War"

Will Tspiras finally draw a line in the sand or will he accept another €53.8 Billion crammed down his throat?

I think so. But before he can do so, Greece needs to have a solid primary account surplus. That explains why the heart of his reform program involves a crackdown on "tax evasion" and cutting civil service.

To default on the Troika and stay in the eurozone, Greece must have a primary account surplus. Tsipras has a four month window to achieve that.

War Postponed Four Months

In context, the battle was to stay on the euro. The war was postponed for four months. In the interim, Tsipras needs to keep his coalition intact.

Once again, I do not care for the leftist policies of Syriza. But the citizens of Greece have suffered enough and are better off defaulting as soon as they can. That requires a primary account surplus.

On Friday German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble rubbed Greek capitulation in Tsipras' face with his comment "The Greeks certainly will have a difficult time to explain the deal to their voters. As long as the programme isn't successfully completed, there will be no payout."

Let's see what happens four months from now.

With roles reversed and Schäuble playing the witch, I envision Tsipras' silently saying "All in good time my little pretty, in good time".

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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