(October 8, 2015 at 7:49 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Beat using IE.

I haven't used IE in a decade. Just a matter of preference, since Firefox offers a number of useful extentions.

It has only one purpose.

(October 8, 2015 at 7:30 pm)abaris Wrote: But it's their business model. Always was. They live by targeting their users with ad shit and sponsored links.

No it wasn't. I remember the days that Google did not use redirect links to track which search results you visited.

IE is less customisable than Chrome or FF - which is why the old MyIE/MyIE2/Maxthon/Maxthon2 Trident wrappers were so useful. MyIE2 was the first mainstream browser to support its own extensions, and it had tabs. Heck that was 2002 - Firefox wasn't even released until 2 years later. Chrome wasn't released until 2008. Opera wasn't too bad back in those days, but it was no match.

You have to remember that Google still has a monopoly. They pay Apple, Opera, Mozilla, and Maxthon to set google.com as the default search engine - and of course it's the default in their browser - Chrome - as well. What would be best for the consumer is if they are offered a fair choice between Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo/ixquick/Yandex. There is an almost even split between IE and non-IE browsers on desktop devices, on all other devices IE is less than 5% of market-share, making 90-95% of browsers ones with the default installed search engine of Google.

(October 8, 2015 at 8:36 pm)Aractus Wrote: No it wasn't. I remember the days that Google did not use redirect links to track which search results you visited.

That's like saying that Steve jobs and Steve wozniak are still operating out of their garage. Of course it didn't start out that way, but the nature of the beast took over.

Old timey browsers!
You forgot Firefox's predecessor: Netscape.