this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Ironically NCSA Mosaic ( the first graphical web browser ) became Netscape which became Mozilla which became Firefox. Internet Explorer was mostly written from scratch.
Around IE5 or so, Microsoft pulled way ahead of Netscape and they basically put Netscape out of business. There was almost no competition for them and they had massive market share which is way IE6 became the anchor weighing down web standards for a decade.
Firefox eventually brought competition back to the browser market and in fact dominated for a while ( with close to 70% market share ). Most of the rest was Microsoft and, until the end, IE was home grown tech from Microsoft.
Then Google introduced Chrome which began a long, slow slide in market share for everybody else. Today, IE is gone and Chrome not only dominates like IE used to. Most of the alternative browsers use the Chrome engine ( Blink ), including Microsoft Edge. Firefox is down to low single digit market share.
At this point, the only real Chrome alternative is Safari which remains popular on the Mac ( and iOS of course ).
Google pays Mozilla to keep Firefox going so they can avoid anti trust lawsuits
@LeFantome @gerdesj I've found a few alternatives to #chrome & #firefox over the years, but most of them weren't all that great....
@Furycd001 @LeFantome @gerdesj I've used Vivaldi and Firefox lately, both are very good alts to Chrome. Haven't used Chrome or google search in years.
@johnglass @LeFantome @gerdesj #Vivaldi looks like a great browser, but I've yet to try it out & probably never will....