We have to fight again for the web

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Versión en español: «Debemos volver a pelear por la web«

It’s interesting to see how the history repeats itself and we repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I started contributing to Mozilla in 2004, at that time Internet Explorer had the 95% of the market share. That meant that there was absolutely no way you could create a web not «adapted» to this browser and there were no way you could surf the full web with other browsers becuase a lot of sites used ActiveX and other IE-only non-standard technologies.

The web was Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer was the web, you had no choice.

We fought hard (really hard) from Mozilla and other organizations to bring user choice and open other ways to understand the web. People understood this and the web changed to an open diverse ecosystem where standards were the way to go and where everyone was able to be part of it, both users and developers.

Today everything we fought for is at risk.

This is not the web we want! A Chrome-only internet is bad for everyone @WhatsApp @Facebook #Ichoosefirefox pic.twitter.com/tITH7RZNBY

— Nukeador (@nukeador) January 21, 2015

It’s not the first time we see how some sites decide to offer their content just for one browser, sometimes using technologies that are not a standard and only work there but sometimes using technologies that are standards and blocking other browsers for no reason.

Business is business.

If we don’t want a web controlled again by a few, driven by stockholders interests and not by users, we have to stand up. We have to call out sites that try to hijack user choice asking them to use one browser to access their content.

The web should run everywhere and users should be free to choose the browser they think best serve their interests/values.

I truly believe that Mozilla, as a non-profit organization, is still the only one that can provide an independent choice to users and balance the market to avoid the walled gardens some dream to build.

Don’t lower the guard, let’s not repeat the same mistakes again, let’s fight again for the web.

PD: If you want a deep analysis about the Whatsapp web fiasco, I recommend the post by my friend André: «Whatsapp doesn’t understand the web».