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Why did Apple and Google make it hard to switch default browsers for so many years?

I'd argue that it isn't hard. Of course it's much easier with this screen, for the initial choice.
 
The list is random. The Brave is not on always on top. At appears in random order for each user. Don't worry, it's a fair game and it proves DMA makes competition better already.
Yes but it would be first 20% of the time, if there are five browsers to choose from for example. And if some percentage of people choose the first choice always, even a small percentage, than a choice with such low acceptance would see an increase just because of the change in presentation. This has nothing to do with the merits of the browser or competition just math and behavior. Numbers alone needs analysis and intelligence to interpret. Clearly they have an agenda.
 
Yes but it would be first 20% of the time, if there are five browsers to choose from for example. And if some percentage of people choose the first choice always, even a small percentage, than a choice with such low acceptance would see an increase just because of the change in presentation. This has nothing to do with the merits of the browser or competition just math and behavior. Numbers alone needs analysis and intelligence to interpret. Clearly they have an agenda.
There's 12 browsers in the list as clearly indicated here https://developer.apple.com/support/browser-choice-screen/

So no, even if users always clicked the first browser (which is definitely not happening for 100% of users), the Brave would not seen 30% increase in installs. So however you want to put math into this random listing, it's just invalid argumentation, sorry.

Also clicking on the browser on that screen just transfers you to the App Store, where you can easily change your mind and not actually install the browser.
 
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Definitely. However, they would not have seen this jump hadn't Apple included a list of browsers, with Brave being on top. ;) Brave and the other browsers basically get free advertising here.

And what prevented those people from installing the Brave browser before 6 March? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I guess it proves being in Apple’s App Store isn’t all that and doesn’t mean you’ll get noticed?
 
More likely people are choosing it because it’s first on the list.

Soon Microsoft will rename “Edge” to “Alpha” or something.
 
Good, some will try some will stay some will go back. I'm just wondering if these browsers have different engines and do they finally support proper extensions.
 
And what prevented those people from installing the Brave browser before 6 March? 🤷🏻‍♂️
Human psychology. People usually prefer the default option. Safari came pre-installed and a lot of people didn't question this option.
 
Yeah, I always dreamt of using Brave Browser 🤣 what is this. I would not dare to put any credentials in it. Probably some Chinese would try to log in with my credentials 5 minutes later like it’s happening with Chinese „Temu” app ;)
 
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To those who didn't notice: The chart is misleading, because the Y axis doest start at 0. Completely needless, since a 40% jump would still look impressive without such manipulation.

Why should it start at zero? They were simply trying to show that the daily install rate this year prior to the EU iOS 17.4 update was running in the 7,000 to 8,000 range and it climbed to 11,000 after.
 
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I’d be interested in knowing what benefits consumers have gained from this. All this upheaval has got to be in the hope of something happening to make things ‘better’ for consumers, but I am a bit puzzled as to what that might be.
 
And this is with Brave still working on the same engine as Safari, right? I wonder how it will change when they implement the Chromium engine.

By the way, Brave is my second browser on my Mac, but my main browser is still Safari.
 
And this is with Brave still working on the same engine as Safari, right? I wonder how it will change when they implement the Chromium engine.

By the way, Brave is my second browser on my Mac, but my main browser is still Safari.
Probably a small spike as interested parties take another look, but nothing like the spike they’ll get from the browser choice screen, which’ll mostly be a one off.

Chrome will simply cement its dominance even further and then we’ll need more regulation to reduce that.
 
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Eight thousand to eleven thousand is not a significant jump. In a sea of over one billion devices that isn't even a blip.
It's certainly significant for Arc, even if Arc isn't significant to the browser market at large.

We don't need to measure the success of every little company by comparing it to the scale of Apple or Google.
 
Speaking of Brave, Apple really ought to allow the Brave search engine to be enabled by default. They already have Yandex and Ecosia.
 
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