Tabbed browsing and incognito mode were incredibly innovative.
edit - Looks like Firefox introduced both. But Chrome was incredible in comparison at the time. I recall thinking Firefox was no longer worth it. I made the move back to Firefox a few years ago.
Revisionist history... Firefox and loads of niche browsers (MyIE2/Maxthon which I used in the era where IE was sometimes mandatory for site compatibility) had tabbed browsing.
Indeed, it would be nice if the tendency of people to jump into a conversation and start spewing absolute nonsense were subject to harsher social consequences.
But it was not just niche browsers. By the time of Chrome's debut (2008), just about every browser had tabs—including Internet Explorer:
Somehow it feels like Opera invented most of the features contemporary browsers have. I remember using Opera on an off from the late 90s to late 2000s.
Opera was a laboratory for a lot of features that got ripped off by everyone else. Vivaldi now still has quite a bit of that spirit (to the point it might feel bloated at times), but I still miss the old Presto-era Opera.
It had tabbed browsing, but at the time Chrome came out there was no or limited tab process isolation for FF.
I used to work with a guy who always invoked Firefox in gdb so that when it crashed, he could fix the bug (null ptr deref etc.) and continue. As a “tab hoarder” he would lose a day or two of context and productivity otherwise.
I could be wrong but it looks like Opera introduced tabs in 2009 with v10.5 while Firefox's first release was in 2002. Unless we're referring to different things.
What chrome sold was speed. Most of their ads were all about how fast websites would open. And tabs was cherry on top. I know that’s what made me jump from IE. I remember I have a Sony vaio desktop then and IE would weigh it down to a crawl, then I install chrome and that just made me swear to never use IE again.
I remember switching to Chrome just because of the minimalist UI.
I don't know if Chrome was faster at that time, but it felt faster and leaner than anything else. I switched back to Firefox when I realized that there were everal extensions I didn't want to part with. And then back to Chrome again after a few years when Firefox upgraded their UI to make everything bigger and bulbous.
And also had single process model which failed completely when you had 50 tabs and Youtube etc. implemented in Flash. Main tab use case being unusable around the time Chrome came out was what motivated me to switch. Also, extensions getting broken at each update.
Yes, the multi-process model was a godsend. Especially since it was around the time multicore processors started becoming more common, especially on laptops. Perfect timing. Terrible javascript not locking up the whole browser was fantastic.
I have no idea why you’re completely annihilated in downvotes. You’re right, at least about the incognito mode. I clearly remember chrome introducing this with a blog post or something; my boss at the time even joked that they used an example of “secretly buying a gift for someone” instead of all the dirty, dirty porn you want to watch.
Tabbed browsing, no idea though.
No one is claiming chrome invented the concept of incognito mode. It was just executed incredibly well.
edit - Looks like Firefox introduced both. But Chrome was incredible in comparison at the time. I recall thinking Firefox was no longer worth it. I made the move back to Firefox a few years ago.