alt Hacker NewsNo, I think Chrome is the modern IE. It has huge market share, to the point where developers often just ignore the other browsers or at best treat them as P2. Just like they did when IE was dominant.
I'm torn on this honestly. Safari (particularly mobile Safari) is literally the only thing keeping the web from becoming Chrome-only. While I would love to see Safari-alternative engines on the iPhone, I fear that the "open web" in terms of browser compatibility is cooked the day that happens: Commercial web developers are supremely lazy and their product managers are, too. They will consider the web Chrome-only from that day forward and simply refuse to lift a finger for other browsers.
I think when IE6 died, on one hand it was a relief for web developers, who (very quickly) deleted all the code needed to maintain compatibility, but on the other hand, it made the web worse by bringing us closer to browser monopoly.
Chrome is the IE in that it’s all the web devs target or test and the browser that every enterprise just uses as the assumed target. Safari is the late-stage IE that doesn’t add any features or modern standards that its (supposed) competitors add. Although Apple seems to have different and more strategic reasons than MS did. Apple just hates the Web because they can’t effectively tollbooth it, whereas I think MS just didn’t care about investing in IE after 2001 or so.