If Google decides to go full rogue and ignore W3C specs entirely and make up a bunch of their own shit, that devs then start to use because why not since the majority of their userbase use a chromium based browser, then Firefox can easily be taken out.
Which is basically the ending of the first browser wars, as far as I can remember. Internet Explorer had a little bit less market share than Google Chrome has nowadays, but still an overwhelming majority. Moreover, Internet Explorer had these IE-only tags and features, which further reinforced such things.
But here we are. Yes, Google Chrome and Google has an overwhelming majority right now, but so was IE (thanks to Microsoft’s practices) back then. Google Chrome came at the right time with what people actually wanted at that time, and so was able to gain the upper hand, and eventually a chokehold.
My response though is more about “keeping things alive for its users”, at least until such a breakthrough happens (maybe Servo has it?) or more pessimistically, until internet browsers fade away into obscurity (or perhaps just like IRC clients, it’s still a thing, right?)
I’ve bounced around several clients (mobile) and frontends (web) especially when I first started. I’ve eventually settled on Voyager (mobile) and Alexandrite (web frontend).
Voyager has a lot of neat features that makes browsing Lemmy on mobile smooth and an overall nice experience. It’s got swipe gestures (configurable, but mine has long swipe left to upvote, long swipe left to save, short swipe right to downvote, and long swipe right to reply). There’s also a feature to tag a user, and to keep track of votes (in aggregate, so I wouldn’t know if I give a user an upvote in one thread, and a downvote in another, yielding a net zero, or I just haven’t given that user a vote at all). Still a nice set of features. There might be more that I have yet to discover and use.
Alexandrite, on the other hand, presents a really good desktop experience. There’s an option to have the posts (on my feed, or a community) on the left side of the screen and the post I’m reading on the right, which is great if I am just scanning a my feed, deciding if I want to take a closer look at a post. I end up mostly just using this mode most of the time.
Both Voyager and Alexandrite allow me to switch between my Lemmy accounts easily, which is a great plus if you’re having a handful of accounts (for different purposes, like one main, another for NSFW, etc).
IMO, the clients (for mobile) have a lot of competition going on, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I find a different one I’d like better. Just keep an eye out for those, I guess?