OS market share and 1Password

This discussion was created from comments split from: Which extension to use in Firefox - 1Password or 1Password X?.

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  • tyrael
    tyrael
    Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Evening brenty & davidcwalls,

    I don't mean to hijack your thread (feel free to tell me to create an entirely new one if you think that's more appropriate). However my question is very similar to the OPs. While understanding that a number of (imo well developed!) browser extensions are out there, I'm always curious/surprised with the lack of interest for *nix platforms. I understand the business logic with regards to the (imo) basic tenants for developing a great product... aiming the product (be it software, mechanical, etc.) at the correct target market, it's often a purely numbers game. For example while *nix OS have their placed and won't go away any time soon, a business-person or economist (for example) would look at the stats, see *nix OS share market worldwide is quite small, and there why pump money into an area with a reasonable chance of not being able to recuperate that investment.

    Anyway, that was a long winded way to saying I agree with you davidcwalls, "their" next phase should allow for greater integration of 1Password. More developer in general should think less about the the big 2 (or 3), and how *nix systems could push that business just a little bit futher.

    I say integrate - IMO creating a browser extension isn't exactly integrated with the OS itself. In fact the code running inside a browser is doing so in a complete sandbox to the rest of the OS - obviously this is a good thing regard security, however just not too long ago (talking years) this (security) was less so before the introduction of the industry defined WebExtensions "paradigm" - spear headed by Mozilla with in conjunction with the W3C. (the first link if more somewhat academic, this second is more for developers as references - I use most days :P ). Of course there was many hold-outs (coughcough**IE). But overall made a shit load of things easier, provided cross-browser installation/functionality (with a few caveats I know! lol), provided a common (amoungst the different browsers) API (again with caveats).

    Being new here, Of the people posting here, I'm not sure of the usual personality types/professions/hobbies or just casual users requesting help and once fixed never comes back. Regardless, if anyone is interested the RFC for WebExtensions (albeit old and out for a while now) can be found here.

    I my stop my rant now, otherwise I'll start rambling on about the browser-wars - which if you were before/not old enough in the 1990's, it'll mean nothing to you.

    Having said that, kudos to all the time! One of my favourite and most used app not only on my phone, laptop, iPad or work (in all these of how it can be utilized in a professional environment).

  • tyrael
    tyrael
    Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Just a quick follow up (apologise for the link bombardment but these may be helpful for some):
    As of June 19, the follow are the AUS (my home) browser stats:

    Windows - 34.55%
    iOS - 31.89%
    Android - 17.73%
    OS X - 12.12%
    Unknown - 2.43%
    Linux - 0.48%

    Ref: StatCounter

    I'm a bit surprised with the Android OS and OS X swapping positions.

    The global stats:

    World-wide:

    Android - 39.61%
    Windows - 35.78%
    iOS - 13.8%
    OS X - 6.15%
    Unknown - 2.74%
    Linux - 0.75%

    Ref: StatCounter

    (Just gotta say that I can't be confident that my sources here are the most accurate in the world. They were the first I came across with the information I needed, and compared the figures to what I had in my head. So don't take them a gospel, take em or leave em :)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @tyrael: I'm splitting you off into a new discussion because your comments about Unix derivatives and market share don't seem to be at all related to the thread you posted in. I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at, but if you mean supporting platforms other than Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, we started branching out a bit a while ago with 1Password X (targeted at Chrome OS and Linux) and the CLI app, but our first priority will always be continuing to develop our existing apps since we've got a responsibility to existing users of those -- which it sounds like includes you. But, time and resources permitting, we do like to take on new challenges when we can. Thanks for your kind words and support! Have a great weekend. :chuffed:

  • tyrael
    tyrael
    Community Member

    @brenty Yeh don't get me wrong, You guys are doing a great job!
    I realise my comments were (very) tangentially related - especially by the time I started rambling a bit >_<.

    My main points were that Unix and their most popular derivatives (Linux) systems - in general - don't receive a lot of interest when buying software. Just as you and I said, a multitude of reason, main one being market share. I'm just wanting to push greater interoperability between the (awesome) 1Password product and *nix systems.

    I have indeed seen Agilebits (the creator of 1Password?) looking into these lesser utilised systems - which is great! However developing a browser extension (as I rattled off before) does very little toward real integration with the OS itself*. So IMO while browser extensions for the *nix systems are a good start, I would love the ability to use this software all through my day (on Fedora).

    And the CLI too is another awesome addition, it does segregate a many of people who as - for whatever reason - on say Linux but don't really have the technical knowledge to use, let alone full take advantage of everything packed in that software.

    To be honest, very little of this personally effects me - I have 3 University degrees, been in IT all my life and working atm as a Software Engineer (obviously working on Fedora for dev every day). HOWEVER, I'm just throwing out some ideas which may help other finding themselves on a *nix box.

    ...but our first priority will always be continuing to develop our existing apps since we've got a responsibility to existing users of those...

    Don't get me wrong. I entirely agree with you! Like I've said, IMO you're all doing a great job overall. And take my feedback with a grain of salt really, I'm coming from a purely technological point of view while there are so, so many other factors a business must address than the 3 points a random forum poster puts down :p :+1: I hope that some feedback is beneficial though.

    • WebExtensions are written to be ran in and for the browser, that code is ran essentially within a VM. Technically it's not a VM in terms of what one might use to load additional operating systems from within another. And it's not the same as when Java (compiled down to Bytecode) is ran - with the JVM. But for this thread the concept is similar.
  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @tyrael: Yep, totally. Thanks for clarifying! I'd love for us to have a native (GUI) app on Linux someday as well. It's just not something we're able to do at present, as it would mean not doing a lot of other things we're working on already -- no small task to build a brand new app from the ground up. But maybe someday. Thanks for encouraging us to do what we do, and expand that even further to bring 1Password to even more people. :)

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