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. 2017 Jun 23;12(6):e0179281.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179281. eCollection 2017.

Quantifying the web browser ecosystem

Sela Ferdman  1 , Einat Minkov  2 , Ron Bekkerman  3 , David Gefen  4
Affiliations

Quantifying the web browser ecosystem

Sela Ferdman et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Contrary to the assumption that web browsers are designed to support the user, an examination of a 900,000 distinct PCs shows that web browsers comprise a complex ecosystem with millions of addons collaborating and competing with each other. It is possible for addons to "sneak in" through third party installations or to get "kicked out" by their competitors without user involvement. This study examines that ecosystem quantitatively by constructing a large-scale graph with nodes corresponding to users, addons, and words (terms) that describe addon functionality. Analyzing addon interactions at user level using the Personalized PageRank (PPR) random walk measure shows that the graph demonstrates ecological resilience. Adapting the PPR model to analyzing the browser ecosystem at the level of addon manufacturer, the study shows that some addon companies are in symbiosis and others clash with each other as shown by analyzing the behavior of 18 prominent addon manufacturers. Results may herald insight on how other evolving internet ecosystems may behave, and suggest a methodology for measuring this behavior. Specifically, applying such a methodology could transform the addon market.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Histogram of the number of users over the number of addons they have on their machines.
Fig 2
Fig 2. User addons record: Sample user 1.
Fig 3
Fig 3. User addons record: Sample user 2.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Example of coreferent addon records with different software version numbers.
Fig 5
Fig 5. User-addon-term connections.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Example of the constructed graph, without the term layer (left) and with the term layer (right).
Fig 7
Fig 7
Left: recall at top ranks for the full graph, all the data. Right: recall at top ranks for the full graph, excluding the most popular addons.
Fig 8
Fig 8. Kernel density estimation of the distribution of score ratios (see Table 5).
Red vertical lines are score ratio cutoffs for clash (left) and symbiotic (right) relationships.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. https://www.google.com/patents/US8375131; Retrieved on June 1, 2017.

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