[HN Gopher] Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force use...
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Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use
default browsers
Author : mikece
Score : 216 points
Date : 2022-09-23 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techradar.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techradar.com)
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Does Firefox have a future?
|
| I'm writing this from Firefox, having used it ever since the days
| when Firefox releases used to have launch parties, and tabs was
| the revolutionary killer feature.
|
| Let me rephrase the question: does Gecko/Spidermonkey have a
| future?
|
| I think it's clear the Firefox branding will live on, since it is
| Mozilla's crown jewel.
|
| But in today's landscape, you can target WebKit (Apple) and
| V8/Blink (Chrome) and you've surely covered 98% of all use cases.
|
| Surely these competing engines have far, far more resources
| pouring into them than Mozilla can afford.
|
| Since the balance of power has shifted towards the owners of
| these huge players, how can Mozilla keep its browser engine
| competitive, given that all these new features (such as wasm)
| surely require massive investment?
|
| I know these questions have been asked already a million times,
| but it keeps me wondering. Will Firefox eventually need to become
| a fork of Chromium like everyone else, just to keep pace? Can
| Mozilla keep its entire browser stack afloat in these shifting
| currents? (pardon the gross metaphor)
| fariszr wrote:
| I personally think they should think about maintaining a
| chromium fork.
|
| It will relieve a lot of resources to be spent on other things
| like user experience, and they will benefit from all the
| development resources devoted to chromium, while being able to
| remove anything they don't like, like MV3 limitations on
| adblockers.
|
| I really like what brave is doing, I switched because I lost
| hope Mozilla is going to do anything, they are funded by
| google, and therefore afraid to do anything impactful.
|
| While brave has privacy by default, has an independent search
| engine, an independent ad network(that is privacy friendly and
| isn't enabled by default), and they aren't afraid to do
| anything against big tech, like banning AMP, removing social
| trackers and other things.
|
| Brave is almost what Mozilla should've been.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| > while being able to remove anything they don't like, like
| MV3 limitations on adblockers.
|
| ... which might actually not be as easy as it sounds. Sure,
| as long as Chrome/Blink internally retains MV2 compatibility
| behind a configuration setting for enterprise customers you
| job is easy - just hard-code that setting back to enabled for
| everybody instead of just enterprise users and you're done.
|
| However once Google starts ripping out the MV2-related code
| from the Chrome/Blink code base, all that code suddenly
| becomes your responsibility to maintain - and from that point
| on there's always the risk that Google suddenly decides do to
| some large scale refactoring or internal architectural change
| that radically conflicts with your attempts to maintain those
| old features alive.
|
| Once you reach that point, you've then got the choice to
| either spend ever increasing amounts of effort on maintaining
| those features on top of the current code base, doing a hard
| fork and therefore having to suddenly maintain the _whole_
| shebang, which would be an even larger effort, or instead
| giving up and dropping those features after all.
| asddubs wrote:
| not to mention that google still controls the chrome
| extension marketplace, and will stop accepting mv2
| extensions by the end of the year. So not only do you have
| to maintain the mv2 related code, and keep reintegrating it
| whenever google moves a bunch of code around (which from
| what I hear they do quite aggressively) or hard fork, you
| also need to maintain your own repository of browser
| extensions, and get developers to actually develop them for
| your browser specifically, rather than just for chrome,
| too.
| Snitch-Thursday wrote:
| Maybe it's just the contrarian streak in me, but Firefox being
| on Gecko is why I haven't left. There must be more than just
| one browser engine to rule them all! We got rid of our trident
| just to get blinkered.
|
| Firefox moving to Blink means I'm just hopping over to whoever
| has the slickest Chromium clone right now.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Supporting Firefox continues to be way easier than Safari for
| web developers. Chrome and Firefox are very compatible with
| each other. It's essentially almost no effort.
|
| Mozilla seems to do fine keeping up. Wasm and Rust originated
| in Mozilla even and they are still very active on that front as
| well.
|
| I seriously doubt Mozilla will kill their company by switching
| to Chrome. It would be suicidal for them. Users would revolt
| and fork the code base probably. Mozilla developers especially
| and without their developers Mozilla is nothing. Just look at
| what happened to Opera after they switched to Chrome. They
| technically still exist. But they are a footnote in web server
| statistics at this point. A rounding error basically. I've not
| seen anyone using it in many years now.
|
| So, I doubt a move to Chrome would end well for Mozilla if they
| ever were to float such an idea. The history of Mozilla is that
| they bootstrapped out of AOL's Netscape division which was
| being mismanaged by AOL. Once the code base was OSS, people
| just left and created mozilla.org to cut loose from the failed
| corporate entity. AOL ended up with nothing. That can and will
| happen again if it needs to.
|
| In short, users and developers would abandon a Chrome based
| Firefox in a hurry and it wouldn't take long for them to get
| organized with a new foundation. Wikimedia manages fine based
| on donations. Millions of Firefox users would be able to keep
| the project going pretty much indefinitely. Mozilla would lose
| control over most of its key people, users, and assets. Which
| is why they will never do this. It would be corporate suicide.
| gerash wrote:
| I'm not an expert on the web tech. so apologies in advance but
| wouldn't it be great if Mozilla spent all that money Google
| gives them on something more revolutionary like a new runtime
| for ephemeral apps and the corresponding UI engine that's not
| bound to the legacy JS and HTML and has near native performance
| and access to hardware sensors? Add to that the support for
| multi device setups where you can move an app session easily
| from your phone to your desktop. There're so many cool things
| to do there.
|
| Instead we're dealing with the "diversity" of the web
| (HTML,CSS,JS) engines and endless arguments around Manifest v3,
| etc. So many precious man hours are going to waste.
| 323 wrote:
| HTML/CSS/JS are the most superior UI engine that exists right
| now, especially when used through something like
| React/Vue/Svelte. So creating an even better one is quite a
| tall order.
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"I think it's clear the Firefox branding will live on, since
| it is Mozilla's crown jewel."
|
| I'm not following your question. How does Firefox branding live
| on without Gecko/Spidermonkey?
| Tao3300 wrote:
| It has a future if their search partners say it does.
|
| Some of whom they are naming in these allegations.
| spideymans wrote:
| >Does Firefox have a future?
|
| Well, mobile is the future of computing. Does Firefox have a
| future on mobile? I think the answer is clearly no.
|
| Firefox will be relevant only until the Desktop PC paradigm
| fades into obscurity.
|
| Eventually Chrome and Safari will join Firefox in obscurity, as
| more content moves behind apps and walled gardens, and as the
| desktop paradigm falls into disuse.
|
| Give it 10 years.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Their soul will live on as Web widgets.
| butterNaN wrote:
| Firefox on android is an objectively superior experience.
| shultays wrote:
| I would say "it was". After that major update a while ago,
| I lost hope on Firefox mobile.
| anonymousab wrote:
| It seems all but inevitable. Regardless of the technical
| feasibility of keeping your own browser engine going, much of
| the missions of the foundation and overall company do not
| really depend on having a truly separate browser at all.
|
| If anything, it is an albatross around the necks of the groups
| and management that care more about the 'mission' of an open
| web and the advocacy and other programs that are largely
| unrelated to the Firefox browser, and certainly don't require
| the browser to be its own thing rather than a chromium fork.
|
| For the short and medium term goals, a browser is just another
| tool and vehicle for pushing their vision for the future of the
| web... But it's an extremely expensive and difficult tool with
| comparatively little short and medium term importance. So why
| keep it? You don't need a 'real' browser to put up surveys or
| blog posts, or to attend or run conferences, or to join web
| working groups or participate in RFCs. Not having to pay for
| almost any engineers or teams for something the rest of the
| foundation could categorize as a pyrrhic project? That would be
| simply wonderful, I'm sure.
|
| Vasselization simply makes more sense in the foreseeable
| future.
| giobox wrote:
| Is their Google search deal (~$400m a year) that expires next
| year being renewed? If not, might explain some of the desire to
| bite the hand that has fed it for so long.
| fariszr wrote:
| If google cuts funding from Mozilla, its probably an
| existential threat for them, it's really their main income,
| anything else is tiny and won't be enough.
|
| But in the same time, brave seem to be growing quickly, pushing
| privacy by default, and doing more impactful things for Digital
| Privacy, on probably a much smaller budget...
| siquick wrote:
| You have to wonder what Mozilla are doing with $400m a year.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Building and maintaining a full browser isn't cheap, if it
| were there'd be more browser engines.
| twirlock wrote:
| g_p wrote:
| One of the next frontiers as a barrier to browser switching will
| be "software"-backed WebAuthn/FIDO2/"passkeys".
|
| If you look at the APIs available on MacOS/iOS at present [0],
| and how WebAuthn works, you need to "trust" the client-side
| software to correctly identify the site origin (i.e. protocol,
| domain, port) and pass it to a physical security key. In the case
| of a software token, you need to restrict which app(s) can pass
| this information through to the system carrying out
| authentication.
|
| The end result right now, as I can see it, is that if you sign up
| to a website using a "passkey" via Safari (for example), there is
| no real supported workflow that isn't site-specific, for
| migrating to a new browser - you are effectively beholden to
| Apple's keychain for getting you back into that site.
|
| If you want to enrol a new device (say an Android phone using its
| own software implementation of WebAuthn), you would need to find
| a way to sign into your old account (which requires your
| MacOS/iOS passkey to log in), then enrol your Android device
| (which is a separate physical device). You'll likely get stuck
| here.
|
| An expert user could add a physical FIDO2 token to their account
| from the old device (Safari), and use that as the authenticator
| to log in on the new device, but this is significant friction for
| a non-technical user.
|
| While moving users away from passwords might make sense, I do
| think we'll see these "passwordless" authentication mechanisms
| become the next major point of friction in user browser choice.
| Even if you can implement WebAuthn in your rival browser, unless
| you get access to the system key store, you won't be able to let
| users sign in. That will prevent them switching.
|
| [0]
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/supporting-a...
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| As long that is true, it's also going to block widespread
| adoption of this stuff. Terrible usability is just not a great
| feature from a security point of view: it leads to people
| working around security measures.
|
| I have to support some non technical people in our company once
| in a while. Trust me, this stuff is way too hard for normal
| people. People I know that own things like a ubi key are almost
| without exception IT professionals that know what they are
| doing. Outside IT professionals in IT departments, I don't know
| a lot of people that have much awareness of this stuff.
|
| The trend in this space is to not have dependencies on
| dedicated hardware and use multi factor via phone apps and
| other things. It works, it's easy to explain to users. And lots
| of apps do this now. Google authenticator is still used but is
| increasingly positioned as a backup option to more user
| friendly alternatives.
|
| WebAuthn is not a great success so far. It launched with a lot
| of fanfare a few years ago and then nothing much at all
| happened. In it's current form, that's not going to change any
| time soon.
| g_p wrote:
| I think you're absolutely right - my worry is that while
| passkeys are very usable, they also effectively create
| inescapable inertia and friction to ever changing browser or
| device ecosystem.
|
| Today there is no migration path from one MacOS WebKit
| browser (Safari) to another (which also has an implementation
| of PassKey), since the third party browser can't share the
| same authenticator key.
|
| As you say, all of this is far too complicated for an end
| user - my suggestions to avoid the problem and migrate only
| work for tech savvy users that know every site they use.
| That's maybe 0.1% of users.
|
| My worry if we see adoption of passkeys is that only 0.1% of
| the browser market becomes contestable, as everyone else is
| stuck locked into their incumbent browser with no way to
| enroll their new browser's passkey into the sites they use.
| throwaway41597 wrote:
| I wasn't sure what your concern was, but is it that?
|
| 1 ) Hardware authenticators won't spit their root secret,
| almost by design.
|
| 2 ) Webauthn doesn't require that the authenticator store the
| list of accounts, also by design (for privacy). So if you want
| to switch from iPhone to Android, you have to remember all
| websites you used Passkey on, and go one by one hunting down
| the right security settings page.
| g_p wrote:
| My concern isn't either, although both are interesting
| discussions - 1 in particular is relevant but understandable,
| as this prevents you from pairing tokens so you can maintain
| an off-site backup you don't have to retrieve every time you
| make a new account.
|
| The specific challenge here is around software webauthn for
| passwordless access (think using Safari to create an account
| on a site). In this scenario, the average user has no
| portable authenticator. They cannot move to a new browser -
| you install Chrome, but can't log in from Chrome, as only
| safari can do a passkey login.
|
| Even if chrome supports an equivalent setup (their version of
| passkey over Google sync, for example), you can't enroll it -
| to enroll, you need to sign in using Safari. To enroll your
| new device (chrome), you need to use it. You can't get logged
| in on chrome to do this. The average user has no option. A
| tech savvy user could manually copy session cookies to steal
| their own session, perhaps, or use a hardware key as a
| "bridge".
|
| In essence, if you sign up for something using a passkey, you
| won't be able to easily leave that ecosystem at all, without
| pretty advanced tech knowledge (using a dedicated hardware
| webauthn key, or stealing and porting session cookies).
|
| My separate observation about a lack of support for hardware
| keys to be "paired" to support an off-site backup use-case is
| unrelated, but perhaps relevant for tech savvy users who want
| to better "own" their own identity, and link their webauthn
| keys together for backup use-cases. Otherwise you have to
| maintain a list or spreadsheet of every site you use - I have
| one, so I can ensure I enroll each token I have with each
| service!
| dont__panic wrote:
| Is there any chance that third party password managers like
| Bitwarden and 1Password will be able to implement add-ons and
| apps that replace this functionality, and that could open up
| migration paths? Or is the passkey future even worse than I
| feared?
| thewebcount wrote:
| This has existed for years. I use 1Password for all my
| passwords and it shows up as an option when entering or
| creating a password in any browser on iOS. Furthermore, all
| browser can access the keychain if the user authorizes it.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| The operative word here is can.
|
| Does Firefox use the keychain - on macOS it does not even
| try
| oarsinsync wrote:
| 1Password doesn't perform WebAuthn logins, only password
| (and TOTP) based logins. The GP is talking about WebAuthn /
| FIDO2 logins.
| howinteresting wrote:
| 1password is going to implement WebAuthn in the future:
| https://blog.1password.com/1password-is-joining-the-fido-
| all...
|
| However, the lock-in concern remains: how can you export
| passkeys to another password manager the same way you can
| export passwords to it?
| g_p wrote:
| Passkeys are a little different - at heart, you can export
| or write down (on paper, if it comes to it) your passwords,
| and then import them into another password manager if you
| choose to. If you want to move from the built-in keychain
| to 1Password, you can do an export/import operation, and
| have your passwords in 1Password.
|
| You inherently can't copy-paste a passkey, since it's an
| asymmetric public/private keypair authentication. These
| keys are (usually) decrypted by a single symmetric key that
| you protect well. If you allow that key to be exported,
| you're back to "one password for every website"!
|
| When this is done on a hardware-protected security engine
| (which doesn't permit any extraction of the key), it's
| arguably quite secure, but you don't then have any
| migration path.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I believe 1password will implement passkeys at some point in
| the future. However that doesn't take away from the concern
| that passkeys are designed from the ground up to ensure
| vendor lock-in (there almost certainly won't be a way to
| migrate passkeys from Apple's or Google's keychains to
| 1password). With passwords there is a clear, if insecure,
| fallback -- simply copy the password over. With passkeys,
| you're subject to Big Tech's whims.
|
| It is not possible to take anything Apple or Google do in
| this area to be in good faith.
| g_p wrote:
| I agree - I think password managers will (soon enough)
| implement passkeys. As you say though, the current
| implementations deliver lock-in "by-design" (but with
| legitimate reason - you don't want to have an API that
| shares the AES-256 root key that decrypts passkey
| keyblobs!)
|
| This could all be mitigated with a little bit of tooling
| (allowing an existing passkey to enrol a new passkey from
| another device), which would also help users of hardware
| tokens to potentially create a way to auto-enrol an off-
| site key.
|
| I do believe WebAuthn is a good-faith attempt to get away
| from the pervasive problem of "use the same useless
| password everywhere", but it makes a range of compromises
| which (intentionally or otherwise) create a level of
| cryptographic vendor lock-in that I don't think many people
| have recognised yet.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I've flagged these concerns to several people involved in
| Webauthn, privately and publicly, and passkey portability
| is pretty clearly low-priority (i.e. never going to
| happen) for them.
| g_p wrote:
| This is a shame to see - it's understandable that there
| are some technical challenges in it, but it does seem
| possible (via a mutual auth handshake) to introduce
| portability. Kudos to you for arguing the case though!
|
| Before "cloud keychain" (i.e. software-backed, like
| Apple's implementation), your only "safe" option was to
| have 2x hardware tokens, and try to keep one off-site,
| but still accessible enough you could enrol it on all the
| sites you use.
|
| I fear with "cloud keychain" Webauthn, we are heading for
| a world where getting locked out of (or banned from) your
| "FAMNG" account will lock you out of everything else, to
| an extent we've not really seen before - no access to
| your synced keychain secret will prevent you from logging
| in to everything. Physical tokens remaining interoperable
| should give technical users an insurance policy against
| this, but without some kind of portability (i.e. pairing
| hardware webauthn keys), I fear it won't be practical
| enough to keep users safe, and independent of the
| keychain providers.
| [deleted]
| jacooper wrote:
| Great, then I will probably never use it, and anyone who
| has an iPhone and another windows device.
|
| Or any other mismatched devices ecosystem, the locked in
| ecosystem dream of apple is only applicable to extremely
| tiny amounts of people.
| howinteresting wrote:
| The problem is that a lot of people are going to
| unintentionally lock themselves in due to Apple's and
| Google's marketing. It's going to be a miserable few
| years.
| g_p wrote:
| The technology is safe enough to use, as long as you
| stick to hardware tokens - I have accumulated a few of
| them over the years (quite affordable), and you can get
| USB-A, USB-C and NFC versions.
|
| You shouldn't get locked in with a USB hardware token -
| you can enrol it in Chrome on one computer, and then
| authenticate via Firefox in another computer.
|
| The issue is really the software-based "passkey"
| implementation. As long as you're not solely reliant on
| one company for login (i.e. you enrol multiple keys, one
| of which is portable and interoperable, AKA a hardware
| token) you can safely add software-based ones for
| convenience without getting locked in - you can always
| use the hardware token to get back in and enrol a new
| device.
| g_p wrote:
| Certainly - WebAuthn is an open standard, and passkey appears
| to just be "passwordless FIDO2" (all open standards) with
| shiny branding around it.
|
| That means anyone can implement it, including a physical
| token (which can be entirely open source, like the solokeys
| dongle).
|
| The real concern here is friction for the "average end user"
| - passkeys IMHO are a net-good thing, as long as we don't see
| this result in everyone regressing towards "single factor
| auth" in some way. As it stands though, WebAuthn/Passkey
| gives you a level of phishing resistance that ought to raise
| the bar on compromising accounts.
|
| The part I do fear about third party password managers is
| that they'll potentially end up lowering the level of
| security that WebAuthn heralded, by normalising pure
| "software" authenticators - putting TOTP seeds into bitwarden
| alongside passwords feels like putting all your eggs in one
| basket, even if it's a reasonably good basket. A physical
| WebAuthn key gives you a level of hardware isolation (limited
| attack surface, time-bounded attack surface, physical contact
| required per-authentication) that will be lost if everyone
| moves to software-based tokens.
|
| On the other hand, if people are replacing a globally re-used
| password with a "passkey", it's a lot better. If they are
| replacing a hardware token with a software token, that's a
| small step backwards. If most people are still manually using
| the same password everywhere, it's probably a net step
| forwards.
| falcolas wrote:
| While Mozilla uses that same force with Pocket, their VPN, ads on
| the home screen, "experiments", Google search, etc.
| ram4jesus wrote:
| The most recent W11 update turned on hypervisor on my machine,
| which I had off to be able to use Bluestacks 5. That config being
| on/off probably does not make that much money - yet Msoft decided
| to mess with my settings (not the first time this has happened in
| W11 and, were I to bet, not the last time either).
|
| Why wouldn't Msoft NOT force Edge as the default browser; a
| company could fill their coffers hugely if they had a lot of
| browser market share.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Since Windows 10 plenty of security features rely on Windows
| actually running as a guest OS on Hyper V, like secure kernel
| and device guard, hence turning on the hypervisor.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Last time I tried it, it also broke hybrid sleep, or possibly
| actually any kind of hibernate-to-disk at all. Is that still
| the case?
| somenameforme wrote:
| Without commenting on the claims, it's interesting to consider
| how times have changed. Microsoft originally lost an antitrust
| lawsuit [1] over little more than tying Internet Explorer into
| their OS and not readily including alternatives. They not only
| lost that case, but the initial judgement was that the company
| was to be broken up.
|
| Microsoft started spending dramatically more money on "lobbying"
| following that.
|
| [1] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
| scarface74 wrote:
| The meme that MS lost the case about bundling IE with Windows
| is about as false and pervasive as "cable TV was once ad free".
|
| MS won the case on appeal and absolutely nothing changed in the
| US. Even the cited Wikipedia article says as much. There was
| never a time since IE was bundled with Windows that IE didn't
| come with Windows in the US. There was also no browser choice
| mandate in the US.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Not only that but barely anything changed in Europe either.
| They were required to show a browser choice screen... for 4
| years. Only a tiny fraction of the population will have ever
| seen it.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And due to a myriad "temporary technical reasons" most
| users in Europe were never shown that screen at all.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Microsoft got smacked because they weren't playing ball with
| Washington politics, they weren't bribing enough congressmen
| nor capitalizing on their market dominance to make themselves
| strategically useful to national interests. Since then, big
| tech companies have known to grease the gears and befriend
| power brokers in Washington. They now contribute to political
| campaigns, and have made themselves useful to the defense and
| intelligence sectors.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| While this does align with my beliefs and biases, do you have
| any proof or evidence to point to that was the case?
| Specifically that the antitrust suit was due (in whole or in
| part) to Microsoft not engaging with politics, and that the
| result has been a trend towards big tech playing ball, and
| hence future antitrust being unlikely?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The spy shit is hard to back up, due to the inherently
| secretive nature of spy shit. However I can back up the
| lobbying aspect of my claims above:
|
| Fortune magazine article about it from 2002 (hosted by
| CNN):
|
| > _For a couple of embarrassing years in the mid- '90s,
| Microsoft's primary lobbying presence in D.C. was "Jack and
| his Jeep." As the software giant's sole in-house lobbyist,
| Jack Krumholtz, then 33, had to battle endless traffic jams
| to get from Microsoft's suburban sales office to Capitol
| Hill. "Early on I spent most of the day in my Jeep Grand
| Cherokee on my cellphone," Krumholtz says. "I hit an all-
| time low on the day I was parked on a Capitol Hill side
| street reading through my mail with the laptop on the
| steering wheel."_
|
| > _No longer. After the Justice Department filed its
| antitrust suit in 1998, Microsoft--a company famous for its
| disdain of government--undertook the largest government
| affairs makeover in corporate history. The company now
| boasts one of the most dominating, multifaceted, and
| sophisticated influence machines around, one that spends
| tens of millions a year. It 's no great surprise that one
| of the country's wealthiest companies can bankroll a
| beefed-up lobbying operation when it faces a crisis. But
| what few people realize is that Microsoft has reached the
| very highest ranks of lobbying so quickly. Says David Hart,
| a lobbying expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of
| Government: "Microsoft has joined the top tier"--with such
| longtime heavyweights as Philip Morris, Lockheed Martin,
| and AT&T._
|
| https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/200
| 2...
|
| Bill Gates quote from 2020:
|
| > _" I was naive at Microsoft and didn't realize that our
| success would lead to government attention," Gates said,
| referring to Microsoft's antitrust challenges from more
| than 20 years ago. "And so I made some mistakes -- you
| know, just saying, 'Hey, I never go to Washington, D.C.'
| And now I don't think, you know, that naivete is there."_
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/14/bill-gates-i-was-naive-at-
| mi...
| nodamage wrote:
| The Wikipedia page does not make this clear but Microsoft did
| not actually lose on the tying claim. The district court ruled
| against them but this was appealed and the appeals court
| vacated that ruling and remanded the case for further analysis
| (which never happened as the case was then later settled).
|
| > They not only lost that case, but the initial judgement was
| that the company was to be broken up.
|
| That judgement was also vacated by the appeals court who
| concluded that the district court "failed to provide an
| adequate explanation for the relief it ordered".
| dont__panic wrote:
| Amazing that 20 years on, the USA has essentially given up on
| anti-trust tech regulation.
|
| Facebook acquired and repeatedly copied its closest
| competitors, no problem. Adobe buys up its competitors, no
| problem. Google aggressively pushes Chrome and fails to makes
| its own websites fully compatible with competitors, carry on.
| Apple refuses to give users the freedom to run their own apps
| on their purchased phones, no biggie.
|
| Was there some kind of official policy shift, or did the
| government just give up?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| no - there are consent decrees and internal legal agreements
| that you and I will never see, in effect now. Combine that
| with soft-pressure in thousands of (real) ways..
| kmeisthax wrote:
| In the 80s a bunch of federal judges adopted the "consumer
| welfare" standard, which argued that we should only consider
| antitrust violations that harm, well... consumer welfare.
|
| Since this was the 80s and Reagan-style free market rhetoric
| was in fashion, this became the new law of the land.
|
| Problem is, very few antitrust violations actually meet this
| standard, because most companies aren't buying other
| companies purely to jack up prices. The harm is a lot more
| subtle. If you remember the days of "disruptive innovation",
| that could be looked at as monopolists getting punished for
| being too large and ignoring new technologies. _Now_ ,
| because antitrust is basically not enforced anymore,
| incumbents just buy their disruptors and integrate them into
| the whole. Startups no longer exist to create new products,
| but to eat up chunks of a big company's M&A budget for that
| year.
|
| I'm hopeful that Lina Khan turns the ship around on this but
| it will take a decade, at least.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Google and fails to makes its own websites fully
| compatible with competitors_
|
| More than that: Google actively prevents competitors from
| working when competitors would work fine without any extra
| "help"
| neogodless wrote:
| I certainly don't know for sure, but one theory would be the
| 2010 Citizens United ruling.
|
| https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-
| constitution/ci...
| themadturk wrote:
| Yes, the US Government pretty much gave up on meaningful
| anti-trust regulation along about the Reagan era, as they
| pretty much gave up on a lot of stuff. The Biden
| administration via FTC Chair Lina Khan have declared they're
| trying to turn things around, but it's a big ship with a
| small rudder. We'll see.
| izacus wrote:
| > Was there some kind of official policy shift, or did the
| government just give up?
|
| It's not just government - every single day I'm seeing
| Americans being directly hostile against free markets and
| choice. A lot of people (and media) expect and demand that a
| single corporation builds all of their things and owns all of
| their data. Plenty of people get outright hostile and
| dismissive of anything and everything that might create
| competition with the brand they're religiously following.
|
| Politics is just following the people.
| smoldesu wrote:
| My guess is that the government realized that FAANG makes for
| better bedfellows than sworn enemies. They can wave economic
| incentives in front of their face in exchange for
| international power beyond what other countries can offer.
| Having Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft under your thumb
| gives you control over ~80% of the internet and <95% of all
| PII. There is obviously a domestic interest in controlling
| that, so it would make sense that our intelligence agencies
| trade surveillance capabilities for SEC mulligans. That also
| explains our bipartisan indifference towards real data
| regulation and privacy legislation.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| define "the government" -- who and what exactly is
| controlling this supposed policy?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, I guess the NSA makes the most sense. They've been
| integrated into the corporate structure of FAANG for over
| a decade now, and they're the primary government entity
| making demands over this stuff. The _who_ is a lot harder
| to track down - maybe there is a Wizard of Oz hiding
| behind one of our administrative curtains, but I think it
| 's more of a bureaucratic process. Judging by what we
| know about America's surveillance infrastructure (eg.
| XKeyscore, Tempora, Boundless Informant), it would make
| sense if most of this software is developed in-house and
| then passed off to FAANG to implement and obfuscate.
|
| Again, all of this is conjecture. There's a lot of
| strangeness that surrounds the US intelligence agencies
| though, so I'm inclined to make _some_ sense of it.
| ailef wrote:
| Do you have any suggested readings to know more about
| this topic?
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this and not believed by
| hardly anyone on this crowd so I'll keep it short and
| without evidence, only testimony: I was a US intelligence
| officer for some time. Not woth NSA, but did a lot of
| work with NSA, CIA, and the Bureau. The involvement
| between the US intelligence agencies and FAANG (in terms
| of the rough narrative involved) is a lot less impressive
| and threatening than people here suppose. The reality is
| that the US government hires some smart people to solve
| hard problems. When the problems get harder, they higher
| more smart people. The costs arent completely opaque,
| either. So at the end of the FY the costs get seen by
| elected officials and actions get justified and legally
| scrutinized. As it turns out, the US government is a lot
| less interested in spying on people who aren't threats to
| the state, and the intelligence agencies have to be
| judicial in who they target, because there are limited
| resources for such activities.
|
| The US intelligence service is also a bureaucracy, and
| people seem to forget that. Just because something is
| "secret" doesn't mean it is romantic or Bornesque.
|
| Context: I have not held a TS clearance or been employed
| with the US government nor contractor for a little over 3
| years.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I won't downvote you, but I have a really hard time
| believing you (and prefer to entertain the possibility
| you didn't have complete insight into the intelligence
| agencies). Thank you for replying though, it's
| interesting to hear alternate perspectives on the topic!
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I mean... It's pervasive? Many elected officials across
| both parties in the United States have advanced the
| surveillance state and have passed legislation at the
| behest of 3 letter agencies. Of the last 4 presidents, 3
| were pretty involved with advancing it: Bush, Obama, and
| Biden. I don't know if Trump did anything to advance the
| surveillance state.
|
| Bush+Cheney did the PSP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr
| esident%27s_Surveillance_Pro...
|
| The courts found that unconstitutional:
| https://www.aaup.org/brief/aclu-v-nsa-493-f3d-644-6th-
| cir-20...
|
| Obama publicly condemned the Patriot Act, but extended it
| in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act
|
| Meanwhile Obama's VP (Joseph Biden) claims to have
| written the Patriot Act:
| https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-
| biden-w...
|
| In '91, the FBI got Joseph Biden to introduce a bill
| banning encrypted cellphone calls in the United States
| (Subtitle B: Electronic Communications):
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-
| bill/266
|
| This move by Joseph Biden was condemned by the founder of
| the EFF: https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-
| palace
|
| You can watch a gaggle of senators from both parties go
| to bat defending the PSP in 2013 here:
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-
| hearing-fi...
|
| After the PSP was found to be unconstitutional, you can
| watch another gaggle of senators from both parties go to
| bat defending the PSP in 2017 here:
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-
| hearing-fi...
|
| A notable quote from the above video from Senator Wyden
| suggests the 3 letter agencies are harvesting location
| data in mass from cellphone towers.
|
| You see surveillance legislation move forward with
| support from both parties - often under the guise of
| protecting children or stopping terrorists. It's not a
| stretch to connect the dots between our 3 letter agencies
| working with legislators in the background to advance the
| surveillance state, and those legislators simultaneously
| working with MAANG on multiple fronts, to assume there is
| some level of crossover with the surveillance agenda. It
| would be more unreasonable to assume they keep their
| surveillance objectives isolated from their interactions
| with industry after the Snowden revelations - which
| showed us that they absolutely worked with industry to
| collect PII of U.S. citizens in mass.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And yet the default position seems to be that we should
| give the government even more power...
| concinds wrote:
| There's no conspiracy.
|
| Mostly think tanks, policy circles, and White House wonks
| over every successive Internet-age administration. All
| segments of the U.S. government pay close attention to,
| among many people, geopolitical analysis of all stripes,
| who can help them understand how to remain the world
| hegemon. The U.S. frequently commissions studies by
| outfits like Booz Allen Hamilton on geopolitical matters
| (you can browse the "DoD Reading Room" to read plenty of
| the these thanks to FOIA requests[0]).
|
| "Breaking them up would hurt the U.S." isn't just a
| lobbyist argument, it's deeply understood at all levels
| of the government. The White House absolutely understands
| that Silicon Valley is part of the U.S.'s soft power,
| draws plenty of international students to the U.S., and
| helps the U.S.'s cultural hegemony. It's not just about
| the most popular social networks and search engine
| "belonging to them" (though that's obviously important,
| and an advantage no rational nation would give up);
| Google and Meta's R&D spending are also huge elements of
| the U.S.'s "artificial intelligence dominance" over
| China, and the U.S. will never break them up simply
| because it sees AI-dominance as one of the most important
| elements of its geopolitical strategy.
|
| It's easy to get the impression that the government
| mostly deals with domestic politics; but at its root, it
| is _deeply_ and overwhelmingly concerned with fundamental
| strategic questions. The government cares _deeply_ about
| U.S. universities remaining the world 's best; about
| immigration remaining high (Republican administrations
| too) so that it can attract as much skilled labor as
| possible, grow the economy, compete with China's 1.4B
| population, and avoid an aging population that would
| decimate the economy for decades.
|
| Policy debates "inside the government" bear very little
| resemblence to the TV version the American citizenry is
| obsessed with.
|
| [0]: see, for example, "The Future of Europe", a 177 page
| evaluation of Europe's future economic, industrial,
| demographic, and political trends. https://www.esd.whs.mi
| l/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20... After you read
| it, you'll understand that the "policy debates" the
| masses are exposed to have very little resemblence with
| what preoccupies decisionmakers! The government, no
| matter the administration, is far more rigorous and
| strategic than people give it credit for.
| arnvald wrote:
| They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my
| parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing
| Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and
| more.
|
| But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly
| installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option
| next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google
| calendar asks me to install an app every time I open a web
| version on my phone, my work laptop has 1 active notification in
| system settings for a year because I didn't enable iCloud backup.
|
| I'm not sure what's the solution here. I stick to the apps I use
| because I know what I'm doing, but so many users will just click
| "yes" when shown a pop-up. On the other hand, the built-in
| integrations provide value (e.g. it's better that people use and
| save random passwords in Keychain than using the same one
| everywhere). I feel it's always a cat-and-mouse game where the
| big tech is punished after they've already gained a lot, so they
| win anyway.
| crawsome wrote:
| rlpb wrote:
| It's also impossible to set up someone less technical with an
| alternative. The platform will keep prompting them incessantly
| and in various different ways, and sooner or later they'll
| switch or activate something by mistake.
|
| It really needs to be possible to say "no means no". But
| somehow, continuously nagging seems to have become acceptable.
| osel wrote:
| You can remove the 'iCloud' notification by starting the setup
| for it, and then cancelling.
|
| It's a dark pattern Apple repeats with a lot of notifications -
| they are not dismissible and give the appearance they are only
| resolvable by completing the notified request, but it actuality
| just starting the setup and then cancelling will resolve it.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Apple has become a parody of itself. A decade ago they were
| mocking Windows for the abundance of notifications. And
| now...
| smoldesu wrote:
| Try the new Safari!
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Go to Settings (Win+I) -> System -> Notifications & actions
|
| [ ] Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates ...
|
| [ ] Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device ...
|
| [ ] Get tips, tricks, ...
| emkoemko wrote:
| just use Linux you get none of this nonsense
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| "just" use Linux
| ok_dad wrote:
| That's how easy it is these days.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| This.
| dmonitor wrote:
| svnpenn wrote:
| > Wow, zealot much?
|
| someone makes a single, half sentence including the word
| Linux, and now they are a Zealot? Calm down dude.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Telling someone they should personally use Linux to avoid
| technical problems is kind of annoying lol.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Telling someone to just use Linux comes from a position
| of privilege. Not everyone is tech savvy (no, I don't
| care about your grandma being able to write her own video
| drivers) and many people must use software that's not
| available on Linux. No, the open source version isn't the
| same thing and saying "just use WINE" is once again
| coming from a position of privilege. Overall, telling
| people to just use Linux is one that lacks empathy for
| individual circumstances.
| emkoemko wrote:
| zealot? this is why i switched... so many times i need my
| computer just to work when turned on but with Microsoft
| you have to wait for a mandatory update and then have to
| jump through hoops like we are installing windows
| software that you have to remember to unchecked all the
| stupid extra crap they will install on your computer vs
| just having a single place for all your software and
| where it all gets updated from.
|
| this person complained about it and switching to Linux
| would solve their problem
| philipov wrote:
| what's the corresponding setting on an iphone? I have the
| same permanent notification because I refused to use icloud.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Does the default browser matter that much? I mean how often do
| you click on a link outside of a browser?
| ht85 wrote:
| You're right, it doesn't matter, they spend so much time and
| take so many risks (and pay so much in fines) to push their
| own settings for absolutely no reason.
| kaslai wrote:
| Every time I click a link in email, IRC, Slack, Discord... At
| least 100+ times a day, easily.
| Osmose wrote:
| On desktop there's emails, chat apps, etc. On mobile the
| default browser is often used for the webview within apps,
| e.g. on Android I have Firefox doing the rendering for
| webpages inside other apps' UI, which means I can block ads
| thanks the uBlock Origin.
|
| It happens all the time, for lots of people.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Mobile is different. But on a desktop, most people use
| webmails, and many chat apps are web based. I barely click
| any link outside of a browser on a desktop.
| kadoban wrote:
| I click on links all the time from email (not everyone
| uses webmail), console, IDE, etc. Enough that yes, it
| very much matters. Even if not that many links happen,
| there's 0% chance you wouldn't end up by default using
| whatever browser it is that opens when you click one.
| dmonitor wrote:
| You know that handy dandy search bar that Windows has decided
| will occupy your taskbar?
| weikju wrote:
| Regarding keychain for password filling, you can choose to
| disable it in the settings -> passwords -> options. It's
| selected by default but if you tap it it will deselect it.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It would be nice if it disabled itself when another password
| manager is installed...
| blooalien wrote:
| Or at least asked you outright when installing a new one;
| "Please choose a default app to perform this function:
| Password Management" and then show you a list of currently
| installed ones (+ the newly installed one of course)...
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Many of us use more than one (especially shared use with
| work) and the default behavior seems correct.
| themadturk wrote:
| I actually use both Keychain and LastPass. They are more
| or less in synch. I need LastPass (or at least another
| non-Keychain alternative) because I don't just work in
| the Apple ecosystem, but I use Keychain as well because
| it is very convenient when I'm on an Apple device.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Oh, please don't! I use both 1Password and keychain for
| different purposes, and I want access to both. I definitely
| don't want keychain silently disabling itself just because
| I installed 1Password!
| oreilles wrote:
| Keychain is opt-in, users choose wether they want to use it
| or not when configuring their iPhone for the first time.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Not in my experience. I never turn it on (because I want
| to use Bitwarden), but Safari always offers to save
| passwords unless I manually disable it.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| So, you weren't forced and instead opted out is what you're
| saying here in your opening sentence?
| btown wrote:
| I think the deeper question is: Are you truly being allowed
| to opt out if you can't disable (or aren't ever prompted to
| disable without knowing an arcane set of menus) the UI
| elements (e.g. the aforementioned prompts on password fields,
| or the prompt to install an app whenever opening the mobile
| web version of a site) that serve as an advertisement for the
| specific service?
|
| To be sure, this isn't just restricted to "please install
| this" dark patterns, and in certain ways it's been central to
| the ad-supported business model ever since the first
| television ad was shown on a network channel. But arguably we
| shouldn't give _any_ of these examples credit for truthfully
| being "opt out."
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I guess if you define "forced" as "completely 100% impossible
| to avoid or prevent" then yes. But I think it's reasonable to
| say that "forced" is acceptable shorthand for "coerced by
| dark patterns in such a way that 99% of actual users will end
| up doing what the vendor wants whether they want to or not".
| iggldiggl wrote:
| For a few things (the one thing I'm familiar with is the lock
| screen if you've left the "show random pretty pictures"
| option turned on, but I think there are a few more places
| besides that) Microsoft _does_ force links to open in Edge
| instead of the default browser.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| - Any links from many Microsoft apps (including searches in
| the Start Menu that silently turn into web searches)
|
| - PDFs (sometimes, even if you don't have Edge set as your
| default PDF app) (even though Edge is actually the least
| unusable non-paid PDF viewer for Windows)
|
| Besides that, Edge will randomly reset itself as the
| default on updates.
| ouid wrote:
| Its not really a game of cat and mouse. Law enforcement can
| seek penalties sufficient to prevent the behavior from
| proliferating.
| avereveard wrote:
| Also there was an uptake in integrations that open edge
| irregardless of what your default browser is, like start menu
| search results if you happen to have web search enabled in it.
| ht85 wrote:
| The win11 / Edge bullshit finally pushed me to migrate my last
| win machine to linux. I used to love Windows, nowadays it just
| makes me bitter. Do you know typing "torrent" in the start menu
| doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it all.
|
| And the acquisitions...
|
| I've had countless minecraft sessions ruined because of
| microsoft account / store issues. Don't even get me started on
| realms and the chat policing bullshit.
|
| Github new PR review UI is great on paper yet completely
| useless to review large PR because of performance issues.
|
| It took me one month to upgrade a zoom account to pro because
| the checkout would just show a blank page. Oh and I can't stay
| signed in on zoom.us because I disable "Functional Cookies",
| yet that's the only website that's ever had an issue, and I'm
| not using a hardened setup, just vanilla FF.
|
| So much for the modern, developer and open source-friendly
| narrative.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _The win11 / Edge bullshit finally pushed me to migrate my
| last win machine to linux. I used to love Windows, nowadays
| it just makes me bitter. Do you know typing "torrent" in the
| start menu doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it
| all._
|
| Heh, try KDE's KRunner. I type 'kt' and it matches ktorrent.
| But if I type 'kto' it switches to matching "Des _kto_ p 8".
| 'ktor' once again matches ktorrent.
| thfuran wrote:
| That sounds about like m experience trying to open intellij
| in windows.
| oreilles wrote:
| Keychain is opt-in. If you have it configured on your iPhone,
| it's because you accepted it when configuring your iPhone for
| the first time. You had to choice to refuse it - and you still
| have the possibility to disable it in your iPhone settings.
| poglet wrote:
| It's unclear how it works, I received a prompt in Firefox to
| save my password, and I thought that it was the Firefox
| browser that would be saving my password however, it turned
| out to be keychain. Now the keychain message pops on all the
| time, I will have a look in the settings to see how to
| disable it.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| ...and so did Mozilla, when FirefoxOS was a thing. Gecko is still
| the default engine for KaiOS.
|
| Are we in browser-whining season again? (Typing this from Firefox
| on macOS.)
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Were there any other browsers even available on FirefoxOS?
| croes wrote:
| There is a difference if Apple, MS and Google do something and
| if much smaller companies do the same.
| anvic wrote:
| For Mozilla it always is browser-whining season but it never is
| browser-improving season.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Does Linux force you to use Firefox? Every distro I know has it
| by default. Yet the first thing I do on a new install is install
| Chrome...
|
| And of course everyone does the same on Windows. Only Edge has
| started to slightly change that trend, and that's with some very
| aggressive tactics by MS.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm not nagged about my browser choice on Linux. Other browsers
| are found easily on the package manager.
| [deleted]
| summerlight wrote:
| Unfortunately in the current landscape, I think Firefox will
| unlikely gain the traction again even if we can bring those big
| techs to a fair playground. Browser development becomes an
| extremely complex, expensive project that requires at least
| hundreds of engineering headcounts and Mozilla cannot simply
| afford it. Worse, Servo was a kind of big bet to change the
| equation from the ground but Mozilla decided to abandon it. I
| don't see a plausible scenario to recover the market share in
| this situation?
| freediver wrote:
| > I think Firefox will unlikely gain the traction again even if
| we can bring those big techs to a fair playground
|
| Probably true, as long as it depends on the same big tech for
| revenue.
| smm11 wrote:
| Brave and Duck Duck Go on my S21 phone. Edge on Windows 10 and
| Mac. I have Firefox on all, but it's secondary, and launched
| rarely. It just doesn't work as well.
| challenger-derp wrote:
| Firefox has some really good privacy features built-in (some
| aren't enabled by default and requires minor configuration by
| users). In contrast, some big tech firms (you know who they are)
| that have a business model that involves profiting off of users'
| data are inherently deterred from delivering really good privacy
| features.
| bearjaws wrote:
| On Android all Google apps default to opening in Chrome with no
| option to change it, even if you change the default URL
| configuration that only seems to work outside of Gmail / News
| Feed. This also applies to their search widget, which you cannot
| remove at all.
|
| Incredibly frustrating end user experience when I have everything
| in FireFox, and Adblock too.
| px43 wrote:
| I have the default browser on my Pixel 5a set to Brave, and
| everything opens in Brave.
|
| I have the Google news feed disabled, but links from gmail and
| the search window all open Brave as expected.
| saghm wrote:
| My default browser on my phone is Firefox, and even when I
| open articles from the news feed in the Google App, they open
| from Firefox as well. I guess it's possible that this could
| vary by phone, but I've never had an issue with an Android
| phone using my non-default browser when opening a link from
| an app in years.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| While Google, Microsoft, and Apple clearly factor into the
| equation here (especially Google -- when Chrome first came out
| the marketing for it was a real force to contend with, and
| they've aggressively pushed Chrome ever since), the other big
| thing is that Mozilla ceased to be a leader. They started chasing
| Chrome and put Firefox on the back burner, and now they're
| reaping what they've sown.
|
| I am a huge proponent of web engine diversity, but Mozilla is
| going to have to do some serious self-reflection and enact major
| changes internally to have a fighting chance. As things stand,
| even if regulation limiting MS/Google/Apple's abilities to self-
| promote went into place it will make precious little difference
| because Firefox gives few reasons for non-technical users to
| switch to it. As big of a splash as Manifest V3 has been, it's
| ultimately a storm in a teacup that only a portion of technical
| users know and care about.
| tomComb wrote:
| Google pushing their product while allowing anyone to easily
| change default browser on Android is called competition.
|
| Somehow though, that is the worst for you, while Apple simply
| blocking any competition on iOS (everything is Safari under the
| hood) is fine.
|
| The amazing thing is that you say you are a huge fan of engine
| diversity - exactly what Apple is totally blocking.
|
| Not much Firefox can do with their engine when iOS is their
| most important platform by far (note the countries they are
| strong in). Unless Apple changes policy they isn't much point
| in FF investing in their engine.
| Osmose wrote:
| The quality of Firefox has nothing to do with the anti-
| competitive actions of platforms. This affects Vivaldi, Brave,
| and all the 3rd-party web browsers (or the platform browsers on
| other platforms, e.g. Chrome on Windows).
|
| Mozilla doesn't make this argument because their browser share
| is lower than it used to be, but because diversity, not
| domination, is the goal.
| shultays wrote:
| How come Chrome towers over Edge then?
| neogodless wrote:
| It drives me nuts that a fresh install of Android apps defaults
| them all to "in-app" browsing instead of my default browser. And
| you have to go to each app and turn it off in a different place.
| Wish I could just override all of them and "open every web page
| in _My. Default. Browser._ "
| lol768 wrote:
| If apps are written correctly, they can use the Custom Tabs
| protocol with your default browser (which can be Firefox, as it
| has support). You'll get the same embedded browser experience,
| support for add-ons and ability to pop out the site into a
| separate 'window'/activity.
|
| Of course, many apps don't properly do this and end up
| hardcoding references to Chrome...
| agluszak wrote:
| > Of course, many apps don't properly do this and end up
| hardcoding references to Chrome...
|
| I think what OP is referring to is this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32415470
| yrro wrote:
| But how else could they inject their JavaScript into the pages
| you read so that they can capture every page you view, every
| link you click & every key you press?
| ravenstine wrote:
| What exactly are these companies supposed to do? Web access
| really is the meat behind modern OS usage. Say what you want
| about Microsoft, but that's exactly what they realized when they
| began shipping Internet Explorer with Windows (and got into hot
| water over it). Safari can't be deleted from iOS, but aspects of
| Safari are integral to the OS. As long as someone can use another
| web browser for actual web browsing, as opposed to something that
| an app might use as a web view, I really don't see what the big
| deal is. Not being able to delete apps sucks, but this goes
| beyond browsers, and is hardly the worst thing any of these
| companies are up to. Should there be an initiative to create a
| standard pluggable API for web views that operating systems
| comply with? _Oh boy, let 's create yet another worthless
| committee!_
|
| Maybe Mozilla can knock off the grandstanding, the money wasting,
| the back patting, and just work on making a competitive browser.
| Also completely remove Pocket and anything else like it.
| S201 wrote:
| > Maybe Mozilla can knock off the grandstanding, the money
| wasting, the back patting, and just work on making a
| competitive browser.
|
| You can have the best product in the market but if the deck is
| unfairly stacked against you it doesn't matter how good your
| product is.
| shultays wrote:
| The questionable part is them re-asking "hey kid, wanna switch
| to Edge? we are cool now" after some updates.
|
| I doubt your regular Firefox user falls for it but your
| parent's computer that you installed Firefox on will
| folkhack wrote:
| > Also completely remove Pocket and anything else like it.
|
| Yeah - hard agree. Pocket feels like a sheer gimmick. It
| cheapens the experience, and it hurts the trust people have for
| Firefox when they jam it in your face.
|
| I remember the original Firefox ethos where it was _just_ a
| browser, and that was awesome.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > What exactly are these companies supposed to do? Web access
| really is the meat behind modern OS usage.
|
| I mean, Europe used to mandate a selection screen on first boot
| that would just ask the user what browser to install; that
| seems pretty reasonable. Failing that, they could let the user
| actually change their default browser without harassing them or
| resetting it constantly (Windows) or allow people to actually
| use other browser engines at all (iOS).
|
| > just work on making a competitive browser
|
| They did. But it's hard to get people to switch when the OS
| vendor makes it artificially hard to switch.
| honkler wrote:
| they should first try to retain their users, before dreaming
| of switching others.
| JadoJodo wrote:
| > and just work on making a competitive browser.
|
| I think the issue here is that Mazilla feels that they do. The
| problem for the average user is not "Do I want to use a Porsche
| (Chrome) or a Mercedes (Firefox)?". It's "Which icon is the one
| that makes The Internet open up and show me all the things I
| want to see?" They don't care beyond that.
| graiz wrote:
| Google Chrome gained dominance and was not the default on Windows
| or Mac. Firefox is an Ok product but isn't super compelling for a
| typical user.
| 323 wrote:
| And HN played an important role.
|
| 10-12 years ago, when Chrome appeared, HN was full of posts
| like "I switched my parents computer to Chrome", "I convinced
| my company to switch to Chrome", ...
| adminu wrote:
| Sorry, but comparing Mozilla to the company that offers the
| about most visited website ever isn't exactly fair. Google had
| a lot of opportunities to push Chrome and they did. Doesn't
| really say a lot about product quality imho
| iepathos wrote:
| I'm on a macbook currently using firefox for my default browser,
| haven't been forced to use safari. On my windows rig I use
| chrome, haven't been forced to use edge. This is provably false.
| Haven't been forced to use any specific browser across various
| operating systems and hardware.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| I don't know if something changed recently, but Microsoft
| deserves some criticism:
|
| - https://www.howtogeek.com/744102/windows-11-makes-it-hard-
| to...
|
| - https://www.howtogeek.com/768727/microsoft-calls-firefoxs-
| br...
|
| On macOS it's easy to change this, but things like the "tips"
| notification it displays after a major update still opens on
| Safari, ignoring your setting.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| There are a few places in Windows where Microsoft does force
| links to open Edge instead of whatever your default browser is.
| Depending on your usage patterns I guess it is possible to
| never stumble across those places [1], but they do indeed exist
| [2].
|
| [1] E.g. I've only really encountered them in one place so far,
| and it's easily possible to avoid that place, too.
|
| [2] That one place I certainly know of is the lock screen in
| case you've kept the default "Show random pretty pictures"
| setting turned on.
| speeder wrote:
| One of the things that piss me off is that sometimes even forks
| are not accepted.
|
| For example Formula 1 TV doesn't work on my SmartTV or on some of
| my browsers despite them being forks of Chrome, where it works
| just fine.
|
| Not only that, it used to work there in the past, what happened
| is now it actively detects if the browser is a real Google Chrome
| from Google (not a recompiled version), and refuse to work
| otherwise, even if technically it could work just fine.
| QuasarOne wrote:
| bombcar wrote:
| Google Chrome is highly successful on Mac and Windows so it's
| clear that Microsoft and apple aren't forcing that hard. Mozilla
| is just not doing so hot.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Reskinned Chrome is the default on windows
| nijave wrote:
| And macOS (Safari uses WebKit, if that's the criteria)
| lol768 wrote:
| Edgium is much closer to Chrom(ium) than Safari/WebKit, I'd
| say. If Safari used Blink and V8 I'd agree with you
| saghm wrote:
| Google swapped Chrome from WebKit to Blink (i.e. they
| forked WebKit) years ago. WebKit is essentially only used
| by Safari now; Edge does not use it.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Yandex Browser, a custom Chrome build, is doing very well both
| on desktop and mobile.
|
| However, it has a slew of useful features tailored for its
| audience (perhaps reminding of "big apps" of Asia) while also
| leveraging all kinds of ways to get installs such as bundling,
| etc.
|
| I'm just not sure what are the selling points of Mozilla
| Firefox in 2022. They discontinued their plugins to be like
| Google Chrome and enforce the same censorship as Google Chrome
| without being Google.
| freediver wrote:
| It would be cool if every Chromium clone had a page where
| they explain how is the browser different to standard
| Chromium. Many of them feel like rebuilding Chromium with
| something like sed -i 's/Chrome/MyBrowserName/g'
| bombcar wrote:
| One of them (Brave?) did actually have a list of patches
| since the source was actually patches against Chromium.
| dralley wrote:
| Google Chrome:
|
| * Got years of free advertising real estate on the most visited
| website on the internet, but hid the ads if you were using
| Chrome already
|
| * Payed the likes of AVG, Avast, Adobe, Oracle and others to
| have their own software installers automatically install Chrome
| and make it the default browser unless you uncheck the boxes
|
| * Repeatedly leveraged nonstandard and Chrome-specific APIs
| (Polymer v0) on their websites which caused other browsers to
| need slow and clunky polyfills.
| izacus wrote:
| And none of that comes close to being installed as a default
| handler for every single web interaction as Safari and
| IE/Edge were.
|
| Chrome, for a long time, was simply _better_. It's bizarre
| how you want to erase history when we installed Chrome
| originally because of how much darn faster it was than
| Mozilla (not to mention IE7 and that crap).
| mhermher wrote:
| Your second point is such a lost gem of history. I still
| remember it well and remember how upset it made me. But it
| seems the world has forgotten, and just assumes that Chrome
| just meteorically shot up in usage just on its merit.
|
| Did you just update Java? Looks like a new browser you've
| never used is your default now.
| izacus wrote:
| Just like you've seem to have forgotten just how much
| lighter and faster Chrome was that people took to
| preferring it without looking at Java installers.
|
| It had to compete against the default interenet icon on
| both major operating systems and the OSes themselves were
| marketing themselves loudly as well.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| Neither of those things would necessarily keep users using
| Chrome, however.
|
| Once exposed to it, many people chose to continue using
| Chrome because Chrome offered a better experience than
| browsers like Firefox and IE did at the time.
|
| Early on, Chrome felt faster and sleeker than its
| competitors, without sacrificing functionality.
| lostgame wrote:
| At least on iOS/iPadOS, this is inequitably true. It's impossible
| to argue Apple doesn't have monopoly control over web rendering
| on these platforms.
| [deleted]
| bogomipz wrote:
| >"Mozilla, the non-profit proprietor of the Firefox browser, has
| accused Google, Microsoft, and Apple of "self preferencing" and
| nudging consumers towards using their own browsers."
|
| Is it not odd that that Mozilla is taking a stand against tech
| giants abusing their position when the giant with largest share
| of the browser market is the same company that pays them hundreds
| of millions a dollar a year to be the default search engine on
| Firefox.[1] Don't they basically survive on this Google money?
| Don't they basically promote Google with this arrangement?
|
| [1]
| https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/14/mozilla_google_search...
| neals wrote:
| Mozilla should totally build an OS / laptop and do the same
| bogomipz wrote:
| They did. It was called Firefox OS. They killed it in 2015/16.
| See:
|
| https://killedbymozilla.com/
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Unpin Edge from taskbar, restart your pc and tell me that isn't
| one of the most annoying things MS has done since the Balmer era.
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