[HN Gopher] Google has added ads on both its search page and Chr...
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Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab
Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health and
fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com and
chrome://newtab. Google has historically been protective of their
front page, why now?
Author : Nephx
Score : 366 points
Date : 2022-09-30 08:35 UTC (14 hours ago)
| zagrebian wrote:
| > Google has added ads on both its search page
|
| Google Search has had ads since the beginning. What do you mean?
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Don't equate precedent with morals.
| urthor wrote:
| Vivaldi time!
| tech-historian wrote:
| Google has had house ads for its own products on the search
| homepage since at least 2010. I'd like to see a screenshot of the
| "banner ad" claimed by OP. Text ads on Google's homepage are
| nothing new. I don't see a banner ad on the homepage at the
| moment, I see a text ad for "Learn about the latest innovations
| coming to Google Search"
|
| Anyone have a screenshot of said banner ad?
| Jemm wrote:
| Proves the saying, "If you are not paying for the product, you
| are the product"
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You're still the product for a whole bunch of paid services.
| The line has blurred significantly since that saying became
| commonplace.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Logic 101: "If A, Then B" does _NOT_ imply "If not-A, Then
| not-B".
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Not true for self hosted open source software.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not necessarily.
| https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-
| files/+bug/17...
| freediver wrote:
| Not much choice with browsers!
|
| As far as I know, Orion browser is the only browser on the
| market today that you can pay for with your wallet instead of
| your data.
| charcircuit wrote:
| No website I have worked for has ever called users the product.
| The products are what is being built by various teams. For ads
| the product at a high level is everything from the parts that
| show ads to users to the tools that allow advertisers to create
| ads.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > No website I have worked for has ever called users the
| product.
|
| Sure, and folks putting lead paint in children's toys don't
| call their wares "poison". Doesn't change anything.
|
| Advertisers wouldn't buy all that fancy ad tooling "product"
| on a platform with zero users.
| glcheetham wrote:
| They are changing their natural listing results to be multi media
| photos and video content will be prioritised on search results,
| it is going to be released in America first this month I believe
|
| They are also seeing the results will be far more varied and
| scrolling down will likely give you a result that you are looking
| for, and the traditional way of looking with the top result,
| being the one that you wanted may not be the case anymore
|
| I think they are maybe trying to replicate the TikTok experience
| when looking for a result, you will end up scrolling different
| content relative to your search keyword
|
| All of this will benefit content creators. If you have an ability
| to create video content, this will give you a competitive edge.
| avian wrote:
| I hope this means that all the SEO bullshit will move to videos
| and the textual web will become usable again.
| mysterydip wrote:
| > All of this will benefit content creators.
|
| Could they do something to benefit the users instead?
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Rest assured, it'll hurt both equally. Or do you think Google
| would treat content creators as equals?
| LoganDark wrote:
| Here's a reminder to everyone in the thread that Google
| owns YouTube. Content creators are, literally, the product.
| YouTube would not exist without them. They are not equals.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > They are changing their natural listing results to be multi
| media photos and video content
|
| I've been unfortunate enough to see this, it's absolute hot
| garbage and made it way harder to find what I wanted.
|
| Is this a knee jerk response to TikTok kids using TikTok as
| their generations google?
|
| I don't think many understand how much Google land is up for
| grabs right now. Google Images is right there for the taking if
| you just supply the same experience as 10 years ago Google
| Images.
| perihelions wrote:
| Not _entirely_ unprecedented:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 ( _" Mozilla: Ad on
| Firefox's new tab page was just another experiment"_ (2019))
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 ( _" Why am I
| seeing this adorable red panda?"_) (2022)
| senko wrote:
| Notably, this is not Google showing random search/display ads.
|
| Those look like ads for Google's own product.
|
| I don't think this is the first time. IIRC, Google used to show
| an ad for Chrome if you used the search from any other browser.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'm surprised they advertise their own product in those
| places... It's such an obvious thing for the EU to go after.
| "Google has a monopoly position in Browsers/Search, and
| (ab)used their homepage to advertise their entry into a new
| field of business, immediately giving it free advertising the
| competitors could never access."
|
| If I were Googles legal team, I would immediately put an end to
| such cross-product advertising (at least from
| Search/Chrome/Android).
| ren_engineer wrote:
| I've said the same, how is doing that any different from
| Microsoft using their OS to push their own products in the
| past when they got sued?
|
| Having that stuff in Chrome would cost millions in terms of
| normal display ads for the number of impressions they would
| get
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| The difference is, these anti-competitive tactics bring
| them more value than the penalty the receive, at this
| point, it's more of a slap on the wrist and nothing else.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Or the legal team has advised them that the legality is
| unclear and management has decided the easiest way to resolve
| murky law is to see the other side in court.
|
| There's a lot of law like that, and Google has the war chest
| to ask the question when merely that act alone could bankrupt
| smaller companies.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| Google does not have a monopoly in browsers or search.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| The poster above you said "monopoly position," which is
| defined in the EU as more than 25% of the market. Google
| unquestionably has a monopoly position in both areas.
|
| The US similarly defines monopoly as having significant
| control over a market, not as a literal 100% stake.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Anti trust requires market power abuses, not a monopoly.
| infinityio wrote:
| To my knowledge, Google has 90% of search engine traffic in
| some regions, and Chrome makes up the majority of Web
| browsers, even disregarding Chromium
| eckza wrote:
| We've always been at war with Eastaisa.
| mrweasel wrote:
| While slightly dirty, I got the ad for Chrome, that made sense
| in the context. Advertising for Fitbits is weird and seems
| desperate.
|
| My sense is that it's a test. If Google decides it went well
| we'll see ads for other Google products. That's a dangerous
| path though, at some point some one will make a nice offer for
| that spot, and I'm not sure the current management at Google
| have enough integrity to say no.
|
| Side note: It might be Fitbits, because Fitbit is a subsidiary
| of Google LLC, and not Alphabet directly.
| atesti wrote:
| It's notoriously difficult to have a new tab page without
| ads/Google connections, but still keep the 8 thumbnails. One can
| change the search engine and then an alternate new tab page
| appears which is the right one: Only thumbnails. Unfortunately
| there is code in chrome to detect the search engine one confiured
| and activate the matching new tab page. I think they have one for
| ddg?
|
| Even creating a custom search engine in chrome settings, pointing
| at google does not work, they detect the google url.
|
| I have yet to create my own "search engine" url which would
| redirect to google, to put this search engine in the chrome
| settings!
|
| It's very annoying, because despite it being Chrome from google,
| chrome is quite reasonable with data protection and settings in
| many areas and can be tamed with group policies. In our company
| GPO we have to turn off the new tab page, but my goal is to have
| one without ads.
| RektBoy wrote:
| Or don't use Chrome? Lol
| ama5322 wrote:
| Firefox had/has "snippets" for a while. You can turn them
| off, but the point still stands.
| vehemenz wrote:
| There has been a blank new tab extension in Chrome for ages.
| atesti wrote:
| But I like the 8 thumbnails, I only want to get rid of the
| "new tab promo". Chrome contains a complete new tab page
| which is adfree, but it's only enabled for obscure search
| engines
| traveler01 wrote:
| It's their own product ads though... It's not very problematic,
| you're using their product and they're announcing they have more
| products for you.
| netsharc wrote:
| Google on Android has already been stupid for a long time. You
| can swipe right from the home screen of a Pixel phone to get to
| Google search, which is a Yahoo!-style portal with news, etc
| under the search bar. And then you click on the search input
| field, and you get suggestions based on trending searches (a week
| or 2 ago one of them was something about King Charles). Luckily
| both idiocies can still be disabled, and I use DDG for my
| searches anyway.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What's the full text of the ad?
|
| Google hasn't been above self-promotion via those channels for
| approximately a half-decade. On my newtab and on google.com, I'm
| seeing an ad for Google's new search features.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| chatterhead wrote:
| rany_ wrote:
| I've had something similar happen to me before. Google showed me
| an advert for Pixel 6a on the bottom of the search bar in both
| the new tab and Google.com main page
| vannevar wrote:
| Google has drifted gradually from helping you find things,
| supported by ads, to actively steering you away from what you're
| trying to find in order to sell you to advertisers.
| imadj wrote:
| It looks like they're testing it on a small portion, but not sure
| what's the pattern
| thih9 wrote:
| I suspect ungoogled-chromium[1] is not affected by google's
| changes to chrome://newtab . If anyone wants to stop using Chrome
| but isn't drawn to any of the alternatives, perhaps you'll like
| ungoogled-chromium.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungoogled-chromium
| unity1001 wrote:
| I use both Chromium and Chrome. Chromium is of course not
| affected.
| Caboose8685 wrote:
| It's worth noting that UGC has some significant security
| regressions
|
| https://qua3k.github.io/ungoogled/
| bentcorner wrote:
| Interesting to learn. Are these issues fixable? I'm not
| familiar with what changes went into UGC but something like
| changing the compiler toolchain seems like a strange
| decision.
| TingPing wrote:
| Upstreams toolchain is pretty insane so most downstream try
| to do the more default thing but that often doesn't include
| the same customizations.
|
| I think its all doable but community forks tend to be one
| person doing a job of 10 people and will never keep up.
| 2kwatts wrote:
| When I need to use a Chrome-like browser, I just use Chromium
| or Brave.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| and people will still not recommend firefox. this is
| hilarious
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Firefox is my daily driver but if something "works best
| in Chrome" I (assuming I'm interested enough) open it in
| Brave.
| kgbcia wrote:
| pulling for Firefox
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Don't know why it's so surprising. Google has had ads for Pixel
| phones right below the search box. I remember Stadia ads that
| showed up there too.
|
| The newtab on Chrome is not even considered a web page so you can
| see those ads that show up there as a part of Chrome which is not
| so surprising either
| [deleted]
| anvic wrote:
| I've already seen ads like those, some even pushing their
| political stuff.
|
| https://techdows.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Chrome-dismi...
| bertman wrote:
| This is not "unprecedented" at all, see e.g. here:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/lf9egy/comment/iivz...
| kuschku wrote:
| Wasn't the Nexus 7 (2012) the first such ad? Aside from chrome
| itself bring advertised this way, that is.
| hgsgm wrote:
| spoiler wrote:
| I am not sure why you're being downvoted. Both the newtab (at
| the bottom of the page) and the search page have had subtle
| "ads" for google's new product launches. I remember seeing it
| for Stadia, and I remember seeing it for "Google One"
| londons_explore wrote:
| They also use it for non-google products.
|
| For example the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II had a hyperlink
| to "See todays events" on both places.
| inerte wrote:
| I believe* the first ad ever under the search bar at
| google.com was to download Firefox. They've been doing it for
| that long...
|
| * I think I read that in some book about Marissa Mayer and
| her decisions around the homepage.
| pcsalad wrote:
| Have you seen this banner by yourself? Tried from a few different
| locations with no luck
| Nephx wrote:
| Yep, Fitbit smartwatch ad for us in Sweden, no Chrome plugins
| (even shows up in incognito).
|
| Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| www.fitbit.com - add it to your hostsfile.
| brettdong wrote:
| Also see the Fitbit ad from Singapore.
| N19PEDL2 wrote:
| > Might be exclusive to a portion of users or locations.
|
| Probably they are testing on a selected range of users.
| omgmajk wrote:
| That thing on the google.com page is really annoying. Google is
| probably trying this out but I am really hoping that this is some
| behind the scenes look at the fact that google might be a dying
| company and are grasping for straws. Not that I think that is
| really real, but because it would be glorious.
| yonghoord wrote:
| huijzer wrote:
| > Google has historically been protective of their front page,
| why now?
|
| Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia
| [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see
| roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every
| week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For
| example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the
| NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year timescale.
|
| What surprises me the most actually is how quickly Google can
| adapt to the situation. Basically, they have been giving out
| candy for free when there was lots of money coming and now that
| they expect less, they quickly put on extra income streams and
| cut out money losers.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33022768
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32927848
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >most people expect that we are going into a recession
|
| by the standard definition we are already in one, odds are we
| are actually going to enter a global depression and probably
| one worse than 2008
| somenameforme wrote:
| If even a fraction of what many are predicting comes to
| transpire over the next few months, then you can likely
| change 2008 to 1929.
| tyingq wrote:
| > Google has historically been protective of their front page,
| why now?
|
| Unreasonable shareholder expectations of continued double-digit
| percentage YoY growth. Growth that exceeds internet usage
| growth in general.
|
| The only way that happens is more ads displacing content, or
| appearing in formerly empty spots. I would guess at this point,
| they've hit the wall on alternatives like better targeting,
| placement, etc.
| _hl_ wrote:
| > The only way that happens is more ads displacing content,
| or appearing in formerly empty spots.
|
| Or eeking out more dollars per ad through better targetting,
| or through diversifying the business and scaling new revenue
| streams, or ...
|
| I think it's reasonable to expect Google to grow faster than
| general internet usage. Believing otherwise means you believe
| Google is in maintenance mode, incapable of improving their
| existing product or unlocking new revenue streams through
| innovation. Given the sheer size of Google, that's quite a
| bold belief to hold.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Perhaps all those people claiming to put in two or three hours
| each day there aren't as productive as they believed themselves
| to be. I wonder how much that particular brand of hubris will
| be tolerated now times are tough.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Google has been promoting other Google products on the home
| page for over 20 years [1].
|
| I think the only difference this time around is that people
| didn't realize Fitbit was acquired by Google.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt2iPpJmySU
| bushbaba wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd call that quick. Quick would be a single deep
| cut and return to normal operations.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| I don't buy the SP500 graph argument, economies tend to behave
| on a log scale.
| skrowl wrote:
| It's not really a matter of opinion or what people think. We're
| already in a recession here in the United States, as we've had
| two negative GDP growth quarters in a row.
|
| Anyone who says otherwise is likely just doing so for political
| reasons, as it's also an election year here in the United
| States, but to do so they'd have to literally change the
| definition of recession (they're trying but it's not working).
| thrown_22 wrote:
| genshii wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| thrown_22 wrote:
| systemvoltage wrote:
| freediver wrote:
| There are now two flagged and dead comments replying to
| this. I wonder what mechanisms do HN users have to
| interact with those replies?
| criley2 wrote:
| This is a classic example of how propaganda works. The
| layman's definition of recession, which has never been used
| officially or by policy-makers in America, is this bit about
| "negative GDP growth for two quarters".
|
| But despite that not being how we've always determined
| recessions here, if you read the reply above, the user has
| literally invented a political conspiracy about their
| ignorance about economics. The layman's definition isn't
| right? It's more complicated than a one-liner on the news?
| No! It's a conspiracy!
|
| This is EXACTLY how the propaganda is designed to affect
| them. Empower the ignorance such that layman's understanding
| is the only valid understanding, impugn the experts until
| economics is nothing more than an election year conspiracy.
|
| For anyone interested in the truth of how recessions have
| been determined in the United States for _the past sixty
| years_ , it's only about three paragraphs of information http
| s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Re...
| wubbert wrote:
| >the NBER defines a recession as "a significant decline in
| economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more
| than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real
| income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-
| retail sales".
|
| Which we have right now. But don't trust objective
| observations of reality. Just Trust the Experts(tm) and
| call anyone who disagrees a conspiracy theorist.
| eigen wrote:
| > "a significant decline in economic activity spread
| across the economy, lasting more than a few months,
|
| > real GDP
|
| > real income
|
| real income is down ~1% since Sept 2020 or Sept 2021 [1].
| hardly seems like a "significant decline".
|
| > employment
|
| employment has increased since Sept 2020 or Sept 2021 [2]
| and infact has been steadily increasing since April 2020.
|
| > industrial production
|
| industrial production has increased since Sept 2020 or
| Sept 2021 [3] and infact has been steadily increasing
| since April 2020.
|
| > wholesale-retail sales
|
| retail sales has increased since Sept 2020 or Sept 2021
| [4] and infact has been steadily increasing since April
| 2020.
|
| so 1 of 5 indicators shows significant decline, 1 shows
| minor decline, 3 show increase.
|
| [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPI
|
| [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS
|
| [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO
|
| [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSXFS
| dizzant wrote:
| The link you posted supports the GP's assertion that not
| declaring the current economic situation as a recession is
| politically motivated. The third paragraph specific cites
| common criticism of the NBER on that very front.
|
| That there could and should be some more sophisticated,
| objective definition of a recession than "two years of GDP
| decline" isn't in question. But, at least according to your
| own source, NBER fails to provide that definition and is
| commonly criticized for is subjectivity during political
| years.
| eigen wrote:
| > The link you posted supports the GP's assertion that
| not declaring the current economic situation as a
| recession is politically motivated.
|
| 1/5 indicators shows significant decline (real GDP) I'll
| give you. but 1/5 is slight decline (real income 1%
| down), the other 3 (employment, industrial production,
| retail sales) are up. this is based on data available
| from FRED, do you have data showing otherwise?
|
| links at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33032470#33036403
| fullshark wrote:
| Or maybe THIS is exactly how propaganda works, swapping
| between the connotations and denotations of words when it's
| politically convenient to. It's also clear to me if the
| president had an R next to his name, both sides of the "Are
| we in a recession?" debate would swap entirely.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| "Accuse your enemy of that which you are guilty of"
| nzealand wrote:
| Who debated the 2020 recession?
|
| It didn't have two quarters of real GDP growth, but it
| did have massive job losses.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_U
| nit...
| fullshark wrote:
| Well I just found Paul Krugman writing about the
| "COVID-19 Recession" here on april 30:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/opinion/economy-stock-
| mar...
|
| Looked at national review, can't even find an article
| about the subject; https://www.google.com/search?q=recess
| ion+site:nationalrevie...
|
| Everyone was preoccupied with other questions mostly at
| that time, and a lot of the debate was if policy X was
| too costly economically, more so than "are we in a
| recession?"
| nzealand wrote:
| Krugman didn't debate recession semantics.
|
| My point is, if you are going to claim we are in a
| recession now, to be intellectually consistent, you also
| have to claim that 2020 wasn't one of the shortest and
| sharpest recessions ever in history...
| fullshark wrote:
| Oh i thought you were curious, to test my theory with
| people on the left and right that are fighting now over
| it what they used to say. I looked at Krugman because
| he's a major figure on the left saying we aren't (or
| weren't 2 months ago) in a recession https://www.irishtim
| es.com/business/economy/2022/07/29/paul-...
|
| I just looked and National Review even wrote this on the
| subject at the time -
| https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/recession-are-we-
| there... so maybe I need a better representative for the
| right and left to measure intellectual consistency.
|
| IDK I'm not that interested in finding partisan hacks in
| the online debate on the subject. I will say just looking
| around, observing metrics and being told this isn't a
| recession the country is going through right now seems
| absurd.
| braingenious wrote:
| That's a lot of uses of "conspiracy theory", "ignorance"
| and "propaganda" for the _proof_ of your superior intellect
| and immunity to propaganda to be... a link to wikipedia.
|
| Going off how much you have positioned yourself as an
| expert on economics and human psychology, I was expecting
| this to end with "Here is a link to my dissertation on this
| very issue!"
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Your own wikipedia link references the standard - the
| standard used by the media and the traders that it's two
| quarters of negative GDP. NBER does tend to be considered
| the official source.. and they tend to announce them about
| a year after they happen. NBER is important but "determiner
| of recession" is not quite their job role.
|
| You need only to glance at the markets to see the reality
| of the situation we are in.
|
| The argument the WH made for us not being in a recession is
| that employment is high. That situation is quickly
| changing.
| deltree7 wrote:
| At the end of the day, the definition of Recession
| doesn't matter.
|
| There are ZERO changes or decision anyone can make
| (including policy) based on whoever's definition of
| recession is.
|
| It's really weird that humans come up with these
| arbitrary definitions that doesn't matter but choose that
| hill to die on.
|
| Thought experiment: Knowing and feeling all the economic
| news around you, what decision would you make if (or what
| decision should policy makers make)
|
| a) we are in some arbitrary definition of Recession?
|
| b) we are not in some arbitrary definition of Recession?
|
| There really is none
| karaterobot wrote:
| Be fair: the link references the standard, but does so in
| order to say that that's not how the NBER defines a
| recession.
|
| > The NBER uses a broader definition of a recession than
| commonly appears in the media. A definition of a
| recession commonly used in the media is two consecutive
| quarters of a shrinking gross domestic product (GDP). In
| contrast, the NBER defines a recession as "a significant
| decline in economic activity spread across the economy,
| lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real
| GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and
| wholesale-retail sales". Business cycle dates are
| determined by the NBER dating committee. Typically, these
| dates correspond to peaks and troughs in real GDP,
| although not always so.
|
| ...
|
| > Though not listed by the NBER, another factor in favor
| of this alternate definition is that a long term economic
| contraction may not always have two consecutive quarters
| of negative growth, as was the case in the recession
| following the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
| chatterhead wrote:
| The internet doesn't work without advertising. Almost as if the
| money to build all this infrastructure has to come from
| somewhere.
|
| If only we could create a digital token that would be in such
| demand it would generate its own network and infrastructure
| effect.
|
| Oh wait... they ruined that, too.
| falcor84 wrote:
| >Oh wait... they ruined that, too.
|
| I lost you there, who is "they" referring to?
| chatterhead wrote:
| Wall Street and it's need for gross revenue to justify
| unearned bonuses. Advertising is a direct feed into projected
| values which dictates which stocks can be manipulated with
| the most justification. And, often the largest fallout later.
| noodles_nomore wrote:
| > Almost as if the money to build all this infrastructure has
| to come from somewhere.
|
| Yes, things need funding to survive. That's the core of the
| problem. I bookmarked an interesting older HN comment to that
| effect.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960
| beej71 wrote:
| In the good old days, the money came from your job. And you
| used that money to create free content out of the kindness of
| your heart.
| chatterhead wrote:
| In the good ol'days when profit drove value not perceived
| market dominance based on shoddy short-term user data created
| by a generation of graphic designers.
| noodles_nomore wrote:
| This stopped working when people realized that they can
| replace giving kindness with taking money and quit their
| jobs.
| JakkDTrent wrote:
| I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and
| Chrome browser.
| insightcheck wrote:
| Why is this so surprising? Google search gives me better
| results than DuckDuckGo for my purposes (especially when using
| the "site:" search syntax). Some web apps and websites are
| buggy on non-Chrome browsers or a lot faster on Chrome (e.g.
| Google Workspace apps like Google Sheets are often a lot
| faster).
|
| If I want to submit high quality work on time, it makes sense
| to use the best (most performant) tool for the job. Firefox,
| DuckDuckGo, and other alternative tools are helpful for
| personal use, but I have less to worry about when using Google
| and Chrome for work.
| monlockandkey wrote:
| I can't believe people don't use Google search and Chromium.
|
| Google search does the job well. Chromium browsers are faster
| than Firefox, equivalent if not better resource usage,
| excellent web compatibility and ecosystem integration.
|
| People want to get stuff done. Yes Firefox and DDG will not
| handicap you, but for the general population, search and
| Chromium do an excellent job over competition.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Well, Chrome is inexcusable because of ungoogled Chromium and
| Chromium Web Store. But Google search still delivers more
| complete results and will be hard to switch from until Bing or
| other competitors improve.
|
| There are entire categories of search I perform on a daily
| basis in which Bing ignores the most relevant result (usually
| from a domain that just doesn't appear on Bing for some
| reason).
| scarface74 wrote:
| I also don't understand "why people still watch TV. I haven't
| watch TV in 20 years" (tm Slashdot 2002)
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Unfortunately quite some things only work entirely on Chrome.
| My default is still Firefox but it's no getting around it at
| times.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I use brave browser for those sites. Alas, it is still chrome
| underneath...
| shultays wrote:
| Unprecedented how? I am sure most browsers do such crap on their
| home page. Even firefox had its "experiments" and pocket
| quyleanh wrote:
| Lol, the advantage of domination?
|
| Tbh, I really want Apple do something innovation for browser.
| However, looking back to Webkit on both iOS and macOS, I can see
| no hope...
| boltzmann-brain wrote:
| I'll go out on a limb and suggest that you might have an add-on
| doing that.
| rany_ wrote:
| But add-ons cannot run on pages in chrome:// namespace
| Nephx wrote:
| No addons, same behaviour in incognito.
| zinekeller wrote:
| Nope, it's really there: https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-
| Google-com.png
| cr3ative wrote:
| Annoyingly, the new tab page used to have an exclusion for these
| "announcements". The flag was removed.
|
| I've ended up installing one of those "inspirational new tab
| page" extensions, just so I don't see an ad. I am sure that means
| someone else is siphoning my data.
| henry_flower wrote:
| use this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blank-
| new-tab-page...
|
| it's just an .html file with an empty body, no tracking & 5
| lines of JS: window.addEventListener("load",
| () => { if (chrome.extension.inIncognitoContext) {
| document.body.style.background = "#53718e"; }
| });
| ecuaflo wrote:
| I like the earth view one [0] and you get to keep your data
| with goog
|
| [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/earth-view-from-
| go...
| sensanaty wrote:
| I use one that just lets me use some custom HTML, I just have
| some plaintext bookmark type links
| ghotli wrote:
| It's a tiny amount of code to write your own new tab page. I
| like mine, it's nice, it's custom to me. This whole story made
| me feel like it's great that I control what makes it to my eyes
| when I open a browser or a new tab
| LoganDark wrote:
| Both in Chrome and Firefox, I always set my new tab page to
| `about:blank`, or in other words, absolutely nothing. Why?
| Because the address bar is all I need to get where I'm going. I
| type faster than I click.
| okasaki wrote:
| There's no setting to set the new tab page in Chrome - not
| even in the policies json.
| LoganDark wrote:
| On Chrome, I had to use an extension that redirects it.
| It's annoying, and overrides the content of the address bar
| if you start typing too quickly -- but it's better than
| ads.
|
| I switched to Firefox earlier this year, but the blatant
| memory leaks are making me strongly consider switching back
| to an old version of Chrome (v70 or so), which did not
| require a monstrous page file to run days or months without
| crashing.
| tyingq wrote:
| There is a setting for what the home icon does, and it
| defaults to new tab...but is settable. Maybe that's what
| was meant?
|
| Edit: See https://imgur.com/a/wQhvFF9
| Olphs wrote:
| There is no home icon in Chrome, at least I don't see it.
| Or is that also some setting?
| abraham wrote:
| It's a setting. You can enable the home button and then
| set it to be a custom address.
| LoganDark wrote:
| The home icon only appears next to the refresh button
| when you have a "home page" configured. It is separate
| from the New Tab page.
| zinekeller wrote:
| Can confirm (https://i.ibb.co/ygp2x49/Fitbit-Ad-Google-com.png).
|
| It actually reminds me of old Google announcing "New! You can now
| search for images" or such except repurposed for things outside
| of Search. The first one is reasonable (there are people that do
| want to search for images or research papers), but the current
| incarnation reminds me of a corporation solely running on
| inertia.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Users are reporting banner ads such as "New! Track your health
| and fitness with the..." below the search box on both google.com
| and chrome://newtab.
|
| Do we know more? E.g. do we know if this is an A/B test or a
| rollout in progress? Where are the users reporting this? Are
| there any screenshots?
| bla3 wrote:
| It's not unprecedented, they did that when Google+ launched too.
| aliqot wrote:
| Stop hitting yourself. Get Lynx.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| uBlock filter for ads on
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Did you see what they did to YouTube? It's now like watching the
| Superbowl. Ads ads ads. I guess they are trying to convert as
| many people as they can to premium. But I think it's also because
| they don't know how to grow their revenue besides displaying more
| and more ads.
| LoganDark wrote:
| The more ads they put in, the more people get an ad blocker, so
| they have to add more ads to compensate.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| uBlock filter for some ads on google.com:
| ##[class*=slot-promo]
| bborud wrote:
| Another incentive to switch to Firefox.
| sjaak wrote:
| Stop using Chrome
| sp332 wrote:
| Firefox has ads too. At least you can turn them off, until they
| add another category and you have to go figure out how to turn
| off the new ones.
| darkwater wrote:
| Having an Amazon and Nike sponsored links in the new tab page
| is having ads strictly speaking but they are nor intrusive
| nor targeting you specifically, so they can be "tolerable".
| To be honest my mind just skip them. The day they change this
| for worse, then I'll complain as well.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| I have never seen ads on Firefox?
| sensanaty wrote:
| I don't think I've ever seen a single ad on Firefox
| (including on any website thanks to uBlock working better on
| FF than anywhere else), what ads are you talking about?
| sp332 wrote:
| I was mainly thinking of the ones on the new tab page.
| Years ago they had "tiles" or something and I turned those
| off, then they added "suggestions" and they're not
| different but the old setting doesn't apply to them.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Pocket.
| sp332 wrote:
| Mozilla owns Pocket.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think his point is that _Pocket_ is the piece of shit
| that pushes the "sponsored" articles people refer to as
| ads.
| bbarnett wrote:
| There are ads in the urlbar, ads on the newtab page, ads,
| ads, ads!
|
| This is on desktop.
| contravariant wrote:
| It's times like these that I'm glad I use about:blank as my
| new tab page.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Glad I'm not alone in this.
| monlockandkey wrote:
| The entire internet discourse is filled with _" Chrome evil,
| use Firefox"_. Go to any browser discussion on the internet and
| 99% of the thread is "just use Firefox or Firefox is the best".
| You would think that everyone uses Firefox.
|
| The internet is a bubble. Reality is Firefox usage is pathetic.
| 32 MILLION people have *STOPPED* using Firefox in the past 4
| years. The browser only has a 3.16% market share.
|
| https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
|
| Chrome is a good browser. Can be considered objectively better
| than Firefox given its superior performance, equivalent if not
| slightly better resource usage, web compatibility and
| integration with the Google ecosystem (which the vast majority
| of internet population use (excluding niche tech circles)).
|
| I have no vendetta against Firefox. At the end of the day, it
| is just a browser and that is a personal preference. But people
| act like it is some sort of saviour that will bring them to the
| light. There is such an aggressive tribal mentality with
| browsers. It makes no sense as all browsers look the same, feel
| the same and have the same functionality. Just a matter of
| preference given your needs, and for 70% of the population,
| Chromium delivers.
| sjaak wrote:
| I know that everything you say here is true.
|
| The niche tech circle you speak of /is/ the audience here on
| HN. If we can't be bothered to stop using Chrome then all is
| lost.
| monlockandkey wrote:
| All is indeed lost!
|
| Browsers are incredibly expensive technologies to produce.
| If Microsoft of all companies could not find success with
| Edge classic, a browser that they wrote from scratch. Added
| with the ability to advertise and bundle with the worlds
| most popular OS, then Firefox has no chance to be the
| bastion against Chromium.
|
| One part of me is curious what a realistic web landscape
| would look like if it was all Chromium (including Firefox).
| I guess at first it would be great to see cool new browser
| APIs, but then something will be added would cause an
| uproar.
| exabrial wrote:
| Who still using chrome? Use safari, brave, or Firefox.
| misnome wrote:
| Firefox has had ads on its "new tab" page by default for ages
| now.
| Daffodils wrote:
| By ads you mean the popular articles from Pocket?
|
| That is an ad for Pocket ?
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Not sure if this is what the GP was referring to, but I
| constantly find Google and Amazon (two sites I almost never
| use) pinned to my frequently accessed sites in Firefox. I
| unpin them, then check all settings for any kind of
| advertising opt, and yet, some month later, they're back.
| bentcorner wrote:
| Are you installing Firefox and signing into them on new
| machines? I don't have hard evidence but I feel like when
| I install FF on a new box and sign in, the pinned sites
| sometimes show up on other machines when everything is
| synced.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Amazon.com is pinned when you install the app
| thejackgoode wrote:
| you can remove them though
| arnaudsm wrote:
| Brave is way worse. They have product ads everywhere, pushed a
| weird crypto scam, and even injected affiliate codes in URLs.
|
| Firefox has ads on their new tab too.
|
| We need better and more respectful competitors.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| I have never seen a 'product ad' anywhere on my brave. Crypto
| got turned off (and i also have an extensive hostsfile for
| that, too). Never seen an affiliate code being injected
| anywhere.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| I'm so tired of seeing people recommend Brave. Firefox is what
| the web needs. Organizational shenanigans aside, Firefox is the
| best browser on the market right now.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I use Vivaldi because about a year ago I realized Firefox
| Android had an issue with smooth scrolling. It would stutter
| a lot. Also, it would reload tabs every time I left and came
| back to one, which is awful.
|
| So I'm using Vivaldi in mobile, and decided to try it on
| desktop too. I like the reading list feature, basically a
| twist on bookmarks.
| firefox_toilet wrote:
| I disagree with a lot of the things Firefox has been doing as
| of late. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZOPESJI2RE
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Mozilla is a Google subsidiary in all but name and has been
| for a while.
| sneak wrote:
| Firefox embeds spyware and advertising. No thanks.
| achenet wrote:
| yeah, except it doesn't work half the time (I have issues
| with it on MS Teams, Outlooks, even Gmail sometimes) the
| Mozilla boss thinks the solution is raise her own pay and
| fire devs.
|
| EDIT: and I should mention that I am a die-hard Firefox
| fanboy, that I've been using it since like Firefox 2 or
| something, and that seeing it fail to properly render certain
| web apps and having to use chromium, which I consider to be
| uglier from a UI point of view as a fallback pains me dearly.
|
| Alas, life ain't always perfect.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| What extensions are you using? I (anecdotally) never have
| any of the issues you describe. And I'm on my computer 12+
| hours per day, most of which is spent galivanting across
| the web in Firefox. Are you using a forked version of
| Firefox?
| achenet wrote:
| ah, good point about the extensions, I do have uBlock
| Origin and NoScript, so it could actually be those, even
| if the latter is basically off 90% of the time... thank
| you for pointing that out ^_^
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It's more a function of the websites you visit. When your
| bank or pay is locked behind a site that breaks on
| firefox... it's hard to keep the faith.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I similarly have had very few issues with firefox and use
| it every day.
|
| I fall back to edge if I have an issue but it's not
| common.
| wooque wrote:
| Brave works, Firefox don't, simple as. I tried Firefox
| numerous times and I always stumble upon glitches, and it
| still measurable slower. Chromium won, deal with it.
| atemerev wrote:
| I don't know, using Firefox for many years (100% of time
| since FF Quantum), never encountered any issues anywhere.
| berkes wrote:
| It isn't slower. Not measurably, nor in feeling. Where do
| you get this?
|
| It's also not faster, if that is what you read in my
| comment: Chrome/ium and Firefox keep improving. And
| depending on what month and what benchmark, one will
| outperform the other. Slightly.
|
| It could be anecdotal? For any of both browsers, though.
| E.g. some plugins/addons will slow down the browser
| significant. Or usage specific? Maybe one handles having
| 2000 tabs open better than the other? Or page-specific?
| wooque wrote:
| >Where do you get this?
|
| By visiting sites I visit often/everyday in both Brave
| and Firefox and comparing DomContentLoaded/Load/Finish
| timings in Developer Tools. Brave (but also Chromium in
| the past when I used it) is consistently faster.
|
| Not much, but I noticed even before I measured, I did it
| to check if my feeling is wrong, and it isn't.
| Taywee wrote:
| What glitches? Can you be more specific?
| wooque wrote:
| It sometimes failed to load reaction icons on Linkedin.
| This was happening for a long time, but seems that either
| Firefox or Linkedin fixed it. I didn't stumble upon it
| recently.
|
| Firefox don't play MKV videos, I use some site that has
| embed MKVs.
|
| Slack calls didn't work on it (they workaround it). But I
| had trouble with other sites that use WebRTC in Firefox.
|
| This is things I recall at this moment, but I don't want
| to have to use backup browser when something like this
| happens, so I use Chromium based browser and get on with
| my life.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| Brave is super shady by default due to their cryptocurrency
| associations, and also has made several questionable
| decisions in the past (see: hijacking your URL bar and
| replacing it with an affiliate link).
|
| Firefox is the superior browser, but if you must use
| Chromium I strongly suggest ungoogled-chromium over Brave.
| bl4ck_goku wrote:
| Also, if you check the changelogs in brave every release
| all you're going to find is "crypto" or "wallet" in each
| of the changelog they mention.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| I don't touch crypto with a 10-foot pole, but it baffles
| me why anyone would care about Brave's "cryptocurrency
| associations". It takes a few clicks, one-time at initial
| install, to completely disable the "BAT" advertiser
| network and all of the crypto ads on the New Tab.
|
| Everything in tech is shady. I think _advertising_ is
| super shady. So I use an ad-blocker and move on with my
| life.
|
| The bottom line is that your choice today is between
| Firefox, and something that is Chromium-based. Mozilla is
| a wreck of an organization, and their browser has
| compatibility issues all over the place because it's just
| not large enough to be relevant anymore (I'm sorry, it's
| true).
|
| So people choose Chromium-based. If you don't want to go
| with Google or Microsoft, then this means you can use
| "ungoogled-chromium" or Brave. Brave is available on all
| devices (Vivaldi doesn't support iOS), and syncs
| bookmarks and passwords across all your devices.
|
| So yeah. It makes a ton of sense for a lot of people to
| gravitate toward Brave. Why do I care whether their
| business model is showing NFT ads to people who don't
| turn that off? Just turn it off.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I have no choice but to use Firefox because I have switched to
| vertical tabs (with Sidebery) and it seems that every other
| browser besides Edge(?!) is stuck with horizontal tabs.
|
| Horizontal tabs are objectively inferior - why are vertical
| tabs so rare???
| Markoff wrote:
| Brave is not customizable at all, Vivaldi is much better.
|
| On the Android phone it's easy choice since only Kiwi Browser
| supports extensions.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Who still using chrome?
|
| According to statcounter[1], Chrome had 65.52% of the browser
| market share in August 2022.
|
| [1]: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
| sshine wrote:
| On my computer, Chrome has a 0% market share!
| can16358p wrote:
| Mine too. But it unfortunately doesn't change the fact that
| Chrome is the most popular browser.
|
| Hope its domination, just like anything Google, ends soon
| though.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| I heard that ad blocking will not work after January. I
| am going to wait until ads actually start appearing in my
| browser again to switch because the internet is full of
| bad information but assuming it actually happens I, and
| all the non tech dependents I influence, will be giving
| Brave a try. I am attracted to it because it says it
| blocks ads by default, however I am concerned because it
| doesn't appear to have even 1% of browser share. I don't
| know where else to go though because Edge...just I can't
| believe myself ever using a Microsoft browser again after
| the IE drama and Firefox is a zombie from a by gone era
| that only exists on the fumes of massive payments from
| Google to prevent anti trust so not worth investing in
| either. Slim options and no clear path forward.
| karussell wrote:
| I just wanted to nit-pick and state that this includes mobile
| (ie. Android) but on Desktop it is not better (67.33%) as
| Safari is not that strong there. And Firefox still loses on
| Desktop (0.5% compared to last year). Wow.
| berkes wrote:
| Safari isn't available for Windows or Linux. So that is one
| important reason for its low desktop usage.
|
| (And which also shows that this "Apple is protecting
| Browser Diversity by not allowing another browser on iOS"
| narrative is wrong: Without even improving Safari, by
| "just" supporting it on Windows and Linux, they would move
| the needle for browser diversity)
| exikyut wrote:
| I think I've been seeing ads for things like the Nest and Pixel
| phones in AU for a few months now.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| Seen it too !
|
| It's strange how our brains work - I actually never look there,
| but somehow I did notice it.
| mort96 wrote:
| I woke up to ads in my new tab page in Firefox yesterday;
| sponsored links to Amazon and Nike.
|
| Browsers don't seem to serve users anymore. They, like everything
| else, are mostly ad delivery mechanisms.
| dsomers wrote:
| Funny you say that, I just opened Safari, no ads.
| tfsh wrote:
| Safaris default new tab page is the Apple store and most
| don't know how to change that.
|
| edit: turns out I was wrong.
|
| 2nd edit: this used to be the case many years ago, thanks for
| those who confirmed
| null_object wrote:
| > Safaris default new tab page is the Apple store and most
| don't know how to change that.
|
| There are a list of alternatives in Safari that _the user
| themselves can choose from_ , including Favorites,
| Frequently visited, and so on.
|
| None of the choices are the Apple AppStore.
| null_object wrote:
| > 2nd edit: this used to be the case many years ago, thanks
| for those who confirmed
|
| No - what other posters 'confirmed' is that _www.apple.com_
| was one of the choices that could be made for a new tab or
| homepage - absolutely not the _Apple store_ as you said.
|
| Worth correcting _yet again_ because of what 's become a
| knee-jerk 'but whatabout Apple?' in comment threads about
| Google on HN.
| tfsh wrote:
| I'd say they are analogous. If I go to apple.com it is
| the definition of an online store, there are a number of
| call to action "buy" buttons with pictures of various
| Apple devices.
|
| I think you're being pedantic if you say apple.com is not
| the apple store. If I wanted to go to the apple store I'd
| go to apple.com.
| johnklos wrote:
| The first part is correct, but the second certainly isn't.
| tfsh wrote:
| Oh forgive me, I've just checked are you're right. The
| new tab page is now frequently visited sites.
|
| Our family Mac we got in ~2011 did show Apple as the new
| tab page, or at least the start page when you opened
| Safari after booting. However this must have changed in
| the last few (read: >5-7) years.
| null_object wrote:
| > Our family Mac we got in ~2011 did show Apple as the
| new tab page, or at least the start page when you opened
| Safari after booting
|
| Pretty certain this is also incorrect.
|
| My recollection seems to accord with the Wikipedia page
| on the history of the Safari browser which (although it
| doesn't itemize the default StartPage for each version)
| doesn't cite any inclusion of an AppStore link, as far as
| I can see.
|
| [O] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)
| yreg wrote:
| Not the "Apple Store", but apple.com
|
| I believe it is correct. It was back when we didn't call
| it a new tab page, but 'homepage' and it was set to an
| actual website.
|
| Of course Safari defaulted to apple.com, what else was it
| supposed to default to?
| cpsns wrote:
| It is correct, back in the Panther days when Safari was
| new the default home page was Apple.com.
|
| I'm not sure how long they did that for, but like you
| said, what else were they supposed to do? It was a
| different time, homepages were treated differently.
| adamking wrote:
| I'm not even sure the first part is. I logged into a
| Guest Account on my Mac and the default for 'New tabs
| open with:' is the 'Start Page', which is a blank page
| with history, bookmarks, frequently visited, etc.
| [deleted]
| xattt wrote:
| Having a home page set to something isn't the same as
| having ads that you can't disable.
| shawnz wrote:
| You can disable the ads in Firefox though
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Librewolf
| HKH2 wrote:
| Well that's a new low for Firefox. I'm a little surprised
| because I didn't think it'd be that quick.
| nicbou wrote:
| Software still serves its users... to advertisers.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Whenever I open a new tab in Firefox it is a blank tab because
| I set New Tabs to Blank.
|
| Wake me when I can't do that anymore (and point me to a decent
| fork).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I'm on 105.0.1 on Linux, and just checked because of this
| discussion. Firefox announced ads on the new tab a while ago,
| and I used about:blank by that time, but I saw the switch to
| turn them off in the settings. Now there are no ads and the
| switch is gone.
|
| Firefox seems to be going everywhere at once, so it wouldn't
| surprise me to discover there is a 105.0.2 with ads, or that
| ads exist on a few regions only. But at least for me, the trend
| seems to be on the other way, they are backing down from that
| decision.
| mort96 wrote:
| This is the screenshot I took this morning:
| https://p.mort.coffee/0Yy.png -- note the sponsored Amazon
| and Nike. It wasn't like that yesterday. I might not have
| restarted Firefox in a little while though, so it might be
| from an update which was released some time in the past week
| or two.
| sophrocyne wrote:
| Annoying, yes. But you can turn them off in the settings page.
| mort96 wrote:
| You can, but it's not about that. Ads don't belong in browser
| UI, full stop.
| laundermaf wrote:
| Browsers used to be paid software.
| animitronix wrote:
| What world are you living in?
| laundermaf wrote:
| Sigh.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/netscape-cuts-
| prices...
| hk__2 wrote:
| > Browsers used to be paid software.
|
| AFAIK the big ones have always been free, except for
| Netscape between 1995 and 1998.
| folmar wrote:
| And Opera 1995-2005 (ads alternative to money since
| 2000).
| laundermaf wrote:
| IE 1.0 was included in a "Windows 95 Plus!" which was
| sold for $50 in 1994; However it was short-lived and it
| was included in later releases of Windows [1]
|
| Netscape was sold for $50 [2]
|
| Opera was sold (can't find the price) [3]
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Plus!#Micros
| oft_Plus!_for_Windows_95 [2]:
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/netscape-
| navigator-2-0-hits-the-streets/ [3]: https://web.ar
| chive.org/web/20081013235150/http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blo
| g/2006/02/15/rendering-engines-and-code-names
| hwestiii wrote:
| Never.
| darkwater wrote:
| Opera was a paid software
| pas wrote:
| why? there's no standard or moral law that says this.
|
| there have been countless examples of watch-ads-get-X
| schemes. I remember back in the dialup era it was seen as a
| way to get online. (then fortunately technology and the
| market progressed and these died out.)
|
| also, let's not forget that the browser market was always
| fucked up.
| gilrain wrote:
| The browser is traditionally the "user agent". An agent
| operating in my interests does not advertise to me.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I personally believe that the goal of ads should not be
| to hook you on new products just because they can. They
| should not be to sell you on a problem that you don't
| have. They should not be to pile on tons of "marketing"
| and look professional and presentable and whatever.
|
| Ads should show you things that you needed anyway; things
| you wouldn't have known to look for, or didn't find when
| you did. Things that actually solve problems that you
| actually have, where you see the utility as soon as you
| see them.
|
| For example, 45drives has their ads down. They contain
| nothing more than a little joke, a product image, and a
| link to their website. You'll know if you need it;
| they're not trying to market to you or convince you of
| anything. They know you will come when you're ready.
|
| Advertising culture is currently extremely hostile and I
| hate it.
| dsign wrote:
| I see the ad, and I'm not amused. I would be more at ease if the
| line said "You know what? We need money after all this browser-
| making. Give us yours and we will let you go on with your day."
| hulitu wrote:
| Stupidity is contagious. If MS does it, why should't Google ?
| twawaaay wrote:
| I wouldn't say it is stupidity.
|
| MS seems to have stopped innovating and exploit as much of
| their business before it dies.
|
| Possibly Google realised the same?
| bbarnett wrote:
| If IBM is any indication, it takes decades for big corp to
| die.
| the100rabh wrote:
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| It was inevitable, you gotta get the infite growth from
| somewhere. Ane the next move will +1 this and so on, until google
| becomes less attractive than leaner competition. Because of
| inertia, legacy and people benefitting from the status quo, they
| won't be able to correct course.
|
| This is textbook "how empire falls" and why things that seem
| indestructible eventually dies like anything else.
|
| This will be the mile stone people will remember as the first
| sign of google decline.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| These days Bing is increasingly my goto search engine, my
| switching costs are essentially zero
| beej71 wrote:
| Bing won't index one of my online programming books (original
| content, no ads, no SEO, all ages, free) for unspecified TOS
| violations that I can't determine. Their algorithm is broken.
| It makes me wonder what other legitimate content they don't
| index.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| I finally got fed up and pay for Kagi. Very happy so far.
| Cents per day is worth it
| DesiLurker wrote:
| I looked it up. honestly $10/month is stupid level pricing
| for un-established product with free competitors. the
| pricing needs to be what can slip below average users pain
| threshold (IMO thats like $2.99/mo but whatever). there is
| a reason most techies have not heard of it yet.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I'm guessing that going from free to $0.01 is the biggest
| hurdle. Once people agree to pay they're willing to pay a
| decent amount.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| actually .01 would not be a problem at all, remember
| initial pricing for whatsapp? the main issue here is its
| value is not yet established. They need to remember that
| they are competing with powerful search engines like
| google and bing so they must rise to the quality first.
| Starting with low price with even just the indication
| that we will charge you more later is good enough, but it
| is imperative that they show value first.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Why not duckduckgo?
| julianlam wrote:
| Because hating on Micro$oft (ha! Remember that?) is a 2000s
| thing.
| berkes wrote:
| Sure. But that does not answer the question. Which is
| "why not duckduckgo?"
| [deleted]
| hgsgm wrote:
| ugjka wrote:
| 98% of time DDG fulfils my needs
| moffkalast wrote:
| That's just yahoo and bing search merged, with some
| graphics to tell you how much they love privacy every 2
| seconds.
|
| It also has a stupid name.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > That's just yahoo and bing search merged,
|
| Given that we're in a thread underneath someone endorsing
| Bing as a good option, that sounds like a plus.
|
| > with some graphics to tell you how much they love
| privacy every 2 seconds.
|
| That is their differentiator, yes.
|
| > It also has a stupid name.
|
| As... Opposed to Google or Bing? _This_ is your argument?
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Given that we're in a thread underneath someone
| endorsing Bing as a good option, that sounds like a plus.
|
| Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman?
|
| > As... Opposed to Google or Bing? This is your argument?
|
| I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What
| kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it
| seriously.
|
| The equivalent there would be GoGoBaby for Google or
| RingADingDing for Bing. I guess GoDaddy is a thing, but
| that doesn't make it any less weird.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman?
|
| Because DDG acts as a privacy screen and doesn't tell
| Microsoft what I personally search for. They are, as you
| note, fairly pointed about this being their purpose.
|
| > I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What
| kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it
| seriously.
|
| It's a play on a commonly-known phrase (duck duck goose),
| and while this is all subjective I don't see how it's any
| weirder than anything else in the space.
| olyjohn wrote:
| People just gotta have excuses to love their favorite
| corp products. People should just own it, but they feel a
| little guilty so they have to find an excuse.
|
| It's like Firefox haters, they find one little bug or one
| negative thing happens, and "Welp, just might as well use
| Chrome." If Firefox isn't 100% absolutely perfect, then
| people say they're clearly just as bad as Google.
|
| They say DuckDuckGo is just Bing, and has a dumb name, so
| it's clearly no better than Google. The truth is that
| they fucking love Google's products, integration and
| ecosystem...
| PeterisP wrote:
| Isn't duckduckgo web search pretty much bing with tiny
| tweaks?
| glcheetham wrote:
| If this harms their business then why would they keep doing it
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Because it helps in the short term, and Wall Street doesn't
| mind destroying companies over the long.
| Bootvis wrote:
| Why blame this on Wall Street?
|
| This idea is the idea of someone at Google, it was
| implemented by someone at Google, the decision to go ahead
| was approved by someone at Google.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The someones at Google are compensated significantly by
| shares of the company, traded on Wall Street, and some of
| them are compensated with even _more_ shares if those
| shares do well.
|
| Pretending the two are at arms length is a bit silly.
| Bootvis wrote:
| Seems to me that the individuals involved would care more
| about getting extra shares than the expected increase in
| share price from this change.
|
| The bonus might be significant, the increase in share
| price might be a percent or 2. Google dishes out this
| bonus, not Wall Street.
| bombcar wrote:
| Harms it long term, makes money short term.
| rixthefox wrote:
| Long term, systemic damage to both product and company
| reputation.
|
| Google Stadia case in point. Nobody serious backed Stadia
| because almost everyone expected Google to kill it off so
| nobody jumped to it and then it was inevitably killed off
| because it didn't bring in the cash Google was expecting.
| Even when the stars had aligned for them with the pandemic
| and supply shortages that should have given them tons of
| players Google just couldn't convince enough people to go
| for it.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if there are high level talks going
| on about the sustainability of some of this exact lines of
| thinking. Chasing growth organically is fine. Artificially
| generating it by shifting costs or cutting corners
| elsewhere to maintain the illusion of growth eventually
| sinks the whole ship.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Nobody cares though. Investors only care about short
| term. When it stops making money they will just move
| their money somewhere else. When you can get out of the
| game at any time there is no incentive to think long term
| for those at the top. The Executives are told to make
| money today. And why not? They will leave soon too. To
| run another company for a few years doing the same thing.
| The only people who are interested in long term viability
| are customers and low level employees. And their opinions
| don't matter.
| is_true wrote:
| The incentives they have are not sustainable
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Say you're a decision-maker at Google (or Any Large Corp).
| You have a KPI to increase revenue by 5% this year. If you
| hit this KPI, then you get a bonus. If you get the bonus,
| then you can afford the thing that your partner has been
| wanting forever (or that will make your neighbours jealous,
| or whatever), and you get a happy life.
|
| You know that doing X will harm the company in the long term
| (defined as anything past your likely tenure in this role, so
| usually 2 years max). But doing X will bump revenue in the
| short term, and get you your bonus and your happy life.
|
| WDYD? Given that to get to a level where you have the power
| to make this decision, you had to have a particular
| personality type and set of priorities, it's extremely likely
| that you decide to do the thing that helps you and hurts
| everyone else.
| public_defender wrote:
| And it's turtles all the way down. Every single incentive
| and system is optimized for some goal like periodic revenue
| increase. It's not one personality type and the desire to
| buy a new car, it's the intentional structure of a public
| corporation. We have high minded ideas about sustainability
| and corporate citizenship, but those views don't drive
| decisions in the bear market.
| ecuaflo wrote:
| or in the bull market. techies are greedy
| public_defender wrote:
| Yes that's true. I just think it's particularly easy to
| forget how your company actually works--e.g. what puts
| the bread on the table--when the markets are high.
| Therefore we see more monetization strategy in this type
| of financial cycle.
| Josteniok wrote:
| I know people that do this very thing but none of them
| admit to themselves that they "know that doing X will harm
| the company in the long term". Instead they create a
| narrative that says "This time it will be different" so
| they don't have to be bothered by any kind of pesky
| conscience. I don't even know if they do this consciously,
| it just seems to happen.
| rolph wrote:
| you kinda described sociopathy
| MarkPNeyer wrote:
| Why do you care if you harm the company long term? It's not
| like you are tied to it's performance forever. When equity
| and labor markets are liquid, why wouldn't you make
| decisions that help you now, and cause long term hurt
| something you have no long term stake in? If you don't,
| your peers will.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Corporations are meant to improve our lives sustainably.
| If all these people can do is extract short term value
| for themselves instead of providing long term value to
| the world, then there's no reason to allow this corrupt
| system to continue. It's pretty screwed up that
| executives can go around chasing infinite short term
| growth and awarding themselves golden parachutes so they
| can jump ship when the problems inevitably start to
| surface. How much destruction can they cause before
| society stops them?
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Because as an executive officer of a company, I am
| supposed to have the shareholder's interests as my main
| priority.
|
| I totally get your point, and I understand the "me
| first!" attitude that it comes from. But we can't have
| nice things if everyone does this.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| How do we fix this loop in companies? It is a very serious
| problem for humanity's future. It exists in government too.
| How do we reward long-term thinking and decisions?
| pfooti wrote:
| That's the neat part, you don't.
|
| The problem, ultimately, cannot be solved without
| disassembling neoliberal capitalism. It is more or less
| endemic to the system. To a large extent that short
| termist, get returns and move on before the cost is due,
| mode of being is how we managed to run an economy that
| requires constant growth (rather than stability) to
| function. It's also why we won't solve any of our climate
| or many social issues.
|
| There's no way to change this without drastically
| restructuring the utility function people apply to
| decisions, and that just won't happen until the aftermath
| of whatever collapse is inevitably going to happen when
| the planet floods.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah. It's wild to see sibling comments thinking that
| it's an exec incentive "problem." No, exec incentives
| align to GOOGL shareholder incentives and GOOGL
| shareholders are pursuing returns at your expense, as is
| their right under capitalism. In theory, competition
| keeps this in check, but we either need to get much more
| serious about encouraging competition or we need to
| figure out a different way to organize control.
|
| Personally I'm a bigger fan of "encourage competition"
| than "reorganize control," at least in the search engine
| market, but I fully agree with you that what we see here
| is the system working exactly as designed.
| kaushikc wrote:
| Short term rewards would need to be less enticing than
| the long term ones. Doing so would involve restricting
| many rights and privileges and people would hate that.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| We are restricting our long term rights and privileges
| though...I know it is hard to get people to see that, but
| that is what is happening.
| Jensson wrote:
| That only works if leadership can spot the difference
| between long term and short term, and more importantly
| that they even cares about it.
|
| "Reward long term" is easier to say than to do.
| achenet wrote:
| build better systems.
|
| Easier said than done, but the basic idea would be
| something like what the Founding Fathers of the US did
| with the Constitution - make a system where incentives
| are set up in such a way as to align success for the
| individual and the group.
|
| If you start a company, you can experiment with
| alternatives to the current "increase da KPI" style of
| organization that is so prevalent nowadays.
|
| I think Steve Jobs was a good example of someone who
| governed by pointing people to a beautiful vision, rather
| than mindless "ya, numbers go up" type thinking prevalent
| amongst investors nowadays.
| Jensson wrote:
| This is essentially what corruption is. Fixing corruption
| is extremely hard, especially when it is less overt like
| this. The main thing you can do is to teach people how to
| spot bad apples and push them out, fire them or in other
| ways punish them and reduce the damage they can do. It
| shouldn't be culturally acceptable to be a bad apple, but
| that requires a cultural change and those are really hard
| to do.
| MarkPNeyer wrote:
| Private ownership of businesses, so long term
| consequences fall on someone with the authority to steer
| them right.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| A lot of the most egregious, society-warping behavior by
| monstrous-sized companies is due to paying execs with
| stock. It was a salary tax avoidance maneuver that
| started in the 80's, and has led to 1) absolute fixation
| on short-term stock price, and 2) (also to that end)
| stock buybacks. Many of our largest corporations have
| used recent stimulus moneys to fund buybacks like it was
| sex or something. All it has been is a transfer of tax
| dollars to the oligarchy, and has "stimulated" nothing.
| We need some laws that do away with the loophole somehow,
| either by not allowing companies to pay people in stock,
| or by taxing the stock on its nominal value when given,
| making it much less attractive as a shell game.
| MarkPNeyer wrote:
| Or we need money they can't be created via debt.
|
| Issuing debt to buy back shares is a strategy that works
| great when interest rates are very very low.
|
| But when the money supply is scarce, only so much
| leverage can exist, so issuing debt to buy shares would
| be far far riskier.
| coredog64 wrote:
| RSUs are taxed as income according to their value on the
| day they vest. Companies can offer employees below-market
| grants, but the difference is recognized as a cost and
| (eventually) has to be approved by shareholders.
|
| Stock options with a strike price below market also have
| tax implications for both the company and the employee.
|
| Equity based compensation essentially comes out of the
| hides of shareholders: As long as they are happy (and
| people aren't playing Thiel-type games), it's not as
| terrible as you make it out to be. There's a limit to
| what buybacks can do to juice prices and equity generally
| puts people into a long term mindset.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| This has also completely messed with startup stock
| options. Because large companies used options to award
| execs with tax-free incentives, and the tax authorities
| didn't like that, we now have to pay tax on the options
| when we get them rather than on the capital gains we
| actually make. And it doesn't solve the problem - execs
| get paid some other way and options are still fubar'd
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| Family owned/controlled businesses think in terms of
| "what will the next generation inherit?"
| visarga wrote:
| It's the alignment problem, but for people.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Nature solved it for us: obsolete things die and are
| replaced by better, new things. Google dying is not a bad
| thing, it's how it's supposed to work. Same for
| countries, religions, and so on. On a different scale.
| becquerel wrote:
| You are assuming that capitalism pushes individual actors to
| act in their own best self-interest. It does not. It pushes
| people to serve capital
| refurb wrote:
| People serve their own self interests in general.
|
| You don't need capitalism for that (as non-capitalist
| systems have clearly shown).
| public_defender wrote:
| I agree with this statement, but it's pretty academic. At
| this stage of the game (metastatic capitalism), people
| aren't generally allowed to have interests that don't serve
| capital. Like, there may be some philosophical "best self
| interest" which is beyond the capture of capital markets,
| but it's not part of our culture.
|
| Besides, look at context. We are talking about what a
| company does and the agents of the company. Of course it
| all collapses to serving capital. I read GP as "why would
| company take short money over long?"
| Euphorbium wrote:
| The first sign was when they killed google reader, like 10
| years ago.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It was obvious to the founders of google before they founded
| google:
|
| > The goals of the advertising business model do not always
| correspond to providing quality search to users.
|
| - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale
| Hypertextual Web Search Engine
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| How would they +1 this? Require users to watch two ads Youtube-
| style before rendering a website? Place a persistent banner ad
| along the bottom of the browser window?
| culturestate wrote:
| _> Place a persistent banner ad along the bottom of the
| browser window?_
|
| No, they'll place it at the top, just like Amp.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I hope nobody at Google sees your post... The web is
| obnoxious enough as it is.
| nipperkinfeet wrote:
| I've seen widgets on the bottom of Google search home page. I
| used uBlock to hide them.
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