[HN Gopher] The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome
___________________________________________________________________
The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome
Author : hydrolox
Score : 444 points
Date : 2025-03-08 12:57 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| lolinder wrote:
| Discussion on the Proposed Final Judgement yesterday:
|
| _DOJ asks for judgement requiring Google to divest Chrome [pdf]_
| (31 points 30 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045
| cagenut wrote:
| good. ublock origin finally stopped working for me two days ago
| and for the first time in like 20 f'n years I got a popup
| yesterday.
| lifeinthevoid wrote:
| Switch to Firefox!
| delduca wrote:
| https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-
| never...
| sejje wrote:
| Switch to lynx!
| protimewaster wrote:
| If someone was previously using Chrome, though, they're
| probably not that protective off their data. So it would
| seem like Firefox is a decent solution even if it is
| selling your data. Google was probably selling your data
| too...
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Maybe but it doesn't affect the ad-blocking abilities of
| Firefox and uBlock Origin. It is a legal document, not a
| technical document.
|
| If you want to go with ethics and trust, I am not
| particular fond of Brave practice of _replacing_ ads for
| some shady cryptocurrency (BAT). You don 't have to do
| that, you can just use it as an adblocking browser, but if
| you don't care about these things, the news of Firefox
| updating some privacy policy shouldn't affect you too much
| either.
|
| Anyways, both Firefox and Brave/Chromium are open source,
| you can see what data is being sent out, and there are
| forks.
|
| And to make things clear, I am not really a fan of Mozilla
| direction, I just switched because Firefox became better
| and Chrome worse in the last years.
| CivBase wrote:
| The point of switching to Firefox is not "Google bad,
| Mozilla good". The point is to chip away at the chromium
| browser monopoly. If you have another non-chromium browser
| to recommend, please share as an alternative.
|
| Mozilla has not proven themselves to be trustworthy, but I
| think most would still consider them to be less
| untrustworthy than Google. Firefox offers similar levels of
| support, feature parity, and performance to Chrome, which
| makes it an easy alternative to recommend. There are
| certainly other non-chromium options worth considering, but
| Firefox is still by far the most accessible.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> feature parity_
|
| No PWA support out of the box last time I looked. And
| Firefox (understandably but annoyingly) doesn't support
| some of the non-standardised Chrome APIs such as the File
| System Access API.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| Not on desktop, but PWA support is there on Firefox for
| Android at least.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Firefox on iOS has no built-in adblocker making it a no-go.
| And I need sync between platforms.
| tmottabr wrote:
| firefox on iOS on most places is just a firefox skin on top
| of safari, since Apple does not let other browsers engines
| in iOS..
| tgv wrote:
| Firefox Focus at least removes trackers. It's a wrapper
| around Safari, anyway.
| nuker wrote:
| I use Wipr in Safari on both, iOS and Mac. Small one time
| purchase each. And i enable only passive filters, not the
| active one, that requires page access.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| Me too. Found out you can reenable it in the extension
| settings.
| delduca wrote:
| Safari + Wipr, 100% adblocking in my experiments.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Safari only exists on the Apple platforms
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Brave is the best option.
| 3836293648 wrote:
| Sure, if you have no morals
| toxican wrote:
| Yet another Chromium browser, you say?
| ksec wrote:
| Just use NextDNS.
| newsclues wrote:
| I don't care that Google, Apple or Microsoft have their own
| browser.
|
| Especially not when there are other third party browsers.
| Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and
| tested with government services.
|
| There are some issues with the big tech giants that is likely
| harmful to consumers and the industry, and I'd welcome anti-trust
| investigations into all of them, but I feel like minor issues
| like browsers is an attempt to pretend like meaningful regulation
| and government control has been applied, while the real problems
| are ignored.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded
| one that was secure and tested with government services.
|
| Yes because the government is so well run with competent people
| waiting in line to join it in the era of DOGE?
|
| Do you think that a web browser would be free of politics?
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| > Especially not when there are other third party browsers.
| Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and
| tested with government services.
|
| Which government, though? The US is mired in corruption at the
| moment, and the UK is taking an extended dump on privacy,
| Russia is ... Russia and China doesn't really believe in
| privacy or freedom of speech, among other things.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > secure and tested with government services.
|
| The same government services that require things like recaptcha
| to work? The situation in the US is far worse than just "I need
| to use a BigTech browser to access government services".
| Springtime wrote:
| Regardless of what happens to Chrome per se it's who is involved
| with pushing for major controversial changes in Chromium that
| matters.
|
| Manifest v3 and Web Integrity API are prominent examples of
| Google's team shaping how all Chromium based browsers will be,
| regardless of pushback (though they relented with the latter for
| now).
| ttoinou wrote:
| Can't any motivated group of developers fork chromium and push
| their own agenda ?
| calcifer wrote:
| That's not relevant. Chrome has the most market share, so its
| decisions become de facto standards. What happens in some
| fork by a 2 men crew doesn't matter.
| nfw2 wrote:
| The cancellation of the web integrity api is evidence
| against this claim.
| calcifer wrote:
| How? Which 2 men crew (temporarily) defeated that API?
| nfw2 wrote:
| The claim I am referring to is clearly that Google's
| decisions become de facto standards.
|
| Your claim that the web integrity API is only temporarily
| cancelled has no evidence supporting it.
| asadotzler wrote:
| No motivated group has the experts to maintain a modern
| rendering engine (tens of millions of lines of regularly
| evolving code) and Google can reject any upstream changes
| that group wants to make because Google engineers are the
| gatekeepers for 97.498% of Chromium code. So, if your agenda
| has anything to do with web content, you take what Google
| hands you. Of course, if you just want to diddle in the
| browser UI, sure fork it, that's the Brave and Opera
| approach, but hardly meaningful in scale.
| hnfong wrote:
| The big players have made the web so complicated that it's
| impossible to maintain one's own standards compliant
| browser without millions of investment, and you don't get a
| business model because everyone else is giving their out
| for "free".
|
| This problem really needs to be fixed, though I have no
| idea how...
| ttoinou wrote:
| Web technologies enable server-client apps that can rival
| desktop apps, and Browsers are almost as complex as
| Operating Systems. What you describe isn't a problem,
| it's made like this because they're very useful and
| complex technology stacks
| conartist6 wrote:
| Millions in investment won't cut it either. You need a
| lot of time in addition to write code that efficiently
| captures the problem
| conartist6 wrote:
| Why does a browser need to be 10,000,0000 lines though?
| It's that the minimum number of lines to capture the
| complexity of a modern browser? I don't it.
|
| And even if there are 10mil lines they shouldn't be a
| monolith
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Manifest v3 is not even breaking any standards. This is like
| saying Google should not make any changes to their browser as
| any forks will not be able to maintain any divergence. All
| forks are free to keep manifest v2. Off course maintaining a
| browser is expensive, but that doesn't mean Google has to foot
| the bill for everyone and everything.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| The standards google bullies us into?
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > All forks are free to keep manifest v2.
|
| In theory, yes. In reality, the more diverged forks become
| from mainstream the more expensive they become to maintain,
| until eventually it becomes entirely unsustainable. With the
| sheer number of Chrome patches Google churns out, the level
| of divergence where maintainence becomes overwhelming is
| actually pretty low. It's like trying to handle Niagara Falls
| with a Solo cup.
|
| So in effect, what Google says goes.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| By that logic google can not make any changes to their
| browser unless all forks agree to it, as the forks will
| definitely not be able to continue maintenance for long. By
| this logic it makes more and more sense to not open source
| anything and keep your product as tightly closed as
| possible (what Apple/MSFT have been doing).
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It's explicitly changes that are a net negative for users
| and privacy (e.g. manifest v3) or try to circumvent the
| web standards process (e.g. WebUSB) that are problematic
| and would be of interest to forks. Most changes are fine.
| bo1024 wrote:
| Of course, we should ask why the web is in a place where
| building a browser is so massively complex and expensive that
| Google and Apple are the only entities in the world who can
| afford to do it.
| lolinder wrote:
| To try to stem the tide of "Trump will just make this go away
| because ${corruption}", I want to remind everyone of a few
| things:
|
| * This is not a Biden-admin lawsuit. It was launched by the first
| Trump admin.
|
| * Of the 14 co-plaintiffs, only 1 (CA) is a state that didn't
| vote for Trump in 2024. The Colorado Plaintiff States include
| another 16 red states, for a total of 29 red states represented.
|
| As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though
| it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what
| it said it would do to satisfy its base. This lawsuit was started
| by them in the first place and if the list of Attorneys General
| is anything to go by has overwhelming support from the base that
| Trump is acting to satisfy. Google's not getting out of this from
| just a small amount of kowtowing now, it's _far_ too late for
| that.
| awnird wrote:
| The tiktok ban was the same way, until it wasn't. Remarkable
| that people are still falling for this.
| lolinder wrote:
| The TikTok ban was overwhelmingly unpopular among several
| important demographics and undoing the ban formed a part of
| Trump's 2024 campaign. His decisions with TikTok this year
| were a reversal from 2020 but entirely expected based on his
| 2024 campaign, so that's not a valid comparison.
| malfist wrote:
| What about all the other times Trump has done something
| like that?
|
| Trump's MO seems to be to take something away, then give it
| back and declare himself the savior of it. Just look at all
| the chaos with tariffs recently
| martinsnow wrote:
| Essentially what you're saying is Google need to tell their
| users they will lose a lot if chrome is sold, and Google
| needs to say a few nice things about trump to get the same
| treatment.
| keepamovin wrote:
| At the risk of smoting from the Google Gods ( I should be
| careful, I make a product that depends on their browser ), I
| think the best thing that should happen to Chrome, if it's
| going to be sold off - is it becomes a "public utility" and
| basically is a model for actually publicly stewarded open
| development. Like maybe what the Mozilla Foundation should have
| been, like what many actual C-based open source OS projects
| seems to be (tho I'm no expert).
|
| Why? Because it's essentially the defacto way/portal/thing to
| access to the biggest source of information humanity has: the
| web.
|
| It's too big and important for any 1 company - tho saying that,
| I'm okay with Windows being owned by Microsoft which is (was)
| basically the same thing in a way.
|
| My unsolicited advice to Google: sacrifice it, focus on AI. To
| all the people on the Chrome team? They should be financially
| taken care of, and should be part of the foundation that
| develops it if they want. The foundation should not be
| controlled by Alphabet, but should be truly public.
|
| This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you
| lot...but it is just an idea.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I'm okay with Windows being owned by Microsoft which is
| (was) basically the same thing in a way
|
| Windows is much worse by most metrics. I can't fork
| Windowsium and build (and sell) my own fully-compatible,
| 99.999999% R&D paid for by Microsoft, OS.
|
| > This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you
| lot...but it is just an idea
|
| It is a bit vague :) In that: who pays for it? Who decides
| what features are in or out? Public utilities are generally
| what we make things when they're feature complete and the
| only challenge is rolling it out as cheaply as possible. But
| it feels like web browsers have a way to go yet. There's
| nothing stopping the US government (or any government) from
| bulding their own browser off Chromium right now. Nothing
| needs selling or splitting.
| keepamovin wrote:
| I think the control should be in the hands of the public.
| Stewarded by a public organization with government funds.
| What do you think?
| creato wrote:
| Good luck paying engineers to work on chrome on the GS
| pay scale, subject to the whims of Elon Musk's DOGE.
| acdha wrote:
| I think you'd have had zero problems having engineers on
| the GS scale prior to November 6th, 2024. No, they
| wouldn't get rich but it's a space full of interesting
| technical and usability challenges and you'd be able to
| work on incredibly high-impact open source projects. Like
| if you simply make it easier for someone
| older/disabled/etc. to fill out forms, make good security
| decisions, find information, etc. literally millions of
| people benefit from that a couple of weeks later.
|
| It'd be neat if the EU picked up the torch here but with
| any government it seems like it'd be better to have a
| non-profit get a block grant so you avoid things like
| those salary issues or other challenges: for example, if
| the EU decided they didn't want to depend on the U.S. for
| critical infrastructure, funding a back-to-its-roots
| Mozilla.org would make it easier for, say, Canada or
| India to join in without the issues you'd have trying to
| directly pay government employee salaries.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Hehehe - government funding doesn't mean government in
| charge. Maybe they only bootstrap it. The right structure
| is possible.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you
| lot...but it is just an idea._
|
| Forgive me for being blunt, but what idea? If the question is
| who is supposed to fund Chromium and Firefox going forward
| then you haven't actually offered any ideas.
| keepamovin wrote:
| It's okay. Yes, it is just an idea, specifically of making
| it public. I think the government should pay for it. What
| do you think?
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Governments are unreliable (e.g. USAID or recently
| disappeared government datasets) and have even more
| conflicts of interest than Google itself (e.g. debates
| around encryption). Many people don't trust their
| government.
|
| Commercial funding is not necessarily more reliable in
| general. Google keeps shutting down stuff all the time.
| But in this particular case, the commercial interest is
| so strong that funding is secure.
|
| In my opinion, governments should focus on natural
| monopolies (taxation, violence, justice, transport
| infrastructure, water, etc) and on areas where there is
| broad consensus for a public option (health, schools,
| etc).
|
| Where governments fund random stuff that few people
| understand the importance of, there is a big risk of the
| whole thing getting DOGEd or starved to stagnation. The
| government would never put up a fight against Apple
| relegating the web platform to the status of a glorified
| document viewer.
|
| In my opinion, the status quo is flawed but the
| alternatives are worse.
|
| If the court decides that Google must "divest" Chrome,
| they will have to say what that means for an open source
| project. If it basically comes down to Google being
| banned from controlling the default search engine setting
| in any web browser, then their main incentive for funding
| Chrome would be gone.
|
| If that happens, the only solution I see is a joint
| "Chrome Foundation" effort funded by a number of
| corporations with a less direct interest in the viability
| of the web, i.e the Linux model. But this would be very
| disruptive. I fear that browser development would be
| aimless and start to stagnate. Other oligopolists would
| quickly take advantage of the ensuing power vacuum.
| keepamovin wrote:
| This is well thought out but possibly too much afraid of
| change. Its ubiquitous utility makes it very likely it
| will be safe. "OpenChrome: the open browser for the open
| web" is a helluva tagline. The right org structure is
| possible.
| 3vidence wrote:
| Agree with another comment that I absolutely do not want
| the US government running chrome at this point.
|
| Maybeee the EU but we are talking about an American
| ruling.
| floydnoel wrote:
| so every 4 years a new group can shift the priorities
| completely and what should be a technical challenge
| becomes a political one, dominated by those with money.
| I'm sure before long you would be required to input your
| government ID to use it. I am not sure a worse idea is
| even possible.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I'm sure before long you would be required to input
| your government ID to use it.
|
| The government does not need to maintain a browser to
| enforce this rule. It would simply tell people that
| logging into the internet requires government ID now, and
| the ISPs would make it so or be shut down.
|
| The government could however, if it maintained a browser,
| _guarantee_ that the internet would be accessible
| _without_ a government ID, just by not putting that
| feature in their browser. A government browser would be
| subject to the constitution, debate, public comment, and
| legislation; rather than having to sue companies to get
| anything done.
|
| Google, Apple, and Mozilla are not protecting you from
| the government. They're intimately financially
| interconnected with each other, and can decide what the
| entire world is going to have to tolerate on the web on a
| group chat. Without government intervention (even if just
| to collect bribes), they'd all just probably merge and
| enslave the planet.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Catastrophizing is possible from any starting point, but
| it doesn't mean much. People change their minds on new
| information - democracy. Stability is possible with
| diversification but ubiquitous utility is its own
| security. Is that ok?
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "It was launched by the first Trump admin"
|
| The first Trump admin was positively benign and adult compared
| to the current one. The first Trump admin had significant
| checks and balances on its behaviours.
|
| And of course almost everyone who served in that first Trump
| admin campaigned against/warned about Trump this time, which
| should be telling. Or maybe they're just "RINOs" or something.
|
| "As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as
| though it's entirely unprincipled"
|
| This administration is extraordinarily unprincipled and self-
| serving. The DOJ as a tool for use at the leisure and to the
| benefit of the president/king is blatantly in the open[1].
|
| "Google's not getting out of this from just a small amount of
| kowtowing now"
|
| I would bet real money they absolutely will get out from this.
| Not only that they will get out from it, they'll get the public
| "treated unfairly" speech as well.
|
| [1] - There is a major plot point in the 1993 movie The Pelican
| Brief where the simple insinuation that the president
| influenced the DOJ in any way would be so politically
| devastating that it would destroy his administration. This is
| so quaint now. How far the country has fallen.
| techpineapple wrote:
| " As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as
| though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing
| exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base."
|
| Most Arguments in both directions are basically unprovable and
| amount to propaganda at this point. Degrees matter. Saying
| "people voted for this", which both sides say with different
| directionality, is mostly away to convince people to either
| support or fight against the administration. Everyone voted for
| their interpretation of thing X, but will oppose it if
| implementation Y causes impact Z which they perceive as bad.
| dartos wrote:
| > it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to
| satisfy its base
|
| Yes and no.
|
| Lots of quick sweeping local changes were promised to specific
| states during trump's rallies in those states only for him to
| go silent on them post election.
|
| I don't think flip flopping on tariffs was part of his platform
| either.
|
| But generally, yes, this is what was voted for.
|
| He takes the gish gallop approach to governing, so it's hard to
| make any large statements like this without being a little
| incorrect.
| ein0p wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think Trump has any sympathy for Google
| whatsoever, given how censorious (and proud of it) it was on
| both Google Search and on YouTube in the 2020 election cycle.
| Good luck, Google, you're gonna need it.
|
| That said, Chrome is not really viable on its own, and it's the
| wrong "split" to enforce. The correct split is "down the
| middle" right through the money-making businesses - create two
| Googles, with their own search and search/web ads and ensure
| (through antitrust oversight) that they compete with each other
| instead of rubbing each other's back. Spin out Cloud and
| Android/Play Store into separate companies. Separate all four
| from Alphabet. The rest of the money-losing properties
| (including Chrome) can be distributed arbitrarily, it doesn't
| really matter.
|
| Or something to that effect. As long as ads are split down the
| middle, and separated from Alphabet, that's all that really
| matters. Unless this happens, any "antitrust" against Google is
| bullshit for those who can't read its SEC filings.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| I suppose a funny, ironic reason people might not know this is
| because of how Google has been able to algorithmically serve
| and reinforce results they already agree with, from profiling
| that it was able to develop through Chrome's dominance.
| re-thc wrote:
| Can Google just "donate" Chrome to a foundation like a lot of big
| companies do to deal with this?
|
| Maybe we'll soon have Apache Chrome!
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| Apache is where projects go to slowly die.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Or Oracle. :D
| ekianjo wrote:
| Really? Airflow, Arrow, Iceberg, Kafka are dying projects?
| jherdman wrote:
| Is this really true? Something that can be supported by clear
| evidence? I've seen this trotted out many times, but it seems
| like there are interesting Apache projects:
|
| https://airflow.apache.org/
|
| https://iceberg.apache.org/
|
| https://kafka.apache.org/
|
| https://superset.apache.org/
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It's superficially true of any large stewardship
| organization. After N years some significant percent of
| projects will be on their way out. These will continue
| accumulating year over year and they potentially won't be
| disposed of for decades (and for good reason).
|
| Meanwhile only a vanishingly small fraction of projects
| remains at the center of public attention for an extended
| period of time. People develop a skewed perspective because
| we interact with many of the most popular projects on a
| daily basis.
| rany_ wrote:
| https://openoffice.apache.org/ is the context in which I've
| seen this saying get regurgitated the most.
| tslocum wrote:
| I wrote about the situation with Apache Open Office here:
|
| https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-
| softw...
| crop_rotation wrote:
| There is no foundation with the budget to even maintain a web
| browser, let alone keep developing. If Google is not footing
| the bill then Safari will become the torch bearer, and Apple
| has no incentive to make Safari become more capable to threaten
| that sweet IAP revenue.
| rchaud wrote:
| Have there been meaningful changes to the browser spec since
| ES2015 support was baked in? Chrome, Safari etc. are not
| developing their browsers for the betterment of the web. One
| company wants to shove ads in your face, the other wants you
| out of the web entirely and into their walled garden of apps
| and ads.
|
| From a security standpoint, I'm sure it's more complicated,
| but UBO and warning dialog boxes about downloading files to
| your device, logging into services without 2FA would probably
| solve a lot of those problems. Does a billion dollar corp
| have to be involved considering how much has gone into Linux
| from people's pro bono efforts?
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Linux kernel gets so so much of corporate support, and is
| still a much more smaller project than any web browser.
| People's pro bono efforts stopped being enough for linux
| about 2 decades ago at the very least.
| bpicolo wrote:
| Do you all forget the web pre chrome? Google and Chrome
| forced browser vendors to do better by standards in the
| first place. Google's stewardship forced browser vendors to
| compete like never before.
| rchaud wrote:
| I don't remember Google doing that. What I remember from
| that time is a browser war happening between the power
| players in mobile with iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
|
| I would attribute the improvement in browser standards
| support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C
| in 2009, which led to browser vendors harmonizing their
| feature set. We still needed jQuery to ensure cross-
| browser support, and floats and polyfills to get sites to
| work on mobile. That ended when browsers harmonized
| ES2015 support and built in support for flexbox and grid.
| re-thc wrote:
| > There is no foundation with the budget to even maintain a
| web browser
|
| There doesn't need to be. Google can keep building it just
| with regulators out of sight.
|
| IBM and lots of other companies "donate" software for similar
| reasons.
| rollcat wrote:
| Like what Mozilla was supposed to be doing all along?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| This is the absolutely dumbest thing that I have read. Who would
| buy Chrome and why? If you just want the codebase, you have
| Chromium. Chrome only monetizes because of ads.
|
| Then what happens to Chromebooks? Can Google no longer ship a
| browser with Android?
|
| Besides, unless you have an Android - which is only 30% of the US
| market or a Chromebook, everyone who uses Chrome went through the
| process of downloading it and made a purposeful choice to use it
| crop_rotation wrote:
| It is dumb and the comments here are baffling. People are
| blaming Google for forks not being able to keep up. Like forks
| can be based on webkit or gecko if they don't like Google. Both
| Apple and MSFT are far far more closed in all their products
| where they have any inertia. Yet Google gets the flame mostly
| because of their incompetent PR and legal execution. Case in
| point Google got flamed here so much for dragonfly, while Bing
| keeps running in China and even sometimes by mistake or not
| applies Chinese sensors to the rest of the world. The sacred
| Apple also works in China following all their laws. But Google
| is worse than both just for attempting dragonfly.
| nfw2 wrote:
| Google lost a lot of goodwill on HN since the proposed web
| integrity api. HN has a strong aversion to perceived attacks
| on the open web.
|
| I personally don't think it's fair to single Google out and
| leave Apple and Microsoft alone. It may be overly cynical,
| but I think Google is in its current situation because it has
| fostered political enemies on both sides.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Google gets this treatment before any talk of web integrity
| API so no that was not it. I don't think this is
| necessarily about political enemies on both sides. Just
| that their PR is just so so bad. Like look at Brad Smith
| and all the big but empty statements he keeps making for
| Microsoft. Google needs someone like him.
| LightHugger wrote:
| Monopolies are at their worst when they use their position to
| make a power play over a market (such as browsers) that isn't
| very profitable on it's own but can be used as a loss leader in
| a wider monopolistic scheme.
|
| This is when antitrust is needed most, by design. There's a bit
| of understanding you need to do, but not only is it not dumb,
| what you said about nobody wanting to buy chrome is actually
| part of the proof of why google needs to be broken up and why
| chrome is an ideal target for doing so. The browser market
| needs to be made competitive again.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So who is going to fund a fully featured browser?
| appleorchard46 wrote:
| It's not like browsers will cease to exist though. If the
| proposed selling of Chrome leads to slower change in web
| specifications (i.e. 'fully featured' browser stuff) I
| don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| How does that help anyone? Firefox only survives from ad
| revenue from Google. Apple had some motivation to keep up
| with Chrome to a point. But wouldn't be motivated from
| competition from Firefox. Apple is much more motivated to
| improve its own platform.
|
| Microsoft definitely doesn't care about the web or even
| its PC operating system much.
|
| So now, no one is pushing the web forward. But Apple,
| Google and Microsoft are still motivated to improve their
| own platforms. While I personally think the modern web is
| a cesspool and I am okay with that as a user, I doubt
| many on HN who care about the "open web" feel that way.
|
| As a developer, I haven't touched the clusterfuck of
| modern web development for over a decade.
| ksec wrote:
| I disliked Google ever since they started their "Do No Evil" PR
| campaign. For as long as I remember I was the extreme rare few on
| internet against them.
|
| And I also disliked Chrome. Especially the direction of the web
| they are using Chrome to push forward.
|
| And I also disliked Electron.
|
| But I am against DOJ forcing Google to sell off Chrome.
| Especially when most of Chrome is open sourced. I think this is
| just plain wrong. Why dont we force Apple to open source macOS?
| Microsoft to Open Source Windows? Or Selling off Office. SpaceX
| to sell its Engine?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence that
| chrome does on global web standards. The app store duopoly
| might come close but still not to the same extent.
|
| Being open source has nothing to do with it. Of course selling
| it off won't necessarily accomplish the desired result since at
| the end of the day it isn't the legal ownership per se that
| results in the influence.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Outsize influence combined with conflict of interest. The
| other branches of Google have too much to gain from being
| able to steer the direction of the web with Chrome, and the
| company as a whole benefits from writing its web apps in a
| way that makes them work better under Chrome, making for
| self-reinforcing hegemony. It's just as bad as MS+IE, maybe
| worse since Chromium/Blink being open source has given them
| plausible deniability that MS didn't have.
| ksec wrote:
| Chrome isn't bundled with Windows, but most Window users
| decided to install Chrome.
|
| While I agree outsized influence that chrome does on global
| web standards, it is not like Apple doesn't or couldn't
| invent something as well. The reality is that no one has the
| incentive to make better web technology.
|
| If Google sold off Chrome, who will buy it? Are Google even
| allowed to make another browser based on same technology?
| What is everyone just installed that again? Selling off
| Chrome doesn't make any sense at all. And as you said. Their
| influence on development of Blink is still, Google.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence
| that chrome does on global web standards_
|
| Besides the renaissance in web interop we've been having
| recently under baseline and Interop, which quite a few
| commenters in this thread seem to have no idea about but
| still feel the need to share their opinion on web
| standards...
|
| That has nothing to do with a search monopoly, which is what
| this remedy is trying to address.
| dartos wrote:
| Electron isn't a google product...
|
| Also why bring up disliking something as though you were ahead
| of the curve only to stop short of actually being in favor of
| taking action?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Electron isn't a google product...
|
| Sure, but it's exacerbating the Blink monoculture anyway.
| tiltowait wrote:
| Concessive openings are a common means to lend extra weight
| to your conclusion. By signaling you're against $THING in
| general, your support for $THING in a particular instance is
| more profound than the support of a person who always
| supports $THING.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Last time the DOJ declared a web browser monopoly, they lost the
| case on appeal, then the web browser does on its own.
|
| The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything
| substantial to lock users into Chrome. The problem is unforced
| errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web
| browsers that aren't worth using.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Safari and Firefox are capable web browsers. Where do people
| get this outlandish take from?
| sebazzz wrote:
| Maybe the actual problem is some people having this
| sentiment.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Can't speak for Safari, but Firefox has never been anything
| but a dumpster fire for me. Constant reminders about updates
| and a UI that slows my computer to a crawl no matter what I
| do. Yes, I open many tabs and don't use a turbocharged
| laptop, but the same applies to my Chrome use with next to no
| problems, so really, fuck you Firefox for not adjusting after
| decades, as per possible user needs. Chrome seems to manage
| it, so why can't the Mozilla people with their own expertise
| and funds?
|
| Many new versions and updates of FF that I've tried have
| claimed to be much smoother and more efficient, only for the
| exact same shit to start happening across the years and
| multiple laptops used.
| jmisavage wrote:
| When was the last time you tried? I have a 2012 Mac mini
| that runs it like a champ and has done so for a very long
| time. I only have a handful of plugins but uBlock Origin is
| one of them.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| several times since 2012. The last of these was just last
| year, on a whimsy in which FF didn't disappoint in by now
| predictably disappointing.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Either you need to service your computer or configure your
| Firefox.
|
| I went back to Firefox about 5 years ago and not even once
| missed Chrome since.
| nradov wrote:
| Why should the user need to do that? The browser should
| automatically configure itself for optimal performance on
| any reasonable hardware.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Because none of what they talk about is a problem. So the
| problem may lay on their side. Or they roll on a half-a-
| decade-old sentiment.
| Twirrim wrote:
| Firefox does, though. There really aren't these wild and
| crazy speed issues with it at all, even with fresh out of
| the box defaults.
|
| The only time I've had to touch about:config in the last
| several years was due to some smartcard related bug
| caused by an external library, that forced me to tweak
| firefox's behaviour. Once that bug was resolved, I
| switched it back.
|
| Firefox being slow is well into the self-perpetuating FUD
| territory.
| geor9e wrote:
| Capable is a interesting word choice. Capable means something
| meets a bare minimum for success. A and B are great. C is
| fantastic. D is arguably first class. E is capable. When
| making a free choice, I want the best one, so any lackluster
| review feels like one of those southern backhanded
| compliments, getting the message across without insulting it
| in polite company. Capable perfectly describes my feelings
| towards Firefox and Safari.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Seeing that Safari doesn't drain my battery on my laptop
| and it doesn't send my search engine to an adtech
| company...
| sneak wrote:
| It does; Google is the default search in Safari.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I meant browsing history. I don't care about my search
| history. Even though these days I use the paid ChatGPT
| with the web search tool most of the time. Google is
| becoming more useless every month
| geor9e wrote:
| Chrome Sync (i.e. saving your history + everything else
| to the cloud so it syncs to all your devices) is an
| optional setting. Microsoft Edge has the same thing under
| another name. Safari does too.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Google also uses your browsing history to create a
| profile for advertising
|
| https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-
| Help/answer/12155451...
|
| And Apple provides end to end encryption of browsing
| history so it can't decrypt your browsing history
|
| https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats
| -in...
|
| > _What's interesting about the Apple decision is that it
| appears to explicitly separate browsing history and
| bookmarks, rather than lumping them into a single take-
| it-or-leave-it package. Apple doesn't claim to provide
| any end-to-end encryption guarantees whatsoever for
| bookmarks: presumably someone who resets your iCloud
| account password can get those. But your browsing history
| is protected in a way that even Apple won't be able to
| access, in case the FBI show up with a subpoena._
| geor9e wrote:
| That's not Chrome's browsing history - that's an ad
| network, adsense, profiling you, via cookies/ip/digital
| fingerprinting, across every website that serves it's
| ads. It's like logging into facebook and saying they can
| see your browsing history - yes some of it, but it's
| because they're watching a server they own serve you
| requests.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The entire idea behind "privacy sandbox" is to create a
| profile of you for advertising based on your browsing
| history and the profile is created by Chrome - without
| being logged in and without cookies.
|
| https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/
|
| More specifically the Topics API
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API
|
| It's opposed by both Mozilla and Apple and is only
| supported by Google/Chrome.
| geor9e wrote:
| Interesting. So the browser knows your browsing history
| like every browser does, but it uses it to share some
| distilled data. Yeah, I definitely don't want that. Looks
| like I already totally disabled it though, so I'm good I
| guess.
|
| Privacy and security > Ad privacy
|
| Ad topics: Generates a list of your interests based on
| your browsing behavior.
|
| Site-suggested ads: Allows advertisers to retarget you
| based on your interactions.
|
| Ad measurement: Enables advertisers to assess ad
| performance.
|
| Toggle each of these settings to "Off" to disable them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yep.
|
| And I slightly misspoke. I said it was only supported by
| Chrome. More accurately, it is supported by Chrome and
| some Chromium based browsers.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Not used Firefox in ages, but what's the matter with Safari? It
| sips battery and cpu cycles on my macs.
| scarfaceneo wrote:
| None. Safari is the best browser I've used by a long margin.
| eitland wrote:
| Safari is really good.
|
| But I have to admit extensions are really lacking, both the
| infrastructure for installing them and which extensions are
| available.
|
| I now use Orion which is based on Safari but has native
| vertical tabs (although not native vertical hierarchical
| tabs, or support for dumping them as markdown).
| 3vidence wrote:
| On the developer side I've always found Safari messy to
| support with out of date APIs
|
| Feels like Apple doesn't really care about it
| AnonHP wrote:
| > The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything
| substantial to lock users into Chrome.
|
| I feel this is meant to trigger people into reacting and
| causing a flame war.
|
| Google has been making its own web properties work well on
| Google Chrome while making them perform poorer or make them
| break on other browsers. Google Chrome optimizes for Google,
| not the web, and certainly not "the open web".
| hypeatei wrote:
| One example of special treatment is Chrome giving
| *.google.com sites access to system metrics for the CPU, GPU,
| and RAM usage[0][1] through a default extension that isn't
| exposed to users.
|
| [0]: https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018
|
| [1]: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main
| :chr...
| DragonStrength wrote:
| Well, last time, the presidential election changed executive
| support as well. That would make this significant since it's a
| new Justice Dept.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This suit began under the last Trump administration. If there
| was a Google-friendly administration, it was Obama's.
|
| What's disappointing to Google is that all of their kowtowing
| to the Biden administration's "content shaping" ended up
| worth nothing in the end. Harris would have rewarded them for
| that help, but Trump of course hates them for it because it
| was largely directed at him.
| rat87 wrote:
| This is plain nonsense. Trump got bad search result because
| he's literally terrible and wholly unqualified to be
| president.
| asadotzler wrote:
| You're so close to getting it. Indeed, the problem with
| monopolies is they make it difficult to create effective
| competitors. And that's precisely why they're not allowed to do
| those things and why Google is in the position it's in for
| doing those kinds of things.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and
| Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using.
|
| This feels like quite an exaggeration. I've used Chromium-
| derived browsers only sparingly in the past decade, with Safari
| and Firefox instead getting the bulk of my usage depending on
| the platform.
|
| Generally if something doesn't work under those browsers, the
| top two causes are unnecessary user agent sniffing with the
| site working fine once I pretend to be Chrome or the dev simply
| not testing against anything but Chrome. It's been vanishingly
| rare that the browsers themselves were the cause of an issue.
| 3vidence wrote:
| (Googler opinions are my own, don't work on chrome)
|
| Chrome has just been a better product for the last 10 to 15
| years.
|
| Every other company has just failed to make a good browser
| because they lack the incentives to do so (have gone back and
| forth as a Firefox user).
|
| The only competitive browsers are those already built on chrome
| or safari.
|
| I'm not personally a big fan of Safari but it's bigger issue is
| that it is only available on one platform whereas the web is
| naturally cross platform.
|
| Almost by definition Safari can't be the "winning" browser.
|
| This feels like ruling that the iPhone is a monopoly in the US
| and that Apple needs to divest from phones.
|
| Edit: to those replying I 100% don't agree with all the decisions
| chrome make, very importantly ad block.
|
| But just survey the actual browser market in the last 10 years to
| understand Chrome's dominance
| pjmlp wrote:
| I am sure folks at Microsoft were saying the same of IE 5 and
| 6, as I was around when it took over.
| 3vidence wrote:
| If I remember my history Microsoft was never actually forced
| to stop integrating IE in their product.
|
| The only reason it stopped being the #1 browser is that
| Chrome came out and was better...
|
| Even though people had to go out of their way to download on
| all computers
| pjmlp wrote:
| Only because the whole thing was shut down when
| administration changed.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_
| C...
|
| Nowadays if it wasn't for Safari, thanks to Chrome and
| Electron garbage, the Web is effectively ChromeOS.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I would love for something to trounce chrome the way it did
| IE, and even FF (which was so slow chrome felt lightning fast
| by comparison).
|
| I'm not optimistic that it'll happen, but I'd still like to
| see it.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It starts by not shipping Electron garbage, and write
| browser agnostic Webapps.
| userbinator wrote:
| For all its warts, I think old IE is still a better option
| than Chrome because at the time of its dominance, Microsoft
| wasn't an ad company interested in collecting every little
| bit of data about you, nor did it own the dominant search
| engine. IE was _just a browser_.
| sneak wrote:
| I'm confused, as a firefox daily driver, why is firefox not a
| good browser? Or are we discounting it because it is funded by
| Google?
| blibble wrote:
| because it can be used to effectively block Google ads and
| tracking
| derkster wrote:
| I'm with you. Every time one of these arguments come up,
| people talk about how Chrome is superior. I've used Firefox
| daily for minimum five years as a daily driver, and it's been
| atleast 3 years since I've had to install Chrome because some
| website specified that it NEEDED a Chromium based browser for
| something specific, I believe it was a Firmware Upgrade over
| USB - through the browser. I split my time between Windows
| and Linux equally, and Firefox is the daily driver on both.
|
| Can someone in this thread who have swapped between
| Firefox/Chrome explain the problems they run into ultimately
| driving them back to Chrome?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I've seen increasing numbers of site breakages in the past
| 6mos. Airline websites that won't let you book, car rental
| websites that won't even load, the persistent PayPal bug
| that requires you to enter a security code. 2fa checks
| _everywhere_. I keep a chromium installed to deal with
| these, but when there 's a decent alternative (i.e. not
| brave) I'll probably drop FF as a daily driver.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It kills my battery on my Mac about as bad as Chrome.
| lima wrote:
| Worse security posture (it took decades to even catch up with
| Chrome w.r.t. sandboxing).
|
| Doesn't want to implement useful standards which I use in my
| own applications (filesystem API, WebSerial, WebUSB...).
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Your employer is constantly adding non-standard shit to their
| browser so instead of making competitive browsers others have
| to either burn cycles on demolishing that bs, or catch up with
| you. You want an example? That command and commandFor bs from a
| couple of days ago.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I am most reminded of all of those, "Whoopsies! Youtube is
| broken on Firefox again. Guess we will look into that in the
| next sprint."
|
| Easy to gain market share when one of the tent pole internet
| services is experiencing regular breakages.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| > But just survey the actual browser market in the last 10
| years to understand Chrome's dominance
|
| I feel like most people here wouldn't understand that to
| inherently indicate superior quality. I'd argue that the
| absolute dominance of Chrome is mostly evidence of the monopoly
| power that Google yields. It got on top via search, becomes the
| gateway to the web for people, leverages that to sell
| advertisement and also convince tons of people to use the
| browser. It's been all leverage.
|
| I'd also disagree on it even being a better browser. Firefox
| has issues, but on actual usability and feeling like a user
| agent, it's head and shoulders above Chrome. It is more
| flexible, more customizable, and I find that it runs
| significantly better on every website that isn't owned by
| Google. If Chrome was a better browser, they wouldn't have had
| to sabotage Firefox on their sites for years
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38349357).
|
| It's Google that can't compete, if they have to use back-
| channels and leverage their other powers to maintain dominance.
| They aren't competing with the product alone.
| borgster wrote:
| It's morning in America - pmarca
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that
| seeks to ban Google from paying companies like Apple, other
| smartphone manufacturers and Mozilla to make its search engine
| the default on their phones and browsers.
|
| RIP Firefox?
| hinkley wrote:
| Ah fuck.
|
| Welp. They had a chance to be default alive and they fucked it
| by trying to spend the money on new initiatives instead of just
| spending the interest payments from an endowment.
| wmf wrote:
| Weren't the new initiatives pretty small compared to Firefox
| development?
| hinkley wrote:
| At the moment when I got upset about this, they were trying
| to do an awful lot, and it felt like the money was burning
| a hole in their pockets.
|
| I know they cut back a little but maybe they've sobered up
| since? Haven't had the heart to look again.
| pavon wrote:
| Yes. And other than Firefox, Mozilla was spending money in
| two ways. First creating new paid products in an attempt to
| have revenue in case the Google money ever went away. None
| of them were successful enough to meet this goal, but it
| was a good goal. Secondly, they spent their charity
| donations on activism work. The way they are structured
| they legally could not spend that money on Firefox. They
| would need to restructure as a non-profit corporation (not
| tax deductible charity) to accept donations to spend on
| Firefox, like their Thunderbird subsidiary. I hope they do
| so now, and at least attempt to support Firefox on
| donations.
|
| The truth is that browsers are a very complicated, very
| quickly moving, and very security sensitive piece of
| software. They spent all that money on Firefox rather than
| saving it because if they didn't Firefox would have fallen
| behind Chrome and Safari and it wouldn't be worth using
| today.
| hinkley wrote:
| I would put that heavily on the "excuse not reason"
| category. The public doesn't understand this nuance and I
| hope you're right about next steps.
|
| It makes no good goddamned sense that money that was
| given in order to be featured in a web browser cannot be
| spent primarily on that web browser, and can only be
| spent on anything _except_ that web browser.
| jcfrei wrote:
| If chrome is no longer owned by Google I'll use it. That's the
| reason I switched to firefox in the first place.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| In my opinion Firefox is better in all the ways except speed
| - Chrome still feels faster on old computers. And I prefer
| the browser market to still have some technical diversity no
| matter who actually runs it.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Ever try installing chrome on an old operating system like
| Windows 7? It doesn't work but if already installed then
| much faster. Wonder upto what version works with win7
| tiberious726 wrote:
| Eh, I tried using Firefox again for a few months when
| manifest v3 was announced, nothing worked quite right, then
| I ran into this: https://madaidans-
| insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Firefox had Servo, a project that among other things
| focused on delivering faster technologies for a web
| browser. They had impressive results (integrated into
| Firefox as Firefox Quantum) but were suddenly fired
|
| At that point I think Firefox lost a vision of a better
| future
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| chrome no longer supports effective ad-blocking extensions.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Isn't that because Google doesn't want them upsetting their
| advertising business. Breaking up seems like it will help
| this
| loeg wrote:
| Sort of. MV3 is less effective than MV2, sure. But it is
| not wholly useless. uBlock Origin Lite exists.
| seam_carver wrote:
| uBO Lite seems to sufficient for like 99% of my usage.
| Only certain websites I'll open up in FireFox with UBO
| full.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Who do you think is going to buy chrome? And don't you think
| they are going to want to recoup their investment?
|
| I suspect chrome will get far less consumer friendly than
| chrome currently is if it is sold.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Some AI company could buy it and add some subscriptions
| based AI services. Or package it with optional but very
| popular and lucrative VPN, etc. There's a lot of potential
| business models apart from feeding advertising algorithms.
| Besides maintaining a browser is not stupendously
| expensive, firefox runs on about $500M in revenue.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Some AI company could buy it and add some subscriptions
| based AI services. Or package it with optional but very
| popular and lucrative VPN, etc.
|
| There are many who already do just this. What extra value
| would they get if they already repackage Chrome for free?
| rollcat wrote:
| Firefox will be just fine. Mozilla CEO bonuses however...
| dralley wrote:
| This is complete nonsense.
|
| I don't love the CEO bonuses, but they are objectively less
| than half a percent of Mozilla's budget. Google search on the
| other hand is 85% of their revenue.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think it's now at 1% $6.3M of $650M revenue which is a
| lot for a CEO failing to keep the company viable from a
| clearly obvious eventuality.
| loeg wrote:
| Maybe they'd be better served with a more effective and
| expensive CEO. It's hard to know.
| rollcat wrote:
| Apologies for the cheap shot at sarcasm, however the point
| I was trying to make is this:
| https://www.jwz.org/blog/2020/09/this-is-a-pretty-dire-
| asses...
| asadotzler wrote:
| Any other CEO with a similarly sized company, revenue
| stream, and user base in Silicon Valley would be making
| 2-3X what Mozilla's CEO makes when you consider total
| compensation.
| infinitezest wrote:
| I recently switched to Vivaldi and have really liked it.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Is it going to support manifest v2 after it is phased out by
| Google or whoever is going to own Chrome?
| tumsfestival wrote:
| Nope. And they're betting on their built-in AdBlock being a
| good replacement for uBlock, even though it's extremely
| basic, more so than uBlock Lite.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| I made that switch quite a few years ago, got sick of dealing
| with extensions and configuring browsers. Vivaldi gives me
| enough out of the box to call it good.
| manquer wrote:
| It will hurt but it won't be their death.
|
| They have been saving up a bit last year if you see the
| financial reports their reserves are just above $1B now and
| there are others who paid in the past (like Yahoo did till
| 2017) who will pay Firefox a decent amount if not like Google
| does .
|
| My guess it is likely be Bing or probably a new generation AI
| company like OpenAI who will replace Google and perhaps even
| pay similar or close to what Google pays. The traffic _is_
| worth a lot. Bing attested to click flow as _the_ reason they
| cannot make a better product in their testimony in this trial.
|
| Also Google will either be allowed to continue the contract
| till its current end (I believe 1-2 more years ) or will pay
| fully and release Mozilla from their obligations (Mozilla is
| not party to the case so early termination without compensation
| would be penalty on them for no reason ).
|
| Mozilla will need to make some significant cuts and layoffs no
| doubt will be hard on the team, but the product will survive.
| delfinom wrote:
| They can start by reducing their CEO salary from _check
| notes_ $6.9 million in 2022. It increased by millions in just
| a decade while their market share declined and they layed off
| hundreds.
| manquer wrote:
| Compensation is complicated and function of value added to
| the organization may not correlate to work put in. I have
| no opinion on what should be cut, just pointing out it
| won't the end of Mozilla without Google deal.
|
| --
|
| For anyone who wants to know what the other side of the
| compensation discussion would go like..
|
| One could argue though the Mozilla leadership has also more
| than quadrupled their revenue from $150M in 2011 to $690M
| in 2024, _despite loosing market share_ , revenue generated
| from their only competitor no less. It isn't a easy job to
| convince your competitor to be your primary source of
| income to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and
| keep increasing that every year.
|
| Yes, Google is not funding the search deal out of the
| goodness of their hearts, but they also don't have to pay
| $500M+ per year to keep Mozilla alive if that is all they
| cared about.
|
| Such a deal doesn't happen without a ton of work by Mozilla
| to build relationships, show value of paying 500M to Google
| etc.
|
| If the leadership can no longer generate the growth/value
| they too will face the music sooner or later. Mozilla still
| would need competent people(this group or another) to be
| able make the deals to pivot to other revenue sources and
| they don't come cheap.
|
| A for profit subsidiary of a non-profit in software world
| will always end up paying what looks like generous
| compensation perhaps even compared to the market for
| similar roles in pure for-profit companies, because unlike
| those companies, Mozilla cannot offer stock compensation on
| top of cash.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Any other CEO in Silicon Valley with similar circumstances
| (25 years experience in tech leadership, increasing revenue
| dramatically despite shrinking market share, negotiating
| successfully with their biggest competitor, etc.) would be
| making $5M-$20M depending on stock compensation, which
| Mozilla does not offer. How does paying less than market
| rates for a CEO help improve Mozilla's lot?
|
| Or are you suggesting that none of these CEOs should be
| compensated at current rates? If so, hate the game and not
| the player my friend.
| _bin_ wrote:
| time to try ladybird haha
| catach wrote:
| I recall it being claimed that Mozilla has the warchest to
| survive at typical spending levels for quite some time, without
| Google.
| pavon wrote:
| If I am reading their financial statement correctly, they
| have about 3 years of runway. $500M/year expenses, $65M/year
| revenue other than search deals, $45M/year interest on
| savings and $1300M assets.
|
| https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-
| fdn-202...
| binarymax wrote:
| Mozilla should have seen this coming and invested in their own
| search and ad infrastructure like Brave. They've had years but
| wasted their time on tiny features like Pocket.
| lewdwig wrote:
| All that rather pathetic grovelling and kowtowing to Trump, for
| naught.
| spamizbad wrote:
| They're still getting a friendlier NLRB, lower corporate tax
| rates, and an economic policy that is less focused on full
| employment; tamping down engineering wage growth
| Muromec wrote:
| They already pivoted to hire offshore workers, so why would
| they care
| relaxing wrote:
| Offshoring as the supposed death of the US software
| developer going on 40 years now remains greatly
| exaggerated.
| jfengel wrote:
| And I still don't understand why. I expected it when I
| started my career, and here nearing the end it's still
| really rare. And it should have gotten easier in that
| time, what with the Internet.
|
| Time zones and culture and language and all that, I
| suppose. But the world is full of very smart people who
| have a decent grasp of American and European culture, and
| would work for a tenth the price.
| Muromec wrote:
| It depends what kind of a company you work for. Something
| like a bank with a lot of boringly tedious stuff on top
| of procedures will have quite a lot of offshore
| contractors. They don't even have to be very smart,
| because truly smart ones decide to move closer towards
| the source of the moneys.
| relaxing wrote:
| It's hard enough to get developers to build what you want
| when they're sitting one cubicle over.
|
| > But the world is full of very smart people who have a
| decent grasp of American and European culture
|
| Haha no. And maybe even more importantly, the Americans
| have zero grasp of theirs.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The suit started under the last Trump administration.
| relaxing wrote:
| And then they did all that pathetic groveling to the Trump
| administration.
| slickQ wrote:
| It may be sold to a Trump insider in the end. First crypto
| and now this.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Do note that this will take years to play out. Nothing is
| certain yet.
| mountainmonk wrote:
| The answer is quite simple, they just need to make a big
| announcement that they will be investing a few billions into
| something that will 'create well paying AMERICAN jobs',
| keypoint is that they need to let Trump announce it.
|
| It doesn't matter if they actually go through with it or
| greatly inflate the number like OpenAI, Softbank and co did.
| modulus1 wrote:
| A company owning a web browser isn't the problem. A company
| owning a web browser, OS and search engine shouldn't be a problem
| either. I don't know why the remedy can't actually address the
| problem, and the DOJ can't move more quickly to address antitrust
| across the industry. This feels like randomly cutting a baby in
| half, while the rest of the thieves, even those in the same
| family, are not deterred.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The problem is an _ads_ company owning a web browser, OS, and
| search engine, and using that control over how users interact
| with the internet to outcompete everyone else. You left out
| Google 's raison d'etre from your statement.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| That is not what is happening. I use Android, Chrome, and
| Google Search because the alternatives are quite poor. All of
| those things work better with alternatives than any
| competition. Android is the most open mobile OS, Chrome is
| the most open and non-coercive browser, Google Search works
| great with all other OS's and browsers.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It doesn't matter why you use any of this software. What
| matters is what it does to the ads market. This is not 1999
| and this is not Microsoft. Google's product isn't software.
| It's the attention of its users.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Google's share of my attention is negligible to the point
| of barely existing when compared to HN, X, YouTube(yes I
| know, but I see no adds because I have premium),
| podcasts, audiobooks and many other things. Even Facebook
| probably takes more attention and I barely use it.
| dathery wrote:
| Isn't "monopolies suppress competition" one of the classic
| reasons people think they should be broken up? I'm not
| saying you have to agree with that theory, but just
| observing a current lack of competition doesn't by itself
| seem like an argument against breakup.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Google is not suppressing competition. There are plenty
| of competing browsers and search engines, they all suck.
| On the Mobile OS side there is less but substantially
| more robust competition, even though I, personally, hate
| iOS. So breaking Google up because of a theoretical
| problem that is refuted by reality is nonsensible.
| dathery wrote:
| > There are plenty of competing browsers and search
| engines, they all suck.
|
| Maybe our difference in viewpoint is that I see this fact
| and wonder why it's seemingly impossible for anyone to
| build a financially viable alternative, and I'm at least
| open to the idea that it's very difficult to compete with
| Google when they can leverage their successful ads
| business to subsidize the investment into their browser.
|
| Yes the alternatives are worse, but is that because
| Google is inherently smarter, or because the newcomers
| have a tiny fraction of the investment and usually fizzle
| out within a year or two? Google doesn't have to be
| actively trying to kill the competitors for it to have an
| anti-competitive effect in the market.
| modulus1 wrote:
| MS and Apple have the same thing, they're just less
| successful. Just a browser and an OS was previously seen as
| antitrust (and it looks like MS is being anti-competitive in
| this space still). Just a browser and a search engine can
| allow anti-competitive behavior. Or just a search engine and
| an ads platform...
|
| The problem is the anti-competitive behavior. Businesses are
| generally rational actors, so clearly our system isn't
| working. It's unclear what the boundaries are until years in
| court, and even then it only applies to a single company.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| MS and Apple aren't companies who sell ads. MS and Apple
| are companies who sell tech products. Everyone analogizing
| the current situation with Google to Microsoft in 1999 is
| missing the core of the facts here. The Apple/Epic Games
| antitrust suits are much more similar to MS in 1999, but
| Google's antitrust issues are very different.
|
| Google's product isn't its software, it's the attention of
| its users. Having this large and this dominant of a
| software/data platform attached to a company that sells
| attention is anti-competitive _in the attention market_.
| ody4242 wrote:
| MS does sell ads, they have an advertising platform.
| theshackleford wrote:
| So does Apple funnily enough so it's a very strange post.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Read MS's 10k and come back and seriously tell me they
| are an ad company. They don't have much ad infrastructure
| (that's outsourced), and they make very little of their
| money from ads. Microsoft is a software company, and some
| of that software is paid for with ads. Google is an
| advertising company.
|
| Incidentally, this sort of proves the point that Google's
| ownership of platforms where ads are displayed puts them
| at an advantage compared to competitors, who have to go
| to people like MS for space.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| A few years ago, one of the bigger points from the apple
| earnings was that its first party ads platform 10x'ed (or
| wtv, can't remember the number) its revenue after apple
| implemented "do not track" app changes.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The US never did anything about Microsoft owning a browser.
| There was never a browser choice screen in the US and
| Microsoft was never forced to sell Windows without a
| browser.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And we are already seeing that people are moving to both
| ChatGPT and perplexity for search. No one is forced to
| download Chrome or use Google for search.
|
| Why is an ads company owning a browser any different than a
| phone company (Apple) or an operating system vendor?
| threeseed wrote:
| > A company owning a web browser, OS and search engine
| shouldn't be a problem either
|
| It is when Google compromises the privacy/security of Chrome
| because of their Ads/OS business.
|
| For example, allowing first party cookies to be a maximum of
| 400 days versus Safari and Firefox where it is 7 days. These
| cookies are required by ads retargeting which is critical to
| effective ecommerce campaigns.
|
| It also supports browser fingerprinting by advertisers which
| means that every random API Chrome adds (and they add a lot)
| directly improves their Ads revenue.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Bingo, time and time again people miss this.
|
| It's already bad enough they are removing ad block
| functionality and then a day later rolling out new ad-free
| plans for YouTube, what a cawinky dink
| jpadkins wrote:
| you didn't state what the actual problem is...
| ronnier wrote:
| It's a big world. Does breaking up google give the Asian giants
| an advantage? Wonder if China breaks up their large tech
| companies?
| manquer wrote:
| Advantage where ? Chinese tech companies are not competing
| outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) .
|
| Global tech companies do not compete in China, the market is
| brutal for non Chinese companies with level of espionage,
| theft, sabotage that is allowed.
|
| It is really small world for big tech, the same 5-10 companies
| dominate most of the world in most frequently used consumer
| products, and using that dominance to crowd out competitors in
| every new product category
|
| (1) which is banned in few major markets like India already
| even if the US reverses the ban
| azinman2 wrote:
| > Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with
| one notable exception of TikTok (1) .
|
| This is absolutely not true. Most phones in Africa are
| Chinese now. Chinese internet companies are all over Asia
| outside of Japan/SK. Chinese cars (EVs, which arguably are
| tech), are now world-wide.
| manquer wrote:
| Tech companies or big tech conventionally usually mean
| software companies.
|
| _Every company_ is a tech company, if you want to be broad
| in your definition, they have to use tech to compete .
|
| Actions on Chinese EV cars are either being seriously
| considered or already in effect in most major car markets.
|
| All phones have been always more or less Chinese made
| forever including Apple, even Chinese badging is how it
| been for low/mid range for 10 years now, maybe Samsung does
| some local manufacturing in SK but no one else major does.
|
| Budget phones or budget EVs with razor thin margins is not
| big tech and no DoJ action to break up Google is going to
| affect the way they are becoming Chinese or already are .
|
| There is reason TikTok is the most valuable Chinese company
| and not a phone company, big tech have big margins and
| strong market effect on their own and not as a group (I.e.
| it would be hard to beat Chinese companies in a space , but
| no individual one (say byd) is irreplaceable by another
| Chinese company
| momo_hn2025 wrote:
| Your words made me picture a typical American tech worker:
| 1.Bashes China with zero facts or sources, parroting English
| journalists who can't read Chinese or grasp its nuances.
| 2.Lacks historical knowledge and critical thinking, clinging
| to a Hollywood mindset--quick to label, slow to question.
| 3.Worships the CIA and FBI, swallowing their propaganda while
| ignoring the obvious: they're the dark forces wrecking the
| world 24/7.
| manquer wrote:
| Who is bashing China here ? You misunderstood my point
|
| Chinese tech giants like Alibaba or Tencent or Baidu are
| just as good as western ones .
|
| Their inability to go global has little do with just their
| technical ability to build products.
|
| It is about whether other countries will be comfortable
| having what they perceive as CCP control in their markets
| particularly when their(ie foreign )companies do not have a
| level playing field in China
|
| It is relatively easy for a country to ban a Chinese tech
| company or EV maker (1)because China doesn't buy much or
| allow foreign companies to thrive to retaliate .
|
| America being the biggest market and importer is the
| contributor to their soft power. This is what Trump is
| (ab)using today.
|
| The tariffs that Trump announced recently on China is not
| getting a lot of attention as North American ones. The last
| trump administration also slapped some tariffs (not
| reversed by Biden) while few industries felt the pain of
| the reciprocal tariffs most of American industry did and
| will do just fine because America does not export as much
| to China, the people pay more of course and suffer
| inflation, but industry will come out broadly fine on
| Chinese tariffs. It is different for North America
| particularly Mexico due to deep integrated supply chain.
|
| Western markets is most important not because of social
| cultural norms it is because it is the wealthiest today.
| Perhaps the global south will restore the balance this
| century but for next few decades that is the reality
| whether we like it not .
|
| PS. My background as an Indian (or India's complicated
| relationship with China) has little do with merits of this
| discussion, the world is not just bipolar, I am well aware
| that our media is just as propagandized as American or
| Chinese ones for that matter, but that is whole different
| topic .
|
| (1) unless the country are not dependent on Chinese loans
| or on raw material export to China which is most of western
| / wealthier market
| rat87 wrote:
| There is no such thing as a global south. There are
| developing countries which have a lot of differences
| between them. And in any case China is not a developing
| country but a middle income country. Many of the so
| called global south countries actually share a lot more
| traits with countries labeled as northern then other so
| called global south
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| Another perspective is Google is stifling American innovation
| by its megalithic presence in markets. Suppressing local growth
| in exchange for short term profitability.
|
| Separately, why is having tech giants a pure advantage? These
| companies got big by innovating, but the innovation slows down
| when they are big. Sounds to me that we should be regularly
| clearing old growth to let new ideas break through
| _bin_ wrote:
| one really easy example is the AI arms race. and make no
| mistake, it is an arms race that matters for maintaining
| global American supremacy and ensuring china stays secondary.
| LLMs are one of the very few recent technologies where the
| marginal cost of a user is well above zero; they require
| colossal build-out of energy and compute. everyone who's done
| a good job with them is either a tech giant or has become one
| in valuation. c.f. how Google specifically has been working
| on TPUs for years, produced solid models with Gemini, and
| offers them for a tiny fraction of the cost of others. having
| a large team experienced with scaling stuff perhaps better
| than anyone else is a good thing and google keeps those
| people paid.
| spease wrote:
| Some things can only be done at scale, or are a side effect
| of solving problems at scale. It's not quite so simple as
| "big is bad".
|
| Also, it's harder for international companies to buy, say,
| Google, than a browser-only company, just through the amount
| of capital needed to put up a credible offer.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| But it also works vice versa. Remember that Google
| literally misses its own ChatGPT while key figures
| literally work at Google.
|
| These trillion-dollar companies only focus on billion-
| dollar markets and kill their own products that are deemed
| unable to scale at a planetary level
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| China is not a democratic country. They don't break up
| companies, they forcefully remove their CEOs from their
| positions, or put them to jail or they can put a bullet to
| their head for disobeying the Party.
| jacksnipe wrote:
| Making the argument that anti-trust is a bad idea because of
| geopolitics seems pretty wild to me.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Wild? Everything is just a tool. If enforcing antitrust harms
| national security then ...
| jacksnipe wrote:
| So the _entire economy_ should be in service of national
| security? That's preposterous.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| I didn't suggest the entire economy. I'm just saying it's
| not _wild_ to consider national security when enforcing
| policies.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| It does but for totally dysfunctional different reasons,
| Emperor Xi fears any underling doing too good as a threat to
| his power and cracks down on entire markets. China has been
| regularly engaged in this sort of outright self sabotage.
| batperson wrote:
| I can't find information on what would happen to Chromium, would
| google need to hand it over too? That's probably more important
| than the fate of Chrome.
| wmf wrote:
| Realistically Chromium is downstream of Chrome and it goes
| where Chrome goes. Chromebooks are somewhat more interesting.
| surajrmal wrote:
| The only thing being specific is chrome the product launches.
| Selling of the pixel phone business wouldn't require also
| selling android for instance, so arguably its the same.
| cubefox wrote:
| Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and
| stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple
| is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing
| installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores.
| Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market
| position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android
| compatibility, and pressuring teens into either buying into the
| Apple or ecosystem or risk being socially ostracized from
| incompatible group chats. It seems to be more that a double
| standard.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Perhaps Apple is next?
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Google is just incompetent at PR and legal. That is how Epic
| won against Google and lost against Apple, even though Android
| is far far more open than iOS.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Incompetency is a blessing for users.
| blueboo wrote:
| Instant, universal, and immaculately-fair is the real
| impossible standard. Your line of thought has long been in the
| arsenal in defense of inaction
|
| let's permit the firefighters to leave the firehouse even
| though they can't tend to all the fires simultaneously
| wmf wrote:
| You're ignoring the antitrust cases against Apple which may
| seek similar remedies.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Epic lost their's, while ironically winning the Google one...
| Where you were always able to install a third party app
| store, they just didn't let you do it through the official
| store.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The iOS app store monopoly is unreal. Epic's case should have
| been a slam dunk, they got removed from the app store by
| offering a discount if people went through their processor
| instead of Apple's, proving harm to the consumer by simply
| expecting less than 30% for simply processing a payment.
|
| People complain about whataboutism, but the Apple versus almost
| any other 'monopoly' is insane. You can switch browsers within
| the next 30s, you can't install an app from a third party
| vendor ever on iOS. [1]
|
| [1] Yes I know you can pay $100 a year, and then compile your
| own/open source apps weekly and move them to your device. No
| this is not a reasonable solution.
| Terretta wrote:
| https://setapp.com/for-ios-developers
|
| (Note that SetApp already enables subscribers to use iOS
| apps.)
| milesrout wrote:
| The difference is pretty obvious, no? Google search and Chrome
| are genuine monopolies: they complete dominate their respective
| markets. Chrome decides which JS APIs and which other HTML
| extensions are available in all browsers. If Chrome implements
| it, all others follow or it is IE6-style "this only works in
| Chrome" for everyone. Notice that every browser's UI has
| followed Chrome. Every browser offers identical webextensions.
| Etc.
|
| For Google search, the quality has gone down enormously and yet
| it has lost approximately 0 market share. It is still utterly
| dominant. This was used to push people to Chrome, and still is.
| It was used to dominate the web ads market. And so on: market
| power used to increase market power in other markets. Classic
| anticompetitive behaviour.
|
| Apple doesn't have anything like a monopoly in any market. Even
| in the US, where their position is strongest relative to
| Android, it still isnt even close to a monopoly.
|
| iOS isn't a monopoly so there is nothing wrong with it being
| locked down. It doesn't pressure "teens" into anything.
| Teenagers will pick up on anything they can to create peer
| pressure themselves. They would just say "lol nice loser
| android phone" when they saw the phone in person anyway lol.
| maxclark wrote:
| First I don't believe this is an effective remedy to break up a
| Google monopoly, but I have no influence on the DOJ.
|
| I'm curious though, if Google can no longer pay browsers for
| search engine traffic what is the business model that will
| sustain development and advancement in the space?
|
| How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue
| development?
|
| What happens to all the applications that rely on Chrome
| extensions?
|
| As much as I dislike Google behavior, I don't see this as being a
| good thing.
| geor9e wrote:
| You call them Chrome extensions, but they're really Chromium
| extensions that work on Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, etc.
| Those teams contribute code to the Chromium open source project
| too. Sure, whoever takes over Chrome won't have Googles
| juggernaut team pushing Chromium development forward, and maybe
| that will lead to degradation over time, but it's not like it
| would cause immediate ecosystem collapse. For all my psychic
| prediction powers know, getting rid of the monopoly could lead
| to a renaissance in browser tech via stronger competition. This
| could go either way.
| nfw2 wrote:
| In the past, too many competing browsers resulted in a
| frustrating experience for web application developers.
|
| Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I'm not so
| sanguine about the alternatives either.
| MyOutfitIsVague wrote:
| It was more than just too many competing browsers, from
| what I understand. It was a few competing browsers that
| interpreted standards completely different, and a standards
| body that was slow enough to be completely ineffective.
|
| I'd argue that the main problem was not too much
| competition, but effective anti-competitive behavior (and
| simple laziness) from Microsoft in particular. The
| frustrating experience was primarily caused by Internet
| Explorer.
| Jensson wrote:
| We will move back to a worse version of that when
| Microsoft buys Chrome, since now Google aren't allowed to
| compete in this space.
| hysan wrote:
| > How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and
| continue development?
|
| Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support
| Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-
| Chromium) based browsers?
|
| As much as I loved Chrome when it first came out, I've also
| been well aware that Google's backing of Chrome (and Chromium)
| has given it undue advantages in the browser market by
| effectively making everyone else compete with a loss leader. If
| Chrome itself cannot sustain its pace of development or even
| stay alive without the unlimited funding by Google, then I
| think that is a good thing and proof that it acting as a
| monopoly. Forcing Chrome to balance product velocity with
| revenue constraints evens the field amongst all browsers.
|
| (edit: If Google killing competition by injecting unlimited
| funding into a project without needing to make a profit sounds
| familiar, it's because they've done this for a long time. The
| often cited example being Google Reader.)
| cvhc wrote:
| > Possibly by trying to find a business model that can
| support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and
| non-Chromium) based browsers?
|
| What would this business model be like, if, say, Google
| Chrome is eliminated?
|
| As a reference, in China, very few people use Chrome because
| Google services are blocked. There are tons of third-party or
| vendor preinstalled browsers that bundles with bloatwares,
| put ads/clickbaits on every new tab, and spy on users. I'm
| pretty sure they are more sustainable than Firefox, former
| Opera, etc. But that's certainly a privacy dystopia :)
| rootsudo wrote:
| That's how it used to be, or did everyone forget Google
| Toolbar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Toolbar It
| sucked in IE days.
|
| But, it also goes back to browsers being built by the
| operating system, that was also a no-no, e.g. MSFT / IE.
|
| Browsers then shouldn't be a profit center, but ironically
| google starting chrome made it one and then defined web
| standards. IE afaik wasn't a profit center, and MSFT hedged
| outsourcing all dev costs to practically google and forking
| it offically to Edge, lol.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| In China, the vast majority of people are exclusively on
| mobile, where they use neither browsers nor even Android
| apps but rather manifold applets that are installed on top
| of a handful of nightmare spyware super-apps like WeChat.
| bsoft16385 wrote:
| Incidentally, WeChat mini apps (and the equivalents in
| AliPay and other services) are essentially specialized
| websites.
|
| WeChat itself on Android bundles a Chromium-based engine
| to run these mini apps.
|
| Most people in China are using Chromium frequently, even
| if they don't think of it as a browser.
| cowl wrote:
| we will end up again with edge being dominant just because
| it's the default one installed by Windows.
|
| what you say is nice in theory but you already have the
| Microsoft backed Edge and Apple backed Safari that are not
| hamppered by the "need to find a support model" and "not be a
| loss leader"
|
| And I am not looking forward again to a world where Microsoft
| disctates web development because for all privacy problems
| peaople have or think to have with Google, Microsoft ha
| proven that does way worse and doesn't even care for the
| image.
|
| All in All Chrome being a loss leader backed by Google has
| been a good thing for all involved. Developers, Users and
| 3-rd parties. without it you woudn't have all those 3rd party
| chrome based browsers.
| philistine wrote:
| The point is simple: Google has a monopoly in search and
| has used its control of Chrome to maintain that monopoly.
| There is no monopoly in browsers, and the DOJ has evaluated
| that selling off Chrome will not adversely affect the
| browser market. If we go from Chrome having 66% market
| share to Edge having 66%, but in the interim the search
| market has seen more entrants competing fairly, wouldn't
| that be a benefit?
| 3vidence wrote:
| Then a year later Microsoft will be sued for anti
| competitive practices involving edge.
|
| If we just keep selling the browser market to the next
| trillion dollar company that's not going to fix anything
| philistine wrote:
| The DOJ logic is its going to fix the search market! Are
| you seriously believing that it will take a year for
| people to give Microsoft a monopoly position in browsers
| (which Google still hasn't achieved) when Google divest
| itself from Chrome?
|
| Get real, the DOJ forcing Google to get rid of Chrome is
| one of the best tech news in years!
| TZubiri wrote:
| But isn't edge built on chromium?
| nfw2 wrote:
| Most of these business models you refer to rely on some
| combination of:
|
| 1. funding from Google (Firefox)
|
| 2. engineering from Google (Chromium)
|
| 3. tech giant bundling (Safari, Edge)
| hysan wrote:
| I'm a bit confused by this comment. I didn't mention any of
| those and didn't callout any specific business models for
| browsers. Just that Chrome would need to figure out how to
| monetize itself like how other browsers are trying to do.
| Diving into the different business models that other
| browsers are trying is a very different conversation that
| needs nuance. For example, how would Brave and Orion fit
| into your remark?
| 3vidence wrote:
| Brave is built on chromium and thus is being subsidized
| by Google
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)
|
| I think they used to have their own engine but like
| everyone else found it unprofitable to maintain.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Similarly, Orion is built on WebKit.
|
| Ladybird might be onto something with the sponsorship
| model, but we'll have to see how it goes in the next
| couple of years.
| hysan wrote:
| I think this viewpoint is too simplistic in that the
| assumption is that if Google has to divest Chrome, then
| there is no benefit to investing in Chromium. I think
| that is too black and white (see my other comment on why
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43306985).
|
| Let's do a thought experiment - If Google truly felt that
| Chromium has no benefit, then smaller players will drive
| the project and, as others have pointed out, new feature
| proposals/implementations will slow down. That isn't a
| bad thing in my opinion because it allows other engines
| to not be stuck in catchup mode. The field will start to
| even out and innovations will start to come from
| alternative engines. With an even playing field, what was
| once an unprofitable endeavor can become a differentiator
| in the browser ecosystem.
| jpc0 wrote:
| If Google is still paying the maintainers of chromium
| what would change in your example?
|
| The real question is what happens when Google stops
| paying Mozilla and Apple unthinkable amounts of money for
| Google search to be the default on their browsers?
|
| It seems clear that Mozilla intends to just become an ad
| company themselves and who knows what Apple's response
| will be, I doubt it's going to be to increase the amount
| of development on Safari vs where they currently are.
|
| So if Google has to effectively divest from Chromium but
| still supports it's development but now isn't paying the
| only two current competitors what is the expected outcome
| there? Whoever now owns Chromium becomes even more of a
| monopoly, and Google doesn't even need to pay them to
| make Google the default for it to be implied they are to
| be the default or the developers go away.
|
| Maybe in the actual long term we will see an improvement
| from this decision, but all I see in the short - midterm
| is more invasive user tracking in all current browsers
| that isn't Safari, which you can only use on Apple
| devices anyway.
| cheriot wrote:
| > like how other browsers are trying to do
|
| Who is the unsubsidized web browser?
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| > Possibly by trying to find a business model that can
| support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and
| non-Chromium) based browsers?
|
| There is no such business model. Chromium development is
| almost entirely funded by Google. Other Chromium based
| browser rely on this humonguous investment of development
| resources; they would not have a "business model" without
| this "free handout", except perhaps Microsoft and Edge, who
| might be able to fund it by doing basically what Google is
| doing.
| Spivak wrote:
| Good? I think sucking the air out of the browser ecosystem
| might be a good thing so they slow their roll. The
| breakneck speed Chrome adds features and devs adopt them is
| part of what makes it so damn expensive to keep up.
| leetnewb wrote:
| I think this could be a double edged sword. Slowing down
| new browser feature/"standards" could allow browser
| competition, yes. On the other hand, people don't
| explicitly need a web browser in 2025 like they did in
| 2015 - many operate mobile-only. Let's say browser
| features additions fall drastically behind native mobile,
| and content publishers progressively limit access to
| native clients only. The web browser market might be more
| free/open/competitive, but it doesn't mean much if the
| market just moves beyond the web.
|
| Does the concept of an interoperable world wide web fade
| into obscurity? In other words, does separating Chrome
| from Google make the web better, or is Google's
| investment in the web holding back the death of the web?
| hysan wrote:
| Not sure how Chromium development relates to the order of
| divesting *Chrome* from Google. AFAICT, Google can continue
| pouring resources into Chromium. Was this an unintentional
| mixup in your comment?
| soerxpso wrote:
| Why would Google pour resources into Chromium if they
| don't profit off of it anymore?
| hysan wrote:
| Great question and one that I hope people would put more
| thought into. Here are two possible reasons off the top
| of my head:
|
| - pushing for web ecosystem features that would help
| their own products (ex: Gmail, docs, etc)
|
| - pushing for web enhancements that back SEO metrics that
| matter to them (ex: core web vitals)
|
| I don't think it's as simple as - no more Chrome == no
| more investment into Chromium because Chrome/Chromium has
| been their strongest lever for getting web features that
| Google wants standardized. Stopping investment in that
| area cedes control of the web to other players who may
| have opposing goals to Google.
| ramses0 wrote:
| When google hit 51%+ of market share in search/mail (back
| in like 2005) they began to just fund "internet access"
| in general. They assumed that new users would put more
| money into googles pockets than other peoples pockets.
| Virtuous revenue circle.
|
| Nowadays (post Omni-bar), one could argue that "the
| internet" is really a captive portal from g-browser,
| g-omnibar, g-search results, g-renderer with "content"
| being significantly funded by g-ads (of which a
| significant portion of _that_ is returned to google for
| search placement).
|
| Take away "any browser at all" and does google then ship
| "Google Electron, powered by Google" that strips the
| Omni-bar and is a desktop client / portal into g-search,
| g-docs, etc... and then close off access to Google apps
| unless through the Google client?
|
| You can't book uber without the uber client, why are you
| able to use Google without the google client?
|
| Provide a read-only HTML4.0 version to plebes with lots
| of popovers and banners saying: "for the best
| experience..."
|
| It's an interesting thought experiment, letting "the
| internet" lie fallow as each proprietary database
| attempts to accrue more content...
| robotnikman wrote:
| At the same time though, being developed under a company which
| derives most of its revenue from ads seems to be a big conflict
| of interest to a free and open web. We have already seen this
| conflict of interest with Manifest V3, which takes away freedom
| from the users, and almost with remote web attestation before
| Google held off it's development due to the backlash (but I can
| see them trying to implement it again while Chrome is still
| under control of Google/Alphabet.) It also doesn't help that
| Chrome and the underlying browser engine powers just about
| every major browser other than Firefox, which is struggling.
|
| So what will sustain the development of browsers like Chrome or
| Firefox? Well that's the big question... Maybe they will
| downsize and become a non-profit similar to the Linux
| Foundation, and receive funding similar to how they do? I can
| see this have the affect of greatly slowing down the
| development of various web standards, but would that be such a
| bad thing?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > what is the business model that will sustain development and
| advancement in the space?
|
| Imagine buying a browser
| john_the_writer wrote:
| I imagine paying a monthly subscription to a browser company.
| Browser365 anyone?
| notatoad wrote:
| in a simple world, a web browser is a tool that is used by an
| end-user, and so end-users should be the ones paying for it.
|
| whether that's directly as paid software, or indirectly as part
| of purchasing a device that has the software installed on it.
| john_the_writer wrote:
| gha.. Another subscription based app. I can see it now:
| 2.99/month.
|
| Also we already have browsers pre-installed. Safari and IE(or
| what ever it's called these days)
|
| There's no call to advance these though. Chrome has profiles.
| That alone makes it a winner for my use case.
| wyre wrote:
| Safari also has profiles...
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I don't _want_ another subscription-based app, but out of
| all the software that brings me actual significant value on
| a daily basis, a web browser is very near the top of the
| list.
|
| Even though getting it free (as I do right now) is nice,
| $36/year seems justifiable.
| notatoad wrote:
| The alternative to paying for things is that giant
| megacorporations who have interests in opposition to yours
| are the ones paying for things...
| sethammons wrote:
| I loath chrome profiles. I use two accounts at the same
| time in the same window, different tabs. I don't want two
| windows. Every.F*cking.Day: "which profile do you want to
| load?". Neither! Leave me alone!
| criddell wrote:
| I'm always a little surprised how we (HN readers) are so
| against paying for software. If any group understands the
| work that goes into major software packages and the value
| we derive from it, it should be us.
|
| Who do you think should pay for it? What is the value to
| them? Do their incentives align well with yours?
| jasode wrote:
| _> I'm always a little surprised how we (HN readers) are
| so against paying for software._
|
| I talked about paying $29 for Opera for web browser
| software before :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16090235
|
| I switched to the free Chrome because it was a better
| browser. Just because I was paying for software doesn't
| mean it's a good situation for me.
|
| _> Who do you think should pay for it? [...] Do their
| incentives align well with yours?_
|
| Even if I (the customer) directly pay for software
| instead of ads indirectly paying, it still doesn't mean
| it's the optimal solution.
|
| I paid $80 for a text editor but after being frustrated
| with bugs in the latest version, I took a serious look at
| the free VS Code. I realized that the editor I was paying
| for had _really stagnated_ and lacking modern features. I
| should have quit funding them a long time ago.
|
| Another example is Quicken home finance software. Kept
| paying $60+ annual renewal fee every year and yet the
| software keeps getting worse. Downloads of credit-card
| and bank transactions randomly quit working. The ledger
| balances on my desktop don't match the balances shown
| online. I had used the software for almost 30 years since
| the DOS floppy disk days and just finally gave up. I look
| at the 1-star reviews of Quicken on Amazon and browse the
| Quicken help forums and everybody complains about the
| same defects.
|
| Often, what happens is companies _don 't respect their
| paying customers_ because they know they're locked in
| because of inertia or sunk costs. They just treat their
| repeat customers as ATM machines and barely improve the
| software. (E.g. They make superficial cosmetic changes to
| UI instead of fixing core engine bugs.)
|
| I'm not convinced paying a subscription for a web browser
| will give me a better browser. Maybe it will. But I doubt
| it.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| I'm convinced subscription software actively makes this
| problem worse: with the old model, the developer had to
| include enough new features and improvements to convince
| you to open your wallet for a large purchase. With
| subscription the developer has no incentive to fix
| anything because the product goes away if you stop paying
| for it.
| bagels wrote:
| Ads!
| surajrmal wrote:
| Get ready for having your data sold to everyone. Rather than
| just a few major players having access, anyone willing to pay
| will get the raw data rather than something obfuscated through
| an ads platform.
| AJ007 wrote:
| There are companies who have actually done this, like the
| whole Avast Jumpshot debacle. They aren't the only ones.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| is there a better way of breaking up the google monopoly?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| First I'd separate Google Search from everything else. Then
| the ad marketplace business. Then YouTube. The others are
| weak enough they could coexist in one organization IMO.
| colinplamondon wrote:
| - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65%
| market share should get a healthy annual payout for default
| search status.
|
| - A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some
| interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of
| attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some
| point.
|
| - As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by
| getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM?
| Or even revshare?
|
| This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search
| engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on,
| with some data sharing provisions to help with development,
| they'd have a huge leg-up.
|
| Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search
| results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can
| monetize SERPs themselves.
|
| My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive
| product execution, given the size of the codebase. Acq
| j16sdiz wrote:
| > - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share,
| 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for
| default search status.
|
| Actually, this is hardly healthy. Firefox feel this single
| source of can be deprived anytime that they tried many other
| alternative -- like VPN, partnership with pockets, some
| sponsor ad on tab selection, and even selling some data
|
| Other browsers go even further..
| BearOso wrote:
| > Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65%
| market share should get a healthy annual payout for default
| search status
|
| I'm thinking 500M/year is enough to pay for a lot more
| developers than they currently have. Even half that should be
| enough to do more than they are. Where is all this money
| going?
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| It's going towards a lot of controversial things unrelated
| to Firefox development or any open source software
| development by any reasonable standard. Here's one attempt
| at breaking down their finances:
| https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-
| invest...
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that
| magicalist wrote:
| > _That was fascinating_
|
| No it wasn't? They itemized some budget items worth less
| than a million dollars in total, and then, for each
| entity getting part of that money they admitted they had
| no idea who they were or what they did for Mozilla (but
| one of them had abortion rights mentioned on their blog!)
|
| Incredibly lazy "expose" trying to be a twitter files.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Why is a company that relies on donations and Google to
| prop them up pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on
| that? That's not interesting to you at all?
| ericjmorey wrote:
| The non-profit owns the for-profit. The for-profit pays
| out profits to the non-profit. Non-profit uses that money
| for things they think are in line with their values.
| Where is the issue?
| colinplamondon wrote:
| - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65%
| market share should get a healthy annual payout for default
| search status.
|
| - A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some
| interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of
| attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some
| point.
|
| - As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by
| getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM?
| Or even revshare on the SEM clicks themselves?
|
| This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search
| engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on,
| with some data sharing provisions to help with development,
| they'd have a huge leg-up.
|
| Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search
| results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can
| monetize SERPs themselves.
|
| My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive
| product execution, given the size of the codebase. Acquiring
| the Browser Company would make a _lot_ of sense.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| Ok, but if Google is not allowed to pay Apple for search
| referrals, how exactly will it be legal for Google to pay
| not-Google-Chrome for search referrals?
|
| Chrome's non-iOS market share is probably larger than
| Safari's market share, so any monopoly considerations about
| Safari apply equally to Chrome.
| 3vidence wrote:
| Quick answer it won't be. Google will be barred from paying
| to be default.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| Yea, that's what I thought. So let's take this one step
| further. If google can't pay Chrome, how does Chrome hire
| developers to continue the product?
| NoahZuniga wrote:
| > Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65%
| market share should get a healthy annual payout for default
| search status.
|
| Google gets other value with this besides being the default
| search engine. Keeping Firefox alive makes it so that Chrome
| is less of a monopoly.
|
| > and an aggressive fork at some point
|
| Maintaining a browser engine is a lot of work. With no clear
| upside, no one would invest the work in maintaining a fork.
| Related to this, Microsoft gave up maintaining a (partially)
| separate browser engine for Edge, and now just uses Chromium
| EE84M3i wrote:
| Google already monitizes Chrome with chrome enterprise
| (premium) and similar offerings for education where Chrome OS
| is used extensively. Schools and enterprises have little choice
| but to buy these to use chrome securely, and they could easily
| move even more of the management features behind these paid
| plans.
|
| They also already charge to be an extension developer and could
| easily charge much more.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Chrome for Enterprise is an add-on for Google Workspaces. How
| does that work if the companies are separate?
| EE84M3i wrote:
| That's true but most of the features are for the chrome
| management panel or client side, which would all presumably
| be separated from workspace and inherited by the new
| company. They could then move features from the free tier
| into the premium tier to put pressure on enterprises and
| schools to pay.
|
| There are some cross-cutting server side features for
| context aware access for google workspace and google cloud,
| which were inherited from beyondcorp enterprise, so those
| would presumably stay with the real google of course.
| ls612 wrote:
| The same way Linux does. By being an independent nonprofit that
| all the big players in the web space fund because it is in all
| of their interests to do so. Whether such a model can work
| without a man like Linus Torvalds though is an open question.
| cavisne wrote:
| Chrome could probably make a huge amount of money by doing what
| people assume Google does but actually doesn't - selling users
| browsing history.
|
| Google uses a complex anonymization/privacy framework to
| collect some aggregate signals from website visits, but they
| don't use it directly.
|
| Regulators don't understand this, and technologists who do tend
| to distrust Google anyway and think they might secretly be
| using it.
|
| There are all sort so other sketchy things, like what Edge does
| injecting itself into websites so Microsoft collects affiliate
| revenue.
|
| There are countries where this wouldn't be allowed, but Google
| is largely self regulating in its biggest market.
|
| All this would lose Chrome some market share but they are
| starting from a very dominant position, and for the general
| public it wouldnt be a big deal - people are already convinced
| that iOS and android devices are listening to them at all times
| for ad targeting!
| grishka wrote:
| Unironically, the world be better off if the "advancement" in
| the space of web browsers comes to an end. This ever-expanding
| scope of what a web browser is "supposed" to do and be is good
| for no one. When it's finite, it's much easier to build a new
| browser engine from scratch. Which is something we should be
| doing much more as a society. To that end, I'm really excited
| about Ladybird.
|
| So, like, let's pick a set of criteria where web standards are
| considered complete, and move towards that. And when we do
| reach it, just stop.
| nuker wrote:
| > what is the business model that will sustain [Chrome]
| development
|
| Separate Search + Google Ads platform as company A, Android +
| Chrome + Gmail as company B.
|
| It will choke the user-data flow that Google Ads platform is
| feeding on. This opens doors to new competing search engines!
|
| Android + Chrome + Gmail needs to be bundled with hardware
| purchases, licensed by HW vendors. Like Apple does with Safari
| + iCloud. This will create incentive to make them actually
| privacy focused, and could be its selling point.
| fny wrote:
| They should have split up ads. Going after Chrome does near
| nothing especially when it's already open source.
| xdennis wrote:
| > How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and
| continue development?
|
| You're literally pointing out the unfair advantage. The better
| question is how can all of the competitors manage? The answer
| is they can't very well because of the unfair advantage which
| Chrome has. If Chrome was split from Google (and Edge from
| Microsoft) browsers would be on a more equal playing field.
| user3939382 wrote:
| If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it's made up of
| teams that specialize in different components. The majority of
| the members of those teams are in turn Google employees.
| Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those
| teams. I don't see how a DOJ decision against Google would change
| any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the
| project? And then who would replace them?
| crop_rotation wrote:
| I am not sure why you are being downvoted. This just means
| existing OS monopolies of Apple and Microsoft are given entire
| control of their kingdoms with no web landscape to challenge
| them a teeny tiny bit.
| wmf wrote:
| All the people who work on Chrome would go with it.
| theptip wrote:
| But we are not discussing Chromium. Google's browser is Chrome,
| and that product has search exclusivity deals that have been
| deemed monopolistic.
|
| Google could divest the Chrome product and keep contributing to
| Chromium, but the value proposition is really unclear when that
| OSS investment doesn't buy you billions of dollars of browser
| lock-in value.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Thus why the Linux Foundation is gunning for Chromium. (When
| do we rename the Linux Foundation? Only 3.2% of their revenue
| goes to Linux development these days...)
|
| https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-
| annou...
|
| https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-
| based...
| rafram wrote:
| > Several leading organizations have already pledged their
| support for the initiative, including Google, Meta,
| Microsoft, and Opera.
|
| Doesn't read like a takeover attempt to me...
| swat535 wrote:
| My question is, even if they do sell off Chrome, wouldn't
| Google just create another "Chrome" using the Chromium and
| use its monopolistic power to push it on everyone? What am I
| missing here?
|
| It doesn't sound like this would solve the issue..
| dehugger wrote:
| Presumably part of the court order is that they can't just
| do the same thing again without suffering the same (or
| worse) consequences.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Are you assuming the people crafting remedies haven't
| thought of this? You should tell them immediately!!! LOL.
| of course they've thought through that and will have a "you
| can't just rebuild it" clause in the remedy. This isn't
| hard unless you're trying to make it hard and I'm not sure
| why anyone would want to do that except to side with Big
| Tech over consumers trying to muddy the waters and convince
| others it's all just too darned hard to do anything about
| so we should let our betters in Big Tech continue dictating
| our lives.
| bo1024 wrote:
| Forcing Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers to move to
| Manifest v3, i.e. deleting the ability from the browser to
| have good adblockers, is incredibly valuable to Google.
| creato wrote:
| I was just forced to switch from uBO to uBO lite because of
| this. I can't see any difference in behavior, and now the
| extension doesn't need unlimited permissions.
| ffpip wrote:
| > CNAME-uncloaking is up to each DNR implementation; no
| DNR implementation supports this capability at the time
| of writing.
|
| https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-
| home/wiki/Frequently-as...
| crote wrote:
| Same way it worked in the past with monopolies like Ma Bell?
|
| Those teams can keep working on Chrome, they'll just have to
| fall under some new kind of separate Chrome Inc. structure
| instead of under Google Inc., and Google will have to sell most
| of its shares of Chrome Inc. to third parties.
|
| Splitting off Chrome really isn't the problem. Making the new
| Chrome Inc. profitable without accepting bribes from big tech,
| on the other hand...
| loeg wrote:
| Yes, that's sort of the problem. An independent Chrome
| probably wouldn't be profitable. This is essentially just
| forcing Google to fire the Chrome developers.
| Clubber wrote:
| >This is essentially just forcing Google to fire the Chrome
| developers.
|
| To be fair, Google could reassign them to something else.
| Firing everybody will be Google's decision that wasn't
| forced on them.
| loeg wrote:
| I don't really know if they would be allowed to divest
| the IP but retain the developers. Maybe!
| asadotzler wrote:
| Of course they could. They could just cancel Chrome, shut
| the whole browser down and reassign all the staff, and
| the DOJ would be fine with that. Cancelling it, or
| selling while keeping 100% of the employees are in no way
| counter to the proposed remedies.
| loeg wrote:
| We don't know what proposals the court will accept.
| asadotzler wrote:
| We know what outcomes the DOJ is proposing and might
| proopose, so we can make pretty good guesses.
| phkahler wrote:
| Microsoft has a customized version of Chrome. Don't they
| already pay for it?
| DoctorOW wrote:
| Yeah, I could imagine Microsoft making a bid. To people
| who don't follow tech product ownership, "Windows comes
| with Chrome instead of Edge" would be good PR and it
| could basically be Edge minus the rebranding.
| forgotTheLast wrote:
| Would love if that also meant no more shovelware features
| to try and distinguish Edge from Chrome.
| AJ007 wrote:
| Thinking about what companies have the adtech
| infrastructure to buy Chrome and make enough money the
| justify a bid high enough than Google just shutting it
| down: Microsoft, Meta/Facebook, Bytedance?
|
| I don't see a real need for Chrome. The stuff they've
| done to break Adblocking makes it pretty much a dead
| project today. Web browser development should be open
| source and not for profit. There is a fair argument that
| it has been because of Google's funding. There's a strong
| argument that Chrome has existed to further Google's
| business and at a minimum protect it's business and
| ensure third parties didn't hijack all of their PPC
| revenue in the early days.
|
| It is easy to foresee an outcome here where someone
| politically connected gets a hold of Chrome and does a
| lot of crap they shouldn't. The worst case outcome is
| unrelated to any of this, and something where we end up
| with government mandated garbage in a web browser. It is
| very possible that DRM and biometric age verification,
| and who the fuck knows what else thanks to AI, could be
| required either by the US or EU, and kill the open source
| web browser. That's worse than anything Google did.
| 3vidence wrote:
| This is just handing over a dominant market to another
| company that has already been sued for anti competitive
| practices in the exact same space.
|
| Make it make sense
| loeg wrote:
| Doesn't Microsoft ownership of Chrome suffer from
| identical antitrust concerns?
| phkahler wrote:
| Short term no. Langer term they would use it to leverage
| other things like Google does. Maybe not advertising,
| although they do seem to be leaning on that now with ads
| in software.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I love how people in this thread just unilaterally declare
| and accept as fact that you can't possibly turn _the
| monopolistic browser and browser engine powering millions
| of devices and with billions of users_ into a profitable
| business. Aim low I guess?
| mattlondon wrote:
| So please enlighten us, how will someone make money from
| the free product that is free and no one pays for because
| it is free?
|
| Selling user browser data obviously won't fly (and note
| that Google has never _explicitly_ nor _directly_ sold
| user 's browsing data as far as I know, but they do have
| a huge ad network that utilises cookies...), so what's
| the plan? Put ads in the browser? "Premium" features?
|
| The only thing I can think of is highjacking links to
| Amazon et al to insert referral codes en masse, or
| selling links/ads on new tab pages.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Why won't selling data fly?
|
| Why not sell premium features?
|
| Why not add affiliate codes to links?
|
| Why not sell ads on new tab pages?
|
| All of these are fine examples of how a not-Google Chrome
| could make money. They could even get paid by Microsoft
| or some other not-Google search for that traffic.
|
| This isn't hard unless you're trying to make it hard to
| convince us all we should just give up and let Google
| continue running our online lives through monopolization.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Why won 't selling data fly?_
|
| > _Why not sell premium features?_
|
| > _Why not add affiliate codes to links?_
|
| > _Why not sell ads on new tab pages?_
|
| Ah yes, would love more of all this in my browser.
| creato wrote:
| You're making a great case for why most people should
| prefer chrome to remain a google product.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Because all of that is super-shady privacy-invading and
| foisting ads and monetisation in places where it wasn't
| before. Enshitification at its most user-hostile. How is
| that a positive to users?
|
| Sounds to me that taking chrome away from Google will be
| a net-negative for the users.
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| Can you change the chromium license so that
| rebranding/embedding/electron usage is now paid.
| Embedding is now a paid feature starting with 10000
| installations. You can make selenium paid after certain
| scale.
|
| The details could be worked out. The idea is to make big
| corporations pay while keeping it free for users.
| timewizard wrote:
| > Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those
| teams.
|
| What exactly are "best qualifications?" More simply are you
| assuming that myself and Google share a definition of "best
| qualified?" I genuinely don't believe that we do.
|
| > And then who would replace them?
|
| People working for a different company. Is your case that
| without Google no one would make web browsers?
| realitysballs wrote:
| Think about difference between Brave and Chrome. Both Chromium
| browsers but Brave is much less intrusive and exploitative of
| user data. More Brave and less Chrome would allow average user
| greater privacy and less reliance on large corporations perhaps
| davidcbc wrote:
| Not sure this is the company we want to put our trust in: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers...
| magicalist wrote:
| Brave makes a profit because they don't pay for developing
| the browser.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| I really doubt Brave is profitable. They have taken a lot
| of VC money.
| creato wrote:
| They also do really shady things with affiliate links and
| their scheme to hijack ad revenue from websites.
| irrational wrote:
| Firefox seems to do fine without Google employees.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Are they?
|
| "When you upload or input information through Firefox, you
| hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide
| license to use that information to help you navigate,
| experience, and interact with online content as you indicate
| with your use of Firefox."
| no_wizard wrote:
| How long is Firefox going to be held to a standard that
| none of the other vendors are realistically held to?
|
| They change their ToS in an unfavorable way and yes I think
| it's criticism they need to hear.
|
| However, has Chrome, Brave (I don't look favorably on their
| cryptocurrency initiatives) Edge , Safari etc. been held to
| the same, in practice? Why isn't Chrome barraged with
| negative sentiment the same way? It has far worse ToS
| policies (which doesn't make Firefox "right" or "just")
|
| Because if that is upsetting then using Chrome should be
| outright enraging, yet people hardly mention it's
| consistent anti user behavior as often as people jump on
| Mozilla and a Firefox for anything they do that is seen as
| unfavorable
| nuker wrote:
| Please don't lump Safari with the rest of them, drunk on
| ad-based revenue.
| jpc0 wrote:
| I don't use Chrome or a Chromium based browser, I voted
| with my feet to the only browser who at least made a face
| value attempt to be better.
|
| Explain why when they changed their stance me holding
| them to a standard I hold all other browsers is now an
| issue.
| eCa wrote:
| I believe that has been changed to something more like:
|
| "You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox.
| This includes processing your data as we describe in the
| Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive,
| royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as
| you request with the content you input in Firefox. This
| does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content."
| icehawk wrote:
| What's the issue here?
| loeg wrote:
| Firefox has been in decline for many years, sadly.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Indeed, it has not had even one moment of market share
| growth since about 8 months after Google Chrome was first
| released.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity.
| (I bet DoJ didn't think about that whammy.)
|
| And start charging for everything else out there like maps,
| street view, and browser. And buy cloudflare while at it. Push
| themselves into everything related to connectivity and internet
| properties.
|
| The search business is the cash flow that is being a thorn in the
| side of Google. And it doesn't even make sense in its vision
| anymore.
| mrweasel wrote:
| You sort of make an interesting point. Google search isn't the
| main product, hasn't been for a decade. Still I don't think
| Google Ads would do amazing without the traffic from Google
| Search.
|
| But it does solve an important problem: Who in their right mind
| would buy Chrome? It's not a profitable business to be in,
| without the surrounding ad business, and in turn the insane
| amount of traffic from Google Search.
|
| Almost by definition, anyone who would be interested in buying
| Chrome and turning it into a commercial product shouldn't be
| allowed to buy it. The only buyer I can imaging is OpenText.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I dont think adwords would stay with Google. It would have to
| be sold with search. The ad network would remain with
| alphabet.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Cloudflare has been a continual breath of fresh air compared to
| Google Cloud and AWS. Please oh please don't suggest selling it
| to google to let it atrophy its way to the graveyard
| nuker wrote:
| > Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private
| equity.
|
| This. If Search + Google Ads is independent from Android +
| Chrome + Gmail, it will choke the user-data flow that Google
| Ads platform is feeding on. This opens doors to new competing
| search engines!
|
| Android + Chrome + Gmail needs to be bundled with hardware
| purchases, like Apple does with Safari + iCloud. This will
| create incentive to make them actually privacy focused, and
| could be its selling point. No need to feed Google Ads with
| data anymore!
|
| Yeah, dreaming.
| nashashmi wrote:
| The doubleclick network would still belong to google. Only
| search would be kept separate.
| nuker wrote:
| I'm not sure what exactly Doubleclick network is, but my
| proposal is - Google keeps Search + all Ads related stuff,
| including whatever doubleclick is.
|
| What Google loses is everything client (user) side: Chrome,
| Android, Gmail and other personal cloud services. Lets call
| it Foogle :)
|
| Foogle can charge Samsung et al. for its Android and
| personal cloud services it is running. And use it in its
| own Pixel devices too. And may elect to make it hard for
| Google to sniff it, like droppung doobleclick cookies in
| Foogle Chrome, provide "Foogle Private Relay", et cetera.
| nashashmi wrote:
| You are proposing Chrome+ Everything Else. DOJ doesn't
| want the Chrome+Search entanglement. So the company
| getting rid of search would be an alternative idea.
| Search would still have the adwords revenue model. But it
| would be separated from the google ad network which is
| adsense and doubleclick. All your data on Chrome/Android
| would still be accessible to Doubleclick and Google for
| personalized ad revenue.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| At this point, tech's major competitors are overseas. Never
| thought I'd be making this argument, but does breaking up the
| search monopoly help America or up and comers?
| jacksnipe wrote:
| I care more about how it affects consumers.
| stuartjohnson12 wrote:
| There are certainly some short term consumer gains to be made
| in decoupling the oppressive monopoly of android, payments,
| chromium, search, and ads. If Google wants to send their search
| experience to shit that should probably be their right to
| mismanage, but the ramming home of Manifest v3 and Google Play
| Protect in the interest of nobody is beyond the pale.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| Let's not turn into game-theory bros here. Despite the
| nationalist, pie-dividing rhetoric the billionaires are
| foisting upon us, it remains favorable to grow the pie with
| competitive markets.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| A bigger pie isn't desirable if most of the slices go to a
| select few. Or to use Lincoln's rising boats metaphor, a
| rising tide isn't great if most boats are full of holes.
| thrance wrote:
| Does upholding monopolies help Americans at all? Do not
| conflate the ballooning wealth of billionaires with any kind of
| improvement in your material conditions.
| loeg wrote:
| Americans marginally benefit from American owned monopolies
| over Chinese owned monopolies.
| thrance wrote:
| How so? They pay almost no taxes, they capture a huge share
| of the market, they stifle innovation, they regularly
| engage in anti-user practices...
|
| The bottom 90% is owning an ever smaller share of the
| economy, while the real economy doesn't seem to grow that
| much.
| ImJamal wrote:
| If a Chinese company has a monopoly you get All those
| things, minus the US jobs.
|
| It seems like you are comparing small companies vs large
| companies, rather than US vs Chinese.
| thrance wrote:
| Ok, well in that case, sure. But the alternative to US
| monopoly is not automatically Chinese monopoly. No one
| was advocating for the destruction of Google in favor of
| Baidu or whatever.
| ImJamal wrote:
| The person you were responding to was explicitly
| comparing US vs Chinese monopolies. Maybe it is a false
| dichotomy, but that was the situation that the post was
| brining up.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Cue the uncountable number of Chinese jobs generated by
| overseas companies / the US monopolies, indirectly or
| directly....
| ImJamal wrote:
| Do you think a Chinese company results in more US jobs
| than a US company?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's not clear that Chinese owned monopolies are any good
| at breaking out. They seem to suffer from the same problem
| as Japan where their market is so unique and insular that a
| lot of products do not carry over all that well.
|
| WeChat, for example, is the end all be all megaplatform in
| China but never took off with any Western consumers simply
| because they're uninterested.
| loeg wrote:
| Alibaba and ByteDance have both successfully broken out.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Two that prove the exception, not the rule. And ByteDance
| isn't meaningfully a monopoly in any sense of that word.
| What are they monopolizing?
| rootsudo wrote:
| It also goes bothends, there were numerous western
| messaging apps that come and go, wechat has been around
| since the AIM and blackberry messenger PIN days. Where
| are those two protocols/messsaging apps now?
|
| It isn't insular, it's just it was the only local
| solution - same for Line having a lock on Japan and
| Thailand but not much of asia, and kakaotalk for Korea.
| dmoy wrote:
| Wechat hasn't really been super popular since AIM days.
| ~15 years ago when I was in China I don't think it even
| existed, and 10 years ago there was significant numbers
| of people using qq still instead of WeChat (or rather not
| in addition to? Lot of people still use both).
|
| I don't think it overtook qq until like 8 yrs ago? At
| which point AIM was already discontinued, and 10 years
| past any kind of popularity.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Have you tried signing up for WeChat? It's nearly
| impossible to get an account.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| In what way, please explain. Both are monopolies.
| Sloowms wrote:
| It's weird to suggest another monopoly will be allowed to
| exist in a thread about breaking up an illegal monopoly.
| Clubber wrote:
| >does breaking up the search monopoly help America or up and
| comers?
|
| Big companies tend to calcify. We can see that in FAMANG's
| products. Big companies can also remove any direct competition
| in multiple ways that smaller companies can't:
| 1. Bankrupt them through frivolous litigation. 2. Buy
| them. 3. Lower their prices so new competitors who don't
| have economies of scale can't be price competitive. 4.
| Propose legislative regulation that they can afford but smaller
| competitors can't. 5. Pay for negative news articles to
| be written against their competition (FUD). 6. Poach
| their talent.
|
| I'm sure there's more. Anyhow, monopoly status generally leads
| to stagnation not innovation.
| p3rls wrote:
| As an American there is nothing I would love to see more than
| Google broken up into a thousand pieces and their stock reduced
| to negative amounts to atone for all the damage wrought upon
| the web in the past two decades.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Agreed. I wouldn't feel this way if they had never had "Do No
| Evil" as an internal mantra. Walking away from that? Well,
| that was the point I removed as much Google from my life as
| possible. I'd be happy to remove the rest.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Maybe, but would another large incumbent necessarily be
| better?
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| The main benefit of having US monopolies is the spying
| capabilities that it enables. No other country ever had such a
| global surveillance network.
|
| For the average American, both the efficient parts of
| monopolies (reduced redundancy which means fewer well-paying
| jobs) as well as the inefficient parts (reduced competition,
| higher prices, reduced standards of living) are net negatives.
| The political influence inherent to monopolies are also a
| negative effect on democracy, whereas foreign monopolies tend
| to have a harder time maintaining political influence.
| bearjaws wrote:
| This is the same commentary we had around the time of the ATT
| break up, and it all worked out fine.
| ThePowerOfDirge wrote:
| It destroyed Bell Labs
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/realestate/severance-
| lumo...
| alex_abt wrote:
| Who does preventing abusive behaviour benefit? Those currently
| being abused.
|
| But doesn't that make room for someone else to come in and be
| abusive? Yes and we have the tools to prevent that, if
| necessary.
| karmasimida wrote:
| On the other hand, keeping all eggs in one basket, which is
| Google, in this case, is unlikely to make it more competent
| against oversea competition anyway.
| tehjoker wrote:
| who care, corporations are not national, they will discard
| their host when they find it convenient
| a2128 wrote:
| Monopolies lead to no competition, leading to reduced
| innovation, economic stagnation, consolidation of wealth and
| power. That directly harms the American people and if left
| unchecked other countries may actually start to get ahead,
| especially if they maintain a fair market environment within
| their own country and ban American monopolies.
|
| If the concern is that people will start using Baidu search,
| then the solution should be to ban Baidu search. It shouldn't
| be to let some monopolies run rampant with the hopes that other
| countries will never be able to compete, while forgetting that
| free market economy is what made America
| username332211 wrote:
| > Monopolies lead to no competition, leading to reduced
| innovation, economic stagnation
|
| That sounds smart, but is it actually true? How many of the
| things enabling the existence of this website are inventions
| made in the research institute of the Bell Telecom company.
|
| On top of my head, there are transistors, C, Unix and a fair
| bit of cryptographical work. I'm sure others can add a lot
| more to the list.
|
| Hell, this website recently carried an article that mentioned
| that the very financial concepts that enable companies like
| Y-combinator to exist were invented by a researcher at Bell
| labs.[1]
|
| [1]https://commoncog.com/cash-flow-games/
| tinktank wrote:
| So sad all that sucking up to the new administration didn't work.
| Oh well...
| epoxy_sauce wrote:
| Ah now I get why Google maps had Gulf of America...
| xnx wrote:
| This is so so dumb and not related to the already dumb monopoly
| ruling.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Who would even buy Chrome? No one's building new browsers, and MS
| even walked away from the browser game. Mozilla and Firefox
| haven't been relevant for a decade. The only buyer I can see is
| private equity, and that's sort of the big boy version of buying
| an abandoned browser plugin so it can track you and show more
| ads.
| mmphosis wrote:
| _No one 's building new browsers_
|
| Ladybird, servo, and Flow are new browsers currently being
| built. These new browsers are not derived from any of the big
| three browser engines: Google Chromium, Apple WebKit, and
| Mozilla Gecko.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines
| john_the_writer wrote:
| Sure, but their standards, and what they support aren't even
| something you can look up. As a JS dev these are the stuff of
| nightmares.
| inetknght wrote:
| Learn to write native applications instead.
| privacyking wrote:
| And native applications on web browsers are programmed
| in...?
| inetknght wrote:
| No. You don't write "native applications on web
| browsers".
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Step 1: Convince your users that they should trust a
| native application that runs outside of a sandbox.
|
| Step 2: Wonder why you don't have more users.
|
| The more applications stay confined inside a browser tab,
| the better.
| inetknght wrote:
| Instead of complaining about native applications being
| outside of sandboxes... try looking at existing sandbox
| solutions. Or, hey, use an open source operating system
| and extend the existing sandbox solutions for whatever
| you think is missing.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| You're trying to present an "instead of" that assumes I
| should _want_ native apps and should jump through hoops
| to find a way to get what I want from apps that aren 't
| designed for it. _I want web apps_ , because they already
| do what I want, and keep getting better.
|
| The right answer to "download our app!" is "no, stay in
| your browser tab".
|
| > try looking at existing sandbox solutions.
|
| I have, quite extensively; virtualization and sandboxing
| are things I have a great deal of expertise in. The best
| available _application_ sandboxing solution that provides
| useful comprehensive APIs is the web. The next best
| solutions are mobile platforms, but that doesn 't help
| laptops/desktops (no, iOS apps on macOS don't count), and
| aren't designed to let the user do things like block ads.
|
| If an application is open, then sure, there are plenty of
| other options. If an application _isn 't_ open, I want it
| contained in a sandbox not of its own making, that it
| can't escape, that provides sufficiently comprehensive
| APIs such that interesting applications get built for it,
| and that keeps the user in control.
| MisterSandman wrote:
| > native applications
|
| ah got it, so instead of writing React Native, I can
| instead learn how to write in SwiftUI for iOS, Kotlin for
| Android and C# for Windows. Easy!
| stock_toaster wrote:
| > Who would even buy Chrome?
|
| You mean.. who would want to buy an app that has 65%
| marketshare?
|
| I just imagine some shady company (shadier than google at
| least) buying it to slap ads all over inside the browser
| itself.
| karencarits wrote:
| Re shady company: the possibility of some shady foreign
| governmental agency getting control of Chrome, through layers
| of shell companies, is terrifying to think about. This
| possibility hasn't been discussed much in this thread,
| perhaps surprisingly. The value of collecting data from or
| inserting backdoors into Chrome seems so massive that I find
| it hard to trust any but the existing large tech companies to
| have the skills and infrastructure to keep it safe (keeping
| the pager bombs story in mind)
| karmasimida wrote:
| No one.
|
| It will be a be new Chrome entity I guess, spun off the Google
| mothership. However, how does it make money is very unclear to
| me, like how? Selling the search bar to highest bidder, a.k.a
| Google still?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I can see a billionaire like Musk wasting some of their net
| worth to play some stupid political theatre.
| stogot wrote:
| I agree there needs to be remedy, but Does chrome have a profit
| without Google? Who's going to buy it? Oracle?
| xyst wrote:
| Google just needs to send the appropriate amount to kleptocracy
| war chest and this will get killed on the backend.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Isn't android like 10 times the problem chrome is?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Always had to. They built Alphabet but its obvious they didnt
| break things up. Whats going to be interesting is how some of
| them will even be able to afford to operate under separate orgs.
| mattlondon wrote:
| So they sell Chrome today and create Ghrome tomorrow?
|
| I can't see Chrome surviving as a standalone product - where is
| the revenue? I am sure someone will buy it and try to create some
| "premium" version, but ultimately it will wither and die I
| expect.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I assume Oracle will buy it and start threatening to change
| APIs and then sell a enterprise version
| asadotzler wrote:
| If the remedy doesn't forbid them from creating Ghrome
| tomorrow, and for many years after, then the remedy is
| seriously flawed. Somehow I doubt that all the people at DOJ
| working on this lacked your insights and failed to consider
| that outcome.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Why should the remedy prevent them creating a new product and
| start again from zero? If people _choose_ to install and use
| it - like they did for chrome - then that is not monopolistic
| behaviour, it is people making a choice.
|
| Is this about breaking Google from a popular browser, or just
| about _punishing_ Google for offering services people find
| useful?
|
| It feels to me that it is more about punishing Google than
| about chrome. Apple and Microsoft seem to be able to get away
| with wat worse with their browsers - literally every time i
| use my win11 laptop it is nagging me to use edge or warn me
| that I should change my default browser to use edge or
| whatever. Apple won't even let you use another browser _at
| all_. But that is somehow fine and allowed?
| colinplamondon wrote:
| - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65%
| market share should get a healthy annual payout for default
| search status.
|
| - A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some
| interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of
| attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some
| point.
|
| - As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by
| getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM?
| Or even revshare?
|
| This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search
| engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on,
| with some data sharing provisions to help with development,
| they'd have a huge leg-up.
|
| Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search
| results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can
| monetize SERPs themselves.
|
| Revenue seems incredibly strong. My question would be whether
| they could get back to aggressive product execution, given the
| size of the codebase.
| smitty1e wrote:
| How about Amazon buying Firefox instead?
| AstralSerenity wrote:
| What a horrifying concept.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Why would you say that? How is the current timeline not already
| shitty enough for you?
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| If Google sells Chrome keeps control over Chromium, I don't see
| this benefiting users. They'll continue with their anti-user
| efforts (Manifest V2 phaseout, Web Integrity), and the only
| difference is that the new Chrome will come with a new set of
| spyware, probably a worse one than Google because no one is in as
| good of a position to benefit from the lock-in as Google does, so
| they have to be more aggressive with their monetization, like
| with ads inserted into pages.
|
| But at the same time maintaining Chromium is a pretty thankless
| endeavor and I don't see any entity with that capability. It's
| much bigger than Linux, and the developers are employees, not
| volunteers.
|
| The best possible outcome I can imagine is if Google is required
| to spin off Chromium into a nonprofit that would be independent
| but they are required to fund it for many years. The nonprofit
| would need some kind of oversight from adversarial companies to
| avoid collusion with Google or any other company.
| kweingar wrote:
| Here's something I don't understand.
|
| If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you
| open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your
| preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the
| conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage.
|
| If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the
| default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result,
| download the installer, run the installer, open Chrome, and set
| it as the default browser. So many users do this that people
| conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage.
| bearjaws wrote:
| The mere existence of a competitor is not the spirit of
| antitrust.
|
| Look at what Google does with Chrome and how it harms the
| internet, they literally just disabled an ad blocker and then
| offered a new tier of ad free Youtube for $8 a month.
|
| Then think about the power it gives them for tracking, remember
| they tried to replace tracking cookies with their own standard?
| guywithahat wrote:
| The counterpoint would be anyone can fork Chrome and put an
| adblocker back in (ie Brave).
|
| I worry as part of Google, chrome is just an open source
| project with profit as a secondary motive, while as it's own
| company they'll probably try to make it more profitable and
| it'll become worse and closed down.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| If it's so unprofitable why have they spent, what, nearly a
| year now in court trying desperately to keep it? Have you
| genuinely never heard of a loss-leader?
|
| Across their entire buffet of products, many of which are
| free at point of use like Chrome is, they advertise Chrome.
| That the internet is better with Chrome. That their
| products are better with Chrome. Do you really believe this
| is genuinely just because they also make Chrome, and are
| jazzed about that fact?
|
| The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells me
| it's an even better idea to make them sell it.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| > The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells
| me it's an even better idea to make them sell it.
|
| If your goal is nothing deeper than to hurt Google, sure.
| Otherwise, this logic is far from complete.
| m4rtink wrote:
| That's the same argument as with Android - its open source,
| anyone can fork it and change whatever they don't like!
|
| And its flawed in the same way - first its not fully open
| source (IIRC Crhome has some proprietary bits that are not
| in Chromium, same with Android+Google Play services vs
| AOSP) but good luck maintaining your fork for any length of
| time!
|
| Google is in full control of both Android and Chromium with
| all decisions happening behind closed doors with zero
| leverage for anyone from the outside to influence those
| decisions. So as with Manifest v3 now and many similarly
| bad decisions for Android, once Google selects a course, it
| will be harder and harder over time to keep your changes if
| you still want the end result to look like what the users
| will see as Chrome/Android.
|
| And I would say with a browser the pressure to update would
| be even greater & thus its even harder to keep any
| signifficant custom changes.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| On the one hand you're positing that Chrome can just live
| on independently from Google. That 's what "anyone can
| fork" means to me. Forking is not just copying the code,
| but maintaining the project and keeping it relevant
|
| On the other hand you worry that Chrome can't go on without
| Google, as it currently doesn't bring enough money and
| needs to be a market abuse tool to justify the costs.
|
| In a very real way, I think if the situation is unsolvable
| letting Chrome die and be born again could be the only long
| term solution. It would be painful, but we're already
| bleeding.
| guywithahat wrote:
| Sure, but there's a difference between Brave existing as
| its own company and the government forcibly coming in and
| breaking up a company.
|
| I think it's good for the market that some players are
| fully independent, and others are part of massive
| conglomerates.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You seem to be disagreeing that what Google does is
| problematic, let alone illegal in the first place ?
|
| I can see it as an opinion, but that changes the whole
| discussion IMHO.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| So many problems would be solved if the selling of data about
| people was regulated to a degree that it ceased to be
| profitable. Many "free" things would go away, but none of
| those are actually free, the price is just hidden.
| braiamp wrote:
| > If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the
| default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result,
| download the installer, run the installer, open Chrome, and set
| it as the default browser. So many users do this that people
| conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage.
|
| Most of that advantage comes from an unfair practice, of Google
| making consumers think that their choice of browser was in
| someway inferior (which could be true) and thus they should
| prefer Chrome (which is not true). If Chrome won market
| dominance using this method, then it becomes an unfair
| practice. Same thing with Microsoft Edge, Apple's App Store,
| etc. You can't use your market power in one market to influence
| another.
| spoaceman7777 wrote:
| That's just simple advertising though. Nearly every company
| is selling their product as being superior to some set of
| competing products, at whatever their price point is.
| mqus wrote:
| it would be, if chrome would pay for this ad (and other
| browsers can compete for the spot). But it doesn't (can't?)
| and that is exactly what is wrong here.
| acdha wrote:
| Did Chrome pay for the ad placement on Google's sites?
| Could Mozilla or Microsoft buy the same spots? Could they
| pay YouTube to keep the site faster for them than
| standards-compliant browsers?
|
| If the answer to any of those is no, it's more than simple
| advertising.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Yes. My biggest gripe with Google is that they prop up
| unprofitable products with their wildly popular product.
| It makes competition impossible. YouTube is the perfect
| example.
|
| I feel like it should be illegal to use your profits in
| one industry to run a loss leader in a totally separate
| industry.
| notpushkin wrote:
| > I feel like it should be illegal to use your profits in
| one industry to run a loss leader in a totally separate
| industry.
|
| There's nothing wrong with running a loss leader, only
| with squeezing everybody else out.
| acdha wrote:
| I think the key part is "separate industry" - Google
| should have had to restrict Chrome promotion to what was
| available to other browser vendors (e.g. not the Gmail
| login page because they don't sell ad space there).
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| >Most of that advantage comes from an unfair practice, of
| Google making consumers think that their choice of browser
| was in someway inferior (which could be true) and thus they
| should prefer Chrome (which is not true).
|
| Are you sure that the advantage came from marketing? In my
| mind the advantage was that Chrome really was faster for
| example due to V8. Also can you explain why the "thus they
| should prefer Chrome" reasoning is flawed?
|
| Personally, I haven't seen Google act in a way that prevents
| competition in the browser space (ie. being anticompetitive).
| If anything, Windows is more anticompetitive because it is
| closed source, making it much more difficult to create a
| competing product. All the web specifications are completely
| free. And Apple is the only vendor that prevents browser
| competition on their platform, although Windows does give you
| a popup telling you not install Chrome.[0]
|
| The Google search agreements between Apple and Google seem
| more likely to be anticompetitive.
|
| [0] Searching for Google Chrome with the default Bing search
| engine with the default Edge browser gives you this result:
|
| >Promoted by Microsoft
|
| >There's no need to download a new web browser. Microsoft
| recommends using Microsoft Edge for a fast, secure, and
| modern web experience that can help save you time and money.
|
| See also _Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse
| Edge instead of Chrome_ -
| https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-
| wind...
| viraptor wrote:
| It's mostly marketing. Google spent lots of money both for
| external marketing and for Google-property banners that
| advertise Chrome. There were years you basically couldn't
| visit a popular website without being told to install
| Chrome. Then there were billboards and paper ads on top of
| that.
|
| There were feature differences for sure, but the marketing
| did a massive amount of work in this case. If people
| switched for features, all that spending for years wouldn't
| be necessary.
| tester756 wrote:
| On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled
| timeflex wrote:
| On Windows 11, Edge is preinstalled and can't simply be
| removed either. Furthermore, it constantly bugs you about if
| you're sure you don't want to enable their recommended
| settings, which ends up re-enabling all the
| analytics/rewards/etc.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| What it would take to get them punished again...
|
| The edge situation is a mess for sure, and Microsoft seems
| to have such a perfect understanding of the current
| judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines
| without any consequences.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Significant market share, which is something they don't
| currently possess.
| timeflex wrote:
| > have such a perfect understanding of the current
| judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines
| without any consequences
|
| More like they have their hands in creating the current
| judiciary climate. Kind of hard to file suit against
| someone who is intertwined with the agencies that would
| investigate them.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| In Europe, you can now fully remove Edge from Windows 11,
| and it doesn't come back (or at least hasn't so far). And
| it's not even hard, you just uninstall it like any other
| app. They do give some scary prompts, and it does disable
| all internet-based integrations in the start menu, but
| that's not even necessarily a bad thing.
| tgv wrote:
| Someone hasn't told that to my Windows machine. I can't
| uninstall Edge, at least not via Settings > Apps >
| Installed Apps.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You have to have Windows with region set to a European
| country during the initial installation. If you chose US
| during the original installation, even if you live in the
| EU and now have your region set to one, that won't work.
| But you can install Windows from scratch (it has to be on
| a formatted partition, if you restore from a previous
| installation it doesn't work) with the right region
| choice, and the option is simply there.
| criddell wrote:
| Nobody cares about the desktop anymore.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Which ones? Samsung internet is the default for Samsung
| devices (which constitute the majority of Android devices in
| the west) and most (all?) of the Chinese OEMs have their own
| browser... The only Android devices I've ever had where the
| default is Chrome are Pixel devices...
| Izkata wrote:
| > Samsung internet is the default for Samsung devices
| (which constitute the majority of Android devices in the
| west)
|
| I have a Samsung Galaxy S23 and it came with both Chrome
| and "Internet" which I guess is the Samsung one. I don't
| remember which was default or if it asked the first time
| something tried to open a webpage, but I didn't even notice
| the Samsung one was on here and I'd guess the Chrome brand
| name wins out for most people if it asks...
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| I have a samsung phone and although it comes wih the
| samsung browser, chrome is still the default and cannot be
| disabled
| mjevans wrote:
| It makes sense why it can't be _removed_... it's required for
| core OS interaction features such as a known-working login
| portal framework and probably tons of other 'reuse the
| rendering engine from the browser to display stuff' portions
| of the shell and settings pages.
|
| If you wanted to de-google your phone _that_ much it probably
| requires a custom firmware blob that's shipped with a
| different browser... if that's even possible / reasonable.
| figmert wrote:
| It's not really required. Android comes with a separate
| webview (that cannot be overridden). Sure it's based on
| Chromium but that means there should zero reliance on
| Chrome the product, and those known working login portals
| can continue working without Chrome.
|
| It's well known that Google requires manufacturers to
| install their apps and requires it to be uninstallable.
| This includes Gmail, Google, and others.
| homebrewer wrote:
| > that cannot be overridden
|
| I thought I knew better, because the webview
| implementation can be changed in the system preferences,
| but (of course) the list of package names that can appear
| there is hardcoded:
|
| https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/and
| roi...
| malinens wrote:
| I live with firefox mobile engine for webview without any
| issue
| chupasaurus wrote:
| GeckoView cannot replace built-in WebView [0].
|
| [0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on
| iOS..._
|
| I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS?
|
| Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.
| wyre wrote:
| You're right, but there is a Safari extension to set Kagi as
| default search.
| xiconfjs wrote:
| Which is still a workound and sometimes buggy - it
| overwrites an existing search engine. In my case its
| google. But when I want to use google, I can't - I have to
| switch to another browser or deactivate the kagi
| addon/plugin.
| philistine wrote:
| Sounds like a plus.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I actually don't want my Kagi plugin to overwrite Google
| for a different reason: Sometimes the plugin fails to
| hijack my search, and I really don't want my searches
| going to Google. So I overwrite DuckDuckGo, so even the
| fallback is okay.
| aequitas wrote:
| And what's more. Where do the requests for
| autocomplete/suggestions get sent? Because the Kagi
| plugin works by redirecting the result page. So whilst
| typing the search question in the address bar of the
| browser requests are made to autocomplete/suggest the
| search question. These are still sent to Google (or
| whichever search engine selected).
| kweingar wrote:
| That's a very good point. Mobile OS vendors should allow for
| user-defined search engines the way that desktop browsers do.
| grapesodaaaaa wrote:
| In principle I agree, but there needs to be an "old person
| mode." The number of times I've uninstalled malware on my
| relatives' computers is astounding.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Wouldn't that be the current system that presents a
| static list of search engine? I think we are just asking
| for a way to go to settings and add a custom url and
| parameter for a non-predefined search option.
| SllX wrote:
| I haven't opened Safari recently but I'm pretty sure Safari
| in general just doesn't have user defined search engine
| lists _at all_ on any platform and never has. There's ways
| to hack it with extensions, but otherwise if you want to
| switch SEs, you can use one on Apple's list or you switch
| to a browser with more flexibility on iPhone, Mac or iPad.
|
| Of course since one of the options in Safari is DuckDuckGo,
| you can also use its extensive list of !bang operators.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Sounds like an issue between Apple and Kagi?
| Terretta wrote:
| > _I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS?
| Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of
| options._
|
| Check again: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-for-
| safari/id1622835804
|
| Works perfectly.
| zacwest wrote:
| This doesn't change the search engine, it attempts to
| redirect from whatever one is configured in the settings.
| It's very much an unreliable hack.
| dcow wrote:
| Unreliable indeed. It stops working half the time for no
| apparent reason and you have to go in and toggle settings
| to make it work again.
| gabeio wrote:
| As a user of this application, this is not even close to
| the same thing as having the ability to change the search
| engine in the browser settings itself. If I need to
| actually search something on one of the other search
| engines for reasons then I have to go disable the plugin,
| or set it to a specific search engine which I am unlikely
| to use. I am also curious if my typing into the search bar
| still sends my quick search pre-submit to my search engine
| selected in the browser unless I remove the pre-fetching.
| So no, not perfect. And this is not Kagi's fault that's
| just the unfortunate situation Safari leaves them in.
| o999 wrote:
| Antitrust goal is protect competition and prevent monopolies,
| Safari search and Bing market shares aren't in a position of a
| monopoly, unlike Google's (~79% of desktop search market share)
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| Which is ironic because this judgement will destroy Firefox
| (if Firefox doesn't destroy itself, anyway), and probably
| Chrome, and leave Edge as basically the only mainstream web
| browser with a "monopoly". The more things change...
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think Firefox will live. Maybe Mozilla dies, but somebody
| will raise funds and pick up the work.
| o999 wrote:
| Selling off Chrome [?] Destroying Chrome
| surajrmal wrote:
| Do you think it would survive a sale? Could the project
| be able to survive a huge nose dive in contributors? I
| only use chrome because I trust Google, who knows if the
| new owner would be similarly trustworthy in my eyes.
| rudedogg wrote:
| You get nagged to do it by the most popular website in the
| world (google.com) if you're using something else, which might
| be part of the problem.
| creato wrote:
| And I get nagged by the _operating system_ in multiple
| different ways (system dialogs, notifications, opening a new
| file type, ...) to switch back from Chrome.
| abirch wrote:
| It'd be ironic if Google had to sell Chrome to Microsoft
| due to monopoly reasons.
| dfabulich wrote:
| It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install
| Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the
| default browser.
|
| Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes
| sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from
| Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default.
| Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue
| from Google's payments to be the default search engine. Safari
| isn't even available on Windows, and even then, 99% of Safari's
| revenue is from Google.
|
| (Safari was available on Windows from 2007-2012, but it never
| captured much market share, because Apple was never willing to
| pay PC makers to make Safari the default.)
|
| Here's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market share.
| The overwhelming majority of users are using their computer's
| default browser.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...
| Chrome: 65.55% Edge: 13.9% Safari: 8.69%
| Firefox: 6.36% Opera: 2.9%
|
| FWIW, I don't think it makes any sense at all to sell off
| Chrome. Google could probably sell off YouTube, AdSense, and
| Google Cloud, but not Chrome.
|
| The only viable business model for a web browser, the one that
| literally all major browsers use, is to accept money from a
| search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them the
| default. Even Kagi makes its own Orion web browser, for exactly
| this reason.
|
| How could Chrome make its owner any money at all if Chrome
| couldn't accept money from Google to be the default search
| engine? How could Chrome possibly do what Firefox and Safari
| can't?
| abirch wrote:
| I agree with you. Of all the remedies to address Google's
| "monopoly" this seems to the most bizarre.
|
| My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would
| they be able to build a new web browser? In the article it
| said that they'd need approval for any new joint venture,
| collaboration, or partnership with any company that competes
| with Google in search or in search text ads.
|
| It makes no mention of web browsers.
| philistine wrote:
| > My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would
| they be able to build a new web browser?
|
| I'm not a lawyer, and didn't read the verdict, but your
| query is very Hacker News. Justice is not code. If Google
| is forced to divest from Chrome, it of course means it
| can't turn around and make the Google Dhrome browser. If
| Google did, they'd be sued for ignoring the verdict.
| abirch wrote:
| There court hasn't set a remedy to its verdict yet. From
| the article
|
| The proposal, filed Friday afternoon, says that Google
| must "promptly and fully divest Chrome, along with any
| assets or services necessary to successfully complete the
| divestiture, to a buyer approved by the Plaintiffs in
| their sole discretion, subject to terms that the Court
| and Plaintiffs approve." It also would require Google to
| stop paying partners for preferential treatment of its
| search engine.
|
| Think of it like MySQL and then MariaDB. So if Google
| sells Chromium to say Saleforce (they seem to buy
| everything) then Chrome is no longer Google's. Google
| would have complied with the verdict.
| kweingar wrote:
| What does it mean to sell Chromium? Chromium code is
| Copyright The Chromium Authors. It contains a substantial
| amount of code not written by Google, which isn't
| Google's to sell.
|
| I suppose Google could sell the rights to _their_ parts
| of the codebase, possibly the rights to future Googler
| contributions, admin rights to the repo, domains,
| trademarks, CI, hardware labs, and maybe some other
| things I 'm forgetting... but in terms of the tech being
| developed and shipped, there isn't really anything
| substantive to sell.
| nmstoker wrote:
| You're right in the short term but look how quickly the
| required outcomes from United States v. Microsoft Corp
| were relaxed and eventually ignored.
| philistine wrote:
| The difference between that case and the Google one now
| is that Microsoft was forced to sell nothing. It was a
| pyrrhic victory for the DOJ that comforted Microsoft.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Microsoft was forced to change their behavior. If it
| wasn't for that DOJ case IE would still be the dominant
| web browser.
| gscott wrote:
| The only reason Google is trying to take away cookies is
| because they make you log into Chrome which gives you all
| their browsing data anyway and probably anything you type.
| So maybe not having a browser controlled by Google would be
| good.
| bo1024 wrote:
| Selling might not make business sense for Google or for
| Chrome, but it makes a ton of sense for the American public.
| Google is using Chrome to benefit advertisers, data brokers,
| and surveillance over users. Exhibit: the manifest v2 /
| Ublock Origin saga. And this is huge because so many other
| browsers use Chromium or its engine under the hood. Google
| can also use Chrome to push user-unfriendly web standards or
| de-facto standards.
|
| Of course, this doesn't appear that related to the DOJ's
| reasoning.
| bloppe wrote:
| The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for
| anybody else to buy Chrome. Bare in mind that 99% of Chrome
| is the free Chromium open source project, so you're not
| buying any sort of technological asset. You're just buying
| a big pre-existing user base, which would be extremely
| difficult to monetize without making the product much
| worse, although I'm sure Microsoft or Facebook would be
| happy to give that a go. It certainly wouldn't make any
| sense to buy it without a sprawling advertisement business
| or some major conflicts of interest. But what's the point
| of selling it to someone else like that?
|
| It's easy to say "just sell it" without thinking about the
| actual implications, but you're basically talking about
| destroying it. Maybe that's the point, but we should at
| least be honest about it.
| kweingar wrote:
| Yeah, Chrome is "Google-flavored Chromium", just as Edge
| is "Microsoft-flavored Chromium."
|
| If (say) Meta bought Edge, then they'd get the userbase
| and the trademark, but the product seems pointless. Why
| would Meta want a browser whose killer features are
| integrations with Bing and Office 365? If Meta wanted a
| browser, they'd make a "Meta-flavored Chromium."
| chrome111 wrote:
| I'm assuming this is the point - say "just sell it" to
| satisfy anti-monopolists, while knowing no one will buy
| it for any reasonable price to satisfy monopolists.
| Political points across the board with no consequence,
| why not?
| hiddencost wrote:
| I suppose then we could treat as some kind of public good
| and fund its development directly from our tax dollars?
| eastbound wrote:
| I fear the US government more than I fear Google. At
| least Google will lose power at one point. The government
| may fall into wrong hands. Which is exactly why the Reps
| are trying to defund and dismantle half of its functions.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for
| anybody else to buy Chrome
|
| I don't see why divesting it necessarily means selling it
| to another company. Google could create a non-profit like
| Mozilla, or a for profit and float it as its own
| business.
| bloppe wrote:
| If Google controls the spin-off, then the problem is not
| resolved. The whole point is that the government doesn't
| want Google to control it. And if Google does not control
| it, then who does? The judge?
|
| There are a lot of seemingly simple "solutions" to this
| problem that just don't hold up under a modicum of
| scrutiny.
| eastbound wrote:
| Any company purchasing Chrome would do it for power -
| since Chrome can't become a paid product.
|
| Any NGO receiving Chrome would be extremely vulnerable to
| spying, because of the immense power of having software
| installed on a billion computers.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Mozilla already exists, and it behaves as a non-profit
| arm of Google. If you created another non-profit it would
| do the same unless it was banned from receiving money
| from search engines (but then it would have no money.)
| bo1024 wrote:
| Yeah, I agree with all this.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _It 's a common misconception that tons of users manually
| install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome
| the default browser_
|
| Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and
| HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or
| something?
|
| Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now
| too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that
| it embarrasses people who do actually prefer Edge.
| "Recommending" at every turn that you not switch, having the
| edge browser itself warn against downloading Chrome, pushing
| edge into various OS-level browser launches even if it's not
| your default, and, of course, randomly resetting the browser
| default on various updates.
|
| edit: at least from this page, it's edge by default on at
| least some dell machines too, but I haven't owned one in so
| long I won't say that for sure:
| https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000128257/how-to-
| ch...
|
| It doesn't seem to be a default on PCs.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| I don't remember chrome being default anywhere. You always
| needed to open edge to download chrome and I have installed
| windows numerous times in past.
| throwaway127482 wrote:
| Chromebooks are a thing, and are extremely popular
| tgma wrote:
| > extremely popular
|
| for really small amounts of "extremely"
|
| (outside US K-12 they are hardly a thing)
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| And Australian K-12 too :)
| mentalgear wrote:
| crucial though, that's were audiences get introduced with
| their software
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if Chromebooks alone gave Chrome
| more market share than Firefox.
| nmstoker wrote:
| They don't do so badly in the UK with non-technical types
| (eg the elderly) especially where a full computer isn't
| safe or supportable.
| vincent-manis wrote:
| I have a very nice Chromebook tablet (a Lenovo Duet). I
| use it to run a Debian Linux VM; it has its quirks, but I
| use it to run Emacs, TeX, and various Scheme
| implementations. It is relatively cheap, and even though
| it's a relatively low-powered device, it has adequate
| performance for my needs. (And yes, it is not "really"
| Linux: you can't install your own window manager, for
| example. But it's usable.)
|
| I have lots of criticisms of Chrome OS, but the fact is
| that the year of Linux on the Desktop has arrived. You
| buy one of these machines, and out of the box you can
| have Linux apps (and a terminal) running within 15
| minutes of switching the machine on.
| tgma wrote:
| Yea, I don't disagree it is a decent product. I was just
| refuting the "extremely popular" comment. Statistically
| their market share is minimal. People still by-and-large
| buy Microsoft Windows laptops.
| jhasse wrote:
| German here. I know 0 people who own a Chromebook. In
| fact I think I have never seen one in my entire life
| (outside of a store).
|
| Schools I know are using Windows laptops or iPads.
| soerxpso wrote:
| I believe the claim was that it's coming default on
| prebuilt PCs. If you're installing Windows, that's not
| the situation where Chrome would be the default.
| fastball wrote:
| Right but what OS is installed on a pre-built PC if not
| Windows?
| behindsight wrote:
| not sure what exactly that has to do with prebuilt
| versions of Windows that come with bloatware/adware or
| other nonstandard customisations?
| zinekeller wrote:
| I think the GP has only encountered business laptops
| (which don't have as much bloatware). I can confirm that
| current "normie" laptops (from HP at least) do already
| have Chrome installed, although it is unclear if this is
| as part of paid marketing or just to reduce support
| headaches.
|
| Also, there was the time where Google pays antivirus
| companies like then-Avast to shove Chrome. Unsure if it
| is still happens, but this points out to how Chrome can
| pay through the marketshare.
| jpc0 wrote:
| I do a lot of IT support. Edge is the default on every
| single prebuilt / laptop I have setup for people.
|
| This is ancedotal sure but it's several hundred
| datapoints from the cheapest student focused budget
| laptops(running windows not chrome os) to business grade
| laptops from the big 3 (HP/Dell/Lenovo). Apple ships
| Safari by default and every linux distro I have used
| ships firefox or a spinoff of firefox by default.
|
| So in my experience Chrome is actively installed by the
| local it help (me, things are just plain broken for some
| use cases on non-chrome). I personally do not use Chrome,
| that doesn't mean I won't make it the default for every
| PC I touch for an enduser purely because I get less calls
| for support when users are using chrome.
|
| It's no secret that I feel like other search engines are
| worse that Google even though Google's results are nearly
| unusable.
|
| Google built a mote by having a better product, nobody
| else tried to compete and now it's become nearly
| impossible to compete. I actively avoid Chromium based
| browsers personally but even then I need to have one
| installed because even in Firefox and Safari derived
| browsers things are broken or website just plain don't
| work (https//f1.tv actively does not work on firefox as
| an example, unless they have since backtracked)
| nmstoker wrote:
| >> I feel like other search engines are worse that Google
| even though Google's results are nearly unusable.
|
| Give Kagi a go - the usability thing is superb, as you
| can down rank common awful sites so they never appear in
| the results and they aren't stuffing ads into the results
| either
|
| I find the results excellent 99% of the time and for
| those odd cases I'm not convinced it found the best
| results I pop back to Google. I tend to find that I do
| that most with subtle image searches (which are kind of
| rare but you are usually after something very specific
| where Kagi occasionally struggles with on the image side)
| robwwilliams wrote:
| For me almost all conventional search is dead now. Sure,
| perhaps useful for "what going on tomorrow where I live"
| but for everything else I now rely on LLMs.
| epoxy_sauce wrote:
| I wasn't sure where to say it but your comment seems
| appropriate. It must impact install numbers when
| companies(ones I've been at) only want you to use chrome.
| Wasn't really an option for our regular staff. I was able
| to get away with using ff.
|
| Agree as well - I still end up mostly using Google
| search, tho half the time when I don't get any decent
| results I realize it wasn't that important anyways.
| Interesting side effect of poor search results.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Edge moved from their own engine to Chromium's Blink
| engine, so from an IT support perspective, it should work
| equally well.
| jpc0 wrote:
| Mostly correct yes and for certian users I actually do
| encourage them to try out edge.
|
| Many users are so used to Chrome though it is jarring to
| switch to edge. Open them in two workspaces and flip
| between them, although the UI are both browsers, edge
| feel like the Temu version if a browser, at least to me.
|
| But then I use Zen/Vivaldi so I personally find most
| other browsers these says a little weird.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I bought 2 machines in the past year and neither of them
| had Chrome installed. Maybe it happens, but not on the
| two brands I got.
| derektank wrote:
| I can confirm Dell's default for Windows devices is Edge. I
| believe Dell's Ubuntu laptops come with both Firefox and
| Chrome installed.
| gscott wrote:
| If you buy a cheap computer with Windows S it is very hard
| to get out of the S configuration and in S configuration
| you can't install Chrome at all or Firefox.
| gnabgib wrote:
| You can switch out of S mode (for free)
| https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-
| out-of...
| dboreham wrote:
| Not very hard in my experience. Not even hard.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| But very much nonobvious. I recently had to help one of
| my parents when they couldn't figure out how to install
| some software, and it turned out to be S - but I had to
| do a bunch of digging to figure it out and I'm good with
| computers.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Before Edge, everyone had to install Chrome because the web
| wouldn't work with IE. It is still the case that some major
| sites don't work with Firefox either. Edge is as close to a
| de-Googled Chrome as you can get to work properly.
| Unfortunately de-Googling meant re-Microsofting
| eastbound wrote:
| The web wouldn't work with IE just because Microsoft had
| this unique strategy of deviating from standards, having
| non-working APIs and providing an awful experience to
| developers. It's unique.
|
| Firefox compliance is another story, but very mild
| compared to IE. Chrome also had to deal with
| compatibility issues when Firefox was the leader, but
| Mozilla relinquished their leadership position because it
| was very important to them to fire their CEO / original
| writer of Javascript for ideological reasons - he had
| given $1000 to an anti-abortion NGO, which is an
| unacceptable thoughtcrime. Then they spent their time
| politicking and not enough coding.
|
| Sounds like the history of browsers is just made of
| strategic mistakes.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Yeah, I really feel like Brenden pretty much screwed over
| the entire browser scene by going all political and not
| doing his heavy lifting of reading the mid 00s political
| zeitgeist better. Feels like he doomed us all to live
| under Google's boot for his poorly timed performative
| activism.
| bad_user wrote:
| > _he had given $1000 to an anti-abortion NGO_
|
| That's not what he did. He donated for California's Prop
| 8, which opposed same-sex marriage, in 2008. I'm
| personally not judging, as many US progressives have
| forgotten that during those days, even Obama opposed
| same-sex marriage. But it's important to get the facts
| straight, even when being sarcastic.
|
| ---
|
| > _Then they spent their time politicking and not enough
| coding._
|
| Mozilla's management certainly is guilty of blunders, but
| I'm pretty sure the developers who have worked on Mozilla
| don't feel like they've spent time "politicking".
|
| The failure of Firefox in the marketplace starts from the
| fact that it's pretty hard to compete with a browser
| that's funded with more than 1 billion $ per year. And
| people may not remember much about the launch of Chrome,
| but it was literally years ahead of its competition. Have
| a look at its famous comic book, with which it was
| announced, describing its design and philosophy, and
| count the years it took for the competition to catch up
| (across the board, including Safari):
| https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
|
| I mean, sure, you can blame that on politics, but I don't
| think anyone was able to stop the decline and when
| Brendan Eich resigned, people were already talking about
| Chrome's hegemony and Firefox dying.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| > And people may not remember much about the launch of
| Chrome
|
| And remember -- the _original_ browser engine that Chrome
| (+ Safari) came from was KHTML + KJS from the KDE folks,
| which was doing pretty good at the time considering the
| development resources available to it
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Using your money to help pass a law that binds every
| person in your state is not a "thoughtcrime".
| bad_user wrote:
| > _Unfortunately de-Googling meant re-Microsofting_
|
| That's an understatement. Microsoft Edge is, in fact, a
| more privacy invasive browser than Chrome. And that was a
| pretty high bar.
|
| In the EU, straight from the get-go, Edge presents users
| with the IAB interstitial, informing them that Edge is
| going to share their data with the entire advertising
| industry. Note that Chrome doesn't do this, as Google
| only wants you to share data with them, and it's not the
| browser that asks for consent. Edge's IAB interstitial is
| filled with dark patterns as well, such as legitimate
| interests being unlawfully declared.
|
| Edge is also filled with Microsoft's telemetry, which you
| can't turn off. Every browser instance, of course, comes
| with a unique ID that's reported to Bing Ads. Using Edge
| without Bing is fairly difficult. And end-to-end
| encryption for its synchronization feature isn't
| supported.
|
| I entirely understand why people want to degoogleify, but
| picking Bing in that process is fairly stupid.
| doctaj wrote:
| Wouldn't it be funny if the aggressive "are you sure you
| want to leave Edge?!" kind of messages actually made people
| ton the whole think it was a lower quality product...
| jader201 wrote:
| > _Microsoft just doesn 't make enough money from Bing/Edge
| to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default._
|
| Have you used a Windows PC lately? It seems like once a week
| I have to ignore/decline prompts to change my default browser
| to Edge.
|
| I'm not sure PC makers have any say/control over this
| behavior.
| gnabgib wrote:
| I think you might be holding it wrong? I've only been asked
| once, I said no. Quite sternly. It apologised, we laughed
| about it. Now Edge has no internet access.
| hu3 wrote:
| I just opened Edge, first thing it did was ask me to
| become default browser:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/u2Nby1b.png
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| Where on the statcounter page does it show that people are
| using their default browser? You're making a lot of claims
| about Chrome commonly being the default browser without
| linking to any evidence of your correction of this "common
| misconception" that people install chrome manually.
| smileson2 wrote:
| At this point Microsoft has embedded bing so deeply into
| windows they don't care
| denismi wrote:
| > The only viable business model for a web browser, the one
| that literally all major browsers use, is to accept money
| from a search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them
| the default. Even Kagi makes its own Orion web browser, for
| exactly this reason.
|
| The only viable business model ... while the incumbent (IE,
| now Chrome) is allowed to give the product away for free in
| service of some other predatory agenda.
| zimbatm wrote:
| Since Chrome's engine is used by Edge, Opera, Brave, etc..
| Probably the best move is to become a non-profit and have all
| those organizations chip in.
|
| The main reason even Microsoft gave up and rebased their
| browser on top of Chrome is because of the breakneck speed at
| which Google introduces new standards and features to the
| ecosystem. Having them be forced to slow down might be a good
| thing for browser diversity and the future of the Internet.
| jhasse wrote:
| Or maybe because Chromium is pretty good, open-source and
| there's nearly no upside to reinventing the wheel?
|
| If Mozilla would fork Chromium now and base Firefox on
| their fork I would switch from Brave. The engine simply
| technically superior.
| foota wrote:
| According to this maybe somewhat broken website (idk there's
| a warning that it's broken but it still seems to work)
| https://www.netmarketshare.com/, Chrome has 65% market share
| on OS X.
| lazide wrote:
| Cite? I've literally never had a PC come with Chrome on it.
|
| Hell, MS makes it super hard to even install Chrome now,
| including numerous irritating nag messages and 'are you
| sure?!?'
| nativeit wrote:
| If spun off, why wouldn't Chrome then be free to sell its
| default search provisioning back to Google?
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Because the DOJ demands two things. First, Google must sell
| Chrome to a DOJ approved buyer. And second, Google must not
| pay anyone for the default search engine spot.
| nikanj wrote:
| About one in five Windows updates shows a notification along
| the lines of "Update your browser preferences to secure
| defaults?", which is code for "Can we bing you mate?"
|
| Every time I visit my parents, I need to de-bing them again
| ericjmorey wrote:
| Why bother to "de-bing" their computer?
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| I like your analysis, but wonder about this line:
|
| >> The only viable business model for a web browser is to
| accept money from a search engine (Google, specifically) to
| be make them the default.
|
| Mostly, it's just that giving away browsers for free as a
| source of garnering search traffic distorts the market.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to
| pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default."
|
| Why would they pay the manufactures when they can just add
| annoying reminders and make it hard to switch in the OS they
| ship it with?
| reissbaker wrote:
| This is just flat out wrong. Edge is the default browser on
| ~all new Windows machines, and Safari is the default
| (obviously) on macOS. If you have data showing the opposite,
| please provide it.
|
| People go out of their way to install Chrome because it's
| better than the competition. Just like they used to do for
| Firefox, back when Firefox was a better browser than the
| competition.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to
| pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default.
|
| Not only is this not true for lots of manufacturers, but the
| minute you click on a web link anywhere in windows (help,
| start menu, etc) it opens in Edge, and Edge cannot be
| uninstalled on a windows machine.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default
| browser._
|
| Unless you have a source for that, that's flat-out wrong.
| I've never heard of that, I've never seen that, and I can't
| find any supporting evidence of that.
|
| > _Here 's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market
| share. The overwhelming majority of users are using their
| computer's default browser._
|
| That's not what that graph shows. It doesn't show anything
| about defaults.
| mtillman wrote:
| They don't allow any search engine in safari now that apple has
| become an ad network. This is why there's a weird workaround
| for Kagi. The search for pay deals are the priority. For those
| on Mac devices, Orion is excellent now imo.
| knowriju wrote:
| But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?
| xp84 wrote:
| It sounds like they're also trying to ban Google from
| paying someone (like Apple) to be default so if they did,
| Apple might no longer be disincentivized to build their own
| search engine (or at least do a DuckDuckGo and stick their
| branding and ads on top of licensed Bing results or
| something). That would represent more competition.
| (Although it would probably kill Mozilla too)
| MR4D wrote:
| That's not the issue.
|
| The problem is that Google owns both sides of the internet -
| the browser on your computer and the search engine to find
| everything.
|
| As a result, they control your perception of the internet.
|
| If a site doesn't work, you as the user thinks the site doesn't
| work. You don't think oh, my browser is broken. Also, if you
| don't find a site on Google the. To you, it doesn't exist.
|
| As a result, you have to bend your website to satisfy both
| Google search and Google chrome.
|
| That's why this is an issue. Because of those two things,
| Google effectively controls the internet, and you as a user or
| you as a website owner have essentially zero recourse when
| Google does something that harms you.
| chairhairair wrote:
| Zero recourse other than using another browser or and/or
| another search engine.
|
| Why bother having a discussion when you use "zero recourse"
| here. It comes off as totally absurd.
| exodust wrote:
| > _if you don't find a site on Google, to you, it doesn't
| exist_
|
| What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a
| website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the
| user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any
| website about XYZ?"
|
| I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the
| user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach
| such a conclusion, in part because Google results tell us
| "bro, your search returned 480 million results."
| sweeter wrote:
| How many people get past the first page? I'd wager a guess
| its under 3%. It could be 20 results or an infinite amount,
| it wouldn't make a single bit of difference. It is a fact
| that google gets to control who and what shows up in a
| search, and they put paying entries at the top. There are
| many problems with this. They have also de-listed websites
| from google search, and are at a high risk of complying
| with any government request to censor topics. Which, again,
| is not good for humanity.
| wruza wrote:
| These result counts are known to be fake.
| paulddraper wrote:
| It might exist, but if you can't find it on Google via
| keywords, it might as well not exist.
|
| Does that make sense?
| buu700 wrote:
| That framing of the issue makes a lot of sense. It might
| still be a reasonable middle ground if Google doesn't own
| Chrome itself, or control the proprietary bits or any related
| backend services, but still maintains leadership of Chromium
| development.
|
| As a Firefox user, I also don't love the implications of
| forcing Google to end its default search engine deal with
| Firefox. If they changed course on that, then a similar deal
| with the hypothetical non-Google Chrome could be a viable way
| to maintain something like Chrome's current financial model
| without giving Google too much control over the web.
|
| On the other hand, one might argue that Google's search
| business and that sector as a whole are already at a high
| enough risk right now without the courts throwing another
| wildcard into the mix. I'm not staking out a position on this
| one way or another, but I hope whatever decisions they land
| on are very carefully considered.
| dcow wrote:
| The actual issue is that Google pushes Chrome on its properties
| "this site renders better with Chrome download here" so it's
| almost impossible for users to avoid it. Same issue with Edge.
| Once you switch off of Safari on macOS that's the last you hear
| of it. If anything should be illegal it's using your dominant
| position in one market to force users into a specific position
| in an adjacent one. MS got busted for it previously. Google
| under threat now. Apple has its own issues but it isn't
| currently entirely owning a market. If Ape owned the phone
| market and the only App Store was Apple's, I think the court
| would start ruling against Apple.
|
| There's also a clear conflict of interest having the
| advertising company own the user-agent.
| snailmailman wrote:
| This is definitely a huge part of it. My grandmother is _not_
| tech savy, and ended up with the google app installed on her
| phone. Because if she types anything into any of the search
| bars, google puts a big banner for the google app in the
| results page. She doesn 't use safari for searching - she now
| goes to the google app.
|
| Notably - it doesn't advertise chrome there? or maybe she
| just didn't see those. Most of her internet experience is
| through either the facebook app or the google app now
| wruza wrote:
| They not only officially own the user-agent which they made
| sure is the most installed.
|
| They are gray cardinals of web standards which they bloated
| to the point of zero viable competition. And their only
| opponent lives on their couch.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| Case in point: Google's attempt at casually turning every
| user into a renter of their own devices via Web Environment
| Integrity:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity under
| the false pretense of protecting sites against bots. Google
| is continuously implementing more and more draconic control
| of users and their hardware, and they keep using security as
| the argument. It is now de facto impossible to run an open
| source build of Android, like LineageOS, without also losing
| access to a wide range of apps which refuse to run without a
| hardware attestation from Play Integrity API.
|
| Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off
| Android.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell
| off Android.
|
| Then Apple should need to sell ios.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Chrome is the default on every non-Apple system in common use.
| Windows (Edge), Chrome OS, Android...
| surajrmal wrote:
| Edge is chromium based not chrome based. Google is not the
| default search engine on edge nor does it have any real
| control over the edge experience which Microsoft couldn't
| change itself.
|
| ChromeOS is not popular by any means outside of the US
| education market. Chrome being the default on just Android is
| hardly a strong case when Android usage in the US is only
| 56%.
| adastra22 wrote:
| It depends on what the concern is. when IE6 was the default
| browser for the vast majority of consumers, it held back
| web technologies and generated considerable pressure
| towards MSFT hosting services.
| jhasse wrote:
| And on some Android devices it isn't even the default (e.g.
| Samsung Internet).
| adastra22 wrote:
| Samsung Internet is also chromium based.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Every non-apple system in common use? So linux? I don't think
| so...
| criddell wrote:
| Unless you are counting Android as a Linux system, Linux
| isn't in common use. Ask the top 5 PC makers how many Linux
| setups they sell and it's going to be a pretty small
| number.
| eitland wrote:
| In addition to bundling, Google has also been massively pushing
| it via ads.
|
| As far as I know Chrome is the only thing that has been
| advertised on Googles famously clean "front page" before making
| a search.
|
| That tells me something about how important it has been for
| them to push it.
|
| There's also the way they've used deceptive ads ("download a
| better browser") to me and many other Firefox users over the
| years. (No, a browser that leaks my browsing habits to the
| worlds biggest advertising company while not supporting
| vertical tabs a decade after it entered the market certainly
| isn't best for me.)
| HexPhantom wrote:
| The real question is whether Chrome's dominance comes from
| unfair practices (bundling, aggressive prompts, discouraging
| competition, etc.) or simply being a product people want to
| use.
| leetnewb wrote:
| I don't think those are either/or scenarios.
| wazoox wrote:
| That's not how it works. As Google is the default search engine
| for most browsers (Safari, Firefox), as soon as you hit Google
| it begs you to use Chrome instead of whatever you're using
| right now. You don't have to search for Chrome, Google nags you
| until you switch to it, or switch to another search engine.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Chrome had been on the biggest and most VIP billboard on the
| planet:
|
| https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-ou...
|
| Nobody can get it except chrome.
| Naru41 wrote:
| Yup, I don't understand why Google would sponsor McLaren F1
| team. They've already done a better promoting Chrome.
| kortilla wrote:
| The issue is that you don't need to search for chrome. Google
| tried to force it down your throat when you visit their sites
| using any other browser
| thayne wrote:
| Google uses their dominant market position in search, email,
| video hosting (youtube) etc. to promote their browser. Such
| sites have had a banner telling you they are best viewed with
| chrome if you use a different browser, and are optimized to
| work best on chrome.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I wish I could upvote this a million times.
|
| It's a massive cognitive dissonance that you're right -- it
| makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people just want to argue
| that Google is bad/too big/anticompetitive, and will use
| whatever argument is easiest to do so, even if they flat-out
| contradict each other.
|
| The actual reality is that most people _do_ change defaults
| quite easily when they perceive a benefit, so it 's incredibly
| difficult to make the argument that defaults are
| anticompetitive. Chrome proves this. At the same time, _some_
| people aren 't aware and will stick to a default, and the
| search market is so big that it's still worth $$$ for Google to
| pay Apple for the search default. The search deal proves this.
| On these points, there's zero anticompetitive behavior.
|
| But _if_ there 's an anticompetitive angle regarding search,
| it's that in effect, Google is essentially paying Apple not to
| develop its own search engine. But that's basically an
| impossible legal argument to make. Nobody can _force_ Apple to
| compete in search, and if it doesn 't want to and would prefer
| to take Google's money, that's its free choice.
| kzrdude wrote:
| If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the
| side asking you to download Chrome.
| bsza wrote:
| And after you do, there will be another one to make it the
| default browser. Number of clicks might be the same in both
| user stories, but the second one has a lot more hand-holding.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| It says something about how universally despised Google and other
| tech giants are that two presidential administrations who are so
| acrimonious and diametrically opposed that they have spent much
| of their time destroying everything the previous one did agree on
| it.
|
| I genuinely can't think of anyone, of any political stripe,
| outside of Google and its employees and investors, who thinks
| Google should have the power it has now. Honestly, the degree of
| pushback this is getting on HN is shocking to me. Google is
| massively anti-competitive and spends a ton of energy hurting
| startups to its own benefit.
|
| I hope the DOJ gets its way on this, and I hope they aggressively
| pursue anti-trust actions against other organizations in similar
| positions - Oracle, Epic Systems, and Meta all come to mind.
| sneak wrote:
| Destroying Google's ability to develop Chrome means that the
| web dies faster than it already is.
|
| Apple would prefer everyone use native apps, they run an app
| store. Most companies prefer apps, you can't modify or inspect
| them or easily block ads within them. Apps can trap users
| inside embedded browsers with app-based surveillance, like when
| you click profile links in Instagram or TikTok.
|
| The world without a free high quality browser is a worse one.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Why would Chrome not being a part of Google mean the world
| would lack a free, high-quality browser?
|
| Is Safari low quality? Is Firefox not free?
|
| What about Edge and all the other browsers that run based on
| Chromium?
|
| More competition would be better.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| Chrome is so user hostile and entrapping I don't know why anyone
| uses it. It should absolutely be separated and spun off to live
| on its own and make its own profit.
| sneak wrote:
| So are cars and ISPs and streaming services.
|
| It's because people don't have a choice.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| Google has a monopoly but focusing on Chrome seems wrong. Here's
| my prediction, let us remove chrome from the world tomorrow, make
| bing the default search engine on all devices. How much will
| Googles search market share fall by?
|
| From 90% to 80%. Maybe even 70%. I don't see it falling below
| that. Does DOJ think that hypothetical market shares could be 40%
| Google, 30% Bing, 20-30% rest. I don't think this is possible
| short of banning Google or making it extremely cumbersome to
| access Google (for example, making it impossible to set Google as
| default). Which makes this whole exercise seem pointless.
|
| Then we also come to the realm of justice. Google built Chrome
| (no easy task), fair and square. Chrome is a better browser
| engine than that of most competitors, so much so that its
| competitors use the same browser engine (Firefox and Safari
| Exempted). (Chromium is also open source). Why should Google be
| forced to sell Chrome? Is the assumption here that by the default
| the government owns everything you make, and the fact that you
| get to keep something you made is because of the benevolence of
| the government? This doesn't seem like a good precedent. The
| government can't even justify this as some big harm to society
| like it's an addictive drug. What's the consumer harm here? Is it
| that Google has monopoly pricing on serving ads to users, so if
| any company wants to do digital marketing, they have to pay
| whatever price Google sets?
|
| In the end, this just seems like a big unnecessary mess. The govt
| surely must have better things to do.
| bsimpson wrote:
| > Firefox and Safari Exempted
|
| It's been long enough now that there are significant
| differences, but Chrome started from the same base as Safari.
| The teams had different perspectives, so Chrome forked Safari's
| internals and called the result Blink.
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| Honestly, I think in your scenario Bing would end up as the top
| search engine. I've noticed lately that when I'm using a
| browser with Bing in the search bar, I just use Bing and don't
| bother using Google. Honestly, the two feel pretty similar to
| me at the moment.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| Interesting, I tried using DuckDuckGo for a while, didn't
| find it competitive with Google
| d--b wrote:
| My first reaction when reading this is: how does this help Musk?
|
| Sigh.
| cebert wrote:
| If Google was forced to sell off Chrome, I wonder what the
| ramifications would be for Chromebooks. Chromebooks have become
| quite popular in K12 schools. I don't see how they could continue
| to run or why Google would have any continued interest in this
| device ruling.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Chromebooks in schools are probably already illegal in a lot of
| places that use them, and the sole purpose is to lock in kids
| to the Google ecosystem early. (Apple used to heavily focus on
| education for the same reason back in the day.)
|
| There's an arguable point if Google doesn't give up Chromebooks
| anyways, the DOJ should force them to.
|
| My children basically are required by government to use Google
| products in school unless I want to pay for private school,
| which is kinda insane on its face.
| adolph wrote:
| Who would buy it? Oracle?
|
| What would be the difference between Google shoveling money at
| Safari and Firefox for default search and shoveling money at some
| "independent" Chrome?
| exabrial wrote:
| How about youtube, gmail too please
| chubs wrote:
| Speculation: Perhaps Google accelerated the Manifest V3 change to
| get anti-adblocking 'baked in' and benefitting their interests,
| before they're forced to sell off Chrome?
| kaptainscarlet wrote:
| Sell it and drop Mankfest V3 lol
| Animats wrote:
| Google can probably bribe its way out of this problem. [1][2]
| Might not even take money. Just favorable search result
| positioning.
|
| [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-
| presiden...
|
| [2]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-b...
| dgellow wrote:
| The fact that has already been normalized is so fucking wild
| bushbaba wrote:
| The doj should split up more of big tech. The industry is
| stagnating and allowing a more healthy competition would do
| wonders.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is
| that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive
| compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too
| large a market share should be _punished_ with remedies that make
| the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the
| offending behavior.
| progval wrote:
| Google (probably) doesn't consider selling Chrome to be good
| for them or they would have done it on their own.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| They probably consider it better than, say, being forced to
| give it away and also pay $100 billion.
| noobermin wrote:
| Someone didn't send a large enough campaign contribution.
| blackd0g wrote:
| Crazy to think that most users never change a single setting.
| They live in default mode. Which is the issue with how most
| software works. Even how browsers will try to get set as default.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| If the user doesn't change anything they wouldn't have
| downloaded, installed and set chrome as default browser.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Those that _have_ to use chrome at work install it at home.
| There are many that think it _is_ the internet. That was my
| today, Sunday. I gave up trying to explain the difference
| between edge and chrome, many years ago. At least I get paid
| for my time.
| TZubiri wrote:
| I don't get some of the antitrust measures.
|
| It was dumb when they battled with microsoft's IE, and it's
| especially dumb when they battle Google's Chrome.
|
| Chrome isn't just another google product, it is central to its
| search engine, they did an ofshoot into a browser because they
| found they needes to effectively develop a headless browser to
| scrape some js and mixed media websites.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It would be hilarious if Google just formed a foundation to open
| source and manage Chrome going forward. I mean, it's already
| built on Chromium.
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