I don't think Google gets a free pass--kind of the opposite, it gets the lion's share of the criticism (especially for privacy stuff) despite being the most open and up front about what they're doing, since they open source most of their operating system.
I don't think there's any company that's done more to support transparent open-source software except Red Hat. Hell, in true Google style, they've built not one, not two, but four separate FOSS operating systems (Android, ChromiumOS, Fuchsia, and at this point it's time to admit Chromium itself has become an OS-within-an-OS), as well as being the second-biggest contributor to Linux.
I don't think Google gets a free pass--kind of the opposite, it gets the lion's share of the criticism (especially for privacy stuff) despite being the most open and up front about what they're doing. (If you want to know what data Chromeium is collecting, just check the source!)
I don't think there's any company that's done more to support transparent open-source software except Red Hat. Hell, in true Google style, they've built not one, not two, but four separate FOSS operating systems (Android, ChromiumOS, Fuchsia, and at this point it's time to admit Chrome has become an OS-within-an-OS), as well as being the second-biggest contributor to Linux.
Yes, Chromebooks are easy to administer but very limited (you can't run much outside the browser). It sounds like Google's trying to fix that and make a full Desktop OS.
It’s bad that this is against the TOS in the first place, and reeks of anticompetitive behavior. Why does Anthropic care what frontend I use as long as I pay for their model?
Huge benefits: the ability to run any website as an app (dramatically cutting back on development costs and allowing us to finally replace Electron with PWAs), 30% cheaper apps (no Apple tax), ad-blocking, and better performance since WebKit will finally have some real competition.
> 1) Apple loves USB-C
Sure, that's why they refused to adopt it for almost a decade after it became the standard and fought the EU regulation tooth-and-nail.
> I don’t think one company should own all the stuff that Google does. It gives them way too many perverse incentives over the web.
Does it? It might give them perverse incentives in some cases, but in others it perfectly aligns their incentives by letting them internalize their externalities. The whole selling point of Chrome to executives, and the reason it's introduced so many nice features, is that consolidating means they have an incentive to invest in things that make their websites work better (a better Chrome means a better Google/Gmail/YouTube/Drive).
I think they might be, but only as long as it stays open-source (assuming we mean it works on Chromium and not Chrome). Honestly, I fundamentally don't have a problem with an open-source browser having a monopoly, because the open-source nature means that if things get bad you can always just fork it and make something better.
It's amazing how you can literally start a nonprofit to code a billion-dollar browser, give it away for free, and let people modify it however they want and then HN users will still find a way to act like this is being evil and exploitative. It's as if they care more about whining than they do about their supposed open-source principles.
You can disable these if you don't want them, and if you do, then "Come to Linux, we're missing important features" is not going to be a winning pitch.
I don't think there's any company that's done more to support transparent open-source software except Red Hat. Hell, in true Google style, they've built not one, not two, but four separate FOSS operating systems (Android, ChromiumOS, Fuchsia, and at this point it's time to admit Chromium itself has become an OS-within-an-OS), as well as being the second-biggest contributor to Linux.