The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome(wired.com)
wired.com
The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome
https://www.wired.com/story/the-doj-still-wants-google-to-divest-chrome/
717 comments
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...
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?
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%
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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)
>> 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)
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)
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.
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.
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.
Edge moved from their own engine to Chromium’s Blink engine, so from an IT support perspective, it should work equally well.
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.
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.
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.
>I believe the claim was that it's coming default on prebuilt PCs.
That's the claim, but I've never seen a pre-built with chrome installed (other than a chromebook obviously), let alone configured as the default. Which OEMs are pre-installing it as the default?
That's the claim, but I've never seen a pre-built with chrome installed (other than a chromebook obviously), let alone configured as the default. Which OEMs are pre-installing it as the default?
Right but what OS is installed on a pre-built PC if not Windows?
not sure what exactly that has to do with prebuilt versions of Windows that come with bloatware/adware or other nonstandard customisations?
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.
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.
Chromebooks are a thing, and are extremely popular
> extremely popular
for really small amounts of "extremely"
(outside US K-12 they are hardly a thing)
for really small amounts of "extremely"
(outside US K-12 they are hardly a thing)
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn't be surprised if Chromebooks alone gave Chrome more market share than Firefox.
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.
crucial though, that's were audiences get introduced with their software
And Australian K-12 too :)
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.
Schools I know are using Windows laptops or iPads.
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
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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> 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.
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.
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> 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.
> 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
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
Using your money to help pass a law that binds every person in your state is not a “thoughtcrime”.
eastbound(1)
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.
> It is still the case that some major sites don't work with Firefox either.
This comment keeps popping up. Every time I ask the commenter to show me some sites that dont work with Firefox. Nobody has ever shown me one. I think people are stuck in the past here, Firefox has been absolutely fine for about 10 years now.
This comment keeps popping up. Every time I ask the commenter to show me some sites that dont work with Firefox. Nobody has ever shown me one. I think people are stuck in the past here, Firefox has been absolutely fine for about 10 years now.
I have yet to find an actual web site that breaks with Firefox and works with Chrome.
Closest would be Google's Android Flash Tool that uses WebUSB to image an Android phone. But that is more like a browser extensions versus a HTML5 application.
I have had numerous experiences with ZScaler, corporate man-in-the service, breaking web sites with Firefox. I need to use Chromium to upload to Virus Total. ZScaler even likes to brake web sites on Chromium and requires multiple reloads with minutes or hours between refresh.
Microsoft services with ZScaler break easily with Firefox and Chromium but work fine with Edge or MS Teams. Don't know if this intent to push users to Edge or just a correlation with ZScaler.
ZScaler developers, thanks for making my work life living hell with 30s or more latency and lack of ability to properly connect to web services and handle cross-VM HTTP testing.
Closest would be Google's Android Flash Tool that uses WebUSB to image an Android phone. But that is more like a browser extensions versus a HTML5 application.
I have had numerous experiences with ZScaler, corporate man-in-the service, breaking web sites with Firefox. I need to use Chromium to upload to Virus Total. ZScaler even likes to brake web sites on Chromium and requires multiple reloads with minutes or hours between refresh.
Microsoft services with ZScaler break easily with Firefox and Chromium but work fine with Edge or MS Teams. Don't know if this intent to push users to Edge or just a correlation with ZScaler.
ZScaler developers, thanks for making my work life living hell with 30s or more latency and lack of ability to properly connect to web services and handle cross-VM HTTP testing.
Ok, I tried to sign up for a Reddit account and it failed over and over on Firefox. Same computer, Chrome worked first time. I guess Reddit wanted to fingerprint my browser in a way that Firefox wouldn't allow.
This is not the only case btw, just a nice clearcut one
This is not the only case btw, just a nice clearcut one
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…
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.
You can switch out of S mode (for free) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of...
Doing it that way is a pain if don't want to create a microsoft account, which when tries to convert your computer account to a microsoft account. Pretending that it's easy to switch by requiring you to use the microsoft store to do so is a really shitty antipattern.
99% of Windows users use a microsoft account these days, so this method is trivial for most.
I can confirm Dell's default for Windows devices is Edge. I believe Dell's Ubuntu laptops come with both Firefox and Chrome installed.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Microsoft was forced to change their behavior. If it wasn't for that DOJ case IE would still be the dominant web browser.
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.
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.
Of course, this doesn't appear that related to the DOJ's reasoning.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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?
The right answer is to nationalize it. Set up some sort of independent non-profit steering committee, and maybe redirect some of the massive savings Elon has pulled out of his ass to fund the actual core development. That solves the "who spends $1b per year on development if not an adtech" problem. If the US was a functioning state right now, I might suggest making it an international organization to encourage buy in from developers and backers outside our borders.
Browsers are one of the most critical pieces of modern software infrastructure, both from a security-footprint perspective and as a vehicle for (mis-)information delivery, so maybe they're too important for ANY commercial entity to use them as a bludgeon to for their agenda.
If they no longer control the core project, then Google (or Microsoft) have a much harder job doing self-serving stuff. They could nuke Manifest v2 in THEIR Chromium derivative, but core Chromium isn't going to give it up-- the Operas and Vivaldis of the world don't have to spend their limited resources trying to unwind the change to keep a desired feature.
Browsers are one of the most critical pieces of modern software infrastructure, both from a security-footprint perspective and as a vehicle for (mis-)information delivery, so maybe they're too important for ANY commercial entity to use them as a bludgeon to for their agenda.
If they no longer control the core project, then Google (or Microsoft) have a much harder job doing self-serving stuff. They could nuke Manifest v2 in THEIR Chromium derivative, but core Chromium isn't going to give it up-- the Operas and Vivaldis of the world don't have to spend their limited resources trying to unwind the change to keep a desired feature.
> 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.
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.
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.
There are a lot of seemingly simple "solutions" to this problem that just don't hold up under a modicum of scrutiny.
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.
Any NGO receiving Chrome would be extremely vulnerable to spying, because of the immense power of having software installed on a billion computers.
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.)
I suppose then we could treat as some kind of public good and fund its development directly from our tax dollars?
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.
Yeah, I agree with all this.
> 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.
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.
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.
I just opened Edge, first thing it did was ask me to become default browser:
https://i.imgur.com/u2Nby1b.png
https://i.imgur.com/u2Nby1b.png
I think every non-default browser asks that the first time you open them. It's not a huge deal, but it is a huge deal when you start getting prompted from the OS to change it.
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.
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
Every time I visit my parents, I need to de-bing them again
Why bother to "de-bing" their computer?
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?!?’
Hell, MS makes it super hard to even install Chrome now, including numerous irritating nag messages and ‘are you sure?!?’
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.
>> 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.
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.
"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?
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?
> (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.)
I think it must have been bundled with iTunes as I remember family members having Safari installed on Windows computers at the time.
But I think it being available for Windows right when Firefox and then later Chrome started to become popular didn't help - it was just some other browser that no one was recommending.
I think it must have been bundled with iTunes as I remember family members having Safari installed on Windows computers at the time.
But I think it being available for Windows right when Firefox and then later Chrome started to become popular didn't help - it was just some other browser that no one was recommending.
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.
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.
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.
If Mozilla would fork Chromium now and base Firefox on their fork I would switch from Brave. The engine simply technically superior.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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.
The main problem with Google anti competition is how chrome is being leveraged to mine user behavior signals for search engine algos. That is the unfair advantage that needs to be killed off
Your source shows the "Market Share Worldwide". I don't see it shows the "Default Browser Worldwide".
AFAIK, in the US, the default for:
- Windows: Edge
- Mac: Safari
- Ubuntu: Firefox
I think the claim that "Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser" needs a clear source.
AFAIK, in the US, the default for:
- Windows: Edge
- Mac: Safari
- Ubuntu: Firefox
I think the claim that "Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser" needs a clear source.
At this point Microsoft has embedded bing so deeply into windows they don’t care
If spun off, why wouldn’t Chrome then be free to sell its default search provisioning back to Google?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why bother having a discussion when you use “zero recourse” here. It comes off as totally absurd.
> 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."
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."
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.
That's an answer to a different question. Italian restaurants might use the first page of their menu for pizza. Do customers who want pasta conclude pasta "doesn't exist" because it's not listed on first page?
This analogy disregards everything we know and understand about the internet and how corporations operate
> everything we know
Please demonstrate what you know before making representations about what we know.
The restaurant sells more pizza than pasta, so they put pizza on the first page of menu. The strategy works, people come back for more pizza.
Google facilitates conversions by presenting paid results relevant to search intent. If nobody ever clicked paid results and converted, businesses wouldn't buy those paid spots. Admittedly, Google makes tracking success of paid ad spending a confusing nightmare, but not impossible to work out with some effort.
If there's only 10 organic spots on the highly sought after page 1, paid search is a way to fight it out in the market. Fair enough?
It's a balance of:
Please demonstrate what you know before making representations about what we know.
The restaurant sells more pizza than pasta, so they put pizza on the first page of menu. The strategy works, people come back for more pizza.
Google facilitates conversions by presenting paid results relevant to search intent. If nobody ever clicked paid results and converted, businesses wouldn't buy those paid spots. Admittedly, Google makes tracking success of paid ad spending a confusing nightmare, but not impossible to work out with some effort.
If there's only 10 organic spots on the highly sought after page 1, paid search is a way to fight it out in the market. Fair enough?
It's a balance of:
* Running a search engine business.
* Providing quality paid results that match search intent
* Surfacing quality organic results that match search intent
* Allowing various ways to filter and access results according to refined search intent, for example advanced search tools or other channels such as image, shopping search, maps etc.It might exist, but if you can’t find it on Google via keywords, it might as well not exist.
Does that make sense?
Does that make sense?
> can’t find it on Google via keywords
Can't find what? Are you saying people are using Google to search for things they've misplaced? At what point is the user thinking "I can't find what I'm looking for?"
Can't find what? Are you saying people are using Google to search for things they've misplaced? At what point is the user thinking "I can't find what I'm looking for?"
No, I'm saying they use Google to navigate.
If they want a lasagna recipe, they use Google. If (for whatever reason), a particular lasagna recipe is not findable via this method, it for all intents and purposes doesn't exist.
I hope I'm making myself clear.
If they want a lasagna recipe, they use Google. If (for whatever reason), a particular lasagna recipe is not findable via this method, it for all intents and purposes doesn't exist.
I hope I'm making myself clear.
So the user has something in mind. Your example is a recipe.
Just to clarify my point. Google isn't meddling with your Lasagna recipes.
The parent poster claimed website owners need to "bend your website to satisfy both Google search and Google chrome". This isn't accurate, and the claim should have been called out by more than me.
You might never use Chrome other than 30 seconds of quick testing your website build. I build sites that obtain high search ranking and I barely open Chrome. I conform to HTML standards and other good practices regarding content and structure. There's nothing "Google" about a good website other than the alarmist misinformation such as expressed by the person's comment in this thread about needing to "bend to Chrome".
The irony is I'm not friends with Google. So many things they do I object to. Even their "super-thanks" how they take 30% cut, it's criminal. People were using super-thanks to donate to fire victims on youtube, and Google was grabbing 30% of every donation for itself. I can't forgive that. BUT... I don't think they should be made to stop doing deals to be default search engine, that is overreach. Forced to sell Chrome?... don't care. I don't use Chrome.
I hope I'm making myself clear.
Just to clarify my point. Google isn't meddling with your Lasagna recipes.
The parent poster claimed website owners need to "bend your website to satisfy both Google search and Google chrome". This isn't accurate, and the claim should have been called out by more than me.
You might never use Chrome other than 30 seconds of quick testing your website build. I build sites that obtain high search ranking and I barely open Chrome. I conform to HTML standards and other good practices regarding content and structure. There's nothing "Google" about a good website other than the alarmist misinformation such as expressed by the person's comment in this thread about needing to "bend to Chrome".
The irony is I'm not friends with Google. So many things they do I object to. Even their "super-thanks" how they take 30% cut, it's criminal. People were using super-thanks to donate to fire victims on youtube, and Google was grabbing 30% of every donation for itself. I can't forgive that. BUT... I don't think they should be made to stop doing deals to be default search engine, that is overreach. Forced to sell Chrome?... don't care. I don't use Chrome.
I hope I'm making myself clear.
These result counts are known to be fake.
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.
There’s also a clear conflict of interest having the advertising company own the user-agent.
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.
Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android.
> Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android.
Then Apple should need to sell ios.
Then Apple should need to sell ios.
I firmly believe that there should be no vertical integration between hardware and OS manufacturers for general purpose computing, so yes, I hold that position as well. Having private control over your general purpose computing device should be considered a human right. Apple has a similar control over their hardware and software stacks, but they have been like this from the beginning and have never pretended that the users actually owned their devices.
General purpose computing devices are so ubiquitous in society that accepting that private companies have total control over how they are used should be considered a democratic issue.
General purpose computing devices are so ubiquitous in society that accepting that private companies have total control over how they are used should be considered a democratic issue.
In the thread of the argument, Apple does not hold a monopoly on web advertising, though.
Apple’s entire business is building compute devices.
Apple’s entire business is building compute devices.
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
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
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Wasn't she just searching google via safari anyway? I do find that popup really annoying though.
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.
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.
> 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.
I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS?
Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.
That's a very good point. Mobile OS vendors should allow for user-defined search engines the way that desktop browsers do.
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.
Of course since one of the options in Safari is DuckDuckGo, you can also use its extensive list of !bang operators.
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.
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.
Somehow, my father in law managed to set some sketchy search engine as his default. I forget exactly what it was, but it was definitely serving malware ads.
I’d prefer a static list for those people.
I could write a book on the crazy stuff he has done to his iOS devices. I’ve contemplated putting “child mode” or whatever on his account to prevent him from changing settings or installing apps.
My favorite so far was a malware VPN that was harvesting ALL of his traffic.
I’d prefer a static list for those people.
I could write a book on the crazy stuff he has done to his iOS devices. I’ve contemplated putting “child mode” or whatever on his account to prevent him from changing settings or installing apps.
My favorite so far was a malware VPN that was harvesting ALL of his traffic.
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> 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.
Check again: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-for-safari/id1622835804
Works perfectly.
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.
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.
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.
> > > 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.
> not even close to the same thing as having the ability to change the search engine in the browser settings itself
Two replies up, they expressed surprise at being able to make Kagi DEFAULT.
You can. To your point, you can flip it off by toggling the extension.
You can also have it not intercept others, only one.
To the question, "I can set Kagi as default on iOS?" the answer is yes, for the normal definitions of set and default, meaning, make it so when I search I get Kagi.
Otherwise the comment would not have been about "Kagi as default on iOS", but something like, there's a setting for alternative search engines on iOS? The answer to that is of course, no, but there are workarounds.
> > I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS? > > Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.
> not even close to the same thing as having the ability to change the search engine in the browser settings itself
Two replies up, they expressed surprise at being able to make Kagi DEFAULT.
You can. To your point, you can flip it off by toggling the extension.
You can also have it not intercept others, only one.
To the question, "I can set Kagi as default on iOS?" the answer is yes, for the normal definitions of set and default, meaning, make it so when I search I get Kagi.
Otherwise the comment would not have been about "Kagi as default on iOS", but something like, there's a setting for alternative search engines on iOS? The answer to that is of course, no, but there are workarounds.
You can’t set Kagi as the default though.
As others have said, you can only set something else as default and run an extension that tries to hijack it.
As others have said, you can only set something else as default and run an extension that tries to hijack it.
Sounds like an issue between Apple and Kagi?
You’re right, but there is a Safari extension to set Kagi as default search.
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.
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.
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).
Sounds like a plus.
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.)
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.)
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.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-ou...
Nobody can get it except chrome.
Yup, I don't understand why Google would sponsor McLaren F1 team. They've already done a better promoting Chrome.
On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled
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.
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.
Someone hasn't told that to my Windows machine. I can't uninstall Edge, at least not via Settings > Apps > Installed Apps.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Significant market share, which is something they don't currently possess.
Nobody cares about the desktop anymore.
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.
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.
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.
It's well known that Google requires manufacturers to install their apps and requires it to be uninstallable. This includes Gmail, Google, and others.
> 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/androi...
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/androi...
I live with firefox mobile engine for webview without any issue
GeckoView cannot replace built-in WebView [0].
[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView
[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoView
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...
> 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...
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...
I have a samsung phone and although it comes wih the samsung browser, chrome is still the default and cannot be disabled
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.
I don't think those are either/or scenarios.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think it’s good for the market that some players are fully independent, and others are part of massive conglomerates.
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.
I can see it as an opinion, but that changes the whole discussion IMHO.
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.
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.
> 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.
If your goal is nothing deeper than to hurt Google, sure. Otherwise, this logic is far from complete.
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.
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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
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.
> 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.
As long as you don’t want a search engine that is not on the Apple’s authored list.
As long as you don’t want a search engine that is not on the Apple’s authored list.
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.
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.
But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?
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)
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 $$$ for Google to pay Apple for the search default. The search deal proves this. On these points, there's zero anticompetitive behavior.
But if there's an anticompetitive angle regarding search, it's that in effect, Google is essentially paying Apple not to develop its own search engine. But that's basically an impossible legal argument to make. Nobody can force Apple to compete in search, and if it doesn't want to and would prefer to take Google's money, that's its free choice.
It's a massive cognitive dissonance that you're right -- it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people just want to argue that Google is bad/too big/anticompetitive, and will use whatever argument is easiest to do so, even if they flat-out contradict each other.
The actual reality is that most people do change defaults quite easily when they perceive a benefit, so it's incredibly difficult to make the argument that defaults are anticompetitive. Chrome proves this. At the same time, some people aren't aware and will stick to a default, and the search market is so big that it's still worth $$$ 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.
> 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.
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.
>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...
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
If the answer to any of those is no, it’s more than simple advertising.
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.
I feel like it should be illegal to use your profits in one industry to run a loss leader in a totally separate industry.
> 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.
There’s nothing wrong with running a loss leader, only with squeezing everybody else out.
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).
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.
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> So many users do this that people conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage
Because Chrome is the default on android phones and the easiest way to sync saved passwords between your android and your desktop/laptop is to use chrome in both places
Chrome having such a huge market share on mobile does add pressure for users to adopt it on Desktops and Laptops too
Because Chrome is the default on android phones and the easiest way to sync saved passwords between your android and your desktop/laptop is to use chrome in both places
Chrome having such a huge market share on mobile does add pressure for users to adopt it on Desktops and Laptops too
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)
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...
I think Firefox will live. Maybe Mozilla dies, but somebody will raise funds and pick up the work.
Chrome is the default on every non-Apple system in common use. Windows (Edge), Chrome OS, Android…
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%.
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%.
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.
And on some Android devices it isn't even the default (e.g. Samsung Internet).
Samsung Internet is also chromium based.
But it's not chrome. This is important because things like default search engine are set by the product built on top of chromium. Control over web standards isn't really relevant.
Control over web standards was very relevant to the previous antitrust fight with Microsoft’s over IE6.
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.
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.
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!
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!
> 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!
IMO, journalists are to blame for this perception. All the journalists that pushed this false narrative should be banned from the field. This is what happens when an "anything for clicks" mentality takes over and directly harms society.
IMO, journalists are to blame for this perception. All the journalists that pushed this false narrative should be banned from the field. This is what happens when an "anything for clicks" mentality takes over and directly harms society.
> Google does but actually doesn't - selling users browsing history
Doing that would make Google lose money, not make money. It is much more useful to be sole owner of this data.
Doing that would make Google lose money, not make money. It is much more useful to be sole owner of this data.
> 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.)
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.)
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
Why would Google pour resources into Chromium if they don't profit off of it anymore?
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.
- 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.
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...
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...
> 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 :)
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
If we just keep selling the browser market to the next trillion dollar company that's not going to fix anything
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!
Get real, the DOJ forcing Google to get rid of Chrome is one of the best tech news in years!
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But isn't edge built on chromium?
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)
1. funding from Google (Firefox)
2. engineering from Google (Chromium)
3. tech giant bundling (Safari, Edge)
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?
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.
I think they used to have their own engine but like everyone else found it unprofitable to maintain.
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.
Ladybird might be onto something with the sponsorship model, but we’ll have to see how it goes in the next couple of years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> like how other browsers are trying to do
Who is the unsubsidized web browser?
Who is the unsubsidized web browser?
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?
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?
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Chrome's non-iOS market share is probably larger than Safari's market share, so any monopoly considerations about Safari apply equally to Chrome.
Quick answer it won't be. Google will be barred from paying to be default.
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?
> 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
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
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.
There are companies who have actually done this, like the whole Avast Jumpshot debacle. They aren't the only ones.
- 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
- 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
> - 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..
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..
> 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?
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?
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...
That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that
> 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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
whether that's directly as paid software, or indirectly as part of purchasing a device that has the software installed on it.
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.
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.
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.
Even though getting it free (as I do right now) is nice, $36/year seems justifiable.
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?
Who do you think should pay for it? What is the value to them? Do their incentives align well with yours?
>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.
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.
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.
I would argue that subscription is the only sensible model for browser (if payment is needed). For browsers you do want to keep up to date with security patches as well as new features, that is pretty critical for both usability and security.
For normal software you can buy and use some fixed version without too much issues, for browsers you probably need the updates.
Security-wise maybe something like buying a ESR version may be possible, but it will not be cheap and you may miss the new features when some webpage you visit breaks.
For normal software you can buy and use some fixed version without too much issues, for browsers you probably need the updates.
Security-wise maybe something like buying a ESR version may be possible, but it will not be cheap and you may miss the new features when some webpage you visit breaks.
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!
The alternative to paying for things is that giant megacorporations who have interests in opposition to yours are the ones paying for things…
Safari also has profiles…
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I’m not so sanguine about the alternatives either.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
They should have split up ads. Going after Chrome does near nothing especially when it’s already open source.
> what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space?
Imagine buying a browser
Imagine buying a browser
I imagine paying a monthly subscription to a browser company. Browser365 anyone?
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.
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.
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.
is there a better way of breaking up the google monopoly?
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.
Ads!
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.
They also already charge to be an extension developer and could easily charge much more.
Chrome for Enterprise is an add-on for Google Workspaces. How does that work if the companies are separate?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
> 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
The standards google bullies us into?
Can’t any motivated group of developers fork chromium and push their own agenda ?
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.
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...
This problem really needs to be fixed, though I have no idea how...
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
Millions in investment won't cut it either. You need a lot of time in addition to write code that efficiently captures the problem
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
And even if there are 10mil lines they shouldn't be a monolith
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.
The cancellation of the web integrity api is evidence against this claim.
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.
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.
Incompetency is a blessing for users.
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.
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.
https://setapp.com/for-ios-developers
(Note that SetApp already enables subscribers to use iOS apps.)
(Note that SetApp already enables subscribers to use iOS apps.)
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
let's permit the firefighters to leave the firehouse even though they can't tend to all the fires simultaneously
Perhaps Apple is next?
You're ignoring the antitrust cases against Apple which may seek similar remedies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
MS does sell ads, they have an advertising platform.
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.
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.
So does Apple funnily enough so it’s a very strange post.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Google measures its share of your attention different than you do. You seem to think this is "attention paid to Google ads" but it's "attention paid to Google platforms," which correlates to their ability to target an ad directly to you. You see Google ads in many places around the web (even if you have an ad blocker), and their ability to serve you a good ad depends on how much attention you give to Google platforms, not just to Google's obvious ads. Google ads are 30% of ads on the web, not including the ads on its own platforms (search and youtube).
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Also because Googles is part of the web committe because of Chrome, so it gets to dictate how much complexity is in a browser and stiffle competition like that.
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?
Why is an ads company owning a browser any different than a phone company (Apple) or an operating system vendor?
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
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
> 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.
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.
you didn't state what the actual problem is...
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?
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.
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
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
> 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/
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/
>"How many of the things enabling the existence of this website are inventions made in the research institute of the Bell Telecom company."
In both giving them the bankroll to research it pre-breakup, and the economic freedom to pursue it under separate ventures post-forced breakup - it was most likely equally valuable.
A lot of things that make our modern apparatus' possible came from both Bell Labs research, and Bell Labs branching out by force.
In both giving them the bankroll to research it pre-breakup, and the economic freedom to pursue it under separate ventures post-forced breakup - it was most likely equally valuable.
A lot of things that make our modern apparatus' possible came from both Bell Labs research, and Bell Labs branching out by force.
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.
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.
This is the same commentary we had around the time of the ATT break up, and it all worked out fine.
It destroyed Bell Labs
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/realestate/severance-lumo...
Yeah but AT&T is doing fine.
Does upholding monopolies help Americans at all? Do not conflate the ballooning wealth of billionaires with any kind of improvement in your material conditions.
Americans marginally benefit from American owned monopolies over Chinese owned monopolies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you tried signing up for WeChat? It's nearly impossible to get an account.
Alibaba and ByteDance have both successfully broken out.
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?
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.
The bottom 90% is owning an ever smaller share of the economy, while the real economy doesn't seem to grow that much.
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.
It seems like you are comparing small companies vs large companies, rather than US vs Chinese.
Cue the uncountable number of Chinese jobs generated by overseas companies / the US monopolies, indirectly or directly....
Do you think a Chinese company results in more US jobs than a US company?
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.
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.
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It's weird to suggest another monopoly will be allowed to exist in a thread about breaking up an illegal monopoly.
In what way, please explain. Both are monopolies.
who care, corporations are not national, they will discard their host when they find it convenient
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.
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.
Maybe, but would another large incumbent necessarily be better?
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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.
>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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Learn to write native applications instead.
> 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!
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!
And native applications on web browsers are programmed in...?
No. You don't write "native applications on web browsers".
Electron would like a word.
If you think Electron is a native app then you're missing out on truly native performance and functionality.
Heard the same thing from React Native - now some of the biggest (Slack, Zoom, Skype, Discord), most performant (Figma) apps are built on both.
Only way I'd have a take like yours is if I was a native dev, and my job security relied on companies hiring 3 people to lead 3 teams for 3 codebases (Web, Android, iOS native) - rather than 1 team and 1 codebase for all 3. I'd dishonestly dismiss the notion of cross-platform programming only out of self-preservation, and not any semblance of pragmatism.
Only way I'd have a take like yours is if I was a native dev, and my job security relied on companies hiring 3 people to lead 3 teams for 3 codebases (Web, Android, iOS native) - rather than 1 team and 1 codebase for all 3. I'd dishonestly dismiss the notion of cross-platform programming only out of self-preservation, and not any semblance of pragmatism.
> some of the biggest (Slack, Zoom, Skype, Discord)
If everyone is jumping off a cliff, would you too?
Slack: downloads 500+ megabytes of trash and stores it on your computer. It also is dogshit slow to load conversations. It used to have a bunch of really neat integrations, and then they did the rug-pull for chat history, APIs, and other costs. It's going on momentum now but most businesses and gamers have moved off of it. Its calling feature simply refuses work on Firefox on Linux for no technical reason whatsoever.
Zoom: barely works in a browser tab, and the app receives updates daily, and still has broken user experiences. Chat is barely functional, and screen sharing breaks often. Little or no useful API or integrations. Terrible user experience. But the configuration is probably the best of the apps you cite.
Skype: Microsoft killed this a decade ago, I don't know why you'd bring it up.
Discord: well at least they have best-in-class user experience for gaming voice comms. Up until you have too many people, at which point... good luck getting your whole gaming group together. There's a huge cult for bots and integrations, but I fear its messages will go the way of Slack -- pay for (or otherwise encumber) old/large message histories. It's terribly organized, and doesn't like running more than one client or window at a time, so it's a really terrible user experience for power users -- and it's very hostile to running a third party client to improve that. It's pretty bloated for the capabilities it has (better than Slack though), but it is packaged fairly well (very easy to install or update the Electron app) and integrates into things like Slack used to.
> most performant (Figma)
Figma is performant? Figma is dog slow compared to what functionality it provides. Apps ran faster on Mac OS 9 with a 275MHz PPC processor 30 years ago that do pretty much the same thing that Figma does today.
> Only way I'd have a take like yours is if I was a native dev, and my job security relied on companies hiring 3 people to lead 3 teams for 3 codebases (Web, Android, iOS native) - rather than 1 team and 1 codebase for all 3. I'd dishonestly dismiss the notion of cross-platform programming only out of self-preservation, and not any semblance of pragmatism.
That's a typical thought for someone who's acting on the defensive and hates computer science. Maybe you should change careers into middle management or executives, you seem the type. Or maybe you might want to cut back on personal attacks because there's plenty of pragmatism in wanting native applications if you'd look past your own short-sighted career-driven opinion.
If you don't want to handle the unique benefits that each platforms give then you don't need 3 teams.
Writing for web and Android and iOS native isn't what I'm arguing for, and you're moving the goalpost by trying to change it to that. Native apps have way better performance than web apps there, but they're still put into user-hostile walled gardens. You want pragmatism? Focus on why I want native apps on my desktop platform, discussed in the sibling fork of this comment thread.
If everyone is jumping off a cliff, would you too?
Slack: downloads 500+ megabytes of trash and stores it on your computer. It also is dogshit slow to load conversations. It used to have a bunch of really neat integrations, and then they did the rug-pull for chat history, APIs, and other costs. It's going on momentum now but most businesses and gamers have moved off of it. Its calling feature simply refuses work on Firefox on Linux for no technical reason whatsoever.
Zoom: barely works in a browser tab, and the app receives updates daily, and still has broken user experiences. Chat is barely functional, and screen sharing breaks often. Little or no useful API or integrations. Terrible user experience. But the configuration is probably the best of the apps you cite.
Skype: Microsoft killed this a decade ago, I don't know why you'd bring it up.
Discord: well at least they have best-in-class user experience for gaming voice comms. Up until you have too many people, at which point... good luck getting your whole gaming group together. There's a huge cult for bots and integrations, but I fear its messages will go the way of Slack -- pay for (or otherwise encumber) old/large message histories. It's terribly organized, and doesn't like running more than one client or window at a time, so it's a really terrible user experience for power users -- and it's very hostile to running a third party client to improve that. It's pretty bloated for the capabilities it has (better than Slack though), but it is packaged fairly well (very easy to install or update the Electron app) and integrates into things like Slack used to.
> most performant (Figma)
Figma is performant? Figma is dog slow compared to what functionality it provides. Apps ran faster on Mac OS 9 with a 275MHz PPC processor 30 years ago that do pretty much the same thing that Figma does today.
> Only way I'd have a take like yours is if I was a native dev, and my job security relied on companies hiring 3 people to lead 3 teams for 3 codebases (Web, Android, iOS native) - rather than 1 team and 1 codebase for all 3. I'd dishonestly dismiss the notion of cross-platform programming only out of self-preservation, and not any semblance of pragmatism.
That's a typical thought for someone who's acting on the defensive and hates computer science. Maybe you should change careers into middle management or executives, you seem the type. Or maybe you might want to cut back on personal attacks because there's plenty of pragmatism in wanting native applications if you'd look past your own short-sighted career-driven opinion.
If you don't want to handle the unique benefits that each platforms give then you don't need 3 teams.
Writing for web and Android and iOS native isn't what I'm arguing for, and you're moving the goalpost by trying to change it to that. Native apps have way better performance than web apps there, but they're still put into user-hostile walled gardens. You want pragmatism? Focus on why I want native apps on my desktop platform, discussed in the sibling fork of this comment thread.
I don't know how to answer this. Bloatware is being fixed by cross platform frameworks, but hardware is also being upgraded accordingly to facilitate it. I've heard the theories; and I know 3 codebases for 3 platforms is sooner becoming a relic of a time gone-by than gaining ANY momentum in both the job market AND modern stack statistics. As is one codebase team for native desktop applications - especially when there are technologies now that allow you to reach more market share and accessibility for having the same codebase reach several platforms and device types.
>Zoom: barely works in a browser tab, and the app receives updates daily, and still has broken user experiences. Chat is barely functional, and screen sharing breaks often. Little or no useful API or integrations. Terrible user experience. But the configuration is probably the best of the apps you cite.
You probably don't use Zoom often. It works great in-browser, user experience is rigid, just because YOU don't use the API or integrations doesn't mean it's not useful - there's an entire Zoom Marketplace where you can build apps with scopes that tailor to your needs, I have more than a dozen setup; and my single-most used integration between ALL my stack is a simple Zoom General App that checks attendance for past meetings, and starts a routine based on whether the invitee's email is in that list of past meeting participants or not. But YMMV on both ends of this position.
>"Figma is dog slow compared to what functionality it provides" Again, not sure where you're coming from. It's very performant.
>"Maybe you should change careers into middle management or executives, you seem the type." Luckily, Team programmer -> Senior Management -> Executive was my path.
>"Or maybe you might want to cut back on personal attacks because there's plenty of pragmatism in wanting native applications if you'd look past your own short-sighted career-driven opinion." Sure! But that's the thing; you have to look at PAST and HISTORICAL trends to see its validity.
>"You want pragmatism? Focus on why I want native apps on my desktop platform, discussed in the sibling fork of this comment thread." Sibling fork shows you're a minority, more and more people are looking up "(function) online" to accomplish something without leaving their browsers; trust in installing exe's, msi's and pkg's are at an all-time low and, in many user experience studies, are seen as hostile.
>Zoom: barely works in a browser tab, and the app receives updates daily, and still has broken user experiences. Chat is barely functional, and screen sharing breaks often. Little or no useful API or integrations. Terrible user experience. But the configuration is probably the best of the apps you cite.
You probably don't use Zoom often. It works great in-browser, user experience is rigid, just because YOU don't use the API or integrations doesn't mean it's not useful - there's an entire Zoom Marketplace where you can build apps with scopes that tailor to your needs, I have more than a dozen setup; and my single-most used integration between ALL my stack is a simple Zoom General App that checks attendance for past meetings, and starts a routine based on whether the invitee's email is in that list of past meeting participants or not. But YMMV on both ends of this position.
>"Figma is dog slow compared to what functionality it provides" Again, not sure where you're coming from. It's very performant.
>"Maybe you should change careers into middle management or executives, you seem the type." Luckily, Team programmer -> Senior Management -> Executive was my path.
>"Or maybe you might want to cut back on personal attacks because there's plenty of pragmatism in wanting native applications if you'd look past your own short-sighted career-driven opinion." Sure! But that's the thing; you have to look at PAST and HISTORICAL trends to see its validity.
>"You want pragmatism? Focus on why I want native apps on my desktop platform, discussed in the sibling fork of this comment thread." Sibling fork shows you're a minority, more and more people are looking up "(function) online" to accomplish something without leaving their browsers; trust in installing exe's, msi's and pkg's are at an all-time low and, in many user experience studies, are seen as hostile.
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.
Step 2: Wonder why you don't have more users.
The more applications stay confined inside a browser tab, the better.
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.
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.
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.
> You're trying to present an "instead of" that assumes I should want native apps
Yes.
> and should jump through hoops to find a way to get what I want from apps that aren't designed for it
What do you want which isn't designed for a native app?
> I want web apps, because they already do what I want, and keep getting better.
Perhaps. But where a web app might do what you want and get better, a native app can do what you want and get even more better.
> The best available application sandboxing solution that provides useful comprehensive APIs is the web.
You missed the next part: Or, hey, use an open source operating system and extend the existing sandbox solutions for whatever you think is missing.
> 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.
So you're either wanting to use and develop for Linux, or you're wanting to build apps that fit in walled gardens.
Guess which one lets you build and/or run native apps in a sandbox not of its own making, and provides comprehensive APIs, and keeps the user in control? It's not macOS or Windows, it's not iOS or Android, and it's definitely not web apps (which are the least common denominator of the list).
Yes.
> and should jump through hoops to find a way to get what I want from apps that aren't designed for it
What do you want which isn't designed for a native app?
> I want web apps, because they already do what I want, and keep getting better.
Perhaps. But where a web app might do what you want and get better, a native app can do what you want and get even more better.
> The best available application sandboxing solution that provides useful comprehensive APIs is the web.
You missed the next part: Or, hey, use an open source operating system and extend the existing sandbox solutions for whatever you think is missing.
> 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.
So you're either wanting to use and develop for Linux, or you're wanting to build apps that fit in walled gardens.
Guess which one lets you build and/or run native apps in a sandbox not of its own making, and provides comprehensive APIs, and keeps the user in control? It's not macOS or Windows, it's not iOS or Android, and it's definitely not web apps (which are the least common denominator of the list).
> What do you want which isn't designed for a native app?
Running in a user-agent which is explicitly adversarial to the app's interests and capable of e.g. filtering out and rejecting its HTTPS requests and changing its displayed content based on user preferences, such as preventing the loading or display of advertisements/tracking/etc.
Please by all means suggest an established sandboxing technology that applications use that already does that. If your answer is "you could extend existing native-application sandboxes to be capable of that", my response is "why should I bother when I already have one that does what I want and that applications actually use?".
I would love to instead have a world in which everything is Open Source, in which case it'd be less necessary. Given that we're not in that world, the web is the platform I want proprietary applications to live in.
> So you're either wanting to use and develop for Linux, or you're wanting to build apps that fit in walled gardens.
I already use and develop for Linux, for a variety of Open Source applications. When I run other people's applications, I want them to either be Open Source or I want them to stay confined to a browser tab. Browsers aren't a "walled garden", they're a containment mechanism that works for the user.
> Guess which one lets you build and/or run native apps in a sandbox not of its own making, and provides comprehensive APIs, and keeps the user in control?
Delete the word "native" and the answer is "the web". And you've made zero compelling cases for adding the constraint "native".
To be clear, I could easily describe cases where native applications are better. For instance, I don't particularly want to run a code editor on the web, though many people do. 100% of those are cases where I seek out Open Source applications, so that I can trust them to not be doing things counter to my interests. And such applications don't need the same kind of sandboxing; they need to guard against security issues, but they don't generally need to guard against the application itself intentionally doing things against the user's interests. (That said, things like the xz backdoor do happen, which is an argument for being able to sandbox individual libraries and not just whole applications. But again, that's addressed by coarse-grained sandboxes like "this code shouldn't be doing this whole class of things at all".)
Running in a user-agent which is explicitly adversarial to the app's interests and capable of e.g. filtering out and rejecting its HTTPS requests and changing its displayed content based on user preferences, such as preventing the loading or display of advertisements/tracking/etc.
Please by all means suggest an established sandboxing technology that applications use that already does that. If your answer is "you could extend existing native-application sandboxes to be capable of that", my response is "why should I bother when I already have one that does what I want and that applications actually use?".
I would love to instead have a world in which everything is Open Source, in which case it'd be less necessary. Given that we're not in that world, the web is the platform I want proprietary applications to live in.
> So you're either wanting to use and develop for Linux, or you're wanting to build apps that fit in walled gardens.
I already use and develop for Linux, for a variety of Open Source applications. When I run other people's applications, I want them to either be Open Source or I want them to stay confined to a browser tab. Browsers aren't a "walled garden", they're a containment mechanism that works for the user.
> Guess which one lets you build and/or run native apps in a sandbox not of its own making, and provides comprehensive APIs, and keeps the user in control?
Delete the word "native" and the answer is "the web". And you've made zero compelling cases for adding the constraint "native".
To be clear, I could easily describe cases where native applications are better. For instance, I don't particularly want to run a code editor on the web, though many people do. 100% of those are cases where I seek out Open Source applications, so that I can trust them to not be doing things counter to my interests. And such applications don't need the same kind of sandboxing; they need to guard against security issues, but they don't generally need to guard against the application itself intentionally doing things against the user's interests. (That said, things like the xz backdoor do happen, which is an argument for being able to sandbox individual libraries and not just whole applications. But again, that's addressed by coarse-grained sandboxes like "this code shouldn't be doing this whole class of things at all".)
> Running in a user-agent which is explicitly adversarial to the app's interests and capable of e.g. filtering out and rejecting its HTTPS requests and changing its displayed content based on user preferences, such as preventing the loading or display of advertisements/tracking/etc.
I would love to have that in my OS. But, let me know what browser you think that is. It's not Firefox, nor Chrome, and certainly not Edge.
> Please by all means suggest an established sandboxing technology that applications use that already does that.
Linux cgroups is an established sandboxing technology. It has the potential to do what you want but currently needs more work to make it simple.
Applications don't use it to the extent that they should.
> why should I bother when I already have one that does what I want and that applications actually use?
Because browsers don't do what you want. Browsers have been subverted to no longer be user agents. Browsers don't reject HTTPS requests that aren't in the best interests of users. You have to install extensions to get that. If you have to customize your "user agent" then I suggest that customization belongs at the OS level. Otherwise, for example, in the case of Windows or macOS, you're just running someone else's game and the browser is merely a veneer.
> When I run other people's applications, I want them to either be Open Source or I want them to stay confined to a browser tab.
I want more restriction than a browser tab. I want more restriction than browsers are going. I want this in the OS and the reason it doesn't yet exist is because there are so many web developers who build terrible web apps instead of learning computer science to build a (terrible) native application and ask for the same restrictions in the OS instead of a browser.
Access to store and retrieve user credentials? No. I want to run multiple instances of the same app without every app seeing all of the credentials. I want a separate password manager that lets me choose when or where to provide credentials.
Access to store things on my computer [0]? No thanks at all. If you're running in a browser, you should be lightweight. You should eat the storage expenses for your app and you should minimize your app's size to minimize your network transfer costs. I have very limited storage space, limited write endurance, and web apps waste both.
Run stuff in the background [1]? No. Run your compute on your own hardware. Power is expensive and that web app running whatever it's running is making my whole system slow down. Ten different tabs, for six different apps, all thinking they can run whatever the hell they want, and leaves very little available for me to actually get work done.
Access to my GPU [2]? Dude, no. I have a slow GPU and that crappy web app is slowing everything down while eating both main memory and also GPU memory. And who knows what kind of security isolation GPUs have these days (protip: none)!
Access to my USB devices [3]? No friggen thanks. That slow hard disk? It's USB. And that USB bus? Yeah it's slow too. And what a security nightmare: that's where my USB-to-ethernet adapter is, on the same slow bus!
Microphone? Camera? System notifications? No, no, no [4].
I want what you want, but I want it at the OS level. Without OS-level control, that web app isolation makes everything worse.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_storage
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_worker
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGPU
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebUSB
[4]: I got lazy and stopped looking for more web APIs for you
I would love to have that in my OS. But, let me know what browser you think that is. It's not Firefox, nor Chrome, and certainly not Edge.
> Please by all means suggest an established sandboxing technology that applications use that already does that.
Linux cgroups is an established sandboxing technology. It has the potential to do what you want but currently needs more work to make it simple.
Applications don't use it to the extent that they should.
> why should I bother when I already have one that does what I want and that applications actually use?
Because browsers don't do what you want. Browsers have been subverted to no longer be user agents. Browsers don't reject HTTPS requests that aren't in the best interests of users. You have to install extensions to get that. If you have to customize your "user agent" then I suggest that customization belongs at the OS level. Otherwise, for example, in the case of Windows or macOS, you're just running someone else's game and the browser is merely a veneer.
> When I run other people's applications, I want them to either be Open Source or I want them to stay confined to a browser tab.
I want more restriction than a browser tab. I want more restriction than browsers are going. I want this in the OS and the reason it doesn't yet exist is because there are so many web developers who build terrible web apps instead of learning computer science to build a (terrible) native application and ask for the same restrictions in the OS instead of a browser.
Access to store and retrieve user credentials? No. I want to run multiple instances of the same app without every app seeing all of the credentials. I want a separate password manager that lets me choose when or where to provide credentials.
Access to store things on my computer [0]? No thanks at all. If you're running in a browser, you should be lightweight. You should eat the storage expenses for your app and you should minimize your app's size to minimize your network transfer costs. I have very limited storage space, limited write endurance, and web apps waste both.
Run stuff in the background [1]? No. Run your compute on your own hardware. Power is expensive and that web app running whatever it's running is making my whole system slow down. Ten different tabs, for six different apps, all thinking they can run whatever the hell they want, and leaves very little available for me to actually get work done.
Access to my GPU [2]? Dude, no. I have a slow GPU and that crappy web app is slowing everything down while eating both main memory and also GPU memory. And who knows what kind of security isolation GPUs have these days (protip: none)!
Access to my USB devices [3]? No friggen thanks. That slow hard disk? It's USB. And that USB bus? Yeah it's slow too. And what a security nightmare: that's where my USB-to-ethernet adapter is, on the same slow bus!
Microphone? Camera? System notifications? No, no, no [4].
I want what you want, but I want it at the OS level. Without OS-level control, that web app isolation makes everything worse.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_storage
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_worker
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGPU
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebUSB
[4]: I got lazy and stopped looking for more web APIs for you
> Linux cgroups is an established sandboxing technology. It has the potential to do what you want but currently needs more work to make it simple.
I'm extremely familiar with cgroups, and no, it really doesn't have anything remotely suitable for interposing application UI elements, nor is it a good fit for intercepting HTTPS requests unless you're prepared to run a proxy that MITMs all requests and you overcome the certificate pinning many applications do. (And the most obvious ways of doing that tend to lower security.)
Browsers are a nearly unique environment in this regard, in which myriad applications are built to let the environment (the browser) handle both the network access and the UI rendering for them. It is a path-dependent marvel of history that we have such a popular platform that gives as much control to users as it does.
> You have to install extensions to get that.
And the Linux kernel alone doesn't do what you want either, you need userspace frameworks for that. The browser provides the necessary APIs to intercept requests, and extensions use those to implement all sorts of useful functionality. "You need an extension" is not a counterargument when the extensions already exist and other frameworks need the equivalent as well.
> If you have to customize your "user agent" then I suggest that customization belongs at the OS level.
As mentioned above, OS sandboxing is substantially worse than browser sandboxing for the purposes I care about, and does not solve the problems I have. In a browser, both the UI and the network access is handled by a user-agent that can be adversarial to the application.
Oh, and the best up-and-coming solution that offers anywhere close to the same thing? WebAssembly components running outside the browser, where you can say to a component "I won't give you raw network access, but if you hand me network requests I'll hand you results".
> in the case of Windows or macOS, you're just running someone else's game
You'll get no argument from me on that point. But that doesn't hold for an Open Source OS and browser.
> I want this in the OS and the reason it doesn't yet exist is because there are so many web developers who build terrible web apps instead of learning computer science to build a (terrible) native application and ask for the same restrictions in the OS instead of a browser.
People who have different preferences and values than you do are not stupid. People who don't care about the windmill you've chosen to tilt at are not ignorant.
Capability systems have been researched and developed for decades, in many different forms. They could, in theory, be used to solve the problem you care about, given sufficient capabilities and substantially different application design to integrate such capabilities. That has both practical implementation challenges nearly on par with "write a new OS" or "write a new web browser", and also has practical adoption challenges of convincing people to write applications for it when many native applications are trying to get more capabilities that the user may not want them to have.
Despite all that, there are people working on many aspects of that problem. The fact that people don't immediately go "let me drop everything I care about that works for me and prioritize working on your approach" suggests that you either need to do more work on developing it yourself (because nobody will ever care about your exact preferences more than you do yourself) or learn to pitch it to people who don't already agree with you.
> I want what you want, but I want it at the OS level.
See the previous paragraph: Feel free to write it then. When you've built something that's anywhere close to the capabilities of a web browser, I look forward to trying it, and I'm sure many other people will too. I hope you succeed.
I'm extremely familiar with cgroups, and no, it really doesn't have anything remotely suitable for interposing application UI elements, nor is it a good fit for intercepting HTTPS requests unless you're prepared to run a proxy that MITMs all requests and you overcome the certificate pinning many applications do. (And the most obvious ways of doing that tend to lower security.)
Browsers are a nearly unique environment in this regard, in which myriad applications are built to let the environment (the browser) handle both the network access and the UI rendering for them. It is a path-dependent marvel of history that we have such a popular platform that gives as much control to users as it does.
> You have to install extensions to get that.
And the Linux kernel alone doesn't do what you want either, you need userspace frameworks for that. The browser provides the necessary APIs to intercept requests, and extensions use those to implement all sorts of useful functionality. "You need an extension" is not a counterargument when the extensions already exist and other frameworks need the equivalent as well.
> If you have to customize your "user agent" then I suggest that customization belongs at the OS level.
As mentioned above, OS sandboxing is substantially worse than browser sandboxing for the purposes I care about, and does not solve the problems I have. In a browser, both the UI and the network access is handled by a user-agent that can be adversarial to the application.
Oh, and the best up-and-coming solution that offers anywhere close to the same thing? WebAssembly components running outside the browser, where you can say to a component "I won't give you raw network access, but if you hand me network requests I'll hand you results".
> in the case of Windows or macOS, you're just running someone else's game
You'll get no argument from me on that point. But that doesn't hold for an Open Source OS and browser.
> I want this in the OS and the reason it doesn't yet exist is because there are so many web developers who build terrible web apps instead of learning computer science to build a (terrible) native application and ask for the same restrictions in the OS instead of a browser.
People who have different preferences and values than you do are not stupid. People who don't care about the windmill you've chosen to tilt at are not ignorant.
Capability systems have been researched and developed for decades, in many different forms. They could, in theory, be used to solve the problem you care about, given sufficient capabilities and substantially different application design to integrate such capabilities. That has both practical implementation challenges nearly on par with "write a new OS" or "write a new web browser", and also has practical adoption challenges of convincing people to write applications for it when many native applications are trying to get more capabilities that the user may not want them to have.
Despite all that, there are people working on many aspects of that problem. The fact that people don't immediately go "let me drop everything I care about that works for me and prioritize working on your approach" suggests that you either need to do more work on developing it yourself (because nobody will ever care about your exact preferences more than you do yourself) or learn to pitch it to people who don't already agree with you.
> I want what you want, but I want it at the OS level.
See the previous paragraph: Feel free to write it then. When you've built something that's anywhere close to the capabilities of a web browser, I look forward to trying it, and I'm sure many other people will too. I hope you succeed.
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?
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?
> 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.
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.
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)
I can see a billionaire like Musk wasting some of their net worth to play some stupid political theatre.
[deleted]
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?
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.
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.
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...
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-annou...
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based...
> 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...
Doesn't read like a takeover attempt to me...
Off topic, but why is the Linux Foundation website asking me to allow cookies for "Targeted Advertising"?
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..
It doesn't sound like this would solve the issue..
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.
Presumably part of the court order is that they can't just do the same thing again without suffering the same (or worse) consequences.
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.
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.
> 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...
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...
[deleted]
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...
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...
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're making a great case for why most people should prefer chrome to remain a google product.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
Sounds to me that taking chrome away from Google will be a net-negative for the users.
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.
The details could be worked out. The idea is to make big corporations pay while keeping it free for users.
Microsoft has a customized version of Chrome. Don't they already pay for it?
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.
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.
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.
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
Make it make sense
Would love if that also meant no more shovelware features to try and distinguish Edge from Chrome.
>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.
To be fair, Google could reassign them to something else. Firing everybody will be Google's decision that wasn't forced on them.
I don't really know if they would be allowed to divest the IP but retain the developers. Maybe!
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.
We don’t know what proposals the court will accept.
We know what outcomes the DOJ is proposing and might proopose, so we can make pretty good guesses.
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
Not sure this is the company we want to put our trust in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#Controvers...
Brave makes a profit because they don't pay for developing the browser.
I really doubt Brave is profitable. They have taken a lot of VC money.
They also do really shady things with affiliate links and their scheme to hijack ad revenue from websites.
> 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?
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?
All the people who work on Chrome would go with it.
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.
Firefox seems to do fine without Google employees.
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.”
“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.”
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
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
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.
Explain why when they changed their stance me holding them to a standard I hold all other browsers is now an issue.
Please don't lump Safari with the rest of them, drunk on ad-based revenue.
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.”
“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.”
What's the issue here?
Firefox has been in decline for many years, sadly.
Indeed, it has not had even one moment of market share growth since about 8 months after Google Chrome was first released.
(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
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
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.
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.
Easy to gain market share when one of the tent pole internet services is experiencing regular breakages.
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?
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?
Can someone in this thread who have swapped between Firefox/Chrome explain the problems they run into ultimately driving them back to Chrome?
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.
because it can be used to effectively block Google ads and tracking
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...).
Doesn't want to implement useful standards which I use in my own applications (filesystem API, WebSerial, WebUSB...).
It kills my battery on my Mac about as bad as Chrome.
[deleted]
I am sure folks at Microsoft were saying the same of IE 5 and 6, as I was around when it took over.
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.
I'm not optimistic that it'll happen, but I'd still like to see it.
It starts by not shipping Electron garbage, and write browser agnostic Webapps.
Tauri and others allow using the system webview while still providing full native programming capabilities via rust or whatever language the particular framework uses.
There's more than just "website or electron", and things like vscode prove that they're all viable.
There's more than just "website or electron", and things like vscode prove that they're all viable.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
This doesn't get talked about enough.
Microsoft back then was just a software company, they didn't care about your real life. Unfortunately, companies today are a different story.
Microsoft back then was just a software company, they didn't care about your real life. Unfortunately, companies today are a different story.
> 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.
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.
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...
[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-presiden...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-b...
The fact that has already been normalized is so fucking wild
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Interesting, I tried using DuckDuckGo for a while, didn’t find it competitive with Google
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!
Maybe we'll soon have Apache Chrome!
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> I don't remember Google doing that.
They didn't
> I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009
I would attribute it to IE losing market share. It was always IE... and <the rest>.
They didn't
> I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009
I would attribute it to IE losing market share. It was always IE... and <the rest>.
> 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.
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.
Like what Mozilla was supposed to be doing all along?
Apache is where projects go to slowly die.
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/
https://airflow.apache.org/
https://iceberg.apache.org/
https://kafka.apache.org/
https://superset.apache.org/
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.
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.
https://openoffice.apache.org/ is the context in which I've seen this saying get regurgitated the most.
I wrote about the situation with Apache Open Office here:
https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-softw...
https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-softw...
[deleted]
Or Oracle. :D
Really? Airflow, Arrow, Iceberg, Kafka are dying projects?
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.
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.
> 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”.
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”.
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...
[0]: https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018
[1]: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr...
Safari and Firefox are capable web browsers. Where do people get this outlandish take from?
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.
Seeing that Safari doesn’t drain my battery on my laptop and it doesn’t send my search engine to an adtech company…
It does; Google is the default search in Safari.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And I slightly misspoke. I said it was only supported by Chrome. More accurately, it is supported by Chrome and some Chromium based browsers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I went back to Firefox about 5 years ago and not even once missed Chrome since.
Why should the user need to do that? The browser should automatically configure itself for optimal performance on any reasonable hardware.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe the actual problem is some people having this sentiment.
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.
> 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.
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.
Not used Firefox in ages, but what’s the matter with Safari? It sips battery and cpu cycles on my macs.
None. Safari is the best browser I’ve used by a long margin.
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).
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).
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
Feels like Apple doesn't really care about it
Well, last time, the presidential election changed executive support as well. That would make this significant since it’s a new Justice Dept.
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.
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.
This is plain nonsense. Trump got bad search result because he's literally terrible and wholly unqualified to be president.
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
DOJ asks for judgement requiring Google to divest Chrome [pdf] (31 points 30 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045
Google just needs to send the appropriate amount to kleptocracy war chest and this will get killed on the backend.
It’s a big world. Does breaking up google give the Asian giants an advantage? Wonder if China breaks up their large tech companies?
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Making the argument that anti-trust is a bad idea because of geopolitics seems pretty wild to me.
Wild? Everything is just a tool. If enforcing antitrust harms national security then …
So the entire economy should be in service of national security? That’s preposterous.
I didn’t suggest the entire economy. I’m just saying it’s not _wild_ to consider national security when enforcing policies.
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.
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
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
> 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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
Realistically Chromium is downstream of Chrome and it goes where Chrome goes. Chromebooks are somewhat more interesting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
I assume Oracle will buy it and start threatening to change APIs and then sell a enterprise version
- 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.
- 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.
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.
If the user doesn't change anything they wouldn't have downloaded, installed and set chrome as default browser.
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.
Exactly same with Google, people think they it is the internet even if it is not the default.
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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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So who is going to fund a fully featured browser?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Someone didn't send a large enough campaign contribution.
I agree there needs to be remedy, but Does chrome have a profit without Google? Who’s going to buy it? Oracle?
> 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?
RIP Firefox?
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.
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.
Weren't the new initiatives pretty small compared to Firefox development?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know they cut back a little but maybe they’ve sobered up since? Haven’t had the heart to look again.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
--
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.
If chrome is no longer owned by Google I'll use it. That's the reason I switched to firefox in the first place.
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.
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
At that point I think Firefox lost a vision of a better future
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
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...
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.
I suspect chrome will get far less consumer friendly than chrome currently is if it is sold.
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.
> 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?
There are many who already do just this. What extra value would they get if they already repackage Chrome for free?
chrome no longer supports effective ad-blocking extensions.
Isn't that because Google doesn't want them upsetting their advertising business. Breaking up seems like it will help this
Sort of. MV3 is less effective than MV2, sure. But it is not wholly useless. uBlock Origin Lite exists.
uBO Lite seems to sufficient for like 99% of my usage. Only certain websites I'll open up in FireFox with UBO full.
I recall it being claimed that Mozilla has the warchest to survive at typical spending levels for quite some time, without Google.
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...
https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
Firefox will be just fine. Mozilla CEO bonuses however...
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.
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.
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.
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...
I recently switched to Vivaldi and have really liked it.
Is it going to support manifest v2 after it is phased out by Google or whoever is going to own Chrome?
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.
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.
time to try ladybird haha
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Me too. Found out you can reenable it in the extension settings.
Switch to Firefox!
Firefox on iOS has no built-in adblocker making it a no-go. And I need sync between platforms.
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..
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.
Firefox Focus at least removes trackers. It's a wrapper around Safari, anyway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
Not on desktop, but PWA support is there on Firefox for Android at least.
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...
Switch to lynx!
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Just use NextDNS.
Brave is the best option.
Sure, if you have no morals
Yet another Chromium browser, you say?
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.
The only person/institution to buy Chrome in the current setting would be EM. It would make sense to embed xAI all over it, make Twitter a home page. I can see it play really well for Musk, not so much for the users though.
I can even see him spending less money on it than during Twitter acquisition.
I can even see him spending less money on it than during Twitter acquisition.
I don't know the legal and justice aspects of this, but I personally hope whatever happens prevents the ongoing privacy abuses, like uBlock not working into the future due to decreased ability to block content. Just my personal preference.
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?
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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.
* 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
I think the control should be in the hands of the public. Stewarded by a public organization with government funds. What do you think?
> I think the control should be in the hands of the public. Stewarded by a public organization with government funds. What do you think?
I don't know. I think today the EU could set up EUBrowser, a fork of Chromium, and start work. Almost all the hard work has been done by OSS contributions. Google engineers, and Google-funded things such as Firefox. They could live off that comfortably while providing a more locked-down browser if they liked.
A more meaningful, less parasitic option would take longer: the EU (or whomoever) writes a browser from scratch. Then they could decide exactly what goes into it, and have independent input into standards etc.
I don't know. I think today the EU could set up EUBrowser, a fork of Chromium, and start work. Almost all the hard work has been done by OSS contributions. Google engineers, and Google-funded things such as Firefox. They could live off that comfortably while providing a more locked-down browser if they liked.
A more meaningful, less parasitic option would take longer: the EU (or whomoever) writes a browser from scratch. Then they could decide exactly what goes into it, and have independent input into standards etc.
I like both these ideas. But feel the first more destined for success.
Good luck paying engineers to work on chrome on the GS pay scale, subject to the whims of Elon Musk's DOGE.
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.
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.
Hehehe - government funding doesn't mean government in charge. Maybe they only bootstrap it. The right structure is possible.
>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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
Maybeee the EU but we are talking about an American ruling.
“ 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.
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.
pessimizer(1)
The tiktok ban was the same way, until it wasn't. Remarkable that people are still falling for this.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
What would be the difference between Google shoveling money at Safari and Firefox for default search and shoveling money at some “independent” Chrome?
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Isn’t android like 10 times the problem chrome is?
The doj should split up more of big tech. The industry is stagnating and allowing a more healthy competition would do wonders.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I dont think adwords would stay with Google. It would have to be sold with search. The ad network would remain with alphabet.
> 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.
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.
The doubleclick network would still belong to google. Only search would be kept separate.
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.
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.
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.
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
How about youtube, gmail too please
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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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
> Electron isn’t a google product…
Sure, but it's exacerbating the Blink monoculture anyway.
Sure, but it's exacerbating the Blink monoculture anyway.
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.
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.
My first reaction when reading this is: how does this help Musk?
Sigh.
Sigh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
How about Amazon buying Firefox instead?
What a horrifying concept.
Why would you say that? How is the current timeline not already shitty enough for you?
Swan dive into the enshittification.
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This is so so dumb and not related to the already dumb monopoly ruling.
Sell it and drop Mankfest V3 lol
All that rather pathetic grovelling and kowtowing to Trump, for naught.
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
They already pivoted to hire offshore workers, so why would they care
Offshoring as the supposed death of the US software developer going on 40 years now remains greatly exaggerated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Do note that this will take years to play out. Nothing is certain yet.
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.
It doesn't matter if they actually go through with it or greatly inflate the number like OpenAI, Softbank and co did.
The suit started under the last Trump administration.
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drumhead(2)
It's morning in America - pmarca
So sad all that sucking up to the new administration didn't work. Oh well...
Ah now I get why Google maps had Gulf of America...
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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?
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?
> 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".
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".
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.