Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

vivaldi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 253 posts

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#101

Post by ocdtrekkie »

neil_s wrote: post #40

I'm a bit skeptical of the claims he's making in his article, since he has obvious incentives as the founder of a browser company competing with Google. Judging from the amazing features listed on the webpage (bar charts of my history, wow, do not need that at all), I'm guessing his product sense might have some something to do with his companies not working out, not bigger competitors that are out to get him. Can an…

The people most likely to have complaints about a business is actually their competitors, so this logic makes it very easy to just assume your favorite company is never doing something wrong.

Also, note that Vivaldi is not seeking major penetration in the market. It is "A Browser for Our Friends" specifically because it is folks that want a browser for power users like themselves, not for the everyday Chrome or Firefox folks.

Clearly, you don't know how you harass someone effectively. Break things, and apologize quickly and fix it immediately when they ask about it. (Malicious IT people can do this too!) "Oops, no idea what happened there, sorry, we'll fix it." Accidents happen and all...

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#102

Post by cpeterso »

joelrunyon wrote: post #72

Question for the HN crowd: is there a single-use browser for desktop like firefox focus? I really love it on iOS, but they don't seem to make it for Mac. Any suggestions?

You can configure Firefox to always open in Private Browsing mode. Look for "Always use private browsing mode" in Firefox's Privacy & Security settings.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/settings-privacy-browsi...

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#103

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cromwellian wrote: post #98
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And think tanks banked by Google, who will pressure them to fire people if they say the wrong thing.

Nice try, but no one's complaining about the Web being flooded with propaganda from Open Markets, nor can really call Eric Schmidt saying he is displeased as "pressure", then every time Steve Jobs threw a fit about a less than 100% positive iPhone review, we'd have to be talking about Apple's control of the media, the blacklisting of reporters, and the withholding of "access". The kinds of think tanks I'm talking abo…

Are you really suggesting that Eric Schmidt personally calling their CEO and expressing his "displeasure" isn't pressure? I suppose when a mob boss says it'd be "unfortunate if something happened to someone", you'd characterize that as just an expression of a personal view, too. Perhaps someone "sleeping with the fishes" really is just a leisurely dip in the Chicago river.

It's also worth noting that there are a significant number of examples where your employer has invested specifically in people writing about antitrust law, and specifically, claiming that Google doesn't violate it (see Joshua Wright, etc.). Suggesting their financial investment is limited to net neutrality discussions is... pretty misleading.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#105

Post by [deleted] »

akerl_ wrote: post #13
tryingagainbro wrote: post #3

Vivaldi CEO – “Google: it is time to return to not being evil” Me: that train has left the station. When you have monopoly power (70%-98% of market share) the governments should return Google and Whatever Corp to not being evil.

It seems like companies are stuck in a losing game. We constantly push small companies to capture more market share. Any companies that fold during that effort, we bring out the pitchforks because the services they ran get shut off. Any companies that succeed , we bring out the pitchforks because they own too much market power. It seems a bit much that we ask for companies to constantly grow and simultaneously ensure…

[deleted]

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#106

Post by cromwellian »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #101
neil_s wrote: post #40

I'm a bit skeptical of the claims he's making in his article, since he has obvious incentives as the founder of a browser company competing with Google. Judging from the amazing features listed on the webpage (bar charts of my history, wow, do not need that at all), I'm guessing his product sense might have some something to do with his companies not working out, not bigger competitors that are out to get him. Can an…

The people most likely to have complaints about a business is actually their competitors, so this logic makes it very easy to just assume your favorite company is never doing something wrong. Also, note that Vivaldi is not seeking major penetration in the market. It is "A Browser for Our Friends" specifically because it is folks that want a browser for power users like themselves, not for the everyday Chrome or Firef…

And clearly you don't know what you're talking about and are just making slanderous speculation. Engineers at Google have better things to do with their time than sit around trying to dream up ways to screw up the health of their code base for harassment purposes.

Is that what people do at your company? Sabotage code for political purposes? Maybe it's time to change jobs.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#107

Post by freehunter »

Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

Let's not forget the time they refused to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone and when Microsoft made one, Google forced them to remove it. And then seemingly in retribution for making the app, Google blocked Windows Phone from being able to access Google Maps even though the browser was technically capable of using it. Google's reasoning was (similarly to another comment here) "it's too hard to check functionality in so many browsers" like they're not literally the most powerful Internet company in the world engaging in petty nonsense with a basically non-existing competitor.

Remember when Microsoft did the stuff Google does now and the government actually cared enough to do something about it?

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#108

Post by elihu »

It would be great if Google changes their policies and acts responsibly from here on out, but whether they do or not, I think we would all be better off in the long run if there were more competing services.

Maybe it's time for a new search engine? (Or a new video sharing site, or a new email service, or a new online ad delivery system, or a new news aggregator, or a new cell phone operating system vendor, or a new Internet business model that isn't dependent on advertising revenue...)

Google started at a time when most people didn't think we need a new search engine, and it seems to have worked well for them. Maybe it's that time again. I'm not sure when exactly the PageRank patent expires (people seem to be saying 2017 or 2018), but it will be soon and that should open up some interesting possibilities.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#109

Post by alttab »

freehunter wrote: post #107
Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

Let's not forget the time they refused to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone and when Microsoft made one, Google forced them to remove it. And then seemingly in retribution for making the app, Google blocked Windows Phone from being able to access Google Maps even though the browser was technically capable of using it. Google's reasoning was (similarly to another comment here) "it's too hard to check functionality…

They seriously did that as you said? What a bunch of self important twats.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#110

Post by freehunter »

akerl_ wrote: post #13
tryingagainbro wrote: post #3

Vivaldi CEO – “Google: it is time to return to not being evil” Me: that train has left the station. When you have monopoly power (70%-98% of market share) the governments should return Google and Whatever Corp to not being evil.

It seems like companies are stuck in a losing game. We constantly push small companies to capture more market share. Any companies that fold during that effort, we bring out the pitchforks because the services they ran get shut off. Any companies that succeed , we bring out the pitchforks because they own too much market power. It seems a bit much that we ask for companies to constantly grow and simultaneously ensure…

It's completely possible for someone to have immense market power and not use it for evil.

I mean Apple is the richest company in the world but they choose to compete in very niche markets, and hasn't actually completely dominated a market since the iPod even though they easily could with their massive stockpiles of money.

Instead of trying to bend the Internet to the point of breaking, Google could just... not do that. They could focus on putting the industry best ads in the industry best search results, running the largest video streaming service, sell a wildly successful mobile OS, and have the best online office suite without all of the other terrible things they do as a corporation.

They're already the best at basically everything, so they got bored and now need to burn their reputation like it's kindling. It's pointless.

Post reply on HN