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DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#121

Post by xnx »

XorNot wrote: post #42
elmerfud wrote: post #16

So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different. Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to…

I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

> uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

In what way does uBlock work better on Firefox? I don't see any ads in Chrome. Ad block is more important to me than any browse. I use Kiwi on Android instead of Chrome, and would switch immediately on desktop if I saw ads.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#122

Post by NewJazz »

afavour wrote: post #34
milesward wrote: post #14

"make" Mozilla buy it, give em a heaping grant from the Library of Congress to keep the open web open, and be the engine behind every browser keeping things fair... sounds good to me!

In this scenario I’d much rather that heaping grant goes to a newly independent Chromium nonprofit org. Browser engine diversity is a good thing and worth trying to preserve.

Seriously the chromium project needs an endowment to sustain operations. Especially when you consider chromium OS too.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#123

Post by richard_fey2 »

kittikitti wrote: post #66
andrewflnr wrote: post #17

What would that even mean? Chrome doesn't make money. Who would buy it, except maybe someone who plans to do something even more nefarious?

Chrome makes enormous sums of money through ads. Also, these companies pay fortunes for default settings like search engines and other backroom deals. Someone could buy Chrome and ask Microsoft for 30% of Bing's search revenue to be the default search engine and Microsoft would agree.

This makes sense, but it is made even more nonsensical by the fact that the DOJ is also separately saying traffic aquisition deals are anticompetitive as well.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#125

Post by robocat »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #51
afavour wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.

Google also turns every link tap in their iOS apps into an opportunity to upsell Chrome for iOS when it should just open the link with the user’s default browser.

How else is Google supposed to "integrate" within iOS?

Safari and Messages etcetera link to within the closed Apple ecosystem - just like Windows. It can be between difficult to impossible to send an email or create a calendar item unless you use the iOS apps.

I'm definitely no Google fanboi but every answer being "Google are arseholes" feels dishonest.

The Chromium developer team absolutely kick arse and being open source is a true gift. Mozilla is badly failing to compete. Microsoft failed to compete with their first Edge rewrite, and now ironicalky MS "competes" using Chromium open source.

And why did Chromium have to split from WebKit? As an outsider it just looked like "because Apple don't want to play nice".

The story is always simplified to Google greedy arseholes. A typical response: you can never ever ever satisfy open source proponents... The stereotype that every open source user greedily wants more.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#126

Post by xnx »

flir wrote: post #92
nixass wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because .... It's because Chrome used to be shoved down everyone's throat up until few years ago. Once stable base of users was made (by force and deception) the market took momentum

Nah, it was faster, lighter and better. I say this as someone who has been back on Firefox for years at this point.

> it was faster, lighter and better

And more stable

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#127

Post by JoshTriplett »

bityard wrote: post #26
curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.

In the most chaotic alternate reality possible: Mozilla

Having it owned by a non-profit foundation would make a huge amount of sense, especially if that foundation was then immediately funded by a variety of companies rather than just one big advertising company.

The obvious test for whether the browser is actually independent: what is the response to "let's add an ad-blocker by default".

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#128

Post by mrandish »

bityard wrote: post #26
curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.

In the most chaotic alternate reality possible: Mozilla

With Mozilla becoming so hostile to their power users in recent years (or any user who just wants to customize the interface or core functionality), I'm not sure it would make much difference.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#129

Post by cosmic_cheese »

leptons wrote: post #79
afavour wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.

Chrome is definitely a better experience than Safari, and not by a little bit. In many ways Safari is the worst browser out there right now. Most of its market share comes from the fact that Apple still forces Safari to be used on iOS no matter what browser you think you have installed. I think the DOJ should go after Apple harder on that than they are on Google, because nobody is forcing anyone to use Chrome the sam…

Desktop Safari’s ~15% market share, which exceeds Firefox’s ~7%, suggests otherwise. Mac users can freely switch and yet many don’t.

There are likely several reasons for this but I think the two biggest ones are its differences in philosophy: first, that browsers should be just one utility among many on a desktop OS and not try to set itself apart and second, to actively combat the internet’s hostilities on behalf of the user.

Chrome will never do either. It tries to be a distinct brand and platform instead of meshing with your desktop nicely and it’s not going to do anything that will negatively impact Google’s many ad businesses.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#130

Post by JoshTriplett »

ninth_ant wrote: post #65
curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.

It doesn’t matter if no one buys it, or if it doesn’t even continue to exist as a standalone business. That’s preferable. The important part is ending the egregious conflict of interest where an advertising behemoth controls access to the internet. Ideal result is that Chrome ceases to exist and Chromium continues as an independent open source project controlled by a nonprofit. Even if Google is one of the contributo…

> TLDR just be like Mozilla

Mozilla is rapidly deciding they want to be an advertising and AI company at the expense of their primary product.

So, tl;dr: be like Mozilla used to be, not like they are now.

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