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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

#531

Post by rfoo »

rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

> If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.

I sign in browser-wide and I do takeouts regularly. I don't see my browsing data.

> It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app. In previous versions of Android, all of these were a part of AOSP.

And back when they were part of AOSP I never saw these example apps in the wild. Every vendor ships their own phone app. Every single one.

There's some "hey we compile a extremely old and vulnerable version of AOSP"-style Android distributions, mainly advertised for builtin su/Magisk or "degoogle", which did use these example apps, though.

I agree with other critics, they are toxic.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#533

Post by resource_waste »

throwinothrside wrote: post #528

I have a feeling this will get worse. I can think of these companies which have the resources to take over Chrome - Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Facebook. I can't see anybody else. They are all monopolies and is gonna screw it up big time for us consumers.

Same.

This seems like a 'lets pretend to hurt google' thing.

No one complained about Chrome.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#534

Post by wanderingbit »

MichaelCharles wrote: post #323
wesselbindt wrote: post #306

I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.

Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chromium? If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? Can Google make another new fork of Chromium and start yet another browser? Or are they now banned from making browsers? What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive co…

I use Brave which is based off of Chromium just like Chrome, and the experience is great. I’d say I’ve had to go to chrome maybe 3 times in the last year, and it was always for some super complicated SPA.

Whatever decrease we see to our browsing experience will be worth the gains I expect to see from dealing a blow to a monopoly like Google.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#535

Post by alt227 »

avtolik wrote: post #305
lxgr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are many other better options out there otherwise, and they are all free. For how long, though? The trajectory for Firefox doesn’t look good at all (and it’s completely dependent on Google too). Apple are doing their share of anticompetitive shenanigans with Safari on iOS, although the other way around. Everything else is based on Chromium and therefore not contributing to any heterogeneity of implementations…

> The trajectory for Firefox doesn’t look good at all (and it’s completely dependent on Google too). Can you elaborate on this? I am using Firefox since it was released, and it is getting better, not worse.

They keep firing large chunks of their employees due to not much cash, and the majority of their funding comes from google which it is phasing out over time.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#536

Post by atahanacar »

rfoo wrote: post #531
rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

> If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there. I sign in browser-wide and I do takeouts regularly. I don't see my browsing data. > It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app. In previous versions of Android, all of these were a part of AOSP. And back when they were part of AOSP I never saw these example apps in the wild. Every vendor sh…

You've disabled the option to see it. Your data is still being collected.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#537

Post by ENGNR »

jajko wrote: post #521
rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

How far can one go from 'don't be evil', right. And that's one aspect of one product. Company-wide list would be probably impressive in the worst way possible

Don't be evil was only the wifi password

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#538

Post by Ameo »

My primary worry here is that this would hurt the open web - whether or not splitting out Chrome into a separate business would be good for consumers in and of itself.

It's true that Google adds a lot of things to Chrome or their own benefit or even the potential detriment of others like Mozilla.

That being said, they also do a tremendous amount of work to push the state of the web forward and, most importantly, they release Chromium 100% free and open source. That's not to mention the other incredibly impactful free projects that have stemmed from it like V8/NodeJS, Electron, Puppeteer, Chrome Devtools, etc.

On the flip side, it's been argued that Google's control over web standards is too strong and they can essentially strong-arm other browser vendors into implementing whatever they want. It's also been argued that Google pushes too fast and makes it impossible for other vendors to keep up, leading people to use Chrome if they want the latest + greatest web features.

But when we look at the other browser vendors, I personally feel like Google seems like a much better alternative. Mozilla feels like a dried up husk of the company it apparently once was and Apple pushes a buggy, closed-source, locked-down browser which has been purposely held back from critical features in the past (I think they did that to try to keep users off web apps and keep them paying Apple huge app store fees).

----

Anyway, I certainly have very mixed feelings on this one. My main hope is that this doesn't spell the beginning of the end for Chromium because I truly believe it's a piece of software that has provided immense public benefit.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#539

Post by rfoo »

atahanacar wrote: post #536
rfoo wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there. I sign in browser-wide and I do takeouts regularly. I don't see my browsing data. > It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app. In previous versions of Android, all of these were a part of AOSP. And back when they were part of AOSP I never saw these example apps in the wild. Every vendor sh…

You've disabled the option to see it. Your data is still being collected.

Yeah, I really wish there is a working option to make me see it, then.

I always enable every data collection option in my privacy page, because even if I don't they get the data anyway, so why bother?

I do see my entire Google Search history since 2006.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#540

Post by JCharante »

Ameo wrote: post #538

My primary worry here is that this would hurt the open web - whether or not splitting out Chrome into a separate business would be good for consumers in and of itself. It's true that Google adds a lot of things to Chrome or their own benefit or even the potential detriment of others like Mozilla. That being said, they also do a tremendous amount of work to push the state of the web forward and, most importantly, they…

Yeah selling chrome makes no sense, who would buy it? It doesn’t make any money.
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