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DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

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Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#111

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

There appears to be a hyperfocus on only a single element of the requested remedy. Perhaps many HN commenters are "web developers" and this explains the fixation on popular web browsers.

Perhaps commenters should consider that this particular request regarding Chrome may be removed when the revised Proposed Final Judgment is filed in March or this particular request regarding Chrome may be denied by the Court.

More often than not, the unbounded speculation put forth by HN commenters is incorrect in predicting the future.

IMHO, it would be great if web browsers became simpler to write and more numerous as opposed to the status quo where people commenting online assert that writing a web browser takes enormous investment and accept that there are only a handful to choose from, and these must be all controlled by commercial entities seeking to sell advertising services or partner with such commercial entities.

Browsers do not need to be Trojan Horse software to enable surreptitious data collection, nor vectors through which unsolicited advertising may be served. I am typing this comment with one that satisfies neither of those "requirements".

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#112

Post by Kon-Peki »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86
defrost wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say for certain, I'm Australian and don't work with the US political admin (ie no inside line) but there's certainly been US insiders that have strongly hinted dodging massive mounting legal trouble was a major motivation for Trump to run again. To be clear they may have been deadly serious, seriously joking, or both at the same time .. it's just that good a fit as a theory.

The Machiavellian move by Biden would have been a pardon conditioned on retiring from public service.

I'm sure that would have worked about as well as Napoleon agreeing to live in exile on Elba.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#113

Post by kranke155 »

arresin wrote: post #98
knuckleheads wrote: post #7

Page 12 is also very interesting to me personally, as it contains orders mandating the opening of Google’s search index to their competitors. I had been wondering if that would make it in there and am happy to see it land.

That is the only thing that makes sense then. The chrome thing doesn’t. It’s like the worst possible way of dealing with this very serious problem.

I don’t fully understand how the DOJ believes selling Chrome will help. Like others said, browsers lose money.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#114

Post by montag »

friendzis wrote: post #37
43920 wrote: post #17

This has already been discussed extensively in prior threads, but the biggest question is, how does a spun-off Chrome get funded? Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain. Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements. Chrome, Edge, and now Brave are produced by companies that also own the search engines, so they're ess…

> Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain. The reason? Infinite[1] complexity. To Google that is a feature : as long as they can outspend competitors, they can control the complexity in their favor. The question should not be "how do we fund development of operating system in a trench coat?", but rather "how much do we actually need to fetch and render HTML?" and the answer i…

> "how much do we actually need to fetch and render HTML?" and the answer is in the ballpark of single digit FTEs

Sorry, but we're not going back to Lynx...

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#115

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #111

There appears to be a hyperfocus on only a single element of the requested remedy. Perhaps many HN commenters are "web developers" and this explains the fixation on popular web browsers. Perhaps commenters should consider that this particular request regarding Chrome may be removed when the revised Proposed Final Judgment is filed in March or this particular request regarding Chrome may be denied by the Court. More o…

To be fair, it is only just HN comments that are fixating on the request regarding Chrome while ignoring all the other requests.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#116

Post by labster »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #112
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Machiavellian move by Biden would have been a pardon conditioned on retiring from public service.

I'm sure that would have worked about as well as Napoleon agreeing to live in exile on Elba.

Sir, I served with Napoleon Bonaparte. I knew Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte was a friend of mine. Sir, Trump is no Napoleon Bonaparte.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#117

Post by colimbarna »

nprateem wrote: post #80
43920 wrote: post #17

This has already been discussed extensively in prior threads, but the biggest question is, how does a spun-off Chrome get funded? Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain. Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements. Chrome, Edge, and now Brave are produced by companies that also own the search engines, so they're ess…

The same way ff does. Google will pay to be the main search engine and to ensure all their Web apps continue to work performantly.

Google will be prohibited from doing that under the DOJ's proposal.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#118

Post by jojobas »

threatofrain wrote: post #109
jojobas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone contribute to Linux?

Linux is foundational to everyone and there isn’t an obvious alternative. What companies care about Safari vs Chrome? From the perspective of other companies, what’s wrong with Safari and Edge taking command?

For starters, there's no Safari for anything other than Mac OS and iOS, and Edge is Chromium with some cosmetics from Microsoft.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#119

Post by troupo »

threatofrain wrote: post #108
troupo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost nothing Google ships at neck-breaking speed makes the web better, or faster, or a better open web.

JS has been moving at excellent speeds and Google has moved the web to evergreen. If anything I’d argue that without the specter of regulation then we might’ve had Dart or something new in the browser by now. The biggest existential risk to the web is that it’s not good enough. It’s being threatened by sharp innovation in other spaces - may the Vision Pro never come down in price or improve in UX.

What do regulations have to do with Dart? You got WASM in the browser which is a much better outcome than a language even Google doesn't know what to do with.

The biggest existential risk to the web is Google themselves: it's the world's biggest advertising and user tracking company having outsized influence on where the web is headed, and moulding the web for its own profit.

Re: DOJ filed paperwork to US District Court to force Google to spin off Chrome [pdf]

#120

Post by bad_user »

troupo wrote: post #76
bad_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, Chrome does not move fast enough . The fact of the matter is that the web has been dying because people have moved to mobile devices, where they prefer native apps. If you're advocating for slower development of browsers, you're also advocating for the death of the open web.

Almost nothing Google ships at neck-breaking speed makes the web better, or faster, or a better open web.

All the features that Google ships are necessary for web apps. E.g., open this webpage in different browsers: https://howfuguismybrowser.dev/ — Note that Firefox was once on top of this development, during the days when they also had an interest in developing FirefoxOS. Those days are long gone.

As for what Google has done historically with Chrome, it's trivially easy to point to developments that have improved the web.

You can start with the fact that it's the most secure browser, see for instance: https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...

You can also read their original marketing material, in which they describe the isolation of plugins, extensions, or tabs, i.e., a crashing Flash movie or a crashing website no longer crashed the browser — then count the years it took for their competition to catch up: https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

On “speed”, not sure what you mean, but Chrome has been demonstrably the fastest browser. It always was, with V8 being the fastest JS engine since launch, but also in benchmarks testing more “real” experiences, like Speedometer 3. The only area where it needs improvement is battery efficiency on macOS machines, where Safari has the lead, but even there it made great strides.

Speaking of PWAs, Chrome was also the first to deliver a good PWA experience on mobile devices and on the desktop. For mobile devices, the first one was Apple's Safari, but then Apple crippled the experience by not implementing much needed functionality, such as notifications. Firefox, BTW, still has unfixed bugs on Android and provides no SSB support for the desktop.

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