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Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

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Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#2

Post by ishan1121 »

Google is a clear monopoly, there's no doubt about it. It has a 70% browser market share, 70% market share in the search ecosystem. Even though their service is good and people are happy, I think they need to be broken down for the sake of keeping an open internet. Even Facebook for that matter. That's my opinion

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#4

Post by kmlx »

as a software dev, not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing. countless hours wasted on debugging various browsers gets massively reduced. second point, moving the conversation from " hasn't caught up" to "everyone's caught up" helps the web focus on technologies more so than before. discussions should now concentrate almost exclusively around the next web technologies, no more competition regarding web engines, more competition regarding web technologies. clear win imo.

as a biz dev, it's a bit saddening to see a lot of browser competitors go down the drain. but this also means that the possibility of disruption will be much higher in the future. so this is a win for biz dev as well?

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#5

Post by bad_user »

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular.

However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important.

Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is the ability to fork, however competitors such as Microsoft proved that they no longer have the capacity to develop a modern browser.

At this point the only remaining alternatives are Firefox and Safari.

I think nowadays Firefox is a much better browser and that Mozilla is better at guarding my interests, so I would use Firefox even if it weren't a better browser, however the market isn't necessarily interested in that.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#6

Post by malms »

ishan1121 wrote: post #2

Google is a clear monopoly, there's no doubt about it. It has a 70% browser market share, 70% market share in the search ecosystem. Even though their service is good and people are happy, I think they need to be broken down for the sake of keeping an open internet. Even Facebook for that matter. That's my opinion

Cute

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#7

Post by Causality1 »

kmlx wrote: post #4

as a software dev, not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing. countless hours wasted on debugging various browsers gets massively reduced. second point, moving the conversation from " hasn't caught up" to "everyone's caught up" helps the web focus on technologies more so than before. discussions should now concentrate almost exclusively around the next web technologies, no more competition regarding web en…

>not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing.

So you just ignore the 30 percent of the market that isn't Chrome? Internet Explorer had 70+ percent of the market share until 2010. Was it good for consumers and the internet as a whole for devs to ignore non-IE browsers in 2009?

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#8

Post by bad_user »

kmlx wrote: post #4

as a software dev, not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing. countless hours wasted on debugging various browsers gets massively reduced. second point, moving the conversation from " hasn't caught up" to "everyone's caught up" helps the web focus on technologies more so than before. discussions should now concentrate almost exclusively around the next web technologies, no more competition regarding web en…

As a software dev you probably don't remember, or haven't lived the days of Internet Explorer. Diversity and browser standards is what made the web a good platform to develop for.

Just to give a recent example, if Google would dictate what gets implemented, instead of WebAssembly, the standard, you would have gotten PNaCl.

> this also means that the possibility of disruption will be much higher in the future. so this is a win for biz dev as well?

I fail to see how the creation of a monopoly can be a win for business. For Google's business, for sure.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#10

Post by kuu »

kmlx wrote: post #4

as a software dev, not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing. countless hours wasted on debugging various browsers gets massively reduced. second point, moving the conversation from " hasn't caught up" to "everyone's caught up" helps the web focus on technologies more so than before. discussions should now concentrate almost exclusively around the next web technologies, no more competition regarding web en…

The problem is if Chrome finally wins it all (we're almost there) and at some point they decide to remove a functionality that we all love, or they stop improving as there is no competition, or they decide to make you pay a little fee for developing a website with an extra functionality, or they decide that Chrome does not run on Mac anymore....

The problem with monopolies is that they control all the power, for the good or the bad decisions, and without competition they are not forced to look for the costumers benefit...

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