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Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

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Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#101

Post by titusjohnson »

Topgamer7 wrote: post #81
soulofmischief wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently have 8260 tabs open across 9 windows, and that's just on my main laptop, across all devices I probably have over 20k tabs, and I don't really have any issues regarding tab management. I used to have issues with Firefox randomly nuking my state on load and having to restore backups, but now I use Tab Session Manager for that and never think twice about it.

Y'all are crazy. What is even the possible value in this?

Not who you're talking to, but there is none. Browsers have had "Bookmark all tabs" functionality for ages, which completely replaces tab hoarding. Especially now that the content of the page you visited 5 months ago isn't actually loaded in memory. It's basically a bookmark, switch to the tab and the content is reloaded.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#102

Post by TZubiri »

robertlagrant wrote: post #22
TZubiri wrote: post #12

Lol not a chance, remember that they got into browsers because that's almost the same tech for web crawling. It's a core tech for their 1T mcap company

They got into browsers to make sure all the google properties (all web based) worked really well and weren't held back by Microsoft's dead-ending of web browser development.

Not really. Google has Android first of all, and apps. So it's incorrect that all google properties are web based.

Second, web apps would work just fine on browsers like Firefox, Safari, and even IExplorer.

Thinking that someone would develop a browser so that their webapps work well is missing the point entirely. If the user trusts you enough to download your application and your engineers can write code that interfaces with the OS, you would just develop an native application. Writing a browser to write your webapps would just be incredibly inefficient, and as a side effect it would help your competitors.

Google developed a javascript engine to parse webpages with javascript, then they realized they basically had a browser so voila, and that they could slap search on the search bar, so voila they published a browser.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#103

Post by philistine »

JustExAWS wrote: post #98
philistine wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how, pray tell, where all of these people made aware of Chrome? Google made the first ad for its front page for Chrome. This is not in itself a problem, but Google has a monopoly in search and ads. They cannot be allowed to also have a monopoly in browsers. That’s the whole point of American monopoly laws. Once you have a monopoly, you can’t do everything you want. There are limits. Owning a browser is too much p…

So let’s say that Google doesn’t own Chrome. Does that affect where Google actually makes its money? In 2025 when most people first by a Windows computer, do they use Bing or go to Google? Google does not have a monopoly on ads. Billions are spent on ads on Facebook properties, Amazon, Apple (app store), TikTok. People choose to use Google for search and can go to any other search engine if they choose. In 2025, Goog…

While the vibes around Google Search are indeed bad, the numbers haven't shown a dip in usage. And it's not like Google has rested on its laurels. They're shoving AI in search as much as they can.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#104

Post by ocdtrekkie »

JustExAWS wrote: post #99
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely naive take. Sundar Pichai's claim to fame was getting the Google Toolbar and Chrome pushed into the Adobe Reader installer back in the day. So many OEMs were shoving Chrome and Google into their default loads that Microsoft had to make a "Bing Edition" of Windows for a bit with a lower price to include Bing and Edge as default, and have now outright blocked the practice I believe. When you visit…

This is 2025. People who buy Windows get a Chromium based browser where Google Search is not the default yet they go to Google. I have a Mac, don’t use Chrome or a Chromium based browser and haven’t had an issue. And you are forced to install Chrome on Windows? Besides wouldn’t you want your applications to install without requiring admin access?

Wait, are you suggesting you don't see an issue with people being able to install a web browser on a PC they don't own?

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#105

Post by soulofmischief »

titusjohnson wrote: post #101
Topgamer7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all are crazy. What is even the possible value in this?

Not who you're talking to, but there is none. Browsers have had "Bookmark all tabs" functionality for ages, which completely replaces tab hoarding. Especially now that the content of the page you visited 5 months ago isn't actually loaded in memory. It's basically a bookmark, switch to the tab and the content is reloaded.

Yes, I am aware of bookmarks, and as someone who used to use them quite a lot, I'm aware of their limitations. Some things are just ephemeral and should remain so. Browser search is great. As you mentioned, tabs lazy load so the main functionality is the same, so it's presumptuous to assume I get no value out of my organizational strategy.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#106

Post by scarface_74 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #104
JustExAWS wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 2025. People who buy Windows get a Chromium based browser where Google Search is not the default yet they go to Google. I have a Mac, don’t use Chrome or a Chromium based browser and haven’t had an issue. And you are forced to install Chrome on Windows? Besides wouldn’t you want your applications to install without requiring admin access?

Wait, are you suggesting you don't see an issue with people being able to install a web browser on a PC they don't own?

Hopefully you are being sarcastic.

I have never in 30 years across 10 companies including one BigTech company not been trusted with admin access to my computer.

However, admins have been able to lock down computers to not allow them to install software at least since Windows NT.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#107

Post by ocdtrekkie »

scarface_74 wrote: post #106
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, are you suggesting you don't see an issue with people being able to install a web browser on a PC they don't own?

Hopefully you are being sarcastic. I have never in 30 years across 10 companies including one BigTech company not been trusted with admin access to my computer. However, admins have been able to lock down computers to not allow them to install software at least since Windows NT.

No I am honestly terrified that the industry is that bad. Good Lord. You're telling me you've never worked somewhere which has ever complied with a bare minimum IT security policy ever? Has nobody where you work heard of defense in depth? We have built a temple to madness.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#108

Post by scarface_74 »

philistine wrote: post #89
scarface_74 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and the courts are idiots. Why buy Chrome when you they can get Chromium for free? What good is Chrome outside of Google? Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?

That’s ultimately for the courts to decide but what’s at issue is not the control of Chrome itself but wether Google is allowed to offer a browser. Any browser. People on this site seem to forget that courts can compel companies. Open-source is not a magic bullet that invalidates consent decrees. If Google is forced to sell off Chrome and forbidden from offering a browser due to their monopoly in the ad market, they…

Are they going to compel Google to not allow people to go to their sites? Even when it’s not the default search engine (Windows), they still voluntarily go there.

Who is going to fund the browser development? Is it going to be funded like Firefox dependent on Google ad revenue?

The only product bundled with Chrome are ChromeOS notebooks and Android phones and neither has a majority market share in the US.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#109

Post by scarface_74 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #107
scarface_74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you are being sarcastic. I have never in 30 years across 10 companies including one BigTech company not been trusted with admin access to my computer. However, admins have been able to lock down computers to not allow them to install software at least since Windows NT.

No I am honestly terrified that the industry is that bad. Good Lord. You're telling me you've never worked somewhere which has ever complied with a bare minimum IT security policy ever? Has nobody where you work heard of defense in depth? We have built a temple to madness.

I worked at Amazon - AWS Professional Services to be exact. They trusted their employees with admin access. You had to toggle an option and click on a box saying you would be responsible with admin access.

I think AWS knows a little bit about defense in depth…

Every blue badge employee at Amazon as far as I know has the ability to get Admin access by clicking on a button on the home built app.

You also might be surprised that in the last 8 years since working with AWS technology, I’ve never worked at a company where I didn’t have Admin access to an AWS account. At AWS we could create as many sandbox accounts as we wanted to with Admin access and every client I have worked with for thd pass five+ years I’ve asked for a none production account with the “PowerUser” policy + iam::* permissions - which is admin in all but name.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#110

Post by ocdtrekkie »

scarface_74 wrote: post #109
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I am honestly terrified that the industry is that bad. Good Lord. You're telling me you've never worked somewhere which has ever complied with a bare minimum IT security policy ever? Has nobody where you work heard of defense in depth? We have built a temple to madness.

I worked at Amazon - AWS Professional Services to be exact. They trusted their employees with admin access. You had to toggle an option and click on a box saying you would be responsible with admin access. I think AWS knows a little bit about defense in depth… Every blue badge employee at Amazon as far as I know has the ability to get Admin access by clicking on a button on the home built app. You also might be surpr…

> I think AWS knows a little bit about defense in depth…

What you're telling me is that they do not. And that every mom and pop shop IT outfit is more qualified to secure a server than Amazon is.

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