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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

#111

Post by dTal »

icebraining wrote: post #91
duiker101 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of "third party browsers" like Opera, Vivaldi and Brave choose to go for Chromium as their engine, would they be able to use Firefox's engine the same way? If yes, why does it seem that no one actually does it? I personally don't particularly enjoy Firefox as a browser, but I don't have anything against their engine. If there was a version of Vivaldi that implemented that I would probably choose it over the Chr…

There are browsers using Firefox's engine; most are forks of Firefox itself, but there was Camino, Conkeror, and Galeon, plus K-Meleon which is still around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon

K-Meleon was a great option for Windows computers with not much RAM, since it used native GUI widgets instead of XUL.

(It might still be, but I haven't touched it in over a decade.)

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

#112

Post by inflatableDodo »

masswerk wrote: post #67

Anecdotal observation: A few years ago, I made a video game for an early 1960s computer, the PDP-1, running in an homegrown emulator in web technology. [1] Amazingly, the game runs at 60 frames per second (yes, you could do this with early 1960s tech), and, amazingly, browsers were able to render the emulation, including a rather complex simulation of the dual-phosphor screen, at 60 fps (you could do this in 2016). A…

Thanks for that, I have just been thoroughly massacred by aliens.

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

#113

Post by dTal »

masswerk wrote: post #67

Anecdotal observation: A few years ago, I made a video game for an early 1960s computer, the PDP-1, running in an homegrown emulator in web technology. [1] Amazingly, the game runs at 60 frames per second (yes, you could do this with early 1960s tech), and, amazingly, browsers were able to render the emulation, including a rather complex simulation of the dual-phosphor screen, at 60 fps (you could do this in 2016). A…

Well that just cries out for some snarky user-agent-sniffing "upgrade your browser" overlay.

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

#114

Post by r721 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #48
bad_user wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

The most recent thing I've seen is where the boundaries of the browser and Google's web properties start to get blurred. For example, signing into a Google site from Chrome also signs you into the browser; it's unclear how this happens, what personal information it compromises, and more than that it's an unexpected and unwelcome surprise when it happens. Clearing Google cookies in Chrome also doesn't work, for relate…

>signing into a Google site from Chrome also signs you into the browser

They eventually created an option to disable that behaviour after a lot of user complaints:

"While we think sign-in consistency will help many of our users, we’re adding a control that allows users to turn off linking web-based sign-in with browser-based sign-in—that way users have more control over their experience. For users that disable this feature, signing into a Google website will not sign them into Chrome."

https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/product-updates-base...

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

#115

Post by AznHisoka »

dalbasal wrote: post #106
wguaa wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chrome wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't a very good browser. It is good. It is not only good. When it came out it wiped the floor with the alternatives. Firefox 3, from that time, was absolutely pathetic in terms of performance. I remember sticking to 2 for a while. Even today Chrome is still the best, even if the margin has narrowed. Other browsers are having to adopt Blink to catch up.

Idk about wiped the floor, but it gets subjective. Immediately before chrome launched, FF was slowly eating into IE's market share. Chrome was good, but so was FF. I don't think chrome ever had a lead in FF anything like the lead FF had over IE. Mozilla always had to play with a disadvantage. Still do.

Was it Chrome that came up with tabs? i cant seem to remember if FF had it. If FF didnt have tabs, that is enough for me to say Chrome wiped out the competition.

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

#116

Post by CaptainZapp »

dTal wrote: post #102
CaptainZapp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google invested a shit ton into marketing when they launched Chrome. I have pictures from 2012 (I think) when they had the entire grand hall of Paris' Gare de Lyon hung with dozens of huge Chrome banners. That alone must have cost them tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Euros. That said I think the web's under Google's thumb screws (AMP, mail, DNS, browser-almost monopoly, etc) is in a bad place. But they did inv…

Your comment reads strangely and I can't tell what you're trying to say. I'm not sure why you frame these things as being at odds ("That said... But...). They were willing to pay to bundle Chrome with installers - it's not surprising they also invested in "conventional" marketing. And it directly led to the browser-almost-monopoly you cite.

Summarized :

They spent a ton of money on promoting Chrome But essentially defending them on that specific issue doesn't make it a nice, or admirable company in my book.

Edit, to clarify some more: I was "defending" them on some accusations that they promoted Chrome with dirty tricks and dark patterns. Initially, I'd wager, they didn't.

Does that clarify it?

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

#117

Post by leereeves »

AznHisoka wrote: post #115
dalbasal wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk about wiped the floor, but it gets subjective. Immediately before chrome launched, FF was slowly eating into IE's market share. Chrome was good, but so was FF. I don't think chrome ever had a lead in FF anything like the lead FF had over IE. Mozilla always had to play with a disadvantage. Still do.

Was it Chrome that came up with tabs? i cant seem to remember if FF had it. If FF didnt have tabs, that is enough for me to say Chrome wiped out the competition.

Firefox had tabs before Chrome existed.

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

#118

Post by glandium »

syshum wrote: post #56
duiker101 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of "third party browsers" like Opera, Vivaldi and Brave choose to go for Chromium as their engine, would they be able to use Firefox's engine the same way? If yes, why does it seem that no one actually does it? I personally don't particularly enjoy Firefox as a browser, but I don't have anything against their engine. If there was a version of Vivaldi that implemented that I would probably choose it over the Chr…

At the time they made those choices there were 3 main reasons to choose chromium over FF as a base 1. Smaller Size, chromium was just a smaller foot print with less legacy code 2. Better Performance. There was no doubt the before firefox quantum Chromium was the performance leader, Bink and V8 where superior then, today not soo much 3. Better rendering support. Like IE6 in the 90's today there are many many sites tha…

More relevant: better embedding story. Gecko is not exactly great to embed.

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

#119

Post by dalbasal »

chii wrote: post #101
dalbasal wrote: post #34

Antitrust law is, I suspect, hopelessly outdated... both the laws and the understanding of monopolies/trusts that are baked into them. These laws were based on 19th-century competition. The problems att were price fixing, predatory pricing (eg price low to kill competition then raise prices), supply chain bottlenecking (how you gonna sell your ore without my trains) ... industrial era trust stuff. The precedents and…

Breaking up a monopoly requires that said monopoly be bad for society, and it's adverse effects can't be fixed via markets due to reasons like size and reach. Monopoly in its own is neither good nor bad. Facebook has a monopoly in social network. Is that bad? What is the effect of the monopoly? Is Facebook's monopoly having an adverse effect, or is the adverse effect inherent in the way social networks work (and brea…

Those are exactly the types of questions that I think we have outdated laws regarding.

Outdated laws and outdated economic theory embedded in them. There is only so far that you can extend a railroads, mining and foundries analogy.

I'm sure we could have lively back-and-forth about the impact of these monopolies, but the only legal and legislatively pertinent parts of that discussion are those that can be massaged into an analogy to the late industrial examples that the current legal framework (including, legislation, legal precedents and regulatory bodies) was designed around.

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

#120

Post by kmlx »

bad_user wrote: post #8
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…

IE was by far the worst browser. i was working as a front end dev durinh those days and got excited when google finally launched chrome, more-so than firefox. the hours and the energy spent on debugging IE is something we will never get back.

on your second point, monopolies create the setting for massive disruption.

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