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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

#121

Post by kmlx »

Causality1 wrote: post #7
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?

it’s much easier to deal with the current 30% than it has been at any point in history with IE.

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

#122

Post by jarvic »

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.

If memory serves Opera was the first browser that had tabs but they were also in Firefox by the time Chrome released.

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

#123

Post by yesbabyyes »

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.

From Wikipedia (I first saw it using Galeon. I'm probably messing up history here but I think Epiphany was also early with tabs):

The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997. These were followed by a number of others like IBrowse in 1999, and Opera in 2000 (with the release of version 4 - although a MDI interface was supported before then), MultiViews October 2000, which changed its name into MultiZilla on 1 April 2001 (an extension for the Mozilla Application Suite[8]), Galeon in early 2001, Mozilla 0.9.5 in October 2001, Phoenix 0.1 (now Mozilla Firefox) in October 2002, Konqueror 3.1 in January 2003, and Safari in 2003. With the release of Internet Explorer 7 in 2006, all major web browsers featured a tabbed interface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface)

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

#124

Post by inflatableDodo »

anewhnaccount2 wrote: post #60
dalbasal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. " They did make a good browser. However, their market share is not down to better browser or "some advertising." They use their other assets (search, youtube, android, docs..) to make chrome the "default" option. It's a dominance breeds dominance cycle... a hallmark of modern monopoly. Chrome wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't a very good brow…

If you search for Firefox, Google says "did you mean Chrome?" Edited to add: This has actually happened to me when setting up a new Windows PC for someone.

Just tried searching for 'firefox' as a quick test.

I do get a page of Firefox results, but I also get a box titled 'People also ask' after the first four results, with the very first item being; 'Is Mozilla Firefox Safe to Download?' I also get a box at the bottom of the page titled 'Web Browsers,' with the first item in that box being Chrome. And Firefox is just not in that box at all. Not a popular enough web browser to include in the box marked web browsers when searched for by name, it would seem. On the other hand, UC Browser makes the list after Chrome, Opera and Safari, which I hadn't even heard of until today, but is apparently by Alibaba.

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

#125

Post by dalbasal »

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.

FF had tabs. IE had already adopted them. Chrome worked a bit better with lots of tabs. Iirc, pre-chrome, a crash (usually flash) in one tab would crash the browser. Chrome fixed that.

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

#126

Post by ishan1121 »

dTal wrote: post #20
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

Those 70% numbers undersell it. It's basically impossible to use the internet today without touching Google servers. Even if you, personally, completely eschew all Google services, almost everyone you want to communicate with will be on a Google service. Sending an email? Watching a video? Reading a blog? Chances are good that Google's involved.

I agree...I am talking about the data releaed by Google to prove its not a Monopoly. The only reason Google is not considered a Monopoly in laws eyes is that people have the option but they are not shifting. Like chrome supports changing of Search engines. The only argument can be raised against is Google is on Chrome, that everyone is using Chrome and Google products are not working properly on non-Chrome based browsers

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

#127

Post by kerng »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

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?

You might not have seen the dark patterns if you always used Chrome. If you browse with another browser you can observe their dark patterns daily...

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

#128

Post by inflatableDodo »

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.

And if birds didn't have wings, that is enough for me to say that squirrels are better at flying.

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

#129

Post by zaarn »

syshum wrote: post #90
zaarn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nobody uses their browser and nobody contributes to their project, then the point of defending an open web is kinda moot. It's not the hill I want Mozilla's philosophy to die on because if they do (and they will if they do as you ask), then there is no point to it. The open web dies to thundering applause from Google employees.

Same result if they cave in to everything Google does in lock step with them as they do today? I fail to see how having FireFox around has a Chrome Clone is in anyway different

Mozilla does plenty to differentiate from Chrome and does a lot of work to increase privacy for web users. They have to make compromises in places to make sure they are relevant enough to push privacy elsewhere. (And of course there is lots of google shilling to spread paranoia about Mozilla).

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

#130

Post by dTal »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #116
dTal wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Ah, I see. You were saying that because they marketed Chrome "legitimately", they probably didn't market Chrome with dirty tricks and dark patterns "at first", am I right? But I don't really think that's how it went - I think they used every trick in the book, as early and as often as possible.

If that's not true, and some marketroid in Google woke up one day and thought "hey, we could get a lot more bang for our buck by being super scummy!", then that would be an interesting tale. But it seems more likely that what happened was that Google just pulled out all the stops.

At any rate it's not much of a defense. Their "legitimate" marketing in no way absolves them for their "illegitimate" marketing.

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