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Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

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Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#141

Post by DubiousPusher »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #126
DubiousPusher wrote: post #47

The main problem I have with the predominant discussions around antitrust in contemporary internet software is that they largely ignore one quality that truly makes something a monopoply. That is, truly onerous monopolies don't just own a vast majority of some market share. They hamper the ability to switch to another product. Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most discussed products in current antitrust discus…

one of the markers of monopoly is that you can use your dominance in one industry to move into other industries and achieve dominance there. Sound like anyone you know?

That has ceased to be a serious consideration for American antitrust enforcement for decades. That almost literally describes every company in the S&P 500.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#142

Post by MaxBarraclough »

vatueil wrote: post #39
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brave, Edge, Opera are just some of the WideVine licensed Chromium based browsers Today I learned: the new Edge has both WideVine and PlayReady. I figured they'd just go with PlayReady and be done with it - does WideVine have any real advantages? https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/chromium-mic... https://www.ghacks.net/2019/04/03/chromium-based-microsoft-e...

Microsoft PlayReady DRM still the only way to play Netflix in 4K on a PC, correct? I guess there's no reason not to include Widevine as well, but it's funny how this means the new Microsoft Edge supports features no other Chromium-based browser is allowed to use, including Google Chrome. Getting rid of DRM in general is fine with me, but I don't understand why the focus on Widevine in particular given that its availa…

> Microsoft PlayReady DRM still the only way to play Netflix in 4K on a PC, correct?

I believe so, yes. (The Win10 app is powered by PlayReady.)

Mandatory link to the netflix-1080p hack, enabling 1080p Netflix playback on Chrome [0]. I don't think it does 4k though, and I believe it causes awful CPU loads.

[0] https://github.com/truedread/netflix-1080p/blob/master/READM...

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#143

Post by joshuamorton »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #113
bduerst wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP is like the bogeyman here on HN, when it is really just another web framework. >The pages are hosted on google.com Anyone can roll their own AMP pages and host it on their domains. For example: https://amp.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6yj6iw/what_did_... This includes getting your own amp lightning icon in search results when you host with certified CDNs.

AMP's HTML validator has a hard dependency on cdn.ampproject.org [0]. So the hosting requirements aren't fully isolated, and entirely under your control. Also, I could not find a list of certified CDNs. [0]: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/validator/...

https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/caches.jso...

Google, Bing, Cloudflare are the three official caches, which is what I think they mean.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#144

Post by Mikeb85 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #97
Mikeb85 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has native apps on all platforms (even Linux). Netflix works on Firefox (even on Linux). Not sure how Google is preventing anything...

Isn't Netflix stuck at 480p without properly working widevine?

Not sure because it downloads Widevine by default.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#145

Post by antisthenes »

ajxs wrote: post #93
antisthenes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, hold on. Why does a browser need a revenue model? Why can't a browser just be a piece of software that's "finished", with the occasional security patch? Chrome is incredibly overcomplex because it attempts to be more than just a browser, and it is part of Google's strategy. A regular browser doesn't have to be an OS in itself.

Unfortunately keeping modern software secure is a full-time job. Internet browsers are just one giant attack surface. This is especially complicated by the speed at which the implementation of new features is required to keep a general audience interested. Unfortunately, a user like my mother wouldn't care how ideologically well-meaning a browser was if she couldn't use it for watching online media. I recently went l…

> This is especially complicated by the speed at which the implementation of new features is required to keep a general audience interested.

That may have been true 10 years ago, but now the feature set is so rich, that any new ones are really solutions in search of a problem rather than an actual user need. The average customer is pretty much using what Google dictates to get to the internet (used to be MS)

Nothing would change if the current feature set were kept constant

(except lots of HN's would be out of a job and Google might struggle to find new ways to show their ads)

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#146

Post by Dylan16807 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #144
Dylan16807 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Netflix stuck at 480p without properly working widevine?

Not sure because it downloads Widevine by default.

Now I'm not sure what your argument is. When the problem is "they refuse to issue Widevine licenses", it doesn't really matter that a browser as huge as Firefox managed to get one.

It wasn't "if you want to use Linux", it was "if you want to make a browser".

Also the Widevine authorized for Linux is only 720p on Netflix.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#147

Post by closeparen »

JoshMnem wrote: post #92
vkou wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most discussed products in current antitrust discussions all have viable quality alternatives. What is a quality alternative to Facebook? Diaspora was DOA, Mastodon is a cesspit, Twitter is nothing like Facebook, and G+ is long-dead.

> What is a quality alternative to Facebook? Independent forums and self-hosted blogging. They are about content and real connections with like-minded people. Instead of mindlessly posting little updates throughout the day just for the sake of posting updates, people should save it for when they actually have something to say. In general: read books not timelines.

Forums and blogging are for internet strangers; Facebook is for your real-life community. While you of course accept some risk of Facebook content becoming accidentally public, there is little to no intersection between the content I would intentionally share on Facebook vs. HN or a blog.

At minimum, blogging would need a universal federated identity system with reciprocal ACLs, which is already starting to sound a lot like Facebook.

More to the point on antitrust, the quality alternative to Facebook that most of my peers are now using is Instagram, which Facebook conveniently purchased.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#148

Post by bduerst »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #113
bduerst wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP is like the bogeyman here on HN, when it is really just another web framework. >The pages are hosted on google.com Anyone can roll their own AMP pages and host it on their domains. For example: https://amp.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6yj6iw/what_did_... This includes getting your own amp lightning icon in search results when you host with certified CDNs.

AMP's HTML validator has a hard dependency on cdn.ampproject.org [0]. So the hosting requirements aren't fully isolated, and entirely under your control. Also, I could not find a list of certified CDNs. [0]: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/validator/...

Not true, you can validate AMP from localhost. The AMP.js packages comes bundled with it's own validator:

https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/learn/val...

Even then it's quite a stretch to go from saying Google controls AMP to saying the validator has an online requirement. Also, as the other commenter said, Google, Bing, and Cloudflare are currently the certified CDNs to get the icon in search results.

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#149

Post by Mikeb85 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #146
Mikeb85 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure because it downloads Widevine by default.

Now I'm not sure what your argument is. When the problem is "they refuse to issue Widevine licenses", it doesn't really matter that a browser as huge as Firefox managed to get one. It wasn't "if you want to use Linux", it was "if you want to make a browser". Also the Widevine authorized for Linux is only 720p on Netflix.

The point is you don't need to worry about a browser playing DRM because most platforms have native apps for the only uses a browser needs DRM for...

Re: Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain?

#150

Post by JoshTriplett »

antisthenes wrote: post #145
ajxs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately keeping modern software secure is a full-time job. Internet browsers are just one giant attack surface. This is especially complicated by the speed at which the implementation of new features is required to keep a general audience interested. Unfortunately, a user like my mother wouldn't care how ideologically well-meaning a browser was if she couldn't use it for watching online media. I recently went l…

> This is especially complicated by the speed at which the implementation of new features is required to keep a general audience interested. That may have been true 10 years ago, but now the feature set is so rich, that any new ones are really solutions in search of a problem rather than an actual user need. The average customer is pretty much using what Google dictates to get to the internet (used to be MS) Nothing…

> any new ones are really solutions in search of a problem rather than an actual user need

Not at all. App platforms aren't standing still, and one of the goals of web browsers is to make them as capable as app platforms while retaining the safety of the web sandbox.

That includes things like VR/AR, WebAssembly and extensions to it, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), adjusting pages to match the system theming, better video formats, better authentication (Web Authentication), and a hundred other things people actually want.

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