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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

#181

Post by LocalPCGuy »

Eupolemos wrote: post #145
AznHisoka wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to this site with a bit of link-documentation, FF was first and the Opera-claim is false. https://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/opera-did-no...

Opera's technology may not have been tabs, but it allowed the rise of tabbed based browsing. It just used the technology of the time (having it's own windowed interface, which incidentally allowed a tab-like arrangement). It's a bit disingenuous to make the claim that Opera was not instrumental in the development of tabbed based browsing, even if it wasn't specifically using the tab technology earliest.

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

#182

Post by bduerst »

krageon wrote: post #41
bduerst wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just having dominant marketshare, especially in the presence of easily-accessible competitors (e.g. Safari, Mozilla, Opera, etc.), is definitively not a monopoly.

Your argument would be easier to receive if you enlightened your reader with what you think a monopoly is, rather than just framing it as something it is not.

I just explained it - monopoly is not a complex economic principle. When consumers have easy access to multiple competing products or services in a market supply, there is not a monopoly by the definition of the word monopoly. This is semantics, not an argument: https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Amonopoly

It's not well received because, as GP said, people have the opinion that Chrome is a monopoly because they lack the empathy to understand that consumers are choosing something they don't like, and they would prefer it was a monopoly because they want a reason to break it up.

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

#183

Post by sstangl »

Krasnol wrote: post #159
chii wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It came with an update and they didn't uncheck a checkbox what update? Windows update? Or did they download some software, and the installer came with chrome as well?

Windows Update would have been the peak of madness... No it was some other software where it came with the installer. I assume it was Avast as I've seen it in an update already on a different computer.

In the beginning, Chrome was bundled with Flash, and Flash was ubiquitous.

When you installed or upgraded Flash, unless you checked a checkbox, Chrome would be installed.

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

#184

Post by masswerk »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #164
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…

fyi that works for me at 60fps in chrome 74 on a 2018 macbook pro

Interesting. So it may be related to hardware acceleration (GPU)? Or even processor type (think side channel attack mitigations.)

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

#185

Post by sjs382 »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #164
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…

fyi that works for me at 60fps in chrome 74 on a 2018 macbook pro

Is there a FPS display option that I don't see?

Nonetheless, it runs smoothly on Chrome 76.0.3807.0 (Canary) on a Late 2013 iMac.

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

#186

Post by BartBoch »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #164
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…

fyi that works for me at 60fps in chrome 74 on a 2018 macbook pro

Same here, working just fine on Windows. I have hardware acceleration disabled though.

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

#187

Post by KirinDave »

dalbasal wrote: post #45
bad_user wrote: post #5

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…

" 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…

And Firefox might be in a very different place if it wasn't tragically mismanaged to the point where every rational adviser for new computer users didn't have to say, "You can use Firefox, but these days it's slow and it's got terrible security problems."

They've turned the corner on that but it was very true for a long time, and during that time Chrome or Chromium became the default.

It is true that Google is pretty pushy with Chrome, but it's also true that FFox had years of time where it wasn't just obviously slower, it was obviously more dangerous.

I can't help but think this played a major factor in the resulting global bias towards Chrome.

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

#188

Post by bduerst »

Illniyar wrote: post #38
bduerst wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just having dominant marketshare, especially in the presence of easily-accessible competitors (e.g. Safari, Mozilla, Opera, etc.), is definitively not a monopoly.

It more or less is, from a legal stand point, or atleast when referring to anti-trust laws. That doesn't mean that they are doing anti-competitive stuff and are viable for enforcement, being a monopoly in an open market is not illegal, it does mean that with that level of marketshare they have some legal limitations that their competitors don't have. Usually it's a limit on merges, acquisitions, price setting and bun…

No it is not.

In the EU you don't even need market dominance to break anti-trust law, while in the US you do. In either case, Chrome is not committing anti-competitive behavior nor is it the only option on the market, hence it is not a monopoly.

Being a popular product in a market full of consumer options is not a monopoly. If Chrome prevented you from downloading other browsers, then that would be monopolistic behavior, but Chrome is not doing that.

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

#189

Post by bduerst »

_r_o_y_ wrote: post #179
tragicpapercut wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience is not what you are advertising here. I like Chrome because of the features unrelated to performance on Google's own assets - it simply has been the better browser. Yubikey support. Enterprise management capabilities. A robust extension ecosystem. Security. Better memory management for multiple tabs. Some of these are no longer a differentiator for Chrome, but Chrome got there first. Firefox, I…

Open Google or Youtube in Edge an you'll see a huge banner advertising Chrome. That use to happen for practically every other browser.

A company promoting their own products on their own websites is far from being criminal. Amazon.com right now just showed a giant splash for buying an Echoshow on their home page.

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

#190

Post by repolfx »

scarejunba wrote: post #13

What's the steelman argument for Google withholding Widevine from Samuel Maddock? Electron packaging with Widevine is a thing so this seems unusual. If you are Google and you're the good guy, why are you doing this?

The steelman is that Widevine is a DRM platform; to tell the difference between a browser and a ripper application it needs a lot of knowledge about the context in which it's meant to run, and how to tell the difference between a 'real' Chrome that follows the licensing rules and a fork of Chrome that doesn't. It should have been obvious to Maddock that he wouldn't be allowed to do this: I'm not sure why it's come up as an issue as a result.

As for Electron, are you sure? I found this page:

https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/testing-widevine-cdm

It says:

To enable video playback with this new restriction, castLabs has created a fork that has implemented the necessary changes to enable Widevine to be played in an Electron application if one has obtained the necessary licenses from widevine.

So there's a fork of Electron that enables you to embed Widevine, if and only if you have the necessary licenses (otherwise presumably your Electron fork would be detected as a stream ripper).

Thus I'm not sure you're right about that. At any rate, if Electron became a back door to extract content, it'd be remotely detected and disabled. That's the entire point of the Widevine system.

As for "the good guy", gah, please, are we all 10 years old here? Content licensing and copyright enforcement is not a good vs evil fight. Some content producers choose to upload their video as WebM files to free hosting providers and let anyone who wants to watch them. Others stick it on YouTube and ask YT to monetize (means, no ad blocking). Still others want viewers to pay for the content (means, no content ripping). All these are valid economic models that are widely used, and Google obviously wants to support them because otherwise the answer is not "no DRM", it's "no in-browser Netflix".

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