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Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#271

Post by monlockandkey »

sjaak wrote: post #32

Stop using Chrome

The entire internet discourse is filled with "Chrome evil, use Firefox". Go to any browser discussion on the internet and 99% of the thread is "just use Firefox or Firefox is the best". You would think that everyone uses Firefox.

The internet is a bubble. Reality is Firefox usage is pathetic. 32 MILLION people have *STOPPED* using Firefox in the past 4 years. The browser only has a 3.16% market share.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

Chrome is a good browser. Can be considered objectively better than Firefox given its superior performance, equivalent if not slightly better resource usage, web compatibility and integration with the Google ecosystem (which the vast majority of internet population use (excluding niche tech circles)).

I have no vendetta against Firefox. At the end of the day, it is just a browser and that is a personal preference. But people act like it is some sort of saviour that will bring them to the light. There is such an aggressive tribal mentality with browsers. It makes no sense as all browsers look the same, feel the same and have the same functionality. Just a matter of preference given your needs, and for 70% of the population, Chromium delivers.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#272

Post by monlockandkey »

JakkDTrent wrote: post #80

I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and Chrome browser.

I can't believe people don't use Google search and Chromium.

Google search does the job well. Chromium browsers are faster than Firefox, equivalent if not better resource usage, excellent web compatibility and ecosystem integration.

People want to get stuff done. Yes Firefox and DDG will not handicap you, but for the general population, search and Chromium do an excellent job over competition.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#273

Post by eigen »

dizzant wrote: post #217
criley2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic example of how propaganda works. The layman's definition of recession, which has never been used officially or by policy-makers in America, is this bit about "negative GDP growth for two quarters". But despite that not being how we've always determined recessions here, if you read the reply above, the user has literally invented a political conspiracy about their ignorance about economics. The layma…

The link you posted supports the GP’s assertion that not declaring the current economic situation as a recession is politically motivated. The third paragraph specific cites common criticism of the NBER on that very front. That there could and should be some more sophisticated, objective definition of a recession than “two years of GDP decline” isn’t in question. But, at least according to your own source, NBER fails…

> The link you posted supports the GP’s assertion that not declaring the current economic situation as a recession is politically motivated.

1/5 indicators shows significant decline (real GDP) I'll give you. but 1/5 is slight decline (real income 1% down), the other 3 (employment, industrial production, retail sales) are up. this is based on data available from FRED, do you have data showing otherwise?

links at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33032470#33036403

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#274

Post by _hl_ »

tyingq wrote: post #244
huijzer wrote: post #177

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Probably for the same reason that Google is shutting down Stadia [1] and cutting staff [2], and the same reason that we see roughly one announcement of layoffs here on Hacker News every week: most people expect that we are going into a recession. For example, see the price of major indexes like the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ and plot it on a 10+ year…

> Google has historically been protective of their front page, why now? Unreasonable shareholder expectations of continued double-digit percentage YoY growth. Growth that exceeds internet usage growth in general. The only way that happens is more ads displacing content, or appearing in formerly empty spots. I would guess at this point, they've hit the wall on alternatives like better targeting, placement, etc.

> The only way that happens is more ads displacing content, or appearing in formerly empty spots.

Or eeking out more dollars per ad through better targetting, or through diversifying the business and scaling new revenue streams, or ...

I think it's reasonable to expect Google to grow faster than general internet usage. Believing otherwise means you believe Google is in maintenance mode, incapable of improving their existing product or unlocking new revenue streams through innovation. Given the sheer size of Google, that's quite a bold belief to hold.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#275

Post by olyjohn »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #270
moffkalast wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that we're in a thread underneath someone endorsing Bing as a good option, that sounds like a plus. Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman? > As... Opposed to Google or Bing? This is your argument? I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it seriously. The equivalent there would be GoGoBaby for Google or RingADingDing for Bing. I guess GoD…

> Yeah, but why not just cut out the middleman? Because DDG acts as a privacy screen and doesn't tell Microsoft what I personally search for. They are, as you note, fairly pointed about this being their purpose. > I'm half kidding, but seriously "duck duck go"? What kinda goofy ass name is that? No wonder nobody takes it seriously. It's a play on a commonly-known phrase (duck duck goose), and while this is all subjec…

People just gotta have excuses to love their favorite corp products. People should just own it, but they feel a little guilty so they have to find an excuse.

It's like Firefox haters, they find one little bug or one negative thing happens, and "Welp, just might as well use Chrome." If Firefox isn't 100% absolutely perfect, then people say they're clearly just as bad as Google.

They say DuckDuckGo is just Bing, and has a dumb name, so it's clearly no better than Google. The truth is that they fucking love Google's products, integration and ecosystem...

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#276

Post by nzealand »

fullshark wrote: post #224
criley2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic example of how propaganda works. The layman's definition of recession, which has never been used officially or by policy-makers in America, is this bit about "negative GDP growth for two quarters". But despite that not being how we've always determined recessions here, if you read the reply above, the user has literally invented a political conspiracy about their ignorance about economics. The layma…

Or maybe THIS is exactly how propaganda works, swapping between the connotations and denotations of words when it's politically convenient to. It's also clear to me if the president had an R next to his name, both sides of the "Are we in a recession?" debate would swap entirely.

Who debated the 2020 recession?

It didn't have two quarters of real GDP growth, but it did have massive job losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#277

Post by fullshark »

nzealand wrote: post #276
fullshark wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe THIS is exactly how propaganda works, swapping between the connotations and denotations of words when it's politically convenient to. It's also clear to me if the president had an R next to his name, both sides of the "Are we in a recession?" debate would swap entirely.

Who debated the 2020 recession? It didn't have two quarters of real GDP growth, but it did have massive job losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Well I just found Paul Krugman writing about the "COVID-19 Recession" here on april 30: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/opinion/economy-stock-mar...

Looked at national review, can't even find an article about the subject; https://www.google.com/search?q=recession+site:nationalrevie...

Everyone was preoccupied with other questions mostly at that time, and a lot of the debate was if policy X was too costly economically, more so than "are we in a recession?"

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#278

Post by freediver »

genshii wrote: post #235
thrown_22 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Care to elaborate?

There are now two flagged and dead comments replying to this. I wonder what mechanisms do HN users have to interact with those replies?

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#279

Post by DesiLurker »

colinmhayes wrote: post #261
DesiLurker wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked it up. honestly $10/month is stupid level pricing for un-established product with free competitors. the pricing needs to be what can slip below average users pain threshold (IMO thats like $2.99/mo but whatever). there is a reason most techies have not heard of it yet.

I'm guessing that going from free to $0.01 is the biggest hurdle. Once people agree to pay they're willing to pay a decent amount.

actually .01 would not be a problem at all, remember initial pricing for whatsapp? the main issue here is its value is not yet established. They need to remember that they are competing with powerful search engines like google and bing so they must rise to the quality first. Starting with low price with even just the indication that we will charge you more later is good enough, but it is imperative that they show value first.

Re: Google has added ads on both its search page and Chrome://newtab

#280

Post by freediver »

Jemm wrote: post #64

Proves the saying, "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product"

Not much choice with browsers!

As far as I know, Orion browser is the only browser on the market today that you can pay for with your wallet instead of your data.

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