Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 718 posts

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#421

Post by gnabgib »

jader201 wrote: post #417
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

> Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Have you used a Windows PC lately? It seems like once a week I have to ignore/decline prompts to change my default browser to Edge. I’m not sure PC makers have any say/control over this behavior.

I think you might be holding it wrong? I've only been asked once, I said no. Quite sternly. It apologised, we laughed about it. Now Edge has no internet access.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#422

Post by kweingar »

abirch wrote: post #399
philistine wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? I'm not a lawyer, and didn't read the verdict, but your query is very Hacker News. Justice is not code. If Google is forced to divest from Chrome, it of course means it can't turn around and make the Google Dhrome browser. If Google did, they'd be sued for ignoring the verdict.

There court hasn't set a remedy to its verdict yet. From the article The proposal, filed Friday afternoon, says that Google must “promptly and fully divest Chrome, along with any assets or services necessary to successfully complete the divestiture, to a buyer approved by the Plaintiffs in their sole discretion, subject to terms that the Court and Plaintiffs approve.” It also would require Google to stop paying partn…

What does it mean to sell Chromium? Chromium code is Copyright The Chromium Authors. It contains a substantial amount of code not written by Google, which isn't Google's to sell.

I suppose Google could sell the rights to their parts of the codebase, possibly the rights to future Googler contributions, admin rights to the repo, domains, trademarks, CI, hardware labs, and maybe some other things I'm forgetting... but in terms of the tech being developed and shipped, there isn't really anything substantive to sell.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#423

Post by inetknght »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #414
inetknght wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learn to write native applications instead.

Step 1: Convince your users that they should trust a native application that runs outside of a sandbox. Step 2: Wonder why you don't have more users. The more applications stay confined inside a browser tab, the better.

Instead of complaining about native applications being outside of sandboxes... try looking at existing sandbox solutions. Or, hey, use an open source operating system and extend the existing sandbox solutions for whatever you think is missing.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#424

Post by garyfirestorm »

magicalist wrote: post #408
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

> It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or something? Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that it embarrasses people who do…

I don’t remember chrome being default anywhere. You always needed to open edge to download chrome and I have installed windows numerous times in past.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#425

Post by cosmic_cheese »

dlcarrier wrote: post #50

Last time the DOJ declared a web browser monopoly, they lost the case on appeal, then the web browser does on its own. The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything substantial to lock users into Chrome. The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using.

> The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using.

This feels like quite an exaggeration. I’ve used Chromium-derived browsers only sparingly in the past decade, with Safari and Firefox instead getting the bulk of my usage depending on the platform.

Generally if something doesn’t work under those browsers, the top two causes are unnecessary user agent sniffing with the site working fine once I pretend to be Chrome or the dev simply not testing against anything but Chrome. It’s been vanishingly rare that the browsers themselves were the cause of an issue.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#427

Post by knowriju »

mtillman wrote: post #382
kweingar wrote: post #320

Here's something I don't understand. If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage. If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result, download the installer,…

They don’t allow any search engine in safari now that apple has become an ad network. This is why there’s a weird workaround for Kagi. The search for pay deals are the priority. For those on Mac devices, Orion is excellent now imo.

But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#428

Post by derektank »

magicalist wrote: post #408
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

> It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or something? Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that it embarrasses people who do…

I can confirm Dell's default for Windows devices is Edge. I believe Dell's Ubuntu laptops come with both Firefox and Chrome installed.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#429

Post by JoshTriplett »

inetknght wrote: post #423
JoshTriplett wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: Convince your users that they should trust a native application that runs outside of a sandbox. Step 2: Wonder why you don't have more users. The more applications stay confined inside a browser tab, the better.

Instead of complaining about native applications being outside of sandboxes... try looking at existing sandbox solutions. Or, hey, use an open source operating system and extend the existing sandbox solutions for whatever you think is missing.

You're trying to present an "instead of" that assumes I should want native apps and should jump through hoops to find a way to get what I want from apps that aren't designed for it. I want web apps, because they already do what I want, and keep getting better.

The right answer to "download our app!" is "no, stay in your browser tab".

> try looking at existing sandbox solutions.

I have, quite extensively; virtualization and sandboxing are things I have a great deal of expertise in. The best available application sandboxing solution that provides useful comprehensive APIs is the web. The next best solutions are mobile platforms, but that doesn't help laptops/desktops (no, iOS apps on macOS don't count), and aren't designed to let the user do things like block ads.

If an application is open, then sure, there are plenty of other options. If an application isn't open, I want it contained in a sandbox not of its own making, that it can't escape, that provides sufficiently comprehensive APIs such that interesting applications get built for it, and that keeps the user in control.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#430

Post by magicalist »

asadotzler wrote: post #278
mattlondon wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So please enlighten us, how will someone make money from the free product that is free and no one pays for because it is free? Selling user browser data obviously won't fly (and note that Google has never explicitly nor directly sold user's browsing data as far as I know, but they do have a huge ad network that utilises cookies...), so what's the plan? Put ads in the browser? "Premium" features? The only thing I can…

Why won't selling data fly? Why not sell premium features? Why not add affiliate codes to links? Why not sell ads on new tab pages? All of these are fine examples of how a not-Google Chrome could make money. They could even get paid by Microsoft or some other not-Google search for that traffic. This isn't hard unless you're trying to make it hard to convince us all we should just give up and let Google continue runni…

> Why won't selling data fly?

> Why not sell premium features?

> Why not add affiliate codes to links?

> Why not sell ads on new tab pages?

Ah yes, would love more of all this in my browser.

Post reply on HN