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The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#491

Post by eitland »

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,…

In addition to bundling, Google has also been massively pushing it via ads.

As far as I know Chrome is the only thing that has been advertised on Googles famously clean "front page" before making a search.

That tells me something about how important it has been for them to push it.

There's also the way they've used deceptive ads ("download a better browser") to me and many other Firefox users over the years. (No, a browser that leaks my browsing habits to the worlds biggest advertising company while not supporting vertical tabs a decade after it entered the market certainly isn't best for me.)

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#492

Post by BrenBarn »

It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too large a market share should be punished with remedies that make the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the offending behavior.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#493

Post by denismi »

dfabulich wrote: post #360
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,…

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…

> The only viable business model for a web browser, the one that literally all major browsers use, is to accept money from a search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them the default. Even Kagi makes its own Orion web browser, for exactly this reason.

The only viable business model ... while the incumbent (IE, now Chrome) is allowed to give the product away for free in service of some other predatory agenda.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#494

Post by eitland »

scarfaceneo wrote: post #54
bdavbdav wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not used Firefox in ages, but what’s the matter with Safari? It sips battery and cpu cycles on my macs.

None. Safari is the best browser I’ve used by a long margin.

Safari is really good.

But I have to admit extensions are really lacking, both the infrastructure for installing them and which extensions are available.

I now use Orion which is based on Safari but has native vertical tabs (although not native vertical hierarchical tabs, or support for dumping them as markdown).

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#495

Post by progval »

BrenBarn wrote: post #492

It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too large a market share should be punished with remedies that make the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the offending behavior.

Google (probably) doesn't consider selling Chrome to be good for them or they would have done it on their own.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#496

Post by tgma »

throwaway127482 wrote: post #442
garyfirestorm wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chromebooks are a thing, and are extremely popular

> extremely popular

for really small amounts of "extremely"

(outside US K-12 they are hardly a thing)

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#497

Post by mjevans »

tester756 wrote: post #331
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,…

On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled

It makes sense why it can't be _removed_... it's required for core OS interaction features such as a known-working login portal framework and probably tons of other 'reuse the rendering engine from the browser to display stuff' portions of the shell and settings pages.

If you wanted to de-google your phone _that_ much it probably requires a custom firmware blob that's shipped with a different browser... if that's even possible / reasonable.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#498

Post by fastball »

soerxpso wrote: post #448
garyfirestorm wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe the claim was that it's coming default on prebuilt PCs. If you're installing Windows, that's not the situation where Chrome would be the default.

Right but what OS is installed on a pre-built PC if not Windows?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#499

Post by exodust »

MR4D wrote: post #397
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,…

That’s not the issue. The problem is that Google owns both sides of the internet - the browser on your computer and the search engine to find everything. As a result, they control your perception of the internet. If a site doesn’t work, you as the user thinks the site doesn’t work. You don’t think oh, my browser is broken. Also, if you don’t find a site on Google the. To you, it doesn’t exist. As a result, you have t…

> if you don’t find a site on Google, to you, it doesn’t exist

What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any website about XYZ?"

I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach such a conclusion, in part because Google results tell us "bro, your search returned 480 million results."

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#500

Post by BrenBarn »

progval wrote: post #495
BrenBarn wrote: post #492

It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too large a market share should be punished with remedies that make the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the offending behavior.

Google (probably) doesn't consider selling Chrome to be good for them or they would have done it on their own.

They probably consider it better than, say, being forced to give it away and also pay $100 billion.
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