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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

#51

Post by tuxt »

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…

So they make good product.

Bing can be Edge only too.

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

#52

Post by noname120 »

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…

> competitors such as Microsoft proved that they no longer have the capacity to develop a modern browser

This is incorrect. They absolutely can as demonstrated by the fact that former Edge works great, has better hardware acceleration than Chrome, and consumes less power.

However, they are not willing to anymore, which is a huge concern for future innovations in that domain.

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

#53

Post by amelius »

grenoire wrote: post #24
amelius wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, also see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

Err... I don't see either of these are relevant to the Chrome situation, given that the competitors are (and have been) also free. These aren't applicable for markets of free goods and services.

Opera wasn't always free.

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

#54

Post by GoblinSlayer »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

What's fine for a small business, isn't necessarily fine for a monopoly.

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

#55

Post by gingabriska »

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

In initial days of chrome, it wasn't that better. It grew in popularity because of the bundle model of advertising they employed which was initially used to distribute spyware and the browser started growing.

All the nice things came later.

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

#56

Post by syshum »

duiker101 wrote: post #49
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…

A lot of "third party browsers" like Opera, Vivaldi and Brave choose to go for Chromium as their engine, would they be able to use Firefox's engine the same way? If yes, why does it seem that no one actually does it? I personally don't particularly enjoy Firefox as a browser, but I don't have anything against their engine. If there was a version of Vivaldi that implemented that I would probably choose it over the Chr…

At the time they made those choices there were 3 main reasons to choose chromium over FF as a base

1. Smaller Size, chromium was just a smaller foot print with less legacy code

2. Better Performance. There was no doubt the before firefox quantum Chromium was the performance leader, Bink and V8 where superior then, today not soo much

3. Better rendering support. Like IE6 in the 90's today there are many many sites that ONLY work correctly on chrome, so if you use chrome's render you have less work to do, and will have less complaints by users blaming your browser for some websites poor code

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

#57

Post by r3bl »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #40
r3bl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't sell the space to Booking.com. They've promoted one another in their user bases: Firefox showed a message about Booking, Booking showed a message about Firefox. There was no money involved. I'm not gonna defend their action to do so because I disagree with it too, but if you wanna feel outraged about it, at least get the facts right. John Gruber should do the same.

Ironically that Gruber comment was about the "user-enhancing" Sponsored Tiles episode from early 2014. That we are still seeing questionable and un-telegraphed behavior in 2019 suggests none of the privacy-relevant lessons were taken to heart.

Excellent way of shifting the goalpost away from your stance on the Booking.com case. :)

Displaying the same ad to everyone doesn't have privacy consequences. It's why billboards aren't privacy issues, nor are the TV ads, nor ads in a magazine. Ad networks are a privacy issue, self-hosted ads are not.

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

#58

Post by akerro »

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…

Purposely slowing down websites on competing browsers, breaking web-standards on cutting edge tech, abusing their other products, using slower codecs on other browsers on YT, not allowing some websites use certain features of google-doc, constantly showing popups to switch to Google Chrome on google docs - this all anti-competitive behavior to squeeze more data from your life and browsing habits.

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

#59

Post by afandian »

tenpaiyomi wrote: post #44
dTal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and they paid money to surreptitiously bundle it with other software. Chrome is notorious for suddenly being mysteriously installed on relatives' computers: https://imgur.com/NIZk9Pd And advertising something on your own property sure sounds reasonable, but I think it's a slightly different story when "your own property" is "the de facto homepage of the internet". That's what I meant by "abusing monopoly positi…

That's not a dark pattern though. Potentially poor behavior, sure, but dark pattern, no.

"Complete your antivirus" has a pre-checked tickbox for a totally irrelevant product. And in the process agreeing to a license. That's pretty dark.

Maybe as someone with above-average technical ability this looks obvious to you. To a lot of people, it isn't. And this pattern is aimed at fooling the less technically literate.

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

#60

Post by anewhnaccount2 »

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…

If you search for Firefox, Google says "did you mean Chrome?"

Edited to add: This has actually happened to me when setting up a new Windows PC for someone.

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