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Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

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Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#51

Post by komali2 »

biosboiii wrote: post #33

I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3). Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they ca…

> Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.

I don't see how - it's a more than serviceable browser. The only issues I've ever had were because a webapp detected I wasn't using a browser of choice and blocked me specifically, which isn't really firefox's fault.

I guess I prefer chromium dev tools over firefox's but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I only was able to use the firefox ones.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#52

Post by zac23or »

jmkni wrote: post #43
biosboiii wrote: post #33

I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3). Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they ca…

What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)

> What's wrong with Firefox

Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag.

And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#54

Post by anentropic »

jmkni wrote: post #43
biosboiii wrote: post #33

I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3). Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they ca…

What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)

Yes, Chrome with ad blockers was perfect until that came along. YouTube sucks now

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#55

Post by Insanity »

zac23or wrote: post #52
jmkni wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)

> What's wrong with Firefox Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag. And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!

I use chrome on my work machine and Firefox on my personal machine.

Haven’t ran into breaking bugs with FF (that I can remember), and I don’t notice a meaningful performance difference.

Have been using FF for probably 10-15 years now.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#56

Post by birksherty »

zac23or wrote: post #52
jmkni wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)

> What's wrong with Firefox Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag. And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!

None of these is true. Either you're lying or somthing is wrong with your PC or OS

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#57

Post by echelon »

digitcatphd wrote: post #49

This is clearly a PR stunt. Perplexity knows Google would not sell Chrome, it is the holy grail of their ads strategy and would cripple their moat.

> would cripple their moat.

Would end their unfair monopolistic control over the web, search, and digital advertising.

The DOJ or the FTC need to force this dismantlement.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#59

Post by Timshel »

hackrmn wrote: post #47
Timshel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the benevolent dictator of the web Lol it's more like a death grip since nobody can compete with their ad business model. There is almost no innovation in the browser space outside of more and more tracking ...

I'd argue that depends on what you mean by "innovation" -- Google has been pretty busy, meaning specifically developers on their payroll, churning out more or less useful Web API implementations, certainly at a far more frantic pace than people traditionally _blamed_ browsers of yester-decade for. Nevermind that some of these APIs are more haphazardly designed than others, truth be told most of them are okay and are…

I mean in term of user facing change. Vertical tabs is still presented as an innovation ...

Tabs groups are barely explored, and let's not dream too much of isolation Firefox containers are probably over ten years old and still almost unused :(.

More recently Arc and Zen are trying to innovate (I’m not using either), but they probably have almost no chance as long Chrome stay as dominant and financed by ad tracking.

Using Firefox on linux I’m facing more and more capchas and broken or innacessible websites. Ladybird is making great progress but unless they start posing as chrome they’ll face the same challenges :(.

Edit: > churning out more or less useful Web API implementations

Probably part of the problem since it makes maintaining a browser engine absurdly expensive and out of reach for almost everyone ...

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