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DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#61

Post by freeone3000 »

elmerfud wrote: post #44
hinkley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Google refusing to make changes that boost online privacy because it’ll tank their ad revenue?

But I don't see how that equates to a monopoly. They certainly have the ability to direct their development of their product in the way that they want. Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. If the edge browser was so much better and much better privacy…

It’s horizontal tying.

If Chrome was not owned by an ad company, the owners of chrome would push for instead of against privacy protections (see: firefox, safari).

The browser monopoly, which Chrome sells at a loss, enables the ad company. This is the problem.

Chromium does not get features Chrome does not need from Google. So anything against ads does not get upstreamed to Chromium.

Chrome also is a major browser vendor, whereas kiwibrowser and opera are not, which means the standards boards listen to them more. If those seats were not owned by an ad company, standards would likely be different.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#62

Post by elmerfud »

nixass wrote: post #36
elmerfud wrote: post #16

So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different. Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to…

> It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because .... It's because Chrome used to be shoved down everyone's throat up until few years ago. Once stable base of users was made (by force and deception) the market took momentum

I do think you're rewriting history a bit here. Of course a Google advertised to their product but people didn't move to Chrome simply because of the advertisements. Chrome took hold because literally every other choice sucked and sucked hard. When you only have sucky choices you have to deal with them and they made something massively better than anything else at the time. Companies with buckets of money like Microsoft didn't innovate in this space and even when they saw what Google was doing with Chrome their ability to compete with it was laughable. Even when they finally switch to their edge browser because the Internet explorer name was so tainted with bad experiences they still suck in this space. Even with Bing and the billions of dollars they can throw at it they still suck in this space.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#63

Post by crazygringo »

XorNot wrote: post #42
elmerfud wrote: post #16

So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different. Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to…

I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

uBlock Origin Lite works perfectly fine for me on Chrome.

Maybe there's some 0.01% of ads that would get blocked in the Firefox version that aren't in Chrome. But I don't see any regular users switching because they're noticing ads not getting blocked now.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#64

Post by bsaul »

dyauspitr wrote: post #20

Why? What a stupid move. It’s like actively working to drive our largest corporations into the ground so China can replace it with some bullshit.

I think on the contrary, that the number of brilliant people being paid for doing nothing at google is what slows US down compared to china.

Only monopoles like google can afford to burn so much cash. And that's a clear loss for the economy.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#65

Post by ninth_ant »

curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.

It doesn’t matter if no one buys it, or if it doesn’t even continue to exist as a standalone business. That’s preferable.

The important part is ending the egregious conflict of interest where an advertising behemoth controls access to the internet.

Ideal result is that Chrome ceases to exist and Chromium continues as an independent open source project controlled by a nonprofit. Even if Google is one of the contributors, so long as they don’t control the product they will exert a lot less control over the web and how people access it.

TLDR just be like Mozilla

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#66

Post by kittikitti »

andrewflnr wrote: post #17

What would that even mean? Chrome doesn't make money. Who would buy it, except maybe someone who plans to do something even more nefarious?

Chrome makes enormous sums of money through ads. Also, these companies pay fortunes for default settings like search engines and other backroom deals. Someone could buy Chrome and ask Microsoft for 30% of Bing's search revenue to be the default search engine and Microsoft would agree.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#67

Post by cmeacham98 »

elmerfud wrote: post #53
afavour wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.

That is true in a valid point but install Windows sometimes and see how much it pushes you toward the edge browser. Which is chromium at its core but the experience it provides is not as good as Chrome even with all of Chrome's downsides. So while I don't have the specific answer I think there is a much bigger question here of is it free market choice that is gravitated everyone here or is it monopolistic pressure th…

> That is true in a valid point but install Windows sometimes and see how much it pushes you toward the edge browser.

The difference here is that Microsoft's reputation is beyond ruined in this product category due to Internet Explorer.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#69

Post by bogwog »

winterbloom wrote: post #47
curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.

How would they even sell it, chrome is based off of chromium. What is there to sell exactly? You can already fork chromium

> What is there to sell exactly?

The user base

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#70

Post by quickslowdown »

bcye wrote: post #55
XorNot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

PWAs being entirely unsupported by Firefox for instance.

This is the last big thing keeping me on Vivaldi (based on chromium). I do use those, and would most likely fully switch to Firefox when implemented.
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