The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#611

Post by gonzobonzo » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

sashank_1509 wrote: post #378

Google has a monopoly but focusing on Chrome seems wrong. Here’s my prediction, let us remove chrome from the world tomorrow, make bing the default search engine on all devices. How much will Googles search market share fall by? From 90% to 80%. Maybe even 70%. I don’t see it falling below that. Does DOJ think that hypothetical market shares could be 40% Google, 30% Bing, 20-30% rest. I don’t think this is possible s…

Honestly, I think in your scenario Bing would end up as the top search engine. I've noticed lately that when I'm using a browser with Bing in the search bar, I just use Bing and don't bother using Google. Honestly, the two feel pretty similar to me at the moment.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#612

Post by qwerty456127 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:01 PM UTC

jcfrei wrote: post #573

IncreasePosts wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think is going to buy chrome? And don't you think they are going to want to recoup their investment? I suspect chrome will get far less consumer friendly than chrome currently is if it is sold.

Some AI company could buy it and add some subscriptions based AI services. Or package it with optional but very popular and lucrative VPN, etc. There's a lot of potential business models apart from feeding advertising algorithms. Besides maintaining a browser is not stupendously expensive, firefox runs on about $500M in revenue.

> Some AI company could buy it and add some subscriptions based AI services. Or package it with optional but very popular and lucrative VPN, etc.

There are many who already do just this. What extra value would they get if they already repackage Chrome for free?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Post by scarface_74 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

geor9e wrote: post #606

scarface_74 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also uses your browsing history to create a profile for advertising https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451... And Apple provides end to end encryption of browsing history so it can’t decrypt your browsing history https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats-in... > What’s interesting about the Apple decision is that it appears to explicitly separate browsing history and bookm…

That's not Chrome's browsing history - that's an ad network, adsense, profiling you, via cookies/ip/digital fingerprinting, across every website that serves it's ads. It's like logging into facebook and saying they can see your browsing history - yes some of it, but it's because they're watching a server they own serve you requests.

The entire idea behind “privacy sandbox” is to create a profile of you for advertising based on your browsing history and the profile is created by Chrome - without being logged in and without cookies.

https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Post by rchaud » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #458

rchaud wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have there been meaningful changes to the browser spec since ES2015 support was baked in? Chrome, Safari etc. are not developing their browsers for the betterment of the web. One company wants to shove ads in your face, the other wants you out of the web entirely and into their walled garden of apps and ads. From a security standpoint, I'm sure it's more complicated, but UBO and warning dialog boxes about downloading…

Do you all forget the web pre chrome? Google and Chrome forced browser vendors to do better by standards in the first place. Google’s stewardship forced browser vendors to compete like never before.

I don't remember Google doing that. What I remember from that time is a browser war happening between the power players in mobile with iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009, which led to browser vendors harmonizing their feature set. We still needed jQuery to ensure cross-browser support, and floats and polyfills to get sites to work on mobile. That ended when browsers harmonized ES2015 support and built in support for flexbox and grid.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#615

Post by geor9e » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #613

geor9e wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not Chrome's browsing history - that's an ad network, adsense, profiling you, via cookies/ip/digital fingerprinting, across every website that serves it's ads. It's like logging into facebook and saying they can see your browsing history - yes some of it, but it's because they're watching a server they own serve you requests.

The entire idea behind “privacy sandbox” is to create a profile of you for advertising based on your browsing history and the profile is created by Chrome - without being logged in and without cookies. https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ More specifically the Topics API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API It’s opposed by both Mozilla and Apple and is only supported by Google/Chrome.

Interesting. So the browser knows your browsing history like every browser does, but it uses it to share some distilled data. Yeah, I definitely don't want that. Looks like I already totally disabled it though, so I'm good I guess.

Privacy and security > Ad privacy

Ad topics: Generates a list of your interests based on your browsing behavior.

Site-suggested ads: Allows advertisers to retarget you based on your interactions.

Ad measurement: Enables advertisers to assess ad performance.

Toggle each of these settings to "Off" to disable them.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#616

Post by nashashmi » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #547

nashashmi wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doubleclick network would still belong to google. Only search would be kept separate.

I'm not sure what exactly Doubleclick network is, but my proposal is - Google keeps Search + all Ads related stuff, including whatever doubleclick is. What Google loses is everything client (user) side: Chrome, Android, Gmail and other personal cloud services. Lets call it Foogle :) Foogle can charge Samsung et al. for its Android and personal cloud services it is running. And use it in its own Pixel devices too. And…

You are proposing Chrome+ Everything Else. DOJ doesn't want the Chrome+Search entanglement. So the company getting rid of search would be an alternative idea. Search would still have the adwords revenue model. But it would be separated from the google ad network which is adsense and doubleclick. All your data on Chrome/Android would still be accessible to Doubleclick and Google for personalized ad revenue.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#617

Post by nativeit » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

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…

If spun off, why wouldn’t Chrome then be free to sell its default search provisioning back to Google?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#618

Post by kelvinjps10 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

dismalaf wrote: post #466

tester756 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled

Which ones? Samsung internet is the default for Samsung devices (which constitute the majority of Android devices in the west) and most (all?) of the Chinese OEMs have their own browser... The only Android devices I've ever had where the default is Chrome are Pixel devices...

I have a samsung phone and although it comes wih the samsung browser, chrome is still the default and cannot be disabled

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#619

Post by scarface_74 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

geor9e wrote: post #615

scarface_74 wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire idea behind “privacy sandbox” is to create a profile of you for advertising based on your browsing history and the profile is created by Chrome - without being logged in and without cookies. https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ More specifically the Topics API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API It’s opposed by both Mozilla and Apple and is only supported by Google/Chrome.

Interesting. So the browser knows your browsing history like every browser does, but it uses it to share some distilled data. Yeah, I definitely don't want that. Looks like I already totally disabled it though, so I'm good I guess. Privacy and security > Ad privacy Ad topics: Generates a list of your interests based on your browsing behavior. Site-suggested ads: Allows advertisers to retarget you based on your intera…

Yep.

And I slightly misspoke. I said it was only supported by Chrome. More accurately, it is supported by Chrome and some Chromium based browsers.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#620

Post by jpc0 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #603

jpc0 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a lot of IT support. Edge is the default on every single prebuilt / laptop I have setup for people. This is ancedotal sure but it's several hundred datapoints from the cheapest student focused budget laptops(running windows not chrome os) to business grade laptops from the big 3 (HP/Dell/Lenovo). Apple ships Safari by default and every linux distro I have used ships firefox or a spinoff of firefox by default. So…

Edge moved from their own engine to Chromium’s Blink engine, so from an IT support perspective, it should work equally well.

Mostly correct yes and for certian users I actually do encourage them to try out edge.

Many users are so used to Chrome though it is jarring to switch to edge. Open them in two workspaces and flip between them, although the UI are both browsers, edge feel like the Temu version if a browser, at least to me.

But then I use Zen/Vivaldi so I personally find most other browsers these says a little weird.