Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 718 posts

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#641

Post by tsimionescu »

tgv wrote: post #536
tsimionescu wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, you can now fully remove Edge from Windows 11, and it doesn't come back (or at least hasn't so far). And it's not even hard, you just uninstall it like any other app. They do give some scary prompts, and it does disable all internet-based integrations in the start menu, but that's not even necessarily a bad thing.

Someone hasn't told that to my Windows machine. I can't uninstall Edge, at least not via Settings > Apps > Installed Apps.

You have to have Windows with region set to a European country during the initial installation. If you chose US during the original installation, even if you live in the EU and now have your region set to one, that won't work. But you can install Windows from scratch (it has to be on a formatted partition, if you restore from a previous installation it doesn't work) with the right region choice, and the option is simply there.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#642

Post by reissbaker »

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…

This is just flat out wrong. Edge is the default browser on ~all new Windows machines, and Safari is the default (obviously) on macOS. If you have data showing the opposite, please provide it.

People go out of their way to install Chrome because it's better than the competition. Just like they used to do for Firefox, back when Firefox was a better browser than the competition.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#643

Post by ericjmorey »

nikanj wrote: post #624
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

About one in five Windows updates shows a notification along the lines of "Update your browser preferences to secure defaults?", which is code for "Can we bing you mate?" Every time I visit my parents, I need to de-bing them again

Why bother to "de-bing" their computer?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#644

Post by skeeter2020 »

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…

>> Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default.

Not only is this not true for lots of manufacturers, but the minute you click on a web link anywhere in windows (help, start menu, etc) it opens in Edge, and Edge cannot be uninstalled on a windows machine.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#645

Post by ericjmorey »

oaththrowaway wrote: post #444
magicalist wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was fascinating No it wasn't? They itemized some budget items worth less than a million dollars in total, and then, for each entity getting part of that money they admitted they had no idea who they were or what they did for Mozilla (but one of them had abortion rights mentioned on their blog!) Incredibly lazy "expose" trying to be a twitter files.

Why is a company that relies on donations and Google to prop them up pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on that? That's not interesting to you at all?

The non-profit owns the for-profit. The for-profit pays out profits to the non-profit. Non-profit uses that money for things they think are in line with their values. Where is the issue?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#646

Post by crazygringo »

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…

> but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser.

Unless you have a source for that, that's flat-out wrong. I've never heard of that, I've never seen that, and I can't find any supporting evidence of that.

> Here's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market share. The overwhelming majority of users are using their computer's default browser.

That's not what that graph shows. It doesn't show anything about defaults.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#647

Post by crazygringo »

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,…

I wish I could upvote this a million times.

It's a massive cognitive dissonance that you're right -- it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people just want to argue that Google is bad/too big/anticompetitive, and will use whatever argument is easiest to do so, even if they flat-out contradict each other.

The actual reality is that most people do change defaults quite easily when they perceive a benefit, so it's incredibly difficult to make the argument that defaults are anticompetitive. Chrome proves this. At the same time, some people aren't aware and will stick to a default, and the search market is so big that it's still worth $$$ for Google to pay Apple for the search default. The search deal proves this. On these points, there's zero anticompetitive behavior.

But if there's an anticompetitive angle regarding search, it's that in effect, Google is essentially paying Apple not to develop its own search engine. But that's basically an impossible legal argument to make. Nobody can force Apple to compete in search, and if it doesn't want to and would prefer to take Google's money, that's its free choice.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#648

Post by Ylpertnodi »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #560
blackd0g wrote: post #542

Crazy to think that most users never change a single setting. They live in default mode. Which is the issue with how most software works. Even how browsers will try to get set as default.

If the user doesn't change anything they wouldn't have downloaded, installed and set chrome as default browser.

Those that have to use chrome at work install it at home. There are many that think it is the internet. That was my today, Sunday. I gave up trying to explain the difference between edge and chrome, many years ago. At least I get paid for my time.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#649

Post by vincent-manis »

tgma wrote: post #496
throwaway127482 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I have a very nice Chromebook tablet (a Lenovo Duet). I use it to run a Debian Linux VM; it has its quirks, but I use it to run Emacs, TeX, and various Scheme implementations. It is relatively cheap, and even though it's a relatively low-powered device, it has adequate performance for my needs. (And yes, it is not “really” Linux: you can't install your own window manager, for example. But it's usable.)

I have lots of criticisms of Chrome OS, but the fact is that the year of Linux on the Desktop has arrived. You buy one of these machines, and out of the box you can have Linux apps (and a terminal) running within 15 minutes of switching the machine on.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#650

Post by sashank_1509 »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #611
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.

Interesting, I tried using DuckDuckGo for a while, didn’t find it competitive with Google
Post reply on HN