Live data from Hacker News

The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

wired.com

651–660 of 718 posts

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#651

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,…

If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the side asking you to download Chrome.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#652
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t any motivated group of developers fork chromium and push their own agenda ?

No motivated group has the experts to maintain a modern rendering engine (tens of millions of lines of regularly evolving code) and Google can reject any upstream changes that group wants to make because Google engineers are the gatekeepers for 97.498% of Chromium code. So, if your agenda has anything to do with web content, you take what Google hands you. Of course, if you just want to diddle in the browser UI, sure…

Why does a browser need to be 10,000,0000 lines though? It's that the minimum number of lines to capture the complexity of a modern browser? I don't it.

And even if there are 10mil lines they shouldn't be a monolith

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#653
post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No motivated group has the experts to maintain a modern rendering engine (tens of millions of lines of regularly evolving code) and Google can reject any upstream changes that group wants to make because Google engineers are the gatekeepers for 97.498% of Chromium code. So, if your agenda has anything to do with web content, you take what Google hands you. Of course, if you just want to diddle in the browser UI, sure…

The big players have made the web so complicated that it's impossible to maintain one's own standards compliant browser without millions of investment, and you don't get a business model because everyone else is giving their out for "free". This problem really needs to be fixed, though I have no idea how...

Millions in investment won't cut it either. You need a lot of time in addition to write code that efficiently captures the problem

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#654
post #467
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers to move to Manifest v3, i.e. deleting the ability from the browser to have good adblockers, is incredibly valuable to Google.

I was just forced to switch from uBO to uBO lite because of this. I can't see any difference in behavior, and now the extension doesn't need unlimited permissions.

> CNAME-uncloaking is up to each DNR implementation; no DNR implementation supports this capability at the time of writing.

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/wiki/Frequently-as...

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but their standards, and what they support aren't even something you can look up. As a JS dev these are the stuff of nightmares.

Learn to write native applications instead.

> native applications

ah got it, so instead of writing React Native, I can instead learn how to write in SwiftUI for iOS, Kotlin for Android and C# for Windows. Easy!

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently switched to Vivaldi and have really liked it.

Is it going to support manifest v2 after it is phased out by Google or whoever is going to own Chrome?

Nope. And they're betting on their built-in AdBlock being a good replacement for uBlock, even though it's extremely basic, more so than uBlock Lite.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#657

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,…

If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the side asking you to download Chrome.

And after you do, there will be another one to make it the default browser. Number of clicks might be the same in both user stories, but the second one has a lot more hand-holding.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#658
post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yea, I don't disagree it is a decent product. I was just refuting the "extremely popular" comment. Statistically their market share is minimal. People still by-and-large buy Microsoft Windows laptops.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#659
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual issue is that Google pushes Chrome on its properties “this site renders better with Chrome download here” so it’s almost impossible for users to avoid it. Same issue with Edge. Once you switch off of Safari on macOS that’s the last you hear of it. If anything should be illegal it’s using your dominant position in one market to force users into a specific position in an adjacent one. MS got busted for it pr…

This is definitely a huge part of it. My grandmother is not tech savy, and ended up with the google app installed on her phone. Because if she types anything into any of the search bars, google puts a big banner for the google app in the results page. She doesn't use safari for searching - she now goes to the google app. Notably - it doesn't advertise chrome there? or maybe she just didn't see those. Most of her inte…

[deleted]

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#660
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cancellation of the web integrity api is evidence against this claim.

How? Which 2 men crew (temporarily) defeated that API?

The claim I am referring to is clearly that Google's decisions become de facto standards.

Your claim that the web integrity API is only temporarily cancelled has no evidence supporting it.

Post reply on HN