711–720 of 761 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Orion crashed way too often for me. I used Orion for a month or two and switched back to Firefox in early July.
Been using it for months on MacOS without a single crash.
I'll give it another try later this year.
We face a number of challenges simply letting our paying customers change their search engine: 1. On iOS the list of allowed search engines is simply baked into OS, we have a fiddly extension that hooks outbound calls to /search and redirects them but I wish we didn't need to. 2. On Chrome, we use an extension to change the default search engine and enable search auto-complete etc, but Google has a policy that such a…
"It is most certainly this difficult by design, that's a lot of revenue to protect." Reading the early history of Microsoft I once came across a quote from someone that the company intentionally made the possibility of booting different operating systems on the PC difficult by design. What I found interesting is that this was before Linux became popular. They were already contemplating the possibility of booting othe…
Hence the logical question is: why is Google collectively paying billions of dollars to Apple and Mozilla if they are so sure they have the best search engine in the industry? I think they know that they do not have the best search engine possible and they just want to control the whole distribution channel both vertically and horizontally. Imo, long story short; Google is house of cards built of Google Search, Google Chrome and Android and if you take one card out the whole structure would collapse. They came to realize by observing Microsoft that if you control distribution channels, you control the end product and I think their weakest link is Chrome. So anyone who can create better internet browser than Google's Chrome can disrupt Google's dominion over the Web.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just advertising: Mozilla could not have put a “better in Firefox” button on Gmail or YouTube at any price, or forced Google to follow through on their promise around H.264, etc.
Google also tried to push PC OEMs to pre-install Chrome on their new PCs when Chrome was new.[1] Sony/VAIO is the only manufacturer to have known to take the bait.[2] [1] https://www.crn.com.au/news/google-may-pre-install-chrome-br... [2] https://thenextweb.com/news/sony-computers-google-chrome-bro...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I still say "Google it" even though I've been using DDG and more recently Kagi for years - I discovered saying anything else seems to lose people when trying to help them. Even just saying "search for" gives me deer in the headlight responses until I say "search on google".
Have you tried it recently? "Search for" gets me less 'deer in the headlights' looks than "google it", probably because these days most people are searching for things through apps instead of browser. Browsers are quietly becoming a niche technology with wide swaths of the population. Browse the web as a normie would, without adblocker/etc extensions and other techy web saavy, and it should quickly become apparent wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They really don't, though Kagi costs $. Even ignoring that it's a bit unclear, since in many cases DDG or bing give better results.
Do you have any examples or types of query of where a free search engine produces better results? I tried to Google for it, but maybe expectedly, that doesn’t bring up any good examples. I think free has the be table-stakes for the default search engine, because otherwise you are forcing all users to change or buy a license, so any paid alternatives are out. Disclaimer: Work at Google; not on search-related things, o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
10% is quite a meaningful share, in an absolute sense. also, 10% of a huge market is, well, huge.
Are you really trying to argue that 90% of the internet text search share held by one company isn't a monopoly?
to repeat, quoting from the Wikipedia definition of monopoly:
>A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.
(italics mine)
can you really not see the difference between 90% search share held by Google, which means 10% share held by others, vs. absence of competition? it is blindingly obvious.
I am leaving this thread. I don't argue with people who either don't get it, or seem to be operating under false pretences.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you really trying to argue that 90% of the internet text search share held by one company isn't a monopoly?
j-maffe, it looks to me like you are being disingenuous, because in reply to your earlier comment above, I had quoted the Wikipedia definition of monopoly. my entire subsequent argument was based on that, as you well know. if you want to try to redefine terms, or move goalposts, feel free to do so, but I will not participate in an argument based on such behaviour. to repeat, quoting from the Wikipedia definition of m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force - read the verb section. There is no tight definition of "force" in US market regulation. You are making things up. The phrase "market forces" is directly quoted in the ruling. Market forces are incentives pushing market participants to behave in certain ways. This is econ 101.
push != force. The definition of the word "forced" (which you used) I gave you is from Merriam-Webster. The definition you're giving is of the word "force" which is different. Google isn't forced to maximize profit at all costs if it breaks the law, no company is. No boards are vulnerable to lawsuits for not maximizing profit either. That's a myth. Having market forces doesn't mean involved companies are forced to do…
You can't be this silly, surely. Whatever strange definition you've made for yourself of force and forced isn't what the rest of the humans are using.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
4 percent of the browser market is still well over a hundred million users.
These default search deals are only on new installs though. How often will those users reinstall Firefox?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And because MS wants to increase its userbase on IOS and macOS. Meanwhile Windows Start Menu is locked to Edge and Bing.
> Meanwhile Windows Start Menu is locked to Bing Not in the EU market. They recently decoupled that part (search, but I don't know if they did it for edge too) and made bing in the start menu a store app that can be uninstalled if you don't want it to be available on your system anymore. And are providing APIs for others to use: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/apps/develop/searc... The only reason why you c…