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Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

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Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#81

Post by Topgamer7 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #76
gryn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a long time user of firefox (also around 20years). it still has many pain points especially if you're a tab hoarder. try closing a window with 400 mid to heavy tabs and see how long it takes, you can select the tabs individually and they will close way faster. (even on the best PC you can find) this is niche but I wish there was a watered down /minimalist version that dropped, bookmarks, history, sqlite (I know HN…

I currently have 8260 tabs open across 9 windows, and that's just on my main laptop, across all devices I probably have over 20k tabs, and I don't really have any issues regarding tab management. I used to have issues with Firefox randomly nuking my state on load and having to restore backups, but now I use Tab Session Manager for that and never think twice about it.

Y'all are crazy. What is even the possible value in this?

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#82

Post by ocdtrekkie »

scarface_74 wrote: post #74
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be unaware that Google has lost an antitrust suit and that the DOJ has asked the courts to require Google sell Chrome. Whether or not Google can bribe their way out of it is yet to be seen, but they may not have a choice, so it's a pretty big one time opportunity.

Yes and the courts are idiots. Why buy Chrome when you they can get Chromium for free? What good is Chrome outside of Google? Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?

The courts have, for the first time in decades, done their job. It seems ridiculous now but it should've been done ten years ago.

The impact is in removing Google's control of the customer base, not in a copy of the code.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#84

Post by robertlagrant »

IX-103 wrote: post #61
robertlagrant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got into browsers to make sure all the google properties (all web based) worked really well and weren't held back by Microsoft's dead-ending of web browser development.

And also to prevent (or at least delay) the app-ification of the web, because apps are not searchable.

Yes!

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#86

Post by JustExAWS »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #82
scarface_74 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and the courts are idiots. Why buy Chrome when you they can get Chromium for free? What good is Chrome outside of Google? Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?

The courts have, for the first time in decades, done their job. It seems ridiculous now but it should've been done ten years ago. The impact is in removing Google's control of the customer base, not in a copy of the code.

And the customer base is still is going to voluntarily choose to go to Google search and YouTube like they always have. That’s where the money is. Windows still has the majority of the desk to market share and Google search is not the default. Yet people still choose to use Google.

As far as Chrome itself, every single desktop OS user except for those forced to use ChromeOS went out of their way to willingly download Chrome.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#88

Post by duped »

biosboiii wrote: post #33

I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3). Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they ca…

Google is not benevolent

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#89

Post by philistine »

scarface_74 wrote: post #74
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be unaware that Google has lost an antitrust suit and that the DOJ has asked the courts to require Google sell Chrome. Whether or not Google can bribe their way out of it is yet to be seen, but they may not have a choice, so it's a pretty big one time opportunity.

Yes and the courts are idiots. Why buy Chrome when you they can get Chromium for free? What good is Chrome outside of Google? Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?

That’s ultimately for the courts to decide but what’s at issue is not the control of Chrome itself but wether Google is allowed to offer a browser. Any browser.

People on this site seem to forget that courts can compel companies. Open-source is not a magic bullet that invalidates consent decrees. If Google is forced to sell off Chrome and forbidden from offering a browser due to their monopoly in the ad market, they can’t shout open-source and it no longer applies. Google could probably keep spending engineer hours working on Chromium, but wouldn’t be allowed to offer it bundled with its products, and have it on their own website.

Re: Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5B

#90

Post by philistine »

JustExAWS wrote: post #86
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts have, for the first time in decades, done their job. It seems ridiculous now but it should've been done ten years ago. The impact is in removing Google's control of the customer base, not in a copy of the code.

And the customer base is still is going to voluntarily choose to go to Google search and YouTube like they always have. That’s where the money is. Windows still has the majority of the desk to market share and Google search is not the default. Yet people still choose to use Google. As far as Chrome itself, every single desktop OS user except for those forced to use ChromeOS went out of their way to willingly download…

And how, pray tell, where all of these people made aware of Chrome?

Google made the first ad for its front page for Chrome. This is not in itself a problem, but Google has a monopoly in search and ads. They cannot be allowed to also have a monopoly in browsers. That’s the whole point of American monopoly laws. Once you have a monopoly, you can’t do everything you want. There are limits. Owning a browser is too much power in one monopolistic giant.

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