Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#91

Post by icebraining » Wed, May 29, 2019, 9:57 AM UTC

duiker101 wrote: post #49

bad_user wrote: post #5

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important. Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is…

A lot of "third party browsers" like Opera, Vivaldi and Brave choose to go for Chromium as their engine, would they be able to use Firefox's engine the same way? If yes, why does it seem that no one actually does it? I personally don't particularly enjoy Firefox as a browser, but I don't have anything against their engine. If there was a version of Vivaldi that implemented that I would probably choose it over the Chr…

There are browsers using Firefox's engine; most are forks of Firefox itself, but there was Camino, Conkeror, and Galeon, plus K-Meleon which is still around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-Meleon

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#92

Post by xxs » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:00 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #18

dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

Seriously, every time you used to open google docs with firefox, they asked to "try&download chrome" as it was faster (or whatever). I don't have the screenshots any longer but it was so bad I added to grease monkey.

Another example: Windows: Chrome, installation being under user profile to bypass any system checks during installation process itself and further updates.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#93

Post by jakeogh » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #86

jakeogh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surf works excellent: https://surf.suckless.org/

yes, because "compile webkit yourself" is super suckless

Nonsense unless your are on LFS. Your package manager does that whether it's binary or source based for every dependency for every app.

Maybe instead we can bemoan how the version of webkit in xyz repo is outdated?

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#94

Post by chii » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:03 AM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #79

dalbasal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. " They did make a good browser. However, their market share is not down to better browser or "some advertising." They use their other assets (search, youtube, android, docs..) to make chrome the "default" option. It's a dominance breeds dominance cycle... a hallmark of modern monopoly. Chrome wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't a very good brow…

> They use their other assets (search, youtube, android, docs..) to make chrome "default" option. Don't forget their annoying bundling with freeware...

That's merely advertising. Google did not force chrome into any platform except android (which only happened after Chrome's dominance).

Mozilla could've paid for more advertising (e.g, partner up with Yahoo or some other big web property). But even with a push like that, FF won't have won because it didn't the high performance that drove Chrome's retention rate.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#95

Post by macspoofing » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:06 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #5

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important. Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is…

>However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important.

Are they though?

Adherence to standards is very good across the board. It isn't like it was in the 90s when standards were seen as mere guidelines and suggestions.

Safari is going strong. FF is going to be around but they are certainly struggling - and it's their fault. They have had the uncanny ability to make the wrong decision every time. They are hamstrung by their legacy architecture that they are just starting to break out of. Their side projects (Firefox OS, Pocket, Reality) were/are a total waste of time. And of course, they promoted and then fired Eich over nothing - which leads one to wonder what kind of a circus they run internally.

Microsoft is interesting and for now they are using a packaged version of Chromium - but I could see them do a hard-fork in the same way that Google forked WebKit because at some point a trillion-dollar company won't want to be tied to another trillion-dollar company's roadmap.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#96

Post by martin_a » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:07 AM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #88

martin_a wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are Google and you're the good guy, why are you doing this? What if you aren't actually the good guy?

He's basically asking if there's any reasonable theory fitting the fact that Google withheld Widevine and the hypothesis that Google is a good guy. The jump to the null hypothesis that you've stated is made too soon without doing this first.

Maybe I've translated it wrong but to me it read like it was based on the assumption that Google is being perceived or actively trying to be the good guy.

I don't think this is how they do anything anymore. They are not "the good ones" and they will probably do anything that fits into their business model or ideas without any hesitations.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#97

Post by icebraining » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:08 AM UTC

r3bl wrote: post #36

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla really hasn't helped their cause with various privacy-related issues over the last few years, like the Booking.com ads ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800360 ). The obfuscatory language around it are arguably more insulting than the ads themselves. As John Gruber so eloquently wrote: > If you want to sell ads, sell ads. Own it. Don’t try to coat it with a layer of frosting and tell me it’s a fucking…

They didn't sell the space to Booking.com. They've promoted one another in their user bases: Firefox showed a message about Booking, Booking showed a message about Firefox. There was no money involved. I'm not gonna defend their action to do so because I disagree with it too, but if you wanna feel outraged about it, at least get the facts right. John Gruber should do the same.

A sale is a sale even if it doesn't involve hard currency. When Disney bought most of 21st Century Fox assets, there was no money involved either.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#98

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:09 AM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #43

dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

Google invested a shit ton into marketing when they launched Chrome. I have pictures from 2012 (I think) when they had the entire grand hall of Paris' Gare de Lyon hung with dozens of huge Chrome banners. That alone must have cost them tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Euros. That said I think the web's under Google's thumb screws (AMP, mail, DNS, browser-almost monopoly, etc) is in a bad place. But they did inv…

Technically you are just stating facts, and I do not wish to put words into your mouth, so I am saying this with caution: if you mean to imply that "investing a shit ton into marketing" legitimizes their dominance, then I have to respectfully disagree. Economic might does not make right.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#99

Post by dosy » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:10 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #46

ishan1121 wrote: post #2

Google is a clear monopoly, there's no doubt about it. It has a 70% browser market share, 70% market share in the search ecosystem. Even though their service is good and people are happy, I think they need to be broken down for the sake of keeping an open internet. Even Facebook for that matter. That's my opinion

I don't know what you can do about browsers besides use Firefox. But as far as other stuff, I hope people will give distributed p2p possibilities some consideration in terms of usage or development. For example YaCy works pretty well as a p2p search engine. There are some others that I haven't tried. Back to the browser stuff. The problem is the browser has a full operating system in it at this point. There are too m…

Your proposal for an alternate browser universe sounds sort of like a project I'm working on.

It makes use of a regular browser (Chrome, Firefox) in the backend but provides a customized experience to the user and over the final hop to the user.

It supports a plugin development where you can use plugins to change the page before it is sent over the final hop to the user, and the JavaScript on the page is never executed on the user's machine, but only run in the cloud backend.

I actually built it for webcasting and scraping, and then needed a lower bandwidth access over my 4G connection while oversees so added a plugin to remove everything except for the essential HTML.

I'm actually looking for feedback right now on what to improve next, as I've got 50 issues I found myself but not sure what's most important to others. You can try it on https://staging.litewait.io and use a stripe test card number.

Mail me for issues and I'll try to help you. In profile.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#100

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:10 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #94

Krasnol wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They use their other assets (search, youtube, android, docs..) to make chrome "default" option. Don't forget their annoying bundling with freeware...

That's merely advertising. Google did not force chrome into any platform except android (which only happened after Chrome's dominance). Mozilla could've paid for more advertising (e.g, partner up with Yahoo or some other big web property). But even with a push like that, FF won't have won because it didn't the high performance that drove Chrome's retention rate.

Tricking people into trojan-installing it shouldn't count as 'merely advertising'.