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I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and Chrome browser.
Unfortunately quite some things only work entirely on Chrome. My default is still Firefox but it’s no getting around it at times.
Annoyingly, the new tab page used to have an exclusion for these "announcements". The flag was removed. I've ended up installing one of those "inspirational new tab page" extensions, just so I don't see an ad. I am sure that means someone else is siphoning my data.
Both in Chrome and Firefox, I always set my new tab page to `about:blank`, or in other words, absolutely nothing. Why? Because the address bar is all I need to get where I'm going. I type faster than I click.
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Firefox has ads too. At least you can turn them off, until they add another category and you have to go figure out how to turn off the new ones.
I don't think I've ever seen a single ad on Firefox (including on any website thanks to uBlock working better on FF than anywhere else), what ads are you talking about?
This is on desktop.
Proves the saying, "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product"
Stupidity is contagious. If MS does it, why should't Google ?
I wouldn't say it is stupidity. MS seems to have stopped innovating and exploit as much of their business before it dies. Possibly Google realised the same?
It was inevitable, you gotta get the infite growth from somewhere. Ane the next move will +1 this and so on, until google becomes less attractive than leaner competition. Because of inertia, legacy and people benefitting from the status quo, they won't be able to correct course. This is textbook "how empire falls" and why things that seem indestructible eventually dies like anything else. This will be the mile stone…
I can't believe how many people here still use Google search and Chrome browser.
If I want to submit high quality work on time, it makes sense to use the best (most performant) tool for the job. Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and other alternative tools are helpful for personal use, but I have less to worry about when using Google and Chrome for work.
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If this harms their business then why would they keep doing it
Harms it long term, makes money short term.
Google Stadia case in point. Nobody serious backed Stadia because almost everyone expected Google to kill it off so nobody jumped to it and then it was inevitably killed off because it didn't bring in the cash Google was expecting. Even when the stars had aligned for them with the pandemic and supply shortages that should have given them tons of players Google just couldn't convince enough people to go for it.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are high level talks going on about the sustainability of some of this exact lines of thinking. Chasing growth organically is fine. Artificially generating it by shifting costs or cutting corners elsewhere to maintain the illusion of growth eventually sinks the whole ship.
I woke up to ads in my new tab page in Firefox yesterday; sponsored links to Amazon and Nike. Browsers don't seem to serve users anymore. They, like everything else, are mostly ad delivery mechanisms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175 ("Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment" (2019))
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608022 ("Why am I seeing this adorable red panda?") (2022)