Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#971

Post by maronato »

ozyschmozy wrote: post #309
jedberg wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great for consumers. Google would be forced to make their products work just as well with other browsers as it does with their own. I only use Chrome to interact with Google properties. I'd love to use Firefox for everything.

I see a lot of people saying Google services don't work well on other browsers. Can someone give an example? I've been using Firefox desktop and mobile for a year and haven't had any issues with Google stuff. At least YouTube, drive, docs, sheets, etc. seem to work just fine

Have you tried using Google Meet on Safari? You can’t use filters, blur the background, and basically all other features besides basic video and audio.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#972

Post by willywanker »

I was one of the very few voices against using Chrome when it debuted in 2008. How on earth did it make sense, even for the supposedly enlightened programmer/IT tech/gamer/nerd crowd to use a browser made by a company whose business model depends on profiling user data to sell ads? And mind that in 2008 they had already ditched the 'don't be evil' slogan for those naive enough to think that businesses are anything but amoral.

And splitting hairs over Chrome vs Blink (the engine), or switching to the multiple other Blink wrapper browsers that are there, or Chrome's controlled opposition Firefox() makes no sense either; by using any of these you only help maintain Google's hegemony over the web and its standards.

() - they don't get to call themselves a scrappy little privacy crusading rebel when bankrolled by Mozilla whose multi million dollar revenue remains primarily from Google being the default search engine in Firefox, plus their own shenanigans.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#973

Post by citizenpaul »

timbit42 wrote: post #900
citizenpaul wrote: post #46

A much better decision would have been to require them to fund some amount of the various open source competitors so there can be alternatives. Makes as much sense as forcing them to sell a thing that has no market. "Selling" off chrome is probably not even really possible in any reasonable business way.

It could be spun off into a separate company, or Microsoft could buy it seeing Edge uses the engine.

>Microsoft could buy it

I wish you understood why that is funny.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#974

Post by rafram »

fzzzy wrote: post #915
wrsh07 wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm failing to see why "this product we built from the ground up integrates better with our other tools" is an anti trust problem Isn't that what we want companies to do? I have two frustrations with this kind of decision: 1. It's not clear to me that the judge has any interest in creating value. 2. It does feel a bit like being punished for success. It's one thing when it's ill-gotten success, eg via coercive contra…

They didn't build it from the ground up

There is essentially no WebKit (not to mention KHTML) code remaining in Chrome.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#975

Post by rvz »

incognito124 wrote: post #48
rvz wrote: post #4

That really does not come as a surprise and that was totally expected. [0] As soon as Chrome started to become more of a platform (for their extension API) with many other companies using it in their own browsers, it tells you why they had >90% of the search market for years. This is what the folks at Google have all feared and why they started to run away from the company, spurring up 'Google' competitors (including…

You really like making predictions about the future

Yes I do. Usually they turn out to be true. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-search-...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#976

Post by shiroiushi »

rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

>AOSP is now unusable. It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app.

That's OK: these days, the phone (voice calling) app is only useful for receiving calls from scammers and telemarketers. I wouldn't miss it.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#977

Post by shiroiushi »

DanielVZ wrote: post #552
rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

I know this is anecdotal and that I should look further into this but I recently had to switch to chromium because google suite products were slightly unusable in firefox: youtube used way more CPU than it should’ve (maybe this is due to codecs but I was not able to solve it), google sheets crashed constantly, google meet slowed my laptop to a halt and I couldn’t even share my screen, and for some reason google calen…

That's strange; I use all of those Google products (except Meet, I can't speak to that one) on a daily basis on Firefox (on Linux) and they all work just fine. YouTube in particular works very well, perhaps because I have the "Enhancer for YouTube" extension installed, plus uBlock Origin.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#978

Post by 71bw »

dismalaf wrote: post #769
madeofpalk wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but I'm also not sure what the alternative is. Who's going to buy Chrome that also doesn't suffer from the same anti-trust problems? Who would want to buy Chrome? Who would want to fund Chrome? What browser would Android ship? In one view I kind of like the idea that Google would have to shop around and 'buy' a browser for its OS (competition good!), but also that seems ridiculous and easy to fall r…

Most Android devices ship Samsung Internet. Chrome is only the default on Pixel devices...

>Chrome is only the default on Pixel devices...

WRONG

Before a couple of weeks ago where a Google Play Services update changed the first set-up process, almost all global (non-CN market) devices forced Chrome as default: Xiaomi, OnePlus, Realme, Motorola, Oukitel and whatever other weird brands there are left in the Android world. AKA anything other than Samsung

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#979

Post by silexia »

chaosharmonic wrote: post #789
rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…

> This isn't an isolated attempt. You can see more of the same thing with Android. Here are more: - (jumping off of your second point...) Play Services does more than just handle stuff you sign into as a user -- it's also a dependency for everything from push notifications to screen casting. This actively poses issues building competing platforms, in that in order to give developers a path to shipping in your ecosyst…

I would love to see ads split off from search.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#980

Post by more_corn »

criddell wrote: post #713
throwaway2037 wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?

> What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome? The new Chrome company will struggle for a year or two then Apple will try to buy it but lose out after Oracle submits a higher bid.

This sounds surprisingly likely.
Post reply on HN