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> It is also fair to say that Google is now in a position where regulation is needed. I sincerely hope that they’ll get back to the straight and narrow. Hah. E

> It is also fair to say that Google is now in a position where regulation is needed. I sincerely hope that they’ll get back to the straight and narrow. Hah. Even before I read any of this article, just reading the post title as submitted here made me think of something I ponder often: The Microsoft antitrust regulations happened ultimately because Microsoft read the situation wrong and pushed too hard. It's sad to say that Google have studied what happened very, very well, and they've stepped carefully enough that, well, we now have Chromebooks - the exact direction Microsoft was heading in. And nobody's batting an eyelid. Yes, Google needs to be reminded what its boundaries are. I believe this can be done. My guess is that Google have successfully ridden the general consensus of "it's open source, anyone can fork it" to get away with having Chrome be the world's dominant browser. But Chrome is not Chromium. Yeah, yeah, the binary differences are just a crash-reporter and autoupdater (mostly, IIRC), but still. So the politicos need to be convinced that we've revisited the same situation. My suggestion is stifles laughter requiring that Chromebooks provide the option to install Firefox. :D (OT trivia: Chromium's builtin spellchecker is fine with "politicos". That's hilarious. (I know it's on, it doesn't like "autoupdater".))

studentrob 9y ago
> My suggestion is stifles laughter requiring that Chromebooks provide the option to install Firefox. :D Google should take that upon themselves. I was prepared to refute your suggestion until a quick Google search told me Chromebooks have 58% marketshare in K-12. It's probably much lower across home devices and much lower still across the world, but popular enough that, like Android, it should allow installing competing browsers. For an antitrust lawsuit to be successful, I imagine their marketshare would need to be much higher.
- mentando 9y ago
  Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser? I mean I have a Chromebook and I can install crouton and run Firefox. Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers?
  - studentrob 9y ago
    > Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser? I don't have one. If it's sufficiently harder, like it was in the Microsoft IE antitrust case, there may be an argument there. IANAL but I think an antitrust lawsuit would have to show they have majority marketshare too. > Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers? I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system. Still, now we have pretty easy to install flavors of Linux, which is another difference between now and 2001 when Microsoft settled their case.
    - mentando 9y ago
      > I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system. It is essentially a really light Linux Distribution with Chrome running on top of it. But I have no clue, how hard or easy it would be for Google to allow a package manager or something to work. As I said, they do not actively block you from installing crouton, which allows you to use any browser, but I don't know, if that would help with an antitrust lawsuit.

studentrob 9y ago

> My suggestion is stifles laughter requiring that Chromebooks provide the option to install Firefox. :D Google should take that upon themselves. I was prepared to refute your suggestion until a quick Google search told me Chromebooks have 58% marketshare in K-12. It's probably much lower across home devices and much lower still across the world, but popular enough that, like Android, it should allow installing competing browsers. For an antitrust lawsuit to be successful, I imagine their marketshare would need to be much higher.

mentando 9y ago
Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser? I mean I have a Chromebook and I can install crouton and run Firefox. Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers?
- studentrob 9y ago
  > Do Chromebooks actively block you from installing another browser? I don't have one. If it's sufficiently harder, like it was in the Microsoft IE antitrust case, there may be an argument there. IANAL but I think an antitrust lawsuit would have to show they have majority marketshare too. > Or would Google have to provide a "supported" way to install other browsers? I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system. Still, now we have pretty easy to install flavors of Linux, which is another difference between now and 2001 when Microsoft settled their case.
  - mentando 9y ago
    > I don't how ChromeOS works. Is Chrome the OS? If so they might have more of an argument than, say, Microsoft, since Windows existed before IE and it was clear IE was not integral to the base system. It is essentially a really light Linux Distribution with Chrome running on top of it. But I have no clue, how hard or easy it would be for Google to allow a package manager or something to work. As I said, they do not actively block you from installing crouton, which allows you to use any browser, but I don't know, if that would help with an antitrust lawsuit.