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Arguably Google is already abusing their monopoly power but in the way that people like. I'm talking about AMP. In the future AMP/regular page boundary will blu

by Yizahi 8y ago

Arguably Google is already abusing their monopoly power but in the way that people like. I'm talking about AMP. In the future AMP/regular page boundary will blur and Chrome/GSearch/AMPpages will merge in the ubiquitous googlenet hosted on google servers (because it will work better than regular internet pages). Almost everybody will be happy after this and Mozilla will fall into obscurity. Basically you can't create a revolution in tech by failing once and then trying harder the second time and it looks like Mozilla failed even while being better. The only way for Mozilla to win is (like linked article suggests) is to dominate somewhere else and then leverage that to push web browser. They won't do this and don't want to really. PS: maybe they could buy/merge with other privacy oriented players in tech and create end-to-end privacy services that are usable, seemingly secure and integrated and then push this offering. But I can't see a big market today for this offer if it would exist. PPS: also to add to less known evil moves by Google - their U2F websites refuse to work in Firefox, despite it supporting U2F for a long time.

jcranmer 8y ago
> PPS: also to add to less known evil moves by Google - their U2F websites refuse to work in Firefox, despite it supporting U2F for a long time. The one that still sticks in my craw is that they never bothered to add support for Hangouts in Firefox. Hangouts was modified to use WebRTC in Chrome, but relied on a plugin in Firefox--despite Firefox actually implementing the relevant WebRTC features first.
- larrik 8y ago
  Hmm, I use Hangouts in Firefox...
  - kenhwang 8y ago
    The chat or the video? The video hasn't worked in long time now.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      I haven't tried Firefox, but Hangouts with video works in Safari for me. I had to bookmark a Hangouts room URL though, which I think I opened from within GMail some time ago. If I try to just load hangouts.google.com, it won't work.
    - larrik 8y ago
      Video, although I don't have a camera (the host does, though).
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    Hangouts supports WebRTC video in Firefox now, four years after supporting WebRTC in Chrome (2014-2018). I've maintained a timeline of Hangouts' WebRTC support (as part of my work to track the sunsetting of NPAPI plugins, other than Flash, in Firefox that blocked Win64): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Win64#History https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Win64#History
dmitriid 8y ago
A recent example is how Chrome broke audio on a lot of websites https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/15/17358752/google-chrome-66-web-audio-api-sound-broken-game-change-delay-apology https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/15/17358752/google-chrome-66... I won't even link to the discussion in Chrome's bugtracker, Chrome team didn't even test the change, apparently. They also actively build "Chrome-only" websites.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  The Chrome audio thing really, really bothers me. The change broke a ton of neat, interesting games that are never going to be updated. And given Google's aggressive autoupdates, running an older version of Chrome to experience a specific old website is non-trivial. The change signals a blatant disregard for preserving pieces of art, culture, and shared history.
- untog 8y ago
  IMO that's not an abuse of monopoly thing at all. It's not as if removing auto-play audio will push users towards some Google-only product, if anything it would mean fewer users choosing Chrome.
  - kiriakasis 8y ago
    Disagree. It can be a push for web developers and amateur site-buildign-people-that-have-not-that-much-interest-in-the-web-shenanigans to use google-approved APIs. Not by promoting google as better but by simply promoting a view of google-web and other-web.
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
> Arguably Google is already abusing their monopoly power but in the way that people like. I'm talking about AMP. Do people actually like AMP? I hate it and strongly wish I could disable it for all Google search results. It's supposed to make pages load in more quickly, but for some reason they always seem to be slower for me.
- untog 8y ago
  Broadly speaking, yes they do. It is faster in the vast majority of cases, and non-techie friends of mine speak enthusiastically about the lightning bolt icon. Of course, they don't understand the implications of it.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    > and non-techie friends of mine speak enthusiastically about the lightning bolt icon. Which makes me think it's just confirmation bias. They expect it to be faster, and so perceive it as faster. Just like when Windows Vista was presented to users as the new Windows 7 (only the branding was changed for the experiment), and they openly stated it was noticeably better/faster than Windows Vista.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      I'm not quite so quick to dismiss this out of hand, despite my own (negative) experiences with AMP. Google is certainly capable of making mistakes, but I find it hard to believe they would invest so much into AMP without strong metrics to indicate that AMP pages load faster overall. And on a theoretical level, the explanations of why AMP should be faster also make sense.
      - Izkata 8y ago
        Note the phrasing, that's an important part of what I'm referring to: they're talking about the icon instead of the speed directly.
- kiriakasis 8y ago

by Yizahi 8y ago

jcranmer 8y ago

> PPS: also to add to less known evil moves by Google - their U2F websites refuse to work in Firefox, despite it supporting U2F for a long time. The one that still sticks in my craw is that they never bothered to add support for Hangouts in Firefox. Hangouts was modified to use WebRTC in Chrome, but relied on a plugin in Firefox--despite Firefox actually implementing the relevant WebRTC features first.

larrik 8y ago
Hmm, I use Hangouts in Firefox...
- kenhwang 8y ago
  The chat or the video? The video hasn't worked in long time now.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    I haven't tried Firefox, but Hangouts with video works in Safari for me. I had to bookmark a Hangouts room URL though, which I think I opened from within GMail some time ago. If I try to just load hangouts.google.com, it won't work.
  - larrik 8y ago
    Video, although I don't have a camera (the host does, though).
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Hangouts supports WebRTC video in Firefox now, four years after supporting WebRTC in Chrome (2014-2018). I've maintained a timeline of Hangouts' WebRTC support (as part of my work to track the sunsetting of NPAPI plugins, other than Flash, in Firefox that blocked Win64): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Win64#History https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Win64#History

dmitriid 8y ago

A recent example is how Chrome broke audio on a lot of websites https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/15/17358752/google-chrome-66-web-audio-api-sound-broken-game-change-delay-apology https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/15/17358752/google-chrome-66... I won't even link to the discussion in Chrome's bugtracker, Chrome team didn't even test the change, apparently. They also actively build "Chrome-only" websites.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
The Chrome audio thing really, really bothers me. The change broke a ton of neat, interesting games that are never going to be updated. And given Google's aggressive autoupdates, running an older version of Chrome to experience a specific old website is non-trivial. The change signals a blatant disregard for preserving pieces of art, culture, and shared history.
untog 8y ago
IMO that's not an abuse of monopoly thing at all. It's not as if removing auto-play audio will push users towards some Google-only product, if anything it would mean fewer users choosing Chrome.
- kiriakasis 8y ago
  Disagree. It can be a push for web developers and amateur site-buildign-people-that-have-not-that-much-interest-in-the-web-shenanigans to use google-approved APIs. Not by promoting google as better but by simply promoting a view of google-web and other-web.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

> Arguably Google is already abusing their monopoly power but in the way that people like. I'm talking about AMP. Do people actually like AMP? I hate it and strongly wish I could disable it for all Google search results. It's supposed to make pages load in more quickly, but for some reason they always seem to be slower for me.

untog 8y ago
Broadly speaking, yes they do. It is faster in the vast majority of cases, and non-techie friends of mine speak enthusiastically about the lightning bolt icon. Of course, they don't understand the implications of it.
- Izkata 8y ago
  > and non-techie friends of mine speak enthusiastically about the lightning bolt icon. Which makes me think it's just confirmation bias. They expect it to be faster, and so perceive it as faster. Just like when Windows Vista was presented to users as the new Windows 7 (only the branding was changed for the experiment), and they openly stated it was noticeably better/faster than Windows Vista.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    I'm not quite so quick to dismiss this out of hand, despite my own (negative) experiences with AMP. Google is certainly capable of making mistakes, but I find it hard to believe they would invest so much into AMP without strong metrics to indicate that AMP pages load faster overall. And on a theoretical level, the explanations of why AMP should be faster also make sense.
    - Izkata 8y ago
      Note the phrasing, that's an important part of what I'm referring to: they're talking about the icon instead of the speed directly.
kiriakasis 8y ago