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Chrome OS being open source is not a threat to Google for several reasons: The usefulness of the browser is that it's a cross-platform platform. You can run th
by nikitaga 6y ago
Chrome OS being open source is not a threat to Google for several reasons:
The usefulness of the browser is that it's a cross-platform platform. You can run the same web apps on Windows, Mac, Linux, even mobile devices.
Turning the browser itself into an OS-level platform will just create another platform that will need to compete with all existing platforms while having nothing unique to offer – after all, the same web apps run just fine on existing platforms, by their very design.
What does ChromeOS have that MacOS or Linux do not have and can't have?
You could argue that someone could build a competitor to iOS and Android using ChromeOS, but why wouldn't the same someone build a competitor using... Android? It's open source too.
Because if they take Android source without Google's blessing, they would be left without Google maps, docs, and gmail. But Google can just as easily exclude mobile browsers from accessing their web services. In today's world it would be perfectly fine for Google to only offer their services through native apps on mobile, and it's up to them which platforms they choose to publish those apps on.
Oh and then there's Widevine. You need Google's blessing to decrypt that, and even if you get it, every content provider that uses Widevine DRM can block access to their content from your browser for any reason (you can't bypass that).
How far will your rebel browser platform go without being able to play e.g. youtube? Currently they only DRM certain types of videos, but what would stop them from flipping the switch and applying DRM to every video that is monetized on youtube, and blocking your browser on the basis that it allows adblockers that effectively prevent funding of those videos?
The notion that Google is somehow – anyhow – in a weak position is utterly ridiculous. Their moat is stronger than ever.
- pjmlp 6y agoWith the Chrome monoculture, the Web is effectively ChromeOS nowadays, specially with the increasing amount of APIs that are Chrome only, which although other browsers refuse to implement really doesn't matter as their market share keeps decreasing towards zero.
- hesarenu 6y agoIf chrome advances it does not matter. The lowest common denominator would be safari specifically ios safari. Until it adopts we would have to code to it's standard.
- pjmlp 6y agoSafari only matters in 10% of the world, plenty of countries don't need to worry with customers using Safari, as no one uses any kind of Apple product and those companies have more than enough to do with their local markets.
- hesarenu 6y ago10% is still a big big big number. You can't ignore it. When website fails on someones safari you can't just say we did not consider anyone using safari or iphone. You always try to make it work on most browsers.
- pjmlp 6y agoSure we can, as mentioned, there are hundreds of countries with zero presence of Apple hardware, and not everyone is playing Amazon selling to the whole world. Local market is more than enough to keep ones busy and profitable. See how many companies in Africa, South America or Eastern Europe countries actually care to buy Apple hardware to test Safari.
- hesarenu 6y agoAnd there are hundreds with Apple hardware even once which cause an issue. It might be ok for corporate to dictate browsers but other can't ignore any percentage of browsers. I see many comments on how it works only on chrome, you would assume that we should ignore that since it majority why should be optimize for others. See we even can't optimize for chrome since we have safari which has some functionality not present.
- pjmlp 6y agoDevelopers that keep pushing for Chrome are the ones to blame to start with. Happy Firefox user here since Netscape Navigator days.
- 6y ago
- drdec 6y ago> Chrome OS being open source is not a threat to Google Agreed. I always though that Chrome and ChromeOS were created so that Google could ensure that a platform always existed for their real products (which are offered over the web).