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Personally I don't like these features, but can't this official move being seen as way to curve competitors? Especially looking at how the announcement is word

Personally I don't like these features, but can't this official move being seen as way to curve competitors? Especially looking at how the announcement is worded? "This meant that a small fraction of users could sign into their Google Account and store their personal Chrome sync data, such as bookmarks, not just with Google Chrome, but also with some third-party Chromium based browsers. We are limiting access to our private Chrome APIs starting on March 15, 2021." That I understand as "you can use the open source chromium version, but we did what was necessary to ensure that in all cases and derivatives it will be inferior to closed Chrome". Maybe a next move could be to disable the possibility to use the chromecast from Chromium?

magicalist 6y ago
> but can't this official move being seen as way to curve competitors? What competitors are using chrome sync? Other comments mention Brave and Vivaldi, but they both have their own sync systems. Edge has Microsoft accounts, ungoogled-chromium has sync disabled completely...
- Macha 6y ago
  Arch's Chromium build seems to be one affected: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2021-January/030260.html https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2021-J...
bzb6 6y ago
Why should third party browsers be able to use google servers to store data? Why should google provide this service for free?
- dgrove 6y ago
  3rd Party browsers are not, they have their own sync infrastructure. This is mostly affecting builds of Chromium that are not directly built by Google https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/embedder-dev/c/NXm7GIKTNTE/m/Qxcew5lfCAAJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/embedder-dev/c/NX...
eqtn 6y ago
Or possibly to disable chrome webstore access for other chromium based browsers
hansvm 6y ago
> you can use the open source chromium version, but we did what was necessary to ensure that in all cases and derivatives it will be inferior to closed Chrome Alternatively, "you can use the open source chromium version or a derivative, but we won't operate as a free host for our competitors." Regardless of their motivations, from my perspective this doesn't have any of the ethical questionability of actions like penalizing non-AMP pages; they seem to be well within their rights (and not in a "technically that's allowed, but they're still kind of shitty" way like some of the stunts that Nintendo pulls with copyright law).
morpheuskafka 6y ago
You're not really a "competitor" if you are using Google's sync backend, for one Google has no obligation to provide that to you for free, for two, if Google is storing and controlling the users data you aren't getting any value from it and the backend also won't be compatible with any feature changes you make.

magicalist 6y ago

> but can't this official move being seen as way to curve competitors? What competitors are using chrome sync? Other comments mention Brave and Vivaldi, but they both have their own sync systems. Edge has Microsoft accounts, ungoogled-chromium has sync disabled completely...

Macha 6y ago
Arch's Chromium build seems to be one affected: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2021-January/030260.html https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2021-J...

bzb6 6y ago

Why should third party browsers be able to use google servers to store data? Why should google provide this service for free?

dgrove 6y ago
3rd Party browsers are not, they have their own sync infrastructure. This is mostly affecting builds of Chromium that are not directly built by Google https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/embedder-dev/c/NXm7GIKTNTE/m/Qxcew5lfCAAJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/embedder-dev/c/NX...

eqtn 6y ago

Or possibly to disable chrome webstore access for other chromium based browsers

hansvm 6y ago

> you can use the open source chromium version, but we did what was necessary to ensure that in all cases and derivatives it will be inferior to closed Chrome Alternatively, "you can use the open source chromium version or a derivative, but we won't operate as a free host for our competitors." Regardless of their motivations, from my perspective this doesn't have any of the ethical questionability of actions like penalizing non-AMP pages; they seem to be well within their rights (and not in a "technically that's allowed, but they're still kind of shitty" way like some of the stunts that Nintendo pulls with copyright law).

morpheuskafka 6y ago

You're not really a "competitor" if you are using Google's sync backend, for one Google has no obligation to provide that to you for free, for two, if Google is storing and controlling the users data you aren't getting any value from it and the backend also won't be compatible with any feature changes you make.