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Another example of https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-g
by progval 6y ago
Another example of https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... :
> "Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible'," he said.
> "All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.'
> "Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe?"
> "I'm all for 'don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence' but I don't believe Google is that incompetent. I think they were running out the clock. We lost users during every oops.
- zokier 6y ago> > "I'm all for 'don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence' but I don't believe Google is that incompetent. I think they were running out the clock. We lost users during every oops. I see the third option here besides malice and incompetence: indifference. I don't think they really aiming to eradicate Firefox, the last few % of users do not matter that much. But they certainly do seem to be indifferent about the experience of those users.
- ojnabieoot 6y agoGreat link, thanks. The line about “all of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course” (from the Firefox exec) reads like a winking acknowledgement that Google’s behavior is dangerously anti-competitive and deserves a federal antitrust investigation. Google has a pattern of abusing their uncontested market dominance in search engines, and considerable leverage in office web applications, to shore up one of the few product lines where the competition is steep. IANAL but it does seem like textbook stuff you’re not allowed to do to compete.