5 ms·

One big difference (though I don't know how much it was considered in the court case) is that IE pushed ActiveX controls as the best way to get interactive cont

One big difference (though I don't know how much it was considered in the court case) is that IE pushed ActiveX controls as the best way to get interactive content on websites, and ActiveX controls were in practice a way to run Windows-specific x86 code. For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that. Google's repeatedly pushed Chrome-specific web “features” as the new way to do everything web. Sometimes they're also implemented in Firefox. Not equivalent, but similar.
- mjw1007 5y ago
  Right, Google's misbehaviour is that they're trying to gain de facto control of the "web platform", while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. I think what Microsoft was doing was objectionable in itself. I think what Google is doing is objectionable to the extent that they try to use that control to prevent people doing things they dislike (eg, their recent work to undermine ad-blockers).
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. Chrome only runs on Windows, some Linuxs, and some BSDs. It includes DRM that only works on some processors… It looks like Google is trying to prevent the "web platform" from continuing to exist as a competitor to Chrome, and I don't see how that's any different.
    - gleenn 5y ago
      Chrome runs on OSX too.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        macOS is a BSD. It would've been redundant to list it separately. :-)
        monocasa 5y ago
        Eh, osx is its own thing at this point. The parts that really matter for a browser (UI/media, sandboxing, flipping page permissions from write to exec) are all osx specific.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        “Linux” isn't one target, either. You have X11, Wayland, PulseAudio, JACK, Pipewire… That's just the more common userland windowing and audio APIs. (Yes, most of them have compatibility modes for others, but they don't quite work as well as not using the compatibility modes.)
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  They literally just rebranded FLoC as Topics.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> For all their faults, Google and Apple haven't tried anything equivalent to that. Google's repeatedly pushed Chrome-specific web “features” as the new way to do everything web. Sometimes they're also implemented in Firefox. Not equivalent, but similar.

mjw1007 5y ago
Right, Google's misbehaviour is that they're trying to gain de facto control of the "web platform", while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. I think what Microsoft was doing was objectionable in itself. I think what Google is doing is objectionable to the extent that they try to use that control to prevent people doing things they dislike (eg, their recent work to undermine ad-blockers).
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > while Microsoft's was that they were trying to prevent the "web platform" coming into existence as a competitor to Windows. Chrome only runs on Windows, some Linuxs, and some BSDs. It includes DRM that only works on some processors… It looks like Google is trying to prevent the "web platform" from continuing to exist as a competitor to Chrome, and I don't see how that's any different.
  - gleenn 5y ago
    Chrome runs on OSX too.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      macOS is a BSD. It would've been redundant to list it separately. :-)
      - monocasa 5y ago
        Eh, osx is its own thing at this point. The parts that really matter for a browser (UI/media, sandboxing, flipping page permissions from write to exec) are all osx specific.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        “Linux” isn't one target, either. You have X11, Wayland, PulseAudio, JACK, Pipewire… That's just the more common userland windowing and audio APIs. (Yes, most of them have compatibility modes for others, but they don't quite work as well as not using the compatibility modes.)
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
They literally just rebranded FLoC as Topics.