7 ms·

So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. Thi

So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different. Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to leverage what you do is already there. The dynamic here is fundamentally different than many other monopolies of the past due to this fact. It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because they feel there is no other viable option to offer a similar experience or is it because they choose that because it feels to them to be the best choice to make in a free market.

hinkley 2y ago
Isn’t Google refusing to make changes that boost online privacy because it’ll tank their ad revenue?
- elmerfud 2y ago
  But I don't see how that equates to a monopoly. They certainly have the ability to direct their development of their product in the way that they want. Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. If the edge browser was so much better and much better privacy wise or the kiwi browser or any of the others the internet can move fairly quickly from one choice to another when that choice is better. For all the downsides that Chrome has I don't see anything that fits the term better for my use case. I'm also guessing that most other users also haven't found anything "better"
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    It’s horizontal tying. If Chrome was not owned by an ad company, the owners of chrome would push for instead of against privacy protections (see: firefox, safari). The browser monopoly, which Chrome sells at a loss, enables the ad company. This is the problem. Chromium does not get features Chrome does not need from Google. So anything against ads does not get upstreamed to Chromium. Chrome also is a major browser vendor, whereas kiwibrowser and opera are not, which means the standards boards listen to them more. If those seats were not owned by an ad company, standards would likely be different.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      As much as I find Chrome’s ownership and market share problematic, that doesn’t seem fair. What exactly do things like WebUSB and Web Bluetooth contribute to Google’s ad business? (Except if you mean that any new and initially exclusive feature bolsters Chrome’s dominance further, in which case I’d somewhat agree.)
      - JimDabell 2y ago
        > What exactly do things like WebUSB and Web Bluetooth contribute to Google’s ad business? Google keeps proposing specifications like Web USB, Web Bluetooth, Web MIDI, Web Serial, etc., and both Mozilla and Apple keep shooting them down on privacy and security grounds. Meanwhile Google ignores the problems and builds them into Chrome anyway, and guess what happens? They start getting used to fingerprint and track people. Who knows, maybe it’s just a coincidence that all of these technologies that advertisers can use to fingerprint and track people keep making their way into the browser owned by one of the world’s largest ad companies.
        lxgr 2y ago
        How would you use WebUSB or Web Bluetooth for device fingerprinting? HID, mass storage devices etc. are required to be filtered by implementations, and why would I grant a random news or social media site access to my MiniDisc player, Arduino board, Bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer etc. when it asks for it? The prompts are pretty scary/disruptive, and I've never seen any website actually try (unlike for e.g. web push notifications, which are fairly private but can be super annoying).
        JimDabell 2y ago
        > why would I grant a random news or social media site access to my MiniDisc player, Arduino board, Bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer etc. when it asks for it? Part of the problem is that a vast number of users neither understand nor care about these prompts. They just click to make them go away. There’s a few long discussions on the unsuitability of these specifications in the Mozilla standards positions repo: Web Bluetooth: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/95 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/95 Web USB: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100 Web MIDI: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/58 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/58 Web Serial: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336 Here’s some Hacker News discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679063
  - duped 2y ago
    The monopoly the DoJ is trying to break up isn't Chrome, it's Search. From TFA: > Antitrust enforcers want the judge to order Google to sell off Chrome — the most widely used browser worldwide — because it represents a key access point through which many people use its search engine, said the people.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > I don't see how that equates to a monopoly The monopoly is in ads. Google uses its control of Chrome to act uncompetitively in advertising.
  - 3836293648 2y ago
    Monopolies aren't bad per se. Monopolies are bad because they allow you to abuse the market and consumers. If you can be similarly abusive without a full monopoly that's equally bad.
    - hinkley 2y ago
      Such as to track their every move and exploit or sell that data.
  - devnullbrain 2y ago
    >Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. With what funding? Chrome loses money. Edge loses money. Safari loses money. Firefox loses Google's money. Brave loses VC money. Without some endless source of money, funding you for an ulterior motive, you can't compete with them. Which is why: >For all the downsides that Chrome has I don't see anything that fits the term better for my use case. The anti-competitive practices ensure there can't be effective competition.
- consumer451 2y ago
  Isn't it even worse than that? Didn't they make changes via Manifest v3, which will not allow me to follow the FBI's advisory about using ad blockers, to make sure their ad revenue does not decline? I do realize you can still use uBlock, but my understanding is that updates will be slow rolled, correct? Doesn't this open the window to malicious people to serve me mal-ads?
  - hinkley 2y ago
    M3 seems to be failing, but I agree that it matters that the tried.
  - ycombinatrix 2y ago
    >I do realize you can still use uBlock No, you can't. You can use "uBlock origin lite" which is the manifest v3 version that doesn't work correctly.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  Quite the opposite, Google is the key sponsor of Privacy Sandbox: https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ Working out why they're doing this is left as an exercise to the reader.
  - kivle 2y ago
    The whole reason for "privacy sandbox" is to still do user tracking, but do it in an anonymous way that they hope legislators won't go after. It's Google seeing the writing on the wall that legislation will soon ban third-party cookie tracking and fingerprinting and the like, so they need to be proactive and protect the ad tracking business. A better name for it would have been something like "anonymous user tracking / data collection", but "privacy sandbox" is probably a good marketing term to fuzz what it's really doing. To a normal user it makes it sounds like Google is doing something good and protecting them, while it's really just "please opt in to our new more anonymized tracking technology while still allowing us to track you".
    - teractiveodular 2y ago
      The entire point of Privacy Sandbox is to get away from tracking individuals and allow ad targeting of anonymous cohorts (interest groups) instead. https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advertising/protected-audience https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advert...
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        The root problem here is that users don't want any of these tracking alternatives. All of the other browsers have said "no thanks" to any of the alternatives, and already moved forward with blocking third-party cookies (the main vector for tracking). Chrome hasn't moved forward with this because their ability to still track you thanks you being logged into Google means that disadvantaging every ad provider paints a massive target on their backs for antitrust law (even more so than they already have). Hence their attempt to fix it by creating new vectors of tracking so they can get the privacy "win" of blocking third-party cookies.
- wbl 2y ago
  Everyone else's ad revenue. The UK computing regulator is the main player here.
- jsnell 2y ago
  No. They're not doing those changes because regulators like the DOJ[0] threatened them with anti-trust action if they did. That's the same DOJ that's now asking for Chrome to be divested. [0] https://www.engadget.com/google-antitrust-doj-cookies-privacy-sandbox-152453575.html?guccounter=1 https://www.engadget.com/google-antitrust-doj-cookies-privac...
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Uh. That was not my understanding of that situation. Blocking third party cookies this way still leaves Google’s tools which people voluntarily install with access to data that now nobody else has access to.
nixass 2y ago
> It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because .... It's because Chrome used to be shoved down everyone's throat up until few years ago. Once stable base of users was made (by force and deception) the market took momentum
- rvnx 2y ago
  It also used to be distributed like an adware, bundled with along other softwares during installation.
- elmerfud 2y ago
  I do think you're rewriting history a bit here. Of course a Google advertised to their product but people didn't move to Chrome simply because of the advertisements. Chrome took hold because literally every other choice sucked and sucked hard. When you only have sucky choices you have to deal with them and they made something massively better than anything else at the time. Companies with buckets of money like Microsoft didn't innovate in this space and even when they saw what Google was doing with Chrome their ability to compete with it was laughable. Even when they finally switch to their edge browser because the Internet explorer name was so tainted with bad experiences they still suck in this space. Even with Bing and the billions of dollars they can throw at it they still suck in this space.
  - nixass 2y ago
    It took hold because it was a part of almost every popular piece of software installer back in the day, and enabled by default
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    I think it's a combination of both. There was absolutely a period where Chrome was faster, and Chrome still has a better security design. But Google also pushed Chrome incredibly hard, including bundling it with other software as a checked-by-default box, and used all the tactics to get it made the default browser and make it hard to switch, and advertised it on Google services for free, and made some features of Google products require it.
afavour 2y ago
People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  Google also turns every link tap in their iOS apps into an opportunity to upsell Chrome for iOS when it should just open the link with the user’s default browser.
  - dwetterau 2y ago
    I'm shocked that Apple hasn't cracked down on this process through App store reviews. It's such an awful experience.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      I’m not surprised, though. They’re not exactly on the most solid ground with them preventing any engines other than their own WebKit for third-party browsers or even apps.
  - robocat 2y ago
    How else is Google supposed to "integrate" within iOS? Safari and Messages etcetera link to within the closed Apple ecosystem - just like Windows. It can be between difficult to impossible to send an email or create a calendar item unless you use the iOS apps. I'm definitely no Google fanboi but every answer being "Google are arseholes" feels dishonest. The Chromium developer team absolutely kick arse and being open source is a true gift. Mozilla is badly failing to compete. Microsoft failed to compete with their first Edge rewrite, and now ironicalky MS "competes" using Chromium open source. And why did Chromium have to split from WebKit? As an outsider it just looked like "because Apple don't want to play nice". The story is always simplified to Google greedy arseholes. A typical response: you can never ever ever satisfy open source proponents... The stereotype that every open source user greedily wants more.
XorNot 2y ago
I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.
- bcye 2y ago
  PWAs being entirely unsupported by Firefox for instance.
  - quickslowdown 2y ago
    This is the last big thing keeping me on Vivaldi (based on chromium). I do use those, and would most likely fully switch to Firefox when implemented.
  - duped 2y ago
    What things are only available as PWAs that are worth it? Like I know they exist, but I've never installed or used one.
    - mdaniel 2y ago
      "Only?" probably none However, recently there was a healthy thread about the massive trackers found in mobile apps[1] which wouldn't be a problem with PWAs since they live in the same sandbox as the browser (meaning no exfiltrating all the shit) but yet can one-click launch from the normal app mechanisms and (AFAIK) can be the subject of Intent handlers just like apps 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- crazygringo 2y ago
  uBlock Origin Lite works perfectly fine for me on Chrome. Maybe there's some 0.01% of ads that would get blocked in the Firefox version that aren't in Chrome. But I don't see any regular users switching because they're noticing ads not getting blocked now.
throwawaythekey 2y ago
In the context of Google's ad business the fact that chrome is open source has little bearing. Chrome is both massively popular and also a loss leader designed to further entrench Google's ad monopoly. If Chrome were broken off then a competitor in the ads space like Meta could purchase the search traffic instead which would force Google's ad business to be more competitive.
- gerash 2y ago
  Is Meta or Microsoft buying Chrome a good outcome?
  - ForHackernews 2y ago
    IMHO Microsoft yes, Meta no. Microsoft wouldn't have a the kind of vertically integrated monopoly where they control both the internet properties and the browser used to access them.
  - throwawaythekey 2y ago
    My ideal outcome would be something like: 1) Chrome is spun out as a standalone entity. Google would originally have full ownership but be forced to sell down over time. 2) Google buys the Chrome traffic at a fair price 3) Apple sells their traffic to someone else, potentially an AI search player (Meta??) 4) MSFT makes a new browser in response to Chrome going closed source
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > 4) MSFT makes a new browser in response to Chrome going closed source Why would they? They can just continue why Chromium/Edge. Presumably the new standalone entity be able to invest as much into Google or even MS.
    - cheriot 2y ago
      If Apple, Mozilla, and a stand alone Chrome sell search traffic at the fair market price and Google pays the highest price (because they have the best monetization) we're back where we started.
MisterBiggs 2y ago
I think the real issue is Google is able to use Chrome to push web standards in any direction they want.
arebop 2y ago
The DOJ has renounced the consumer welfare standard [https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopoly-be-vanquished/ https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol...].
- nobody9999 2y ago
  >The DOJ has renounced the consumer welfare standard [https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol...]. And, apparently, these guys[0] think that's a good thing. [0] https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Publish_27-STLR-71-2024_The-Big-Tech-Antitrust-Paradox.pdf https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Publish_...
Tepix 2y ago
I disagree. We get things in Chrome that is not in the consumer's interest simply because Google wants to get more data from its users and display more ads. If Chrome were to be separated from the Ad business, it would be beneficial for privacy.

hinkley 2y ago

Isn’t Google refusing to make changes that boost online privacy because it’ll tank their ad revenue?

elmerfud 2y ago
But I don't see how that equates to a monopoly. They certainly have the ability to direct their development of their product in the way that they want. Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. If the edge browser was so much better and much better privacy wise or the kiwi browser or any of the others the internet can move fairly quickly from one choice to another when that choice is better. For all the downsides that Chrome has I don't see anything that fits the term better for my use case. I'm also guessing that most other users also haven't found anything "better"
- freeone3000 2y ago
  It’s horizontal tying. If Chrome was not owned by an ad company, the owners of chrome would push for instead of against privacy protections (see: firefox, safari). The browser monopoly, which Chrome sells at a loss, enables the ad company. This is the problem. Chromium does not get features Chrome does not need from Google. So anything against ads does not get upstreamed to Chromium. Chrome also is a major browser vendor, whereas kiwibrowser and opera are not, which means the standards boards listen to them more. If those seats were not owned by an ad company, standards would likely be different.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    As much as I find Chrome’s ownership and market share problematic, that doesn’t seem fair. What exactly do things like WebUSB and Web Bluetooth contribute to Google’s ad business? (Except if you mean that any new and initially exclusive feature bolsters Chrome’s dominance further, in which case I’d somewhat agree.)
    - JimDabell 2y ago
      > What exactly do things like WebUSB and Web Bluetooth contribute to Google’s ad business? Google keeps proposing specifications like Web USB, Web Bluetooth, Web MIDI, Web Serial, etc., and both Mozilla and Apple keep shooting them down on privacy and security grounds. Meanwhile Google ignores the problems and builds them into Chrome anyway, and guess what happens? They start getting used to fingerprint and track people. Who knows, maybe it’s just a coincidence that all of these technologies that advertisers can use to fingerprint and track people keep making their way into the browser owned by one of the world’s largest ad companies.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        How would you use WebUSB or Web Bluetooth for device fingerprinting? HID, mass storage devices etc. are required to be filtered by implementations, and why would I grant a random news or social media site access to my MiniDisc player, Arduino board, Bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer etc. when it asks for it? The prompts are pretty scary/disruptive, and I've never seen any website actually try (unlike for e.g. web push notifications, which are fairly private but can be super annoying).
        JimDabell 2y ago
        > why would I grant a random news or social media site access to my MiniDisc player, Arduino board, Bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer etc. when it asks for it? Part of the problem is that a vast number of users neither understand nor care about these prompts. They just click to make them go away. There’s a few long discussions on the unsuitability of these specifications in the Mozilla standards positions repo: Web Bluetooth: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/95 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/95 Web USB: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100 Web MIDI: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/58 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/58 Web Serial: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336 Here’s some Hacker News discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679063
- duped 2y ago
  The monopoly the DoJ is trying to break up isn't Chrome, it's Search. From TFA: > Antitrust enforcers want the judge to order Google to sell off Chrome — the most widely used browser worldwide — because it represents a key access point through which many people use its search engine, said the people.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > I don't see how that equates to a monopoly The monopoly is in ads. Google uses its control of Chrome to act uncompetitively in advertising.
- 3836293648 2y ago
  Monopolies aren't bad per se. Monopolies are bad because they allow you to abuse the market and consumers. If you can be similarly abusive without a full monopoly that's equally bad.
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Such as to track their every move and exploit or sell that data.
- devnullbrain 2y ago
  >Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. With what funding? Chrome loses money. Edge loses money. Safari loses money. Firefox loses Google's money. Brave loses VC money. Without some endless source of money, funding you for an ulterior motive, you can't compete with them. Which is why: >For all the downsides that Chrome has I don't see anything that fits the term better for my use case. The anti-competitive practices ensure there can't be effective competition.
consumer451 2y ago
Isn't it even worse than that? Didn't they make changes via Manifest v3, which will not allow me to follow the FBI's advisory about using ad blockers, to make sure their ad revenue does not decline? I do realize you can still use uBlock, but my understanding is that updates will be slow rolled, correct? Doesn't this open the window to malicious people to serve me mal-ads?
- hinkley 2y ago
  M3 seems to be failing, but I agree that it matters that the tried.
- ycombinatrix 2y ago
  >I do realize you can still use uBlock No, you can't. You can use "uBlock origin lite" which is the manifest v3 version that doesn't work correctly.
teractiveodular 2y ago
Quite the opposite, Google is the key sponsor of Privacy Sandbox: https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/ Working out why they're doing this is left as an exercise to the reader.
- kivle 2y ago
  The whole reason for "privacy sandbox" is to still do user tracking, but do it in an anonymous way that they hope legislators won't go after. It's Google seeing the writing on the wall that legislation will soon ban third-party cookie tracking and fingerprinting and the like, so they need to be proactive and protect the ad tracking business. A better name for it would have been something like "anonymous user tracking / data collection", but "privacy sandbox" is probably a good marketing term to fuzz what it's really doing. To a normal user it makes it sounds like Google is doing something good and protecting them, while it's really just "please opt in to our new more anonymized tracking technology while still allowing us to track you".
  - teractiveodular 2y ago
    The entire point of Privacy Sandbox is to get away from tracking individuals and allow ad targeting of anonymous cohorts (interest groups) instead. https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advertising/protected-audience https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advert...
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      The root problem here is that users don't want any of these tracking alternatives. All of the other browsers have said "no thanks" to any of the alternatives, and already moved forward with blocking third-party cookies (the main vector for tracking). Chrome hasn't moved forward with this because their ability to still track you thanks you being logged into Google means that disadvantaging every ad provider paints a massive target on their backs for antitrust law (even more so than they already have). Hence their attempt to fix it by creating new vectors of tracking so they can get the privacy "win" of blocking third-party cookies.
wbl 2y ago
Everyone else's ad revenue. The UK computing regulator is the main player here.
jsnell 2y ago
No. They're not doing those changes because regulators like the DOJ[0] threatened them with anti-trust action if they did. That's the same DOJ that's now asking for Chrome to be divested. [0] https://www.engadget.com/google-antitrust-doj-cookies-privacy-sandbox-152453575.html?guccounter=1 https://www.engadget.com/google-antitrust-doj-cookies-privac...
- hinkley 2y ago
  Uh. That was not my understanding of that situation. Blocking third party cookies this way still leaves Google’s tools which people voluntarily install with access to data that now nobody else has access to.

nixass 2y ago

> It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because .... It's because Chrome used to be shoved down everyone's throat up until few years ago. Once stable base of users was made (by force and deception) the market took momentum

rvnx 2y ago
It also used to be distributed like an adware, bundled with along other softwares during installation.
elmerfud 2y ago
I do think you're rewriting history a bit here. Of course a Google advertised to their product but people didn't move to Chrome simply because of the advertisements. Chrome took hold because literally every other choice sucked and sucked hard. When you only have sucky choices you have to deal with them and they made something massively better than anything else at the time. Companies with buckets of money like Microsoft didn't innovate in this space and even when they saw what Google was doing with Chrome their ability to compete with it was laughable. Even when they finally switch to their edge browser because the Internet explorer name was so tainted with bad experiences they still suck in this space. Even with Bing and the billions of dollars they can throw at it they still suck in this space.
- nixass 2y ago
  It took hold because it was a part of almost every popular piece of software installer back in the day, and enabled by default
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  I think it's a combination of both. There was absolutely a period where Chrome was faster, and Chrome still has a better security design. But Google also pushed Chrome incredibly hard, including bundling it with other software as a checked-by-default box, and used all the tactics to get it made the default browser and make it hard to switch, and advertised it on Google services for free, and made some features of Google products require it.

afavour 2y ago

People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago
Google also turns every link tap in their iOS apps into an opportunity to upsell Chrome for iOS when it should just open the link with the user’s default browser.
- dwetterau 2y ago
  I'm shocked that Apple hasn't cracked down on this process through App store reviews. It's such an awful experience.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    I’m not surprised, though. They’re not exactly on the most solid ground with them preventing any engines other than their own WebKit for third-party browsers or even apps.
- robocat 2y ago
  How else is Google supposed to "integrate" within iOS? Safari and Messages etcetera link to within the closed Apple ecosystem - just like Windows. It can be between difficult to impossible to send an email or create a calendar item unless you use the iOS apps. I'm definitely no Google fanboi but every answer being "Google are arseholes" feels dishonest. The Chromium developer team absolutely kick arse and being open source is a true gift. Mozilla is badly failing to compete. Microsoft failed to compete with their first Edge rewrite, and now ironicalky MS "competes" using Chromium open source. And why did Chromium have to split from WebKit? As an outsider it just looked like "because Apple don't want to play nice". The story is always simplified to Google greedy arseholes. A typical response: you can never ever ever satisfy open source proponents... The stereotype that every open source user greedily wants more.

XorNot 2y ago

I genuinely have no idea what "missing features" or incompatibilities keep people on Chrome compared to the benefits of uBlock just plain working better on Firefox.

bcye 2y ago
PWAs being entirely unsupported by Firefox for instance.
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  This is the last big thing keeping me on Vivaldi (based on chromium). I do use those, and would most likely fully switch to Firefox when implemented.
- duped 2y ago
  What things are only available as PWAs that are worth it? Like I know they exist, but I've never installed or used one.
  - mdaniel 2y ago
    "Only?" probably none However, recently there was a healthy thread about the massive trackers found in mobile apps[1] which wouldn't be a problem with PWAs since they live in the same sandbox as the browser (meaning no exfiltrating all the shit) but yet can one-click launch from the normal app mechanisms and (AFAIK) can be the subject of Intent handlers just like apps 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923931
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
crazygringo 2y ago
uBlock Origin Lite works perfectly fine for me on Chrome. Maybe there's some 0.01% of ads that would get blocked in the Firefox version that aren't in Chrome. But I don't see any regular users switching because they're noticing ads not getting blocked now.

throwawaythekey 2y ago

In the context of Google's ad business the fact that chrome is open source has little bearing. Chrome is both massively popular and also a loss leader designed to further entrench Google's ad monopoly. If Chrome were broken off then a competitor in the ads space like Meta could purchase the search traffic instead which would force Google's ad business to be more competitive.

gerash 2y ago
Is Meta or Microsoft buying Chrome a good outcome?
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  IMHO Microsoft yes, Meta no. Microsoft wouldn't have a the kind of vertically integrated monopoly where they control both the internet properties and the browser used to access them.
- throwawaythekey 2y ago
  My ideal outcome would be something like: 1) Chrome is spun out as a standalone entity. Google would originally have full ownership but be forced to sell down over time. 2) Google buys the Chrome traffic at a fair price 3) Apple sells their traffic to someone else, potentially an AI search player (Meta??) 4) MSFT makes a new browser in response to Chrome going closed source
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > 4) MSFT makes a new browser in response to Chrome going closed source Why would they? They can just continue why Chromium/Edge. Presumably the new standalone entity be able to invest as much into Google or even MS.
  - cheriot 2y ago
    If Apple, Mozilla, and a stand alone Chrome sell search traffic at the fair market price and Google pays the highest price (because they have the best monetization) we're back where we started.

MisterBiggs 2y ago

I think the real issue is Google is able to use Chrome to push web standards in any direction they want.

arebop 2y ago

The DOJ has renounced the consumer welfare standard [https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopoly-be-vanquished/ https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol...].

nobody9999 2y ago
>The DOJ has renounced the consumer welfare standard [https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol...]. And, apparently, these guys[0] think that's a good thing. [0] https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Publish_27-STLR-71-2024_The-Big-Tech-Antitrust-Paradox.pdf https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Publish_...

Tepix 2y ago

I disagree. We get things in Chrome that is not in the consumer's interest simply because Google wants to get more data from its users and display more ads. If Chrome were to be separated from the Ad business, it would be beneficial for privacy.