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The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

502 points by hydrolox 2y ago

re-thc 2y ago
Can Google just "donate" Chrome to a foundation like a lot of big companies do to deal with this? Maybe we'll soon have Apache Chrome!
- drivingmenuts 2y ago
  Apache is where projects go to slowly die.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Or Oracle. :D
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    Really? Airflow, Arrow, Iceberg, Kafka are dying projects?
  - jherdman 2y ago
    Is this really true? Something that can be supported by clear evidence? I’ve seen this trotted out many times, but it seems like there are interesting Apache projects: https://airflow.apache.org/ https://airflow.apache.org/ https://iceberg.apache.org/ https://iceberg.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/ https://superset.apache.org/ https://superset.apache.org/
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      It's superficially true of any large stewardship organization. After N years some significant percent of projects will be on their way out. These will continue accumulating year over year and they potentially won't be disposed of for decades (and for good reason). Meanwhile only a vanishingly small fraction of projects remains at the center of public attention for an extended period of time. People develop a skewed perspective because we interact with many of the most popular projects on a daily basis.
    - rany_ 2y ago
      https://openoffice.apache.org/ https://openoffice.apache.org/ is the context in which I've seen this saying get regurgitated the most.
      - tslocum 2y ago
        I wrote about the situation with Apache Open Office here: https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-software-foundation/ https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-softw...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  There is no foundation with the budget to even maintain a web browser, let alone keep developing. If Google is not footing the bill then Safari will become the torch bearer, and Apple has no incentive to make Safari become more capable to threaten that sweet IAP revenue.
  - rchaud 2y ago
    Have there been meaningful changes to the browser spec since ES2015 support was baked in? Chrome, Safari etc. are not developing their browsers for the betterment of the web. One company wants to shove ads in your face, the other wants you out of the web entirely and into their walled garden of apps and ads. From a security standpoint, I'm sure it's more complicated, but UBO and warning dialog boxes about downloading files to your device, logging into services without 2FA would probably solve a lot of those problems. Does a billion dollar corp have to be involved considering how much has gone into Linux from people's pro bono efforts?
    - crop_rotation 2y ago
      Linux kernel gets so so much of corporate support, and is still a much more smaller project than any web browser. People's pro bono efforts stopped being enough for linux about 2 decades ago at the very least.
    - bpicolo 2y ago
      Do you all forget the web pre chrome? Google and Chrome forced browser vendors to do better by standards in the first place. Google’s stewardship forced browser vendors to compete like never before.
      - rchaud 2y ago
        I don't remember Google doing that. What I remember from that time is a browser war happening between the power players in mobile with iOS, Android and Windows Phone. I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009, which led to browser vendors harmonizing their feature set. We still needed jQuery to ensure cross-browser support, and floats and polyfills to get sites to work on mobile. That ended when browsers harmonized ES2015 support and built in support for flexbox and grid.
- rollcat 2y ago
  Like what Mozilla was supposed to be doing all along?
lolinder 2y ago
Discussion on the Proposed Final Judgement yesterday: DOJ asks for judgement requiring Google to divest Chrome [pdf] (31 points 30 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045
cagenut 2y ago
good. ublock origin finally stopped working for me two days ago and for the first time in like 20 f'n years I got a popup yesterday.
- lifeinthevoid 2y ago
  Switch to Firefox!
  - mococa 2y ago
    https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never-sell-your-data.html https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never...
    - sejje 2y ago
      Switch to lynx!
    - protimewaster 2y ago
      If someone was previously using Chrome, though, they're probably not that protective off their data. So it would seem like Firefox is a decent solution even if it is selling your data. Google was probably selling your data too...
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      Maybe but it doesn't affect the ad-blocking abilities of Firefox and uBlock Origin. It is a legal document, not a technical document. If you want to go with ethics and trust, I am not particular fond of Brave practice of replacing ads for some shady cryptocurrency (BAT). You don't have to do that, you can just use it as an adblocking browser, but if you don't care about these things, the news of Firefox updating some privacy policy shouldn't affect you too much either. Anyways, both Firefox and Brave/Chromium are open source, you can see what data is being sent out, and there are forks. And to make things clear, I am not really a fan of Mozilla direction, I just switched because Firefox became better and Chrome worse in the last years.
    - 2y ago
drumhead 2y ago
[flagged]
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  You are being downvoted, but people surely realize this is 100% true, right? Not only is it 100% true, it is inevitably going to be the outcome. Google will not have to divest Chrome. Sundar just has to pay the $5M to have dinner at Mara Lago and the next day Trump will be talking about how unfairly Google has been treated, probably blaming China or Canada or something for this DOJ action, and the DOJ will drop the remedy. Probably will fire some employees for daring to pursue this while they're at it. Whichever oligarch or ruling class ultra-rich whispers in Trump's ear last gets the full force of government for their cause. Like, surely everyone knows this is absolutely how your banana-republic, profoundly corrupt government works now, right? At least be honest about it.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- toomim 2y ago
  Probably more impactful would be to reverse the censoring and shadowbanning of him and his comrades.
newsclues 2y ago
I don't care that Google, Apple or Microsoft have their own browser. Especially not when there are other third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. There are some issues with the big tech giants that is likely harmful to consumers and the industry, and I'd welcome anti-trust investigations into all of them, but I feel like minor issues like browsers is an attempt to pretend like meaningful regulation and government control has been applied, while the real problems are ignored.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  > third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. Yes because the government is so well run with competent people waiting in line to join it in the era of DOGE? Do you think that a web browser would be free of politics?
- drivingmenuts 2y ago
  > Especially not when there are other third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. Which government, though? The US is mired in corruption at the moment, and the UK is taking an extended dump on privacy, Russia is … Russia and China doesn't really believe in privacy or freedom of speech, among other things.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  > secure and tested with government services. The same government services that require things like recaptcha to work? The situation in the US is far worse than just "I need to use a BigTech browser to access government services".
Springtime 2y ago
Regardless of what happens to Chrome per se it's who is involved with pushing for major controversial changes in Chromium that matters. Manifest v3 and Web Integrity API are prominent examples of Google's team shaping how all Chromium based browsers will be, regardless of pushback (though they relented with the latter for now).
- ttoinou 2y ago
  Can’t any motivated group of developers fork chromium and push their own agenda ?
  - calcifer 2y ago
    That's not relevant. Chrome has the most market share, so its decisions become de facto standards. What happens in some fork by a 2 men crew doesn't matter.
    - nfw2 2y ago
      The cancellation of the web integrity api is evidence against this claim.
      - calcifer 2y ago
        How? Which 2 men crew (temporarily) defeated that API?
        nfw2 2y ago
        The claim I am referring to is clearly that Google's decisions become de facto standards. Your claim that the web integrity API is only temporarily cancelled has no evidence supporting it.
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    No motivated group has the experts to maintain a modern rendering engine (tens of millions of lines of regularly evolving code) and Google can reject any upstream changes that group wants to make because Google engineers are the gatekeepers for 97.498% of Chromium code. So, if your agenda has anything to do with web content, you take what Google hands you. Of course, if you just want to diddle in the browser UI, sure fork it, that's the Brave and Opera approach, but hardly meaningful in scale.
lolinder 2y ago
To try to stem the tide of "Trump will just make this go away because ${corruption}", I want to remind everyone of a few things: * This is not a Biden-admin lawsuit. It was launched by the first Trump admin. * Of the 14 co-plaintiffs, only 1 (CA) is a state that didn't vote for Trump in 2024. The Colorado Plaintiff States include another 16 red states, for a total of 29 red states represented. As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base. This lawsuit was started by them in the first place and if the list of Attorneys General is anything to go by has overwhelming support from the base that Trump is acting to satisfy. Google's not getting out of this from just a small amount of kowtowing now, it's far too late for that.
- awnird 2y ago
  The tiktok ban was the same way, until it wasn't. Remarkable that people are still falling for this.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    The TikTok ban was overwhelmingly unpopular among several important demographics and undoing the ban formed a part of Trump's 2024 campaign. His decisions with TikTok this year were a reversal from 2020 but entirely expected based on his 2024 campaign, so that's not a valid comparison.
    - malfist 2y ago
      What about all the other times Trump has done something like that? Trump's MO seems to be to take something away, then give it back and declare himself the savior of it. Just look at all the chaos with tariffs recently
    - martinsnow 2y ago
      Essentially what you're saying is Google need to tell their users they will lose a lot if chrome is sold, and Google needs to say a few nice things about trump to get the same treatment.
scarface_74 2y ago
This is the absolutely dumbest thing that I have read. Who would buy Chrome and why? If you just want the codebase, you have Chromium. Chrome only monetizes because of ads. Then what happens to Chromebooks? Can Google no longer ship a browser with Android? Besides, unless you have an Android - which is only 30% of the US market or a Chromebook, everyone who uses Chrome went through the process of downloading it and made a purposeful choice to use it
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  It is dumb and the comments here are baffling. People are blaming Google for forks not being able to keep up. Like forks can be based on webkit or gecko if they don't like Google. Both Apple and MSFT are far far more closed in all their products where they have any inertia. Yet Google gets the flame mostly because of their incompetent PR and legal execution. Case in point Google got flamed here so much for dragonfly, while Bing keeps running in China and even sometimes by mistake or not applies Chinese sensors to the rest of the world. The sacred Apple also works in China following all their laws. But Google is worse than both just for attempting dragonfly.
  - nfw2 2y ago
    Google lost a lot of goodwill on HN since the proposed web integrity api. HN has a strong aversion to perceived attacks on the open web. I personally don’t think it’s fair to single Google out and leave Apple and Microsoft alone. It may be overly cynical, but I think Google is in its current situation because it has fostered political enemies on both sides.
    - crop_rotation 2y ago
      Google gets this treatment before any talk of web integrity API so no that was not it. I don't think this is necessarily about political enemies on both sides. Just that their PR is just so so bad. Like look at Brad Smith and all the big but empty statements he keeps making for Microsoft. Google needs someone like him.
- 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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ksec 2y ago
I disliked Google ever since they started their "Do No Evil" PR campaign. For as long as I remember I was the extreme rare few on internet against them. And I also disliked Chrome. Especially the direction of the web they are using Chrome to push forward. And I also disliked Electron. But I am against DOJ forcing Google to sell off Chrome. Especially when most of Chrome is open sourced. I think this is just plain wrong. Why dont we force Apple to open source macOS? Microsoft to Open Source Windows? Or Selling off Office. SpaceX to sell its Engine?
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards. The app store duopoly might come close but still not to the same extent. Being open source has nothing to do with it. Of course selling it off won't necessarily accomplish the desired result since at the end of the day it isn't the legal ownership per se that results in the influence.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    Outsize influence combined with conflict of interest. The other branches of Google have too much to gain from being able to steer the direction of the web with Chrome, and the company as a whole benefits from writing its web apps in a way that makes them work better under Chrome, making for self-reinforcing hegemony. It’s just as bad as MS+IE, maybe worse since Chromium/Blink being open source has given them plausible deniability that MS didn’t have.
  - ksec 2y ago
    Chrome isn't bundled with Windows, but most Window users decided to install Chrome. While I agree outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards, it is not like Apple doesn't or couldn't invent something as well. The reality is that no one has the incentive to make better web technology. If Google sold off Chrome, who will buy it? Are Google even allowed to make another browser based on same technology? What is everyone just installed that again? Selling off Chrome doesn't make any sense at all. And as you said. Their influence on development of Blink is still, Google.
dlcarrier 2y ago
Last time the DOJ declared a web browser monopoly, they lost the case on appeal, then the web browser does on its own. The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything substantial to lock users into Chrome. The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  Safari and Firefox are capable web browsers. Where do people get this outlandish take from?
  - sebazzz 2y ago
    Maybe the actual problem is some people having this sentiment.
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    Can't speak for Safari, but Firefox has never been anything but a dumpster fire for me. Constant reminders about updates and a UI that slows my computer to a crawl no matter what I do. Yes, I open many tabs and don't use a turbocharged laptop, but the same applies to my Chrome use with next to no problems, so really, fuck you Firefox for not adjusting after decades, as per possible user needs. Chrome seems to manage it, so why can't the Mozilla people with their own expertise and funds? Many new versions and updates of FF that I've tried have claimed to be much smoother and more efficient, only for the exact same shit to start happening across the years and multiple laptops used.
    - jmisavage 2y ago
      When was the last time you tried? I have a 2012 Mac mini that runs it like a champ and has done so for a very long time. I only have a handful of plugins but uBlock Origin is one of them.
      - southernplaces7 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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harrytang 2y ago
[flagged]
3vidence 2y ago
(Googler opinions are my own, don't work on chrome) Chrome has just been a better product for the last 10 to 15 years. Every other company has just failed to make a good browser because they lack the incentives to do so (have gone back and forth as a Firefox user). The only competitive browsers are those already built on chrome or safari. I'm not personally a big fan of Safari but it's bigger issue is that it is only available on one platform whereas the web is naturally cross platform. Almost by definition Safari can't be the "winning" browser. This feels like ruling that the iPhone is a monopoly in the US and that Apple needs to divest from phones. Edit: to those replying I 100% don't agree with all the decisions chrome make, very importantly ad block. But just survey the actual browser market in the last 10 years to understand Chrome's dominance
- pjmlp 2y ago
  I am sure folks at Microsoft were saying the same of IE 5 and 6, as I was around when it took over.
  - 3vidence 2y ago
    If I remember my history Microsoft was never actually forced to stop integrating IE in their product. The only reason it stopped being the #1 browser is that Chrome came out and was better... Even though people had to go out of their way to download on all computers
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Only because the whole thing was shut down when administration changed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C... Nowadays if it wasn't for Safari, thanks to Chrome and Electron garbage, the Web is effectively ChromeOS.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    I would love for something to trounce chrome the way it did IE, and even FF (which was so slow chrome felt lightning fast by comparison). I'm not optimistic that it'll happen, but I'd still like to see it.
borgster 2y ago
It's morning in America - pmarca
qwerty456127 2y ago
> The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that seeks to ban Google from paying companies like Apple, other smartphone manufacturers and Mozilla to make its search engine the default on their phones and browsers. RIP Firefox?
- hinkley 2y ago
  Ah fuck. Welp. They had a chance to be default alive and they fucked it by trying to spend the money on new initiatives instead of just spending the interest payments from an endowment.
  - wmf 2y ago
    Weren't the new initiatives pretty small compared to Firefox development?
    - hinkley 2y ago
      At the moment when I got upset about this, they were trying to do an awful lot, and it felt like the money was burning a hole in their pockets. I know they cut back a little but maybe they’ve sobered up since? Haven’t had the heart to look again.
    - pavon 2y ago
      Yes. And other than Firefox, Mozilla was spending money in two ways. First creating new paid products in an attempt to have revenue in case the Google money ever went away. None of them were successful enough to meet this goal, but it was a good goal. Secondly, they spent their charity donations on activism work. The way they are structured they legally could not spend that money on Firefox. They would need to restructure as a non-profit corporation (not tax deductible charity) to accept donations to spend on Firefox, like their Thunderbird subsidiary. I hope they do so now, and at least attempt to support Firefox on donations. The truth is that browsers are a very complicated, very quickly moving, and very security sensitive piece of software. They spent all that money on Firefox rather than saving it because if they didn't Firefox would have fallen behind Chrome and Safari and it wouldn't be worth using today.
lewdwig 2y ago
All that rather pathetic grovelling and kowtowing to Trump, for naught.
- spamizbad 2y ago
  They’re still getting a friendlier NLRB, lower corporate tax rates, and an economic policy that is less focused on full employment; tamping down engineering wage growth
  - Muromec 2y ago
    They already pivoted to hire offshore workers, so why would they care
    - relaxing 2y ago
      Offshoring as the supposed death of the US software developer going on 40 years now remains greatly exaggerated.
      - jfengel 2y ago
        And I still don't understand why. I expected it when I started my career, and here nearing the end it's still really rare. And it should have gotten easier in that time, what with the Internet. Time zones and culture and language and all that, I suppose. But the world is full of very smart people who have a decent grasp of American and European culture, and would work for a tenth the price.
        Muromec 2y ago
        It depends what kind of a company you work for. Something like a bank with a lot of boringly tedious stuff on top of procedures will have quite a lot of offshore contractors. They don't even have to be very smart, because truly smart ones decide to move closer towards the source of the moneys.
        relaxing 2y ago
modulus1 2y ago
A company owning a web browser isn't the problem. A company owning a web browser, OS and search engine shouldn't be a problem either. I don't know why the remedy can't actually address the problem, and the DOJ can't move more quickly to address antitrust across the industry. This feels like randomly cutting a baby in half, while the rest of the thieves, even those in the same family, are not deterred.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  The problem is an ads company owning a web browser, OS, and search engine, and using that control over how users interact with the internet to outcompete everyone else. You left out Google's raison d'etre from your statement.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    That is not what is happening. I use Android, Chrome, and Google Search because the alternatives are quite poor. All of those things work better with alternatives than any competition. Android is the most open mobile OS, Chrome is the most open and non-coercive browser, Google Search works great with all other OS's and browsers.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      It doesn't matter why you use any of this software. What matters is what it does to the ads market. This is not 1999 and this is not Microsoft. Google's product isn't software. It's the attention of its users.
      - flanked-evergl 2y ago
        Google's share of my attention is negligible to the point of barely existing when compared to HN, X, YouTube(yes I know, but I see no adds because I have premium), podcasts, audiobooks and many other things. Even Facebook probably takes more attention and I barely use it.
ronnier 2y ago
It’s a big world. Does breaking up google give the Asian giants an advantage? Wonder if China breaks up their large tech companies?
- manquer 2y ago
  Advantage where ? Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) . Global tech companies do not compete in China, the market is brutal for non Chinese companies with level of espionage, theft, sabotage that is allowed. It is really small world for big tech, the same 5-10 companies dominate most of the world in most frequently used consumer products, and using that dominance to crowd out competitors in every new product category (1) which is banned in few major markets like India already even if the US reverses the ban
  - azinman2 2y ago
    > Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) . This is absolutely not true. Most phones in Africa are Chinese now. Chinese internet companies are all over Asia outside of Japan/SK. Chinese cars (EVs, which arguably are tech), are now world-wide.
    - manquer 2y ago
      Tech companies or big tech conventionally usually mean software companies. Every company is a tech company, if you want to be broad in your definition, they have to use tech to compete . Actions on Chinese EV cars are either being seriously considered or already in effect in most major car markets. All phones have been always more or less Chinese made forever including Apple, even Chinese badging is how it been for low/mid range for 10 years now, maybe Samsung does some local manufacturing in SK but no one else major does. Budget phones or budget EVs with razor thin margins is not big tech and no DoJ action to break up Google is going to affect the way they are becoming Chinese or already are . There is reason TikTok is the most valuable Chinese company and not a phone company, big tech have big margins and strong market effect on their own and not as a group (I.e. it would be hard to beat Chinese companies in a space , but no individual one (say byd) is irreplaceable by another Chinese company
batperson 2y ago
I can't find information on what would happen to Chromium, would google need to hand it over too? That's probably more important than the fate of Chrome.
- wmf 2y ago
  Realistically Chromium is downstream of Chrome and it goes where Chrome goes. Chromebooks are somewhat more interesting.
- surajrmal 2y ago
  The only thing being specific is chrome the product launches. Selling of the pixel phone business wouldn't require also selling android for instance, so arguably its the same.
cubefox 2y ago
Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores. Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android compatibility, and pressuring teens into either buying into the Apple or ecosystem or risk being socially ostracized from incompatible group chats. It seems to be more that a double standard.
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  Perhaps Apple is next?
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  Google is just incompetent at PR and legal. That is how Epic won against Google and lost against Apple, even though Android is far far more open than iOS.
  - nashashmi 2y ago
    Incompetency is a blessing for users.
- blueboo 2y ago
  Instant, universal, and immaculately-fair is the real impossible standard. Your line of thought has long been in the arsenal in defense of inaction let's permit the firefighters to leave the firehouse even though they can't tend to all the fires simultaneously
- wmf 2y ago
  You're ignoring the antitrust cases against Apple which may seek similar remedies.
  - ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
    Epic lost their's, while ironically winning the Google one... Where you were always able to install a third party app store, they just didn't let you do it through the official store.
maxclark 2y ago
First I don't believe this is an effective remedy to break up a Google monopoly, but I have no influence on the DOJ. I'm curious though, if Google can no longer pay browsers for search engine traffic what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space? How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development? What happens to all the applications that rely on Chrome extensions? As much as I dislike Google behavior, I don't see this as being a good thing.
- geor9e 2y ago
  You call them Chrome extensions, but they're really Chromium extensions that work on Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, etc. Those teams contribute code to the Chromium open source project too. Sure, whoever takes over Chrome won't have Googles juggernaut team pushing Chromium development forward, and maybe that will lead to degradation over time, but it's not like it would cause immediate ecosystem collapse. For all my psychic prediction powers know, getting rid of the monopoly could lead to a renaissance in browser tech via stronger competition. This could go either way.
  - nfw2 2y ago
    In the past, too many competing browsers resulted in a frustrating experience for web application developers. Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I’m not so sanguine about the alternatives either.
    - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
      It was more than just too many competing browsers, from what I understand. It was a few competing browsers that interpreted standards completely different, and a standards body that was slow enough to be completely ineffective. I'd argue that the main problem was not too much competition, but effective anti-competitive behavior (and simple laziness) from Microsoft in particular. The frustrating experience was primarily caused by Internet Explorer.
      - 2y ago
user3939382 2y ago
If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it’s made up of teams that specialize in different components. The majority of the members of those teams are in turn Google employees. Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those teams. I don’t see how a DOJ decision against Google would change any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the project? And then who would replace them?
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  I am not sure why you are being downvoted. This just means existing OS monopolies of Apple and Microsoft are given entire control of their kingdoms with no web landscape to challenge them a teeny tiny bit.
- wmf 2y ago
  All the people who work on Chrome would go with it.
- theptip 2y ago
  But we are not discussing Chromium. Google’s browser is Chrome, and that product has search exclusivity deals that have been deemed monopolistic. Google could divest the Chrome product and keep contributing to Chromium, but the value proposition is really unclear when that OSS investment doesn’t buy you billions of dollars of browser lock-in value.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    Thus why the Linux Foundation is gunning for Chromium. (When do we rename the Linux Foundation? Only 3.2% of their revenue goes to Linux development these days...) https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-launch-of-supporters-of-chromium-based-browsers https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-annou... https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based-browsers https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based...
    - rafram 2y ago
nashashmi 2y ago
Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity. (I bet DoJ didn’t think about that whammy.) And start charging for everything else out there like maps, street view, and browser. And buy cloudflare while at it. Push themselves into everything related to connectivity and internet properties. The search business is the cash flow that is being a thorn in the side of Google. And it doesn’t even make sense in its vision anymore.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  You sort of make an interesting point. Google search isn't the main product, hasn't been for a decade. Still I don't think Google Ads would do amazing without the traffic from Google Search. But it does solve an important problem: Who in their right mind would buy Chrome? It's not a profitable business to be in, without the surrounding ad business, and in turn the insane amount of traffic from Google Search. Almost by definition, anyone who would be interested in buying Chrome and turning it into a commercial product shouldn't be allowed to buy it. The only buyer I can imaging is OpenText.
  - nashashmi 2y ago
    I dont think adwords would stay with Google. It would have to be sold with search. The ad network would remain with alphabet.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  Cloudflare has been a continual breath of fresh air compared to Google Cloud and AWS. Please oh please don’t suggest selling it to google to let it atrophy its way to the graveyard
- nuker 2y ago
  > Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity. This. If Search + Google Ads is independent from Android + Chrome + Gmail, it will choke the user-data flow that Google Ads platform is feeding on. This opens doors to new competing search engines! Android + Chrome + Gmail needs to be bundled with hardware purchases, like Apple does with Safari + iCloud. This will create incentive to make them actually privacy focused, and could be its selling point. No need to feed Google Ads with data anymore! Yeah, dreaming.
asdfman123 2y ago
At this point, tech's major competitors are overseas. Never thought I'd be making this argument, but does breaking up the search monopoly help America or up and comers?
- deleted 2y ago
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- jacksnipe 2y ago
  I care more about how it affects consumers.
  - deleted 2y ago
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- stuartjohnson12 2y ago
  There are certainly some short term consumer gains to be made in decoupling the oppressive monopoly of android, payments, chromium, search, and ads. If Google wants to send their search experience to shit that should probably be their right to mismanage, but the ramming home of Manifest v3 and Google Play Protect in the interest of nobody is beyond the pale.
- arthurofbabylon 2y ago
  Let's not turn into game-theory bros here. Despite the nationalist, pie-dividing rhetoric the billionaires are foisting upon us, it remains favorable to grow the pie with competitive markets.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    A bigger pie isn't desirable if most of the slices go to a select few. Or to use Lincoln's rising boats metaphor, a rising tide isn't great if most boats are full of holes.
- thrance 2y ago
  Does upholding monopolies help Americans at all? Do not conflate the ballooning wealth of billionaires with any kind of improvement in your material conditions.
tinktank 2y ago
So sad all that sucking up to the new administration didn't work. Oh well...
- epoxy_sauce 2y ago
  Ah now I get why Google maps had Gulf of America...
xnx 2y ago
This is so so dumb and not related to the already dumb monopoly ruling.
dehrmann 2y ago
Who would even buy Chrome? No one's building new browsers, and MS even walked away from the browser game. Mozilla and Firefox haven't been relevant for a decade. The only buyer I can see is private equity, and that's sort of the big boy version of buying an abandoned browser plugin so it can track you and show more ads.
- deleted 2y ago
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- delfinom 2y ago
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- mmphosis 2y ago
  No one's building new browsers Ladybird, servo, and Flow are new browsers currently being built. These new browsers are not derived from any of the big three browser engines: Google Chromium, Apple WebKit, and Mozilla Gecko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines
  - john_the_writer 2y ago
    Sure, but their standards, and what they support aren't even something you can look up. As a JS dev these are the stuff of nightmares.
    - inetknght 2y ago
      Learn to write native applications instead.
      - privacyking 2y ago
        And native applications on web browsers are programmed in...?
        2y ago
mattmaroon 2y ago
Isn’t android like 10 times the problem chrome is?
stogot 2y ago
I agree there needs to be remedy, but Does chrome have a profit without Google? Who’s going to buy it? Oracle?
xyst 2y ago
Google just needs to send the appropriate amount to kleptocracy war chest and this will get killed on the backend.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
Always had to. They built Alphabet but its obvious they didnt break things up. Whats going to be interesting is how some of them will even be able to afford to operate under separate orgs.
mattlondon 2y ago
So they sell Chrome today and create Ghrome tomorrow? I can't see Chrome surviving as a standalone product - where is the revenue? I am sure someone will buy it and try to create some "premium" version, but ultimately it will wither and die I expect.
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  I assume Oracle will buy it and start threatening to change APIs and then sell a enterprise version
- asadotzler 2y ago
  If the remedy doesn't forbid them from creating Ghrome tomorrow, and for many years after, then the remedy is seriously flawed. Somehow I doubt that all the people at DOJ working on this lacked your insights and failed to consider that outcome.
  - mattlondon 2y ago
    Why should the remedy prevent them creating a new product and start again from zero? If people choose to install and use it - like they did for chrome - then that is not monopolistic behaviour, it is people making a choice. Is this about breaking Google from a popular browser, or just about punishing Google for offering services people find useful? It feels to me that it is more about punishing Google than about chrome. Apple and Microsoft seem to be able to get away with wat worse with their browsers - literally every time i use my win11 laptop it is nagging me to use edge or warn me that I should change my default browser to use edge or whatever. Apple won't even let you use another browser at all. But that is somehow fine and allowed?
- colinplamondon 2y ago
  - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status. - A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some point. - As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM? Or even revshare? This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on, with some data sharing provisions to help with development, they'd have a huge leg-up. Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can monetize SERPs themselves. Revenue seems incredibly strong. My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive product execution, given the size of the codebase.
lakomen 2y ago
[dead]
smitty1e 2y ago
How about Amazon buying Firefox instead?
- AstralSerenity 2y ago
  What a horrifying concept.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Why would you say that? How is the current timeline not already shitty enough for you?
  - smitty1e 2y ago
    Swan dive into the enshittification.
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alwayslikethis 2y ago
If Google sells Chrome keeps control over Chromium, I don't see this benefiting users. They'll continue with their anti-user efforts (Manifest V2 phaseout, Web Integrity), and the only difference is that the new Chrome will come with a new set of spyware, probably a worse one than Google because no one is in as good of a position to benefit from the lock-in as Google does, so they have to be more aggressive with their monetization, like with ads inserted into pages. But at the same time maintaining Chromium is a pretty thankless endeavor and I don't see any entity with that capability. It's much bigger than Linux, and the developers are employees, not volunteers. The best possible outcome I can imagine is if Google is required to spin off Chromium into a nonprofit that would be independent but they are required to fund it for many years. The nonprofit would need some kind of oversight from adversarial companies to avoid collusion with Google or any other company.
kweingar 2y ago
Here's something I don't understand. If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage. If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result, download the installer, run the installer, open Chrome, and set it as the default browser. So many users do this that people conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage.
- bearjaws 2y ago
  The mere existence of a competitor is not the spirit of antitrust. Look at what Google does with Chrome and how it harms the internet, they literally just disabled an ad blocker and then offered a new tier of ad free Youtube for $8 a month. Then think about the power it gives them for tracking, remember they tried to replace tracking cookies with their own standard?
  - guywithahat 2y ago
    The counterpoint would be anyone can fork Chrome and put an adblocker back in (ie Brave). I worry as part of Google, chrome is just an open source project with profit as a secondary motive, while as it’s own company they’ll probably try to make it more profitable and it’ll become worse and closed down.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      If it's so unprofitable why have they spent, what, nearly a year now in court trying desperately to keep it? Have you genuinely never heard of a loss-leader? Across their entire buffet of products, many of which are free at point of use like Chrome is, they advertise Chrome. That the internet is better with Chrome. That their products are better with Chrome. Do you really believe this is genuinely just because they also make Chrome, and are jazzed about that fact? The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells me it's an even better idea to make them sell it.
ivraatiems 2y ago
It says something about how universally despised Google and other tech giants are that two presidential administrations who are so acrimonious and diametrically opposed that they have spent much of their time destroying everything the previous one did agree on it. I genuinely can't think of anyone, of any political stripe, outside of Google and its employees and investors, who thinks Google should have the power it has now. Honestly, the degree of pushback this is getting on HN is shocking to me. Google is massively anti-competitive and spends a ton of energy hurting startups to its own benefit. I hope the DOJ gets its way on this, and I hope they aggressively pursue anti-trust actions against other organizations in similar positions - Oracle, Epic Systems, and Meta all come to mind.
- sneak 2y ago
  Destroying Google’s ability to develop Chrome means that the web dies faster than it already is. Apple would prefer everyone use native apps, they run an app store. Most companies prefer apps, you can’t modify or inspect them or easily block ads within them. Apps can trap users inside embedded browsers with app-based surveillance, like when you click profile links in Instagram or TikTok. The world without a free high quality browser is a worse one.
  - ivraatiems 2y ago
    Why would Chrome not being a part of Google mean the world would lack a free, high-quality browser? Is Safari low quality? Is Firefox not free? What about Edge and all the other browsers that run based on Chromium? More competition would be better.
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486sx33 2y ago
Chrome is so user hostile and entrapping I don’t know why anyone uses it. It should absolutely be separated and spun off to live on its own and make its own profit.
- sneak 2y ago
  So are cars and ISPs and streaming services. It’s because people don’t have a choice.
sashank_1509 2y ago
Google has a monopoly but focusing on Chrome seems wrong. Here’s my prediction, let us remove chrome from the world tomorrow, make bing the default search engine on all devices. How much will Googles search market share fall by? From 90% to 80%. Maybe even 70%. I don’t see it falling below that. Does DOJ think that hypothetical market shares could be 40% Google, 30% Bing, 20-30% rest. I don’t think this is possible short of banning Google or making it extremely cumbersome to access Google (for example, making it impossible to set Google as default). Which makes this whole exercise seem pointless. Then we also come to the realm of justice. Google built Chrome (no easy task), fair and square. Chrome is a better browser engine than that of most competitors, so much so that its competitors use the same browser engine (Firefox and Safari Exempted). (Chromium is also open source). Why should Google be forced to sell Chrome? Is the assumption here that by the default the government owns everything you make, and the fact that you get to keep something you made is because of the benevolence of the government? This doesn’t seem like a good precedent. The government can’t even justify this as some big harm to society like it’s an addictive drug. What’s the consumer harm here? Is it that Google has monopoly pricing on serving ads to users, so if any company wants to do digital marketing, they have to pay whatever price Google sets? In the end, this just seems like a big unnecessary mess. The govt surely must have better things to do.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  > Firefox and Safari Exempted It's been long enough now that there are significant differences, but Chrome started from the same base as Safari. The teams had different perspectives, so Chrome forked Safari's internals and called the result Blink.
- gonzobonzo 2y ago
  Honestly, I think in your scenario Bing would end up as the top search engine. I've noticed lately that when I'm using a browser with Bing in the search bar, I just use Bing and don't bother using Google. Honestly, the two feel pretty similar to me at the moment.
  - sashank_1509 2y ago
d--b 2y ago
My first reaction when reading this is: how does this help Musk? Sigh.
cebert 2y ago
If Google was forced to sell off Chrome, I wonder what the ramifications would be for Chromebooks. Chromebooks have become quite popular in K12 schools. I don’t see how they could continue to run or why Google would have any continued interest in this device ruling.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  Chromebooks in schools are probably already illegal in a lot of places that use them, and the sole purpose is to lock in kids to the Google ecosystem early. (Apple used to heavily focus on education for the same reason back in the day.) There's an arguable point if Google doesn't give up Chromebooks anyways, the DOJ should force them to. My children basically are required by government to use Google products in school unless I want to pay for private school, which is kinda insane on its face.
adolph 2y ago
Who would buy it? Oracle? What would be the difference between Google shoveling money at Safari and Firefox for default search and shoveling money at some “independent” Chrome?
exabrial 2y ago
How about youtube, gmail too please
chubs 2y ago
Speculation: Perhaps Google accelerated the Manifest V3 change to get anti-adblocking 'baked in' and benefitting their interests, before they're forced to sell off Chrome?
- deleted 2y ago
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kaptainscarlet 2y ago
Sell it and drop Mankfest V3 lol
Animats 2y ago
Google can probably bribe its way out of this problem. [1][2] Might not even take money. Just favorable search result positioning. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-presidency-emoluments-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-presiden... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-bribery-corruption-legal/681658/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-b...
- dgellow 2y ago
  The fact that has already been normalized is so fucking wild
bushbaba 2y ago
The doj should split up more of big tech. The industry is stagnating and allowing a more healthy competition would do wonders.
BrenBarn 2y ago
It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too large a market share should be punished with remedies that make the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the offending behavior.
- progval 2y ago
  Google (probably) doesn't consider selling Chrome to be good for them or they would have done it on their own.
  - BrenBarn 2y ago
    They probably consider it better than, say, being forced to give it away and also pay $100 billion.
noobermin 2y ago
Someone didn't send a large enough campaign contribution.
improbableinf 2y ago
The only person/institution to buy Chrome in the current setting would be EM. It would make sense to embed xAI all over it, make Twitter a home page. I can see it play really well for Musk, not so much for the users though. I can even see him spending less money on it than during Twitter acquisition.
blackd0g 2y ago
Crazy to think that most users never change a single setting. They live in default mode. Which is the issue with how most software works. Even how browsers will try to get set as default.
- YetAnotherNick 2y ago
  If the user doesn't change anything they wouldn't have downloaded, installed and set chrome as default browser.
  - Ylpertnodi 2y ago
    Those that have to use chrome at work install it at home. There are many that think it is the internet. That was my today, Sunday. I gave up trying to explain the difference between edge and chrome, many years ago. At least I get paid for my time.
    - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
      Exactly same with Google, people think they it is the internet even if it is not the default.
- deleted 2y ago
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daz85 2y ago
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TZubiri 2y ago
I don't get some of the antitrust measures. It was dumb when they battled with microsoft's IE, and it's especially dumb when they battle Google's Chrome. Chrome isn't just another google product, it is central to its search engine, they did an ofshoot into a browser because they found they needes to effectively develop a headless browser to scrape some js and mixed media websites.
giantg2 2y ago
It would be hilarious if Google just formed a foundation to open source and manage Chrome going forward. I mean, it's already built on Chromium.
hereme888 2y ago
I don't know the legal and justice aspects of this, but I personally hope whatever happens prevents the ongoing privacy abuses, like uBlock not working into the future due to decreased ability to block content. Just my personal preference.
Nickolya 2y ago
Great insights on how default settings shape user behavior. I think this discussion also hints at a broader issue: even open platforms can face restrictions, whether by design or external forces. In environments where access is limited—be it due to institutional policies or government regulations—having a reliable workaround becomes crucial. I've personally found that using a robust residential proxy service like NodeMaven can make a big difference. Their proxies offer secure, unrestricted access, ensuring you can connect to the full spectrum of online resources without hassle. If you ever hit a roadblock, it’s definitely worth checking out NodeMaven’s service https://nodemaven.com/proxies/residential-proxies/ https://nodemaven.com/proxies/residential-proxies/.

502 points by hydrolox 2y ago

Can Google just "donate" Chrome to a foundation like a lot of big companies do to deal with this? Maybe we'll soon have Apache Chrome!

drivingmenuts 2y ago
Apache is where projects go to slowly die.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Or Oracle. :D
- ekianjo 2y ago
  Really? Airflow, Arrow, Iceberg, Kafka are dying projects?
- jherdman 2y ago
  Is this really true? Something that can be supported by clear evidence? I’ve seen this trotted out many times, but it seems like there are interesting Apache projects: https://airflow.apache.org/ https://airflow.apache.org/ https://iceberg.apache.org/ https://iceberg.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/ https://superset.apache.org/ https://superset.apache.org/
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    It's superficially true of any large stewardship organization. After N years some significant percent of projects will be on their way out. These will continue accumulating year over year and they potentially won't be disposed of for decades (and for good reason). Meanwhile only a vanishingly small fraction of projects remains at the center of public attention for an extended period of time. People develop a skewed perspective because we interact with many of the most popular projects on a daily basis.
  - rany_ 2y ago
    https://openoffice.apache.org/ https://openoffice.apache.org/ is the context in which I've seen this saying get regurgitated the most.
    - tslocum 2y ago
      I wrote about the situation with Apache Open Office here: https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-software-foundation/ https://rocket9labs.com/post/its-time-to-let-go-apache-softw...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
crop_rotation 2y ago
There is no foundation with the budget to even maintain a web browser, let alone keep developing. If Google is not footing the bill then Safari will become the torch bearer, and Apple has no incentive to make Safari become more capable to threaten that sweet IAP revenue.
- rchaud 2y ago
  Have there been meaningful changes to the browser spec since ES2015 support was baked in? Chrome, Safari etc. are not developing their browsers for the betterment of the web. One company wants to shove ads in your face, the other wants you out of the web entirely and into their walled garden of apps and ads. From a security standpoint, I'm sure it's more complicated, but UBO and warning dialog boxes about downloading files to your device, logging into services without 2FA would probably solve a lot of those problems. Does a billion dollar corp have to be involved considering how much has gone into Linux from people's pro bono efforts?
  - crop_rotation 2y ago
    Linux kernel gets so so much of corporate support, and is still a much more smaller project than any web browser. People's pro bono efforts stopped being enough for linux about 2 decades ago at the very least.
  - bpicolo 2y ago
    Do you all forget the web pre chrome? Google and Chrome forced browser vendors to do better by standards in the first place. Google’s stewardship forced browser vendors to compete like never before.
    - rchaud 2y ago
      I don't remember Google doing that. What I remember from that time is a browser war happening between the power players in mobile with iOS, Android and Windows Phone. I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009, which led to browser vendors harmonizing their feature set. We still needed jQuery to ensure cross-browser support, and floats and polyfills to get sites to work on mobile. That ended when browsers harmonized ES2015 support and built in support for flexbox and grid.
rollcat 2y ago
Like what Mozilla was supposed to be doing all along?

lolinder 2y ago

Discussion on the Proposed Final Judgement yesterday: DOJ asks for judgement requiring Google to divest Chrome [pdf] (31 points 30 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43296045

cagenut 2y ago

good. ublock origin finally stopped working for me two days ago and for the first time in like 20 f'n years I got a popup yesterday.

lifeinthevoid 2y ago
Switch to Firefox!
- mococa 2y ago
  https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never-sell-your-data.html https://adguard.com/en/blog/mozilla-deletes-promise-to-never...
  - sejje 2y ago
    Switch to lynx!
  - protimewaster 2y ago
    If someone was previously using Chrome, though, they're probably not that protective off their data. So it would seem like Firefox is a decent solution even if it is selling your data. Google was probably selling your data too...
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    Maybe but it doesn't affect the ad-blocking abilities of Firefox and uBlock Origin. It is a legal document, not a technical document. If you want to go with ethics and trust, I am not particular fond of Brave practice of replacing ads for some shady cryptocurrency (BAT). You don't have to do that, you can just use it as an adblocking browser, but if you don't care about these things, the news of Firefox updating some privacy policy shouldn't affect you too much either. Anyways, both Firefox and Brave/Chromium are open source, you can see what data is being sent out, and there are forks. And to make things clear, I am not really a fan of Mozilla direction, I just switched because Firefox became better and Chrome worse in the last years.
  - 2y ago

drumhead 2y ago

[flagged]

llm_nerd 2y ago
You are being downvoted, but people surely realize this is 100% true, right? Not only is it 100% true, it is inevitably going to be the outcome. Google will not have to divest Chrome. Sundar just has to pay the $5M to have dinner at Mara Lago and the next day Trump will be talking about how unfairly Google has been treated, probably blaming China or Canada or something for this DOJ action, and the DOJ will drop the remedy. Probably will fire some employees for daring to pursue this while they're at it. Whichever oligarch or ruling class ultra-rich whispers in Trump's ear last gets the full force of government for their cause. Like, surely everyone knows this is absolutely how your banana-republic, profoundly corrupt government works now, right? At least be honest about it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
toomim 2y ago
Probably more impactful would be to reverse the censoring and shadowbanning of him and his comrades.

newsclues 2y ago

I don't care that Google, Apple or Microsoft have their own browser. Especially not when there are other third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. There are some issues with the big tech giants that is likely harmful to consumers and the industry, and I'd welcome anti-trust investigations into all of them, but I feel like minor issues like browsers is an attempt to pretend like meaningful regulation and government control has been applied, while the real problems are ignored.

scarface_74 2y ago
> third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. Yes because the government is so well run with competent people waiting in line to join it in the era of DOGE? Do you think that a web browser would be free of politics?
drivingmenuts 2y ago
> Especially not when there are other third party browsers. Wouldn't say no to a government funded one that was secure and tested with government services. Which government, though? The US is mired in corruption at the moment, and the UK is taking an extended dump on privacy, Russia is … Russia and China doesn't really believe in privacy or freedom of speech, among other things.
fc417fc802 2y ago
> secure and tested with government services. The same government services that require things like recaptcha to work? The situation in the US is far worse than just "I need to use a BigTech browser to access government services".

Springtime 2y ago

Regardless of what happens to Chrome per se it's who is involved with pushing for major controversial changes in Chromium that matters. Manifest v3 and Web Integrity API are prominent examples of Google's team shaping how all Chromium based browsers will be, regardless of pushback (though they relented with the latter for now).

ttoinou 2y ago
Can’t any motivated group of developers fork chromium and push their own agenda ?
- calcifer 2y ago
  That's not relevant. Chrome has the most market share, so its decisions become de facto standards. What happens in some fork by a 2 men crew doesn't matter.
  - nfw2 2y ago
    The cancellation of the web integrity api is evidence against this claim.
    - calcifer 2y ago
      How? Which 2 men crew (temporarily) defeated that API?
      - nfw2 2y ago
        The claim I am referring to is clearly that Google's decisions become de facto standards. Your claim that the web integrity API is only temporarily cancelled has no evidence supporting it.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  No motivated group has the experts to maintain a modern rendering engine (tens of millions of lines of regularly evolving code) and Google can reject any upstream changes that group wants to make because Google engineers are the gatekeepers for 97.498% of Chromium code. So, if your agenda has anything to do with web content, you take what Google hands you. Of course, if you just want to diddle in the browser UI, sure fork it, that's the Brave and Opera approach, but hardly meaningful in scale.

lolinder 2y ago

To try to stem the tide of "Trump will just make this go away because ${corruption}", I want to remind everyone of a few things: * This is not a Biden-admin lawsuit. It was launched by the first Trump admin. * Of the 14 co-plaintiffs, only 1 (CA) is a state that didn't vote for Trump in 2024. The Colorado Plaintiff States include another 16 red states, for a total of 29 red states represented. As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base. This lawsuit was started by them in the first place and if the list of Attorneys General is anything to go by has overwhelming support from the base that Trump is acting to satisfy. Google's not getting out of this from just a small amount of kowtowing now, it's far too late for that.

awnird 2y ago
The tiktok ban was the same way, until it wasn't. Remarkable that people are still falling for this.
- lolinder 2y ago
  The TikTok ban was overwhelmingly unpopular among several important demographics and undoing the ban formed a part of Trump's 2024 campaign. His decisions with TikTok this year were a reversal from 2020 but entirely expected based on his 2024 campaign, so that's not a valid comparison.
  - malfist 2y ago
    What about all the other times Trump has done something like that? Trump's MO seems to be to take something away, then give it back and declare himself the savior of it. Just look at all the chaos with tariffs recently
  - martinsnow 2y ago
    Essentially what you're saying is Google need to tell their users they will lose a lot if chrome is sold, and Google needs to say a few nice things about trump to get the same treatment.

scarface_74 2y ago

This is the absolutely dumbest thing that I have read. Who would buy Chrome and why? If you just want the codebase, you have Chromium. Chrome only monetizes because of ads. Then what happens to Chromebooks? Can Google no longer ship a browser with Android? Besides, unless you have an Android - which is only 30% of the US market or a Chromebook, everyone who uses Chrome went through the process of downloading it and made a purposeful choice to use it

crop_rotation 2y ago
It is dumb and the comments here are baffling. People are blaming Google for forks not being able to keep up. Like forks can be based on webkit or gecko if they don't like Google. Both Apple and MSFT are far far more closed in all their products where they have any inertia. Yet Google gets the flame mostly because of their incompetent PR and legal execution. Case in point Google got flamed here so much for dragonfly, while Bing keeps running in China and even sometimes by mistake or not applies Chinese sensors to the rest of the world. The sacred Apple also works in China following all their laws. But Google is worse than both just for attempting dragonfly.
- nfw2 2y ago
  Google lost a lot of goodwill on HN since the proposed web integrity api. HN has a strong aversion to perceived attacks on the open web. I personally don’t think it’s fair to single Google out and leave Apple and Microsoft alone. It may be overly cynical, but I think Google is in its current situation because it has fostered political enemies on both sides.
  - crop_rotation 2y ago
    Google gets this treatment before any talk of web integrity API so no that was not it. I don't think this is necessarily about political enemies on both sides. Just that their PR is just so so bad. Like look at Brad Smith and all the big but empty statements he keeps making for Microsoft. Google needs someone like him.
2y ago

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ksec 2y ago

I disliked Google ever since they started their "Do No Evil" PR campaign. For as long as I remember I was the extreme rare few on internet against them. And I also disliked Chrome. Especially the direction of the web they are using Chrome to push forward. And I also disliked Electron. But I am against DOJ forcing Google to sell off Chrome. Especially when most of Chrome is open sourced. I think this is just plain wrong. Why dont we force Apple to open source macOS? Microsoft to Open Source Windows? Or Selling off Office. SpaceX to sell its Engine?

fc417fc802 2y ago
None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards. The app store duopoly might come close but still not to the same extent. Being open source has nothing to do with it. Of course selling it off won't necessarily accomplish the desired result since at the end of the day it isn't the legal ownership per se that results in the influence.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  Outsize influence combined with conflict of interest. The other branches of Google have too much to gain from being able to steer the direction of the web with Chrome, and the company as a whole benefits from writing its web apps in a way that makes them work better under Chrome, making for self-reinforcing hegemony. It’s just as bad as MS+IE, maybe worse since Chromium/Blink being open source has given them plausible deniability that MS didn’t have.
- ksec 2y ago
  Chrome isn't bundled with Windows, but most Window users decided to install Chrome. While I agree outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards, it is not like Apple doesn't or couldn't invent something as well. The reality is that no one has the incentive to make better web technology. If Google sold off Chrome, who will buy it? Are Google even allowed to make another browser based on same technology? What is everyone just installed that again? Selling off Chrome doesn't make any sense at all. And as you said. Their influence on development of Blink is still, Google.

dlcarrier 2y ago

Last time the DOJ declared a web browser monopoly, they lost the case on appeal, then the web browser does on its own. The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything substantial to lock users into Chrome. The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using.

nickthegreek 2y ago
Safari and Firefox are capable web browsers. Where do people get this outlandish take from?
- sebazzz 2y ago
  Maybe the actual problem is some people having this sentiment.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  Can't speak for Safari, but Firefox has never been anything but a dumpster fire for me. Constant reminders about updates and a UI that slows my computer to a crawl no matter what I do. Yes, I open many tabs and don't use a turbocharged laptop, but the same applies to my Chrome use with next to no problems, so really, fuck you Firefox for not adjusting after decades, as per possible user needs. Chrome seems to manage it, so why can't the Mozilla people with their own expertise and funds? Many new versions and updates of FF that I've tried have claimed to be much smoother and more efficient, only for the exact same shit to start happening across the years and multiple laptops used.
  - jmisavage 2y ago
    When was the last time you tried? I have a 2012 Mac mini that runs it like a champ and has done so for a very long time. I only have a handful of plugins but uBlock Origin is one of them.
    - southernplaces7 2y ago

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harrytang 2y ago

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3vidence 2y ago

(Googler opinions are my own, don't work on chrome) Chrome has just been a better product for the last 10 to 15 years. Every other company has just failed to make a good browser because they lack the incentives to do so (have gone back and forth as a Firefox user). The only competitive browsers are those already built on chrome or safari. I'm not personally a big fan of Safari but it's bigger issue is that it is only available on one platform whereas the web is naturally cross platform. Almost by definition Safari can't be the "winning" browser. This feels like ruling that the iPhone is a monopoly in the US and that Apple needs to divest from phones. Edit: to those replying I 100% don't agree with all the decisions chrome make, very importantly ad block. But just survey the actual browser market in the last 10 years to understand Chrome's dominance

pjmlp 2y ago
I am sure folks at Microsoft were saying the same of IE 5 and 6, as I was around when it took over.
- 3vidence 2y ago
  If I remember my history Microsoft was never actually forced to stop integrating IE in their product. The only reason it stopped being the #1 browser is that Chrome came out and was better... Even though people had to go out of their way to download on all computers
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Only because the whole thing was shut down when administration changed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C... Nowadays if it wasn't for Safari, thanks to Chrome and Electron garbage, the Web is effectively ChromeOS.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  I would love for something to trounce chrome the way it did IE, and even FF (which was so slow chrome felt lightning fast by comparison). I'm not optimistic that it'll happen, but I'd still like to see it.

borgster 2y ago

It's morning in America - pmarca

qwerty456127 2y ago

> The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that seeks to ban Google from paying companies like Apple, other smartphone manufacturers and Mozilla to make its search engine the default on their phones and browsers. RIP Firefox?

hinkley 2y ago
Ah fuck. Welp. They had a chance to be default alive and they fucked it by trying to spend the money on new initiatives instead of just spending the interest payments from an endowment.
- wmf 2y ago
  Weren't the new initiatives pretty small compared to Firefox development?
  - hinkley 2y ago
    At the moment when I got upset about this, they were trying to do an awful lot, and it felt like the money was burning a hole in their pockets. I know they cut back a little but maybe they’ve sobered up since? Haven’t had the heart to look again.
  - pavon 2y ago
    Yes. And other than Firefox, Mozilla was spending money in two ways. First creating new paid products in an attempt to have revenue in case the Google money ever went away. None of them were successful enough to meet this goal, but it was a good goal. Secondly, they spent their charity donations on activism work. The way they are structured they legally could not spend that money on Firefox. They would need to restructure as a non-profit corporation (not tax deductible charity) to accept donations to spend on Firefox, like their Thunderbird subsidiary. I hope they do so now, and at least attempt to support Firefox on donations. The truth is that browsers are a very complicated, very quickly moving, and very security sensitive piece of software. They spent all that money on Firefox rather than saving it because if they didn't Firefox would have fallen behind Chrome and Safari and it wouldn't be worth using today.

lewdwig 2y ago

All that rather pathetic grovelling and kowtowing to Trump, for naught.

spamizbad 2y ago
They’re still getting a friendlier NLRB, lower corporate tax rates, and an economic policy that is less focused on full employment; tamping down engineering wage growth
- Muromec 2y ago
  They already pivoted to hire offshore workers, so why would they care
  - relaxing 2y ago
    Offshoring as the supposed death of the US software developer going on 40 years now remains greatly exaggerated.
    - jfengel 2y ago
      And I still don't understand why. I expected it when I started my career, and here nearing the end it's still really rare. And it should have gotten easier in that time, what with the Internet. Time zones and culture and language and all that, I suppose. But the world is full of very smart people who have a decent grasp of American and European culture, and would work for a tenth the price.
      - Muromec 2y ago
        It depends what kind of a company you work for. Something like a bank with a lot of boringly tedious stuff on top of procedures will have quite a lot of offshore contractors. They don't even have to be very smart, because truly smart ones decide to move closer towards the source of the moneys.
      - relaxing 2y ago

modulus1 2y ago

A company owning a web browser isn't the problem. A company owning a web browser, OS and search engine shouldn't be a problem either. I don't know why the remedy can't actually address the problem, and the DOJ can't move more quickly to address antitrust across the industry. This feels like randomly cutting a baby in half, while the rest of the thieves, even those in the same family, are not deterred.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
The problem is an ads company owning a web browser, OS, and search engine, and using that control over how users interact with the internet to outcompete everyone else. You left out Google's raison d'etre from your statement.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  That is not what is happening. I use Android, Chrome, and Google Search because the alternatives are quite poor. All of those things work better with alternatives than any competition. Android is the most open mobile OS, Chrome is the most open and non-coercive browser, Google Search works great with all other OS's and browsers.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    It doesn't matter why you use any of this software. What matters is what it does to the ads market. This is not 1999 and this is not Microsoft. Google's product isn't software. It's the attention of its users.
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      Google's share of my attention is negligible to the point of barely existing when compared to HN, X, YouTube(yes I know, but I see no adds because I have premium), podcasts, audiobooks and many other things. Even Facebook probably takes more attention and I barely use it.

ronnier 2y ago

It’s a big world. Does breaking up google give the Asian giants an advantage? Wonder if China breaks up their large tech companies?

manquer 2y ago
Advantage where ? Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) . Global tech companies do not compete in China, the market is brutal for non Chinese companies with level of espionage, theft, sabotage that is allowed. It is really small world for big tech, the same 5-10 companies dominate most of the world in most frequently used consumer products, and using that dominance to crowd out competitors in every new product category (1) which is banned in few major markets like India already even if the US reverses the ban
- azinman2 2y ago
  > Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) . This is absolutely not true. Most phones in Africa are Chinese now. Chinese internet companies are all over Asia outside of Japan/SK. Chinese cars (EVs, which arguably are tech), are now world-wide.
  - manquer 2y ago
    Tech companies or big tech conventionally usually mean software companies. Every company is a tech company, if you want to be broad in your definition, they have to use tech to compete . Actions on Chinese EV cars are either being seriously considered or already in effect in most major car markets. All phones have been always more or less Chinese made forever including Apple, even Chinese badging is how it been for low/mid range for 10 years now, maybe Samsung does some local manufacturing in SK but no one else major does. Budget phones or budget EVs with razor thin margins is not big tech and no DoJ action to break up Google is going to affect the way they are becoming Chinese or already are . There is reason TikTok is the most valuable Chinese company and not a phone company, big tech have big margins and strong market effect on their own and not as a group (I.e. it would be hard to beat Chinese companies in a space , but no individual one (say byd) is irreplaceable by another Chinese company

batperson 2y ago

I can't find information on what would happen to Chromium, would google need to hand it over too? That's probably more important than the fate of Chrome.

wmf 2y ago
Realistically Chromium is downstream of Chrome and it goes where Chrome goes. Chromebooks are somewhat more interesting.
surajrmal 2y ago
The only thing being specific is chrome the product launches. Selling of the pixel phone business wouldn't require also selling android for instance, so arguably its the same.

cubefox 2y ago

Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores. Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android compatibility, and pressuring teens into either buying into the Apple or ecosystem or risk being socially ostracized from incompatible group chats. It seems to be more that a double standard.

jimnotgym 2y ago
Perhaps Apple is next?
crop_rotation 2y ago
Google is just incompetent at PR and legal. That is how Epic won against Google and lost against Apple, even though Android is far far more open than iOS.
- nashashmi 2y ago
  Incompetency is a blessing for users.
blueboo 2y ago
Instant, universal, and immaculately-fair is the real impossible standard. Your line of thought has long been in the arsenal in defense of inaction let's permit the firefighters to leave the firehouse even though they can't tend to all the fires simultaneously
wmf 2y ago
You're ignoring the antitrust cases against Apple which may seek similar remedies.
- ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
  Epic lost their's, while ironically winning the Google one... Where you were always able to install a third party app store, they just didn't let you do it through the official store.

maxclark 2y ago

First I don't believe this is an effective remedy to break up a Google monopoly, but I have no influence on the DOJ. I'm curious though, if Google can no longer pay browsers for search engine traffic what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space? How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development? What happens to all the applications that rely on Chrome extensions? As much as I dislike Google behavior, I don't see this as being a good thing.

geor9e 2y ago
You call them Chrome extensions, but they're really Chromium extensions that work on Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, etc. Those teams contribute code to the Chromium open source project too. Sure, whoever takes over Chrome won't have Googles juggernaut team pushing Chromium development forward, and maybe that will lead to degradation over time, but it's not like it would cause immediate ecosystem collapse. For all my psychic prediction powers know, getting rid of the monopoly could lead to a renaissance in browser tech via stronger competition. This could go either way.
- nfw2 2y ago
  In the past, too many competing browsers resulted in a frustrating experience for web application developers. Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I’m not so sanguine about the alternatives either.
  - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
    It was more than just too many competing browsers, from what I understand. It was a few competing browsers that interpreted standards completely different, and a standards body that was slow enough to be completely ineffective. I'd argue that the main problem was not too much competition, but effective anti-competitive behavior (and simple laziness) from Microsoft in particular. The frustrating experience was primarily caused by Internet Explorer.
    - 2y ago

user3939382 2y ago

If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it’s made up of teams that specialize in different components. The majority of the members of those teams are in turn Google employees. Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those teams. I don’t see how a DOJ decision against Google would change any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the project? And then who would replace them?

crop_rotation 2y ago
I am not sure why you are being downvoted. This just means existing OS monopolies of Apple and Microsoft are given entire control of their kingdoms with no web landscape to challenge them a teeny tiny bit.
wmf 2y ago
All the people who work on Chrome would go with it.
theptip 2y ago
But we are not discussing Chromium. Google’s browser is Chrome, and that product has search exclusivity deals that have been deemed monopolistic. Google could divest the Chrome product and keep contributing to Chromium, but the value proposition is really unclear when that OSS investment doesn’t buy you billions of dollars of browser lock-in value.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Thus why the Linux Foundation is gunning for Chromium. (When do we rename the Linux Foundation? Only 3.2% of their revenue goes to Linux development these days...) https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-announces-the-launch-of-supporters-of-chromium-based-browsers https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-annou... https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based-browsers https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based...
  - rafram 2y ago

nashashmi 2y ago

Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity. (I bet DoJ didn’t think about that whammy.) And start charging for everything else out there like maps, street view, and browser. And buy cloudflare while at it. Push themselves into everything related to connectivity and internet properties. The search business is the cash flow that is being a thorn in the side of Google. And it doesn’t even make sense in its vision anymore.

mrweasel 2y ago
You sort of make an interesting point. Google search isn't the main product, hasn't been for a decade. Still I don't think Google Ads would do amazing without the traffic from Google Search. But it does solve an important problem: Who in their right mind would buy Chrome? It's not a profitable business to be in, without the surrounding ad business, and in turn the insane amount of traffic from Google Search. Almost by definition, anyone who would be interested in buying Chrome and turning it into a commercial product shouldn't be allowed to buy it. The only buyer I can imaging is OpenText.
- nashashmi 2y ago
  I dont think adwords would stay with Google. It would have to be sold with search. The ad network would remain with alphabet.
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Cloudflare has been a continual breath of fresh air compared to Google Cloud and AWS. Please oh please don’t suggest selling it to google to let it atrophy its way to the graveyard
nuker 2y ago
> Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity. This. If Search + Google Ads is independent from Android + Chrome + Gmail, it will choke the user-data flow that Google Ads platform is feeding on. This opens doors to new competing search engines! Android + Chrome + Gmail needs to be bundled with hardware purchases, like Apple does with Safari + iCloud. This will create incentive to make them actually privacy focused, and could be its selling point. No need to feed Google Ads with data anymore! Yeah, dreaming.

asdfman123 2y ago

At this point, tech's major competitors are overseas. Never thought I'd be making this argument, but does breaking up the search monopoly help America or up and comers?

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jacksnipe 2y ago
I care more about how it affects consumers.
- deleted 2y ago
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stuartjohnson12 2y ago
There are certainly some short term consumer gains to be made in decoupling the oppressive monopoly of android, payments, chromium, search, and ads. If Google wants to send their search experience to shit that should probably be their right to mismanage, but the ramming home of Manifest v3 and Google Play Protect in the interest of nobody is beyond the pale.
arthurofbabylon 2y ago
Let's not turn into game-theory bros here. Despite the nationalist, pie-dividing rhetoric the billionaires are foisting upon us, it remains favorable to grow the pie with competitive markets.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  A bigger pie isn't desirable if most of the slices go to a select few. Or to use Lincoln's rising boats metaphor, a rising tide isn't great if most boats are full of holes.
thrance 2y ago
Does upholding monopolies help Americans at all? Do not conflate the ballooning wealth of billionaires with any kind of improvement in your material conditions.

tinktank 2y ago

So sad all that sucking up to the new administration didn't work. Oh well...

epoxy_sauce 2y ago
Ah now I get why Google maps had Gulf of America...

xnx 2y ago

This is so so dumb and not related to the already dumb monopoly ruling.

dehrmann 2y ago

Who would even buy Chrome? No one's building new browsers, and MS even walked away from the browser game. Mozilla and Firefox haven't been relevant for a decade. The only buyer I can see is private equity, and that's sort of the big boy version of buying an abandoned browser plugin so it can track you and show more ads.

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delfinom 2y ago
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mmphosis 2y ago
No one's building new browsers Ladybird, servo, and Flow are new browsers currently being built. These new browsers are not derived from any of the big three browser engines: Google Chromium, Apple WebKit, and Mozilla Gecko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines
- john_the_writer 2y ago
  Sure, but their standards, and what they support aren't even something you can look up. As a JS dev these are the stuff of nightmares.
  - inetknght 2y ago
    Learn to write native applications instead.
    - privacyking 2y ago
      And native applications on web browsers are programmed in...?
      - 2y ago

mattmaroon 2y ago

Isn’t android like 10 times the problem chrome is?

stogot 2y ago

I agree there needs to be remedy, but Does chrome have a profit without Google? Who’s going to buy it? Oracle?

xyst 2y ago

Google just needs to send the appropriate amount to kleptocracy war chest and this will get killed on the backend.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

Always had to. They built Alphabet but its obvious they didnt break things up. Whats going to be interesting is how some of them will even be able to afford to operate under separate orgs.

mattlondon 2y ago

So they sell Chrome today and create Ghrome tomorrow? I can't see Chrome surviving as a standalone product - where is the revenue? I am sure someone will buy it and try to create some "premium" version, but ultimately it will wither and die I expect.

cyanydeez 2y ago
I assume Oracle will buy it and start threatening to change APIs and then sell a enterprise version
asadotzler 2y ago
If the remedy doesn't forbid them from creating Ghrome tomorrow, and for many years after, then the remedy is seriously flawed. Somehow I doubt that all the people at DOJ working on this lacked your insights and failed to consider that outcome.
- mattlondon 2y ago
  Why should the remedy prevent them creating a new product and start again from zero? If people choose to install and use it - like they did for chrome - then that is not monopolistic behaviour, it is people making a choice. Is this about breaking Google from a popular browser, or just about punishing Google for offering services people find useful? It feels to me that it is more about punishing Google than about chrome. Apple and Microsoft seem to be able to get away with wat worse with their browsers - literally every time i use my win11 laptop it is nagging me to use edge or warn me that I should change my default browser to use edge or whatever. Apple won't even let you use another browser at all. But that is somehow fine and allowed?
colinplamondon 2y ago
- Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status. - A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some point. - As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM? Or even revshare? This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on, with some data sharing provisions to help with development, they'd have a huge leg-up. Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can monetize SERPs themselves. Revenue seems incredibly strong. My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive product execution, given the size of the codebase.

lakomen 2y ago

[dead]

smitty1e 2y ago

How about Amazon buying Firefox instead?

AstralSerenity 2y ago
What a horrifying concept.
CatWChainsaw 2y ago
Why would you say that? How is the current timeline not already shitty enough for you?
- smitty1e 2y ago
  Swan dive into the enshittification.

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alwayslikethis 2y ago

If Google sells Chrome keeps control over Chromium, I don't see this benefiting users. They'll continue with their anti-user efforts (Manifest V2 phaseout, Web Integrity), and the only difference is that the new Chrome will come with a new set of spyware, probably a worse one than Google because no one is in as good of a position to benefit from the lock-in as Google does, so they have to be more aggressive with their monetization, like with ads inserted into pages. But at the same time maintaining Chromium is a pretty thankless endeavor and I don't see any entity with that capability. It's much bigger than Linux, and the developers are employees, not volunteers. The best possible outcome I can imagine is if Google is required to spin off Chromium into a nonprofit that would be independent but they are required to fund it for many years. The nonprofit would need some kind of oversight from adversarial companies to avoid collusion with Google or any other company.

kweingar 2y ago

Here's something I don't understand. If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage. If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result, download the installer, run the installer, open Chrome, and set it as the default browser. So many users do this that people conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage.

bearjaws 2y ago
The mere existence of a competitor is not the spirit of antitrust. Look at what Google does with Chrome and how it harms the internet, they literally just disabled an ad blocker and then offered a new tier of ad free Youtube for $8 a month. Then think about the power it gives them for tracking, remember they tried to replace tracking cookies with their own standard?
- guywithahat 2y ago
  The counterpoint would be anyone can fork Chrome and put an adblocker back in (ie Brave). I worry as part of Google, chrome is just an open source project with profit as a secondary motive, while as it’s own company they’ll probably try to make it more profitable and it’ll become worse and closed down.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    If it's so unprofitable why have they spent, what, nearly a year now in court trying desperately to keep it? Have you genuinely never heard of a loss-leader? Across their entire buffet of products, many of which are free at point of use like Chrome is, they advertise Chrome. That the internet is better with Chrome. That their products are better with Chrome. Do you really believe this is genuinely just because they also make Chrome, and are jazzed about that fact? The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells me it's an even better idea to make them sell it.

ivraatiems 2y ago

It says something about how universally despised Google and other tech giants are that two presidential administrations who are so acrimonious and diametrically opposed that they have spent much of their time destroying everything the previous one did agree on it. I genuinely can't think of anyone, of any political stripe, outside of Google and its employees and investors, who thinks Google should have the power it has now. Honestly, the degree of pushback this is getting on HN is shocking to me. Google is massively anti-competitive and spends a ton of energy hurting startups to its own benefit. I hope the DOJ gets its way on this, and I hope they aggressively pursue anti-trust actions against other organizations in similar positions - Oracle, Epic Systems, and Meta all come to mind.

sneak 2y ago
Destroying Google’s ability to develop Chrome means that the web dies faster than it already is. Apple would prefer everyone use native apps, they run an app store. Most companies prefer apps, you can’t modify or inspect them or easily block ads within them. Apps can trap users inside embedded browsers with app-based surveillance, like when you click profile links in Instagram or TikTok. The world without a free high quality browser is a worse one.
- ivraatiems 2y ago
  Why would Chrome not being a part of Google mean the world would lack a free, high-quality browser? Is Safari low quality? Is Firefox not free? What about Edge and all the other browsers that run based on Chromium? More competition would be better.

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486sx33 2y ago

Chrome is so user hostile and entrapping I don’t know why anyone uses it. It should absolutely be separated and spun off to live on its own and make its own profit.

sneak 2y ago
So are cars and ISPs and streaming services. It’s because people don’t have a choice.

sashank_1509 2y ago

Google has a monopoly but focusing on Chrome seems wrong. Here’s my prediction, let us remove chrome from the world tomorrow, make bing the default search engine on all devices. How much will Googles search market share fall by? From 90% to 80%. Maybe even 70%. I don’t see it falling below that. Does DOJ think that hypothetical market shares could be 40% Google, 30% Bing, 20-30% rest. I don’t think this is possible short of banning Google or making it extremely cumbersome to access Google (for example, making it impossible to set Google as default). Which makes this whole exercise seem pointless. Then we also come to the realm of justice. Google built Chrome (no easy task), fair and square. Chrome is a better browser engine than that of most competitors, so much so that its competitors use the same browser engine (Firefox and Safari Exempted). (Chromium is also open source). Why should Google be forced to sell Chrome? Is the assumption here that by the default the government owns everything you make, and the fact that you get to keep something you made is because of the benevolence of the government? This doesn’t seem like a good precedent. The government can’t even justify this as some big harm to society like it’s an addictive drug. What’s the consumer harm here? Is it that Google has monopoly pricing on serving ads to users, so if any company wants to do digital marketing, they have to pay whatever price Google sets? In the end, this just seems like a big unnecessary mess. The govt surely must have better things to do.

bsimpson 2y ago
> Firefox and Safari Exempted It's been long enough now that there are significant differences, but Chrome started from the same base as Safari. The teams had different perspectives, so Chrome forked Safari's internals and called the result Blink.
gonzobonzo 2y ago
Honestly, I think in your scenario Bing would end up as the top search engine. I've noticed lately that when I'm using a browser with Bing in the search bar, I just use Bing and don't bother using Google. Honestly, the two feel pretty similar to me at the moment.
- sashank_1509 2y ago

d--b 2y ago

My first reaction when reading this is: how does this help Musk? Sigh.

cebert 2y ago

If Google was forced to sell off Chrome, I wonder what the ramifications would be for Chromebooks. Chromebooks have become quite popular in K12 schools. I don’t see how they could continue to run or why Google would have any continued interest in this device ruling.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago
Chromebooks in schools are probably already illegal in a lot of places that use them, and the sole purpose is to lock in kids to the Google ecosystem early. (Apple used to heavily focus on education for the same reason back in the day.) There's an arguable point if Google doesn't give up Chromebooks anyways, the DOJ should force them to. My children basically are required by government to use Google products in school unless I want to pay for private school, which is kinda insane on its face.

adolph 2y ago

Who would buy it? Oracle? What would be the difference between Google shoveling money at Safari and Firefox for default search and shoveling money at some “independent” Chrome?

exabrial 2y ago

How about youtube, gmail too please

chubs 2y ago

Speculation: Perhaps Google accelerated the Manifest V3 change to get anti-adblocking 'baked in' and benefitting their interests, before they're forced to sell off Chrome?

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kaptainscarlet 2y ago

Sell it and drop Mankfest V3 lol

Animats 2y ago

Google can probably bribe its way out of this problem. [1][2] Might not even take money. Just favorable search result positioning. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-presidency-emoluments-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/188271/trump-profit-presiden... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-bribery-corruption-legal/681658/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-b...

dgellow 2y ago
The fact that has already been normalized is so fucking wild

bushbaba 2y ago

The doj should split up more of big tech. The industry is stagnating and allowing a more healthy competition would do wonders.

BrenBarn 2y ago

It's just nuts that the "penalty" for violating antitrust law is that the offender gets to sell part of themselves and receive compensation. Engaging in unfair competition or obtaining too large a market share should be punished with remedies that make the perpetrator worse off than it was before it began the offending behavior.

progval 2y ago
Google (probably) doesn't consider selling Chrome to be good for them or they would have done it on their own.
- BrenBarn 2y ago
  They probably consider it better than, say, being forced to give it away and also pay $100 billion.

noobermin 2y ago

Someone didn't send a large enough campaign contribution.

improbableinf 2y ago

The only person/institution to buy Chrome in the current setting would be EM. It would make sense to embed xAI all over it, make Twitter a home page. I can see it play really well for Musk, not so much for the users though. I can even see him spending less money on it than during Twitter acquisition.

blackd0g 2y ago

Crazy to think that most users never change a single setting. They live in default mode. Which is the issue with how most software works. Even how browsers will try to get set as default.

YetAnotherNick 2y ago
If the user doesn't change anything they wouldn't have downloaded, installed and set chrome as default browser.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  Those that have to use chrome at work install it at home. There are many that think it is the internet. That was my today, Sunday. I gave up trying to explain the difference between edge and chrome, many years ago. At least I get paid for my time.
  - YetAnotherNick 2y ago
    Exactly same with Google, people think they it is the internet even if it is not the default.
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daz85 2y ago

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TZubiri 2y ago

I don't get some of the antitrust measures. It was dumb when they battled with microsoft's IE, and it's especially dumb when they battle Google's Chrome. Chrome isn't just another google product, it is central to its search engine, they did an ofshoot into a browser because they found they needes to effectively develop a headless browser to scrape some js and mixed media websites.

giantg2 2y ago

It would be hilarious if Google just formed a foundation to open source and manage Chrome going forward. I mean, it's already built on Chromium.

hereme888 2y ago

I don't know the legal and justice aspects of this, but I personally hope whatever happens prevents the ongoing privacy abuses, like uBlock not working into the future due to decreased ability to block content. Just my personal preference.

Nickolya 2y ago

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