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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 a

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
      several times since 2012. The last of these was just last year, on a whimsy in which FF didn't disappoint in by now predictably disappointing.
  - rad_gruchalski 2y ago
    Either you need to service your computer or configure your Firefox. I went back to Firefox about 5 years ago and not even once missed Chrome since.
    - nradov 2y ago
      Why should the user need to do that? The browser should automatically configure itself for optimal performance on any reasonable hardware.
      - rad_gruchalski 2y ago
        Because none of what they talk about is a problem. So the problem may lay on their side. Or they roll on a half-a-decade-old sentiment.
      - Twirrim 2y ago
        Firefox does, though. There really aren't these wild and crazy speed issues with it at all, even with fresh out of the box defaults. The only time I've had to touch about:config in the last several years was due to some smartcard related bug caused by an external library, that forced me to tweak firefox's behaviour. Once that bug was resolved, I switched it back. Firefox being slow is well into the self-perpetuating FUD territory.
    - southernplaces7 2y ago
      [dead]
- geor9e 2y ago
  Capable is a interesting word choice. Capable means something meets a bare minimum for success. A and B are great. C is fantastic. D is arguably first class. E is capable. When making a free choice, I want the best one, so any lackluster review feels like one of those southern backhanded compliments, getting the message across without insulting it in polite company. Capable perfectly describes my feelings towards Firefox and Safari.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Seeing that Safari doesn’t drain my battery on my laptop and it doesn’t send my search engine to an adtech company…
    - sneak 2y ago
      It does; Google is the default search in Safari.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        I meant browsing history. I don’t care about my search history. Even though these days I use the paid ChatGPT with the web search tool most of the time. Google is becoming more useless every month
        geor9e 2y ago
        Chrome Sync (i.e. saving your history + everything else to the cloud so it syncs to all your devices) is an optional setting. Microsoft Edge has the same thing under another name. Safari does too.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        Google also uses your browsing history to create a profile for advertising https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451?hl=en#:~:text=Go%20to%20My%20Ad%20Center,certain%20sensitive%20ad%20topics%2C%20including: https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451... And Apple provides end to end encryption of browsing history so it can’t decrypt your browsing history https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats-in-your-browser-backup/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats-in... > What’s interesting about the Apple decision is that it appears to explicitly separate browsing history and bookmarks, rather than lumping them into a single take-it-or-leave-it package. Apple doesn’t claim to provide any end-to-end encryption guarantees whatsoever for bookmarks: presumably someone who resets your iCloud account password can get those. But your browsing history is protected in a way that even Apple won’t be able to access, in case the FBI show up with a subpoena.
bdavbdav 2y ago
Not used Firefox in ages, but what’s the matter with Safari? It sips battery and cpu cycles on my macs.
- scarfaceneo 2y ago
  None. Safari is the best browser I’ve used by a long margin.
  - eitland 2y ago
    Safari is really good. But I have to admit extensions are really lacking, both the infrastructure for installing them and which extensions are available. I now use Orion which is based on Safari but has native vertical tabs (although not native vertical hierarchical tabs, or support for dumping them as markdown).
- 3vidence 2y ago
  On the developer side I've always found Safari messy to support with out of date APIs Feels like Apple doesn't really care about it
AnonHP 2y ago
> The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything substantial to lock users into Chrome. I feel this is meant to trigger people into reacting and causing a flame war. Google has been making its own web properties work well on Google Chrome while making them perform poorer or make them break on other browsers. Google Chrome optimizes for Google, not the web, and certainly not “the open web”.
- hypeatei 2y ago
  One example of special treatment is Chrome giving *.google.com sites access to system metrics for the CPU, GPU, and RAM usage[0][1] through a default extension that isn't exposed to users. [0]: https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 [1]: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chrome/browser/resources/hangout_services/ https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr...
DragonStrength 2y ago
Well, last time, the presidential election changed executive support as well. That would make this significant since it’s a new Justice Dept.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  This suit began under the last Trump administration. If there was a Google-friendly administration, it was Obama's. What's disappointing to Google is that all of their kowtowing to the Biden administration's "content shaping" ended up worth nothing in the end. Harris would have rewarded them for that help, but Trump of course hates them for it because it was largely directed at him.
  - rat87 2y ago
    This is plain nonsense. Trump got bad search result because he's literally terrible and wholly unqualified to be president.
asadotzler 2y ago
You're so close to getting it. Indeed, the problem with monopolies is they make it difficult to create effective competitors. And that's precisely why they're not allowed to do those things and why Google is in the position it's in for doing those kinds of things.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
> The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using. This feels like quite an exaggeration. I’ve used Chromium-derived browsers only sparingly in the past decade, with Safari and Firefox instead getting the bulk of my usage depending on the platform. Generally if something doesn’t work under those browsers, the top two causes are unnecessary user agent sniffing with the site working fine once I pretend to be Chrome or the dev simply not testing against anything but Chrome. It’s been vanishingly rare that the browsers themselves were the cause of an issue.

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
    several times since 2012. The last of these was just last year, on a whimsy in which FF didn't disappoint in by now predictably disappointing.
- rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  Either you need to service your computer or configure your Firefox. I went back to Firefox about 5 years ago and not even once missed Chrome since.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Why should the user need to do that? The browser should automatically configure itself for optimal performance on any reasonable hardware.
    - rad_gruchalski 2y ago
      Because none of what they talk about is a problem. So the problem may lay on their side. Or they roll on a half-a-decade-old sentiment.
    - Twirrim 2y ago
      Firefox does, though. There really aren't these wild and crazy speed issues with it at all, even with fresh out of the box defaults. The only time I've had to touch about:config in the last several years was due to some smartcard related bug caused by an external library, that forced me to tweak firefox's behaviour. Once that bug was resolved, I switched it back. Firefox being slow is well into the self-perpetuating FUD territory.
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    [dead]
geor9e 2y ago
Capable is a interesting word choice. Capable means something meets a bare minimum for success. A and B are great. C is fantastic. D is arguably first class. E is capable. When making a free choice, I want the best one, so any lackluster review feels like one of those southern backhanded compliments, getting the message across without insulting it in polite company. Capable perfectly describes my feelings towards Firefox and Safari.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Seeing that Safari doesn’t drain my battery on my laptop and it doesn’t send my search engine to an adtech company…
  - sneak 2y ago
    It does; Google is the default search in Safari.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      I meant browsing history. I don’t care about my search history. Even though these days I use the paid ChatGPT with the web search tool most of the time. Google is becoming more useless every month
      - geor9e 2y ago
        Chrome Sync (i.e. saving your history + everything else to the cloud so it syncs to all your devices) is an optional setting. Microsoft Edge has the same thing under another name. Safari does too.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        Google also uses your browsing history to create a profile for advertising https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451?hl=en#:~:text=Go%20to%20My%20Ad%20Center,certain%20sensitive%20ad%20topics%2C%20including: https://support.google.com/My-Ad-Center-Help/answer/12155451... And Apple provides end to end encryption of browsing history so it can’t decrypt your browsing history https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats-in-your-browser-backup/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2021/03/25/whats-in... > What’s interesting about the Apple decision is that it appears to explicitly separate browsing history and bookmarks, rather than lumping them into a single take-it-or-leave-it package. Apple doesn’t claim to provide any end-to-end encryption guarantees whatsoever for bookmarks: presumably someone who resets your iCloud account password can get those. But your browsing history is protected in a way that even Apple won’t be able to access, in case the FBI show up with a subpoena.

bdavbdav 2y ago

Not used Firefox in ages, but what’s the matter with Safari? It sips battery and cpu cycles on my macs.

scarfaceneo 2y ago
None. Safari is the best browser I’ve used by a long margin.
- eitland 2y ago
  Safari is really good. But I have to admit extensions are really lacking, both the infrastructure for installing them and which extensions are available. I now use Orion which is based on Safari but has native vertical tabs (although not native vertical hierarchical tabs, or support for dumping them as markdown).
3vidence 2y ago
On the developer side I've always found Safari messy to support with out of date APIs Feels like Apple doesn't really care about it

AnonHP 2y ago

> The problem isn't within Google. They aren't doing anything substantial to lock users into Chrome. I feel this is meant to trigger people into reacting and causing a flame war. Google has been making its own web properties work well on Google Chrome while making them perform poorer or make them break on other browsers. Google Chrome optimizes for Google, not the web, and certainly not “the open web”.

hypeatei 2y ago
One example of special treatment is Chrome giving *.google.com sites access to system metrics for the CPU, GPU, and RAM usage[0][1] through a default extension that isn't exposed to users. [0]: https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 https://xcancel.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 [1]: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chrome/browser/resources/hangout_services/ https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr...

DragonStrength 2y ago

Well, last time, the presidential election changed executive support as well. That would make this significant since it’s a new Justice Dept.

pessimizer 2y ago
This suit began under the last Trump administration. If there was a Google-friendly administration, it was Obama's. What's disappointing to Google is that all of their kowtowing to the Biden administration's "content shaping" ended up worth nothing in the end. Harris would have rewarded them for that help, but Trump of course hates them for it because it was largely directed at him.
- rat87 2y ago
  This is plain nonsense. Trump got bad search result because he's literally terrible and wholly unqualified to be president.

asadotzler 2y ago

You're so close to getting it. Indeed, the problem with monopolies is they make it difficult to create effective competitors. And that's precisely why they're not allowed to do those things and why Google is in the position it's in for doing those kinds of things.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

> The problem is unforced errors on the part of both Apple and Mozilla creating awful web browsers that aren't worth using. This feels like quite an exaggeration. I’ve used Chromium-derived browsers only sparingly in the past decade, with Safari and Firefox instead getting the bulk of my usage depending on the platform. Generally if something doesn’t work under those browsers, the top two causes are unnecessary user agent sniffing with the site working fine once I pretend to be Chrome or the dev simply not testing against anything but Chrome. It’s been vanishingly rare that the browsers themselves were the cause of an issue.