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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

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.
    - kaonwarb 2y ago
      > The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells me it's an even better idea to make them sell it. If your goal is nothing deeper than to hurt Google, sure. Otherwise, this logic is far from complete.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    That's the same argument as with Android - its open source, anyone can fork it and change whatever they don't like! And its flawed in the same way - first its not fully open source (IIRC Crhome has some proprietary bits that are not in Chromium, same with Android+Google Play services vs AOSP) but good luck maintaining your fork for any length of time! Google is in full control of both Android and Chromium with all decisions happening behind closed doors with zero leverage for anyone from the outside to influence those decisions. So as with Manifest v3 now and many similarly bad decisions for Android, once Google selects a course, it will be harder and harder over time to keep your changes if you still want the end result to look like what the users will see as Chrome/Android. And I would say with a browser the pressure to update would be even greater & thus its even harder to keep any signifficant custom changes.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    On the one hand you're positing that Chrome can just live on independently from Google. That 's what "anyone can fork" means to me. Forking is not just copying the code, but maintaining the project and keeping it relevant On the other hand you worry that Chrome can't go on without Google, as it currently doesn't bring enough money and needs to be a market abuse tool to justify the costs. In a very real way, I think if the situation is unsolvable letting Chrome die and be born again could be the only long term solution. It would be painful, but we're already bleeding.
    - guywithahat 2y ago
      Sure, but there’s a difference between Brave existing as its own company and the government forcibly coming in and breaking up a company. I think it’s good for the market that some players are fully independent, and others are part of massive conglomerates.
      - makeitdouble 2y ago
        You seem to be disagreeing that what Google does is problematic, let alone illegal in the first place ? I can see it as an opinion, but that changes the whole discussion IMHO.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  So many problems would be solved if the selling of data about people was regulated to a degree that it ceased to be profitable. Many "free" things would go away, but none of those are actually free, the price is just hidden.
braiamp 2y ago
> 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. Most of that advantage comes from an unfair practice, of Google making consumers think that their choice of browser was in someway inferior (which could be true) and thus they should prefer Chrome (which is not true). If Chrome won market dominance using this method, then it becomes an unfair practice. Same thing with Microsoft Edge, Apple's App Store, etc. You can't use your market power in one market to influence another.
- spoaceman7777 2y ago
  That's just simple advertising though. Nearly every company is selling their product as being superior to some set of competing products, at whatever their price point is.
  - mqus 2y ago
    it would be, if chrome would pay for this ad (and other browsers can compete for the spot). But it doesn't (can't?) and that is exactly what is wrong here.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Did Chrome pay for the ad placement on Google’s sites? Could Mozilla or Microsoft buy the same spots? Could they pay YouTube to keep the site faster for them than standards-compliant browsers? If the answer to any of those is no, it’s more than simple advertising.
    - buzzerbetrayed 2y ago
      Yes. My biggest gripe with Google is that they prop up unprofitable products with their wildly popular product. It makes competition impossible. YouTube is the perfect example. I feel like it should be illegal to use your profits in one industry to run a loss leader in a totally separate industry.
tester756 2y ago
On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled
- timeflex 2y ago
  On Windows 11, Edge is preinstalled and can't simply be removed either. Furthermore, it constantly bugs you about if you're sure you don't want to enable their recommended settings, which ends up re-enabling all the analytics/rewards/etc.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    What it would take to get them punished again... The edge situation is a mess for sure, and Microsoft seems to have such a perfect understanding of the current judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines without any consequences.
    - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
      Significant market share, which is something they don't currently possess.
    - timeflex 2y ago
      > have such a perfect understanding of the current judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines without any consequences More like they have their hands in creating the current judiciary climate. Kind of hard to file suit against someone who is intertwined with the agencies that would investigate them.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    In Europe, you can now fully remove Edge from Windows 11, and it doesn't come back (or at least hasn't so far). And it's not even hard, you just uninstall it like any other app. They do give some scary prompts, and it does disable all internet-based integrations in the start menu, but that's not even necessarily a bad thing.
ethbr1 2y ago
> If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS... I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS? Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.
- wyre 2y ago
  You’re right, but there is a Safari extension to set Kagi as default search.
  - xiconfjs 2y ago
    Which is still a workound and sometimes buggy - it overwrites an existing search engine. In my case its google. But when I want to use google, I can’t - I have to switch to another browser or deactivate the kagi addon/plugin.
    - philistine 2y ago
      Sounds like a plus.
    - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
      I actually don't want my Kagi plugin to overwrite Google for a different reason: Sometimes the plugin fails to hijack my search, and I really don't want my searches going to Google. So I overwrite DuckDuckGo, so even the fallback is okay.
      - aequitas 2y ago
        And what's more. Where do the requests for autocomplete/suggestions get sent? Because the Kagi plugin works by redirecting the result page. So whilst typing the search question in the address bar of the browser requests are made to autocomplete/suggest the search question. These are still sent to Google (or whichever search engine selected).
- kweingar 2y ago
  That's a very good point. Mobile OS vendors should allow for user-defined search engines the way that desktop browsers do.
o999 2y ago
Antitrust goal is protect competition and prevent monopolies, Safari search and Bing market shares aren't in a position of a monopoly, unlike Google's (~79% of desktop search market share)
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  Which is ironic because this judgement will destroy Firefox (if Firefox doesn't destroy itself, anyway), and probably Chrome, and leave Edge as basically the only mainstream web browser with a "monopoly". The more things change...
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    I think Firefox will live. Maybe Mozilla dies, but somebody will raise funds and pick up the work.
  - o999 2y ago
    Selling off Chrome ≠ Destroying Chrome
    - surajrmal 2y ago
      Do you think it would survive a sale? Could the project be able to survive a huge nose dive in contributors? I only use chrome because I trust Google, who knows if the new owner would be similarly trustworthy in my eyes.
rudedogg 2y ago
You get nagged to do it by the most popular website in the world (google.com) if you're using something else, which might be part of the problem.
- creato 2y ago
  And I get nagged by the operating system in multiple different ways (system dialogs, notifications, opening a new file type, ...) to switch back from Chrome.
  - abirch 2y ago
    It'd be ironic if Google had to sell Chrome to Microsoft due to monopoly reasons.
dfabulich 2y ago
It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default search engine. Safari isn't even available on Windows, and even then, 99% of Safari's revenue is from Google. (Safari was available on Windows from 2007-2012, but it never captured much market share, because Apple was never willing to pay PC makers to make Safari the default.) Here's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market share. The overwhelming majority of users are using their computer's default browser. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... Chrome: 65.55% Edge: 13.9% Safari: 8.69% Firefox: 6.36% Opera: 2.9% FWIW, I don't think it makes any sense at all to sell off Chrome. Google could probably sell off YouTube, AdSense, and Google Cloud, but not Chrome. The only viable business model for a web browser, the one that literally all major browsers use, is to accept money from a search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them the default. Even Kagi makes its own Orion web browser, for exactly this reason. How could Chrome make its owner any money at all if Chrome couldn't accept money from Google to be the default search engine? How could Chrome possibly do what Firefox and Safari can't?
- abirch 2y ago
  I agree with you. Of all the remedies to address Google's "monopoly" this seems to the most bizarre. My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? In the article it said that they'd need approval for any new joint venture, collaboration, or partnership with any company that competes with Google in search or in search text ads. It makes no mention of web browsers.
  - philistine 2y ago
    > My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? I'm not a lawyer, and didn't read the verdict, but your query is very Hacker News. Justice is not code. If Google is forced to divest from Chrome, it of course means it can't turn around and make the Google Dhrome browser. If Google did, they'd be sued for ignoring the verdict.
mtillman 2y ago
They don’t allow any search engine in safari now that apple has become an ad network. This is why there’s a weird workaround for Kagi. The search for pay deals are the priority. For those on Mac devices, Orion is excellent now imo.
- knowriju 2y ago
  But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?
  - xp84 2y ago
    It sounds like they’re also trying to ban Google from paying someone (like Apple) to be default so if they did, Apple might no longer be disincentivized to build their own search engine (or at least do a DuckDuckGo and stick their branding and ads on top of licensed Bing results or something). That would represent more competition. (Although it would probably kill Mozilla too)
MR4D 2y ago
That’s not the issue. The problem is that Google owns both sides of the internet - the browser on your computer and the search engine to find everything. As a result, they control your perception of the internet. If a site doesn’t work, you as the user thinks the site doesn’t work. You don’t think oh, my browser is broken. Also, if you don’t find a site on Google the. To you, it doesn’t exist. As a result, you have to bend your website to satisfy both Google search and Google chrome. That’s why this is an issue. Because of those two things, Google effectively controls the internet, and you as a user or you as a website owner have essentially zero recourse when Google does something that harms you.
- chairhairair 2y ago
  Zero recourse other than using another browser or and/or another search engine. Why bother having a discussion when you use “zero recourse” here. It comes off as totally absurd.
- exodust 2y ago
  > if you don’t find a site on Google, to you, it doesn’t exist What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any website about XYZ?" I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach such a conclusion, in part because Google results tell us "bro, your search returned 480 million results."
  - sweeter 2y ago
    How many people get past the first page? I'd wager a guess its under 3%. It could be 20 results or an infinite amount, it wouldn't make a single bit of difference. It is a fact that google gets to control who and what shows up in a search, and they put paying entries at the top. There are many problems with this. They have also de-listed websites from google search, and are at a high risk of complying with any government request to censor topics. Which, again, is not good for humanity.
dcow 2y ago
The actual issue is that Google pushes Chrome on its properties “this site renders better with Chrome download here” so it’s almost impossible for users to avoid it. Same issue with Edge. Once you switch off of Safari on macOS that’s the last you hear of it. If anything should be illegal it’s using your dominant position in one market to force users into a specific position in an adjacent one. MS got busted for it previously. Google under threat now. Apple has its own issues but it isn’t currently entirely owning a market. If Ape owned the phone market and the only App Store was Apple’s, I think the court would start ruling against Apple. There’s also a clear conflict of interest having the advertising company own the user-agent.
- snailmailman 2y ago
  This is definitely a huge part of it. My grandmother is not tech savy, and ended up with the google app installed on her phone. Because if she types anything into any of the search bars, google puts a big banner for the google app in the results page. She doesn't use safari for searching - she now goes to the google app. Notably - it doesn't advertise chrome there? or maybe she just didn't see those. Most of her internet experience is through either the facebook app or the google app now
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - wuliwong 2y ago
    Wasn't she just searching google via safari anyway? I do find that popup really annoying though.
- wruza 2y ago
  They not only officially own the user-agent which they made sure is the most installed. They are gray cardinals of web standards which they bloated to the point of zero viable competition. And their only opponent lives on their couch.
- ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  Case in point: Google's attempt at casually turning every user into a renter of their own devices via Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity under the false pretense of protecting sites against bots. Google is continuously implementing more and more draconic control of users and their hardware, and they keep using security as the argument. It is now de facto impossible to run an open source build of Android, like LineageOS, without also losing access to a wide range of apps which refuse to run without a hardware attestation from Play Integrity API. Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android.
adastra22 2y ago
Chrome is the default on every non-Apple system in common use. Windows (Edge), Chrome OS, Android…
- surajrmal 2y ago
  Edge is chromium based not chrome based. Google is not the default search engine on edge nor does it have any real control over the edge experience which Microsoft couldn't change itself. ChromeOS is not popular by any means outside of the US education market. Chrome being the default on just Android is hardly a strong case when Android usage in the US is only 56%.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    It depends on what the concern is. when IE6 was the default browser for the vast majority of consumers, it held back web technologies and generated considerable pressure towards MSFT hosting services.
  - jhasse 2y ago
    And on some Android devices it isn't even the default (e.g. Samsung Internet).
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Samsung Internet is also chromium based.
      - surajrmal 2y ago
        But it's not chrome. This is important because things like default search engine are set by the product built on top of chromium. Control over web standards isn't really relevant.
        adastra22 2y ago
        Control over web standards was very relevant to the previous antitrust fight with Microsoft’s over IE6.
eitland 2y ago
In addition to bundling, Google has also been massively pushing it via ads. As far as I know Chrome is the only thing that has been advertised on Googles famously clean "front page" before making a search. That tells me something about how important it has been for them to push it. There's also the way they've used deceptive ads ("download a better browser") to me and many other Firefox users over the years. (No, a browser that leaks my browsing habits to the worlds biggest advertising company while not supporting vertical tabs a decade after it entered the market certainly isn't best for me.)
HexPhantom 2y ago
The real question is whether Chrome's dominance comes from unfair practices (bundling, aggressive prompts, discouraging competition, etc.) or simply being a product people want to use.
- leetnewb 2y ago
  I don't think those are either/or scenarios.
wazoox 2y ago
That's not how it works. As Google is the default search engine for most browsers (Safari, Firefox), as soon as you hit Google it begs you to use Chrome instead of whatever you're using right now. You don't have to search for Chrome, Google nags you until you switch to it, or switch to another search engine.
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Chrome had been on the biggest and most VIP billboard on the planet: https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-our-future-as-developers?r=28tjlb&selection=466e2139-1e1c-4d20-a1fe-6619ce7f1b5e&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-ou... Nobody can get it except chrome.
- Naru41 2y ago
  Yup, I don't understand why Google would sponsor McLaren F1 team. They've already done a better promoting Chrome.
kortilla 2y ago
The issue is that you don’t need to search for chrome. Google tried to force it down your throat when you visit their sites using any other browser
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thayne 2y ago
Google uses their dominant market position in search, email, video hosting (youtube) etc. to promote their browser. Such sites have had a banner telling you they are best viewed with chrome if you use a different browser, and are optimized to work best on chrome.
crazygringo 2y ago
I wish I could upvote this a million times. It's a massive cognitive dissonance that you're right -- it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people just want to argue that Google is bad/too big/anticompetitive, and will use whatever argument is easiest to do so, even if they flat-out contradict each other. The actual reality is that most people do change defaults quite easily when they perceive a benefit, so it's incredibly difficult to make the argument that defaults are anticompetitive. Chrome proves this. At the same time, some people aren't aware and will stick to a default, and the search market is so big that it's still worth $$$ for Google to pay Apple for the search default. The search deal proves this. On these points, there's zero anticompetitive behavior. But if there's an anticompetitive angle regarding search, it's that in effect, Google is essentially paying Apple not to develop its own search engine. But that's basically an impossible legal argument to make. Nobody can force Apple to compete in search, and if it doesn't want to and would prefer to take Google's money, that's its free choice.
kzrdude 2y ago
If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the side asking you to download Chrome.
- bsza 2y ago
  And after you do, there will be another one to make it the default browser. Number of clicks might be the same in both user stories, but the second one has a lot more hand-holding.
pjerem 2y ago
> 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. As long as you don’t want a search engine that is not on the Apple’s authored list.
bluefirebrand 2y ago
> So many users do this that people conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage Because Chrome is the default on android phones and the easiest way to sync saved passwords between your android and your desktop/laptop is to use chrome in both places Chrome having such a huge market share on mobile does add pressure for users to adopt it on Desktops and Laptops too
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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.
  - kaonwarb 2y ago
    > The fact that they're working so hard to keep it tells me it's an even better idea to make them sell it. If your goal is nothing deeper than to hurt Google, sure. Otherwise, this logic is far from complete.
- m4rtink 2y ago
  That's the same argument as with Android - its open source, anyone can fork it and change whatever they don't like! And its flawed in the same way - first its not fully open source (IIRC Crhome has some proprietary bits that are not in Chromium, same with Android+Google Play services vs AOSP) but good luck maintaining your fork for any length of time! Google is in full control of both Android and Chromium with all decisions happening behind closed doors with zero leverage for anyone from the outside to influence those decisions. So as with Manifest v3 now and many similarly bad decisions for Android, once Google selects a course, it will be harder and harder over time to keep your changes if you still want the end result to look like what the users will see as Chrome/Android. And I would say with a browser the pressure to update would be even greater & thus its even harder to keep any signifficant custom changes.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  On the one hand you're positing that Chrome can just live on independently from Google. That 's what "anyone can fork" means to me. Forking is not just copying the code, but maintaining the project and keeping it relevant On the other hand you worry that Chrome can't go on without Google, as it currently doesn't bring enough money and needs to be a market abuse tool to justify the costs. In a very real way, I think if the situation is unsolvable letting Chrome die and be born again could be the only long term solution. It would be painful, but we're already bleeding.
  - guywithahat 2y ago
    Sure, but there’s a difference between Brave existing as its own company and the government forcibly coming in and breaking up a company. I think it’s good for the market that some players are fully independent, and others are part of massive conglomerates.
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      You seem to be disagreeing that what Google does is problematic, let alone illegal in the first place ? I can see it as an opinion, but that changes the whole discussion IMHO.
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
So many problems would be solved if the selling of data about people was regulated to a degree that it ceased to be profitable. Many "free" things would go away, but none of those are actually free, the price is just hidden.

braiamp 2y ago

> 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. Most of that advantage comes from an unfair practice, of Google making consumers think that their choice of browser was in someway inferior (which could be true) and thus they should prefer Chrome (which is not true). If Chrome won market dominance using this method, then it becomes an unfair practice. Same thing with Microsoft Edge, Apple's App Store, etc. You can't use your market power in one market to influence another.

spoaceman7777 2y ago
That's just simple advertising though. Nearly every company is selling their product as being superior to some set of competing products, at whatever their price point is.
- mqus 2y ago
  it would be, if chrome would pay for this ad (and other browsers can compete for the spot). But it doesn't (can't?) and that is exactly what is wrong here.
- acdha 2y ago
  Did Chrome pay for the ad placement on Google’s sites? Could Mozilla or Microsoft buy the same spots? Could they pay YouTube to keep the site faster for them than standards-compliant browsers? If the answer to any of those is no, it’s more than simple advertising.
  - buzzerbetrayed 2y ago
    Yes. My biggest gripe with Google is that they prop up unprofitable products with their wildly popular product. It makes competition impossible. YouTube is the perfect example. I feel like it should be illegal to use your profits in one industry to run a loss leader in a totally separate industry.

tester756 2y ago

On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled

timeflex 2y ago
On Windows 11, Edge is preinstalled and can't simply be removed either. Furthermore, it constantly bugs you about if you're sure you don't want to enable their recommended settings, which ends up re-enabling all the analytics/rewards/etc.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  What it would take to get them punished again... The edge situation is a mess for sure, and Microsoft seems to have such a perfect understanding of the current judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines without any consequences.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    Significant market share, which is something they don't currently possess.
  - timeflex 2y ago
    > have such a perfect understanding of the current judiciary climate that they can't dance around the lines without any consequences More like they have their hands in creating the current judiciary climate. Kind of hard to file suit against someone who is intertwined with the agencies that would investigate them.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  In Europe, you can now fully remove Edge from Windows 11, and it doesn't come back (or at least hasn't so far). And it's not even hard, you just uninstall it like any other app. They do give some scary prompts, and it does disable all internet-based integrations in the start menu, but that's not even necessarily a bad thing.

ethbr1 2y ago

> If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS... I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS? Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.

wyre 2y ago
You’re right, but there is a Safari extension to set Kagi as default search.
- xiconfjs 2y ago
  Which is still a workound and sometimes buggy - it overwrites an existing search engine. In my case its google. But when I want to use google, I can’t - I have to switch to another browser or deactivate the kagi addon/plugin.
  - philistine 2y ago
    Sounds like a plus.
  - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
    I actually don't want my Kagi plugin to overwrite Google for a different reason: Sometimes the plugin fails to hijack my search, and I really don't want my searches going to Google. So I overwrite DuckDuckGo, so even the fallback is okay.
    - aequitas 2y ago
      And what's more. Where do the requests for autocomplete/suggestions get sent? Because the Kagi plugin works by redirecting the result page. So whilst typing the search question in the address bar of the browser requests are made to autocomplete/suggest the search question. These are still sent to Google (or whichever search engine selected).
kweingar 2y ago
That's a very good point. Mobile OS vendors should allow for user-defined search engines the way that desktop browsers do.

o999 2y ago

Antitrust goal is protect competition and prevent monopolies, Safari search and Bing market shares aren't in a position of a monopoly, unlike Google's (~79% of desktop search market share)

Ferret7446 2y ago
Which is ironic because this judgement will destroy Firefox (if Firefox doesn't destroy itself, anyway), and probably Chrome, and leave Edge as basically the only mainstream web browser with a "monopoly". The more things change...
- notpushkin 2y ago
  I think Firefox will live. Maybe Mozilla dies, but somebody will raise funds and pick up the work.
- o999 2y ago
  Selling off Chrome ≠ Destroying Chrome
  - surajrmal 2y ago
    Do you think it would survive a sale? Could the project be able to survive a huge nose dive in contributors? I only use chrome because I trust Google, who knows if the new owner would be similarly trustworthy in my eyes.

rudedogg 2y ago

You get nagged to do it by the most popular website in the world (google.com) if you're using something else, which might be part of the problem.

creato 2y ago
And I get nagged by the operating system in multiple different ways (system dialogs, notifications, opening a new file type, ...) to switch back from Chrome.
- abirch 2y ago
  It'd be ironic if Google had to sell Chrome to Microsoft due to monopoly reasons.

dfabulich 2y ago

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default search engine. Safari isn't even available on Windows, and even then, 99% of Safari's revenue is from Google. (Safari was available on Windows from 2007-2012, but it never captured much market share, because Apple was never willing to pay PC makers to make Safari the default.) Here's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market share. The overwhelming majority of users are using their computer's default browser. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl... Chrome: 65.55% Edge: 13.9% Safari: 8.69% Firefox: 6.36% Opera: 2.9% FWIW, I don't think it makes any sense at all to sell off Chrome. Google could probably sell off YouTube, AdSense, and Google Cloud, but not Chrome. The only viable business model for a web browser, the one that literally all major browsers use, is to accept money from a search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them the default. Even Kagi makes its own Orion web browser, for exactly this reason. How could Chrome make its owner any money at all if Chrome couldn't accept money from Google to be the default search engine? How could Chrome possibly do what Firefox and Safari can't?

abirch 2y ago
I agree with you. Of all the remedies to address Google's "monopoly" this seems to the most bizarre. My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? In the article it said that they'd need approval for any new joint venture, collaboration, or partnership with any company that competes with Google in search or in search text ads. It makes no mention of web browsers.
- philistine 2y ago
  > My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? I'm not a lawyer, and didn't read the verdict, but your query is very Hacker News. Justice is not code. If Google is forced to divest from Chrome, it of course means it can't turn around and make the Google Dhrome browser. If Google did, they'd be sued for ignoring the verdict.

mtillman 2y ago

They don’t allow any search engine in safari now that apple has become an ad network. This is why there’s a weird workaround for Kagi. The search for pay deals are the priority. For those on Mac devices, Orion is excellent now imo.

knowriju 2y ago
But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?
- xp84 2y ago
  It sounds like they’re also trying to ban Google from paying someone (like Apple) to be default so if they did, Apple might no longer be disincentivized to build their own search engine (or at least do a DuckDuckGo and stick their branding and ads on top of licensed Bing results or something). That would represent more competition. (Although it would probably kill Mozilla too)

MR4D 2y ago

That’s not the issue. The problem is that Google owns both sides of the internet - the browser on your computer and the search engine to find everything. As a result, they control your perception of the internet. If a site doesn’t work, you as the user thinks the site doesn’t work. You don’t think oh, my browser is broken. Also, if you don’t find a site on Google the. To you, it doesn’t exist. As a result, you have to bend your website to satisfy both Google search and Google chrome. That’s why this is an issue. Because of those two things, Google effectively controls the internet, and you as a user or you as a website owner have essentially zero recourse when Google does something that harms you.

chairhairair 2y ago
Zero recourse other than using another browser or and/or another search engine. Why bother having a discussion when you use “zero recourse” here. It comes off as totally absurd.
exodust 2y ago
> if you don’t find a site on Google, to you, it doesn’t exist What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any website about XYZ?" I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach such a conclusion, in part because Google results tell us "bro, your search returned 480 million results."
- sweeter 2y ago
  How many people get past the first page? I'd wager a guess its under 3%. It could be 20 results or an infinite amount, it wouldn't make a single bit of difference. It is a fact that google gets to control who and what shows up in a search, and they put paying entries at the top. There are many problems with this. They have also de-listed websites from google search, and are at a high risk of complying with any government request to censor topics. Which, again, is not good for humanity.

dcow 2y ago

The actual issue is that Google pushes Chrome on its properties “this site renders better with Chrome download here” so it’s almost impossible for users to avoid it. Same issue with Edge. Once you switch off of Safari on macOS that’s the last you hear of it. If anything should be illegal it’s using your dominant position in one market to force users into a specific position in an adjacent one. MS got busted for it previously. Google under threat now. Apple has its own issues but it isn’t currently entirely owning a market. If Ape owned the phone market and the only App Store was Apple’s, I think the court would start ruling against Apple. There’s also a clear conflict of interest having the advertising company own the user-agent.

snailmailman 2y ago
This is definitely a huge part of it. My grandmother is not tech savy, and ended up with the google app installed on her phone. Because if she types anything into any of the search bars, google puts a big banner for the google app in the results page. She doesn't use safari for searching - she now goes to the google app. Notably - it doesn't advertise chrome there? or maybe she just didn't see those. Most of her internet experience is through either the facebook app or the google app now
- deleted 2y ago
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- wuliwong 2y ago
  Wasn't she just searching google via safari anyway? I do find that popup really annoying though.
wruza 2y ago
They not only officially own the user-agent which they made sure is the most installed. They are gray cardinals of web standards which they bloated to the point of zero viable competition. And their only opponent lives on their couch.
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
Case in point: Google's attempt at casually turning every user into a renter of their own devices via Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity under the false pretense of protecting sites against bots. Google is continuously implementing more and more draconic control of users and their hardware, and they keep using security as the argument. It is now de facto impossible to run an open source build of Android, like LineageOS, without also losing access to a wide range of apps which refuse to run without a hardware attestation from Play Integrity API. Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android.

adastra22 2y ago

Chrome is the default on every non-Apple system in common use. Windows (Edge), Chrome OS, Android…

surajrmal 2y ago
Edge is chromium based not chrome based. Google is not the default search engine on edge nor does it have any real control over the edge experience which Microsoft couldn't change itself. ChromeOS is not popular by any means outside of the US education market. Chrome being the default on just Android is hardly a strong case when Android usage in the US is only 56%.
- adastra22 2y ago
  It depends on what the concern is. when IE6 was the default browser for the vast majority of consumers, it held back web technologies and generated considerable pressure towards MSFT hosting services.
- jhasse 2y ago
  And on some Android devices it isn't even the default (e.g. Samsung Internet).
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Samsung Internet is also chromium based.
    - surajrmal 2y ago
      But it's not chrome. This is important because things like default search engine are set by the product built on top of chromium. Control over web standards isn't really relevant.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        Control over web standards was very relevant to the previous antitrust fight with Microsoft’s over IE6.

eitland 2y ago

In addition to bundling, Google has also been massively pushing it via ads. As far as I know Chrome is the only thing that has been advertised on Googles famously clean "front page" before making a search. That tells me something about how important it has been for them to push it. There's also the way they've used deceptive ads ("download a better browser") to me and many other Firefox users over the years. (No, a browser that leaks my browsing habits to the worlds biggest advertising company while not supporting vertical tabs a decade after it entered the market certainly isn't best for me.)

HexPhantom 2y ago

The real question is whether Chrome's dominance comes from unfair practices (bundling, aggressive prompts, discouraging competition, etc.) or simply being a product people want to use.

leetnewb 2y ago
I don't think those are either/or scenarios.

wazoox 2y ago

That's not how it works. As Google is the default search engine for most browsers (Safari, Firefox), as soon as you hit Google it begs you to use Chrome instead of whatever you're using right now. You don't have to search for Chrome, Google nags you until you switch to it, or switch to another search engine.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

Chrome had been on the biggest and most VIP billboard on the planet: https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-our-future-as-developers?r=28tjlb&selection=466e2139-1e1c-4d20-a1fe-6619ce7f1b5e&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-ou... Nobody can get it except chrome.

Naru41 2y ago
Yup, I don't understand why Google would sponsor McLaren F1 team. They've already done a better promoting Chrome.

kortilla 2y ago

The issue is that you don’t need to search for chrome. Google tried to force it down your throat when you visit their sites using any other browser

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thayne 2y ago

Google uses their dominant market position in search, email, video hosting (youtube) etc. to promote their browser. Such sites have had a banner telling you they are best viewed with chrome if you use a different browser, and are optimized to work best on chrome.

crazygringo 2y ago

I wish I could upvote this a million times. It's a massive cognitive dissonance that you're right -- it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people just want to argue that Google is bad/too big/anticompetitive, and will use whatever argument is easiest to do so, even if they flat-out contradict each other. The actual reality is that most people do change defaults quite easily when they perceive a benefit, so it's incredibly difficult to make the argument that defaults are anticompetitive. Chrome proves this. At the same time, some people aren't aware and will stick to a default, and the search market is so big that it's still worth $$$ for Google to pay Apple for the search default. The search deal proves this. On these points, there's zero anticompetitive behavior. But if there's an anticompetitive angle regarding search, it's that in effect, Google is essentially paying Apple not to develop its own search engine. But that's basically an impossible legal argument to make. Nobody can force Apple to compete in search, and if it doesn't want to and would prefer to take Google's money, that's its free choice.

kzrdude 2y ago

If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the side asking you to download Chrome.

bsza 2y ago
And after you do, there will be another one to make it the default browser. Number of clicks might be the same in both user stories, but the second one has a lot more hand-holding.

pjerem 2y ago

> 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. As long as you don’t want a search engine that is not on the Apple’s authored list.

bluefirebrand 2y ago

> So many users do this that people conclude Chrome has an unfair advantage Because Chrome is the default on android phones and the easiest way to sync saved passwords between your android and your desktop/laptop is to use chrome in both places Chrome having such a huge market share on mobile does add pressure for users to adopt it on Desktops and Laptops too

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