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Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit... I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story ab
by bearjaws 2y ago
Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit...
I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story about improving privacy, a joke coming from Google. Then the excuse was "well it improves performance", which they could easily do by marking extensions as low performance.
If Google wanted to improve this they have an entire search engine where they could re-rank sites based on privacy and performance.
It was never about improving peoples web experience.
- fpg69 2y ago[flagged]
- colordrops 2y agoPeople have come to accept dishonesty and sociopathy from corporations as normal and even acceptable unfortunately.
- iAMkenough 2y agoI view it as a symptom of the broader effort to villify the fourth estate and condition people to act(vote) on their emotions rather than a rational look at verifiable facts.
- fpg69 2y agoConsider also that some people just like it.
- ta1243 2y agoNearly 20 years of attacks, from both the left and the right, across the anglosphere.
- DrillShopper 2y agoIt goes back waaaaaaay further than 20 years. The most recent case before this was nearly 40 years ago under Reagan, and he certainly wasn't the first president guilty of it.
- ta1243 2y agoThis isn't a Trump thing. The "Main Stream Media" rhetoric really started with the teaparty stuff, powered by the internet, and championed both the right (tea party in america, faragists in the UK) and left (corbynistas in the uk, AOC types I assume in the states)
- DrillShopper 2y ago> This isn't a Trump thing. I never said it was?
- keybored 2y agoVillifying normal people is more nefarious. But who told you that there is a Fourth Estate? Was it the very “Fourth Estate”?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jstummbillig 2y agoThey had the market position and option to do that for years now. "Told you so" whenever a patterns matches, and ignoring the times when it does not instead of providing a good model that encompasses both, is a fairly lame way to reason about the world.
- smt88 2y ago"They didn't immediately abuse their market power!" Great. Very few companies do. What difference does it make? We don't give bankrobbers credit for all the days they could've robbed a bank but didn't.
- zanellato19 2y agoThe position is always, Google's position is so strong they can do whatever they want even if it isn't beneficial to users, this confirms that. I'm not sure the "they could have abused this sooner" defense is a good one.
- glenstein 2y agoNot only not a good defense, but practically indecipherable. What scale of abuse couldn't be excused by this? I'm not sure I even understand what the notion of abuse means to a person who thinks it could be excused by such a logic. It seems to completely lose track of the face value significance of any individual instance of abuse because it gets lost in the comparative equation to hypothetical worst harms. It also confusingly treats restraint as though X amount of restraint can then be cashed in for a certain amount of harm, rather than something that's supposed to happen by default under good stewardship. And it shifts the whole question to whether or not that position is being abused when I think the criticisms are more fundamental about the fact that they shouldn't be in the position to have or not have that leverage in the first place. So that, long and short, would be my detox from the assumptions at play here.
- jstummbillig 2y agoThe point is, that always looking for abuse is maybe not the right model to explain what is really going on.
- TZubiri 2y ago"Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit..." That's some fatalistic wording. How about: Company that publishes a free product and business model relies on ads, stops distributing app that piggybacks on their free product while circumventing ads.
- klabb3 2y agoAlso true. But it’s a charitable way of putting a fundamentally broken contract on the open web since it was invented: you are in control of your browser. If you want reading mode, large text, anti-fingerprinting, disable autoplaying video, heck even banning popups, the browser is your tool and does what you tell it to. If Google or any other company comes between you and your browser then one part of the open web is discarded. I think extensions are gonna get nerfed even more in the future, for whatever reason large commercial interests have.
- glenstein 2y agoRight. I think people were alert to these possibilities long before the actual stuff happened with Manifest V3. And it shouldn't take waiting until specific examples happen to understand the incentives and the possibilities that could ripen at some future date. And just to throw in my little side hobby horse on this conversation, it's what I find personally frustrating about conversations with people who think that Brave counts as an alternative. Being attached at the hip to the Chromium project is a ground level commitment to a long-term vulnerability, and it means that similar circumstances could "ripen" at some future date as the family of Chromium browsers become dependent on an increasingly vast foundation of code and web standards. To me, the combination of that capability and the incentive should be enough to be treated as a complete argument which disqualifies Chromium derived browsers from counting as alternatives.
- TZubiri 2y agoSure. You are free to modify your browser. But chrome is free to choose not to distribute that plugin. If you want you can download it elsewhere.
- whalesalad 2y ago100% agree with you. Unfortunately Chrome is damn near a requirement if you are interacting with the Google Cloud console. Try to use BigQuery studio in any other browser and you are in for a world of hurt. Have we seen this movie before?
- dewey 2y agoExactly the reason why I use https://choosy.app https://choosy.app to always redirect everything Google Cloud to Chrome, but everything else to Firefox. That way if I click on some random GCP link in Slack it opens the link in Chrome, but everything else stays in Firefox. I don't need ad blocking for GCP so that works fine. Sucks, but better than using Chrome full time.
- wintermutestwin 2y agoThat's a useful app for people who use different browsers for different tasks -thanks!
- efreak 2y agoI need this for Android pretty badly. I currently just don't set a default, and often use urlcheck in the middle to edit the URL if necessary, then pick my browser. I would love an app that automated this after the first use. I've submitted feedback to multiple apps that are halfway there, but none have seemed interested in getting the rest of the way there. UrlCheck is currently the closest, it has single buttons to remove tracking parameters and paths like landing pages, and I think it remembers the browser based on domain, but it doesn't have a list of changeable per-domain settings, won't open it automatically, and doesn't show a launcher-style grid (it uses a scrolling list that has to be opened manually). Google doesn't make things easier either, since apps can no longer be inserted as a chooser, and setting a chooser app as default breaks things. For various functionality, there's also NeoLinker, UntrackMe, Intent Intercept, unalix, LinkSheet, and Open Link With. I believe Lynket browser, which uses the custom tab protocol, also has some basic rules-based choosing but it only works with two browsers and the rules are based on the app making the request. It looks like LinkSheet added many of the settings I'm looking for at some point, so I'll be trying that out.
- sneak 2y agoThe issue I have is not that they did it; it’s that they lied about why. Chrome is their project, they should be free to do whatever they want with it. People can use a different browser if they wish (I do). This whole “better for users” bullshit is why I don’t respect Google as a company. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining.
- zanellato19 2y agoTheir engineers genuinely believe that shit too, which is just absurd bullshit.
- skotobaza 2y agoDo they really? Or are you assuming?
- hansvm 2y agoI've seen a lot of their engineers here on HN defending Google's position, and very few of the anti-Google crowd here claim to be (x)googlers. That said, I know a number of xooglers (myself included) who don't believe for a moment that this would have gotten off the ground if someone important hadn't opined on the usefulness WRT ad-serving.
- zanellato19 2y agoI have seen engineers defend that position here and on Github, so unless you assume they're lying, I would take them at their word. Of course not all of them do, Google is a big company.
- grumpy_coder 2y agoMore like the willfully blind engineers, disingenuously claim to believe that absurd bullshit. There's not a lot genuine left in that company.
- yard2010 2y agoPerfect time to read again The Gervais Principle! https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
- blockme69 2y agoWell hopefully Google will pay the price for their greed soon enough. https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-chrome-android-could-be-next/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/03/doj-google-must-sell-...
- internetter 2y agoThey won't under the trump admin
- zdragnar 2y agoThe trump admin got this ball rolling way back in 2017.
- internetter 2y agoJust like the TikTok ban they also got the ball rolling on?
- KaoruAoiShiho 2y agoThe TikTok ban is still happening, some trump donator will end up owning majority of tiktok.
- HideousKojima 2y agoFunny you should mention that: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/10/trump-tiktok-sale https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/10/trump-tik... Yes, Tik Tok still needs to divest ownership or be banned in the US
- ta1243 2y agoI do hope that other countries ban american saas products which are not majority owned by that country.
- arwhatever 2y ago"Where there's a will, there's a way."
- ehecatl42 2y agoEmacs Web Wowser for the most part, for me, and it basically works... except when it fucking does not. The modern web, as we all know, is all kinds of shit. Anybody here compile Firefox recently?
- 6SixTy 2y agoGentoo user here: all the time. Worst part is that Firefox depends on NodeJS which takes a good day to compile on my 2c/4t 3250U.
- forty 2y agoSo actually even Firefox depends on V8...
- fp64 2y agoWhat’s wrong with V8? Had only pleasant interactions with it so far (maybe compiling takes long, can’t tell, whole webkit is a nightmare in that regard)
- forty 2y agoOh it's perfectly fine, but Firefox was kind of the only illusion that the web does not rely on a single implementation, so discovering that even that depends on V8 is kind of funny :)
- jcranmer 2y agoThe NodeJS dependency is purely for running some tests. You shouldn't need it to actually build Firefox.
- mid-kid 2y agoIf that was the case I'm sure someone would've turned it into a test-only dependency in gentoo.
- 2y ago
- gruez 2y ago>Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit... Doesn't Safari have the same restriction, also ostensibly for "security/privacy" reasons? The only difference is that Apple doesn't have a web advertising presence, so you can't make the accusation that they're "abuse its market position to their own benefit".
- AstralSerenity 2y agoFirefox and its derivatives remain the only true alternative at this point.
- fyrabanks 2y agoYou can still install uBlock Origin in Brave, assuming you don't mind the crypto stuff and how they pay it out (or, rather don't) to site owners. Even Firefox feels a little weird now with the advent of Mozilla Advertising. Very much a lesser of all evils situation.
- AstralSerenity 2y agoYou can, but ultimately Brave is downstream of Chrome and their stated intention of supporting Manifest V2 "for as long as [they're] able" doesn't inspire as much confidence. Firefox is also the only open alternative to Chromium at the moment, so I prefer to endorse it instead.
- ray023 2y agoBrave has its own Rust based Adblocker BUILD IN. That is at the very core of the Browser, uses the exact same filter lists uBlock Origin and all the other use. There is no point in using uBlock origin in Brave at all. I have been using Brave for years now and the adblocker pretty much like uBlock. Never looked back. I think it even inspired by uBlock but the fact they can even integrate it tighter with Chromium makes more then than an extension written in JS.
- kccqzy 2y ago[flagged]
- gruez 2y ago>If you think improving privacy is a joke, go look at how easily extensions can steal your browsing history and steal your passwords. uBlock Origin is the good one, but for every good one there are malicious ad blockers that do far worse things. Except removing support for webRequestBlocking in manifest v3 doesn't really improve security. Nearly every extension require the "access your data for all sites" permission. The infamous Honey extension works just fine with manifest v3, for instance.
- kccqzy 2y agoIt does. I just don't install any extension that requires access to my data on all sites.
- gruez 2y agoThat would also mean you avoid any extension that would have been able to (ab)use webRequestBlocking, so removing it wouldn't have increased security.
- kccqzy 2y agoAd blocking is a must. In a world without MV3, you choose between ad infested sites or extensions with have the potential to harm your privacy. Now you don't. It's a win for normal users, at the expense of power users for whom declarative request blocking does not suffice. There are plenty of other reasons to hate Google. This isn't one of them. Sacrificing the "power" desired by couple thousand HN users in return for the safety of couple millions of normal users is the right thing to do. Of course HN users will disagree; let's just see how badly this post will be downvoted. Downvotes won't change my opinion.
- voytec 2y ago> It was never about improving peoples web experience. I kinda appreciate that you still apply some benefit of the doubt.
- yard2010 2y agoIt's funny how this behavior resembles the Chinese Party.
- labster 2y agoThe CCP is much better organized with its “Do nothing. Win.” strategy. If Trump did nothing as well as they do, America would still be a superpower.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoI'm surprised anyone expected anything different. Why would an ad company support something that assaults its main source of profit?
- johnsillings 2y ago> I migrated off Chrome as soon as this BS story about improving privacy What are you using instead?
- sfblah 2y agoThis is the most important question. What's the best practice? Firefox? Something else?
- ethan_smith 2y agoIf you're looking to move away from Chrome, Firefox + uBlock Origin is still your best bet IMO. Mozilla's committed to keeping the robust ad-blocking capabilities alive despite Google's changes. Brave is decent too if you want something Chromium-based but more privacy-focused (comes with minor controversies). Safari works well if you're in the Apple ecosystem. I actually run a dual-browser setup these days - Firefox for most browsing, and only fire up Brave for those annoying sites that Google has mysteriously "optimized" to run poorly elsewhere. Not ideal but gets the job done!
- freeamz 2y agoLibrewolf is also pretty good, better privacy than Firefox. If you using firefox, might as well just use that instead.
- noisy_boy 2y agoLibrewolf
- nickthegreek 2y agoI’m happy with Zen.
- derwiki 2y agoUngoogled Chromium!
- andrei_says_ 2y agoIt is the gaslighting that is so annoying and insulting. An entity of such power and reach resorting to manipulation is disconcerting. Everyone will call them on it. Why not be straight with their intentions? An advertising company optimizing their technology to better support their business while improving security.
- justmarc 2y agoImproving the security of their income stream :)
- HumblyTossed 2y agoPlease don't forget the part developers played in this by enabling Chrome/Google to become so very dominant.
- culi 2y agoAnd developers can play a part in reversing that. It seems like it might already be happening: | month | Chrome | Firefox | Safari | | -- | -- | -- | -- | | Jan '25 | -1.29 | +0.07 | +0.84 | | Feb '25 | -0.75 | +0.08 | +0.03 | Note: Edge is also gaining. They use Chromium but their stance on Manifest v3 is unclear to me. So far they don't seem to have any plans to deprecate v2 support I know these numbers seem tiny, but if these trends were to continue, Chrome could be under 50% marketshare by June 2026 and overtaken by the end of 2027
- ta1243 2y ago> but if these trends were to continue Disco Stu has something to say about that
- derwiki 2y agoHey, Disco Stu doesn’t advertise
- dave7 2y agoMicrosoft intend to deprecate V2 and move fully to V3 basically as soon as they can, pretty much in lockstep with Google: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions-chromium/developer-guide/manifest-v3 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions-...
- culi 2y agoThanks for the link. Definitely sad to hear
- lern_too_spel 2y agoSafari is even worse at ad blocking, basically ManifestV3 with fewer rules, so this is moving in the wrong direction.
- spankalee 2y agoThere was a time in Chrome when it didn't support extensions at all. If Google had release an extension API like manifest v3 then, would that have been abuse of market position? The reason why Chrome waited for so long to add extensions was the danger they posed to users. I was at Google when Sergey often worried about what extensions would do to non technical and older users who get tricked into installing them, then I saw first hand that danger with my own grandparents. They had extensions intercepting every network request, redirecting certain sites to fake sites, and injecting code into pages. It was horrifying, and they were lucky that they didn't have significant money or identity theft.
- jayd16 2y agoIt wouldn't have been a bait and switch then.
- spankalee 2y agoSo it's impossible for a company to make a mistake and rectify it? If they settle on the same approach as their major competitor, it's bait and switch?
- dowager_dan99 2y agoit seems overly charitable to give Google, THE advertising company, the benefit of the doubt here when the biggest impact is it will now show way more advertising.
- rurp 2y agoIf it's really that big of a problem this can be addressed by locking extensions by default and hiding the on switch where casual users won't look. But come on, this is obviously a pretext. You expect people to believe that the most prolific adertising and surveilance company in history is crippling the ability to block ads and trackers for altruistic reasons?!
- spankalee 2y ago
- yanis_t 2y agoA company optimises for profit. Real shocker.
- timmytokyo 2y agos/company/monopoly/
- willywanker 2y agoWrong. Every company exists to be profitable; how ethically they go about it is a different topic. Companies aren't charities.
- mihaaly 2y agoPeople's web experience is in degradation for long time. No point using 99% of the web due to the hostile, fraudolent, abusive approaches on top of the hollow (yeh, very very gentle world for the thing what it is) content. No point searching for advice, products, job, as crap is poured at you while your actions are registered, your profile is sold, just to pour dedicated crap on you by the highest bidder. I have mail and 5 (7 with weather) pages I check regularly, and that's it. That's my online life. More like a hermit goes into town for tools and cans kind of digital solitary. Clicking on links only after reconsidering five times, if I am really interested in the possible content. Mostly here. So, so far away from the extremely curious me 20 or so years ago spending hours to the limit of my thirst and bladder, navigating all that is out there. It is very sad what humanity made out of the Internet. It does not even hurt anymore. It is numb blob where the feeling about the rich common knowledge source this was and could have been should be.
- bambax 2y agoI don't think killing actual, effective ad-blocking was the sole motivation of moving to Manifest V3, but it was certainly a nice side effect that was hard to resist.
- spearman 2y agoPretty sure they do rank sites based on performance: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-ex...
- ethan_smith 2y agoBeen using uBlock Origin for so long I forgot what the raw internet actually looks like. Spent 3 minutes without an ad blocker last week when setting up a new machine and nearly lost my mind. Google knows exactly what they're taking away from us - a usable web. They've just decided that our sanity is less valuable than their ad revenue. https://programmerhumor.io/programming-memes/browsing-without-adblock/ https://programmerhumor.io/programming-memes/browsing-withou... I feel really bad for less tech-savvy users who'll be stuck with this nightmare version of the internet.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y agoYou linked to a crappy copy of an XKCD comic. Here's the orginal. https://xkcd.com/624/ https://xkcd.com/624/
- eru 2y agoThanks for the link to the original. Well the crappy copy does come with some extra text. (No judgement from me on whether the extra text improves the comic here; just that someone might think it does, and there's no arguing about taste.) It's also interesting to see that XKCD itself explicitly supports eg hotlinking, and the license makes putting it into your own crappy creations rather easy. (Though I think the example linked to fails the 'attribution' requirement.)
- rogual 2y agoThey even edited the image to insert their own name.
- justsid 2y agoWhat boggles my mind is the fact that surely people working for Google also use Chrome. Are they not up in arms internally because of how awful the web is without ad blocker? I have the same experience as you, every time I set up a new machine or watch friends/relatives browse the web, it just blows my mind how bad the unfiltered internet is.
- tux 2y agoLet’s hope it still works at least on ungoogled chromium with manual setup. As soon as this stops working i’m back to only using firefox for good.
- jjav 2y ago> Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit... What makes me sad is that if we go back a handful of years here in HN comments, there were tons of posts assuredly stating google would never do anything like this. Even though it should have been obvious that a company who lives and dies by ad revenue will of course do everything to protect ad revenue and block users freedom.
- JodieBenitez 2y ago> Nobody could have possibly seen it coming that Google would abuse its market position to their own benefit... Thanks, now I have coffee on my keyboard.