Comment by fxtentacle

3 years ago

I'd expect the government to step in because that is a highly anti-competitive distortion of the market. Microsoft once got punished pretty badly for including a free Internet Explorer with Windows, to the detriment of Netscape. I'm not sure Google pushing a free browser to the detriment of Mozilla is much different.

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fxtentacle

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hooby  3 years ago

Not the best example though, as Windows these days is pushing Edge as anti-competitively as ever.

Windows now comes with three built in browsers: IE, Edge(Blink), Edge(Webkit) - none of which can be uninstalled.

Every other update users will bugged about switching to Edge again (exact amount varies by version and locale).

System apps will ignore default browser settings and use Edge to open all links (except in the EU they very recently went back to using the default browser again).

Browser-choice dialogue is gone, instead Edge will pester you if try to use it to download another browser.

Point being, all those punishments did absolutely nothing to stop or curb the anti-competitive behavior.

  • fxtentacle  3 years ago

    “Not the best example though, as Windows these days is pushing Edge as anti-competitively as ever.“

    I'd say that makes it an excellent example because it clearly shows that government enforcement of those rules used to have teeth. But since lost them.