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Comment by graycat

6 days ago

> the most likely dominant player right now cares very much to not give you any privacy.

I've installed a recent version of Chrome, but likely your point is some of why I've never let that program even execute.

Firefox seems to do well on privacy. Maybe that's why I use it and some of why it gets funded!! And for privacy I do use the proxy Firefox offers.

Some people want privacy. If they begin to sense that Chrome is a real threat to privacy, people will look for alternatives. Then some people, maybe with venture funding will get one of the recent copies of the Chrome source code, modify it, and offer a browser with good privacy, maybe charge $50 for it. Okay, problem solved?

Then hopefully privacy will be as accepted as 120 volt, 60 Hz AC home electrical power. All the homes want that power because all the appliences use it because all the homes use it.

Google makes their money from people arriving for the Google search service, maps, etc. From Web crawling, or whatever is done now, for their search service, Google is also a HUGE user of the Internet. Then it is very much in Google's interest to have the many millions of Web sites, HTTP, HTTPS, TLS (Transport Layer Security), DNS (Domain Name System), HTML, JavaScript, etc. all very standard: Google has to be able to read those millions of Web sites so wants them all to be standard, i.e., without a Tower of Bable problem.

Or all the Web sites (and programmers) follow the standards because all the Web browsers do (and several billion Web users use those browsers); and all the Web browsers do because many millions of Web sites do.

Maybe some of what Google might do but does not is due to some people noticing that situation and being sure to help Firefox.