Comment by kweingar
1 year ago
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.
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/worl...
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?
> It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser
Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or something?
Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that it embarrasses people who do actually prefer Edge. "Recommending" at every turn that you not switch, having the edge browser itself warn against downloading Chrome, pushing edge into various OS-level browser launches even if it's not your default, and, of course, randomly resetting the browser default on various updates.
edit: at least from this page, it's edge by default on at least some dell machines too, but I haven't owned one in so long I won't say that for sure: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000128257/how-to-ch...
It doesn't seem to be a default on PCs.
I don’t remember chrome being default anywhere. You always needed to open edge to download chrome and I have installed windows numerous times in past.
21 replies →
Before Edge, everyone had to install Chrome because the web wouldn't work with IE. It is still the case that some major sites don't work with Firefox either. Edge is as close to a de-Googled Chrome as you can get to work properly. Unfortunately de-Googling meant re-Microsofting
12 replies →
Wouldn’t it be funny if the aggressive “are you sure you want to leave Edge?!” kind of messages actually made people ton the whole think it was a lower quality product…
If you buy a cheap computer with Windows S it is very hard to get out of the S configuration and in S configuration you can't install Chrome at all or Firefox.
5 replies →
I can confirm Dell's default for Windows devices is Edge. I believe Dell's Ubuntu laptops come with both Firefox and Chrome installed.
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.
> 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.
5 replies →
The only reason Google is trying to take away cookies is because they make you log into Chrome which gives you all their browsing data anyway and probably anything you type. So maybe not having a browser controlled by Google would be good.
Selling might not make business sense for Google or for Chrome, but it makes a ton of sense for the American public. Google is using Chrome to benefit advertisers, data brokers, and surveillance over users. Exhibit: the manifest v2 / Ublock Origin saga. And this is huge because so many other browsers use Chromium or its engine under the hood. Google can also use Chrome to push user-unfriendly web standards or de-facto standards.
Of course, this doesn't appear that related to the DOJ's reasoning.
The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for anybody else to buy Chrome. Bare in mind that 99% of Chrome is the free Chromium open source project, so you're not buying any sort of technological asset. You're just buying a big pre-existing user base, which would be extremely difficult to monetize without making the product much worse, although I'm sure Microsoft or Facebook would be happy to give that a go. It certainly wouldn't make any sense to buy it without a sprawling advertisement business or some major conflicts of interest. But what's the point of selling it to someone else like that?
It's easy to say "just sell it" without thinking about the actual implications, but you're basically talking about destroying it. Maybe that's the point, but we should at least be honest about it.
10 replies →
> Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default.
Have you used a Windows PC lately? It seems like once a week I have to ignore/decline prompts to change my default browser to Edge.
I’m not sure PC makers have any say/control over this behavior.
I think you might be holding it wrong? I've only been asked once, I said no. Quite sternly. It apologised, we laughed about it. Now Edge has no internet access.
2 replies →
Where on the statcounter page does it show that people are using their default browser? You're making a lot of claims about Chrome commonly being the default browser without linking to any evidence of your correction of this "common misconception" that people install chrome manually.
About one in five Windows updates shows a notification along the lines of "Update your browser preferences to secure defaults?", which is code for "Can we bing you mate?"
Every time I visit my parents, I need to de-bing them again
Why bother to "de-bing" their computer?
Cite? I’ve literally never had a PC come with Chrome on it.
Hell, MS makes it super hard to even install Chrome now, including numerous irritating nag messages and ‘are you sure?!?’
I like your analysis, but wonder about this line:
>> The only viable business model for a web browser is to accept money from a search engine (Google, specifically) to be make them the default.
Mostly, it's just that giving away browsers for free as a source of garnering search traffic distorts the market.
According to this maybe somewhat broken website (idk there's a warning that it's broken but it still seems to work) https://www.netmarketshare.com/, Chrome has 65% market share on OS X.
"Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default."
Why would they pay the manufactures when they can just add annoying reminders and make it hard to switch in the OS they ship it with?
> (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.)
I think it must have been bundled with iTunes as I remember family members having Safari installed on Windows computers at the time.
But I think it being available for Windows right when Firefox and then later Chrome started to become popular didn't help - it was just some other browser that no one was recommending.
Since Chrome's engine is used by Edge, Opera, Brave, etc.. Probably the best move is to become a non-profit and have all those organizations chip in.
The main reason even Microsoft gave up and rebased their browser on top of Chrome is because of the breakneck speed at which Google introduces new standards and features to the ecosystem. Having them be forced to slow down might be a good thing for browser diversity and the future of the Internet.
Or maybe because Chromium is pretty good, open-source and there's nearly no upside to reinventing the wheel?
If Mozilla would fork Chromium now and base Firefox on their fork I would switch from Brave. The engine simply technically superior.
> 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.
The only viable business model ... while the incumbent (IE, now Chrome) is allowed to give the product away for free in service of some other predatory agenda.
> but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser.
Unless you have a source for that, that's flat-out wrong. I've never heard of that, I've never seen that, and I can't find any supporting evidence of that.
> Here's StatCounter's estimates of desktop browser market share. The overwhelming majority of users are using their computer's default browser.
That's not what that graph shows. It doesn't show anything about defaults.
>> Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default.
Not only is this not true for lots of manufacturers, but the minute you click on a web link anywhere in windows (help, start menu, etc) it opens in Edge, and Edge cannot be uninstalled on a windows machine.
This is just flat out wrong. Edge is the default browser on ~all new Windows machines, and Safari is the default (obviously) on macOS. If you have data showing the opposite, please provide it.
People go out of their way to install Chrome because it's better than the competition. Just like they used to do for Firefox, back when Firefox was a better browser than the competition.
The main problem with Google anti competition is how chrome is being leveraged to mine user behavior signals for search engine algos. That is the unfair advantage that needs to be killed off
Your source shows the "Market Share Worldwide". I don't see it shows the "Default Browser Worldwide".
AFAIK, in the US, the default for:
- Windows: Edge
- Mac: Safari
- Ubuntu: Firefox
I think the claim that "Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser" needs a clear source.
At this point Microsoft has embedded bing so deeply into windows they don’t care
If spun off, why wouldn’t Chrome then be free to sell its default search provisioning back to Google?
Because the DOJ demands two things. First, Google must sell Chrome to a DOJ approved buyer. And second, Google must not pay anyone for the default search engine spot.
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.
That framing of the issue makes a lot of sense. It might still be a reasonable middle ground if Google doesn't own Chrome itself, or control the proprietary bits or any related backend services, but still maintains leadership of Chromium development.
As a Firefox user, I also don't love the implications of forcing Google to end its default search engine deal with Firefox. If they changed course on that, then a similar deal with the hypothetical non-Google Chrome could be a viable way to maintain something like Chrome's current financial model without giving Google too much control over the web.
On the other hand, one might argue that Google's search business and that sector as a whole are already at a high enough risk right now without the courts throwing another wildcard into the mix. I'm not staking out a position on this one way or another, but I hope whatever decisions they land on are very carefully considered.
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.
> 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."
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.
3 replies →
It might exist, but if you can’t find it on Google via keywords, it might as well not exist.
Does that make sense?
3 replies →
These result counts are known to be fake.
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.
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 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.
> Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android.
Then Apple should need to sell ios.
2 replies →
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
Wasn't she just searching google via safari anyway? I do find that popup really annoying though.
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.
> 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.
That's a very good point. Mobile OS vendors should allow for user-defined search engines the way that desktop browsers do.
I haven’t opened Safari recently but I’m pretty sure Safari in general just doesn’t have user defined search engine lists at all on any platform and never has. There’s ways to hack it with extensions, but otherwise if you want to switch SEs, you can use one on Apple’s list or you switch to a browser with more flexibility on iPhone, Mac or iPad.
Of course since one of the options in Safari is DuckDuckGo, you can also use its extensive list of !bang operators.
In principle I agree, but there needs to be an “old person mode.” The number of times I’ve uninstalled malware on my relatives’ computers is astounding.
3 replies →
> I can set Kagi as the default search engine on iOS? Because last I checked, Apple hardcoded their list of options.
Check again: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi-for-safari/id1622835804
Works perfectly.
This doesn't change the search engine, it attempts to redirect from whatever one is configured in the settings. It's very much an unreliable hack.
3 replies →
As a user of this application, this is not even close to the same thing as having the ability to change the search engine in the browser settings itself. If I need to actually search something on one of the other search engines for reasons then I have to go disable the plugin, or set it to a specific search engine which I am unlikely to use. I am also curious if my typing into the search bar still sends my quick search pre-submit to my search engine selected in the browser unless I remove the pre-fetching. So no, not perfect. And this is not Kagi’s fault that’s just the unfortunate situation Safari leaves them in.
2 replies →
Sounds like an issue between Apple and Kagi?
You’re right, but there is a Safari extension to set Kagi as default search.
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.
3 replies →
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.)
Chrome had been on the biggest and most VIP billboard on the planet:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bitecode/p/web-browsers-and-ou...
Nobody can get it except chrome.
Yup, I don't understand why Google would sponsor McLaren F1 team. They've already done a better promoting Chrome.
If you visit google.com, there will be a question bubble on the side asking you to download Chrome.
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.
On Android Chrome is preinstalled and cannot be uninstalled
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.
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.
2 replies →
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.
2 replies →
Nobody cares about the desktop anymore.
It makes sense why it can't be _removed_... it's required for core OS interaction features such as a known-working login portal framework and probably tons of other 'reuse the rendering engine from the browser to display stuff' portions of the shell and settings pages.
If you wanted to de-google your phone _that_ much it probably requires a custom firmware blob that's shipped with a different browser... if that's even possible / reasonable.
It's not really required. Android comes with a separate webview (that cannot be overridden). Sure it's based on Chromium but that means there should zero reliance on Chrome the product, and those known working login portals can continue working without Chrome.
It's well known that Google requires manufacturers to install their apps and requires it to be uninstallable. This includes Gmail, Google, and others.
3 replies →
Which ones? Samsung internet is the default for Samsung devices (which constitute the majority of Android devices in the west) and most (all?) of the Chinese OEMs have their own browser... The only Android devices I've ever had where the default is Chrome are Pixel devices...
> Samsung internet is the default for Samsung devices (which constitute the majority of Android devices in the west)
I have a Samsung Galaxy S23 and it came with both Chrome and "Internet" which I guess is the Samsung one. I don't remember which was default or if it asked the first time something tried to open a webpage, but I didn't even notice the Samsung one was on here and I'd guess the Chrome brand name wins out for most people if it asks...
I have a samsung phone and although it comes wih the samsung browser, chrome is still the default and cannot be disabled
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.
I don't think those are either/or scenarios.
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.
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.
It'd be ironic if Google had to sell Chrome to Microsoft due to monopoly reasons.
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?
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.
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.
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.
2 replies →
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.
1 reply →
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.
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
But how will Google divesting Chrome solve this ?
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)
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.
> 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.
>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).
Are you sure that the advantage came from marketing? In my mind the advantage was that Chrome really was faster for example due to V8. Also can you explain why the "thus they should prefer Chrome" reasoning is flawed?
Personally, I haven't seen Google act in a way that prevents competition in the browser space (ie. being anticompetitive). If anything, Windows is more anticompetitive because it is closed source, making it much more difficult to create a competing product. All the web specifications are completely free. And Apple is the only vendor that prevents browser competition on their platform, although Windows does give you a popup telling you not install Chrome.[0]
The Google search agreements between Apple and Google seem more likely to be anticompetitive.
[0] Searching for Google Chrome with the default Bing search engine with the default Edge browser gives you this result:
>Promoted by Microsoft
>There's no need to download a new web browser. Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Edge for a fast, secure, and modern web experience that can help save you time and money.
See also Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome - https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-wind...
It's mostly marketing. Google spent lots of money both for external marketing and for Google-property banners that advertise Chrome. There were years you basically couldn't visit a popular website without being told to install Chrome. Then there were billboards and paper ads on top of that.
There were feature differences for sure, but the marketing did a massive amount of work in this case. If people switched for features, all that spending for years wouldn't be necessary.
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.
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.
3 replies →
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.
> 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
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)
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...
I think Firefox will live. Maybe Mozilla dies, but somebody will raise funds and pick up the work.
Selling off Chrome ≠ Destroying Chrome
1 reply →
Chrome is the default on every non-Apple system in common use. Windows (Edge), Chrome OS, Android…
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%.
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.
And on some Android devices it isn't even the default (e.g. Samsung Internet).
3 replies →
Every non-apple system in common use? So linux? I don't think so...
Unless you are counting Android as a Linux system, Linux isn't in common use. Ask the top 5 PC makers how many Linux setups they sell and it's going to be a pretty small number.