I know many people are unsure of how this will affect the browser dynamic and ecosystem, but this is something I've been hoping for since Google started passive aggressively punishing non-Chrome...
I know many people are unsure of how this will affect the browser dynamic and ecosystem, but this is something I've been hoping for since Google started passive aggressively punishing non-Chrome browsers on Google's sites. The path we were on wasn't good for the web long term. Worst case we're back to a different browser monoculutre. Best case we might have proper browser competition again.
One infamous example was YouTube shifting to use a deprecated API* that was only implemented in Chrome, which made performance much worse (5x slower page loads) on other browsers. The linked...
One infamous example was YouTube shifting to use a deprecated API* that was only implemented in Chrome, which made performance much worse (5x slower page loads) on other browsers. The linked article also mentions some examples of other Google services that have blocked Firefox and other browsers in the past.
* Yes, they moved from a completely fine implementation to a deprecated API.
I feel this story is repeated a lot, but often misunderstood. Shadow DOM (the original spec) wasn't deprecated when they moved to it. It was considered an upcoming API. YouTube based their...
Yes, they moved from a completely fine implementation to a deprecated API.
I feel this story is repeated a lot, but often misunderstood. Shadow DOM (the original spec) wasn't deprecated when they moved to it. It was considered an upcoming API. YouTube based their redesign on it, and they implemented a JS shim in unsupported browsers until it was more widely available. The shim ran slower than native code as you'd expect, but it was the result of them trying to support other browsers. It's not as if the move was made to spite them.
It was still a failure, but the lesson to be learned was not to bet on an API before they're fully standardized. That mistake likely cost Google a lot of money as they needed to rebuild the YouTube UI framework once again.
From my understanding, it used Shadow DOM v0 specifically, which was an experimental spec and deprecated at the time of the article*. V1 was in-development at Firefox Nightly and could be turned...
From my understanding, it used Shadow DOM v0 specifically, which was an experimental spec and deprecated at the time of the article*. V1 was in-development at Firefox Nightly and could be turned on with a config.
* I don't recall for sure whether it was deprecated at the time of the redesign, but as you mentioned, it was experimental and should not have been used. Malicious or not, I think it's clear that they design for Chrome as a target platform and give it preferential treatment. They would never adopt an experimental Firefox technology and put a 5x slower placeholder for Chrome.
I'll take a slightly orthogonal view. It isn't inherently anticompetitive to use a JS shim if you believe that an API spec is likely to be standardized in the near-future. Shims (also called...
I'll take a slightly orthogonal view. It isn't inherently anticompetitive to use a JS shim if you believe that an API spec is likely to be standardized in the near-future. Shims (also called polyfills) used to be extremely common on the web, and are specifically meant to improve cross-browser support.
However, I do actually think that Google acted with impropriety. Not by using shadow DOM v0 in the first place, but by extending support for it in Chrome after it was learned that v0 would not be standardized. They kept it in until after YouTube was able to complete another redesign and move off the old API. That seems problematic to me. There should be a complete separation of interests in browser and website development. The Chrome team should never ask "Are any of our products relying on this?" when making those kinds of decisions.
It's a more nuanced complaint, but I feel that was the real faux pas committed during that incident.
The question for me is if they added support for v0 to chrome before or after it was deprecated. If chrome already had added support once it was deprecated, I don’t see any issue with waiting...
The question for me is if they added support for v0 to chrome before or after it was deprecated. If chrome already had added support once it was deprecated, I don’t see any issue with waiting until another YouTube redesign to remove it. If the Chrome team was entirely separate from Google, I think it would still be a logical choice. Since the implementation work was already done, they can either leave it in temporarily or remove it immediately. And if they leave it in temporarily, it improves the experience on one of the most popular websites on the internet. If by some miracle Firefox had implemented v0 and chrome had not, Firefox would absolutely have kept it in until YouTube was no longer using it.
However if the chrome team added v0 after deprecation to support an in progress YouTube rewrite, I am totally with you.
It was certainly added to Chrome before being deprecated. The first release in Chrome was way back in Jan 2013, then unprefixed in April 2014. v1 was standardized in 2016 and added to Chrome in...
It was certainly added to Chrome before being deprecated. The first release in Chrome was way back in Jan 2013, then unprefixed in April 2014. v1 was standardized in 2016 and added to Chrome in the same year. v0 was officially deprecated by Google in 2018, disabled by default in 2019, and finally had its code removed in 2020.
YouTube released the first version on Polymer (built on Shadow DOM) around May 2017, and completed their migration to a v1-based version around 2019.
Note that Shadow DOM is only one aspect of the larger Web Components spec, and it went through some large changes. For example HTML Imports were dropped as Mozilla opposed them. So upgrading Polymer was likely not a simple migration.
not sure if this is the same Youtube issue or another one, but I do recall one slowdown in particular that was solved just by setting one's user agent to Chrome rather than Firefox without...
not sure if this is the same Youtube issue or another one, but I do recall one slowdown in particular that was solved just by setting one's user agent to Chrome rather than Firefox without changing anything else.
One recent controversy looked like that's what was going on but when others dug into it, it looked more like it was YT a/b testing some new anti-adblock strategy. Changing the user agent was just...
One recent controversy looked like that's what was going on but when others dug into it, it looked more like it was YT a/b testing some new anti-adblock strategy. Changing the user agent was just causing them to basically get another roll of the dice. Since it was only tested on a small percentage of users it would more than likely act normal after messing with it.
I know there have been some incidents like that before, but I'm also wondering what people have noticed themselves when using Google websites and apps. Is it pretty much fixed now, or still kinda bad?
I know there have been some incidents like that before, but I'm also wondering what people have noticed themselves when using Google websites and apps. Is it pretty much fixed now, or still kinda bad?
I switched over to Firefox a few years ago and there was a noticeable difference with processing video at one point. Sometimes I would have to pause the video for a few moments before playing...
I switched over to Firefox a few years ago and there was a noticeable difference with processing video at one point. Sometimes I would have to pause the video for a few moments before playing because the video would fail to render leaving only audio and a frozen first image. Still happens from time to time but chrome works flawlessly every time.
Let me preface this by saying I’ve been “de-googled” for a couple of years now (hope this is okay to hear, looking at your background :p). I do keep an installation of de-googled base Chromium,...
Let me preface this by saying I’ve been “de-googled” for a couple of years now (hope this is okay to hear, looking at your background :p). I do keep an installation of de-googled base Chromium, though I rarely need to use it.
From that lens, I’ll list the following:
Websites tell me to install Chrome.
Websites do not work properly in Safari and crucially, not even Firefox.
Chrome cannot do things I would like to do (e.g. limit profiling) – and even if it allows for it or at least exposes the controls, I have browsers which will block much more third- and first-party tracking, spam, and other noise by default, which is what I would want to have installed for elderly relatives. Safe browsing with little upkeep or maintenance.
Google admitting to having and/or desiring to have a (near-)monopoly with Chrome by telling me in a specific ad that “websites will work better with chrome” (This is more of a personal grudge, but still, wtf?)
Not a problem per se, but concerns of a monopoly wrt web standards and who gets to decide what should and shouldn’t be part of them. Having honest, open discussions that are not solely guided by one firm’s short-, medium-, and long-term profit incentives is probably a good idea.
Lastly, and I might shoot myself and my previous arguments in the foot here, but controversially, I don’t actually believe the forced breakup of Chrome from Google will do anything much to help. I believe it was in a recent-ish discussion on Kagi that first brought up this idea of “you need to break up the core of what makes the monopoly, not a symptom (or multiple) of it” – in our case, that would mean the much more difficult task (on both the technical and business level) of breaking up Search, which I’d wager even the numbers would likely confirm to be the “bigger” monopoly (in terms of market share).
Edit: it seems the aforementioned discussion was actually based on a blog post from Kagi which first introduced this idea, at least as far as I’m aware. So we should probably take that “thought experiment” with a grain of salt and consider alternative scenarios and outcomes first. But then again, luckily for us, we are not the regulators involved in having to decide this… and also, given the duration and extensiveness of these investigations, it might be a bit too late to pivot now.
Small add to the third point: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox An ad company with a browser has a perverse incentive to make the latter in service of the former.
There was a whole story few years ago when Opera browser was based on Presto engine (before switching to Chromium). Google simply turns off advanced features on most of the Google sites for Opera,...
There was a whole story few years ago when Opera browser was based on Presto engine (before switching to Chromium). Google simply turns off advanced features on most of the Google sites for Opera, curiously enough if you change user agent string (string that identify browser) it will suddenly start working. Can be bug, but when this happens few times in a row...
I want FireFox to work just as much as any other de-Googler but I recently switched to Vivaldi due to random issues. Just a few issues I've experienced recently over past 2 months: I was unable to...
I want FireFox to work just as much as any other de-Googler but I recently switched to Vivaldi due to random issues.
Just a few issues I've experienced recently over past 2 months:
I was unable to login to Unraid's website entirely to update my CC information. The website was also extremely buggy to the point of non-functionality on FireFox.
My sister was unable to make a hair appointment with JCPenny using FireFox. The site just becomes unresponsive and crashes.
My mother's training videos for her medical license have a bunch of proprietary DRM bundled into them which cannot be played in any browser except Chrome. (not even Chromium)
I helped a cousin setup VIA for a new Keychron keyboard that they got for their birthday. VIA only works in chrome because it uses Chrome's USB Debugging Mode.
before y'all pester me yes, I do change the user agent in FireFox to report as Chrome which fixes most issues, but that is not a silver bullet.
Side Note:
YouTube has never been an issue for me on FireFox (even with uBlock Origin installed) but I pay for premium so that might have something to do with it
Small correction, it’s VIA that only works in Chromium browsers. Vial is a VIA-compatible standalone configurator written in Python/Qt and a fork of the QMK firmware.
Small correction, it’s VIA that only works in Chromium browsers. Vial is a VIA-compatible standalone configurator written in Python/Qt and a fork of the QMK firmware.
I've been using Vivaldi as my main for years, and every so often I have to switch to Firefox (or, more recently, Zen) because a site will just be too broken in Vivaldi. So this just seems like...
I've been using Vivaldi as my main for years, and every so often I have to switch to Firefox (or, more recently, Zen) because a site will just be too broken in Vivaldi. So this just seems like something where your mileage may vary.
I've recently come to suspect at least some of this could be due to Vivaldi's attempts to block initial popups on loading a site (like the "accept cookies" one), as a common issue is that a site will be darkened and refuse to allow scrolling down, but haven't had a chance to test this yet.
I’ve run into sites getting cranky because an ad/nuisance blocker extension hid some of the DOM elements that make up an in-page overlay across WebKit, Chromium, and Gecko based browsers alike....
I’ve run into sites getting cranky because an ad/nuisance blocker extension hid some of the DOM elements that make up an in-page overlay across WebKit, Chromium, and Gecko based browsers alike. Definitely not unique to a particular browser or engine.
Perhaps a fix could be to use local LLMs to better tease apart the structure of pages and make sure that obstructions are fully removed. Extensions only partially blocking is a side effect of how they block based on simplistic patterns, and so naturally you end up with a number of edge cases where blocking is only partially successful.
You could be right and I just had different extensions/blocking on each browser. It's not the only kind of issue that appears with broken sites on Vivaldi, though, just a common one.
You could be right and I just had different extensions/blocking on each browser. It's not the only kind of issue that appears with broken sites on Vivaldi, though, just a common one.
Tangentially, this sort of use case is what excites me about the future of LLMs. Chatbots are fun but we’re already oversaturated in them. I think there’s a huge market for tech that uses the...
Tangentially, this sort of use case is what excites me about the future of LLMs. Chatbots are fun but we’re already oversaturated in them. I think there’s a huge market for tech that uses the perceptual strengths of these models to do work behind the scenes without any direct user I/O.
Imagine a browser rendering engine (or extension) that detects the unwanted parts of a page like tracking, ads, cookie notices, paywalls, etc., and proactively scrubs them before anything is painted. Imagine a process that’s continually monitoring changes in the DOM to do the same after page load. Now imagine that any JS errors that arise as a result of this modification are caught, evaluated, and fixed in realtime by dynamically rewriting the code to preserve its intent — while still respecting the content filter preferences.
That’s kind of a weird future, where the frontend code engineers like me write isn’t necessarily the same code clients end up running locally. Where we have to assume a layer of AI reinterpretation means we don’t have precise control over the final UX. This could open the door to a beautiful range of ways to personalize one’s online experience. It could also usher in a whole new array of weird flaky bugs, slowness, browser bloat, not to mention panic from the sectors that are so concerned about monetization, user profiling, and so on. I think it would be a net good in the world but it’s too hard to predict where it would ultimately lead us. Just another way the coming decade is going to be “interesting times,” for sure.
Totally agree, I think the ways in which LLMs will prove most useful won’t be in pretending to be a human but instead in analyzing, processing, and surfacing data. I welcome anything that pushes...
Totally agree, I think the ways in which LLMs will prove most useful won’t be in pretending to be a human but instead in analyzing, processing, and surfacing data.
I welcome anything that pushes the web back towards being a user-controlled medium. While platform capabilities and dev UX is important, the needle has swung much too far in that direction and we’re past due for a rebalancing.
As someone who doesn't tie any account to their browser... why do you need or want a google account tied to your browser? I'm maybe out of the loop or something here IDK.
As someone who doesn't tie any account to their browser... why do you need or want a google account tied to your browser? I'm maybe out of the loop or something here IDK.
I work with Google Cloud day-in day-out and knee deep in their enterprise ecosystem most days. Maybe 70% of the services and in-house apps we have are hooked through Google Workspace single...
I work with Google Cloud day-in day-out and knee deep in their enterprise ecosystem most days. Maybe 70% of the services and in-house apps we have are hooked through Google Workspace single sign-on. Our teams majority run Firefox on Fedora and don't have an account tied to the browser.
I'm curious what integrations don't work aside from synced bookmarks and enterprise policies.
Yeah, largely syncing and it helps with access to Google sites on my work computer, which often signs out of sites randomly due to some sort of policy thing or something that locks it down in some...
Yeah, largely syncing and it helps with access to Google sites on my work computer, which often signs out of sites randomly due to some sort of policy thing or something that locks it down in some way, but it's basically impossible to sign you out of the browser because the entire instance of the browser is tied to your account.
I use Edge, and I'm signed-in with a Microsoft account that I have (though this is not my primary email address). I use Edge across multiple devices every day, so the ability to have almost...
I use Edge, and I'm signed-in with a Microsoft account that I have (though this is not my primary email address). I use Edge across multiple devices every day, so the ability to have almost everything accessible from any device is nice. If I'm setting up a new device and browser, I can get like 95% of the browser set up just by signing-in.
When I was using Chrome, I signed-in to browsers with my Gmail for the same reason: Convenience. Even Firefox has this feature.
What is "everything" though? Someone else mentioned syncing bookmarks (I guess I get that) and passwords (generally people recommend against this) but what else is there? Does it download...
, so the ability to have almost everything accessible from any device is nice.
What is "everything" though? Someone else mentioned syncing bookmarks (I guess I get that) and passwords (generally people recommend against this) but what else is there?
If I'm setting up a new device and browser, I can get like 95% of the browser set up just by signing-in
Does it download extensions and change your privacy settings etc?
I just can't help but feel like there is little to no benefit to you, but the cost is giving over access to all your browsing data. Except for syncing passwords but thats less secure than alternatives.
I guess it depends on your definition of "little to no benefit". Having my bookmarks synced across multiple devices without me needing to set anything up or juggle things is already worth...
I guess it depends on your definition of "little to no benefit". Having my bookmarks synced across multiple devices without me needing to set anything up or juggle things is already worth something. Specifically on mobile, it is difficult to get something that works as seamlessly.
In the past, I did experiment with syncing bookmarks through extensions like flocuss. But again, not really a thing on mobile, and it wouldn't always work as reliable as browser build in sync.
Extensions do get synchronized across browsers, which is a nice to have as well.
Passwords are the only thing I don't synchronize through the browser as I do use a password manager.
This is going to be odd, because there's really no way to "buy" chrome. It's simultaneously INSANELY expensive and utterly worthless. Handling the code base alone (which is mostly open anyways)...
This is going to be odd, because there's really no way to "buy" chrome.
It's simultaneously INSANELY expensive and utterly worthless. Handling the code base alone (which is mostly open anyways) would take a huge team, all for a product that you can't easily monetize because it has always been funded by selling user information and locking them into your ad world.
Then we have the Microsoft browser on the Microsoft operating system again instead of Google's Browser browsing Google. Is that better then what's happening now?
Then we have the Microsoft browser on the Microsoft operating system again instead of Google's Browser browsing Google. Is that better then what's happening now?
"Owner of the original Internet Explorer monoculture buys the new equivalent to the Internet Explorer monoculture." Yeah, I lived through the original iteration of that. Let's not allow them to...
"Owner of the original Internet Explorer monoculture buys the new equivalent to the Internet Explorer monoculture."
Yeah, I lived through the original iteration of that. Let's not allow them to buy it either.
MS might behave better as they were already hit once before for their browser monopoly. These days Apple has a much much larger market share on the desktop and MS has limited influence over the...
MS might behave better as they were already hit once before for their browser monopoly. These days Apple has a much much larger market share on the desktop and MS has limited influence over the more important mobile market. So as an operating system Windows has less power to exploit browser dominance.
I don't know what makes you say that. It is not some life lesson, it is business. When they have power they'll exploit like the other before them. Not having stake in smartphone business doesn't...
MS might behave better as they were already hit once before for their browser monopoly.
I don't know what makes you say that. It is not some life lesson, it is business. When they have power they'll exploit like the other before them.
Not having stake in smartphone business doesn't justify anything. Maybe they'll just use it as a tool to introduce themselves to smartphone user, in a more prominent way.
Have you seen what they are doing with edge? Every time I start it up for some reason or the other, I am greeted by another variant of the nag screen trying to: Trick me to set it as a default....
Have you seen what they are doing with edge? Every time I start it up for some reason or the other, I am greeted by another variant of the nag screen trying to:
Trick me to set it as a default.
Change the settings to something Microsoft likes more.
Peddle some AI feature.
In it's core Edge is a pretty okay browser (better in some ways than chrome) but once the non-technical PMs/POs got their hands on Edge it went downhill fast from there.
To me one of the worst takes on the Internet continues to be users against Google's dominance in tech and specifically Chrome peddling MS' solution in the space. I will never forget where we've...
To me one of the worst takes on the Internet continues to be users against Google's dominance in tech and specifically Chrome peddling MS' solution in the space. I will never forget where we've come from in terms of their monopoly in the 90s and aughts, what they tried to do to stifle the competition, what they did or failed to do with IE more than a decade, what they've been doing with Edge and Windows more and more recently.
To cheer for Chromes demise only to turn around and think MS would be a positive force in the browser space given their body of work is missing the point entirely. MS just bought Activision without issue. The worst run big three console maker just decided to buy the biggest 3rd party publisher. And we should just give them Chrome as well.
I don’t think MS should be given control of Chrome (which I agree would be disastrous), but I also don’t think Google has been nearly as good of an actor in the space as it could’ve been. Google...
I don’t think MS should be given control of Chrome (which I agree would be disastrous), but I also don’t think Google has been nearly as good of an actor in the space as it could’ve been.
Google has effectively found a way to have its cake and eat it too. By employing a literal army to work on Chromium/Blink they’ve ensured that other browser-writing organizations will be hard pressed to keep up much less meaningfully compete, while Chromium/Blink being open source both gives them a great degree of control over all Chromium-based browsers and helps them look less like a scheming bad guy. If Microsoft were to attempt a do-over of their IE monopoly, their strategy would probably look a lot like what Google has done with Chrome.
Why if doing nothing nets the same result? I really don't see many companies looking to buy chrome, especially if they can't use chrome to do what it did, which is why it's being sold.
Why if doing nothing nets the same result? I really don't see many companies looking to buy chrome, especially if they can't use chrome to do what it did, which is why it's being sold.
I do. Not only Microsoft but also Brave, Opera, or Mozilla. They might not buy for the codebase but rather for the brand and userbase. That is not insignificant value.
I do. Not only Microsoft but also Brave, Opera, or Mozilla. They might not buy for the codebase but rather for the brand and userbase. That is not insignificant value.
Brave and Opera are using Chrome, like Edge. Unlike Edge and Chrome, they do not have an ecosystem shoving their product down a users throat, which is why chrome is so adopted. Brave, Opera, and...
Brave and Opera are using Chrome, like Edge.
Unlike Edge and Chrome, they do not have an ecosystem shoving their product down a users throat, which is why chrome is so adopted.
Brave, Opera, and Mozillia also have NO WHERE NEAR the amount of cash required to buy just the branding rights.
That's arguably the problem. Chrome's value is tied up in it's monopoly, which is what they're supposed to be selling to break. The whole idea is that the company that makes phones, an os, a...
That's arguably the problem.
Chrome's value is tied up in it's monopoly, which is what they're supposed to be selling to break.
The whole idea is that the company that makes phones, an os, a search engine, and sells ads, should not be able to own a browser.
The browser is valuable because it's pushed by a company who owns a phone, a search engine, and sells ads and uses those to force chrome, and thus don't care that it costs an absurd amount of money with no direct path to monetization.
I'm not sure how they could possibly price chrome, especially in a forced sale? Obviously for cheap enough anyone will buy it because fuck it, but I'm not sure what the laws will be in a case like this, where I could very literally see no one who could afford even a fire sale price wanting it.
Like fuck what if apple buys it? Does that just shift who owns the monopoly? I can kiiiinda see how MS wouldn't since they only have an OS to bundle with(which is starting to sell ads...) and not a phone as well, but it's a very odd situation and I don't expect the courts to really "get" it.
Would that settlement prevent Google for reentering the browser market with a new or not-really-new product? Suppose Google sell Chrome to Opera for cheap. Can't Google just fork Chrome and call...
Would that settlement prevent Google for reentering the browser market with a new or not-really-new product? Suppose Google sell Chrome to Opera for cheap. Can't Google just fork Chrome and call it "Silver" now?
I mean, yes, the effectiveness of that move in reducing unfair market conditions will depend on the terms. Unfortunately I am not a lawyer so that's more or less empty speculation from me.
The vast majority of browsers on the market these days are chromium-based, so I think if they're allowed to reenter the browser market at all, they'd be allowed to do it with something...
The vast majority of browsers on the market these days are chromium-based, so I think if they're allowed to reenter the browser market at all, they'd be allowed to do it with something chromium-based. Not sure if they'd be able to fork chrome directly though as afaik it's not open source?
I don't see why it would require a large team if they slow down a bit. More innovation in web browsers doesn't seem all that important? Even five years ago, web standards had more than enough of...
I don't see why it would require a large team if they slow down a bit. More innovation in web browsers doesn't seem all that important? Even five years ago, web standards had more than enough of the functionality needed to build a decent website.
Security issues are the main concern. Google, Microsoft, and other vendors would still contribute patches.
Chrome is something like 7 million lines of code and currently the web standard due to its massive market share. Again, if you're thinking of spending the insane amount of money chrome is worth,...
Chrome is something like 7 million lines of code and currently the web standard due to its massive market share. Again, if you're thinking of spending the insane amount of money chrome is worth, it's not to put a 5 man team on it and slap their sticker on your product while you hope that security patches are continued by other companies with incentive to watch you burn.
That's wishful thinking if I am being honest. It might attract enough open source developers, but that is not a given. I know you do this for the sake of an easier discussion, at least I think...
That's wishful thinking if I am being honest. It might attract enough open source developers, but that is not a given. I know you do this for the sake of an easier discussion, at least I think that's why you do it. But you can simplify things too much, you know?
Edit: Just to be clear. Comparing it to the Linux kernel already is a bit iffy given the totally different types of software products they are. Yes we can go back and forth about it for a while but there are also plenty of other open source projects, that are arguably equally important, struggling to attract any developers. Firefox would struggle a lot less if being open source was enough to attract enough developers to keep momentum going. Not to mention that both servo and ladybird both would be developed at a much faster pace if all it took was being open source and perceived as being important.
Yes, you can argue about the importance of all of those as well. Maybe all of this was part of your reasoning, but it is hard to tell if it is just one sentence.
Reality is stranger than fiction. I wouldn't underestimate the mindset of FOSS developers because "that doesn't make businesses sense". Nor any really determined people who desire power, be it...
Reality is stranger than fiction. I wouldn't underestimate the mindset of FOSS developers because "that doesn't make businesses sense". Nor any really determined people who desire power, be it foolishly or simply as a political move.
That's still wishful thinking. As I said it might do well as an open source project but there is a lot that needs to fall in place for it to happen. A lot of things that are currently not in...
That's still wishful thinking. As I said it might do well as an open source project but there is a lot that needs to fall in place for it to happen. A lot of things that are currently not in place, that would need to be set up from effectively scratch. Not to mention that we are talking about it being sold, meaning we have no clue who will end up with the project.
I would love it for the dominant browser(s) to be independent projects, not beholden to a massive corporation. But wishing hard enough for it and waving away all the indicators that it might not happen isn't going to make it happen.
Wishful thinking implies that I think the new ownership won't also have perverse incentives. Maybe it was wishful thinking in 2022, but given Twitter: nothing is off the table in my head. I gave...
That's still wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking implies that I think the new ownership won't also have perverse incentives. Maybe it was wishful thinking in 2022, but given Twitter: nothing is off the table in my head. I gave just as much implications of the site simply being bought by another musk as I did going FOSS.
And it's not like they are mutually exclusive. Chrome is already forked from Chromium so thst inevitably means there's talent familiar with a good core of Chrome as is.
For something with so much share, I don't think talent acquisition is the biggest barrier there. Someone with such non-financial incentive has the capital to pay for that. Will it go well? Huge asterisk (and I'm cynical there). But it will be functional for a while to come, similar to Twitter being still "functional).
Then we are in agreement, making me confused as to what you are arguing. I am just writing out what that asterisk entails and pointed out to skybrian that it would have been helpful for them to...
Will it go well? Huge asterisk (and I'm cynical there).
Then we are in agreement, making me confused as to what you are arguing. I am just writing out what that asterisk entails and pointed out to skybrian that it would have been helpful for them to include if it was part of their consideration.
That's fair, I just interpreted your comment as "no one is going to bother with Chrome, it makes no financial sense". Which is usually a sensible angle, but not necessarily the main factor for...
That's fair, I just interpreted your comment as "no one is going to bother with Chrome, it makes no financial sense". Which is usually a sensible angle, but not necessarily the main factor for tech like this.
I don’t know the future and wouldn’t care to bet on what happens, but I also don’t see why you’re so doubtful. Perhaps an independent Chrome wouldn’t have much monetary value (I have no idea how...
I don’t know the future and wouldn’t care to bet on what happens, but I also don’t see why you’re so doubtful. Perhaps an independent Chrome wouldn’t have much monetary value (I have no idea how to value it) but it has tremendous use value because so many businesses rely on it, both for their employees and their customers. Some of the businesses that rely on it have deep pockets and would want to keep it going. Someone who wanted to start an industry consortium would probably go to major companies like Google (if it were allowed), Microsoft, hardware companies that make Android phones and Chromebooks, and so on. There are also companies that rely on pieces of Chrome via Electron and V8. It doesn’t seem like it would be hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to convince some tech companies to contribute towards maintenance?
It reminds me a bit of how Valkey (the fork of Redis) spun up pretty quickly after the Redis license change, because Amazon needs it and they don’t want to work on it alone.
Meanwhile, nobody relies on Ladybird or Servo, so it’s much harder to make a business case for them - they get attention because they’re cool, but they are mostly fun projects and probably will be for years. That’s a very different situation.
That's mostly a fair take, with some proper context of what you imagined when writing "it will attract more than just five people". I still think you are doing some magical handwaving by saying,...
That's mostly a fair take, with some proper context of what you imagined when writing "it will attract more than just five people". I still think you are doing some magical handwaving by saying, "It doesn’t seem like it would be hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to convince some tech companies". Especially if you consider how slow moving, bureaucratic and full of political maneuvering these sorts of consortiums tend to be.
Which in itself has moved away quite a bit from the original "I don't see why it would require a large team if they slow down a bit."
Basically, if I were to combine all your statements together it basically becomes that Chrome will be fine:
But will go in maintenance mode.
Will need someone to do the cat herding of various tech companies into a consortium.
Leans heavily on open source contributions.
Which can all happen, but isn't the same as it "just" all going to fall into place because it "isn't that hard".
Okay, I think I can back-pedal a bit and then we’re pretty much in agreement. My “not that hard” should be read as “not that hard,” - certainly an important project, but well within the means of...
Okay, I think I can back-pedal a bit and then we’re pretty much in agreement. My “not that hard” should be read as “not that hard,” - certainly an important project, but well within the means of the tech industry to maintain, rather than an extraordinarily expensive and risky undertaking. After all, it’s supporting something that already works, rather than making something new.
How well that goes would depend on a lot of things, like the quality of the team and how well they work together. Politics could be a problem. Bureaucracy often isn’t an issue if the work is done by contributing engineer time? It seems like the engineers assigned to work on an open source project will often work together better than the companies that pay them, and after all, the Chromium project already exists, providing a framework for open source collaboration. I believe de-Googlefied versions are shipped on Linux distributions.
On the other hand, sometimes there are technical disputes that are bad enough to cause forks. So it’s not always predictable how these projects go. This is all speculation.
The linux kernal is twice the size and a huge % of that is hardware configuration nonsense. Linux is estimate to have something like 50 millions users. Chrome has several billion users. I think...
The linux kernal is twice the size and a huge % of that is hardware configuration nonsense.
Linux is estimate to have something like 50 millions users.
Chrome has several billion users.
I think many of these suggestions and hopes are extremely optimistic and are way underestimating what chrome actually is.
Sounds like you'd need a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation at the helm. Something like "the chromium foundation". That way companies feel inclined to help without any incentive to watch them...
Sounds like you'd need a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation at the helm. Something like "the chromium foundation". That way companies feel inclined to help without any incentive to watch them implode.
It would be a neutral party to purely exist for the benefit of the development of the browser
Where would such an organization get the money from to fund all the infrastructure surrounding the chrome browser? Some things you'll need: If we want it to be truly independent we can't put the...
Where would such an organization get the money from to fund all the infrastructure surrounding the chrome browser? Some things you'll need:
If we want it to be truly independent we can't put the source code on github.
Build infrastructure to build for all the different platforms.
Hosting infrastructure to distribute the browser.
Hosting the Chrome Web Store.
Reviewing all the extensions submitted to the Chrome Web Store.
Etc.
We have one and only one example of this happening, and that is with Firefox. The main income of Mozilla (81% from what I can find) comes from Google as part of a search engine deal to include Google as the default engine.
Making it a non-profit is one very small part of the entire equation to make an independent Chrome work.
I don't have an answer to your question, but I want to point out the absurdity of this situation: A browser is infrastructure modern societies increasingly rely on for their core functionality. It...
I don't have an answer to your question, but I want to point out the absurdity of this situation: A browser is infrastructure modern societies increasingly rely on for their core functionality. It costs a tiny fraction of other infrastructure like transportation, energy, justice, etc. Yet here we are, struggling to figure out how to maintain something that is, in comparison, quite simple, for the benefit of all.
With Linux, we have an example that shows this is possible. We just need to figure out how to get there. But I would bet real money that Chrome will be bought by some other mindless for-profit corporation or a whacky billionaire, things will become a lot worse and everyone will just keep using it. It's so frustrating.
Internet browsers are expensive to maintain and unprofitable. The five major browsers today are all owned by tech giants and billionaires. (I hear someone saying, "What about Firefox‽" It was...
Internet browsers are expensive to maintain and unprofitable. The five major browsers today are all owned by tech giants and billionaires. (I hear someone saying, "What about Firefox‽" It was reliant on that sweet Google cash, and we don't yet know whether it will survive without its sugar daddy.)
I fully realize that Google has engaged in unethical behavior and there's a strong desire to punish them (and maybe to score an antitrust win). However, the most realistic way that this plays out is that Chrome gets discontinued and most people who use it move to Edge because sites are optimized for Chromium-based browsers. Microsoft once again has the dominant browser. Is this a 'hurts itself in confusion' moment, or is there a positive outcome I'm not seeing?
Ideally, (Chrome|Chromium) and its dev team would be spun out into a non-profit and the vast mulititude of big companies that rely on it by way of Electron, CEF, etc contribute to the non-profit...
Ideally, (Chrome|Chromium) and its dev team would be spun out into a non-profit and the vast mulititude of big companies that rely on it by way of Electron, CEF, etc contribute to the non-profit for its maintanence. Critical infrastructure gets dislodged from corporate interests and becomes truly open, everybody wins.
That’s a bit like saying we need monopolies to solve a problem that monopolies caused. Browsers didn’t use to be that absurdly complicated and expensive. It’s Google pushing them to become product...
That’s a bit like saying we need monopolies to solve a problem that monopolies caused. Browsers didn’t use to be that absurdly complicated and expensive. It’s Google pushing them to become product platforms that turned browsers (readers for open information) into mini-operating systems.
I wouldn't put that on any one company. Microsoft created XMLHttpRequest. Mozilla created IndexedDB and WebAssembly. Khronos created WebGL. Apple created WebGPU (at least the first version)....
I wouldn't put that on any one company. Microsoft created XMLHttpRequest. Mozilla created IndexedDB and WebAssembly. Khronos created WebGL. Apple created WebGPU (at least the first version). Google created WebRTC and Service Workers. Netscape created JavaScript and Cookies.
These days, modern APIs and protocols are usually arrived at through collaborative efforts and consensus, and each group has their role. The WHATWG manages the HTML living standard, the W3C handles CSS, the TC39 does JS/ECMAScript, and the IETF maintains the networking stack.
These processes are usually pretty open, too. For example, the TC39 process for standardization describes each stage of acceptance. Here's one API I've been following recently for native reactivity called Signals which is still in stage 1. If anyone wanted to contribute, all they need to do is make a GitHub issue.
Google is a major contributor to the WHATWG steering group, and they've contributed protocols to the IETF (SPDY, QUIC), but they're still just one of many contributors. All of these transformative technologies have been built by thousands of people across dozens of companies. There's a lot more going on here than one or two companies running the show.
Right. This could only work if all sites must conform to a free and publicly maintained browser standard. Without paying for public common infrastructure we're always having to rely on the "good...
Right. This could only work if all sites must conform to a free and publicly maintained browser standard. Without paying for public common infrastructure we're always having to rely on the "good will" of one of these giants
I wonder if this is something that hold up in a few months? I'd imagine the next administration isn't that big a friend to big tech out of hand, and may have an axe to grind with how they rate...
I wonder if this is something that hold up in a few months? I'd imagine the next administration isn't that big a friend to big tech out of hand, and may have an axe to grind with how they rate information. On the other hand, totally in character for something like this to be lost in the shuffle.
Yeah there has been a lot of fear about what is going to happen in the next admin. The only thing certain is there will be rampant corruption. We have knowledge of this from 2016-2020, and...
Yeah there has been a lot of fear about what is going to happen in the next admin. The only thing certain is there will be rampant corruption. We have knowledge of this from 2016-2020, and everything that has happened since including the cabinet picks and how project 2025 is meant to cause long lasting harm to ethics and accountability.
This means that this can go away for a price, and google has a lot of money.
There are some good remedies being proposed but I don't think selling Chrome is one of them. I feel like the DOJ misunderstands some things. As others have said, a web browser is a loss leader,...
There are some good remedies being proposed but I don't think selling Chrome is one of them. I feel like the DOJ misunderstands some things.
As others have said, a web browser is a loss leader, which limits the potential list of buyers quite a lot. In this case a loss leader worth a lot of money because of the brand and user base. On the short list of realistic buyers I can't think of any which would likely be a good steward of web browser technology. Not to mention a good steward of a mind boggling amount of user data.
Seems like a complete nonstarter, even if I agree entirely with the end goal.
Some other proposed remedies:
The antitrust enforcers are set to propose that Google uncouple its Android smartphone operating system from its other products, including search and its Google Play mobile app store, which are now sold as a bundle, the people said.
[...]
Regarding data licensing, the antitrust enforcers plan to propose two options: That Google sell the underlying “click and query” data and also separately syndicate its search results, according to the people.
I think these are great proposals. I also think that Google will pay any amount of money to anyone they need to in order to make sure most of the above don't happen (or are at least mostly toothless). And the incoming administration will be happy to listen to Google's concerns for a price.
The EU, on the other hand, could totally pull it off.
I know this isn’t how antitrust works, but I think forcing Google to give up Chrome without also getting a payday would sting even more, so my (baseless, unrealistic, unfounded) hope is that...
On the short list of realistic buyers I can't think of any which would likely be a good steward of web browser technology. Not to mention a good steward of a mind boggling amount of user data.
I know this isn’t how antitrust works, but I think forcing Google to give up Chrome without also getting a payday would sting even more, so my (baseless, unrealistic, unfounded) hope is that they’re required to just give it to Mozilla for free
Previous related discussion. I honestly am not sure how Chrome would survive as a stand-alone product given how much Firefox is struggling. Not to mention the lack of viable alternatives in the...
Previous related discussion. I honestly am not sure how Chrome would survive as a stand-alone product given how much Firefox is struggling. Not to mention the lack of viable alternatives in the open source space (servo and ladybird are far from viable).
As others have pointed out, browser engine development is expensive and very complex. If it wasn't, we would see more movement in this area, as it stands even Microsoft decided to call it quits and just use Chromium as a base a few years ago.
Firefox is getting something like half a billion dollars per year off search engine deals with like, 3% market share. I'm pretty sure a spun off Chrome with its... 70%? market share would be able...
Firefox is getting something like half a billion dollars per year off search engine deals with like, 3% market share. I'm pretty sure a spun off Chrome with its... 70%? market share would be able to survive just fine.
Where would the chrome spinoff get money from? Google? I feel like that is unlikely, given that this money would give Google control again over something they have been forced to relinquish.
Where would the chrome spinoff get money from? Google? I feel like that is unlikely, given that this money would give Google control again over something they have been forced to relinquish.
They would pay because they would be getting search engine traffic. If they don’t pay, then Bing or some other search provider would get it instead. They would have to pay market rates for the...
They would pay because they would be getting search engine traffic. If they don’t pay, then Bing or some other search provider would get it instead. They would have to pay market rates for the traffic instead of just getting it, which would be a good thing I think. Definitely somebody would be willing to pay for it.
Did you only read the first part of my comment? Honestly confused here. Just to reiterate, this might be a possibility but is not a given. For example, but not limited to, the DoJ might put terms...
They would pay because they would be getting search engine traffic
Did you only read the first part of my comment? Honestly confused here. Just to reiterate, this might be a possibility but is not a given. For example, but not limited to, the DoJ might put terms on what is and isn't allowed here.
I think it's 100% guaranteed that the DOJ would demand that search engine traffic be made available to Google (and all other search vendors) on a market basis. The chances of them not doing that...
I think it's 100% guaranteed that the DOJ would demand that search engine traffic be made available to Google (and all other search vendors) on a market basis. The chances of them not doing that are so close to zero that I don't think it's worth even discussing. It's so remote that I didn't even consider that interpretation of what you said.
It helps to write out those sorts of thoughts when you are having a conversation. Even more so when the other person clearly does consider it as they have actually written it down as an option. I...
It helps to write out those sorts of thoughts when you are having a conversation. Even more so when the other person clearly does consider it as they have actually written it down as an option.
I don't think it is a given that the spin-off will be allowed to sell a default search option. I think it is equally possible that as one of the stipulations it is required to offer a search choice option.
Certainly because Google otherwise coule just buy back influence in Chrome. So, no, it isn't as remote as you make it out to be.
What happens if no one wants to buy it? Surely it's worth an insane amount of money I can't imagine many companies would be able to afford it and those that would probably have no interest?
What happens if no one wants to buy it? Surely it's worth an insane amount of money I can't imagine many companies would be able to afford it and those that would probably have no interest?
I am definitely in favor for dismantling Google's monopoly on the web, but I can't help but be puzzled by this decision. The article only mentions Chrome, so will Chromium remain as-is? It's quite...
I am definitely in favor for dismantling Google's monopoly on the web, but I can't help but be puzzled by this decision. The article only mentions Chrome, so will Chromium remain as-is? It's quite a weird choice if so, since Chrome is basically Chromium with extra Google branding.
What would stop Google from making another Chromium-based browser to replace it? I doubt they would keep Chrome as Android's default browser if they sold it off. And who would buy Chrome? It doesn't have much to provide for someone who's not Google, other than the existing user-base.
Chromium is FOSS already. Chrome is a very deep fork based on Chromium. Ideally, it being FOSS means it's balanced by all other powers who use that base (like Microsoft), so I wouldn't be...
Chromium is FOSS already. Chrome is a very deep fork based on Chromium. Ideally, it being FOSS means it's balanced by all other powers who use that base (like Microsoft), so I wouldn't be surprised if little changes on that front.
They can indeed remake a new browser, but making up that much market share this late in the game is nearly impossible, even for a trillionarire company. Their enshiitification is reset, so they can just go the course of Chrome and expect to retain customers that way.
They are still being dinged in real time over android monopolies, so I think they'd need to be more careful than "make new browser the default" if they want to curtail that and ramp up as a competitive browser.
And who would buy Chrome? It doesn't have much to provide for someone who's not Google, other than the existing user-base.
I'm unsure. But at the same time I'm less pessimistic than other responses here about how it's unsellable. There's many interested powers in the shadows that would put in a lot of footwork into purchasing such control. If Musk can buy Twitter in a whim, Chrome can be bought out as well.
I know many people are unsure of how this will affect the browser dynamic and ecosystem, but this is something I've been hoping for since Google started passive aggressively punishing non-Chrome browsers on Google's sites. The path we were on wasn't good for the web long term. Worst case we're back to a different browser monoculutre. Best case we might have proper browser competition again.
What problems have you had using non-Chrome browsers?
One infamous example was YouTube shifting to use a deprecated API* that was only implemented in Chrome, which made performance much worse (5x slower page loads) on other browsers. The linked article also mentions some examples of other Google services that have blocked Firefox and other browsers in the past.
* Yes, they moved from a completely fine implementation to a deprecated API.
I feel this story is repeated a lot, but often misunderstood. Shadow DOM (the original spec) wasn't deprecated when they moved to it. It was considered an upcoming API. YouTube based their redesign on it, and they implemented a JS shim in unsupported browsers until it was more widely available. The shim ran slower than native code as you'd expect, but it was the result of them trying to support other browsers. It's not as if the move was made to spite them.
It was still a failure, but the lesson to be learned was not to bet on an API before they're fully standardized. That mistake likely cost Google a lot of money as they needed to rebuild the YouTube UI framework once again.
From my understanding, it used Shadow DOM v0 specifically, which was an experimental spec and deprecated at the time of the article*. V1 was in-development at Firefox Nightly and could be turned on with a config.
* I don't recall for sure whether it was deprecated at the time of the redesign, but as you mentioned, it was experimental and should not have been used. Malicious or not, I think it's clear that they design for Chrome as a target platform and give it preferential treatment. They would never adopt an experimental Firefox technology and put a 5x slower placeholder for Chrome.
I'll take a slightly orthogonal view. It isn't inherently anticompetitive to use a JS shim if you believe that an API spec is likely to be standardized in the near-future. Shims (also called polyfills) used to be extremely common on the web, and are specifically meant to improve cross-browser support.
However, I do actually think that Google acted with impropriety. Not by using shadow DOM v0 in the first place, but by extending support for it in Chrome after it was learned that v0 would not be standardized. They kept it in until after YouTube was able to complete another redesign and move off the old API. That seems problematic to me. There should be a complete separation of interests in browser and website development. The Chrome team should never ask "Are any of our products relying on this?" when making those kinds of decisions.
It's a more nuanced complaint, but I feel that was the real faux pas committed during that incident.
The question for me is if they added support for v0 to chrome before or after it was deprecated. If chrome already had added support once it was deprecated, I don’t see any issue with waiting until another YouTube redesign to remove it. If the Chrome team was entirely separate from Google, I think it would still be a logical choice. Since the implementation work was already done, they can either leave it in temporarily or remove it immediately. And if they leave it in temporarily, it improves the experience on one of the most popular websites on the internet. If by some miracle Firefox had implemented v0 and chrome had not, Firefox would absolutely have kept it in until YouTube was no longer using it.
However if the chrome team added v0 after deprecation to support an in progress YouTube rewrite, I am totally with you.
It was certainly added to Chrome before being deprecated. The first release in Chrome was way back in Jan 2013, then unprefixed in April 2014. v1 was standardized in 2016 and added to Chrome in the same year. v0 was officially deprecated by Google in 2018, disabled by default in 2019, and finally had its code removed in 2020.
YouTube released the first version on Polymer (built on Shadow DOM) around May 2017, and completed their migration to a v1-based version around 2019.
Note that Shadow DOM is only one aspect of the larger Web Components spec, and it went through some large changes. For example HTML Imports were dropped as Mozilla opposed them. So upgrading Polymer was likely not a simple migration.
not sure if this is the same Youtube issue or another one, but I do recall one slowdown in particular that was solved just by setting one's user agent to Chrome rather than Firefox without changing anything else.
One recent controversy looked like that's what was going on but when others dug into it, it looked more like it was YT a/b testing some new anti-adblock strategy. Changing the user agent was just causing them to basically get another roll of the dice. Since it was only tested on a small percentage of users it would more than likely act normal after messing with it.
https://www.howtogeek.com/youtube-adds-5-second-delay-to-punish-ad-blockers-in-all-browsers/
I know there have been some incidents like that before, but I'm also wondering what people have noticed themselves when using Google websites and apps. Is it pretty much fixed now, or still kinda bad?
I switched over to Firefox a few years ago and there was a noticeable difference with processing video at one point. Sometimes I would have to pause the video for a few moments before playing because the video would fail to render leaving only audio and a frozen first image. Still happens from time to time but chrome works flawlessly every time.
Let me preface this by saying I’ve been “de-googled” for a couple of years now (hope this is okay to hear, looking at your background :p). I do keep an installation of de-googled base Chromium, though I rarely need to use it.
From that lens, I’ll list the following:
anythingmuch to help. I believe it was in a recent-ish discussion on Kagi that first brought up this idea of “you need to break up the core of what makes the monopoly, not a symptom (or multiple) of it” – in our case, that would mean the much more difficult task (on both the technical and business level) of breaking up Search, which I’d wager even the numbers would likely confirm to be the “bigger” monopoly (in terms of market share).Edit: it seems the aforementioned discussion was actually based on a blog post from Kagi which first introduced this idea, at least as far as I’m aware. So we should probably take that “thought experiment” with a grain of salt and consider alternative scenarios and outcomes first. But then again, luckily for us, we are not the regulators involved in having to decide this… and also, given the duration and extensiveness of these investigations, it might be a bit too late to pivot now.
Small add to the third point: uBlock Origin works best on Firefox
An ad company with a browser has a perverse incentive to make the latter in service of the former.
There was a whole story few years ago when Opera browser was based on Presto engine (before switching to Chromium). Google simply turns off advanced features on most of the Google sites for Opera, curiously enough if you change user agent string (string that identify browser) it will suddenly start working. Can be bug, but when this happens few times in a row...
I want FireFox to work just as much as any other de-Googler but I recently switched to Vivaldi due to random issues.
Just a few issues I've experienced recently over past 2 months:
before y'all pester me yes, I do change the user agent in FireFox to report as Chrome which fixes most issues, but that is not a silver bullet.
Side Note:
YouTube has never been an issue for me on FireFox (even with uBlock Origin installed) but I pay for premium so that might have something to do with it
Edit:
Confused VIAL and VIA. Made correction.
Small correction, it’s VIA that only works in Chromium browsers. Vial is a VIA-compatible standalone configurator written in Python/Qt and a fork of the QMK firmware.
I've been using Vivaldi as my main for years, and every so often I have to switch to Firefox (or, more recently, Zen) because a site will just be too broken in Vivaldi. So this just seems like something where your mileage may vary.
I've recently come to suspect at least some of this could be due to Vivaldi's attempts to block initial popups on loading a site (like the "accept cookies" one), as a common issue is that a site will be darkened and refuse to allow scrolling down, but haven't had a chance to test this yet.
I’ve run into sites getting cranky because an ad/nuisance blocker extension hid some of the DOM elements that make up an in-page overlay across WebKit, Chromium, and Gecko based browsers alike. Definitely not unique to a particular browser or engine.
Perhaps a fix could be to use local LLMs to better tease apart the structure of pages and make sure that obstructions are fully removed. Extensions only partially blocking is a side effect of how they block based on simplistic patterns, and so naturally you end up with a number of edge cases where blocking is only partially successful.
You could be right and I just had different extensions/blocking on each browser. It's not the only kind of issue that appears with broken sites on Vivaldi, though, just a common one.
Tangentially, this sort of use case is what excites me about the future of LLMs. Chatbots are fun but we’re already oversaturated in them. I think there’s a huge market for tech that uses the perceptual strengths of these models to do work behind the scenes without any direct user I/O.
Imagine a browser rendering engine (or extension) that detects the unwanted parts of a page like tracking, ads, cookie notices, paywalls, etc., and proactively scrubs them before anything is painted. Imagine a process that’s continually monitoring changes in the DOM to do the same after page load. Now imagine that any JS errors that arise as a result of this modification are caught, evaluated, and fixed in realtime by dynamically rewriting the code to preserve its intent — while still respecting the content filter preferences.
That’s kind of a weird future, where the frontend code engineers like me write isn’t necessarily the same code clients end up running locally. Where we have to assume a layer of AI reinterpretation means we don’t have precise control over the final UX. This could open the door to a beautiful range of ways to personalize one’s online experience. It could also usher in a whole new array of weird flaky bugs, slowness, browser bloat, not to mention panic from the sectors that are so concerned about monetization, user profiling, and so on. I think it would be a net good in the world but it’s too hard to predict where it would ultimately lead us. Just another way the coming decade is going to be “interesting times,” for sure.
Totally agree, I think the ways in which LLMs will prove most useful won’t be in pretending to be a human but instead in analyzing, processing, and surfacing data.
I welcome anything that pushes the web back towards being a user-controlled medium. While platform capabilities and dev UX is important, the needle has swung much too far in that direction and we’re past due for a rebalancing.
Non-Google browsers don't integrate as well with my Google account ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As someone who doesn't tie any account to their browser... why do you need or want a google account tied to your browser? I'm maybe out of the loop or something here IDK.
I work with Google Cloud day-in day-out and knee deep in their enterprise ecosystem most days. Maybe 70% of the services and in-house apps we have are hooked through Google Workspace single sign-on. Our teams majority run Firefox on Fedora and don't have an account tied to the browser.
I'm curious what integrations don't work aside from synced bookmarks and enterprise policies.
Yeah, largely syncing and it helps with access to Google sites on my work computer, which often signs out of sites randomly due to some sort of policy thing or something that locks it down in some way, but it's basically impossible to sign you out of the browser because the entire instance of the browser is tied to your account.
I use Edge, and I'm signed-in with a Microsoft account that I have (though this is not my primary email address). I use Edge across multiple devices every day, so the ability to have almost everything accessible from any device is nice. If I'm setting up a new device and browser, I can get like 95% of the browser set up just by signing-in.
When I was using Chrome, I signed-in to browsers with my Gmail for the same reason: Convenience. Even Firefox has this feature.
What is "everything" though? Someone else mentioned syncing bookmarks (I guess I get that) and passwords (generally people recommend against this) but what else is there?
Does it download extensions and change your privacy settings etc?
I just can't help but feel like there is little to no benefit to you, but the cost is giving over access to all your browsing data. Except for syncing passwords but thats less secure than alternatives.
I guess it depends on your definition of "little to no benefit". Having my bookmarks synced across multiple devices without me needing to set anything up or juggle things is already worth something. Specifically on mobile, it is difficult to get something that works as seamlessly.
In the past, I did experiment with syncing bookmarks through extensions like flocuss. But again, not really a thing on mobile, and it wouldn't always work as reliable as browser build in sync.
Extensions do get synchronized across browsers, which is a nice to have as well.
Passwords are the only thing I don't synchronize through the browser as I do use a password manager.
A lot of people find the syncing of bookmarks and passwords between devices very convenient.
I’m a little nervous about the type of entity that has money to burn on buying Chrome.
The same sort of people who burn money on buying Twitter.
This is going to be odd, because there's really no way to "buy" chrome.
It's simultaneously INSANELY expensive and utterly worthless. Handling the code base alone (which is mostly open anyways) would take a huge team, all for a product that you can't easily monetize because it has always been funded by selling user information and locking them into your ad world.
No idea how this works out.
If I was Microsoft I would buy it just to end it.
Edge is currently Chrome based, so they have some incentive.
Then we have the Microsoft browser on the Microsoft operating system again instead of Google's Browser browsing Google. Is that better then what's happening now?
"Owner of the original Internet Explorer monoculture buys the new equivalent to the Internet Explorer monoculture."
Yeah, I lived through the original iteration of that. Let's not allow them to buy it either.
MS might behave better as they were already hit once before for their browser monopoly. These days Apple has a much much larger market share on the desktop and MS has limited influence over the more important mobile market. So as an operating system Windows has less power to exploit browser dominance.
I don't know what makes you say that. It is not some life lesson, it is business. When they have power they'll exploit like the other before them.
Not having stake in smartphone business doesn't justify anything. Maybe they'll just use it as a tool to introduce themselves to smartphone user, in a more prominent way.
Have you seen what they are doing with edge? Every time I start it up for some reason or the other, I am greeted by another variant of the nag screen trying to:
In it's core Edge is a pretty okay browser (better in some ways than chrome) but once the non-technical PMs/POs got their hands on Edge it went downhill fast from there.
To me one of the worst takes on the Internet continues to be users against Google's dominance in tech and specifically Chrome peddling MS' solution in the space. I will never forget where we've come from in terms of their monopoly in the 90s and aughts, what they tried to do to stifle the competition, what they did or failed to do with IE more than a decade, what they've been doing with Edge and Windows more and more recently.
To cheer for Chromes demise only to turn around and think MS would be a positive force in the browser space given their body of work is missing the point entirely. MS just bought Activision without issue. The worst run big three console maker just decided to buy the biggest 3rd party publisher. And we should just give them Chrome as well.
I don’t think MS should be given control of Chrome (which I agree would be disastrous), but I also don’t think Google has been nearly as good of an actor in the space as it could’ve been.
Google has effectively found a way to have its cake and eat it too. By employing a literal army to work on Chromium/Blink they’ve ensured that other browser-writing organizations will be hard pressed to keep up much less meaningfully compete, while Chromium/Blink being open source both gives them a great degree of control over all Chromium-based browsers and helps them look less like a scheming bad guy. If Microsoft were to attempt a do-over of their IE monopoly, their strategy would probably look a lot like what Google has done with Chrome.
Why if doing nothing nets the same result? I really don't see many companies looking to buy chrome, especially if they can't use chrome to do what it did, which is why it's being sold.
I do. Not only Microsoft but also Brave, Opera, or Mozilla. They might not buy for the codebase but rather for the brand and userbase. That is not insignificant value.
Brave and Opera are using Chrome, like Edge.
Unlike Edge and Chrome, they do not have an ecosystem shoving their product down a users throat, which is why chrome is so adopted.
Brave, Opera, and Mozillia also have NO WHERE NEAR the amount of cash required to buy just the branding rights.
Well, if Chrome lacks true value as you mention, I can't believe it would be priced very high.
That's arguably the problem.
Chrome's value is tied up in it's monopoly, which is what they're supposed to be selling to break.
The whole idea is that the company that makes phones, an os, a search engine, and sells ads, should not be able to own a browser.
The browser is valuable because it's pushed by a company who owns a phone, a search engine, and sells ads and uses those to force chrome, and thus don't care that it costs an absurd amount of money with no direct path to monetization.
I'm not sure how they could possibly price chrome, especially in a forced sale? Obviously for cheap enough anyone will buy it because fuck it, but I'm not sure what the laws will be in a case like this, where I could very literally see no one who could afford even a fire sale price wanting it.
Like fuck what if apple buys it? Does that just shift who owns the monopoly? I can kiiiinda see how MS wouldn't since they only have an OS to bundle with(which is starting to sell ads...) and not a phone as well, but it's a very odd situation and I don't expect the courts to really "get" it.
Would that settlement prevent Google for reentering the browser market with a new or not-really-new product? Suppose Google sell Chrome to Opera for cheap. Can't Google just fork Chrome and call it "Silver" now?
I mean, yes, the effectiveness of that move in reducing unfair market conditions will depend on the terms. Unfortunately I am not a lawyer so that's more or less empty speculation from me.
The vast majority of browsers on the market these days are chromium-based, so I think if they're allowed to reenter the browser market at all, they'd be allowed to do it with something chromium-based. Not sure if they'd be able to fork chrome directly though as afaik it's not open source?
Microsoft was sued for a browser monopoly before. Would be pretty cynical if they could just buy Chrome lol.
I don't see why it would require a large team if they slow down a bit. More innovation in web browsers doesn't seem all that important? Even five years ago, web standards had more than enough of the functionality needed to build a decent website.
Security issues are the main concern. Google, Microsoft, and other vendors would still contribute patches.
Chrome is something like 7 million lines of code and currently the web standard due to its massive market share. Again, if you're thinking of spending the insane amount of money chrome is worth, it's not to put a 5 man team on it and slap their sticker on your product while you hope that security patches are continued by other companies with incentive to watch you burn.
That's a lot smaller than the Linux kernel, and as an important open source project, it would attract a lot more than five people, just as Linux does.
That's wishful thinking if I am being honest. It might attract enough open source developers, but that is not a given. I know you do this for the sake of an easier discussion, at least I think that's why you do it. But you can simplify things too much, you know?
Edit: Just to be clear. Comparing it to the Linux kernel already is a bit iffy given the totally different types of software products they are. Yes we can go back and forth about it for a while but there are also plenty of other open source projects, that are arguably equally important, struggling to attract any developers. Firefox would struggle a lot less if being open source was enough to attract enough developers to keep momentum going. Not to mention that both servo and ladybird both would be developed at a much faster pace if all it took was being open source and perceived as being important.
Yes, you can argue about the importance of all of those as well. Maybe all of this was part of your reasoning, but it is hard to tell if it is just one sentence.
Reality is stranger than fiction. I wouldn't underestimate the mindset of FOSS developers because "that doesn't make businesses sense". Nor any really determined people who desire power, be it foolishly or simply as a political move.
That's still wishful thinking. As I said it might do well as an open source project but there is a lot that needs to fall in place for it to happen. A lot of things that are currently not in place, that would need to be set up from effectively scratch. Not to mention that we are talking about it being sold, meaning we have no clue who will end up with the project.
I would love it for the dominant browser(s) to be independent projects, not beholden to a massive corporation. But wishing hard enough for it and waving away all the indicators that it might not happen isn't going to make it happen.
Wishful thinking implies that I think the new ownership won't also have perverse incentives. Maybe it was wishful thinking in 2022, but given Twitter: nothing is off the table in my head. I gave just as much implications of the site simply being bought by another musk as I did going FOSS.
And it's not like they are mutually exclusive. Chrome is already forked from Chromium so thst inevitably means there's talent familiar with a good core of Chrome as is.
For something with so much share, I don't think talent acquisition is the biggest barrier there. Someone with such non-financial incentive has the capital to pay for that. Will it go well? Huge asterisk (and I'm cynical there). But it will be functional for a while to come, similar to Twitter being still "functional).
Then we are in agreement, making me confused as to what you are arguing. I am just writing out what that asterisk entails and pointed out to skybrian that it would have been helpful for them to include if it was part of their consideration.
That's fair, I just interpreted your comment as "no one is going to bother with Chrome, it makes no financial sense". Which is usually a sensible angle, but not necessarily the main factor for tech like this.
I don’t know the future and wouldn’t care to bet on what happens, but I also don’t see why you’re so doubtful. Perhaps an independent Chrome wouldn’t have much monetary value (I have no idea how to value it) but it has tremendous use value because so many businesses rely on it, both for their employees and their customers. Some of the businesses that rely on it have deep pockets and would want to keep it going. Someone who wanted to start an industry consortium would probably go to major companies like Google (if it were allowed), Microsoft, hardware companies that make Android phones and Chromebooks, and so on. There are also companies that rely on pieces of Chrome via Electron and V8. It doesn’t seem like it would be hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to convince some tech companies to contribute towards maintenance?
It reminds me a bit of how Valkey (the fork of Redis) spun up pretty quickly after the Redis license change, because Amazon needs it and they don’t want to work on it alone.
Meanwhile, nobody relies on Ladybird or Servo, so it’s much harder to make a business case for them - they get attention because they’re cool, but they are mostly fun projects and probably will be for years. That’s a very different situation.
That's mostly a fair take, with some proper context of what you imagined when writing "it will attract more than just five people". I still think you are doing some magical handwaving by saying, "It doesn’t seem like it would be hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to convince some tech companies". Especially if you consider how slow moving, bureaucratic and full of political maneuvering these sorts of consortiums tend to be.
Which in itself has moved away quite a bit from the original "I don't see why it would require a large team if they slow down a bit."
Basically, if I were to combine all your statements together it basically becomes that Chrome will be fine:
Which can all happen, but isn't the same as it "just" all going to fall into place because it "isn't that hard".
Okay, I think I can back-pedal a bit and then we’re pretty much in agreement. My “not that hard” should be read as “not that hard,” - certainly an important project, but well within the means of the tech industry to maintain, rather than an extraordinarily expensive and risky undertaking. After all, it’s supporting something that already works, rather than making something new.
How well that goes would depend on a lot of things, like the quality of the team and how well they work together. Politics could be a problem. Bureaucracy often isn’t an issue if the work is done by contributing engineer time? It seems like the engineers assigned to work on an open source project will often work together better than the companies that pay them, and after all, the Chromium project already exists, providing a framework for open source collaboration. I believe de-Googlefied versions are shipped on Linux distributions.
On the other hand, sometimes there are technical disputes that are bad enough to cause forks. So it’s not always predictable how these projects go. This is all speculation.
The linux kernal is twice the size and a huge % of that is hardware configuration nonsense.
Linux is estimate to have something like 50 millions users.
Chrome has several billion users.
I think many of these suggestions and hopes are extremely optimistic and are way underestimating what chrome actually is.
Sounds like you'd need a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation at the helm. Something like "the chromium foundation". That way companies feel inclined to help without any incentive to watch them implode.
It would be a neutral party to purely exist for the benefit of the development of the browser
Where would such an organization get the money from to fund all the infrastructure surrounding the chrome browser? Some things you'll need:
We have one and only one example of this happening, and that is with Firefox. The main income of Mozilla (81% from what I can find) comes from Google as part of a search engine deal to include Google as the default engine.
Making it a non-profit is one very small part of the entire equation to make an independent Chrome work.
I don't have an answer to your question, but I want to point out the absurdity of this situation: A browser is infrastructure modern societies increasingly rely on for their core functionality. It costs a tiny fraction of other infrastructure like transportation, energy, justice, etc. Yet here we are, struggling to figure out how to maintain something that is, in comparison, quite simple, for the benefit of all.
With Linux, we have an example that shows this is possible. We just need to figure out how to get there. But I would bet real money that Chrome will be bought by some other mindless for-profit corporation or a whacky billionaire, things will become a lot worse and everyone will just keep using it. It's so frustrating.
Internet browsers are expensive to maintain and unprofitable. The five major browsers today are all owned by tech giants and billionaires. (I hear someone saying, "What about Firefox‽" It was reliant on that sweet Google cash, and we don't yet know whether it will survive without its sugar daddy.)
I fully realize that Google has engaged in unethical behavior and there's a strong desire to punish them (and maybe to score an antitrust win). However, the most realistic way that this plays out is that Chrome gets discontinued and most people who use it move to Edge because sites are optimized for Chromium-based browsers. Microsoft once again has the dominant browser. Is this a 'hurts itself in confusion' moment, or is there a positive outcome I'm not seeing?
Ideally, (Chrome|Chromium) and its dev team would be spun out into a non-profit and the vast mulititude of big companies that rely on it by way of Electron, CEF, etc contribute to the non-profit for its maintanence. Critical infrastructure gets dislodged from corporate interests and becomes truly open, everybody wins.
I'm not joking here when I say that the EU should buy it.
That's a genius idea actually, I wonder if they have any mechanisms for doing something like this.
That’s a bit like saying we need monopolies to solve a problem that monopolies caused. Browsers didn’t use to be that absurdly complicated and expensive. It’s Google pushing them to become product platforms that turned browsers (readers for open information) into mini-operating systems.
I wouldn't put that on any one company. Microsoft created XMLHttpRequest. Mozilla created IndexedDB and WebAssembly. Khronos created WebGL. Apple created WebGPU (at least the first version). Google created WebRTC and Service Workers. Netscape created JavaScript and Cookies.
These days, modern APIs and protocols are usually arrived at through collaborative efforts and consensus, and each group has their role. The WHATWG manages the HTML living standard, the W3C handles CSS, the TC39 does JS/ECMAScript, and the IETF maintains the networking stack.
These processes are usually pretty open, too. For example, the TC39 process for standardization describes each stage of acceptance. Here's one API I've been following recently for native reactivity called Signals which is still in stage 1. If anyone wanted to contribute, all they need to do is make a GitHub issue.
Google is a major contributor to the WHATWG steering group, and they've contributed protocols to the IETF (SPDY, QUIC), but they're still just one of many contributors. All of these transformative technologies have been built by thousands of people across dozens of companies. There's a lot more going on here than one or two companies running the show.
Right. This could only work if all sites must conform to a free and publicly maintained browser standard. Without paying for public common infrastructure we're always having to rely on the "good will" of one of these giants
I wonder if this is something that hold up in a few months? I'd imagine the next administration isn't that big a friend to big tech out of hand, and may have an axe to grind with how they rate information. On the other hand, totally in character for something like this to be lost in the shuffle.
This antitrust case started under the previous (2016) administration, so I imagine it will continue.
It's something where I can see the new administration doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Yeah there has been a lot of fear about what is going to happen in the next admin. The only thing certain is there will be rampant corruption. We have knowledge of this from 2016-2020, and everything that has happened since including the cabinet picks and how project 2025 is meant to cause long lasting harm to ethics and accountability.
This means that this can go away for a price, and google has a lot of money.
Both sides of the aisle have a grudge against Big Tech, so I could see it continuing.
Bring back non-reactive text/image based browsing.
Give me a browser that can load my email in <2MB and I'm there.
There are some good remedies being proposed but I don't think selling Chrome is one of them. I feel like the DOJ misunderstands some things.
As others have said, a web browser is a loss leader, which limits the potential list of buyers quite a lot. In this case a loss leader worth a lot of money because of the brand and user base. On the short list of realistic buyers I can't think of any which would likely be a good steward of web browser technology. Not to mention a good steward of a mind boggling amount of user data.
Seems like a complete nonstarter, even if I agree entirely with the end goal.
Some other proposed remedies:
I think these are great proposals. I also think that Google will pay any amount of money to anyone they need to in order to make sure most of the above don't happen (or are at least mostly toothless). And the incoming administration will be happy to listen to Google's concerns for a price.
The EU, on the other hand, could totally pull it off.
I know this isn’t how antitrust works, but I think forcing Google to give up Chrome without also getting a payday would sting even more, so my (baseless, unrealistic, unfounded) hope is that they’re required to just give it to Mozilla for free
I wouldn't be surprised if the EU takes the torch on this in case the US succumbs to bribery.
Previous related discussion. I honestly am not sure how Chrome would survive as a stand-alone product given how much Firefox is struggling. Not to mention the lack of viable alternatives in the open source space (servo and ladybird are far from viable).
As others have pointed out, browser engine development is expensive and very complex. If it wasn't, we would see more movement in this area, as it stands even Microsoft decided to call it quits and just use Chromium as a base a few years ago.
Firefox is getting something like half a billion dollars per year off search engine deals with like, 3% market share. I'm pretty sure a spun off Chrome with its... 70%? market share would be able to survive just fine.
https://www.techspot.com/news/101083-mozilla-raked-almost-600-million-2022-thanks-google.html
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
It's too bad Mozilla doesn't dedicate all that money to improving the thing that actually makes all that money instead of their other projects.
Where would the chrome spinoff get money from? Google? I feel like that is unlikely, given that this money would give Google control again over something they have been forced to relinquish.
They would pay because they would be getting search engine traffic. If they don’t pay, then Bing or some other search provider would get it instead. They would have to pay market rates for the traffic instead of just getting it, which would be a good thing I think. Definitely somebody would be willing to pay for it.
Did you only read the first part of my comment? Honestly confused here. Just to reiterate, this might be a possibility but is not a given. For example, but not limited to, the DoJ might put terms on what is and isn't allowed here.
I think it's 100% guaranteed that the DOJ would demand that search engine traffic be made available to Google (and all other search vendors) on a market basis. The chances of them not doing that are so close to zero that I don't think it's worth even discussing. It's so remote that I didn't even consider that interpretation of what you said.
It helps to write out those sorts of thoughts when you are having a conversation. Even more so when the other person clearly does consider it as they have actually written it down as an option.
I don't think it is a given that the spin-off will be allowed to sell a default search option. I think it is equally possible that as one of the stipulations it is required to offer a search choice option.
Certainly because Google otherwise coule just buy back influence in Chrome. So, no, it isn't as remote as you make it out to be.
What happens if no one wants to buy it? Surely it's worth an insane amount of money I can't imagine many companies would be able to afford it and those that would probably have no interest?
Maybe Elon will buy it. Then we are almost guaranteed that other browsers will be successful.
Edit: this is only sort of a joke.
Fuck that's actually kind of realistic.
X browser, yeah I can see it.
Maybe it’d get donated to the Apache Foundation or similar, which is probably where something as important as Chromium belongs anyway.
You mean the Apache graveyard?
I mean, they're horribly slow, but important stuff like the Apache web server is still moving forward.
It is only good If it is given to non profit or Chrome is setup as new Brand, covering Chromebooks and other related softwares.
I am definitely in favor for dismantling Google's monopoly on the web, but I can't help but be puzzled by this decision. The article only mentions Chrome, so will Chromium remain as-is? It's quite a weird choice if so, since Chrome is basically Chromium with extra Google branding.
What would stop Google from making another Chromium-based browser to replace it? I doubt they would keep Chrome as Android's default browser if they sold it off. And who would buy Chrome? It doesn't have much to provide for someone who's not Google, other than the existing user-base.
Chromium is FOSS already. Chrome is a very deep fork based on Chromium. Ideally, it being FOSS means it's balanced by all other powers who use that base (like Microsoft), so I wouldn't be surprised if little changes on that front.
They can indeed remake a new browser, but making up that much market share this late in the game is nearly impossible, even for a trillionarire company. Their enshiitification is reset, so they can just go the course of Chrome and expect to retain customers that way.
They are still being dinged in real time over android monopolies, so I think they'd need to be more careful than "make new browser the default" if they want to curtail that and ramp up as a competitive browser.
I'm unsure. But at the same time I'm less pessimistic than other responses here about how it's unsellable. There's many interested powers in the shadows that would put in a lot of footwork into purchasing such control. If Musk can buy Twitter in a whim, Chrome can be bought out as well.