sell it to Microsoft so they can finally have a web browser that people use
Never again
Who would buy this and how would they monetize it? In browser ads? A freemium paid model to remove the ads?
I’ll bid $3.50 just to GPL it.
This is the last antitrust win we’ll get for years, isn’t it?
I know Trump doesn’t like Big Tech, but I doubt his admin will punish them meaningfully, but just rail about censorship.
This isn’t a win I think. They are yet to meet in the court with Google.
The DOJ will file a revised version of its proposals in early March, before the government and Google return to the DC District Court in April for a two-week remedies trial.
Ehh just fight it for a month pay king trump some money and bam their golden.
This is exactly what will happen. Same thing with Albertsons and Kroger too.
Okay but consider them taking this moment to let Elon buy it and using it to control information on the clients end 💀
Maybe we’ll actually see people switch to Firefox if that happens.
That would end the internet/world.
Hot take: they sell Chrome but keep Chromium.
How would that work exactly? Google would sell Chrome but keep paying teams if developers to work on Chromium?
Basically. I mean look at Edge, it’s running Chromium under the hood, but the UI is developed by Microsoft.
Seeing how tech illiterate some of these people are, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what ends up happening
There’s literally so much else they should do, google docs, sheets, drive, phones, maps, earth, calendar, play store, translate, etc.
Good work, continue please.What is the issue with docs, sheets, drive, phones, calendar, play store?
There seems to be plenty of options in all of these spaces. Play store isn’t even on a lot of android devices.
Correct. My example for another necessary intervention would be YouTube. That’s a space in which Google does have a monopoly.
Exactly. There are workable alternatives to most of the others, but YouTube has a stranglehold on that type of content due to the network effect. Examples of alternatives:
- docs/sheets/drive - Microsoft Office 365, OnlyOffice, or self-host LibreOffice Online (through Collabora CODE builds); if you just need drive, there’s also BackBlaze, AWS, DropBox, etc
- phones - I use GrapheneOS on their Pixel devices, but plenty of other Android phones support LineageOS/DivestOS/CalyxOS
- calendar - still looking for a replacement for my smart watch, but I’ve been using my Nextcloud install; there are also some FOSS calendars that support CalDav as well, so look around
- maps - I’ve been using Organic Maps, which has been great; main problem is searching for addresses, but if it’s in there, the directions so far have worked fine; there’s also Apple maps, Bing maps, and probably some others
- translate - it’s built in to Firefox, and it seems to work well enough in a pinch
But there’s really not much for YouTube. I guess there’s Odyssee, Rumble, and a few others, but they don’t have anywhere near the content as YouTube, so they’re not really practical alternatives. I actually sub to Nebula which is the closest to a replacement so far, but there’s still a ton of content that doesn’t have a direct replacement there.
Off topic, but how do you like graphene? I am thinking of making the switch on a pixel 7a, but I have a fear it’ll be like having Linux on my phone where things randomly don’t work and then I have the hobby where I make it work
Most definitely. They need viable competition.
Just…please for the love of whatever dirty do Microsoft. Fucking sick of their shit recently with One Drive.
Do you have a few minutes to learn about our lord and savior Linux?
Man the Linux propaganda is STRONG on Lemmy. I’ll say what I’ve said before: I use my computer for gaming, web browsing, and managing a media server for my family that hosts pictures and other things. If those 3 things can be done easily without issue on a Linux distro without having to fuck around with configs every time I want to do something, I’m all in. By what I’ve heard though it’s just not there yet. I am super happy Steam decided to go Linux for their Steamdeck though as I’ve heard thats helped make monumental strides the right direction. Trust me, I want to. Large part of it is I worked tech support for over a decade and having to troubleshoot my own shit is like the furthest thing I want to deal with haha
Microsoft is waaay easier to avoid than fucking google. Is one drive that annoying?
People wondering what Chrome has to do with a search monopoly:
The obvious benefit is that they can default the user’s search provider to Google.
But the more nefarious benefit is that, by controlling both the client and server, they can unilaterally decide the future of web standards. They don’t have to advocate for proposals, gain consensus, and limit themselves to well-supported standards the way other companies do. They can just do it, gain the first-mover advantage, and force others to follow suit.
If they don’t like HTTP/2, they can invent their own protocol and implement it for their search servers and Chrome. Suddenly, using Chrome with Google Search is way faster than using Chrome with Bing or using Firefox with Google Search. Even if Microsoft and Mozilla don’t like the protocol, they now have to adopt it or fall behind.
This has happened. QUIC was deployed in 2012. Firefox gained support in 2021.
They’re doing the same thing with Privacy Sandbox, and you can also look at browser feature compatibility tables to see how eager Google is to force their own interpretation of every not-yet-finalized web standard as the canonical interpretation.
Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker, says the DOJ is pushing “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.”
I’m honestly curious how this would “harm Americans”.
The same ruling would ban Google from paying other browsers to make Google the default search engine.
This would kill Firefox and make Chromium the only browser engine that’s left.How does chrome make money? It uses ads from Google, chrome on it’s own is not a business.
Say you buy chrome, you have to options
-
Ads built into chrome itself (when you’re in the settings menu, homepage, reading a PDF, playing the dino game)
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Force your own default search engine, or get a company like Google or Bing to pay you for the privilege of being a default search engine.
Neither of these options are better than the status quo
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Alphabet’s Chief Legal Officer sounds like Donald Trump
I fear this is exactly who they’re courting.
That statement is technically true.
The billionaire owners are Americans.
Everyone really does need to have that at the forefront of their mind. When the C-suit, wall street, and politicians talk about “Americans” they aren’t talking about us schlubs.
The corporations are people too!
Google pretending they have any other nationality other then “the global internet” is cute in a disgusting way.
…a radical interventionist agenda…
That language seems very “Trump-esque”, and I doubt it is a coincidence.
If they’re allowed to choose who they sell it to this won’t change anything
Sell it to Mozilla so they can make it uninstall itself and install Firefox instead in the next update
I think they should sell it to me.
4 $ Final Offer
Too much for me, I’m out 🏳️
They should force it to become a worker cooperative. It’s the only solution that doesn’t allow for corruption
Nationalize?
For a lot of things yes.
However I do not want to use a browser developed by the US gov tyvm
My comment is more in line with the corruption aspect. As much as I think they deserve it, giving it to the employees would be more akin to them winning the lottery. In the space of a year, they will have gone public, shareholders would have stormed in and we would be at square one.
Nationalisation at least has a chance of getting rid of the money corruption aspect. Sadly, the three letter agencies are probably deep in every browser already so I don’t think any solution takes care of that.
I understand your point though. Personally, I will never use chrome no matter what happens, ha.
Yep, nationalize everything that’s essential or at least offer a nationalized alternative and let the private sector try to compete.
I literally salivate at the thought of it happening to the telecom industries.
Step 1: Buy Chome
Step 2: End development
Step 3: ???
Step 4:
Profit?Non-Profit Firefox?>sell Chrome to open search monopoly
>Chrome isn’t a search engine but a web browser
Yeah, Google pays other companies lots of money to have its search engine enabled by default. That’s what the lawsuit argued, so I’m not sure how separating chrome from the company will change that…
It has massive market share and uses Google search by default. If another company owns the browser, they’ll likely change the default search engine, and since almost nobody changes the defaults, it’ll eat away at Google’s marketshare.
For example, Microsoft would be pretty interested in buying it to promote Bing search. Edge is already based on Chromium, so they could reuse their existing teams to offer support for it.
Sounds like they are preparing for this by killing off ChromeOS
https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-3500661/
Another thing to add to the google graveyard.
Android is also on the chopping block
The Reuters article suggests prohibiting payments to Apple so that Chrome users on their hardware default to Google search. What about default settings to Firefox? Similar agreements finance a large portion of Mozilla’s revenue.
