• jecht360@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Move to Firefox (or any non-Chromium browser really) and use a different search engine that’s not run by a giant corporation. I use DuckDuckGo.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I’m not sure why this is supposedly either surprising or malevolent. Google spends a significant amount of money on developing Chrome and then gives it away for free; clearly they must be making money off of it in some other way. Their usual approach to making money off of things they provide for free is to show the users ads, and defaulting to Google search is how Chrome does that. I don’t think this is any different from saying that YouTube or Gmail exist to serve Google’s ad business (which they clearly do).

    What’s funny to me is that I’ve heard of companies that really do provide a free version of their product without ads or any other way to make money off of it directly. Their goal is to protect their enterprise version of the software (which is not free) by reducing people’s motivation to make an open-source competitor. I could see Google maintaining Chrome without their search engine as the default in order to prevent someone else from creating a popular browser which does have a default search engine that isn’t Google’s, but that actually seems more anti-competitive…

    • BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think your second half is bang on the nail for the missing part of this story. It is not just to drive search directly, it is also to control the browser market long term.

      That’s what Microsoft did very successfully with Internet Explorer too. They have it away for free and bundled it with Windows, killing all competition and then used that to leverage MSN. They also didn’t follow standards and through market dominance shaped the internet.

      Google sort of follows standards but they have also forced through proprietary standards or have broken code which is why some websites don’t work well in Firefox or Safari even now.

      Chromium may be open source but it is a tool used by Google to control and dominate the internet.

      Apple is exactly the same with WebKit - they talk about privacy and security but the real motivation is surpressong alternate routes to the internet from their devices whic then keeps iron control over payment methods particularly in iOS. Yet people in the apple eco system buy into the narrative that the one piece of software you’re not allowed in iOS is a non apple web browser, as if that is an acceptable approach. It’s just another manifestation of anti competitive behaviour and the power and money you can get by “free” software.

      • supercheesecake@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        To be fair, with Apple it’s kind of both. Because they make a large chunk of their gazillions off hardware, they can make privacy part of their platform and mean it.

        Whereas with Google, trolling your private information to sell you more stuff is all they are, and everything else serves this.

        It may not be perfect, but in my opinion it’s ok to view the former as a better option than the latter. If convenience and integration are also important to you.

      • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        it really frustrates me how Apple stole Konqueror from KDE and branded it as safari and now treats it like its own browser that’s supposedly more private than the open source work it’s based on

  • bitsplease
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    1 year ago

    Pretty much everything Google makes exists solely to power it’s ad service - including it’s search engine. That’s literally their whole business. Did anyone think that Google was building browsers just as a fun weekend project?

  • soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

    the Assistant team has admitted that the product does not have a market fit on mobile

    How is there not a market demand for a voice assistant on mobile devices?

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I read this too and scratched my head. I would argue that voice assistants are more useful on a mobile device than a stationary one 💀

  • aquaman@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Indeed.

    As Orion exists to complement Kagi search.

    Orion can be used fine with anything else though too circa the time of this post. Highly recommend both.

    • Bilb!@lem.monster
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been loving Kagi, but I have no particular need for their browser.

      ETA: Oh, I see it’s only for iOS and macOS anyway. Maybe that ecosystem needed it, but I wouldn’t know.

      • aquaman@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        Yep, though Linux is coming next “soon”.

        I like that Orion (via Kagi as the business) is directly aligned with MY interests as a human.

        Safari, I’m generally a fan of too as Apple is–for now–generally aligned with customer; but mostly annoyed that they force an extension to use a search not in their list. Also find the adblocking just “ok” in Safari.

    • reev@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      If they release a non-chromium windows counterpart (not sure if WebKit works on windows?) I’d seriously consider it. Eagerly awaiting it!

  • ForestOrca@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I have ecosia set as my default search engine on chrome. and only use chrome for those instances when firefox doesn’t serve the need.

  • dan1101@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I haven’t verified this is still the case, but in the past every URL you typed into Chrome GoogleBot would then index shortly later.

    ETA: Did a test and it doesn’t seem to happen any more.

    • WindyRebel@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I work in SEO and have had many URLs that are orphaned and I go to them directly. It wasn’t until I asked Google to index via Search Console, or had it added to a site map and pinged Googlebot, that it would get indexed. You can live check if a page is indexed by using the site operator and entering the URL.

      If what you said was true, then even orphaned pages would be indexed from a visit and that just is not my experience as a professional.

      • dan1101@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I made a unique HTML page on Friday and retrieved it in a stock version of Chrome. As of today there have been no GoogleBot hits on it.