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Let's have an advertising company also have a monopoly on the web browser. What could possibly go wrong?



Chrome is not installed on any desktop computer system by default except for ChromeOS that has 3% market share. Everyone that uses Chrome, went out of their way to download it. I personally don’t use Chrome. But I am assuming your answer is - government should stop people from using their own free will?


For anyone born in the past 12-15 years, their first computing device would almost certainly not be a desktop computer. It would be a mobile device, and Chrome is omnipresent there.


And if they are using Android and concerned about their privacy, Chrome is the least of their problems. They are still sending information to Google


Not at all.

Rather, if the authorities were to do anything, they would regulate to redress the imbalance and give back power to users to control how corporations use their data. There is no voluntary solution as it is, and the state says it exists to protect our rights.

I might even be so bold to say it is necessary because advertising is a mental health problem.

Additionally, the monopoly is enforced because of the manipulative brand recognition. Chrome = Google = The Internet in many people’s heads. It is difficult to break this hold without intervention, but if it could be done that would be great.


If people are using a computer , they are going to Edge and getting on the internet to download Chrome.

It’s a poor excuse that most people think Chrome is the internet. When they are connecting to the internet do you really think they think they are connecting to Google?


> Chrome is not installed on any desktop computer system by default except for ChromeOS that has 3% market share.

Chrome is installed by default on the handheld computer system most people use, with AFAIK over 50% market share. Given that unfortunately more and more people are using handheld computers as their main or even only computing device, this is very relevant.

> Everyone that uses Chrome, went out of their way to download it.

Wasn't one of the drivers for Chrome's popularity that it came bundled with other desktop software people downloaded and installed? These people didn't go out of their way to download and install Chrome, that decision was made for them by someone else.

> government should stop people from using their own free will?

I believe those who want government intervention want it on the browser manufacturer side, not on the user's side.


> Chrome is installed by default on the handheld computer system most people use, with AFAIK over 50% market share

And if that 50% (actually 40% in the US) didn’t have privacy invasive Chrome installed - they would still be running Android which is made by the same company.


A chromium-based browser is installed on every Windows desktop, which gives Google a huge market share under which to effectively and unilaterally dictate web standards


No one who is targeting the US market is going to ignore iOS users.


You all voted for this.


All the annoyed people in this thread, reading this post from their Google Chrome window.

And every time I mention this, I get a ton of excuses, from people that should know better, that they can't leave Google. Boo woo.

There might be exceptions, but to the large majority of other lazy tech users, this is on you. Enshittification doesn't happen in a vacuum. You are passive actors to a shittier web.


I'm annoyed and I don't use Chrome. Do you have any statistics about browser usage of the HN crowd that backs your assertion?


I'm annoyed from Firefox because Firefox is currently terrible and not implementing web components and PWAs the right way so they don't become a headless browser for other apps.


But Chrome loads 1000 tabs a second faster than Firefox, which makes Firefox totally unusable.


the funny thing is: it doesn't. never did

you only believe that because it was advertised, by the company who is the number one for advertisement, who would have though?

i workedv with JavaScript performance at a top10 alexa site when that was talked about. chrome and firefox (and ie, heh) were always close. but all the chrome promoters focused on the aspects chrome was better... which changed monthly btw. today chrome string concatenation was fast. tomorrow firefox using string array mergers, etc.

anyway, just created an account to point this wrong assumption out, even if it was posted as a joke. and i did have to solve a challenge (captcha) by the very advertising company we are talking about. sigh.


I have more tabs open on Firefox than chrome and Firefox is faster. Chrome is massively annoying because it unloads the tab all the time. It sucks that I have to use chrome for work.


I think that parent was being sarcastic.


They were, but in different directions. Poster 1 was sarcastically pointing out an advantage that people claim Chrome has. Poster 2 was pointing out that it isn’t even true.


You mean Firefox that also gets 90% of its funding from Google ads?


Yeah, but at least it's not chrome or directly benefits google. If China came out with a web browser, I'd use it. Just to starve American spyware corporations of a tiny bit of data.


Firefox sending traffic to Google in exchange for funding doesn’t benefit Google?


I would gladly take privacy over speed any day.


Only if you have 1 TB of RAM :P


Consumer-side activism has never worked. Only through regulatory action will these parasitic advertisers and the harmful industries around it be thwarted.


Which major political party will stop this if I vote for them?


Lucky you, none. You just need to go to https://www.mozilla.org/firefox and follow the instructions therein.


Way ahead of you


hizb ut tahrir.


Takbir! Advertising is haram.


I have only ever used chrome if it was mandated by work, and even then I have argued to be allowed to use Firefox, such as at my current employer.

on edit: admittedly this was because I was too lazy to change, but later on that laziness started looking like moral backbone!


I live in the UK, I try not to think of what anyone is voting for.




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