Chrome again exempts Google from user site data settings(lapcatsoftware.com) |
Chrome again exempts Google from user site data settings(lapcatsoftware.com) |
Write enough to defend your position.
I agree it sounds like a sound bite.
> Write enough to defend your position.
But it also feels to me their point was clear, despite their more… mathematically poetic way of putting it.
I believe their argument is something like: “As time goes on, Chrome keeps adding more and more user-hostile features. At some point (perhaps now) we should consider if those outweigh its positives.”
I abandoned firefox when a mozilla dev claimed Linux users can only listen to audio via systemd+pulseaudio (unless you recompile firefox but who in his sane mind wants to use mozconfig in 2026 - https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/xsoft/firefox...). On adChromium, audio on youtube videos (also owned by Google) works fine, without me having to change anything. And older firefox versions also worked fine. At that moment in time I realised that firefox was no longer about the people. I stopped using it and I seem to not have been the only one who got frustrated with mozilla.
I don't use pulseaudio and audio works fine. (I use pipeware)
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/us-court-rules-googl...
Exactly. They have been determined to be a monopoly, but have been allowed to continue to be a monopoly because not being a monopoly could damage their business.
Why wouldn't they do anything that they felt like doing if they had been assured immunity to any government intervention. Every company in the country, tech or not, heard this loud and clear. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Clinton.
What about Trump's threats after Google was hit with a 2.95 billion Euro fine from the European Commission's antitrust investigation?
From last year: "EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič on Monday made an 11th-hour intervention to stop the European Commission from issuing a penalty against American tech giant Google for its search advertising practices, amid continued trade threats from U.S. President Donald Trump." https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-google-antitrust-decision...
Or from https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/google-meta-big-tech-6-billi... "In February, Trump signed a memorandum stating the U.S. would consider tariffs to “combat digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”"
That memorandum is at https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-pr...
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-wins-signi...
> Google used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising.
It is not a democracy nor a republic state. It is an oligarchy. Thankfully more and more people realise how corrupt the orange mafia is. Recent polls show that - people learn slowly, but they learn.
Not justifying it (I don't use chrome) but that's likely what's happening here.
No.
My screenshots do not show this, but my screenshots were not intended as proof, merely as explanation. Chrome is available to everyone and used by millions of people, so anyone who wants proof can reproduce the issue themselves, and I hope that they do.
One thing that made Microsoft successful was a strategy called embrace, extend and extinguish ("EEE"). This is what they tried to do to Java back when it was believed that Java was a threat to Microsoft's platform monopoly since the Java mantra was "write once, run anywhere". Microsoft added all these proprietary extensions after licensing Java.
Well, Microsoft basically did the same thing to knock Netscape off its throne. It was the whole basis for the antitrust suit. This was aimed at Java too because Java introduced applets. MS added ActiveX controls. MS did succeed at killing Netscape but the antitrust suit (and probably the victory over Java and Netscape) led us to more than a decade of hell with IE6 compatibility as MS basically abandoned their browser.
Google did something in the mid-2000s that nobody thought was possible: they created a browser and got mass adoption without having a platform. People willingly downloaded it. And when it was first released, it was magical. They pioneered one process per tab. At the time, Netscape had faded into Fireforx and it was pretty bad. Your entire browser could hang since it was one thread per tab and it absolutely did hang.
At this time and really through the mid-2010s, Google was a good actor with Chrome (IMHO). Chrome was secure, stable and a pretty open platform. Unfortunately for Google, this became a problem as use of ad blockers became more widespread. Where Chrome once became a posterchild for standards support, other parts of Google weren't so... open. Youtube at this time started playing games when people were using non-Chrome browsers.
Anyone who uses Chrome knows that the anti-ad blocking really stepped up. Changes to what extensions are allowed to do killed uBlock Origin. Google has risked regulatory wrath by special-casing their own user-tracking and ad cookies while blocking other third-party cookies. They also tried to phase out third-party cookies in favor of what sounded like a first-party only tracking (FLoC? I think it was called?).
Another issue is that Google always wanted people to be logged in with search and for the longest time they weren't. Well, people basically opted in to this by using Chrome and using a Google account. I used to really like the Google account syncing with Chrome. A lot of that for me has been replaced by using a password manager.
My point is I once was a huge Chrome fan and now I really want there to be an alternative. I trust Apple with Safari/iOS more than Google with Chrome/Android at this point. YMMV. I find myself using Firefox a lot (again).
Anyway, this whole messing with user tracking and ads I think could be Chrome's downfall and might invite regulatory scrutiny.
If you don't want to hand the biggest ad company a monopoly over web-browsing, start using a gecko based browser like librewolf, zen, mullvad or firefox.
We must do something about Google. They ruin the www.
Can google justify why are they doing this? I wish google will die sooner if they start behaving like this.
2) So you can't know what's searched without getting tracked
You're the product, not the customer.
Look at Google's earnings reports and see what constitutes 80-90% of their revenues and profits
why wouldn't they expand it?
Baby steps and they’ll try again.
Until the day it no longer works. Sad.
I'm not surprised they do this since advertising represents almost 3/4 of Google 's revenue. If anything, why should anyone expect something else? Company in the ads business modifies monopolistic browser to make money with ads and more news at 11. If it's not this, it's going to be another thing in the future.
I'm also not surprised and do fault Google for it. We shouldn't give them a pass just because they're regular offenders, it should be the opposite IMHO.
That is a likely case. Chrome is their closed source software unlike the Chromium browser.
MS was successful at killing Netscape largely because paid software is difficult to compete against free software. The ActiveX controls weren't a feature with a lot of use--I can probably count all the sites I usedwith ActiveX controls on one hand. More common were the four big plugins: Java (for applets), Flash (counting Shockwave as part of Flash), Adobe Acrobot Reader, and Silverlight.
Netscape famously rewrote its codebase to try to implement the new web standards (like CSS2) more quickly, which contributed greatly to its ultimate collapse. After Netscape collapsed, MS laid off most of its browser development team, which let IE6 languish for years without improvements, going from the most standards-compliant browser on the market to the least standards-compliant. The rise of Firefox caused MS to pay attention again to web browsers, eventually restarting development and leading to IE7 being finally released. Only subsequent to that (and Firefox taking a large chunk of the browser market) did Google Chrome come out.
Obama's cabinet was chosen by Citigroup. The judges he appointed don't believe in antitrust.
When Trump is gone, people will declare the world solved. Demonizing Bush how they missed the total continuity in policy between him and his successor.
I want to see a third Trump term. Even having a wrestling valet game show host as president who operates on whims and bribes hasn't lessened the radical centrist's faith in an all-powerful executive and an election process completely controlled by two private clubs. The beatings should continue until democracy happens.
Yes, the last 50 years of post-Borkianism has resulted in an entire judicial system having a very narrow and essentially useless definition of anti-trust, far different from its original goals. That's part of the broader neo-liberal movement which started around the time of Carter, gained strength with Reagan, continued with Clinton's "triangulation" and NAFTA, and is still with us.
Yes, the League of Women Voters warned us about what you term the "two private clubs" back in 1988 when they decided to stop hosting the United States presidential debates saying that following the demands of the two parties would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter".
Yet you seem to think I'm somehow shocked that same aged corporate Democrats who supported Obama, and who now fight tooth and nail against the democratic socialist arm of their party, are somehow in actually in favor of effective antitrust enforcement?
Your rant makes it seem like you're just easily triggered by the least bit of correction.
> I want to see a third Trump term.
Ahh, you're one of those anti-Constitution people. I remember as a kid people calling out "four more years" in support of a 3rd Reagan term, as their hero worship made them forget the lesson of FDR and the Twenty-second Amendment.
Just like those people who forget the lesson of Guiteau about a consequence of whims and bribes as a way to run a government.
Yes, I have worked for 400,000 employees corp, then for a 70,000. For the last 15 years I have staid under 100. The pay is less, but it's easier to look into the mirror each morning.
you are a bit out of the loop if you think this is a partisan issue, or specifically one thats only there when trump is in charge
You can very easily look up exactly when Lina Khan was appointed and get answer very quickly. Is it not worth the effort checking these things before commenting?
Ok rant over. Sorry to be an asshole. This is not your fault as much a standard which should be changed.
She did not get appointed under Trump nor did substantial work done under his administration.
Edit: I do not necessarily disagree with your comment on the partisan aspects of this issue. This is only meant to respond to the first paragraph.
Every screenshot in the blog post is the same size, which made it easier to do the <img> tags. (I write my blog in raw HTML.) Also, the first screenshot shows that my start page in Chrome is not Google Search, which is in fact quite relevant to the content of the blog post.
For the same reason, I showed a screenshot of Chrome sign-in disabled. Nonetheless, another commenter (who doesn't even use Chrome!) claimed that Chrome sign-in was the cause: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49582989 To be honest, these comments depress me.
Exactly in the same way as humans are just groups of cells working under a common genetic identity towards a common goal.
We see this in politics. Orgs are political too.
(no "political" doesn't mean US Left/Righr here. It means simply "political" which can have nothing to do with government or party politics)
It’s their fault. The people. The humans. The ones working there. The ones knowingly employing their knowledge in service of the company.
It’s always the humans.
It's hip to say ads make things worse, but reality is often much more nuanced.
My original point being, many times an external person may think something is intentional when it may very well be a bug or may be there for a good reason.
I have observed a few of those both as an external person or an internal person.
But with fewer ads influencing their spending, readers might have more disposible income left over to fund content.
If the ads were useless, advertisers would not pay for them to exist.
>without better ad blocks in mv3
MV3 adblockers were built before MV2 was deprecated.
Useless to users, not to advertisers. And, many people like me have never purchased any products after seeing ads at least on internet.