Re: Oddly, in defense of Google keeping Chrome

Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

From the <<alternatives may be worse>> department:
Title: Oddly, in defense of Google keeping Chrome
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 22:16:17 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/142199/oddly-in-defense-of-google-keeping-chrome/
 
As much as I'm a fan of breaking up Google, I'm not entirely sure carving
Chrome out of Google without a further plan for what happens to the browser is
a great idea. I mean, Google is bad, but things could be so, so much worse.
 
OpenAI would be interested in buying Google's Chrome if antitrust enforcers
are successful in forcing the Alphabet unit to sell the popular web browser
as part of a bid to restore competition in search, an OpenAI executive
testified on Tuesday at Google's antitrust trial in Washington.
? Jody Godoy at Reuters[1]
 
OpenAI is not the only "AI" vulture circling the skies.
 
Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko said he didn't want to
testify in a trial about how to resolve Google's search monopoly because he
feared retribution from Google. But after being subpoenaed to appear in
court, he seized the moment to pitch a business opportunity for his AI
company: buying Chrome.
? Lauren Feiner at the Verge[2]

And Mozilla is rebranding itself an AI company now. Yet I don't see
the link at all - do they want browsers to make up web pages
themselves instead of downloading them? No, it's just that AI is
where the money is and AI investors have no idea what they're
investing in.

Anyway I haven't used Chrome(ium) at all for many years now. The
problem for me is web designers writing websites that don't work in
the alternative browsers I prefer, so I have to use Firefox for
some of them, a browser I also dislike. That won't change depending
on who develops Chrome, the browser/web developer's end goals will
always be different to my goals as a web user. The popular web is
already pretty much dead to me. Now it often even blocks my access
to due to dumb defences against AI scrapers.

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