Guys, if you don’t like these proposals from Google, you need to switch to Firefox now! It’s the only way to defend freedom on the web!
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Over 85% of Mozilla's income comes from their Google search deal. Google is keeping Mozilla alive to prevent antitrust issues. If Mozilla rocks the boat too much, Google will fund a more obedient alternative.
So your answer to "Google is evil use another browser" is... if we all swap to Firefox google will kill it?
Google is keeping Firefox alive because 5% of all web users using Google search by default is pretty useful for them.
If you want to avoid that, simply use firefox and set your search to DuckDuckGo/Bing. If Google drops them, Microsoft have already shown a want to step up into that position.
All good advice, but nevoic makes a good point. Google is too big to be meaningfully threatened by Mozilla, if firefox pulls a critical mass away from google, they will absolutely move to kill it.
Google needs to be broken up, and the US govt isn't going to just volunteer to do that on their own given how valuable google's data is to the intelligence agencies.
If Google drops them, Microsoft have already shown a want to step up into that position.
Oh really? By replacing IE with yet another Chromium browser? Or what did I miss?
By paying for Bing to be the default search engine of Firefox.
About 5 years too late but appriciated still.
People just don't listen or care. They click on chrome because it's recommended by their daddy Google.
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Yeah it's truly awful.
The worst part is how disingenuous it is. It clearly exists because Google:
- Wants to circumvent ad-blockers since ads are its primary business model, and
- Link butts in chairs more closely to web browsers so they can sell better advertisement targeting.
If they just said they were doing it because they're an advertising company and they need better ads targeted to people, at least they would have the benefit of honesty. And in that case you might actually get some big sites on-board; like if a site can explicitly say "I need to recoup hosting fees and the only way for me to do that is targeted advertising and that makes this easier/better" there's actually a value proposition there.
But don't pretend this is for the benefit of consumers or the Internet overall, and definitely don't cloak your meaning behind vague platitudes about identity authenticity.
Wouldn’t it be sick if once your company got up to a net worth of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS you’d just stop trying to shoehorn in new ways to make profit?
It's comically perverted and epicly sad that leaders with power in society don't stop this kind of thing.
I've been questioning whether the current implementation of democracy can work in a modern world, where corporate entities can grow beyond the size of government.
As long as the people is represented by a smaller subset of the people, corporations wont need to please the people. Only the representatives. The same way that in the US, the electoral college means your vote technically doesn't have direct power, there's a disconnect between people voting for not getting screwed, and that sentiment actually becoming law.
Sounds like taxation without representation to me.
Wasn’t there a proposal to let companies vote in Delaware not too long ago? Democracy would truly only apply for the rich at that point
There’s localities in Delaware now where corporations can vote. The idea is supposed to be that non-resident property owners (usually LLCs for people’s vacation homes) should have a say in laws that govern the town but they sure as fuck aren’t letting seasonal workers vote.
I'm always disappointed that this kind of stuff gets no interest from the mainstream media. Nearly everyone in developed countries interacts with the internet and thus they should all care
I really think the world needs a few more Elon Musks around. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have a Musk at Google to destroy it from the inside just like he's doing to Twitter?
Google needs to be elonned to hell
You had me at the first half, ngl.
I do not trust Google at this stage. I pine for the day when Google seemed like a good company. Gmail was awesome when it came out, for example, and Google search worked well. Now I feel they are harvesting all my data to jam ads down my throat. Google search now sucks ass and just returns websites that have a bunch of AI nonsense or aggregated content that is effectively worthless.
I am migrating away from Google.
Now I feel they are harvesting all my data to jam ads down my throat.
I'm curious: how did you expect them to pay for the overhead of providing this service? I'm sure you didn't think that they would just eat the cost of providing it forever, right?
This is not the users problem. This is googles problem.
If they want to give away a thing for free, then don’t be surprised when people take that thing for free.
My point was that people should have known it was never free to begin with.
Not that I disagree, but this is a shit take IMHO. It's always been the case that ads paid for "free" services, but the scale and invasiveness of the ads and data collection has clearly accelerated beyond a reasonable level. They waited until they captured a large enough user base and crowded out enough of their competition before gouging their users for ad revenue. They have the size and reach of a small(or medium-sized, even) nation, the data they are able to collect is a wet dream for any three letter agency.
Just because ads are what make the business model feasible doesn't mean they get a free pass to abuse their market position carte blanche. They should be cut down to size, and not just by user migration.
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recurrant subscriptions, Corprate mail hosting, not double-dipping
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Final nail in the coffin of don't be evil. Next they'll require this for accessing gmail
I have always struggled with this corporate motto from Google. If this is something you call out from day one then it feels like someone was thinking about doing evil but needed to be kept in check. It is like those “remove baby from stroller before folding” messages that you know is there because someone thought about it or did it already.
Oh well, it is not that difficult to swith to another email provider.
Cory Doctorow talked a bit about this, among other enshittification problems, on his Pluralustic post today.
Thanks, enjoyed reading that
Man that article points out some scary trends. It's just crazy the way they're using digital technology to economically enslave us with subscriptions for product function and maintenance. Then the way they use that technology to monitor us. I saw the end coming with the John Deere business some decades ago. My feeling was I sure hope that practice never comes to normal consumer products, but here it is. It's feudal for sure and a blatant violation of consumer rights. You don't own products anymore and you still get to pay for them like you do.
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It's already being pushed to the Chromium repo: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd
I’m really hoping this doesn’t make it into Brave their teams has removed a lot of Google crap in the past. Mullvad’s fork of Firefox can always replace them.
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I hope the EU can get to a quick decision on this. I trust they'll provide a carrot on a stick to maintain the open internet in a way that'll make Google suffer if they decide to not play ball with Brussels' terms.
Good article. Not clickbait/ragebait, and it explains the specification simply and succinctly, while also demonstrating why it's dangerous for the open web.
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