For a while, wasn't it quite difficult to install Flash without it also installing Chrome and setting it as your default browser? I seem to recall you had to find a fairly well-hidden link to a different Flash installer from the one the site tried to direct you to.

I use firefox on linux but when I need flash (maybe once a year) then I use chrome. I wouldn't be suprised if normal users that regularly depend on flash just want a browser that always works instead of switching between two browsers.

Not to mention how they constantly bug you on the Google homepage to switch to Chrome.

Yeah further proof for google that being sneaky Gets Shit Done.

We collectively need to factor this into our product choices and stop encouraging the sneakiest of them all.

I understand that it's quite trendy to shit on Google's parade these days.

But how exactly is bundling Flash player sneaky?

Or are you alluding to some sort of bait and switch that was executed to suck people into the Google sphere? If so, please explain! Chrome was never marketed as a privacy-minded browser, was it?

Chrome bundles the Flash Pepper plugin, but Adobe's Flash NPAPI plugin installer also bundled Chrome as an opt-out "make Chrome my default browser" setting. So a Firefox user downloading the Flash NPAPI plugin (for their Firefox) would, by default, end up downloading the Flash NPAPI plugin, Chrome, and Chrome's Flash Pepper plugin. If the user really wanted Chrome, they would have downloaded it instead of downloading Flash NPAPI plugin that works in Firefox and not in Chrome.

I didn't see it as shitting on Google because there are newer, "hungrier" companies that I think will do sneakier things and cross lines Google wouldn't cross. I think it was valid as a general talking point. We do need to be careful about who we support.

For example, there is apparently a $40B rural Internet access bill that Dems are pushing. I love greater access to the internet but I'm more than a little skeptical.