How does the next default Windows browser being forked from Chromium mean Google controls it?

You know what open-source is, right?

People threw their arms in the air because IE was substantially behind other browsers in stability and capabilities, and all their new features were IE-specific APIs that didn't work anywhere else.

Chromium is an open-source project that largely follows IETF/W3C/ECMA standards.

The two are not even remotely comparable.

It's great that it follows all these standards, but the browser (due to recent changes) and the company behind it doesn't seem to follow some necessary ethical standards.

It's open source, the recent changes you mention (which I'm not aware of, a reference to these changes would be nice) can be reverted and the ethics of the company behind it aren't really relevant because it's an open-source project, the only way Google really benefits from it's use is if they receive contributions back to the Chromium project, which also benefits everyone else.

I didn't say the concerns are wrong, just that repeating them again and again, mostly within an echo chamber of tech people, will do nothing to change the facts.

I don't think people should sit there and go meh. They should just be realistic about what actions will and will not make an actual difference.

We only started caring about Microsoft when they stopped updating IE up to the point it was very buggy, non-standard compliant, outdated and insecure. Then Firefox came along and gave us an alternative. Chrome might also be pushing their own standards a bit too hard, but it is fairly standard compliant, secure, cross-platform, up to date and actively developed. So of course we don't care so much.