They need non-Chrome browsers to exist, to avoid accusations of a monopoly. Chromium is arguably a strategy around this, where you can have a bunch of browsers using the same (Google controlled) infrastructure.

Safari is an exception, since Apple won't accept giving that up in their products.

They don't need anything other than firefox or safari. All new browsers could be blocked as they are unknown/untrusted.

And if you want to build a new one - you cannot test against a very common use case.

>Next step: The browser must not be anything but Chrome.

It seems like that'd be difficult without somehow dealing with Apple first, maybe by getting the government to force them to allow Chrome. Which could happen. Some of the "antitrust" stuff getting tossed around is already starting to get exploited by entities like advertisers, and not just big ones like Facebook, there were those EU ones recently. Like all power, Apple's focusing of its user's collective power can be used not just for bad stuff but for very good stuff as well. But that nuance doesn't seem to be present in a lot of the last year's discussions, and of course lobbyists will use the opportunity if they can.

Without that though or another big disruptive shift Apple misses, can even Google afford to give up on the entire iOS market? Even the Mac market perhaps, if Apple really wanted to push back against Google there they've certainly got the potential capability.

Restricting to just Chrome/Safari(Apple webkit) would still be really bad though. Even if they still allow Firefox, that would further formalize just 3 browsers with minimal further experimentation still possible. That'd be a real shame.

> It seems like that'd be difficult without somehow dealing with Apple first, maybe by getting the government to force them to allow Chrome. Which could happen.

But that would also imply they'd have to allow Firefox, and Brave, and Tor Browser. Which would certainly be worth the "cost" of allowing Chrome.

> Some of the "antitrust" stuff getting tossed around is already starting to get exploited by entities like advertisers, and not just big ones like Facebook, there were those EU ones recently.

All political coalitions work like this. If you're against DMCA 1201 then commercial pirates will be on your side. That doesn't mean they're your friends. They're not, and in fact are costing your side goodwill, even if your side is right in the end.

> Like all power, Apple's focusing of its user's collective power can be used not just for bad stuff but for very good stuff as well. But that nuance doesn't seem to be present in a lot of the last year's discussions

Because it's true of anything. Dictatorships are a wonderful thing if you're the dictator's friends, but that's hardly making a strong case for dictatorship.

Please stop spreading FUD on HN.

FUD? You still do not see the frog boiling after years of pushing Chrome and mindwashing developers into creating sites that only work in Chrome?

Google is the one "spreading FUD". Just look at the downvoting going on in the discussion and you'll see some pretty obvious attempts to silence anti-Google criticism.

No way. (Theoretically on Android, but let's be real, they won't).

No way they are giving up marketshare on Safari or on corporate boxes with IE. They've paid so much to get onto iPhones, there's not a chance they'd risk any marketshare erosion.

This is pretty much the current step already, not the next step, with broad ban on anything that isn't a lot like Chrome and anything that they simply don't want to allow. In the last thread the narrative was hijacked with bullshit "security" justification, while in the blog post they ban much more broadly, any automation, text-based browsers, etc.