Frankly, who cares. The important part is that google doesn't own a browser.

Is the justice department then going to stop Google from using the open source Chromium project to create a new browser?

If they want to do their job? Yes.

I expect there will be some material constraints that emerge in what browser features they're actually allowed to ship as shipping without a browser also seems to be anti-consumer.

Almost certainly that would be part of a consent decree, which would prohibit Google from creating or controlling a browser for some period of time, and would include court supervision.

I find it hard to believe that any court could legally stop Google from developing a new browser if they were forced to sell Chrome.

Any court today? Maybe. Similar arrangements have been pretty common, though.

then you don't understand how any of this works

Yes because government regulation of tech has been so successful in the past. Just look at how well the anti trust lawsuit against IBM went - that they later just dropped because it wasn’t relevant anymore - or the Microsoft lawsuit in 2000.

No there was never a browser choice mandate in the US

> Yes because government regulation of tech has been so successful in the past. Just look at how well the anti trust lawsuit against IBM went - that they later just dropped because it wasn’t relevant anymore - or the Microsoft lawsuit in 2000.

You can surely do better than these examples. Nobody would be better for lack of action against IBM, and lack of serious action against microsoft continues to hurt us today. C'mon. Break these useless, unproductive fuckers up.

Yes because of the Microsoft monopoly, other tech companies have failed to thrive.

Their monopolistic behavior in Windows led to their current browser, mobile, cloud, and game console dominance.

I think the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit was neutered on purpose by the Bush administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/sep/07/microsoft...

So Google could also not ship a browser with Android devices? Chromebooks?

Selling devices with a browser installed or available for installation is completely tangential to creating and/or controlling the development of said browser.

Would Google not be allowed to make any changes to the open source Chromium browser before installing it on its own hardware?

Yes.

Yes, in the sense that me putting a gun to your head and ordering you to stay still isn't the same as me handcuffing you, because you can still physically move.

But now Bing would have a chance of becoming the default search engine of the most used browser in the world.

That's the difference.

Bing is already the default search engine on the default browser of the most used OS in the world.

If they're not competing well, then that's entirely their fault. Microsoft is not at any kind of disadvantage here.

I don’t think Bing is the default search engine for Android’s browser. I could be wrong though. Is it? That would be a surprisingly fair-minded move of Google.

By context I’m pretty sure they mean Windows OS and not android, sometimes you have to take things in context. Depending on context one could easily argue that linux is the most common operating system depending on where you draw the line on operating system

I am pointing out that Windows is not the most common OS, and Android is.

The original comment was saying that Google is able to perform anti-competitively because they control the most popular browser.

The followup (which I responded to) is saying that the existence of Windows as the most popular OS, and Microsoft’s control over the default browser there, mitigates this anti-competitive potential.

The fact that Windows is not the most popular OS (and that, in fact, the most popular OS is controlled by Google) undermines that argument.

Linux is not the most popular OS in any context that includes doing searches with the thing, unless you include Android, but Android just uses Linux for the kernel mostly, and an OS is more than a kernel.

Every Linux distro just uses Linux for the kernel, right? What else is there? Init system and user space stuff isn’t Linux in any Linux distro either, because Linux is a kernel. The real thing that might make Android not a normal Linux distro is the heavy modification of the Kernel.

A Linux distro uses the Linux kernel by definition, I guess, so I think you are right about that. We could talk about distros in general, maybe Homebrew and Cygwin, if we didn’t want to define a distro as being a Linux distro. But I’m not sure what the point is.

I’m not clear on what they meant by Linux. But if we use a definition of “Linux OS” that includes Android and is restricted to devices which people typically use to perform searches (aka consumer devices) (since that was the original topic), then Linux is mostly Android and it is a kind of pointless distinction to make.

If we want to use some definition of Linux that precludes Android, and covers all devices that use the Linux kernel, then we have a bunch of servers, streaming boxes, smart lightbulbs, whatever.

If we want to use a definition which is, like, what I think everyone means when they say Linux in the context of market share: GNU/Linux or BusyBox/other/Linux (I was hoping to avoid the GNU/Linux meme, but here we are), then that doesn’t have much market share.

It's the most common desktop OS. No one was confused by what the parent meant since Windows is not a mobile operating system and doesn't compete in that market.

Bing and Google are competing in the market of search engines, not some device specific search engine market.

I think it's fair for them to point out (however snarkily) that Windows is not the most popular OS. In the context of the discussion, I think it matters that there is another OS, Android, that is more popular.

I think their point is that you can't just say "most popular" without more context because not only is it often subjective, but it can also be interpreted in different ways. Most popular by type of device? number of total users worldwide? etc.

Even with Android, Linux is not the most popular OS, it's MINIX: https://www.networkworld.com/article/964650/minix-the-most-p...

There is much more Android phones, tablets, TVs, Linux routers and other gear sold every year than Intel-based PCs with ME, so the articles' claim may need narrowing to "OS used in PCs" and even that has a chance of being wrong, given how AMD is doing these years.

If you're going that direction, the largest Android install base is in China, which quite notably does not have Google services.

Not Linux, but MINIX is the most common OS: https://medium.com/@RealWorldCyberSecurity/ever-heard-of-min...

>Bing is already the default search engine on the default browser of the most used OS in the world.

It's actually more embedded in Windows than Google is in Android.

If you change your default engine in Android it changes across the OS.

In Windows, there are dialogs that say "search bing for" embedded into places like the right click menu when you have text highlighted that remain even after attempting to express a different search choice. Another example is the search bar in a new tab.

> A better solution is to implement a bill

Not that I disagree with the overall point, but this is something the DOJ does not do. They would just look at the current laws and decide who to prosecute based on their interpretation of events.

Unless you own a Chromebook, if you have Chrome on your computer, you made a choice to download it. How would a browser choice screen help?

Probably it would forbid "Download Chrome" on Google and "Download Edge" on Bing.

It's less about PC and more about Android, where Chrome is preinstalled.

Look at the effects of breaking up the bells into smaller companies....

Which of the bells provided a valuable free product that could only be funded via other product revenue streams?

BSD Unix comes to mind.