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A comment on The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome. Parent comment

Re:The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome by fngjdflmdflg on Saturday March 08, 2025 @08:10PM (#43305203)
>Most of that advantage comes from an unfair practice, of Google making consumers think that their choice of browser was in someway inferior (which could be true) and thus they should prefer Chrome (which is not true).

Are you sure that the advantage came from marketing? In my mind the advantage was that Chrome really was faster for example due to V8. Also can you explain why the "thus they should prefer Chrome" reasoning is flawed?

Personally, I haven't seen Google act in a way that prevents competition in the browser space (ie. being anticompetitive). If anything, Windows is more anticompetitive because it is closed source, making it much more difficult to create a competing product. All the web specifications are completely free. And Apple is the only vendor that prevents browser competition on their platform, although Windows does give you a popup telling you not install Chrome.[0]

The Google search agreements between Apple and Google seem more likely to be anticompetitive.

[0] Searching for Google Chrome with the default Bing search engine with the default Edge browser gives you this result:

>Promoted by Microsoft

>There's no need to download a new web browser. Microsoft recommends using Microsoft Edge for a fast, secure, and modern web experience that can help save you time and money.

See also Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome - https://www.theverge.com/23935029/microsoft-edge-forced-wind...

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Re:The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome by viraptor on Sunday March 09, 2025 @06:32AM (#43307844)
It's mostly marketing. Google spent lots of money both for external marketing and for Google-property banners that advertise Chrome. There were years you basically couldn't visit a popular website without being told to install Chrome. Then there were billboards and paper ads on top of that.

There were feature differences for sure, but the marketing did a massive amount of work in this case. If people switched for features, all that spending for years wouldn't be necessary.

[ Parent | on HN ]