This is my point - Chrome isn't there to play dirty, it's there so competitors can't. But if it had to make money without Google all that BS would get bundled in the browser.

> Chrome isn't there to play dirty, it's there so competitors can't.

Like Manifest V3, which explicitly makes it harder to strip out Google's own ad products on websites you visit?

> without Google all that BS would get bundled in the browser.

Or maybe it wouldn't. There are already lots of other browsers that don't.

Manifest v3 being tied to ads is a fantasy fiction. This is no proof of it and ample evidence it is a good security move which other browsers did first. Is apple doing similar things with Safari for nefarious reasons?

> This is no proof of it and ample evidence it is a good security move which other browsers did first.

You crush up the bitter pill in a spoonful of jam to make it easier to digest.

> Is apple doing similar things with Safari for nefarious reasons?

Yes? Look at what they tried to get away with with PWAs as an example.

Making moves so that competitors can't play at all is so far beyond playing dirty. It's anti-competitive and illegal.

They can play, but they are competing with a raised bar which benefits consumers. It's not illegal to make things better.

They aren't competing with a raised bar, they are competing with a bar that can only be passed if you already have a massive presence in an unrelated area. You can not compete with an entrenched existing player when they are giving their things away for "free", subsidized by a massive ad tax. This entrenchment is tailor-made to make competition infeasible.

This is illegal for a reason. It does NOT benefit consumers to make it impossible for anybody to compete with you. This is anti-competitive, not competition.