This is the absolutely dumbest thing that I have read. Who would buy Chrome and why? If you just want the codebase, you have Chromium. Chrome only monetizes because of ads.
Then what happens to Chromebooks? Can Google no longer ship a browser with Android?
Besides, unless you have an Android - which is only 30% of the US market or a Chromebook, everyone who uses Chrome went through the process of downloading it and made a purposeful choice to use it
It is dumb and the comments here are baffling. People are blaming Google for forks not being able to keep up. Like forks can be based on webkit or gecko if they don't like Google. Both Apple and MSFT are far far more closed in all their products where they have any inertia. Yet Google gets the flame mostly because of their incompetent PR and legal execution. Case in point Google got flamed here so much for dragonfly, while Bing keeps running in China and even sometimes by mistake or not applies Chinese sensors to the rest of the world. The sacred Apple also works in China following all their laws. But Google is worse than both just for attempting dragonfly.
Google lost a lot of goodwill on HN since the proposed web integrity api. HN has a strong aversion to perceived attacks on the open web.
I personally don’t think it’s fair to single Google out and leave Apple and Microsoft alone. It may be overly cynical, but I think Google is in its current situation because it has fostered political enemies on both sides.
Google gets this treatment before any talk of web integrity API so no that was not it. I don't think this is necessarily about political enemies on both sides. Just that their PR is just so so bad. Like look at Brad Smith and all the big but empty statements he keeps making for Microsoft. Google needs someone like him.
Monopolies are at their worst when they use their position to make a power play over a market (such as browsers) that isn't very profitable on it's own but can be used as a loss leader in a wider monopolistic scheme.
This is when antitrust is needed most, by design. There's a bit of understanding you need to do, but not only is it not dumb, what you said about nobody wanting to buy chrome is actually part of the proof of why google needs to be broken up and why chrome is an ideal target for doing so. The browser market needs to be made competitive again.
It's not like browsers will cease to exist though. If the proposed selling of Chrome leads to slower change in web specifications (i.e. 'fully featured' browser stuff) I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
How does that help anyone? Firefox only survives from ad revenue from Google. Apple had some motivation to keep up with Chrome to a point. But wouldn’t be motivated from competition from Firefox. Apple is much more motivated to improve its own platform.
Microsoft definitely doesn’t care about the web or even its PC operating system much.
So now, no one is pushing the web forward. But Apple, Google and Microsoft are still motivated to improve their own platforms. While I personally think the modern web is a cesspool and I am okay with that as a user, I doubt many on HN who care about the “open web” feel that way.
As a developer, I haven’t touched the clusterfuck of modern web development for over a decade.
Then what happens to Chromebooks? Can Google no longer ship a browser with Android?
Besides, unless you have an Android - which is only 30% of the US market or a Chromebook, everyone who uses Chrome went through the process of downloading it and made a purposeful choice to use it