Bring popcorn, this is a developing story… 🍿(Happening rn on Threads)
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Bring popcorn, this is a developing story…
(Happening rn on Threads)
@marialeal haha, nice.
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Bring popcorn, this is a developing story…
(Happening rn on Threads)@marialeal
It's on! -
@BafS It can be argued that, as Slater is a Trump-appointed advisor, and affiliated with the Republican party and Fox Corporation, that she has effectively cooperated with fascists. Her track record on anti-trust speaks for itself. I don't know the extent to which she has influenced the Trump admin for the greater good or if she was just another lackey. Apparently she resigned from her position recently.
@hyperreal "Slater aligns with conservative antitrust views, advocating market competition against Big Tech monopolies without expanding regulation, as discussed in her interviews." that's why it was very interesting for Proton. Breaking big tech monopolies is great.
Recently she was pushed out after blocking deals favored by Trump allies and lobbyists.
I'm still trying to understand what is fascist about that, people love to throw words without actually reading or trying to understand what is going on.
US antitrust chief Gail Slater ousted from Trump justice department
Exclusive: Decision comes after Slater lost the support of JD Vance and Pam Bondi, the attorney general
the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)
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@hyperreal "Slater aligns with conservative antitrust views, advocating market competition against Big Tech monopolies without expanding regulation, as discussed in her interviews." that's why it was very interesting for Proton. Breaking big tech monopolies is great.
Recently she was pushed out after blocking deals favored by Trump allies and lobbyists.
I'm still trying to understand what is fascist about that, people love to throw words without actually reading or trying to understand what is going on.
US antitrust chief Gail Slater ousted from Trump justice department
Exclusive: Decision comes after Slater lost the support of JD Vance and Pam Bondi, the attorney general
the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)
@BafS You're not telling me anything I haven't already said or don't already know. Please mention the right person in your comments.
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Chromium isn't a monopoly. Firefox and other browsers exist. Chromium does have the majority market share, tho, and I agree this is on par with the forcing AI into everything problem.
IMO Vivaldi gets points for avoiding AI. Only 5% of the code base is proprietary and it's only the UI. 90% is open source Chromium base. Vivaldi is privacy-friendly to the extent that they don't use and sell your data for profit. They've also built ProtonVPN into the browser and users can use the free tier without a ProtonVPN account. I think Firefox is inherently more privacy-friendly because it's not Chromium-based, and has the container tabs feature which Chromium-based browsers sorely lack.
Zen, LibreWolf, and Waterfox are better Firefox skins if you want no-AI and more privacy-by-default settings, but they don't have mobile apps.
@hyperreal @woe2you @asm @lea @marialeal Other browser engines existing doesn't mean Chromium doesn't have a monopoly. Other desktop OSes existed when Microsoft was convicted of having a monopoly. Other search engines exist but Google was convicted of having a monopoly.
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@hyperreal @woe2you @asm @lea @marialeal Other browser engines existing doesn't mean Chromium doesn't have a monopoly. Other desktop OSes existed when Microsoft was convicted of having a monopoly. Other search engines exist but Google was convicted of having a monopoly.
@alahmnat @woe2you @asm @lea @marialeal The circumstances for those are vastly different. In the case of Google Search and Microsoft, they were effectively a monopoly for the average user -- they obscured the possibility and availability of alternatives.
In the case of web browsers, the possibility and availability of alternatives is not as obscured. Anecdotal: My mom knows about Firefox but still chooses to use Chrome / Edge. She's only heard of Linux because I'm her son lol, she otherwise would not know what it is and think Microsoft Windows is the only thing you can get. Marketing has a lot to do with this. You don't see commercials and ads for Linux in everyday normie life.
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Bring popcorn, this is a developing story…
(Happening rn on Threads)@marialeal The girls are fighting!
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@alahmnat @woe2you @asm @lea @marialeal The circumstances for those are vastly different. In the case of Google Search and Microsoft, they were effectively a monopoly for the average user -- they obscured the possibility and availability of alternatives.
In the case of web browsers, the possibility and availability of alternatives is not as obscured. Anecdotal: My mom knows about Firefox but still chooses to use Chrome / Edge. She's only heard of Linux because I'm her son lol, she otherwise would not know what it is and think Microsoft Windows is the only thing you can get. Marketing has a lot to do with this. You don't see commercials and ads for Linux in everyday normie life.
@alahmnat But anyway, my estimations could be wrong. Maybe the legal definition of monopoly is such that Chromium would qualify. Regardless, it does have way too much of the market share compared to alternatives when you include all Chromium-based browsers.
The official Google Chrome browser would only qualify IMO if it creates barriers to using alternatives, obscures the existence of alternatives, and/or invests money in doing those things to stifle competition. They've done that with Google Search, but I don't know if Chrome browser qualifies.
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@makesubarugayagain @marialeal Wait, is that Matt Damon? I've seen this at least a hundred times...
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@zakius @marialeal Glad to hear this. Mozilla has been shitty in some ways, but pretty OK in others, even recently. I struggle with questions like "At what point do I avoid this software in protest of what the company is doing?" and right now Firefox is being sorta shitty, but I'm mentally grading them on a curve compared to Chrome and Edge. On that curve they get a C+ compared to Vivaldi's A or A-, but that's a C+ that can do some things I frequently want done.
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@hyperreal @asm @lea @marialeal It's as close to a monopoly as makes no difference. Firefox is a rounding error these days, even Edge has more users. The only thing in the market share stats that's hiding the true extent of the Chromium problem is Safari, which is a different problem all of its own.
Yes, Chromium is de jure open source but it's de facto a Google product, and that's a threat to the open web. They contribute the lion's share of dev time and funding and they dictate the direction of the project. Take the Manifest spec for example: the changes from v2 to v3 were specifically to neuter ad blockers. Effective ad blocking is a threat to Google's bottom line, so Google said frog and Chromium hopped, and all Chromium-based browsers are now more privacy hostile by design.
Firefox's soft forks are vulnerable to every piece of dipshittery that comes out of Mozilla. They have to spend time and resources unfucking things that Mozilla have fucked. Speaking of Mozilla, they also get a huge chunk of funding from Google, because that enables Google to point at them and say "look, Firefox is still around, we're not a monopoly".
The browser landscape is utterly fucked.
@woe2you All good points.
"The browser landscape is utterly fucked." Yup. Not to be defeatist, but I don't really know what else we can do about it.
I have some faith/optimism that because these browsers are open source, and because there are enough people who care about it, there is some hope for the open web.
On a related note, I seem to recall reading about a brand new browser that is in development and isn't based on Chromium or Firefox. I don't recall the name or where I read about it. But I hope that is has enough resources and momentum to gain traction in the browser landscape.
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Bring popcorn, this is a developing story…
(Happening rn on Threads)@marialeal Chromium IS a monopoly. Just add the implicit "de facto" to the sentence and you will agree.
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@makesubarugayagain @marialeal Wait, is that Matt Damon? I've seen this at least a hundred times...
@guyjantic @makesubarugayagain @marialeal ben affleck
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@zakius @marialeal I am not against expensive, petty messaging
But I just have to be pragmatic, I think. Browsers are one of the software tools I use constantly. I'm not a dev, a programmer, or even much of a script kiddie, so my ability to manage my privacy, my statements about instititional behavior, etc. is a little more limited: I can switch platforms, but I can't code my own or fork my own projects, etc. It's also true that my skill level here means adopting some of the more aggressive pro-FOSS or pro-privacy alternatives would require a lot more investment of time and frustration for me than for some other people.
I find myself trying to find a shifting balance: support my values to the extent it is feasible while still doing other important things in my life like my job.
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