Analysis | Google spent $26 billion to hide this phone setting from you
www.washingtonpost.com
Google goes to great lengths to be your default search engine and keep you from switching. Here’s why you should make your own choice.

Google spent $26 billion to hide this phone setting from you::undefined

  • raptir@lemdro.idEnglish
    501·
    1 year ago

    My problem with this whole thing is that Chrome’s only real competition (meaning it’s not based on Chromium) is funded nearly entirely by Google paying to be the default search engine. If you aren’t going to allow search engines to pay to be the default then Mozilla needs to find a completely different way to make money.

    • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      1 year ago

      Given the overly wide scope of web browsers it is impossible for a new competitor to create a new browser correctly or securly. The browser market has one path as far as I can see: Firefox dying and overlord Google being on top until we stop using “the web”.

      • raptir@lemdro.idEnglish
        131·
        1 year ago

        I hope not. Not only do I not want to see Google annihilate Firefox but I also don’t want to see the further “appification” of every website. It’s ridiculous that I need to install an app to pay for parking when I’m visiting a city and will only use the app once. It’s not even Bluetooth enabled so it’s not like it can be used offline if you don’t have a connection.

        The fact that Firefox is open source gives me some hope that the community could take the reins and continue development if Mozilla did run into financial trouble.

          • raptir@lemdro.idEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            Aren’t they realistically more “patches” than forks? They continue to track the Firefox codebase as it updates.

              • raptir@lemdro.idEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                LibreWolf for example removes the telemetry but is ultimately still updating to each new Firefox version. In the event of Mozilla going under, some project would need to pick up the maintenance of the actual browser core that the “forks” are pulling updates from.

                • Captain_Patchy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  1 year ago

                  In the event of Mozilla going under

                  Far less likely than Microsoft “going under” but sure, let’s pretend that’s a giant concern for the users.

        • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          That is horrible but it need not be. Parking paying apps could be federated: you pick the app you like and can pay anywhere*.

          Personally I have never used a parking app because they are proprietary and thankfully I live in country where many still uses coins.

      • ferralcat@monyet.ccEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I mean, you could just use Firefox or safari, or anything not chromium really. Yeah Moz will take money from search revenue, but they’ve proven over and over google doesn’t tell them what to do.

        Heck, chrome exists because google tried to firce Moz to ship a shitty bookmarks implementation, and Mozilla said no years ago. It’s literally just an example of a “I’m going to take my ball and go home” tantrum.

        • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I do use Firefox (Librewolf) but Moz are not in control of web “standards” that most websites will follow.

          I believe web browsers ultimately should be abandoned and replaced by users with software dedicated to parts of browser functions (e.g. Gemini sites for plain text, video players for video).

    • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
      26·
      1 year ago

      Safari is the browser with the second highest usage share and is not in any way based on chrome. It’s limited to Apple platforms though, so other users can’t switch without buying new devices.

      • raptir@lemdro.idEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, telling me I can switch from Linux to MacOS is not exactly a solution.

        That said, Apple took money from Google to make Google the default on Safari. While I don’t think Apple will crumble without Google’s money, $18 billion certainly more than funds the development of Safari.

        • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          WebKit and Blink are extremely far diverged at this point, even though Blink was originally a fork of WebKit. Features like sandboxing and process isolation vary significantly on the backend, and feature support for web pages varies greatly. Ask any web developer if they can rely on new web features in chrome also being present in safari, they can’t.

        • bamboo@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          WebKit and Blink are extremely far diverged at this point, even though Blink was originally a fork of WebKit. Features like sandboxing and process isolation vary significantly on the backend, and feature support for web pages varies greatly. Ask any web developer if they can rely on new web features in chrome also being present in safari, they can’t.

  • XanXic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    312·
    1 year ago

    How’s it hidden? You to to the default app settings…

    Or just install another browser and they’ll walk you through it.

    I find Windows way more egregious, it will allow you to set it but not really, half of anything you do will open edge and then they’ll occasionally reset your default browser with bugger updates.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The reason we’re able to pull back the curtain on the big business of default settings is because of an antitrust trial against Google underway in Washington, one of the largest in decades.

    The U.S. has accused Google of illegally using payments to phone makers and others to deter people from trying alternatives like the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo and or Microsoft-made Bing.

    To put that to the test, my colleague Tatum Hunter and I hit the streets of San Francisco and asked strangers to show us how to change the default search engine on their phone.

    There, Google’s market share has largely stayed the same; competitors say that’s because the choice screen is shown only once and also because it doesn’t give sufficient information about alternatives.

    iPhones ask users to make lots of decisions about privacy, including whether they want to give apps the ability to track them.

    Funny thing, though — Apple products don’t ask customers to make any privacy choices about their search engine, it’s just Google by default.

    The original article contains 1,447 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
    151·
    1 year ago

    They were not paid to “hide this setting”, they were paid to have this setting by default.

    Boggles the mind that they actually expect you to pay money for this clickbait trash.

  • Captain_Patchy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    1 year ago

    I have just discovered, sadly, that duckduck does not do voice recognition for searching.

    I am sad and don’t know if I can adapt.