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Comment by blibble | Hacker News Reader

as someone who was around in the 2000s where MS utterly dominated the computing industry (thankfully now ancient history)

the chap in the comments complaining that the company dominating this specific market (Google) is being MEAN to Microsoft by not helping them out by supporting their competing platform really is quite amusing

> Google historically has never supported MS in any of their initiatives. This is the same company that tried to destroy Windows Phone by repeatedly killing the YouTube app that MS made and never developed any apps for the platform. They have zero presence on the Microsoft Store, even Apple has their apps on the MS Store. I heard of them doing shady things with the Edge browser as well.

meanwhile I'm still here waiting for my native Linux ports of Office and Halo?

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> company dominating this specific market (Google) is being MEAN to Microsoft by not helping them out

Google is sp much more dangerous than mocrpspft ever was - they track near realtome location of billions of people. Theu have private data.

In its heyday, microspft had millions of computers, half of them werent even connected to the internet. Most were for business, and even domestic ones were usually on 3 hours a day for games or work. Peak of personal data was havong a few photos or assignment frok school. What were they going to do, steal your spreadsheet?

> meanwhile I'm still here waiting for my native Linux ports of Office and Halo?

As a developer I am waiting for all linux dudes to finish fighting it oit, but the drama has been going on for 15 years: numeroius Ui toolkits, wayland vs Xwhatever, some drama around repositories and flatpack, some drama around vendoring dependencies vs debianndevelopers supplying versions they choose, musl vs glibc, systemd, etc. You need to spend more effort on linux than you do on mac and windows combined.

This is why web and google has won, and sadly dektop apps are dying - endless infighting. And they have a way of praising it as innovation of alternatives, but havong 10 slightly different solutions is not innovation. Half of the battles seem to be ideological.

>What were they going to do, steal your spreadsheet?

Often enough that would be more valuable data than Google's data

I disagree, Microsoft exploits people (not just users) in a different way than Google.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

They strong arm with laptop manufacturers to nearly force users to pay for a Windows license for all device (non-Windows laptops exist, but let’s be honest, it’s insignificant).

They get into beds with gov to get license deals (with taxpayers’ money).

Not to mention the rampant telemetry on Windows that can’t ever be fully turn off.

And a paid-for Windows 10/11 has Tik Tok and Candy Crush ads?

Google and Microsoft are bad, no need to pick just one.

> They strong arm with laptop manufacturers to nearly force users to pay for a Windows license for all device (non-Windows laptops exist, but let’s be honest, it’s insignificant).

Google does the. same thing with android and olay store access?

This comment is spot on.

TLDR: if making most end-users happy isnt your top priority then you won't be getting most people as end-users.

Microsoft does tons on tracking by default, like tracking all the apps you open and pushing you to use a Microsoft account. I was surprised at how difficult it actually is now to the point where you have to enter a bogus username multiple times before being given the option to create a local account. Also, they integrate location tracking into whatever devices they can. You can see this is your Microsoft account as well. It is bizarre you think that they are somehow better. Microsoft's dark patterns are worse and the company historically has made far worse decisions than Google. I don't see Microsoft releasing an open source version of their operating system that projects like GrapheneOS and others can use. Microsoft constantly shits on their own developers and people that develop for Microsoft quickly learn that if they aren't paying you well for your time then open source is much better because at least that way you've learned a useful skill that doesn't have a lot of vendor lock-in.

Microsoft even to this day despite claiming they love Linux makes decisions and pays companies to specifically make it more difficult for things to run on Linux. Fortunately, now that Valve has been committing resources to Linux gaming things have been going pretty well with Linux desktop. It might not be for users that have to make any choices or understand anything but point and click, but it is amazing for people that can spend a little extra time learning and I think if people learn Linux skills early on it is far more valuable and less head bashing because there are great communities behind most open source projects unlike Microsoft who ignores their feedback.

you can state things as they are all you like. these people hate Microsoft because they were told to, and they're never letting go of it.

oh, also, Google can do no wrong to these folks, because if they admit that Google can do (or is doing) wrong, then they know they have to abandon their Google accounts, and they just can't do it. so, they stare their self-deception in the face in the morning when they brush their teeth and they bash on Microsoft at every opportunity because they drank slashdot like it was water.

Why limit yourself against one evil entity? Both Google and Microsoft are proven evil enemies of the people and should be resisted at all costs.

There is a specific difference between "not helping" (your words) and "repeatedly killing" (the quoted words). It's certainly not about being mean.

Google is under no obligation to help their competitors. When they use their competitive advantage in one market (online video) to actively thwart competitors in an entirely different market (mobile OS) -- that's the sort of thing that gets the attention of antitrust.

> meanwhile I'm still here waiting for my native Linux ports of Office and Halo?

As far as I'm aware, MS is not actively blocking efforts to get things to work in WINE and similar projects. So there's a difference there from your Google example.

And yet, MS _is_ under active antitrust investigation for their intermingling of gaming platforms and studio games exclusives, relating to their attempts to buy even more major studios.

You're talking about the same Microsoft that periodically "helpfully" changes default browser back to Edge (from Google Chrome) and also resets search engine from Google to Bing?

While adding a very small, TINY little link you need to really look for to avoid having this reset?

That Microsoft? Poor scummy megacorporation!

Microsoft’s bad behaviour does not excuse Google’s bad behaviour.

As I noted, MS engages with anticompetitive behaviour and is undergoing investigation for that again.

The items you reference with browsers may be cause for concern as well. A crucial difference is that MS is _not_ a market leader in the browser space, they are a poorly performing underdog. So while concerning, it’s less of an issue than if Edge was doing well.

> So while concerning, it’s less of an issue than if Edge was doing well

I don't think it's wise to give a proven monopolist company a pass on monopoly behavior just because their products is not (yet) a market leader. They use monopoly behavior to become the market leader.

I agree. Which is why I find it concerning. It’s also a lousy way to treat your customers, I’m likewise annoyed every time windows yoinks my Firefox defaults.

I just find it significantly more concerning when someone like Google uses their monopoly power in one market to thwart potential new competitors in another market.

Both are bad. But blocking new entrants is especially bad.

> meanwhile I'm still here waiting for my native Linux ports of Office and Halo?

In fairness MS are now pushing Office365 which runs on Google's platform (Chrome) as a first-class target. And I'm sure we'd've seen Halo on Stadia if it had survived long enough.

You might get them if there were more than about 4 customers on Linux who would want them.

ah, so double the amount of people who used Windows Phone!

> tried to destroy Windows Phone by repeatedly killing the YouTube app that MS made

Fair or not, this was actually quite a blow to Windows Phone.

Google blocked Microsoft's app (because it lacked ads) and insisted on collaborating only if the app was remade in HTML5, which MS refused to do. So they kept playing cat and mouse, releasing updates to evade the block and blocking them again, until MS gave up and replaced the app in an update by just a shortcut to youtube.com.

Ironically, most people seemed to switch to a third party app (I don't remember the name) that supported even more features against YouTube's ToS than Microsoft's, including no ads. I remember it being quite polished as well.

Dont be evil

No one sees the modern world somehow???

"Google recommends using Chrome" ... on Chromium Edge. Uh. The Browser Wars are over. No one at the IETF will dispute Google's dominance. Google has won. I understand the lockdown has been a while, but can someone check over at Google HQ? See if anyone is minding the systems? It all seems awfully automated...

Chrome != Chromium

the browser wars won't ever be over. Every browser that has ever been a marker leader has abused that position, Chrome included.

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