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Comment by Semaphor | Hacker News Reader

Only for people using chrome.

What do you think the point of creating Chrome was?

To not allow Microsoft IE to dictate web standards? To gather more search queries? Chrome beta released 15 years ago, that's such a long con I'm not sure I buy it.

When Chrome came out, Microsoft was in no position to dictate anything web-related; they barely managed to get IE7 released and it was playing massive catchup to Firefox (and Opera) in regards to standards, and didn't really bring any new web features that weren't already in other browsers.

MS really dropped the ball after IE6. Notably in Europe Firefox actually temporarily surpassed IE in market share, before Google came and stomped everyone.

Maybe you were not using IE at that time, but surely you had to create IE compatible content if you worked as a web developer, and this was really hell. If window.forms, if ie6 if opera, if ns6 - ifing hell there was I tell you!

> Microsoft was in no position to dictate anything web-related; they barely managed to get IE7 released

I recall a blog from that time titled Chrome is the new IE6.

On the corporate side, we paid attention when an SAAS site had a "Built For Internet Explorer" badge. Elements can+did falter in other browsers (because devs only dev'd for IE).

it's not a "long" con, it's a con which keeps on giving.

We're a web company. We should own a critical technology for getting on the web. Better experience surfing means more traffic for Google. But also, if we own the browser, we can push Google services and make them better and more convenient. We can also influence web standards to our favor. And a nice side-effect is we can better track users.

So--one part we're an ad company and one part MS-style "embrace and extend" the web.

AKA the vast majority of browsers out there.

Frankly, this just gives more reasons to switch.

Sadly, most people don't care or understand these "tech whiz" things. Here in our little corner of EU, I see massive Chrome adverts everywhere about how convenient it is to save your password in chrome password manager, sync bookmarks across devices, how all other browsers are baddies leaking your private details and chrome can save your data and other fear mongering adverts.

Basically, these adverts are blasted at you 5-8 times a day depending on how many YouTube videos/shorts you watch, also I recall seeing same advert even on someone's FB timeline being shared by their friends to switch to chrome.

it will convince more people to switch

Well, if it’s okay for them, then that is still their decision.

It's what google was counting on, user ignorance and apathy, to defeat adblockers.

I mean sure but ad blocking is still a killer feature. If users see ads the frog jumps out of the pot.

> Well, if it’s okay for them, then that is still their decision.

A decision reached because both

    informed & consent

are minimized as much as possible. This is a core method of unethical marketing.

There's never been any reason to think Google wouldn't pull something like this with Chrome though. Which is why people should be advocating switching to Firefox.

> Which is why people should be advocating switching to Firefox.

Pity about Mozilla having recently switched to the dark side themselves, becoming an advertising company as well.

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