167 points

So Alphabet:

  • is the developer the most used browser (chrome) and its open source skeleton (chromium) on which most of all of the other browsers are based on (edge, brave etc)

  • has the most used video platform online, with no close second (unless you count porn, but i’d still argue its not close)

  • has the biggest share of devices relying on its platform worldwide (android)

  • has the most used search engine worldwide.

Alphabet has to be split up. Alphabet alone is deciding what shape internet will take in the future.

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31 points
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is the developer the most used browser (chrome) and its open source skeleton (chromium) on which most of all of the other browsers are based on (edge, brave etc)

Which was branched from Apple’s open Webkit base, but let’s all also forget about that.

They take the IP of others, spin it a bit and then block everyone. Burn them down.

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52 points

Acting like Apple didn’t do the same thing with khtml to make WebKit.

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6 points
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The inevitable fate of any useful software that’s not GPL.

When will people learn???

Edit: Ironically, KHTML was originally LGPL. So modifications to KHTML were required to be open source by the license, but Chrome itself isn’t required to be open source (at least as far as I understand it, I am not an expert here). Nevertheless, if it were stronger GPL, then it probably wouldn’t have been impossible to write features like DRM in chrome. So I would have been a bit of an idiot to say that KHTML isn’t GPL (because LGPL is a weaker version of GPL), but in effect, the outcome is the same - all because of that big fat L at the beginning.

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-4 points
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They didn’t do anything of the sort. We don’t need to endlessly recite the history of everything developed. If you want to call attention to it go right ahead but they didn’t give Apple a pass.

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-8 points
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Deleted by creator
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27 points

All of those are meaningless peanuts versus

  • Owns the biggest (borderline only) web ad service in the world
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12 points

My long bet: The EU will force Google Search + Ads, to separate from Youtube within a decade.

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4 points

God bless the EU. Actually protecting its consumers

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166 points

Is this arguably anticompetitive and illegal?

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42 points

Nobody can even state that it’s actually happening “for competitive browsers” as even Chrome users are reporting an unexplained lag/slowdown. At this point, it’s just wild speculation and bandwagoning.

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106 points
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You absolutely can tell what’s happening by reading the source code. They are using a listener and a delay for when ontimeupdate promise is not met, which timeouts the entire connection for 5 full seconds.

https://pastebin.com/TqjzbqQE

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17 points

I’m sorry but I don’t see how that check is browser-specific. Is that part happening on the browser side?

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9 points

Well, at least I learned that javascript understands exponential notation. I never even bothered to try that lol

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2 points

Can I have ublock block that? It seems simple enough to extract that code out.

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24 points
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It’s not wild speculation as there is compelling, if incomplete, evidence. And to describe everyone’s reaction as “bandwagoning” is ridiculous. Firefox and Mullvad are my daily drivers. This directly impacts me. The fediverse is going to have a disproportionate number of non-chrome users.

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-1 points

I also use FF solely and have no slowdowns on YT. I guess they like my copy of the browser.

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-7 points

There’s been multiple posts pointing to some possibly “wait for ads to finish loading” type code. It’s quite possible that it’s just bugged in Firefox etc since browsers are horrendously inconsistent etc.

But that doesn’t make a cool headline so instead the “it’s Google being evil” story is the popular one.

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19 points

it was already made public in the lawsuit some weeks ago that they are indeed slowing down youtube for firefox.

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-44 points

Where’s the proof? Note: I didn’t read the article

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22 points

Then read it?

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-2 points
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no thanks… I havent had any issues… been using firefox since v1.0

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9 points

Don’t worry, there isn’t proof in the article either. There’s a snippet of code out of context, and a video that, while it shows a loading delay, doesn’t show the code being executed.

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2 points

Ya. This whole thing is very silly, and it’s really sad how little critical thinking is going on here.

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1 point
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How short are our attention spans that we make judgments based on things we didn’t read?

Get off TikTok It’s breaking your brain

You can literally see it for yourself. Download Firefox, download Chrome. It will literally take you 5 minutes to test this out

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0 points

Been using Firefox since v1

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152 points

It’s fucking incredible watching Google change from a fairly well-liked company into essentially fucking Comcast. Fucking incredible.

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81 points

Unchecked capitalism is a real motherfucker ain’t it?

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17 points

See also checked capitalism.

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-22 points

Change from? I doubt they will stop being a fairly well hliked company in my lifetime

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30 points

Well I’ve gone from being entirely indifferent to strongly disliking Google. I am actively and somewhat successfully in the process of de-googling. I encourage my friends to do the same, with some success. I think the writing is on the wall. Google seems to have no desire to maintain any sort of goodwill or positive feeling amongst the general public, whom it clearly views as a naturally occurring resource rather than a customer base. Nobody can predict the future but I don’t have a good feeling about the future of the company. Perhaps they will be able to diversify, but their recent actions show both that they deeply misunderstand their product and also that they lack good ideas about how to progress and evolve as an organisation. Fuck Google. All my homies hate Google.

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10 points

The hardest part of ‘de-googling’ is the stranglehold it has on email. Between them and microsoft, I’ve only seen a few companies (small to medium size) that don’t use one of those two as the email. It’s mind-boggling. If either of them ever got testy, they could bring entire sectors down just by using the information stored in emails on.

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99 points

Again? I remember they did this years ago when releasing Chrome.

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75 points

Incidentally, I dropped Youtube’s web app like a rock when they started messing with adblockers and today they emailed me to say they’re cutting down features in my account because “I don’t have enough of a history”.

I swear, these decaying tech firms just don’t get the value of not appearing to be flailing in desperation.

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15 points

hey’re cutting down features in my account because “I don’t have enough of a history”.

any idea what this actually means?

What features are they cutting down?

Is this a free account?

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22 points

I had the same email, it’s creator-related features. So if you don’t produce content it shouldn’t affect anything

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8 points

I received the same notification on my artist account. I can’t remember everything, but it was something like daily upload limits for videos and shorts and other creator related stuff. I don’t think there’s anything related to just basic usage features.

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10 points

They take away the ability to include links in video descriptions. That’s still not related to watching videos, but it seems like a legit eff you to small content creators.

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6 points
*

they turn off video recommendations if your watch history isn’t on

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5 points

This is a plus for me. I don’t want them to recommend me anything. I don’t trust them not to recommend me stuff that’s going to piss me off.

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