this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Technology

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[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 25 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I want to buy chrome for $5.50!

How about you stranger?

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll lower your offer to $1.00

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago

I see your one dollar and I lower it by a cookie and two chicklets!

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 month ago

Oof that's more than twice my value.

[–] its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

Tree fiddy is the only price I'm willing to pay.

[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I have mixed feeling about this.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I don't. This is fundamentally worse than Google owning Chrome.

[–] Sina@beehaw.org 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think Chrome inevitably losing a lot of market share could be a pretty good result for the web.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Will it? Twitter is a Nazi bar, but it still has a large customer base.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And nothing of value would be lost when the nazi bar closes down

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But the Nazi bar still has patrons.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And they are nazis and i dont care if they lose their place and i dont care of the owner of a nazi bar profits. Evil does not deserve a seat at the table

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 points 1 month ago

I'm speaking in context to Sina's comment. Because a company/service becomes shitty doesn't mean that the company/service loses a lot of market share.

[–] Aquaphobi@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What’s wrong with perplexity owning chrome?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The reason to own a browser is to shape the Internet to your company's favor.

Internet Explorer was designed to ensure web apps would be hard to build, helping to ensure the Windows monopoly.

Chrome was designed to open the Internet, but tie it to Google search and keep Internet browsing lucrative for advertising, helping to benefit Ad Sense.

An AI startup owning Chrome is probably going to be the biggest privacy nightmare since Copilot.

[–] Aquaphobi@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago

Thank you for the insight

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Turning the most popular browser further into an AI hellscape.

Influencing how every other browser (minus Firefox's minuscule marketshare) functions via the engine.

On the other hand, no longer under googles control.

[–] anachronist@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Google is doing/will be doing all this anyway, combined with a search, maps, youtube, email, etc monopoly.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

I did list no longer being controlled by Google 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] SebaDC@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In order to better understand the user, their prompts, etc and to be able to fully modify websites, these AIs need access to the DOM.

This is made much more easier if you integrate your AI to a browser.

So, in theory, the AI could understand what your are currently researching, profile your interest, and provide you answers before you even made a prompt.

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Just imagine, a corporate hellscape inspired by Minority Report!

<buzzlightyearmeme

[–] SebaDC@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 month ago

"Slaves... Slaves everywhere..."

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 5 points 1 month ago
[–] decayedproton@beehaw.org 9 points 1 month ago

I wonder how large of a bid I should send to Microsoft to buy Windows.

But seriously, if they aren't creating their own, better browser to compete and win over users then there is a problem with the market.

[–] npdean@lemmy.today 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If they have 34.5 billion lying around, why don’t they make a new browser themselves?

[–] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Making a new browser is easy. They want to buy a near monopoly over the browser market, not a browser.

[–] npdean@lemmy.today 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Making a new browser is easy.

Then why doesn't anyone else do it? We have only 3 real browsers.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Making a browser is ridiculously hard. Getting people to use it even harder.

[–] icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Netscape or go home