I hope that this doesn’t apply to Chromium too. I would be pretty concerned about the future security of Chromium-based browsers if Chromium gets sold.
I think the goal is that Google has no direct hands in the browser space, so they would not be the stewards of the Chromium project. They probably would still be able to have employees work on the project, but someone else would have to be the owners
Article title is a bit clickbaity as Google won’t have to do anything, most likely for years, as the parties await judgement and then go through the appeals process.
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The title doesn’t say Google has to do anything, it only communicates what the US justice department has said in their court filing. It is up for the court to decide what the end-result will be.
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fair enough, my assumption is that most readers would interpret the title as an order Google has to comply with not just as a request to a court but I can see your point.
Do you think lawmakers can tell the difference? 
You explained my thoughts and worries better than I could, thanks.
Yeah, I’m really not sure how this will go. I think it’s best to let Google keep Chrome and other stuff that they have made and/or improve like Android, which they also made successful as it was failing as camera software. Meta should be broken up as they bought out their competition instead of making anything other than Facebook and Messenger. They bought WhatsApp, Instagram, Giphy, Oculus, etc. Google, Apple and Microsoft at least make their own hardware and software products. Google and Apple make the most secure devices in the world (Android and iOS). Meta made Facebook and Messenger which are terrible for privacy and humanity as a whole.
In my mind, the Chrome/Chromium team would be spun off into its own company that would be sold off. That team would still be the stewards of the Browser and JS engines (Blink and V8, respsectively).
That is what I want, and what the current FTC would have kept doing if it would still be in power. It takes time to go after these large corpos.
While the GDPR and DMA are steps forwards, I do not see any real damage done to large corporations without fines in the double digit percentages to their yearly revenue or breaking them up like the USA did to Standard Oil and Bell. Google and Microsoft are essentially 100+ little companies under the umbrella of one corporation, who use their vertical integration to crush the competition.
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Wow. I didn’t know so many people here were fans of big tech corporations’ monopolies.
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Ideally Chromium would just have a decentralized development model like Linux currently does. The gold standard of FOSS already exists, it’s not theoretical.
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I would say that if a company based on a browser, or any other individual product can not stand on its own, then the business model is bad whether it stays the same (Google using it as their gateway app) or changes (Chromium/Chrome is independent of Google/Alphabet)
They have always been complex. The companies being as big as they are is a fundamental problem.
Almost all the Big Tech companies are US based with multiple offices in every developed country in the world. We aren’t as sovereign as we think we are
I do find it a bit funny that many people in this community bash Mozilla for not being perfect (such as relying on Google money) and hold Chromium up as the epitome of security but also conveniently forget that Google’s monopoly is what directly led to Mozilla not having the resources to put up as good of a fight as one might want against google
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So it’s Google’s fault that Mozilla couldn’t be bothered to implement Fission or isolatedProcess for their browser for over six years? Lmao.
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In 2002 Google became the most popular search engine in the world. In 2005 the company joined the Fortune 500 and was valued at $52 billion. When they debuted Chrome in 2008, they were not entering the browser market as an “underdog”.
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Google used their search engine and other assets (youtube, Android, etc) to promote Chrome. That’s monopolistic practices. Consumers don’t choose products just based on how good they are
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How is that monopolistic? They own those products right? Who wouldn’t promote another product through those products?
I get promotions of Proton products in my Proton Mail, what a monopoly…
That’s the definition of a monopoly. No one else can compete with Chrome because it’s preinstalled on Android, and no one can compete with Google because it’s the default everywhere. You can’t use your dominant position in one market to compete in another.
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Samsung devices come with Samsung Browser, Xiaomi devices come with Mi Browser, but nobody is using those because they’re worse than Chrome.
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