Don’t misunderstand me saying that Google Search being the default is not a major problem as me saying that I’m cool with Google Search or Google in general. You can change the default search engine. Not every “bad thing” these companies do are an equal level of “badness” if that makes sense. A browser shipping with Google Search as the default search engine is very minor to me. I don’t use Google Search unless Duck Duck Go doesn’t give me a good answer.
My biggest problem with Chromium based browsers is very specifically their market share and that it effectively allows Google to define how the web works because of it. I think Safari is still it’s own thing. Firefox is, of course. But that’s it. Even a few years back Edge was it’s own thing but it’s since switched to Chromium. IE is dead I believe, unless there’s still some crazy long term enterprise support release. Opera is Chromium based too, now, but I don’t remember when exactly this happened. Chromium is still mostly controlled by Google. That’s an absolutely massive share of browsers being controlled by Google. (And even many non-browser programs when you consider Electron uses Chromium.)
Chromium is deprecating manifest v2 and the newer v3 has neutered ad blocking capabilities. In Alphabet’s SEC fillings they list ad blocking as a challenge to their revenue. End users can’t just flip v2 back on (unless the devs of their browser put work to let them). End users can change their default search engine though. Very easily. Trivially so. Who knows, maybe as a result of that court ruling we’ll see browsers forced to have no default search engine in the future. I think that’s better, yes, but I really don’t think having Google Search as the default is that massive of a concern compared to much of the other shit they’re doing.
Why then not use Chrome if you are fine with Google?!
Chromium is deprecating manifest v2 and the newer v3 has neutered ad blocking capabilities. In Alphabet’s SEC fillings they list ad blocking as a challenge to their revenue. End users can’t just flip v2 back on (unless the devs of their browser put work to let them). End users can change their default search engine though. Very easily. Trivially so. Who knows, maybe as a result of that court ruling we’ll see browsers forced to have no default search engine in the future. I think that’s better, yes, but I really don’t think having Google Search as the default is that massive of a concern compared to much of the other shit they’re doing.