Thoughts on Chrome

That ruling stated that Google had an illegal monopoly on search and excluded competition by paying other browsers to feature Google search as their default search engine. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Justice requested that a judge force Google to sell off its own browser, Chrome, as well as stop all exclusive search deals (among other concessions). This represents the most significant legal loss for a tech company in the United States since Microsoft was ordered to be split in two in 2001 following a ruling that they held an illegal monopoly in operating systems.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Microsoft case, Microsoft appealed and the company avoided being split up. Google is likely headed for a similar appeal, but will they succeed? And would such success be a good thing?

Maintaining a browser is costly. While selling Chrome might initially seem effective for limiting Google’s search dominance and user tracking capabilities, it presents significant challenges. Development and upkeep of a web browser engine requires substantial financial resources, which led Opera and later Microsoft, to adopt Google’s open source Chromium project. The only remaining browser competition comes from Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla is primarily funded by Google (see next section).

If Google were forced to sell off Chrome, the only companies that could likely afford the hefty price tag would be other big tech companies: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Meta, primarily. These companies could also face monopoly concerns, raising questions about the viability of selling Chrome. An alternative could be spinning off Chrome as a separate company, similar to the solution proposed for Microsoft in 2001, though this option hasn’t yet been discussed.

What does selling Chrome mean? Significantly, Chrome is largely based on the open source Chromium project, which receives contributions from various companies. Google then includes some proprietary software before distribution, a practice also followed by Opera, Microsoft, and several smaller browser vendors. If Google were to sell Chrome, would the sale include just the proprietary part? Would Google continue to contribute to, distribute, or recommend Chromium? If they’re not allowed to contribute to Chromium, would other companies step up? Or would Chromium’s attractiveness diminish due to increased upkeep costs by contributing companies? Google also spends a lot of time developing new web standards – will they continue to do that or drop out completely?

Collateral damage. While Apple can surely withstand the $20 billion in lost revenue from a cancelled Google search deal, Mozilla might not be so fortunate. The maker of Firefox reported $593 million in revenue on their 2021-2022 financial statement, of which $510 million came from their search deal with Google. Needless to say, when a company loses 86% of their revenue all at once, that makes it difficult to stay in business. Even if Google retains Chrome but loses search deals, Firefox may be the next browser to disappear.

Another factor to consider is that Google currently makes over 90% of the commits to the Chromium project. If that stops, and no other company steps up, that means alternative browsers that are built on top of Chromium (such as Brave and Arc) will face significant challenges. This could lead to stagnation in browser technology development reminiscent of the period following Internet Explorer 6’s dominance.

If the U.S. government enforces any of their proposed measures on Google,it will dramatically alter the browser landscape. Removing a monopolist might create a vacuum that could slow down browser development. It’s conceivable that this was part of Google’s strategy with Chrome from the beginning. By making your product essential to the web, it becomes more challenging for governments to intervene.

Google will undoubtedly appeal any such verdict, and it could take years to negotiate a final decision. However, the old browser world order is being upended, making it challenging to predict the future landscape.

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. Department of Justice ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search, leading to proposals to force Google to sell Chrome and stop exclusive search deals.
• Selling Chrome is complicated and costly, with potential buyers facing similar monopoly concerns and the challenge of maintaining Google's significant contributions to the Chromium project.
• Forcing Google to sell Chrome or cease search deals could harm companies like Mozilla and stall advancements in browser technology due to Google's major role in Chromium development.

Understanding JavaScript Promises I just updated my e-book, Understanding JavaScript Promises, for 2024! It now includes information about Promise.withResolvers() and a whole new chapter on using and creating abortable functions. Buy the E-book

Stuff I've Enjoyed this Month

🎬 Transformers.js: State of the art machine learning for the web by Chrome for Developers
I didn't realize that webapps are now able to run some AI models directly in the browser. Transformers.js allows any browser with JavaScript enabled to do just that without the needing dedicated servers.

🎬 The all NEW GitHub Copilot Experience by Visual Studio Code
GitHub rolled out a significant update to Copilot in the last month, and this video walks you through all of Copilot's capabilities to get the most out of the update. I can say that I've seen some nice improvements in my own workflow with this latest update.

🎬 I've been sleeping on CloudFlare's compute offerings by backpine labs
I had no idea that CloudFlare now offered a variety of cloud services to developers. This short video walks through each of the available services and how you might use them.

📝Threat actor exposes playbook for exploiting npm to build blockchain-powered botnets by Kirill Boychenko
Someone shared explicit details on how to exploit npm's many vulnerabilities to create botnets on the dark web. This information was picked up by Shape Security and this article explains exactly what this threat actor shared. A terrifying look at just how easy it is to exploit npm.

📝USPTO petitioned to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark by Paul Krill
Deno Land, the company behind Deno, has petitioned to have Oracle's JavaScript trademark canceled due to abandonment. Earlier this year, Deno Land posted an open letter to Oracle asking the company to willingly release the trademark into the public domain.

📝Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React by Josh Collinsworth
This long article is really a deep dive into how React has failed to evolve with the times. It goes through several examples where other frameworks, and even the browser itself, has changed and React has still not caught up. A good read on the world that React was designed for vs. the world we live in now.

What I'm Working On

🏠 Real Estate: Unfortunately, one of my properties had it's second major plumbing issue in the past year. These 100+ year old houses always have surprises. This is the house I ended up putting $70,000 to fix up but didn't have the money to re-pipe the house. Sadly, if there's another major issue, it looks like I'll need to do it. Follow my Instagram for real estate photos.

💻 Open Source: I released Crosspost, a utility and CLI for posting messages across different social media networks at the same time. Currently, Crosspost supports Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky. It's primarily designed to be used as part of a CI process to help publish updates.

💻 ESLint: We released the first version of the CSS language plugin. This was a lot of fun, getting to work on rules for CSS like I did back in the CSS Lint days.