I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise.
Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3).
Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.
jmkni · 1h ago
What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues.
The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)
gryn · 47m ago
as a long time user of firefox (also around 20years). it still has many pain points especially if you're a tab hoarder.
try closing a window with 400 mid to heavy tabs and see how long it takes, you can select the tabs individually and they will close way faster. (even on the best PC you can find)
this is niche but I wish there was a watered down /minimalist version that dropped, bookmarks, history, sqlite (I know HN likes sqlite a lot, but in this context chromes usage of levelDB beats it by a lot but you lose the advantage of running SQL queries directly to the file), basically everything besides extensions, containers, profiles.
- can't control it from the command line, only open urls and can't have them open in a specific container because the implementation is this weird mix of internal browser code + extension. (tools like brotab are limited, wish I could have a better flexibility to integrate into my i3/sway workflow, with things like the ability to merge all windows in a workspace into a single one)
- you can't run separate profiles on separate processes, so having a different network namespace for each profile is a pain
(my use case, each profile is routed through a different VPN).
there are many mores minor grievances I forgot with time, but I still wouldn't go back to chrome.
soulofmischief · 32m ago
I currently have 8260 tabs open across 9 windows, and that's just on my main laptop, across all devices I probably have over 20k tabs, and I don't really have any issues regarding tab management.
I used to have issues with Firefox randomly nuking my state on load and having to restore backups, but now I use Tab Session Manager for that and never think twice about it.
Topgamer7 · 8m ago
Y'all are crazy. What is even the possible value in this?
anentropic · 1h ago
Yes, Chrome with ad blockers was perfect until that came along. YouTube sucks now
zac23or · 1h ago
> What's wrong with Firefox
Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag.
And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!
Insanity · 1h ago
I use chrome on my work machine and Firefox on my personal machine.
Haven’t ran into breaking bugs with FF (that I can remember), and I don’t notice a meaningful performance difference.
Have been using FF for probably 10-15 years now.
birksherty · 1h ago
None of these is true. Either you're lying or somthing is wrong with your PC or OS
alephnerd · 48m ago
I use FF as well and it's extremely non-performant on MacOS.
It quickly eats up much of the power usage and a number of websites (especially MS Office/365 related sites) don't render or work correctly.
The former is a FF issue, but the latter is most likely a website to website issue, as most web devs tend to optimize for the Chromium experience.
mog_dev · 31m ago
Seems like a MacOS issue rather.
I've been using Firefox on Debian for 15 years and never had this issue (except a borked release here and there)
alephnerd · 21m ago
FF for Linux will have a different team from FF for MacOS or FF for Windows.
Given how different each OS is, they will have different internals.
You don't see the same kind of performance degradation on other browsers on MacOS like Chrome, Safari, Orion, Brave, Arc, or even Edge.
It's a uniquely FF issue, but I'll deal with it as long as uBO is blocked on Chrome.
And saying "migrate to $myFlavorOfLinux" is an unrealistic answer for most users, because even though Linux has progressed leaps and bounds, it's user experience still requires a fairly technical background so that limits personal usage, and isn't offered as a default OS option by most IT teams who give corporate laptops.
As long as a Linux project that is actually lead by an actual UX Designer instead of an OS enthusiast doesn't arise, Linux as a personal OS will be limited. Elementary OS shows some promise, but it still has UX and workflow issues that deserve attention from a professional UX designer instead of OS devs alone.
The various Android flavors are a great example of how if you put UX minds to work on an OSS project, you can end up with a quality user experience, but most Android projects also enforce a common design language and support non-CLI based user workflows, whereas most Linux oriented projects overindex on technical users, leading to the chicken-and-egg situation for Linux adoption.
binary132 · 36m ago
That can’t possibly be true, Firefox uses rust and rust is blazingly fast.
forgotoldacc · 1h ago
I personally don't think having the world's most popular web browser being in the hands of an advertising and surveillance company is all that great. One big reason being that they control captchas and lock content behind them, and they grant leniency to people using their browser, which is more permissive with dangerous ads and allow the company to make more money and further their dominance.
Timshel · 1h ago
> the benevolent dictator of the web
Lol it's more like a death grip since nobody can compete with their ad business model.
There is almost no innovation in the browser space outside of more and more tracking ...
hackrmn · 1h ago
I'd argue that depends on what you mean by "innovation" -- Google has been pretty busy, meaning specifically developers on their payroll, churning out more or less useful Web API implementations, certainly at a far more frantic pace than people traditionally _blamed_ browsers of yester-decade for. Nevermind that some of these APIs are more haphazardly designed than others, truth be told most of them are okay and are aptly designed so it's not a critical issue (for Web developers or Chrome's market share). Google co-authors most Web standards and implement them often _before_ the "standard" is published (for better and for worse; anti-trust allegations, I am looking at you). But they're not idle, one thing's for sure. Markedly different than how I remember Microsoft resting for months if not years on their IE laurels, like a CO2 blanket in a room that evacuated all the air.
So yeah, how would you describe this lack of innovation you're referring to?
There can always be more innovation that isn't of the sort I described above, but Web _is_ made of Web APIs -- if a website cannot "do" it, you as a user of the site, won't be able to experience it, is my crude opinion. But I'd love to hear examples to the contrary, illustrating innovation that isn't Web APIs.
Removing tab-based browsing (an anti-pattern if you ask me)? Optimizations (speed, size, etc)?
Timshel · 59m ago
I mean in term of user facing change. Vertical tabs is still presented as an innovation ...
Tabs groups are barely explored, and let's not dream too much of isolation Firefox containers are probably over ten years old and still almost unused :(.
More recently Arc and Zen are trying to innovate (I’m not using either), but they probably have almost no chance as long Chrome stay as dominant and financed by ad tracking.
Using Firefox on linux I’m facing more and more capchas and broken or innacessible websites. Ladybird is making great progress but unless they start posing as chrome they’ll face the same challenges :(.
Edit:
> churning out more or less useful Web API implementations
Probably part of the problem since it makes maintaining a browser engine absurdly expensive and out of reach for almost everyone ...
tgv · 44m ago
Firefox: address bar is 2px too high? Garbage.
Chrome: eavesdrops on everything? This is fine.
binary132 · 36m ago
User priorities are what’s really broken.
TechRemarker · 33m ago
"benevolent" is an interesting word choice. I wouldn't consider them having positive intentions for users, but rather focused on financial gain and market power at any cost. Though if Apple owned would be anti non Apple customers, if most other companies owned would end up monetizing it as well but without the resources of Google. Or if government owned would remain stagnant. So not sure what the right path is.
callamdelaney · 1h ago
Firefox seems to work pretty okay
verandaguy · 1h ago
Yeah, if anything the governance model is questionable.
The browser itself is technically competitive with anything else out there.
dethos · 32m ago
I couldn't disagree more. The problems of Google effectively controlling the “open web” take time to become evident but are starting to show.
I have no issues with them continuing to participate, but not with the level of control they have at the moment.
komali2 · 1h ago
> Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.
I don't see how - it's a more than serviceable browser. The only issues I've ever had were because a webapp detected I wasn't using a browser of choice and blocked me specifically, which isn't really firefox's fault.
I guess I prefer chromium dev tools over firefox's but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I only was able to use the firefox ones.
chii · 45m ago
> as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.
And i think 12 good engineers (at $150k/yr) for 10 years will have produced an excellent product (such as making firefox competitive with chrome...)
Of course, google, who pays mozilla the vast majority of their revemue, will have something to say about that.
MangoToupe · 1h ago
> We get secure browsers
Sure, if your definition of "security" doesn't include "giving users control over who the browsers are talking to".
tomwheeler · 44m ago
Not much of a user-agent...
yalogin · 5m ago
Perplexity buying chrome would be a disaster, it just feels that way. Every vibe I got from that company is not good. They would commercialize every aspect of the browser so fast, as in insert ads everywhere. Again I just get that vibe.
PedroBatista · 2h ago
I get the feeling this Perplexity guy is a mix of SBF the bitcoin dude with the Palantir guy but actually dreams to be early Elon, or a troll. Maybe another another deep state plant? If we really want to go that road..
Either way, how does Perplexity even envisions to become a stable business? Let alone buying the browser with +80% worldwide share.
mi_lk · 1h ago
Getting similar vibe and this performative move reinforces that
navigate8310 · 48m ago
He is not even a US citizen. Something seems not right.
pbarry25 · 1h ago
Their CEO is trash, eff Perplexity.
digitcatphd · 1h ago
This is clearly a PR stunt. Perplexity knows Google would not sell Chrome, it is the holy grail of their ads strategy and would cripple their moat.
ocdtrekkie · 44m ago
You may be unaware that Google has lost an antitrust suit and that the DOJ has asked the courts to require Google sell Chrome. Whether or not Google can bribe their way out of it is yet to be seen, but they may not have a choice, so it's a pretty big one time opportunity.
digitcatphd · 31m ago
Also likely a political PR stunt.
scarface_74 · 33m ago
Yes and the courts are idiots. Why buy Chrome when you they can get Chromium for free? What good is Chrome outside of Google?
Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?
ocdtrekkie · 7m ago
The courts have, for the first time in decades, done their job. It seems ridiculous now but it should've been done ten years ago.
The impact is in removing Google's control of the customer base, not in a copy of the code.
echelon · 1h ago
> would cripple their moat.
Would end their unfair monopolistic control over the web, search, and digital advertising.
The DOJ or the FTC need to force this dismantlement.
happosai · 3h ago
Genuis. The ultimate way to bypass all AI bot crawling blocks. Just make every chrome browser upload whatever they view to perplexity for training data^W^WAI summarizing.
alephnerd · 53m ago
Also for monetizing AI Search.
Google has already seen most users [0] directly use AI search instead of clicking into a website.
It is fairly straightforward for an organization to start pushing recommended sites from an AI-driven search, and with even less pushback as most users simply assume the AI search is always true [0].
This also would mean Perplexity could differentiate from OpenAI or Anthropic as a business by being able to build a strong B2C play whereas the former have concentrated on Enterprise B2B.
It's also the estimated monthly active users of chrome * 10.
fcanesin · 1h ago
Missing a zero here for a realistic valuation of the indisputable market leader in the most important interface of computing.
everdrive · 1h ago
Hard to understand whether this is a positive or negative. Chrome is trampling the internet in favor of Google. Will Perplexity just make Chrome even worse than it is, or will they degrade Chrome's market share through incompetence? More competition in the browser space would be welcome, but I'm not optimistic.
dvh · 58m ago
Let's look at it from the other angle, what if instead of buying it they forked it and spend 34 billion on marketing it?
wina · 3h ago
I wonder how much would Google pay to a new owner of Chrome for a default search engine deal.
a3w · 3h ago
With Chrome's market share? 10+ billion a year, certainly, as that would be only 3% of the ad volume.
Can google sell, then have Alphabet Holding create Chrome2 based on Chromium, ripping off Perplexity?
andrepd · 2h ago
Jesus how the fuck does advertising make such ungodly amounts of money.
pennomi · 2h ago
Because we spent an entire generation of the world’s most brilliant engineers on optimizing ad revenue.
Makes me sad, we could have been on Mars by now if we had decided that spaceflight was more important than social media.
patrick0d · 1h ago
anyone who spends 10 years writing performance reviews and rebuilding a service they already rebuilt last year, all to collect RSUs, was never going to land us on mars
guappa · 1h ago
Because if you don't pay they bury you so low you will never sell anything.
christophilus · 1h ago
Try putting food on the table without advertising your business. How much does your employer pay for ads?
marcos100 · 2h ago
Because it works really well
jimbohn · 1h ago
You need to pay to exist
melodyogonna · 1h ago
Lol, a lot of Google's $1t+ valuation is due to Chrome, $34b is a joke (to Google).
fakedang · 3h ago
- cash burning startup
- no moat
- dependent on third-party APIs and platforms
"Here's what we're going to do. We're going to accept the offer."
".. Gavin, Chrome is our primary ad ingest platform. We just used it to kill adblockers. Why, exactly, would we sell it?"
"I understand your concern, I really do.
But we must not let ourselves be constrained by the limits of our profitability!
Consider a gorilla.
The board members look at the conference room doors in panic, but nothing happens
A magnificent remote cousin that all of us share, particularly you, Devone. A gorilla is a peaceful, pastoral creature. But, if you were to strike your chest in front of it, it'll rip your head off and stick so far up your ass you choke on it.
breathes heavily
The gorilla, ladies and gentlemen, is the American justice system. And nothing, nothing, provokes it more than buying stuff with no intention of paying for it.
We accept the bid and Perplexity, obviously, fails raising 35 billion. Then we file a complaint, keep Chrome, get the popcorn and let the gorilla of justice explain to the competition the finer points of contractual law.
Ladies and gentlemen. This was Gavin Belson.
bows
"
---
Three weeks later, on Bloomberg news
"And with me is Mr. Bildt, a representative of a coalition of activist investors that raised 35 billion dollars for the Perplexity purchase of Google Chrome. Mister Bildt, what prompted you to assist what many consider to be a disastrous and unlikely deal? Do you expect Perplexity to manage Chrome better than Google?"
"God no. Given Perplexity's track record, we expect them to run the browser into the ground in 3-4 months, a year tops. Chrome accounts for some 80% of web traffic today. With its effective monopoly gone, we expect to capitalize on what many of us call a Belson-less market"
DoctorOW · 2h ago
The show's been off the air too long. I needed this.
jagermo · 1h ago
and i am off to waste time on a best of Gavin Belson compilation, thank you.
the_gipsy · 2h ago
Hilarious!
mwigdahl · 38m ago
Funding secured!
xnx · 1h ago
Don't feed the attention troll
JCM9 · 52m ago
This isn’t exactly projecting an image of solid leadership and thinking from Perplexity.
#32 on the list of “signs your company is in a bubble and better buckle up” is companies that lack solid business fundamentals themselves start offering to buy other companies, acting like somehow they’re going to fix them. Clean up your own house dudes.
JSR_FDED · 4h ago
Perplexing indeed
inopinatus · 1h ago
I had no idea there was a new season of Silicon Valley.
mmmllm · 2h ago
PR stunt. Now we are all participating.
nodesocket · 3h ago
This is a troll right by Aravind? $34B is nearly double the valuation of Perplexity. I find it hard to believe so called “multiple investment funds” agreed to pony up that much cash. Kind of childish by Aravind.
turblety · 3h ago
I'm pretty sure if Google agreed, they could come up with the money. Chrome is essentially the gateway to 90% of the world on the internet.
ymolodtsov · 3h ago
But here's the thing, nobody can monetize that space as effectively as Google, except maybe Meta.
It's the same sort of confusion many people have about Google paying Apple. It's not just for the default position, it's a revenue-share for the ads seen by Apple users on Google's properties. Nobody has the same potential.
bsenftner · 1h ago
You just said the magic words, "nobody!", that's throwing the gauntlet in front of every major toxic masculine billionaire. Now Trump HAS to buy it, and show everyone. Musk HAS to buy it, just like how he showed everyone how to run Twitter. And of course, Bezos HAS to buy it to prevent them from using Chrome to destroy Amazon... Popcorn time!
bogtog · 2h ago
If Google agreed to just $34B, getting the cash would be so straightforward that even many random Joes on the street would be able to figure it out
CPLX · 3h ago
I don't think any serious tech company with somewhat competent leadership would have any bit of trouble raising that much cash to buy Chrome if they had an accepted offer and ability to close.
TZubiri · 3h ago
Lol not a chance, remember that they got into browsers because that's almost the same tech for web crawling. It's a core tech for their 1T mcap company
robertlagrant · 2h ago
They got into browsers to make sure all the google properties (all web based) worked really well and weren't held back by Microsoft's dead-ending of web browser development.
IX-103 · 55m ago
And also to prevent (or at least delay) the app-ification of the web, because apps are not searchable.
Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3).
Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.
The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)
try closing a window with 400 mid to heavy tabs and see how long it takes, you can select the tabs individually and they will close way faster. (even on the best PC you can find)
this is niche but I wish there was a watered down /minimalist version that dropped, bookmarks, history, sqlite (I know HN likes sqlite a lot, but in this context chromes usage of levelDB beats it by a lot but you lose the advantage of running SQL queries directly to the file), basically everything besides extensions, containers, profiles.
- can't control it from the command line, only open urls and can't have them open in a specific container because the implementation is this weird mix of internal browser code + extension. (tools like brotab are limited, wish I could have a better flexibility to integrate into my i3/sway workflow, with things like the ability to merge all windows in a workspace into a single one)
- you can't run separate profiles on separate processes, so having a different network namespace for each profile is a pain (my use case, each profile is routed through a different VPN).
there are many mores minor grievances I forgot with time, but I still wouldn't go back to chrome.
I used to have issues with Firefox randomly nuking my state on load and having to restore backups, but now I use Tab Session Manager for that and never think twice about it.
Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag.
And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!
Haven’t ran into breaking bugs with FF (that I can remember), and I don’t notice a meaningful performance difference.
Have been using FF for probably 10-15 years now.
It quickly eats up much of the power usage and a number of websites (especially MS Office/365 related sites) don't render or work correctly.
The former is a FF issue, but the latter is most likely a website to website issue, as most web devs tend to optimize for the Chromium experience.
Given how different each OS is, they will have different internals.
You don't see the same kind of performance degradation on other browsers on MacOS like Chrome, Safari, Orion, Brave, Arc, or even Edge.
It's a uniquely FF issue, but I'll deal with it as long as uBO is blocked on Chrome.
And saying "migrate to $myFlavorOfLinux" is an unrealistic answer for most users, because even though Linux has progressed leaps and bounds, it's user experience still requires a fairly technical background so that limits personal usage, and isn't offered as a default OS option by most IT teams who give corporate laptops.
As long as a Linux project that is actually lead by an actual UX Designer instead of an OS enthusiast doesn't arise, Linux as a personal OS will be limited. Elementary OS shows some promise, but it still has UX and workflow issues that deserve attention from a professional UX designer instead of OS devs alone.
The various Android flavors are a great example of how if you put UX minds to work on an OSS project, you can end up with a quality user experience, but most Android projects also enforce a common design language and support non-CLI based user workflows, whereas most Linux oriented projects overindex on technical users, leading to the chicken-and-egg situation for Linux adoption.
Lol it's more like a death grip since nobody can compete with their ad business model. There is almost no innovation in the browser space outside of more and more tracking ...
So yeah, how would you describe this lack of innovation you're referring to?
There can always be more innovation that isn't of the sort I described above, but Web _is_ made of Web APIs -- if a website cannot "do" it, you as a user of the site, won't be able to experience it, is my crude opinion. But I'd love to hear examples to the contrary, illustrating innovation that isn't Web APIs.
Removing tab-based browsing (an anti-pattern if you ask me)? Optimizations (speed, size, etc)?
Tabs groups are barely explored, and let's not dream too much of isolation Firefox containers are probably over ten years old and still almost unused :(.
More recently Arc and Zen are trying to innovate (I’m not using either), but they probably have almost no chance as long Chrome stay as dominant and financed by ad tracking.
Using Firefox on linux I’m facing more and more capchas and broken or innacessible websites. Ladybird is making great progress but unless they start posing as chrome they’ll face the same challenges :(.
Edit: > churning out more or less useful Web API implementations
Probably part of the problem since it makes maintaining a browser engine absurdly expensive and out of reach for almost everyone ...
Chrome: eavesdrops on everything? This is fine.
The browser itself is technically competitive with anything else out there.
I have no issues with them continuing to participate, but not with the level of control they have at the moment.
I don't see how - it's a more than serviceable browser. The only issues I've ever had were because a webapp detected I wasn't using a browser of choice and blocked me specifically, which isn't really firefox's fault.
I guess I prefer chromium dev tools over firefox's but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I only was able to use the firefox ones.
but they can hire about 12 engineers for 10 years, instead of the same cost to have a single [CEO during that time period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker).
And i think 12 good engineers (at $150k/yr) for 10 years will have produced an excellent product (such as making firefox competitive with chrome...)
Of course, google, who pays mozilla the vast majority of their revemue, will have something to say about that.
Sure, if your definition of "security" doesn't include "giving users control over who the browsers are talking to".
Either way, how does Perplexity even envisions to become a stable business? Let alone buying the browser with +80% worldwide share.
Not to mention what does that mean for ChromeOS?
The impact is in removing Google's control of the customer base, not in a copy of the code.
Would end their unfair monopolistic control over the web, search, and digital advertising.
The DOJ or the FTC need to force this dismantlement.
Google has already seen most users [0] directly use AI search instead of clicking into a website.
It is fairly straightforward for an organization to start pushing recommended sites from an AI-driven search, and with even less pushback as most users simply assume the AI search is always true [0].
This also would mean Perplexity could differentiate from OpenAI or Anthropic as a business by being able to build a strong B2C play whereas the former have concentrated on Enterprise B2B.
[0] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-us...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44877656 ("Perplexity Makes Longshot $34.5B Offer for Chrome (wsj.com)"—115 comments)
https://abc.xyz/assets/34/fa/ee06f3de4338b99acffc5c229d9f/20...
Can google sell, then have Alphabet Holding create Chrome2 based on Chromium, ripping off Perplexity?
Makes me sad, we could have been on Mars by now if we had decided that spaceflight was more important than social media.
".. Gavin, Chrome is our primary ad ingest platform. We just used it to kill adblockers. Why, exactly, would we sell it?"
"I understand your concern, I really do. But we must not let ourselves be constrained by the limits of our profitability!
Consider a gorilla. The board members look at the conference room doors in panic, but nothing happens A magnificent remote cousin that all of us share, particularly you, Devone. A gorilla is a peaceful, pastoral creature. But, if you were to strike your chest in front of it, it'll rip your head off and stick so far up your ass you choke on it. breathes heavily
The gorilla, ladies and gentlemen, is the American justice system. And nothing, nothing, provokes it more than buying stuff with no intention of paying for it.
We accept the bid and Perplexity, obviously, fails raising 35 billion. Then we file a complaint, keep Chrome, get the popcorn and let the gorilla of justice explain to the competition the finer points of contractual law.
Ladies and gentlemen. This was Gavin Belson. bows "
---
Three weeks later, on Bloomberg news
"And with me is Mr. Bildt, a representative of a coalition of activist investors that raised 35 billion dollars for the Perplexity purchase of Google Chrome. Mister Bildt, what prompted you to assist what many consider to be a disastrous and unlikely deal? Do you expect Perplexity to manage Chrome better than Google?"
"God no. Given Perplexity's track record, we expect them to run the browser into the ground in 3-4 months, a year tops. Chrome accounts for some 80% of web traffic today. With its effective monopoly gone, we expect to capitalize on what many of us call a Belson-less market"
#32 on the list of “signs your company is in a bubble and better buckle up” is companies that lack solid business fundamentals themselves start offering to buy other companies, acting like somehow they’re going to fix them. Clean up your own house dudes.
It's the same sort of confusion many people have about Google paying Apple. It's not just for the default position, it's a revenue-share for the ads seen by Apple users on Google's properties. Nobody has the same potential.