[retskrad]

Can you imagine the Mac without Chrome? The mainstream population would simply use Safari and a default Windows browser. The productivity of the Mac in particular would be downgraded to iPhone and iPad levels because everything we do nowadays is web based. Mail, Docs, storage, research, listening to Music, watching content.

Chrome's domination has been nothing but positive for the consumer because it's in Google's best interest to keep it as user-friendly as possible to keep its customer loyalty. When the browser is user-friendly, Google makes money. Let's compare it to Safari on iPhone and iPad where Apple is deliberately crippling it so the open web doesn't take a cent away from their App Store model.

If we didn't have Chrome, then what you'll get is a world where Apple cripples the open web and Microsoft on the other end only caring about their corporate-world interests. Google is the only company that is keeping the web open and consumer focused.

[AlexandrB]

I use Mac Safari exclusively except for a few sites (usually Google's products) that run terribly on it. There's nothing "iPad and iPhone" level about desktop Safari. It also happens to be much easier on the batteries than the Chrome resource hog.

> When the browser is user-friendly, Google makes money.

Nope, not at all. Google makes money when users view ads. As long as they have competition, they can't go hog wild with it but changes like those in manifest V3[1] show that ad blocking is their natural enemy - regardless of what users want.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/google-chrome-will-l...

[gwbas1c]

> Chrome's domination has been nothing but positive for the consumer

In general, they've (Google) been controlling web standards for about a decade, if not longer.

It's almost impossible to create your own browser from scratch, which is why so many competing browsers are based on Chromium.

It's getting similar to the Windows monopoly all over again, where web developers write to Chrome instead of open standards. The difference is that the existence of Mozilla and Safari as alternate implementations, and other browsers being Chromium based, make it harder to see the consolidation around a proprietary technology stack.

[sneak]

I use a Mac daily without Chrome. Firefox and Safari work great (the latter works even better if you have an iPhone and iPad and use iCloud, yet another antitrust issue).

[dmbche]

Can you name me one thing chrome does that can't be done in safari or firefox?