I think a big part of why Google has such sticking power is that on the one hand they actually are pretty good at some things (even though they visibly flounder with others), but web browsers are heavily designed around leveraging the particular tasks Google is really good at.
This is manifested by turning the URL bar into a search bar by default, making URLs difficult to manually edit (especially on mobile), making bookmarks inaccessible and difficult to manage by requiring multiple clicks to access, and having an interface that makes it easy to accidentally bookmark the wrong websites. I don't believe there's some big conspiracy where Google has orchestrated this, but it's probably more like an effort for every web browser to mimic Chrome without realizing why that has problematic knock-on effects.
I really sort of wish there were good alternative web browsers that weren't ostensibly waging war on user agency, or at least gave more than token customization abilities.
Yes,These days most people think that GOOGLE=INTERNET and look on GOOGLE for the nearest hotel or ask GOOGLE today's weather. Google has basically become so big that for most people Google is the manifestation of the internet.
This reliance on web search as a gateway to the internet also started with google as in the days of IE we had separate URL bars and search bars, toolbars and bookmark tabs were the norm and there were many different ways people used to obtain their news,talk to friends and in general consume content on the internet.
But Google basically turned the browser into a funnel that sends all internet users to https://google.com and as chrome has most market-share in both desktop and mobile(thanks to android). Most browsers adopted the SEARCH-ENGINE route in their browsers leading to the position we are in.
Today the average person visits a website only in two ways
1.Auto-fill on their URL...sorry search bar
2.Type the name of the website on the google search engine.
I have no clue why the feds don't care about big tech monopolies the way Microsoft was attacked back then for IE which is basically child's play compared to what companies(even Microsoft with Edge) are doing today.
> I have no clue why the feds don't care about big tech monopolies the way Microsoft was attacked back then for IE which is basically child's play compared to what companies(even Microsoft with Edge) are doing today.
People forget just how big Microsoft was at the time (big fish/small pond) but it was some obscenely high percentage of "personal computer desktops", and even then it took something like four or five years to come to trial. This was before Android, before smart phones at all, and the Mac was on life-support and nearly dead, and Linux was a joke as a desktop which is where the "Year of Linux" came from.
Google is big but nowhere near as "dominant" and they've been careful to mitigate so as to fly under the radar. It also helps that basically nobody is trying to sell software in the areas they "compete" in so the "harm" is harder to argue.
I wonder about whether Apple has a skunkworks project working on search, just like they did for the x86 and M1; it's one of the large areas they still directly depend on another company for.
> Google basically turned the browser into a funnel that sends all internet users to https://google.com
It's two multi-layer funnels [0]:
- Android device > Android OS > Chrome > Google search/ads
- Apple device > macOS/iOS > Safari/Chrome > Google search/ads
> These days most people think that GOOGLE=INTERNET
Definitely not the case in some countries. I am confident that there are a good number of failing democracies where you could easily conclude that FACEBOOK=INTERNET. I have deep knowledge of one where this is very apparent, to those in that country who stop to think and care.
Has anyone ever done experiments on alternative URL input fields? We continue to treat URLs as arbitrary strings, although they are composed of very well defined components, say for `https://foo:bar@news.ycombinator.com/item?id= 31820149#31821636`:
- Transfer protocol (https://)
- Optional credentials (foo@ or foo:bar@)
- Mandatory hostname (news.ycombinator.com)
- Optional path name (/item)
- Optional parameters as key-value pairs (id=31820149)
- Optional document anchor (#31821636)
This is easily imaginable as a form, even if that would obviously by inconvenient. It feels to me like there is a middle ground between "enter every URL part into a separate input box" and "let users handle an arbitrary serialisation format completely on their own".
The closest I had was Vimperator (RIP) which had `gu` for "Go Up" which would go to the page referenced by either a <link rel=up> or chop the last path component off the url and <C-a> <C-x> which would follow rel=prev or rel=next or increment or decrement the last number in the URL.
> This is manifested by turning the URL bar into a search bar by default
I'm so far gone at this point that I can't even imagine an alternative.
I use search for basically everything - even just going to websites that I go to frequently.
I have maybe 10 - 20 sites I visit everyday, followed by technical questions that I Google, followed by general questions that I Google (with "reddit" appended).
I sometimes browse the web (clicking on link after link), but it takes some effort to find a piece of yarn to follow that doesn't end up in one of the walled gardens.
I mean, they could probably start by having actually useful keyboard shortcuts, instead of 2 pairs of shortcuts that do exactly the same thing (`Ctrl+L` and `F6`; `Ctrl+K` and `Ctrl+E`), and the four together doing almost exactly the same thing (the first two focus the omnibar, the latter focus the omnibar and set it to search mode, which is equivalent to focusing the omnibar and typing "?" then pressing `Tab` or typing "<default search engine alias>" and pressing Tab).
At least from my own usage, I can identify many common usage patterns that would benefit from shortcuts that focus the omnibar and set it to some special mode, just like the VSCode command palette does (e.g. `Ctrl+Shift+P`, `Ctrl+P`, `Ctrl+Shift+O`, etc.). In fact, I don't know how a WebExtension-enabled VSCode-based browser hasn't popped up yet.
I think this paragraph on the difficulty of building good independent indexes should not be overlooked. What's going on with Cloudfare?
> When talking to search engine founders, I found that the biggest obstacle to growing an index is getting blocked by sites. Cloudflare is one of the worst offenders. Too many sites block perfectly well-behaved crawlers, only allowing major players like Googlebot, BingBot, and TwitterBot; this cements the current duopoly over English search and is harmful to the health of the Web as a whole.
CloudFlare isn't that bad in my experience. They were really aggressively blocking me when I started out, but there are some hoops[1] you can jump through to make them recognize your bot. Goes a long way.
It does depend on the sites' settings though. Some are set to block all bots, and then you're kinda out of luck.
In general, I've found that like 99% of the problems you might encounter running a bot can be solved by just finding the right person and sending them an email explaining your situation. In almost all cases, they'll let you through.
> it's probably more like an effort for every web browser to mimic Chrome without realizing why that has problematic knock-on effects.
I agree with your points in the first sentence here (URL/serch bar) etc. However this is by design. It protects Google search with a moat, which in turn protects the lucrative Apple-Google search deal. Microsoft (with Edge and Bing) complete the three-party monopoly in OS-browsers-search [0].
Yes, we need good alternative browsers and browser innovation. There are plenty around, but none of them apart from Firefox (and forks) support search diversity, as they do with the search box [1].
Our own, search engine app, has a way of supporting similar one click search choice: Search Choices [2]. Users love it. Why be bound into the one-search-to-rule-them-all paradigm?
But watch out, browsers are being circumvented. The moat now being built is around how search links with the operating system and voice assistants. How do these three companies play? And do they play fair? Who cares you may say. As Tim Wu has said [3] "it is not a crime to be a monopolist; it is a crime to abuse your monopoly power." How will he view how they play together?
Microsoft ignores your choice of search engine in Edge with searches from Windows [4]. If you have chosen Ecosia, or set-up Ecosia as your search preference in Edge, that choice will be ignored and Bing will be used. Your choice is overrided.
Apple does something similar with Spotlight [5]. Suppose you chose Mojeek or Ecosia as your search preference in Chrome. And Chrome is your default browser on your Mac or iPhone. If you have Google as your search preference in Safari (and remember that is the default which Google pays $billions for), then the Spotlight directed search will be done with Google search in Chrome, not Mojeek or Ecosia. Your choice is overrided.
Google have Android. What can you do with the Search widget?
That. And it's not just the search: https-everywhere, HTTP/2, QUIC, HTTP/3 ... all that is be design and it molds the internet to favor big cloud providers. The all too familiar embrace and extend basically.
Google and Bing have got using state psychological warfare on their users with the results they deliver and the adverts that get delivered on various websites including Youtube.
Its a legal form of harassment and intimidation imo, but I think some people already know this because of the big emphasis on mental health being pushed out by the media and various govts.
This is manifested by turning the URL bar into a search bar by default, making URLs difficult to manually edit (especially on mobile), making bookmarks inaccessible and difficult to manage by requiring multiple clicks to access, and having an interface that makes it easy to accidentally bookmark the wrong websites. I don't believe there's some big conspiracy where Google has orchestrated this, but it's probably more like an effort for every web browser to mimic Chrome without realizing why that has problematic knock-on effects.
I really sort of wish there were good alternative web browsers that weren't ostensibly waging war on user agency, or at least gave more than token customization abilities.