You know how we thought " How could chrome get any worse?" well, we have an answer.
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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And if you thought there was some natural end point to enshittification, here's your evidence that there's no such thing.
WTF? Just download it for free.
Isn't Google going to do it themselves?
Are these fucks stupid? Chromium is open sourced. They can do it themselves
They don't want to buy the browser. They want to buy the brand and the users. Chrome makes up over half the browser market. Think of all the data they could extract from Chrome users. It would cost significantly more to fork chromium and grow the user base to a point where they could extract anything valuable from them, and that's assuming they'd be successful enough to make it happen.
No, MS just wants to expand their monopoly, but "MS buying most common browser, after antitrust laws already forbid internet explorer" doesnt ring so well.
Existing userbase
I like to think if people want whatever it is OpenAI thinks browsers need AI for, the userbase will manifest itself.
Great! Now not only can chrome eat all my system memory, it can use all my GPU memory at the same time! It's genius!
Likely it'll use the cloud for processing, you'll just get really hard-to-opt-out AI features, like "prompt by default" and "AI autocomplete", which you can only "snooze" as they'll automatically be turned back on the moment there's a "great new feature", like putting a filter on by default on image generators to fool the eye that it's made by real artists.
This can't happen. Not because I think google is doing a wonderful job, but it's got serious market share now. Basically a monopoly. It needs to leave the hands of for profit companies and be transitioned to a foundation.
don't they already have brave for that?
Chrome or Chromium project?
Why connect to the Internet with it then. The browser could just make everything up on the fly.
Got questions about a medication?
Maybe you want to check up on some disease symptoms?
AI can make something that sounds vaguely plausible.
Why use head if you can use ChatGPT. Remove head and start working smarter.
Why connect to the Internet with it then
To check if your subscription to their models is still valid of course
And send back telemetry and training data.
AKA all of your personal data, you know, just in case we need it
Browsing the internet will be like playing AI Quake II, you'll think you are in this alternate universe.
OpenAI is like a zombie stumbling around trying to infect everything. We shove it away because it’s fuckin’ gross and we want nothing to do with it, while the bosses that reanimated it are like “well fuck, we made this thing, we have to use it for something.”
Sounds like the best thing that could happen to Firefox
Mozilla spinning off control of its development to an independent group the way they did with Thunderbird would be the best thing that could happen to Firefox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird :
Operated by MZLA Technologies Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, Thunderbird is an independent, community-driven project that is managed and overseen by the Thunderbird Council, which is elected by the Thunderbird community.
Chrome self-destructing because of stupidity like AI would only ever manage to be a close second, at best.
Has Mozilla indicated any openness to taking that approach with Firefox?
Unfortunately, Mozilla is investing a ton of money into AI, too.
Look into Waterfox instead.
Mozilla works mainly on LOCAL AI not this corporate trash like closedAI
Some of their I initiatives are good, like the built-in local translation tool we now have.
Also their initiative to recognise images and generate alt-text for screen-reader users.
My sister is blind and screen readers are close to useless on the web, so it was great to hear Mozilla is working on that.
A desperate attempt of revenue diversification.
Considering how little they invest into their core product compared to all the other shit and how much money the top brass earns despite declining market share, I don't think they're hurting for money that much.
They are investing a lot in their core product. Problem is that you can't really monatize it. You want Firefox to be paywalled?
Ideally it would be financed by user donations. Probably not that realistic for a project like this, though.
You can't finance a massive project like that with donations. This isn't like Signal or some small project like that. Firefox is MASSIVE.
Yeah, web browsers cost hundreds of millions per year to maintain, they're mind-bogglingly complicated and costly.
I'd really hope the Linux Foundation would help contribute towards the budget, but LF is quite pro Chromium.
I don't think end users can even come close to funding Firefox development, unfortunately.
Mozilla will loose Google's deal money.
Firefox, the software mainly driven by Mozilla, which is heavily investing in AI and ads ventures? That Firefox?
But, maybe "it will be different this time", I guess.
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Chromium is open source? What a concept...
How the fuck would this be more cost effective than them making their own chrome based browser and not be a demonstration of their over inflated operating costs and company valuation?
If you are paying for a service that is charging you enough to allow them to buy the most widly used browser from a company whose business model is to monopolize data, then maybe you're paying them a titbit more than what the service they're providing is worth.
I'm sure they're less interested about buying Chrome than they are about buying Chrome's market share
Chrome's user data.
The sheer market share that forces websites develop for chrome for maximum visibility, to force websites to allow their content to be scraped to be usable by the average user.
What allows them to buy chrome is ridiculous investment money, not what they're charging. From what I read, I think they're still running a loss because required processing power is still just so insanely ridiculous for AI.
How to kill Chrome faster, make it AI only. LOL!!!
Yes please
Good thing I’ve never used the garbage that is chrome or chatgpt 👍
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