Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome

In regards to the argument that google pays firefox and could easily kill it off I doubt it. Even if they were so bold as to cut funding completely (which they are not) you will find that Mozilla will have at some point have to cut loose their CEO or cut their huge pays down and make some changes there followed by some clever moves to find another source of income. If worse comes to worse the community will come to its aid and it will go back into the hands of the community which is likely a very good thing but Google has another approach to all of this and are incrementally trying to lock firefox or any non compliant browser or competitor out of the internet. Google has been doing it for years now. They hijacked web standards also along the way.

I think people are either forgetting the roots of chrome or how it came about as being PUP and foistware bundled along with popular freeware software or anyone they could pay to bundle their software with but earlier than that it was a toolbar that piggybacked onto IE (for its marketshare) and than I believe even Firefox too. People also seem to have this belief that when Chrome came out it was absolutely revolutionary and brilliant but the truth is that it was garbage but people fell for it like a shark to a bucket of chum. To me Chrome was pretty much your Bonzi Buddy of browsers. And google a complete scourge on the internet.

As for webkit that old chestnut. The only reason why that is popular at all is because Apple makes sure that you cannot use any other browser or makes it as difficult as possible not to mention the largest part of their user base comes from their iphone without that they're pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel. IMO Yes, Google is just as bad if not worse in many cases as they leverage their android phone market, run ads on TV specifically designed to push chrome and also built an entire laptop (all be it a terrible one) and called it a chromebook to make sure they keep their dominance but lets not also forget they bought youtube also to stack the odds in their favor. Same ol' Google really.

The browser wars are dead! We just settle for the lesser evil these days.

Saying that this is better for your privacy is like saying I only get punched in the face every second day rather than every day now.

Taking all of the above away and if there is one reason fewer people should be using chrome or chromium based browsers and using something else such as Firefox or a fork is to maintain a balance and take away some of the power and influence they (Google) do have over the web so they will not be able to force things such as WEI and take away many of the freedoms from the net in which we grew up on as too did the internet. The Freedom of exchange of information was never meant to be conditional or the internet held to ransom by one company but this is where we are at so its time for a change of hands or a the balance of power to be restored. Bringing balance will also force sloppy and lazy web developers to stop build dirt poor websites and deliberately blocking out other browsers. Web standards need to be restored and be completely independent from one entity or another, be it google, Mozilla, Apple or any one else in between.