Our access to the internet is a lot more fragile than people think. We depend on either a browser or an app. An app gives total control of the experience to the provider, meaning we cannot stop it from (say) tracking us, selling our data, manipulating feeds, or showing us advertisements. That leaves the browser. But most people use Google Chrome, which is slowly becoming more and more like an App, giving Google control over the experience. We see this in this story where Google is now disabling uBlock Origin, the only effective ad blocker. Add to this the concern that Google effectively has a monopoly - sure, there's Firefox, but Firefox depends for 80% of its revenue on Google search (if governments were smart they'd pool their resources to replace this 80% and ensure that Firefox has a non-corporate source of revenue). The major companies - Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and a few others - want to limit your online experience to their closed environments. Control of the browser is key to this.
Today: 1 Total: 118 [Direct link] [Share]
