Google Chrome ending up in the wrong hands due to DOJ intervention could be catastrophic for the open web and backfire entirely.
Few organizations in the world meet the bar of having 1️⃣ the web’s best interests in mind, 2️⃣ the technical infrastructure and know-how, and 3️⃣ the immense required funding.
Working on a browser involves two main areas: the engine and its frontend, like a car’s engine and its chassis & dashboard. Google has done a *phenomenal* job on the engine, which is one of the absolute hardest technical undertakings in the world, and curiously enough is actually fully open source.
Blink, Chrome’s engine, is BSD and LGPL licensed, developed in the open, and powers so many of Google’s competitors, including Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Browser Company’s Arc/Dia, and dozens of others at no cost. It’s absolutely essential that this work stays uninterrupted, while we continue to invest as a community in engine diversity, including projects like
@ladybirdbrowser of which I’m a proud backer.
And Blink is just one piece, in charge of rendering. Google has built and open sourced many other crucial engine components like the V8 JavaScript engine, Skia, PDFium, Cronet, and many others, bundled as part of the open Chromium distribution. The complexity of what makes a modern browser work is truly staggering. Thank you Google.
The DOJ is taking particular issue with the engine’s frontend, the actual thing consumers download and interact with. This is where Google has the unique privilege to package and distribute the open source engine components, and impose arbitrary rules and configurations on top, like search engine defaults, AI assistance models, telemetry capture, login / accounts integration, settings and history sync, Web Store rules (like which ad blockers can be distributed), etc. At the scale Google is operating and the power it confers, scrutiny and caution here is warranted.
I believe, however, that the best path forward will be an incremental one, maintaining the careful balance of a browser frontend that has the everyday internet citizen’s best interests in mind, while not disrupting the investment and support of such crucial open internet infrastructure that benefits us all.