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If Google sells Chrome keeps control over Chromium, I don't see this benefiting users. They'll continue with their anti-user efforts (Manifest V2 phaseout, Web Integrity), and the only difference is that the new Chrome will come with a new set of spyware, probably a worse one than Google because no one is in as good of a position to benefit from the lock-in as Google does, so they have to be more aggressive with their monetization, like with ads inserted into pages.

But at the same time maintaining Chromium is a pretty thankless endeavor and I don't see any entity with that capability. It's much bigger than Linux, and the developers are employees, not volunteers.

The best possible outcome I can imagine is if Google is required to spin off Chromium into a nonprofit that would be independent but they are required to fund it for many years. The nonprofit would need some kind of oversight from adversarial companies to avoid collusion with Google or any other company.



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