With the latest news of the DoJ potentially forcing Google to sell off Chrome, I’ve been thinking about the potential impact on the web ecosystem. proposed ruling

My first question is who would have the interest in funding the technical challenges and push the ecosystem forward as much as Google does via their motivations other make more money.

Browser engines background: Under Chrome is Chromium/Blink, the engine that powers Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, and several other browsers. In the browser world there’s:


Google puts significant money behind Chromium and Blink development which is advancing the web in major ways. The Chromium team shape web standards. If Google sells off Chrome what does that mean and can the DoJ handle the complexities of an open-source project and a browser using it in their ruling?

Blink/Chromium has pioneered many major web standards:

  • WebAssembly
  • Progressive Web Apps
  • So many minor and major improvements in CSS and Javascript


There’s so much open ended here but I am watching this closely as these are technologies that I use every day for work and play and having the money-bags behind Blink/Chromium changing hands would significantly change the web ecosystem no matter what.

Much of Mozilla’s funding comes from Google and their search agreement. It sounds like regardless of Chrome being sold this arrangement will be changing thus less funding for a Chromium competitor.

More details on Chrome’s impact: Google Chromium: The Open-Source Heart of the Web