How to leave Chrome before the Feds force Google to sell it

GIZMODO

The U.S. Department of Justice is banging the war drum against Google’s horizontally integrated business model. Last week, DOJ officials asked the federal court to force Google to scalp Chrome from its business. Given that, it may be time for users to start looking for a new browser.

If the DOJ’s request goes through (and many court battles are still to be fought), it would be the biggest upset in the tech world for the past 30 years. Feds want to force the $1.4 trillion company to break up its advertising from its search arms. Sure, it’s not the only game in town that has its cake and eats it, too (officials are also looking at Meta over separate antitrust allegations).

Chrome is the most popular browser in the U.S., and not by a small margin. It’s also one of the most CPU-intensive browsers around. This has been a problem for so long that some laptops sell themselves on being able to run Chrome without depleting the battery. Chrome is also extremely customizable, and with built-in connectivity with your Google account, it becomes a shoo-in for most offices that rely on Workspace apps like Gmail or Docs.

But with Google on the end of the DOJ’s antitrust fishing line, it seems there’s now a better reason to abandon ship than ever before. It’s probably for the best. Google has weathered plenty of criticism surrounding Chrome’s data harvesting practices. It’s made strides in recent years to offer users more control over how the browser and sites they visit track their data with Privacy Sandbox, but the damage may already be done.

Whatever happens, it may be a good time to start thinking about migrating. If you’re used to Chrome, you’ll find that most browsers contain similar features, but they won’t be as beholden to your Google account as you might be used to.

Which Default Browsers Could I Consider?

Microsoft’s Edge browser is already Chromium-based, and it doesn’t take much effort to switch your browser experience from Chrome. The downside is that it’s a Microsoft-brand product, and Windows makers have been overt in trying to keep you using the built-in browser on Windows PCs. This includes pop-up notifications when you dare try to download Chrome. Windows 11 is already too full of popups that you have to disable manually, so we don’t suspect Microsoft will stop its Edge promotion until somebody makes it stop.

It has a few unique features, most recently the integrated Bing Chatbot (so don’t move to Edge if you’re tired of Google’s AI antics). The privacy tools are especially standout. You can target certain pages to prevent pop-up ads or tracking. You’ll find the import tools by clicking the three dots next to the Bing icon at the top right, then hit Settings, Profiles, and Import browser data. After that, find the browser you want to import, and you can choose to bring over your payment info, history, settings, and tabs. It will also try to find similar extensions to the ones you already use.

As for other default browsers, Mac’s Safari is always a nice, simple browser with a few extra tricks, like the Reader mode, which lets you dismantle elements of a page you don’t like. Apple lets you authenticate with Facebook, Google, or an Apple account, so you can maintain your Google account as your main way of signing into various services.

You won’t have access to Google Passwords. Instead, manually import your password file from Chrome to Safari. To import your passwords, bookmarks, and more from Chrome, go to Safari on Mac, choose File, then Import From. You should see your selection of browsers installed on your device, and you can hit which files you wish to keep imported from Chrome.