Just browsing: Chrome's held the browser crown for over 10 years

8/24/23 8:00PM

Just browsing... for features

‍Google Chrome is testing a new feature that will make it look a little more like it's Apple rival Safari: switching the browser’s address bar to the bottom, moving it closer to the thumb — great news for speed searchers seeking to fact-check their friends or find “food near me” as quickly as possible.

The move comes almost 2 years after Apple made the bottom-of-the-screen-based address bar its default, a decision that wasn’t a roaring success at the time. But, while Chrome has lagged in this change-up, the platform has been dominating the browser world for over a decade now.

First launched in 2008, when Internet Explorer was at the height of its powers, Google's PR team was keen to make a splash with Chrome — going so far as to create a comic book to explain its "streamlined" features. Marketed as a "fresh take on the browser", Chrome offered faster loading times, fewer crashes, third-party extensions and, perhaps most importantly, the resources of a tech giant.

‍Free real estate

‍Those resources also meant plugging into the Google ecosystem — Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Android — giving Chrome an enormous leg up, just as its primary competition, Internet Explorer, and the free and open-source Firefox, were struggling for users. By the end of 2009, in the first full year of its existence, Google Chrome captured just 5% of the browser market. However, things shifted quickly: Chrome became the most popular browser in 2012, a position it’s held ever since.

Since it's free to use, Chrome may not initially seem like a core part of Google's business, but it actually saves the company billions every year. When people use the Chrome search bar, the default search engine is, of course, Google itself — had Google never built a browser, it would have to split that ad revenue with someone else.

Jon Keegan3/27/26

Judge blocks Pentagon’s move to blacklist Anthropic

A federal judge in Northern California has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk.

The ruling temporarily prevents the Defense Department from restricting the AI company’s access to federal contracts amid a dispute over its refusal to allow certain military and surveillance uses of its technology. The designation could also have shifted lucrative government work toward competitors, including OpenAI.

Earlier this month, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, sued 17 federal agencies and their heads, alleging the government exceeded its statutory authority.

Rani Molla3/27/26

Report: SpaceX’s record IPO may grant preferential access to retail investors and Tesla shareholders

SpaceX’s impending IPO could raise $40 billion to $80 billion and rank as the largest ever — as well as one of the most unconventional.

The Wall Street Journal reports several ways CEO Elon Musk is considering breaking with IPO norms:

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Exclusive | The SpaceX IPO Will Be Just as Unconventional as Musk Himself

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Rani Molla3/26/26

Tesla released estimates for Q1 deliveries and they’re lower than analysts expected

Ahead of first-quarter earnings next month, Tesla released its own company-compiled Wall Street consensus estimate for deliveries: 365,645 vehicles. While that’s lower than the 382,000 FactSet consensus estimate, it represents a nearly 9% jump from Q1 2025, when Tesla sold 336,681 vehicles.

Tesla started releasing its own consensus estimates to the public — not just institutional investors — for the first time in Q4 2025. The move was seen as a way to temper investor expectations, as other estimates were too high. Last quarter, Tesla’s compilation was closer to actual numbers, which fell 16% year over year.

The market-implied odds from event contracts suggest 64% of traders think Tesla’s Q1 deliveries will be more than 350,000, 44% think it will be higher than 360,000, and just 21% have it at higher than 370,000.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The toughest AI benchmark just got a whole lot tougher

ARC-AGI-3 is the latest version of a clever benchmark that challenges AI models to solve mini video games with no written instructions.

Jon Keegan3/26/26

Rani Molla3/26/26

The US leads the world in robotaxi deployments

Every day it seems another robotaxi launches somewhere in the world. But most of them are in the US.

Of the 171 active robotaxi deployments globally, 69 — or 40% — are in the US, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. China, the next largest market, accounts for 24% of deployments.

Most of those deployments are still in testing or early commercial stages. Only 10 US cities currently have fully commercial robotaxi operations, defined as services that operate on public roads, carry paying passengers, run fully driverless without a safety driver, and function all day in any weather.

For now, that effectively refers to Alphabet’s Waymo, which operates commercially in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. That definition excludes competitors like Tesla, whose Robotaxi service uses safety monitors, and Amazon’s Zoox, which has yet to charge customers for rides.