This was done to make Google the default search engine of your browser most likely Internet Explorer. They then pushed Firefox and then created Chrome. Now they have to be sure that your default search engine is Google.

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1970-01-01 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

No, 2005 was peak 'Don't be Evil'. It really was a different time. They made Desktop simply because it fixed search. Being in the default browser was a nice side effect.

	▲	abirch 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Potentially it was a different time. Google did hire Eric Schmidt whose previous company Novell was destroyed by Microsoft. Some say that NT stood for Novell or NetWare terminator.

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creatonez 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You might be confusing this with Google Toolbar. It didn't change your search engine, because searching in the URL bar didn't even exist yet. Search engine competition wasn't really a zero-sum game back then, because users would often install multiple toolbars for different purposes (or more likely, have them installed automatically by crapware). But nevertheless it did cement Google's market dominance.