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Take a look at these alternative browsers to Google Chrome & let us know which is your favorite! π π
(files.mastodon.social)
Take a look at these alternative browsers to Google Chrome & let us know which is your favorite! π π
If you're looking for a new browser find out more π https://tuta.com/blog/best-private-browsers
@firefox @duckduckgo @puffin @Waterfox @ecosia @palemoon @zenbrowser @mullvadnet @torproject @Waterfox @Freenet @librewolf
These are all just chrome and firefox with extra steps.
@Thyazide @Tutanota
From Vivaldi concerning it being Chromium based:
"Vivaldi is based on Chromium, which is open-source, and all the
improvements we make to this code are published under the same open-
source license. Thatβs roughly 95% of the code. The remaining 5%, related to Vivaldi's UI, remains proprietary to this day, although it is still possible to make sense of the obfuscated code and edit it to mod the browser to your liking (something some of the community members do).
As for the reasons for not going fully open-source at the moment, despite
many of Vivaldi's employees being proponents and users of open-source
software, the devil is in the details. The UI is what makes Vivaldi a unique
browser, we wouldnβt want our work to be used to create a forked browser
that opposes our ethics, and given our limited resources, we cannot
commit to review submitted patches.
This is what works for our company now, but the discussion is, regardless,
far from settled."
True
They're not "run on Chromium" like apps run on Windows. They use Chromium as their integral part. Better analogy would be taking Windows, uninstalling some but not all pre-installed apps, adding a bunch of bells and whistles to it, and saying that you've made an OS that is an alternative to Windows.
Exactly. Calling Chromium-based browsers "Chrome with extra steps" might not be exactly accurate, but it conveys the truth of the matter pretty accurately
You linked a marketing page. It says "it's a layer", sure. They conveniently omitted that other "layers" they mention - UI and synchronization between devices - aren't even close to be comparable in complexity with engine.
Like that one guy in your school project, slacking off for a month, and then coming in hot with writing a page out of 30, and getting equal share of the credit.
@Nalivai
It's an article explaining how they build their browser. How's that a 'marketing page'?
Have you... read it?
The use of the word layer is very clearly intended to imply its one component of many.
Like if you crotchet your own steering wheel cover then is the car just a layer in your amazing unique transportation device?
@fizzle
A software layer itself consists of components.
Amazing.
The majority are soft forks - compiling chromium with some flags, patches, presents, and add-ons.
@fizzle
Could be, but the ones I know do a little bit more.
https://yngve.vivaldi.net/sooo-you-say-you-want-to-maintain-a-chromium-fork/
Oh yeah, some custom css as well.
Good analogy, what happens if Microsoft decided tomorrow that windows was no longer a profitable venture and stopped maintaining it?
Relying on Chrome and Firefox for alternatives to Chrome and Firefox is still an issue. Especially with Mozilla, if they folded the community would not have the resources to maintain Firefox.
When Google will discontinue Chromium as an opensource project (notice that I didn't say if), all those browsers will survive for half a year and then die due to lack of compliance and security updates. Chromium is incredibly complicated, web protocols are even more complicated, none of that is good, and people are rapidly losing the ability to maintain complicated projects due to LLM-induced mass psychoses.
The fact that the engine can in theory be forked now doesn't add much.
For you? Depend on your budget and how many people you employ.
@Nalivai
No not for me, and you know that.
You're arguing that you mustn't rely on another one's rendering engine, so you're basically saying that they must build a new one themselves. Right?
But that goes against your argument that you can't maintain a rendering engine, because that's too much work.
So again. What would *you* (not me) do if you were in control of building a browser? What's your advice.
I'm saying, both basically and extensively, that if you're using Chromium as your engine, you don't get to then turn around and tell that your product is a solution to a corporate world and you're the alternative of evil Google, or whatever the basic spiel of all this endless ad posts here.
Building an engine is complicated, forking and continuing Google product is more complicated, I get it. Chromium-based products can be good, and I bet most of them are better than Chrome (but then again, hitting your pinky toe at night when you go to pee is also better than Chrome, so low bar). But "the alternative to Google tyranny" they aren't. You need to at least fork the engine, support it independently, and substantially alter it, even to be considered one.
So again. My solution as a browser builder is to ask "how much money I have, and how much people I employ", and additionally, what's my actual point of doing it, what am I trying to achieve.
Gecko would die the minute mozilla said they weren't going to maintain it.
No one is going to pick it up.
I kind of assumed you would reply with a lack of understanding of the resources it takes to maintain those engines and keep them complaint with web standards.
It's still a problem. I didnt say we had other options right now. But pretending it's not a problem isn't going to fix it. Do you really want to rely on those companies for your browser engines? Mozilla is at least an alternative to Google, but a tenuous one. And Microsoft taking over development of either of those isn't an improvement.
You forgot
I think 'we' as people who value controlling the software we view the world through should advocate and help fund more alternatives. And that starts by raising awareness. I don't think fighting with people who point out the issue is a constructive use of anyone's time.
It's like you never heard of Google and their practices.
If that happen, they fail dramatically, because they already demonstrated how good are they at making a browser, so good they threw away everything the second chromium got on their horizon. And since maintaining other people's convoluted bullshit is more complicated than your own, their chances will be even lower.
Pedantry isn't really an argument, its just pedandtry. Those engines rely almost entirely on the resources provided by Google and Mozilla's development of their broswers. Open source is all well and good, but those engines are not primarily maintained by the community, they're maintained by employees at Google and Mozilla.