Open source group aims to better organize and fund development of browser.
  • recursive_recursion they/them@lemmy.caEnglish
    1152·
    4 months ago

    Chromium really?

    After the whole debacle of manifest v3 they’re really choosing Chromium of all browsers to develop on?

    Mozilla has made some controversial decisions but surely Firefox would be the better decision for the Linux and FOSS ecosystem.
    Even better why not Librewolf?

    Seeing this news makes me sad as there are better options available and the Linux foundation chose the worst one out of all of them.

    Ironically I also just saw this here on the fediverse: Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out

    • Thinker@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1910·
      4 months ago

      Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit it as someone who has left Chromium behind personally, Chromium is kind of the only choice. I think people outside the browser implementation world underestimate the sheer scale and complexity of the modern browser stack and what goes into maintaining compatibility with web standards, much less advancing them.

      We’ve reached the point where Chromium is essentially the de-facto web standard because Chromium engineers do the lions’ share of feature testing and development, because Chromium receives the lions’ share of funding.

      Igalia, an OSS consultancy that does a lot of fairly-funded independent browser development, has lots of material about this. For example, the recent chat between Igalia members and someone from Open Web Advocacy about what to do if the anitrust ruling against Google jeopardize’s Chromium’s funding, and the options are pretty dire.

      Edit: After reading the article, I think this is a really good sign. Bringing together the immediate stakeholders in Chromium’s development and funding bodes well for the possibility of stewarding Chromium in a less Google-dependent, profit-motivated, ad-centric direction. There’s unfortunately a lot of uncertainty about how this will all shake out, but it’s possible that Chromium could become a truly independent project and move back in the direction of user value instead of user-hostile shareholder value.

      • tutus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        82·
        4 months ago

        Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit it as someone who has left Chromium behind personally, Chromium is kind of the only choice.

        With Mozilla’s rudderless stewardship of Firefox, I reluctantly agree with this. Firefox, and Mozilla, used to stand for something more than just a browser, but that is sadly vanishing now. Chrome is really the future and while I’m clinging on to Firefox, I will succumb in the end.

        It’s very sad. I’ve been a Firefox user for so long I’ve lost count. But Mozilla has lost it’s way and I don’t see it making any noise about getting back on course.

        I think having one browser engine is a very bad idea. But here we are.

      • cornshark@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        4 months ago

        With webassembly and webgl, why do browsers need to evolve? If you want some feature the browser doesn’t provide, just make it yourself and draw it onto the canvas. x86 assembly gets occasional performance improving instructions but fundamally it’s existed for 50 years and can continue to support all modern programs. X11 survived for 40 years before any talk of a replacement really appeared. Why can’t Chrome be maintenance only for 40 years and let apps and websites innovate on top of its primitives?

        • JaddedFauceet@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          To make web development a more consistent experience?

          To make it easier for developers to build a more accessible web for users with certain impairment? Without needing to re-invent the wheel with thousands of lines of JavaScript or write Web Assembly (i am not even sure how to build an accessible input element with canvas that work with screen reader, keybroad focus etc, this is crazy)?

          • cornshark@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            On desktop, questions like how to make an accessible input element are handled by your widget toolkit. Why does the browser need to handle every question itself? Let the qt or gtk or whatever folks answer the question of how to create an accessible input element. Split the scope and investment among many players which individually don’t need as much funding and can innovate more quickly.

  • db2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    341·
    4 months ago

    Call me when they give Google the finger and start rolling back user-unfriendly changes. Until then it’s larping.

    • john89@lemmy.caEnglish
      102·
      4 months ago

      Umm… no.

      If Mozilla needs more resources for their browser, they can stop paying their CEOs so much and replace analysts with engineers.

      They can also stop wasting their resources on projects nobody cares about.

        • Jtotheb@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          4 months ago

          They said they’re not going to provide the foundation with additional funding while the foundation is spending their money in ways they disagree with. What is the specific misunderstanding?

    • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
      159·
      4 months ago

      Yeah, because 500 M/year from Google are not enough. Gotta increase the CEO paycheck. Moreover, donations don’t even fund FF development.

        • john89@lemmy.caEnglish
          21·
          4 months ago

          You have to be born yesterday to believe this.

          The business will do whatever they believe will make them the most amount of money.

        • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
          519·
          4 months ago

          Again, what you donate don’t fund FF development but goes toward Mozilla’s bullshit/activism/whatever/huge CEO paychecks. Who cares about that?

          I for sure don’t. I will celebrate the day Mozilla disappears for good.

          • Lemminary@lemmy.worldEnglish
            141·
            4 months ago

            It’s weird to call for the disbandment of a relatively small company producing one of the major alternative browsers for what would otherwise be a monopoly.

            What is Mozilla doing that Google and Apple aren’t doing but worse? Why direct all this negative energy at the small one keeping things tolerable?

            • john89@lemmy.caEnglish
              1·
              4 months ago

              for what would otherwise be a monopoly.

              Firefox only gets funding from Google to prevent the US government from stepping in to break up a monopoly.

            • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
              210·
              4 months ago

              Major alternative? At 2.x% market share? You people are very delusional. By the way, the shitty market share is exclusively Mozilla’s fault, even if they’re always complaining about evil Google (while they take that sweet 500 M/years from that evil company and waste them on anything but fixing their shitty browser). Mozilla is ascummy/scammy company that should have died years ago. I’ll celebrate their fall.

              • tb_@lemmy.worldEnglish
                71·
                4 months ago

                Of all the alternatives, it is the most major one.
                (Except for Apple devices where Safari is an option).

              • luciferofastora@lemmy.zipEnglish
                51·
                4 months ago

                So because they take money from Google but don’t effectively challenge the monopoly, they ought to be done away with? All Hail our Chromium overlords!

                I agree that the exec salaries could use a heavy trimming to the benefit of their actual R&D, but right now, they’re the biggest challenger to the dominance of Chromium. They could be better, sure, but I’d rather have mediocrity than no choice at all.

                • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  4 months ago

                  They aren’t challenging anything, don’t be delusional. But, hey, I can’t stop you from believing their narrative, (and in fairy tales) if that can make you happy.

  • vatlark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    4 months ago

    The article explains some of the background to chromium which I hadn’t known.

    Google’s Chrome is a freeware release with deeper ties to Google’s ecosystem, while Chromium, released at the same time as Chrome in 2008, is open source. Google has slowly loosened its de facto control of the project, particularly since 2020, allowing outside developers into its leadership, softening its stance on non-Google-derived features and opening up its “Goma” development scheme for Chromium, as detailed by CNET in 2020.

  • oldfart@lemm.eeEnglish
    91·
    4 months ago

    I thought I’m going to read about an initiative to join efforts between Ungoogled Chromium, Chromite, Srware Iron etc, but no. Yet another place for Google and Meta to work together.

  • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    4 months ago

    Extremely short sighted and stupid decision. The only people that will support it are the Google fanboys.

    • Thinker@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      4 months ago

      In what sense are they “siding” with the corporations? If anything, this seems like a step in the right direction, to add some modicum of open governance to the Chromium project in a fashion that is clearly not corpo-dominated.

      Also, it’s not like this is the Linux Foundation saying “we only support Chromium”, after all they also run the Servo project.

  • Clot@lemm.eeEnglish
    53·
    4 months ago

    Complete servo tlf??? I am done with chrome and Firefox also getting in AI shit

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      3 months ago

      So far all of their ai stuff has been:

      1. Accessibility features

      2. A sidebar that you can put a third party AI into, which probably took an afternoon to code

      I just don’t get why people are upset that they’re doing literally the bare minimum to grab headlines so that normies realize they’re a legit browser.