Open source group aims to better organize and fund development of browser.
  • recursive_recursion they/them@lemmy.caEnglish
    692·
    16 hours 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
      148·
      16 hours 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
        31·
        4 hours 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·
        11 hours 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?

  • db2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    191·
    16 hours ago

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

  • vatlark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    14 hours 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.

    • Thinker@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 hours 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.