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It isn't just about the recent PR mishap, it's about a long string of events that have gradually tried their users' patience and erroded their trust: https://w

It isn't just about the recent PR mishap, it's about a long string of events that have gradually tried their users' patience and erroded their trust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMALm1VthGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMALm1VthGY It's also disingenuous to present a false dichotomy with Chrome, as if there weren't any other privacy-focused alternatives out there: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://iridiumbrowser.de/ https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.gnu.org/software/icecat/ https://www.gnu.org/software/icecat/

space_fountain 9y ago
Do any of them have a decent chance of success? Or are they doomed to struggle to copy chromes features. Doomed to break because no one tests against them?
- axlprose 9y ago
  If your goal is utmost privacy like many of these projects are providing, you're already going to expect and experience some breakages regardless. Any browser is going to struggle against the top two behemoths, so I'm not sure why exactly that would be an argument to just accept it and continue using products by companies that have lost your trust. Are end users supposed to compromise their ethics just because web developers aren't in the habit of testing against their browser of choice yet? That just seems like an awfully 'silicon-valley-centric' view of the world. What does this "success" thing have to do with ditching a product that had violated your trust anyway? Are businesses in most other industries viewed this way? Am I expected to stop buying food from local producers just because the big-box food suppliers are more ubiquitous? To me, all that matters is sustainability, and IceCat has been going strong for 12 years, PaleMoon has been consistently developed for 8 years, and Waterfox for 6 years. So that's enough for me to at least give them a shot.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Although not a FF derivative, I've been using Vivaldi for a while and do enjoy it. I hate not supporting an OSS browser though, but found even with the performance improvement in FF57, it still didn't compare to a Chromium based browser like Vivaldi. It's got a decently large userbase and could be a viable alternative.
- catach 9y ago
  > Doomed to break because no one tests against them? Every browser on that list is based on either Chromium or Gecko.
KirinDave 9y ago
It is very difficult to take Brave seriously given how very shady its fundraising (the entire premise of brave is that they can capitalize on selling your attention) was and how historically dishonest Eich has been about using his money for socio-political, anti-libertarian activism. It's quite a disservice to Palemoon and Waterfox to include such an anti-user project as Brave.
- randallsquared 9y ago
  > historically dishonest Eich has been about using his money I'm not sure what this means. Can you expand on how Eich has been dishonest in how he used his money?
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/brendan-eich-has-the-right-to-fight-gay-rights-but-not-to-be-mozillas-ceo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/brenda... Eich did everything he could to conceal that his libertarian image was a facade and in fact he was a social authoritarian. Once it came out he was actively using his money on political campaigns designed to try and further empower and justify the state to decide what relationships between consenting adults was forbidden, he had a rather hard time being taken seriously in this area. I'm not sure why someone who's actively and monetarily supported politicians saying homosexuals should have to register in a special registry parallel to the sex offender registry is being taken seriously in the privacy arena. Privacy is not something that can be decomposed as an asset to purchase. Every person who doesn't have it leaks information about the people they interact with, and that undermines privacy for everyone.
    - randallsquared 9y ago
      Thanks for explaining!
    - BrendanEich 9y ago
      Hey, Dave. I’m not sure why you thought I was a libertarian. I haven’t identified as such since the ‘80s. As for Buchanan in the ‘90s, I don’t support everything he said - I was most supportive of his economic nationalism. Did you ever support a politician (say, Obama) only to find they said something you disavowed? Sam Yagan of okcupid did. I disavow Buchanan’s unconstitutional AIDS registry, and probably other proposals he has made. As for “social authoritarian”, California regulates and licenses marriage via family law, as do all states. I come from an older generation of allies who supported Mark Leno et al. when they labored over, passed, and amended to full positive-rights equivalence with marriage, CA’s Domestic Partner Law (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Cali...). This was considered just and sufficient, until it was not — and then anyone who questioned the revolutionary tactics used to cast former allies as haters and bigots became a hater too. I dissent from all such revolutionary tactics and agendas. I agree with dissenting LGBTQ scholars of note on this point re marriage equality, e.g., Camille Paglia. (I don’t agree with those scholars on everything, of course. Same as with most people, including politicians I’ve supported in the past.) Now the shoe is on the other foot. Marriage equality is law and I’m an officer of a corporation with a genuinely diverse roster of employees. I am committed to the fullest definition of inclusivity, which covers right wingers as well as left, libertarians and non-libertarians. For you to gin up a case that I pretended to be a libertarian is silly (I never pretended that). But worse, if you judge Brave by a past and too-narrow slice of my opinions, you are doing what haters who boycott Apple because of Tim Cook do. It is your right, of course, but it looks like consequentialism (end justifies means) or really just Who/Whom ax-grinding. I hope you will use Brave in view of what we are trying to do, as a group of people who share a cause and set of beliefs, whatever our other or past causes and beliefs.

space_fountain 9y ago

Do any of them have a decent chance of success? Or are they doomed to struggle to copy chromes features. Doomed to break because no one tests against them?

axlprose 9y ago
If your goal is utmost privacy like many of these projects are providing, you're already going to expect and experience some breakages regardless. Any browser is going to struggle against the top two behemoths, so I'm not sure why exactly that would be an argument to just accept it and continue using products by companies that have lost your trust. Are end users supposed to compromise their ethics just because web developers aren't in the habit of testing against their browser of choice yet? That just seems like an awfully 'silicon-valley-centric' view of the world. What does this "success" thing have to do with ditching a product that had violated your trust anyway? Are businesses in most other industries viewed this way? Am I expected to stop buying food from local producers just because the big-box food suppliers are more ubiquitous? To me, all that matters is sustainability, and IceCat has been going strong for 12 years, PaleMoon has been consistently developed for 8 years, and Waterfox for 6 years. So that's enough for me to at least give them a shot.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
djsumdog 9y ago
Although not a FF derivative, I've been using Vivaldi for a while and do enjoy it. I hate not supporting an OSS browser though, but found even with the performance improvement in FF57, it still didn't compare to a Chromium based browser like Vivaldi. It's got a decently large userbase and could be a viable alternative.
catach 9y ago
> Doomed to break because no one tests against them? Every browser on that list is based on either Chromium or Gecko.

KirinDave 9y ago

It is very difficult to take Brave seriously given how very shady its fundraising (the entire premise of brave is that they can capitalize on selling your attention) was and how historically dishonest Eich has been about using his money for socio-political, anti-libertarian activism. It's quite a disservice to Palemoon and Waterfox to include such an anti-user project as Brave.

randallsquared 9y ago
> historically dishonest Eich has been about using his money I'm not sure what this means. Can you expand on how Eich has been dishonest in how he used his money?
- KirinDave 9y ago
  > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/brendan-eich-has-the-right-to-fight-gay-rights-but-not-to-be-mozillas-ceo https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/brenda... Eich did everything he could to conceal that his libertarian image was a facade and in fact he was a social authoritarian. Once it came out he was actively using his money on political campaigns designed to try and further empower and justify the state to decide what relationships between consenting adults was forbidden, he had a rather hard time being taken seriously in this area. I'm not sure why someone who's actively and monetarily supported politicians saying homosexuals should have to register in a special registry parallel to the sex offender registry is being taken seriously in the privacy arena. Privacy is not something that can be decomposed as an asset to purchase. Every person who doesn't have it leaks information about the people they interact with, and that undermines privacy for everyone.
  - randallsquared 9y ago
    Thanks for explaining!
  - BrendanEich 9y ago
    Hey, Dave. I’m not sure why you thought I was a libertarian. I haven’t identified as such since the ‘80s. As for Buchanan in the ‘90s, I don’t support everything he said - I was most supportive of his economic nationalism. Did you ever support a politician (say, Obama) only to find they said something you disavowed? Sam Yagan of okcupid did. I disavow Buchanan’s unconstitutional AIDS registry, and probably other proposals he has made. As for “social authoritarian”, California regulates and licenses marriage via family law, as do all states. I come from an older generation of allies who supported Mark Leno et al. when they labored over, passed, and amended to full positive-rights equivalence with marriage, CA’s Domestic Partner Law (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Cali...). This was considered just and sufficient, until it was not — and then anyone who questioned the revolutionary tactics used to cast former allies as haters and bigots became a hater too. I dissent from all such revolutionary tactics and agendas. I agree with dissenting LGBTQ scholars of note on this point re marriage equality, e.g., Camille Paglia. (I don’t agree with those scholars on everything, of course. Same as with most people, including politicians I’ve supported in the past.) Now the shoe is on the other foot. Marriage equality is law and I’m an officer of a corporation with a genuinely diverse roster of employees. I am committed to the fullest definition of inclusivity, which covers right wingers as well as left, libertarians and non-libertarians. For you to gin up a case that I pretended to be a libertarian is silly (I never pretended that). But worse, if you judge Brave by a past and too-narrow slice of my opinions, you are doing what haters who boycott Apple because of Tim Cook do. It is your right, of course, but it looks like consequentialism (end justifies means) or really just Who/Whom ax-grinding. I hope you will use Brave in view of what we are trying to do, as a group of people who share a cause and set of beliefs, whatever our other or past causes and beliefs.