4 ms·

All of this "debate" is pretty absurd. Yes the webrequest v3 proposal seems problematic for scripts /malware / crypto / ad / etc blockers. This is consensual.

All of this "debate" is pretty absurd. Yes the webrequest v3 proposal seems problematic for scripts /malware / crypto / ad / etc blockers. This is consensual. Chromium is open source and has those two main actors: opera and Microsoft. Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. And thus argue to switch to Firefox. Let's be clear, when you look at the technical, chromium is a far superior browser. Chromium has far more active devs, far more features (look at caniuse.com) and has almost systematically better performance. And it has many others kinds of advantages. All of the stated advantages are sufficent to consider chromium as the best browser. So instead of arguing that opera or Microsoft or simply open source community will simply stay in sync with chromium master but keep the patchs for keeping the current webrequest api. You want people to choose a poorer, less featureful browser which has real consequences on what web devs can offer as user experiences. This is forgive me, dumb. What everybody should ask for is to mozilla to get rational and to migrate Firefox to chromium while backportikng the best parts of gecko to chromium 1) and to ensure the respect of privacy in the chromium source code 2) This would lead us to a web that evolve far more quickly, to the fastest browser and to an implementation which satisfy every interests (the ones of Googles and the one of Microsoft/mozilla) If Google and mozilla disagreed on something, mozilla should maintain a set of patchs for applying their custom changes (a micro fork) That's simple but there's still a long way for the medias and the people to understand that. I would have hoped that hackernews community, wanting to be like the pre-eternal September would debate with intellectual riguour in the common goal of seeking true, sound progress.

klez 7y ago
I find parts of your post quite offensive, to be honest, but let's have a debate anyway. The way I see it is that my (and other's) interests are not aligned with yours. You want a web that evolves quickly, I want a web that is not a constantly moving target. You want one web engine implementation to rule them all, I want an open web where standards are respected, not constantly changed by a single conflicted (as in conflict of interests) actor, where multiple implementations can thrive and where users can still expect every website to work independently of the user agent they use. Is this enough for intellectual rigour?
wolco 7y ago
Let's be clear, when you look at the technical, chromium is a far superior browser. Chromium has far more active devs, far more features (look at caniuse.com) and has almost systematically better performance. I use firefox for speed reasons and only use chrome when I'm forced to. Chrome opens up 20 small processes firefox used to open one main thread now a dozen. Not sure what is being measured in the technical tests you mention but in userland firefox has a lot of support for those of us still on windows 7.
hk__2 7y ago
> Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. Yes, because Chromium is owned by Google and uses its own Web services and binaries. See “Ungoogled Chromium”, which was on HN homepage a couple weeks ago: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium#motivation-and-philosophy https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium#motivation-and...
wayneftw 7y ago
There is a very loud but relatively tiny minority of developers that work for/with and/or support Mozilla in some way, who actively take part in brigading on HN to try and sway your opinion. Any time anybody complains about a better browser, you'll see someone promote Firefox and bring a few hundred of their friends to up-fnord their story to the front page or down-fnord dissenting commenters.
- klez 7y ago
  I guess you have proofs of that. Claiming that there's brigading just because people upvote what you don't find upvote-worthy is not very constructive. I mean, I've been a Mozilla volunteer for a couple of years, some years ago (on MDN, FWIW), but I think it doesn't mean I'm some sort of fanboy just because of that. Ask Mozilla volunteers who's seen me drunk how harsh I can be towards Mozilla.
  - wayneftw 7y ago
    Clearly the evidence is the fact that Mozilla/Firefox, with a very, very tiny minority market share among browsers, is able to make it to the HN front-page whenever they want. There simply aren't that many fans of the browser. What else should I conclude? (And both of my comments on this thread are flagged for 1) telling the truth about this obvious brigading and 2) saying I'd rather use MS Edge because I don't trust Mozilla after they added tracking via Pocket and after they removed an extension for purely political purposes which are 2 things that most definitely did happen. The truth hurts I guess, better hide it!)
    - klez 7y ago
      This very thread has 533 upvotes currently. The highest I saw was around 2000. You honestly can't believe there are that many people on hn who think Firefox is a good browser or that simply don't want a WebKit/Blink monoculture? Also, that very tiny, tiny percent of users is still in the tens (hundreds?) of millions in absolute numbers. Could it just be that Firefox users are more likely to upvote submissions about Firefox than others? IMHO you're just seeing a conspiracy where there is none.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
When has it ever been a good idea to leave control about something to just one company? Have you somehow been abstinent from tech during the last couple decades? Do you not remember how hostile Microsoft acted towards Linux around 2000? Are you suggesting we would be better off now if Apple and Linux would have left the field to Microsoft back then? This situation now is no different. Creating patches might work in the short run, but over time when according parts of the code base change and get refactored, you're constantly busy keeping your stuff compatible. Case in point safari: They severely lack behind in several areas. Why? According to your post it should have been trivial for them to just take any improvement from Google's fork and apply it to webkit. Didn't seem to have happened. And counting on Microsoft, a company active in the ad business as well, doesn't sound too convincing in this context either.
bobajeff 7y ago
I think it would be a good idea for Mozilla to move to a Chromium base. That way they could have a built in ad-blocker and turn it on by default. If they did that with Gecko then websites would simply detect and block Gecko even if they changed the user agent. Because it's only in the single digits on desktop and non-existent on mobile. However I know Mozilla isn't interested in that since that would still likely break websites. Also, they officially believe ads are good for the web. However, I want them to continue to work on Servo since I think it's important to be able to parallelize reading/parsing and rendering the web.
parley 7y ago
I really think that's an oversimplification. There are always the pro and con arguments about software mono culture and there are good points on both sides, and in this case there is indeed a gigantic cost to maintaining more than one implementation -- no one is debating that. Also, an across-the-board evaluation would probably find Firefox technically inferior at the moment, although I think that's more of an interesting debate and also a measurement where I feel the gap has lessened these last few years. My disclaimer would be that I'm a long-time user of both browsers, but ethically on Mozilla's side. However, I think the following > and to an implementation which satisfy every interests (the ones of Googles and the one of Microsoft/mozilla) doesn't put nearly enough emphasis on exactly how different those interests are. Google's main source of income depends on user surveillance and privacy intrusions (to use some loaded wording), and while Mozilla's indirectly does too through their sources of funding the two entities have very different goals and core beliefs. That in itself doesn't preclude sharing an implementation, but thinking that those differences won't (and don't) cause conflicts of interest that affect both the evolving of the standards and how the actual implementations work would be, I believe, a big mistake. Just saying "ensure the respect of privacy in the chromium source code" and that they should maintain a set of patches or a "micro fork" I think ignores the level of control they will be (or rather won't be) able to exert over the Chromium code base. I don't think Opera, Brave, Microsoft, Mozilla or anyone else that decides to either be a downstream user of or active participant in Chromium will be able to keep Google from doing whatever is in their best interest with the code base. Additionally, I think keeping patch sets (that won't end up being very complicated and will slow down or put to a grinding halt independent development) won't be able to make up for the implementation differences caused by the differences in goals. Keeping patch sets can be extremely painful. > Chromium is open source and has those two main actors: opera and Microsoft. I really apologize for my tone, but... Please. In what regard are they main actors? Certainly not to the extent that they have any significant control over the main direction of the Chromium code base or any power to stop Google from completely controlling it. The core beliefs and goals of the entity exerting the main control over the code base matters a lot more than your post makes it sound like. And if Chromium really were the only code base able to browse the modern web, then that would also put the standardization of the World Wide Web more or less in Googles hands. Also, for someone asking for better "intellectual riguour", you do a pretty so-so job at showing your understanding of the arguments of the people you don't agree with.
tomxor 7y ago
> All of this "debate" is pretty absurd. Your attempt to crudely quantify something as vague as "superiority" of something as complex as a browser is far more absurd. > Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. For many intents and purposes chromium _is_ proprietary by sheer mass of code, if you don't think so, go and fork it by all means. > Let's be clear, when you look at the technical, chromium is a far superior browser. Chromium has far more active devs, far more features (look at caniuse.com) and has almost systematically better performance. And it has many others kinds of advantages. All of the stated advantages are sufficent to consider chromium as the best browser. You have a terribly one dimensional view of browsers, do you still measure your CPU performance in Hz? Browsers are extremely complex, chromium does many things better than FireFox and FireFox does many things better than chrome (even from a purely technical perspective ignoring "user" issues as this one).

klez 7y ago

I find parts of your post quite offensive, to be honest, but let's have a debate anyway. The way I see it is that my (and other's) interests are not aligned with yours. You want a web that evolves quickly, I want a web that is not a constantly moving target. You want one web engine implementation to rule them all, I want an open web where standards are respected, not constantly changed by a single conflicted (as in conflict of interests) actor, where multiple implementations can thrive and where users can still expect every website to work independently of the user agent they use. Is this enough for intellectual rigour?

wolco 7y ago

Let's be clear, when you look at the technical, chromium is a far superior browser. Chromium has far more active devs, far more features (look at caniuse.com) and has almost systematically better performance. I use firefox for speed reasons and only use chrome when I'm forced to. Chrome opens up 20 small processes firefox used to open one main thread now a dozen. Not sure what is being measured in the technical tests you mention but in userland firefox has a lot of support for those of us still on windows 7.

hk__2 7y ago

> Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. Yes, because Chromium is owned by Google and uses its own Web services and binaries. See “Ungoogled Chromium”, which was on HN homepage a couple weeks ago: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium#motivation-and-philosophy https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium#motivation-and...

wayneftw 7y ago

There is a very loud but relatively tiny minority of developers that work for/with and/or support Mozilla in some way, who actively take part in brigading on HN to try and sway your opinion. Any time anybody complains about a better browser, you'll see someone promote Firefox and bring a few hundred of their friends to up-fnord their story to the front page or down-fnord dissenting commenters.

klez 7y ago
I guess you have proofs of that. Claiming that there's brigading just because people upvote what you don't find upvote-worthy is not very constructive. I mean, I've been a Mozilla volunteer for a couple of years, some years ago (on MDN, FWIW), but I think it doesn't mean I'm some sort of fanboy just because of that. Ask Mozilla volunteers who's seen me drunk how harsh I can be towards Mozilla.
- wayneftw 7y ago
  Clearly the evidence is the fact that Mozilla/Firefox, with a very, very tiny minority market share among browsers, is able to make it to the HN front-page whenever they want. There simply aren't that many fans of the browser. What else should I conclude? (And both of my comments on this thread are flagged for 1) telling the truth about this obvious brigading and 2) saying I'd rather use MS Edge because I don't trust Mozilla after they added tracking via Pocket and after they removed an extension for purely political purposes which are 2 things that most definitely did happen. The truth hurts I guess, better hide it!)
  - klez 7y ago
    This very thread has 533 upvotes currently. The highest I saw was around 2000. You honestly can't believe there are that many people on hn who think Firefox is a good browser or that simply don't want a WebKit/Blink monoculture? Also, that very tiny, tiny percent of users is still in the tens (hundreds?) of millions in absolute numbers. Could it just be that Firefox users are more likely to upvote submissions about Firefox than others? IMHO you're just seeing a conspiracy where there is none.

iforgotpassword 7y ago

When has it ever been a good idea to leave control about something to just one company? Have you somehow been abstinent from tech during the last couple decades? Do you not remember how hostile Microsoft acted towards Linux around 2000? Are you suggesting we would be better off now if Apple and Linux would have left the field to Microsoft back then? This situation now is no different. Creating patches might work in the short run, but over time when according parts of the code base change and get refactored, you're constantly busy keeping your stuff compatible. Case in point safari: They severely lack behind in several areas. Why? According to your post it should have been trivial for them to just take any improvement from Google's fork and apply it to webkit. Didn't seem to have happened. And counting on Microsoft, a company active in the ad business as well, doesn't sound too convincing in this context either.

bobajeff 7y ago

I think it would be a good idea for Mozilla to move to a Chromium base. That way they could have a built in ad-blocker and turn it on by default. If they did that with Gecko then websites would simply detect and block Gecko even if they changed the user agent. Because it's only in the single digits on desktop and non-existent on mobile. However I know Mozilla isn't interested in that since that would still likely break websites. Also, they officially believe ads are good for the web. However, I want them to continue to work on Servo since I think it's important to be able to parallelize reading/parsing and rendering the web.

parley 7y ago

I really think that's an oversimplification. There are always the pro and con arguments about software mono culture and there are good points on both sides, and in this case there is indeed a gigantic cost to maintaining more than one implementation -- no one is debating that. Also, an across-the-board evaluation would probably find Firefox technically inferior at the moment, although I think that's more of an interesting debate and also a measurement where I feel the gap has lessened these last few years. My disclaimer would be that I'm a long-time user of both browsers, but ethically on Mozilla's side. However, I think the following > and to an implementation which satisfy every interests (the ones of Googles and the one of Microsoft/mozilla) doesn't put nearly enough emphasis on exactly how different those interests are. Google's main source of income depends on user surveillance and privacy intrusions (to use some loaded wording), and while Mozilla's indirectly does too through their sources of funding the two entities have very different goals and core beliefs. That in itself doesn't preclude sharing an implementation, but thinking that those differences won't (and don't) cause conflicts of interest that affect both the evolving of the standards and how the actual implementations work would be, I believe, a big mistake. Just saying "ensure the respect of privacy in the chromium source code" and that they should maintain a set of patches or a "micro fork" I think ignores the level of control they will be (or rather won't be) able to exert over the Chromium code base. I don't think Opera, Brave, Microsoft, Mozilla or anyone else that decides to either be a downstream user of or active participant in Chromium will be able to keep Google from doing whatever is in their best interest with the code base. Additionally, I think keeping patch sets (that won't end up being very complicated and will slow down or put to a grinding halt independent development) won't be able to make up for the implementation differences caused by the differences in goals. Keeping patch sets can be extremely painful. > Chromium is open source and has those two main actors: opera and Microsoft. I really apologize for my tone, but... Please. In what regard are they main actors? Certainly not to the extent that they have any significant control over the main direction of the Chromium code base or any power to stop Google from completely controlling it. The core beliefs and goals of the entity exerting the main control over the code base matters a lot more than your post makes it sound like. And if Chromium really were the only code base able to browse the modern web, then that would also put the standardization of the World Wide Web more or less in Googles hands. Also, for someone asking for better "intellectual riguour", you do a pretty so-so job at showing your understanding of the arguments of the people you don't agree with.

tomxor 7y ago

> All of this "debate" is pretty absurd. Your attempt to crudely quantify something as vague as "superiority" of something as complex as a browser is far more absurd. > Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. For many intents and purposes chromium _is_ proprietary by sheer mass of code, if you don't think so, go and fork it by all means. > Let's be clear, when you look at the technical, chromium is a far superior browser. Chromium has far more active devs, far more features (look at caniuse.com) and has almost systematically better performance. And it has many others kinds of advantages. All of the stated advantages are sufficent to consider chromium as the best browser. You have a terribly one dimensional view of browsers, do you still measure your CPU performance in Hz? Browsers are extremely complex, chromium does many things better than FireFox and FireFox does many things better than chrome (even from a purely technical perspective ignoring "user" issues as this one).