6 ms·

We really need "corporate bullshit removed" forks of both Chrome and Firefox. IceWeasel and Chromium were effectively Firefox and Chrome without the (surface l

by ohazi 6y ago

We really need "corporate bullshit removed" forks of both Chrome and Firefox. IceWeasel and Chromium were effectively Firefox and Chrome without the (surface level) corporate branding. Chromium is soon having many of its Google tie-ins severed. Debian and Mozilla resolved their trademark dispute, so IceWeasel mostly went away. These browsers are open source, yet they both suffer an unpalatable amount of corporate control. Google can do whatever it wants, because it's the king. Mozilla is able to get away with this because they are the only real alternative for people who don't like the king.

rglullis 6y ago
How do you expect these projects to afford its development? Free software does not come for free.
- ohazi 6y ago
  Maybe stopping to live with the browsers that we have for a while wouldn't be the end of the world? You're right that free software development isn't free, but these browsers already exist, and are already free, and for the most part, they work. CVEs can be found and fixed without corporate backing. Instead, we're rushing to pour more and more stuff into the cesspool. WebUSB and WebBluetooth are not things that I particularly need or want. Part of this is Google's fault. They're currently on top, and if they unilaterally decide to add something, everyone else needs to either implement it or die. I mean, I still think they should fucking stop, but obviously they won't, and I don't have a good answer to this.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    Old man yells at (internet) cloud > for the most part, they work. What is stopping you to just keep using an older version? If you are a developer, what is stopping you to target only the subset of features that you seem necessary? > WebUSB and WebBluetooth are not things that I particularly need or want I assume you are thinking about the browser on your desktop OS. What about platforms like FirefoxOS - KaiOS?
    - ohazi 6y ago
      > What is stopping you to just keep using an older version? CVEs, CA issues. Firefox ESR kind of addresses this, but it's a band-aid. The new mis-features eventually show up in ESR as well. I want an actual fork, where dumb features like "ads baked into the browser" are kept out permanently. Look, I said that we should do this because I think it would be good for the community... I am well aware that maintaining a fork like this would be a ton of work. I was never trying to insinuate that it would be easy, just that corporate backing is both not required and an active hindrance.
      - rglullis 6y ago
        > just that corporate backing is both not required Sure, no one needs the backing of the corporation. But whoever gets to be the one doing the "ton of work" that you are asking for needs to be paid, do you agree? Now, the question is: who is going to pay for that? Something more specific than "the community" would help. Are you willing to pay for it? How much? Can you get more people to commit to it? For how long?
        ohazi 6y ago
        > But whoever gets to be the one doing the "ton of work" that you are asking for needs to be paid, do you agree? I realize that this may be a contrarian position these days, but no, I don't. As an example, the vast majority of Debian maintainers don't get paid, yet as a community project, it has worked exceedingly well for nearly 30 years. Yes, there are certain notable exceptions like Linus Torvalds getting paid by the Linux Foundation, but this is really not the norm. A lot of big community driven open source projects have managed to work well without serious funding for a long time. Would money help? Sure. But no, I don't think a project like this (even a large one) is doomed without it.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Oh, yes... the decades-old I can benefit for free from that totally unrelated tech project, why can't I get this one as well? fallacy. Yeah, Debian has volunteers and a lot of people working on it for goodwill. But a project the size of Debian is something where you can get many different contributors who do all sorts of different things and become maintainers of these different subsystems. Couple that with a little fundraising and professionals that work on it because it is something that will benefit them economically (e.g, IT companies that provide services where having a free operating system allows them to commoditize their complements[0]) and it's easy to make it a sustainable operation. None of that applies to what you are asking. There is no business to be had on a "crippled-but-leaner" browser, so no one will have any incentive to work on it for free. And if you are not willing to offer money nor volunteer your time to do it, why do you think others will? What you are wishing is just for someone to work for you to free. It reeks of entitlement. [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
gruez 6y ago
firefox: user.js repos (eg. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/ https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/ or https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/ https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/) chrome: ungoogled-chromium
nyanpasu64 6y ago
> We really need "corporate bullshit removed" forks of both Chrome and Firefox. And since Google's recent announcement, unofficial Chromium builds will be unable to sync passwords with Google's servers.
- ohazi 6y ago
  Good! I hope that maintenance of a de-googlified Chromium continues, and I hope they strip out even more of the undocumented telemetry and forgotten whitelisting of miscellaneous Google-controlled endpoints. The result will be a better web browser.

by ohazi 6y ago

rglullis 6y ago

How do you expect these projects to afford its development? Free software does not come for free.

ohazi 6y ago
Maybe stopping to live with the browsers that we have for a while wouldn't be the end of the world? You're right that free software development isn't free, but these browsers already exist, and are already free, and for the most part, they work. CVEs can be found and fixed without corporate backing. Instead, we're rushing to pour more and more stuff into the cesspool. WebUSB and WebBluetooth are not things that I particularly need or want. Part of this is Google's fault. They're currently on top, and if they unilaterally decide to add something, everyone else needs to either implement it or die. I mean, I still think they should fucking stop, but obviously they won't, and I don't have a good answer to this.
- rglullis 6y ago
  Old man yells at (internet) cloud > for the most part, they work. What is stopping you to just keep using an older version? If you are a developer, what is stopping you to target only the subset of features that you seem necessary? > WebUSB and WebBluetooth are not things that I particularly need or want I assume you are thinking about the browser on your desktop OS. What about platforms like FirefoxOS - KaiOS?
  - ohazi 6y ago
    > What is stopping you to just keep using an older version? CVEs, CA issues. Firefox ESR kind of addresses this, but it's a band-aid. The new mis-features eventually show up in ESR as well. I want an actual fork, where dumb features like "ads baked into the browser" are kept out permanently. Look, I said that we should do this because I think it would be good for the community... I am well aware that maintaining a fork like this would be a ton of work. I was never trying to insinuate that it would be easy, just that corporate backing is both not required and an active hindrance.
    - rglullis 6y ago
      > just that corporate backing is both not required Sure, no one needs the backing of the corporation. But whoever gets to be the one doing the "ton of work" that you are asking for needs to be paid, do you agree? Now, the question is: who is going to pay for that? Something more specific than "the community" would help. Are you willing to pay for it? How much? Can you get more people to commit to it? For how long?
      - ohazi 6y ago
        > But whoever gets to be the one doing the "ton of work" that you are asking for needs to be paid, do you agree? I realize that this may be a contrarian position these days, but no, I don't. As an example, the vast majority of Debian maintainers don't get paid, yet as a community project, it has worked exceedingly well for nearly 30 years. Yes, there are certain notable exceptions like Linus Torvalds getting paid by the Linux Foundation, but this is really not the norm. A lot of big community driven open source projects have managed to work well without serious funding for a long time. Would money help? Sure. But no, I don't think a project like this (even a large one) is doomed without it.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Oh, yes... the decades-old I can benefit for free from that totally unrelated tech project, why can't I get this one as well? fallacy. Yeah, Debian has volunteers and a lot of people working on it for goodwill. But a project the size of Debian is something where you can get many different contributors who do all sorts of different things and become maintainers of these different subsystems. Couple that with a little fundraising and professionals that work on it because it is something that will benefit them economically (e.g, IT companies that provide services where having a free operating system allows them to commoditize their complements[0]) and it's easy to make it a sustainable operation. None of that applies to what you are asking. There is no business to be had on a "crippled-but-leaner" browser, so no one will have any incentive to work on it for free. And if you are not willing to offer money nor volunteer your time to do it, why do you think others will? What you are wishing is just for someone to work for you to free. It reeks of entitlement. [0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

gruez 6y ago

firefox: user.js repos (eg. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/ https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/ or https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/ https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/) chrome: ungoogled-chromium

nyanpasu64 6y ago

> We really need "corporate bullshit removed" forks of both Chrome and Firefox. And since Google's recent announcement, unofficial Chromium builds will be unable to sync passwords with Google's servers.

ohazi 6y ago
Good! I hope that maintenance of a de-googlified Chromium continues, and I hope they strip out even more of the undocumented telemetry and forgotten whitelisting of miscellaneous Google-controlled endpoints. The result will be a better web browser.