4 ms·

I wish brave forked ff… i guess i'll be working of my own fork of ff for the end of time for my family, going on 6 years or so now lol

barbs 5y ago
Out of curiosity, what have you changed in your fork of Firefox?
- cinquemb 5y ago
  Mostly what I talk about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909
wintermutestwin 5y ago
I don't care which core browser tech I use, so I'd take a trustworthy chrome fork that meets my other requirements. Unfortunately, Brave = untrustworthy player: https://brave.com/brave-ads/ https://brave.com/brave-ads/
- cinquemb 5y ago
  > I don't care which core browser tech I use, Yeah, i do. > so I'd take a trustworthy chrome fork that meets my other requirements. Fair enough. > Unfortunately, Brave = untrustworthy player: https://brave.com/brave-ads/ https://brave.com/brave-ads/ Yeah, but i can compile that stuff out like i do with the mozilla crap, while still getting some of the core stuff they add like native ipfs support
  - gmemstr 5y ago
    Hate to break it to you, but in Brave's case you really can't. Their crypto and ad stuff is so ingrained in their codebase that you have to be pretty meticulous to wipe it all out on that level. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14783 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14783
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      Yeah, i still think it would be pretty doable (esp if just changing return values and commenting out stuff), esp with the amount of time I spent over the years modding/removing/adding stuff to my ff fork in both rust code and c++ code. But I was mostly interested in the theoretical situation if brave forked from the servo stuff and not its existing chromium stuff, no interest in touching that.
shp0ngle 5y ago
I think people are forking Chrome because it’s better code, but I might be wrong. I have only seen the code of Chrome and it’s very Google-like C++, with truly enormous codebase. Even Chrome did not fork Firefox back in the day and forked Safari. Electron did not use Firefox either.
- cinquemb 5y ago
  > I think people are forking Chrome because it’s better code, but I might be wrong. I'm going to go with the latter, but at best this is debatable and highly subjective depending on what matters to you. > I have only seen the code of Chrome and it’s very Google-like C++, with truly enormous codebase. I don't know where you are going with this; FF is a large code base too, uses servo (rust) and c++. > Even Chrome did not fork Firefox back in the day and forked Safari. > Electron did not use Firefox either. Good for them? Never been interested in chrome/chromium or electron based apps. I had always wondered why since Brendan Eich came from mozilla, forking from it and going their own way would be natural for them (imo), highly doubt that all of a sudden all the stuff he worked with for years became crap overnight and the decision was probably more political than anything, but who knows, just baseless speculation on my part.
  - fabrice_d 5y ago
    One of the reason Brave finally forked Chrome (they went from gecko based, to electron based, to chrome fork) was to not suffer from the Web Compatibility issues that Firefox has.
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      Not too familiar with the "Web Compatibility" issues firefox has, but that would have been from when they moved off gecko at least, i doubt that was the case from using electrons chromium fork to upstream chromium. I wonder if they'd consider servo or would be too much work for them at this point? This[0] says they started off with electron pre dec-2018, nothing about gecko. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#History

barbs 5y ago

Out of curiosity, what have you changed in your fork of Firefox?

cinquemb 5y ago
Mostly what I talk about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909

wintermutestwin 5y ago

I don't care which core browser tech I use, so I'd take a trustworthy chrome fork that meets my other requirements. Unfortunately, Brave = untrustworthy player: https://brave.com/brave-ads/ https://brave.com/brave-ads/

cinquemb 5y ago
> I don't care which core browser tech I use, Yeah, i do. > so I'd take a trustworthy chrome fork that meets my other requirements. Fair enough. > Unfortunately, Brave = untrustworthy player: https://brave.com/brave-ads/ https://brave.com/brave-ads/ Yeah, but i can compile that stuff out like i do with the mozilla crap, while still getting some of the core stuff they add like native ipfs support
- gmemstr 5y ago
  Hate to break it to you, but in Brave's case you really can't. Their crypto and ad stuff is so ingrained in their codebase that you have to be pretty meticulous to wipe it all out on that level. https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14783 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/14783
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    Yeah, i still think it would be pretty doable (esp if just changing return values and commenting out stuff), esp with the amount of time I spent over the years modding/removing/adding stuff to my ff fork in both rust code and c++ code. But I was mostly interested in the theoretical situation if brave forked from the servo stuff and not its existing chromium stuff, no interest in touching that.

shp0ngle 5y ago

I think people are forking Chrome because it’s better code, but I might be wrong. I have only seen the code of Chrome and it’s very Google-like C++, with truly enormous codebase. Even Chrome did not fork Firefox back in the day and forked Safari. Electron did not use Firefox either.

cinquemb 5y ago
> I think people are forking Chrome because it’s better code, but I might be wrong. I'm going to go with the latter, but at best this is debatable and highly subjective depending on what matters to you. > I have only seen the code of Chrome and it’s very Google-like C++, with truly enormous codebase. I don't know where you are going with this; FF is a large code base too, uses servo (rust) and c++. > Even Chrome did not fork Firefox back in the day and forked Safari. > Electron did not use Firefox either. Good for them? Never been interested in chrome/chromium or electron based apps. I had always wondered why since Brendan Eich came from mozilla, forking from it and going their own way would be natural for them (imo), highly doubt that all of a sudden all the stuff he worked with for years became crap overnight and the decision was probably more political than anything, but who knows, just baseless speculation on my part.
- fabrice_d 5y ago
  One of the reason Brave finally forked Chrome (they went from gecko based, to electron based, to chrome fork) was to not suffer from the Web Compatibility issues that Firefox has.
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    Not too familiar with the "Web Compatibility" issues firefox has, but that would have been from when they moved off gecko at least, i doubt that was the case from using electrons chromium fork to upstream chromium. I wonder if they'd consider servo or would be too much work for them at this point? This[0] says they started off with electron pre dec-2018, nothing about gecko. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)#History