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I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In

I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance on all platforms. 2. Why it's worth caring about this at all? So what if Chromium is the only engine, it would make things easier for developers after all. To this I say, go read some of the discussions in standard bodies(for example about FLoC). Engineers from Apple and Mozilla are largely our bastion against Google's harmful proposals for the web. Pushback from Apple and Mozilla are only relevant as long as they have market share to speak of. The recent lawsuit against Google(summary[0]) by many US states should be extremely worrying to anyone that cares about the open web and it should make handing over any more control to Google a terrifying prospect. Mozilla maintains a list[1] of their positions on various standard suggestions that is also a useful resource. 0: https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/1452053938195341314 https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/145205393819534131... 1: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/

sneak 5y ago
FLoC has nothing to do with rendering, though. Mozilla existing (and shipping spyware, just like Chrome) doesn't really do anything to stop any of that.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  it's not "just like Chrome". It's not great, but it's not in the same ballpark as what Google does.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Silently uploading your browsing activity off the device without your consent is absolutely in the same ballpark as what Google does.
    - xvector 5y ago
      This is interesting, source?
      - jeltz 5y ago
        He is most likely talking about the Cliqz scandal which in my opinion was really unethical. but it pales in comparison to what Google does every day.
    - smolder 5y ago
      At what point does firefox silently upload history?
      - jeltz 5y ago
        They did so in secret for their German users until they were caught red handed and had to stop doing so due to the public backlash. They lost millions of users in Germany due to that. That said Google and Microft both keep collecting your data despite backlash while Mozilla stopped once caught.
    - gausswho 5y ago
      I'm unfamiliar with what you're speaking of. Can you elaborate?
      - jeltz 5y ago
        He is talking about when Mozilla made Firefox send the browsing history of randomly selected German users to a company they had invested in, Cliqz. That is the by far biggest ethical violation of Mozilla and which, justifiably, still haunts them. That said both Chrome and Edge are worse.
        ohgodplsno 5y ago
        Because this is overly broad and paints Mozilla in an unfairly bad light compared to how inconsequential this event was, here are the actual facts: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74yo19/cliqz_and_mozilla_as_i_understand_it_and_metadrama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74yo19/cliqz_and_m... 1% of german users had anonymised data sent over.
samwillis 5y ago
> 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance on all platforms. I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly) about maintaining control and dominance. It’s about battery usage, WebKit is heavily optimised on iOS to ensure optimal power efficiency. The number one priority is that the lowest denominator of iPhone user is happy with their device, and battery usage is the number one KPI people care about.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  > battery usage is the number one KPI people care about. I wish all phone manufacturers actually understood that /me glances at my Pixel 3XL with 3430 mAh batt
  - 29083011397778 5y ago
    My BlackBerry KeyOne actually has a smaller battery at 3300 mAh, but I don't have to charge it every day. I still use Maps and GPS, stream music, and stray from wifi, because child commenter is right - there's more to battery life and screen on time than battery size.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Battery capacity != battery life. I switched to a used iPhone and was bummed my 8+ had a "small" ~2400mah battery compared to my Android phone, which was 3100. Then I actually started using it. Even though the Android phone had an OLED screen, it would absolutely melt the battery. I have so little "battery charge anxiety" now it's not even funny. I don't even bother to charge it above 80-85% most of the time...and the battery life estimator says the battery is down to 82% capacity.
    - officeplant 5y ago
      Idk, I'm a big fan of what companies like Motorola are doing by taking a 4000mah+ battery and pairing it with some of those low end SoC's that sip battery. Androids power usage can be complete trash, but I've managed 4 days of battery out of these cheap Motorola phones while still using discord/twitter/telegram like normal. If apple actually went up on their battery sizing they could easily achieve Monday to Friday battery life on something like the iPhone SE.
fault1 5y ago
It's hard to believe Mozilla will do much considering 90% of their revenue comes from Google. for better or worse, Apple has been the single biggest driver towards privacy enhancement.
- judge2020 5y ago
  In general the people making decisions on standards and implementation don't directly answer to the people honoring the Google deal. Plus, Google knows they really shouldn't stop feeding FF revenue lest they be called out, leading to bad PR and more potential antitrust lawsuits, so I don't see them stopping anytime soon.
- dralley 5y ago
  Why do people keep saying this when Mozilla is and has already been vocally fighting against Google's overreaching proposals? There's new headlines about this every few months. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-analysi https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-analysi... https://www.howtogeek.com/756338/mozilla-says-chromes-latest https://www.howtogeek.com/756338/mozilla-says-chromes-latest... There's also this: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/04/latest-firefox-roll https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/04/latest-firefox-roll... https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 And the top comment of the hacker news thread associated with that last link? >My friend who works in an adtech company: >"Protip: Use Firefox instead of Chrome. We get very little data from Firefox users"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - freediver 5y ago
    Because of such an apparent conflict of interest. At the end of the day we do not know how many good ideas (for the users, for the web and for Firefox market share) were silenced because not to upset the feeding arm. And where would Firefox be today if it relied on its own users for the revenue instead? Having your main competitor as your main customer is not a good position to be in for any company.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
This list of standards also shows how Google attempts to make it even more impossible for anyone but them to maintain a browser. Shape detection API ? Seriously ? Picture-in-picture as a standard when it should be up to the OS/browser ? having the <input type="image"/> perform resizing and compression ?
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  They’re copying the old Microsoft playbook. Add so many APIs - the more complex the better - that nobody will be able to copy them all.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Joel Spolsky called it fire and motion.[1] [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
- freediver 5y ago
  We can thank WebKit and Apple's policy around it on iOS for suppressing and holding back these attempts, as sites on average still _need_ to work on an iPhone.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Shape detection is to have predictable QR code scanning across web apps, PiP as a browser API is necessary to enable it cross-platform. And image transformations are to try and collapse 100 js libraries of varying quality into a feature that people clearly want. I’m a huge proponent of platforms aiming to be stable and largely not messing with shit but it has to be feature complete first.
NoGravitas 5y ago
Apple's guaranteed Safari market also helps keep WebKit viable for other browsers like GNOME Web and Nyxt, so that's something I really appreciate.
- tomxor 5y ago
  The Apple of today has a very conflicted relationship with webkit, the anticompetitive reasons they want to keep their platform "webkit only", simultaneously encourages them to support and neglect webkit development. i.e on the one hand, webkit must be reliable and secure and compatible "enough" to provide a decent basic browsing experience. But should not improve so much as to make developing applications competitive with the apple store. The difference between the resources Google and Apple contribute to their respective open source browser engines is night and day, and as any web developer will know - it shows. In an ideal world two things would change at the same time: Apple is forced to allow other browsers, and webkit gets some genuine love and decent resources to make it a legitimate competitor again, instead of being used as a pawn in a game between Apple and Google.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    "basic browsing experience" Google pushes out yet another half-baked, poorly considered new feature in Chrome and overnight has mobs chanting about Safari purportedly holding everyone back because of some close to irrelevant fringe thing. Safari might just be the fastest browser, and it supports a ridiculous, awe-inspiring array of features and standards. And the greatest indictment of the ridiculous anti-Safari smear is that no platform uses the browser more than iOS users do. iOS users always are over-represented in web usage compared to marketshare.
    - mtomweb 5y ago
      You wouldn’t be calling Safari awe inspiring if you had to develop for it. It is hands down the worst browser, filled with application breaking bugs and supports the smallest number of features out of any browser. Arguably it’s a result of having no competition on iOS. From idb, webrtc, to scroll to viewheight, to performance issues Safari is the worst to deal with and this is reflected in all the developer surveys.
Mikeb85 5y ago
1 is the worst possible rationale I've ever heard. "Let's support a company that abuses its customers, developers and refuses to implement web standards just so a company that makes a far superior product doesn't gain more market share..."
- truculent 5y ago
  They aren't advocating or supporting Apple, though. They are merely pointing out that in suchg a dire situation as the one we have now, Apple's interests partially align with consumer interests. I think their tone makes it relatively clear that this is not a healthy state to be in!
- devenson 5y ago
  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- acoard 5y ago
  What hyperbole! It's entirely possible for some process to be bad, and it still have (some) good consequences. The Black Plague was terrible; but it lead to increased social mobility in the aftermath. Likewise, Apple's "one browser" policy is bad, but ironically it's the main thing stopping the other browser, Chrome, from becoming the one browser that dominates everything. I'm still against the one browser policy, as I am against the Black Plague, but a reasonable person can make these distinctions.
- K0nserv 5y ago
  I view it more like the lesser of two evils. I don't like Apple's behaviour and I agree with a lot of the criticisms against their behaviour. That said, I think it's preferable to the alternative.
- criddell 5y ago
  > abuses its customers Apple customers are generally pretty happy with their hardware and software.
kumarsw 5y ago
I'll go ahead and point out the obvious that the chances of Safari going Chromium-based are high given that (1) iOS Safari sucks and (2) Microsoft has had good success with Edgium. So the likelihood of Mozilla being the only dissenting voice is high.
- halostatue 5y ago
  The chance of Apple switching from a browser engine whose security and energy profile they control completely to one built specifically to advance the goals of a competitor is somewhere close to the chance of the heat death of the universe happening in the next five minutes. It could happen, but even if it were to happen, there would be a split from Blink in a very short time period because Google’s values and mission do not align with Apple’s values and mission.
nilslindemann 5y ago
I always wondered why the engine is not separated from the GUI in browsers. In chess world this is totally normal, you have a chess GUI and a chess engine (and a crude communication protocol).
- my123 5y ago
  > I always wondered why the engine is not separated from the GUI in browsers For WebKit that's the case.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  All the major browser engines can be embedded, the GUI is a separate layer. It's been that way for ages, even IE was this way.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Gecko isn't really embeddable. Except on Android.
    - burnte 5y ago
      Gecko was ALWAYS embedable, it was literally designed that way from day one.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        Mozilla removed the embedding APIs in 2011. And they were incomplete and unstable before.[1] [1] https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N8wo https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N...
        burnte 5y ago
        That's about being about to build out Gecko as a blob to be called like a library. That doesn't mean Gecko can be used without all the extra parts in your app.
HeavenSmile 5y ago
As someone who for quite awhile almost exclusively used Chromium based browsers and then coming back to only using but actually appreciating using Firefox I approve and very much agree with this message.
roystonvassey 5y ago
Google is up to so many sneaky things, it's stopped surprising me to find out how they're always one step ahead to make their products even more intrusive. A new one I found out is their supposedly open-source initiative called 'Cloud Information Model' [1]. Along with others such as Salesforce, Genesys and AWS (companies that I personally don't trust), they promise 'you can create seamless and tailored personal experiences across cloud-native applications'. It's all a bit vague and fancy and sufficiently "tech-y" to impress the marketing folks but colour me suspicious. EDIT: forgot the link, 1: https://cloudinformationmodel.org/faq/ https://cloudinformationmodel.org/faq/
SimeVidas 5y ago
> Engineers from Apple and Mozilla are largely our bastion against Google's harmful proposals for the web. Brave also deserves a mention. As long as Brave exists in its current form, there will be a version of Chromium without Google’s “bad” stuff.
- andrepd 5y ago
  Sure, it just has Brave's "bad stuff" instead :)
  - 0xR1CK 5y ago
    What would you define as "Brave's 'bad stuff'" ? It would seem that Brave does a lot to leave power of choice while erroring on safety / privacy for the defaults. What issues does it have?
    - gonehome 5y ago
      For now it let's you keep the BAT stuff and ads off, but the incentives are not totally aligned there and I'd worry in the future they might force you to use it. Ultimately they're inserting themselves in as the attention reseller - it's still an engagement/ad play dressed up a bit. I really like what they've built, but I don't like how they're trying to monetize it. I think the ad/attention model is a corrupting influence on content quality generally, I can see what they're trying to do but I'd rather ad supported models just die. A browser completely focused on the user would just block ads and be done with it (imo). Just let me pay for software that doesn't suck so our incentives are aligned. If you want a free ad-supported version for people unwilling to pay then fine.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  As Chromium adds more and more bad stuff, it will be harder for Brave to patch everything out.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    I suspect they'll eventually just remove capabilities entirely that allow ad blocking and brave will have to completely rewrite it and shoehorn it in.
na85 5y ago
>Why it's worth caring about this at all? So what if Chromium is the only engine, it would make things easier for developers after all. It sure would, but here just as in many areas of tech, developer convenience is diametrically opposed to what's good for users.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I think firefox and apple are our last voices before google takes over web browser technologies which is a really scary proposition, at least to me.

sneak 5y ago

FLoC has nothing to do with rendering, though. Mozilla existing (and shipping spyware, just like Chrome) doesn't really do anything to stop any of that.

metalliqaz 5y ago
it's not "just like Chrome". It's not great, but it's not in the same ballpark as what Google does.
- sneak 5y ago
  Silently uploading your browsing activity off the device without your consent is absolutely in the same ballpark as what Google does.
  - xvector 5y ago
    This is interesting, source?
    - jeltz 5y ago
      He is most likely talking about the Cliqz scandal which in my opinion was really unethical. but it pales in comparison to what Google does every day.
  - smolder 5y ago
    At what point does firefox silently upload history?
    - jeltz 5y ago
      They did so in secret for their German users until they were caught red handed and had to stop doing so due to the public backlash. They lost millions of users in Germany due to that. That said Google and Microft both keep collecting your data despite backlash while Mozilla stopped once caught.
  - gausswho 5y ago
    I'm unfamiliar with what you're speaking of. Can you elaborate?
    - jeltz 5y ago
      He is talking about when Mozilla made Firefox send the browsing history of randomly selected German users to a company they had invested in, Cliqz. That is the by far biggest ethical violation of Mozilla and which, justifiably, still haunts them. That said both Chrome and Edge are worse.
      - ohgodplsno 5y ago
        Because this is overly broad and paints Mozilla in an unfairly bad light compared to how inconsequential this event was, here are the actual facts: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74yo19/cliqz_and_mozilla_as_i_understand_it_and_metadrama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74yo19/cliqz_and_m... 1% of german users had anonymised data sent over.

samwillis 5y ago

> 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance on all platforms. I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly) about maintaining control and dominance. It’s about battery usage, WebKit is heavily optimised on iOS to ensure optimal power efficiency. The number one priority is that the lowest denominator of iPhone user is happy with their device, and battery usage is the number one KPI people care about.

metalliqaz 5y ago
> battery usage is the number one KPI people care about. I wish all phone manufacturers actually understood that /me glances at my Pixel 3XL with 3430 mAh batt
- 29083011397778 5y ago
  My BlackBerry KeyOne actually has a smaller battery at 3300 mAh, but I don't have to charge it every day. I still use Maps and GPS, stream music, and stray from wifi, because child commenter is right - there's more to battery life and screen on time than battery size.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Battery capacity != battery life. I switched to a used iPhone and was bummed my 8+ had a "small" ~2400mah battery compared to my Android phone, which was 3100. Then I actually started using it. Even though the Android phone had an OLED screen, it would absolutely melt the battery. I have so little "battery charge anxiety" now it's not even funny. I don't even bother to charge it above 80-85% most of the time...and the battery life estimator says the battery is down to 82% capacity.
  - officeplant 5y ago
    Idk, I'm a big fan of what companies like Motorola are doing by taking a 4000mah+ battery and pairing it with some of those low end SoC's that sip battery. Androids power usage can be complete trash, but I've managed 4 days of battery out of these cheap Motorola phones while still using discord/twitter/telegram like normal. If apple actually went up on their battery sizing they could easily achieve Monday to Friday battery life on something like the iPhone SE.

fault1 5y ago

It's hard to believe Mozilla will do much considering 90% of their revenue comes from Google. for better or worse, Apple has been the single biggest driver towards privacy enhancement.

judge2020 5y ago
In general the people making decisions on standards and implementation don't directly answer to the people honoring the Google deal. Plus, Google knows they really shouldn't stop feeding FF revenue lest they be called out, leading to bad PR and more potential antitrust lawsuits, so I don't see them stopping anytime soon.
dralley 5y ago
Why do people keep saying this when Mozilla is and has already been vocally fighting against Google's overreaching proposals? There's new headlines about this every few months. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-analysi https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-analysi... https://www.howtogeek.com/756338/mozilla-says-chromes-latest https://www.howtogeek.com/756338/mozilla-says-chromes-latest... There's also this: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/04/latest-firefox-roll https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/04/latest-firefox-roll... https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1365400306767581185 And the top comment of the hacker news thread associated with that last link? >My friend who works in an adtech company: >"Protip: Use Firefox instead of Chrome. We get very little data from Firefox users"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- freediver 5y ago
  Because of such an apparent conflict of interest. At the end of the day we do not know how many good ideas (for the users, for the web and for Firefox market share) were silenced because not to upset the feeding arm. And where would Firefox be today if it relied on its own users for the revenue instead? Having your main competitor as your main customer is not a good position to be in for any company.

ohgodplsno 5y ago

This list of standards also shows how Google attempts to make it even more impossible for anyone but them to maintain a browser. Shape detection API ? Seriously ? Picture-in-picture as a standard when it should be up to the OS/browser ? having the <input type="image"/> perform resizing and compression ?

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
They’re copying the old Microsoft playbook. Add so many APIs - the more complex the better - that nobody will be able to copy them all.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Joel Spolsky called it fire and motion.[1] [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
freediver 5y ago
We can thank WebKit and Apple's policy around it on iOS for suppressing and holding back these attempts, as sites on average still _need_ to work on an iPhone.
Spivak 5y ago
Shape detection is to have predictable QR code scanning across web apps, PiP as a browser API is necessary to enable it cross-platform. And image transformations are to try and collapse 100 js libraries of varying quality into a feature that people clearly want. I’m a huge proponent of platforms aiming to be stable and largely not messing with shit but it has to be feature complete first.

NoGravitas 5y ago

Apple's guaranteed Safari market also helps keep WebKit viable for other browsers like GNOME Web and Nyxt, so that's something I really appreciate.

tomxor 5y ago
The Apple of today has a very conflicted relationship with webkit, the anticompetitive reasons they want to keep their platform "webkit only", simultaneously encourages them to support and neglect webkit development. i.e on the one hand, webkit must be reliable and secure and compatible "enough" to provide a decent basic browsing experience. But should not improve so much as to make developing applications competitive with the apple store. The difference between the resources Google and Apple contribute to their respective open source browser engines is night and day, and as any web developer will know - it shows. In an ideal world two things would change at the same time: Apple is forced to allow other browsers, and webkit gets some genuine love and decent resources to make it a legitimate competitor again, instead of being used as a pawn in a game between Apple and Google.
- defaultname 5y ago
  "basic browsing experience" Google pushes out yet another half-baked, poorly considered new feature in Chrome and overnight has mobs chanting about Safari purportedly holding everyone back because of some close to irrelevant fringe thing. Safari might just be the fastest browser, and it supports a ridiculous, awe-inspiring array of features and standards. And the greatest indictment of the ridiculous anti-Safari smear is that no platform uses the browser more than iOS users do. iOS users always are over-represented in web usage compared to marketshare.
  - mtomweb 5y ago
    You wouldn’t be calling Safari awe inspiring if you had to develop for it. It is hands down the worst browser, filled with application breaking bugs and supports the smallest number of features out of any browser. Arguably it’s a result of having no competition on iOS. From idb, webrtc, to scroll to viewheight, to performance issues Safari is the worst to deal with and this is reflected in all the developer surveys.

Mikeb85 5y ago

1 is the worst possible rationale I've ever heard. "Let's support a company that abuses its customers, developers and refuses to implement web standards just so a company that makes a far superior product doesn't gain more market share..."

truculent 5y ago
They aren't advocating or supporting Apple, though. They are merely pointing out that in suchg a dire situation as the one we have now, Apple's interests partially align with consumer interests. I think their tone makes it relatively clear that this is not a healthy state to be in!
devenson 5y ago
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
acoard 5y ago
What hyperbole! It's entirely possible for some process to be bad, and it still have (some) good consequences. The Black Plague was terrible; but it lead to increased social mobility in the aftermath. Likewise, Apple's "one browser" policy is bad, but ironically it's the main thing stopping the other browser, Chrome, from becoming the one browser that dominates everything. I'm still against the one browser policy, as I am against the Black Plague, but a reasonable person can make these distinctions.
K0nserv 5y ago
I view it more like the lesser of two evils. I don't like Apple's behaviour and I agree with a lot of the criticisms against their behaviour. That said, I think it's preferable to the alternative.
criddell 5y ago
> abuses its customers Apple customers are generally pretty happy with their hardware and software.

kumarsw 5y ago

I'll go ahead and point out the obvious that the chances of Safari going Chromium-based are high given that (1) iOS Safari sucks and (2) Microsoft has had good success with Edgium. So the likelihood of Mozilla being the only dissenting voice is high.

halostatue 5y ago
The chance of Apple switching from a browser engine whose security and energy profile they control completely to one built specifically to advance the goals of a competitor is somewhere close to the chance of the heat death of the universe happening in the next five minutes. It could happen, but even if it were to happen, there would be a split from Blink in a very short time period because Google’s values and mission do not align with Apple’s values and mission.

nilslindemann 5y ago

I always wondered why the engine is not separated from the GUI in browsers. In chess world this is totally normal, you have a chess GUI and a chess engine (and a crude communication protocol).

my123 5y ago
> I always wondered why the engine is not separated from the GUI in browsers For WebKit that's the case.
kevingadd 5y ago
All the major browser engines can be embedded, the GUI is a separate layer. It's been that way for ages, even IE was this way.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Gecko isn't really embeddable. Except on Android.
  - burnte 5y ago
    Gecko was ALWAYS embedable, it was literally designed that way from day one.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      Mozilla removed the embedding APIs in 2011. And they were incomplete and unstable before.[1] [1] https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N8wo https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.embedding/c/c_NMcO-N...
      - burnte 5y ago
        That's about being about to build out Gecko as a blob to be called like a library. That doesn't mean Gecko can be used without all the extra parts in your app.

HeavenSmile 5y ago

As someone who for quite awhile almost exclusively used Chromium based browsers and then coming back to only using but actually appreciating using Firefox I approve and very much agree with this message.

roystonvassey 5y ago

Google is up to so many sneaky things, it's stopped surprising me to find out how they're always one step ahead to make their products even more intrusive. A new one I found out is their supposedly open-source initiative called 'Cloud Information Model' [1]. Along with others such as Salesforce, Genesys and AWS (companies that I personally don't trust), they promise 'you can create seamless and tailored personal experiences across cloud-native applications'. It's all a bit vague and fancy and sufficiently "tech-y" to impress the marketing folks but colour me suspicious. EDIT: forgot the link, 1: https://cloudinformationmodel.org/faq/ https://cloudinformationmodel.org/faq/

SimeVidas 5y ago

> Engineers from Apple and Mozilla are largely our bastion against Google's harmful proposals for the web. Brave also deserves a mention. As long as Brave exists in its current form, there will be a version of Chromium without Google’s “bad” stuff.

andrepd 5y ago
Sure, it just has Brave's "bad stuff" instead :)
- 0xR1CK 5y ago
  What would you define as "Brave's 'bad stuff'" ? It would seem that Brave does a lot to leave power of choice while erroring on safety / privacy for the defaults. What issues does it have?
  - gonehome 5y ago
    For now it let's you keep the BAT stuff and ads off, but the incentives are not totally aligned there and I'd worry in the future they might force you to use it. Ultimately they're inserting themselves in as the attention reseller - it's still an engagement/ad play dressed up a bit. I really like what they've built, but I don't like how they're trying to monetize it. I think the ad/attention model is a corrupting influence on content quality generally, I can see what they're trying to do but I'd rather ad supported models just die. A browser completely focused on the user would just block ads and be done with it (imo). Just let me pay for software that doesn't suck so our incentives are aligned. If you want a free ad-supported version for people unwilling to pay then fine.
_-david-_ 5y ago
As Chromium adds more and more bad stuff, it will be harder for Brave to patch everything out.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I suspect they'll eventually just remove capabilities entirely that allow ad blocking and brave will have to completely rewrite it and shoehorn it in.

na85 5y ago

>Why it's worth caring about this at all? So what if Chromium is the only engine, it would make things easier for developers after all. It sure would, but here just as in many areas of tech, developer convenience is diametrically opposed to what's good for users.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I think firefox and apple are our last voices before google takes over web browser technologies which is a really scary proposition, at least to me.