5 ms·

Aa long as chromium is open source and various entities are able to build and remove/modify anti-user features, i don't see a problem with alternatives being a

Aa long as chromium is open source and various entities are able to build and remove/modify anti-user features, i don't see a problem with alternatives being a "skin". If Google makes moves to make it difficult to modify chromium then browser maintainers will quickly migrate to other engines.

viscousviolin 3y ago
Yes, it's not a problem. For now. There are so many software projects that depend on chromium for their basic functionality, and so many users that indirectly rely on chromium. It's hard to switch to an alternative if the need arises. So when Google inevitably turns chromium into a problem, you don't have enough time to switch, no matter how badly you want to. It's time to preventatively switch to a project that's more reliable. Give Firefox's Gecko engine a chance, it has all the features you need. It would take a lot of effort, but we'd be protecting ourselves from a pretty realistic scenario where Google just pushes through whatever they want.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "Give Firefox's Gecko engine a chance, it has all the features you need." No, sadly it does not. And then I would be just dependant on mozillas leadership and sadly I do not trust them either. Ladybird and Kling I would trust, but it is not advanced enough yet. But they are making progress!
  - viscousviolin 3y ago
    What makes you not trust firefox? I don't remember hearing about them acting in bad faith, but I'd love to hear if they did. What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      Ads and tracking(called studies) enabled by default from the browser - and marketing itself as privacy orientated. "What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?" WebGPU and sone features with webworkers.
      - misnome 3y ago
        This. The first thing I have to do on firefox is turn off a load of advertising. That, crypto, and the Mr.Robot extension fiasco burned a _lot_ of goodwill.
        viscousviolin 3y ago
        Are you talking about firefox not blocking website adds by default? I hadn't heard about the Mr.Robot fiasco, that's seriously troubling..
      - viscousviolin 3y ago
        Oh interesting! Seems like a pretty specific requirement to have. Do you mind if I ask what you use those for? As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage. It's not 100% effective, but if them making an effort to do the right thing pushes you away, you might be asking too much unfortunately. Building an entire browser takes a lot of energy and time, and Firefox seems like the kind of browser that's worth it in the long term.
        hutzlibu 3y ago
        "Do you mind if I ask what you use those for?" Game engine. "As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage" And the thing is, that firefox itself is tracking you and sends that data home. Maybe look up what "studies" mean. But so far at least you can opt out of it, unlike with chrome.
        viscousviolin 3y ago
        Ah, I see what you mean. I'm personally not against this at all, since the Firefox devs need feedback on what's working and what isn't. But I completely understand that some people won't accept this. Only thing I can't figure out is if this is opt-out or opt-in, because I might have mindlessly clicked yes on opting in during installation.
- rvnx 3y ago
  Most Chromium-forks are not interested at all (or do not have the resources, considering the tons of costs it has) into doing any core changes to fight against Google, only Vivaldi… all the others are either doing nothing or just PR bullshit. If a feature is rolled out to 95% of users, then websites have to adapt. If you have a browser and are part of these remaining 5% you will be the one blamed by the users and by the websites. So there is no incentive to remove any hostile feature.
  - viscousviolin 3y ago
    I get that, which is exactly why you don't want any one browser having just under 70% marketshare like Chrome. If there are multiple options for people to switch between, then they can switch to another one if their current browser does something they don't agree with. If there isn't another option, you're stuck. We open ourselves up to horrific effects of browser monopolies like all the security issues that Microsoft didn't give a damn about back when internet explorer had a monopoly. It takes effort to switch to a different browser stack, like moving away from Chromium for example, but in the long term you do not want everyone stuck with only one option, because that will be even more costly.
soco 3y ago
Other engines? There must be a reason everybody is building on Chromium nowadays...
asaddhamani 3y ago
What other engines?
- kmlx 3y ago
  webkit
blibble 3y ago
WEI will make chromium effectively unusable yes you'll have the source, but it won't remotely attest unless you're Google/MS so it is effectively closed source
- colordrops 3y ago
  Brave uses chromium and they cut WEI out of their build already.
  - blibble 3y ago
    so shortly after WEI goes live in Chrome, Brave users won't be able to: - use youtube - watch "premium" video content (disney/netflix/...) - use online banking - visit sites with adwords and will be presented with endless captchas on e.g. cloudflare sites
    - colordrops 3y ago
      Yes and? How does that contradict my original point?
      - blibble 3y ago
        it doesn't but you're missing the entire point if brave doesn't implement WEI then brave ceases to be a functional web browser it will have voluntarily removed itself from the market
        colordrops 3y ago
        I didn't miss that point. I'm well aware of that point - WEI is a nightmare. This thread is about something else though.
xethos 3y ago
Once upon a time Lineage OS had Privacy Guard settings. You could feed an app fake data for things like location and contacts, leaving you with the best of both worlds: apps that "require" location will open, but you remain anonymous. Over time, AOSP became harder and harder to build this feature back in to. AOSP (and Chromium) is Open Source in name only. One may view, download, and build the source, but maintaining modifications long-term isn't feasible without massive amounts of dev time and/or cash.
- colordrops 3y ago
  There was no intention by Google to go after forks with the changes they made that made Privacy Guard difficult to maintain, and in fact I believe it was because they added their own version of it. What could you do with Privacy Guard that you can't now with Permission Hub? I'm using Lineage right now and I have full control over all perms for all apps including network access.

viscousviolin 3y ago

Yes, it's not a problem. For now. There are so many software projects that depend on chromium for their basic functionality, and so many users that indirectly rely on chromium. It's hard to switch to an alternative if the need arises. So when Google inevitably turns chromium into a problem, you don't have enough time to switch, no matter how badly you want to. It's time to preventatively switch to a project that's more reliable. Give Firefox's Gecko engine a chance, it has all the features you need. It would take a lot of effort, but we'd be protecting ourselves from a pretty realistic scenario where Google just pushes through whatever they want.

hutzlibu 3y ago
"Give Firefox's Gecko engine a chance, it has all the features you need." No, sadly it does not. And then I would be just dependant on mozillas leadership and sadly I do not trust them either. Ladybird and Kling I would trust, but it is not advanced enough yet. But they are making progress!
- viscousviolin 3y ago
  What makes you not trust firefox? I don't remember hearing about them acting in bad faith, but I'd love to hear if they did. What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Ads and tracking(called studies) enabled by default from the browser - and marketing itself as privacy orientated. "What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?" WebGPU and sone features with webworkers.
    - misnome 3y ago
      This. The first thing I have to do on firefox is turn off a load of advertising. That, crypto, and the Mr.Robot extension fiasco burned a _lot_ of goodwill.
      - viscousviolin 3y ago
        Are you talking about firefox not blocking website adds by default? I hadn't heard about the Mr.Robot fiasco, that's seriously troubling..
    - viscousviolin 3y ago
      Oh interesting! Seems like a pretty specific requirement to have. Do you mind if I ask what you use those for? As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage. It's not 100% effective, but if them making an effort to do the right thing pushes you away, you might be asking too much unfortunately. Building an entire browser takes a lot of energy and time, and Firefox seems like the kind of browser that's worth it in the long term.
      - hutzlibu 3y ago
        "Do you mind if I ask what you use those for?" Game engine. "As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage" And the thing is, that firefox itself is tracking you and sends that data home. Maybe look up what "studies" mean. But so far at least you can opt out of it, unlike with chrome.
        viscousviolin 3y ago
        Ah, I see what you mean. I'm personally not against this at all, since the Firefox devs need feedback on what's working and what isn't. But I completely understand that some people won't accept this. Only thing I can't figure out is if this is opt-out or opt-in, because I might have mindlessly clicked yes on opting in during installation.
rvnx 3y ago
Most Chromium-forks are not interested at all (or do not have the resources, considering the tons of costs it has) into doing any core changes to fight against Google, only Vivaldi… all the others are either doing nothing or just PR bullshit. If a feature is rolled out to 95% of users, then websites have to adapt. If you have a browser and are part of these remaining 5% you will be the one blamed by the users and by the websites. So there is no incentive to remove any hostile feature.
- viscousviolin 3y ago
  I get that, which is exactly why you don't want any one browser having just under 70% marketshare like Chrome. If there are multiple options for people to switch between, then they can switch to another one if their current browser does something they don't agree with. If there isn't another option, you're stuck. We open ourselves up to horrific effects of browser monopolies like all the security issues that Microsoft didn't give a damn about back when internet explorer had a monopoly. It takes effort to switch to a different browser stack, like moving away from Chromium for example, but in the long term you do not want everyone stuck with only one option, because that will be even more costly.

soco 3y ago

Other engines? There must be a reason everybody is building on Chromium nowadays...

asaddhamani 3y ago

What other engines?

kmlx 3y ago
webkit

blibble 3y ago

WEI will make chromium effectively unusable yes you'll have the source, but it won't remotely attest unless you're Google/MS so it is effectively closed source

colordrops 3y ago
Brave uses chromium and they cut WEI out of their build already.
- blibble 3y ago
  so shortly after WEI goes live in Chrome, Brave users won't be able to: - use youtube - watch "premium" video content (disney/netflix/...) - use online banking - visit sites with adwords and will be presented with endless captchas on e.g. cloudflare sites
  - colordrops 3y ago
    Yes and? How does that contradict my original point?
    - blibble 3y ago
      it doesn't but you're missing the entire point if brave doesn't implement WEI then brave ceases to be a functional web browser it will have voluntarily removed itself from the market
      - colordrops 3y ago
        I didn't miss that point. I'm well aware of that point - WEI is a nightmare. This thread is about something else though.

xethos 3y ago

Once upon a time Lineage OS had Privacy Guard settings. You could feed an app fake data for things like location and contacts, leaving you with the best of both worlds: apps that "require" location will open, but you remain anonymous. Over time, AOSP became harder and harder to build this feature back in to. AOSP (and Chromium) is Open Source in name only. One may view, download, and build the source, but maintaining modifications long-term isn't feasible without massive amounts of dev time and/or cash.

colordrops 3y ago
There was no intention by Google to go after forks with the changes they made that made Privacy Guard difficult to maintain, and in fact I believe it was because they added their own version of it. What could you do with Privacy Guard that you can't now with Permission Hub? I'm using Lineage right now and I have full control over all perms for all apps including network access.