7 ms·

What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. Does it have improved IME or CJK support? It's not like Japan is famous for its qual

What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. Does it have improved IME or CJK support? It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest.

O1111OOO 3y ago
> What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. What I don't get is why this is your main and only takeaway. It's such an odd and surprising reaction. When I hear, for example, that Linux is being used at a gov site in Brazil or Germany or France - I get quit excited. I like that the FOSS is making inroads in other areas. With the dominance of Chrome worldwide, I am equally excited that a group of developers from another country are helping push competition in this space, driving home the message of privacy. Mozilla needs it... we all need it for the health of the internet. These guys have been at this for a while (based on their github page) and have made installers available for the main three OSes. I'm excited to give this a try.
diogenes4 3y ago
> It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest. Well they aren't known for software at all, but the japanese are notorious about being sticklers for quality.
paulrouget 3y ago
It's just that they made it in Japan. No need to overthink it :)
thefounder 3y ago
Maybe for someone who prefers to buy made in Japan over made in China. A made in Europe sticker would definitely appeal to me more than a made in China. At least on products that are not mass produced from established brands.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  I couldn't care less where my item is produced. It just so happens that a large variety of high-end products are produced at a higher level of quality (and cost, generally) in the West (including S Korea and Japan); but if someone introduced me to a Nigerian, Mexican, Thai, etc product that surpassed my current choice, I would switch in an instant. I don't understand caring at all about the source, unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it (such as blood diamonds, for instance).
  - zaphirplane 3y ago
    Most people don’t buy 500 cars or 390 tv. It’s just about reputation and isn’t branding a reputation. Cars made in foo are good, tv made is bar have bad QA
  - rvnx 3y ago
    Privacy laws are different depending on the country of the publisher of the software. Generally European countries provide the best protections and the fact it is published in Japan may imply that the US laws don’t apply there (and be a + or not)
  - pil0u 3y ago
    Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home. Other people care about work conditions for the produced items they buy, namely not manufactured by children, for which country origin could be an indicator.
    - deaddodo 3y ago
      > unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it
    - Xeamek 3y ago
      >Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home Which is pretty dumb thing to care about, since these journeys have minimal carbon footprint, compared to something like local delivery
- userbinator 3y ago
  I definitely have a preference for made in America, but that really only applies to physical products since there are strong associations with reputation and quality; the "country of origin" of software is far less well-defined in general, especially in the case of OSS.
  - rvnx 3y ago
    It is only partially true now. It was very true before, but more like 10 years ago. For example, Apple, one main reason they chose to produce a lot of the phone in China was because of infrastructure and skills that people have, and not costs anymore. China (in particular when you see markets like Yiwu!) has an impressive ability to produce all type of quality and grade of products.
  - OmarAssadi 3y ago
    It's sort of strange to me how many Americans seem to share the same sentiment when my experience has often been the total opposite. China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in. For example, sure, an LG/Samsung/Sony OLED will be way nicer in terms of picture quality than any Hisense on the market. But the cheapest OLED on BestBuy right now is a last-gen, clearance 46" LG that costs almost ~$700; if you want a 50"+ model, be prepared to spend $1,000 minimum. On the other hand, the 75" U6H I got for $600 was better than any comparable non-OLED offering by non-Chinese companies until you got into the $1,000-1,200+ price range. Midea is another good example; sure, Bosch, Miele, and Zojirushi often have much nicer luxury products, but if you're a middle/working-class person who doesn't want to or can't spend $300+ on a rice cooker, it'll be hard to beat--unless you get lucky like me and find the one weird guy in your town who happened to be moving cities and selling off all his appliances, including some perfect-condition JDM Zojirushi with an inverter for $100 (and also happen to have a Japanese friend you can annoy to help you figure out what all the Kanji menus do). Same can be said for handset manufacturers like Xiaomi, etc. And a lot of audio gear as well; $100-200 Russian Oktava microphones easily punch several hundred to several thousand dollars above their class, Chinese brands dominate the mid-range IEM market, and Chinese headphone brands like HiFiMan are difficult to beat in any price bracket -- first paycheck I got, I spent $1,600 on Sennheiser HD 800 S because I wanted the HD 800 as a kid, but realistically, $300 HiFiMan Sundaras will get you almost there for over a thousand less. Personally, every "made in America" thing I've bought that wasn't manufactured before like 1990 either fell apart and/or was ridiculously expensive compared to things made elsewhere. My association of made in America is either: A. Truly craftsman, low-volume, specialized products that have an inherently high price tag B. More commonly, low-quality, over-priced junk that survives only because of nationalism or protectionism alone
yuppiepuppie 3y ago
Apple does this on every single one of its products, but not even from the nation its designed in, but the state!
- circuit10 3y ago
  I think they’re asking why it’s so prominent (more in the title of this submission than the website itself) as if it’s the main feature of the browser
  - rvnx 3y ago
    Japanese people are proud of their country. In some nations, like France or Bulgaria it’s taboo. But in the US or Japan it’s fine to be proud of where a product is coming from.
    - Barrin92 3y ago
      believe me the French are very, very proud of their country, that doesn't really mean you need to buy into rather cringy economic 'patriotism'. Especially when it makes zero sense as in the case of software. It's not like this browser came out of a 500 year old artisanal Japanese crafting shop, where the browser recipes where handed down the family tree With these kinds of things it's basically, I have no way to differentiate my product, so I'm gonna slap the country flag on it for good measure
      - rvnx 3y ago
        You were probably fortunate to live in the better part of France :) In many parts of France, simply displaying the French flag in front of your house is very dangerous, whereas it is perfectly normal for everywhere else.
        yuppiepuppie 3y ago
        Neither in Spain. Its quite provocative if you do
yard2010 3y ago
Context is everything
imp0cat 3y ago
It's supposed to prepare your for the wonderful engrish documentation, and I quote: :) > If you download Floorp you agree to the <h1>Pricacy Policy</h1>.
- uno7 3y ago
  That’s just a typo, obviously.
kervantas 3y ago
Same reason as why people append "in Rust" to titles. Marketing.
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  “In Rust” is a technical detail that influences various properties of the result (performance certainly; maintainability likely; immaturity possibly for areas like GUI). That’s quite different from “from Japan” which doesn’t say anything specific and measurable.
hruzgar 3y ago
For me at least it helps to know that it's not somehow secretly connected to some American intelligency agency
- surrTurr 3y ago
  Japan is not "connected to some American intelligency agency"??
  - rvnx 3y ago
    If you receive any email from US agencies and you are a Japanese company you can just say “no thank you I’m not interested” and it will most likely stop there. If you are US company you don’t have a choice as it is the law. Mozilla, Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, Signal, all have to respect the local laws.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    the connection is less direct, less direct connections imply increased safety.
    - uoaei 3y ago
      Precisely the reason people obfuscate direct connections is so people like you believe this about their products.
      - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        People like me? Why thank you, I've always thought they didn't. Good to know.
- webmobdev 3y ago
  Japan is part of the Five Eyes Plus alliance that has areed to share intelligence with the US ( https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/fourteen-eyes-countries https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/fourteen-eyes-countries ).
toxinu 3y ago
People buying and flexing with stuff that have "Designed in California" engraved on them and being offended with an Open Source software that just want to say is it developed in Japan. Stop over thinking and just appreciate people work. And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years, so I guess there are some engineers over there.
- diogenes4 3y ago
  Well, it's not like california is known for making quality products (outside of film, i guess). Japan is.
- MikusR 3y ago
  By what metric? Top 3 games by units sold are american. By revenue they are in top 4 with games made in 80s and top spot is a Korean game.
  - rdlw 3y ago
    > Top 3 games by units sold are american Counting Minecraft and Tetris as American games? I suppose Microsoft bought Minecraft and EA licensed Tetris, but that seems to speak more to the business sense of American publishers than quality of American software development. Eleven out of the twenty best-selling games are Japanese, and 28 out of the top 50.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > By what metric? Top 3 games by units sold are american. The top 3 games by units sold were made respectively in Stockholm, Edinburgh and Moscow. How exactly do you figure that makes them "american"?
    - MikusR 3y ago
      The particular mobile version of EA published Tetris was made in Moscow? Also none of those are Japan.
aikinai 3y ago
> It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest. Exactly. The developers are probably proud to have built something (presumably) high-quality in Japan and they want to promote that fact to help shift the country's image I guess.
Klonoar 3y ago
Japan idolization is a thing in tech circles so it's an unfortunate no-brainer to do this.
microflash 3y ago
I just copy-pasted the description from their site copy since the default title was too short :) They do mention Japan on their frontpage for some reason and I'm cool with that.
Moldoteck 3y ago
just the pride? the same as some swiss businesses put 'made in Switzerland', or 'made in Germany', or how even some US politicians use Tesla, made in US as a point of pride?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throwaway290 3y ago
It means many things, including "not made in PRC" (as much of a thing in world of software as world of appliances and electronics, similar implications)
GuB-42 3y ago
Things I associate with software from Japan: - Dense interfaces, flashy colors, the opposite of Apple-style minimalism - Proprietary software - Lots of customization when its comes to appearance / theming - Passionate communities - Traditionalism, resistance to change - Function over security It does not all apply to Floorp, but that's what I think when I think of "made in Japan" software. For example, Floorp is open source, which I think is less common in Japan than in the west, and hopefully, it is secure. But the customization and "dual sidebar" (i.e. more stuff on screen) features are typically Japanese.
msla 3y ago
I hear their TV sets actually look like a cloudy sky when they're tuned to a dead channel.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
This is purely personal opinion and I can only cite a couple of examples off the cuff, but I have noticed some Japanese authors can have an affinity for avoiding bloat. Whether this is intentional I do not know, but they seem comfortable writing relatively small, concise software. (Now, this being HN I'm sure someone will cite some counter examples.)
meatjuice 3y ago
That's the point I guess. Japan's not famous for making quality opensource softwares, which makes the project look outstanding in Japan.

What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. Does it have improved IME or CJK support? It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest.

O1111OOO 3y ago

> What's the point of stating that "it's made in Japan"? I just don't get it. What I don't get is why this is your main and only takeaway. It's such an odd and surprising reaction. When I hear, for example, that Linux is being used at a gov site in Brazil or Germany or France - I get quit excited. I like that the FOSS is making inroads in other areas. With the dominance of Chrome worldwide, I am equally excited that a group of developers from another country are helping push competition in this space, driving home the message of privacy. Mozilla needs it... we all need it for the health of the internet. These guys have been at this for a while (based on their github page) and have made installers available for the main three OSes. I'm excited to give this a try.

diogenes4 3y ago

> It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest. Well they aren't known for software at all, but the japanese are notorious about being sticklers for quality.

paulrouget 3y ago

It's just that they made it in Japan. No need to overthink it :)

thefounder 3y ago

Maybe for someone who prefers to buy made in Japan over made in China. A made in Europe sticker would definitely appeal to me more than a made in China. At least on products that are not mass produced from established brands.

deaddodo 3y ago
I couldn't care less where my item is produced. It just so happens that a large variety of high-end products are produced at a higher level of quality (and cost, generally) in the West (including S Korea and Japan); but if someone introduced me to a Nigerian, Mexican, Thai, etc product that surpassed my current choice, I would switch in an instant. I don't understand caring at all about the source, unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it (such as blood diamonds, for instance).
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  Most people don’t buy 500 cars or 390 tv. It’s just about reputation and isn’t branding a reputation. Cars made in foo are good, tv made is bar have bad QA
- rvnx 3y ago
  Privacy laws are different depending on the country of the publisher of the software. Generally European countries provide the best protections and the fact it is published in Japan may imply that the US laws don’t apply there (and be a + or not)
- pil0u 3y ago
  Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home. Other people care about work conditions for the produced items they buy, namely not manufactured by children, for which country origin could be an indicator.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    > unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it
  - Xeamek 3y ago
    >Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home Which is pretty dumb thing to care about, since these journeys have minimal carbon footprint, compared to something like local delivery
userbinator 3y ago
I definitely have a preference for made in America, but that really only applies to physical products since there are strong associations with reputation and quality; the "country of origin" of software is far less well-defined in general, especially in the case of OSS.
- rvnx 3y ago
  It is only partially true now. It was very true before, but more like 10 years ago. For example, Apple, one main reason they chose to produce a lot of the phone in China was because of infrastructure and skills that people have, and not costs anymore. China (in particular when you see markets like Yiwu!) has an impressive ability to produce all type of quality and grade of products.
- OmarAssadi 3y ago
  It's sort of strange to me how many Americans seem to share the same sentiment when my experience has often been the total opposite. China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in. For example, sure, an LG/Samsung/Sony OLED will be way nicer in terms of picture quality than any Hisense on the market. But the cheapest OLED on BestBuy right now is a last-gen, clearance 46" LG that costs almost ~$700; if you want a 50"+ model, be prepared to spend $1,000 minimum. On the other hand, the 75" U6H I got for $600 was better than any comparable non-OLED offering by non-Chinese companies until you got into the $1,000-1,200+ price range. Midea is another good example; sure, Bosch, Miele, and Zojirushi often have much nicer luxury products, but if you're a middle/working-class person who doesn't want to or can't spend $300+ on a rice cooker, it'll be hard to beat--unless you get lucky like me and find the one weird guy in your town who happened to be moving cities and selling off all his appliances, including some perfect-condition JDM Zojirushi with an inverter for $100 (and also happen to have a Japanese friend you can annoy to help you figure out what all the Kanji menus do). Same can be said for handset manufacturers like Xiaomi, etc. And a lot of audio gear as well; $100-200 Russian Oktava microphones easily punch several hundred to several thousand dollars above their class, Chinese brands dominate the mid-range IEM market, and Chinese headphone brands like HiFiMan are difficult to beat in any price bracket -- first paycheck I got, I spent $1,600 on Sennheiser HD 800 S because I wanted the HD 800 as a kid, but realistically, $300 HiFiMan Sundaras will get you almost there for over a thousand less. Personally, every "made in America" thing I've bought that wasn't manufactured before like 1990 either fell apart and/or was ridiculously expensive compared to things made elsewhere. My association of made in America is either: A. Truly craftsman, low-volume, specialized products that have an inherently high price tag B. More commonly, low-quality, over-priced junk that survives only because of nationalism or protectionism alone

yuppiepuppie 3y ago

Apple does this on every single one of its products, but not even from the nation its designed in, but the state!

circuit10 3y ago
I think they’re asking why it’s so prominent (more in the title of this submission than the website itself) as if it’s the main feature of the browser
- rvnx 3y ago
  Japanese people are proud of their country. In some nations, like France or Bulgaria it’s taboo. But in the US or Japan it’s fine to be proud of where a product is coming from.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    believe me the French are very, very proud of their country, that doesn't really mean you need to buy into rather cringy economic 'patriotism'. Especially when it makes zero sense as in the case of software. It's not like this browser came out of a 500 year old artisanal Japanese crafting shop, where the browser recipes where handed down the family tree With these kinds of things it's basically, I have no way to differentiate my product, so I'm gonna slap the country flag on it for good measure
    - rvnx 3y ago
      You were probably fortunate to live in the better part of France :) In many parts of France, simply displaying the French flag in front of your house is very dangerous, whereas it is perfectly normal for everywhere else.
      - yuppiepuppie 3y ago
        Neither in Spain. Its quite provocative if you do

yard2010 3y ago

Context is everything

imp0cat 3y ago

It's supposed to prepare your for the wonderful engrish documentation, and I quote: :) > If you download Floorp you agree to the <h1>Pricacy Policy</h1>.

uno7 3y ago
That’s just a typo, obviously.

kervantas 3y ago

Same reason as why people append "in Rust" to titles. Marketing.

chrismorgan 3y ago
“In Rust” is a technical detail that influences various properties of the result (performance certainly; maintainability likely; immaturity possibly for areas like GUI). That’s quite different from “from Japan” which doesn’t say anything specific and measurable.

hruzgar 3y ago

For me at least it helps to know that it's not somehow secretly connected to some American intelligency agency

surrTurr 3y ago
Japan is not "connected to some American intelligency agency"??
- rvnx 3y ago
  If you receive any email from US agencies and you are a Japanese company you can just say “no thank you I’m not interested” and it will most likely stop there. If you are US company you don’t have a choice as it is the law. Mozilla, Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, Signal, all have to respect the local laws.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  the connection is less direct, less direct connections imply increased safety.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Precisely the reason people obfuscate direct connections is so people like you believe this about their products.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      People like me? Why thank you, I've always thought they didn't. Good to know.
webmobdev 3y ago
Japan is part of the Five Eyes Plus alliance that has areed to share intelligence with the US ( https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/fourteen-eyes-countries https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/fourteen-eyes-countries ).

toxinu 3y ago

People buying and flexing with stuff that have "Designed in California" engraved on them and being offended with an Open Source software that just want to say is it developed in Japan. Stop over thinking and just appreciate people work. And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years, so I guess there are some engineers over there.

diogenes4 3y ago
Well, it's not like california is known for making quality products (outside of film, i guess). Japan is.
MikusR 3y ago
By what metric? Top 3 games by units sold are american. By revenue they are in top 4 with games made in 80s and top spot is a Korean game.
- rdlw 3y ago
  > Top 3 games by units sold are american Counting Minecraft and Tetris as American games? I suppose Microsoft bought Minecraft and EA licensed Tetris, but that seems to speak more to the business sense of American publishers than quality of American software development. Eleven out of the twenty best-selling games are Japanese, and 28 out of the top 50.
- lmm 3y ago
  > By what metric? Top 3 games by units sold are american. The top 3 games by units sold were made respectively in Stockholm, Edinburgh and Moscow. How exactly do you figure that makes them "american"?
  - MikusR 3y ago
    The particular mobile version of EA published Tetris was made in Moscow? Also none of those are Japan.

aikinai 3y ago

> It's not like Japan is famous for its quality software to be honest. Exactly. The developers are probably proud to have built something (presumably) high-quality in Japan and they want to promote that fact to help shift the country's image I guess.

Klonoar 3y ago

Japan idolization is a thing in tech circles so it's an unfortunate no-brainer to do this.

microflash 3y ago

I just copy-pasted the description from their site copy since the default title was too short :) They do mention Japan on their frontpage for some reason and I'm cool with that.

Moldoteck 3y ago

just the pride? the same as some swiss businesses put 'made in Switzerland', or 'made in Germany', or how even some US politicians use Tesla, made in US as a point of pride?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

throwaway290 3y ago

It means many things, including "not made in PRC" (as much of a thing in world of software as world of appliances and electronics, similar implications)

GuB-42 3y ago

Things I associate with software from Japan: - Dense interfaces, flashy colors, the opposite of Apple-style minimalism - Proprietary software - Lots of customization when its comes to appearance / theming - Passionate communities - Traditionalism, resistance to change - Function over security It does not all apply to Floorp, but that's what I think when I think of "made in Japan" software. For example, Floorp is open source, which I think is less common in Japan than in the west, and hopefully, it is secure. But the customization and "dual sidebar" (i.e. more stuff on screen) features are typically Japanese.

msla 3y ago

I hear their TV sets actually look like a cloudy sky when they're tuned to a dead channel.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

This is purely personal opinion and I can only cite a couple of examples off the cuff, but I have noticed some Japanese authors can have an affinity for avoiding bloat. Whether this is intentional I do not know, but they seem comfortable writing relatively small, concise software. (Now, this being HN I'm sure someone will cite some counter examples.)

meatjuice 3y ago

That's the point I guess. Japan's not famous for making quality opensource softwares, which makes the project look outstanding in Japan.