Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 191 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#61

Post by jupp0r »

pcwalton wrote: post #20

As an engine, Chromium has overwhelming market share, so it decreases risk to build on top of it. Choosing an alternative browser engine increases risk. Embeddability has little to do with it; Chromium (as opposed to WebKit) isn't actually that embeddable. Rather, market share is king. With a high market share, the community will step up with projects like Electron and Chromium Embedded Framework that add embeddabili…

There is the Chromium Embedded Framework which makes it somewhat easy to embed Chromium: https://github.com/chromiumembedded/cef

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#62

Post by eklavya »

tyingq wrote: post #28
jeffparsons wrote: post #24

It seems like everyone has reached much the same conclusion: there may be many factors, but the real killer and root cause is that Chromium is well suited to being embedded, and Gecko is not. So hey, any companies out there interested in bringing back a little diversity in browser engines? Or just making a tiny dent in Google's dominance for the greater good? Consider funding work to make Gecko better suited to embed…

>Consider funding work to make Gecko better suited to embedding Mozilla seems to choose what to do with donations though. I don't think there's any way to target funding for Gecko, Rust, etc.

This is the reason I stopped donating and stopped using Firefox. They won’t give up control and I don’t want a cent sent to anything but firefox/rust.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#63

Post by YPPH »

ramesh31 wrote: post #19
BlackLotus89 wrote: post #8

Gecko and servo are both not easily embeddable. Servo isn't a finished rendering engine yet and the browser I saw that could exclusively use servo was not compliant enough and since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. Projects that tried to make servo embeddable are all dead and gone (see https://github.com/paulrouget/servo-embedding-example for example) So yeah last time I tried t…

>since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. When did that happen? It seems the managerial class has completed their takeover of Mozilla in the last few years. A real shame, since it basically cedes the entire web to Google.

>it basically cedes the entire web to Google

Refocusing on making Mozilla a viable entity without the need for cash splashes from Google is doing precisely the opposite. By diluting Google's financial control it ensures decision-making is both actually and ostensibly impartial.

Gecko is still a perfectly functioning browser engine. It's far easier to keep Gecko up to date with modern web standards than reinventing the wheel.

As nice as it would be to have a free and open source browser engine written in a memory safe language, I can't see there being a lot of money in it for Mozilla.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#64

Post by CmdrKrool »

dikei wrote: post #25

Firefox used to be extremely extensible: there were some software based on Gecko and Xulrunner. However, they all died out after Chromium and Electron took over.

Xulrunner specifically, died or at least is not easily revived, because Mozilla killed XUL and XPCOM.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#65

Post by ipaddr »

novok wrote: post #58

I only use firefox because of it's multi-account container capabilities and some other better privacy features, which is more to do with it's wrapper vs. it's actual engine. Someone could make multi-account containers or better with chromium, and if they did I would just use that instead. Otherwise firefox is a slower, less secure browser and an older more crufty codebase and less webdevs test it thoroughly. Why woul…

Using those containers might be making your firefox experience slower. The very reason you use it might make you think you shouldn't use it for anything else. If you used it without containers I wonder if you would think it's faster. Each container has it's own resources.

How can it be less secure and the browser you choose for privacy reasons only?

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#66

Post by Dylan16807 »

YPPH wrote: post #63
ramesh31 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. When did that happen? It seems the managerial class has completed their takeover of Mozilla in the last few years. A real shame, since it basically cedes the entire web to Google.

>it basically cedes the entire web to Google Refocusing on making Mozilla a viable entity without the need for cash splashes from Google is doing precisely the opposite. By diluting Google's financial control it ensures decision-making is both actually and ostensibly impartial. Gecko is still a perfectly functioning browser engine. It's far easier to keep Gecko up to date with modern web standards than reinventing th…

In 2013 Mozilla spent $197M on software development and $30M on general/administrative.

In 2020 it was $242M and $137M.

The future-focused servo team was not the place to cut a couple million.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#67

Post by zucker42 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #19
BlackLotus89 wrote: post #8

Gecko and servo are both not easily embeddable. Servo isn't a finished rendering engine yet and the browser I saw that could exclusively use servo was not compliant enough and since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. Projects that tried to make servo embeddable are all dead and gone (see https://github.com/paulrouget/servo-embedding-example for example) So yeah last time I tried t…

>since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. When did that happen? It seems the managerial class has completed their takeover of Mozilla in the last few years. A real shame, since it basically cedes the entire web to Google.

It happened when Mozilla laid off 25% of their staff. Servo was probably part of that because it was more of a research project than part of the core business.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#68

Post by jppope »

zucker42 wrote: post #67
ramesh31 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>since mozilla fired the servo team there is no certain future for it anymore. When did that happen? It seems the managerial class has completed their takeover of Mozilla in the last few years. A real shame, since it basically cedes the entire web to Google.

It happened when Mozilla laid off 25% of their staff. Servo was probably part of that because it was more of a research project than part of the core business.

Isn't their core business just helping google avoid anti-trust issues by being the "other" browser?

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#69

Post by staticassertion »

ameliaquining wrote: post #39
tyingq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consider funding work to make Gecko better suited to embedding Mozilla seems to choose what to do with donations though. I don't think there's any way to target funding for Gecko, Rust, etc.

I think the suggestion being made here is that if somebody else did that work, they might be willing to merge it into their tree.

Has Mozilla showed any reason to bet on them in the last decade? It seems like leadership is happy to sink the company and take bonuses paid for by donations along the way.

I'd rather see a new player in the space. I have no confidence in Mozilla.

Re: Ask HN: Why do new browsers use Chromium instead of Firefox as their base?

#70

Post by dotancohen »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #66
YPPH wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it basically cedes the entire web to Google Refocusing on making Mozilla a viable entity without the need for cash splashes from Google is doing precisely the opposite. By diluting Google's financial control it ensures decision-making is both actually and ostensibly impartial. Gecko is still a perfectly functioning browser engine. It's far easier to keep Gecko up to date with modern web standards than reinventing th…

In 2013 Mozilla spent $197M on software development and $30M on general/administrative. In 2020 it was $242M and $137M. The future-focused servo team was not the place to cut a couple million.

  > In 2013 Mozilla spent $197M on software development and $30M on general/administrative.
  > In 2020 it was $242M and $137M.
  > The future-focused servo team was not the place to cut a couple million.
Wasn't it just after 2013 when the replacement politically-correct CEO got quadruple the pay of the not-politically-correct engineer CEO?
Post reply on HN