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Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

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Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#61

Post by mda »

roca wrote: post #45
ximm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google controls Chromium because they do the heavy lifting Google already controls the web standardization process with its manpower. So standardizing on chromium would not change that issue, it would just move it to another level. I am not saying that this is great. I just think the argument is invalid.

Google has a lot of power in the Web platform but it's definitely not complete. If it was just a matter of manpower then they would have forced (P)NaCl/Pepper and Dart down everyone's throats and we would have been stuck with Web Components v0. Sentiments such as "Google controls everything, there is nothing we can do" are inaccurate and also counterproductive.

They also introduced countless other things that are now standards. Do you call every attempt to experiment or make things better as"force down throats"? I find this attitude disigenuous and hypocritical.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#62

Post by matz1 »

To fix this, someone simply need to build a better browser. Chrome did this when they taking over IE domination. I'm not taking about new privacy conscious browser but something that me and many other people really care. Is it hard ? yes but chrome did it before.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#63

Post by enraged_camel »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #51
roca wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any browser with noticeable (maybe 3-5%) market share causes these problems. No. When Web devs test in multiple browsers and find that something doesn't work in one of them, they will usually pick an alternative solution that does work in all of them, avoiding the bug in the buggy browser, thus avoiding a situation where their site depends on that bug continuing to exist. It doesn't always work out as well as that,…

> extremely complex applications like office suites and 3D games Who really needs that in the browser? Native apps are consistently better in every single aspect - more powerful, more privacy-respecting, more eco-friendly, etc. Except native apps are vanishing - a month ago I wanted to fire-up SketchUp on my old Mac, only to find out that the casual 3D scene is now using 100% webapps. The reason we have these abomina…

>>Who really needs that in the browser?

Enterprise IT departments, for one. IT people hate having to install, maintain, update and troubleshoot desktop applications, for obvious reasons. It’s orders of magnitude easier to simply install the app on a web server and have users run it in their web browsers.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#64

Post by mda »

oldmanhorton wrote: post #28
quicklime wrote: post #22

> we're talking Chromium, the underlying browser engine. As it stands, Chromium is the basis for a variety of browsers, not just Google's flagship. From what I can tell (as a non-expert on Chromium's source, so please correct me), the Googley stuff that makes privacy advocates nervous is independent from the core Chromium browser engine This might be just me being pedantic, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.…

Edge basically takes the entire chromium product including the //chrome layer, but we have removed or disabled most/all of the Google service integrations

And will replace them with Microsoft versions and will declare soon that Edge is the new savior of humanity because it doesn't contain the evilness anymore.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#66

Post by felbane »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #53

I've been saying this about dev.io since it's beginning. It's the place for frustrated redditors trying to make a name for themselves but only making fools instead. Do not bother reading anything there. It's as worthless and pointless as reading anything on reddit.

As soon as the author started wrapping words with emoji, I lost all interest in hearing their viewpoint.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#67

Post by noir_lord »

danShumway wrote: post #6

Ultimately, Google will still decide what goes into Chromium. As it stands, Google decides what patches get merged, and Google decides how core features are implemented. And they can be implemented in ways that are very hard to toggle and very specific to Google's business model. We need to get a version of Chromium that's not owned by Google -- but, I don't see any motivation for Google to give up control of Chromiu…

> Firefox isn't doing great right now, but is it doing any worse than Brave?

Maybe in terms of market share as a proxy for success that is true.

As a browser though Firefox has come on leaps and bounds (and has momentum to keep improving), I never switched away from it but used Chrome for dev for the last few years so I have a fair amount of time with both (dozens of hours a week) and Firefox is as fast and reliable as Chrome.

Ironically the one property that gives me issues with Firefox is youtube, they don't fix bugs against Firefox (the white bar header on fullscreen has been in firefox for over a month now and has been reported).

I ended up having to implement a ublock origin rule to remove the header.

EDIT: Mozilla are (to me) so much more than just a browser vendor, MDN documentation is probably my 2nd most visited documentation/help site (behind only stack overflow) because the quality is superb, concise and they quickly mention at the bottom can do this on foo, bar but not fizz which is useful to someone approach 40 because keeping that stuff in my head is well beyond me these days.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#68

Post by petecox »

Fnoord wrote: post #33
lazyjones wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone used to think that was Google. When was that? Around the time they decided to liberate the web from the evil clutches of Microsoft/IE and ... Mozilla/FF (20%+ and growing at that time)?

> When was that? When people still believed in the slogan 'Don't be evil' [1]. Google even removed the slogan. I guess they don't believe in it themselves anymore. The replacement 'Do the right thing' seems like a variation of Nike's. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

Fun fact: Pine64's dev-kit for their forthcoming PinePhone offering is codenamed "Don't be evil".

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Project_Don%27t_be_evil

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#69

Post by yogthos »

At one point IE was just as dominant as Chrome is today, and it got displaced. A lot of people seem unable to imagine how Chrome could be displaced today, but that can happen pretty rapidly. For example, Google restricting ad blockers on Chrome will almost certainly drive Firefox market share up.

However, the only reason this is possible is because we have web standards that are independent of a single browser and vendor. If we end up abandoning the standards entirely in favor of just using Chromium, then it’s game over for open web.

Throwing in the towel and making everything Chromium based would be the worst possible scenario because it gives Google an insane amount of control over the future of the web. And the fact that Chromium is open source doesn’t really make a bit of difference here.

The reality is that it takes a huge amount of effort to maintain it. It would require an organization like Mozilla to fork it from Google and take it in a new direction. Since we already have Mozilla and Firefox now, it’s much better to make sure they continue to exist.

Re: Chromium and the Browser Monoculture Problem

#70

Post by DanielBMarkham »

mcny wrote: post #27
lazyjones wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone used to think that was Google. When was that? Around the time they decided to liberate the web from the evil clutches of Microsoft/IE and ... Mozilla/FF (20%+ and growing at that time)?

I may be remembering things incorrectly but I think Mozilla almost got in trouble with the IRS because too much of funding came from a single source: Google. What I'm trying to say is Mozilla might have died a long time ago if not for Google.

And Apple might have died if not for Microsoft investment.

We very well may be assuming different actors and motivations where there are none: there's just messaging and market differentiation.

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