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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#71

Post by tylerchilds »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #36

I had a conversation here with people about Servo and it was immediately clear that it was a collection of people who wanted to play around with Rust and not actually solve a problem that people have while saying that they did. They were way more concerned with bullshit like governance than meat and potatoes like writing a getting started article. > Servo’s mission is to provide an independent, modular, embeddable we…

The documentation on how to run it is in the readme. They've only got pre-release builds available on their website, since the tech isn't production ready yet.

I've been compiling it locally and playing with it. I run it like:

$ servo https://news.ycombinator.com

To do that, I've got an alias set up to point to my dev build.

alias servo='f() { /home/tychi/SourceCode/servo/mach run --release $1 };f'

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

#72

Post by Someone »

pkaler wrote: post #43

Chromium embeds the Blink browser engine which is a fork of WebKit which is a fork of KHTML. You can read Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda to get the backstory on why they chose KHTML over Gecko. You can also Google for podcasts that Don Melton has been on.

> on why they chose KHTML

For those who don’t know: “they” is Apple here. Apple forked KHTML to create WebKit. Google contributed to WebKit and later forked it into Blink.

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

#73

Post by commoner »

While embedding Gecko in desktop applications is not as straightforward as embedding Chromium, Mozilla's GeckoView project makes it easier to do this on Android:

https://mozilla.github.io/geckoview/

GeckoView is the foundation of Firefox for Android and Firefox Focus. The SmartCookieWeb-Preview browser, which supports sideloading Firefox extensions on Android, is also based on GeckoView:

https://github.com/CookieJarApps/SmartCookieWeb-Preview

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

#75

Post by thayne »

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…

That non embeddability is probably also a major reason why there isn't a significant node competitor based on spidermonkey. I get wanting to focus on Firefox as a whole, and that making components more independent can add quite a bit of work. But at the same time, if it was easier to use gecko in other browsers, and spidermonkey as JS environment outside the browser, I wonder if that would increase usage of and interest in the underlying technology.

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

#76

Post by starik36 »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #57

As others have said; Gecko and Servo are not easily embeddable. That was Apple's reported reason for using KHTML and making WebKit which Google used for Chrome and forked eventually. They wanted something light and embeddable. Don't blame them. Also, that software was LGPL. I was always hoping that Microsoft or Apple would fund the Mozilla Foundation to keep a competitive web engine afloat and prevent Google Chrome e…

> Gecko and Servo are not easily embeddable.

That's right. And the Safari team chose KHTML despite the presence of Dave Hyatt - a key Firefox developer and creator of Camino browser (which did embed Gecko). That's probably everything one needs to know about how easily embeddable Gecko is.

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

#78

Post by lifthrasiir »

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.

I wouldn't be this cynical if everyone said the same thing to the Firefox OS back then. It turned out that Firefox OS did have much potential to countries with less mobile penetration, as observed from KaiOS's success in India.

Was the Firefox OS less future-focused than Servo? I don't think so, and given that Servo actually did survive long enough to give back to the mainline Gecko (in the form of WebRender and so on). It might or might not make actual sense to conclude that as the ROI shrinks, but it is always easier to claim the decision was wrong after that decision.

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

#79

Post by Donckele »

I’m calling bullshit to most of the comments here and to Mozilla.

First, why cannot we have a multi-platform single click, no chrome/ui with fullscreen capabilities, firefox launcher that has prepackaged web app that is self contained? You think Major Tech Dudes can’t implement this?

Second, it’s all probably to do with bureaucracy and politics. For all we know FAANG blocks such ad ventures otherwise its bully time.

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