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

A look at Firefox forks

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 390 posts

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#61

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

> The Floorp project is a much newer entrant. It is developed by a community of Japanese students called Ablaze. Development is hosted on GitHub, and the project solicits donations via GitHub donations. According to its donations page, donors who contribute at the $100 level may submit ads to feature in the new tab page—but the ads, which are displayed as shortcuts with a "sponsored" label, can be turned off in the settings. I've been unable to find any information about the project governance or legal structure of Ablaze.

So a group of contributors, presumably upset about Mozilla making "user-hostile" changes like displaying ads in the new tab page, create a fork of Firefox, and then solicit donations for their fork using the exact same revenue model?

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#62

Post by fresh_geezer »

slindsey wrote: post #50

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational struc…

I thought it would funny to buy the Netscape brand off AOL and start a fork using that name. Maybe combined with your idea, then when/if there's enough funding coming in it can become the main entity developing the browser.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#63

Post by b0dhimind »

pessimizer wrote: post #53

If you're rich you should consider this a menu. Chrome is about to be split from Google which will be a soft reboot that could go badly or really well, but at the least will lead into an awkward period for them. Alternatively, they won't be split, which will create public anger and likely true accusations of quid pro quo, and possibly a tiny bluesky-sized stampede to alternatives. Chrome will be told they can't pay F…

I'd still take the crypto casino Firefox over Chrome :-D JK. But yeah my main issue is performance. I honestly like the AI features, dunno why people so triggered over that. Don't think it affects performance at all. The privacy invasion I need to look into more, maybe only inasfar as it affects performance as well.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#64

Post by DaSHacka »

mfro wrote: post #33
Dwedit wrote: post #8

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

It does that. Users have the simple option of disabling it in settings with one checkbox.

Where is this 'one checkbox'?

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#65

Post by Y_Y »

lxn wrote: post #46
Dwedit wrote: post #8

I read in a few places that LibreWolf's anti-fingerprinting features are breaking websites. One person complained that their meeting got scheduled incorrectly because the browser was messing with the user's time zone (for privacy reasons).

I can confirm that. I switched to using LibreWolf as a work-dedicated browser parallel to Firefox Developer Edition. In two weeks of using it, I got annoyed by the following: - no automatic dark-mode (against fingerprinting, some websites don't have a setting to switch it on - not sure if you can turn it off) - timezone is always UTC (can be worked-around with an extension, messed up my time tracking app and some log…

I used to have terrible time with forgetting my keys, or letting the cleaner in when I wasn't home. Then I just stopped locking the door and never looked back. It's so convenient and saves me precious time. What can I say, it just works!

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#66

Post by homebrewer »

rrgok wrote: post #13
peppers-ghost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having one browser engine dominate the web is not a good thing. If there was ever a terrible zero day found everyone would be in trouble.

Why not if everybody at the end will implement the same spec? I would understand if Firefox wanted to implement its own spec, but what is the purpose of having N different implementation of the same spec with their own idiosyncrasies? At the end of the day, the engine of the major browser engines is open-source anyway. Sorry, I don't know how I missed day zero-day.. Anyway my point still stays..

Look at how llvm forced gcc to improve their error messages (among other things).

Running a different compiler is also useful to find bugs in your project, and in the compiler itself. I would imagine this applies to the web just as well — a web browser implements an open spec (just like a C++ compiler), at the same time being much more complicated than a C++ compiler.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#67

Post by mfro »

DaSHacka wrote: post #64
mfro wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does that. Users have the simple option of disabling it in settings with one checkbox.

Where is this 'one checkbox'?

There is a search bar in the settings page. Search 'fingerprint', uncheck 'Enable ResistFingerprinting'

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#68

Post by cosmic_cheese »

slindsey wrote: post #50

For years I've thought of creating a "paid" Firefox fork that is _just_ Firefox rebranded, but otherwise the exact codebase. The money brought in would be used to pay an open source developer to work strictly on things intended to be sent upstream to the Mozilla Firefox. If nothing else, it would prove whether or not people are willing to pay for Firefox. The problem with Firefox currently is the organizational struc…

I don’t know that this idea would work for literally just Firefox, but I strongly believe that people would be willing to pay for a Firefox fork that has a laser focus on fit and finish and poweruser features. Think a “Firefox Pro” of sorts.

Why do I think this? Three reasons:

- It elevates the browser into a higher category of tool, where currently Firefox inhabits the same space as OS-bundled calculators and text editors, making it being paid more justifiable in peoples’ minds.

- Firefox has long had issues with rough edges and papercuts, which I believe frustrates users more than Mozilla probably realizes.

- Much of Firefox’s original claim to fame came from its highly flexible, power user friendly nature which was abandoned in favor of chasing mass appeal.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#69

Post by cosmic_cheese »

_bent wrote: post #55
tux3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that makes Firefox different would be lost, and have to be rebuilt. But let's talk about a different reason why forking Chromium to keep the features you like isn't as simple as it sounds. Imagine upstream Chromium makes a decision like dropping Manifest V2 (hypothetically). At first it is easy to simply not apply that patch series, and keep it enabled. But eventually things will start diverging, refactor…

How is solving merge conflicts harder than developing an entire browser engine? Plus Igalia, MS, Mozilla, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi etc could maintain a shared fork that kept stuff like Manifestv2 if they wanted.

The problem is that the difficult not only increases with time unbounded, but is on a steep curve. Eventually the manpower and resource required to keep up with upstream will eventually match and outstrip that required to develop and maintain a new engine.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#70

Post by cosmic_cheese »

mrweasel wrote: post #45
rrgok wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not if everybody at the end will implement the same spec? I would understand if Firefox wanted to implement its own spec, but what is the purpose of having N different implementation of the same spec with their own idiosyncrasies? At the end of the day, the engine of the major browser engines is open-source anyway. Sorry, I don't know how I missed day zero-day.. Anyway my point still stays..

What if the developers of the dominate engine becomes complacent and decides that it's "good enough" and we get stuck in another IE6 situation where development stops for years and years? Yes, Chromium and Blink are open source, but they are effectively Googles open source project. If you're unhappy with their direction you'll need to fork it.

Exactly, the situation with Chrome is the exact same sort of benevolent dictator problem we had with Internet Explorer, except this time dressed up with an open source license.
Post reply on HN