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A look at Firefox forks

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Re: A look at Firefox forks

#81

Post by eikenberry »

osener wrote: post #78
bastawhiz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone was building "Arc but for Firefox" I'd gladly pay for that. Firefox is, because of its position in the market, incapable of doing anything broadly interesting that's not "Be as Chrome-like as possible." They sneak in features that are nice, but I simply don't think we'll ever see Mozilla put out something that does anything that really sets Firefox apart. We'll only ever just get marginally better privacy…

Zen browser is exactly this. It has a growing ecosystem of “Zen mods” and has a great Arc-like out-of-box experience. https://zen-browser.app/

Does Zen plan on taking payments at some point? Key part of the idea is paid development.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#82

Post by KetoManx64 »

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…

Are you not using librewold-overrides.cfg to disable/enable features that you want/need? All of the things you mentioned are just flags you can set in the file to turn them on or off. https://librewolf.net/docs/settings/

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#83

Post by 0x457 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #68
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 e…

I think in todays world, when everything is a subscription, payment for a browser doesn't look so far-fetched.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#84

Post by spudlyo »

ramon156 wrote: post #17
RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #3

It is an indictment on the state of the web that regardless of Mozilla's missteps, Firefox remains the best choice for a secure, open-source web browser that isn't another chromium reskin.

I don't get the public "step down" that people are taking from using Firefox. How many users are actually switching? I doubt it's much. Many are audible about it, though. Yes browsers share your data, it's a browser... Firefox is not doing much worse than chromium browsers

I also switched from Firefox to LibreWolf, both on Linux and on macOS. I'll likely use the latest Chrome just for banking and other high security tasks, but for my normal browsing LibreWolf seems to work fine.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#86

Post by cosmic_cheese »

bastawhiz wrote: post #76
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

If someone was building "Arc but for Firefox" I'd gladly pay for that. Firefox is, because of its position in the market, incapable of doing anything broadly interesting that's not "Be as Chrome-like as possible." They sneak in features that are nice, but I simply don't think we'll ever see Mozilla put out something that does anything that really sets Firefox apart. We'll only ever just get marginally better privacy…

Totally agree. Even core features like bookmarks have barely improved in decades. All the emphasis has been on skin-deep UI refreshes, gimmicks, ways to monetize the user, and ways for developers to control the user’s experience.

I used to be a big fan of OmniWeb back in its day because it pushed the envelope in adding utility and emphasized its role as a powerful tool that put the user in control. It included things like per-page user CSS years before userstyles became popular in Firefox and Chrome.

It was paid however, and at least in that point in time there was little appetite for a paid browser, and so now it’s a hobby project that Omni Group devs occasionally tinker on and hasn’t been actively maintained in some time.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#87

Post by mmooss »

waltbosz wrote: post #29

This recent Mozilla stuff has got me wondering if one could fork Firefox, strip out the AI/adware code, then sell the binaries. How much would people pay (who would pay for a web browser)? Just Firefox, minus the crap. Would it generate enough revenue to cover the maintenance costs? Etc, etc.

If you take enough users from Firefox, who will do the expensive, hard work of updating and maintaining a browser engine?

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#88

Post by 0hijinks »

mfro wrote: post #67
DaSHacka wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this 'one checkbox'?

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

I found on 136.0.0-ish that some settings persist despite checking/unchecking that box and restarting LibreWolf, but YMMV. I also manually inspect 'about:config' and search there for relevant settings (like 'fingerprint'). For fingerprinting, browser breakage is unlikely so toggling these hidden flags is easy.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#89

Post by pndy »

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).

Amazon equivalent in Poland - Allegro was notoriously blocking me in Librewolf; I was served puzzle captcha or blocked from browsing at all due to "suspicious activity" 98% of the time.

Re: A look at Firefox forks

#90

Post by pndy »

inversetelecine wrote: post #15

The biggest issue with forks, which is pointed out in the article, is Mozilla still does the heavy lifting. None of the forks have the resources (and probably interest) to fully fork Firefox and make it their own codebase to maintain. Personally, I like LibreWolf and Mullvad browser. Hopefully they can keep up to date well into the future.

These projects to my knowledge do not release patches by themselves but as you said, rely on Mozilla's work - they take Firefox, strip it out of few features - namely one's that raised concerns, toss in additional stuff from other projects and include own branding. So perhaps these are more "customized derivatives" or "spin-offs"?

Not that work of these projects isn't good - on contrary. Mozilla has violated the trust of its users in last years with features nobody ask for and those folks pluck that stuff out.

Stil, perhaps it's a time for a proper fork that provides own code maintenance, before things will go worse at Mozilla.

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