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The endless browser wars

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Re: The endless browser wars

#101

Post by MaxBarraclough »

esprehn wrote: post #90
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but Safari uses a closed source JavaScript engine. Seems to me it doesn't count for much unless the whole browser is Free and Open Source. A single non-Free component is enough for them to sneak in functionality that you don't want. See also: the VSCodium editor/IDE. Official builds of Visual Studio Code do not correspond to the published Visual Studio Code source-code, as they ship with additional telem…

Safari's JS engine is open source: https://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/Source/JavaScriptCore

My mistake, thanks. TIL.

Is it used in any fully Free and Open Source browser?

Re: The endless browser wars

#102

Post by bbotond »

stiray wrote: post #39
doublerabbit wrote: post #38

Until someone creates a new browser with a new render/scripting engine. Which everyone always jumps on saying "it's impossible", the war is over. Chrome has won. Chrome is currently giving life support to Mozilla and when they decide to axe that, well it's game over for Mozilla. The depressing part is the freedom, the new that the internet once provided is over. It's been turned in to a commercial breeding ground and…

The issue is that Firefox HAS created a new rendering engine, but people don't switch. It has nothing to do with technology, people wont even try to switch. Some for fanboyism, some because they would have to adapt, some don't even know what browser is. What I do consider staggering is how many technically capable people are not prepared to make a switch. Google is slowly closing down the lock-down trap they have nur…

I tried to switch multiple times but Firefox was unbearably slow and used a lot of memory. I guess I’m not the only one with that experience.

Re: The endless browser wars

#103

Post by majewsky »

pygy_ wrote: post #89
detaro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox Quantum did massively rework the browser engine and is presumably what the parent is talking about (multiprocess support, new CSS engine, various other bits and pieces) I assume you mean Servo, which was a research project from the start and never intended to be a new production engine, but did produce side products like the CSS engine that are used.

Yes, the last major piece AFAIK was WebRender (hardware-accelerated compositing), which has been shipped last autumn.

WebRender is neither "shipped" nor "not shipped", it's rolling out to increasing audiences based on Mozilla Corp's confidence concerning stability of WebRender on certain platforms and hardware configurations.

Re: The endless browser wars

#104

Post by lucideer »

lqet wrote: post #22

Key points: > Much of what appears to be Chrome (or Chromium) functionality is, in truth, provided by servers in Google's data centers. These include bookmark synchronization, the safe-browsing feature, search suggestions, spell-checking, and more. > On January 15, the Chromium blog carried this brief notice that, as of March 15, non-Chrome builds of Chromium would lose access to these APIs. > Anticipating this, dist…

> Why would Google even consider doing this?

The author's extrapolations seem implausible.

Bookmark synchronization is a non-issue as this is something any bundler of Chromium would have to build & maintain themselves no matter what engine they bundled. So Google excluding it is irrelevant.

But for Safe-Browsing and Search Suggestions, not only are these sources of data/insight/revenue for Google, but more oddly: Google Safe-Browsing is used by Firefox and other browsers, and Search Suggestions is provided by ALL search engines that have such a feature to ANY browser integrating their search. Excluding these from Google's own open-source engine while non-Google engines continue to use them seems unlikely.

Re: The endless browser wars

#105

Post by Zambyte »

doublerabbit wrote: post #38

Until someone creates a new browser with a new render/scripting engine. Which everyone always jumps on saying "it's impossible", the war is over. Chrome has won. Chrome is currently giving life support to Mozilla and when they decide to axe that, well it's game over for Mozilla. The depressing part is the freedom, the new that the internet once provided is over. It's been turned in to a commercial breeding ground and…

It is both possible and extremely likely that people will continue to create new web browsers. Simply not for the HTTP web.

https://gemini.circumlunar.space

Gemini is a web protocol that aims to achieve the original goal of HTPP: to create a document web. It is extremely strict about adding new features to the protocol, unlike HTTP. This means that it is easy and should remain easy to implement new browsers, and I think that is a fantastic thing!

Re: The endless browser wars

#106

Post by LarryDarrell »

Chrome, or at least it's rendering engine, has won the World Wide Web. It was able to do this because the company that was the best at monetizing every last packet decided it wanted to own that last endpoint as well.

HTTP is a lost cause. At this point we need new protocols that are designed to be impossible to monetize. From there new browsers can be built. It'll never get to be as big as the WWW, but I think sub-Internets are the best way to ensure the spirit and creativity of the early WWW lives on.

Re: The endless browser wars

#107

Post by Terretta »

dzdt wrote: post #50

Not mentioned is the password situation. That is the bigger lock-in than bookmarks. I don't know what is the tech stack underneath or even what chromium does. But as a normal-ish chrome user I know behind the scenes google is managing my passwords and it would be a nightmare to switch. Too many sites I wouldn't know how to access without their password management. That is true lock-in.

Agree, that lock-in is rough. That said, it’s just now possible to co-exist or even shift gradually among all three of Microsoft, Google, and now Apple, managing web creds without a third party tool.

Although it just got pulled, the just-prior iCloud for Windows supported Apple Keychain password sync, allowing a different GAFAM to manage your creds. There is a Chrome extension as well.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/2/22263118/apple-icloud-wind...

After it’s back, then a reasonably frictionless way to migrate from one of these to another would be to run them side by side for a quarter, using the old to supply the cred while accepting the prompt to remember it on the new.

As long as you can still access the old cred store some way, you’ll have most useful creds in order, and only have to look up an old one when accessing something you never use.

Re: The endless browser wars

#108

Post by fretn »

ciceryadam wrote: post #92
worble wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can't be run on windows I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. chromium.org doesn't offer chroimium builds on their website but there are a number of places you can get someone elses build, for example https://chromium.woolyss.com/ or https://github.com/macchrome/winchrome/tree/master or presumably just build it yourself if you wanted to.

or even easier: choco install chromium choco install ungoogled-chromium https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=chromium

and if you want extensions the easy way in ungoogled-chromium :

https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store

Re: The endless browser wars

#109

Post by nescioquid »

Yaggo wrote: post #16
approxim8ion wrote: post #2

Holding strong to Firefox as long as I have to. What really strikes me is why more people aren't pushing for open-source browsers. One would think that it is important to have an element of trust for something that makes up the bulk of your computer's uptime, but perhaps open source is no longer a good indicator of trust for projects as large and complex as modern browsers, or people are willing to trust them anyway.…

Apple's webkit is open source as well. All major browsers are based on open source engines. The situation could be much worse.

And Webkit itself started a fork of KHTML, if I recall correctly.

Re: The endless browser wars

#110

Post by pygy_ »

majewsky wrote: post #103
pygy_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the last major piece AFAIK was WebRender (hardware-accelerated compositing), which has been shipped last autumn.

WebRender is neither "shipped" nor "not shipped", it's rolling out to increasing audiences based on Mozilla Corp's confidence concerning stability of WebRender on certain platforms and hardware configurations.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/WebRender_Where

I had missed the "with approved hardware" bit regarding Win10 :-)

Still, it does run in the wild on all major OSes.

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