It's based on ungoogled-chromium and about 3 people are working on it. https://github.com/imputnet/helium
I would not feel comfortable with my browsing data being in the hands of 3 random people.
What about 10,000 ?
Helium Browser
101–110 of 561 posts
Re: Helium Browser
#102I really have no interest in using a Chromium/Blink browser at this point, that's the real kicker for me.
I would prefer to use and support browsers using alternate rendering engines and without any ties back to Google, even if it means I personally get a lesser experience, because I don't trust Google and I want to ensure they don't entirely control the direction of the browsable internet.
Re: Helium Browser
#103You have my attention! But in this day and age, I need to understand more about intentions, and what sustains projects like this. For the moment I've settled on Safari simply because Apple makes its billions elsewhere, even if I am increasingly disappointed with how they are playing along with politics right now.
Right now? All major corporations play along with whatever the current political winds are. Your own personal biases don't matter in their decision making.
Re: Helium Browser
#104What makes me a bit uneasy about the project is that the website doesn't explain who is building it. For most open-source, I think that would be fine. But browsers auto-update, so their vendors essentially have the continued ability to run code on your machine. You want some confidence that they won't get owned and won't sell the access to bad actors down the line, so there is an element of personal trust. All the we…
Well it is just one those element naming chrome fork. Kinda like: https://iridiumbrowser.de/ But that one looks have not being updated in a while. But what is the point forking Chrome browser now days since manifest 3? I switched back to firefox/librawolf for now.
For what it's worth: “All Chromium extensions are supported and work right away, by default, including all MV2 extensions. We'll keep support for MV2 extensions for as long as possible.”
Whether that's worth much is of course another matter.
Re: Helium Browser
#105How will they make money? Or is this always meant to be OSS community supported? The challenge is that people have to get paid and infrastructure to build things costs money. Looks like there are only two people full-time at the company right now, though even then eventually they’ll need some revenue stream. I love this project, but to have confidence that it stays that way it would be nice to see how they’ll replace…
Why does a browser need to be continually updated? Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed?
> Is Google/W3C adding more features and busy work to keep browser developers employed?
Most of those changes would be supported by the underlying rendering engine, and the only ones doing that afaik are Ladybird.
It's simply that building and mantaining _the rest_ of what we now expect a modern browser to be is staggeringly hard.
Re: Helium Browser
#106So another Chromium based browser featuring the usual 'Privacy' and a collection of miscellaneous features. Maybe 'AI' will be added.
None of this appears to go beyond what some browser extension could do. Personally I'm not seeing the appeal.
As a side note, the very similar Arc browser was just sold off to Atlassian for a quick exit.
Re: Helium Browser
#107Can someone explain to me why most browser forks are based on Chromium? If the goal is to make a privacy focused browser which is independent of Google, isn't it then a bit counterproductive to put all your eggs in a basket which only exists due to the goodwill of your main competitor? Why not webkit or Gecko? There might be a good argument for it, but as a person concerned with privacy and the future freedom of the internet, who is supposedly the target user for a browser like this, I would expect the justification to depend on Google code to be front and center on the page.
Re: Helium Browser
#108In the "choose a default search engine" page, it has a slightly amusing summary for each. > Google > Your personal data fuels its monopoly. Market-dominant due to anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices. > Qwant > Based in Europe. Uses Bing results. Sends tracking data to Microsoft. > DuckDuckGo > Privacy-focused. Relies on Bing results but never tracks or profiles you. > Ecosia > May plant trees for clicking ad…
Imagine reading that list in 1995. Sigh.
Re: Helium Browser
#109Another chromium fork, no thanks.
Re: Helium Browser
#110I have felt like a perennial browser refugee for a while. For about 20 years now (since OG Firefox was at peak and Chrome was not yet launched), every new browser promises the same things, gets popular enough, then does a full or partial 180. While I like the pitch of this browser, I find it a little difficult to take it at the face value, especially given there is no info on the founders, or whether it is run as a c…
You can look into Ulaa browser by Zoho. It fits your description.