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Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

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Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#611

Post by freediver »

boogies wrote: post #607
freediver wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business model wise, Brave is same thing as Google just at a smaller scale. Their revenue stream is still ad monetization, just it happens that it does not come from Google (although it is curious that on default settings, Brave's ad blocker does not block Google ads?). And what does the world look like if Brave "wins" (meaning becoming Google size)? Still ads everywhere, just Brave gets to pick them. Worth noting is…

> Business model wise, Brave is same thing as Google just at a smaller scale > if Brave "wins" […] Still ads everywhere, just Brave gets to pick them No, Google’s business model is gathering humanity’s largest hoard of data and monetizing that through targeted advertizing. Brave doesn’t show any of their most traditional ads unless the user explicitly opts in, and then it doesn’t come with comparable tracking.

> Brave doesn’t show a single ad unless the user explicitly opts in, and then it doesn’t come with comparable tracking.

I have what looks like a promotion for Crypto.com, Binance, Gemini and FTX.us in Brave browser, on default settings even though I never turned them on. For few of these I never heard and I certainly do not have any interest in crypto. Not sure why these would even belong in a web browser on default settings unless there is some kind of a deal/partnership going on?

Both Google and Brave have the same business model. They make money when a user clicks on an ad.

The execution may differ and maybe only because Brave is still new and relatively small and did not feel the same kind of shareholder pressure Google withstood for the last 20 years. That is why I said, imagine a world in which Brave "won". It would not be the same company it is now (compare Google from 2000 to Google today).

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#612

Post by fomine3 »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #103

It's a depressing situation, particularly knowing that Firefox is pretty much kept alive at Google's whim. It makes one seriously wonder whether it is feasible at all to maintain an independent open-source web browser in 2021. People tend to blame Mozilla's management and I'm sure there have been management failures but I'm not sure what they could do to make Firefox a thriving, independent, sustainable browser. It s…

Agreed. For who dislike telemetry, it's your choice to disable it. But you shouldn't blame developers to have optional telemetry, like Audacity case.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#613

Post by boogies »

freediver wrote: post #611
boogies wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Business model wise, Brave is same thing as Google just at a smaller scale > if Brave "wins" […] Still ads everywhere, just Brave gets to pick them No, Google’s business model is gathering humanity’s largest hoard of data and monetizing that through targeted advertizing. Brave doesn’t show any of their most traditional ads unless the user explicitly opts in, and then it doesn’t come with comparable tracking.

> Brave doesn’t show a single ad unless the user explicitly opts in, and then it doesn’t come with comparable tracking. I have what looks like a promotion for Crypto.com, Binance, Gemini and FTX.us in Brave browser, on default settings even though I never turned them on. For few of these I never heard and I certainly do not have any interest in crypto. Not sure why these would even belong in a web browser on default…

Fair enough, I’ve edited my comment (I haven’t used Brave besides ~2 hours of trial months ago — I won’t use any Chromium browser more than that when I can help it — but that’s no excuse to leave misinformation up). Still, those promotions are more in line with the ones that Firefox is filled with (Pocket, Google and Amazon search, etc.), not really the same type of thing as Google’s banners and youtube autoplay videos, and AIUI they only track the referral source (Brave) not the individual user (a defining distinction IMO).

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#615

Post by lmm »

emiliosic wrote: post #574
samwillis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance on all platforms. I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly)…

Actually, as a tidbit, Chromium is a fork of WebKit, which is Safari's rendering engine, which for some reason started as a fork from Konqueror (KDE Linux desktop's browser). Google did however replace the javascript engine in Chromium. The Javascript engine in Chromium deserves a different discussion, since it also powers NodeJS. Back in the day, WebKit was quite popular as a rendering engine and is also used by Qt.

It started as a fork of Konqueror because it was the highest-quality codebase available, probably because it was open-source from the ground up and written in a higher-level language rather than the l33t h4x0rs at Netscape with their 4 different memory allocators.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#616

Post by _-david-_ »

SimeVidas wrote: post #460
K0nserv wrote: post #153

I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance…

> Engineers from Apple and Mozilla are largely our bastion against Google's harmful proposals for the web. Brave also deserves a mention. As long as Brave exists in its current form, there will be a version of Chromium without Google’s “bad” stuff.

As Chromium adds more and more bad stuff, it will be harder for Brave to patch everything out.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#617

Post by burnte »

pseudalopex wrote: post #475
kevingadd wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the major browser engines can be embedded, the GUI is a separate layer. It's been that way for ages, even IE was this way.

Gecko isn't really embeddable. Except on Android.

Gecko was ALWAYS embedable, it was literally designed that way from day one.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#618

Post by stjohnswarts »

K0nserv wrote: post #153

I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance…

I think firefox and apple are our last voices before google takes over web browser technologies which is a really scary proposition, at least to me.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#619

Post by stjohnswarts »

joecool1029 wrote: post #431
defaultname wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of modern feature support? This is beyond parody. "What point are you trying to make here? iOS users have no choice but to use Safari." Android users use the browser on their device -- any browser -- less than iOS users use their browser(s). Read the Google corporate propaganda repeated on here, and other platforms provide a web bliss of PWAs, freed from app subservience. Only, not at all.

>Lack of modern feature support? Can't harass users with notifications. Safari can open a pdf up like a native webpage in a tab. Until one of the Android browsers can do this out of the box (without having to use a ridiculous fork of Firefox so I can install extensions Mozilla doesn't want me to and installing pdf.js extension to use their own project), it will always be the superior browser.

I used to think that I wanted firefox on my iphone (as I use it everywhere else) but I'm happy they are helping to keep google at bay. I have to say a lot of developers don't understand that they aren't the center of the universe and I don't really care if supporting safari based browsers is still a must and makes their lives a bit harder. It's rough for all of us out of here, as an embedded developer I have to work around proprietary crap all the time and yet I've been doing it for almost 2 decades and I'm still okay mentally and physically and they will be too.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#620

Post by stjohnswarts »

_-david-_ wrote: post #616
SimeVidas wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers from Apple and Mozilla are largely our bastion against Google's harmful proposals for the web. Brave also deserves a mention. As long as Brave exists in its current form, there will be a version of Chromium without Google’s “bad” stuff.

As Chromium adds more and more bad stuff, it will be harder for Brave to patch everything out.

I suspect they'll eventually just remove capabilities entirely that allow ad blocking and brave will have to completely rewrite it and shoehorn it in.
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