this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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I actually wonder about that. So Firefox is seemingly becoming more corpo in their approach. Their home tab now has random adverts and suggested sites that I should visit. I guess the general vibe that I'm getting is "sleek, polished", which triggers some latent suspicion about the way they are headed. As many people, I keep returning to Firefox every year or so, just to see whether it can be transitioned to. Maybe that's why it's so jarring.
I am also worried that "Firefox is the only real alternative" is not a healthy state of things. We get Chromium flavors, high maintenance nonsense, and Firefox.
You can use forks if you want, but you can also turn that stuff off altogether.
Most famously TOR is a Firefox fork.
Yes, Chromium flavours vs Firefox flavours is not healthy.
It's less unhealthy than a defacto Google monopoly though.
It's impossible to build a new web browser... At least until someone proves otherwise.
Andreas Kling is proving otherwise!
My estimate (source: sounds good in my head) is you'd need a dozen or so browser experts working full time for years to build a browser capable of rendering most modern "web-app" style websites.
The core specs have a lot of integration tests (one of the shittier ones written by yours truly!), and most of the specs are pretty readable for experts (I hate the CSS Device Adaptation Module Level 1 spec though).
There's just a lot of it and a lot of subtle interactions which is where the time would go.
If you were foolish enough to set many millions of dollars on fire* to do this you'd end up with a browser lacking in key non-core-spec areas too. Off the top of my head: print layout, security, JIT performance, HTTP2 / HTTP3, general browser performance, UI polish, PDF rendering, mobile version, plugins, and DRM "support" (good luck getting the DRM gatekeepers to let you bundle that stuff with your browser). Add some more years for all of that.
* and/or smart enough to make it an open source project and convince people to do it for free, see the other commenter's link to Ladybird below
This appears to be a good excuse to hate on CSS Device Adaptation Module Level 1, let me quote from it so you understand the great sorrow I had when I needed to understand it:
...
...
Me and my mate had to come up with some fake policies for a fake Pirate Party and one of our policies was that the Irish government should commission a new internet browser. After all, the current bunch have a massive budget surplus that they want to get rid of before Sinn Féin get in.
you know what the solution to this is. gotta reset the web from scratch.
I'll watch its career with great interest, thank you for the link!
Well, you do get Firefox flavours. There are a ton of forks available, many which are very privacy-centric, such as Fennec or Mull on mobile.
There have been a few bad signs over the years.
Most striking was the "Looking Glass" plugin. This was a Mr. Robot (popular TV show at the time) promotional plugin that would alter the behavior of a few tie-in websites as part of an ARG. Besides that it was "harmless", though had a vague description rather than saying what it was.
It was pushed by default to users using their user study framework. It was launched quietly enough and without going through the normal process. Even a lot of firefox devs didn't realize it until the press blew up.
And one of the responses to the push back was:
Despite Firefox leadership and marketing being the ones who were confused about the proper way to use their own user study framework, or avoid launching bad changes.
Aside: Mozilla also only just stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations in 2022, despite ostensibly caring about the environment and the internet.
Overall Firefox is still pretty good, despite being under-invested in by Mozilla, but if you use it you should recommend that at the end of the day there's a lot of corporate influence in it right now.