Discussion
If the independent, non-slop web has any future at all, then now must be the time for every firefox fork to commit to working together to maintain a hardfork isolated from Mozilla.
It's a project that is too large to be handled by any small project alone (and maybe even all of them combined), but one that is too important to left under the guidance of an organization like Mozilla.
Without such bold co-operation I fear we have already lost.
@sarahjamielewis Given the size of the many projects (tiny) and the fact that they've effectively been burning otherwise-useful energy duplicating each other's efforts, maybe this isn't as "bold" an idea as it seems. Do you happen to have a plan (where people can help, I mean, not WELL DO YOU?) for putting friendly pressure on the various derivative projects? Because this could plausibly be as easy as nagging and making some introductions (after making friends to introduce).
@sarahjamielewis LibreWolf is a great browser and a privacy-hardened fork of Firefox.
@sarahjamielewis for me Mozilla already killed the project, it's too much tinted in the normal person mind.
our only hope is "servo / ladybird" who don't have this bad press following them everywhere they go.
@sarahjamielewis Servo.
Probably needs new blood, plenty of "pragmatic" devs there to wedge in LLM contributions but also plenty who would not want that.
In general, the project just needs hours put in for feature parity with competitors. It's not horribly far from that goal but still a lot to do and main thing is more hands / eyeballs so that mistakes by individuals don't go uncaught.
@sarahjamielewis Will people pay the developers / maintainers for that? Have you done any research to determine a pricing model? See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Westendorp%27s_Price_Sensitivity_Meter
You (and Mozilla) are competing with large businesses like Google, Microsoft and Apple, who have the cash flow to provide free browsers.
@AlgoCompSynth my entire argument is predicated around the fact that these browsers already exist (and thus each has their own reasons and research and funding model for existing) and are committed to providing something different from Mozilla and are already expending a lot of effort to undo the damage the Mozilla is introducing into the ecosystem.
And that it might be better to refocus that effort for the common benefit of each project (because it will only become more burdensome)
@sarahjamielewis as of, say, 45 minutes ago, Firefox stable Flatpak on Linux is the least bad browser for me. I'd prefer the developer edition but I can't seem to find a coherent install process for Bluefin "Dakota".
@sarahjamielewis does LibreWolf not count? I thought it was a fork. It's entirely possible I don't know what a hard fork is.
@sarahjamielewis it might be interesting to look at @palemoon as they have experience with a hard fork.
@sarahjamielewis We can also allow the web to die and use the #geminiprotocol instead, allowing browser be written from scratch in a weekend.
I have explored this path, I am not opposed https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/112928301142039640
@sarahjamielewis configuring slightly better/worse default settings or making code changes to the UI are not the skills you need to maintain a hardfork of such a complex piece of software
@mkljczk some of these soft forks (like base browser/tor) are maintaining and rebasing thousands of lines of patchsets on top of upstream every release
@sarahjamielewis except they aren’t really forks, are they? They’re at best cosmetic rebrands. Not to be a killjoy but an actual fork of Firefox involves taking on the Gecko and Spidermonkey engines which are both *insanely* complicated.
Some are just packaged configs but there are a fair number like Tor browser (and base browser from which it is derived - see the rest of the thread) that are indeed forks maintaining complex patchsets over all parts of the browser - work that is resource intensive and becoming more difficult over time as the patchsets become larger, and the need to reject more and more from upstream becomes apparent.
@sarahjamielewis what browser are you using/do you suggest? I was holding on to firefox as a miniscule leader in maintaining browser diversification across the web. I've never felt the need to have tor in my threat model and with Mullvads fall from grace, that doesn't seem like an option.
I could see the importance of converging the many firefox forks, but I guess ya whats the stop gap.
@sarahjamielewis Instead of continuing the train wreck that is the former Netscape Navigator, I would appreciate a functional formally verified implementation. I'm very certain that maintenance of an implementation in dependent types (while requiring categorical knowledge) would turn out to be much, much less of a burden in the end.
Mozilla and, by extension, Firefox have laid out the direction they want to go - and have consistently moved in that direction. There is no redemption arc there, they are not going to turn the ship around - and every week and month that goes by, Firefox gains more slop and drifts further from the visions that founded it.
Projects like Tor Browser and Waterfox are painstakingly disabling / patching out the worst - but every release becomes more expensive, and things do slip through.
@sarahjamielewis
> I fear we have already lost
I tend to think we already have. What's needed is an independent browser not based on Gecko, Blink, or WebKit. I was initially excited about Ladybird, but they turned out to have weird right-wing leanings. So I'm just back to despair (which would be a fun name for a new browser engine...)
It's all about @servo now.
@MegaMichelle @jbowen @sarahjamielewis @servo It definitely makes sense to build an all new codebase instead of forking an existing one while the new one matures. 🙄
What are we supposed to do until Servo is ready?
@sarahjamielewis I'm pinning an awful lot of hope on Servo, but I don't see anything that guarantees they won't just do the same thing long term. I wish somehow there could be some sort of community project at a Linux sort of scale to make a true FLOSS browser. I guess browsers are so big and complex these days it basically is a Linux-sized project too. *Sigh* That's a problem obviously.
An uninformed plan:
- Take Tor's base Browser, the one they use as a branding-neutral base (very clever name) for the privacy-focused soft forks Tor Browser and Mullvad Browser (i know, i know - but they already paid for the work, so some good might as well come out of it)
- Rebase your soft forks on Base Browser, and benefit from that work
- Form a working group to co-manage base browser
- Hard-fork from firefox as you reject future rebases in favour of privacy and humanity.
@sarahjamielewis Agreed. My browser of choice is Helium, which is a very basic, de-googled, Chromium. No password manager, no additional random “features”, essentially taking Chromium and stripping large parts of it out. That works very well for me.
Something like that, using Firefox’s engine, might work quite well.
@sarahjamielewis
What's your plan to get the DRM approval from Google and Microsoft for your browser?
That's basically what kills most browser projects.
By uninformed I mean that I've been thinking about this path for over a year, and I honestly believe it's the only way forward
But that plan only works if enough soft forks come together and commit to it - it will take serious combined effort (and a lot of community support and funding) to redirect the future of the web.
I still have enough hope and optimism in me to believe that might be possible.
@sarahjamielewis I like the idea except for the part about having to now maintain and fully develop a modern web browser on my own.
Thoroughly disheartening, isn’t it?
What's your opinion on Zen browser?
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