And what is it with “privacy focused” Chromium based browsers and weird crypto stuff? It’s just so weird…
Another example:
It’s probably that a lot of cryptobros are interested in privacy and are anti-big tech.
brave is out of the game just purely because it allows no distro specific builds.
Check out the Mullvad browser:
Isn’t that based on Firefox esr?
1 Like
Oops, my mistake–for some reason I thought it was a Chromium-based browser.
2 Likes
Thanks, going to try it out.
Brave likely has the biggest war chest/bank accounts and employees devoted to the privacy effort. So Brave is driving the pace of browser privacy, I’m ok with that. They can likely innovate faster.
The source code is on github and it has a Mozilla Public License. It should build in a few hours if you have a decent machine.
Given that Brave is a commercial entity, distros likely choose not to promote it that I am aware of.
I know some distros just do Chromium and Firefox; all others are user contributions or third party.
Yeah, building is always possible, but actively be against disto specific builds (this is done by brave, not the distros) directly put them on the “Don’t” list. And all there “money” goes to crypto stuff - the use their “privacy” as selling argument for their crypto bloat stuff. And remember this and that and you have a company that is shady. No shadyness on my Workstation, sorry not sorry.
The company which sponsors the browser tests passes every test somehow–and mysteriously is the only Chromium-based browser to do so (or even come close, for that matter)–and you are not the least bit suspicious of that? 
To me it looks like they have their thumb on the scale. Either the browser is tailored to the test or the test is tailored to the browser. Honesty, now that I know they are publishing this content themselves it just looks like an ad!
I hate to be so cynical, but I would have a hard time swallowing this one even if it came from a company I actually trusted. Considering fact that they have such a shady history to begin with, I think it is pretty naive to take their word for it on this one.
2 Likes
true. I am still mind-boggled by the fact that no one in the coding industry is tackling this matter seriously as they should, by creating a real alternative to Google/Mozilla engines.
I fully understand that it would be a thankless endeavour, as the large majority of the population is completely unaware of what goes on behind the scenes, thus probably leading to little to no funding, but certainly the direction “the web” is marching toward is doomed.
If you created a brand new browser from scratch, no website would be optimised for it and it would deliver a terrible experience. Users would either try it once and say “never again” or be discouraged altogether by bad reviews. It’s not that privacy browser developers are lazy - they’re simply focusing their attention on areas where they’re likely to add meaningful value (although in Brave’s case this apparently includes crypto bullshit).
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
as I said, I am fully aware that it is a thankless endeavour, but indispensable nonetheless.
Stop caring, start building.
1 Like
Because to actually build a browser and a new engine is a massive undertaking.
It probably isn’t something that is going to happen organically from the open source community. Most attempts to do so have either failed or have never been interesting enough to gain real traction.
Realistically, building a new complete new browser from scratch that could compete with Chrome and Firefox would require some significant funding.
1 Like
A brand new browser engine would require buy in from web developers - which is honestly never going to happen. Realistically, any new browser has to be a fork of Firefox or Chromium because these browsers currently render websites well. You can already see that some websites do not load as well on Firefox as they do on Chromium. This isn’t entirely the fault of Firefox developers - part of the blame lies on web developers for neglecting to do sufficient testing on Firefox.
This wasn’t as much of a problem in the early-to-mid 2000s because websites were much simpler and lighter back then.
again, I am fully aware of that, and by fully I mean fully, not some random unsubstantiated claim but a professional statement. For the sake of brevity, my points are mainly two:
- complaining about a problem won’t solve it, people have to act
- people have gathered mind-blowing amounts of money to fund trivial projects, it is not impossible to fund this
Investigate what project Tim Berners Lee is currently working on, it may spark your curiosity.
Funding is not the only issue. I’d imagine it would be easier to convince enough people to donate €5-10 to make it work financially than to get web developers on board with it. The second issue is the most important one.
In this modern age, it’s not an easy task to stay hidden. It takes a lot of work. If some think using a VPN + some browser makes you invisible that person really doesn’t know how other ways our web traffic can be tracked.
I see some are against Brave. Well, I say it’s totally personal choice. I used to not trust Brave but after testing and using it I find it much better than most browsers out there. If that’s not your cup of tea there’s UGC (ungoogled Chromium). Or many other variants of Firefox. And I’m not expecting many to agree with me either.
I read asking why no one from the IT industry interested in making another engine. We don’t do that or in other words, we don’t behave like that. By the word “we” I meant people in the “coding industry”.
Let me take an example we all know and use. The Linux Kernel, if you read the history of the kernel to be (WiKi page here) most of you would understand how IT people work. We will create something if there is no good solution to fix the problem or fill the gap. If there is one we are not going to reinvent the wheel. We will help and contribute to it to make it better. Even in the article I linked the same thing is said.
These factors and the lack of a widely adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for Torvalds’ starting his project. He has stated that if either the GNU Hurd or 386BSD kernels had been available at the time, he likely would not have written his own.
So, if there are web engines that can do almost everything and they’re developed regularly bug fixed and maintained then we are not going to reinvent that. As many have said it’s not an easy thing to undertake and no one entity can build an entire web engine ground up without good funding, community support, and most importantly widespread adaptation.
There are few engines in the wild but there are only 3 that still going and widely adopted. Here is another article that shows what engines are in the wild.
In that list, there is a fully open-source engine “Goanna”. But it’s not widely adopted and not that famous so no one in the web industry would take their time to create a web application or a site to support that.
Even a company that would create a browser will adopt an existing engine rather than building its own. Mainly it’s cost effective, less work, and saves time. And if the engine is not adopted then it is useless in the industry.
Because of these reasons, no one is going to take on such a mammoth task.
2 Likes
Just found this browser today. My give it a try later today.
3 Likes