What I haven’t seen in the discussions here so far is that Chromium is the web engine that most mobile apps are built on (you don’t build your own special web client to access the server for your app, you just use an existing system for that). Also it’s the engine used for most web apps for embedded/standalone/IoT devices. The Electron application framework has Chromium embedded in it for web access - every Electron app uses Chromium. If your climate control device has a little touchscreen and smart features it’s probably using a web app that runs in an embedded instance of Chromium. Basically any device that has a GUI and links to cloud services is probably doing the same thing.
Bluntly, when it comes to client-side access to web services, Chromium matters more than Firefox, and anything that happens with it is far more impactful because it applies to a broader context than just people using Chrome for regular web browsing.
Chromium really?
After the whole debacle of manifest v3 they’re really choosing Chromium of all browsers to develop on?
Mozilla has made some controversial decisions but surely Firefox would be the better decision for the Linux and FOSS ecosystem.
Even better why not Librewolf?Seeing this news makes me sad as there are better options available and the Linux foundation chose the worst one out of all of them.
- [EFF] Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening
- Tens of thousands of Chrome extensions at risk due to Manifest V3
- Your privacy on Chrome is at risk, here’s what you can do
Ironically I also just saw this here on the fediverse: Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out
Or servo. Literally anything but chrome man.
@[email protected] and @[email protected] thanks for mentioning Servo👍
I didn’t know about that rust-based alternative until now and I agree; even Servo would’ve been a better choice than Chromium.
Linux Foundation is also the host for the Servo project.
Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit it as someone who has left Chromium behind personally, Chromium is kind of the only choice. I think people outside the browser implementation world underestimate the sheer scale and complexity of the modern browser stack and what goes into maintaining compatibility with web standards, much less advancing them.
We’ve reached the point where Chromium is essentially the de-facto web standard because Chromium engineers do the lions’ share of feature testing and development, because Chromium receives the lions’ share of funding.
Igalia, an OSS consultancy that does a lot of fairly-funded independent browser development, has lots of material about this. For example, the recent chat between Igalia members and someone from Open Web Advocacy about what to do if the anitrust ruling against Google jeopardize’s Chromium’s funding, and the options are pretty dire.
Edit: After reading the article, I think this is a really good sign. Bringing together the immediate stakeholders in Chromium’s development and funding bodes well for the possibility of stewarding Chromium in a less Google-dependent, profit-motivated, ad-centric direction. There’s unfortunately a lot of uncertainty about how this will all shake out, but it’s possible that Chromium could become a truly independent project and move back in the direction of user value instead of user-hostile shareholder value.
Unfortunately, as much as I hate to admit it as someone who has left Chromium behind personally, Chromium is kind of the only choice.
With Mozilla’s rudderless stewardship of Firefox, I reluctantly agree with this. Firefox, and Mozilla, used to stand for something more than just a browser, but that is sadly vanishing now. Chrome is really the future and while I’m clinging on to Firefox, I will succumb in the end.
It’s very sad. I’ve been a Firefox user for so long I’ve lost count. But Mozilla has lost it’s way and I don’t see it making any noise about getting back on course.
I think having one browser engine is a very bad idea. But here we are.
We’ve reached the point where Chromium is essentially the de-facto web standard because Chromium engineers do the lions’ share of feature testing and development,
Most of the web standards driven by Chromium are not particularly beneficial to the web, but are beneficial to Google. This is not an accident. It is how Google has made itself gatekeeper of the web while maintaining the facade of an open and standards-compliant browser.
This is not a good thing. Community-focused projects investing time and money into supporting it is a bit like digging one’s own grave.
Source? Like obviously none of us on this platform appreciate manifest v3, but it’s obvious that’s a corporate push, and exactly the thing this new organization might help mitigate.
On the other hand, the Chromium team has been pumping out all kinds of day-to-day platform improvements for the last 5 years at least. I’m thinking of CSS ergonomics and more robust HTML that make web devs less JS-dependent. The kinds of down-in-the-weeds work that gave us CSS grid, all the useful new CSS pseudoselectors, the command attribute for buttons, etc. etc.
I’m not a web maximalist, and I would love to see a simpler web/browser prosper, but I just don’t think it’s realistic.
Would you think that maybe the feature set implemented by modern web browsers has grown too large? Perhaps we need to start dropping some features to keep the web browser design lean.
I think anyone is welcome to try this, but the core ethos of the web is backwards compatibility. To my unending irritation, even non-standard behaviors/APIs like WebUSB have become critical for sites to function.
The last time we actually dropped a feature, it was Flash, and that took a decade and there is still tons of effectively dead/permanently lost content because of it.
Creating a browser that only implements a subset of the standards is fine for very niche usecases but I don’t expect it to ever overtake the major browsers. We’ll see how Ladybird fares as it’s compatibility increases.
I’d rather drop some of the more modern features like WebGL, WASM, and AI. A lot of this crap needs to be plugins instead of built into the browser.
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With webassembly and webgl, why do browsers need to evolve? If you want some feature the browser doesn’t provide, just make it yourself and draw it onto the canvas. x86 assembly gets occasional performance improving instructions but fundamally it’s existed for 50 years and can continue to support all modern programs. X11 survived for 40 years before any talk of a replacement really appeared. Why can’t Chrome be maintenance only for 40 years and let apps and websites innovate on top of its primitives?
The article explains some of the background to chromium which I hadn’t known.
Google’s Chrome is a freeware release with deeper ties to Google’s ecosystem, while Chromium, released at the same time as Chrome in 2008, is open source. Google has slowly loosened its de facto control of the project, particularly since 2020, allowing outside developers into its leadership, softening its stance on non-Google-derived features and opening up its “Goma” development scheme for Chromium, as detailed by CNET in 2020.
Call me when they give Google the finger and start rolling back user-unfriendly changes. Until then it’s larping.
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In what sense are they “siding” with the corporations? If anything, this seems like a step in the right direction, to add some modicum of open governance to the Chromium project in a fashion that is clearly not corpo-dominated.
Also, it’s not like this is the Linux Foundation saying “we only support Chromium”, after all they also run the Servo project.
I’m very wary of it but It could have some potential thinking that the anti-monopoly action is pending.
