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Comment by blitblitblit | Hacker News Reader

You can paint lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Wish there were other browser engines besides the Chromium monopoly.

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Ubuntu is the pig wearing lipstick, Mint has evolved into the wild boar that still has some lipstick. Use Debian if you are allergic to that sort of nonsense.

Can you elaborate on that? I personally think Mint is a fine distro, which made the sane decision to abandon snaps when Ubuntu was pushing it.

Actually, except for Firefox, everything pretty much is Chromium under the hood these days.

The vast majority of game console are also webkit ! (With its fair share of exploits to be honest)

Gaming consoles with WebKit: Switch, PS4, iPhone/iPad (if you count), PS5(not confirmed but should be)

Gaming consoles with Blink: Many Android devices (including phones/tablets if you count, and console-like devices like Oculus Quest), Xbox Series X/S (Maybe? Fun to see.)

Did... did you forget about mobile? iOS is WebKit, as is the default browser on the Mac.

Why? What is the benefit to having more?

I just wish there were other browser applications based on Chrome/Chromium. The rendering engine having been written by Google doesn’t inherently bother me, but the lame browser app does. It’s missing features that I want, keeps removing features that I use, and constantly adds features I will never use.

Google effectively controls the engine's development, and additionally effectively controls the web standardization process (de facto or de jure). This is bad for obvious reasons. It would be neat if there was another browser not effectively run by Google. Being open-source is nice, but who writes the commits? Who controls the direction? Mostly Googlers. Sure, others contribute, but the project is obviously steered by Google. Having most of the user experience/stack of the Web controlled by one company is called a monoculture and it isn't good.

> This is bad for obvious reasons.

Those reasons are not obvious to me.

Google is incentivised to twist the web to their benefit, not everybody's. Any profit driven entity is. That's why a Google browser monoculture is bad.

Do you understand?

No, because browser is open source and can be forked or modified by anyone should Google do something that threatens the web.

AMP, for example, has nothing to do with their control of Chrome.

i'm in the same boat. I want differentiated products on an open source engine, which is what Chrom(e)ium mostly is. Multiple engines seems to me like having half a dozen types of roads only 20% of cars can drive on.

I want open infrastructure, not fractured infrastructure.

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