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Comment by spideymans | Hacker News Reader

This is precisely why I'm so disappointed in Microsoft for choosing Chromium for Edge. This only gives Google more power to run roughshod over user privacy. I would've much rather seen them adapt WebKit or Gecko for Edge. Chromium doesn't need to be any more powerful.

At least will still have Firefox and WebKit to prevent Google from having total reign over user piracy on the web.

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I'm a fan of Microsofts open-source efforts around .NET Core and a former .NET dev (I'm mentioning this to make clear I don't have the standard anti-MS slant found on OSS forums).

Having said that - MS seems exactly the same or worse on privacy issues, they just suck at executing with their services so they don't get as much traffic and aren't in the spotlight. I don't really follow the logic - if I was interested in privacy I would probably avoid Microsoft just as much as Google.

And Microsoft working on Chromium/Blink just gives more credibility to it being an OSS project - they've made substantial contributions and probably have a team working on it - if Google decides to close off the development - Microsoft has the resources to continue development.

The danger from a dearth of independent implementations revolves mostly around programming errors; i.e. if everyone uses Chromium code, and it has a bug with some particular CSS property, it will inevitably become web standard behavior anyway since content will be written to rely upon the bug. (See also: Adobe Flash)

It does not foreclose downstream Chromium users' ability to strip out or restrict features they believe to be harmful to user privacy; as all the code is provided under a variety of Free licenses that are specifically designed to allow removing unwanted functionality.

Privacy is as much about adding features as removing them. Rewriting APIs that no one else have the manpower to reimplement and update for decades is a bigger problem than adding privacy invasive features. Google could easily make changes big enough that it would break for example Brave's ability to add the features it wants. Like a new API that cannot be used by adblockers as effective as the old one..

>Privacy is as much about adding features as removing them

This is a perspective that's often missing from discussions surrounding web APIs. These APIs aren't just about what cool new things legitimate developers can do with them. They're also about what they'll enable bad actors to do. APIs must be designed defensively, otherwise we risk users feeling [even more] unsafe on the web.

This move by Microsoft is kind of like Intel going to TSMC, which from a consumer point of view sounds promising, however, where I have problem is that I cannot download Edge source and compile it myself. I think this way this would mean we could have privacy focused forks that work well with the OS. Other problem I have is that this way Microsoft appropriated huge amount of work without paying a penny to the developers. I would have looked at it differently if they paid salaries and bonuses to contributors for several years. Microsoft wants to have the cool opensource kid badge, without paying fair share. That stinks.

1. Doesn't the license allow for this?

2. Doesn't the same apply to every other Chromium based browser/application? All Election apps, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, etc?

It kind of reminds me of a situation where you want to help community on a hot day and put several 24 packs of bottles of cold water in your front yard with a card "free for everyone", and then watching like a shop owner comes with his truck and grabs all water and then go sell it in his store. The spirit of open source used to be that enthusiasts built software out of passion to help themselves and others. If a contributor was given a choice - 1. Spend several years using up your free time, sacrificing contact with family, other hobbies to build this software and then have a multi billion company grab your software, badge it with their logo and make billions of off your hard work without giving you anything back, maybe a footnote and pat on the back. You spent your best hours on writing every single line, but you will never get to sip champagne. Or forget about open source and focus your mind on achieving something meaningful for yourself. I feel that many big companies spread this propaganda how great open source is and what an achievement is to contribute, where the main goal is to exploit people and obtain free IP without paying salaries and taxes. The badges on Github remind me of this short movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXIdmW4Hau0 picture soldiers as open source developers.

Its a common trend to use permissive licenses on your own code, and its understandable to do so as good will. But given the described problem, one might be better off with copyleft clauses and other restrictions in order to reduce abuse from big corp.

Zero dollars is a "fair share". You cannot have free and open and then complain about someone not paying.

>At least will still have Firefox and WebKit to prevent Google from having total reign over user piracy on the web.

Google pays mozillas bills. Right now there is no major browser that is free from googles influence.

We have lost the www.

Firefox doesn't care about your privacy. They implemented the same bloated information-leaking APIs like AudioContext that Google did. These APIs are used almost exclusively for tracking.

Coupled with their recent pro-deplatforming stance, Firefox's death will accelerate and it's a good thing. Mozilla has been consumed by greed (Google deal), incompetence (Firefox mobile) and politics ('deplatform our ideological enemies' blogpost).

It's not that black and white. Without APIs people would complain about bad support. Without the Google deal Mozilla would no longer exist. And really, all it is is one little setting you can change once and for all after you install it.

Just to be clear, there is no valid reason for AudioContext to leak audio latency information without the user's permission. It is used almost exclusively for ad tracking and fingerprinting.

On sites that do not ever play audio, the browser leaks sensitive highly personalized audio information to any ad network that wants it. That's not a 'feature', it's a spyware backdoor for ad networks.

Even if Mozilla/Firefox dies I'd like to believe its spirit and rendering engine will live on in forks. Maybe we'll have another successor to Firefox as Firefox was to Netscape.

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