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Comment by jqpabc123 | Hacker News Reader

Chromium is not a good alternative: 95% of Chromium commits come from Google.

Or ... Chromium is the perfect alternative ... as long as it remains open source and privacy invasion can be easily stripped out of it. Let Google fund most of the development of a privacy respecting browser (i.e. Brave).

And if it doesn't remain open source? Then it's time for a fork --- just like it is now with Firefox.

Bottom line: If you reject Chromium, shouldn't you also reject Mozilla/Firefox? Virtually all development over the past decade was funded by Google.

https://eligrey.com/

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Chromium extends Google’s control over the web platform.

Google engineers write specs for new APIs. They get rejected by Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds. Google implements them anyway. Other Chromium-based browsers get these APIs as a result. Then they start popping up on sites showing Safari and Firefox “failing” to implement them. Then web developers ask why Safari and Firefox are so “behind” in implementing “web standards”.

This mechanism is how the web standards process is being subsumed into “whatever Google wants” instead of being a collaborative effort between multiple rendering engines. Google should not be able to unilaterally decide what is and isn’t a web standard.

Chromium is also stripping manifest v2. Firefox isn't. Chromium is open source, but it's not an open source project. It's a Google project.

Exactly. Manifest v2 is the bullet case for why Chromium isn't sufficient. Also, we best not forget their efforts with web integrity

Brave is based on Chromium and it still supports manifest v2.

Brave offers everything Firefox does and more --- like privacy by default (which Firefox could but won't do for obvious reasons) --- all without millions in direct Google payola.

https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/

Brave supports manifest V2 because the Chromium upstream hasn't removed it for enterprise use yet. As soon as that changes, Brave does not have a plan to continue maintaining V2. What you call Google payola is really the independence that allows Mozilla to develop a browser engine that isn't being actively crippled by Google's initiatives. That's the important piece. Brave is not a sustainable play because they have no way to fund a forked version of the chromium browser engine when Google inevitably cripples it to invade our privacy even further.

Safari's extensions had a similar change-over to a ManifestV3-like system, with the same arguments: increases performance (very important for mobile) and puts more safeguards on extensions doing funky privacy-hostile stuff.

Yes, ManifestV3 nerfs adblocking, and Google loves that side effect. It will hamper Brave' internal adblocking engine.

I think the big interesting question is: if Brave figures out how to add improvements to ManifestV3 that aid adblocking without sacrificing performance or privacy/security, will Google accept the PRs?

Brave's internal ad-blocker is custom-made and doesn't depend on manifest v2.

Brave is run by a VC-funded company and will need to show returns eventually. To date, they've tried to make money in a few disappointing ways:

- Replacing ads on pages without owner's intervention, under the guise that they were offering owners a cryptocurrency

- Inserting their own referral codes on websites

- Installing their VPN software on Windows machines without consent

They also introduced a Tor mode into their browser that sent DNS requests unmasked to your ISP. I don't know why you would trust Brave at this point.

Brave doesn't support multi-account containers.

Just make a new profile like all chromium based browser

Can you use accounts just like Firefox containers? E.g. use right click to choose opening a link in a new tab running a different account?

Genuine question from a FF user.

No, it's inferior in every way possible because it's not meant to be used to enforce privacy but to allow multiple users on a same computer to use a same browser without seeing each other history and setting.

For each profile, you would have to install again every extension, set every setting, every bookmark,.. of course no sync between your main profile and others.

Can't right click on link to open them in another profile.

No automatic opening of profiles when you go on a specific url

And so on.

On the other hand, brave will push it's crypto crap, web3 and 'bat coins' everywhere.

It's cheaper to extend v3 with additional features than to maintain another browser engine.

It is. Browser engine diversity is important for a myriad of other reasons, though.

That makes no sense. Define "open source project".

Do you think that in open source there's no ownership?

Firefox is open source, but it's not an open source project. It's a Mozilla project --- effectively totally funded by Google.

*When* Google asks them to remove manifest v2, what do you think they'll do?

> When Google asks them to remove manifest v2, what do you think they'll do?

It’s even more pointless than removing it from Chromium though: Firefox users would just switch to a fork that still supports it, or to a fork that supports blockingWebRequest APIs on v3 extensions, or to a fork that implements some other ad blocking method. With Chromium, they at least have Chrome users, many of whow wouldn’t want to even bother. (Those who do have migrated to forks already)

> Bottom line: If you reject Chromium, shouldn't you also reject Mozilla/Firefox? Virtually all development over the past decade was funded by Google.

This is a non sequitur. Google supplies Mozilla with money, but Mozilla decides how to deploy that money. This is significantly different than Google directing the development of Firefox, which they clearly don't do. They absolutely do direct the development of chromium, however. It makes no sense to trust an advertising company to direct the development of your browser, but not to trust a nonprofit. Conversely, it makes perfect sense to place more trust in a browser developed by a nonprofit, even one funded by an advertiser, over a browser developed by an advertising company. Web attestation and manifest V2 are both examples of exactly why this is the case.

> Let Google fund most of the development of a privacy respecting browser (i.e. Brave).

Why would they do that? (I mean, they wouldn’t stop it in one go, but they sure as hell will try to push users off the web.)

> If you reject Chromium, shouldn't you also reject Mozilla/Firefox? Virtually all development over the past decade was funded by Google.

Which is exactly the problem :-)

If Chromium can live on without Google – I don’t mind it. My primary concern is Firefox, though.

but they sure as hell will try to push users off the web.

???

Google's revenue stream is almost wholly dependent on the web and the privacy invasion it facilitates. Pushing users off the web would be self defeating.

May be… the OP means mobile apps? Apps are easier to instrument with massive data mining and tracking capabilities and the core distributor is also google for at least the Android ecosystem. If you try to sideload or provide OSS apps, generic users will be frightened by google’s mafia banner warnings … “I see you trying to install an app from outside playstore, would be a shame if it had infinite spy and tracking malware, we can’t protect you unless you come over here and only use our apps from playstore…”

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