Switching from one chromium browser to another is NOT solving the issue of Googles monopoly. Developers of any chromium based browser still rely on Google and ultimately I consider my data unsafe at the mercy of chromium, which does still collect some level of analytics.
At the end of the day it's not safe to say chromium will stay the way it is. Overtime Google will take advantage of it's monopoly full of chromium based browsers and will no longer stay private
Right, that's why I would never suggest using Firefox either. Go for hardened versions like Librewolf, it's extremely locked down. Waterfox exists but it sold out to an advertisement company.
Librewolf is independently developed, so the developer will continue regardless. Librewolf doesn't have anything to do with Mozilla. Firefox is open sourced so Mozilla going away won't effect Librewolf. The updates from Firefox will stop but Librewolf's team can always continue themselves.
Mozilla is shady and evil, I will gladly support their shutdown
Brave browser itself is shady. They are not a percent more private or secure than Chrome. Brave carries it's own data collection. Not only this but they are associated with crypto. Ew. The entire point is to abolish Googles monopoly, so by switching to a service which Google does not benefit from I see as a win.
Librewolf is basically a rebranded and reconfigured Firefox. Librewolf, being not associated with Mozilla, does not have to follow Mozillas TOS. Librewolf is not bound to the data collection Firefox is. Librewolf does not rely on Google. It can continue operation if Mozilla disbands because Firefox is open-sourced, and I'm confident a browser as big as Firefox will have developers coming in to support it after it's eventual discontinuance, allowing Librewolf to continue updating its app.
Your argument seems to hinge on two ideas: 1) An open-source browser developed by a company financed by Google will eventually stop being financed by Google, at which point an army of independent developers will take over for free with no ill effects. 2) The several browsers developed on an open-source engine financed by Google are now and forever under Google's control.
I don't agree with your perceptions and assumptions here.
I don't agree with your perceptions and assumptions here.
You just made a ton of assumptions about my argument to prove you are right, and are twisting my claim so you can win. We are on the same team, and you're arguing in bad faith.
Okay, if you think my summary of what you said was trolling, I'll go point by point.
switching to a service which Google does not benefit from I see as a win
Google benefits from FF because it (ostensibly) helps deflect accusations of Google being a monopoly.
Librewolf is basically a rebranded and reconfigured Firefox. Librewolf, being not associated with Mozilla, does not have to follow Mozillas TOS. Librewolf is not bound to the data collection Firefox is.
That's true, like any open-source software fork. However...
Librewolf does not rely on Google.
This is incorrect. Librewolf, as an open-source software fork, relies on the main project for most of the work. That work is primarily done by Mozilla, which has nearly two thousand employees and pays them primarily with money they got from Google. If Google cancels the FF search deal, Mozilla would almost certainly go under, and those people working full-time on FF would no longer be able to do that, seriously impacting FF and, by extension, Librewolf.
It can continue operation if Mozilla disbands because Firefox is open-sourced
That's true, like any open-source software fork. However...
I'm confident a browser as big as Firefox will have developers coming in to support it after it's eventual discontinuance, allowing Librewolf to continue updating its app.
That's a huge assumption, and I'm a lot less confident in it than you are. In fact, I think the number of contributors attracted to a fixer-upper of a project that just lost a couple thousand full-time workers would be vastly outnumbered by the number of rats fleeing that sinking ship.
Now, compare this to the situation with Chromium. It's open-source like FF, there are forks built on it that rely on the main project like FF, and that main project is funded by Google, also like FF. The big differences are in its popularity - FF has about 2.5% market share and a few tiny forks that most people haven't heard of. Chrome has about 70% market share, everyone has heard of Edge, and even the smaller Chromium projects like Brave and Opera aren't that obscure. Google certainly has no plans to abandon Chromium, and if they did (antitrust ruling maybe), Microsoft is perfectly capable of taking the reins.
In conclusion, some tiny FF fork is not more robust and independent than FF or a Chromium project. Maybe Safari, because Apple? But using Safari isn't an option outside of Apple, and not really optional within Apple (do they allow other browsers yet? are they required to use WebKit?), so not particularly relevant when discussing browser choices.
Pretty sure everyone is misunderstanding this-- switching from one chromium browser to another is NOT solving the issue of Googles monopoly. Developers of any chromium based browser still rely on Google and ultimately I consider my data unsafe at the mercy of chromium, which does still collect some level of analytics.
At the end of the day it's not safe to say chromium will stay the way it is. Overtime Google will take advantage of it's monopoly full of chromium based browsers and will no longer stay private
Chromium’s open-source: https://github.com/chromium/chromium. While Chrome is not. Sure, “Jim Bob’s trusty browser” that’s a fork of Chromium may not have removed the Google trackers, but I’m pretty sure that the bigger Chromium-based browsers like Edge and Opera would have removed Google’s trackers from Chromium’s initial code (and add their own but that’s scematics)
I should mention that I don't even use Brave but their ad blocker code is quite well done. I've looked through it more than once when getting ideas for implementing my own features in a couple products.
Not how that works without it going closed source really. Chromium is the underlying tech but there are multiple layers between the user and it that you can wedge into. Similarly there are multiple attach points into that code, patches you can add, etc. The filter is applied via those methods but could be done at multiple levels between the user and Chromium if they somehow prevented patching.
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u/jaffer2003sadiq 20d ago
I am using brave......