Spyke

I am tempted to start using the [@Vivaldi](https://social.vivaldi.net/@Vivaldi) browser but then I looked\* at the diversity in the underlying technology and I think it is better to promote and start

I am tempted to start using the @Vivaldi browser but then I looked* at the diversity in the underlying technology and I think it is better to promote and start using @firefox :firefox: more.

Or should we leave it to #Google :omya_google: and #Apple :apple_inc: only❓

I'm curious 😅 @Vivaldi why not use SpiderMonkey and Gecko❓

*Table was created with the help of #Bard

#OpenSource #browser #w3c #codinglife

View original on fosstodon.org
lemmy.world

Firefox + uBlock Origin is the only thing that makes mobile browsing tolerable. Ads are so bad, and web design so poor, that even if you're someone who is usually ok with advertising you'll often find that sites are literally broken if you allow them to render.

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Kyiroreply
lemm.ee

You can use Cromite (Bromite fork) or Kiwi Browser as well if you're on Android

-4
lemmy.world

I believe those are both Chromium, right? I'm suspicious that when manifest v2 support ends in Chromium it will kill ad blockers across the Chromium market.

3

Cromite uses some built-in adblocker based off ABP and doesn't have extensions

0

Safari isn't open source but there's Gnome Web.
It's built on the open source WebKit engine.
also yeah you made a mistake there. webkit is in fact foss.

18
discuss.tchncs.de

Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi are not open source. Chromium is open source but all those browsers add additional proprietary functionality on top.

Edit: I read the table wrong. The open source columns seem to be about their left column. Still, I find the table to be misleading. Especially since almost all browsers use an open source engine, except Safari. Imo it's more important whether the actual browser is open source. Which boils down to Firefox and Tor and Brave as far as I know.

9

The term open source includes the right to modify and distribute source code. Only being able to audit code is called source available.

https://opensource.org/osd/

Yes, Vivaldi is certainly not as closed as Chrome and is privacy respecting while Edge is the opposite. But if we're strictly talking about open source they aren't there. If they'd change the license to an open source one I'd probably given it a go a few years ago. Only being source available stopped me.

2
lemmy.ca

were opera is open source lmao

most of that list is not opensource, only firefox, everything has just chromium as opensource, what don't change anything because the company can put the same crappy on top of chromium

7

I mean the list never said that the browser is opensource. The opensource column is for the respective technology to the left of it. So it describes if the js and browser engines are opensource.

3

I used to use Opera back when they had their own JavaScript and rendering engine, then bailed and switched back to Firefox when they became a chromium clone.

4

You can use Floorp, which is a soft fork of Firefox with Vivaldi features

3

That's a weird chart in the thumbnail.

Almost all of the common chromium based browsers, but only mainline firefox.

Anyway, it's definitely a good thing to use more than just the chrome based browsers for the exact reason you said.

However, vivaldi is a decent choice for when you need to. Yeah, their ui isn't open source, but it really doesn't matter in real world use. The only other option for me is ungoogled chromium, and cromite on android.

On android, my main browser is mull, with Iibrewolf on PC. I can't say any non chromium browsers are perfect on android, but mull is plenty fast and does everything you want it to do, and doesn't do what you don't want.

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Kyiroreply
lemm.ee

I think it's years off until it's usable though. Their current focus is on embedded devices iirc because no engine does that well

5

We had that monopoly thing with ie already and it was marvelous when, for a short time, you developed for a perfect score with the acid test.

2

Does Firefox on Android still have whatever supposed flaw the graphene os team said it has? Their own chromium based browser is very lacking in the UX department. Very thumb crampy button layout. They also recommended bromite which is dead. There is cromite which is a fork but it largely has the same issues. I use Firefox on PC, and literally everything else is entirely untrustworthy. The goog has created a pretty lousy situation for the internet where everyone proudly simps for their favourite shitty chrome clones that take advantage of their users.

1

FYI https://privacytests.org/ gives a good browser privacy comparison. No affiliation and don't know how correct the data is.

After that project was started, the author started working for Brave.

The data and tests seem good, but some aspects of the methodology are opinionated. For example, browsers are tested in their out of the box configuration, not in a configuration that a reasonably privacy-conscious user would select with a couple of clicks. Thus, a browser dedicated to blocking tracking (like Brave) gets a lot more checkmarks than a general audience browser like Firefox.

LibreWolf is essentially Firefox with all those privacy features pre-enabled.

3

Technically only Firefox is fully open source, the rest of the list has a lot of proprietary bits (for example all of the UI, or the account system) that don't allow you to compile your own browser

1
mstdn.social

@dmenis @Vivaldi @[email protected] from my experience, @Firefox is very good and honestly, the option to customize your browser clean and choose specific settings/changes that Firefox gives you helps your #Privacy. Other things like @brave are there too. I think brave is based on Firefox. In my opinion, we should not wait for google and apple to hope they would do a Browser which has #OpenSource engines, with many add ons or other things and is private friendly. So, stay more with Firefox. #privacy ftw.

-1

Brave is based on Chromium, not Firefox.

There are Firefox derivatives, but most "alternative" browsers are based on Chromium.

3

@Senshiro

And I still want something that is not in any browser, so I did not add them to this list (and it is also difficult to formulate them because I only remember them when they can be useful)

Basically, Opera and Vivaldi are suitable for points 2-5 (and even for the first point, Vivaldi is suitable, but partially). But they are all closed source and therefore not suitable. So I have to work on Firefox

2/?

@dmenis @Vivaldi @[email protected] @[email protected] @brave

1