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Firefox has a lot of issues, but maybe we don't have any other option.
(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Firefox
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I've best heard it described as: people love Firefox to death.
People, use whatever you like, but if you actively discourage everyone to stop using it, we might lose it - and with it, Librewolf, Palemoon, Tor Browser, and everything that's not Chrome or Safari.
Not true.
Navigator died a horrible death, and Phoenix (later Firefox), being a fork of it, survived just fine.
Building a browser was a hugely different (and waaaay smaller) job back then.
But let me know when Servo or Ladybird are viable. Until then, don't burn any bridges.
My point is that none of those forks have to start from scratch if Firefox disappears. One of them will replace it.
As long as a browser is good enough for browsing the net, I'm okay with it.
I don't need, for example, DRM. If half of the web uses it, and a new browser alternative doesn't support it, then fuck it. The other half is still hundreds of millions of web pages for me to consume.
They won't have to start from scratch, but they'll fall behind on webcompatibility and security patches in no time.
I think you're assuming too much.
If Firefox disappears overnight, do you think the devs working for it are just going to sit down and twiddle their thumbs? They'll pick another project and carry on.
There are several examples of this happening. MySQL vs MariaDB, OpenSSL, PDF viewers, hell, even Linux can be included here too.
The issue at hand is not Firefox disappearing overnight. It's the slow decline of the userbase continuing until the ones that do don't bring in enough money to keep paying enough developers.
And no, the devs aren't going to twiddle their thumbs - they're going to take jobs elsewhere. Firefox is still mainly dependent on paid labour.
People could try to start a new company (hopefully another non-profit), but it'll face the same challenges. I hope it would be successful, but I sure as hell won't be counting on it and actively contributing to the demise.
Kinda weird that you focus on the financial side on this site of all places. I thought Lemmy didn't care too much about that.
But regardless. I don't care about the financial side. There are several competing open source browsers and any of them can take the helm.
As soon as there's another spectre level security incident that requires a massive rewrite of the engine, any rendering engine developers with sub 100M budgets are sunk. Frankly 100M is probably being optimistic.
Eh. Like I said... financial shit I don't care about.
Spectre wasn't even Firefox's fault. It was a CPU vulnerability.
In the end, if an open source browser cannot step up, some other will and take its place. I'm okay with that.
You may not care about financial shit, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation. My point is precisely that the financial costs are so prohibitive, that the most likely scenario is that no one will be capable of stepping up long term.
I don't know, man. Look at where big projects are at right now. Blender, Gimp, Linux, Inkscape, KDNLive...
It can happen.
But anyway. The day I can't use a secure, open-source web browser is the day I'll stop web browsing. Just like when I decided to never buy commercial music, go to the movies or buy a Smart TV.
I care about viability. There is no way to keep up a project like Firefox and maintain web compatibility and proper security hygiene by relying on volunteers in today's world. All those competing open source browsers only have the luxury of not caring about the financial side because they're relying on the efforts of organisations that do.
I can understand you, friend. We both want the same thing. Unfortunately, I don't know how to help in that respect, so I'll help in the ways I can - spreading the word and contributing to code if necessary.
That's exactly what I'm calling for - keep up the good work!