Mozilla is ~83% funded by Google. That’s right- the maker of the dominant Chrome browser is mostly behind its own noteworthy “competitor”. When Google holds that much influence over Mozilla, I call it a false duopoly because consumers are duped into thinking the two are strongly competing with each other. In Mozilla’s effort to please Google and to a lesser extent the end users, it often gets caught pulling anti-user shenanigans. Users accept it because they see Firefox as the lesser of evils.
Even if it were a true duopoly, it would be insufficient anyway. For a tool that is so central to the UX of billions of people, there should be many more competitors.
public option
Every notable government has an online presence where they distribute information to the public. Yet they leave it to the public to come up with their own browser which may or may not be compatible with the public web service. In principle, if a government is going to distribute content to the public, they also have a duty to equip the public to be able to consume the content. Telling people to come up with their own private sector tools to reach the public sector is a bit off. It would be like telling citizens they can receive information about legislation that passes if they buy a private subscription to the Washington Post. The government should produce their own open source browser which adheres to open public standards and which all the gov websites are tested with.
I propose Italy
Italy is perhaps the only country in the world to have a “public money → public code” law, whereby any software development effort that is financed by the gov must be open source. So IMO Italy should develop a browser to be used to access websites of the Italian gov. Italy can save us from the false duopoly from Google.
For a time, konqueror was a thing. Khtml was even used as the basis for safari and WebKit, and later Chrome. Could always reinvigorate that project.
The reason why firefox and chrome work so well, is that they literally have been in development for over a decade. In Firefox’s case, it’s actually over two decades now.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not support some currently existing alternative browsers that look promising? You have servo, you have webkit, and you even have a ladybird now. That’s three potential browsers.
All three are under somewhat active development. Servo, in my opinion, looking the most promising, that shares a lot of dependencies with Firefox still, which means maintenance cost is not super high. It’s easy to hack on, and of course it’s rust.
who doesnt love rustThe reason why firefox and chrome work so well, is that they literally have been in development for over a decade.
How can you say they work well?
Basic functionality is still crippled. For example, when images are disabled in Chrome, animated GIFs are still downloaded and played. Chrome does not even have the option to disable animations. When both images & animations are disabled in Firefox, animated GIFs are also still downloaded (wasting the credit of those on fixed bandwidth plans and thus defeating the purpose for those who would use the feature)… but they are simply not played automatically. Great.
These are not just bugs… these are the sort of blunt stark defects that do not reflect the quality of mature projects. I mean shit, still today cannot disable animations in Chrome despite bug report 14 years ago. WTF. That is not “working well” when it can’t do something that basic.
I never said they worked perfect. The fact that they work at all is a goddamn miracle. Have you ever read some of the specs for all the things they have to support? It’s absolutely absurd.
Them working good is relative to literally anything else. I could go on for list for days about issues on almost anything. Linux, Windows, OSX, Gnome, KDE. It doesn’t matter whether something has problems or not. What matters if they’re the best that you can get.
Literally, no other browser is remotely close to Firefox and Chrome in terms of how well they actually work. Not a single one. Full stop. End of story. Forks excluded for obvious reasons.
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Sounds like a great idea, so long as Servo has not sold out to Google in any way. If Servo is really an independent browser govs would do right by the public to make that browser officially supported by all web services by the gov and do the necessary to ensure the Servo project is funded.
Web engines are so insanely complex that you can’t just create a new viable competitor without millions on fundings. They’re practically as complex as operating systems themselves.
Yeah, Opera tried but eventually just gave up and now uses Blink, Microsoft tried with Edge (Spartan) but gave up and now also uses Blink.
Blink is the render engine made for Chrome
In the past, all complexity was delegated to NPAPI plugins that worked with all browsers.
Now it’s all Web APIs that every browser engine has to implement.
Millions = mere peanuts, for developed countries. That price tag is also a good reflection of the degree of privacy people are being forced to compromise in order to finance the development and maintenance of Google Chrome. A gov has a duty not to subject its people to arbitrary privacy abuses. Yet some govs are designing web services for Google Chrome and then forcing people to access those services online by removing the offline option.
If only there was another open source web engine, like some kind of kit to develop a web browser, with privacy in mind.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just daydreaming.
just don’t Blink
You are actually the complexity of building a new browser is really gigantic.
If a gov were to take that kit and create a public option which is then compatible with all web services deployed by that gov, I would applaud that for sure. Would be much better than govs being subservient to tech imposed by tech giants, constraining citizens to the will of a US corporation, and allowing the private sector control so Google can cancel things not profitable for Google (like JPEG XL). The public sector should serve the public people, not the private sector corps of other countries.
Finally: Pasta Browser
Finally, a browser that can play the bass
In principle, if a government is going to distribute content to the public, they also have a duty to equip the public to be able to consume the content. Telling people to come up with their own private sector tools to reach the public sector is a bit off.
This statement is a rearrangement of events. The governments of the world didn’t create an online presence and then tell the private sector to create browsers. Governments joined in an already existing method of communication because it was convenient, popular, and browsers already existed to view the content.
My comment does not imply when the first browsers were developed. Nor is it relevant. The problematic status quo sequence:
- offer web-based gov services
- leave people to their own devices… to fend for themselves and pawn themselves to the private sector as needed to reach public resources
.
The sequence should have been:
- ensure sovereignty-respecting public tools exist
- offer web-based gov services that officially support the tools distributed in step 1
.
The internet began as a military project (government). The graphical web later emerged in the 1990s. So all governments have had 25+ years to become sovereign and ensure that the gov itself is not subjecting people to a US surveillance capitalist.
It was only in the past ~2—3 years that my local government closed its doors and decided to force everyone to do public administration tasks online. Indeed things are happening in a reckless sequence of events. Sovereignty from US tech giants should be sorted out before a government forces people to interact with their web-based services. So w.r.t my local gov, the status quo (first sequence) now has a third step:
- force people to use the web-based gov services without equipping them.
.
Do you see the problem? Step 3 is the most abusive, and that’s quite recent.
That sounds like your government has an issue. That isn’t the same as governments as a whole using the web.
In the US, we still have the option to do things in person. The online presence is a convenience. That’s how it should work everywhere.
Even in the US people are forced to use the web for public service even if it’s not officially announced.
E.g., suppose you want to see the state secretary’s records for a corporation. A lot of SoS websites try to force you to solve a #CAPTCHA. Fuck CAPTCHAs. I don’t do CAPTCHAs. So there’s an offline option, right? Ha. Try it. Send a snail mail letter to a state secretary requesting the registration records for an arbitrary business you know they should have records on. They just ignore it now. They don’t even have the courtesy to respond to say why they will not treat your request. Offline services have been quietly taken away without people even noticing.
I can walk in to the library of Congress and make a face to face request.
The web is a convenience for any public need in the US.
SoS records are state records, not federal. Are you saying every state shares their corporate database with LoC?
I would not be as fast as you to call the web a mere “convenience” to 99.9% of the country who are not a walking distance from Washington DC. If the analog way of doing something requires thousands of miles of travel, the online way is not a mere convenience. It’s a requirement, in effect.
BTW, it’s worth noting that the LoC has an access restricted Cloudflare website. So their exclusivity makes an offline option essential. If that means face to face in DC, that’s fucked up indeed. You should be able to use the postal service.
I think you’re struggling with the difference of convenience and difficulty. Doing things without the web implies you are going to do them in the same way you’d have to pre-web. That makes the web more convenient.
Pre-web, postal correspondence was treated. Now it’s not. Convenience and difficulty are inversely proportional measures of the same thing. When you take away one out of two options, the other option is not a convenience. It’s a requirement.
The idea that you think people nationwide traveling to DC to get a business record is mere inconvenience is absurd. Are you drunk? You’re making a lot of bizarre assumptions, starting with assuming the travel is even possible for everyone nationwide who needs the service. If someone needs to sue a company for $200 and travel costs to DC to get the registered agent of the company is $400, you’ve effectively killed their access public service by nixing correspondence.
Your perverse understanding of convenience is ultimately just a language game that changes the language but not the problem. So let’s say traveling from California to DC to get an address is a mere “inconvenience” and using the web is “convenient”. That so-called “convenience” is essential in countless scenarios. And because what you refer to as “inconvenient” is actually not plausible in a scenario, the need for convenience in your language becomes essential.
It is very unlikely that anyone can develop a new browser from scratch. Just too hard both initially and maintenance in terms of the rate of new web specs. This is why most everyone except Firefox and Safari is a clone of chromium.
I’ve been saying this for years, no one took me serously 😒.
Servo is a nice start, but it needs a lot of work.
And regarding the gov financed browser, we’re way past that option IMO.
