Mozilla's CEO is not enthusiastic about Microsoft's switch to Chromium:
When Microsoft announced that its Edge browser would be revamped using Chromium, the internet's response was generally quite positive. Edge is far from the worst browser on the planet, but it's certainly not what we'd call a fan favorite. As such, even the slightest indication that it could be changed significantly would have been welcome news for many.
However, it would seem that "many" doesn't include one individual in particular: Mozilla CEO Chris Beard. In a blog post published today, titled "Goodbye, EdgeHTML," Beard expressed his frustrations with Microsoft's decision.
"By adopting Chromium, Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google," Beard writes in the post. "This may sound melodramatic, but it's not. The "browser engines" — Chromium from Google and Gecko Quantum from Mozilla — are "inside baseball" pieces of software that actually determine a great deal of what each of us can do online."
Microsoft's switch to Chromium could be a big boon for Google's own implementation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 09 2018, @03:05PM (4 children)
Yes, no. There are basically only two browsers out there. The rest are rebranded, recompiled versions of the first two. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what the exceptions might be.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 09 2018, @04:20PM
The exceptions are stuff like dillo, which works, but doesn't support javascript or a lot of other things that are necessary for many pages to work. lynx/links/elinks/w3m/netsurf are all cool, but have the same limitations as dillo. QtWebEngine and WebkitGTK are more or less just stripped down chrome. Gecko is really the only thing preventing web-rendering from being a complete monoculture.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday December 09 2018, @10:22PM
It's true. Mostly due to browsers trying to do far more than they should. It's interesting watching the cross-platform promise of the web crumble as the browser takes over more and more of the OS and desktop GUI.. while quickly fragmenting everything. I laugh when someone tells me, "just try it in a different browser until it works". Oh great. So your answer is I have to have ALL "operating systems" installed to do anything with my day.
Javascript was a mistake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @09:36AM (1 child)
Brave?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 10 2018, @10:13AM
That "built on top of" indicates that it is just another re-compiled and rebranded Chrome browser. So, we are still looking at two browsers, basically.
But, don't let that discourage you from using Brave in preference to Chrome. That re-compiling of source code removes tons of crap that Google puts into it for the express purpose of tracking you.