@KeyJ @aeva what on earth makes you think that forking...

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@KeyJ @aeva what on earth makes you think that forking your browser is something that is on the minds of 80% of internet users?

Like 8 Sep 2023 at 9:13 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.scot

3 comments

KeyJ

@eseilt @aeva I'm not talking about the majority of users who just use Chrome/Edge/Safari because it's kinda pushed onto them and they don't care.

My feeling (and it's really just that!) is that if it was as simple to derive a custom browser off Firefox as it obviously is for Chromium, some (if not most) of the Chromium derivatives would be Firefox derivatives instead.
It wouldn't magically bring Firefox (+derivatives) to 50% market share of course, but the gap would be a little narrower.

8 Sep 2023 at 9:27 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place

Preston Is Not My Real Name

@KeyJ @eseilt @aeva

Wouldn't that entail all of the downsides of using Gecko (tiny market share, poor support from websites) without the relatively good brand recognition of Mozilla? There's lot of FF derivatives out there - LibreWolf, IceCat, PaleMoon - but they're mostly kinda...worse? I think the Chromium clones are doing it because it's well-supported by websites, idk if it's actually easier.

8 Sep 2023 at 13:12 | Open on mastodon.social

KeyJ

@prestontumber @eseilt @aeva My argument (which, I repeat, is just based on a hunch) is that if we had a good share of Firefox clones from day one, Firefox/Gecko might still be more relevant than it is today, alleviating the "poor support from websites" part.

The Firefox forks you mentioned are, by the way, a good start, but AFAIK they deviate much less from upstream Firefox (in UI/UX or functionality) than some of the Chromium forks do.

9 Sep 2023 at 18:33 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place