this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023

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Chrome & Firefox are a false duopoly. Do we need another option? Should there be a public option? Should it come from Italy? (beehaw.org)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 10 months ago (2 children)

it often gets caught pulling anti-user shenanigans

I'm not aware. Can you list a few?

Receiving funding doesn't necessarily mean serving. Google is interested in funding to keep it's position. Mozilla still provides alternatives and regularly criticizes Google.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I’ve not been tracking them because I tend to only collect dirt on the greatest of evils. What comes to mind:

default search engine: Google (this is what that Google money is for officially)
Mozilla gave the boot to a lot of plugins and imposed some kind of control-freakish trust mechanism. Plugins/extensions were evicted from the plugin repository and they made it hard for plugin creators to distribute their plugins. I lost several very useful plugins when Mozilla took this controlling protectionist stance.
MAFF ditched. Mozilla abandoned a good format for archiving websites. I had a lot of content saved in *.maff files which Mozilla dropped direct support for and at the same time they blocked MAFF plugins.
Without Firefox, Google would be easily targeted with anti-trust actions. Google props up Mozilla just enough to be able to claim they have “competition”. Google can be most dominant when it has a crippled competitor under its influence.
Google killed the free world JPEG XL format. When a browser as dominant as Chrome withholds support JPEG XL, there is then no reason for web devs to use that format. Google did this because JPEG XL competes with a proprietary Google format. Firefox does not support it out of the box either, likely because of Google’s influence. Firefox users can enable it by going through some config hoops, so if Chrome alone did not kill it, that certainly would.

I vaguely recall a slew of Mozilla actions that were anti-thetical to privacy and user interests which caused me to move them from “a decent browser” to a “lesser of evils”. Hopefully others have better records of Mozilla’s history.

update May 2024

Mozilla uses data abuser Cloudflare for their exclusive access-restricted blog
Mozilla has decided to add more tracking to their browser to collect people’s search activity.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Most of this is self referencing. Like the default search engine is not an example of Google's control, it's Mozilla's revenue model.

The remainder sounds like personal gripes that you're misconstruing as evidence of nefarious intent.

There's also plenty of evidence to the contrary, total cookie protection to name but one.

Additionally, beurocratic processes produce terrible software. Log in to any govt website as a refresher.

Finally, browsers are incredibly complex, if this model worked you'd use it for much simpler projects first.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Like the default search engine is not an example of Google’s control, it’s Mozilla’s revenue model.

It’s both, of course. Mozilla’s revenue enables Google control. If Mozilla changes the default search to one that is not in Google’s interest, they will lose their revenue.

The remainder sounds like personal gripes that you’re misconstruing as evidence of nefarious intent.

It’s both. I’m a user so I notice when Mozilla makes an anti-user move. Businesses serve their customers. Mozilla’s customer is Google, not me. So Mozilla serves Google, not the users. W.r.t evidence, I gave no evidence. I did not say “this is evidence”. If you want to challenge a claim because you can’t find the evidence on your own, you can ask for the evidence.

And as I said, I did not keep track of all Mozilla’s anti-user shenanigans over the years. So you’re not looking at a complete list of issues. It’s disingenuous to treat it as if it were.

There’s also plenty of evidence to the contrary, total cookie protection to name but one.

I did not mention anything about cookies, so which of my points do you think cookie protection counters what I’ve said?

Additionally, beurocratic processes produce terrible software.

Nonsense.

First of all, capitalism produces terrible software when you’re the product rather than the customer. It’s often shit even when you are a paying customer. The best quality software is produced outside of capitalistic structures.

I’ve worked on both gov and commercial environments. The gov process was superior for quality. On a commercial gig I was actually told not to fix bugs as they were spotted because it was important for the customer to discover the bug & report it so the supplier could charge them extra for the bug fix. The whole commercial work environment was rife with chasing profit (of course) which means cutting corners to cut expenses. If a developer produces something high quality in a fortune 500 company, they get back-roomed for “gold plating” (which means they’ve invested more in quality than necessary for the consumers). That doesn’t happen on gov projects.

It’s also wrong to attribute bureaucratic processes strictly to government projects. You may have a shit-ton of bureaucracy in the governance outside of the project which leads to: “build a Mars rover”. How bureaucratic the processes are within the organization is independent of whether it’s a commercial project or not. Fortune 500 corps are inefficient due to their bureaucratic structures. I could not reuse code from one project to another within the same company because there were rules about one project benefiting from another internal pot of money. So a piece of code had to be rewritten from scratch on the other project which means more bugs than you would have if the audited code could have been reused.

Finally, browsers are incredibly complex

Precisely why lack of competition is problematic.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

LOL. Sure mate. Keep smelling your own facts and I'll eat a bag of dicks when ... checks notes ... the Italian government produces a FOSS browser to compete with Chrome & FF 🤣

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

I don't really agree with anything you just said but I will just talk about JPEG XL

Google killed the free world JPEG XL format. When a browser as dominant as Chrome withholds support JPEG XL, there is then no reason for web devs to use that format. Google did this because JPEG XL competes with a proprietary Google format. Firefox does not support it out of the box either, likely because of Google’s influence. Firefox users can enable it by going through some config hoops, so if Chrome alone did not kill it, that certainly would.

Firefox never supported it because it's still experimental. Until september 2023 not a single browser supported it. Now that Safari supports it, the chances for Mozilla to spend time and resources to implement JPEG XL properly increases substantially.

And of course it matters what chrome supports since it's the dominant browser by far. It's maybe not worth while to do something if no one will use it because chromium is extremely dominant while Firefox is very small in comparison

Web standards usually takes a while to get supported and especially to be on by default.

Btw webp isn't proprietary.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

For example as I recall some people are complaining about Pocket because it's not privacy friendly in some way. Idk about specifics of this, my only complaint about Firefox is that the CEO absorbs huge amounts of money to herself despite the shrinling userbase of Firefox YoY.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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 rust~~

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

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.

Firefox's legacy goes all the way back to Mosaic from the early 90s.

And yeah, browser engines are hard. I mean, I get wanting Mozilla to be more financially independent, but without the money they get from Google for the search deal, they basically wouldn't exist. It's a really shit situation we've reached.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

just don't Blink

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You would have to go on a long Safari deep in the mall to find something like that… Look for the bitten fruit from the forbidden tree.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I also heard about a gnome that might hold the secret to find it. He stand in line with us but he doesn’t cook.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

That would be quite the epiphany.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

You are actually the complexity of building a new browser is really gigantic.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Finally: Pasta Browser

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

Logo: 🤌

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Finally, a browser that can play the bass

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I say we either resurrect KHTML, or try and turn NetSurf, Servo, or Ladybird into something that you can realistically use as your main browser.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

That's where Google succeeded. They bloated up the web standards so much that developing any of the alternatives to the required level is extremely hard. I doubt that even Google can create an alternative to chrome from scratch.

At this point, the only way for any of these to succeed is for the vast majority of people to actively avoid chrome.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (16 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Maybe a Servo based browser could be a good option.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Need Servo completed first, and then it will come. It’s coming along, but it will still be a long while.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Internet Explorer it is then!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Use ie6 and you can't get hacked

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

You know something went seriously wrong when people start rooting for Internet Explorer. Can we go back and reset?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

It's called WebKit and it's used by Safari.

That's your third option.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Opera has been great since the revamp.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago

But that's chromium anyway

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Opera is chromium based

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Isn't Opera Chinese-owned though?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Developed in Norway funded by a Chinese multinational.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Long-time Opera user here (I paid for Opera 5 - yes, that long ago). Opera was a truly visionary browser up to version 7 or so based on its own Presto engine, but nowadays it's just another Chrome clone with dubious features IMHO.

Opera's successor in spirit is probably Vivaldi. I use it as my standard browser on Windows and Android and am very very happy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I remember purchasing Opera mobile. I can't remember if it was for Windows Mobile 5/6 or if it was the super early Android. It was the only browser that really worked on that phone, whatever it was. Well worth the $5 or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That app was revolutionary for its time and a true life-saver. (For the young ones: at a time where mobile networks were still really, really slow, Opera's technology would load the requested web page on its server farm, parse it, strip out the unnecessary stuff and send it to your phone in a highly compressed form. It basically enabled you to surf 'normal' web pages without overloading your phone and with load times measured in seconds instead of minutes.)

ISTR news/discussions where several shady companies were said to want to buy Opera for that technology, for the simple fact that everything you did on Opera Mobile was at some point processed on Opera's servers in unencrypted form. I dread the day where Google or Meta start offering such a service.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think I used to know that. Thanks for the reminder.

Regarding your 2nd paragraph, that’s indeed what Cloudflare has started offering. Your browser is moved to the cloud and you effectively run a dumb terminal and get remote desktop of sorts. I think it’s pitched as a security benefit. Cloudflare has a tendency to always assume everyone fully trusts them with everything. Indeed the technology is great for snoops who want to see everything you see and do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I wasn't aware of the CloudFlare thing, thanks. Though I'd trust them more than Google or Meta, I share your reservations. Looking at how big a part of the web they serve, there's already way too much power in too few hands anyway.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Pretty sure Opera was in the list of backdoored software, revealed by Ed. Snowden

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