Supposedly today we have a lot of browsers to choose from - Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. Having choices is a good thing, right? Nobody wants to relive the time of almost complete Internet Explorer domination again. Unfortunately our choices are significantly fewer than they seem to be at first glance, as Chrome and Safari (thanks to the iPhone) totally dominate the browser landscape in terms of usage and almost all browsers these days are built on top of Chromium, Chrome’s open-source version. Funny enough even Edge is built on top of Chromium today, despite the bitter rivalry between Google and Microsoft. What’s also funny is that Chrome and Safari control about 85% of the browser market share today, and Microsoft’s Edge commands only about 4%:

Some quotes, any emphasis mine:

We’re essentially left with only two major open-source browsers (Chromium and Firefox), and knowing that one of them is controlled by Google makes it clear that it’s not the typical bazaar-like OSS project. We’ve gotten to the point that Chrome-based browsers are so common that developers just stopped to bother supporting other browsers. Last week I saw one site that directly didn’t support Firefox (it displayed a message I should switch to Chrome) and another where the sign in was broken on Firefox, but worked on Chrome-like browsers. Soon Google are going to be in complete control of web standards, unless something drastically changes. Do you want the future of browsing to lie solely in the hands of the biggest advertising business on Earth? I’m pretty sure that I don’t.

For me Firefox is the only alternative to a complete Chrome hegemony in the sense that:

  • it’s open-source in the real sense (a project that’s truly community-driven)

  • it has a great track record of fighting for its users and for a better Internet. Chrome started with a great narrative when it was facing an uphill battle with Internet Explorer, but it has almost become the tyrant it sought to displace. I wonder if every revolution is doomed to finish like this.

  • it’s home to the last major rendering engine, that’s not derived from WebKit (namely Gecko/Quantum)

  • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I admit his broad premise is correct: a FOSS OS or browser undoubtedly will have security vulnerabilities that unknown bad actors could exploit. That sorta comes with the territory of everybody being able to see how the digital sausage is made, so to speak. Where he (and a lot of security researchers) miss the mark, though, is failing to acknowledge that Windows and Chrome have intentional security issues, and we know the names of the bad actors already: Microsoft and Google.

    I'll gladly accept the risk of somebody exploiting an oversight in whatever branch of the infinite branches of Linux I choose to install, than be guaranteed to surrender my personal data for free to some billionaires.

    • spez_hole [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      All the security features that he lists that are either missing or poorly implemented in Linux could be explained by the lack of a multi trillion dollar company developing Linux for profit

      From what I've seen, security people tend to separate "privacy" from "security." Probably because the best security seems to always come at the expense of privacy, because profit. I agree with them that there is a massive trust difference that everyone can expect to have between Big Tech and Some Hacker, and it is basically that Big Tech is not going to steal your credit card info. It's not perfect and they might develop a surveillance tool that gets used by a hacker (and definitely the feds), but them seeing your most sensitive data is not much of a financial risk.

      I would think that using Chromium for purchases and banking is safe enough for most people

      • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That's a fair point. I'm sticking to my guns on Firefox, but other folks' risk assessments may come up differently than mine—and that's fine by me. I'd prefer not to give up my personal info willingly, and let it be my own stupid fault if I get owned by some random nerd. Maybe it's not for other folks. :shrug-outta-hecks: