Why are there many hundred Chromium based browsers, but seemingly very few Firefox based browsers?

3 years ago by bdonvr to c/nostupidquestions

ShittyKopper 190 points 3 years ago

A popular misconception is that Firefox runs Gecko. And while that is kinda true, the real problem is much more interesting when you come down to the technical details.

Because it's the other way around. Firefox doesn't run Gecko, Gecko runs Firefox. Firefox is built in Gecko. In a similar vein, Thunderbird also runs inside Gecko. It's why they look so similar despite one being a browser and the other being an email client. Gecko is, in a way, a proto-Electron.

You cannot "rip off" Gecko from Firefox and embed it inside something like you can do with Blink/Chromium (unless you're on Android and use GeckoView), which means the only way to have a "Firefox based browser" is to fork the entirety of Firefox. There are forks like the TBB or Librewolf that do this, but the embeddability of Chromium makes it much easier for devs to make something that diverges from Chromium in major ways (stuff like Qutebrowser, for example)

path: 0 1713786, hotness: undefined, score: 190, children: 6

Aux 36 points 3 years ago

You actually could use standalone Gecko back in the days, but Mozilla closed the project and made everything tightly integrated.

path: 0 1713786 1716555, hotness: undefined, score: 36, children: 0

rayman30 7 points 3 years ago

TIL :)

path: 0 1713786 1714761, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0

Hextic 7 points 3 years ago

🏅

Actually didn't know that but makes perfect sense.

path: 0 1713786 1715745, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0

0x4E4F 0 points 3 years ago

Or Vivaldi.

path: 0 1713786 1715385, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 2

AlecSadler 2 points 3 years ago

Do you mean Vivaldi runs in Gecko or is Chromium?

path: 0 1713786 1715385 1727231, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1

0x4E4F 2 points 3 years ago

No, I mean the portable nature of Chromium makes it a perfect candidate for making browsers like Vivaldi. And yeah, Vivaldi runs Chromium/Blink.

path: 0 1713786 1715385 1727231 1731791, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

Izzy 176 points 3 years ago

Your searching on this may be skewed due to Firefox not being the equivalent of Chromium. Firefox is not actually the browser engine. Firefox is based on the browser engine called Gecko which is developed by Mozilla. There are actually a number of other Gecko based browsers they just aren't very popular or are for niche use-cases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)

path: 0 1712331, hotness: undefined, score: 176, children: 23

bdonvr 68 points 3 years ago

Well sure, but I don't think it changes my question much. There's still so few active gecko-based browsers. And so many blink based.

path: 0 1712331 1712372, hotness: undefined, score: 68, children: 20

Izzy 76 points 3 years ago

Chromium is likely more popular because Google has such a stranglehold over the development of new internet standards. They set standards and then implement them into Chromium perfectly which tends to make Chrome really well optimized and fast.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712417, hotness: undefined, score: 76, children: 7

abraham_linksys 34 points 3 years ago

Doesn't work forever though. Used to be the same with Microsoft and Internet Explorer, but better things came along that were less terrible and not controlled by a single tech company throwing their weight around to push their own standards.

It'll happen again if Google restricts the extension store much more though. They've been attacking ad and privacy extensions for years

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712417 1713740, hotness: undefined, score: 34, children: 6

Resolved3874 18 points 3 years ago

"leaks" about Google blocking ad blockers got me to switch to Firefox in October last year. Was worth the risk. Took the time to also leave googles password manager and switch to bitwarden as well.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712417 1713740 1716899, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 0

over_clox 12 points 3 years ago

There are still websites that work on basic HTML 1.1, even under Windows 3.11 and Internet Explorer 5.

That whole 'nothing lasts forever' thing isn't because the changing internet standards, it's because companies and websites choose to adopt those standards rather than stick with backwards compatibility.

Granted yes, a lot of it has to do with security, Google's pocketbook security by shoving ads in our faces...

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712417 1713740 1714008, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 3

Tywele 9 points 3 years ago

As long as chrome is the default option on every or almost every android smartphone chrome will have the majority marketshare. People always mostly use the default.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712417 1713740 1716288, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 0

neuromancer -19 points 3 years ago

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546, hotness: undefined, score: -19, children: 11

bdonvr 42 points 3 years ago

everyone knows how to use Chrome

Bro it's a browser. They're fairly identical to the end users it matters for.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1712823, hotness: undefined, score: 42, children: 0

ScrivenerX 25 points 3 years ago

there is no real upside to picking Gecko apart from Google = bad.

AdBlock works better on Firefox. Firefox takes fewer resources. Firefox is open source. And that's just off the top of my head.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1713101, hotness: undefined, score: 25, children: 1

sajran 2 points 3 years ago

Sadly, none of this matters for most of the users.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1713101 1715475, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

Blaze 23 points 3 years ago

Google = bad

Isn't Google trying to embed DRM into webpages to avoid track blocking as we speak?

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1713019, hotness: undefined, score: 23, children: 3

vd1n 24 points 3 years ago

Yeah but I save 0.000097 seconds per page load. I did the math and it will give me approximately 2.3568 additional seconds to the length of my life.

I did more math and that means I'll have time for one more fap before I leave the world behind.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1713019 1713273, hotness: undefined, score: 24, children: 2

Izzy 7 points 3 years ago

That makes a lot of sense when you are looking at the two today, but Firefox is older than Chrome. So they managed to become more advanced and take all the browser marketshare in some way.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1712608, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 3

rikudou 11 points 3 years ago

Chrome was really fast back then. And Google has money to burn on ad campaigns.

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1712608 1712771, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 0

neuromancer 1 point 3 years ago

path: 0 1712331 1712372 1712546 1712608 1712939, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1

matricaria 1 point 3 years ago

Isn’t Safari Gecko-based? Safari has a huge market share.

path: 0 1712331 1773921, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1

reddit_sux 5 points 3 years ago

Safari is webkit based. Which was also the basis for chromium, but it has diverted a lot from it. Other webkit based browsers are gnome web, KDE konqueror.

path: 0 1712331 1773921 1775427, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0

cley_faye 51 points 3 years ago

A while ago, gecko was such a mess to use that very few projects dared to use it. At some point, chromium showed up and it's the easiest thing to bundle anywhere. This probably led to a lot of the current situation.

path: 0 1712769, hotness: undefined, score: 51, children: 0

optimal 46 points 3 years ago

Gecko (the engine that Firefox uses) isn't really meant to be embedded, and Mozilla stopped supporting that usecase a while ago. It's more like you have to design your app around Gecko, with XUL, which essentially makes Gecko both a browser engine and a UI toolkit.

path: 0 1719703, hotness: undefined, score: 46, children: 0

rumbleran 30 points 3 years ago

The engine used by Chromium (Blink) is easier to use for programmers, since it's designed to be "embeddable" from the start when it was still known as KHTML. Engine used by Firefox (Gecko) is only kind of embeddable as the Mozilla developers haven't paid much attention for that a long time, which makes it more difficult to use in your own browser that you develop.

path: 0 1712908, hotness: undefined, score: 30, children: 0

Tippon 27 points 3 years ago

Another reason on top of what's been mentioned already (although probably minor), is that out of the box, Firefox doesn't let you run multiple instances.

I've been learning to write a web app and updating websites, so have been using PortableApps to launch a second instance of Chrome to double check how everything looks when I'm not logged in. I tried switching to Firefox, but it wouldn't let me open the second instance, meaning that every time I wanted to check the site, I'd have to log out. I check them in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.

I might be a niche case, but I'm already finding it really annoying. I can't imagine how much more frustrating it would be to try to write a browser that can't run at the same time as your preferred browser.

path: 0 1723199, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 13

aaaa 42 points 3 years ago

Wouldn't a private window allow exactly the specific thing you want to test?

path: 0 1723199 1724899, hotness: undefined, score: 42, children: 1

Tippon 4 points 3 years ago

In all honesty, I didn't think of that 🙈

path: 0 1723199 1724899 1773136, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0

Perfide 40 points 3 years ago

Container tabs, bro.

path: 0 1723199 1726201, hotness: undefined, score: 40, children: 0

asparagapple 27 points 3 years ago

If you just want a separate session, container tabs will do. No need to create a new profile.

For Chrome, you can also just create a new profile.

path: 0 1723199 1724361, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 1

Tippon 2 points 3 years ago

That's handy to know, thanks :)

path: 0 1723199 1724361 1773126, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

Linuturk 21 points 3 years ago

Would container tabs work for you to test the site in a clean environment?

path: 0 1723199 1723724, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 2

Tippon 8 points 3 years ago

I'm not sure to be honest, I'm still new to container tabs. I'll give it a try in the morning, thanks 🙂

path: 0 1723199 1723724 1723880, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 0

tristar 3 points 3 years ago

They won't keep your cookies or SessionStorage but extensions will stay on across all containers. If you wanna test websites in a clean environment you should probably create a new profile or download another Firefox modified for developers (can't have enough foxes in your computer amirite) altogether

path: 0 1723199 1723724 1776530, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

Postcard64 6 points 3 years ago

You can do this, actually. Just create new profiles. It's not very user friendly, but can definitely be done, from what I understood from your usecase.

path: 0 1723199 1723723, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 2

Tippon 5 points 3 years ago

Thanks for the reply :)

The PortableApps version is a separate installation of the program, so Firefox in this case, that's self contained so that it can be used on multiple computers from a removable device. The default profile should be completely unrelated to the fully installed Firefox's profile.

I've tried it on Linux too with an AppImage, but get the same result.

path: 0 1723199 1723723 1723854, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1

Postcard64 3 points 3 years ago

I see. Maybe the PortableApps Firefox hides profiles from the user... Either way, the other comments mention containers, which are actually even more friendly than profiles. Hope you find something that works for you!

path: 0 1723199 1723723 1723854 1768838, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

yogurt 6 points 3 years ago

In the Firefox Portableapps folder you have to copy other/source/firefoxportable.ini into the top level folder with firefoxportable.exe, and then edit it to allowmultipleinstances=true.

path: 0 1723199 1772733, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 1

Tippon 2 points 3 years ago

That's brilliant, thank you 😁

path: 0 1723199 1772733 1773149, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

Matriks404 20 points 3 years ago

Why would we need any Firefox-based browser that isn't Firefox?

Customize it a bit, and it works perfectly fine.

path: 0 1733675, hotness: undefined, score: 20, children: 4

PlexSheep 20 points 3 years ago

Same thing with chromium, that didn't stop the clones.

path: 0 1733675 1753385, hotness: undefined, score: 20, children: 3

tristar 7 points 3 years ago

For what it's worth Brave and Opera do extend the base Chromium functionality quite a bit. No idea why they couldn't have done it with FF/Gecko though.

path: 0 1733675 1753385 1775860, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 2

JackbyDev 3 points 3 years ago

Opera switched to Chromium. It used to be its own thing.

path: 0 1733675 1753385 1775860 1777945, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1

tristar 3 points 3 years ago

Sadly yeah

path: 0 1733675 1753385 1775860 1777945 1778009, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

ipkpjersi 16 points 3 years ago

Google has more resources than Mozilla, and Chrome has long been the most popular browser so it's not surprising others would want a piece of that pie.

path: 0 1740566, hotness: undefined, score: 16, children: 0

schwim 4 points 3 years ago

People fork what's what they're using and what's popular. Chromium has the vast majority of the market share so it's most likely to get modified and reused.

path: 0 1712877, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0

kratoz29 3 points 3 years ago

I have no idea, but I can almost tell you Chromium kills old macOS and I am sick of it (I suffer from this bug too).

path: 0 1721791, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

reddig33 2 points 3 years ago

Google docs compatibility. And now Office 365, since Edge switched to the same rendering engine.

path: 0 1713325, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 10

over_clox 18 points 3 years ago

Google Docs works just fine on Firefox

path: 0 1713325 1713621, hotness: undefined, score: 18, children: 9

reddig33 6 points 3 years ago

Doesn’t matter. IT departments everywhere will just mandate Chrome use for “known compatibility/supported configuration”.

path: 0 1713325 1713621 1713654, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0

ChatGPT 3 points 3 years ago

Copy and paste is restricted to keyboard commands last time I tried plus if I’m managing an IT department I want near certainty that O365 or GSUITE will work with every update and patch Chrome and Edge basically guarantee that while Firefox’s development team lack the ability to see future changes to the software and have less motivation to do so as it’s not their product.

path: 0 1713325 1713621 1714806, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 7

over_clox 5 points 3 years ago

Oh noes! Keyboard commands?

Anyone working in an office worth their weight in salt should know Ctrl+Z/X/C/V at bare minimum.

path: 0 1713325 1713621 1714806 1715312, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 5

ChatGPT 5 points 3 years ago

They definitely don’t I work with 21 years olds fresh out of college that have no idea how to navigate file systems they are fine on iPads or phones but clueless on an actual computer.

path: 0 1713325 1713621 1714806 1715312 1715617, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 4

Invertedouroboros 2 points 3 years ago

I've actually been wondering why that's the case for a while. Like is it a limitation of something their doing under the hood of GSUITE products?

path: 0 1713325 1713621 1714806 1724014, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

KeisukeTakatou 1 point 3 years ago

Also more extentions. Both do more or less have the essential ones though.

path: 0 1776686, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0

Kolanaki -6 points 3 years ago

Have you tried looking for "Mozilla" based browsers? Because that's the engine or whatever Firefox uses and there are many of them.

path: 0 1723973, hotness: undefined, score: -6, children: 2

ExperimentalGuy 4 points 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure geckodriver is the browser engine for Firefox, not Mozilla. I think Mozilla is the company that maintains Firefox, along with other projects.

path: 0 1723973 1725006, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1

muzzle 3 points 3 years ago

They have forgotten the sacred scriptures!

"And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror."

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

path: 0 1723973 1725006 1773298, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

nostupidquestions

nostupidquestions

@lemmy.world

login for more options

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

go to feed...

nostupidquestions

nostupidquestions

@lemmy.world

login for more options

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

go to feed...