this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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I gave examples of the opposite in an earlier comment. Though it's unclear what level of APIs you refer to here, specially given that you said "same deal with webkit" (which, again, is not under google). You might as well apply the same deal to gecko too.
This is a contradiction. If few browsers will do it, then my statement that it can happen is correct, and I included that just as one among a list of many other possible choices, including entirely killing their project and contributing to the death of Chromium's ecosystem, making a scene about it and further sway public opinion towards alternatives... in fact, another option could be to have their team move over to contribute to one of the existing Webkit alternatives, or fork one of those with whichever cosmetic changes their userbase likes. The point was that the final say on what those projects will do is a decision those projects can make, not Google.
I do apply the same standard to gecko. and if it every becomes a larger market share I'll be more critical of it than I already am. However those criticisms are immaterial to the decision this judge had to make.
its not a contradiction. the difference here is every browser you mentioned as 'alternatives' are not well funded dont actively add new functionality in the same way mozilla/google do. they dont actively trying to drive the feature set of the web. apple's browser is just there to give apple control they dont care about it beyond that, which results in a captured ecosystem on macos. most/all 3rd party browsers use chrome under the hood on other platforms to limit developer costs, resulting in a captured ecosystem by google or are so tiny they'll never bootstrap effectively (i.e. ladybird). Mozilla has the only non-corporate / user focused implementation of a web browser that is funded.
which is completely immaterial when they don't develop/add new features for the web.
look your argument is 'other browsers besides firefox exist so its fine if firefox dies' and mine is 'they dont provide any real value for the growth of the ecosystem so they're immaterial when considering the market effects of the only well funded one with a open code base and user focus'
now we can sit here continuing to talk nonsense at each other or just move on. I recommend just moving on. I grew bored with this conversation about 15 posts ago and im basically just responding to you on autopilot.
Then your "same deal with webkit" statement was equally immaterial.
That argument isn't negating the sentence I wrote. I think you used "incorrect" when you meant "correct, but...".
However, I don't think Mozilla is better funded than Apple and the other companies I mentioned behind Webkit.
And I didn't directly mention specific chromium browsers as 'alternatives'.. the alternatives I was talking about were options those browsers could take against Google... I don't think you understood the point.
Ironically, NOT developing/adding features has been the major way in which the opposition has been successfully pushing against Google's "standards". Webkit being the second top engine in users and opposing those features while still being a stable and well maintained base (it's not like they don't have a pipeline) with many corporations behind it (not just Apple, even Valve partnered with WebkitGtk maintainers), is a blockade to Google's domination just as much as Gecko.
The web is already bloated enough.. I think we need browsers that are more prudent when it comes to developing/adding new features and instead focus more on maintenance.