One of the best parts about Brave is that they are trying to build independent revenue streams from things like integrated Jitsi features, an independent search engine and the like. Vivaldi builds in things like mail clients, RSS readers and a rudimentary notetaking tool.

In that vein, Pocket is a really good thing, and also helps combat link rot. The vocal Firefox userbase is moronically hostile to add-on services though, even if they are the ultimate key to Firefox's health.

http://dpldocs.info/this-week-in-d/Blog.Posted_2021_09_06.ht...

The erosion of interest in Firefox over the years raises a pretty basic question: if Google followed through with that scenario, how effective would Firefox be? They're got steamrolled in the last decade with massive amounts of funding (from Google).

Brave is literally showing that if someone wants to compete with Google, they're going to start with chromium as a base. Your argument is similar to "if someone wants to compete with Google, they need to be able to use Gecko/Webkit!". People with skin in the game are saying whatever the theoretical merits are to your argument, it is wrong. Gecko isn't part of the competitive equation any more.

Pragmatically, I'm hoping that a Chromium spinoff like Brave (or Edge!? Could MS be the hero we need?) will turn the privacy switches on, WEI off, and get enough market share to make WEI infeasible.

I almost wonder if the Edge/Brave approach is the smarter approach. Build something on top of Chromium, trading full independence for the ability to focus on differentiation, and then if you ever show you can actually make a more popular browser you're free to take over/break away from/fork Chromium for full independence again at the end. Either way you have a tradeoff.

I know I have a skewed view of the software market, but I'd pay $$ per year for Firefox. It feels like many businesses would too if it offered some guarantees of data privacy.

Edge feels like it's moving AWAY from enterprises with the recent nonsense integrating deferred payments and price comparison tools. Brave is pushing Crypto which is kryptonite for many orgs. Chrome is feeding ad algorithms. Seems like a gap to me.

Firefox is responsible for such a low percentage it's sad (the stats I have for the sites I work on it's usually on the 1-2% range). I think it's mainly because of the horrible leadership at Mozilla. I want to use Firefox and promote it but every time I think they've changed Mozilla does something new that boils my blood. You can donate to Mozilla, but not directly to Firefox and they seem to spend a lot of money on political projects. It's a 'get woke, go broke' situation and I have watched the fall of Mozilla in real time over the past years.

I really wish Mozilla changed focus, I would gladly pay for Firefox+ or something if I knew that the money went to Firefox development and not to some racist white male hate project.

So I'll continue using Brave and hope for the best, the future the author is talking about is basically already here.

It also means the fall of Firefox because they are still dependent on the Google moneytit.

The future I see in this direction is Chrome ends up getting a free easy takeover/hijack by Microsoft since they are have no problem throwing money at Edge.

1. Chromium stops being FOSS.

Brave, Vivaldi, Edge continue to exist. The only difference being, Brave is now a fork that exists independently and has to do security patches on its own.

2. Google stops funding Mozilla.

With 90% of the revenue gone, Mozilla as we know it would cease to exist as a corporation.

So no, Brave's dependence on Google is not a life and death situation for the whole company.

However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important.

Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is the ability to fork, however competitors such as Microsoft proved that they no longer have the capacity to develop a modern browser.

At this point the only remaining alternatives are Firefox and Safari.

I think nowadays Firefox is a much better browser and that Mozilla is better at guarding my interests, so I would use Firefox even if it weren't a better browser, however the market isn't necessarily interested in that.

No that ship has sailed.

It would mean focusing on developing the best browser and spending money on marketing so people download and install the best browser. Cut every other expense. Take FF from the politics of Mozilla and make it a real open source project.

If I look at Opera marketing, they seem to aim for young people with themes and video integration.

I do think FF has no vision and no clear strategy to get back market share, even it this is the only way to save the web. Perhaps market share isn't even their goal, I have no clue what they want.

But it's worth pointing out that Chrome and Chromium are developed by Google. The whole point of using Chromium as a browser developer (Brave, Edge, Opera, ...) is to have Google own and take care of all the difficult bits, drive the technical roadmap, and decide on what is and isn't going to be in the next version. So, you don't gain much by switching to those as the teams behind those Chromium based alternatives don't actually develop most of the browser and you are not really cutting loose from Google. Brave does a little more than others but still.

Sticking with Chrome/Chromium is a bit of a form of Stockholm syndrome. People keep convincing themselves it isn't that bad and that the ads are fine and not that intrusive and that Google means well. Etc.

Firefox is technically independent; not financially. It and Safari are the only non Chromium based browsers left in addition to a small number of early stage attempts to implement a browser that don't look like they are going to be a credible alternative any time soon. Google is paying both Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine in their browser. And unlike Mozilla, Apple isn't exactly dependent on charity and also getting a lot more from Google than Mozilla because they have hundreds of millions of iphone users. Browser real estate is valuable; especially on mobile.

But we live in a weird world where we are dependent on a single company financing the development of essentially all browsers that are commonly used through advertising. I don't think it's particularly healthy and especially the Apple deal smells like a classic anti competitive move that ought to trigger some legal action. It would be nice to see the search and browser markets open up a bit. Especially on mobile. Especially on IOS where Apple enforces a Safari monopoly. Every other browser has to use the Safari rendering engine.

Firefox isn't owed a market. Google have proved themselves, so far, to be better stewards of the world's browser engine than the people at Mozilla. It might have a new era in the sun one day, but right now there really isn't much of a niche for Firefox. And the fact that Chrome overran Firefox does sit with the Mozilla, whatever the argument is about competitive practices. Chrome was (likely: still is) just technically better.

so onbvious consolidation risk aside, and allowing one org to control how the world receives info (using pagerank/clone pf pagerank) a browser is a wrapper through which we receive info and typically that is through a search portal.

i think brave is awesome and totally great. great product. great team. good vision. however, i think it is unlikely to 10x. it cant 10x my integration with search/info gathering(browsers browse literally synonym of search) and it likely cant 10x my(generic me) experience if i use adblock/ublock.

browsers help you browse. search engines help you find. you can't browse if you don't know where to look. also, there are only ~3 browser engines that have serios market share. most browsers render the web the same way because of standards so they are just varying degrees of ui, convenience/ux and exterior service integration.

does this make sense? that is how i have been thinking about it.

If Google decides to make some fundamental changes to their core engine that would make, say, ad blocking a lot more difficult, would the other chromium-based browsers deep-fork the entire codebase to keep ad blockers working while at the same time integrating the new features as fast as possible in order to remain competitive with Chrome?

Microsoft has the resources to do it, but they may not care. Brave and Vivaldi would almost certainly care, but they may not have the resources to do it.

I could spend all day criticizing Mozilla but I'll use Firefox to the bitter end because of this. In the end there are only three engines in widespread use these days: Chrom(e|ium), WebKit/Safari and Gecko. As far as I know Safari is irrelevant outside of Mac world, so losing Gecko would be terrible for the open web.

Firefox desperately needs a revenue stream that is independent from Google. Although Google has not done so yet -- it's imo very valuable to Google to preserve the illusion of not having a browser monopoly -- a huge amount of their revenues come from their Google search deal. Google can, for example, cut that deal at any time: Firefox is selling into a monopsony.

I don't love advertising, but we need Firefox to have a non-google revenue source.

Browser development is almost exclusively funded by advertising. Chrome, in the obvious way. Mozilla is funded entirely by Google. Safari is the only surviving exception.