Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?
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Hej!
With all these recent news Microsoft abandoning their own rendering engine EdgeHTML and switching to Blink, posts from Mozilla about diversity which matters... That makes me think that for community it would be much better if Vivaldi would support this movement — do not strengthen Google positions on the market by using their rendering engine under the hood, but rather switch to what Gecko instead.
That will provide support to efforts saving the Net from monopoly.
What do you think?
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@shytikov Too late. The development of Vivaldi had to start on Gecko three years ago. Microsoft has the resources for switching to a new engine, Vivaldi team probably does not has.
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@Gwen-Dragon
Vivaldi team provides patches to Blink, thus fixing bug and implementing features for Chrome too.
Your thoughts on Microsoft and Linux are a bit controversial, because Microsoft indeed strengthen Linux in general, and Canonical (company behind Ubuntu), because when they were implementing Linux subsystem in Windows they basically used Ubuntu as an only Linux system they want to support.
Mozilla foundation is none-profit organization.
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@Gwen-Dragon said in Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?:
why does the subsystem help Linux
It promotes the use of Linux based tools that some developers may not otherwise have considered using. And in developing this sub system I believe many patches were made to Linux to harden it.
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@kurai said in Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?:
@shytikov Too late. The development of Vivaldi had to start on Gecko three years ago. Microsoft has the resources for switching to a new engine, Vivaldi team probably does not has.
I believe right thing is never too late to do, if it would be political will for it. Monopolization of the browser market is nothing near to be good thing. Think about that:
- Google controls source code;
- Google will stop accepting patches it doesn't like or will close the source;
- Vivaldi would need to fork the engine to continue working on it alone or with some allies;
- Here you have all additional costs for supporting large code base, which might lead to shutting down the company;
My suggestion is to support Gecko instead that will be remain free and open for everyone to modify.
And on the first place, if it's so unbearable to switch rendering engine, maybe whole work on its integration was poorly designed?
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@Gwen-Dragon You do strengthen Microsoft by using Windows, just like you do strengthen Chromium's position when you use Vivaldi. What would both be without any users? So yeah, Vivaldi made a conscious decision to go with a Chromium base, just like Opera did a few years before that.
To be fair Mozilla hadn't announced their new rendering engine back then servo/quantum whatever. It should also be noted that Vivaldi obviously gained users by deciding to use Chromium – many people want to remain in the ecosystem they know and will go for a Chromium browser no matter what. If Vivaldi went for Gecko back then, these folks would instead use another browser today.
So if you are concerned about the Chromium monopoly then yes, that's a good reason to switch to Firefox. For Vivaldi it's obviously too late to switch now.
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Were Vivaldi written in js that might be possible with some difficulty. However there is now a lot of reliance on changes made in the backend engine which would have to be entirely re-done in Firefox's engine. Its just not feasible.
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@shytikov said in Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?:
@Gwen-Dragon
Well, that subsystem may be something for Windows users.
And why does the subsystem help Linux? Tell me. I can not understand it.Many ways. first of all it educates Windows users how to work with Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular.
That helps users when they will face real Linux. That's why they will more safely choose Linux on their servers, namely in Azure Cloud. That basically helps Ubuntu and commercial organization Canonical inc.
@Gwen-Dragon
They take money from companies and have a commercial part. They are not independent.They make no profit. That is the key. Politicians take money for their complains, Amnesty International, Greenpeace take donations. We help homeless people too. Or take care about pets in the shelters.
Apart of politicians who indeed can make profit on you, I believe it's safe and noble to support non-profit organizations that will make life better.
I know that, i am a internal tester.
This also brings question how Vivaldi make their profits, right?
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@luetage said in Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?:
So if you are concerned about the Chromium monopoly then yes, that's a good reason to switch to Firefox. For Vivaldi it's obviously too late to switch now.
But that could be very bold political statement: We support free and open web, which is definitely a benefit from PR point of view.
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@Gwen-Dragon said in Is it time to switch to Gecko instead?:
I can not tell you about profit, you should ask CEO Jon.
Yeah... I'm far away from being close to such a top banana I just think it might be very much help Vivaldi if they will be on cutting edge with most hardcore web activists like for example Jeffrey Zeldman:
https://www.zeldman.com/2018/12/07/browser-diversity-starts-with-us/
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Vivaldi customization + FF engine ?
I would love to use such a browser! -