Browsers made in the EU
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@doctorg Agreed, the rights and wrongs of the war are off-topic. By bringing them up @kerygma, you're missing the point. The point is: There's no guarantee Big Tech's going to stop at Russia! Big Tech could, for whatever reason, decide that they don't like Poland (for example).
And remember, we're not talking about weapons or the Russian military. We're talking about ordinary Russian people not being allowed to buy iPhones, because Apple thinks it's appropriate to punish ordinary Russians for the actions of the Russian government!
As @Catweazle said:
I don't think it was our Russian friends in this forum who started this disaster in Ukraine.
I hope we can all agree with that. I hope we can agree to treat people with respect, regardless of nationality, and regardless of what we think of their nation's government.
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@kerygma Yes, I first mentioned the Ukraine-Russia situation. Not to express my personal opinion on it, not to debate the rights and wrongs of it! But to make a point, a point that I stand by:
Big Tech is targeting ordinary Europeans, because it doesn't like the actions of a European government. If that's not a good argument for Europe to minimize dependence on American Big Tech, I don't know what is!
Bringing this back to browsers: If Europeans would start using Vivaldi instead of Chrome, that would be a start.
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@eggcorn , this is what I mean, to talk at eye level with the big companies in this field. The US dominates most of the market, Russia dominates its own, as do the Asian countries, while the EU was only the customer of these global players at the mercy of their conditions. This is what needs to change. This Ukraine crisis has only shown the importance of this, regardless of the human tragedy it entails.
Technological independence is very important, because politics can change from one day to the next, as we see, with the danger of losing not only our independence and freedom of decision. -
@catweazle I'm American myself, and I don't want to be dominated by "my own". For reasons I've already explained: I don't think American Big Tech has the best interests of the American people in mind.
What I want to see is choice, competition! I want the American Tech monopoly to end, so that the American people and the world's people have more options.
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@eggcorn , just this. The problem is only that monopolies don't give any choice to the people, you like it or else you can raise carrier pigeons, if you don't have a alternative.
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@kerygma Yes and no.
Yes: People are free to install whatever browser they want. It's a simple enough matter to install another browser, if you know what you're doing.
No: The key-part there is "if you know what you're dong"! You'd have to know that there's choices beyond the default browser and Chrome. You'd have to be comfortable installing software.
And that's just for browsers. Take something more complex, like operating systems, and even I have trouble with that! I had a lot of trouble getting Linux to install, and work properly, on one of my computers. I'm good with computers. So when even I have trouble, what hope is there for the average computer-user? People have a choice in principle. But principle and practice are two different things!
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@eggcorn , this is the other point, the OS, you can mainly choose between Windows (US) or Mac (US), also most Distros are equally US soft, with some European exceptions. Even most OpenSource is distributed (and controlled, even incluying own APIs) by M$ (GitHub) or by Google.
On mobiles it is not much different either, to choose between iOS (US) or Android (US), at least on mobiles that support Linux, if you have ROOT access.
With browsers we also depend on BigTech, since all the current engines used are from the USA. -
@catweazle That matters much less in open-source then in closed-source! As I said in a previous post: A European organization, such as Quant, could create a their own Chromium. A Chromium with the Google stuff striped out, and replaced by a more privacy-friendly sync.
Even if Big Tech were to turn on France tomorrow, Google wouldn't have the right to stop France from using that Chromium code. So with Quant, a French organization, distributing Chromium: Google would have an awfully hard time shutting France off from Chromium!
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Norway isn't a part of EU, but I still prefer my internet traffic going to Norway rather than USA and China.
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@nikommari Which vivaldi connections are going to the USA and china.?
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@priest72 , in Vivaldi only the Chromium base with some related Google APIs which are not eliminated by the davs or the user, to China nothing, except if you use Baidu as search engine (I don't think you do).
Vivaldi is only related to the old Opera until v12, but not with the current Opera, which is a product of a Chinese company -
@nikommari Vivaldi servers are in Island
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Located in iceland i believe..the land of geysers and quite cold so i have been told.
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@priest72 Yes, cold, that's why the forum is sometimes slow and frozen 🥶🧊
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@Priest72 , they say "if you don't like the weather in Iceland, wait 10 minutes"