i fear mozilla may be in the line here, finally giving-in to google on manifest 3's limitations, web 'drm', and targeted ads program, in exchange for keeping the lights on (google is their single biggest source of funding via payment for being default search).

[–] TheEntity@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I see literally no incentive for them to limit their API to just the Google version of Manifest v3. If I recall correctly they already expanded their implementation to offer more.

If they ever implement WEI (the "web DRM") then it's because the Internet forces their hand. A web browser is only as useful as the websites it can browse. If our banks will demand WEI support Mozilla doesn't have much choice. We need to worry about the website providers changing the web, not Mozilla adjusting Firefox to these changes. In the latter case it's already too late and it's hard to blame Mozilla at this point.

[–] fuzzzerd@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago

I agree on WEI, and that's the scary part since crappy companies will demand it in the name of security and everyone gets fucked and the Internet becomes a little less free.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People wouldn’t use Firefox if it couldn’t run google and if it made bing default then you’d see a bunch of idiots making memes about how it’s so bad and they won’t use it because it’s default

Google has been worse than bing for a decade and chrome has been worse than Firefox for longer. But people still use them and think they are the best.

You even have people make jokes about edge only existing to download chrome

I feel like you vastly overestimate the audience

[–] Arnerob@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For my searches, Google still works better than bing. I wonder for what topics bing gives better results?

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Sports, piracy, video games, videos, and tech support for me

Google’s advantage for me is the date filter. If I want to find something from a decade ago then I have to use it

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 4 points 1 year ago

That would be a tragedy

[–] tuxrandom@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm honestly astonished that Google hasn't pulled the plug on Mozilla yet. After all, their missions completely and utterly oppose each other and Mozilla probably causes the biggest losses to Google.

If your prediction comes true, which isn't unlikely, Firefox forks that already exist would probably take its spot. Or privacy friendly Chromium based browsers. I know, the latter sounds like an oxymoron, but they exist and one of them I would be hated on for naming has actually been proven to have better out of the box privacy than Firefox.

[–] ironveil@eviltoast.org 2 points 1 year ago

But if Mozilla goes, Google are setting themselves up for a hell of a lawsuit, since the only cross-device browser would be Chrome (and it's children)

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem with privacy-friendly Chromium is that no one is building a mobile counterpart.

[–] yukichigai@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mozilla's mobile version of Firefox supports desktop extensions. It's not inherently privacy friendly but you can make it that way.

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah but chromium..