I'm going to brainstorm some considerations that have been floating around in my head since this subthread (cc @mcc @emaytch )
mastodon.social/@emaytch/11558…
about «what are we left with after Firefox is gone» (or has become unusable). The only viable alternative currently is @palemoon, a hard fork so old that it has had time to mature into its own independent browser and engine, in contrast to e.g. @librewolf or @Waterfox that still closely follow upstream.
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margot (@emaytch@mastodon.social)
@oblomov@sociale.network @mcc yeah. my main concern is that anything tied to Firefox seems like it kind of lives or dies by what firefox does (the chromium problem) so it feels like a band-aid solution, but if there's no other solutions (and my frien…margot (Mastodon)
Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •This is not to say that #LibreWolf and/or #WaterFox wouldn't be able to “walk on their own two legs” if #Firefox ever becomes unusable —it's just that they haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate it yet, so their viability remains a huge unknown. For example, will they be able to maintain the XSLT code once it gets removed? (from bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.… it's clear that the FF devs have no intention to listen to the community on that, just like they won't listen to feedback on AI)
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1990759 - Investigate deprecation and removal of XSLT (deprecate and remove XSLT)
bugzilla.mozilla.orgOblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •So my first thought was not unlike @emaytch's: if the forks “live or die” by FF, then if FF goes down so do the forks. PaleMoon being independent gives us some respite, as does @servo being under active development —in the hopes that it becomes truly viable BEFORE #Firefox goes down: and of course we do not know yet if they'll stick with #Google's decisions about what is and what is not allowed on the Web, or if it will have the spine (and resources) to support tech that Google rejects.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •But then I thought: is it really that important? How much work is it actually to *maintain* a browser (as opposed to *develop* one, possibly from scratch)?
This is where it starts to get interesting, especially if we stop to consider what a browser is, and what the World Wide Web is. And the interesting part is that we're currently in a process of “speciation”, if I may borrow a term from evolutionary biology.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •The #WorldWideWeb was born with the intent to achieve an interconnected web of *documents*: and this is not only what it was in the beginning, but also what most of the open, independent web still is, even when it's more dynamically generated (wikis, blogs).
What we've seen under the moniker of “Web 2.0” in the last 20+ years, but especially in the last decade, has been the development of a different _interpretation_ of the Web.
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#openWeb #indieWeb #WWW
Howard Lane
in reply to Oblomov • • •Oblomov
in reply to Howard Lane • • •witchescauldron
in reply to Oblomov • • •@howard
So we can see a path where the web of documents (#4opens #smallweb) is pushed away from the web of apps (#dotcons #bigweb).
This is a functional path for sustaining the alt tech path as the #smallweb is much more #KISS thus #DIY than the mess we have in the "bigweb". We likely need a better framing than this...
Oblomov
in reply to witchescauldron • • •witchescauldron
in reply to Oblomov • • •@howard
So how would you frame this?
Oblomov
in reply to witchescauldron • • •@witchescauldron @howard
I'm getting there, I'm just very verbose 8-D
Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •Major corporations saw in the “Web 2.0” the opportunity to leverage this communication channel as a means to deliver services to the users, or, a rose by any other name, a way to write cross-platform application front-ends.
This isn't exactly news to anyone who has been using the web more than a decade, but I think it's quite important to stress this again: the modern web features *both* kinds of websites: document repositories, and application frontends (“web apps”).
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •Web browsers are used to access *both* kinds of websites, but —and this is extremely important— the two kinds of websites have *very different requirements*.
For example, The V8 #JavaScript engine that powers Chrome was specifically designed to improve the quality of service of web apps, and while the “web of documents” can at times benefit from said improvements, it doesn't have particular needs in this regard, except maybe to compensate for the deficiency of other components (esp. #CSS)
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •A lot of the development efforts (both creative and destructive) in web browsers in the last decade+ has been going into fostering the “web app” vision of the web, to the detriment of the “web of documents” vision. From the removal of native support for #RSS and #Atom to the introduction of JavaScript APIs like #WebUSB or the “Web Environment Integrity” attempt, nearly all work done on browsers has been in this direction.
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glipari
in reply to Oblomov • • •I think it is important to mention where the money is and where it goes, because ultimately the money drives the technical choices that are made. Web apps bring much more money than hyperlinked documents: imagine what online commerce would be without Web apps. So, none of the big players care about documents.
If we want to build an alternative, we have to think how to make it economically viable first, otherwise there is no chance of succeeding.
So, how can we make Librewolf, Servo, or any of the alternatives sustainable from an economic point of view? I have no answer.
Oblomov
in reply to glipari • • •@glipari I've hinted at this towards the beginning of the thread
sociale.network/@oblomov/11559…
and I'm getting back there through a rather convoluted path 8-D
Oblomov
2025-11-22 09:57:49
glipari
in reply to Oblomov • • •Yes.
I find that a lot of people passioned about open source alternative do not think hard enough about the financial aspects of a software project. For many people, coding is still a thing you can do in your spare time.
So, many smart programmers are burnt out (so many stories!).
Users, on the other hand, expect everything to be free, all the time. Hence the need for making revenues from advertising. It's a trap that is difficult to escape. It's a societal and economical problem, not a technical one.
glipari
in reply to glipari • • •Also, recently I started to think that many of the problems we have today in software come from two "revolutions" that are generally considered positive. The first one is open source: to make it short, I think thar the wide availability of open source libraries and tools has raised the wrong impression that software is cheaper than it really is, and nobody wants to pay for it anymore.
The second is "agile methods": they 1) removed the need for initial specifications and requirements ; 2) in some cases project managers tend to view the user as a beta tester, so they can accelerate deployment of not-so-carefully tested software. The combination of these two factors implies that every app, every web site, every interface changes all the time, in often unexpected ways.
Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •This difference isn't just a matter of feature sets; in fact, it's primarily a matter of _design principles_.
A browser for the “web of documents” is a User Agent: it's a tool in the hands of users designed to maximize the usability of said documents.
A browser for the “web of apps” is a Corporate Agent: it's a too in the hands of *corporation* designed to maximize the control *they* have on the user machine.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •One can obviously see how this reflects in the development of Chrome with the removals of features that are unnecessary or, even worse, *detrimental* to corporate interests (the most famous recent such change is the introduction of the so-called Manifest v3 for WebExtensions to kill ad blockers), but you can also see in Firefox development when their “listening to the community” means doubling down on shoving unwanted genAI support everywhere and dropping XSLT.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •Under this analysis, browsers like @Vivaldi are in a very precarious situation: on the one hand, #VivaldiBrowser is being developed under what is arguably a “web of documents” mindset, and in fact more in general as a “Swiss knife of the Internet”, similarly to classic #OperaBrowser (I've already written about this at length). On the other hand, its reliance on the #Google-controlled #Blink engine that is designed for the “web of apps” cripples it in its efforts:
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •So @Vivaldi doesn't support JPEG XL because Blink has removed support for it, and will have no choice but to drop XSLT support following Chrome's timeline. The same holds for any other browser that depends on Blink, WebKit and soon even Gecko. This will make all of them less of a User Agent and more of Corporate Agents infiltrated in our machines.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •So, what I've been thinking is that it's time to realize that the “web of documents” and “web of apps” are two completely different beasts, only incidentally related to each other, and that it might not even make sense to waste efforts in developing tools that support both equally well.
This means, in particular, that we may have to make peace with the fact that one browser might not be enough: we *will* need two of them.
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •For me, this is already the case, BTW: although Firefox is my primary browser, I still have to resort to Chromium from time to time, either because some websites simply refuse to work correctly in Firefox, or because it's the only way to ensure a solid “separation of concerns” (Unsurprisingly, what I use Chromium for is the more corporate-y stuff.)
And even without asking, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but let's have a poll. Do you use an alternate browser for some stuff?
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- All in the same cauldron (11%, 1 vote)
- Different profile(s) on the same browser (11%, 1 vote)
- Different browser for the corpo stuff (55%, 5 votes)
- A secret fourth thing (write-in) (22%, 2 votes)
9 voters. Poll end: 3 weeks agoOblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •In this sense, the question «are @librewolf / @Waterfox viable if #Firefox goes down» becomes less important: @palemoon has shown that a viable alternative _at least for the “web of documents”_ is in fact possible (and it exists already). So the question would rather be «will we have a viable alternative to corporate browsers (Chrome, Safari) for the “web of apps”?»
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Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •I think the answer is yes: even if @librewolf (as it seems: <floss.social/@IanTwenty/115593…>, thanks @IanTwenty) or @Waterfox wouldn't be able to survive (keep up to date with the evolving standards) once Mozilla goes down and Firefox ceases to exist, we will likely still have Blink- and WebKit-based browsers around to work as “slightly less shitty corporate agents” to browse the “web of apps”.
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IanTwenty (@IanTwenty@floss.social)
FLOSS.socialOblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •If anything, the biggest issue would be that, since the “web of documents” and the “web of apps” use the same protocol, switching from one to the other won't be “natural”.
In this sense, the #GeminiProtocol folks have arguably had the right idea: “we'll make our own web, with simple text and image formats”. This, to steal @witchescauldron's expression <kolektiva.social/@witchescauld…>, pushes the “web of documents” away from the “web of apps”.
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If anything, the biggest issue would be that, since the “web of documents” and the “web of apps” use the same protocol, switching from one to the other won't be “natural”.
In this sense, the #GeminiProtocol folks have arguably had the right idea: “we'll make our own web, with simple text and image formats”. This, to steal @witchescauldron's expression <kolektiva.social/@witchescauld…>, pushes the “web of documents” away from the “web of apps”.
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witchescauldron
2025-11-22 10:34:46
Oblomov
in reply to Oblomov • • •But as I've already mentioned in other threads, the #GeminiProtocol approach IMO throws away the baby with the bathwater. Many of the web formats and technologies are actually extremely useful even for the “web of documents”: the problem isn't with #HTML, #CSS, #XML, #XSLT, #SVG or even #JavaScript, the problem is that browsers have been catering exclusively to the “web of apps” instead of the “web of documents”. We *can* keep that tech *and* the “web of documents”.
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witchescauldron
in reply to Oblomov • • •good point about #notingnew and the techchurn, this hashtag tries to mediate.
What would a divergence of the native #openweb look like if it consciously moved away from the current #dotcons and #geekproblem pushing?
How would this acturley happen in the "fantasy world", where we could "govern" our selves on any meaningful way or path.
Yes, the tech matters, but the social is needed to shape and push this tech, where do we find this social tech path?
#OMN