Before you downvote check the community and maybe read my argument.
In recent times on Lemmy or really in any tech affine corner its become the norm to trash Chrome and ALL other Chromium based browsers. However I’d argue thats complete nonsense and maybe even counter productive. Really Safari and GOOGLE Chrome should be enemy #1. Not smaller Chromium browsers. The fact that two 100% big tech controlled browsers have such a dominating position is the real cause for concern. And lets not pretend that Firefox’s further development is also heavily predicated upon Google writing them a check.
Because really the issue right now is that the if both Google and Apple come together to start enshittifying their browsers by for example adding invasive DRM that allows websites to deny you service if you run adblockers, rooted or jailbroken devices (like Google tried) with their combined market share of > 90% they could just push through. Since many websites would loose very little in terms of potential users if they outright denied service to any browser (Chromium or not) without that DRM in place.
However if Google Chrome and Safari had lets say less than 40% market share another 50% was controlled by a dozen or so smaller based Chromium browsers, these browsers could simply first off not merge in these anti features into their codebase and maybe even deny merging any new Chromium changes in protest until Google or Apple give up on it. Because what use is there for Chrome to add new features if only a third of the browsers support it? No website can really use them
Also I’m still in full support of Chromium’s idea of giving webapps more capabilities. In my opinion giving webapps the ways to access System stuff like Bluetooth, USB Devices, … through a robust permission system and making them a even more viable type of Application is a great cause. The Applications are still sandboxed, they are multiplatform by nature and the web is a very democratic and user-friendly way to distribute them (way more so than the big tech owned Appstores). Or let me put it this way : If i have to run a closed source Application, I at least feel better doing so if its in a sandboxed environment like a browser and without supporting the iron grip the Appstore or Playstore have on their respective platforms.
My approval for Chromium however does not extend to electron and other “Website packaged as a ‘native’ App” frameworks. Fuck that crap. Especially since 90% could just be a regular Webapp or PWA but yet decide to ship and entire browser along with 1MB of JavaScript code that uses maybe 1% of the Browsers features.
Google controls the Chromium project. They decide what gets merged in or not. The other browsers are basically soft-forks. They can rip stuff out after the fact, but they can’t stop Google from merging stuff into Chromium in the first place.
I’d argue Chrome’s marketshare may not have been as high as it is right now if every browser out there didn’t cave in and become Chrome-in-disguise.
Don’t get me wrong, I still use Chromium browsers for a bunch of stuff, but its hegemony on the web and the fact Google doesn’t have to wait for anyone’s approval before merging their shit is basically turning Chrome into the new IE.
good and well written post, OP. i agree with you and this is definitely an unpopular opinion.
the only reason to hate on non-google chromium in general is when it narrows the pool of browsers in the market, and therefore gives chromium devs more opportunity to make web-breaking changes, and lazy web devs an opportunity to make less compatible sites, thereby giving google something of a brute strength monopoly.
for example, when edge switched to chromium, that was a genuine loss to the user. you know those pop-ups you get that say “this site works better on Chrome?” yeah, it’s not a coincidence that has been happening since the Edge transition and loss of EdgeHTML/Trident.
my only two disagreements: when you say safari is enemy #1. again, engine diversity is important to the quality of web pages, keeping control of the web out of the hands of one company, and WebKit is safari’s unique engine. it’s good that safari continues to exist. if safari just disappeared, or switched to chromium, we would be absolutely fucked because we’d all be left with one monolothic version of the web led by google and microsoft.
other disagreement is yours and others’ distaste for mozilla taking funding from google et al. they need cash to keep existing, and they have been nothing if not transparent about the changes they make to their browser in exchange. if they did shady things for pay it’d be a different story but that’s just not the case.