zlacker

The difference is, AOSP on its own is unusable, but Chromium Is.

>>jacoop+(OP)
For now.

>>jacoop+(OP)
Google has added proprietary closed source blobs to chromium in the past and there's little reason they wouldn't do so again when they're the only game in town.

>>jacoop+(OP)
It's pretty close to being unusable as an open source code base. Look at Debian's struggles with maintaining security fixes for Chromium.

Sure, the license is open, and Chromium is therefore technically open. But it's dangerously close to not being usable in any real practical meaning of "open source".

The way things are, we do indeed stand on the precipice of a Chromium-only web with—for all practical intents and purpose—no open browser. Firefox is the last thing that stands between us and that reality. It's just a shame that they seem to be wasting hundreds of millions on admin and management instead of just throwing it all at their developers.

>>gspr+08
> Look at Debian's struggles with maintaining security fixes for Chromium.

I can't see anything about this anywhere giving any reasons; is it simply that they're released frequently and there aren't really any long-lived branches?

>>gsnedd+5d
My understanding is that the Chromium folks handle security issues with: "version x.y.z is vulnerable, please update to (x+7).(y+25).(z+2), as it is the only supported version – the fact that the diff from x.y.z is 100 kLOC and touches mostly completely unrelated things is your problem".

This isn't sustainable open source development in any practical sense. Sure, it's technically open source, but nearly useless for anything but consumption straight from Google. I'd say that that makes it practically not open source.

>>jacoop+(OP)
AOSP on its own was perfectly usable, in the early days. That frog has been thoroughly boiled.

>>jacoop+(OP)
Oh good, I look forward to the continued ad-blocking Manifest v2 provides after Chrome sunsets it.

And we still have to see if other browsers will block the Topics API spyware or not.

>>gspr+bg
Arch has been handling minor releases on Chromium just fine. If Debian is having issues, it is most likely with them trying to backport fixes into antiquated code bases.

>>anonym+j4
But they arent, chromium forks like brave or edge won't stand and do nothing if something ridiculous happened.

>>gspr+08
Its a Debian problem, there is a flatpak version and its working fine.

>>NoGrav+yk
Pure AOSP is always unusable, because it doesn't have the kernel drivers for any device.

>>HWR_14+Is
Yeah, I'm looking forward to see what will happens when V2 dies. I'm using brave so this won't change anything for me really.

As for the Topics API, It looks like to be a new copy of FLOC, which flopped immediately on release, as no body adopted it other than chrome.

>>jacoop+Xp1
You're kinda proving my point: it works fine if you wholeheartedly take whatever Google gives you. Sure, that's technically open source, but is it really practically so if you can't practically adapt it?

>>jacoop+Uq1
Topics is rebranded FLOC. Everyone pushed back on it when FLOC came out, but that was publicly reviled and there was a simple toggle to turn it off (it was an experimental feature).

This is an excellent test of Google's ability to just push a very unpopular feature into Chromium derivatives.

>>encryp+Lv
If a year old is considered antiquated, we have some major problems in this world.

And it's kinda my whole point: code that can only be consumed wholesale as shipped might technically be open source, but if backporting fixes to a year old version is nigh on impossible, is it truly open source in practice?

>>gspr+BG1
How ? There is brave, Ungoogle chromium, and many other modified browsers that are maintained.

>>HWR_14+VG1
Non google browsers didn't only disable it, they removed it completely.

Google has a lot of control over chromium, but I don't think its even close to how gimped AOSP is compared to Android google edition.

>>encryp+Lv
But arch is a rolling distro.

Debian has a release model for a reason and it's their raison d'etre. Of course they don't want to compromise that.

Considering the amount of other distros that use them as a base they're providing something that people want.

>>gspr+OI1
Yes it is. That is like saying because it doesn't run on an Atari that it isn't truly open source.

>>jacoop+bM1
> Non google browsers didn't only disable it, they removed it completely.

They set the toggle to false and deactivated any of the options to turn it back on. That's very different from removing a feature (or maintaining a legacy feature).

The only code they changed was UX-related and a single default.

>>encryp+1T1
No it's not. The Atari isn't one year old. Come on man, from your logic you might as well say that a one year old car should be fed hay since it's practically a horse.

>>jacoop+RL1
Are they maintained? Or are they latest version or bust "maintained"?

>>gspr+gK2
Latest version or bust, because really you can't call a browser behind on updates maintained.

>>gspr+oG2
Debian stable is using components often several years old, not just a year.

>>encryp+VP3
Some parts of the system evolve faster than others. I am glad for Debian's relatively conservative policy for all my servers, but I want an evergreen browser on my desktop.