Should we change the default browser with our next Manjaro release?

Notices
41

English, please. For German, use the #languages:deutsch category. It’s what it’s there for.

HEADS UP, EVERYONE! :warning:

The Manjaro forum has distinct language categories for…

  • Dutch (#languages:nederlands)
  • German (#languages:deutsch)
  • French (#languages:francais)
  • Spanish (#languages:espanol).

People who natively speak yet other languages than English and don’t know how to express themselves in English can post in the generic #languages category — preferably with a tag to denote which language they’re using, because this is not always clear due to, for instance, multiple languages using Cyrillic, Coptic, Kanji, Arabic, or other alphabets.

The reason why there aren’t any more language categories than the four above — or five if you include the parent #languages category — is simply that we currently don’t have any moderators available anymore who would be able to monitor categories in any of the non-English languages not already represented by a dedicated category.

Now, while it is always possible that a completely new member would fail to find a suitable language category and would thus post in their own language in the English-spoken sections of the forum, the fact is and remains that — apart from the designated language categories listed above — the official language here at the Manjaro forum itself is English.

This does not mean in any way, shape or form that one could not interject a single phrase in another language as a form of humor somewhere, but lately the staff and several longstanding members have been noticing an increase in the amount of posts in German by native German-speakers who are perfectly capable of communicating in English and who have been members here long enough to know the rules, but who simply resort to German out of laziness. This even goes so far as that originally English-spoken threads under Support or any of its subcategories suddenly get converted into German-speaking threads midway.

This is antisocial, because while roughly a third of the planet understands English (to varying degrees), not everyone outside of Germany, Switzerland and Austria speaks or understands German.

The language to be used at the Manjaro forum is English — for both official and unofficial communication. Therefore, German-language posts in the English-spoken public sections of the forum will from here on simply be deleted by the staff, no questions asked.

Thank you for reading.

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Remote desktop?
42

i’ve been using waterfox for years and will continue to do so.

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43

I would argue that Vivaldi, as a non-open source browser, probably should not be considered as the default. Using the previously linked article on Vivaldi not being open source and the figures for the proportion of code not open source, you can get a soft number of 1.7 million lines of code not being open source (calculation: 5% of Vivaldi is not open source, 92% is Chromium, Chromium has 32 million lines of code, 32/0.92*0.05=1.7). 1.7 million lines of code seems like a substantial amount.

On whether or not to keep Firefox as is or disable the feature: I’d be on the fence. The proposed changes are a) open-source and b) somewhat more private than cookies, which is the status quo. Therefore, I’d point out that anyone advocating for disabling this feature on the grounds of privacy should also be advocating for any browser that does ship having cookies disabled - including first party cookies and local storage.

Note I’m not advocating one way or the other. Rather, I’m pointing out that the status quo is also terrible, and cannot be rectified without breaking a lot of the web. Maybe if we could redesign the web from the ground up we could have functionality without a lack of privacy, but that’s not the world we live in.

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44

If a change is to be made, I (for one) would support providing a user choice during initial Manjaro installation via Calamares; just as Office selection already demonstrates the feasibility of doing it this way.

So, the precedent already exists.

The focus then becomes just which of the browsers to include in the selection array; I dare say, Firefox and Vivaldi, to start with, as they both have a proven demand. Provision for other browsers could likewise be reserved for later additions, as needed.

The same could arguably be done with Plymouth, which continues to cause boot failure for some users. Making Plymouth an opt-in choice has also been discussed before.

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45

I would support this idea.
I like the idea of having options, and I would prefer Flatpak over Extra/AUR.
So when given option, I could skip the installation of browser, and install my preferred browser from Flathub via pamac later.

47

Maybe ask Bryan Lunduke what browser he’s planning on adding to the upcoming Lunduke Computer Operating System. :wink:

48

Probably lynx. :stuck_out_tongue:

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49

Hello everyone, I’ll vote for Brave, Vivaldi has a lot of flaws, starting with speed (open the forums), ending with security and ad blocking. I wouldn’t like to see Vivaldi in the system. Brave has a lot of advantages and conveniences, Tor, IPFS, speed, excellent ad blocking, hardware support for acceleration out of the box, support for other Web3 standards. Also, synchronization between devices without an account, which is very safe, the Android version is also good

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50

:laughing:

Hardy har har.

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51

I’ve been using Firefox on and off for almost 20 years. It’s very, very annoying to be forced into change by them.

I wish that LadyBird was more into development than now… I wished that they get an FUTO grant.

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52

Brave has it’s own share of problematic stuff. Two examples I remember were the entire replacing ads thing (i.e. inserting ads for which Brave received the money, which earned them a lawsuit before they backed down), and modifying links to websites to be affiliate links. Given those are rather more egregious violations of browser trust, I think the current experiment in Firefox is rather less severe. Ultimately, I somehow doubt there’s going to be any browser that’s completely consumer/privacy focused, at least out of the box.

Maybe ship Firefox with Ublock Origin baked in and some settings disabled if an anti-tracking at all costs version is ultimately what’s intended? Or at least, that’s pretty much the only way I can think of doing it without breaking the web, given that almost everything is Chromium based, and so gives Google it’s own little spying API.

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53

Then its time to confuse you with words like Kindergarten? :smile:

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54

There is an unfortunate never-ending problem with deciding on open source software involving endless alternatives.

Personally, I use Brave due to its fingerprinting mitigations and better security over Firefox. But I think Manjaro being Manjaro, it’s best we stick with defaults like Firefox or Chromium instead of forks. It will be more reliable and less maintenance/troubleshooting will be needed if and when there are bugs. And of course, fewer controversies :wink:.

That being said, since we and most distros have been shipping with Firefox for so many years, plus the added configurability in about:config, Firefox is probably the best option. And since this is obviously going to affect all Firefox users, I think we should talk to Arch maintainers to disable PPA upstream.

And as always, the user is free to install any browser they want. They aren’t obliged to use the default one.

5 Likes
55

lol only 5-10 at the same time.

56

I recall being pleasantly surprised by Vivaldi being made available in the official Manjaro repositories; likely two years ago, as the proverbial crow flies.

Also interesting to note is that Vivaldi is already the default browser on the Manjaro Cinnamon Community Edition ISO. There never seems much chatter on the forums about Vivaldi, so, presumedly, those who do use it are likely happy with it.

This is how it starts, though, isn’t it?

A new (likely forked) browser is announced, with promises of privacy first and an attractive mission statement…

Word gets around, and the hype becomes infectious; articles are written, hopes are high among the whispers of wonderment…

Ooh, ahh…

…and later, there’s running… and screaming…
…as features are added, and promises are broken.

The Midori Browser was a lightweight alternative in days gone by; I recall vague promises of a new version to replace the aging codebase with something shiny and new… Well, we got something new, finally; a fork of Firefox with a new skin; and it wasn’t particularly good (in my opinion).

Of course, all new browsers tend to have their teething problems, before they actually become viable for wider use. The Ladybird browser will no doubt have it’s share also, nonetheless, I’d like to see how it stands in, say, another five years.

This much remains true, regardless. Still, if the default browser is to be changed, I maintain the user should at least be given the choice of which to install (from the likely shortlist) from the onset.

The strategy I mentioned a few posts upward makes sense (at least to me); just like the Office selection, a user could choose a browser from those offered as default candidates; or select none if they already have another browser in mind.

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57

A little food for thought from about halfway down the fairly long article:

Andrew Moore, a Solutions Architect out of Montreal, tried his best to demystify some common misconceptions with a detailed blog, where he shed light on the inner workings of PPA.

He shared that the goal of this API was to study the viability of such implementations, so that one day, existing ad networks could start moving away from invasive individual tracking.

Even one of our reader’s had something to add on this topic, and I do agree with what they said:

When you condemn Mozilla’s attempt to introduce adtech in Firefox (with an option to turn it off), please note that Mozilla is fighting a life-and-death battle for the survival of Firefox.

If Firefox goes away, so do its alternatives such as LibreWolf, Waterfox and the most secure web browser currently available, Floorp. Support Firefox, because if not, you will be even more vulnerable to global tech companies.

In today’s age, advertising has become a necessary evil for an Internet-focused organization to stay in business, and what Mozilla seems to be trying to, is pushing for “better defaults”, that can hopefully be the standard one day.

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58

Hello,

I prefer the Brave Browser than the Vivaldi, because of the sync funktion,
which not function with Vivaldi, but within Brave Browser,
over my different installs on Manjaro PC and my Notebook and even over Windows or mobile Androit Phone installations.
So I can read something here and send it to my other Brave Synced Browsers.
And continue read there.
So I am for Brave and not for Vivaldi, because I can not send my open tabs with Vivaldi but with Brave it goes fine.

Greetings
Tony

2 Likes
59

Last I tried Brave I couldn’t configure it as much as I could with Vivaldi, Firefox, and Waterfox, and for that reason I discarded it from my list of browsers that I was choosing to be the default. Also Vivaldi, and Firefox’s sync functions seems to work okay for me.

60

I’ve already listed two such alternatives, both of them modified versions of chromium, and both available from the AUR in a readily usable binary form… :point_down:

  • ungoogled-chromium-bin or ungoogled-chromium-xdg-bin
  • iridium-rpm or iridium-deb

I beg to disagree with that. GNU/Linux is king in the server rooms, on supercomputers and on mainframes, and it has by now in 2024 attained 4% — conservatively measured, because it’s based on browser identification strings with fingerprinting protection disabled — of the world’s desktop market share, without any advertising at all, and in spite of the very carefully engineered smearing campaigns and bribery from Microsoft under both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

There are no advertisements for GNU/Linux on any website, short of the websites of GNU/Linux distributions themselves, nor any million-dollar advertising videos on TV, YouTube, or any of the streaming platforms, nor any full-page-size advertisements in printed magazines and newspapers, nor are there any million-dollar press conferences with champagne and loud music at expensive hotels all over the world whenever a new point release of any particular distribution comes out.

Furthermore, GNU/Linux does not come rammed down your throat when you buy a new computer — unless you explicitly choose to buy such a computer from a vendor who offers that — which means that the people running GNU/Linux typically also have to overcome the hurdle of having to install it themselves.

All of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, most mainframes, 90% of the servers powering the internet, most embedded devices such as routers, smart TVs, set-top boxes and the likes, and 4% of the desktop market. That’s a lot of computers. All without any advertising at all.

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61

Counterpoint: GNU/Linux development is bankrolled by a large number of companies. This includes, but is not limited to, Meta, Alphabet (Google), Tencent and Amazon. Advertising is a large chunk of all of these businesses, including a number where it is the primary revenue source. GNU/Linux is a direct beneficiary of a large amount advertising dollars, be that in direct funding or the contribution of engineering time.

Maybe that will stop when Google finishes it’s Fuschia operating system, in a repeat of how once upon a time Google promoted Firefox, until it released Chrome.