• ZerushOP
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    2 年前

    It’s not that simple, you can offer an OpenSource browser, but this in a browser that is almost an onlineOS, rather than just a simple browser like others, is somewhat more complicated. Apart from this Closed Source thing, it is not quite correct, only a small part of the script is proprietary soft but completely auditable and accessible and even modifiable for the user for personal use.

    There has been an internal debate for quite some time on this point, to make Vivaldi OpenSource entirely, but this, at least for the moment, is not that desirable. If I did it now, Chrome and EDGE would not take a day to use these scripts, which would be the end of Vivaldi and others.

    Google and MS already in the past tried to block Vivaldi from the market as an uncomfortable competitor, which led the team to decide, against their own interests and to avoid problems for the user, to remove Vivaldi from it’s UA string, which is why now it just shows up as Chrome. With this, the problems of being able to access pages that previously blocked it with a Pop Up were suddenly removed, claiming that Vivaldi was not compatible, which naturally was a lie and was based only on the name Vivaldi in the UA.

    This is what happens in the world of browsers and global players Google, Microsoft who want to dominate the market and only allow others who are subordinate and let them track the user. Why do you think there are already 2 Linux distros that have replaced Firefox and adopted Vivaldi as the default browser (Manjaro and FerenOS)? In others it is also already debated.

    OpenSource is important and the best manner to develop new products, but this in a market with nearly 100 browsers, forks of only three diferent engines, some exotics apart, and other 70 discontinued or abandoned, make not so much sense, there prevail other values. Thrustworthy, security and privacy isn’t sinonym of OpenSource, the advantage of OpenSource is pure tecnically, no ther. Remember, all Apis from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and other big companies are OpenSource, Android is OpenSource, Kindle FireOS is OpenSource (a fork of Android), also a lot of other FOSS include this APIs. GitHub is paid proprietary of Microsoft, the biggest catalogue of OpenSource projects is from Google (Google Code) As user don’t trust who say FOSS = good, Proprietary soft = crap, because it isn’t so easy. For the normal user only import how the companie treats the user, the product do what the user want, it has a good support and a communit to help, all with a good privacy and security. All other maybe interesting for developers, who can read the source or modify it for own use, they can use the Chromium script y some more, which is OpenSource for own projects, or all the code for modding Vivaldi for the own use. Something what you can’t do with Chrome or Edge or the now Chinese Opera. https://vivaldi.com/source/

      • ZerushOP
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        2 年前

        I am clear that you are only asking without bad intentions and that is why I have answered you Yes, there is 5% of the code that is proprietary, although fully auditable and even modifiable by the user, this is what differentiates Vivaldi from other closed source apps, where the proprietary part is completely closed and not accessible. That is, although proprietary soft, you can be 100% sure of what you are using.

        • Arthur BesseA
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          2 年前

          That is, although proprietary soft, you can be 100% sure of what you are using

          sorry but unless they provide access to the complete proprietary source code in a form where you can actually compile it yourself and run it instead of their binaries, you are mistaken.

            • Arthur BesseA
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              2 年前

              even if it was “source visible” non-free software, I wouldn’t use it, but, their EULA also says you can’t “reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Software”. so, yeah, no thanks. 🤷

              • ZerushOP
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                2 年前

                Not for other projects as for own use, it’s full auditable, in the community even show you how to do this, to avoid that Google and Edge are the first in forking it and with this killing Vivaldi and all other browsers. How do you think Vivaldi with less 1% marketshare will survive with the big ones have the same? In a market with nearly 100 browser forks, dominated by Google and M$, where another 70 have already been abandoned that tried to introduce more features in OpenSource, leaving something that makes it different for free use, it’s suicide.

                The main reason for being for FOSS is to give the possibility of collaboration for the devs in developing new products, but this in a market as saturated as that of browsers, this does not make much sense anymore. Ok, a dev capable of analyzing the script can say that this gives some more security, but the rest of the 99.9% of users can not and have to trust what others say, just like in any other soft, by far they can check it using some services that analyze the security and privacy of the product and this depends solely on the intentions of the author or manufacturer of these, regardless of whether it is FOSS or not, especially since most of the current FOSS comes out of the workshops of Google and Microsoft, whose privacy practices we already know well (=cero).

                We are in the question of who do we trust the most? of a Google FOSS, or of a small cooperative in the EU, with its privacy rules, non-existent in the US, which launches with its own means a proprietary freeware, with good support, clear and good TOS and PP and a support community, which allow to interact directly with the devs and the CEO himself in a democratic way?.

                But of course, if you are able to read and analyze the thousands of lines of a script, I do not say anything and you will be right to prefer it. Personally I am governed by the verification of the veracity of the statements for 6 years and as a result of the confidence acquired. I’m not bothered at all that part of the exceptional UI is proprietary soft, I know it carries no scripts to track or spy on the user. I can synchronize the data completely encrypted end2end, without the possibility of recovering them if I forget the password, there is no recovery email as others have, because Vivaldi does not have access to this data, nor to the password. Small price for privacy.

                • Arthur BesseA
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                  2 年前

                  are you saying their EULA isn’t enforced? or what?

                  how can it be fully auditable while explicitly prohibiting attempts to derive the source code?

                  • ZerushOP
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                    2 年前

                    It’s means that you can’t use this code (derive) for other projects or browsers, but permits to mod your Vivaldi to your like (on the own risk), that is tolerated.