First, Vivaldi isn’t OpenSource in the sense of a completly free and open public source, but 95% of the source is FOSS and the rest of 5%, regarding the UI, is open for audit and accesible for the user , who can modify it to its like. But it avoid that Chrome or other Chromium can imitate Vivaldi, because this are the dead of a still very small company.
There is a brutal browser war in a very saturated market, with about 100 different browsers, most of them Chromium and another 70 that have been left behind discontinued, precisely because they are FOSS, because they were imitated by larger companies with more users.
There is no other possibility for a small business to protect itself against large competitors.
Vivaldi some time ago even dispensed with its own UA in favor of users, who have been excluded and even blocked by pages in the hands of large companies, not for lack of compatibility or security, but for browsersniffing with commercial interests. This forced to disguise Vivaldi as Chrome, with which these problems disappeared.
FOSS is a good system for sharing and develope new projects, but in a saturated marked it dosn’t make much sense, browser are not a new product and Google and MS only turn’s stronger with new FOSS browsers, forking their source for Chrome and Edge, with which a browser of a small company is death. (see Wiki, list of discontinued browsers)
Yes, Firefox is still a important alternative, but also is loosing users, because it’s going more and mor a way marked by Google and not by the user.
Brave “the privacy focused” browser, make money blocking only tracker and ad from sites which ar not the sponsored, but not so the sponsor ads and trackers, among them Facebook.
Opera is direct Spyware, because Privacy in China isn’t something known.
Fundamentally, the problem is that any software developed for commercial purposes will always be developed to make profit first and foremost. That’s the core imperative of a business. The needs of the users will always be secondary to the need of making profit. Plenty of companies start out with good intentions, and it always ends the same. FOSS is the only way to ensure that software puts the needs of the users first because profit is not the driving force behind it.
Yes, but also FOSS browser need to make money, for the infrastructure, developement and servers, which cost money.
It isn’t the cuestion of FOSS or not, it’s the cuestion of the etics of the developer and how he makes money.
Mozilla makes money with user surveillance and selling this data to Alphabet, Nest and Google
Vivaldi makes money with including search engines and links of sponsors by default, which the user can delete if he want, apart from a shop with some merchandizing. Apart is an activist** against** the user surveillance (the only of the browser companies in the list of this initative).
See the diference? Not all what is proprietary is also automaticly crap and not al FOSS protect privacy and is secure by default. This depends only of the etics of the devs.
Example: DupeGuru, FOSS app for Mac, Windows and Linux, but take a look what VirusTotal says. Like this there are others too, apart from those flagged as Bundleware.
Again, Firefox does not do any user surveillance, and Mozilla isn’t inherently dependent on Google the way companies making browsers based on Chromium are. And since making profit is the goal for these companies, there is no mechanism to guarantee they will continue to behave ethically going forward. None of what is proprietary can be trusted in the long term, and it’s a fundamental mistake to rely on proprietary tools.
Not so easy. There is never a guarantee of ethical behavior, regardless of whether we are talking about FOSS or a company. Naturally it cannot be excluded that Vivaldi may one day move into unethical practices, but this, in view of the history of Jon von Tetzchner and his cooperative that is Vivaldi, is highly unlikely. Adding the activism right against these practices in which he is involved.
There are quite a few small software companies that have been in the market for a long time, with proprietary products, more ethical than some others with FOSS products.
A good example a two brothers, which with own money in their spare time (they are working as electricians in their own workshop), have created a page with online tools (office tools, graphics and a lot of others) free to use (they accept donations), without account needed, anonimous (the documents a saved locally in html format) PWA. It’s freeware, the office suite is also downloadable.
With the shortest and best TOS and PP I have ever seen. Apart of this, a fast and friendly user support.
Firefox certainly isn’t the worse and I use it as second browser for occasional use, apart from the French browser UR. But I trust more in browsers from european compañies than of those from US companies, because the privacy laws in the CE are a lot better than those form US, where they even don’t exists or only poorly.
Ethic depends only of the Dev or company of a product, not of the license it has. The ethic of a product youu can se in the conditions of the use and how they treat your data. (read those from Firefox, maybe you’ll have a surprise)
You can’t guarantee ethical behavior, but not having a conflict of interest is a prerequisite for it. Commercial software has an inherent conflict of interest that doesn’t exist in FOSS environment. Companies either have to make profit or they perish, this is not the case for FOSS. Ethics depend on being able to ensure that the incentives of the developers align with the incentives of the users. This is not possible to do with close source software in the long run.
It is not entirely correct, also FOSS devs may have commercial interests, for example when the application, such as a browser or a VPN requires an infrastructure, such as servers.
The lack of commercial interest is only applicable to apps that do not require it, for example system tools or graphical applications.
They can also be self-hosted, but this implies two possibilities, either having your own server or having to trust an external server, with which we are in the same, of commercial interests.
It is more about the question of how this application creates its income, which can be directly such as having to pay for it, using ads, or tracking user activities to sell it to third parties. The former is acceptable, the latter is not.
It is often unavoidable to use proprietary soft on our PC (some professional apps, official administrative apps, games, or in general in apps that do not have a decent FOSS alternative). For this reason, the most important thing to have a verifiable security of the software and this can also be given as in FOSS.
The OpenSource system is not automatically synonymous with security and privacy, the reason for its existence is not this and it is only related to the development and the possibilities of adaptation and sharing. But the interests behind can be the same as in proprietary soft. For this reason it can be dangerous to globalize with FOSS = security and privacy, with this we can get a very bad surprise, especially if the product is neglected, like many.
FrostWire is an OpenSource BitTorrent client and YT downloader…and is Malware
MplayerX, FOSS and Malware, and so on, along others, which are flagged as ad and bundleware.
Privacy? also a lot of apps and APIs from Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big tech companies are FOSS.
To return to the subject, it is not so important who distributes FOSS, be it the Chrome Store, MS Store (same as GitHub now), NASA software or others, but the origin of this software and the intentions of the corresponding devs and especially the community what’s behind. It is always necessary to check it before use.
A browser is a client application that doesn’t require any servers. However, we have plenty of examples of FOSS infrastructure being funded without the need for corporations. If anything, infrastructure costs are constantly and rapidly decreasing.
Lack of commercial interest is applicable in every domain in practice. This is what sets the goals of the developers, this decides what features are developed and why they are developed. In case of commercial software, features are developed to create profit for the business first and foremost, with everything else being secondary. When ethics come into conflict with profit, then profit must win.
Giving examples of malicious open source software is not really a counter point since both closed and open software can be hostile. However, the problem with commercial software is that it has additional conflict of interest that doesn’t exist in open software. Furthermore, open software can always be forked, as often happens, when original developers take it in a direction people don’t like.
Closed software can be useful the same way buying an appliance can be useful, but it’s a fundamental mistake to invest in such software long term as a user. Sooner or later the company making it will either move in a direction you don’t like because that’s where the market is, or it’ll go out of business. When that happens you’re going to be left without useful software.
So, yes it is in fact incredibly important whether a project is FOSS and whether it’s corporate owned. Decisions have to be made on case by case basis, but FOSS is a fundamental requirement.
FOSS is of course fundamental, this I have never doubted, by allowing collaborative creation in a new project, which allows development better than in a company with a few less efficient devs. The main reason for FOSS is precisely this, what many forget and confuse FOSS with security, privacy and a free internet, which is deeply wrong, these concepts are not synonymous with FOSS, they depend on too many other factors.
Because of this the most among of FOSS is used and developed by this big companies, by this way they can use Devs freelance. That is what I mean that Free Soft has nothing to do with Free Internet.
Yes a browser is a client soft, but nevertheless it is perfectly capable of sending user data, as we see in many of them, especially if it is used with synchronization functions to have the data of several devices.
This does not necessarily have to do with whether they are FOSS or not, although the main ones that have these practices coincide with large companies, Chrome, EDGE, Safari, Opera since it belongs to a Chinese company, Brave selectively with its system of not blocking sponsors and Firefox is not completely spared either.
Today I have seen a good example of how much different browsers protect the user on a well-known website, in AutoCAD web app, which is freely accessible with Chrome, Edge and Firefox, while blocking Vivaldi, UR and Dissenter.
Analyzing this page it turned out that it records the inputs of the keyboard, mouse and mouse movements, sending the data to third parties.
First, Vivaldi isn’t OpenSource in the sense of a completly free and open public source, but 95% of the source is FOSS and the rest of 5%, regarding the UI, is open for audit and accesible for the user , who can modify it to its like. But it avoid that Chrome or other Chromium can imitate Vivaldi, because this are the dead of a still very small company.
There is a brutal browser war in a very saturated market, with about 100 different browsers, most of them Chromium and another 70 that have been left behind discontinued, precisely because they are FOSS, because they were imitated by larger companies with more users. There is no other possibility for a small business to protect itself against large competitors.
Vivaldi some time ago even dispensed with its own UA in favor of users, who have been excluded and even blocked by pages in the hands of large companies, not for lack of compatibility or security, but for browsersniffing with commercial interests. This forced to disguise Vivaldi as Chrome, with which these problems disappeared.
FOSS is a good system for sharing and develope new projects, but in a saturated marked it dosn’t make much sense, browser are not a new product and Google and MS only turn’s stronger with new FOSS browsers, forking their source for Chrome and Edge, with which a browser of a small company is death. (see Wiki, list of discontinued browsers)
Yes, Firefox is still a important alternative, but also is loosing users, because it’s going more and mor a way marked by Google and not by the user.
Brave “the privacy focused” browser, make money blocking only tracker and ad from sites which ar not the sponsored, but not so the sponsor ads and trackers, among them Facebook.
Opera is direct Spyware, because Privacy in China isn’t something known.
Fundamentally, the problem is that any software developed for commercial purposes will always be developed to make profit first and foremost. That’s the core imperative of a business. The needs of the users will always be secondary to the need of making profit. Plenty of companies start out with good intentions, and it always ends the same. FOSS is the only way to ensure that software puts the needs of the users first because profit is not the driving force behind it.
Yes, but also FOSS browser need to make money, for the infrastructure, developement and servers, which cost money. It isn’t the cuestion of FOSS or not, it’s the cuestion of the etics of the developer and how he makes money. Mozilla makes money with user surveillance and selling this data to Alphabet, Nest and Google Vivaldi makes money with including search engines and links of sponsors by default, which the user can delete if he want, apart from a shop with some merchandizing. Apart is an activist** against** the user surveillance (the only of the browser companies in the list of this initative). See the diference? Not all what is proprietary is also automaticly crap and not al FOSS protect privacy and is secure by default. This depends only of the etics of the devs.
Example: DupeGuru, FOSS app for Mac, Windows and Linux, but take a look what VirusTotal says. Like this there are others too, apart from those flagged as Bundleware.
Again, Firefox does not do any user surveillance, and Mozilla isn’t inherently dependent on Google the way companies making browsers based on Chromium are. And since making profit is the goal for these companies, there is no mechanism to guarantee they will continue to behave ethically going forward. None of what is proprietary can be trusted in the long term, and it’s a fundamental mistake to rely on proprietary tools.
Not so easy. There is never a guarantee of ethical behavior, regardless of whether we are talking about FOSS or a company. Naturally it cannot be excluded that Vivaldi may one day move into unethical practices, but this, in view of the history of Jon von Tetzchner and his cooperative that is Vivaldi, is highly unlikely. Adding the activism right against these practices in which he is involved. There are quite a few small software companies that have been in the market for a long time, with proprietary products, more ethical than some others with FOSS products. A good example a two brothers, which with own money in their spare time (they are working as electricians in their own workshop), have created a page with online tools (office tools, graphics and a lot of others) free to use (they accept donations), without account needed, anonimous (the documents a saved locally in html format) PWA. It’s freeware, the office suite is also downloadable. With the shortest and best TOS and PP I have ever seen. Apart of this, a fast and friendly user support. Firefox certainly isn’t the worse and I use it as second browser for occasional use, apart from the French browser UR. But I trust more in browsers from european compañies than of those from US companies, because the privacy laws in the CE are a lot better than those form US, where they even don’t exists or only poorly. Ethic depends only of the Dev or company of a product, not of the license it has. The ethic of a product youu can se in the conditions of the use and how they treat your data. (read those from Firefox, maybe you’ll have a surprise)
You can’t guarantee ethical behavior, but not having a conflict of interest is a prerequisite for it. Commercial software has an inherent conflict of interest that doesn’t exist in FOSS environment. Companies either have to make profit or they perish, this is not the case for FOSS. Ethics depend on being able to ensure that the incentives of the developers align with the incentives of the users. This is not possible to do with close source software in the long run.
It is not entirely correct, also FOSS devs may have commercial interests, for example when the application, such as a browser or a VPN requires an infrastructure, such as servers.
The lack of commercial interest is only applicable to apps that do not require it, for example system tools or graphical applications. They can also be self-hosted, but this implies two possibilities, either having your own server or having to trust an external server, with which we are in the same, of commercial interests.
It is more about the question of how this application creates its income, which can be directly such as having to pay for it, using ads, or tracking user activities to sell it to third parties. The former is acceptable, the latter is not.
It is often unavoidable to use proprietary soft on our PC (some professional apps, official administrative apps, games, or in general in apps that do not have a decent FOSS alternative). For this reason, the most important thing to have a verifiable security of the software and this can also be given as in FOSS.
The OpenSource system is not automatically synonymous with security and privacy, the reason for its existence is not this and it is only related to the development and the possibilities of adaptation and sharing. But the interests behind can be the same as in proprietary soft. For this reason it can be dangerous to globalize with FOSS = security and privacy, with this we can get a very bad surprise, especially if the product is neglected, like many.
FrostWire is an OpenSource BitTorrent client and YT downloader…and is Malware
CheatEngine, also OpenSource and also Malware
MplayerX, FOSS and Malware, and so on, along others, which are flagged as ad and bundleware. Privacy? also a lot of apps and APIs from Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big tech companies are FOSS.
To return to the subject, it is not so important who distributes FOSS, be it the Chrome Store, MS Store (same as GitHub now), NASA software or others, but the origin of this software and the intentions of the corresponding devs and especially the community what’s behind. It is always necessary to check it before use.
A browser is a client application that doesn’t require any servers. However, we have plenty of examples of FOSS infrastructure being funded without the need for corporations. If anything, infrastructure costs are constantly and rapidly decreasing.
Lack of commercial interest is applicable in every domain in practice. This is what sets the goals of the developers, this decides what features are developed and why they are developed. In case of commercial software, features are developed to create profit for the business first and foremost, with everything else being secondary. When ethics come into conflict with profit, then profit must win.
Giving examples of malicious open source software is not really a counter point since both closed and open software can be hostile. However, the problem with commercial software is that it has additional conflict of interest that doesn’t exist in open software. Furthermore, open software can always be forked, as often happens, when original developers take it in a direction people don’t like.
Closed software can be useful the same way buying an appliance can be useful, but it’s a fundamental mistake to invest in such software long term as a user. Sooner or later the company making it will either move in a direction you don’t like because that’s where the market is, or it’ll go out of business. When that happens you’re going to be left without useful software.
So, yes it is in fact incredibly important whether a project is FOSS and whether it’s corporate owned. Decisions have to be made on case by case basis, but FOSS is a fundamental requirement.
FOSS is of course fundamental, this I have never doubted, by allowing collaborative creation in a new project, which allows development better than in a company with a few less efficient devs. The main reason for FOSS is precisely this, what many forget and confuse FOSS with security, privacy and a free internet, which is deeply wrong, these concepts are not synonymous with FOSS, they depend on too many other factors. Because of this the most among of FOSS is used and developed by this big companies, by this way they can use Devs freelance. That is what I mean that Free Soft has nothing to do with Free Internet.
Yes a browser is a client soft, but nevertheless it is perfectly capable of sending user data, as we see in many of them, especially if it is used with synchronization functions to have the data of several devices.
This does not necessarily have to do with whether they are FOSS or not, although the main ones that have these practices coincide with large companies, Chrome, EDGE, Safari, Opera since it belongs to a Chinese company, Brave selectively with its system of not blocking sponsors and Firefox is not completely spared either.
Today I have seen a good example of how much different browsers protect the user on a well-known website, in AutoCAD web app, which is freely accessible with Chrome, Edge and Firefox, while blocking Vivaldi, UR and Dissenter. Analyzing this page it turned out that it records the inputs of the keyboard, mouse and mouse movements, sending the data to third parties.