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   Sarah Jamie Lewis (sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 05:13:41 JST Sarah Jamie Lewis

   I've been playing around with using "base browser" as a stopgap and it's really all I want in a web browser - no branding, no labs, no telemetry, a few sensible safety defaults, but nothing that degrades general experience (and with the ability to go hyper restrictive if desired)

   The one downside is that you have to compile this browser from source, and its not a standalone project - its the firefox fork that serves as the pseudo-base of the Tor and Mullvad browser.

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     Sarah Jamie Lewis (sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 05:13:40 JST Sarah Jamie Lewis

     in reply to

     There is a big gap between the ~100M being spent on firefox per year v.s. the ~1M being spent on tor browser v.s. 0-100K that many community firefox forks are bringing in.

     Even if everyone got together, pooled their resources, partook in a mass fundraising drive, I don't think that 100M is possible.

     To have an independent browser, we need to move towards a world where the cost to maintain a web browser is lower, or to one where more people are willing to support that work - or both.

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     Sarah Jamie Lewis (sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Mar-2025 05:13:41 JST Sarah Jamie Lewis

     in reply to

     A subtractive approach to browser development will always be, at best, a temporary reprieve. And no sane firefox fork is going to be able to ignore the contributions of Mozilla in the near term.

     For any open, independent browser ecosystem to keep pace is going to require a radical restructuring of how we build and fund the work to keep it going.

     It's going to require multiple groups to come together to collaberate, and a way to even do that.

     Jesse 🇫🇷 and Blaise Pabón - controlpl4n3 repeated this.