this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 8 months ago (4 children)

It's basically Chrome. It's not a real application, it's a website pretending to be one. It uses a metric fuckton of RAM and eats your battery faster than Prince Andrew a minor.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

If Firefox could allow their engine to be packaged like this I'd use it. The problem I see here is chromium. Everything is a trade off and we need more ways to build maintainable cross platform applications.

Slack, for example, is Electron and it runs great. One of the best apps I've used. And it works better than the browser version...

The hate on Lemmy of electron is a bit of an overreaction if you ask me. Yeah it uses more ram than is necessary but again everything is a trade off. Not everything can be a hard to maintain rust app. Let's try to embrace cross platform solutions, though yes fuck chrome/google, so sure criticize that part of it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There is Tauri which packages it with WebKit and uses Rust as backend.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think tauri uses the OS web view, so it depends

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I just checked, and it seems that it indeed only uses WebKitGTK on Linux

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Let’s try to embrace cross platform solutions,

[JavaFX has entered the chat.]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't know what javafx is, but java is hell. For me. I'm glad it works for others

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

The hate on Lemmy of electron is a bit of an overreaction if you ask me

The issue is mainly developers using Electron when things like React Native and Flutter exist. I don't know a lot about Flutter, but React Native uses native UI widgets and feels a lot nicer than Electron.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Rust is infinitely easier to maintain than mountains of untyped js garbage libraries built upon left pad

[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Let me get this right... you're complaining about Chromium, but you use Slack? You do realize Chromium had better Linux support for things like HW-accelerated decoding than Firefox? Also, the Chromium sandbox is superior to Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I realize Firefox business practices aren't total garbage for humanity and that they are constantly working to improve it on like .1% budget of Google. And that they are the only real competition which keeps us in a situation where we actually have a choice in browsers. So yeah let's only care about the technical aspects, or something

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And that they are the only real competition which keeps us in a situation where we actually have a choice in browsers.

That isn't true. You've got WebKit-based browsers, LadyBird/LibWeb/LibJs, Goanna, and others. Why choose Mozilla to lead the efforts, when another open source community/foundation may be better? You can also participate in the various new web specifications yourself too if you're not happy with the direction they're headed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

They said competition, not alternatives. As things are right now, and knowing people, not just trying to make a technical point, Firefox is the only competition. 

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

What do you think alternatives are exactly? Firefox has what, 3‒5% usage across all platforms? What did Mozilla do to fix that other than exploring Pocket, a iOS only Password app, and now reselling a crippled VPN & email/phone relay? At some point, people will have to move on from anything Mozilla-owned. Want a better browser, then find a community you can donate to that is focusing on building a better browser. It's time to take off the rose-colored glasses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Chromium had better Linux support for things like HW-accelerated decoding than Firefox?

Source? Experienced the exact opposite, especially on Wayland.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You can track the bug history here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1751363

You can see here Chromium had support for this for several years prior:

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/log/PKGBUILD?h=chromium-vaapi

Android being based on Linux prob has something to do with Chromium's strong Linux support, but Mozilla has consistently prioritized Windows/Mac. Despite it still be challenging, building Chromium from source has always been a lot easier IMO than trying to create a custom build of Firefox.

Regardless, when it comes to privacy, Chromium itself is pretty stripped down and has policy-based integrations that put it on par with Firefox in terms of security. Even with Firefox, you'd have to modify quite a few policies to improve security. Tor/Mullvad Browser though do a better job in many ways and there is no equal to those privacy enhancements on Chromium that I know of, unless you're using something like GrapheneOS.

Point being, people like to complain about Chromium a lot & act like Apple fan bois for Firefox, when in reality privacy is nearly the same with both with some minor configurations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What the heck are you talking about? Chromium is one of the hardest packages to build and it takes forever. Firefox has FAR fewer dependencies. Chromium's privacy enhancements are a joke.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

You should go tell that to the maintainers of GrapheneOS, which is known as the most secure mobile OS... which uses a custom Chromium build, because of Chromium's superior sandboxing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Chromium is not stripped down at all, just use googerteller and see. It contacts Google everywhere, on the password list, on the account list, in some settings pages, and just randomly sometimes.

It is very crazy. And also it is not fingerprint resistant at all.

I am using all flag settings, policies and GUI settings possibly existing and it still is like that. So no, it is not the same privacy-wise.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh really, what policies are you using? Cause my Firefox does all the same things you mention regarding calling Mozilla services for all sorts of things, including telemetry. Oh, and it isn't fingerprint resistant either... so please, share what you're doing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

For Firefox I am either using Librewolf or Arkenfox user.js

But as Librewolf has a good CI/CD system I think I will switch to that. Problem is they are not active at all, while the arkenfox guy is very active.

For Chromium I use the secureblue policies in /usr/etc/chromium/policies/managed

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I bought 32gb of RAM cause I was tired and gave up to eléctron apps

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I bought 64 gigs of ram and still refuse to use it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

But does it sweat though ;-)