So why don't we fork the chromium upstream code and only merge security patches? Imagine, all the web extension maintainers just started maintaining for the forked browser because it's the only one they can continue to support. This would surely destroy the chrome monopoly.
If you can find a very generous fund which can unconditionally grant you tens of millions of dollars every year, there might be a hope in your proposal. Ironically, the closest example was the Mozilla-Google deal because Google needs them to avoid antitrust charges. Also I'd like to mention that it would be quite hard to motivate talented engineers to work just on simple merging works.
I think what Google has done (accidentally or deliberately) is perfect: drown Mozilla in search-deal grant money to attract executives and manager types to do all sorts of vanity projects that lead to nowhere, so they can maintain their gimped "competitior" browser that lets them non-guilty of antitrust charges.
It's counter-intuitive, but a continuously running money hose sometimes seem to attract these types of people and corrupt an organization. Ironically Google itself internally has this problem, where its limitless advertising revenue is being absorbed to all these shiny projects which people never really care about maintaining and its sole purpose is to advanced people's careers inside the company...
> For Brave, I was always skeptical of them because of how they are tied to crypto stuff.
The crypto stuff is already disabled by default, so not sure why people complain about it so much when it's opt-in not opt-out.
Brave doesn't require you to invest your own money, their coin holds practical value. People who turn on Brave Rewards get free money that can be withdrawn. Sure it can't make you rich but the money is still a lot more than Chrome and other proprietary browsers ever gave you, imagine getting paid for receiving (not viewing or interacting) ads. Their model works and they give away 80% of their revenue back to the users, who else does that?
Every time I hear someone calling Brave's crypto a scam, I immediately point out the fact that they're an independent browser company that was able to find a viable business model that doesn't require them to sell their soul to Google like Mozilla.
Everybody keeps asking, "What if Mozilla found out a monetization strategy that would make them independent from Google and allow them to make their own decisions", well that's Brave! It's the first independent browser company that's able to earn money on their own without compromising user privacy. I don't like crypto either but I do believe what Brave is doing has value and BAT is definitely not a scam, it works and it works well.
If we are strictly concerned with the functionality of our tools, and not the ideology held by their creators, it is an option. For some people that might even be a plus, not everyone thinks the same way about these things.
The number of extension developers that also proficient C++ developers is probably tiny. From that pool, the number that's willing to commit time to fork Chromium is probably even more minuscule.
Manifest v3 will be pushed into Android and the Android Webview component and as such become the standard browser for a lot of people. Android makes it possible to change the Webview to something else but most people just leave it as is. Android also doesn't restrict browser choice like iOS does but most people still go with the last version of Chrome since that is what the device came with. With Firefox being led astray due to its activist CEO deeming it more important to use her position to promote identity politics and other destructive ideologies, Brave tainted by its shady crypto/currency ties and most other Blink-based forks - Bromide, Ungoogled Chromium et al - being marginal players at best and Safari being "the new IE" it is to be expected for Manifest v3 to become the default standard bar the rise of a viable alternative.
Where is the new Firefox, or maybe Ouroboros - the snake that eats its own tail in a perpetual cycle of birth, destruction and rebirth - is a better name? Where is the GNU browser engine, built to serve the user instead of its master?
Ah, yes, I see. Well, it won't for the reasons I stated here. I'll modify my reply to clearly state that I'm talking about Manifest v3 becoming the norm, not any fork of Blink.
