[HN Gopher] Dot Browser - privacy-conscious web browser
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Dot Browser - privacy-conscious web browser
Author : graderjs
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-09-19 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| jeffalo wrote:
| I remember hearing about this a while ago, but back then it was
| based on Electron for some reason.
|
| Looks like it has been completely rewritten since then?
|
| Edit: https://medium.com/dot-blog/saying-goodbye-to-the-
| electron-v...
| enderdev wrote:
| Yes, it used to be based on Electron. Although the date on the
| blog posts is off because we migrated our old blog posts to
| Medium back in June.
| yoavm wrote:
| As a Firefox user I'll never really consider a Chromium-based
| browser, but this is interesting!
| [deleted]
| tendencydriven wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Dot Gecko/Firefox based, not
| Chromium based?
| enderdev wrote:
| Yes, it's based on Firefox.
| [deleted]
| thunderbong wrote:
| I especially like the fact that it is based on Firefox.
| janandonly wrote:
| Which makes me wonder... how is it any different?
|
| Firefox itself already has some features to protect your
| privacy. Why go through the trouble of creating a whole new
| browser where a combination of tweaks in settings and maybe a
| plugin for FF would yield similar results?
| WolfeReader wrote:
| A great many users won't install plug-ins or alter settings.
| They deserve privacy too. (This is why Brave is proving
| popular, when FireFox + uBlock Origin has offered the same
| benefits for longer.)
| moron4hire wrote:
| Defaults matter. Like, a lot.
| KronisLV wrote:
| And for many people, Firefox (or Chrome, or Edge) will be
| the default browser.
|
| Seeking out a different browser to use takes similar, if
| not greater effort than just installing uBlock Origin (or a
| similar extension, or a few) and possibly altering some
| browser settings.
|
| Plus, there's the issue of trust - how many people can
| vouch for a particular browser, or an extension? If a
| malicious piece of code would get into a niche browser or
| extension, how long would it take for someone to notice and
| bring that to the attention of the wider community? Would
| there even be such a community? Or maybe if they'd sell out
| and the product would change ownership?
|
| The more eyes there are looking at code and how it runs,
| the safer it is, or at least i'd argue so. Therefore,
| sticking with the popular options is probably better, in
| general. In this case, that would probably (hopefully) be
| Firefox with some addons.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| One of the biggest issues with a web browser is how to keep it
| updated with security updates. It's not mentioned how they are
| planning to accomplish this?
|
| Also how are they performing ad blocking? Are they just
| shipping it with u-block origin or their own technology?
|
| Not to put anyone down, but I don't think people realise how
| hard it is to deliver a secure and working web browser. They
| are basically OS scale.
| woko wrote:
| Moreover, I don't understand how having a built-in adblocker
| is seen as a selling point. Wouldn't it be more powerful to
| rely on a third-party add-on like uBlock Origin?
| admax88qqq wrote:
| At some point it's nice to stop tracking which browser
| addon has not yet sold out to sketchy third party and just
| let the browser do it.
|
| Only one "purchasing" decision to make at that point.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I know I can consistently rely on uBlock Origin, and they
| have established a pretty good reputation. Plus I really
| like the "block element" feature, an opinion I've seen
| mentioned here before.
| iimblack wrote:
| Is there anywhere that info about the adblocking and email
| masking has been published? The idea of this browser looks
| amazing. I hope it has good support for adding vim style keyboard
| shortcuts via extension or otherwise.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Looks like LibreWolf with email masking.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I just checked out their Discord, they're panicking because the
| last published build is super old and looks bad. Probably best to
| wait a bit before trying it out.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Open source projects using Discord for their community is sort
| of a red flag in itself.
| enderdev wrote:
| We also have a Matrix room and a telegram room.
| https://matrix.to/#/#dothq:matrix.org https://t.me/dothq
| unicornporn wrote:
| > We also have a Matrix room
|
| Thank you!
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| My apologies... as long as you have Matrix or some open
| source standard and a bridge to IRC or whatever, then it
| doesn't really matter that much to me. However, I would
| like to see true believers of "open" promote open standards
| as much as possible.
| alin23 wrote:
| I love using Discord for my open source app [0] because
| instant messaging and low entrance friction makes it easy for
| me to find out what's wrong with the app when an user comes
| with a problem. Previously I only did email when users had a
| problem and it took ages to fix issues that I could not
| reproduce.
|
| Why is Discord a red flag in your opinion?
|
| It is indeed not very searchable, but I think there's always
| Github and the official website for more persistent
| information.
|
| [0] https://lunar.fyi
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| My major qualm with with Discord is the lack of multiple
| identities, and the anti-spam techniques being used by many
| "servers" that essentially require you share your profile
| and channel data. Also, if you add a phone number (some
| servers require this) then Discord won't let you remove it.
| I can only imagine the amount of data collection and
| telemetry they are doing as well.
| jefftk wrote:
| Most recent nightly build is from 2021-07-24: is this an active
| project?
| jszymborski wrote:
| Holy cow, another Gecko browser!? I thought I'd never see the
| day. I commend the authors for that if nothing else.
| rckt wrote:
| It's not clear how it is different from Firefox. What features
| does it have that Firefox doesn't?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Looks like built in ad blocker, email masking, and no telemetry
| yewenjie wrote:
| I am super amazed to see a Gecko based browser. People always
| told me that Mozilla makes it virtually impossible to use the
| Gecko engine in other browsers.
|
| Does it support extensions?
|
| Also, what does this mean? > Protect your mailbox
| > We will offer to mask your email address when you sign up for
| sites or services.
| LukeShu wrote:
| Historically, it was relatively easy to use Gecko to build
| other apps including other browsers; what has hard was
| embedding it inside of something else as just one component
| among many (i.e. you had to build the whole app using XUL).
| However, recent-ish (~2015?) changes in Gecko made this harder
| to do, so many apps that used to do this have switched to the
| Goanna/UXP fork of Gecko that retains that ease.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| XUL Runner was a relatively easy way to build apps, or at
| least their UIs, from markup. It's interesting that the
| approach has lived on, albiet through other implementations
| like Electron.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Maybe a proxy service a la Firefox Relay
| Santosh83 wrote:
| AFAIK no one claimed it was "virtually impossible". Just more
| cumbersome than Chromium since it wasn't designed with
| embedding in mind from get go.
| IceWreck wrote:
| I though all browsers and webviews are based on blink/chromium
| because that engine is embed-able, unlike Gecko.
|
| This guy made a brwoser based on Gecko tho, props to him.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| I vaguely remember that Gecko-based browsers used to be more
| common.
| pantulis wrote:
| This brings memories of Camino in the Mac space and K-Meleon
| in Windows.
| enono wrote:
| Love to see this. Just curious why I would use something like
| this over brave? I don't pay too much attention to my browser
| honestly. I am ready to be convinced to switch though :-)
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| I occasionally read the Brave Blog:
|
| https://brave.com/blog/
|
| The technical requirements and research that needs to go into a
| web browser to ensure it's secure & private makes me skeptical
| that Dot Browser or any open source browser is going to be able
| to achieve those things without serious financial backing.
|
| Happy to be proven wrong though
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| It doesn't have the arguably sketchy crypto, it doesn't inject
| affiliate links into URLs, it doesn't use an engine built by
| Google, and it supports the open Web.
|
| The reason it supports the open Web is that Brave uses the
| Chromium engine used in Chrome, Edge, Opera, and basically
| everything but Firefox.
|
| Firefox doesn't, and is the only thing stopping Google being
| the sole arbitrator of Web standards (and they do not have your
| best interests at heart.) Google is already abusing their near-
| monopoly; keeping Firefox market share high is helping stop it,
| though.
|
| This browser is Firefox based, so it has all of those
| advantages.
| thegabez wrote:
| The crypto token seems like a way for someone who knows
| nothing about crypto to get dip their toes, with zero risk.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> the only thing stopping Google being the sole arbitrator
| of Web standards_
|
| In addition to Mozilla, Apple (Safari) and Microsoft (Edge)
| also have significant participation in web standards. I'm
| really glad Firefox exists, and they definitely punch above
| their weight in the standardization process, but Microsoft
| and Apple are also serious participants.
|
| (Disclosure: I work at Google, speaking only for myself)
| trulyme wrote:
| Google, Apple and MS are huge businesses who only care
| about their respective browsers as something that will help
| them reach some pretty unrelated goals. Mozilla's business,
| however, is closely related to the browser itself, which
| makes their incentives.. less misaligned. :) While they
| have made some questionable moves in the past, I still
| trust them a whole lot more than any of the bigtech.
| ehg45h5h56 wrote:
| If there is not an extreme pivot in Firefox's adoption in the
| next 5 years, I believe it will be a dead browser. One thing
| I have noticed is that developers have slowly been forgetting
| or not motivated to work on ensuring Firefox users have same
| level features. For example, there are browser extensions for
| chrome that do not exist on Firefox.
|
| These can range from popular extensions to smaller, more
| specific productivity extensions. As a specific example,
| there is a Zendesk extension that can help load all links you
| click load in a single instance rather than having multiple
| tabs. It uses Zendesk's built in tabbing system for tickets
| and is very helpful for workflow.
|
| The problem is this is only a chrome extension, and no such
| thing exists for Firefox. This is one example but there are
| so many more, and more of those situations are happening over
| time.
|
| That is a worrying trend. It means that the chrome browser
| has such a massive market share, that in a lot of cases
| worrying about Firefox compatibility isn't even a productive
| concern anymore. This will eventually end in life support
| compatibility such as developers putting up splash pages or
| in-page notifications for users to switch to a more
| compatible browser. I have already seen extremely rare
| instances of this, but not enough where I would consider it a
| concern yet, just an asshole move.
| enderdev wrote:
| I totally get this. It's worrying what Mozilla are doing,
| and since they're putting in little to no effort to get
| Firefox back on track I decided I had to help out.
|
| Google's massive market share is seriously worrying for
| Mozilla and other browser vendors.
|
| I switched to Firefox from Chrome over 4 years ago and I
| was disappointed to find some of my favourite Chrome
| extensions weren't available. I plan to add support for
| those Chrome extensions in Dot Browser by implementing
| those APIs and making them work in Gecko/Firefox
| environment.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Really interested to see the mental gymnastics it takes to
| argue that implementing new features for the Web Platform--in
| open, freely-available standards that are negotiated with all
| the major stakeholders, including Mozilla, who is allowed to
| implement them whenever they feel like stopping chasing after
| shiny baubles and get back to developing Web browsers--is
| "abusing [Google's] near-monoply", versus Apple _not_
| implementing standards to push developers off the Web and
| into the App Store.
|
| But sure, yeah, let's keep the Web Platform at early 2000s
| standards. Let's make everyone download apps from a small set
| of walled garden app stores. Let's force developers to submit
| to those app store review processes and potentially have
| their content blocked for whatever opaque whims the store has
| today (ever changing, with little chance for appeal!). And
| then they can just snoop on their users through the local,
| natively installed app, that has all the permissions granted
| under the sun because users don't read installation prompts.
| That's so much better for privacy.
| [deleted]
| bingusfan wrote:
| I admire the work that has been put into this browser. Seems nice
| so far and am looking forward to where it goes in the future.
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(page generated 2021-09-19 23:01 UTC)