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Comment by waweic | Hacker News Reader

It's very important to understand that, other than Blink, Gecko is incredibly hard to integrate into other software. That's why, for example, there is no Firefox-based Electron or Qutebrowser equivalent.

This is only due to the failure (and unwillingness) of Mozilla to build a truly modular, expandable browser.

Mozilla isn't even trying to compete with Google anymore at this point. They are only implementing new features into Firefox that Google has first built into Chrome (and firing developers working on features that could actually set Firefox apart from Chrome). Also, they are quick to implement most "features" Google implements, no matter how user-unfriendly it may be.

An example for this is Mozilla implementing Manifest V3:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/11/manifest-v3-open-web-p...

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>Also, they are quick to implement most "features" Google implements, no matter how user-unfriendly it may be.

>An example for this is Mozilla implementing Manifest V3:

I fail to see how "implementing manifest v3" is user-unfriendly. I can see how people think that way, because "implementing manifest v3" is being conflated with "removing blocking webRequest API". However, there really isn't any indication that mozilla is doing the latter. For instance, you could implement manifest v3 but still supporting v2, or drop v2 but still keep the blocking webRequest API as a vendor specific API. There are good reasons to do the former, to allow firefox to work with extensions built for chrome, so I don't see any issues with mozilla implementing v3.

The reason Mozilla is implementing Manifest V3 is to maintain cross-browser support for extensions. There are many extensions that will work just fine and not having the new APIs on Firefox would mean just loosing them. And I’m not saying this as a Google supporter, I hate them, but we have to be objective. Also, Firefox devs are pushing forward security with better and better site isolation, cookie isolation and now with RLBox. And if they implement more stupid features like themes, it’s totally fine. People complain if Firefox has a low market share and then complain again when they implement user-friendly design things.

The reason behind the nonexistense of firefox-based electron is mainly rooted in the fact that FIrefox does not offer any embedded framework like webkit did with webkit2gtk and chromium with CEF.

They used to have one, but just largely forgotten and abandoned.

> This is only due to the failure (and unwillingness) of Mozilla to build a truly modular, expandable browser.

Not on Android: https://geckoview.dev

I just posted a top level comment before seeing yours, and basically I have started to think (with my obligatory tinfoil hat on) that it's not just the lack of vision on the part of Mozilla's board, but actually external influence and intentional sabotage which led to this.

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