What Would You Do With Discontinued Browsers?

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Deleted member 111282

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Shout out to @stan for inspiring me to ask this

One unfortunate situation in the Linux community is a lack of funding and staff for software development, which sometimes leads to developers closing up shop and discontinuing their projects. For this topic, I'm going to refer to discontinued browsers specifically. Being that there's numerous ones out there, I want you to mention one you're familiar with and what you'd like to do with it. (I'm just spitballing these questions, so you don't have to answer them if you don't want to) Would you like to have it go through a changing of hands and keep it going without changing the browser itself? Does the particular browser have features you want to remove or improve because you don't like them? In the case of the Tor Browser, would you like to turn .onion links into a onion:// protocol, and then become a drug kingpin? This is your browser now, so the possibilities are completely up to you

It'd be nice to see these ideas become a reality, because then it gives Google a run for it's money in the browser market
 


The browser I wish was still being developed is uzbl. It was a lightweight keyboard web browser.
 
The browser I wish was still being developed is uzbl. It was a lightweight keyboard web browser.

Its great you have an interest in Uzbl. Would you make any updates to it as a way to keep it going? If so, which ones?
 
Min has a ton of security issues.

Does it? I subscribe to a ton of security alerts and have never seen it pop up. I'll have to take your word for it.
 
There are a number of security issues mentioned here: https://github.com/minbrowser/min/issues/868, associated with trying to log in to google accounts, with one user receiving the message:
You are trying to sign in from a browser or app that doesn't allow us to keep your account secure.
However, other users didn't have this problem, and the developer provides some suggestions to resolve it. The communications there date from 2019, so may be redundant by now. Since I avoid google accounts I'm unable to check.
 
The communications there date from 2019, so may be redundant by now.

That's (probably) not actually their fault. Google's login is a lot different than a regular login, so I understand and the comments seem to agree. I've come across this before.

Start reading: https://github.com/minbrowser/min/issues/868#issuecomment-907728944

It appears you can fake being an iPhone and get in (or other user agents) - probably 'cause Apple has refused to implement whatever silliness it is that Google added to make their login proprietary and Google doesn't want to prevent a pile of users from being able to login.

Google has some login weirdness going on.
 
KGill wrote:
Start reading:
When it was all about google I must admit that I stopped reading and started scanning. It just didn't seem like a "ton of security issues".
 
KGill wrote:

When it was all about google I must admit that I stopped reading and started scanning. It just didn't seem like a "ton of security issues".

Yeah, I'm not seeing that - but I figure they must have a reason for saying so, they're pretty reliable.

But, the Google thing doesn't surprise me. I seem to recall a bit of an uproar when Firefox added something to comply with Google's changes, but I don't recall what that something was. It was within the past few years, however. I think it might have something to do with each browser having a security token that is individualized - which means easier tracking. Something along those lines.

I tried searching for it earlier so that I could be more specific, but there are just too many Google rants to wade through.

For me, they're a kinda-necessary evil. I use their tools and appease the Google Deity to get search engine traffic.
 
KGill wrote:
(Google) they're a kinda-necessary evil. I use their tools and appease the Google Deity to get search engine traffic.

Yes. I use startpage a lot for search which is supposed to use google without the tracking, but I have found google's search results better in the sort of searches that I do.
 
KGill wrote:


Yes. I use startpage a lot for search which is supposed to use google without the tracking, but I have found google's search results better in the sort of searches that I do.

I just gave up and let them track my searches. You know what? I get REALLY good results this way. Google even knows that I want specific Linux results.

I'm having some severe connectivity issues tonight.
 
I've probably had a Google a/c for more than 20 years - I was one of the "early adopters", TBH. I don't get all the anti-Google "fuss". Yes, they're nosy buggers, but they provide a suite of free-to-use utilities that are second-to-none for ease-of-use, and the integration with everything is just great. So they've probably got a dossier of data on me as thick as a bible by now; so what?

Google decreed some 6 months ago that all users had to go 2FA for log-in. No options, except for business users who were able to defer it for 12 months.....and then, even they will have no say in the matter.

------------------------------------

As for browsers, I personally would love to see QtWeb resurrected. Its only real issue when it stopped being functional some 3-4 years ago was its lack of up-to-date TLS support and certificates. These are the only reason it no longer connects to many sites; aside from that, it's a smashing little lightweight browser.

I would dearly love to see it come back from the dead.


Mike. ;)
 
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