Floorp, a Firefox Fork with an awful name, has moved some components inside a private submodule.

GitHub - Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core

Edit: They claim they will make that part open source too, eventually, and it is due to behavior of another browser: https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core/issues/62

Edit 2: They just open sourced the private repository 7 minutes ago, 2024-03-24T12:39Z

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Floorp, a Firefox Fork with an awful name, has moved some components inside a private submodule.

github.com /Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core

58 comments

Besides Tor, I'm yet to see a Firefox fork that makes sense
- Even LibreWolf, which is just a Firefox with different configuration by default, I think should be just config files.
  I really want to see browsers saving configurations and data in a simple file formats, like QuteBrowser do.
  
  You cant remove pocket and telemetry without recompiling. That's why its not just a config file.
  
  You may be looking for Betterfox.
  
  In Firefox, you can use the user.js file to create any overrides you want.
- Librewolf, their devs seem hella inactive but their builds are automated. Tbh I would prefer a working arkenfox more. Made my own softening and install script but its pre-alpha and I will likely rewrite it again in some time.
- Check out Mullvad Browser. It’s created in partnership with the Tor Browser, but optimized to be used for the Clearnet. You don’t need to use Mullvad’s VPN with it either.
- Personally I use Waterfox because of its built-in theme preferences, e.g. auto-hiding the tab bar and sidebar headers.
  
  Is Waterfox still owned by the advertising company?
- Icecat, a Firefox fork without Firefox's privacy issues (telemetry).
  
  Out of curiosity, in which ways are telemetry privacy issues and how does Icecat solve them in a way in which NextDNS doesn't?
This sounds like immature project drama. I've seen it before where there's a large, professionally maintained product and people make forks to add small changes and then different forks start fighting with each other over because it's their features and they don't want other forks to incorporate them. You should probably just avoid Floorp if possible.
Damn, guess I go back to regular Firefox
- Try Mercery for a boost in performance of about 8-20% dependent on machine: https://thorium.rocks/mercury
  Or for better security/privacy try LibreWolf: https://librewolf.net
  Normal Firefox has telemetry and poor default settings but is still feature rich if you take the time to config.
  
  My small concern with Librewolf is getting security updates quickly. Cool project though. As I understand, the team has been better about quickly patching security vulnerabilities in recently months too.
- [2024-03-23T09:29:01-0400] [ALPM] removed floorp-bin-debug (11.10.5-1)
  [2024-03-23T09:29:01-0400] [ALPM] removed floorp-bin (11.11.1-1)
awful name
I think you mean a great name
- Nah they got it right the first time.
I'll take "didn't get the point of FOSS" for $3.14.
What the heck.
- Feels like what happened to Emby to me.
  (hugs Jellyfin)
Thanks for the edit and link to discussion, I am a FireDragon (Floorp fork) user and it seems like this issue is in hand and I'm not going to be concerned for the moment.
- What are some things you like about FireDragon that make you use it over others?
  
  I use Garuda Linux and FireDragon is maintained by the same people so it's been customised to have the same look. FireDragon was previously a fork of Librewolf (another fork of Firefox I have always liked), so I just switched over to FireDragon to try it out. I'd also used Floorp in the past and really liked that, so to have FireDragon and Floorp become one was really nice. FireDragon is nifty and has the privacy focus that LibreFox has. Garuda Linux is also a really nice distro and a lot of care and effort has gone into it - it also has a Plasma version for gamers... which is lovely for me. It's late and this is a dreadfully rambling answer... but hopefully you get the idea (roughly!) 😅
eli5?
- It’s an open source browser based on Firefox with additional features and configuration tweaks.
  Except they recently made part of it proprietary and hid the source code for that, so most other people cannot actually build the same one.
  They claim they will make that part open source too, eventually, and it is due to behavior of another browser: https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core/issues/62
  
  They do say that
  They will be using a different repository with a different license for some of its new features
  "different license" suggests to me it might be a proprietary/fauxpen source licene, since this is explicitly being done to punish a fork.
  
  Huh, that's very valuable context.
- Some time ago, a bunch of really smart people wanted to be able to modify software, so it can never be broken since they can fix it. Thus began open source, which is having a piece of software tell everybody exactly how to make it. Meanwhile, many companies don't want people to modify their software, usually because they don't want people easily competing with them and bankrupting them due to creating a better modification. Such software that isn't open source is termed "proprietary".
  Floorp was one of these open source softwares. Some ambitious Japanese people modified Firefox, added some features and customizations, and named it "Floorp".
  Recently, these people decided, for whatever reason, to stop the public from being able to access some of the materials and configurations for making Floorp. They did this by creating a new "warehouse" to store these materials, sealing off the access to it, and replacing the original location of the now proprietary materials with a note that tells you the location of the warehouse you can't get in.
  (Hopefully that wasn't confusing...)
This blog from the maintainer makes it clear they have no interest in open source other than to advertise their own skills
Preparing for a New Beginning for Floorp
- Well that’s kind of a shitty thing to say about someone without backing it up with some specifics.
  What specific passage from that blog post makes you think that?
  
  The purpose is to learn how to publish code that cannot be used for forking as open source.
  .
  I have to obligate the folks to choose whether they want to pay me or help me code.
  .
  ....it was not beneficial to me.
  .
  ...new to gaining good visibility through open source,
I do agree the name is stupid, but I love the browser!
Bro, imagine putting "Floorp Developer" in your CV 💀
- No worse than all the tech startup names tbh.

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