See also https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/floorp-going-closed-source/52783
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
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?
No, (Captain Obvious,) and I never really got the fuss around that in the first place.
You don’t understand why an ad company owning a “privacy focused” browser is a problem?
I can check the commits.
Do you? Genuinely, not trying to snark. I see this point lots, but Im skeptical that people actually do.
As a dev, I read plenty of commits, and the idea of voluntarily prodding through commits on a FOSS project is just not happening. I’d rather just trust the dev, and the community to pick through the code in my place. The obvious issue being, what if everyone also does that.
In fact, sometimes! Sometimes I check GitHub’s difference between tags and open commits with commit summaries too vague on the first page. Yeah, it’s pretty much just a basic scan, but since it’s open source I don’t think they’ll be brave enough to do things too nefarious and hidden, which like the bystander effect you’ve said, I feel like will come to light anyway. Hell, someone somehow managed to find furry porn in Thorium.
Huh, TIL.
https://www.waterfox.net/blog/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox/
The relevant, 2023-07-03: