Google together with The Linux Foundation have announced Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers, a new initiative to fund future development of the entire Chromium ecosystem. It already has a few big names joining in including Google, Meta, Microsoft and Opera.
"With the launch of the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers, we are taking another step forward in empowering the open source community," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "This project will provide much-needed funding and development support for open development of projects within the Chromium ecosystem."
The idea is to provide what they call a "neutral space" where various industry leaders and developers can work together to support various Chromium related projects and collaborate. The Linux Foundation say it will follow an "open governance model" that they've successfully established with other initiatives.
According to Google, their developers accounted for around 94% of Chromium code commits in 2024. They have "no intention of reducing this investment" but the initiative will help contribute "towards the health of the Chromium ecosystem and financially support a community of developers who want to contribute to the project, encouraging widespread support and continued technological progress for Chromium embedders".
What they're not saying though is that Google have likely done this partnership due to the US Department of Justice (DOJ)'s demands for Google to sell off Chrome. A decision on which is supposed to be reached by the Summer this year. This is quite probably a step towards uncoupling the future of Chrome and Chromium from being a mostly-Google thing in preparation for whatever happens there.
Considering how Chrome has close to 70% of the browser market globally (Statcounter), along with the Chromium Embedded Framework being everywhere, this is a good thing no matter what in my opinion to have more companies and people get a proper say in the future of the web.
Sources: The Linux Foundation, Google
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
mZSq7Fq3qs 7 hours ago
5 hours ago
It seems that Google is outsourcing cost to the Linux foundation.This is no cost outscourcing.
They lost a big antitrust fight and one of the damages that might get awarded is chrome getting broken off.
Once it gets broken off they would prefer to at least keep access to the source code.
scorp10n2000 5 hours ago
Yes i agree! Thy should support Firefox and help them make Firefox big again!
It makes way more sense for TLF to support Chromium, which at this point is practically the standard. Why would they jump into supporting a browser that has a less than 3% share. It's all open source, it's not like Chromium is somehow worse than Firefox in that regards.
This *should* be a net positive for everyone.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 10 Jan 2025 at 1:16 pm UTC
CyborgZeta 5 hours ago
Why would they jump into supporting a browser that has a less than 3% share.I suppose for the same reason you might want to support a desktop operating system that has a tiny market share.
This *should* be a net positive for everyone.I don't see how this actually changes anything, but why would it be a net positive for everyone? I don't see how it makes anything better for those of us who don't like the idea of a single software platform growing so large and dominant that nobody bothers supporting anything else. We've seen where that leads.
There are 'solutions' to this Manifest version 3 problem...
Use a Firefox or Firefox-based browser such as LibreWolf, WaterFox, Floorp, Mullvad browser. Use Brave browser which implements some tracker-blocking capabilities as part of the browser (rather than as an extension).
Also using DNS tracker blocking, e.g. NextDNS, Quad-9, Pi-Hole, AdGuard Home (e.g. running on a Raspberry Pi).
R Daneel Olivaw 2 hours ago
I REALLY wish this linux foundation would put their resources towards the mozilla foundation, but oh well. Mozilla has been doing some not so great things lately, but I feel like if they had more resources they wouldn't? I don't know.
I just don't want firefox to go away is all.
So long story short, I would prefer if Firefox didn't die because I want to keep using it, totally aside from my suspicions about monopolies and Google hoovering up my info.
This particular announcement, though, seems OK. And if it's really because Google is getting the screws turned on them by antitrust enforcement, that's great!.
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