Thread

1. wps · 1789760710 · focus · HN ↗

   The amount of roadblocks Google is putting up for GrapheneOS is just ridiculous. None of their decisions make any sense, from the delayed source patches upstream, to the embargos, attestation issues, etc. Google simply regrets android being open source.

   1. godelski · 1789763541 · focus · HN ↗

      I hope people remember this when advocating for chromium. Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it. We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.

        > Google simply regrets android being open source.
      

      Android wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't open source. With all the work from outside Google. The same is true chrome.

      But they won't learn that on their own. They are breaking the deals. So we move. We force their hand

      1. StilesCrisis · 1789766362 · focus · HN ↗

         Hard forking doesn't solve the problem of closed source.

         If the goal of a hard fork is "the community will invest equal resources that Google does today" then you wildly underestimate how many engineers work on Chrome.

         1. floxy · 1789781514 · focus · HN ↗

            >wildly underestimate how many engineers work on Chrome.

            It is completely insane how many people work on Chrome. It seems like it is time to deprecate web browsers and do something different. Like you get a frame-buffer to draw on with something like a wasm vm. Web pages get replaced by programs (which they essentially are anyway). Get rid of 99.9% of the cruft that has accumulated over the decades in browsers. If you want to have some of that cruft, that is a library you have to send.

            1. sp332 · 1789818120 · focus · HN ↗

               This kills accessibility. You wouldn't even be able to select text unless the page implemented that feature itself. Screen readers would have nothing to work with. No high-contrast mode, no translation, no changing the font size, no reader mode........

               1. TeMPOraL · 1789822464 · focus · HN ↗

                  Unfortunately none of the things you listed are what page vendors want you to have. They'd very much prefer you didn't. On the web, they're just too hard to prevent, so most don't bother.

                  1. sp332 · 1789823453 · focus · HN ↗

                     I think that must be false. Serving the page as a static image was possible from the early days of the web, but vendors (mostly!) moved away from that as features like web fonts became available. I guess Flash was the big remaining exception. And remember Java applets? But even now as rendering to a canvas is possible, enabling animation and interactivity without necessarily including accessibility, websites are mostly not doing that. Accessibility is good for business. And sometimes it's legally required.

                     1. TeMPOraL · 1789823922 · focus · HN ↗

                        Software accessibility is bad for business - that's why it has to be legally mandated. There's no firm difference between "accessible", particularly to screen readers, and "amenable to end-user automation", and the latter is anathema to businesses.

                        As for the styling and fonts - it's all a bunch of low-key trade-offs here. The businesses want to exercise total control over the end-user experience, for sales/marketing and branding reasons. At the same time, going off the beaten path quickly makes development costs skyrocket.

                        Flash was a good choice back when all visitors were using a PC and there were like 3 different screen resolutions to choose from. Once laptops gained popularity, this started to shift, then pre-iPhone mobile briefly became consideration, and Flash stopped being sufficient; then iPhone came out, killed Flash, and started an era where every visitor has a different screen than the previous one. "Responsible web" became the cheapest option, and you can see its evolution as a trajectory towards giving more and more control over experience to developers, and less and less to the users.

                        1. sp332 · 1789825453 · focus · HN ↗

                           I'm fine with it being legally enforced. The point is, web site owners mostly wouldn't move to "a frame-buffer to draw on with something like a wasm vm".

                           1. TeMPOraL · 1789826333 · focus · HN ↗

                              Not until it's convenient enough, then yes.

                              Otherwise, explain Flutter.

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