8 mo. ago • 94%

[OUTDATED POST] Floorp, a Firefox Fork with an awful name, has moved some components inside a private submodule.

github.com GitHub - Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core

Contribute to Floorp-Projects/Floorp-core development by creating an account on GitHub.

Update: They just open-sourced it https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp-private-components

cross-posted from: https://kbin.melroy.org/m/foss@beehaw.org/t/170330

See also https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/floorp-going-closed-source/52783

Free and Open Source Software @beehaw.org Floorp, a Firefox Fork with an awful name, has moved some components inside a private submodule.

72 comments

I grew up in the era where open-source was just starting out and creators were giving 🖕 to big tech and naming their products wacky names.

This reminds me of that era.

41
- Suyu, a fork of the Yuzu emulator which was taken down by Nintendo, is an excellent example.
  
  21
  
  Nintendo are fucking clowns and so are JP IP laws. Fuck 'em both.
  
  17
  
  You mean the one that was just recently...taken down?
  
  Yeah, didn't last as long as I'd hoped it would.
  
  6
What else does it apart from rebranding firefox and getting ad revenue?

36
- It has a few privacy features, some themes, some other stuff. Nothing significant. It kinda became popular lately, and some people started using it. But now it's proprietary, so I wouldn't use it anymore. LibreWolf is much better and open source.
  
  55
  
  Are there any benefits to using LibreWolf if I'm alrrady using Arkenfox?
  
  9
  
  It also has double sidebars so I can put tabs in one of them instead of the top of the screen and hide the titlebar without having to modify userchrome.css. That's one thing I missed from Vivaldi when I moved to Firefox.
  
  9
  
  Or Mullvad Browser. I really like that browser too.
  
  3
  
  oof, gotta switch again
  
  1
- I believe the main thing people liked about Floorp is tab grouping and vertical tab layout à la Vivaldi, and a more modern and slim design out of the box, while keeping a firefox core instead of being another chromium based browser.
  
  20
  
  This. I use floorp for work and Firefox for personal stuff.
  
  4
- https://floorp.app/en/
  
  -4
  
  nothing then? Because I don't see anything different there
  
  8
My dog loves floorp. He does it whenever he gets excited to meet someone new.

22
Ah for fucks sake, I really liked this browser.

22
- same, any alternative?
  
  2
  
  LibreWolf or just regular Firefox? Which unique Floorp features do you miss in Firefox?
  
  9
  
  Midori is a fork of florp and I think is better, too.
  
  -2
- Midori and Firedragon are both based off Floorp.
  
  1
The creator of Floorp posted a reponse to this: https://blog.ablaze.one/4125/2024-03-11/

TLDR posted by the creator: creator:

To put it simply, the current Floorp, including forks, will end the moment I stop maintaining it, so to prevent that from happening, I have prohibited forks. The idea is to solve the user's concern about code transparency by tightening the license when returning to open source, and to create a sustainable Floorp by giving them the choice of paying money or helping with the coding.

Unfortunately a lot of this seems in reponse to Midori, a seemingly hostile fork with a pretty suspcious website.

21
- Unfortunately a lot of this seems in reponse to Midori, a seemingly hostile fork with a pretty suspcious website.
  
  To some people all forks are hostile. This appears to be such a case. He just seems to be sour over people exercising the same freedoms he got from Mozilla upstream. Rules for thee but not for me. The free software community doesn't need his obscure fork.
  
  33
  
  I disagree in this case. The majority of Firefox forks make it clear they're a fork, giving credit to Mozilla. Midori seems to hide that they're a fork while adding very little to the browser. Their website also takes donations while having a fake phone number and broken contact button. Hard not to see that as suspicious.
  
  Edit: the dev was also completely ok with Firedragon switching to their codebase because they did so resepectfully.
  
  I still disagree with what the dev did, but I get the struggle.
  
  10
Welp, the message you've cross-posted was since edited to include

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

20
- Can somebody elaborate on this? How could somebody stealing their code be a problem?
  
  5
  
  Not sure about this particular case as the author didn't elaborate, but sometimes suckers sell binaries. Also, they've mentioned assets that may be non-commercial or require naming the original author which some forks may choose to ignore.
  
  Anyways, I personally don't use floorp, so you better ask their devs or community.
  
  2
- It appears they just did, as of a few minutes ago while I was looking into it
  
  Here is the now open private components repo under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
  And I forked it just to be sure
  
  3
They just open sourced the private repository 7 minutes ago, 2024-03-24T12:39Z

15
- That's great. I edited the post title.
  
  7
  
  Can you edit the post to say why it is outdated? I was confused seeing the title.
  
  6
just installed few week ago and now this.

9
- Same here. this is upsetting :/ Back to firefox I guess
  
  4
floorp makes me think of the old social web browser, flock which is giving me mega nostalgia.

7
I will not dog anyone on using Floorp or all these forks, but... just take 10 minutes and harden Firefox yourself? Transparent process, and you learn a few things by doing the utmost minimum things. What if Librewolf tomorrow goes closed or adds weird stuff like that Chrome fork Thorium? Firefox will not.

6
- What did Thorium add? Where can I find out more.
  
  2
  
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38647363
  
  3
- Floorp has been around for a couple of months, I'm using LibreWolf since 2021 so it's a little more trustworthy.
  
  2
- How do I get the same vertical tabs that Floorp has on other FireFox forks?
  
  1
  
  Tree Style Tabs?
  
  2
The "open sourced" private components repo is under a fauxpen source (non-commercial) license. Floorp is still proprietary.

6
- Not proprietary, but source-available.
  
  3
  
  source-available.
  
  Ergo, proprietary.
  
  edit: my prior comment on the difference between fauxpen source and true free software licenses. It's not just theoretical or "purist"
  
  8
I kinda like the name, actually.

5
Permanently Deleted

4
Floorp also seems to be dropping support for workspaces in the near future..

https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp/issues/618#issuecomment-1842971843

2
If y'all are mad about this, look into Midori. It's a fork of florp and I think it's better, too.

1
- From the website:
  
  With Midori Browser you can browse the web with complete confidence and an advanced tracking blocker.
  
  Then the next paragraph states:
  
  Cryptotoken: To reward our users, we are organizing an initiative a Token to give users to use our products and services without tracking.
  
  So it blocks tracking but adds more tracking, so users can buy some shitcoin to remove the tracking?
  
  I'm glad that their forks of simple mobile tools didn't gain traction, then
  
  19
  
  Well that was an emotional roller coaster.
  
  2
  
  Welp, I'll be damned then. Back to good ole Firefox then
  
  1
- Is it open source?
  
  1
  
  As far as I know, yes.
  
  1
- What does it even do better? I remember using it right after they redid it and it was just a 1/1 copy of Floorp
  
  1
  
  I tested the speed on both and Midori was a lot faster.
  
  1
Still going to use the heck out if it. It's super useful in my workflow and firefox at heart. I want to be more productive, not poorductive on some weird purist idealism.

-5
- Then you missed the point of why people do this in the first place, it's not about idealism
  
  4

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