
UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency - kawera
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
======
nikcub
Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with
an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new
ones.

On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on
keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium
forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you
accept contributions, how the binary distributions are built so we can verify
the checksums, if you can tag the Chromium releases from Google so they can be
verified, etc.

I've had the idea of a chromium fork with privacy enhancements in the back of
my mind for a while now (turns out a lot of people have) specifically to
replace Tor Browser and/or have a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl,
webrtc etc.) with better defaults (ie. no hardware access, location,
notifications, cookies, history, etc.) for opening links, private browsing
etc[1].

This may be a good base to work on - assuming you want to go beyond just "de-
googlify"

[1] I think there is a real need for an alternate browser that is
lightweight[2] and has stricter privacy and security controls - with proper
user segregation (ie. you really don't want to open random links from social
media in the same browser session as where you're logging into your primary
accounts).

[2] ie. do to Chrome/Firefox what Firefox originally did to Netscape - and
Chrome would be the better foundation to work on

~~~
erikpukinskis
> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.)

Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to
efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to
another user.

I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get
rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL
and WebRTC are cornerstone technologies for the web to thrive. WebRTC is
critical for allowing open source software to thrive in particular (allows
apps that don't need a central server) and WebGL is critical in particular for
web software to compete in the AR/VR age. We need 100% browser support on
these two APIs, and we need it yesterday.

I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I
sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10
years.

Please, please, please jetsam other parts of the ship before you cut those
features.

~~~
wcummings
>Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed
to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to
another user.

>fundamental technologies

>basic activities

>process an image or send sound data to another user.

We must live in different worlds, those are not "basic" or "fundamental" to
me. I'm not sure I've _ever_ used either.

>the AR/VR age

You're overstating how important these technologies are. Maybe in 10 years but
only time will tell.

~~~
odbol_
IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and
streaming videos _without a central server_. This means users have a way to
share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be
censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends
on tech like WebRTC.

That kind of infrastructure is _crucial_ to the freedom of information and
therefore the freedom of global citizens. You will not realize we need it
until it's too late.

The revolution will not be televised, it will not be in your news feed, it
will happen in the streets and in the minds of citizens, and we need to
prepare ourselves with the proper tools for that time, because it is coming
sooner than you think.

~~~
swsieber
I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default
unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the
best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to
pay the costs for these things because they never use them.

~~~
diggan
I think you would like Beaker Browser
([https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker](https://github.com/pfrazee/beaker)) that
comes with out-of-the-box support for normal HTTP, Dat and IPFS

------
nathancahill
Great start. Although I think we need to reverse the trend of Chrome becoming
the single browser web developers use. The amount of sites that
unnecessarily[0] work only in Chrome is growing daily. And that's not even
counting browser extensions. I think this, more than anything else, will
determine if Chrome becomes the "Internet Explorer"[1] of this decade or not.

Skipping testing in IE is one thing. Skipping testing in Firefox is a sin.

[0] Unnecessarily, because cross-browser compatibility isn't hard, simply
include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs.

[1] Internet Explorer, a term for a closed-source browser that creates non-
standard APIs that developers jump on, forcing either users to use that
browser, or other browsers to implement the non-standard APIs too.

~~~
technion
The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into
websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them.

Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine.

Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you
don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then,
when I click your link, greeting me with a condescending "IE Users are idiots"
type message that doesn't let me proceed, doesn't make me buy your product.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
So much this. While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once, they
constantly reoffer it to Edge users on a nearly weekly basis. And recently,
they actually made the bar bigger and more obtrusive.

I filed an issue on the Chromium bug tracker, they assigned someone to look
into it, and of course, nothing has been said since.

~~~
Springtime
_> While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once_

To this day, and for years, I continue to receive these messages from Google
sites informing me to upgrade to Chrome. I've even had them pop-up on
Chromium.

~~~
CaptSpify
I actually put in a ublock rule to filter out that message because I was so
tired of seeing it all the time. Definitely not a one-time thing.

------
eloston
Hey guys, I'm the developer. I was really surprised to see the number of stars
on GitHub suddenly skyrocket, and I think I found why. Thank you all for your
interest in my project!

Feel free to make an issue (for questions, suggestions, or bug reports) or a
pull request anytime. I might respond to a few more comments here before
calling it a day.

~~~
mstade
> Disable JavaScript dialog boxes from showing when a page closes
> (onbeforeunload events) Bypasses the annoying dialog boxes that spawn when a
> page is being closed

That seemed pretty random, and not related to the ultimate goal of the
project. Are there other normal features that are disabled, that don't relate
to Google at all?

~~~
kowdermeister
I like that feature, it's often more useful than not.

------
echelon
Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely,
nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills
the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close,
change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try
to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and
definitely to the point of being one of my top ten frustrations in life.

The last time I used Firefox on mobile, it didn't integrate well with the
phone UI. It felt clunky, the fonts were bad, and the viewport was wrong on
many websites.

I feel like Mozilla would do the most good in the world by spending more
effort on a mobile browser. Mobile Chrome is flat out disgusting and
abhorrent, but I haven't found anything else that's remotely as performant. It
just sucks that Google refuses to allow extensions to protect their ad
revenue.

Are there any good alternative browsers that block shitty, intrusive, and
entirely irrelevant mobile ads? Are they open source?

~~~
ams6110
I use Firefox on Android, with uBlock Origin plugin.

It's not perfect. There are deviations from the usual "Material Design" UI
standards. Some sites don't render properly. It's slower. But it's worth it to
me.

~~~
shabbyrobe
A user agent switcher helps too. Google intentionally hobble their own
websites (can't access search tools, for example) if you use Firefox, but
changing the user agent made things work well for me. YMMV of course, but I
used the "Android Phone" setting in the "Phony" extension for years and had
far fewer problems than I had using a Firefox user agent.

~~~
hlandau
>Google intentionally hobble their own websites (can't access search tools,
for example) if you use Firefox

Do you have more information on this?

~~~
kuschku
Open Google Search in firefox mobile, and try to add a search filter.

------
Retr0spectrum
"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now.
This could become my main browser.

IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security
issues, but Firefox has better privacy.

~~~
Scarbutt
Isn't privacy a moot point when firefox's security history has been much worse
than chrome?

[https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont...](https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont-
attack-firefox-cause-its-too-easy)

~~~
Karunamon
This probably got downvoted for snark, but it's true. The worst Chrome might
do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults).

The worst Firefox might do is get your machine pwned.

~~~
kuschku
> The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't
> change the defaults).

Chrome is the one running any x86 binary the website presents it with, only
trying to run a static verification that it won't do anything evil.

Chrome is far more at risk of pwning you (and NaCl sandbox breakouts have been
quite common).

~~~
Karunamon
You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not
has its key pinned internally?

Point is, Chrome falls every year at Pwn2Own just like every other browser,
but only Firefox has been excluded because it's too easy.

~~~
kuschku
> You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not
> has its key pinned internally?

Any website can run NaCl code, you realize that? Even TIDAL uses it on its
site for native playback.

Even pages only accessed over HTTP.

------
tomjakubowski
> Replace many web domains in the source code with non-existent alternatives
> ending in qjz9zk (known as domain substitution)

How does this play with the HSTS preload list? That'd be quite the baby to
throw out with the bathwater.

edit: well, I don't see anything like "transport_security_state_static.json"
in this list here, so maybe it's fine: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/re...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/resources/common/domain_substitution_list)

edit2: The preload list seems to be excluded from domain substitution
explicitly. Yay! [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/4bbfff447...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/4bbfff4472a47bdc0e8cc26da65542bbcc6a8576/developer_utilities/update_helper.py#L127)

------
koolba
Is there a browser build or plugin extension that has a separate cookie jar
for each tab that follows the tab?

My ideal browser has zero persistence and each tab maintains its own cookies.
Links opened as new tabs would share the parent's cookie jar, but separate
tabs loaded to the same page could both be logged in at the same time.

~~~
Zarkaos
I think you'll love ghost browser ;)
[https://ghostbrowser.com/](https://ghostbrowser.com/)

~~~
sdfjkl
Sounded good, so I typed in an email address on their registration form. Then:

> Create an Account Password (You will use this to log in to the browser to
> activate it)

Uhm, no.

------
floatingatoll
It's unfortunate that valuable and useful privacy enhancements were combined
with "wishlist"-level changes like "disable the tab close event in
Javascript".

While many may not like the uses of that event, it taints what otherwise could
have been a "purely about privacy" fork of Chromium with non-privacy opinions.

~~~
eloston
Yes, I've realized this and made an issue for this:
[https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/issues/38](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38)

If you have the computing resources, you can easily take out the patch that
does the "wishlist" changes you don't want.

~~~
floatingatoll
Neat! Thank you for considering it.

------
throw2016
I remember when Chrome launched. It was extremely zippy, felt fast and lean
and had a clean interface. Adoption had yet to take off.

Those days it was all technical, google was perceived first as technically
proficient and their agenda was to produce a fast and efficient browser. Many
people could and did align with that.

Now there are too many question marks about Google's motives and agendas and
Chrome does not feel like a technical achievement, it feels burdened by all
these agendas.

Firefox is supposed to be the default go to when in doubt but why do you need
such a large coporation to develop a fast and lean browser and here too there
appears to be conflicting actions and agendas.

Now more than ever we need clean open source projects with no agendas but
because of growing complexity its becoming increasingly impossible for small
groups to do, and I think we have not evolved open source structures to deal
with this yet.

------
xelxebar
Tangentially related, but I'm curious why non-Firefox and non-Chromium
browsers don't get more love.

Started trying out alternative browsers a while ago--vimb, dwb, and luakit--
and enjoyed their snappiness and customizability.

Recently, however, I discovered uzbl and fell in love. It feels like everthing
a shell for the web should be.

I am unsure whether I should be worried about security pr something though.
Would love to hear others' input!

------
laktak
Reminds me of "Iron"

> a freeware web browser, and an implementation of Chromium by SRWare of
> Germany. It primarily aims to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy-
> compromising functionality that the Google Chrome browser includes.
> ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron))

First released 8 years ago:
[https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php](https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php)

~~~
blackphace
don't use Iron
[http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.ht...](http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html)

------
robbrown451
This is awesome.

One of my biggest gripes with Chrome is the inability to stop a rogue site
from playing audio (on top of the music I'm listening to in another tab). CNN
is one of the worst, as soon as I find the freaking video on the page and try
to pause/mute it, the video controls slide away. Why can't Chrome allow me to
just turn off audio on that tab? I have assumed Google doesn't give us that
because it will interfere with their advertising or something.

(maybe there is an extension that will help? I haven't found one)

~~~
po1nter
> Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab

Well this feature is built into Chrome. Just right click the rogue tab and
click "Mute Tab"

~~~
witty_username
Or click the audio icon on the tab that appears when the tab is playing audio.

------
lfx
Is this browser expecting me to use TOR? Welcome and extensions pages on new
tab pages wants me to go to
[http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/](http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/) domain.

I'm not finding anything about that in repo readme page. This looks odd and
suspicious. Because it's even blocks requests there ->
[http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8](http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8)

~~~
Retr0spectrum
That isn't a tor URL. I assume it's simply a lazy way of stopping requests to
google services by replacing the domains with invalid ones.

Edit: see [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/8dd86477d...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/8dd86477d78df6e1b136374851920d493e3e974b/resources/common/domain_regex_list)

~~~
eloston
Yes, it is a lazy way of stopping requests. I also modified Iridium's "trk"
scheme code to pick up domains ending in qjz9zk so I can notify the user.

~~~
comex
Does qjz9zk have any significance? It seems a little elaborate for a fake
domain :)

~~~
RandomlyGen
It seems like the developer mashed the keyboard.

------
doe88
Great, the released binaries also seem to be compiled with
_proprietary_codecs=true_ , that means H264 videos are working (by default
Chromium is not compiled with this flag).

------
phantom_oracle
Just as a post about Googles next generic Whatsapp-clone (with x-size-larger
emojis) will get some 500+ upvotes, so too will a post like this get upwards
of 200 votes.

The HN community really is polarized ( _or so it seems_ ) about these data-
harvesting companies and issues like privacy/transparency.

My thought then, is which group is larger here (privacy-aware vs. GooAppFace )

~~~
RubyPinch
well there was a privacy bait-and-switch with Allo, wasn't there?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547130)

------
aceperry
Very cool work. The Chromium source isn't easy to go through. I'm glad that
it's open source though.

------
dingdingdang
On a purely utilitarian note: does this have auto-update functionality?

------
TomAnthony
The readme refers to "Google Host Detector" in the (original) Chromium source.
Does anyone know the purpose of that?

~~~
CannisterFlux
This patch [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/re...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/disable-
google-host-detection.patch) seems to contain the details of what is removed.
Most of it seems innocuous enough, except the tracking (?) headers appended on
some Google sites.

------
mikro2nd
How is this different from Iridium browser?

------
Blackthorn
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this remove Safe Browsing? Not a good
idea.

~~~
lorenzhs
Yeah, seems like it: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/re...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/ungoogled-chromium/fix-building-
without-safebrowsing.patch) and [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/commit/9163f6e...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/commit/9163f6ed3c57f427ca5ea6b0f4f379a1cf85b796) and
[https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/re...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/resources/common/patches/inox-patchset/modify-default-
prefs.patch#L17)

That is a _very_ bad idea. I sympathize with the idea of the project, but
please think twice before meddling in security things. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990)

I filed an issue to explain the risks: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/issues/50](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50)

~~~
throwaway2048
I have no interest in my urls being sent to google for "security checking" (I
am aware of the hashing)

~~~
lorenzhs
Then you can disable SafeBrowsing in Chromium's settings. My point is that
disabling it _without warning users about the risks of doing so_ is a bad
idea. If you make an informed decision to disable it, I won't try to stop you.

------
zenincognito
On Linux Mint I get

Error:Dependency is not satisfiable:libavcodec-ffmpeg56(>=7.2.4)|libavcodec-
ffmped-extra56(>=7:2.4)

Suggestion -

The repo does not provide install instructions. For a highly not tech privacy
enthusiast, I find it difficult to install for linux.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another
distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience
dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a
package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source.

That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu;
that package will never work on Debian, another version of Ubuntu, or most
non-Debian distributions.

~~~
sunnyps
Ha! This is one of the reasons* Chrome ships with its own copy of ffmpeg which
this fork decided was a bad thing.

* the other being security updates for ffmpeg

~~~
JoshTriplett
It's a bad thing for Linux platforms, which should use the system version of
ffmpeg; however, that's something much easier to solve when you're actually
the Linux distribution, rather than a third party.

Note that many of the changes in this fork come from the Debian packaging of
Chromium.

~~~
sunnyps
IMO Google is in a better position to deal with ffmpeg security updates than
Debian is. Google is spending a lot of effort into fuzz testing ffmpeg[1] and
other components of Chrome and also rolls out updates very quickly.

I'd expect the distro ffmpeg to not need as much updating if you're only using
it for local media that you trust. But Chrome's ffmpeg has to decode media
from untrusted sources so it's important that security bugs get fixed ASAP.

[1] [https://security.googleblog.com/2014/01/ffmpeg-and-
thousand-...](https://security.googleblog.com/2014/01/ffmpeg-and-thousand-
fixes.html)

------
rer
There's a huge discussion in this thread on tabs being slow, which made me
wonder: is it necessary for browsers to have tabs?

Windows desktop apps work great without tabs. Could life be better without
tabs?

~~~
kccqzy
There was a time when browsers had no tabs at all. I remember clearly Internet
Explorer 6 had no tabs and Microsoft added it in version 7 to catch up with
other browsers.

------
poshli
I wonder how [https://twitter.com/taviso](https://twitter.com/taviso) feels
about yet another Chromium fork

------
vog
My only issue is that GotoMeeting doesn't work with Chromium, only with
Chrome. Otherwise I would already have removed Chrome a long time ago.

~~~
Spakman
The GoToMeeting web client works in Chromium on Arch for me. Perhaps it's
worth another go?

~~~
vog
I retry GoToMeeting wtih Chromium from time to time, using Debian/Testing just
to be sure it isn't too old. Still, no luck. Most parts of the page do work,
but there is no audio.

------
s0me0ne
I dont use Chromium because I dont trust Google, but I use Vivaldi but not
sure how much Googlization is in it for spying.

------
eatbitseveryday
Do extensions work with this build of the browser? I cannot seem to install
Privacy Badger from the Chrome webstore.

~~~
eatbitseveryday
Ah, you have to look at the FAQ[1]

[1] [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/FA...](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium/blob/master/FAQ.md)

------
tszming
For those who want to take up a challenge - fork a version of Chrome Android
with extension (aka AdBlock) support.

~~~
billyjobob
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplus.browser)

------
corv
Is geolocation still using Google Location Service or has that been replaced
with a different provider?

------
hartator
+1 Will be my new default when home. Does it support uBlock Origin?

~~~
eloston
Yes. I use uBlock Origin with it daily.

------
NeutronBoy
While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider
(and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source
browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has),
and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).

~~~
sunnyps
Why do you say that it's not easy to contribute to Chromium? Also the "last
truly open-source" browser is hyperbolic given that Chromium is both open-
source and is also developed in the open[1][2][3]. If anything over the past
few years it has become more open-source as many components have been
upstreamed (e.g. pdfium, android/ios stuff, etc.)

[1] Chromium bug tracker:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list)
[2] Chromium code reviews:
[https://codereview.chromium.org/](https://codereview.chromium.org/) [3]
Chromium development mailing lists:
[https://www.chromium.org/developers/technical-discussion-
gro...](https://www.chromium.org/developers/technical-discussion-groups)

~~~
hgf888
It doesn't matter if it's open source - it's an issue of trust. Firefox has
never secretly downloaded binary blobs in the background which listen to my
microphone without my permission or knowledge.[1] Chromium lost all my trust
that day, even if none of my private conversations/data made it to Google that
particular time.

[1]
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922)

~~~
TAForObvReasons
If anything, the whole Sponsored Tiles push
([https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504](https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504)
[https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...](https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-
transformation-with-users-at-the-center/)) and attempts to justify ads in the
browser as "user-enhancing" made me very wary of Firefox. Moreso than
Chromium.

~~~
SimeVidas
Why? From what I’ve read, it was completely harmless. I smell FUD :-)

~~~
khedoros
A subset of the tiles are paid advertisements. "Completely harmless" depends
on your point of view. Personally, if I have a choice, I'll opt for the
browser that doesn't show me "sponsored content" on first boot, just out of
principle.

~~~
SimeVidas
IIRC, the sponsored tiles only appeared on new installations and they weren’t
targeting the user (i.e. the user’s privacy wasn’t compromised). I dunno, I
remember reading about this and thinking how meaningless it really is and how
grotesque the negative response is.

~~~
khedoros
People overreact. When I saw that, I sighed and went on with my day. I
consider unsolicited advertisements an unconditional negative, and for Mozilla
to say that they included them because they think I'd like to see them is
mildly offensive. I've got some similes in mind, but they all seem too over-
dramatic.

Mozilla's done a few other things that I mildly dislike, and they tend to
clump together in my mind. Nothing that's a big deal, but enough that I
usually keep a copy of Pale Moon on the machines I use most often.

------
hartator
Firefox is not really a good company anymore, they care more about politics
than doing something awesome. Cf. the firing of their CEO.

~~~
byuu
He was not fired. Straight from Mozilla themselves:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-
resignat...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/)

"On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich _voluntarily_ stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."

He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if
he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much
if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Thanks to
people like Eich, for seven years me and my husband had to lie and check
"single" on all of our federal and state forms. For seven years we had to
worry about being denied hospital visitation should one of us fall ill. We had
to worry about how we'd handle inheritance should one of us pass. And on and
on.

So yes, everyone is entitled to their own voice. Eich had a right to make that
donation. And other people had a right to protest and boycott over it. Mozilla
did not cave to the protests, so there was no free speech violation here.

~~~
smsm42
> "On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."

Yeah as voluntarily as those politicians resigning to spend more time with
their families really resign to spend more time with their families. It's not
fooling anybody else, and I have very hard time believing it's fooling you. He
resigned because he was asked to resign. That's how top management firing is
done.

> He could have stayed if he wanted to.

Physically - yes, I guess, until they call security and carry him out :)
Seriously - no, when Powers That Be in your org ask you to resign, you resign.

> Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product
> donates to strip a minority of equal rights.

So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different political
opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from your job -
you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs? Or it's only your
political enemies that have to lose their jobs for their politics, but never
you?

> Mozilla did not cave to the protests,

Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.

~~~
byuu
> He resigned because he was asked to resign.

Sorry to post a link, but I responded to the same argument already here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579498)

> So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different
> political opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from
> your job - you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs?

If they were truly my convictions, I would stand by them and tell the world
that I was fired for my beliefs. I wouldn't suddenly become a liar. Especially
not to protect the company that just fired me.

If what you say is true, and there is zero evidence that it is, then I would
lose the very last tiny bit of respect I have for Eich. It would also mean the
Mozilla board was truly and utterly incompetent; because this was an
_extremely_ predictable result. They already knew of Eich's donation. And
anyone with a functioning brain would have realized that this would become a
much bigger issue when he was promoted to CEO.

We do, however, share common ground that nobody should be fired for their
personal beliefs (nor for that matter, for what they do in their personal
time.) Yet at the same time, I refuse to accept a world where I would be
denied the right to protest an abhorrent individual. Say there were a company
run by a neo-nazi grandmaster wizard of the KKK that wanted to commit
genocide. But hey, those were just his personal beliefs! Would you still be
against anyone refusing to use that company's products? Against anyone saying
the company shouldn't have hired such a man to lead them?

The critics who called for his job were wrong to do so. Saying a man should be
fired for his beliefs was almost as bad as saying that gay people should not
be treated as equal citizens with the same rights as straight people.

> Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.

Prove it. Or if that's no longer required, then NASA absolutely, totally and
completely faked the moon landings.

~~~
smsm42
> If they were truly my convictions, I would stand by them and tell the world
> that I was fired for my beliefs.

That's not the question. The question is - would you think that company that
fired you did right by you? If not, then you can understand how people feel
Mozilla didn't do right by Eich.

> It would also mean the Mozilla board was truly and utterly incompetent;
> because this was an extremely predictable result

No it wasn't. A lot of people held view similar to Eich's (including Bill
Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at certain times, btw) and many
donated to Prop 8. If you not aware of it, Prop 8 actuall _passed_. Which
means _majority_ of California voters supported it. Not all of them were
target of personal destruction hate campaigns. The hatemongers chose Eich to
target, but they could choose somebody else out of 7 million people that voted
"yes".

> They already knew of Eich's donation.

If they did, that would be highly unusual and irregular to investigate private
life of a person. I would certainly be alarmed if my employer would scrutinize
my private donations. WTF they are doing asking how I spend my money? But what
if they did? Certainly a lot of people donate to a lot of causes, and not
every one of them is targeted by hate campaigns.

> And anyone with a functioning brain would have realized that this would
> become a much bigger issue when he was promoted to CEO.

Nope. Name me organizations that CEO's of Fortune 100 companies donated to,
without googling. You can't. Because you don't know. Because nobody knows.
Because nobody cares, until it becomes target of a campaign. Now you are
posing as if you could have predicted it, you could not.

> We do, however, share common ground that nobody should be fired for their
> personal beliefs

Yet Eich was. That's the

> Say there were a company run by a neo-nazi grandmaster wizard of the KKK

But there wasn't. There was a US Senator who was in the KKK (Robert Byrd) but
most his comrades seem to be completely fine with it. Eich wasn't in the KKK
and did not intend to commit anything. Why engage in ludicrous assumptions
that we all know are false?

> The critics who called for his job were wrong to do so.

And yet they got what they wanted. And Mozilla aided and abetted.

> Prove it.

The proof is in the pudding. Mozilla never did anything to support Eich, it
were Mozilla employees who initiated the personal destruction campaign, board
was on the record offering him "another role" but never offered to stand up
for him, and so on. Of course, I was not a fly on the wall when _the talk_
between Eich and board members happened, so I can't give you the money quote.
But I see the gist of the situation to be pretty clear and so do many others.

------
piedradura
I can't download the posts of forums like comp.lang.lisp, and I can't disable
javascript in firefox with one click, so forget about any applaud from me. The
browser I would like is nothing like this and I want a javascript free
browsing experience in which content is important and display not so much,
sorry css fans. Today web is about selling things and propagating noise and
today browsers are a perfect tool to propagate more noise, linkbaits are the
norm. The pityful technical enhacements of noise propagators is not what I am
interested about. To be somewhat positive, anything Ungoogled sound to be a
good thing, I am expecting the next interesting post to be about a very small
company building the new web with a small browser whose code you can trust and
check.

