this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What are your thoughts on Zen Browser becoming a lot more popular than Floorp? (api.star-history.com)
submitted 1 week ago by TheTwelveYearOld@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Right now is the best period of time yet for Firefox-based browser, especially when most alternative browsers are Chrome-based.

While there are a bunch of forks like Librewolf and Palemoon, they provide features mainly for power users like hardened privacy and tweaked user-prefs. A year ago the only fork I knew of, based on recent stable versions of Firefox and added productivity features on top was Floorp. I was very surprised at the hype and sudden popularity of Zen Browser in the past few months and have been curious why it grew so much faster than Floorp which has been around for much longer, look at the Github star graph: https://star-history.com/#zen-browser%2Fdesktop=&Date=. Zen Browser currently has 19.3K stars while Floorp has 6.1K.

Reasons I can think of are the following: heavy promotion of the browser by the devs and community on places like Reddit along with emphasizing its 'zen' philosophy, really fast development (it now has way more features than Floorp), and the Zen mods store, where you can install CSS mods.

What are your thoughts and reasons for Zen Browser becoming so popular so fast? (while its not mainstream, it did grow fast in among Firefox and power users)

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[–] bunitor@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

you're confusing importance with complexity

openssl is a vital part of the web, but it is a small tool

pale moon leverages the hundreds of thousands of person-hours put into firefox up until the fork. the work they put on their original code is negligible in comparison

there is literally no project led by unpaid volunteers that's able to output the amount of work necessary to maintain a browser and keep it up to date with web standards, let alone add new features

[–] nyan@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

openssl is a vital part of the web, but it is a small tool

You consider 61.7MB of source code "small"? (That's for openssl 3.3.2, and may not include some rust code that isn't in the gzipped main code package.) I think maybe you need to recalibrate a bit.

[–] bunitor@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

firefox is larger and more fast-paced

[–] nyan@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 days ago

You just said "large". I would consider any project with 10MB or more of source "large". Firefox is certainly large by that standard, but so is openssl. If your standard for "large" is "has at least as much code as Firefox", then according to you, the Linux kernel is a small project.