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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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I mean, on a technical level chromium isn't a terrible browser engine. Building your own engine from scratch is Extremely Hard™ and it's entirely possible to build a decent browser on top of it, so I can understand why most alternative projects have done just that.
It's just... google's control over chromium is concerning.
And an ecosystem of one engine is not healthy. Even if google was not google, this is a massive risk to take for the Easy™ way.
It's not an ecosystem of one, though one is very dominant.
You can compare it to Linux. It's not the only Unix-like kernel, but it's similarly dominant. If you want to create a new distribution, it doesn't make any sense to spend a decade trying to write your own kernel rather than just using the Linux kernel (insert GNU Hurd jokes here).
Is that an unhealthy ecosystem then? I don't think it is.
What makes the chromium situation unhealthy is Google's ownership and control, not that it's the preferred engine for other browsers. I mean, even a company as large as Microsoft gave up trying to create their own engine.
Your example is a poor choice, Linux overall is one example of an OS for users. There are more OS choices then Linux, that is good. Nothing like web browsers where people where actively trying to make everything chromium based. The ecosystem is unhealthy when there is one choice for an entire type of software (so for OS you have Linux, Windows, and Mac as big players) and outside of Firefox and its forks all web browsers are Chromium based. Oh and although there are other fringe options they don't matter much, much like in the OS world Temple OS is not a real choice.
My point was that it would be very very bad if Firefox was not there (or turned into chromium) as an ecosystem of one is a massive risk regardless of who controls it.