this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
66 points (90.2% liked)

Linux

48376 readers
1583 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 42 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

Let's face it: People aren't gonna take something named 'Floorp' seriously.

If you do, especially to the point you're downvoting this, maybe it's time to ask yourselves why people are not taking you seriously.

[–] canadaduane@lemmy.ca 22 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

There is a certain strain of open source development that is nearly anti-marketing, as far as I can tell. They choose names like "gimp", "git", "frotz", "borg", "pooch", "butt", "slurm", "mutt", "snort", and "floorp".

[–] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 2 points 6 hours ago

I love this, we should maintain a list of these, it's like that "Pokémon or web technology?" thing

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago

At least "git" and "mutt" don't feel ridiculous when being pronounced.

The rest are pushing it, but they fill in specific niches that no other tool in their fields can provide, or at least on par with others in their fields.

The same cannot be said about floorp. It sounds ridiculous on your tongue, it looks ridiculous spelled out on the screen, it is just another Firefox fork.

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 8 points 18 hours ago

I can add foot to the list

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago

Not downvoting, but I do quite like that Floorp is just a bit weird. It makes it more fun to use lol.

As an average user of Floorp. I hate the name

[–] astro_ray@piefed.social 4 points 17 hours ago

Not terribly fond of their icon as well. Personally, I would be willing to look past the name if they had a better icon.

[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 3 points 20 hours ago

Yeah honestly they should change the name literally no one I have heard likes it.