Category: News

Announcing Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers

Posted on by Michael G

Since Google announced the Chromium project in 2008, we have been excited to build on the great foundations of open-source web browsers and contribute to the continued development of a rich web platform. Today, Chromium is used by hundreds of different projects globally, including big browsers like Chrome, home electronics from LG, application frameworks like Electron and even custom applications like Bloomberg terminals and SpaceX capsule control software.

In 2024, Google made over 100,000 commits to Chromium, accounting for ~94 percent of contributions. While we have no intention of reducing this investment, we continue to welcome others stepping up to invest more.

Announcing Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers

Google also continues to invest heavily in the shared infrastructure of the Open Source project to “keep the lights on”, including having thousands of servers endlessly running millions of tests, responding to hundreds of incoming bugs per day, ensuring the important ones get fixed, and constantly investing in code health to keep the whole project maintainable. This work represents hundreds of millions of US dollars in annual investment just for maintenance costs before any new feature, innovation or other business priorities can be addressed.

Sustainable funding of critical open source infrastructure remains a hot industry-wide topic of discussion and over the years we’ve heard from many companies and developers about how critical the Chromium project is to their work. They’ve also shared how they would like to support the continued health of the project, beyond direct engineering support.

Today Google is pleased to announce our partnership with The Linux Foundation and the launch of the Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers. The goal of this initiative is to foster a sustainable environment of open-source contributions towards the health of the Chromium ecosystem and financially support a community of developers who want to contribute to the project, encouraging widespread support and continued technological progress for Chromium embedders.

The Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers fund will be managed by the Linux Foundation, following their long established practices for open governance, prioritizing transparency, inclusivity, and community-driven development. We’re thrilled to have Meta, Microsoft, and Opera on-board as the initial members to pledge their support.

We welcome this additional investment into Chromium’s commons and we’re looking forward to working with the other members of the Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers to ensure that it meets the needs of the wider Chromium community. At the same time, we remain committed to being the responsible steward of the Chromium project and to the massive investment necessary to keep Chromium working well for the entire web industry.

Posted by Shruthi Sreekanta

Gentle updates postponed

Posted on by Michael G

This Week in F-Droid

TWIF curated on Thursday, 09 Jan 2025, Week 2

F-Droid core

How is the new Client 1.22.0-alpha0 update working for you? Did you notice any updates that seem stuck? Brave testers did. We mentioned last week that the new “gentle update” API might be troublesome, and indeed both internal testing and your reports showed as much. Apps that cling to foreground services to be able to run and serve you continuously like an email app, a music player or even a keyboard app, will not be updated unless either force closed or (for the keyboard) deselected as an input method.

It was decided to postpone the usage of this feature until we find a way to update such apps as well. What does this mean? Your music might stop for 2 seconds on update or your email client will restart. Might be annoying for a bit but it’s for a good cause. This change will come with a future alpha update and we will announce this then too.

Community News

If you can read Italian (or just use Fennecs translate feature), Enrico Zoia has prepared a new “Goodbye Big Tech: How to replace the most common apps on your smartphone with Open Source versions” article for you to start your year with. It takes just 10 minutes.

Fossify Paint, Quick, easy and open source drawing app, is here and now we can archive the old Simple Draw Pro. Go ahead, switch!

As mentioned in the last TWIF of 2024 the Privacy oriented web browser Mull has stopped development. As a new version of Firefox was released, and will be built in the next cycle, we marked Mull with the Known Vulnerability anti-feature to signal to users the need to switch to a currently developed browser instead. We recommend Fennec F-Droid.

OpenTracks (Non-reproducible) was updated to v4.17.5irreproducible adding this new strange name. Why? Because we now also include OpenTracks (Reproducible build), A sport tracker buddy that respects your privacy, which is the same app but signed by the developer, and built and verified reproducible by F-Droid. If you want, you can switch to the reproducible version doing an export and import of your tracks.

@linsui has the gist on proxies:

Exclave, Proxy client, was just added, a fork of the discontinued SagerNet. As we mentioned in TWIF 9 of 2024, the author of SagerNet published sing-box as a successor of SagerNet. Sing-box is a great app, but many users prefer the design and rich features of SagerNet. @dyhkwong started Exclave as a fork of SagerNet and has added some more features to it. With dyhkwong’s help, Exclave is available in F-Droid now with reproducible builds! There are some plugins but they are not packaged for F-Droid. Please get them from upstream.

Removed Apps

2 more apps were removed
  • foodsharing: Share food instead of throwing it away! (API has evolved, a new app might be coming)
  • Text Tools: Useful text related functions that can be done on the selected text

Newly Added Apps

4 more apps were newly added

Updated Apps

235 more apps were updated

(expand for the full list)

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

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You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉

To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.

VLC gets caught in “AI” hype, adds “AI” subtitles and translations

Posted on by Michael G
VLC media player, the popular open-source software developed by nonprofit VideoLAN, has topped 6 billion downloads worldwide and teased an AI-powered subtitle system. The new feature automatically generates real-time subtitles — which can then also be translated in many languages — for any video using open-source AI models that run locally on users’ devices, eliminating the need for internet connectivity or cloud services, VideoLAN demoed at CES. ↫ Manish Singh at TechCrunch VLC is choosing to throw users who rely on subtitles for accessibility or translation reasons under the bus. Using speech-to-text and even “AI” as a starting point for a proper accessibility expert of translator is fine, and can greatly reduce the workload. However, as anyone who works with STT and “AI” translation software knows, their output is highly variable and wildly unreliable, especially once English isn’t involved. Dumping the raw output of these tools onto people who rely on closed captions and subtitles to even be able to view videos is not only lazy, it’s deeply irresponsible and demonstrates a complete lack of respect and understanding. I was a translator for almost 15 years, with two university degrees on the subject to show for it. This is obviously a subject close to my heart, and the complete and utter lack of respect and understanding from Silicon Valley and the wider technology world for proper localisation and translation has been a thorn in my side for decades. We all know about bad translations, but it goes much deeper than that – with Silicon Valley’s utter disregard for multilingual people drawing most of my ire. Despite about 60 million people in the US alone using both English and Spanish daily, software still almost universally assumes you speak only one language at all times, often forcing fresh installs for something as simple as changing a single application’s language, or not even allowing autocorrect on a touch keyboard to work with multiple languages simultaneously. I can’t even imagine how bad things are for people who, for instance, require closed-captions for accessibility reasons. Imagine just how bad the “AI”-translated Croation closed-captions on an Italian video are going to be – that’s two levels of “AI” brainrot between the source and the ears of the Croation user. It seems subtitles and closed captions are going to be the next area where technology companies are going to slash costs, without realising – or, more likely, without giving a shit – that this will hurt users who require accessibility or translations more than anything. Seeing even an open source project like VLC jump onto this bandwagon is disheartening, but not entirely unexpected – the hype bubble is inescapable, and a lot more respected projects are going to throw their users under the bus before this bubble pops. …wait a second. Why is VLC at CES in the first place?

Elecrow CrowPanel ESP32 4.2” E-Paper HMI Display Partial Refresh Demo | ESP32 | E-Paper | IoT |

Posted on by Michael G
In this video, we showcase a partial refresh demo on the CrowPanel ESP32 4.2” E-Paper HMI Display, where you can effortlessly set your favorite photos in a stunning black-and-white format. Learn how to modify and upload the code to the CrowPanel ESP32 E-Paper Display using the Arduino IDE, making customization simple and seamless. Additionally, we demonstrate how to convert images into code using the Image2CPP tool (https://javl.github.io/image2cpp/) and display them on the E-Paper screen. Perfect for those looking to enhance their DIY projects with E-Paper technology. Watch, learn, and bring your creative ideas to life!

The CrowPanel ESP32 4.2” E-Paper HMI Display offers a high-resolution 400×300 pixel display in black and white. Powered by the ESP32-S3 chip, it ensures efficient performance and fast data transmission through the SPI interface. This display is perfect for various applications, including electronic labels, e-readers, and smart home devices.

🚀Key Features:
➡️Ultra-Low Power Consumption: Only consumes power when refreshing, extending battery life.
➡️Pure Reflective Mode: Clear readability in direct sunlight without the need for backlight.
➡️Power-Off Display Retention: Retains content even when powered off.
➡️Wide Compatibility: Compatible with Arduino IDE, ESP IDF, and MicroPython for easy development.
➡️Durable Design: Hard-coated anti-glare surface and protective white acrylic shell.

🚀Get Yours: https://www.elecrow.com/crowpanel-esp32-4-2-e-paper-hmi-display-with-400-300-resolution-black-white-color-driven-by-spi-interface.html?idd=6
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#CrowPanel #ESP32 #EPaperDisplay #ArduinoIDE #Image2CPP #CodingTutorial #DIYProjects #BlackAndWhiteDisplay #TechTutorial #ArduinoProjects

Nintendo vient de faire une dinguerie

Posted on by Michael G
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Si tu es descendu jusque-là, n’oublie pas de liker la vidéo, après tout, t’as bien cliqué sur “en voir plus”, tu peux bien utiliser un clic de plus…

Malaysia Open: All 32 pairs are strong except us, Yew Sin-Ee Yi maintain modest approach

Posted on by Michael G
Men’s doubles shuttlers Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi continued their fine run in the Malaysia Open by smashing into the quarter-finals.

After their 23-21, 16-21, 21-18 second round win over South Korea’s 2023 world champion Kang Min-hyuk and his new partner Jin Yong on Jan 9, the Malaysians said modestly: “We’re not the fifth seed (favourite pairs) to win (after the early round exit for the top four pairs). But we’ll try our best. All 32 pairs are strong, except for us.”

Read more at https://shorturl.at/SVyTU

WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
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The Drop Times: Accessibility Always a Focus in Drupal!

Posted on by Michael G
In a virtual conversation with The DropTimes sub-editor Alka Elizabeth, Gareth Alexander, Senior Drupal Developer at Zoocha and Accessibility Tools Track Lead for Drupal Starshot, discusses the pivotal role of accessibility in the upcoming DrupalCMS version 1, set for release on January 15, 2025. The interview delves into the challenges and strategies behind integrating accessibility tools like EditoriA11y, the community’s contributions, and the evolving priorities of inclusive web development. Gareth shares his vision for how DrupalCMS can empower developers and content creators to build accessible and user-friendly websites.