As to whether a separate continuation of Basilisk is needed or not, I just couldn't say at this point. I do have a few thoughts about it, though. Until it was previously discontinued, I had settled on it over P M since it ran CAA extensions. Now, P M does, too. Having gone back to the FF GUID, does that mean any or most of the P M extensions will run on Basilisk? As a quick spot-check, Add-ons Memory usage happily installs, once I allow it, but does not recognize the address for it: "about:addons-memory".
Regarding WebRTC, deferring to the P M guys, let's suppose that it is inherently insecure. Using Jitsi End to End encryption adds an extra layer of encryption to make insider attacks more difficult. Thus, it isn't inherently insecure (and I do like Jitsi Meet, so long as they keep allowing independent servers). However, they also have a desktop version; so one needn't rely on WebRTC to use it. This probably holds true for other teleconferencing softs also.
While WebExtensions seems like it'd be fine to have, all else being equal, the point of a fork of P M and Basilisk is that WebExtensions
are, after all, underpowered, and there are still good finds to be made in the CAA. I don't know that FF has a stable Session Manager yet! It's then doubtful if WebExtensions should even be a much of a priority with more devs on the Basilisk team.
Some hard questions that come to mind then, are:
- How many prospective users will actually need WebRTC in a browser, when many teleconferencing systems, including Jitsi, also have desktop apps?
- Are there any killer apps for Web Extensions that might make the effort one day worthwhile (with more devs?).
- What other technologies that users might care about would be in Basilisk, that would actually find widespread use?
- Are there many P M extensions one would lose out on being in Basilisk? Would they be more important than the extra technologies and perhaps extra compatibility in Basilisk? Can they be made to run in Basilisk?
Another thing that Basilisk does right that P M doesn't, IMHO, is Australis. I compared the different themes and extensions to do it in P M, and concluded that when one wants the tabs on the bottom, the Bookmarks toolbar above that, the address above that, and the menus on the title-bar, and an honest-to-God Search Bar (the way God, such as He may be, and Authur C. Clarke intended) none of the solutions for P M work right. Some may work at first but then break; and some may work with one window open, but not two. None work right stably in all cases, and you just get a little more screen real-estate with the menus on the title bar. I think it's just a better way of doing it. IMHO, I'd think they'd be better off scrapping the way they do it in P M, and just adopting the menus in the title bar the way it's done in Basilisk. Is that better than the extra extensions I get in P M? I tend to think the extra extensions are better, just off the cuff.
I don't really have answers to these questions, and congratulate you on picking up the ball and running with a really fine browser. I suspect, ultimately, it would be better to unify the development by you going to the P M team and giving users the
choice to bring back missing technologies in it, or they all going over to the Basilisk team. That way, I think scarce independent dev man-hours might be better utilized, by unifying effort, and e.g. by making more websites compatible, or making more extensions. OTOH: Why not have a P M and/or Basilisk Foundation, like there is a Mozilla Foundation? I think you guys could use the funding just as much as the guys who
did screw up the legacy extension ecosystem; and nearly turned FF into Chrome. I might hope for multi-processing in one of these one day, for as fast as they both are anyway - but I think website compatibility is more important. Then again, if there is a fundamental long-term difference in the philosophy of Basilisk and P M, it could be better to have two competing to add features and compatibility, and let them diverge to have their own strengths. Yet, I find it hard not to want the best features of both in one.
i'm still using Win7, for privacy, stability, and comfort; so I'm glad to hear you aren't considering dropping Win7 support lightly. I think any earlier version is less stable than Win7; and one day, M$ will quit trying to cram spyware and weird new GUIs down our throats and come out with an OS users actually want, and I'll upgrade (or a Linux that has decent program installer wizards and decent package managers that will let you run experimental software on stable OSs without e.g. FlatPacks, without creating Dependency Hell). Soon enough, I'll have to install a Win10 or 11 partition just to run some programs I want. If I were a big gamer, I already would be using one (with thorough attention to disabling telemetry), as DirectX 12 does render many game scenes better.