Floorp Will Now Operate in Partnership with Ablaze ​

To all Floorp users,

As the title suggests, Floorp will no longer be a product under the Ablaze umbrella. Instead, it will be led by the Floorp project and realized through a partnership with Ablaze.

Why This Change Happened ​

Floorp is a web browser that has been in development since 2021. While the community has evolved, it has been continuously maintained and improved by Ryosuke Asano (the author of this blog) and other collaborators.

This browser development (though perhaps not development in the strictest sense) that I started in my first and second years of high school has already been ongoing for over four years, and this year marks its fifth anniversary. Last year, I finally turned twenty and was able to advance to my second year at INIAD.

I have also heard significant concerns from users about the possibility of Floorp disappearing. Given the small number of maintainers, speculation that maintenance might cease when I enter the workforce is understandable.

To address these issues, I decided to make Floorp independent and keep it under my direct management. I intend to maintain it continuously for as long as possible, hopefully for a lifetime.

I lack business acumen and the flair to create features that surpass other browsers, but I can continue providing a browser as infrastructure for tens of thousands of users. Based on the above, I reached this decision.

Impact on Floorp? ​

Going forward, you will likely see the name "Floorp" less frequently on ABlog (Blog.ablaze.one) and in the Ablaze Community.

Within the Floorp browser itself, release notes and announcements will now utilize blog.floorp.app.

However, this does not mean a complete separation from Ablaze. It has been decided that we will collaborate as much as possible, and it's not impossible that the names "Floorp" and "Ablaze" will be used mutually in the future. Ablaze's input may still find its way into Floorp.

The conclusion is that while the names will be used mutually, the primary impact on users is simply the change in the operating entity.

Regarding Operational Policies ​

As the operation shifts to the Floorp project, Floorp will be run with funds entirely separate from Ablaze. While previously not all donations to Ablaze were used for Floorp, going forward, they will be dedicated solely to Floorp's products.

Regarding donations, all contributions made to @surapunoyousei will become Floorp's operational funds. If you wish to support Floorp specifically, rather than Ablaze, please adjust your donations accordingly.

https://github.com/sponsors/surapunoyousei

Beyond browser operation, we are considering building a new platform with Floorp at its core. Whether this can be realized is uncertain, as there are many non-development challenges, and we are currently exploring ways to achieve this through assistance. We hope to provide updates on this in the future.

Furthermore, we consider a mobile version an essential element for completing Floorp. Since the Android and iOS versions of Firefox require different technologies than the desktop version of Floorp, we essentially need to write all the code from scratch, and the coding methods are entirely different, making release difficult. We hope to resolve this issue within the next two to three years and will continue to explore the possibility of a mobile version.

Thank you for your continued support of the renewed Floorp project!