No I think its just cheaper, if it was stronger you normally would have a metal plate or the entire base would be metal. The only time I have seen those fail was actually the hinges themselves and not the attachment points. If the metal plate or base somehow got severely damaged I doubt it would cost much more to repair and its still unlikely to damage anything else.

Yeah this is not a fun one, I have done repairs and now do retail this issue is insanely common. Pretty much all budget laptops have this threaded into cheap plastic and I have had many customers devices hinges fail within 4 months in retail.

From what I can tell you also got quite lucky the hinge snapped on the base and not the screen. I’ve had a couple customers unlucky enough to have it snap on the screen and shatter the glass and or LCD.

The cases where it doesn’t completely destroy the screen or base you can normally use epoxy glue, melting or something similar. But that still is normally a temporary solution it will probably break again. If that can’t be done or a more permanent solution is needed, I’ve found that repairs with a metal plate and bolt seem to last I’ve also seen some people just use an L shaped metal bracket and not close the laptop again…

Regardless its a really annoying thing, I try to purchase and recommend devices with Metal frames (base and screen). Unfortunately even mid range laptops are now following this trend of plastic screwed hinges.

That’s fair, I haven’t tried it on low end/older hardware. I only just found performance good enough in the 46 release so I’ve only tested on my high and middle end system. I have some n200 hardware arriving soon and I might give it a go on that.

Advanced privacy and security I agree with and that’s the main reason I don’t use it daily personally. I think better extension support would be a good step in enhancing that even if they keep the base simple. There is also non trivial issues such as fingerprinting which is going to be a lot easier on a browser with so little users.

Firefox does currently have a few more options and I don’t see Gnome Web getting that ootb any time soon. Granted half of firefox’s options these days is to disable telemetry from Mozilla, the actual user exposed options isn’t huge (outside of about:config). Gnome does have gsettings which could serve a similar usage as already seen with enabling web extensions.

I don’t think it will be mainstream any time soon not until Linux is or they support other oses. But I want to be optimistic on how it will be for Linux usage especially with the tablet and mobile scene starting to take shape and Gnome Web being one of the most viewport responsive browsers.

Cross platform and popular I agree with. Having it in a state where it could be the default for gnome distros would help with popularity. However I think at least in latest versions its pretty comparable to other browsers at least Firefox. Main issue is there isn’t as much extensions that work with it. Considering the pace it is improving though I think it won’t be long till it could be viable alternative at least on Linux, maybe it might get ported some day idk.

WebKit does exist for Linux, Gnome Web has been quite a nice experience however it still lacks support for most extensions (however some Firefox extensions do work). The real world performance is still a bit lacking but its close to Firefox on paper and as it continues to update I will probably swap to it. For now its a nice way for me to test if my websites will break on macs (spoiler, WebKit still lacks some stuff).