[jolmg]

Not just webkit's source code. What human being can have properly reviewed the source code of Chrome or Firefox or anything else both open and closed source before using it? How can any program any one of us is using right now be considered safe if we haven't properly reviewed it?

[xte]

That's true, but at least Firefox born as FOSS so there is a community that potentially see the code growing by the time so while they may have lost something as individuals as a community there is a certain knowledge of the code. Webkit born open (KHtml, Kde's Konqueror html engine) but subsequent evolution happen inside few big companies and sources are release "en mass" so there is essentially "no community" that having at least seen the code grow a commit at a time so to have a sort of "big picture" knowledge...

[LamaOfRuin]

I'm pretty sure that as far as lineage goes, Chrome was actually born more FOSS (KHtml) than Firefox was (Netscape). Firefox is certainly more FOSS in spirit now than Chrome has ever been, but Mozilla is certainly not immune from the kinds of shenanigans possible for any open source project that is entirely controlled by a single large organization.

[jolmg]

Chrome's closed source though. You probably mean Chromium. Still, I'm not sure how much in the spirit of FOSS it is to have an open source version to drive development while marketing the closed source version which might be filled with spyware for all we know.