Proton should release their own web browser based on Servo instead of Chromium. There was a recent job posting by Proton to hire someone that could work on a Chromium based browser. Creating a Chromium based browser would be a mistake from a long term investment point of view. Chromium goes where ever Google chooses to take it. It is a bad idea to base such an important product on your primary competitor's technology and to be subject to their whims.

While Servo is still an experimental engine, many of us would rather see Proton's money and engineering talent go toward a tech sovereignty aligned project instead of a project controlled by a monopolist that has been found to abuse their market position on many occasions. The Servo engine is hosted by Linux Europe and aligns with European and other middle powers' goals of becoming less reliant on potentially hostile or coercive countries for their technology stack. Basing the Proton browser on Servo would likely allow the Proton Foundation to access funds from European governments and would be an excellent differentiator for the browser in the long term.

Basing the Proton web browser on Servo now would allow the Proton development team to steer the engine, its technology, and its components in a direction that would be beneficial to the goals of the Proton Foundation and community. A Chromium based product could allow Proton to get to market faster, but it would do so at the cost of undermining Proton's marketing and product story by having a Google based product in the product stack.

If the leadership team feels the need to have a viable product sooner than Servo would allow, may I suggest basing a browser product on Firefox Extended Service Release (ESR). Firefox and Servo share some technologies and Firefox ESR would be less of a moving target than Chromium while allowing Proton to provide a safe, secure, and more extensible product for the community sooner than later. Several privacy-focused browsers already take this approach and privacy focused users would likely be fine with not having access to the latest and greatest features in exchange for a more secure product.

The Firefox ESR based product could be called Proton Browser while the Servo based product could be called Proton Next to differentiate the products until Servo is ready to fully compete with Chromium. Having two products might be more expensive in the short term, but the costs could be defrayed by grants received from entities such as the German Sovereign Tech Agency.