This is the precise reason we started the forum (reddit behaving like reddit merely provided the opportunity).
We need to discourage/actively moderated against this. Our goal with this forum is to encourage quality discussion on matters of privacy that you wouldn’t find elsewhere.
This is how we judge software: by our own criteria, not by anything else. And simply meeting our criteria does not guarantee listing (we try to learn from our mistakes).
We no longer whang on about ‘five eyes’ and we care more about the product than its origin. This doesn’t mean that we’re going to instantly start adding software funded by the states you mention in order to be inclusive. But it also doesn’t mean that we’ll disregard something because one of the developers is from, say, China. Moreover, everyone makes their own choices as to what software they use. If your threat model is such that a single Chinese employee is enough to write off a product then fine - but that doesn’t apply to everyone.
This pisses me off too. As mentioned above, we have criteria. Instead of posting on our forum and asking someone else to do the work for you - why not check if said browser (or whatever) meets it? Firefork forks in particular are irritating - a new one seems to crop up every week. Because they usually lack funding they are likely to go unmaintained. And the few that actually have funding are rarely very private.
Sadly this happens in every privacy community I’ve been in. As ever, flagging posts/comments like this always helps.
And thank you for your post. Transparency is very important to us, and we are nothing without our community.