Stumbled over that last week. There is a company where I buy nearly all my computer stuff from, and I'm a customer for more than 20 years.
I wanted to order parts for a high-end PC, but simply could not add the motherboard to the shopping cart. Everything else was already in there. I called them, and they asked me if I used Firefox. And they told me in no uncertain terms that Firefox was dead and would no longer be supported for "safety and security reasons", I should use Chrome or Edge instead.
If their site is too stupid to cope with Firefox, why the heck does it not tell me about this upfront, e.g. when I try to enter an item into the shopping cart?
Privacy is like the least important reason I use Firefox. With Microsoft Edge and Opera being based on Chromium now there are just so many of them. With Chromium essentially becoming the de facto standard because everyone uses it that means Google can ignore web standards and just do whatever they want.
websites not supporting firefox is the site's fault, not the browser's. firefox is not some niche browser. almost every website i have used is fine on firefox, and when it rarely doesnt work (usually bc i have a configured librewolf), i just open brave or whatever.
Perhaps I'm missing something but I've been a Firefox user for years- at work and home. I have yet to find a website that misbehaves or under-performs.
Mayyybe a few sites here and there a fractions of a second slower or have slightly less acceleration or something that I'm just not noticing?
Without Firefox and its ??forks?? like LibreWolf, the internet would be a total Chromium monopoly at this point, wouldn't it? That would be bad..
God, I wish there was less monopolies in the world, I hate when there is no alternative other than a product developed and maintained by evil corporation that profits off of selling my data.
Anyway, the only browser that everyone should use is Chrome, if you don't use Chrome you're dead to me.
I use firefox for obvious privacy reasons but also because I can customize the UI. Chromium's interface is oversized, ugly, and locked down while on firefox I can change any aspect of it using my own CSS.
There is no privacy on chromium, it phones home to Google a lot and those communications are encrypted so you will never really know what data is being sent but assume Google can link everything you do in Chromium to you.
Users who think they are "ungoogling chromium" are fooling themselves.
All the commercial browser reeleases like Mullvad browser, Brave or duckduckgo browsers are just window dressing.
Firefox or its children really are the only option.
I have a vendetta against Chromium because of Valve having to cease support for older OSes. They did that because of Chromium being built into the Steam client.
Can someone make a comment on if and how chromium development changed since Edge uses it?
I often hear that Google dictates chormium dev, but what about MS? Are they doing dev work, too?
But sadly, in privacy matters their interests are likely aligned, so that we can expect to be it further hollowed.
Pleading ignorance here and genuine questions. Is anyone, within the context of browsers able to define privacy and what it is that FF does that is superior to other say, Chromium based browsers? And what the real world effects are of not using FF for the purpose of privacy? Either reply or point to sources on the Web would be much appreciated.
Mullvad Browser is perfect for privacy. Firefox is good with the extensions too. Both of them are better options when it comes to preserving your privacy.
I was a die hard Firefox fan since it was Netscape navigator. But their refusal to adopt PWAs will always keep me one foot in edge/chrome.
I’ve been flirting a bit with Opera GX because of the sidebar, hard ram/cpu limits, and “my flow” feature. super handy when you’re moving between max and windows all day. But it also doesn’t do PWAs so that’s still super annoying.
On Mac I really do like safari. But they don’t have it for windows so I guess I’m just doomed to use multiple browsers.
This is not true. Ghey explicitely tell you they gather your data on their website
Use Vanadium (by GrapheneOS team), Bromite. Brave has less trackers than popular browsers also
But it doesn't though, not really. There are quite a few things which are still sent back as telemetry. One hell of alot better than chrome but it's still watching you. It's still not respecting your privacy.
There are some privacy respecting browser out there but they're quite inconvenient to use. I haven't found a real reasonable middle ground personally, but altering librewolf or the mulvad browser to keep you signed in has been nice enough for me
To clarify why this is important, this data can be de-anonymized where anonymized and be used for fingerprinting your internet usage. If you're concerned about privacy this is a pretty big red flag, especially if your government is getting this information, which many have and will be able to in the future.
Fingerprinting isn't a perfect system and can incorrectly flag innocent people. Or, if you unfortunately life in the wrong place, whether true or not being flagged as gay/trans or the wrong political party can very much harm you. Texas has asked the government for a list of trans people inside their state, which was denied, what happens when it isn't? what happens when it's not just trans people, and is instead your group? Caution is king.
I'll keep avoiding firefox as long as they keep pushing weird decision with each update, the latest one being forcing "pocket recommendation" on the new tab page, even if the built-in (that is, you can't remove it) pocket extension is disabled.
Sure, I can go look for the new advanced parameter to disable every time, but why pull this shit in the first place.
I've used "Firefox" since Mozilla 1995 0.x release. It's great software, but it has issues. I use Brave as primary these days, because the entire internet is QA'd with Chromium, and FIrefox just hits too many issues, even on the most recent versions. I use Firefox as secondary every day though too. I need multiple browsers to separate o365 AD creds.
and i don't just mean "because it's google and google is an ad company". what specifically is it sending to some internet server that firefox doesn't? both the firefox and address bars send what you type into them to a search provider. as near as i can tell, firefox's committment to privacy is to say "we protect your privacy" while doing all the same stuff that chrome does.
It doesn't have to be Chromium, but asserting that Firefox is the only browser that respects your privacy is just untrue.
Edit: I use FF and Brave for different browsing, as some websites just don't like FF.
Brave + privacyBadger is about the best you can do. If you turn all the features on it anonymizes your plugins and screen res returns enough that you can't be identified by a unique configuration.
It supports TOR for private browsing natively.
I don't trust them more than Mozilla, but the do a better job at keeping my browsing habits out out the hands of my ISP and the sites I visit.
Edit: guys I know that Brave is not the best browser and I wouldn't recommend it, but I haven't seen studies or in depth articles about technical details of privacy concerns.
And I'm not being sarcastic, I wanna see them so I can make a more informed opinion.