Not chromium based. I think it's important to have alternatives to chromium-based browsers and Google's monopoly.
If Firefox vanishes, I'll use Epiphany instead.
A lot of false equivocating has been made regarding Mozilla and actual surveillance capitalism firms like Google and Microsoft. Mozilla remains, in my mind, the least of all evils with an organization capable of supporting a modern web browser as well as other projects.
Because it's not controlled by the same company that also controls my smartphone OS, my internet search engine, the videos I watch ...
And it works pretty alright.
I remember when Netscape was abandoned and open-sourced as Mozilla, and it was huge and bloated as slow as hell. And out of that came a project to just pull out the browser part of Mozilla and make it super fast and as portable. I remember a series of early alphas, and even the name went through a few evolutions. First it was called Phoenix, then Firebird, briefly, until they realised Firebird was taken and changed it to Firefox. It had this shiny new Gecko rendering engine and its only rival was IE...5?
When I started my first dev job in 2006, Firefox was far and away the best browser to use because it had an extension that no other browser could match: Firebug. Firebug was the precursor to the standard F12 devtools that every browser now has and it was life-changing if you were a web developer. (Try imagine doing your job without it now.)
Then Chrome arrived and it was shiny and W3C compliant (yay!) and you could pull a tab off into a separate window (wow!) and every tab ran as a separate process (neat!) and Google wouldn't be evil for at least another decade. Back then, FF had memory leak problems and that drove a lot of us away.
And then Chrome pulled this ad surveillance shit and I was fucking out. I'm so glad that FF is still here.
I let myself be fully engulfed by the Google/Chrome/Android continuum and it's only recently that I realised just how much of myself I gave away and, while my personal data has long since been propagated to a million servers, I'd still like to try keep some of myself to myself.
My back hurts.
Because it's better.
Because it's open source.
Because it's not based on Chromium and competition is good.
And also because TabStash.
I use Firefox because I can use the full version of UBlock Origin, and UBlock Origin also works on the mobile browser.
I also make heavy use of the extension Multi-Account Containers for signing in with different accounts for the same service at once.
Lastly, I prefer the UI for Firefox over anything else.
Not chromium and Mozilla Foundation
Open Source.
Not from a company with the primary goal to collect as much data as possible.
No problems with it, no need to switch to an alternative.
It's the only other option
Because the options are firefox, chrome, or chrome in a moustache and glasses
All of which I use because X thing doesn't work on Y browser
Because I have no other viable option.
It's the only truly free choice for a browser.
I've been using it for 20-ish years and there's never been a major reason to switch, and all the alternatives seem worse.
Also, it's all that stands between Google and the free web at this point.
Ad blockers actually work with it and youtube links don't get auto forwarded to the shitty app.
Do any other browsers exist?
-
Because of FoxyGestures, I can't find a good replacement for this on Chromium based browsers.
-
Because of uBlock Origin, Firefox has the full version, on mobile too.
-
Because Google Chrome can scan my files system for “malware” and improving their ad data, in other words their spying goes too far.
-
Because of the customisability of the UI.
-
Because I can tweak every variable (visit about:config)
-
Because if you turn telemetry off, it's actually off, Google lies about that.
-
Because Google's market share is so big, that they have the guts to try and DRM the entire Internet for their browser, no company should have that much power.
-
Firefox had the best reader view of any browser and looks great in both mobile and desktop.
Also, uBlock
FOSS Not-Chromium based Ublock origin Sane Ctrl+tab
Because it's what my father installed and set as default on all PCs. By the point I had my own and could have made the decision myself, I was just so used to it that I didn't wanna switch.
The ideological conviction came later.
Cause there is no alternative. Google can take my fiery fox from my cold dead hands.
Because IE sucked, Netscape was dead, and I was a contrarian little 20 year old who downloaded this new weird shit called "Firebird" to be different from everyone else which then turned into Firefox and then I just kinda kept using it. But I had tabbed browsing like five years before everyone else thought it was cool.
Because the fire, and the fox
Because Netscape Navigator died.
Because it just works
When I realized the trickster fox is somehow more trustworthy than the rest. Also ad blockers.
Edit. Tab based containers has also been pretty cool.
The logo is cool. Also it is not driven by Google which is a web company and a browser developer at the same, thats dangerous.
Supporting open-source digital environment and resist to big corporate's monopoly.
Cause fuck Manifest V3
Great privacy (especially with addons), no chromium, ublock on mobile
I have a Firefox tattoo on my penis and all my friends will think I'm a liar if i use Chrome.
I've used Chrome since the beginning and moved from Firefox. I've been happy. I'd still be happy but now I'm back on Firefox because of Google's intentions. It's led me to start to move away from Google as a whole. Moved my emails and search to DuckDuckGo.
It's going to be hard to move away from other services. Maps and YouTube for example.
Because I've been using it since the Windows 7 days and Chrome never gave me a good reason to switch.
Recent events have only solidified my choice.
Permanently Deleted
because Mozilla is not trying to mold the entire internet into an advertising platform.
A major reason for me is manifest v3 and other shenanigans designed to neuter ad blockers. Secondary to that is promoting web renderer diversity - as a web dev I don't want to go back to the days where we could only afford to cater to one engine - chromium / blink in this case.
Because I can log into the sync feature without the browser logging me into every single google service automatically with the same account.
Also the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension.
It's not chrome / chrome-based. We need to have any choice. As Chrome is very, very loved by corporations, and Firefox hated... it means that for personal use it's the best browser available.
Extensions. AdBlock for Phoenix was a killer feature.
Lack of alternatives...
I really like the developer tools. I always the install the developer edition (which is basically just the beta) and I find the defaults and menus more intuitive than Chrome’s, though at this point, they’re probably at feature parity. I could probably get Chrome to work how I want by changing settings but why? It’s not faster or better at this point.
I have ideological reasons too but honestly, the main reason is just that I like Firefox better. As a developer, it’s also nice to have Chromium (or Google Chrome) completely clean. If there’s a bug I can’t recreate in Firefox, I can open Chrome with no extensions or cache. Since that’s sort of the “default” for most users, it’s nice to keep my daily driver separate.
I use it since I know computers and it's better for Adblockimg than Chromium based browsers nowdays.
Because it's NOT Google and Firefox not embracing WebBundles or the “Web Integrity API” standard from Google. Google want to INTRODUCE DRM on the web.
And just recently YouTube (==Google) now also have very strict medical policy, so it can only follow the WHO guidelines. Google is evil, look out. Even Dr. Eric Berg is getting censored. Look out people.For me, it's not as memory efficient as something like Edge, but it handles having a lot of tabs open much better. It also has a lot of powerful features under the hood, and some really good power user addons, like Tab Groups.
I have been using Firefox since I can remember. That it is open source is a huge plus. The features it offers are great.
Originally I started to use it because I'd heard there was a new update to its rendering engine that made it feel faster/better than chrome. After testing it out I did think it felt better at the very least. Now I'm using it mostly for the same reasons and to reduce my dependence on Google/Chrome.
Many reasons. Many of which is down to how Google as a company is reaching between the proverbial couch cushions to get at the loose change to make a profit. Default opt-in tracking, breaking ad-blockers, and probably more which I forgot about since I abandoned Chrome years ago.
Chrome on android becomes unbearable with ads, and full screen vid ads when i just want to read the news. Use ff for the addon.
It came preinstalled.
I only use it so that I can watch DRM content (Udemy, HBO, etc)
I've been using Firefox since 2002 when it first became available, at that point it was called Mozilla. It's definitely the browser that I've used the most in about 25 years of browsing the Internet from home. Firefox has a great native Linux version and seems to be widely promoted by most distros. Since switching to Linux seven years ago I also started using Chromium (not to be confused with Chrome) and Opera, both of which also have great native Linux versions.
More open and honest and fight for privacy. Also their devtools are top notch.
Because Chromium and its derivatives suck. Is it really too much to ask for a traditional menu bar rather than a stupid hamburger menu?
Not my main but Firefox containers are damn handy.
For add-ons, mostly. I use Tree-Style Tabs and can't live without it at this point.
Firefox supports a font technology for less common scripts, Graphite, that the for-profit-corporate browsers do not. I use one of those scripts once in a great while. So I'm locked in until OpenType has better support.
It doesn't suck and just works. Really well customizable and adblocking/ security is better than what chrome has turned into. Chrome used to be decent but is garbage now. I'd rather use edge before chrome.
Are they the most privacy respecting? no.
are they privacy respecting ENOUGH? sure
I was shown it by a mate, along with soulseek, in like, 2006 or so when in sixth form. It was way better than what I was using at the time (IE)
At least that's what I remember, pretty sure that was the date. I remember soulseek was before by a bit actually as we used it for trading At the Drive In and Mars Volta tracks
I've carried on using it because of plugins, adblocks, privacy, etc.
Privacy, real ad-blocking, and fighting for the open web. Also, actually being free software.
I can't find any reason to use an alternative browser
When someone built a form that for some reasons doesn’t work with Safari. Or when watching streaming sites with pop ups (FF full screen is really nice in the recent update).
I’d use it more, but I rely on iCloud password management built into safari across my family’s devices and handoff/tab groups to manage tabs across them.
Cause it's the Red Panda browser, cuddly creatures🥰
Honestly, when I got my first Ubuntu install disk and got everything up and running, it was the default browser. I just never looked back.
Because I never particularly liked the alternatives.
Permanently Deleted
Trust. I think it has been earned - so far. NCSA Mosaic was my second browser, and while I've experimented with all the major browsers and many not-so-major contenders over the interim couple of decades, Firefox has been a constant for me ever since it was first spawned off of Mozilla. I still believe the Firefox team when they say things, and so far that has worked out just fine.
because i'm a furry
Ctrl+Tabcycles to previous active tab and is actually useful.Vivaldi is my main browser of choice but Firefox is my backup. I'm logged into both and have sync enabled and have them installed on Linux and my Android.
If a site doesn't work on Vivaldi, I'll try it on FF.
