It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.

Not using Chrome is so easy. I mean, Firefox is right there and is a better browser to boot. I genuinely have no idea why people still use Chrome for everything.

"But Chrome is slightly more convenient! Why would I suffer tiny inconvenience today in order to save me from way greater inconvenience later? Who am I? Some reasonable person?" - typical Chrome user.

I've been removing Google services from my life bit by bit over the past year, and I have to say it is crazy how hard it actually is! They have inserted themselves into so many digital workflows, securing monopoly positions and preventing the rise of competitors and open ecosystems. In many areas the only alternatives are other tech giants, or accepting feature downgrades and having to set things up manually.

I'm really glad that the browser is one area where the transition is actually very simple and straightforward!

Yeah, I'll never use Chrome again. Google has always been shady, but this latest round of anti-features is unbelievable. I'm shocked there's been no anti-trust suits related to what they're doing with Chrome. Firefox is just a better browser with way more security options and extension support. That alone is enough for me to stick with it.

Firefox has always been great to use for me.

Chrome: First-party spyware.

If Firefox goes away, I'll use Epiphany or Konquerer before I subject myself to anything that makes me view ads.

I've used Firefox for years. It's always been the underdog imo.

If it ever becomes the top dog, I'll switch! To the next privacy underdog. More competition is good.

I've read so many bs paid-off articles recently how chrome is so much better than firefox, or firefox has nothing left to give to its users

Made the switch to Firefox last year. Love, love, love the freshness and versatility of the browser! Also add-ons for mobile!!!!

Chrome is the new reddit

Lots of people can't just straight up ditch it. I have had multiple websites just don't work with Firefox regardless of whatever add-ons I put. For me I just go into a Windows sandbox, but there's people who are not that tech savvy and it's often forced on them. Also iirc most schools have chrome books they let students use. So it's basically forced onto people.

Well of course. Now all your traffic goes through proxies to Google's servers for analytics.

100℅ data harvesting.

Genius move by Google. Even calls it a security/privacy measure!

They will succeed too. Most of the human race are Neanderthals anyway. Couldn't care less.

We really need more browser engines floating around.

As of now we really only have 3, Webkit, Firefox Gecko, and Chromium Blink.

Everything is based on these 3. And I know, technically chromium and firefox are both based on webkit, but they're so far gone from webkit they function as their own engines.

Don't Be Evil!

Way ahead of you. Been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix.

If I'm forced to use a Chrome browser, I use a deGoogled version of chromium. I can't think of the last time I've had to use it though. Firefox support is a priority for my company's IT dept.

My main problem is that I prefer other frontends to Firefox. I mostly use Vivaldi and think it's great, but of course it's Chromium based. I read somewhere that it's just way easier to base a browser on Chrome than it is to base one on Firefox. It would be great if the frontend and backend were separated with a unified API and you could simply choose a frontend/interface (Vivaldi) with whatever backend/engine (Gecko). That's not how it (currently) works though.

There are Firefox forks, but they're just that: forks with slight modifications. Vivaldi and Arc are basically completely different browsers. Even Orion isn't based on Gecko, it's based on WebKit.

Add to that small compatibility issues with certain websites/web apps that aren't Firefox' fault, but rather developers targeting Chrome instead of "100 % web standards". Still, as a user you'll likely into (small) issues from time to time.

People saying "just use Firefox" have a very narrow view on how any of this works and I sometimes feel like it's some form of elitism where the cool kids use Firefox and everybody using anything else are "lesser people". In reality, people have different requirements and priorities. It's similar to people posting "just use Linux" under every article talking about problems with Windows.

Yes, Chrome and Google sucks, I agree, but there isn't a single universal solution to this problem.

Ironically, in the past year, one of my employers specifically disallowed Firefox due to a CVE, saying that we were to use Chrome. A Cybersecurity professional once told me that Firefox is frowned upon because of CVEs.

The new McAfee.

I’m glad I’m in a position to basically never have to touch a chrome or chrome derivative for my work. It was a necessary evil to finally kill internet explorer, but these days it’s just hostile to its users.

I've been using Firefox since somewhere around 2008, it's been a dream the whole time.

Highly recommended

Tiny devils advocate, IF we can make it so ONLY Google can spy on us and malware adware can NOT spy on us would be an “improvement”. Google is a lot easier to target with regulation and stuff.

That said, I wouldn’t touch Google with a 10 foot pole.

Firefox is the way. Or Librefox, Mullvad browser, Waterfox, Floorp…

Thanks for the reminder. I've switched to Firefox on my mac and iphone for personal use. I just need to move some web development stuff around so I can switch to Firefox on that too. I may even uninstall google chrome, but for now I've just taken it off the task bar.

#fuckingcapitalists

I came back to firefox after vivaldi and edge when google announced manifestv3, decided to do it already since they would at best delay it instead of canceling it, and that's exactly what they did.

Yeah yeah, Mozilla pays its clueless CEO and other execs way too much, mismanages its finances in general, fired the wrong people, fell for the hype about AI, has a board full of former Facebook and Twitter execs, relies excessively on telemetry to justify their worst UI design decisions, and occasionally has delusions about someday becoming an ad platform.

If it weren't for all that we'd all be better off. But sometimes you gotta vote for the lesser evil, and at least they don't do all this shit.

The one feature that I really liked that's still in chromium other than Google cast is still Web Apps.

I like to be able to make a desktop application out of a web page. Firefox has this feature with PRISM a while back. Did it ever come back?

Firefox main since 2020. Love it.

While I agree on this, I think Ungoogled Chromium could be a soft way to degoogle yourself while maybe looking for complete replacements. It took me almost 2 weeks to degoogle me almost totally, at the beginning having a minimum of compatibility is nice

I have switched to Firefox but I'm having a hard time. Firefox feels sluggish compared to Chrome and uses an insane amount of memory. And I really miss tab groups as Chrome had them. There are some add-ons for Firefox that try to imitate this feature but none of them has everything I want (e.g. the ability to collapse a group in the top tab bar). And most of them build on top of Firefox tab groups which come with an isolation feature I don't want (and haven't found a way to disable for tab groups).

The number of tab crashes in Firefox is way higher than it ever should be. I still use it but it's def not as stable as the chrome stuff.

Vivaldi user since 2015. Never looked back.

I post Contra Chrome every time Chrome and spyware are mentioned, but I'll post it here again.

Ok so I really wanna switch, but I need to have multiple Gmail accounts active at the same time for work, as we have various logins tied to various profiles. From what I can tell Firefox doesn't yet support multiple profiles being active at the same time. Do I have any options here? I need to be able to access the support inbox and login to our platform, while simultaneously being logged in to my own email and my platform login. Chrome profiles makes this easy, annoyingly.

I use Chrome on the rare occasion when I have no choice but to use FB. Always with VPN. Otherwise it's FF.

I use Firefox at home and on my phone. I still use chrome at work because of habit and because that's what most users use. Some of the other guys use Firefox anyway. Its dev tools seem fine.

I am going to be downvoted to hell for this. I use Mullvad Browser/LibreWolf on desktop but on Android I prefer Chromium. I was using Firefox until a couple months ago when I switched back to Vanadium/Cromite. Chromium on Android is very nice. First it has Material You support so it looks much better than Firefox. Second, it loads website faster and it scrolls buttery smooth unlike the noticeably choppier Firefox. Plus it has 120hz on the privacy preserving forks unlike Firefox which is stuck on 60hz with RFP on. Third, Chromium has per-site process isolation on Android so it has better security. I probably won't be switching back until Firefox catches up on those fronts.

I switched to Firefox and using DDG as my search engine about 2m ago and I'll be honest I really don't care for it. I'm trying my best but I use my phone for 100% of my browsing and not being able to set a home page sucks and with DDG searching for stuff takes significantly longer to get answers with. I search for a ton of stuff that I just need a quick answer to that when searching for Google would just show the answer instead of needing to open links and such. I'm giving it a bit more time but I'll probably end up back with chrome.

Waterfox baby.

Always has been.

IMHO, people in corporations should acknowledge that there is a growing user base for Firefox and give it as much priority as chrome. That way people in an organization can at least explore a different browser than chrome (especially the non-tech folks).

The reality is that companies test all their websites in Chrome. Any automation testing will also be focused on Chrome and Safari. Also majority of the developers use Chrome dev tools for debugging. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I feel that Firefox is like a second class citizen in their book.

But hey, that might be a good thing too. All the tracking B.S will be developed for chrome and We can continue to enjoy privacy with good old firefox.

Chrome has always been spyware. Ever since the first pre alpha from 15 years ago

i just switched to firefox with ublock origin, it took a bit of getting used to but no real issue. Also started using thunderbird because microsoft pushing outlook (pay or have ads at the top of your inbox) and getting rid of their free mail app pisses me off, seems like big software companies are just getting bolder with their anti consumer practices.

Hoping someone can help explain this to me.

I understand Google is making some fairly sweeping changes to chrome that negatively affect the free internet. To what extent does that filter down into.the chromium based browsers? I have been struggling to find any relevant information on this, everyone just talks about it like they are all unique browsers

I have been using Vivaldi and really enjoying it, but it is chromium based, so of course it could be helping to support these changes, indirectly.

Thanks in advance

Google in general is ass. That also includes your googled phones.

I have been using the same web browser, in terms of codebase, ideology, and heritage, since 1993.

That’s almost a third of a century.

This is a post from a user who runs Google Android spyware 24/7…

still waiting for anything that isnt mozilla or google based.

Thorium, oh good another chrome browser librewolf, oh good another firefox browser

PLEASE I BEG OF YOU, GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT ISN'T TAINTED.

So my gut instinct is to go to Firefox (again), but how can it compete? It’s down to like 2% market share, there’s a serious portion of the web that Firefox just can’t render anymore, and there’s all this press about the CEO getting this monsterous golden parachute.

So realistically what can anyone do but continue to use the only browser people ever really test sites for anymore, or swear allegiance to either Microsoft or Apple?

Seems to me that Lemmy is nothing but a Firefox promo platform these days. For weeks this is the one and only trending topic.

what are the other options

firefox is still not there in terms of language support and translating like chrome has etcetera

not bashing firefox or chrome honestly asking what else is there?

epiphany browser is even further behind

Let people use whatever they feel like, ffs.