There’s was only a very brief period that I would have considered Chrome a better option and that was the period when Chrome had a mobile app and FF didn’t. Other than that, I have never understood why you would use chrome. I know FF didn’t invent tab browsing, but definitely the first to do it successfully.
Mozilla about to lose funding from Google antitrust consequences :(
And in the meantime Mozilla keeps making worse decisions, too
Enshitification of all the things.
Someone who gives a damn needs to be in charge of mozilla but i dont see that happening.
As long as they are entirely supported by Google, they aren’t going to try too hard to outcompete them.
In order to get away from that, they need to find alternative ways of making money, like showing ads, which loops us back around to the guy above saying they’re making bad decisions.
Your point is fair, but their real problem is they bloated up to absorb their insane budget and they are going to have to strip down to a reasonable size for a browser company before trying to establish a non-google revenue stream.
I do not study in detail if this combination is necessary, but:
- Firefox (of course)
- Ghostery
- Ublock Origin
- Privacy Badger
- Decentraleyes
- Disconnect
All of them except uBlock Origin are in Arkenfox “Do not bother” extension list: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions#-dont-bother
Ghostery, Privacy Badger and Disconnect do nothing worthwhile that uBlock Origin doesn’t already do.
privacyguides.org seems quite solid for recommendations
We need another meme like this about Firefox but with the first panel saying “Antitrust judgement against Google” and the second panel blank, without anyone coming to the rescue.
The large majority of Mozilla’s revenue comes from the money that Google pays to be the default search engine in Firefox.
I use firefox, I mostly like it, but it still doesn’t support chromium style tab groups (no, that one extension is not similar), and its webgpu implementation also doesn’t work on most websites more than a year after Google made their version available by default
Not sure if this is “that one extension”, but I use Simple Tab Groups for Workspaces-like functionality, similar to Edge and Vivaldi. I know, it isn’t tab groups, but I use it similarly.
I’ve been using Vivalid, they have ‘Workspaces’ which is different but in a way that was a pleasant surprise and kind of reminds me of older systems. Imagine working with one tab group at a time and the rest disappear when you’re not on that workspace.
is that chromium?
Tab groups are in the works but we haven’t heard anything new about it since March.
Mozilla could definitely be putting their development time into the areas that the browser is actually behind in
I’ve started using Tree Style Tabs in Firefox and really like it. Maybe vertical tabs aren’t so bad?
I like Vivaldi and they are going to keep V2 support for a while. I will switch to Firefox when it’s gone, but for the time being I am happy they are keeping the support.
Hell yeah, best customizable browser I’ve seen
about:config
: “Am I a joke to you?”I would totally use Firefox if they had better first-party tab group support and syncing workspaces. They help with my tab messes which I need to keep organized
the number of forks says ff is next. the ad machine needs your money.
I mean unless Mozilla starts getting sued by Ad companies to force them to ban ad blockers, I don’t think that will happen because being able to have ad blockers is a major selling point.
But even if it does happen, Firefox is open source and has been forked, so the next alternative is LibreWolf.
The ad machine doesn’t need my money. They never even asked. I am the product to them.
Firefox feels so much slowwr than chrome when loading sites for me
That’s weird, something is definitely wrong. Are they set up in a similar way? The first thing that comes to my mind is: Are you using the same DNS server on both? Differences in DNS response time should be more noticeable than rendering time on most hardware. And I think Firefox doesn’t use the system DNS by default but I might be wrong. Do you mind checking? I’m curious now.
I’ll take slower over ad-bloated every day.
If you’re talking about Google owned sites, there’s circumstantial evidence that Google sets their sites up to do that intentionally in order to gimp competitors.
For me, switching from chrone to ff around 3 years it felt the opposite. Ff opens so much faster. Also scrolling is way smoother.
Floorp for power users
I’ve been curious about Floorp. Are you using it as your daily driver? And pros and cons?
The biggest pro for me is the vertical tabs. It’s got the same vertical tabs that Edge has which are great. I only use Edge at work but it’s great especially when you have a web based production environment like nCino that you work in all day and have dozens of tabs open. You can group them up nicely and keep yourself organized. Floorp is based off of Firefox ESR so it’s on an older build (but up to date security). The current build is based off FF 115 while FF is on 129 now.
Have you tried Tree Style Tab or Sidebery?
I’ve tried but for some reason, I can never get them set up correctly and I’m not technologically illiterate. Its been a while since I tried it though since Floorp just works.
While introducing opt-out tracking where you data is sent to advertisers. Get LibreWolf instead.
Oh I didn’t know this fork, thanks!
Or just set the few relevant settings manually, if you need nightly/dev edition.
Until the next dumb shit Mozilla does without telling its users.
Except I’ve heard about every change from here. And as I read the nightly changelogs, it’s not that hidden actually.
Yes, you’re the exception, not the rule.
The things I said apply to the people that need to use FF nightly/dev. And those people should know their stuff.
If you need to use nightly, you’re already the exception to the rule. That means you need to read the changelogs.
No you don’t. Why do you need to read the changelogs?
When you use nightly, you’re using an unstable application that is likely to have many bugs that cause freezing or crashing. Reading the changelogs is a necessity when using unstable software. Using nightly builds of any application requires additional care on the part of the user.
I’m about to reach a point where I just abandon technology. Become a full luddite and let it burn over its own hubris.
Source: I made it up
I guess Anonym, PPA, Cliqz, pocket, and the default telemetry that is non-trivial to disable are all just hallucinations.
I use Opera
(yes i know it’s “Chinese spyware” if the Chinese government really wants to know what youtube videos i watch for hours, what porn i browse, and what impulse purchases i make they can have it, i don’t fucking care, when i want privacy i use Tor)
anyway i use Opera, and despite the fact it’s been my browser of choice for over a decade i will switch to Firefox in a heartbeat if my ad blockers stop working and i’m forced to watch ads for over 3 days in a row (in uBlock devs i trust)
If you want opera without rationalizing what the Chinese government does to you, you can try vivaldi.
nah it’s not rationalising, i really just don’t care. I mentioned it there because the second i mention Opera anywhere the first reply is always “but did you know it’s Chinese spyware?”
I like Opera’s features like workspaces, tab islands, built in adblock, built in vpn etc. it really suits my scatter brain self
I also used to use opera, and thought the Chinese ownership made me uneasy, I only left due to their short term loan scandal.
But honestly I don’t regret it because vivaldi has a lovely community. Opera just felt cold and faceless, and I didn’t even know anyone else who used it.
Vivaldi has all the features (except VPN) and a lot more, so you won’t find it lacking there
huh interesting! is it chromium based too though? I think at this point i’d mostly want to make a switch off chromium browsers with all the rumoured forced ads nonsense
Yes, but built in adblocker like opera so it’s unaffected
nah i’d not trust that, if chromium itself gets invaded by forced ads no chromium based browser is safe
Are you talking about manifest v3 or something else? Cause manifest v3 doesn’t force ads, it just cripples third party ad blockers. Also viv, (and some others, like brave) already disable plenty of Google stuff like FloC and privacy sandbox
wasn’t tor created by DARPA?
Nah it was the United States Naval Research Laboratory.
Still the best browser, even though the majority left it for the speed they think chrome has.
Chrome definitely has the more sleek and responsive UI.
But that’s all Chrome has.
I’m back on Firefox now, but I did originally leave it because Edge had the speed. Not sure if that’s because it’s more optimized for Windows.
I mean yeah, all these big tech companies are trying to make their products feel faster, because that’s the only space they can compete. When it comes to privacy, they all lose.
YouTube videos for some reason won’t load for me on Firefox. I switched to the Waterfox fork and it’s fine.
Well, Google has been caught trying to make their sites slower / malfunctioning on Firefox. Usually they get away with it by saying it’s a mistake.
Google just maliciously makes their websites work way worse on Firefox. For YouTube I personally just use FreeTube on desktop and Tubular (A NewPipe fork) on Android so I never have to interact with that goddamn website
As someone who uses tubular I wish it got updated more tho. The number of debug versions I have installed from pull requests is like 5 at this point 😭
I’m fine with a slow update cycle as long as they don’t wait too long to actually merge app breaking features, like when recently youtube changed a few things and videos would no longer load.
Sadly Mozilla is becoming the next Google of web browsers.
What?
Have you not heard the news? Mozilla essentially have become an advertising company by acquiring adtech start-up called Anonym. I think the only way to escape this bullshit is by installing privacy-enabled Firefox fork (such as LibreWolf) or to wait for an alternative web browser to rise up (like Ladybird or Servo) which has user freedom and privacy in its first priority, which is something that Mozilla doesn’t seem to care lately.
no I don’t, I have not keeping up with browser news lately after switched to Floorp, not sure if I still live long enough to see Ladybird or Servo officially released