I guess its fair enough. My point was just to sympathize with Firefox a little bit, to explain their situation and why they are in it. And as said, I also have issues with Firefox, such as integration of Ai in all sort of stuff, just for the sake of Ai. So maybe I shouldn't be so defensive about it.

It was not about the contract with Google being ended, but governments involved to block Google from paying money to control the market as their default search engine. Looks like they did not block it yet. I think Mozilla wants the money, because otherwise Firefox would stop to exist. Google wants to give money too, because in the grandscheme its little money for them. But Google want to support Firefox, so they can say "look we even support our competition, we are not a monopoly, we are good".

Try out Brave. AFAIK, Morphe has a patch where it unlocks the Brave Origin features for free, so you can turn off all the bloat like Brave News, Wallet etc.

If every update required users to tweak something to restore a setting to a previous state, that should drive users away from firefox. I haven't had firefox as my daily since late last year (zen now) but that wasn't my experience during my decades with firefox and my fairly frequent visits to the firefox subreddit indicate that isn't the case either. I don't remember an update causing a major issue since the opt-out AI controversy (v145?) so please let me know if other updates since then have had any serious pushback with opt-out features.

I wasn't sure if you were referring to either or both interpretations for Mullvad, so I responded to both versions of what you could mean by that. Based in your last comment I have a feeling I didn't hear something recent about them, as far as I know everyone still likes them.

I reread the narcissist thing and I'm really not sure what you mean then. Are you calling the Brave CEO a narcissist?

I do see a pattern, which is why I said I don't fully trust them and why I noted they were controversial in my original comment. The way I see it is basically this: if you are a dyed in the wool tinfoil hat wearing privacy advocate, and actively part of the privacy community, you are probably a little bit crazy. Privacy should be default, but unfortunately we are in the wild west of information exploitation, that's why you and I have to go out of our way to find private options. For a privacy focused dev, its them vs the world, and in a capitalist economy, you have to find a way to make your product make money, or it has to be a small enough project to not need much. GrapheneOS's lead dev, for example, is a bit nuts. Do I trust he is competent and trying to do the thing he says he is trying to do, and do I trust putting his OS on my phone over Google? Definitely. Would I be friends with him? No. Brave I trust a little less, but I see them in a similar way: often trying to find a crackpot method to make money off their product so they can stick around.

I can't say I'm a fan of their CEO. Then again, I can't say I particularly like any CEO of any company, so I try to support open source projects with the Unix/Linux philosophy of doing one thing good, so I can support small projects that don't need a CEO. Unfortunately maintaining a browser is not one of the things that can be done the Unix way. It is basically its own OS in some ways, a lot of work, even more so if it is your own engine like Firefox. For companies that I'm forced to choose between, their personal viewpoints are a concern, just not my biggest one, unless they're like Satan themselves like Larry Ellison or Elon Musk. I'm forced to pay Microsoft for licenses and support at work, and that bothers my conscience more than using a free browser by a guy who didn't support gay marriage in 2014 before it went through federally, like just about everyone I grew up with, most of whom have since gotten over themselves. Not saying it's OK or right, just noting that was at least half of Americans back then.

I agree with your assessment that Firefox used to be the default good option and get steadily worse every day. They got have too big of a team so they're trying to expand, but that goes against their core audience because we just don't want extra "features". They aren't doubling down on what got them here: being a privacy focused browser. They're trying to be Google, but can't be because 1. Google exists, And Chromium is still is the best browser engine functionally, which most people care about most, and 2. It will alienate core audience even more. So their strategy is to go slow enough that hopefully we don't notice or they don't go bankrupt because they make most of their money from. Google being the default search engine.

Does this make Firefox a stupid option that I'd criticize people for using? No. It is still one of the best options we have, in a world where most of them are bad because a browser project has to have a certain amount of devs and money behind it to keep up with security and maintenance. And I recommended 2 Firefox forks to OP in my original comment. Firefox vs Brave is really just a predictable trending down of "Stop Firefox we don't like this minor bad change!" "I'm gonna do it anyway" VS "Hey guys what about this?" "WTAF were you thinking Brave?" "Oh, sorry..."

Vanadium is not too bad. But missing ublock_origin.

So many websites don't seem to work on Firefox or Librewolf, always have to keep Chrome handy somewhere

I reread the narcissist thing and I’m really not sure what you mean then. Are you calling the Brave CEO a narcissist?

I was referring to a theoretical corporate defence version of the narcissists prayer and was again bitten by my ridiculous expectation that meme/reference knowledge is universal

Specifically your defence of brave sounded to me like this slightly altered version of that prayer

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not their fault.
And if it was, they didn't mean it.

I wasn't trying to imply you are they were narcissists, only that your reply sounded a lot like that prayer.

I wasn’t sure if you were referring to either or both, so I responded to both versions of what you could mean by that. Based in your last comment I have a feeling I didn’t hear something recent about them, as far as I know everyone still likes them.

ah, again, with my assumptions:

TL;DR; A mullvad founder donated a large amount of money to what is largely considered to be a right wing political party

Here's a small selection links, should be easy to search once you know what to look for:

Note, there is obviously bias and opinions here, have a look in to the actual details yourself for a full picture.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

I do see a pattern, which is why I said I don’t fully trust them ...etc

I agree with all of that up to this part:

Brave I trust a little less, but I see them in a similar way: often trying to find a crackpot method to make money off their product so they can stick around.

If their crackpot experiments are at the expense of the things i care about i'm out, but that's a personal opinion, not a universal viewpoint.

I can’t say I’m a fan of their CEO. Then again, I can’t say I particularly like any CEO of any company,.....etc

Again, all reasonable takes up to the end part:

I’m forced to pay Microsoft for licenses and support at work, and that bothers my conscience more than using a free browser by a guy who didn’t support gay marriage in 2014 before it went through federally, like just about everyone I grew up with, most of whom have since gotten over themselves. Not saying it’s OK or right, just noting that was at least half of Americans back then.

"He's not as bad as musk and gates, plus everyone of that generation was like that" sounds a lot like an excuse, even if you specifically state that it isn't.

I agree with your assessment that Firefox used to be the default good option and get steadily worse every day. .......etc

Agreed

Does this make Firefox a stupid option that I’d criticize people for using? No. It is still one of the best options we ha......etc

Again, agreed, until the end.

“I’m gonna do it anyway” VS “Hey guys what about this?” “WTAF were you thinking Brave?” “Oh, sorry…”

That's entirely glossing over the nature of the sketchy shit being pulled.

As we said mozilla are just stacking those shitty decisions like they were bricks of gold.

but they haven't done anything even remotely a sketchy as :

• Referral injection/affiliate jacking
• Replacing ads with their own
• This

Presenting it like they are doing comparable things is disingenuous at best.

Absolutely agree on every point. I felt this for the last few years, not just with the latest updates. I haven't updated Firefox for months (a year?), and when I decided to do it after convincing my friend to switch to it because he said he couldn't find the option in settings I told him about, I was basically ~10 versions behind. So updating it and seeing the redesigned settings that looked less intuitive and completely unnecessary, I felt really frustrated.

There's a new browser in the making called Ladybird, I don't know if it's going to be available on Windows (they say the alpha is for Linux and macOS). Yeah, I am on Windows, sadly, and I don't plan on switching to Linux, yet. Mozilla was praised for being a non-profit "good guys", but they've been really annoying, perhaps trying to appeal to the mainstream. Truth is, the mainstream does NOT care about Firefox. You need to spend all your funds on marketing it, not making it uglier with each update.

Because it is a bloatware. Like, what is the point of using Firefox? It's faster? It was never because of speed. Less RAM usage? No. It was because of privacy. Peoples started hating on Chrome because Google became evil. Then they went after adblockers. Google search became bloated with garbage results, DDG became a better alternative, also marketed as privacy-focused.

It just happens to be that out of all other web browsers, there were no better alternatives, and Firefox seemed the best option at that time. Opera was a spyware. Brave was still fresh. Actually, Brendan Eich, the founder of Brave who also founded Mozilla and created JavaScript, was called out for making an anti-LGBTQ donation, so many people hesitated using Brave when it released. Needless to say, anything Microsoft was hated with a passion.

That's why people need to keep reinventing the wheel.

You can re-enable the integrated password manager of librewolf, it's just a setting; be aware of the risk though

So you basically ARE calling me a narcissist by proxy, or a defender of narcissists at best.

Well, no more Mullvad for me. Thanks for pointing that out. There are several good alternatives.

I'll keep it brief. I do find the controversies comparable, for the reasons previously stated. I will not continue to belabor the point as you do not agree. I find Brave's mistakes to be easier to point out than the proverbial frog in boiling water, but not any less harmful. My goal is not to say everything Brave does is OK, but rather to push back in this concept that they do so many more worse things than similar products, which I do not believe to be true, as well as explain the context, which as much as they are still bad things that should in fact be criticized, are not AS bad as reading the headline sounds, and I can kinda see where they were coming from in some cases. And I'm more inclined to stick with them because they respond to criticism by fixing thr problem. I don't expect that to change either, they've forced themselves aggressively into the position of catering to the core audience of privacy enthusiasts. I'm not telling you to accept it "at the expense of things you care about". I'm telling you the problems no longer exist, so you don't have to.

Worth noting that the CEO was the CEO of FIREFOX at the time of the LGBT controversy. He was forced out due to the backlash, so good on Mozilla, but I don't believe for a second that Firefox employees didn't know the type of person that he was, or that their corporate culture or values are particularly different than Brave's. They're just not arrogant enough to say it out loud. I could nitpick other things I don't like about Firefox like their VPN, but at the end of the day my opinion is that they are both not great, but some of the better options available. I don't play favorites just because it's the thing I chose. It is entirely possible that either company could announce something tomorrow that would be unforgivable to me, and I would not be surprised by either one.

The only reason I point out of something is not "as bad" is because I don't believe it is possible to stay completely away from supporting anyone controversial. Can't do it with food production, can't do it at work even though it makes me feel bad. Can't do it with web browsers. If a 4th option besides Chromium, Gecko, or WebKit pops up overnight ran by the Jesus Christ of open source and privacy, I'd happily switch and we won't have to keep having these conversations. But right now, this is what we've got: Brave, Firefox, and a few standout Firefox forks like Tor, LibreWolf, and Zen.

Ironfox seems to take a fair bit of RAM and spin up my fans. Even if it's one tab doing nothing.

I do have some addons and sync setup though (with the adjust canvas setting on as recommended).

Ungoogled chrome dosnt seem to have an issue. And like another commenter said so many sites break in IronFox I need backup anyway.

But maybe waterfox or zen is better for my use.

Oh, that would change a lot for me. I wasn't aware it can be enabled. Thanks for the tip, I will look into this.

Having competition in browser engines is important. Imagine no Firefox was available, everyone was at the mercy of Googles work on the core. I don't want to use any Chromium based browser, so only a Firefox based alternative it is for me. I also highly liked the way Mozilla and Firefox was operating, but in recent years it gotten worse. And using forks has some trust issues too to me. I can't trust most forks, but I'm currently reavaluating the situation.

To me Firefox is still the best browser out of all available options. The only thing I would consider is a fork like Librewolf, that still is Firefox with some bullshit removed or disabled. That's as far as I would go.

Wtf is this shit.

wrong thread.

You are running a browser that's months out of date? 😐

So you basically ARE calling me a narcissist by proxy, or a defender of narcissists at best.

I can't speak to your interpretation but it was not my intention to do so.

For me to be calling you a narcissist i'd need to claim you were saying those things to defend yourself, which you clearly weren't.

The company isn't saying that about themselves either.

Well, no more Mullvad for me. Thanks for pointing that out. There are several good alternatives.

This was also not my intention, but i can't say i'm upset at this outcome.

I’ll keep it brief. I do find the controversies comparable, for the reasons previously stated....etc

All reasonable takes and i wasn't trying to imply you were trying to sway me, i was just stating my opinions and boundaries were different from yours in this case.

I don't consider the shenanigans equal on both sides, but we can agree to disagree on this.

Worth noting that the CEO was the CEO of FIREFOX at the time of the LGBT controversy. He was forced out due to the backlash, so good on Mozilla ...etc

Fully agreed, in this case i fall on the mozilla side because, as i said, to me it's the least worst.

The only reason I point out of something is not “as bad” is because I don’t believe it is possible to stay completely away from supporting anyone controversial.....etc

Also agreed, there is no ethical consumerism so you do what you can live with.

Unmozillaed Firefox for me is also non-woke...

Honestly, Chromium seems to have the basic features like history and passwords figured out way better than Firefox (or rather, Chrome does), while stripping most of the junk away, as it luckily happens to be proprietary Google bullshit.

Firefox has a bunch of telemetry and bloat, but the fact that my only real dealbreaker for a browser is quality adblock makes Firefox pretty much my only "vanilla" choice.

Sometimes I wonder if this folks that are so aggressively against Firefox but ready to eat up on Chrome, might be just bots. I mean I hope so.

Cause otherwise we will have so many options and Google will have the best intersts for all of us 😇

What?

Is Ironfox on Linux too?

There is an extension called chrome mask on Firefox. It helps Firefox pretend to be Chrome on certain websites.

Thing is, I have configured my Firefox to be as "private" as possible. It can also backfire, because corps can fingerprint you based on your browser's preferences. So, when I am saying Firefox is bloatware is because it is out-of-the-box. You can spend hours tinkering with it, but the average person won't bother doing that, so Mozilla would force them to be part of their ecosystem through all those syncs, branding, AI, no actual strict privacy by default, etc. That's what I call bloat, that on-boarding experience with terrible UI changes.

Yeah. I have automatic updates disabled, I would have to download the new version in order to update it. I am using lots of software that is years "out of date". Because they are better. The newer they are, the more bloated they are. And good things break and get deprecated. I am still on Windows 10 and I can't be bothered switching to 11. If you think that jeopardizes my security, it really isn't. My PC isn't a web server that needs constant updates to keep the service secure; I maintain backups in case things go sideways.

But it is not secured. You do you and I won't claim to know your full setup and threat model, but in 99% cases, no. There's no advantage to running out of date software in terms of security or privacy unless it's offline and air-gapped, and even then. For something like a web browser you absolutely want to keep it updated at all times. I would genuinely recommend reviewing the logic and this decision. If you don't trust the browser, use a different one. If you don't want W11, go Linux or Mac but choosing to run end-of-life software because you feel you are getting less bloatware is misinformed.

Imho history is fine on Both (tho I prefer ff) and passwords feels better to use on ff

Yea few years ago but nowadays 99% of sites i visit are working well

Nah. I should have been saying LibreWolf through the comment.

I love GNU icecat. It blocks all the nonfree JavaScript, and I can always whitelist an important site if I need their JavaScript. It is my go to.

It's saved in clear text too.