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  • With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder how privacy is still a word in the dictionary

  • With the number of people concerned about privacy

    That number appears to be very small, all things considered. Out of everyone I know, literally one person cares about privacy. My mother. She will even go as far as to only use her first initial online instead of her name if she can get away with it. However, she uses Chrome all the time because she doesn't understand that your browser also tracks you.

    I think that's what it comes down to. A mixture of lack of public interest, and lack of public awareness about tracking/privacy in general. If people can't immediately see how having their data harvested will inconvenience/hurt them, they simply don't care.

  • With the number of people concerned about privacy

    Generous estimate there. "People" don't care. Who cares if your browser tracks your online presence when everything is connected back to your facebook profile or whatever is trending.

    Most individuals embrace convenience above all; literally putting all their private stuff on any online service that tout "shiny feature that you won't even use". Even some privacy-focused people don't see putting all your emails/photo/video/agenda/chat/text messages in one third party opaque service as an issue.

    Tons of business do the same, outsourcing the most basic stuff like private discussions and storage to anything "convenient" to not pay for two sysadmin to manage it (leading to most major leaks). I have direct experience of business coming to us, asking "yeah, privacy is good, data ownership and control is mandatory, so we won't host anything and you'll keep all our data, deal?". They prefer have us, a third party, bill them for hosting rather than have some control over it.

    My take on this is that while pointing that browsers can be an issue is not a bad thing, the first step would be to get people and business interested in their privacy. Without that, it remains a niche. Sadly.

  • There's no reason you should be using Chrome. Using Chrome:

    • Means you consent to spyware (along with everyone else you interact with)
    • Allows Google to continue dictating web standards
    • Is a resource hog

    If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading this comic about the dangers of Chrome: https://contrachrome.com/

    If you need to absolutely use a Chromium-based browser, at least use Brave (just for that site).

    Not-so-fun fact from the comic Contra Chrome: Google Chrome's URL bar is called the "omnibox." The name is derived from the Latin word "omnis," meaning "everything."

    When you type into the omnibox, it's sent to Google's servers and added to your profile forever.

    Even if you deleted it or didn't hit enter.

  • I use Firefox because I don't like how Google acts with regards to web standards being the de facto standard because so many browsers are Chromium based. If everyone is using Chromium then they don't need to obey any standards and can just do whatever they want. There needs to be competition in that space. Microsoft Edge becoming Chromium based was a big problem on that regard.

    The irony that Firefox is kept alive in part because Google pays them for Google to be the default search option is not lost on me.

  • Firefox for Android is a blessing with extensions. Most of my favorite desktop privacy extensions are available on mobile. I love it.

  • There's also Librewolf, based on Firefox. Comes with many (but could be better) privacy related settings available in firefox.

    From the website:

    This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom.

    LibreWolf is designed to increase protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements. This is achieved through our privacy and security oriented settings and patches. LibreWolf also aims to remove all the telemetry, data collection and annoyances, as well as disabling anti-freedom features like DRM.

    Available for Linux, macOs, and Windows.

    https://librewolf.net

  • I was originally an Opera user (back when it was using Presto) back in the day, but I switched to Firefox during the last moments of the Presto engine. When Presto died, I worried a bit about the state of other browser engines, but I didn't worry about it too much because I never thought Microsoft would use Chromium with their Edge browser. Yet, here we are.

    Putting privacy concerns aside, we should encourage the use of Firefox because it helps promote browser engine diversity. The more diverse browser engines we have, the better it is for us, especially when it comes to innovation. I mean, it may be a bit different than the era of Internet Explorer, but since Google is leading the Chromium project, who knows what could happen.

    They might remove a particular feature that was once very useful for whatever reason, and we could end up just accepting it because we can't do anything about it.

  • Bro, I never left. I never liked Chrome's interface. I think I ditched Internet Explorer for Firefox when IE started getting too bloated and sluggish and Firefox was mature enough to compete.

  • I've been a Firefox main since before it was even called Firefox :D

    As much as it lagged behind in speed in the early days of Chrome, back then Chrome didn't have anywhere near to Firefox's amazing selection of addons, many of which were essential to my workflow.

    That also meant that I hated Firefox's switch to WebExtensions, as it gutted most of the addons I used at the time, and it took them many years to get back as many features as possible (which of course has never been all the original features).

    I even switched to Firefox ESR, then when that dropped support too, to Waterfox for a few years to retain the ability to use classic addons. But eventually it became too much hassle, and I have been a Firefox mainbranch user again since 2021 :)

    For the handful of websites that only work in Chrome (or when I need to test my own websites), I've been using Brave in recent years. It's weirdly into crypto nonsense, but at least those features can be disabled. But if anyone knows a better Google-less Chromium browser, pls let me know!

  • Just switched over to Firefox like a minute ago. So far, so good. Kinda a bummer to have to manually import my saved passwords.

    Also, how are profiles handled? In Chrome, I had a separate personal and work profile. Is that easily doable in Firefox?

  • If only Firefox's management had its head screwed on better. I really don't care about Turning Red themes, I have a KDE theme just to keep it matching my desktop. Just make the core browsing experience better. Hell, take some features from Vivaldi. I've noticed a good portion of Vivaldi users back when I used Reddit were former Firefox users, and I can understand why.

  • I'm just thankful that Firefox still exists. I switched over back in 2003 and got hooked on Thunderbird as well.

  • I've been using Firefox as much as possible and it has gotten better over the previous few months. I find fewer and fewer sites that I have issues with.

  • I have always despised Chrome, with Firefox being my preferred web browser. However, I still keep Vivaldi installed on my Linux system in case something requires Chromium for compatibility reasons.

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