I have suspected for a while it is astroturfing. Same as with GIMP and Libre Office where inevitably someone will trash the UI as it's "soooo bad". If you say a lie, and repeat it enough, people start to believe it.

I think it depends on the website. There are some websites where chrome will work better either because chrome works better with certain libraries/technologies or because the developers put more time into optimizing for chrome.

On the other hand Firefox might have less bloat around telemetry that gives it an advantage too.

Yeah I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve been deliberately trying to do a bit of Firefox advocacy for a while (cos I honestly believe increasing its userbase is our only chance to avoid google ruining the internet). But yes every time there’s a bunch of people confidently complaining about how bad/slow Firefox is and advocating for brave or chrome.

Initially I thought it was just a bit of historical baggage but it happens very consistently and aggressively so I’ve had the same thought.

Firefox is not “basically Safari” on macOS, that is only true on mobile.

I think some people also just haven't used Firefox in a while, and it's gotten better since the last time they used it. I've never had issues on Firefox, however I only became a Firefox user a few years ago. Meanwhile my girlfriend insists it's buggy and slow, but she hasn't used it in many years.

On top of that, Firefox was recently found to be faster than Chrome.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Google.

Chrome is a memory hog compared to Firefox lol

By some metrics, Firefox surpasses Chrome now.

This was true when Chrome first came up, they even made those ridiculous ads, which Opera (before they stopped developing their own engine) was ridiculing: https://youtu.be/zaT7thTxyq8

Firefox after they they rewrote their engine to be multithreaded (I think it was called project electron?) is faster than chrome that is currently very bloated.

What saddens me the most that, while there are ignorant people who don't know better and use what are they familiar with, there are also self proclaimed techno geeks, who are equally ignorant and don't seem to remember the times of Internet Explorer.

Edit: here are the chrome ads: https://youtu.be/nCgQDjiotG0

Worth mentioning that, as much as it pains me to back Apple, Safari is also a good alternative for those it's available for (at least in this regard). It's one of the only browsers other than Firefox not using Chromium. And WebKit, it's renderer, is a pretty badass project.

We just need to respond with "objectively wrong: <link to some data>" and copy paste it again if the same person replies.

Also slow compared to what ? I mostly think its just the UI that makes people think it’s slow. Cause I think most browsers load sites at an equal space, or prioritize different kind of caches.

I switched back and forth between Firefox and Chromium based browsers like Brave and Vivaldi. To be fair Firefox felt slow in comparison for a long time but that changed in the last few months. I think since about Firefox v114 I don't feel a difference anymore and that's why I'm using Firefox now. Best is to tell those people to try Firefox again because it recently became faster (in my experience).

Switch from chrome to Firefox about a year ago. Firefox certainly opens faster on my PC but I don't notice much difference on my android phone.

I've lost interest in multiplayer games too with all the battle passes and loot boxes.

Homestly, as soon as PeerTube gets more users or someone makes a video sharing platform on Gemini, I'll be able to completely abandon Google.

I already use CloudTube, but it's obviously still dependent on YouTube.

Puh. Mozilla is Google's pet that keeps them out of anti-trust court.

Almost the same for me. Used Firefox since it launched, then when I saw chrome had that thing where you could pull tabs into windows it blew my mind and made the swap. Didn't come back to Firefox until COVID though when I took the time to degoogle my life

It's a long video with many points and better if you watch it. However, here's a break down of key points, made to be as simple as possible - there's a lot more technical stuff, but I'll try to keep it concise and less technical.

This is probably about a 10 minute read if these concepts are not familiar to you:

1. Google owns Chrome (not Chromium), and they dominate the market ever since they won the internet browser wars.
2. As an amoral corporation (not evil, simply lacking morals), their business runs on advertisements.
3. They're revealing a new feature called Manifest v3 which is a locked down version of the browser that's built around what they feel is security and trust.
4. Under their proposal for Manivest v3, your browser will have to be "verified" in an attempt to keep you "safe". Are you a human or a bot? They're making a more trusted internet with trusted software.
5. Companies like Netflix, news web sites, etc. will eat this up and implement the proper protocols to use Manifest v3. To visit your bank's web site which has this protocol, you'll need to use Chrome's browser.
6. Using Chrome's browser, you'll need to authenticate yourself and become a "trusted" user. With this enabled, you can then visit your bank's web site.
7. If you use an alternative browser that isn't approved, you won't be able to use that web site.
8. Eventually other corporations will implement these protocols, too, and you'll be locked out from participating in the internet.
9. Google, an ad company, gets to control advertisements better, gets to learn more about their users, and now gets to mark them as "trusted". In other words, you get the North Korean version of the internet, "Mommy and Daddy's Safe and Approved Internet". Meanwhile, North Korea and Mom/Dad get to spy on you, see what you're up to, monitor you, control you, and shape you. The benefit is they also make money off you by selling the information they learn about you.

Why is this bad:

1. It's censorship. It's like your mom and dad grabbing your phone, computer, enabling severe parental controls, giving it back to you, and they get to see and approve what you're allowed to do and say at any time. Apply that same protocol to your money, too. Want to send money through the internet using PayPal? Even more censorship. Want to watch Netflix? Your parents lock it down so only certain things can be watched, at certain times, and certainly under their permission.
2. It buries competition and makes Google even more of a monopoly. We already know Google Search is bad (advertisements, phishing web sites, auto-generated content web sites are always the first results in Google.
3. Digital Rights Management. Just a bit north of 20 years ago, when you purchased a digital product, you could own it. Streaming didn't exist. In an age where "buying" no longer means "owning", this new protocol will further enforce DRM. Pay for Netflix and want to watch it? You'll have to be a Trusted User that uses Chrome. Bought a new video game you're excited to play on Steam? You'll need to be a Trusted User. Don't want to stream music through Spotify and instead use something like Bandcamp? To make a purchase at Bandcamp, you'll need to be a Trusted User. Don't want to buy something through Bandcamp and instead just download what you already paid for? You guessed right - you'll need to be a trusted user to even login and reach your downloads. Don't forget your downloads are hosted on servers that are run by Google and Amazon - you'll have to be a trusted user in order to download from that server.

Can I use Firefox and stop using any Chromium browser

• Most browsers are Chromium: Chrome, Brave, Ungoogled Chromium to name a few. They will all eventually implement Manifest v3, and if they don't, they will disappear.
• Firefox is not Chromium, but think about how many users use Firefox now. Google Chrome has the overwhelming market share and has captured users into their platform.
• Because the majority of users use Chrome, corporations have to evolve to adopt Manifest v3: banking web sites, governments, job applications, benefits, healthcare, personal emergency, etc. All of these will be forced to adopt it because that's where the users are, and Google will force corporations to participate. After all, banking web sites will face less downtime through Manifest v3, because bots won't be able to spam them and try to get in. Netflix will have to spend less money on security, because only trusted users will be able to even reach Netflix. Your "free" email service through Gmail now stops all spam because it only accepts incoming messages from trusted users. Of course everyone will adopt it - Google is safe, secure, and trusted. And best of all it's "free"!
• If you use Firefox now and continue to use it, you'll be safe for several years. For now.

What can we do?

• Right now, you can opt out of using Chrome by using Firefox and other decentralized tools.
• In the not too distant future, there's not much that you can do. Educating users to switch from Chrome, use Linux, use stock Android (e.g., Graphene OS), will not help.
• Eventually, the users that use Firefox, Linux, stock de-googled Android will get locked out. An average user isn't going to invest their time to learn these platforms. They'll stick with what works: "I can login to Chrome and watch my Netflix and pay my bills. You're telling me that this Linux thing doesn't let me do that? Screw that, I'll use Chrome OS - at least my shit works! What's wrong with these Linux developers, they can't get anything right! They should take a lesson from Google and fix their shit."
• Write your politicians and hope that some governments will help restrict this rollout. Keep in mind though that some version of this will get passed and approved. Also don't forget that corrupt regulators and politicians are captured and owned by corporations. This will get passed, there's no doubt about it.

What will happen 20 years from now?

• Humans have tenacity. You can only frustrate humans so much before they break. Take away too many of their freedoms, impose many restrictions, and eventually they will break.
• The trick for all of time, seen throughout history by all our overlords, kings, emperors, etc. is to find a careful balance. Take away "just enough" freedoms. Give them "just enough". Work them until they're tired, but don't let them break. And of course, give them a few handouts here and there, but not enough to make their lives easy.
• Manifest v3 (or its derivative) will be implemented. There's no doubt about that at all.
• The 99% of the population will continue to use these services because they want to be able to participate: They have to pay bills, access money, access healthcare, use government systems, do education, have entertainment, etc.
• The 99% will continue to use this because they won't care. So long as they can be happy enough, they will persist.
• Eventually, an infinitesimally small minority will be affected by something. Something will break and cause them to snap, and they will do the only thing that an individual human can do: opt out.
• That small minority will leave, opt out, and refuse to participate in the system. Those clusters will grow at an extremely small rate because they're able to recognize the whole picture and see that personal freedoms are so restricted. They'll remember their history and learn from it.
• Enter decentralization - the removal of power from centralized authority.
• Those who recognize decentralization will build new platforms, and others will eventually follow. This is why the Fediverse and Bitcoin exist. They recognize the problem of centralization and are full of users who decided to opt out. The Fediverse adoption exploded with the 2023 Reddit API problem, and the constant Twitter issues under Elon Musk. Bitcoin happened in 2009 out of anger from the 2008 global financial crisis when "Satoshi Nakomoto" gave, as a gift to the world, a permissionless peer-to-peer decentralized economy of money that had "rules, but without rulers".

What happens 20+ years from now?

• In 30 years when more of the population realizes their freedoms are under attack, they'll consult the ones who left 10 years previously.
• In 40 years, you might have choice. There may be a "new Firefox" that pops up after the old Firefox was wiped out 10 years ago, and let's you use the internet, your IP, and your content in a different way.
• The trick is to train yourself to see the big picture. You'll never defeat your overlords - they're behind tall walls and they control the money. However, you can opt out. You can refuse to participate. But by doing so, remember that you will be locked out. That's not an easy choice to make.
• But those users that do opt out, they will be the ones that were pushed too far. This is why refugees leave their homes - they just want to be safe, they want to be alright, they want their freedom from their opressors.
• We will have "Google Internet" (Manifest v3) refugees one day.

“We no longer have choice. We no longer have voice. And what is left when you have no choice and no voice? Exit.” - Andreas Antonopoulos

Getting more people to start using Firefox instead of Chrome would be the best way to "vote with our wallets" in this case. Though some of the Chromium forks do make easier sells, but they are much much more likely to just go with whatever Google does by using the same base. So if Google forces something into Chromium in order to keep being able to functioning and being compatible (in web standards, security updates, and the massive extension library). It will just force the use of whatever Google wants, and make Google the de facto boss of how we are "allowed" to use the internet.

A quick, non-technical explanation:

• Google is working toward implementing a new protocol in Google Chrome, “Manifest v3”, that will be intrusive and help enforce Digital Rights Management, as well as stopping ad blockers.
• Under the guise of this being safe, secure, and to curb bots, Mv3 will require users to become Trusted by using the Chrome browser.
• Since the majority of users are using Google Chrome, this will heavily influence corporations to adopt this protocol in their service.
• A Trusted user can access Netflix in the browser. If you’re using Firefox or are an untrusted user, you will not be able to access Netflix in your browser.
• This protocol will appear one day in some form, and it will greatly shift the internet and force more users into Google’s ecosystem.
• This will spread to all areas of the internet - Banking web sites, government web sites, healthcare, entertainment, education, etc.
• The internet will become less “free” over time. More censorship, less rights.
• Lots of ads can contain malware. Considering that Google allows phishing sites to pay for an ad to appear directly in Google search results, there is no confidence that Mv3 will be safe or secure.

See my other comments in this Post for more details.

You obviously know your way around technology, but you should be worried about the amount of people who are not tech-savvy and can only rely on what they’re offered. This is especially crucial now since a lot of citizen rights can be exercises over the internet, and sometimes that’s the only way to actually exercise them (Italy has several internet-only public services). So we shouldn’t be talking to a community of tech experts, we should promote easier ways to leave the monopoly and proselytize the layman about them.

Drm- Digital "rights" management, more like digital restrictions management is a thing that tries to make sure the things you own are restricted by someone else. It s the reason some singleplayer games dont work offline, some apps wont let you record them or Blu Ray discs try to stop you from copying them. things that you own. Thwy are controlled by corporations that can say who can use the media. Even if a device is perfectly able to play a movie, Google can not allow it so Neflix would not trust the device. Examples are Denuvo and Widevine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

The proposal's explainer dances around the fact that it can be used for that.

Some examples of scenarios where users depend on client trust include:

• Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they're human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.
• Users want to know they are interacting with real people on social websites but bad actors often want to promote posts with fake engagement (for example, to promote products, or make a news story seem more important). Websites can only show users what content is popular with real people if websites are able to know the difference between a trusted and untrusted environment.
• Users playing a game on a website want to know whether other players are using software that enforces the game's rules.
• Users sometimes get tricked into installing malicious software that imitates software like their banking apps, to steal from those users. The bank's internet interface could protect those users if it could establish that the requests it's getting actually come from the bank's or other trustworthy software.

Combine them and you have an anti-adblocking feature.

It also says

How does this affect browser modifications and extensions?

Web Environment Integrity attests the legitimacy of the underlying hardware and software stack, it does not restrict the indicated application’s functionality: E.g. if the browser allows extensions, the user may use extensions; if a browser is modified, the modified browser can still request Web Environment Integrity attestation.

Which is a whole lot of nothing. Of course you can still install extensions and sure, it can still request attestation, but that doesn't mean it will get it. But this isn't even important because I'm sure attestation for being a human (case 1) will fail anyway if the ads get blocked.

But even assuming that it doesn't interfere with ad blockers, this is still going to allow some shitty website to query code running on your device that isn't under your control to snitch on you. It's fundamentally stupid and wrong to trust any client data about the client, using extra processors and features is a garbage, intrusive workaround that still doesn't even actually work reliably from the shitty developers/website owner's point of view. Also see: Android custom ROMs and the lengths they successfully go to in order to run banking apps.

Sounds like it is a technology that is taking control over your own computer from you i.e. DRM.

Why is anything like this needed?

*An indie rock band

**A song on their self-titled album

I'd consider installing graphene OS..

You should be able to avoid getting flagged if you encrypt your files with something like cryptomator.

can't easily d/l mp3s from youtube music

You can with yt-dlp and any of the GUI frontends based on it. I suggest these:

• Linux/WSL: Parabolic
• Android: Seal

(Anyone who knows any, feel free to suggest more)