Here we go again

This is your hourly reminder that Brave is still Chromium and still contributes to Google's influence over internet standards.
- Iirc Firefox and I think Safari are the only major non-chromium browsers. It makes me so sad because I remember Google’s “don’t be evil” days… man they left that behind
  
  they've lived long enough to become the bad guys
  
  Safari already has attestation, has for a while, so while its at least a different browser, it’s still part of the problem.
  
  Anyone saying about duck duck go? Iv been using that and seems good
  
  I'm thinking about switching to Librawolf for the privacy features
- the CEO is also a homophobic bigot and covid denier
  
  Had no idea! Thanks I’m getting off brave!
  
  Thanks for pointing this out! I was already using Firefox, but after looking this up I found out that they also got rid of him for being homophobic.
  Firefox it is!
  
  i always use software for what it is, ignoring the beliefs of its creator, but ive already been using firefox, librewolf and mullvad browser since i moved to linux, and i have only been seeing people say stuff that shows chromium is worse. (except for people with no argument of course)
- The CEO also donated to Prop 8 in California and a number of other bigoted conservative things.
- also this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/business/brave-brendan-eich-covid-19.html
- This is your hourly reminder that default Firefox isn't that great for privacy thus librewolf exist
- Cool. If me choosing Brave over FF contributes to the demise of the useless, cash-grab scam which Mozilla is, I'll happily continue using Brave.

I hate to be a pessimist but if people hate Musk as much as they seem to, but can't leave twitter,
or post "Fuck Spez" thousands of times, but won't leave reddit,
I'm cautious about how much of an exodous I expect to see from chrome.
I think its time we face the fact that most people will trade almost anything for convenience.
- The piece that gets continuously underestimated is who moves in these small initial jumps. It tends to be the more technically inclined, who over the next couple years, their recommendations will lead to friends and family moving as well, at a slower rate.
  
  The piece that gets continuously underestimated is who moves in these small initial jumps. It tends to be the more technically inclined, who over the next couple years, their recommendations will lead to friends and family moving as well, at a slower rate.
  Sure. And here we are. I'm sure these companies consider us a real fly in the ointment. But I'm not inclined to believe the past is perfectly predictive of the future. What you described is also, in my perspective, how things have gone in the past. But will it happen the same way this time? I don't know. I'm not confident based on what I've seen. They are trying to close in the walls on the internet and they are confident that people are too lazy to stop them.
- If Internet Explorer managed to fall from 96% market share to complete irrelevance, Chrome is not immortal either.
  
  You arent wrong. But, acectdata and mine own, convenience drove that. People are fucking lazy and hate nothing more than to be inconvenienced. When chrome was getting traction, explorer was trasshhhhhhhhh and every one knew it.
  Chrome might be a bit bloated but its no explorer. If it doesn't hurt people to stay, I don't think we'll see a shift.
  
  Times have changed. The userbase that dropped IE was a vastly different one. With the internet being more accessible and more alluring to the massed (i.e. because of social media) convenience is king.
  
  Back then internet users werent normies, but nreds and tech savy people. Also, chrome learned from IE's mistakes. It wont stop functioning and will keep updating, so the average normy user wont mind.
- You made me proud of myself! I have left all three!
  
  They better watch out. There are dozens of us. Dozens!
  
  I cannot leave Twitter as I never used it.
- Browsers at least, unlike social networks, don't benefit from networking effects. How many people use a specific browser doesn't directly affect the usefulness of that browser, as users of different browsers can interact with each other to the same degree as users of the same browser. For now at least, as Google's Web Integrity API could obviously change that if websites start to require and some browser are unable or unwilling to provide it.
  
  How many people use a specific browser doesn’t directly affect the usefulness of that browser, as users of different browsers can interact with each other to the same degree as users of the same browser. For now at least, as Google’s Web Integrity API could obviously change that if websites start to require and some browser are unable or unwilling to provide it.
  Thats a great point and something to consider.
  
  True. I MUST use Edge at work and honestly, its fine. Its not some radical departure from Firefox, i dont have to think too hard about the differences.
- I switched to Firefox on windows and android on the same day as I saw that WEI bullshit.
  I don't know why the fuck I was thinking it would be a worse experience... It's the same thing.
  
  Bro wait till you install Linux.
  It's actually better as a stock experience than windows 11.
- Pessimist, but most likely right
- Google broke on Firefox for a while a day ago for me. Went to some other search engine.
  Jumping from social media is hard.
  Jumping from applications is not.
  teamspeak became Skype which became discord.
  And many of us did leave Reddit. I didn’t even leave because I cared about the protests or what Reddit was doing. I left because many posts were deleted, people left, subreddits became abandoned.
  Lemmy became better than Reddit basically overnight.
- It is a slow process, most will still use it, but it will be less and less as time passes.
  Twitter is a different beast, most of the people you follow on twitter are only active in certain groups.
  All we can do is inform them and focus on what we do, no need to be stuck on what others do.

I just switched yesterday after learning more about why I should here in Lemmy.
The last time I tried FF (many years ago) it was incredibly slow, so I went with chrome. But the FF of today is actually noticably quicker.
Also, FF offered to import all of my bookmarks, autofills, passwords, history, and even my extensions (if a FF version exists of course, almost all of which did) and did so seamlessly. It was the easiest software switch ever.
- Why should I switch? Just curious.
  
  Privacy and not being part of Google would be the biggest reason.
  It also looks kinda nice, in my opinion.
  It's also faster than chrome now I think.
  
  Apart from privacy concerns, Google has started to add some really bad features to Chrome, such as "Manifest V3" and "Web Environment Integrity". These limit your ability to block ads or generally modify your device or the websites you're visiting, and are just a bad for the web as a whole. WEI in particular is basically DRM for the web, so Google checks your device and denies you access to websites if they don't like it. But as long as the majority of people keep using Chrome they can just force these things onto everyone.
- My friggin' Chromebook (which works great) can't install FF.
  I've tried rooting into Ubuntu, but, I can't get it all straightened out. Until I notice truly diminished issues... I'll use Chromebook as is.
  
  You have 3 options:
  Enable Linux container and install FF in Linux: https://chromeos.dev/en/linux/setup
  Install FF from Play Store
  If your Chromebook is old enough to not be capable of either, then you can wipe ChromeOS and install Linux bare-metal. mrchromebox.tech
  
  Not even as an Android app? I've run Firefox from crostini as well but the Android approach is a lot easier.
- I tried FF earlier this year. It sucked. Everything just took extra clicks. The password manager was a pain and didn't interact with my phone apps properly.
  I know the complaints against chrome. When it starts forcing me to watch ads I might try FF again.
  
  Hey, at least installing a foss browser won't slow down your phone like a spyware app, you could always try something like Mull even for only a portion of your browsing if you have ~80MB to spare. I suggest it because I hate some of that extra bullshit that comes with standard Firefox. Also there's tons of projects that try similar stuff with Chromium! Like Mulch. Way better defaults than Chrome
  
  Depending on which Chromebook it is, you can always install the Linux container and install it in there
  
  The Android FF is not a great user experience for sure. On desktop it's just fine but Android is janky. I tolerate anyway to support Firefox but chrome is miles better on mobile.

I can't believe people still use Chrome, Firefox is better by a mile.
- Idk, I've used both browsers and I prefer Chrome in terms of features and UI. But it's not worth the privacy you get with Firefox
  
  Which features? Chrome is barebones imo while others like Edge and Opera are the "glorified" browsers with many features.
- same problem we had back in the ie5/6 days: it was just there and most people don't care. i physically cringe when i watch co-workers using chrome with not even a basic adblocker installed, klicking away ads, promts, pop-ups, videos and whatnot just to access a news article. it's horrible!
  
  I’m forced to use either Chrome or Edge for my work computer and it drives me crazy.
- People switched because "it's the fastest" but that hasn't been my experience with it at all. Sure, it LOOKS more minimalistic than Firefox, but it's a RAM and CPU hog that litters my computer with Google trash.
  People still download it because "it's the fastest"
- Yeah, I've been using Firefox exclusively for ages. And also Duckduckgo, I just can't stand the excessive of Google's captcha since I always use VPN.
- IDK man, Chrome UI is kinda plain
- I’d use it exclusively, but there’s no Ad Blocker for it on iOS, and I don’t want to run an ad blocking VPN all the time. I also don’t like how there’s no official PWA support on desktop.
  
  Chrome doesn't support extensions at all on iOS, only Safari does - because of Apple. Firefox would absolutely support extensions and use Gecko on Ios if Apple let them.
  
  The heck? UBlock works on Mac- ohhh is this an M1/M2 thing I was unaware of?
  Nevermind, you said IOS not MacOS
  
  But there is strict tracking protection which acts like a slightly degraded ad blocker. It has blocked everything except YouTube ads and "you have ad blocker enabled" pop ups for me.

Showing people that they can avoid ads by switching from chromium might make more people use adblockers.
I get flabbergasted whenever I talk to someone and realize they're unaware that such things exist. I hope all (according to the google store entry for ublock origin) 10,000,000 of the ublock origin users switches from chromium based browsers to, say, firefox...
Feels like chromium is the new internet explorer...
- That's why Google is trying to launch the "Web Integrity API" that will essentially allow them to mandate any website accessible to or using Google Services to ban browsers that have ad blockers.
- I know a lot of Chrome users, and the general story I get from them is nearly always the same infuriating bullshit along these lines:
  "So, I tried the like, Fox Fire thingy, but this one time, like, it took, like, 1.5 seconds to load, so it's """""""""slow""""""""" so I just use Chrome 'cause it's, like, faster and stuff."
  Yeah, and I suppose the 427 useless things you have running in your system tray right now don't have anything to do with your computer being "slow," right?
  
  Wouldn't those 427 things make chrome slow too
  
  There is also the initial load problem where it would take longer to load in Firefox compared to chrome. Yet people will attribute it to the browser and not the fact that assets were already stored in chrome.
  
  Or worse, "Why should I switch to Firefox? Everybody's complaining about the performance of Firefox compared to Chrome, but Chrome just works for me."
  Blissfully unaware of the kind of power you're giving Google over the Internet by using their browser. I once had an experience where someone tried to use this to push me back to using Chrome.
  
  Fox Fire thingy
  Oh god, I'm having Vietnam flashbacks
- To me it looks like a tech savy kind of hurdle, once people learn about it and start thinkering they start to use it also.
  Better for us when people start caring for what they tolerate from corps.

Firefox Mobile is great, Being able to add extensions is just wonderful.
- Honestly I cant live without UBlock Origin after using it for so long. The modern web is so horrible with ads
  
  Try branch -u origin/main /s
- The available extensions are limited, but tampermonkey gives you access to lots of custom extension opportunities, I use it to make Twitter bearable.
  
  They just announced that all extensions will be available for Firefox Mobile by the end of the year.

You wish that was happening.
I'm preparing to be completely unsurprised that Firefox's market share will still be at 3% next month and the month after that.
- If that 3% is made up of an outsized share of power users they might be ok. I'm more worried about the power structure shenanigans that have been going on the past few years.
- I alway wonder how underreported the Firefox figures are by things like that its users are generally more technical/privacy aware (so are blocking the trackers that report these numbers) and also spiders and bots often pretend to to Chrome (inflating those numbers).

If I had to choose between a tracked, ad-filled experience and a slower, protected experience, I would go back to 1990s style Internet in a second.
- Slower? I think browsers are all pretty much on par these days.
  The killer feature Firefox needs to implement is profile switching.
  
  You may know this, but Firefox does support multiple profiles. I regularly open it with firefox -p "PROFILENAME" depending on whether I'm working or not. you can go to about:profiles to manage the different profiles.
  
  Do containers not fit that bill for you?
- Hahaha, the wild west!

A few years back when Firefox went through the whole "Quantum" update, I jumped and never looked back. It's just better in every way, in my opinion.
- I use it on my laptop, but it's crap on my phone. My phone is pretty old now, I use opera. I know, no one likes opera, but I've used it that long now I find it difficult to jump across. I tried again recently, but it's still too slow.
  
  Isn't Opera Chromium now too?

What's the advantage for google of doing this move? People "savy" enough to install an adblock (or even know that it exists) is most likely to switch to a competitor that allows for adblocking
- Majority will keep using, for a while, until years later more see what has happened and move.
  Mean while profits on marketing go up.
  
  Google has gone to absolute shit. Unless you let them stick their hand down your pants and fondle you, you can't even use their search engine with out getting hit with a captcha so they can use browser fingerprinting to track you. We were all hearded into the slaughter house and they are just now starting up the kill machines.
  
  Mhm, I see that point, although I find it concerning given that the quality of the UX platforms like youtube has kept a consistent decline over the past decade. It feels like google keeps amassing more and more reasons for people to enable adblockers but I also understand youtube needs to be a profitable business and at some point you need to show ads
  
  It won't be a change no one notices though. Even non-savvy people who use ad-blockers are obviously going to notice that the internet suddenly became a significantly terrible experience.
- The way things are going with data collection and advertising, the EU is bound to put heavy restrictions on it, basically killing the market Google is built on. They are trying to find a middle ground between banning data collection and full on everything being collected you do online, and if ad blockers just happen to die in the crossfire, it's not Google's concern.
- I believe it's a two-pronged attack.
  They have the Trust API changes they are trying to push, which I believe they may try to make websites only support browsers using that API. They have a largest user base already so they have some sway, if Chrome won't load your webpage, you business might be dead.
  Couple that with their anti ad blocking extension, users have to use Chrome to access webpages and can't block ads on those pages.
  Mildly tinfoil-hatty, but I think within the realm of possibility.

I think firefox should ship with ublock origin installed. (Perhaps also containers).
Hopefully then more people will migrate faster
- At least tracking protection should be set to strict, iirc on default setting it barely blocks any ads.
  
  Strict tracking protection makes Firefox on Android a ton faster, especially on any website owned by Google or any link that has a Google wrapper (e.g. clicking a link on the Gmail app)
- That would be awesome!

As a user of Linux and primarily FOSS software for 2 years, each time I recommended something FOSS, others had bad luck.
I tried switching someone to Linux but I couldn't achive %100 funnctionality on a Windows only app I set up via Wine. (it is an obscure program, not sth like Adobe or MS Office)
I recommended Kdenlive to a Mac user friend, he couldn't export a video he spent 30 hours on it.
I convinced someone to use Libreoffice but they lost data in only 30 mins because I forgot to tell that if you draw more than a few strokes in LO Draw it enters a save loop. This is fixed now thankfully.
I recommended VLC for DVD ripping, it entered some sort of loop and failed to export.
Each of the above examples involve completely different people, by the way.
I set up 2 fresh Windows installs for family but installed Firefox with strict protection and uBlock Origin instead of Chrome and... it worked?! They still use Firefox. Maybe the alpenglow theme is too good, I don't know.
- You're right and it's that sort of stuff that people like you and me will deal with and figure out and move on but unfortunately it's not the case with regular people. That's why I never recommend that sorry if stuff to 'normies' ie. My mom. Instead I set them up with the lesser of evils that will give them convenience and make them more likely to trust me in the future. That way, if I ever REALLY need them to move on from something they will be more likely to just listen to me and not fight me about it. I just got a couple of friends to switch over to Firefox even though they were chrome fans, all because I have years of goodwill. Ported their bookmarks and got them ublock and they barely even notice a difference.
  
  I think this is true for everything… we just notice it when we’re the ones ahead.
  Some people can’t change tires, some can’t cook, some can do basic plumbing, some can’t remove appendixes, some can’t swim… whatever.
  Granted, I think the main divide were all on the good side of is “some people know how to search, some people don’t”
- Awesome, baby steps.
  Shit breaks, but we keep trying and see what works!
  Keep the fight going, peace!
  
  One day my friend, one day I will make a Linux convert

Never left. Never would leave. Chrome was always a trap.
- Oh, nice.

In the old days I used Firefox exclusively, until my work started only supporting chrome so I kinda went with it and switched. Out of habit I continued until a couple of years ago, that I went full Firefox again and I remembered why I loved it.

people when they learn about unlock origin works better with firefox
I bet most people saying chrome is faster don't even know about adblockers or are using Google's websites
- When I made the switch I was shocked at well it blocks ads. It still surprises me to this day. Yeah, it takes a little longer to load, but I couldn't care less.

I have for a long time been on Firefox. It's stable and works great.
- Nice!
- Great!

I started using Firefox as my browser at work because I hate trying to use profiles and I'm a convert! It's really great!
- Nice!

Google: Not this time
unleashes web integrity API

So I use adblockers, my wife does not. Regardless of the ads, we both switched from Chrome to Firefox this year solely due to the memory usage.
- Block ads on the router end?

Even if Firefox couldnt block ads just like chrome, I still would prefer it. So much nicer in every way.
- It's better at blocking ads even. :)

First time? :)
- I wish, it keeps happening on everything from politics to electronics to IRL.

This is downright funny. Best way to lose your market share, simply put. I've used Googles family of products for around 13 years.
First they ruin Photos, then Google Workspace (12€/month drive price to almost 100€), and now the browser.
Soon it's back to gmail and everything else non-google. And I suppose that's a good thing.
- Do you have any recommendations for Google Photos? I would love to get off but it's way too conviennent for myself and family.
  
  I just installed immich today, but you need a server to selfhost it.
  Seems really good though.
  
  As for the backup portion, mega has offered free 50GB for ages. And you can setup shared folders. I just use that for now. As for other data, I think I'll just buy a NAS and self-host.
  It's a bit of a shift, there's no real good alternative, so Google's long hook and bait is turning into even worse money pump.
  
  One bad to another, there's Amazon prime photos which offers unlimited photos. Gives you 5GB of video storage which is practically useless.

Seriously. I'll be a redditor here, but that's my "migrate-to-another service moment". If I'm not able to whitelist the sites that provide a reasonable ad experience and block ads on those that dont, then I'm moving to a different browser and password saving environment.
- Firefox and Bitwarden is the way to go Or even Mullvad Browser instead of Firefox. Its basically Firefox but already shipped with all the right configs and addons.

Google and every other corporation that wants to be your Daddy or your slave master can go fuck off and die. Personally I have been done for a while now, when Google shit all over the world by buying YouTube then making everyone sign in to Google plus to use, it was it for me, I have never actually signed in to YouTube since, and have tried to avoid giving Google any traffic to this day.
I think we don't have a choice anymore but to start making a new society built from scratch for the people. We can start by using the vast amount of tools and resources built by corporations to enslave us against the same corporations doing the enslaving.
I don't know if the human population can actually collectively do what's necessary to save themselves or more then likely their children from a life of permanent servitude these corporations want.
But why not give it a try, it's better then realizing you were a feckless idiot that did absolutely nothing while you're waiting for a corporation to cut off your life support because you're no longer profitable.
Politicians will allow corporations to enslave everyone but that magical 1%, they're not vary bright, they don't study history, all they study is fleecing the public, when the shit finally hits the fan the leaders these politicians make will hang them first.
And if some corporation don't like what I'm saying, come at me bitch, I've got curable cancer, I've been told I got ten years left, so have fun then die (I'm on a Tennessee Republican Death Panel right now.) So lets see how much "fun" I can make for corporations in ten years.
- I'm with you brother. Sorry to hear about that last section of your comment, but here's to making the most of the next ten years 🥂
  
  Great!
- Awesome!
  We can all join together along class lines and start to change things we have in common in the local govt.

I don't see how getting rid of ad blocking would help Google. The people that know tech enough to always install Adblock first thing when installing a browser will just jump to the next browser.
And the people that don't know tech enough to do that wouldn't have used Adblock either way.
They're losing out on a much larger userbase (People that know tech) in the hopes of keeping the subset of that userbase that knows their way around tech but doesn't care if adblock is installed or not and making them 'pay' by watching ads.
That would at least be my opinion if that's what's actually happening, because I personally didn't gaf about these news until now and I only read the text from the meme. And quite honestly, I'll continue not giving af in the future.
- And in comes Google's 'DRM for websites' plan to force you to use a chrome based browser. Sure, the websites still would need to opt in to integrity API, but how many will turn down guaranteed ads and tracking.
  https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/
  
  Yeah if Google can get big websites like Facebook or Xwitter to use their DRM, then the average user will be forced to use Chrome for those sites, and it will be an advertiser free-for-all.
- My question is will Google/YouTube be able to block all ad blockers no matter what browser is used? Or will using an alternative browser circumvent it all as everyone seems to be saying it will?
  I haven't migrated away from Chrome yet, but will do so if that is the easy of a solution.
  
  It's a question that only time will probably tell. But I'm 100% sure that, as long as alternative browsers exist that allow adblockers, they'll find a way to block ads on e.g. Youtube.
  Unless they start injecting the ads into the video directly (kind of like some apps do that display ads even when your device is offline), even then though, Sponsorblock theoretically exists.
  
  The manifest v3 situation does mean other browsers will continue to be able to block ads on YouTube; however, the new drm that Google is proposing for websites would effectively allow YouTube to block any browser they didn't like from viewing the site at all.
- Most people will still use it, due to not knowing or learning about adblockers, so more profit on the marketing end.
  You are right, the more tech savy people will switch.

and then there's lynx

The moment Firefox gets native vertical tabs with drag and drop grouping, I'm making the switch. But, as it stands, the vertical tabs in Edge are irreplaceable and not a single of the "workarounds" to make them possible in Firefox feel good at all.
I need drag and drop tab grouping and vertical tabs. That's it.
Edge also just introduced workspaces which feels like something I'm going to love once I get the time to mess with them.
I want to leave Edge because I want to be done with Chromium in general, but Firefox feels too behind the times for me.
- What do you like about vertical tabs?
  
  Not the person you responded to, but more tabs visible at once & being able to group them as a tree is incredibly useful.
  The grouping as tree thing happens automatically in sidebery (extension for firefox). When you have a tab open, any link you click will be added as a child node to the current tab. If you're doing research, or just don't want to lose your focus, it is immensely helpful.
  Brave supports vertical tabs but doesn't do the tree thing. Not useful at all compared to sidebery tbh. I don't know how Edge works in that regard though.
  
  I'm assuming the people who use tabs as bookmarks
  
  In addition to what others have said, I prefer more vertical space for webpages. Vertical tabs take up much less space and are, in my opinion, much easier to organize. I also don't need to see the title bar constant and the favicon is plenty for me to keep track of what's there.
  Grouping helps me keep ideas together. I don't like to bookmark things I'm only going to need for a few hours/days, so grouping tabs helps me keep them open without them getting in the way.
- Why does it need to be native? There are numerous extensions that do this. That's half the point of Firefox, it's so extensible.
  
  As I said in my original comment, none of those workarounds feel good. They show their seams constantly. I've tried a handful of extensions and not one feels as good as or is as feature complete as what's native in Edge.
- I need me some tab grouping (especially on mobile). I switched to FF and that's the only thing I miss
- Sounds like what you need is Floorp, it's a Firefox fork with all of this built in.
  https://floorp.app
- I'm experimenting with vertical tabs myself. Sidebery is the closest thing I've found to a pleasant experience.

Rossman video
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=0i0Ho-x7s_U
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- Always upvote The Rossman!
  Thanks for the link!

Literally me. Planning on switching to Firefox after work today.
- Awesome!

- Meme is meme
  Shitty meme is shitty meme
- I don't even pay attention to it, the moment I log into YouTube and Vivaldi stops blocking ads I'll switch to FF. I've already got it set up, V just works faster and takes up less RAM than Fox with the equivalent extensions (minus UBO cause V has ad blocking built in.)
  Until then it's just reactionary fear mongering, this same crap was floating around last November/December claiming that it would break in January and I'm still here waiting for that day to come.

So I switched to Firefox for privacy reasons but fuck if it isn't buggy as hell on my old phone. I'm keeping it, but it's a huge reduction in usability compared to Chrome.
- I use Firefox exclusively on both android and my PC. And have no idea what you're talking about. Are you also on android? What's been buggy in your experience?
  
  Not the person you're replying to but I sometimes have issues with PWAs not loading when I open them and then I have to close it and re-open to get it to load
  That's the only major issue I have and I find the ability to use ad blockers as well as the nice reading mode to make my overall mobile browsing experience leagues better than with Chrome
  
  I use Mull with Bitwarden. Hardened Firefox on Linux
- Keep looking for diffent forks or browsers!
  Do not give up, it is the same with other switches, you need to try out a few before you find one that works for you!

I recommend a DNS-based ad blocker like NextDNS. Works on everything, everywhere!
- Not on Reddit or YouTube or anything else that serves ads from the same domain.
- Just remember to disable firefox's default DNS over HTTPS setting that just fucking ignores your system DNS. So infuriating.
- Awesome, thanks!

Still find it crazy when one company decides the internet's fate and seems to act like they own the internet, simply because they have a huge ass market for the browser, search engine & site crawler.
- Monopolies and lobby group do it all the time. Make laws to help their company stay in the lead.
  This is in politics and effects all our lives.
  edit: word

Like when YouTube introduced ads and everyone moved to Vimeo?
- Oh, didn't even know that was a thing.
  Thanks for pointing it out!

I just made the switch days ago, couldn't be happier. Google can suck it.
- awesome! join firefox instance, if you haven't already!

Just made the switch for my personal computers. All the extensions that I used are there except a few for work.
- Awesome!

Brave and chromium are still safe right ?
- Brave has never been a super safe browser, they've done some shady things. If you need Chrome just use Chromium with some settings and plugins.
  I've never seen someone who actually genuinely needed Chrome though.
- If you HAVE to use a blink browser, try Vivaldi. Brave is not the "privacy alternative" people seem to think it is.
- I don't know, but who cares? What does anyone have against Firefox? It's fast, has a massive extensions library, open source, secure, private ... there's literally no reason whatsoever not to use it.
  
  I mostly use Firefox but some Azure admin stuff only works in chrome or edge.
  
  People don't like change. But I'm a hypocrite. I've tried switching to Firefox multiple times but I always go back, not even really sure why. I use it as a secondary browser these days.
  
  Different choices? Bad UI? People like me that despise Mozilla? Fuck them.
- No, Chromium will not be fine. Apparently Google have already pushed the code for their "integrity API" with Chromium on git.
  https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd
  https://www.resetera.com/threads/google-pushes-web-integrity-enforcement-code-into-chromium.746506/
  https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/15bxx7p/google_merges_web_integrity_api_drm_for_the_web/
- Don't know about bare Chromium, most likely no, Brave on the other hand will still support them last I heard

Will Vivaldi still block ads, even though it's on chromium?
- If web drm becomes a thing, nothing, not even firefox and vivaldi will be able to block ads on websites that implement web drm.
  
  Oh damn. Ok thanks!
- It think it should be able to, since it is blocking ads on the browser side. Not sure though...
  The problem, if I understand it, is when websites start only accepting certain browser ids.
  Which will effect all non chrom. browsers.
  https://vivaldi.com/blog/googles-new-dangerous-web-environment-integrity-spec/

Already on firefox on pc and mobile
- Awesome!

Even without the web integrity api , the tests for amazon hiring process at least in india require you to run windows/mac and chrome, linux and firefox are not supported !
- Some companies do that, it's not some new thing. We have to manage your devices and it's nice to standardize so we don't have to each learn every possible OS a user wants to install.
- This usually means "you can use Firefox but don't ask support" instead of "you are not allowed to browse this website". If the latter applies, user agent switchers exist.

Vote with your feet, move away of those cooperations....

I've just recently switched because Chrome yet again stuffed up all my task bar shortcuts (whatsapp, keep, calenders etc) so they all just loaded as tabs.
Firefox doesn't even have the ability to create task bar icons so for a long time I never bothered with it.
Found this extension which mostly gives that functionality. Not perfect as I have to share the URL links to the main instance to view them in a separate tab, but it's ok. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwas-for-firefox/
- Thanks, did not know this was a thing, Looks interesting!

Yep, moved from Edge to Firefox on all but my Windows Tablet. Only reason I'm holding out on the tablet is because the battery enhancements of Edge are too much to pass up on the device. Phone and PC though, straight to Firefox.

Fyi. The Ghostery private browser is awsome. This is based on 9 hours experience. Correct me if i'm wrong...
- 9 hours, now that's stamina. I'm usually able find and use the material I need in 5 to 10 minutes.
- Thanks, will check it out!

If we take the majority of internet users, in that 99% doesn't care about ad blocking. They are not even aware of extensions and stuff. And most people in that category are not going to notice these changes at all as most of them are chrome users.
Some firefox fans will go to any extent to praise firefox by lying about chrome. One thing is that firefox is faster than chrome. My potato pc with 2gb ram and pentium dual core is able to run chrome (without ad blocking) faster than firefox. Page loading etc is faster even with ads in chrome. Same in my work pc with i5 11th gen and 16gb ram. Other chrome browsers like vivaldi and brave are even faster.
But do I care about a few seconds of lag in firefox?. No. I use firefox because of extensions and ad block integration. Not because of its speed. I also use chrome for banking websites etc for a smoother experience. Firefox has some more to do to get a smoother experience. Especially on phones. Pc firefox and chrome are almost similar. Even then chrome is a little bit more faster to be honest.
Other than people who are aware of this issue, that is a very small pool of people no one is ditching chrome.
- Does anyone really claim that Firefox is faster than Chrome. There are certainly reasons to use Firefox over Chrome, but speed isn't one of them imo. I've always found it to be slower.
  
  It's slower but not much slower. It used to be a much bigger difference, especially when Chrome just came out.
  For a power user like me, Firefox is the only option.
  
  Yes many firefox fans say firefox is faster than chrome. I saw it in the comments too. That was the only thing I focused on.

Anything but these two...

Then tell me please, how do I block ads on iOS with Firefox?
- You'd be able to if Apple didn't block other browsers using extensions, or any rendering software other than webkit on their phones. Your fault for using Appl€.
  
  I get your point of view, but I didn't want to buy from Apple either. Before the purchase I knew how locked down iOS is. But since Apple basically owns the education space, I had no other choice
- Adguard or DNSCloak with https://dnsforge.de/
  
  Thanks, I checked the Adguard site again and configured it properly using the profiles and not just the per WiFi IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Now I get 71% on an adblock test. DNSCloak however didn't do anything really, in the test I used it made no difference to a not blocking DNS

And then there's me over here in the corner using Opera....
- Who is going to tell him?
  
  Her? Please enlighten
- You mean red icon chrome?
  
  Please clarify, I've ued chrome for years with no real knowledge of the pros/cons

Yesterday, I got some pop up when I opened chrome about blah blah Google...ads...blah blah, and promptly downloaded Firefox.
Yes it's lame it wasn't already on there, but it's a shared / work computer and I try to keep new downloads to a minimum, but that was the last straw.
- Awesome!
- Exact same thing.

Yeah I'm currently dling all my Google Drive stuff and looking into getting a new email address
I've been hearing too many horror stories about Google Accounts getting banned for no reason lately.
- Awesome!

I just switched fron opera gx to Firefox. Has Firefox an integrated vpn?
- I don't know, but Mozilla (the org that makes Firefox) also makes a VPN, and you can set it to apply to Firefox only.
  
  Thats cool, thank you
- Search in extensions
  
  Oh right thats right I forgot about those. Thank you
- Firefox an integrated vpn
  They have a VPN but you need to pay.
  https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/
- Not built in, but you could always install one. Or you could check out Mullvad browser. It's based on Firefox and has some enhanced security setting and comes with Mullvad VPN (arguably the best VPN).

Fuck it, I'm moving over to Seamonkey.
- Awesome.
  Didn't know about it, thanks for the info!
  "SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape 7. SeaMonkey was created in 2005 after the Mozilla Foundation decided to focus on the standalone projects Firefox and Thunderbird. The development of SeaMonkey is community-driven, in contrast to the Mozilla Application Suite, which until its last released version was governed by the Mozilla Foundation. The new project-leading group is called the SeaMonkey Council. Compared to Firefox, the SeaMonkey web browser keeps the more traditional-looking interface of Netscape and the Mozilla Application Suite, most notably the XUL architecture. This allows the user to extend SeaMonkey by modifying add-ons for Thunderbird or the add-ons that were formerly compatible with Firefox before the latter switched to WebExtensions."

Bruh. This is already in effect
- That was quick!
  
  It has been announced a few years ago.
  It's in effect since the beginning of this year

- That Ad Block will become much less useful if google gets its way, even on iOS
- Awesome, teach us your ways.
  I can help teach peeps I know to block ads.