Technology

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

Modern Firefox is excellent. I have it loaded up with great quality of life addons that seem to work better than their WebKit counterparts.

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!

Does it matter if you use a Chromium browser that isn't Chrome itself? I know Google has a large influence in Chromium development, but presumably they can't just stick tracking in other Chromium based browsers, can they? I just really like Vivaldi.

I have one thing keeping me from moving back to Firefox. I use Chrome profiles extensively to separate my various client access sessions that I need to do my job. So I need a solution in Firefox that allows me to have separate profiles with separate sessions. I've tried Firefox profiles but those are so much clunkier to setup and switch between. Also there's no way I've found to get the Firefox profiles to be in separate color-coded windows like Chrome does so I have to look through all my open windows to find the one for the specific client I'm working with.

If someone can solve this I'll switch back to Firefox immediately.

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?

FWIW, latest Firefox nightlies have caught up to Chrome in terms of performance. I have been a Firefox user since the 3.5 days, I was briefly swayed by Chrome because of performance until I came back for the Quantum update and stuck with it ever since. The updates have been great and Firefox + ubo + Nextdns is a solid combination.

My biggest issue with FF is the lack of the ability to switch accounts easily. In Chrome I have a work account, a home account, and a side hustle account. Each has their own bookmarks, themes, passwords, and history.

I have tried using FF and the few workarounds to match this feature, but so far it has none worked as smoothly as chromes 2 button clicks to switch accounts.

Is it?

It’s popular because for 15 years it’s been fast, easy, better than the built in IE and legacy Edge and tech savvy people like us have been singing its praises since what? 2010? 2012? When did Firefox become slow and bloated?

People don’t care unless there is a big enough difference in experience. And so far, Chrome hasn’t fallen off a cliff when it comes to speed or rendering. If anything, the question should be why do people still bother to download Chrome when Edge is basically the same browser now?

Firefox fixed its issues a few years back and is now a great browser again. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with the big three on desktop or mobile. But privacy isn’t going to make most people switch anything unless the privacy violations are beyond the pale. And I don’t think Chrome’s are yet. Maybe if they go through with that change to kneecap extensions and gimp adblocking that might change.

I just ditched Brave a few days ago for Firefox and really prefer it for performance and real privacy.

I tried to install Firefox in my corporate laptop and the ~~anti~~virus marked it as malware ;_;

The corporation is apparently ok with Microsoft spying on us all.

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.

The price to pay for convenience is too steep for most people to migrate. Also if you just an average user, most of the time you will not get instant gratification for being more privacy-aware. The more you try to be more aware the more you realize that to achieve a certain level of privacy is really a pain in the ass.

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.

With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.

They aren't "concerned about privacy", they are "concerned about privacy for the same price". And they are real cheapskates.

Note: for those who lack the knowledge, the "price" of a free product comes as an overall bugs / features ratio, where "bugs" and "features" are respectively defined as any undesirable / desirable behavior in the use case for the software.

Waiting for Firefox to implement native browser profile switching UI (not container tabs, not desktop shortcuts, not janky workarounds/hacks) and I'll be there full time.