Google to Firefox?

[DiffydaDude]

well..
i use firefox, and i like it, but there is some really weird stuff going on here right now. from what little i understand, google was funding firefox but they can't anymore because of the antitrust lawsuit so firefox is going to be an ad supported browser

i basically only use it at this point because manifest 3.0 and i want my godamn adblocker

Note about this: i saw a post online on a reddit thread saying that its not manifest v3 in its entirety thats trying to block adblock, but only chrome's implementation of it thats doing it I think.

[bees]

I've been using firefox since the early 00s and I definitely prefer to Chrome. Worst case scenario, I'll just find a fork of it. I can't imagine using Chrome except when I have to.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Do you like searx or startpage better? I've used searx for a bit but it's got some things it could improve on tbh. I'd love something more optimized.

To my experience, it differs from query to query and also between different SearX-Instances (I use the neocity-thing that always gives me another one). Sometimes I get only crap-results with it, but usually they are on-par with Startpage.

[_ghost_]

I still use Chrome for convenience in regards to school and business, but I've been using firefox for all personal internet usage for almost a year now, and I think it was a good decision. I installed a free adblocker and use duckduckgo as my main search engine and it's honestly crazy how much this improved my internet experience. Switching over is incredibly easy and overall really positive. I would like to be able to completely cut google out of my life, but that won't be able to happen while I'm in school, since the school uses gmail and google drive for nearly everything, but having school and play in separate browsers is honestly kind of nice, anyway.

It probably doesn't make that much of a difference in reality, especially since I don't know a lot about web design or coding and mainly hang out on tumblr, so a lot of the actual differences in functionality don't really come up in my usage, but overall I think firefox is better and would recommend it.

[Rubbereon]

If you wanna try out a fork I recommend librewolf, waterfox or iceweasel.

They are all reinforced for privacy and aren't eating as much ram as firefox and especially google chrome.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

If you wanna try out a fork I recommend librewolf, waterfox or iceweasel.

They are all reinforced for privacy and aren't eating as much ram as firefox and especially google chrome.

Librewolf is - probably - okay.

Waterfox is likely unsafe to use.

Iceweasel was a project developed for Debian, but is now largely discontinued. Another browser with the same name (but made by different people) is now called IceCat - it should be safe to use.


The probably/should is there for a reason. Developing and maintaining an up-do-date and feature-complete webbrowser is expensive, and while Mozillas way of doing things might not be ideal, I see there predicament: The only potentially reliable source of money (with the google-well probably running dry in the way or the other somewhere in the future) is somehow trying to allow marketing, which always means to sell their users data to at least some extend. The fork-projects use Mozillas code, but they transform it usually on a volunteer basis - e.g. in their spare time. There is always a certain risk that patches might not be delivered in time without the user noticing it. You can work around this, but it is a thing that you should be aware.

There are browsers who decide against going this route, and opt to not implement features that are either expensive or unsafe to implement - and you will notice the difference, as soon as you try to surf a bit using W3M or Dillo. No problem if you want to use your browser mainly to read on the Wikipedia - but as soon as you want to do Streaming, Video Games, or even online-shopping, you might run into trouble pretty fast.

[crazyroostereye]

I have been using Firefox since ever, grew up on it. And with the occasional short term exodus to a different Browser. I have been loyal to Firefox Based browsers. My Personal preference now is Zen, a Firefox based browser with heavy modifications to appearance. Also, Hardened, so its generally more secure than Firefox.

Sadly at work I use Edge , as this is the Company standard Browser and anything not Chromium based gets blocked on several Internal Pages. And even on some you can only use Edge.

Iceweasel was a project developed for Debian, but is now largely discontinued. Another browser with the same name (but made by different people) is now called IceCat - it should be safe to use.

Yeah, the IceWeasel History I find vary funny, it was a dispute between Firefox and Debian about modification Debian did to the Firefox Defaults, so Firefox barred them from using the Firefox trademarks (Logo, etc...). And so Debian packaged Firefox with the IceWeasel branding instead. I love weird Internet History. Something similar is actually Happening nowadays with Fedora and OBS.

[Yuvi]

As some others have pointed out, mozilla has been doing some weird stuff lately so its honestly best to use a fork.
the fork i use is called floorp, its a pretty good one in my opinion

however even though mozilla has been doing some weird stuff lately, google is infinitely worse in every regard so the solution isnt really sticking with/going back to them for anything.

i think having as much variation in browser engines as possible is a net positive for the internet as a whole, since i don't think its that controversial to say that 1 company shouldn't have control of basically the whole internet (which is what will happen if chromium based browsers continue to become more popular, somehow)

my point is, yeah use firefox or one of it's forks haha

(if you decide to go with base firefox, then you should definately look into betterfox as well