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Firefox has one feature the other browsers will never have - privacy.

by snarfy 8y ago

mixedCase 8y ago
Brave seems to go for the same, but with a Chromium base (currently in beta). They seem to de-claw whatever's left by Google.
- Sylos 8y ago
  Firefox has still some clear advantages over Brave, thanks to owning their engine. A trivial example is the battery API. It's nowadays mainly used for tracking, but is an official webstandard. Mozilla decided to fuzzy it, so it lost its usefulness for tracking. Google didn't. And I imagine, there's hundreds of similar examples at this scale, which as an average user you'll just never hear of. One bigger feature is Firefox's Containers. It's based on work from the Tor Browser. Which also just illustrates what this partnership sometimes brings forth. Tor Browser is going to always be there, checking the Firefox code for privacy problems, and will suggest better ways of doing things, which Mozilla can just adopt. For Chromium, there exist in principle similar efforts, like Brave, Iridium Browser, ungoogled-chromium, but these will always fight an uphill battle against Google and obviously Google isn't going to adopt and maintain their fixes.
- M2Ys4U 8y ago
  Brave is an advertising company mixed with blockchain snakeoil. Why should we trust them?
tomjakubowski 8y ago
Why wouldn't Safari have the same feature? I'm not a huge fan of Apple's generally closed ecosystem, but acknowledge that they have unusual respect for user privacy.
- Mikeb85 8y ago
  > respect for user privacy No US based entity can offer user privacy, as the government can force any of them to cooperate while requiring non-disclosure. The fact they don't use anonymous user data to offer internet services doesn't negate the fact that where most of us actually care about privacy, they don't have the power to actually offer it.
  - otterley 8y ago
    First of all, we’re talking about business practices and culture, not government coercion. In any event, being a non-U.S. entity has less significance with each passing day with respect to the ability to insulate information from government. Consider that in the past decade, the U.S. managed to get the Swiss government to change its once-formidable bank secrecy laws.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    If they never collect the data, or store it in a way that they don’t have the private keys, they can’t give it to the government.
otterley 8y ago
If their primary funder, Google, threatens to pull their funding if they don’t ship them the information they desire, Firefox may end up no better than Chrome in this regard.

Firefox has one feature the other browsers will never have - privacy.

by snarfy 8y ago

Firefox has one feature the other browsers will never have - privacy.

Brave seems to go for the same, but with a Chromium base (currently in beta). They seem to de-claw whatever's left by Google.

Sylos 8y ago
Firefox has still some clear advantages over Brave, thanks to owning their engine. A trivial example is the battery API. It's nowadays mainly used for tracking, but is an official webstandard. Mozilla decided to fuzzy it, so it lost its usefulness for tracking. Google didn't. And I imagine, there's hundreds of similar examples at this scale, which as an average user you'll just never hear of. One bigger feature is Firefox's Containers. It's based on work from the Tor Browser. Which also just illustrates what this partnership sometimes brings forth. Tor Browser is going to always be there, checking the Firefox code for privacy problems, and will suggest better ways of doing things, which Mozilla can just adopt. For Chromium, there exist in principle similar efforts, like Brave, Iridium Browser, ungoogled-chromium, but these will always fight an uphill battle against Google and obviously Google isn't going to adopt and maintain their fixes.
M2Ys4U 8y ago
Brave is an advertising company mixed with blockchain snakeoil. Why should we trust them?

tomjakubowski 8y ago

Why wouldn't Safari have the same feature? I'm not a huge fan of Apple's generally closed ecosystem, but acknowledge that they have unusual respect for user privacy.

Mikeb85 8y ago
> respect for user privacy No US based entity can offer user privacy, as the government can force any of them to cooperate while requiring non-disclosure. The fact they don't use anonymous user data to offer internet services doesn't negate the fact that where most of us actually care about privacy, they don't have the power to actually offer it.
- otterley 8y ago
  First of all, we’re talking about business practices and culture, not government coercion. In any event, being a non-U.S. entity has less significance with each passing day with respect to the ability to insulate information from government. Consider that in the past decade, the U.S. managed to get the Swiss government to change its once-formidable bank secrecy laws.
- scarface74 8y ago
  If they never collect the data, or store it in a way that they don’t have the private keys, they can’t give it to the government.

otterley 8y ago

If their primary funder, Google, threatens to pull their funding if they don’t ship them the information they desire, Firefox may end up no better than Chrome in this regard.