"Firefox is developed by a non-profit company, Mozilla, explicitly dedicated to users' needs. Google and Microsoft make money off of users in different ways and

"Firefox is developed by a non-profit company, Mozilla, explicitly dedicated to users' needs. Google and Microsoft make money off of users in different ways and we can never be sure that their business decisions are going to align with what we would want as users." This gives short shrift to what is a complex set of interdependencies. All these browsers rely on the existence of web advertising, including Firefox. Are web ads among "users' needs"? Who decides what comprise users' needs? Users? The reality is that whatever Mozilla defines as "users' needs" will also, at least in part, represent the needs of the company authoring the competing web browser. That is because the Firefox authors are paid indirectly from the coffers of their competitor. Mozilla Foundation cannot take a stand against web advertising because its competitors rely on web advertising to make money. And Mozilla Foundation in turn relies on money from its competitors to pay its employees. Mozilla is aligned to some extent with the business decisions of its competitor. Ideally employees of Mozilla Foundation would be volunteers and Mozilla Foundation would pay them solely from donations from users. This is not what happens. Mozilla Corporation (for-profit) can, e.g., sell access to Firefox users' searches to Mozilla's competitors. e.g., Google. The profits might then be used to pay Mozilla Foundation employees. Some of those employees might leave and go to work for Google to start a competing browser. Firefox may be the lesser of multiple evils, but let's be honest it is not solely dedicated to users' needs. It has its own needs -- paying 100's of employees -- and, given the current arrangement, it must to some extent serve the needs of its competitor in order to meet them. If for example there was a user who did not wish to support the web ads business then Mozilla's decisions could never align 100% with what that user would want because she does not want to support the web ads business. Mozilla is paying employees by doing business with a competitor that gathers user data and sells access to users to advertisers. I am not downplaying the value of Mozilla. I am only pointing out that they are probably not 100% aligned with all users. They are also partially aligned with their competitor who is selling ads in order to make money.