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Chromium is definitely worse. While these deserve an explanation, you should not wait to move. Chrome is spyware that does web browsing. It's parent company a

Chromium is definitely worse. While these deserve an explanation, you should not wait to move. Chrome is spyware that does web browsing. It's parent company also shows ads, all the time. Chrome's auto update not only allows them to silently update or change your browser, it allows them to silently install other software on your computer. Firefox is a browser. It can auto-update in a way that may be questionable, but it also has a lot of cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad. FF deserves to be called out on their mistakes, and need offer an explanation. But perspective! Why would you not move now?

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Google still pay for Firefox; about $2 per user. So, Chrome and Firefox are funded by the same people. In fact Google upped the money they're paying despite FF's falling users share, what are they getting for their money - I doubt they're giving it out of charity. It's like price differentiation, I feel. FF is for people who want to avoid Google, but Google are paying to get privacy-infringement lite. Who knows what else besides being default search provider, and getting every search you type in through search suggestions, they're getting for their money? >cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad // Way to underplay things. Do Chrome change their UI (ie chrome) to ad advertising? Do they force add-ons on people that are unremovable in order to advertise a product? And then update, re-placing the advert into users chrome who've removed it? Do they blank out users home-screen settings in order to add advertising? (I think they did do that one?) Chrome may be spyware, but default so is FF. And Mozilla have shown they're more than happy to mess around with their users browsers for advertising/promotions. Aside: how is Chromium worse? Waterfox is looking like a good option.
diegoperini 7y ago
I've been reading lot of comments like the parent lately. Thanks for voicing my thoughts.
andai 7y ago
I want the ethics of Firefox and the speed / user experience (eg. select & move multiple tabs) of Chrome, so I moved to Brave. It's a Chromium fork that's a bit more Firefoxy -- made by Brendan Eich, former Mozilla CEO and inventor of JS, (eg has the "Switch to Open Tab" feature I love from FF), although there's some cryptocurrency stuff thrown in that I'm not a fan of, but so far it feels like a net positive over both FF and Chrome. It's very privacy oriented, to such a degree that it actually breaks a lot of websites (but you can disable the shields easy).
- wtmt 7y ago
  If you haven't read this one yet, here's one data point on Brave doing something unethical (blocking ads and collecting payments on behalf of websites without consent/agreement). [1] Tangentially, I'm writing this comment using Brave. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999
- prophesi 7y ago
  Sadly, I'd also like more competition in the browser technology space; with Edge switching to Chromium, and Safari's years of neglect, it's not looking too good.
tinus_hn 7y ago
Chromium is not Chrome. It does not have auto-update. Surprisingly this gives more control by default than with Firefox.
- arghwhat 7y ago
  But Chromium still has most, if not all, the Google integration. There are forks that try to strip Google from it, but it is a mistake to assume that Chromium is somehow better than Chrome.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Firefox by default sends all your searches to Google, and uses Google search suggestions (so sends all typed in text to Google). What other integrations, specifically please, does Chromium have with Google? Aside: do Google serve the Firefox Newtab adverts, perhaps that "feature" was added for the extra money Firefox are getting from Google?
    - Zekio 7y ago
      The Newtab adverts are not served by Google IIRC and they are only matched with you data locally in your browser, you get a lot of them from Mozilla and locally on your machine they get targeted so you aren't tracked online (If my memory of the article on it is correct)
    - mikro2nd 7y ago
      Is this still true of the default search engine is set to something other than Google? What are the relevant config keys?
    - arghwhat 7y ago
      Many things. 1. It uses Google DNS internally, bypassing system DNS. 2. First-run analytics to Google, new tab page analytics to Google. 3. Various built-in google services that phone home: Google Host Detector, Google URL Tracker, Google Cloud Messaging, Google Hotwording, Google Safe Browsing, WiveDine DRM, Google AutoFill, etc. 4. Update checks for all these components (the browser does not have update, but the rest does). 5. Countless accesses to Google, such as geo-location to find nearest Google server, ping probes for connectivity, etc. For a list of domains that are accessed by Chromium, see this regex used by the ungoogled-chromium project: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/30969fddff02ed9cd70fc5d5d94c5fe01e86bcb5/domain_regex.list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/30969fddf... More info at https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/30969fddff02ed9cd70fc5d5d94c5fe01e86bcb5 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/30969fddf.... I see no problem with neither Chrome nor Firefox defaulting to Google search and suggestions, as that is easily configurable for normal users. All of the above, however, is not.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

Google still pay for Firefox; about $2 per user. So, Chrome and Firefox are funded by the same people. In fact Google upped the money they're paying despite FF's falling users share, what are they getting for their money - I doubt they're giving it out of charity. It's like price differentiation, I feel. FF is for people who want to avoid Google, but Google are paying to get privacy-infringement lite. Who knows what else besides being default search provider, and getting every search you type in through search suggestions, they're getting for their money? >cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad // Way to underplay things. Do Chrome change their UI (ie chrome) to ad advertising? Do they force add-ons on people that are unremovable in order to advertise a product? And then update, re-placing the advert into users chrome who've removed it? Do they blank out users home-screen settings in order to add advertising? (I think they did do that one?) Chrome may be spyware, but default so is FF. And Mozilla have shown they're more than happy to mess around with their users browsers for advertising/promotions. Aside: how is Chromium worse? Waterfox is looking like a good option.

diegoperini 7y ago

I've been reading lot of comments like the parent lately. Thanks for voicing my thoughts.

andai 7y ago

I want the ethics of Firefox and the speed / user experience (eg. select & move multiple tabs) of Chrome, so I moved to Brave. It's a Chromium fork that's a bit more Firefoxy -- made by Brendan Eich, former Mozilla CEO and inventor of JS, (eg has the "Switch to Open Tab" feature I love from FF), although there's some cryptocurrency stuff thrown in that I'm not a fan of, but so far it feels like a net positive over both FF and Chrome. It's very privacy oriented, to such a degree that it actually breaks a lot of websites (but you can disable the shields easy).

wtmt 7y ago
If you haven't read this one yet, here's one data point on Brave doing something unethical (blocking ads and collecting payments on behalf of websites without consent/agreement). [1] Tangentially, I'm writing this comment using Brave. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18734999
prophesi 7y ago
Sadly, I'd also like more competition in the browser technology space; with Edge switching to Chromium, and Safari's years of neglect, it's not looking too good.

tinus_hn 7y ago

Chromium is not Chrome. It does not have auto-update. Surprisingly this gives more control by default than with Firefox.

arghwhat 7y ago
But Chromium still has most, if not all, the Google integration. There are forks that try to strip Google from it, but it is a mistake to assume that Chromium is somehow better than Chrome.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Firefox by default sends all your searches to Google, and uses Google search suggestions (so sends all typed in text to Google). What other integrations, specifically please, does Chromium have with Google? Aside: do Google serve the Firefox Newtab adverts, perhaps that "feature" was added for the extra money Firefox are getting from Google?
  - Zekio 7y ago
    The Newtab adverts are not served by Google IIRC and they are only matched with you data locally in your browser, you get a lot of them from Mozilla and locally on your machine they get targeted so you aren't tracked online (If my memory of the article on it is correct)
  - mikro2nd 7y ago
    Is this still true of the default search engine is set to something other than Google? What are the relevant config keys?
  - arghwhat 7y ago
    Many things. 1. It uses Google DNS internally, bypassing system DNS. 2. First-run analytics to Google, new tab page analytics to Google. 3. Various built-in google services that phone home: Google Host Detector, Google URL Tracker, Google Cloud Messaging, Google Hotwording, Google Safe Browsing, WiveDine DRM, Google AutoFill, etc. 4. Update checks for all these components (the browser does not have update, but the rest does). 5. Countless accesses to Google, such as geo-location to find nearest Google server, ping probes for connectivity, etc. For a list of domains that are accessed by Chromium, see this regex used by the ungoogled-chromium project: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/30969fddff02ed9cd70fc5d5d94c5fe01e86bcb5/domain_regex.list https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/30969fddf... More info at https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/30969fddff02ed9cd70fc5d5d94c5fe01e86bcb5 https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/tree/30969fddf.... I see no problem with neither Chrome nor Firefox defaulting to Google search and suggestions, as that is easily configurable for normal users. All of the above, however, is not.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]