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Ask HN: With trust in Firefox gone, is Chrome-ish the only option?

• OuterVale 2y ago
  I have a few notes on alternative browsers at the bottom of this article that might be of use. https://vale.rocks/posts/everything-is-chrome#taking-action https://vale.rocks/posts/everything-is-chrome#taking-action
• achempion 2y ago
  Orion uses webkit, not sponsored by ad revenue
  • pandemic_region 2y ago
    Sadly no linux support :-(
    • phartenfeller 2y ago
      It has since a few days : https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/kag-orion-web-browser-coming-to-linux https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/kag-orion-web-browser-co...
    • Broge 2y ago
      Linux soon
    • dartharva 2y ago
      GNOME Web (formerly Epiphany) is also based on Webkit: https://apps.gnome.org/Epiphany/ https://apps.gnome.org/Epiphany/ Though I guess it's not extensible so you'll have to get some other way to block ads.
  • wave-function 2y ago
    > webkit, not sponsored by ad revenue It is — AFAIK, Google pays Apple enough money for the default search engine deal to cover Safari development along with all its components.
    • solardev 2y ago
      Does Apple do most Webkit development too, not just Safari? I thought it was originally spun off from KHTML. Did Apple take over most of the development at some point?
• rusticpenn 2y ago
  I have been out of the loop, what happened with Firefox?
  • conceptme 2y ago
    added new terms of use which are very questionable: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#diff-5c93e7e7cbfacf0d6a8b3bc6d46b345019653051089e00d6fe5e09a531a79442L61 https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b... https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
    • Double_a_92 2y ago
      I think the conclusion was that they had to remove that for legal reasons, since technically they were already doing something that could be considered selling data.
      • lll-o-lll 2y ago
        So. Maybe they should stop doing that thing?
        • lioeters 2y ago
          That's the line they were unwilling to cross, to compromise their ad tech. Apparently, however anonymous it may be, it's still legally selling user data.
      • stupidbrowsers 2y ago
        Yes, I heard it was because of Pocket. Of course, they could have just been transparent about ti when people asked about it.
      • moefh 2y ago
        They have never clarified what they're doing that is not really selling data but legally "could be considered selling data". I understand that's how they tried to spin it, there's a very telling update[1] written two days later: The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.” That California definition is pretty much the most straightforward legal definition of "selling data" I can think of. That they describe it as "broad and evolving" makes me suspicious of their whole discourse, I don't think I can take their communication as 100% in good faith anymore. Don't get me wrong, even after this I still use Firefox and I think it's better than Chrome in the privacy axis. But it's really annoying that they're still trying to paint themselves treating your privacy as sacred when that's obviously not the case. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...
• novia 2y ago
  brave?
• foxhill 2y ago
  you can't be serious, surely? yes, mozilla's TOS update is a bad thing, but switching to chrome (or chromium-based) for it is really cutting your nose to spite your face.
  • timeon 2y ago
    > you can't be serious, surely? Probably rage-bait.
• crowselect 2y ago
  Yeah: firefox. Is the browser ecosystem supposed to get better if we collapse it to just webkit and blink? Websites track us, browsers track us, web extensions track us, ISPs track us, OSs track us, cell networks track us. Government passing legit privacy laws is the literal only way to prevent this - not browser choice. Unfortunately gov is fully captured by corporate interests most places in the world.
• promoterr 2y ago
  Chrome was NEVER (and won't be ever) the option.. https://contrachrome.com/ https://contrachrome.com/
• dev1ycan 2y ago
  There's mozilla free versions of firefox, additionally there's ladybird browser in the brewing.
  • clan 2y ago
    You seem to be the only one mentioning this. And I think it is important to stress. Browser engines[1] are hard to get right. But not impossible. Google did a great job with the Blink engine. So much so that even Microsoft caved in and is using it now. So Chrome-ish might seem the better option. So should we cry that Mozilla is imploding under years of bad leadership? Yes! They are the main driver behind Gecko engine and it will likely suffer for it over time. The good news is that we like with chrome-ish (blink based) browsers (such as Thorium) have a number of options. Librewolf, Waterfox and Floorp are all nice and usable cross platform implementations using the Gecko engine. On your Android device you can stay on Gecko with Waterfox or IronWolf. Gecko will not implode from one day to another even if Mozilla does. And even if Mozilla does then maybe the community can pick up the pieces. But it will be a tough job. There is then a risk of monopoly which is never good. It is then very positive as you state that Ladybird is getting velocity[2]. They target alpha in 2026, beta in 2027 with general release in 2028. This is seriously good news which cannot be understated. We have hope! People who care should really follow Andreas updates on Youtube[3]. So while 2028 seems far away you will see that they have already gotten very far and have a good trajectory. A few years ago when Microsoft gave up and went with Blink I was really worried as Mozilla has been in a downwards spiral for years. But Ladybird (and by extension LibWeb) gives me reason for optimism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser) [3] https://www.youtube.com/@LadybirdBrowser/videos https://www.youtube.com/@LadybirdBrowser/videos
• hnlmorg 2y ago
  It’s a bit premature to say Mozilla’s change to user agreements should result in a loss of our trust. Particularly given the browser itself is open source and already has many eyes on it. I’m going to wait and see what Mozilla’s next few releases are like before passing judgement.
• tjoff 2y ago
  As a privacy conscious user I'm surprised you consider anything other than firefox. Is is not confusing.
• gsky 2y ago
  I dont ever trust Chrome
• AmazingTurtle 2y ago
  I like chrome, I don't like google. I mean: I am so used to chrome devtools, I don't even know how to switch to firefox. I gave it a try and it was frustrating that I didn't know where to find my shit. Felt like 10x performance loss for my web development activities. Is there any way to make firefox devtools look and feel like chromes?
  • exodust 2y ago
    Surely there's more similarities than differences. We inspect HTML, we mess with CSS, we debug javascript, we look at headers, responses, warnings and errors. All that stuff is the same in both browsers. So what exactly about your shit is different?
  • Hackbraten 2y ago
    I doubt that customizing your dev tools would be worth the effort. You’ll get accustomed to where things are as you go. After a few days or weeks, chances are you’re not going to even think about it again, or miss the old dev tools.
• worble 2y ago
  The rhetoric around Firefox is so exhausting. They change some wording while having made no actual technical changes to the browser and the internet is on fire for days calling them the devil incarnate, meanwhile Chrome gutted uBlock and other extensions a week ago and there was barely any noise about it. What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?
  • refulgentis 2y ago
    > What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players? Hm, my lived experience is the inverse, and both seem sort of important to talk about. We've been hearing about Chrome implementing the same privacy protections as Safari as a transgression for years, years, and years, as it was delayed again and again. It was ex-Mozilla people who brought to my attention that they were deeply alarmed by the privacy-concious-Do-Not-Track people making this pivot and that it was a really bad sign. Generally, I try to avoid loaded questions phrased like "why is X considered as A while Y is considered as B?" because it suffers from high failure rates (likelihood you're the first person to realize the truth; likelihood these things ended up sorted neatly into opposing binaries; undecidability of 'how come everyone believes the wrong thing?'; uncomfortable conversation when someone starts from 'how come everyone believes the wrong thing?' and you have to sort of lead them gently to 'is it possible you are missing something, not everyone else?' without making it obvious)
    • stupidbrowsers 2y ago
      [flagged]
    • scarface_74 2y ago
      > We've been hearing about Chrome implementing the same privacy protections as Safari as a transgression for years, years, and years, as it was delayed again and again. Well Apple didn’t turn around and try to push the Topics API.. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API (Just to be clear. Mozilla is opposed to it too. They are just documenting it and don’t plan to implement the API)
• bambax 2y ago
  You can trust or distrust whoever you want, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Firefox. They now have updated the wording of their TOS that caused so much uproar and confusion (in part fueled by Brendan Eich, who runs a competing browser) and are pretty clear about what they do. Firefox also still supports Manifest V2, which lets you use the full, ultra-powerful version of uBlock Origin. There's no better privacy protection than uBlock. Firefox is a much better choice than any Chromium based browser for the privacy conscious.
  • bad_user 2y ago
    > in part fueled by Brendan Eich I don't get why you needed to mention this, when the story became viral before Brendan Eich communicated it. Do you feel that people misunderstood that, in fact, Mozilla does intend to sell user data? Note that I'm still using and advocating for Firefox, I just found this offtopic attack odd.
    • bambax 2y ago
      I thought his attack on Firefox was a little unbecoming, while also forgetting to mention that he's a competitor (and his product is not free). Mozilla is apparently run by corporate drones who made a blunder (as drones do). It happens. They corrected it. No need to attack or dismiss Firefox in general. Firefox is excellent.
      • JohnFen 2y ago
        > They corrected it. Well, if by "corrected" you mean "acknowledged that the public perception of the change was correct", then I agree. That said, I agree that Firefox is still the least worst option.
      • BrendanEich 2y ago
        Your attacking me on false grounds as if doing so defends what Mozilla did is the only unbecoming thing I can see here. I'm a founder of Mozilla (not latecomer or looter). The McKinseyites now running it into the ground deserve criticism from me as well as others who see what is going on. If you don't want to see it, keep using Firefox. Their terms and privacy policy changes still stink, they are integrating Anonym, and they're turning things on by default that we at Brave do not. Try engaging with the substance of the arguments, not attacking the person making them.
• internet_points 2y ago
  I like to think of it like this: Now that solar panels have been shown increase the risk of people falling off rooftops, is coal the only option?
  • internet_points 2y ago
    what timing https://www.der-postillon.com/2022/03/solarkatastrophe.html https://www.der-postillon.com/2022/03/solarkatastrophe.html =P (Solar disaster: 100,000 litres of sun rays leaked out of photovoltaic system)
• bad_user 2y ago
  One thing that bothers me is that, when smaller projects and companies get boycotted, the winners seem to always be US Big Tech companies that are far worse, and boycotts don't work against them either. For what is worth, I still use Firefox. If you fear Mozilla's telemetry going forward, you could pick a fork that disables it. E.g., Mullvad or Zen seem pretty good. But on the other hand, if you really want to get off the Firefox bandwagon, yes, Chromium-based browsers are a viable alternative. Although, in my view, there are only 2 Chromium-based browsers that are fairly trustworthy (i.e., well updated, not insecure) and that are not full-on spyware: Vivaldi and Brave. Regardless, the “forks” are good only for disabling features that you don't want. But keep in mind that the hard work is still done by Mozilla, Google or Apple, it costs a shit ton of money to maintain a browser engine and all of them are financed by ad-tech (Google's ad-tech to be more specific).
• forlorned 2y ago
  Libra Wolf - early fork of Firefox maintained separately - supports FF addons
• UberFly 2y ago
  So many people don't seem to know the difference between Chrome and Chromium.
  • Zealotux 2y ago
    Genuine question: could Chromium survive and thrive without Google's support? As far as I'm aware, most Chromium contributions come from Google, so while it's technically open-source, Google is still very much in control of it. This "you can use Chrome without Google tracking" is an illusion. Sure, right now, you can have ungoogled Chrome, but what happens a few years down the line when Firefox is dead and we only have one engine, mostly backed by a questionnable corp, to use the internet?
• botanical 2y ago
  It's funny how Mozilla is being vilified non-stop this past week when nothing's really changed (only their legal wording). Whereas Google are literally personal information vampires; they make the web a worse place for people and their freedoms. I will continue supporting Mozilla and using Firefox.
• stupidbrowsers 2y ago
  You can not convince me this thread is not either made by someone in college or by a google plant.
• theshrike79 2y ago
  Chrome (and Chromium) are created by the world's largest ad company. It was never an option. Stick with Firefox and WebKit based browsers.
  • codejeff 2y ago
    true
• sevg 2y ago
  I’m sticking with Mozilla Firefox. There have been a several episodes of online uproar against Mozilla over the last couple decades. IMO they’ve either been mountains out of molehills (because the feature is still privacy-protecting or can be disabled etc) or Mozilla apologized and changed course.
• abhijeetpbodas 2y ago
  Librewolf on Linux, and IronFox on Android seem to be working very well for me based on ~ 1 week of usage, after moving away from FF. Both work well with Firefox Sync, and also support addons, which is great.
• mkl 2y ago
  You may have missed Mozilla's update: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms-of-use/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms..., discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612 I don't think trust in Firefox should be gone.
  • torstenvl 2y ago
    There is nothing meaningful in this "update." If anything, it's worse, in that they EXPLICITLY admit that they are getting kickbacks—“'monetary' or 'other valuable consideration'”—for providing your user information.
• Croftengea 2y ago
  Right now: Waterfox and Florp, both based on FF. In long run: I hope Ladybird will become usable in the next couple of years.
• benrutter 2y ago
  I think it's great that we're able to hold mozilla to higher standards than google, but I think there's a couple important points to mention: - Leaving firefox for chrome due to privacy concerns only makes sense if chrome has better privacy, which it definitely doesn't. Recent changes might bring them closer together, but firefox is very far from catching up. - We should compare firefox to chrome or firefox-based to chromium-based. Browsers like waterfox, pale moon, edge, brave all use source code from one browser but with different privacy, so it doesn't make sense to say "I don't like firefox so I'll use a chromium based one". - Bonus extra point just because this is hacker news, check out Ladybird, it's making awesome progress!
• fredski42 2y ago
  Although Firefox is still the best to choose from a privacy standpunt currently, I am convinced the time will come where the sponsorship from Google will stop. Then Mozilla will likely not survive and the development of Firefox is left to the community. A browser is a pretty complex piece of software so I doubt the community will be able to maintain that.
• Yizahi 2y ago
  The trust in Mozilla went from 70 to 60. The trust in the google monopoly is approximately -99999999999999999, give or take a few points. You just can't compare them.
  • nickthegreek 2y ago
    Indeed. FF misstep didnt send me back into the arms of the biggest privacy abuser, it made me leave to their cute quiet cousin Zen.
• uncomplexity_ 2y ago
  short answer, yes, chromium and its forks. long answer, firefox have a strong community and solid product but lacking a sustainable business model and a comeptitive pr team. their tech is really good, the people in charge just really suck.
• flowinho 2y ago
  OP here. I never intended to "rage bait" or something. With "Chrome-ish" i ment Chromium-based browsers. That's what i ment by "it feels like basically everything is Chrome nowadays". My question was: Taking FF out of the equation, which browsers except Chromium-Based ones are out there?
  • VladStanimir 2y ago
    There are 3 major web browser engines out there atm, WebKit, Blink and Gecko. Gecko is developed by Mozilla, Blink by Google and WebKit by Apple. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#WebKit-based https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#WebKit-...
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
• basedrum 2y ago
  Trust in Firefox is not gone, and chrome is not the only option.
• JohnFen 2y ago
  I think that Firefox remains the best option. Their moves over the last few years have reduced their privacy proposition, but I'm still unaware of any better alternative.
• Saris 2y ago
  Just keep using Firefox or a fork like Zen. The idea that using a chrome fork is somehow better is ridiculous.
• FutureSpec 2y ago
  This is a silly statement. Mozilla revised the terms almost a week ago after people complained: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/mozilla-firefox-terms-use-backlash-from-users-9865841/ https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techn...
• Shadowed_ 2y ago
  Without going into "trust in Firefox gone" part (others will), there are FF forks that are privacy focused so Chrome-based browsers are not only option.
• davydm 2y ago
  [flagged]
• wenyong3124 2y ago
  [dead]
• opengears 2y ago
  To quote Louis Rossmann: "tldr: install Librewolf and go on with your life" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bTquKjzos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bTquKjzos