3 ms·

Few years ago when google announced their MV2 plan I moved to Firefox. I don't think in all this time I ever missed Chrome for anything in particular outside of

Few years ago when google announced their MV2 plan I moved to Firefox. I don't think in all this time I ever missed Chrome for anything in particular outside of maybe 1 or 2 websites that didn't have proper support. Switch to Firefox if you haven't already really.

tentacleuno 28d ago
Firefox is genuinely quite a good option. There are some Google-driven web proposals that they've refused to implement[0] (I'm sure I disagreed with some of them, though I forget which), but overall I've found that I've never really had to think about the browser: it's just a medium for the web. They do offer some integrated services (which some would denote as bloat), though unlike Chrome, they do let you actually turn things off, which I'm very appreciative of -- they don't seem to be nearly as forceful as Google, who recently added a 4GB download to every Chrome install[0]. As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more appreciative of platforms which don't try to redefine the problem scope, and instead just provide a platform for other things. GrapheneOS does this perfectly too. [0]: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ [1]: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chromes-silent-4gb-ai-download-problem https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chrome...
- tech234a 28d ago
  And some of these proposals are available as polyfill browser extensions for Firefox
  - tentacleuno 27d ago
    That's great from a user perspective, sure. From my perspective, with all of these different web APIs, I imagine Mozilla are walking a tightrope: if they refuse to implement all of them, there's a good chance that websites will ask the user to use Chrome, pushing it further into obscurity. Go too far, however, such as implementing Google-driven proposals like Topics, and you weaken the privacy advantages of the browser. I'm glad that they take both a moral and technological stance here - someone needs to.
0cf8612b2e1e 28d ago
I would question if those sites only worked with Chrome or just had some user agent filtering in place. There are Chrome only websites, but thankfully most things I encounter are just requiring a blessed id, which can be easily faked.
cookiengineer 28d ago
For Work they actively deactivate Linux users for "security reasons", or Microsoft makes their web apps intentionally hostile like disabling copy/paste or disabling photo/picture or file uploads for Linux users when you're allowed in the policies. Turns out, it's bypassable. They just check the User Agent and Sec-CH headers, so I built a small browser extension for Chrome that allows to modify those headers. On top of that I built chromium-profiles [1], my tool for managing those isolated sandboxes so that I can tweak/change them based on the stupid policies per O365 tenant I have to work with. So I use 3 different profiles for 3 different customers with 3 different security policies set for their organization... For being allowed to use a freaking web app. That, for me, is the only reason I still have to have chromium installed. Microsoft stupidity. I wish Firefox would focus on this sort of use case, like the "--pwa" and "--user-data" CLI flags and preinstallable extensions for those profiles. But it can't be done due to how they manage extensions with their own signing cert, how dev mode extensions are always cleared etc. Well, apart from Microsoft intentionally making webapps unusable in Firefox. [1] https://github.com/cookiengineer/chromium-profiles https://github.com/cookiengineer/chromium-profiles
dartharva 27d ago
Most office IT actively blocks it.
lelandfe 27d ago
I switched to Firefox and have regular problems with sites not supporting it. I wound up having to cave and download Chrome for backup.

tentacleuno 28d ago

Firefox is genuinely quite a good option. There are some Google-driven web proposals that they've refused to implement[0] (I'm sure I disagreed with some of them, though I forget which), but overall I've found that I've never really had to think about the browser: it's just a medium for the web. They do offer some integrated services (which some would denote as bloat), though unlike Chrome, they do let you actually turn things off, which I'm very appreciative of -- they don't seem to be nearly as forceful as Google, who recently added a 4GB download to every Chrome install[0]. As I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more appreciative of platforms which don't try to redefine the problem scope, and instead just provide a platform for other things. GrapheneOS does this perfectly too. [0]: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ [1]: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chromes-silent-4gb-ai-download-problem https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/05/google-chrome...

tech234a 28d ago
And some of these proposals are available as polyfill browser extensions for Firefox
- tentacleuno 27d ago
  That's great from a user perspective, sure. From my perspective, with all of these different web APIs, I imagine Mozilla are walking a tightrope: if they refuse to implement all of them, there's a good chance that websites will ask the user to use Chrome, pushing it further into obscurity. Go too far, however, such as implementing Google-driven proposals like Topics, and you weaken the privacy advantages of the browser. I'm glad that they take both a moral and technological stance here - someone needs to.

0cf8612b2e1e 28d ago

I would question if those sites only worked with Chrome or just had some user agent filtering in place. There are Chrome only websites, but thankfully most things I encounter are just requiring a blessed id, which can be easily faked.

cookiengineer 28d ago

For Work they actively deactivate Linux users for "security reasons", or Microsoft makes their web apps intentionally hostile like disabling copy/paste or disabling photo/picture or file uploads for Linux users when you're allowed in the policies. Turns out, it's bypassable. They just check the User Agent and Sec-CH headers, so I built a small browser extension for Chrome that allows to modify those headers. On top of that I built chromium-profiles [1], my tool for managing those isolated sandboxes so that I can tweak/change them based on the stupid policies per O365 tenant I have to work with. So I use 3 different profiles for 3 different customers with 3 different security policies set for their organization... For being allowed to use a freaking web app. That, for me, is the only reason I still have to have chromium installed. Microsoft stupidity. I wish Firefox would focus on this sort of use case, like the "--pwa" and "--user-data" CLI flags and preinstallable extensions for those profiles. But it can't be done due to how they manage extensions with their own signing cert, how dev mode extensions are always cleared etc. Well, apart from Microsoft intentionally making webapps unusable in Firefox. [1] https://github.com/cookiengineer/chromium-profiles https://github.com/cookiengineer/chromium-profiles

dartharva 27d ago

Most office IT actively blocks it.

lelandfe 27d ago

I switched to Firefox and have regular problems with sites not supporting it. I wound up having to cave and download Chrome for backup.