Ask HN: With trust in Firefox gone, is Chrome-ish the only option?
As a privacy conscious user that loves open source software, I'm really puzzled regarding browsers right now. It's confusing.
It feels like basically everything is Chrome nowadays.
Are there any alternatives to Chrome-based browsers?
Best wishes and have a wonderful week
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?
From long experience we expect Google and hence Chrome to act against our interests. We have not expected that of Mozilla and Firefox.
Google did give us a lot of warning that they would greatly restrict ad-blocking and tracker-blocking, so most of that angst has already been and gone.
But firefox always was a monopoly figleave sockpuppet - and now they do not need it anymore, so firefox either finds a new purpose (doing what it promised) or it tries to sell out in one final scam.
> From long experience we expect Google and hence Chrome to act against our interests. We have not expected that of Mozilla and Firefox.
HN used to gush over how great Chrome was. Some of us were saying, um guys, you know google is in the business of selling advertising right? Nobody seemed to care. Now mozilla's lawyers have them change some legalese and they are instantly the bad guys.
> meanwhile Chrome gutted uBlock and other extensions a week ago and there was barely any noise about it
Because anyone who cared knew this was coming in the near future after they published manifest v3 several years ago. Back then there was a huge kerfuffle, but since then anyone who cared has moved on.
Well, no one (sane) has any illusions left about chrome.
But FF was supposed to remain the shiny counterexample (despite acting also shady since years).
It is still the least worse option. These posts like OP is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
>there was barely any noise about it.
10 posts daily about it on HN.
> 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)
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>What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?
It's not the resources. It's their holier than thou attitude.
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Mozilla revenue in 2014, the year eich was made ceo: $329.6M
Mozilla revenue in 2015, having “gone woke” and fired him: $421.3M
Go woke go earn 28% more, i guess?
Not to throw this discussion on too long a tangent, but this honestly reads in exactly the same way as fawning comments about Putin "saving his country" by presiding over a period of record-high oil prices.
On the bright side, he and his cronies didn't steal absolutely everything, and some scraps made it to the rest of the population.
Mozilla's leadership is a cancer that will kill it, and will take the work of many good, talented technical people down the drain. IRL parallels abound.
Listen, mozilla's got problems - we can agree on that, and you don't need to compare me to a putin apologist to make that point.
But "go woke go broke" is dumb sloganeering and plainly false. It's not a description of how the world works - it's a call to arms to boycott things labeled "woke". Sometimes things labeled "woke" do well because of their "wokeness", other times the "anti-woke" backlash kills them. Plenty of things "go woke" without ever being labeled "woke".
Either way, my only real point in citing revenue numbers is to point out that ten years after the whole Eich debacle, mozilla's still not broke. Seems like maybe their problems are unrelated to "wokeness".
And.. where does the revenue come from?
Nearly all increase is from Google and their deal with them, a deal that was done before Brendan became CEO. So the revenue would increase no matter who became CEO.
It's such a funny and incredibly stupid rhetoric to blame the "woke".
You come here to write that, but you never bother to tell us why?
The issue with "wokeness" is that the people who adhere to these ideologies tries to shoehorn it into every single aspect of their lives and to every single thing they possibly can. Everything must be political, everything is about what they think matter and so on.
That's why you see companies fail so massively when ruled by people like this. They can't help themselves and alienate people, completely unnecessary, and usually turn supporters into haters.
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.
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).
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
Chrome was NEVER (and won't be ever) the option.. https://contrachrome.com/
This is a silly statement. Mozilla revised the terms almost a week ago after people complained: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techn...
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.
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.
> you can't be serious, surely?
Probably rage-bait.
You may have missed Mozilla's update: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms..., discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612
I don't think trust in Firefox should be gone.
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!
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.
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
As a privacy conscious user I'm surprised you consider anything other than firefox. Is is not confusing.
I have been out of the loop, what happened with Firefox?
added new terms of use which are very questionable: https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b...
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
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.
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:
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...
So. Maybe they should stop doing that thing?
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.
Yes, I heard it was because of Pocket. Of course, they could have just been transparent about ti when people asked about it.
Including: "Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for ANY reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer Firefox anymore." Emphasis mine.
Holy smokes. Mozilla is slowly tightening their grip on Firefox. We're looking at another SourceForge/StackOverflow/Reddit type of private equity takeover, I'm sure.
Edit. Forgot: StackOverflow and Trello on that list.
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.
Chrome (and Chromium) are created by the world's largest ad company. It was never an option.
Stick with Firefox and WebKit based browsers.
true
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?
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.
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.
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.
Just keep using Firefox or a fork like Zen.
The idea that using a chrome fork is somehow better is ridiculous.
Orion uses webkit, not sponsored by ad revenue
> 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.
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?
Sadly no linux support :-(
It has since a few days : https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/kag-orion-web-browser-co...
GNOME Web (formerly Epiphany) is also based on Webkit: https://apps.gnome.org/Epiphany/
Though I guess it's not extensible so you'll have to get some other way to block ads.
Linux soon
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.
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?
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-...
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.
Trust in Firefox is not gone, and chrome is not the only option.
You can not convince me this thread is not either made by someone in college or by a google plant.
I dont ever trust Chrome
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.
So many people don't seem to know the difference between Chrome and Chromium.
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?
There's mozilla free versions of firefox, additionally there's ladybird browser in the brewing.
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 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser) [3] https://www.youtube.com/@LadybirdBrowser/videos
Libra Wolf - early fork of Firefox maintained separately - supports FF addons
Right now: Waterfox and Florp, both based on FF.
In long run: I hope Ladybird will become usable in the next couple of years.
brave?
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?
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.
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?