> after all, Firefox is a perfectly viable alternative to Chrome that very few people use
I don't use Firefox because it's slower than Chrome and because their behavior regarding limiting which extensions are available in phones, requiring signed extensions, Firefox Pocket, ads in new tab page, etc, does not exactly give me confidence that Mozilla truly has my interests in mind. In fact I bet they'll implement the nightmare DRM API once it's done swiftly and without complaint lest their money flow suffer.
If Mozilla ever decides to stop screwing around, clearly position themselves as an ally of the consumer, clearly express support for adblockers and put resources into making the browser faster and better and more customizable instead of whatever makes their CEO richer then I'll switch to Firefox even if it is a bit slower or has some flaws.
In the meantime uBlock works right now in Chrome which makes it usable, so since Chrome is the fastest right now, Chrome it is.
> limiting which extensions are available in phones
As opposed to chrome, which doesn't allow any extensions on mobile
> requiring signed extensions,
So does chrome
> ads in new tab page
Chrome is made by a company whose main business is selling ads ...
> clearly express support for adblockers
Mozilla has long shown support for ad blockers for example, uBlock origin was the first extension aupported on mobile, Mozilla has no plans to drop the blocking WebRequest API, largely because it is needed for sophisticated ad blockers like uBlock origin, etc.
I don't agree with everything Mozilla has done, but I still think Firefox is better than the alternatives.
uBlock Origin doesn't work on mobile Chrome. I don't understand this perspective. At the very least you would want to use an alternative Chromium browser on Android, even if you weren't willing to install Firefox. You're upset about not being able to run every extension and so you're running none of them?
Look, I will absolutely criticize Mozilla for some of its policies. Pretty much every issue you've raised there is spot-on, in fact I'll go a step further and remind everyone that Pocket was kind of supposed to be Open Source by now, and it still isn't.
But it's cutting off your nose to spite your face to use Chrome. Google is less receptive to criticism than Mozilla is, has worse extension APIs and is more restrictive of how extensions get installed, has worse privacy features, allows for no extensions on phones, is more directly tied into an advertising network, and is actively trying to make the web worse.
Use Firefox.
I am not telling you to be complacent or to ignore Mozilla's problems, I am telling you not to lend support to the browser that is actively trying to make the web worse. We're all very happy for you that you're very principled about not just picking the better of two bad options. We're happy that you have those standards. But we're less thrilled about your policy of picking the worst of two bad options. At the very heckin least you're not even going to use a Chromium fork? You're just going to make the worst browser choice you can make for the Open web?
That's true, I was talking about desktop, I probably should have not mentioned the phone extension thing.
In Android I use Bromite (a Chromium fork) which I should probably replace since it's fairly outdated at this point.
But you're wrong about me not using Firefox out of spite, the real reason I don't use it is because it is (or apparently was according to the other replies) slower to the point it is noticeable, at least on my desktop (and even more so on my old phone). The rest is just why I don't support them despite being worse.
Will you at least consider switching to a DeGoogled Chromium fork? Yes, it would still be the same browser engine, but there are a lot of features in Chrome proper that Google uses to help contribute to its ad network and data collection.
Firefox may not be _as_ fast as Chrome, but it's a fairly negligible difference nowadays. rendering speed hasn't been a limiting factor for a while, and i feel like network latency and poor application optimization has been more the culprit there. you can only squeeze so much blood from the optimizing inefficient JS stone, and no amount of rendering engine optimization will ever fix shitty backend API response times
Firefox fails because there is no actual industry pressure to build a better browser. you simply can't sell a browser alone anymore: the free offerings have been good enough since the early 2000s.
Safari only needs to be good enough for iOS users to not abandon the platform entirely, and the ecosystem wants to push you into native apps anyway (Apple wants their IAP cut).
Chredge is, well, _there_, but basically just a minimum batteries included that maybe funnels some set of users into other Microsoft offerings, but it isn't the core product.
Chrome is, well, Chrome.
Firefox is comfortably supported by Google funding as an antitrust action shield. there's no real pressure for them to try and beat Chrome in market share because they're explicitly paid to be minority market share, and aren't really going to lose that share because they already have all of the "intentionally don't want to use Chrome" market. Mozilla faffs about making also-ran internet services (idk, whatever the heck that VPN offering was, etc.) because they fundamentally can't lose their main revenue stream so long as Google wants to avoid antitrust action, and have no real pressure to offer a competitive product.
I don't use Firefox because it's slower than Chrome and because their behavior regarding limiting which extensions are available in phones, requiring signed extensions, Firefox Pocket, ads in new tab page, etc, does not exactly give me confidence that Mozilla truly has my interests in mind. In fact I bet they'll implement the nightmare DRM API once it's done swiftly and without complaint lest their money flow suffer.
If Mozilla ever decides to stop screwing around, clearly position themselves as an ally of the consumer, clearly express support for adblockers and put resources into making the browser faster and better and more customizable instead of whatever makes their CEO richer then I'll switch to Firefox even if it is a bit slower or has some flaws.
In the meantime uBlock works right now in Chrome which makes it usable, so since Chrome is the fastest right now, Chrome it is.