This article is dogshit. Not only do they not say what they turned to (betcha its fuckin brave. It always is with these types.)
Its also a two parter, I am not returning for part two I guarantee you.
Meh, until there is an actually good alternative to Firefox with a mature extension ecosystem I’ll continue to use it and just disable the new features I don’t like. I have tried a bunch of the alternatives and they’re all either massively lacking in extensions, are chromium-based, or are sketchy in some way. I think the most promising potential replacement is flalkon, but it’s not there yet and I’m a GTK Stan anyway.
Any gecko-based fork will have everything good about FF (including the addon store) and none of the Mozilla corporation. Waterfox for a seamless de-mozilla’d fork (and nothing else) or Librewolf for extra hardened privacy and fingerprint resistance (plus daily annoyances that come with that).
I switched from FF to WF about a year ago. Copied over my profile folder in its entirety. Didn’t do anything else. Everything worked exactly as if I’d just updated FF.
You know I don’t think I ever checked out waterfox. I’ll give it a look.
After about a year with the browser, I’ll cheerlead it in every thread about Mozilla Corp getting in bed with another ad company or pushing anti-features “that you can toggle off so it’s fine!” into the browser. All the benefits of Firefox as a platform and code base, with no corporation that could profit from you in any way involved. No mandatory ToS, no account, no nothin’. Just a tool for browsing the web, with the full ecosystem of extensions made for Firefox.
I myself will stick to stock Firefox until a credible alternative to Mozilla’s development work on Gecko arises (emphasis on the “work”).
I see this take a lot, usually revolving around “doing your part” to keep that tiny sliver of Firefox usage up in siteside metrics. Decide what’s right for your case, but know that Waterfox and Firefox broadcast the same browser user agent so using WF doesn’t take away “market share” from FF. The only thing using FF instead of WF does to “support firefox” is giving Mozilla Corp your data to “not sell, california just calls it selling” and your clicks on its built-in ads - if you’re turning all that stuff off by hand it’s the same as running WF.
Can’t wait for the followup piece to be a shitty ad for brave.
I just play League: Shadow Legends on my phone through double NordVPN accounts (if you sign up now you get two, so you get double protection) with Incogni. My news? Ground News.
Those are the four internet companies I use for my day to day business. I also buy a lot of tshirts and merch. I got a coffee cup with a cat on it, in a funny pose.
Lastly, If the news gets you down, then do what I was told to say, use Better Health. Picking someone who works for you can be difficult, and here at Better Health, you are able to switch to a different mental health proffesional, free of charge. Join our glorified chat service passing for mental health, today.
Lastly, lastly, do not forget to purchase my brand new power energy slop or lunchables for your kids, they are almost food. The lunchables, not the kids.
if you sign up now you get two, so you get double protection
Can you please explain how you think that works?
I assume its over-the-top sarcasm
I worry that some people actually think that’s how it works.
It is, sir. You can rest soundly. Here’s a bunch of these if you feel like you need them in the future:
/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s
Edit: I should really stop being so snarky, sometimes I let the fun get the better of me, but I don’t mean it, except I kind of do, but not really, so don’t let anyone let it get to them.
The person is saying that they’ve replaced web browsing with playing a cash grab mobile game through two VPNs. On Lemmy. Are we really that far gone? Replaced Firefox with Raid Shadow Legends is “worryingly realistic”?
Just like putting the second condom on your balls.
they kinda already had a followup piece here; https://hackaday.com/2025/04/07/which-browser-should-i-use-in-2025/ which points to vivaldi and librewolf
and i kinda agree with them; i hate the chromium monopoly but i’ve been using vivaldi more precisely because it was european based (aside from the uplink chromium) and the fact they’ve taken a hardline stance against adding ai features. being able to add filterlists to the build in blocker is nice too.
and this is from someone who has loved mozilla since netscape days and has used firefox since it was firebird.
I have been on Firefox since it was called Mosaic*. I changed to Vivaldi because they actually have a shit of features I use and like. But then Google said, “no ublock for u!”, so I said, “fuck u, no customer for u!” and went back to Firefox.
It’s literally the one reason I use FF. Because I’m old and get the FUCK off my lawn.
* it had a swirling thing
I’ve been using various Firefox forks occasionally since before it was cool and that’s still a respectable choice in my opinion. I still cling to the faint hope that maybe Google will not be in exclusive control of web standards but it might be pointless if everyone is ready to hop on the hip chromium skin of the month every time Mozilla corp does something stupid and out of touch. Manifest v3 should have been a much bigger wake-up call for the privacy minded chromium user, but I guess people are satisfied as long as Google lets them block most ads if they feel like allowing it.
As I understand it, there were genuine security reasons for Manifest v3. Browser extensions are a great vector for malware and under manifest v2 it was very easy to sneakily distribute that malware … or something.
Honestly I didn’t look into it that much because I’d use Firefox either way.
I don’t like Brave’s leadership or crypto, but the problem for me is that Brave ticks the most boxes
- Adblocking
- Privacy
- Security
- Multiplatform
- Web Apps
There are browsers that do stuff better, like Vanadium and Trivalent, but those are locked to specific platforms, have poor built in ad blockers, and encourage you to never install extensions for security reasons.
And if I want to avoid the Chromium monopoly, there’s Webkit which still manages to have good security and privacy, but there’s no Webkit browser on Android and on Linux, Gnome Web feels slow to use and doesn’t have a good adblocker.
That being said, I’m still on Firefox right now. Chromium has some weird quirks on the desktop that annoys me so much.
Why not just IronFox and LibreWolf?
I still don’t understand the hate towards the AI features in Firefox.
Could they focus on other topics? Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are and since Firefox is Foss you can remove what you don’t like by joining a project focused on that.
IMHO some of the features are cool, specially, because it’s local AI with no dependency on any provider
Could someone explain in a civilised manner why you don’t like the AI features?
I don’t think the backlash is coming from the features. It’s coming from the fact that we’re constantly being prompted to please try the “AI” features. Companies installing “AI <something>” on your devices without you asking. Re-installing them when you try to delete them. They don’t even
tellshow you why it’s better they just slap “AI” on it.Anything that this tech does and is actually good, speaks for itself, so it just goes unnoticed. People end up associating it with the worst and now Firefox is also saying: Hey we have “AI” too. Of course people are gonna be mad, especially when they are already fed up with being prompted to try it constantly.
The effort to put the AI into Firefox harmed the project and unrelated services. My opinion is it was not worth the cost
To me, AI in Firefox is a symbol for why and how Mozilla lost its momentum. I could have used other bone headed and incompetent decisions, but the switch to the AI had such a large burden that it’s literally the poster child for inept management.
Yes, but to get new users they have to meet them where they are
Do you want enshittification? Because that’s how you get enshittification.
Provide a solid product, screw the customer. The customer doesn’t know what they want, and they are always wrong.
The customer doesn’t know what they want, and they are always wrong.
Do you want enshittification? Because that’s what the authors of all the enshittification have said in the last decade
Providing a solid product and trying new things (specially things that can be toggled off in the settings, although it could be easier) is not incompatible and might uncover new useful use cases. I don’t love all the recent developments but all the hate is overblown
Look, I was just being cynical and snarky. For real, man.
I don’t know what to do about it.
What is your suggestion?
I mean, are you happy with where things are headed?
because most of the ai features they’re touting are around chatbots which are just websites, which makes it pointless to build into the browser.
I personally found it a somewhat interesting use case, although rarely needed it and they have also implemented other “AI” stuff like the website translation tool which allowed me to avoid Google translate (and is fully local)
I didn’t see anything running locally, just hooks to existing online chatbots. I’m not sure who is asking for that, but it feels like it isn’t the users
Check the website translation tool great use of local “AI”
I don’t care what happens, you’ll take my proper Manifest v2 Adblocker from my dead cold hands
Holy shit, stop crying about the unintrusive and easy to disable AI features or whatever they mean by privacy feature. Are we still spreading FUD about their FAQ changes?
Am I blind or on in this weirdly written article they didn’t mention the said alternative they found? A Firefox fork?
If it is Brave like someone mentioned in the comments, they probably don’t know who Brendan Eich is.
Enshittification is a process. Right now i don’t see any alternatives that do better so I am looking forward to that follow up article.
If only there was some way to just not use the ai features and move on with your life.
Que the smallest violin in the world…
¿Qué?
