Privacy is like the least important reason I use Firefox. With Microsoft Edge and Opera being based on Chromium now there are just so many of them. With Chromium essentially becoming the de facto standard because everyone uses it that means Google can ignore web standards and just do whatever they want.
Stumbled over that last week. There is a company where I buy nearly all my computer stuff from, and I’m a customer for more than 20 years.
I wanted to order parts for a high-end PC, but simply could not add the motherboard to the shopping cart. Everything else was already in there. I called them, and they asked me if I used Firefox. And they told me in no uncertain terms that Firefox was dead and would no longer be supported for “safety and security reasons”, I should use Chrome or Edge instead.
If their site is too stupid to cope with Firefox, why the heck does it not tell me about this upfront, e.g. when I try to enter an item into the shopping cart?
I’ve had a few websites tell me to view their website in Chrome. I just leave, because no way am I putting any kind of personal data into a website run by such incompetent people.
I used to be a web developer. Back 8 years ago, you used to have to do a lot of special tricks to make your website look and function the same in all the browsers. Now, you really don’t. Unless you’re using some really obscure closed source codec or something, websites literally render and function properly without needing any browser specific code fixes.
There’s no excuse, unless you’re blocking older versions of every browser for security reasons, which is fine, because browsers update automatically these days, and it’s very rare for someone to be running a really old version.
If a lack of privacy is like being nude in public, Apple is an expensive bouncer at an expensive club where you take your clothes off for free in front of people who pay apple a cover charge, because Apple promised them you have the biggest tits.
On PC and Android, you can get privacy extentions like uBlock Origin that blocks most ads and trackers. What about firefox do you not like?
On Android, I personally use Fennec, which is a fork of Firefox maintained by the same non-profit organization but without any Google-Play shennanigans.
I learned about this years ago and the details are a bit hazy, but you may find this warning by the developers of uBlock Origin to be relevant.
There’s also a “uBlock” extension available on Chrome that lists ublock.org as its website. From what I remember, AdBlock Plus and/or uBlock engaged in advertisement middlemanning. Essentially, they would let ads through to the end user as long as the advertisers gave them a cut and the ads weren’t deemed “intrusive.” I know ABP did this when I switched away, I’m not sure about uBlock.
uBlock Origin is a general content blocker, which puts it ahead of ad blockers anyway. You can configure it to block things like cookie popups too.
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