So, I’m staying with #Firefox, even though their CEO is tone-deaf and clumsy and destroying #Mozilla’s reputation because today I had to remove 6 extensions in #Vivaldi (my sometimes alternate browser), several of which were security-related, because of Google’s changes. I miss them. I want them back.
Bottom line. I definitely feel more secure using Firefox than a Chrome-based browser, and I won’t let my disappointment with Mozilla kill off the only alternative to Google. I will continue using Firefox.
As far as using a fork of Firefox, if Firefox doesn’t live on, neither will these forks.
developing Firefox costs $500,000,000 a year, according to Mozilla’s books. you won’t get the kind of hours that money buys you from a volunteer only project.
and for better or worse (it’s worse), google dictates the Internet’s shape. any browser that can’t keep up with what google offers is untenable.
This is like saying Linux can’t be viable because Microsoft spends an estimated 3-5 Bilion on windows annually.
To me, the value of the internet is in connecting people with freedom of expression. I don’t know what you believe any of us is gaining by letting google walk over us.
If we just stop playing along it looks like the enshitificated corpo owned sites are doing us one favor by isolating themselves from us, motivating innovation. But we wont be isolated from the net. We will be right here.
And if we look at historical references of a split internet. Facebook has an .onion version to be used with tor. So actually, they will still be chasing us. Because they need us way more then we need them.
it’s more like saying Linux wouldn’t be viable at the scale it exists at today if it suddenly had the resources it had in 1995.
i want to believe development on Firefox could continue without Mozilla, but browsers are a fast-moving target with a massive attack surface.
No, because Linux is backed by big corpos, Microsoft included. Firefox isn’t.
Google only dictates the internets shape because we allow them to. It’s time to start moving away where we can, and encouraging others to do the same.
You don’t have to completely degoogle all at once, but moving your emails to a privacy-respecting alternative is a quick, one-time step you can take to reduce their market share
agree, with the caveat that “we” isn’t us the individuals, but rather the companies that pay google.
Agree, with the caveat that “we” is all of the above because fuck every source of data and income for Google
I was more thinking along the lines of, google doesn’t care what free users do. they are an advertising company with a business service arm, so their money comes from advertisers and business accounts. every private individual could degoogle right now and google would keep running just fine.
You are absolutely correct on every point. I just really don’t like Google so I want them to choke