Firefox Lost Almost 50 million Users: Here’s Why It is Concerning

I see a lot of opinions, info, and rants. This thread's more reading than LOTR. That said, I can offer my 2 cents, too:

-- I use Debian, so I can trust FF builds. This is one of the core reasons I use Debian: their package builds are quite sterile.
-- If you want privacy, use TOR Browser Bundle for private stuff, BUT NOT BANKING or important accounts. FYI, TORBB uses a modified FF base. Using TORBB lets you keep you other browsers/services running outside the TOR network plus there's zero conf and auto updates.
-- Use Youtube-dl or MPV's YT feature to watch YT videos. It makes life harder to track.
-- Use multiple browsers for each thing: Chromium is for Whatsapp only (I know there's a Flatpak app but the day I install FP is the day I eat anything from McD's). FF is for general browsing. I use NoScript and don't get why people moan, it's easy to use, you just need to know what you're doing. A mate shared a quick 'n dirty start-up wrapper script he did to start FF in a randomly-sized window every session (helps fight tracking). I use Falkon for my accounts because it works and is fast. I do also have another user (share xsession) that I use for social media on a vanilla FF appimage. I use TOR BB to visit more unsavoury sites or when I'm looking for legal grey area stuff. It's not as complex as it sounds and lends itself to good security, little cost to convenience, and tons of entropy to whatever Google profiles me as. since my custom adds offer me ladies' shoes one minute, anime-related goods, business solutions, and VPNs the next. Some tinfoil hats do work. Finally, I only use Google for necessities. I never have issues with Duck, so I think a lot is down to how you use it (like NoScript). I use GMX and Proton Mail for various accounts. Maybe I should do a Linux privacy tutorial.
-- Off-topic: And yes, I use Links a lot because I logout my xsession when I'm not using GUIs: Text mode at 1920x1080 is glorious and MPV runs nicely as a text-mode music player and is easy to control through a FIFO.
-- Off-topic: I'm surprised, I am, that someone besides myself uses /opt instead of /usr/local/bin. Well, I put builds in opt/name-of-provider/ (old-fashioned) and a softlink in /usr/local/bin IF I want it to be invoke-able by name instead of full path.

Ultimately, I know FF, I've used it ever since breaking away from IE, even before I was a Linux user. I'm used to it. I feel secure with my setup as-is. I have no speed complaints because to me, Chromium is just as slow, but that may be my internet bottlenecking them since I'm using LTE (router with SIM slot + data package, lol) since I cannot afford cable. Up side: dynamic IP address. I know FF is facing hard times, but it lost its popularity before when Chrome came out and it bounced back. Chances are it will again. It's too much hassle to change browsers. Besides, what are my other options? They all suck in their own way.
 


I don't know about others, but I'm back using Firefox. For lots of reasons:
- Firefox sends telemetry to Mozilla and Google (as I tested with WireShark), but I can disable them all by using FF Profilemaker. https://ffprofile.com/
- I can download Firefox from the Mozilla website and then set up as many profiles as I can for different purposes. I stored my Firefox browsers in a different folder located at home/user/Firefox-Apps.
- I can choose the search engines on Firefox. The default search engine is DuckDuckGo, but in case I want more accurate results, I would use Google, Youtube, or Wikipedia.
- Other than that I also use Vivaldi since Vivaldi allows me to choose the search engines when searching. Select text on a website, right-click and then choose Search With.
- As for Brave, I have used it a lot since 2019, but then I switched to Vivaldi and Firefox around 3 months ago.
 
- Firefox sends telemetry to Mozilla and Google (as I tested with WireShark), but I can disable them all by using FF Profilemaker. https://ffprofile.com/
You can disable that in FF settings > privacy & security.
EDIT: Ok, while the above is true, the FF profile maker thing can do wonders. Thanks for sharing! :)
 
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Just learned about this https://itsfoss.com/firefox-containers/
What is Multi-Account Container in Firefox?

Mutli-Account Containers also works tremendously well if you want to separate parts of your digital life from each other. When you are using containers, your browsing activity from one container is not shared with other containers. This isolation means that you can log into two separate accounts on the same website in different containers. Your login session, site preference and tracking data will be confined to the container where you used a certain website.
 
I was using 'Firefox Multi-Account Containers' up until the time I swapped over to brave.

I found it to be very good at 'compartmentalising' the sites such as Facebook, etc etc...

The Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension lets you carve out a separate box for each of your online lives – no more opening a different browser just to check your work email!
 
i've installed brave on Arch from AUR the brave-bin version ; may remove F.F after a period of testing , that still leaves me with Dillo and Chromium as back up
 
I am using Brave Browser on desktop and DuckDuckGo on my phone. I am not supporting google or Microsoft, but I moved away from FireFox since they came out in support of far left, demanding more censorship. Not sure what others look for in a browser, but if I can cut out any political stance from my browsing data, I will. At this point FF can crush and burn.
 
I am using Brave Browser on desktop and DuckDuckGo on my phone. I am not supporting google or Microsoft, but I moved away from FireFox since they came out in support of far left, demanding more censorship. Not sure what others look for in a browser, but if I can cut out any political stance from my browsing data, I will. At this point FF can crush and burn.

Big Tech, and Big Business in general, cashing in on woke capitalism has already led to self-destructive results, and after enough people stop buying into this scam, and plenty of other scams they've created over the years, they're going to go bankrupt left and right. In the case of Big Tech, their abolition mitigates the potential reality of an Orwellian society. However, what concerns me is these corporations are going to cause another economic crash because of how much influence they have. While creating a series of Linux-based companies could help mitigate the ripple effects of that, the problem is it's going to take years for those companies to develop any kind of success.
 
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Meh, Firefox has always been under the radar in terms of the general public for a long time. Partially because of Chrome and Google's marketing, partially because with using a different browser engine, I think that does alienate some people. Most of the popular browsers out there besides Firefox are all Chrome engine based (Brave, Opera, Vivaldi). Only difference is Safari but Apple and MacOS are sorta islands compared to the rest of the operating system world in a way.
 
I had switched to Brave a couple months ago after using Firefox for years.
The reason was that I found Brave a better browser in terms in privacy.
But now I've come to really like chrome-based browsers that is not Chrome browser itself like Brave/Opera.
Of course you can't fully trust any service on the internet, even Brave/Firefox you never know xd.
 

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