- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Just use Firefox.
Unrelated, but why is it that so many kbin users seem to keep a dedicated reducing account? Relatively frequently, an account that reduces a post or comment has no recent posts or comments but heavy initial usage a ~month ago as jpgr above. It’s weird.
I think those existed on Reddit too. It’s just that you could never actually confirm they existed.
Which was why they existed, as alts to upvote a user’s own posts and downvote opposing ones.
Except now we’re on kbin, we can see them.
I downvoted because it was a lazy comment not providing further elaboration. If anything, the fact that such a comment is highly upvoted shows that this community is not mature yet.
That I’m not engaging in online discussion doesn’t automatically mean this is a bot or “dedicated reducing” account. Please restrain yourself from judging strangers on the internet.
In a space dominated by people endlessly sharing opinions and articles and memes, it’s just extremely peculiar to find accounts like yours so frequently downvoting while absent other activities even if it’s relatively mundane. Take, for instance, the upvotes on nothingwise’s comment where 1/5 are blank accounts. The novelty of the information sets off alarm bells, so I apologize if I was mistaken. I’m not trying to start a witch-hunt or JAQ off so I’ll leave it at that.
Firefox + uBlock Origin + arkenfox user.js gives you privacy, security and anti-tracking. The only way to fly IMO.
And a Pi Hole for good measure.
A dns blocker cannot do anything more than ublock. It is nice for other apps though.
A DNS blocker is great for other devices on your network!
Or Adguard Home, that I think is superior than Pi-Hole. It runs as a single instance and you can easily upgrade it from the web UI.
Librewolf
No android version = no buy
Mull for android
White list firewall. Because this is the real reason everyone has a right to ad block. Ads are hidden links to other websites. It’s like walking through a gauntlet of pick pockets bribing the credit card company just to make it to the checkout at your local grocery store, or some asshole you invite into your home that goes to the bathroom, opens a window, and lets a dozen random people in your home if they pay a dollar for the access. The entire system is based on stalking people. It is criminal.
What does Arkenfox do? I’ll definitely add it if it’s beneficial.
It changes many default Firefox preferences in
about:config
to be as private as possible. The main selling point is resist fingerprinting (RFP). I highly suggest reading the wiki. It can break some websites, but you can configure it to fit your needs.
On mac? Love safari? But also want good adblock? Use Orion! It’s safari, but with support for chrome and Firefox extensions! Fuck yeah!
I always loved safari, and always got weird looks for it as a web developer (but after a month or two they love me for it because I always find non-chrome bugs because those peasants only use chrome), but that browser is so damn good guys… on mac, that is. Not sure if it even exists yet for linux/win.
Orion
Thanks for the tip! Do you know any similar solution like this for iOS? I’m struggling to find a fully featured browser with decent ad-blocking capacity.
Orion is available for iOS and iPadOS too.
Just moved from Brave to Firefox when that “AI training” story came out. I think it’s faster than brave now
I use chrome on my mobile device… Is that bad?
Might as well take shits with the door unlocked; same level of exposing yourself.
Ooh tell me more
About Chrome, or the shitting?
yes
The shitting with the door open. That’s why you can’t get married, dad. ( Sorry for the shotty Stepbrothers reference)
And ads. Ads everywhere.
In a way yes. You’re giving Google (via an increased browser market share) the power to decide the direction of the web. Their interests as a corporate organization are not aligned with yours, so they will make decisions to your detriment if they have to.
I don’t know how people browse the web on mobile with ads taking half of the screen.
It’s not really bad per se, it’s the default on most Android devices these days. The problem is that almost all modern browsers are Chromium-based which give Google a lot of power to implement changes (see manifest v3 & web DRM). Personally, I’m trying to slowly reduce my usage of Google products. I’m using Firefox on desktop and a mix of DDG+Fennec on my phone.
Thank You! I’ll look into DDG n Fennec.
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
Firefox and mozilla aren’t your friend.
They like to play the “user and privacy friendly” company. Meanwhile they are hemoraging users, and laying off staff needed to actually build a great browser.
Mozilla ceo pay increase + layoffs in 2020:
In 2018 she received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated “I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That’s too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to.”
In 2020, after returning to the position of CEO, her salary had risen to over $3 million. In the same year the Mozilla Corporation laid off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.
They don’t need to be my friend to be better than the chromium browsers though, so I don’t know what this has to do with anything
What’s the alternative though, we have Chrome and Firefox as choices. Chrome is far worse than some issues with Firefox around CEO pay.
I bounced between the two for years, i guess i am going back to Firefox full time.
I used Brave for a few years but recently switched to LibreFox. I really enjoyed Brave as a browser but couldn’t handle all the sketchy shit that seems to keep coming up
I really enjoy the chromium grouping of tabs. So much so that’s it’s almost a deciding factor for which browser I choose. I hope Firefox adds that feature soon, so the switch back feels easier
Try the Simple Tab Groups addon for Firefox. I’ve been using it for years and prefer it to any other tab grouping now.
The only reason I haven’t switched to Firefox from Chrome fully is because for some reason Firefox for Android still doesn’t have tabs for large screen devices. Mozilla says it’s not a priority. 🤷
Firefox for Android removing the ability to open local html files killed it for me. Currently on Vivaldi.
Why did they remove it though? I was surprised too when I found out I needed to run local webserver to access local html files
It was because of ‘security’, which was never explained. And it doesn’t make much sense when other browsers can and do alow it. I’ll see if I can dig up some historical links if I remember tomorrow.
Last time I checked,there was still no acknowledgement of it and appeared to be no intention of ever addressing it. The fact that they’re now telling people to run a webserver suggests that nothing has changed ☹️
If that’s your only gripe with it, you can still access them by using one of the simple web servers available running inside Termux, that will also allow you to avoid CORS related problems, in fact it is the currently suggested method on MDN
Yeah, nah. I’ve already got enough unnecessary apps and services with Android.
Thanks for the workaround, though.
So use edge
Its chrome-based… but at least its not brave, and the adblocker(which is off by default…) is decent enough
If you think the things brave has done are bad, go read through the list of things microsoft has done. You really don’t want them to ever have a browser again, and certainly don’t want to personally use it.
deleted by creator
With brave I never see any pc or YouTube ads. With Firefox even with ublock origin I can’t get rid of those damn ads. That’s what keeps me on brave
No ads on YT with Firefox + uBlock, not sure why your setup isn’t working.
Doesn’t Firefox do telemetry and other shady shit out of the box? Ofc you can turn it off but I don’t get the fanaticism over this browser.
Every now and then, you’ll see some journalist uncovering the great revelation that Mozilla is doing unthinkable things, but I have never these stories actually being relevant, if you do more research on the topic.
Some examples:
- Mozilla use Google Analytics! → Yes, but they have a special contract with Google to protect user data: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
- Mozilla uses Google Safebrowsing! → Yes, but they have technical measures in place to limit user identification (on top of Google stating that they do not use Google Safebrowsing data for tracking): https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/how-safe-browsing-works-in-firefox/
- Mozilla has privacy-invading ads on the new-tab-page! → Again, they have technical measures in place to avoid privacy issues: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sponsor-privacy#w_what-data-is-shared
And telemetry by itself is not evil either. It depends entirely on what data is actually being sent. You can look at what Mozilla sends by typing “about:telemetry” into the URL bar. In my opinion, that is perfectly fine.
Ultimately, though, they enjoy so much trust, because they have no profit motive. The Mozilla Foundation is legally a non-profit and the Mozilla Corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the Foundation, so cannot pay out profits to anyone either.
Any ‘evil’ shit they do to make money, they do it to pay wages and to invest further into Firefox & their other projects.
You can criticize that the CEO takes a salary she can’t possibly spend (yet is below industry-standard, to my knowledge). And you can argue whether they should be taking so much money from Google rather than other sources.
But all in all, that still leaves them far above companies who need to exploit users as much as justifiable, to make the maximum amount of profit.
This is the way.
The ceo is a bigoted asshole, Brave is chromium, it was initially funded by Peter Thiel and they’re literally just trying to make their own adsense network.
The self-proclaimed privacy focused browser is tracking your browsing and want to serve you personalized ads, and I think they want to use that tracking data for AI training as well, meaning other people can potentially access it.
And lets not forget about their crypto currency that you can earn by turning on special ads. Which they seemingly unironically called it “Basic Attent Tokens”…
TL;DR: The company is basically a sham company trying to usher in a dystopia. Where you’ll get paid for staring at ads, while having all your data stolen and sold back to you.
I see no reason to use any other browser than Firefox and maybe Librewolf.
Firefox on desktop is awesome. Firefox on mobile is painful.
It works pretty well for me, but I use Firefox nightly.
I am using Brave on iOS mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
I am forced to use Chromium on my work laptop because MS Teams doesn’t work (all the features) on Firefox.
Which features I’ve never had an issue
The custom background effects don’t work on Firefox
Same. I use furefox for everything* at work, despite everything being heavily integrated with teams, sharepoint, et.al.
*: The only thing that doesn’t work with firefox is this inhouse web service that hasn’t been updated since 2017. It’s about to be replaced anyway, so nobody bothered to fix/update it.
Simple one-to-one calling is disabled saying it’s only available on Chrome. I’m pretty sure it’s recent since I had calls a few months back on Firefox. I’m also sure that it’s not some group policy since I’m on Ubuntu without any sort of ActiveDirectory so it’s a pure browser issue. Also, they force the old UI in Firefox due to some reason. Typical BS from Microsoft.
Does changing user agent mitigate some of those issues?
I’ve tried it today and yeah, 1-to-1 calls magically/unsurprisingly start working. In fact, the whole UI gets a facelift and lots of new features.
If I had to guess, I’d say Microsoft keeps around a version of their UI, which hasn’t been maintained in over a year, and serves that to anyone initiating communication with a user-agent string they don’t like.
If that’s true, that’s a massive security vulnerability. Admittedly, also unsurprising for Microsoft. @[email protected]
Wow, that’s egregious on so many levels!
This kind of browser apartheid should be illegalThanks a lot for this…time to get an extension.
I use Firefox as my primary browser and run the teams app.
they start crying when I open Firefox.
Good. Use it anyway, and bathe in their tears!
So Mull browser, right?
Yeah top 4 browser are Firefox, librewolf, tor, and mullvad for sure.
mull and mullvad are at least two different things
Autocorrect so strong it turns your browser into a VPN
Removed by mod
The fact that their founder wants to ban gay marriage is enough reason for me to avoid it like the plague.
I dont know why anyone would leave chrome and land on something like brave.
If youre ditching chrome, which you should, go to an actual different browser and use Firefox.
Personal anecdote:
When I initially decided to drop Chrome, I moved to Brave because - as a chromium-based browser - it supported the same set of extensions I’d grown accustomed to.
That being said, the crypto stuff weirded me out enough that, once I’d weaned myself off the extensions, I switched to Firefox.
What extensions does chrome have which are useful that Firefox doesn’t?
My only recurring issue with Firefox, which may have been fixed I dunno, is it for some reason it “isn’t officially supported” or whatever exact wording to use hardware security keys (like yubikey, which I use on every account that allows it). It’s only certain websites that don’t want to work though. Like google, Microsoft and many others were fine but I think paypal didn’t want to work properly but it does work on Edge, Chrome, probably Brave. Overall annoying as fuck at times but I deal with it to be out of Google’s-world
Only one I missed was PushBullet, it was the easiest way to text from browser and get articles from phone/computer. Nothing I’ve tried on Firefox has worked as well
at the time; the great suspender (although that’s dead on chrome now too)
project naptha is the only one that has stuck with me since i left chrome, and has no firefox alternative to my knowledge
deleted by creator
That’s gonna be quite difficult, unfortunately
What if the apps aren’t for online use?
Chromium has metric shit tons of work done that seems to perform great. What I would love to see is for Mozilla to fork Chromium, staff it with enough people to maintain it, add/remove the features they feel are appropriate/inappropriate, and thus reuse the tons of free work Google and others have already done. As a software engineer, I don’t buy the argument that it’s easier to correctly implement every new web feature anew than maintaining a fork. Every large org that ships anything based on Android for example maintains a fork of an even bigger codebase. It’s not as complicated as people make it out to be. It’s not a new problem and there are strategies to manage it. If Mozilla does this, they’ll be able to play an active role in steering by far the biggest rendering engine’s direction, instead of playing opposition with no stake in it. Now downvote away! 😄
The more market share chrome based browsers have, the easier it is for google to inflict their agenda for the internet on everyone. If firefox didnt exist, every web developer would be optimizing their sites only for chrome, and responding quickly to any change google wants to make.
It really doesn’t matter what Firefox’es codebase is though. To a web developer it’s a black box. It may as well be COBOL. So long as enough people use it and it behaves differently to a web developer than Google’s Chromium or Chrome, the goal you mentioned is achieved. This is why I don’t buy this argument.
Streaming services seem to lower bitrate when I’m using Firefox vs Brave, so Brave is my go to for streaming.
I use Firefox for everything else.
I am using Brave mainly because of its superb YouTube support - It has a built in ad block, can download videos offline and play minimized. Is there any way I can achieve this with any other browser? I would switch immediately.
I’ve tried Firefox several times but always end up back on chromium due to compatibility; a lot of sites don’t play well with anything but chrome anymore and this is very much something intentionally caused by Google, who have basically taken a page out of Microsoft’s playbook but with a much more mature product that is going to be substantially harder to replace then IE was
Brave is the only browser I know that can play youtube videos in the background on mobile. Please tell me another browser that can do that. The UX is just really good.
Vivaldi can do that, there is an option in settings. Firefox mobile does that with an addon.
Why not use NewPipe?
I have absolutely no idea how Brave got the reputation it has. It’s business model is disgusting and extortionate, it’s like paying for warez. Been clear as day since day one.
Brave is a marching band of red flags. It claims privacy while injecting ads, affiliate codes and crypto into the browser. It’s kind of sad to see someone like Brendan Eich who should know better turn to the dark side and pretend this is all fine. It isn’t.
Best advice I could give for anyone who wants privacy is use Firefox or a branch of it. Firefox is out of the box the most privacy conscious mainstream browser and add-ons make it more so. If you want absolute privacy you could even use a derivative like Tor Browser.
The fact that its main 2 gimmicks are a shitty ad blocker and integrated cryptocurrency should be enough of a red flag, honestly. Just use Firefox, people!
Firefox is king 👑
the hateful browser
Holy shit man imagine if we judged every huge project by one asshole at the top. There wouldn’t be a single thing to enjoy in this world.
Edit:
I am going to add more perspective to this, because holy shit people are so into eating nothing burgers.
Reddit/Twitter was a database and API that everyone was centralized onto, there was no choice. Brave you can literally fork because its open source. Aside from that this was literally the CEO’s personal donation of $1000…in like 2014. Almost 10 yrs ago.
Elon, as CEO and on the X/Twitter brand:
- “brainwashed” https://www.news18.com/buzz/elon-musk-causes-uproar-with-anti-lgbtq-anti-vax-meme-insults-random-twitter-user-6714733.html
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-twitter-makes-millions-off-anti-lgbt-groomer-tweets-report
- https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musks-new-twitter-pronoun-rule-invites-bullying-lgbtq-groups-say-rcna87336
- https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/21/elon-musk-triples-down-on-making-twitter-terrible-for-trans-people/
Meanwhile Brendan:
- Literally stepped down as CEO https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/brendan-eich-resigns-as-mozilla-corporation-ceo/
- https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/
- made personal blog post about inclusivity shortly after https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/
- invented and worked on/for javascript, brave, firefox
Gnubyte
Vivaldi? Trusting a closed sourced application for privacy? What?
Not even defending brave here, just weird that the author say that.
Today I learned that people take it VERY PERSONALLY when you criticize their chosen browser. 😂
Long time Brave user here. This made me uninstall Brave and move to Firefox. Thank you !
I can’t think of a reason why anyone would use a browser other than Firefox and it’s forks.
This article is useless trash. There is no real technical argument here except “founder bad”.
I do have reasons for not using Brave, but it’s to do with the annoying defaults and the crypto integration. They default whitelist Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook garbage that I have to go and toggle off.
Given the level of effort and extensions like Facebook container on Firefox, I just prefer the better experience for me. This bullshit about getting on identity politics agendas I find abhorrent and repulsive. This author’s a stupid fuckhead.