FF Is Rapidly Becoming Useless and User-Hostile | Hacker News Reader

FF Is Rapidly Becoming Useless and User-Hostile

techrights.org

4 pointsURfejk5 comments

I could not be bothered watching the video after reading the rant that basically seems to distil down to:

"javascript is bad because Google"

"usenet is bad because Google"

"Firefox is bad because Google".

If Firefox is "rapidly becoming useless and user-hostile", you must be using a different version of Firefox than me. If you don't like Firefox because Google gives Mozilla a lot of money to keep anti-trust inspectors away then feel free to contribute yourself either financially or via pull requests. Mozilla accepts both.

Obviously, it all really distills down to whether you think surveillance capitalism is good or bad. And Google is just one of the premier practitioners of it.

If you think surveillance capitalism is good, you might as well use Chrome.

If you think it is bad, FF is not an reasonable alternative since it is sponsored by it.

Bottom line --- the case for FF is weak --- as witnessed by recent market share reports.

NordVPN gives only two browsers a 5 out of 5 for privacy (one of the being Firefox).

https://nordvpn.com/blog/best-privacy-browser/

Other than Safari (getting only 3 out of 5), the entire list is based on Chromium or Firefox source code.

If anything that Google touches is poisoned, there are no alternatives other than to find a text based browser like lynx.

Based on your own reference, Google's "touch" is apparently inadequate to "poison" source code. Epic was also rated 5 stars --- and it is based on Chromium source.

The real problem with surveillance capitalism is the profit motive and the fact that profit is obtained at the expense of the user's privacy.

Without delving into details, Mozilla has an obvious conflict of interest with regard to privacy since nearly all their funding is derived from surveillance capitalism.

Chromium is more in bed with Microsoft and Google than Mozilla is. That is the point. You can't claim Firefox is bad for using google resources then claim that Chromium is not likewise bad for using Google and Microsoft resources.

Just to be absolutely clear. I think Firefox is just fine and I don't consider it poisoned by Google at all. The only issue I do see is that Firefox really needs a more diverse funding stream for it's own safety.

If people want to say that Google is bad because "reasons" and therefore Firefox is bad because it gets resources from Google. Then they must also conclude that Chromium and everything downstream of it is likewise bad or "badder" given the overwhelming support of Chromium by Google and now Microsoft.

So if Google bad means Firefox bad by proxy then all contemporary general purpose browsers (including Tor as it is based on Firefox) are bad. What you are left with is basically Lynx. In the end, condemning Firefox is foolish as aside from funding support it is the only modern alternative left without direct ties to Google. (Safari aside)

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