For me the core values of the browser are:
- free software, open source, as in freedom
- independent (mozilla is weak here)
- developer friendly, good debugging/dev interface (they are slowly losing here)
- keeping up with web standards, letting me play with proposed changes
- good performance
- not tied to a advertising business model (they are weakening themselves here)
- privacy defaults
These things are very important to me and I'm not alone. The browser is one of my primary tools that I rely on to work as well as the wider open source ecosystem.
I'd be very much willing to pay a subscription fee if I end up being the actual customer, as a web developer and not a target for other Mozilla products that I don't care about and advertisements that distract me and get in my way of working. I'm already distracted enough to begin with as I'm literally working within the web...
I haven't been a fan of many of the news surrounding Mozilla as of late:
- laying off hundreds of workers
- continuing to increase C-level salaries while revenue goes down
- products I mostly don't care about
- dropping support for innovative browser tech like Servo
- now spamming their users with ads...
What do I do?
Recently there was an announcement of the replay browser (replay.io). I played around with it a bit and I'm very tempted at the moment to try it as my primary working browser. They tick some of the boxes above (developer focused browser, subscription fee => I'm the customer). Not sure about it yet.
Edit: to the paragraph above about considering the replay browser, I just checked their privacy policy and it's a big no-no...
Is there any browser with good developer experience that respects my privacy and freedom?