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Comment by talonx | Hacker News Reader

Or, stick to Firefox.

In the long run I want a browser that has a solid community or base behind it, with a mostly-good record (no point chasing perfection here) of privacy and security. The Mozilla Foundation has done a good but not stellar job (remember 1.1.1.1?). I also don't want to change browsers because someday Vivaldi - hypothetically - gets acquired by Evil Corp, or has some vulnerability that remains unpatched. I just want to get my work done.

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Firefox, the browser that recently started literally showing ad spam on the new tab page on mobile? I'm sure they're a lot better.

They are a lot better. You’re talking about Google, a company that literally owns its existence and trillions of dollars of revenue to targeted advertising across the entire world, vs Mozilla, a company that’s chosen to add a few non-targetted ads that are easily disabled.[1]

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sponsor-privacy

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mozilla also owns its existence to Google's firehouse of money, a portion of which is streamed to Mozilla (some $500M in FY 2021) to ensure they keep Google as the default search engine.

There's plenty to criticize of Mozilla, but yes, they're a lot better, or a lot less bad if you want.

Are you really suggesting there isn't a huge difference between an ad and sharing your browsing history with advertisers?

I see this happen all the time, specially in politics or politics-adjacent topics. Just because no option is perfect, they become equal in people's mind. Two things can be both imperfect, and one be way worse than the other.

Google Chrome is on a whole different league when it comes to abusing your privacy. Mozilla Firefox ain't perfect, but it's way better.

What’s wrong with 1.1.1.1?

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