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Comment by nairboon | Hacker News Reader

Given the recent Firefox fiasco. What are the viable options for a free software browser? Can anyone point to the most promising alternatives (apart from the other corporate browser engines)?

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In terms of open source there are really only Chromium- and Firefox-derived browsers. With Chromium browsers, you’re still subject to Google’s whims in the long term, such as removal of V3 extension support. (I.e. a conceivable fork with V3 compatibility will inevitably become too difficult to keep up to date with the mainline.) If Mozilla dies, Firefox and derivatives will in all likelihood wither away as well. IMO there is no alternative to supporting Mozilla, and also keeping them accountable and criticizing them where criticism is due. They are still roughly the good guys, even if sometimes misguided.

Regarding the “fiasco”, there was an update that you may have missed which is at least a partial fix: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...

Right now, there are none. The "fiasco" is still about the least bad option available.

Some could become viable in a few years, but I wouldn't count on it to "just happen". You'll still need to actively try to get your specific use cases well-supported for a while, and if not enough people do that these projects will never get there.

Ladybird browser: https://ladybird.org/

“Promising” maybe, but it’s pre-alpha and as such won’t be an actual alternative for some time to come.

Librewolf, Falkon, somthing-chrome-derived (I forgot)

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