Supposedly today we have a lot of browsers to choose from - Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. Having choices is a good thing, right? Nobody wants to relive the time of almost complete Internet Explorer domination again. Unfortunately our choices are significantly fewer than they seem to be at first glance, as Chrome and Safari (thanks to the iPhone) totally dominate the browser landscape in terms of usage and almost all browsers these days are built on top of Chromium, Chrome’s open-source version. Funny enough even Edge is built on top of Chromium today, despite the bitter rivalry between Google and Microsoft. What’s also funny is that Chrome and Safari control about 85% of the browser market share today, and Microsoft’s Edge commands only about 4%:
  • DessalinesA
    8·
    3 years ago

    Good article. That standards page linked is itself almost an advertisement for why people shouldn’t use chrome or let google have the web.

  • Zerush
    73·
    3 years ago

    Currently all browsers depend on Google, some because they use Google APIs, others because they are financed by Google advertising companies, such as Alphabet and Nest. Yes also Firefox. Opera also adds other trackers, belonging to Chinese companies and also uses Facebook trackers. Brave blocks all these, except for the affiliated sponsor companies with its crypto reward system, among these also Facebook.

    In the end, it is irrelevant which browser is used, while the practice of surveillance advertising, which these companies use to traffic in user data, which practically all American browser companies do, whether OpenSource or not.

    The normal user must orient himself to the TOS and PP of the browser he uses, which no one does. If it did, many would be surprised and often not pleasant.

    FOSS is good for developers and practical for companies, but the user has other rights and needs that are often forgotten in favor of a certain company. While trafficking with the user’s private data, violating their basic rights, even putting their security at risk, there will not be a free internet, but a market for personal data.

    No one would tolerate in real life, that the postman opens your letters and reads them, before putting it in your mailbox or that the plumber who fixes your drain, makes a list of your belongings and looking in your documents.

    It doesn’t matter to me if BigBrother uses Blink, WebKit or Gecko, to me it annoys the BigBrother and the network that has become his private property, turning it into a shopping center with the user as merchandise.

  • kixik
    3·
    3 years ago

    Well, I would extend FF to all derivative browsers, particularly those oriented to privacy, like Librewolf on the desktop and Mull on Android. Their in essence their FF counterparts with privacy settings applied, and removing binary blobs (yes FF still include some)… But I guess those are even less known than FF itself, :(, though overall, they depend on FF being maintained and progressing, since those projects don’t develop a browser one their own…

  • 10_0
    317·
    1 month ago

    deleted by creator

      • toneverends
        8·
        3 years ago

        It’s fun that eventually you get to [∞] tabs on Firefox android. Doesn’t skip a beat on the 5 year old mid-range phones I’m using.

        • Ephera
          4·
          3 years ago

          No issues here…

          (My mum’s using it on a phone that we bought first-hand for like $80, more than five years ago.)

    • Ephera
      10·
      3 years ago

      Maybe you’re thinking of Firefox Focus? That didn’t support tabs in its very early days.

      Proper Android Firefox is probably the best mobile browser for handling lots of tabs.

      • 10_0
        18·
        1 month ago

        deleted by creator