[juliangoldsmith]

Chrome has no effective competition in the browser market, so Google has no need to worry about market share.

Firefox's user base has shrunk to the point where it's barely relevant. (And I say this as a user myself.) Beyond that, Mozilla currently needs to follow Google's lead just to stay alive. They rely on Google financially, and need to keep up with Chrome's features to maintain what market share they have left.

Brave and the like could be easily killed off by taking Chrome closed-source. Microsoft would probably strike a deal to keep Edge alive. I doubt Safari supports extensions, and Apple wouldn't have any qualms about pulling a few to keep the peace with Google.

Getting us out of this will be difficult. Barring Google returning to their old slogan, the only option I can see is a move to a new set of standards. Hopefully things will move back towards decentralization as peoples' technical literacy increases.

[stOneskull]

> Firefox's user base has shrunk to the point where it's barely relevant.

it would come back for sure.

[IggleSniggle]

Everyone still remembers Firefox fondly. The wrong move from Google and everyone (who will take a step to manually download a browser) will return to it.

[juliangoldsmith]

The problem is that Google still pays Mozilla's bills. If their biggest donor suddenly pulls out completely, they'll be in trouble.

[tedivm]

I've been using Firefox exclusively for a few years now and it's really great.

[pseudalopex]

You could have looked up if Safari supports extensions. It does. More limited than other browsers however.