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by dwedge 39 days ago
Not being able to suggest an alternative for Chrome doesn't imply that Firefox is a good alternative.

On GrapheneOS they recommend Vanadium - a more secure Chromium fork - and specifically recommend against Firefox, but that's on mobile.
3 comments
Sayrus 39 days ago
> Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox/Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android.

> The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn't happening for their Android browser yet.

Context is definitely interesting to have with your statement (From https://grapheneos.org/usage).

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freehorse 39 days ago
Firefox _is_ a good alternative to chrome, though, by the arguments OP brought. What OP complained about are even worse in chrome.

FF is largely funded by google money? Chrome _is_ google.

FF invests in AI features? Google invests even more in AI features and shoves them to you without consent (which ff asked me for after upgrades).

Maybe FF is not perfect or great or whatever by one's point of view, but it _is better_ than chrome, at least regarding these arguments.

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dwedge 39 days ago
That's fair and true. I guess my issue with Firefox is that Google is obviously Google, and you know what to expect from a company like that. Mozilla is pretending to be an underdog while at the same time they are Google by proxy - aiming to bring more telemetry, more advertising, more AI and doing it with Google's money which they take partly so that Google can say they aren't a monopoly.

It's the sneaky ways that Firefox are Google that bother me. Above you said that they recently added a switch to disable AI - only after backlash (though I have to admit that the original blog post said there should be an option to disable it). I also dislike that they are focusing on AI and advertising instead of improving their browser, but that's their decision.

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_blk 39 days ago
Graphene user here: Firefox is my standard browser because I like it but mostly because it runs ublock Origin (which again causes me to like it). Vanadium I use for social media sites so I'm not logged in to those on the primary browser.
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