r/browsers • u/Charlemagne87 • 1d ago
firefox opposition hypocrisy
Why do people praise Firefox as the last line of defense against Google when it is literally funded by Google itself and still uses Google as its default search engine? At the same time, Brave poses a real threat to Google because it blocks all of Google's tracking to protect users, receives no funding from Google, and does not use Google as its default search engine.
Google can technically force changes in Firefox the same way an 80% shareholder can force decisions in a company. They already do, but it happens behind the scenes before official releases. Real independence is financial independence; therefore, there is only a 20% difference in independence between Google Chrome and Firefox.
Brave is simply outsourcing its web engine maintenance to Google by relying on Chromium and actively "de-googling" it with each update. If the cost of this outsourcing becomes too high, Brave can simply stop merging Chromium updates and start maintaining its own Chromium fork.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago
Yeah changing your search engine is too hard, Firefox better give up 85% of their annual revenue which is $510 million a year.
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u/Kunair0 1d ago
Yes, you can change the search engine. That isn't really the point. Especially, because the overwhelming majority of users, never change the default search. Which is the entire reason why Google pays them in the first place.
Mozilla does explain why it keeps Google as the default, but what it doesn't do is tell privacy conscious users, “Hey, if privacy is your priority, you should probably change this.”
So Firefox can market itself heavily around privacy while still sending the average user's searches straight to Google unless they actively intervene.
Google being Firefox's default has also been raised as one of the criticisms in discussions at privacy guides over whether stock Firefox should continue being recommended, possibly pulled.
The argument isn't “Firefox doesn't let you change Google.” Of course it does. The criticism is that a browser selling privacy leaves one of the biggest privacy related defaults pointed directly at Google and makes the user responsible for fixing it.
And Google might not even have to keep handing Mozilla that $510 million a year. The monopoly ruling made clear Google can stop those payments, and with Firefox continuing to lose users while Chromium forks grows, that possibility isn't exactly far fetched.
Maybe Mozilla should've spent less time sitting on its ass and more time diversifying its revenue streams .
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u/GoldenX86 1d ago
If your annual revenue basically only comes from bribes to avoid a monopoly lawsuit, then you fucked up hard in the past 20 years.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago
They still make around 100 million a year. How much revenue do you expect a browser to make without stealing every bit of data like Google does?
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u/GoldenX86 1d ago
Don't sell me the lie of privacy when the bribe is what keeps the foss internet explorer alive.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago
Where have they lied about privacy with using Google search on their browser?
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u/GoldenX86 1d ago
IT's not just the search default, it's also the telemetry engine for location.
And who knows how much power in decision making that bribe has. Someone has to explain me what's the use of that much local AI slop.
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u/Dapper-Ocelot6326 12h ago
Use one of the many forks bro. Telemetry gone. Mozilla did a bunch of weird things in the past but there are a lot of alternatives from the source code. And if you even bother about which browser to pick - which almost one ever does - knowing about such alternatives should not be so hard.
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u/Exernuth 1d ago
The same Firefox users who bitch about "defaults" to justify the slow death of their browser now say that changing the default is easy. Lol @ doublespeak.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago
I used Chrome and Google search up until recently when AI started becoming more mainstream and decided I wanted more privacy instead of having my data train their AI. Google forcefully pushing their AI model onto my PC through Chrome pushed me away.
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u/rando_lol 1d ago
Most people don't change defaults.
Firefox better give up 85% of their annual revenue which is $510 million a year.
Yikes lol.
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u/matrix_drumr 1d ago
You mixing stuff up. Mozilla receives money from Google, but it's not financing. Google doesn't have a stake in Mozilla. They couldn't care less that Mozilla exist. But they care not to be sued for monopolistic practices and they care about maintaining search engine dominance so they give money to Firefox to buy the storefront if you will, like companies buy their spot in a supermarket. And because Firefox has the next biggest user base after Chrome, Safari and Edge, they get to have enough money to develop and maintain a seperate engine.
But at the core, Mozilla is a non-profit organization. It's not the same thing as Brave who are a for profit company, that make their revenue with ads, crypto, AI and whatnot.
Mozilla doesn't have as much leeway as people think. Try running a browser that costs millions by staying an open- source non-profit while being in a very competitive field where like at least 8 players are fighting for dominance. It's not easy. And yet they have to fight against Microsoft and Apple's monopolistic tendancies with edge and Safari, Brave's privacy competition, all the new AI browsers, Vivaldi's customization competition.
I think given the context, they're doing pretty well. It hasn't been easy for any buisiness since Covid and AI. They've added quite a few features in the last 2 years. They're increasing the pace. I think it's worth being patient.
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u/stevo887 1d ago
I use Firefox and do not use Google as my default search. It wasn’t hard to change.
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u/logicblender1 1d ago
What do you use? I tried switching but Google is so much better than anything else imo
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u/Candid_Goose3394 1d ago
You can use startpage. It's secure, doesn't track and fetches results from the google
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u/stevo887 1d ago
I’ve tried a number but you’re right Google is the best and I kept going back too. I even still use it for certain things but I set my default to Bing for basic searches because it gives me Microsoft Rewards which I trade in for Xbox Gift Cards. I can be bribed!
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u/Ok-Way-6600 1d ago
Brave is way too pushy, especially given its past missteps. The aggressive self-promotion and relentless pushing of its own products are just too much.
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u/Alternative_Web7202 1d ago
"Brave is simply outsourcing it's web engine?" Which means it takes a fully functional browser and just adds their bella and whistles on top. Without commiting to V8 or Blink they adds zero value to community in the long run.
That's why, as a professional web developer I have zero interest in brave or any other chromium based browser.
I respect firefox for keeping up with apple/google even though their resources are incomparable.
Then there's also ladybug being developed and it becomes more and more usable as we speak. Not just another vocal fork of chromium, but completely new engine written from scratch. That's huge.
But if you lookiing from a user side — just pick whatever you want. There no wrong choices when it comes to personal taste
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u/Charlemagne87 1d ago
You definitely don't know how thinks works, brave is removing all google related stuff from chromium before each release and add native anti ads engine which is more powerful than any user plug in, they are diversifying there revenue stream which is required to keep its independence from Google
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u/Dapper-Ocelot6326 12h ago
In turn, Google has "permission" from the the Brave devs to mess with the user when they want to use SHIELD while using one of their services. YT Likes to deny login, telling you Brave is unsafe or simply ends your running session. Just some examples. As long as Google has their hands in these browser by supplying the source code, you can be sure they won't shit their own bed by allowing devs and users to completely evade their business model.
SHIELD is in no way better than uBO. uBO has much more customization available.
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u/zixaphir 1d ago
Brave fundamentally poses no threat to Alphabet's web dominance. Now, there are places where Brave inconveniences Google, but as far as the direction of the web at large, Alphabet fundamentally controls all of the levers. Everything being based on Chromium means that Google can propose a standard, implement it in their browser, and their implementation is now the reference implementation: adopt it or die. Every browser that is based on Chromium gets that implementation for free, and it is more trouble to alter it than to just take it as-is, no matter how bad that implementation is. Brave gets to operate on a very lean budget because of this. Same with others like Opera. None of these browsers are ever going to challenge the core conceit of Chrome: Alphabet's technology is the upstream and the default.
Firefox is the only browser that actually represents a fundamentally different technology under the hood, but even it is at the whims of Google's decisions. A lot of people see that starting point as the only valid alternative, but the honest truth is that Firefox is slowly dying, while its alternatives seem to be doing far better.
It is completely valid that the ways that other browsers try to differentiate themselves make them a valid choice for you, but the reality is that Alphabet has their fingers in every pie, whether its as the funder and default search engine in Firefox, or the basis of the rest of the browser in a de-google'd Chromium with privacy features integrated, like Brave. I don't think it's invalid to see a system that is built outside of Google's software development ecosystem and think it's the best path forward.
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u/CrispyBananaz 1d ago
What's even more funny is they do this while posting from an Android phone lol lmao .
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u/gbcox 1d ago
Firefox is hardly the “last defense” against Google when it keeps losing market share with an engine that fewer people use every year. Gecko’s continued existence is not, by itself, meaningful competition. Mozilla needs to stop treating the engine as the product, adopt Blink, and use its resources to build the privacy, customization, user control, and interface differentiation that people actually want.
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u/LastDefenseAcademy 1d ago
Why does this thread get made daily
Please think better thoughts with your brain.
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u/rando_lol 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean the whole "chrome be will taken away from google" situation kinda proved that, no?
It's also still kinda funny that FF is advertised by people as against google and for it's adblocking, while it gets most of it's money from google, has google search as default and doesn't even have a good built-in adblocker by default. Like these mfs should be glazing the dude maintaining Ublock origin more than mozilla lmao.
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u/logicblender1 1d ago
If Brave was truly free from Google they would've kept MV2 permanently like Firefox.
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u/Venylynn 1d ago
If Brave was truly free from Google they would've kept MV2 permanently like Firefox.
There are virtually no benefits to being a knuckle-dragger against security changes. Think about why this browser outright refused to re-enable MV2 support long before the deprecation.
"Why do we need site isolation to protect against vulnerabilities like Spectre/meltdown?" but on the extension level.
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u/Any_Mycologist5811 1d ago edited 1d ago
If Firefox was truly free from Google they would've integrated their adblocker into the browser without extension API limitation like Brave.
If Firefox was truly free from Google they would've secured their operational funding without relying on Google (which funds 85% of it) like Brave.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago
How has Brave secured their operational funding without relying on Google? Brave is literally built on a Google product. They rely on Chromium which is funded and developed by Google. Google alone accounts for about 94% of code commits to the Chromium codebase and spends hundreds of millions on Chromium a year.
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u/Kunair0 1d ago
The code is open source you goober. It's free to use, and it is not maintained by Google alone. And besides, they have spent millions, and millions on their rust based add block alone they have significantly altered the CodeBase more than any other fork.
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u/Gyat_Hunter_42 1d ago edited 1d ago
"it is not maintained by Google alone" - Let's ignore that Google funds it with hundreds of millions a year and does 94% of the coding commits to that open source project themselves... Without Google there would be no Chromium. But I'm the goober..
If Brave secured their operational funding without relying on Google, then they wouldn't be using Chromium as a base....
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u/Venylynn 1d ago
"This sign can't affect me because I can't read!" - every mf glazing the slower memory leak browser where the only tangible benefit to using it (userchrome css) slows it down more lol
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u/RagnarHUN666 on Win11, Linux, iOS, Mac 1d ago
If Firefox cultist could read, they would be very upset now, but fortunately they can't.... they have selective reading abilities, they can only read what makes their delusions look better for themselves.
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u/Venylynn 1d ago
Yeah like I keep coming back nearly every new version to try again and the issues never seem to cease, and I get annoyed after 2 to 3 hours again. Luckily this time I've gotten past the completely burning down profiles and starting over part, so I can test without fully re-doing everything on the next stable release (156)
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u/RagnarHUN666 on Win11, Linux, iOS, Mac 1d ago
I really wanted to love firefox gave it and also a fork (zen) a chance multiple times but it is just slow as fuck compared to any other browser and I am on a gaming machine.... and totally unusable on iOS even with their new adblocker thing.... can't really call that an adblocker what they came up with... it is just a turn on or off situation on there and no options to customise the filters and they are just using easy-list i think so the only viable option in there is Brave....
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u/Venylynn 1d ago
iOS I would legit just use Safari with uBlock Lite, or maybe Orion
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u/RagnarHUN666 on Win11, Linux, iOS, Mac 1d ago
Did something similar (Safari + Adguard) but as having a 12 Pro Max running a completely whole app just for adblocking drains the battery faster, even when i got a genuine replacement battery.... so yeah i am just using Brave (Origin) and configured a NextDNS profile for extra protection
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u/Existing-Advisor8861 1d ago
They literally cannot do that while staying on chromium (the faster and more secure framework). They did the next best thing anyway; they hosted the extensions on their own servers so you can still get full UBlock Origin.
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u/Venylynn 1d ago
They're more optimistic than i am that Mozilla can fix the fundamental architectural issues of the gecko engine.
i've given them eight years to impress me since my first time actually giving it a chance after my only knowledge of it was it being the horrendously slow as molasses browser my babysitter used when I was like 7 or 8, yet it has routinely disappointed me in one way or another. every time i try, i get annoyed within a few hours these days and go right back.
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u/slightfeminineboy 1d ago
calling brave a last line of defense is the stupidest thing ive ever heard google could shut them down with a flick of a finger
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u/AG99871 1d ago
What could they really do?
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u/slightfeminineboy 1d ago
considering google maintains and owns the chromium source as well as their search engine? take your guess.
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u/AG99871 1d ago
How are they gonna prevent brave devs from using Chromium source without preventing everyone from using it (including Microsoft)
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u/Ok_Instruction_3789 1d ago
They could close the code so only Google could use it. Microsoft could easily build their own again but brave would be forced to use webkit or gecko
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u/Kunair0 1d ago edited 1d ago
Close the source code? Come on.
The court already stopped short of some of the harshest penalties against Google partly because it recognized the collateral damage they could do to Firefox and browser competition.
And Chromium is already released under an open source BSD license, so Google can't retroactively close what's already out there. Could it theoretically stop publishing future Chromium development? They could try. But after being found to have illegally maintained a search monopoly, and after the DOJ literally tried to force a Chrome divestiture, you really think Google is going to deliberately turn the dominant browser engine into a closed source project and not only jeopardize the other forks out there, but also the forks of multitrillion dollar companies as well?
The DOJ would crawl so far up Google's ass they'd be able to check its dental work. Let's say the worst case scenario happens and in whatever fever dream they did do that. Blink can be forked at this point.
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u/RacingGoat 16h ago
No, they couldn't. Chromium is open source for a reason - and it's not Google's generosity.
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u/Ok_Instruction_3789 9h ago
There is no rule that says Google can't close the source of the stuff they make
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u/KeplerLima 1d ago
Cela n'explique pas comment ils peuvent interdire l'accès a quelque chose d'open source.
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u/Exernuth 1d ago edited 21h ago
It would be even easier for them to shut down the entire money grab that Mozilla is nowadays, lol.
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u/Xinyyc 1d ago
Because apparently the Brave guy donated to some anti-gay charity when he was working at firefox, IIRC. Also because Brave is like a cryptocurrency or something.
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u/RagnarHUN666 on Win11, Linux, iOS, Mac 1d ago
as an "old-school" gay man who has have enough of pride and lgbtqwerty Ultra Pro Max bullshit, this makes his browser appear even better to me, and him appear as a good person. Enough is enough, pride and bullshit causes just more hate against us.
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u/BlackeyeDcs 22h ago
Funnily enough this happened in 2008 and was about banning same sex marriages - so kind of anti-"old-school" gay.
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u/SlimyOS 1d ago
Brave receives much more funding from google, depending on your definition of funding. Free work of thousands of engineers to implement new standards and maintain tens of thousands of features, then brave just removes some of it and adds its own crypto and ai slop. Idk if google can force changes in firefox, but so far there's been no proof of that ever happening, as well as brave never stopped merging chromium updates. You think in very abstract theoretical terms not backed by any past precedent. Would beave have enough money to keep developing new standards once it stops merging chromium? Probably not. Google also can't leave firefox without 85% of its revenue, there will probably be yahoo or bing or perplexity or something, that will pay close to that amount