Offering something like a local Gemma 4 (though apparently not what we get here) to web apps via a browser API could change UX quite drastically. Possibly for the better. We had a project where it could have been nice.

Google has invested significantly in security. I believe you are referring to privacy?

Google has invested massively into security. On various platforms (non-Chromium Linux excluded), Google Chrome uses advanced defence-in-depth that make Chrome much more secure than Firefox on the same machine. Their origin-based process separation make Chrome a memory hog but protect tab processes from each other in a way Firefox doesn't bother with just yet.

Chrome may be a privacy nightmare, but in terms of security it beats Mozilla.

10x better than safari and it won’t consume all my RAM like google, so not sure it you’re just repeating what you heard or if you mean what you said

I'd recommend checking out WaterFox. It's what I switched to when I finally got sick & tired of Mozilla's shit.

People keep saying this like it's just conventional wisdom we all supposedly agree with. I think it's a string of tech articles and spiraling comment sections searching for drama that's kind of been a self-perpetuating phenomenon over the past 3 or 4 years the majority of which I think has been extremely unfair and mostly just based on vibes. If you actually scroll through HN and read the criticisms, they tend to trail off into vague phrases like "all the stuff they've been doing".

If people read the release notes instead of the comment sections, not only would they have a lot more specific knowledge of the work going into the browser but they wouldn't be locked in this cycle of outrage and escalation that normally you only see in YouTube comment sections.

Ok, then. What shitshow? Does it not pale in comparison to Chrome and Edge?

    He’s the founder of Brave, by the way.

    a private political donation from 10 years earlier

Hello fellow extraterrestrial

I still don't understand what problem you guys have with Firefox. I really don't, and comments like yours are always very vague and seem to assume that it's obvious.

For me Firefox is (slightly) better than is used to be, not by a wide margin but it's not gotten worse either.

I've been running it since it was Phoenix so I think my experience is at least somewhat valid, which is why I'm so confused by these comments.

Could you list some of the major grievances you have with Firefox? I haven't been following the news very closely

In my recent experience: definitely yes, though not significantly worse. Unless you have [many] hundreds of tabs open (which I do as I have neither executive function nor organisational skills), or have a machine with very limited RAM, I don't think you'll notice a difference.

This is anecdata, of course, take with a pinch of your preferred flavouring powder.

Yes: https://www.phoronix.com/review/firefox-chrome-2026/4

> Chrome also came in at slightly lower memory consumption across all the benchmarks with total memory usage on average at 4.67GB to Firefox at 4.83GB.

Yes, actually!

Well, it does require you to install an extension[0], but it can be done.

[0]: <https://github.com/mozilla/video-bg-play>

Even youtube's app itself doesn't allow that unless you pay. I suspect they've nobbled most browsers into not allowing it, either by technical measures or (more likely) the strong-arm tactic of saying “if you don't block this we'll find a way to make the entire of youtube practically unusable on your browser”.

I've been using Grayjay recently which does allow that, amongst a number of other useful features (integrating other media sources, lack of adverts every few minutes in some content). Might be worth considering as an option.

You can play yt video in firefox with locked screen but you need to use desktop mode

It allows you to play youtube without ads with ublock origin.

In iOS kinda yes; you have to request desktop version, and once you activate the lock screen for the first time you have to press “play”. Then it just plays and auto plays in the background.

Don’t know about android, but there is also an extension there that blocks the visibility page api for YouTube.

Why not simply use NewPipe [0]?

You also get ad filtering and you can download Audio/Video streams from within the app.

[0] https://newpipe.net/

Yes. That's the primary reason I use it, but you have to install an extension called "Video Background Play Fix".

Tubular app does, and it blocks ads

That made me avoid it for a long time but there hasn't been more concerning behavior since, so some point, we can move on.

I think using tor in brave just makes you stand out more - stock tor browser is probably a better setup. Whonix even better.

Yes.

This isn't particularly relevant to whether you should use it right now though. If there's a restaurant I like but it might go out of business in a year I don't stop eating there today.

They push millions of lines of code every quarter including thousands of patches, constant security updates and performance improvements and deepened support for web platform standards. As open source projects go, it's probably one of the most active and thriving ones there is. As eager as some people are to dance on Mozilla's grave, that day isn't coming anytime soon.

If you wanted to point to the year where they've been the best financed they've ever been and where they've had the most resources invested into browser development they ever have, that year would be 2026. Only to be exceeded by 2027 and then 2028, 2029 and beyond.

At a bare minimum, their endowment gives them probably a two to three year firewall in the event that their funding is cut off, which it hasn't been. I also thought the accusation was supposed to be the other way around, namely that we all knew they were going to get funded into perpetuity as controlled opposition.

Firefox is open source :)