Firefox browser
Installation
- In Ubuntu, to install/update
$ sudo snap install firefox
Reasons to use Firefox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pygWS1ihtF8&list=PLVOspl3tsfnqRGlhdAzLENAIk-PF4f_ZA&index=4&t=614s
Firefox is open source, non-profit, and has the best privacy features by far.
Chapter 1: A Non-Profit Browser
Even today, many people swear by Firefox. Why? What’s so great about it?
Google Chrome exists to collect data, and serve Google’s ad machine. It’s fairly blatantly and quite unethical. In fact, Google just settled a $5 billion lawsuit, for still collecting user data in their Incognito Mode.
Microsoft Edge exists to also gather user data and push Bing, Windows integrations, and Microsoft’s suite of services. They’ve also been hit with similar class action lawsuits for taking browsing activity without consent.
So what about Firefox? Unlike the other popular browsers, Firefox isn’t a part of a big machine, or serving a giant corporate overlord. Firefox is produced by the Mozilla foundation, a non-profit. Just to be clear, non-profits can have issues, and they aren’t automatically better than for-profit companies. But it shows the priorities.
Competitors exist to extract value from users, for shareholders. Firefox exists to protect users.
This is why people swear by Firefox: Privacy. What does that mean? For one, it’s open source. You can see a lot of Google Chrome’s inner workings, but not everything. Firefox is transparent with their code. Anyone can check what Mozilla are up to, while Chrome, naturally, keeps that a secret. Firefox also blocks many known trackers with Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP). One of these are Activity-tracking-scripts, which are commonly found on Social Media. A big one is the Total Cookie Protection, which Mozilla introduced in 2021. Why does this matter? Well every site stores cookies, which are essential for some functions, they also pose a privacy risk. Firefox prevents different websites looking at each other’s cookies and learning more about you.
(Important to visualize the above sentence. I.e. two websites with eyeballs, both looking at a single jar in the middle).
It prevents cross-site tracking, which is big. There’s much more than just this too. Firefox blocks fingerprinting scripts, crypto mining, and much more. But there’s one downside to using Firefox.
Resolution / Payoff
Firefox isn’t as fast as Chrome, or Edge for that matter. It’s also not as efficient in using memory. But it’s been getting much better. As of October 2024, Firefox became 75 times faster at handling WebAssembly, which makes complex web apps like games and tools run much smoother in the browser. It’s even overtaken Chrome in some metrics. Speed and efficiency go back and forth, with a negligible difference between them. But there’s a bigger issue facing Firefox. When loading some websites, firefox might struggle to load certain features, have visual bugs or have broken features altogether. Platforms like Google Docs will load much, much faster on Chrome than Firefox… or actually, compared to all other browsers.
Why? What’s different about Firefox?
As it turns out, it’s not just to do with Firefox, but the entire internet.
Chapter 2: The Chrome Ecosystem
The Chrome Ecosystem
Since 2008, Chrome rapidly gained ground, overtaking Firefox in 2011, Internet explorer in 2012, and finally, claiming the majority of the global market share in October 2016. Currently, the browser sits at about 70%. That’s an unbelievable dominance for one browser, yet Google is more prevalent than we realize. It has redefined the entire internet, around itself. Almost every Browser runs on something called Chromium. An open source web browser project. It’s lightweight, fast, great for developers, and meant building a browser was easy, and would align with web standards others were using. As you can probably guess, it’s developed and maintained by Google, and was released alongside Chrome. Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Samsung Internet, and of course: Google Chrome, all use Chromium. Even Microsoft, when Explorer died, gave in, and jumped on the Chromium band-wagon. This means most web developers put all the focus on building for Chromium’s “blink” engine. All except Firefox, which uses “Gecko”.
Why did Google give everyone their source code, to build their own browsers? And why didn’t Firefox join in?
Tension
With the adoption of Chromium, something changed across the internet. It introduced Accelerated Mobile Pages, WEBP Images, HTML5, and HTTP/3. That’s a lot of technical terms, but in short, they all make different parts of the web faster, and more stable. It also introduced amazing developer tools, which made things more consistent across the board. But there’s a problem with all of this. Chromium has set the web standards, or more specifically, Google has set the web standards, which suit them. It can introduce whatever technologies it wants, and everyone has to abide by it. Google has all the power. For example, Google has attempted to replace Cookies with their own system: Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). They say it’ll give more privacy, but in truth, it just gives them more power over advertising, across the web. Their Accelerated Mobile Pages technology might have sped up websites on your phone, but they do the same thing: Give Google more control over web formatting, and ranking. Chromium also uses something called Resource Pre-loading, which predicts user behavior, and makes platforms, like Google’s seem much faster. Firefox is one of a kind, because it’s not reliant on something built, and controlled, by Google. But it goes even deeper.
If you have Firefox installed, you can try this experiment: Open Google Docs or Google Drive on a Chromium Browser, then on Firefox. The difference in speed is night and day. All of the technologies I mentioned earlier benefit Google’s products. Google’s products also have limited features on Firefox. Buttons in Docs are missing. YouTube videos have worse playback. Google Meet features have been inconsistent and sometimes unavailable. It’s not because Firefox doesn’t have the technology. A proportion of the entire web is set by Google, and thus, built for Google. Even Microsoft is now engaging in this tactic. Firefox, and also outsiders like Safari, need to invest far more time and resources to catch up to Chromium). Its standards are set by convenience.
The Chromium empire all feeds into Google’s ecosystem. But ironically, so does Firefox in a way. Ever wonder how Google became such a dominant search engine? One of their biggest tactics is to simply pay for it. The company has spent billions of dollars on other browsers. More than 86% of their revenue in 2020 came from Google, and 81% in 2022. Not only are most browsers using Chrome’s model, but they’re also using Google. Ironically, Firefox, while one of the few non-chromium based browsers, is still reliant on Google. But this might be changing. Massive disruptions in the industry have occurred, very recently.
Chapter 3: Manifest V3 Setup
Manifest V3
On June 3rd, 2024, Google rolled out their most impactful browser feature. Manifest V3. They are phasing out extensions built on Manifest V2, and all Chromium based browsers are expected to fully migrate by June 2025. Why does this matter? Google says it’s for better privacy, by limiting the data extensions can collect, and it will supposedly improve browser speed. This might be true, but it’s not the real reason. At the end of the day, Google is not a Browser company, or even a search engine company. They’re an advertising company. Over 75% of Google’s revenue is advertisements alone. Manifest V3 is a targeted attack on adblockers. Extensions like Ublock Origin are now extremely limited, or just don’t work anymore. Banner ads, YouTube ads, pop ups, and much more, are now free game. Adblockers weren’t just for convenience though, they were also for privacy. Many ad blockers prevented third parties from tracking you, and collecting your browser data. Naturally, people are furious. Many people used Chromium platforms because they disliked Chrome, but still enjoyed their consistency across the web, and privacy. Google is leveraging its control over the internet, aka Chromium, to ensure its bottom line. Removing adblockers because they’re a risk to its primary revenue stream. Just look at the dislikes on Google’s video.
Speaking of Firefox, being one of the very few outsiders in Google’s ecosystem may finally be paying its dividends. People are moving away from Chromium and towards Firefox. The casual majority won’t, but more attentive users certainly are now weighing up the benefit of Chromium.
Firefox not only offers far better privacy now, but also continues to be more ad free. Things are starting to look up for Firefox, and simultaneously, are getting much worse for Google. Google has been facing more and more scrutiny. Recently, they settled a $5 billion lawsuit, for collecting data while users browsed using “Incognito Mode”, which stores no history, cookies, or site data. Plaintiffs believed that Google misled them, as it was still collecting data, like IP addresses and site visits, while browsing privately. Yet that’s nothing compared to a recent battle they’ve been fighting for some time. The US Department of Justice has argued that Google has formed an illegal monopoly. Google’s tactic of paying browsers to be their default search engine, might not be legal. In 2022, they paid Apple $20 billion to be safari’s default search engine. Why is this a problem? From the DOJ’s point of view, it stifles competition and prevents any competing browsers from gaining much ground, like say DuckDuckGo, regardless of how good they are. A US Judge has ruled Google an illegal monopoly, stating “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”
Not only that, but Google is being ordered to sell off Chrome. This sounds like good news, but remember, most of Firefox’s revenue is from Google. Revenue they will no longer be making. In actuality, it hurts Firefox more than Google.
Is there any hope for Firefox? Firefox is an outsider in the Google ecosystem, yet, this is why we need it. It challenges Google’s dominant monopoly. It’s possible it will always remain a niche part of the web. It would be nice if privacy-first browsers like Firefox or Brave had more of a foothold, compared to the monolith that is Google Chrome. But what matters is that they exist. Now, with Manifest V3, Google’s many new problems, and Firefox’s newfound speed, it has its best chance it’s had in a decade to regain ground.
But it might not be enough. With no more Google money, being independent might ironically cause the death of Firefox.