In 2024, please switch to Firefox

Roy Tanck · Posted on

This December, if there’s one tech New Year’s resolution I’d encourage you to have, it’s switching to the only remaining ethical web browser, Firefox. According to recent posts on social media, Firefox’s market share is slipping. We should not let that happen. There are two main reasons why switching is important.

A red panda (firefox) resting on a tree branch.
“Red Panda” by Mathias Appel is marked with CC0 1.0.

1. Privacy

Firefox is the only major browser not built by a company that makes money from advertising and/or selling your personal data. There’s been a lot of talk about websites tracking users using cookies, fingerprinting and other nefarious technologies that hurt your privacy. But owning the browser puts Google, Apple and Microsoft in a position where they don’t even need those tricks. We need to use browsers that are independent, and right now that means Firefox.

2. Browser engine monopoly

Wikipedia lists four browser engines as being “active”. Browser engines are the bits that take a web page’s code and display it on your screen. Ideally, they conform to the official W3C standards, and display all elements as it describes. If that’s the case, web developers can easily write sites that work on all browsers. No proprietary vendor lock-in nonsense, just glorious open standards at work.

It’s happened before

In the early 2000’s, Internet Explorer had a massive 95% market share. This meant that many sites were only developed for use with IE. They’d use experimental features that IE supported, in favor of things from the official HTML standard. This was a very bad situation, which hindered the development of the World Wide Web.

Currenty, Chrome, Safari and Edge all use variations of the closely related Webkit and Blink engines. If we want to avoid another browser engine monopoly, we need to support Firefox, and its “Gecko” engine.

Firefox is actually really good

If Firefox would be a bad browser, I would not recommend you to switch. It’s fast, has a nice user interface, and feels every bit as modern and elegant as its competition. I’ve been using it as my main browser for a couple of years now, on Linux, Windows, MacOS and Android. As a web developer, I usually have at least three browsers open, but when I go look something up on the web, I pick Firefox.

So please, help save the web by using the best browser out there. It’s an easy thing to do, and it makes a big difference.

Roy Tanck
I'm a freelance WordPress developer, designer, consultant, meetup organizer and speaker. In my spare time I love to go out and take pictures of things.

123 thoughts on “In 2024, please switch to Firefox”

    1. I got on Amazon’s case about their Firefox support and they said it was because I had something wrong with my browsing history, and to delete my browsing history and saved tabs and I think any Amazon related bookmarks.

      Lenovo and HP are just as bad. One of them doesn’t even work in Chrome on the Mac, I need to use Safari for it. They tell me to file a ticket with Mozilla or Google. It’s not their fault they use seven layers of javascript with react and ajax and webasm and whatever else instead of making sure they work with plain HTML+CSS. Like heck it isn’t.

      Scurvy baskets.

      1. @pafurijaz @roy well I don't get it then… I disabled all my plugins and logged into Amazon. The issue appears when I try to access my order's list. The rest of the site works fine.
        Maybe it's a config of Firefox itself? Third-party cookies?
        I will try to figure that out during the holidays…

        1. I believe amazon disabled order history export. you could see your individual orders but not all of them at once.

    3. I can view my amazon orders page in Firefox. maybe one of the plugins you’re using is breaking it? I even have privacy badger on and it still works.

    4. Overall I like Firefox and agree it is fast. My biggest gripe is that the language translation tools are at best second-class. It isn’t unusual for translation to completely mangle a webpage, omit content or crash.

      1. The Firefox translation program is still quite immature and I would have liked Mozilla to have improved it before integrating it into the stable version of Firefox. If you have no problems with Google, there is the Google translator in the extension store. However, I can’t say whether it’s any good as I no longer use Google products.

  2. @roy Firefox has been my default daily browser for years now. It's great. Works entirely as intended. Supports all the extensions you might want. Supports cross platform synchronization of bookmarks (I use it on android, Linux and windows). And it doesn't have any of the "trying-to-lock-you-in" crap that the other browsers have.
    On my work laptop I sometimes use Edge… OMG what a piece of crap that's become. You need to install an extension to get rid of the f-ing MS homepage. Do Not Use Edge!

      1. @vincent @roy that’s interesting. I looked at it briefly awhile back and it comes with a crypto wallet and some other things I’d consider bloatware — a music player and newsreader I think? My primary internet concern right now is privacy and freeing myself of platforms and platformed content. I have Firefox downloaded but mostly for user testing. I may give it a whirl.

    2. It’s not a bad option from the short term self interest aim of protecting your privacy. But the point of this article is that for our common good, and for self interest in the long term, we should use Firefox or a Firefox-based browser, which Brave is not.

    3. considering the amount of bad rap the project lead has and the amount of shady shit the browser is and was doing, it’s probably one of the worst browsers out there

    4. @thediemustfall @roy Well, Brave = Chromium, which makes it at least somewhat beholden to Google. More importantly, though, Brave CEO Brendan Eich is a homophobic COVID denier crypto-bro, which is why I dropped it & finally switched to Firefox (Eich was fired from Mozilla for these views).

      2. This “stop using brave browser” article is so inane and desperate that I can only conclude that it must have been written by some kind of social just warrior/shill from Mozilla or Google.

        It starts with their biggest complaint, that Brendan Eich is a hateful and worthless human being for donating to a political cause that the author didn’t agree with.

        LOL

    6. Brave is fine, just disable the crypto/wallet unless you want to earn rewards for watching ads they serve. Ghostery Private Browser is another option, though I think you have to choose a paid plan to get it to synch between devices. In addition, you can also use a privacy centric firewall, like portmaster, to control ads and tracking (it even eliminates MS Windows from spying on you).

      Firefox is great as well, though I’ve read some articles that suggest Google has its financial tentacles involved the company, so they may not be entirely immune from tracking issues. Search for “how to harden firefox” for pointers on making it more private and secure. There are also firefox hardening projects on github designed to go the extra mile.

    7. yes, it is among the worst possible options out there.

      it has a long history of many wrongdoings and is now pivoting into the realm of crypto and hopes to destroy the web as we know it by undermining it with crypto.

      1. Incorrect and unevidenced.

        Also, posting the same comment to anyone who says Brave comes off as just a bit desperate. Seems like you have a personal axe to grind against Brave.

    8. I believe Brave is the best option for security, and it is after lots of testing. This applies to Linux but I would suggest it is the same with windows. Test it yourselves if you are concerned about targeted ads or identification. The next best, I found is ‘ghostery’.

    1. Donations to the foundation do not translate into funding for Firefox, unfortunately.
      Mozilla does nothing to dispel the misconception, but matter of fact is that your money will not be used to pay Firefox developers.

    2. the donation is a full on scam and public relation image thing so mozilla can pretend they are funded by people when they actually are almost fully funded by ads through google and the default search engine contract.

      Also the money they get from donation does not go to the web of even the browser. It seems it is spent on financing lobbying group for trans, gay and other societal issues, along side spending into AI and venture funding.

      https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla

  5. @roy

    I remember when I first switched to Chrome. It was fast, light, and not a memory hog. That was when it first came out. It's now totally bloatware

    I did work for Sun during the Netscape days and we pretty much used mosaic for everything. No idea why that died

    I'm mostly using Firefox now and even at work is the preferred browser

  7. @roy I switched back from Chrome to Firefox when the "Quantum" release came out in 2017 and never looked back. Every machine I touch that doesn't have Firefox gets it installed and made default.

    1. @claudius @roy Same. Feels a little disingenuous to say Firefox doesn’t make money from ads when their largest revenue stream by far is … entirely so Google can serve you ads.

      That’s not a reason to not use Firefox, it’s still the best browser, and I honestly don’t know how I’d fix the situation if I were Firefox CEO (besides taking a massive pay cut); it’s hard to compete when all your major competitors come as free, bundled apps.

  11. @roy early 2000 every project we did resolved to be browser independent. That resolve never lasted more than a week before it locked into IE (I was coding back end, so on the periphery of this). I use FF exclusively now. Last time I looked the profiles worked better under Chromium, FF profiles were confusing. I'm not using profiles now though, so not a problem for me.

  12. @roy @_dmh While I support encouraging people to move to Firefox (and am a FF user myself) there are a couple misleading elements here.

    1) “Apple makes money from ads” is technically true, but that’s a long way from using their browser platform to enable it. It’s simply inaccurate to lump that in with the Chromium ecosystem’s approach to enabling ads. Safari’s privacy measures cost FB *billions* when they rolled out.

    1/

    1. @roy @_dmh

      2) There are good reasons to support rendering engine diversity, but calling WebKit and Blink “closely related” is like saying PostgreSQL and Ingres are closely related: true when the fork happened, but completely irrelevant at this point given the development since then. Again, while technically accurate, stating it this way implies a relationship that isn’t there.

      As I said: I’m a FF user and fan. But we can support it without blurring distinctions that do matter. 2/2

        1. @mcspadden @roy @_dmh I have no particular insight, other than generally finding US CEO pay outrageously disconnected from job performance, and very tired of the tax and employment laws being written to privatize profits and socialize losses.

  14. I used to use Opera back in the day before they changed their rendering engine to that behind Chrome / Chromium. Have also dabbled with Vivaldi. Been locked (🔒?) into Chrome for a while, mainly because of Android, Contacts, and Calendar, but must see if I can do all that, and Profiles, under Firefox / (new) Opera / Vivaldi.

  16. Firefox for Android now supports extensions (version 121).
    GPC Global Privacy Controls are built in too (but on Android the gui is missing until v122).

    3. It actually does! I’ve been using my own local html startup! First option in Option > Startpage

  20. @roy
    used Chromium (on #linux #ubuntu) for a long time, switched to Firefox some month's ago especially for the synchronisation between laptop, pc and two cellphones (my wifes and mine), alltough on the cellphones we prefere the #DuckDuckGo browser,
    That's clean, fast and blocks trackers in the apps on the phone.
    Firefox however is pretty good on the laptop an pc.

  21. @roy I used to use Firefox and liked it well enough. Then they did an upgrade that changed all my settings/layouts etc and I couldn't get them to work the same again so I ditched it.
    Mayve they've improved now. I'll take a look.

    1. @BramVanDriel @roy As far as I know, DDG's browser uses your system's webview engine, which on Windows is Webkit-based. On Mac/iOS it's likely Safari.

      So while it's definitely a good option in terms of privacy, it doesn't check the second box in my post.

  26. @roy I tried using Librewolf and Firefox proper, and I couldn't use them. After a week of both, I had to go back to Vivaldi. Firefox is missing too many features and extensions and is run by too many corrupt corporate suits.

    They keep ruining any hope they had by focusing on frivolous features and not on features users a fully want.

    Unfortunately, it looks like Chromium based browsers might be a monopoly; the best we can hope for is Chromium being ripped away from Google by the governments.

  28. @roy @bert_hubert Mozilla gets most of its money from Google…. without those payments Mozilla would likely not exist. In the US there is on top of that the DoH debacle where they decide to send all your DNS requests through a fun third party….. sorry, but Mozilla checked out years ago 🙁

  30. @roy There’s another option: if you don’t like the telemetry and unnecessary features that Firefox has (Pocket in particular), check out Librewolf, a fork of Firefox that strips all that out.

    I’ve been happy with Firefox, but I think I’ll go ahead and try Librewolf at some point too

  31. @roy Hmmmmm……. I still very well remember the "This webpage is best viewed in Internet Explorer"….
    All my own pages basically, long time ago, were just made in HTML3.2 or 4.01 Transitional.
    Needs to check those to kick out any G. Analytics I forgot.

    Using Firefox as default browser. Currenly Vivaldi as alternate.
    Did run into a few webites that didn't work in Firefox. One our insurance, obviously I complained…

  32. @roy I actually recommend against Firefox proper. Pocket acts as its own little opt-in spyware tool, and its security and privacy out of the box is poor. It defaults to Google as its search engine. I'd recommend using a stripped down version like Waterfox instead, or else Librewolf if you really want security. If using Linux, Firedragon gives you Librewolf with slightly more sane settings and Wayland support.

  33. @roy #Firefox is my default browser and has been for years. I should put my money where my mouth is. They are important to our Internet health. Thanks for the good reminder.

  34. I will NEVER go back to Firefox after they screwed the whole community to be like Chrome. We lost amazing extensions and were forced be on a new buggy browser engine for years. They are also trying to currently trying to get rid of Firefox as it produces almost no revenue since it dropped below the 2% mark for browsers.

    Vivaldi is the browser for me until Lady Bird Browser is in a solid state, which I estimate might be end of next year.

    1. have you heard of librewolf ? it’s basically firefox with as much of mozilla removed as possible.

      also honorable mention for waterfox and betterbird.

      I’m the same as you, mozilla repeated stupid decision imposed on me have turned me into never ever even considering going back to anything they do. It seems to be how they manage to turn firefox into irrelevance with no future, alienating its user base and long time supporters in a definitive manner.

  35. Mozilla leadership is human garbage. I’ll be using Brave, thank you very much.

    And before you say the word “monoculture“, give me a break please… Every Linux distribution uses the same Linux kernel and there’s no problem with that.

    Down with Mozilla, Firefox and all the blue haired turds who support them.

    1. fun fact brave has been founded by a dipshit that made his career at mozilla and thought he had this great idea to use people browsing to extract money by resurrecting the old and failed “pay to surf” scheme. After a many failed attempt, wrongdoings and public scandals, brave is now turning into a crypto scam.

      You clearly do not understand much about linux distro and kernel usage, as your statement is simply plain wrong. there are many kernel variant in use today, from rt to ck and so on.

      That said I do agree with you that mozilla is full on garbage, they seem to have 0 understanding of the web, of what a browser is, what firefox is about and what direction things should go.

      1. Actual fact: Brave was founded by the man who invented the world’s most popular programming language, JavaScript. Also, “pay to surf” is a well respected business model that everybody, including you, pays their ISP for. I’d ask you more about the alleged “failed attempt, wrongdoings and public scandals” but obviously you’re a dismal failure at making any sense whatsoever and you’d probably just lie.

        Clearly you don’t know what the Linux kernel is. The things you listed are just patches for the Linux kernel… kinda like how Brave and Edge patch the open source Chrome code. Repeat after me: Every Linux Distro Uses The Linux Kernel.

        Glad we can agree that Mozilla is garbage. You should use Brave though because your arguments against it are super weak.

    2. But the linux kernel is not controlled by a unique big corporation like google…
      I don’t want to let google force their vision of the internet upon us like with manifest V3 which prevent any good ad-blocking extensions from working. Browser based on Chromium won’t be spared by google. They have the power to do almost anything with Chromium.

  36. Been browsing Firefox only since Netscape. It’s everything I always needed, but the best features are the ones you activate _after_ a vanilla install:

    1. Adblocks and general safety/privacy extensions (many choices and combinations possible).

    2. Container tab extension: I’ve got a special container tab only for Google websites, and you can setup as many container tabs as you need.

    3. Sync: bring everything with you on every install, including open tabs and parameters

    4. Easy to work with and safe password manager (works with sync).

    5. For me, the killer feature is to be able to dump all cookies and all autosaved web stuff upon closing the browser, excepted passwords and bookmarks. That means I never keep open tabs and I always have to log back to websites, which do need time and dedication, but on the plus side: I never have cookie/login problems, or memory issues, or whatever. Always starting from a totally blank tab has its perks, and absolutely contributes to my digital safety and sanity, while making ad spooking a little more complicated.

  39. lol. do you know that google is almost entirely funding firefox? you have been sold on a “private browser” marketing. congratulations

  40. I’m a long time Firefox user and know this is an incredibly unpopular position in the FF community: but I wish they would switch to Chromium under the hood. What makes Firefox so great has nothing to do with the engine. The privacy-focused features including cloud stuff, the dev tools, the UX…all of that is just “chrome” built around the engine. In fact, I strongly believe the engine is actually *holding* Firefox back and pushing away users that are sick of websites not working correctly or, more commonly, seeing small rendering and functionality issues all over the place as developers stop caring about testing in FF/Gecko. A great example of this is how, on iOS, Firefox is just WebKit, yet it’s still the same great FF experience when it comes to the features around the engine. This is what I think they need to do to stay relevant and not repel users who just need sites to work.

  41. @roy I have been using firefox since their inception. I actually use several different browsers for different things. I always flush my cache before each use of a browser and I have them all set to delete all cookies and site data every time a browser is closed. Between this and a few other things I do I have not even once received a targeted Ad.

  42. There are effectively two viable browsers: Firefox and Chrome. One is *directly* run by an ad company and trying to kill your ability to dictate how the content you download is displayed & consumed by your computer. They’re both some degree of captured, but you can excise all of this stuff from firefox with a user.js or a fork. I’d hardly call Mozilla blameless, but why pick the *more* noxious one? I don’t understand the mindset at all, there’s nothing pragmatic about it…

  43. There is only one thing stopping me from switching to firefox, it’s the lack of customization of key bindings, like we do have in vivaldi for example

  46. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Firefox uploads your every move to Google. Run a script to monitor traffic to Google servers and weep. Open fresh Firefox window, yep ping to Google (even if Google isn’t your default search engine). Open any random non-Google property website (e.g. your bank), yep multiple pings to Google servers.

    At least Brave does not do this, even though Brave’s future is questionable as well.

  47. “Firefox is the only major browser not built by a company that makes money from advertising and/or selling your personal data.”

    You mean, other than Safari.

  48. Firefox needs to be backed up by heavy developers to compete with other browser like edge. I personally use ede as my default browser even though i know microsoft spys through it. But its the only browser that works for me. The features it gives like sidebar, vertical tabs, split screen, save workspaces, free gpt-4 that summarizes pdfs, web page also the ui feels great….. Firefox needs to be like arc to attract users.

  49. Hardened Firefox is the way with Mull or Fennec on Android.

    PD: On every Firefox post there are this conservative warriors that cant get over people wanting to have rights… can u stop victimizing urself? Yall literally have the status quo on your side and are still crying people are not like you. Get a grip and visit a forest or hug someone.

  52. No, Firefox is slow as hell, horrible battery life, and all their services are shit I’m not interested in.

    I use Safari exclusively, and i’m not gonna change my mind.

    Want people to not hate firefox? Tell ubuntu to stop preloading the firefox snap in ubuntu.

  55. The one of the only things I hate about firefox is the inability to save the web pages as single .mhtml file. Common folks! It is 2023 and this still doesn’t support this out of the box??

    I know there are a lot of extensions, but can’t use a default shortcut key of Ctrl+S to them. Can’t modify.

    Get this one single most feature and you will gain many users….

    Is there anyone who reads this and suggests to Mozilla? I feel the above para is in vain! But still wanted to record my thoughts…

    1. I feel very similar.

      However, I have come to believe that it is not possible for a browser anymore to “save” a website these days.
      Too much is being done with pulling in and rendering data on-demand, so the only way to preserve is the view as a screenshot. … until OCR gets powerful enough to re-create all text faithfully (and with AI maybe even the interactive parts somehow right?) or someone figures out how to freeze and export a tab’s memory in a portable and archiveable way (i.e. a Virtual Machine snapshot for a page view :-*( using up dozens of megabytes if not even gigabytes where a few kilobytes should suffice).

      So many websites today will end up in the “big black hole of lost information” 🙁
      (and to find many from before is very hard if not almost impossible even today already)

      For public websites archive.is and web.archive.org seem like our best bet but for anything personalized …

  57. Nah, there’s no way I’m switching to Firefox.

    Regardless of how wonderful, private, or whatever other features it has, its mobile version is just a piece of counterintuitive mess. Using it instead of Chrome on a phone is simply unbearable torture. Behavior of the tabs, react to the system back button, response to the home button, trying to select any text on the page – absolutely everything in this browser goes against how things should function in any application.

  60. Firefox for Android is… odd.

    Couple hoops to get more than the tiny, “curated” list of extensions. No tabbed browsing as on desktop. A few other quirks that are borderline unpleasant.

    Mainstream stays mainstream for reasons and these and other shortcomings don’t help.

  61. If Firefox stopped being the new Internet Exploder, I’d consider switching to it.

    I am a website developer and I’ve far too many times seen Firefox not being able to render a site correctly, even though all other (not Safari, which I don’t test because I don’t have Mac-equipment).

    My hope for Firefox is that they abandon the old Netscape engine and adopt Chromium so that pretty much all browsers agreed on how to render advanced stuff.

  65. @roy, the worst thing is that I still remember how enthusiastic I was about WebKit back then, as a powerful open source competitor that was finally able to break Microsoft's monopoly. How stupid I was.

  66. in firefox go to about:config and search for google. By default, a lot of data goes to google from firefox.

  69. Firefox is only better for privacy because of the multi-account containers and Facebook container. For other things is a worse browser, especially for power users. You need an extension just to add a custom search engine and list goes on.

  71. No, because the font rendered in Firefox is ugly. It’s been years and no more people talked about it. I hate that some websites with non-standard fonts appears bolder, flatten and ugly. I prefer aesthetics than privacy.

  72. Curious if you have a view on Arc? I’ve heard lots of good things about its functionality but no idea how it stands on privacy and other similar issues.

  73. Firefox dev tools are very buggy and slow, there is no way I can use those either at home or at work.

  74. Anyone who uses Chrome is just sucking China’s dick on the DL.
    Use Firefox if you care about anything other than yourself.

  75. I’ve always been a Firefox fan on Linux, but on my Mac, I lean towards Brave. Somehow, Firefox feels slower and glitchier on macOS, while Brave runs smoothly with its focus on privacy. It’s like having two different tools for different tasks, each fitting perfectly in its own environment.

  76. Yo desde hace poco estoy utilizando Brave como navegador principal, va mucho mejor que Chrome y no tiene publicidad.

  77. I’d really like to continue to use Firefox to fight the upcoming engine monopoly, but over the years (nay, decades…) their UI and addons regressions and more recently their “Thank you for loving Firefox” bullshit message has made it my resolution for 2024 to get rid of Firefox everywhere.

    And no offense to you, but my sentiment is that “modern and elegant” is a very, very large part of the problem why the “modern” web is just a shit show nowadays. Just last weekend I had to spoof Firefox to be whatever-other-browser-agent-string-worked just to make a purchase. “Modern” web shops are a menace for not using simple technology (because “people” “expect” bling everywhere?!). A few percent more in Firefox’s declining market share won’t stop those practices…

    If you can influence them in a way, as WEB DEVELOPER(s), AT THE SOURCE, with your customers and stacks that you use, PLEASE do!

    Oh, and if you should become to know a Gecko-browser with (old-style ;-)) sane UI and without marketing, please let me know…

    Good luck to us,
    Georg

    PS: I loved to use Palemoon for many years but too many sites became absolutely, totally and utterly broken, so I grudgingly went back to Firefox…

    PPS: I guess I’ll be back on Palemoon + Chromium for all those other sites 🙁

  78. FireFox eats my data on a silver platter. It betrayed me when I found out about it. Never using FireFox ever again!

  79. I would love to switch back, but they would have to implement the tab workspaces opera has. I just cannot live without those anymore, makes browsing the net a leagues better experience. As soon as that happens I am on board, but until then…

  80. I do like Firefox, but what drives me insane that Firefox has a known bug that has been open for 16 years, and there’s still no fix in sight. It’s a bug related to custom search engines sync. 16 years? That’s just absurd.

  81. I agree with you 100%. Firefox is the best browser for privacy and freedom. It’s not controlled by any big corporation that wants to spy on us and sell our data. It’s built by a community of passionate people who care about the web and its users. Firefox is also fast, secure and customizable. It has tons of features and extensions that make browsing more enjoyable and productive. I love Firefox and I recommend it to everyone who values their online rights.

  82. Thanks for your recommendations! I’ll definitely be sticking with Vivaldi and it’s immense levels of customisation!😀

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