Thing is, I have configured my Firefox to be as "private" as possible. It can also backfire, because corps can fingerprint you based on your browser's preferences. So, when I am saying Firefox is bloatware is because it is out-of-the-box. You can spend hours tinkering with it, but the average person won't bother doing that, so Mozilla would force them to be part of their ecosystem through all those syncs, branding, AI, no actual strict privacy by default, etc. That's what I call bloat, that on-boarding experience with terrible UI changes.
hikosan
joined 1 month ago
Because it is a bloatware. Like, what is the point of using Firefox? It's faster? It was never because of speed. Less RAM usage? No. It was because of privacy. Peoples started hating on Chrome because Google became evil. Then they went after adblockers. Google search became bloated with garbage results, DDG became a better alternative, also marketed as privacy-focused.
It just happens to be that out of all other web browsers, there were no better alternatives, and Firefox seemed the best option at that time. Opera was a spyware. Brave was still fresh. Actually, Brendan Eich, the founder of Brave who also founded Mozilla and created JavaScript, was called out for making an anti-LGBTQ donation, so many people hesitated using Brave when it released. Needless to say, anything Microsoft was hated with a passion.
That's why people need to keep reinventing the wheel.
Absolutely agree on every point. I felt this for the last few years, not just with the latest updates. I haven't updated Firefox for months (a year?), and when I decided to do it after convincing my friend to switch to it because he said he couldn't find the option in settings I told him about, I was basically ~10 versions behind. So updating it and seeing the redesigned settings that looked less intuitive and completely unnecessary, I felt really frustrated.
There's a new browser in the making called Ladybird, I don't know if it's going to be available on Windows (they say the alpha is for Linux and macOS). Yeah, I am on Windows, sadly, and I don't plan on switching to Linux, yet. Mozilla was praised for being a non-profit "good guys", but they've been really annoying, perhaps trying to appeal to the mainstream. Truth is, the mainstream does NOT care about Firefox. You need to spend all your funds on marketing it, not making it uglier with each update.
Yeah. I have automatic updates disabled, I would have to download the new version in order to update it. I am using lots of software that is years "out of date". Because they are better. The newer they are, the more bloated they are. And good things break and get deprecated. I am still on Windows 10 and I can't be bothered switching to 11. If you think that jeopardizes my security, it really isn't. My PC isn't a web server that needs constant updates to keep the service secure; I maintain backups in case things go sideways.