In Defence of Firefox
I've been using Firefox since the 3.x days, so a little over a decade at this point in time. Over the years, I've watched it rise and fall, lived through several UI “refreshes,” and dealt with the myriad of controversial changes that Mozilla decided to implement. While I have no shortage of vitriol built up to Mozilla for making no real effort to keep Firefox competitive with Chromium, that isn't necessarily enough for me to override my love of Firefox as a web browser. Even after having lost all my faith in Mozilla's competence, I still cling to Firefox because I begrudgingly accept the fact that no other browser can really accomplish what it manages to do.
I'd like to state first and foremost that I'm not talking about Firefox in its default configuration. If I had to be perfectly honest, I find the default settings that it comes with to be absolutely appalling, especially for a browser that's trying to make a name for itself with “privacy-first” marketing. By default, Firefox uses Google as its primary search engine, enables (supposedly anonymised) telemetry out of the box, enables Pocket (an awful content aggregator that shoves clickbait right in your face) out of the box, and its ETP settings (analogous to Brave Shields) are quite lax for the sake of not breaking web pages. The irony is that Brave would be a much better browser for you if private defaults are your priority, as most of its contentious “features” are disabled out of the box.
With all of that said, Firefox manages to trump Brave (and other such Chromium derivatives) in one critical way: it's insanely customisable! Aside from being able to configure your preferences in the settings menu, there's also the about:config panel. I understand that Chromium flags are a thing, but Firefox's about:config flags are so much more robust and allow for much finer control over the exact minutiae of what you want the browser to do. If you're willing to spend the time and make some compromises in how you view the web, you'll be greatly rewarded for your efforts. That's not even getting into how much more mileage you can get out of extensions.
While Chromium has long since eclipsed Firefox in terms of extensibility, I'd argue that the few exclusive extensions that Firefox has are “killer apps” in their own right. The biggest one that comes to mind is Multi-Account Containers (and other such spinoffs like Mozilla's own Facebook Container and the community-driven Google Container). In short, the MAC extension is a robust utility that separates cookies and other such browsing data from the websites that you visit. Originally, this was intended to specifically allow for mutliple accounts to be used in the same browsing session without having to resort to using private windows or other browsers to accomplish the same effect. However, the tangential privacy benefits ended up eclipsing the original purpose.
By isolating your cookies and other such browsing data from different websites into separate containers, it becomes significantly harder for ad networks and tracking companies to build an accurate profile of you. This, in conjunction with some hardened presets (like the tweaks listed on PrivacyTools.io), custom ETP settings that block all third-party cookies, and the usual array of extensions like uBlock Origin make Firefox one of the best browsers out there for preserving user privacy. While you can accomplish a broadly similar effect on Chromium, the lack of Multi-Account Containers and the differences between about:config and Chromium flags are more than enough for me to stick with Firefox.
Now comes the part where I have to mention the compromises one would have to make if they were willing to go down this rabbit hole. First and foremost, Firefox isn't the best when it comes down to overall website compatibility; it's no secret that there are websites specifically configured for Chromium in this day and age. When you combine that with browser settings, tweaks, and extensions that manipulate your browsing data directly, you have a recipe for broken web pages. Obviously though, your mileage will vary depending on your overall threat model looks like.
I'm a fairly paranoid person despite leading a fairly mundane existence on the internet. A fair chunk of my logic stems from the fact that I've had my information compromised in data breaches, so I'm all about minimising my risks wherever I can. On top of this, I've found that the same websites that don't work well with all of my security measures in place aren't necessarily websites I'd want to visit anyway. Why would I ever want to visit Cnet if all I get from that website are shoddy tech reviews and awful autoplay widgets, for example? For the few Chromium-specific websites I do need to make use of for whatever reason, I just make use of Brave in those situations.
Now you might be wondering why I didn't permanently switch over to Brave if I do need to make use of Chromium-specific websites in the first place. Well, I did migrate over to Brave for a few months and while I do genuinely enjoy using the browser, it just doesn't cut it for me. Brave's fingerprinting resistance is amazing, but Firefox's fingerprinting resistance tweaks literally come from the Tor Uplift project. Plus, the underlying anxiety that I have of supporting a Chromium derivative in an overwhelmingly homogeneous market never really sat right with me in the first place (especially when Manifest V3 drops, if it hasn't already).
It might seem like an exercise in self-attrition to browse the web in such a fashion, but honestly? I prefer my hardened Firefox configuration over something more lax because it gives me some much-needed peace of mind whenever I go about my day online. Aside from the privacy and security benefits, another benefit to the way that I browse the web is that there's significantly less “noise” that I have to deal with. Often times, the “broken” web elements that my browser's configuration causes are the elements I would've tried my damndest to ignore (i.e. autoplay widgets, infinite scrolling, social media integration, etc). Again, it's not a perfect solution, but it's still infinitely better than the alternative.
Firefox isn't a perfect browser by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still something worth using. I understand that I'm in the minority of internet users who care about such a thing, but meaningful systemic change always starts at a grassroots level. I'm not saying that you have to use Firefox in precisely the same manner that I do; rather, I'm saying that you should give Firefox a chance to shine to its fullest potential. Plus, if Firefox ever dies, countless other projects will die with it (the Tor Project being chief among them). Mozilla does a lot on its own to generate awful PR, but that still won't stop me from trying to promote one of their diamonds in the rough to the best of my ability.