Stop! What browser are you using? Is it Chrome? Firefox? Something else like Arc, Brave, or Edge? Only one of these browsers is NOT Chromium-based (it’s Firefox). For a lot of people, that doesn’t matter, but if you care about privacy, keep on reading!
Why do people choose Chromium?
A lot of people (especially developers) love Chromium. This is because it’s open-source technology. Not only does this make it easier to develop so many new browsers, but it also inspires a false sense of security because anyone can see what’s going on under the hood. So what’s the big deal? Well, who owns Chromium, exactly? Google. This leads us to…
They have an online monopoly of (your) data.
Since so many browsers these days use Chromium as a base — and Google owns Chromium — a lot of your data is being parsed and stored by… you guessed it, Google. That can mean any key you press on your keyboard or any metrics on how you use the internet. You are the product.
In the long run (probably already by now, honestly), this leaves one company with a monopoly on internet access. There are already so few competitors left when it comes to browsers. The more this monopoly grows the harder it’ll be for new technologies to emerge. This is counterintuitive to creativity, freedom, and innovation on all fronts.
What about your Average Joe?
In simple terms, if one company has a reign over how everyone uses the internet — it’s bad. A lot of people don’t look under the hood, though. Why should your average user care? “I don’t do anything worth tracking,” they might say. Maybe. Sure. Well, we’re already starting to see some of the negative effects coming to the real world.
Since (almost) everything these days is Chromium-based, that’s a pretty tasty plug for advertisers. What’s the first thing people usually install on their browser? An adblocker. But if Google owns Chromium and Chromium is everywhere, they can control that too! And they’re going to — soon. Google is planning to introduce Manifest v3, new software within Chromium-based browsers that will break a lot of advertisement blockers (adblockers). You’ll soon have either less of, none, or no FREE choice in whether or not you consume ads while using the internet. This is just one of many changes that you can avoid by… switching to Firefox! :)
Should you switch browsers?
What can you do in the current climate? Switch browsers. Vote with numbers. The more support developers who aren’t using Chromium-based browsers get, the more space there will be for change. There are PLENTY of other open-source libraries that can be added to any non-Chromium browser. One that’s pretty popular is called user.js. It adds a bunch of security to your local Firefox browser out of the box. Want to customize Firefox so it looks and works like Arc? Try sidebery. Or… just plain ol’ Firefox will do. Safari even. Education is one of the only ways we can empower strangers. Keep your data safe, and keep the internet a free place.
Ok, it looks interesting and I don’t see any comments here, it seems I’m the first (I still don’t know if I’ll be the last) I can even agree with you but…when you suggest not using google and chromium based browsers, why you use google tag manager. How much more private is visiting with a non-chrome browser on a site with GTM in
Chromium actually doesn’t have all the Google-related stuff, like monitoring your activity (telemetry). And doesn’t Firefox also going to adopt Manifest v3?
It is wonderful that you are trying to help people think – but you need to do better research.
Firefox used to be free of Google.
Firefox uses the chromium backend – and Mozilla’s biggest financial supporter (and agent in getting the founder removed from his own company) … Google.
Google helped replace the board of the Mozilla Foundation.
The only non-chromium main stream browser is – Safari.
Firefox most certainly does NOT use Chromium. It still uses Gecko as the engine and if it was Chromium based, Chrome addons would work, but they do not.
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/127.0
Firefox here has NO chrome base and no Apple Web Kit. I can’t even imagine where you got your ideas from. Gecko rendering engine.
Now with Edge, one of many Chromium-based browsers we get from the ID string:
AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/126.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/126.0.0.0.
The easiest way to tell if you are using a Chromium based browser is that there are probably 3 to 5 updates a week which becomes tedious and annoying and then the browser ID string as shown here. Microsoft Edge in this case is based on Chrome 126.
Well, Chromium’s engine is a fork of Safari’s WebKit. And it’s controlled by an even worse company.
Once again everything is a monopoly run by… I won’t say it, because most people don’t want to know the TRUTH.
I used to support Brave by telling everyone to use it, then I started to see the odd comment in their community platform saying that Brave was doing sneaky things that most of us non geeks wouldn’t even understand..
Then they started ignoring my comments & requests for help, then I was bullied a few times by people who don’t know how to read & understand English after I complained about something that wasn’t working. Of course people LOVE to worship these software companies SMH.
They weren’t even able to help in regards to why my rewards stopped working out of the blue, nor did they reimburse me for lost rewards because I only noticed it months later, but that’s not as important as the other things. You aren’t going to be able to pay your bills off of Brave rewards.
Fast forward to 2024 and they stopped allowing people to update if they are on Win 7, & they won’t let you get rewards if you don’t upgrade. That is when I knew they were one of them.
I’m proud to be on Win 7 after the entire world rushed to get Win 10, & they worked for MS to push others to switch. Did you know that MS told EVERY company worldwide to change their software so it would only work on 10 & 11?
Do you want to know WHY? And no, it has NOTHING to do with the lies about safety & security.
I want NO comments from people who have no clue why I am not using Win 10. If you don’t study the Truth, you will just ignore what I say anyway because most people are brainwashed & don’t want to learn the Truth. They literally believe everything someone (or a company) tells them without questioning a THING. Complete naivety which is why they are so easily controlled.
Anyway, I just got a new SSD, installed Brave & guess what, THEY WON’T LET ME INSTALL MY EXTENSIONS and I’m furious b/c I’m on 7. Even Chrome allows the extensions. WOW
I used to love Fx back in the day after I switched form Netscape, but then it became a memory hog and they didn’t bother to fix it until years later. This was before I was a Truther.
I don’t trust ANY browser, they are all owned by the same people.
Why am I only looking for a chromium browser?
Because of the extensions & different profiles I can create that no one else has including Fx. With Fx you have to log out of one profile to get to another which is ridiculous ,& after all these years, they never changed it.
Now I’m stuck, and it looks like I may have to use Opera just so I can get my extensions. SMH & I just read the chinese bought them out. They don’t have the traditional chrome type profiles which sucks.
I wonder how TOR would work, but I doubt it’s chromium & I just checked, & it’s not, it’s FX based. sigh Mozilla is no better, & who of course created brave? The former FOUNDERS of Mozilla or Fx.
Ask yourself this if you don’t want to learn the Truth about what is REALLY going on… Why are there HUGE monopolies worldwide?