If not Firefox then what?

[Unaspected]

I don't trust anyone else. Everyone is either a self-serving idiot or a self-serving scumbag. I've looked into human nature and all those behaviours we evolved, so much that I don't even trust myself. Everyone has their bubble, formed to give them ease in a harsh reality. Everyone lies, particularly to themselves. Just look at religion or any of its substitutes. Or Americans with their 'freedom'. So go on and enjoy your warm-fuzzy 'choice' which makes you feel you have some agency in the world.

I noticed your sig - one of my favourite quotes. Whilst I do see bleakness in the world, we each have different experiences and I don't see myself reaching a conclusion until the ultimate one. I had written a proper reply, but deleted it as I realise how far off topic we have already gone and we'll only end up discussing the futility in distractions masquerading as entertainment.

[ThomasHelzle]

I don't think we need the extremes of on one hand tinfoil or on the other hand "I don't care".
The first keeps the distance to reality by seeing conspiracy everywhere (missing the good things) and the latter by pretending to not care (which simply isn't true if you look deep enough, but tries to numb the pain).

Both don't really help.

Not trusting anybody including yourself is another very sad outcome of basically being totally overwhelmed by the world, the media, agitators, populism, globalisation, the sorry state of the planet and our societies.

The extreme popularity of things like facebook only underline how totally lost and disconnected everybody is.
And lonely.

Why do we hang out on KVR?
Humans are made for connection and even if we argue to death over some EQ or the next sale, what it really is about is being with people, having a conversation, feeling connected.

And looking at different options in software isn't to feel high and mighty.
Google, MS, Facebook etc. have all the money, followers, power and data they will ever need.
They don't need me and I don't need them.
So to me it makes sense to look at the options with a critical eye - which does not mean to drown myself in hysteria.
And there isn't a single browser available that doesn't have some kind of agenda.
Firefox is getting most of it's income from Google and other large entities, selling them traffic by including their search engines. And they did some very stupid things in the past, like including some weird addons that were tracking people.
So it's not as if there is the path of the shining knight on the noble steed.
That is basically what humanity learns at the moment - there is no simple solution to anything.

And that is why I spoke against just using the defaults. And for many reasons:

- You will never find the really interesting things if you just take what is given to you.
XYplorer (or any other alternative) can change your whole workflow if you set it up right.
Looking for alternatives to Adobe brought me - beside other things - to Luminar, which is not only cheaper than Lightroom, but also much better in many ways on what it can do. That I at the same time did not sign into their harebrained subscription scheme is a mere sidebenefit in the meantime.
Vivaldi has much better customisation than IE/Edge and a very interesting bunch of people behind it.

- All the bad guys know those defaults too. So if you have your documents in the documents folder, of course every trojan will encrypt those first. But it's not only that, it's that you may want to have a totally different structure, work with many drives in your machine and just don't feel that microsofts "vision" has anything to do with yours.

- You kill variety. The overarching monoculture of Adobe did a lot of bad things to the availability of alternatives. Only after they did the CC stunt, the alternatives are starting to bloom again, most of them advertising with "no subscription". Thank you Adobe for being so stupid.
And if MS continues with it's current path (Apple is even further ahead in the gated society thing), Linux will be the only out left for many, which may do a lot of good in the long run too.
And with browsers we see less and less core engines. Which is not good, even if MS did more harm to the internet as a whole with it's browsers than any other entity in that market and I won't cry a single tear for IE.

- Taking the easy way is bad for your brain. Finding new solutions or workarounds, overcoming adversity and being out there in the cold and dealing with it not only is interesting, not only gives you more knowledge and a backbone, since you learn that you can actually trust yourself even in hard times, it also leads to a way more interesting life.
That is why I gave up Ableton Live after reading how disconnected and complacent/full of themselves their programmers had become in the Live 9 beta.
Bitwig 1.0 had many flaws, but man was it an interesting ride! I learned tons of interesting stuff. And now they who were called copycats get copied all over the field...

So yeah, I think the "middle path" is neither going totally paranoid nor pretending not to care, but to walk your own path with open eyes and do as good as you can with what you know. Nothing more is required, but anything less is selling yourself too cheap.

And yeah, I know it was "just" about browsers

Cheers,

Tom

[do_androids_dream]

... and the OP only asked for a browser.

Yes.. then it developed into a discussion. If the op was only interested in a list of available browsers he/she could have found that out in 10 seconds by googling it. By asking in a forum I take it the OP is interested in opinions of browsers.

[do_androids_dream]

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/08/0 ... on-online/

Why is this bad?

From the link:

In short: it makes the Internet less healthy. As a result, the Internet’s ability to power democratic society suffers greatly.

The Internet is NOT healthy. It is a spy tool exploited by US, European and Israeli spy organizations. The REAL spies. Only later do Facebook, Google etc. come into the picture. And they are spies too, although a bit different. And then come commercial companies who want to sell you stuff you don't need, but for this puropose they need your metadata which they collect or purchase without your approval and generally treat you like a lab rat with a credit card.

And who decides what is 'information' or not? The guys who want to tell you who you are and what you should think. Ah, it's a Russian site spreading this 'misinformation'? We'll ditch it as a last result in your search. Ah, a Chinese site? Won't be listed at all.

You know, long before the so-called Russian trolls, there were the US trolls, bots, etc. including on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The phrase 'democratic societies' gives the game away. Democratic, my ass!

Erm. OK. But when I quickly read it, I thought 'oh good, maybe less anti-vax, anti-gmo bullshit stories getting into peoples heads'.

You seem a tad paranoid.

If this is how you feel you will be easy to 'sell' this to. What qualifies a software company, that makes an internet browser, to decide what information is true or false? What gives them the authority? It's like saying a paper manufacturer can decide what's written on their paper. Anyone should have the right to say whatever the hell they want - it's down to the 'audience' to decide whether they should give them the time of day. On principle, I am 100% against any form of censorship - however 'softly' they try to sell it.

It's their browser. They can do what the f**k they want with it. So don't use it. What gives you the right to dictate what a company does? Go make your own internet if you don't like it.

"it's down to the 'audience' to decide whether they should give them the time of day". Very noble. Thing is, most of that 'audience' are idiots.

But keep fighting the good fight dudes. It's human nature to enjoy feeling 'special' and being party to 'the truth'.

I can't help. I'm of no use to anyone. I'm so blown away by how complex this world is, and what little I know, that I don't give a flying f**k anymore.

So, I'll thank you in advance for saving us plebs from 'them'.

Wow.. you really are going to be an easy sell. So fully assimilated you're now angrily doing their job for them.. very well adjusted to our sick society eh

[SoundPorn]

Them stories should be in your head because its already in your body might as well wake up and smell the deception. I went to school for media and I promise you on these mainstream media channels no news is getting reported. They're only publishing propaganda to push an agenda that's not ours.

Firefox is also now part of the censorship propaganda bs now too..

That is disappointing to learn. Do you have an example?

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/08/0 ... on-online/

Why is this bad?

From the link:

In short: it makes the Internet less healthy. As a result, the Internet’s ability to power democratic society suffers greatly.

The Internet is NOT healthy. It is a spy tool exploited by US, European and Israeli spy organizations. The REAL spies. Only later do Facebook, Google etc. come into the picture. And they are spies too, although a bit different. And then come commercial companies who want to sell you stuff you don't need, but for this puropose they need your metadata which they collect or purchase without your approval and generally treat you like a lab rat with a credit card.

And who decides what is 'information' or not? The guys who want to tell you who you are and what you should think. Ah, it's a Russian site spreading this 'misinformation'? We'll ditch it as a last result in your search. Ah, a Chinese site? Won't be listed at all.

You know, long before the so-called Russian trolls, there were the US trolls, bots, etc. including on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The phrase 'democratic societies' gives the game away. Democratic, my ass!

Erm. OK. But when I quickly read it, I thought 'oh good, maybe less anti-vax, anti-gmo bullshit stories getting into peoples heads'.

You seem a tad paranoid.

[SoundPorn]

I have a bunch of browsers on my pc but there's no getting around Chome being the most reliable and convenient for me. Since I use Android phones everything is synced from my phone to my pc. With that said I don't trust Google or Alphabet one bit and more people should look into who Eric Schmidt is for starters as to why and his army of robots he wanted to control after his brain was uploaded into a satellite. lol. I couldn't make this stuff up, but he dam sure could of been the head of Googles parent company for years.

[Vortifex]

..

[do_androids_dream]

Due to this thread I've been back testing browsers again.. Chrome consistently comes out on top for speed and performance in general. As much as I like Pale Moon it really lags behind on youtube and facebook - two of the most essential websites..

[Brother Charles]

Brave impresses me too. I’ve been a Firefox user for over 15 years (maybe longer), but it is quite boggy now. Jeepers! The most recent MS Edge is fast n’ snappy. What keeps me tied to Firefox is the extensions. Chrome is just so . . . Google. Constant forced Chrome updates and its hard drive/software scans is a royal pain-in-the-noodle, for me.

I will check out waterfox and see what it’s all about.