
Firefox is showing the way back to a world that’s private by default - doener
https://www.theverge.com/tech/2020/2/26/21153525/firefox-dns-encryption-amazon-go-browsing-shopping-privacy
======
allenskd
It's been 2-3 years since I switched back to Firefox ever since I cut around
90% of Google out of my life, sadly I still can't find a good search engine
where I don't spend more than 5 mins trying different keywords to get the
results google gives me.

Out of all the browsers I like that Mozilla were the first to point the finger
to the elephant in the room while Microsoft, Google, Opera just turned a blind
eye on privacy, although I don't think anyone expects much from Google these
days.

Firefox has once again became my default browser on all my devices after like
6-8 years since I last used it. I guess as far as privacy concerns goes, if
you are looking for a company/browser that will continue working on protecting
you from trackers by default that'd be Mozilla.

Random observations that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the
topic: Firefox for windows is perfect. I actually think it's faster on Windows
than on OSX for whatever reason. Playing videos, like using Netflix or Youtube
is extremely sluggish on Firefox OSX, but is fine on Windows. I always end up
using Safari if I want to watch a video on a higher resolution because the
performance drags a lot on Firefox, especially it Netflix's overlay UI you can
literally observe it's lagging behind but not in Safari.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
In the past couple of years, search has reverted to late 90s levels of result
quality. Google used to get you exactly what you wanted for close to 20 years.
Now you have to cross reference several search engines to find something other
than terrible blogspam and obvious advertisements disguised as reviews. Search
seems primed for disruption again.

I appreciate DDG's privacy focus, but their results are often crap.

~~~
ProZsolt
I feel the same. Recently I started using Reddit for finding niche topics.

~~~
isoskeles
The most niche things I search for are typically career-related, so software
questions. I'd guess more than 9 out of 10 queries, the result that I am
looking for (i.e. the result that helps me) is on stackoverflow, github, or
some apache mailing list.

A search engine just for software, that crawls a whitelisted set of platforms
and provides more relevant results (github's search is very poor, for example)
would be perfect. Google seems to be the "best" at this right now, so while I
use DDG to search most of the time, when I'm working I end up routing most of
my queries to Google.

Somewhat tangential, but the word "niche" made me think about this.

~~~
_michaelll
you should build this! building a search engine today is no doubt an uphill
battle, but the move toward more specialized platforms feels inevitable as
there gets to be more and more of the web to index, search, and discover.

------
edpichler
I use Firefox because while Microsoft, Google, Facebook and other giants are
working hard to take ownership of the Internet, Mozilla works to keep the web
open and free.

I have a small SAS project, and I am sad that just 2% of my users use Firefox,
while 80% of them uses Google Chrome.

~~~
vianneychevalie
How do you gather those analytics on browser usage? An outstanding number of
Firefox users block analytics, so that may introduce a bias into those
figures.

~~~
hu3
Not OP but a statistically significant method of measuring browser marketshare
is by looking at User agent on web server logs.

------
nmeofthestate
We need to ban the word "creepy" \- it's lazy and vague.

I could write an article about how, in order to buy something in a store,
you're expected to queue up and present your chosen products to a human who
picks them up and scans them - wow, "super creepy", right. An actual human
running their hands over your stuff, glancing at your face and probably
thinking about who you are, and why you're buying these particular products.
The human might even get a look at your bank card. "What a bunch of weird
nonsense" is the idea that is probably going through your head (see how I
lazily assume you think like me, the article author).

~~~
gnud
In you example it's obvious what is happening.

On the web, it's not.

~~~
jimmydorry
Both are kind of creepy though. It's a meaningless and lazy descriptor in the
way it's currently being (ab)used.

~~~
viklove
The real world example would only be creepy if the cashier was keeping
detailed notes of what you bought, and suggesting related products the next
time you visited the store. It's not creepy because the vast majority of
cashiers don't do that. The online example is creepy because almost all
vendors are doing this, and even worse, they're sharing the data with each
other to build detailed customer profiles so they can sell you more products.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targ...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#136f73c26668)

~~~
true_religion
You are basically relying on the cashiers poor memory to stop them from
recognizing you. If you live in a small town, or even just an efficient city
that sees you going to the same store often, people will recognize you.

------
dcabrejas
I love what Firefox stands for. They are not the only one but for sure they
are keeping the balance of the web when it comes to privacy and security.
Unfortunately as their market share drops, they have less and less say in the
future of the platform.

~~~
BiteCode_dev
Given firefox users massively block trackers, way more than chrome which
actually links your google account with your browser login, I wonder how
accurate are the stats.

Firefox did lose market shares, but it's possible we see lots of chrome users
also because they are more visible.

Related, although a different problem, one of the biggest stat providers is
Google analytics, and a lot of sites make decisions based on those, but Google
has no incentive to check if they are missing some non chrome users.

~~~
DeusExMachina
I think (but I have no idea) that browsers are tracked by their user agent,
which they always send.

~~~
krige
Indeed, however Firefox often masks its user agent as websites falsely report
broken and missing features for non-chrome browsers. User agent is growingly
meaningless as a metric.

~~~
randomdude402
One of the first things I do on a new Firefox install is add a user-agent
switcher and set it up to tell sites I am using chrome for exactly this
reason.

Somehow we have gone back to the dark ages of web where sites complain unless
you are using one specific browser.

It was the more technical minded people who spread the word and mindshare of
browser choice back then to get us out of that mess, and now the same group
has gotten us back into it worse than ever.

I'll never understand how this happened.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
User agent override is a builtin feature in firefox for ages.

~~~
randomdude402
Thanks for that info! I had no idea about this.

~~~
cpeterso
A quick (though not very user friendly) method to change Firefox's User-Agent
string is to create a new about:config pref (string type) called
"general.useragent.override" wit the new User-Agent string.

------
alexruf
I am using Firefox as my main browser for almost 7 years now (exclusive for ~3
years). As I see it Firefox is the only reasonable choice if you are looking
for a browser respecting its users privacy.

Personally I never had problems with Firefox breaking pages or having
noticeable performance issues. Quite the opposite seems to be the case, since
it feels faster and better with every update they released. I really can’t
understand all the people constantly complaining about Firefox being slow and
buggy. 90% of the time I had issues, it was because of poorly written browser
extensions or ad-blockers breaking stuff. It feels like most of the people
complaining about Firefox are just looking for excuses to justify why they are
too lazy to migrate.

The dangerous thing is when another new Chromium based browser, such as Brave
or Edge, appears, which often makes it even worse for the user, since they
just share your data with another company.

~~~
j4pe
Chromium has very little to do with whether a browser shares user data - it's
just an open-source package for making browsers.

I also primarily use Firefox, but Brave is definitely a more serious effort at
a privacy-focused browser.

~~~
floriol
I never really understood brave. It's basically chromium with some google
tracking removed and with some inbuilt "extension".

You get the same with firefox plus ublock origin, while supporting a more open
web by not using the monopolistic chrome engine. Also, I doubt brave could
fork the project for a long period after the adblocking becomes impossible
with chromium

------
dkdbejwi383
If Apple allowed changing default apps on iOS I'd use Firefox everywhere.

~~~
BiteCode_dev
Firefox can't really exist on iOS, only a shell on top of apple's browser
engine.

~~~
savolai
The rendering engine is largely irrelevant to me as a user on mobile. (Though
of course having the actual one would be better.) Firefox sync is the meat of
the deal.

~~~
endemic
Agreed, sync is a great feature, but last I checked iOS content blockers only
work with Safari, not any other apps that use WKWebView. So stupidly, I have
both Focus and Firefox on my iOS phone, but only Safari can use the Focus
content blocker. It’s pretty terrible.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Have to used a local VPN from AdGuard to circumvent it and sometimes it
glitches.

~~~
zoonosis
AdGaurd looks like a Safari content blocker and not a VPN to me.

[https://adguard.com/en/adguard-
ios/overview.html](https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios/overview.html)

~~~
commoner
AdGuard Pro, the paid version, uses the VPN interface to block ads.

[https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios-
pro/overview.html](https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios-pro/overview.html)

------
blitmap
My absolutely largest issue with Firefox is how settings revert after updates
without any notice. It is good that updates are frequent. It is bad that
settings revert and defaults are not safe.

I'll never touch Chrome again.

~~~
cptskippy
Out of curiosity, which settings are reverting for you? I can't recall
settings reverting but I do occasionally get the "running slow" prompt to blow
away my profile and start from scratch.

If anything, I've noticed more and more settings are getting pushed into Sync
and automatically propagate across instances or upon new installation. Which
is nice.

~~~
voicedYoda
Recently i was promoted to refresh my ff settings, and upon restarting, all my
settings and plugins were set back up 0. Not a pleasant experience rebuilding
my ff instance, but i guess it's better now than before.

~~~
cptskippy
Yup, it's not pleasant but thankfully, apart from NTLM settings, I've managed
to remove most of my custom about:config settings I had used over the years,
so apart from dragging Add-On icons into the Overflow Menu I don't have much
customization to do.

I had an issue with v73 being incompatible with whatever security software my
Work PC was running and the main rendering thread crashing. After trying
numerous things including rolling back to v72 and refreshing my profile, I
came across a bug indicating it was scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming
release which turned out to be v73.0.1 thankfully.

That's the first time I can recall where Firefox did me wrong.

------
seemslegit
Mozilla depends almost entirely on Google and other advertisement companies
for revenue, whatever privacy posturing they put in place is just means to
drive people away from extensions whose block lists Mozilla does not control.

~~~
smt88
Most users are going to use Google regardless. You could say that the user
trusts Google, even if we know they shouldn't. Firefox cripples Google's
ability to track the user either way, especially with uBlock Origin and Google
Container installed.

Even better, it prevents ISPs and other parties that the user _doesn 't trust_
from tracking them.

~~~
seemslegit
Why does one's use of google services allow you to assume that they trust
google but one's use of an ISP services doesn't assume they trust the ISP ?

~~~
smt88
Because in the US, most ISPs are a monopoly. Google isn't.

~~~
seemslegit
Ok let's roll with this, although just between the cellular data carriers
there are more choices than between web-scale search engines or smartphone
platforms. If you had plenty of ISPs to choose from and all were in the habit
of mining and monetizing your browsing data simply because that's legal and
profitable should Mozilla recognize you as implicitly trusting the most
dominant one that also happens to be paying them ?

~~~
smt88
It's a false analogy. Not all search engines track or monetize you. A user can
choose DuckDuckGo. There is no DuckDuckGo for ISPs.

This hypothetical is even less relevant when you consider that Mozilla
protects you from Google using blockers and _also_ from ISPs using DNS over
HTTPS.

------
dependenttypes
Meanwhile firefox is the browser that calls home the most (at least on the
first run)
[https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

On every single release they add new hidden options regarding tracking by
mozilla (see Normandy and shield for example, which you have to go to
about:config to disable).

In addition to that about:addons uses google analitics and does not allow for
it to be blocked by extensions, plus mozilla sites use tracking scripts
(googletagmanager etc) that need modifications in about:config to be blocked
(extensions.webextensions.restrictedDomains).

Finally mozilla does not seem to be taking any measures to make firefox more
resilient to tracking - in fact they support more and more technologies that
diminish it. (web fonts, webgl, geolocation, user agent mentioning the version
language and OS, etc)

Edit: Sorry, by "web fonts" I meant the ability for sites to read the fonts
that you have installed. I do not know if actual web fonts can be used for
tracking.

~~~
fenwick67
Perfect is the enemy of good. Firefox is pushing the Overton window in the
right direction, which is good enough for me. Some of your complaints are
legitimate but that doesn't mean Firefox isn't the best option for most people
right now.

~~~
jshevek
If your main concern is privacy, Firefox is not the best browser for most
people right now:

[https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf](https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf)

~~~
fenwick67
Brave's integrated ponzi scheme (magic Brave dollars) and fundamental
dependency on Google's Chromium make it a no-go for me.

~~~
jshevek
> _Brave 's integrated ponzi scheme (magic Brave dollars)_

"Ponzi" and "magic" are not descriptors one would use if discussing this
[objectively].

Fortunately, BAT is opt in, and you can get all of the superior privacy
benefits of Brave without BAT playing any role in your browser experience.

~~~
fenwick67
I appreciate your point about BAT being opt-in. Maybe the language is a bit
inflammatory for HN standards, but BAT has always seemed crummy to me.

------
mbostleman
I've run a variety of non-Chrome browsers (currently Brave) as my default for
most personal usage. But with all of them it seems like I run in to
incompatibilities that cause me to fire up Chrome as a workaround. I use 5
SAAS applications to run my business and I run them all from Chrome because at
one point or another I ran in to some kind of showstopper and it just wasn't
practical to constantly switch to Chrome to unblock.

The issues are often weird and not obvious. Last weekend I stayed at a Hampton
Inn and their Wifi authentication page kept refusing to accept my last name
and room number. I called the front desk which ended up being a waste of time
(I was hoping maybe there was a mix up in the data). I finally ended up hot
spotting. Then the next day it occurred to me that maybe it was a browser
issue. Sure enough, I was able to reproduce the problem in Brave, then copied
to the url to Chrome and it worked fine.

Bottomline, these issues seem like a big impediment to a mainstream migration
away from Chrome.

~~~
BrendanEich
It likely involved us blocking a 3rd party script that the hotel embedded
against its 1st party interests. If you click on the lion-icon in right end of
address bar and lower shields you should be able to match Chrome's behavior,
if such a 3rd party script block caused the symptom.

------
markstos
Now we'll see if Thunderbird will make saving sent mail opt-in for each
message, for privacy.

How many of your email conversations need to be preserved forever?

We certainly don't walk around with an audio recorder to record every word we
speak in person to people in case we want to refer back to them later.

Email defaulted to storing messages years ago because it seemed cheap and
valuable. Some value remains, but we no live an era of doxing and data dumps
where saved communications can be a liability as well.

~~~
reflectiv
> We certainly don't walk around with an audio recorder to record every word
> we speak in person to people in case we want to refer back to them later.

...not to play devils advocate, but...

No we don't need it, but just like with email...that would be quite useful in
many circumstances.

------
retpirato
[https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/releases](https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/releases)
this is a good extension to block tracking elements. you can also block things
like javascript & you can block them on a single page , a whole site or across
the board. it's available for firefox & chrome.

------
trey-jones
I don't even care that much about privacy, but I started using Firefox full
time in October after changing computers and I think it's great. I tried a
couple of years ago and found it lacking compared to Chrome, but this time I'm
good.

------
badrabbit
FF needs to straighten out memory usage issues. It was using 12GB of ram
earlier before I had to kill it,i was running more tabs/workload on a webkit
browser and it was using around 3GB.

The UI is a lot better but for some reason the memory hogging seems to just
get worse. Why can't it pause tabs after a memory usage limit if it can't
manage the leakage? I keep trying but even when putting up with it's slowness
I can't have it basically freeze my system. This only applies to windows too.
I think,maybe they test on Linux and Mac too much but most people are on
windows.

------
awill
Firefox has only recently really been in the same performance ballpark as
Chrome, meaning to get this privacy you had to give up performance. These days
the delta is small enough that it shouldn't matter. Notable things still
delaying my switch.

1\. Linux. The Linux Firefox app is inferior to the Windows version. The same
can't be said for Chrome.

2\. Android. Firefox Preview should catch things up, and I think will be
stable by the summer. Maybe I'll switch then.

~~~
larrik
Interesting. I've been using Firefox exclusively for a few years, mostly on
Linux, and haven't actually noticed it being inferior to the Windows version.
What am I missing?

~~~
franga2000
Not OP, but I'll give my list (I use it despite these issues tho): \-
associating programs to file extensions is not only out of sync with the
system, but also a huge pain to fix manually as basically none of my programs
show up in the dropdown \- it uses the extraordinarily crappy GTK3 file
picker, regardless of environment \- hardware acceleration is hit-or-miss \-
no borderless top bar \- drag&drop is janky (not sure if Plasma-specific) \-
touch scrolling and gestures need about:config tweaks to work

None of these are killers for me as I really dislike the way Chromium renders
pages (I know how weird that sound) and want to support Gecko even if it's
partially inferior, but at least the file picker thing is an absolute disaster
(not unique to FF, but they're no doubt the biggest in terms of time spent
using it).

------
ninedays
Am I the only one seeing the irony of having The Verge talk about Firefox and
privacy when the website is bloated with tracking scripts?

------
retpirato
I tried the same foreign language search (esperanto-"kio estas la plej bona
maniero lerni esperanto?") in google & ddg & ddg gave me a full page of
esperanto results while google's was a mix of Esperanto & English. both were
mostly relevant though.

------
cyberbanjo
I've been using DDG on non-mobile device for years. One thing that always
surprises me is when another DDG user doesn't know about bangs. I never
witnessed the search of the 90s but Google's experience has certainly degraded
for me since then.

~~~
nottorp
I learned about DDG bangs from HN comments, for example.

------
Havoc
Yup. FF + uOrigin + pi hole seem to be keeping things at bay...for now.

~~~
72deluxe
Until DOHS arrives at an OS level! Then you and I are scuppered.

~~~
LinuxBender
pi-hole can address that be either adding its own DoH proxy, or by null
routing / firewalling the most commonly known DoH DNS endpoints and having a
local DNS record to NXDOMAIN use-application-dns.net while browsers respect it
(to disable DoH). Adding Unbound DNS example below.

    
    
        local-zone:     "use-application-dns.net" always_nxdomain
    

This assumes that pi-hole is your router and not just a resolver. This could
be done in OpenWRT as well. I just use a generic Linux router at home.

~~~
72deluxe
Thanks for this. I'll try this on my pi-hole.

------
fulldecent2
Inspired by this post, I just installed Firefox on my iMac. Here are two
problems.

1) After a vanilla installation, I clicked the profiles icon. (It's the person
in a circle button.) When I click it, a popup menu shows, then it relocates
north 30 pixels, then it redraws where it is supposed to be. For a software
with a main interface only having 8 buttons, it is bad that one of them does
not work properly.

2) I'm at work right now so I planned to migrate from Google Chrome and
uninstall it. I successfully migrated my work profile. I don't see a way to
use a separate profile for personal. Tried Command-Shift-M (Chrome shortcut to
change profiles) and got nothing. That ended it for me.

~~~
Vinnl
Try going to about:profiles, and be sure to check out Multi-Account
Containers, which might satisfy your use case: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/multi-account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/)

------
dzonga
I wish other browsers e.g Vivaldi would've been built on top of the Firefox
engine. The reason, I use Vivaldi is tab management. & that Firefox can be a
resource hog on KDE

------
segmondy
I use firefox too not because it's the best but because of privacy and to give
them market support

------
Nextgrid
What Mozilla is doing with Firefox regarding privacy is mostly a sham. Lots of
talk but little action.

First off, if they were real about privacy they'd include uBlock Origin by
default (and why not HTTPS Everywhere for good measure as well). Their current
tracking "protection" is an absolute joke that explicitly whitelists Facebook
and Google, the two biggest offenders when it comes to privacy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112398)

They should also remove Google Analytics from their website, or at least the
pages that the browser will automatically load on first use or after an
update. While Google claims they have some special relationship with Mozilla
regarding this and they won't use the data for any other purposes, it's hard
to trust them - Facebook for example used to say that phone numbers would only
be used for 2FA and yet somehow they ended up being used for advertising.

They should also make the telemetry opt-in instead of opt-out like it is now.
Their current way of doing it might actually be in breach of the GDPR, as any
non-essential data collection and processing must be opt-in.

~~~
heartbeats
I don't see why you're getting downvoted. You're 100% right. Mozilla get money
from Google and spend it on fun projects which have nothing to do with the
web. This creates some very bad incentives with regard to privacy on the net.
Mozilla don't seem to care about this, they just take the money and keep
going.

~~~
terminaljunkid
Mozilla particularly has really bad suit-dominant administration. Brendan Eich
is here on HN. He can explain better.

~~~
BrendanEich
I'm bound by various NDAs that do not expire upon my exit so I won't say
anything that isn't already public. Sorry.

------
galkk
I’m trying my best to switch to Firefox. On paper it has everything I want:
nice treestyle tab plugins, less risks to have adblocker disabled.

In practice it’s buggy, slow browser. I have much less extensions than chrome,
and it still regularly crashes tabs and occasionally entire browser

------
retpirato
is the linux version of firefox decent on a chromebook or is it a memory hog?

~~~
LinuxBender

        Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used Program 
        205.6 MiB +  34.3 MiB = 239.8 MiB firefox-bin
    

That is with 4 tabs open, one of them being Slack and one being HN. 68.x ESR.
Calculated with ps_mem.py [1]

[edit] ran gc / cc in about:memory to get real numbers minus cache. This is on
CentOS 7 using the 5.5.6 kernel from ElRepo [2].

[1] -
[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pixelb/ps_mem/master/ps_me...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pixelb/ps_mem/master/ps_mem.py)

[2] - [https://elrepo.org/tiki/About](https://elrepo.org/tiki/About)

------
m3kw9
I thought that was Safari

------
pixelbreaker
"Tracking shouldn't be the norm" subtitle on the verge, which currently has
~12 trackers being blocked in my browser.

~~~
ekzy
I get your point but it's still a good thing that the authors are writing
about tracking. It's probably a different team working on the website and I'd
hope articles like this open people eyes even internally at the verge

~~~
tialaramex
Indeed the firewall at old-fashioned newspapers (between editorial and advert
sales) was vital to their independence and dissolving this (today you can buy
"native advertising" which only the most careful reader will realise isn't
editorial) has been part of their downfall. You actively _want_ the people who
write the stories to be shielded from whatever the people making money to pay
for those stories do. Every time a journalist even _feels_ like they shouldn't
write a story because it'll lose their paper (or TV channel, or website) money
that's a problem.

That doesn't mean the media aren't worth criticising, but it means you should
aim for it to be possible for that critique to come from within.

Funding models other than advertising are good, but they're not realistic for
very broad media. I might give money to a person who writes (or talks or makes
videos) about a subject I care very deeply about, but who is going to give
money to the people doing a morning breakfast show or a mid-size city
newspaper? Those things are expensive and advertising remains a realistic way
to fund them.

------
heartbeats
And yet, they don't block ads by default.

They should do that. Cut a deal with some ad provider to serve non-tracking
ads, and leave the rest in the dust. This would make Firefox a much more
pleasant experience than other browsers, and give them some well-needed cash.

~~~
pornel
That is harder to justify. Tracking is an invasion of privacy, so blocking of
trackers can be seen as a defense.

But blocking _non-tracking_ ads, just because users don't like them and
Mozilla could make a buck, would be seen an attack on publishers' revenue,
even when publishers tried to do the right thing.

~~~
mattmanser
Yes, but it'd be more than that, it would basically be theft.

------
abdulmuhaimin
I hope Firefox die just to shut up these "look how not perfect Firefox is"
comments.

------
buboard
Mozilla is supposed to be a friend of webdevs. By blocking their income
without providing an alternative , or some other kind of benefit, webmasters
are going to turn their backs to it.

~~~
Vinnl
Mozilla is not blocking webdev income without an alternative. Non-tracking
advertisements are still allowed, paywalls are still allowed, donations are
still allowed, ...

~~~
buboard
tracking from google and fb is allowed

------
afrcnc
No, they're not. Stop glorifying this crap and giving dissidents a fake sense
of security. Recommend Tor.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Hacker News community at its finest. The guy probably runs his own FTP server
instead of Dropbox, I mean, it's so easy to mount and use.

~~~
buboard
dropbox sucks these days. OneDrive is better, and syncthing for the rest

------
101404
There are other browsers better than Ff that focus on privacy just the same,
if not more aggressively.

Mozilla lost track when they started with their FfPhone, FfOS, and other
bullshit projects. They forgot about their core product and it shows. Ff is
still way slower, even with the Rust parts they took from Servo.

Then that they kick out their best developers if they have a "wrong opinion"
(in the sjw's view) doesn't help either.

~~~
jen20
Which ones? I'm often interested in switching away from Safari, but the
default has been Firefox so far, which has not been worthwhile outside of a
second browser for when Ghostery et al are too aggressive for some vital site.

~~~
101404
I am using Brave. It's one of the browsers listed by Protonmail in their docs.
That's when I decided it's probably trustworthy.

~~~
BlueTemplar
It's based on Chrome - too much risk of Google being able to cripple it if it
becomes important enough?

~~~
101404
Please don't spread lies. It is based on Chromium.

~~~
BlueTemplar
I don't see how it makes a significant difference? How safe would you feel
with a competitor to Google's Android based on AOSP ?

------
acqq
How is concentrating DNS to even less "points of possible collection" of any
advantage to user's privacy? My opinion is not far from nullc's:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415794)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419657)

"I see this as _massively centralizing DNS request data_ (onto cloudflare) and
this change is the most problematic part of the whole thing."

The less companies and locations one have to intrude to be able to "see" or
influence DNS responses, the easier it is for a competent attacker.

And from a legal standpoint, at once even more information which would have
before remained in some other countries is easily (even trivially) obtainable.

~~~
robin_reala
You’re focusing on CloudFlare, but already I have a choice of a couple of DNS-
over-HTTPS providers in my preferences, and I see no reason why it would stick
at just two.

~~~
acqq
> already I have a choice of a couple of DNS-over-HTTPS providers in my
> preferences

Can you please cite that "couple" and also how you believe a typical user
would ever change the default?

~~~
robin_reala
The dropdown has CloudFlare, NextDNS and Custom (that opens a text input).

As for users changing this, sure, that’s not going to happen. But I can
imagine a world where the default is that your requests are fanned out
randomly to a choice of hundreds or thousands of providers, with no clear and
complete picture of a single user in the event that a single provider is
compromised.

~~~
ThePhysicist
Yes, that would be a good option. They should've just waited for more
providers switching to DoH before they turned this on by default, IMO.

~~~
justinclift
Probably a chicken-and-egg thing. As long as we get there? :)

