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Re about:config, maybe Mozilla could track (anonymously, of course) which configs are manually edited by users the most. The popularity of a config could be used as a signal that it may make sense to promote the config to a proper option in Firefox’s preferences.

@simevidas

`browser.chrome.guess_favicon = false` is really nice, especially because I tend to mass-close all my tabs every few hours

@simevidas
A great list.

A big additional reason why Firefox is my default on my work computer is their Multi-Account Containers extension.

Chrome and now Safari have "profiles" you can switch between but I'm not aware of any way for them to do things like automatically opening Google Drive links in a "space" isolated from everything else, regardless of where the link was.

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firef

addons.mozilla.orgFirefox Multi-Account Containers – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)Download Firefox Multi-Account Containers for Firefox. Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple accounts and integrate Mozilla VPN for an extra layer of privacy.

@simevidas All good points. But the thing I always notice about most arguments in favour of Firefox is that those arguments are aimed at geeks/programmers.

I want to write something similar but for the apathetic user population. I usually find myself at a loss figuring out a way to get the general user (particularly in India) to actually care about her/his privacy.

If I had a penny for every time someone said to me "I don't have anything to hide", or "All our data is anyway out there already"!

@kiranjholla Yes, that’s a good point. I guess, support for extensions of Android is the best argument that you can make in this case, at least when the person uses Chrome, which does not support extensions at all.

@simevidas I hated the "close browser when last tab is closed" feature but if you tweak it you won't learn the behaviour needed to use other PCs which I do a lot.

@simevidas Chrome does have end-to-end encryption for sync. By default it reuses your account password as the encryption password, which is obviously bad, but you can set a different password of you want. Same with Chromium derivatives that reuses its sync implementation such as Opera and Vivaldi (though not Edge). That's why when logging into Chrome after changing account password (if you used the default), you also need to enter your old password in order to enable sync.

@LaggyKar It seems that E2EE is by default turned off. It’s only turned on after you add a sync passphrase. The process of adding the passphrase is not simple either. This is what I call “buried in settings”. I suspect that Google does not want users to turn on E2EE. If Firefox Sync can have E2EE without any extra steps, Chrome Sync can too, so why doesn’t it?

@simevidas Seems like it only encrypts passwords by default.

@simevidas We share exactly the same opinion about Firefox, great post! Firefox for Android with extensions (a special mention to uBlock Origin) is a great plus, I love it!

@simevidas For me, Firefox's multi-account, uBlock Origin, closeWindowWithLastTab = false, which make it a must have!

@simevidas what about chromium based privacy browsers like Brave?

@Automationmoxie It has some good privacy features.

@simevidas thank you for the fantastic write-up. I just recently discovered the picture-in-picture player and it wonderful. Cheers.

@simevidas I did not use another browser for years. I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Firefox have better performance om web games than electron, supports context tab, profiles. I can not fully agree with keeping only one browser engine is bad. Chrome engine is OpemSource, so it is not related to Microsoft monopoly.