The company behind Opera browser also runs a loan shark operation

I mean don't use anything besides Firefox, pretty obvious.

I actually wonder about that. So Firefox is seemingly becoming more corpo in their approach. Their home tab now has random adverts and suggested sites that I should visit. I guess the general vibe that I'm getting is "sleek, polished", which triggers some latent suspicion about the way they are headed. As many people, I keep returning to Firefox every year or so, just to see whether it can be transitioned to. Maybe that's why it's so jarring.
I am also worried that "Firefox is the only real alternative" is not a healthy state of things. We get Chromium flavors, high maintenance nonsense, and Firefox.
- turn off the promoted shortcuts, remove the unwanted default pins. takes just a few seconds, and firefox will remember your choices, unlike some browsers.
- Yes, Chromium flavours vs Firefox flavours is not healthy.
  It's less unhealthy than a defacto Google monopoly though.
  It's impossible to build a new web browser... At least until someone proves otherwise.
- You can use forks if you want, but you can also turn that stuff off altogether.
  Most famously TOR is a Firefox fork.
- There have been a few bad signs over the years.
  Most striking was the "Looking Glass" plugin. This was a Mr. Robot (popular TV show at the time) promotional plugin that would alter the behavior of a few tie-in websites as part of an ARG. Besides that it was "harmless", though had a vague description rather than saying what it was.
  It was pushed by default to users using their user study framework. It was launched quietly enough and without going through the normal process. Even a lot of firefox devs didn't realize it until the press blew up.
  And one of the responses to the push back was:
  we heard from some of our users that the experience we created caused confusion
  Despite Firefox leadership and marketing being the ones who were confused about the proper way to use their own user study framework, or avoid launching bad changes.
  Aside: Mozilla also only just stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations in 2022, despite ostensibly caring about the environment and the internet.
  Overall Firefox is still pretty good, despite being under-invested in by Mozilla, but if you use it you should recommend that at the end of the day there's a lot of corporate influence in it right now.
Vivaldi has been great the whole time
- Except that it uses chromium which contributes to the Google dominance of web standards
Some websites don't work with Firefox. That's why I use Brave as a secondary browser.
- if its brave devs vs loan sharks I'd have to go with the loan sharks
- I’ve been using FF for over 15 years at this point and I have never, not even once, ran into any issues with any site that I went to. Now, is the website you are talking about shareable by you? I don’t want it if it’s a bank or something that could some how be linked to you. I just really really want to see a website that doesn’t work on FF. I’m not trying to come off as a dick or anything, I am genuinely interested to see what it looks like and how it behaves.
- Then these websites can go get fucked. I'm not using them, and when its my bank i walk my ass to my bank and cancel my bank account there.
  If you require chromium, you make people use a less secure browser because your company sucks Google dong. Fuck that, fuck them fuck it all.

uh have you tried xydfgq-blurble browser it's my home brew fork of chromium and firefox i call it "chromefox" which is also my fursona

thinking of changing the name to something lighthearted, marketable and non-objectionable like "GNU-Scrotum"

i am the only maintainer and i keep up with 110% of security issues

we are not in the android store as the oppressive statists at google said that if i ever switched on this uh "piece of shit" in a built up area theyd cut my nuts off, but

ignore the FUD about chromefox spilling your bank account and leaking your tastes in hentai and fucking your cat it's all LIES FILTHY LIES by THAT BITCH ANDREW he is SUCH an asshole

anyway free software stallman was right peace out

I just curl pages and render it all in my head. It's easy with my 10 Morbillion IQ
- the only reasonable way to interact with the web is to write a shell script that mails the source to each page you try to view to the 2001 laptop you insist on using even in spite of freer modern options, I said, reaching for delicious foot skin to chew
- @swlabr @dgerard curl? Coward. I wrote my own client using awk, head and date
this post is like a specially crafted basilisk for parts of my brain and soul I normally refuse to acknowledge

My advice of "stay away from anything a youtuber tells you to use" is becoming more and more vindicated every day.

It’s funny you say this as I was telling my SO after seeing the Opera GX browser on some YouTubers screen in the background that that automatically made me wary of their content because Opera isn’t all that great, let alone a “gamer” specific version of said browser. Then this news of them being shady came out like a week later and I just had to point that out to my SO as a crazy coincidence that we were just talking about it!
- Fucking wild.
*through sponsorships, genuine advice is fine

Yesterday I was installing some cracked software on my laptop and accidentally installed a straight up virus as I clicked the wrong download link.

I’m gonna need to re image the machine, but as far as I can tell all it actually did was install Opera…

I tried Vivaldi but sadly it still wasn't the opera alternative I was looking for.

Use Firefox or one of its forks/alternatives, Google has defacto control of the web standards. As the vast majority of browsers use it's engine.
Firefox is the only way to stop this control over the web and keep it open. Safari is also an option for some, but Chrome is based on a forked version of Safaris engine and Google is able to wag the tail to control the dog.

Is it still the midst popular browser in Belarus?

Not since 2013! https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/belarus/2014 still has a large presence though. (20% in poland!)

fuck me, imagine having a viable browser engine that isn’t based on Firefox or chrome and then instead of open sourcing it or doing anything at all with it, nah,
<massive fart noise>
, pivot to chromium with scam bullshit integrated into it