> mainly, I'm still dependant on Mozilla no matter where I go. They are the ones actually doing the hard work of developing the browser engine

You are being reasonable. Firefox is an essential application in my day. I support Mozilla directly -- in a small way, this helps to ensure that Firefox is available to me and others.

Consider --

    Browser Market Share Worldwide - February 2025
    Chrome  66.29%
    Safari  18.01%
    Edge 5.33%
    Firefox 2.63%
    Samsung Internet 2.3%
    Opera 2.09%

That's three Webkit browsers with 90% market domination. GOOG, MSFT, and APPL don't need my pennies.

No software is perfect and no browser is free as in beer and free as in zero risk. There is no browser that is perfectly respectful of privacy (i.e. zero data leakage, zero surveillance). The WWW monstrosity is now tooled for surveillance.

In addition to the actual coding that makes Firefox possible, Firefox has support for uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger, and the excellent Multi-Account Containers extension. These alone make me happy to support Mozilla.

I don't like all the features and services that Mozilla has added or tested, but it is interesting to design and test new features. And if the TOS about sharing data must change, that's where we are in 2025.

GOOG dropped the slogan "Don't Be Evil" -- I cordially invite all relaxing frogs to speculate about future increases to the water temperature.

> I support Mozilla directly -- in a small way, this helps to ensure that Firefox is available to me and others.

Money you send to the Mozilla Foundation cannot be used on Firefox, because Firefox is a project of the Corporation and money can only flow from the Corporation to the Foundation, not vice versa. There is no way to help support Firefox development directly, Mozilla employees will always point you to buying one of the Corporation's side projects instead.

> GOOG dropped the slogan "Don't Be Evil" -- I cordially invite all relaxing frogs to speculate about future increases to the water temperature.

the problem is that mozilla also seems to be boiling the frog right now.

> I worry less about 2.63 % of the marketshare using some aggregate browsing data

Mozilla's not using that data. They're selling it. They wouldn't be in this kind of hot water if they were keeping the data to themselves.

but aren't you are just describing another convection cell in the same frog-boiling saucepan?

I felt that way until the last week. But I feel better using another project that mainly or only exists to strip dubious FF behavior from their code. I installed Waterfox, copied my FF profile folder, pointed Waterfox at the copy, and it has been smooth sailing.

Yes I still depend on FF, yes it makes FF just a tiny bit less sustainable, yes I might need to change browsers again. But they have pushed me over the edge with their nonstop shenanigans.

That's my issue with all of these solo-maintained forks. It's a security nightmare, and browsers are a prime target for supply chain attacks or other forms of subterfuge. The security model just simply isn't acceptable.

So what's stopping anyone from forming a group or foundation based on donations from like-minded people? And maintain a secure, free fork? I see this topic often enough on HN, this might a big enough group.

You need several million dollars per year to be useful. Anyone can form a foundation but if you don't have that much or more it was a waste of time.

it need not be money a dozen developers donating code full time would work but that is harder to get.

Currently Ladybird has 200k USD from FUTO, 100k USD from Shopify and then a bunch more from ProtonVPN, Ahrefs, etc., they also have 7 full time employees and a bunch of volunteers: https://ladybird.org/#faq

They fall short of the numbers you suggest, but it's kind of encouraging that some people can do that for an entirely new project. Time will tell how it works out for them, but I could feasibly imagine a Firefox fork gaining similar ground, should people get tired of Mozilla's stewardship for whatever reason.

After all, even something like 3% of the market share is way more of a proof of feasibility than 0% and if you get a bunch of money when that figure is 0% like Ladybird, things can only get better for a project built on established technology.

Good for Ladybird, but I don't think they can support all the complexities of the Web with only 7 develops (but perhaps with enough volunteers they could - 7 is enough to do the hard thankless work while volunteers do the more interesting bits). Between all the weird layout rules, required speed to be useful, and security (last only because with out the other two you automatically have perfect security since with no users holes cannot be exploited).

Still I wish them luck.

If I had 7 disposable engineers, I'd built an open source modular browser that allows individual components such as rendering engine, JS engine, WASM runtime, etc. to all be swapped out for alternative implementations. The browser itself would basically be a shell and SDK. It's ludicrous that someone has to either completely reinvent the wheel today or fork one of two monolithic browsers that require significant upkeep and cross-domain expertise.

I feel like this approach has a much better shot at being sustainable and giving power back to users and clients, despite having its own challenges. I would like it if political fallouts such as this one didn't mean I have to completely migrate to a brand new system. Compare that to Linux, where I can say, migrate to Rocky if CentOS stops being a viable choice, without losing any of my tooling or configuration.

If not LibreWolf, why not use Mullvad Browser, Floorp or Zen Browser, both based on Firefox?

Yeah, the browser that has had multiple huge incidents where they've been caught doing sketchy stuff is definitely who we should turn to...

What sketchy stuff or huge incidents are you referring to?

My understanding is they are, by far, the best privacy focused browser, especially now that Mozilla has committed seppuku

The Controversies section on Wikipedia pretty much covers it

That's just chromium with a weird cryptocurrency racket on top.

Unfortunate but still the best of the options for privacy focused individuals. Especially now that Mozilla is no longer an option