”[…] the times I was so naive and idealistic.”

”[…] I envy the worldview it's possible someone can take money from another and still maintain independence.”

Do you believe relying on our legal system is naive and idealistic?

What would be the non-idealistic view other than no structures can be trusted and that we live in a dictatorship?

The legal structures that mandate what power google actually has over mozilla still presumably exist though. Pretending that we are in full blown dictatorship is, in my view, still cynical.

Though of course there’s no telling how far we will eventually go in a trumpworld.

You’re mixing up funding with control.

Mozilla Corporation takes money from Google for search placement. That doesn’t turn it into a subsidiary. Google doesn’t own it, doesn’t run its roadmap, and doesn’t ship its code. Mozilla negotiates search deals the same way Apple does for Safari. Revenue deal ≠ corporate control.

On telemetry: you’re overstating it. Firefox ships with telemetry on, but it documents what it collects, lets users turn it off, and exposes most of it in about:config. Google Chrome ties into a much broader account system, sync stack, and ad network. Chrome doesn’t operate in isolation; it plugs straight into Google’s data ecosystem. Firefox doesn’t own an ad network to feed.

“Almost comparable” needs evidence. Comparable how? Volume? Type? Identifiability? Retention? Without specifics, the claim collapses into vibes.

The bigger difference sits lower in the stack: engine independence. Firefox runs on Gecko. Chrome runs on Blink. If you care about web monoculture, that matters more than marginal telemetry deltas. When one engine dominates, web standards start drifting toward what that engine implements. We watched that happen in the IE6 era.

As for uBlock Origin: yes, it’s a major reason people choose Firefox. But browser architecture shapes how long powerful content blockers survive. Chrome’s extension model changes (Manifest V3) restrict what blockers can do. Firefox kept the older, more capable API. That choice signals priorities.

If your argument reduces to “both collect some data, so it doesn’t matter,” you flatten meaningful differences. The question isn’t purity. The question asks who controls the engine, who sets extension policy, and who benefits from surveillance at scale.

If you think those differences don’t matter, make that case directly. But don’t blur structural distinctions into “basically the same.” They’re not.

It should be at a minimum stored safely. How and why are the environmental effects not a factor for you?

How and why are the environmental effects not a factor for you?