Which browser should you use?

At current day there are following most popular browsers for desktop: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox and old Microsoft Edge. New Microsoft Edge uses Chromium project and many other browsers like Opera uses it too. Chromium project itself based on WebKit project that Apple uses for browser on Mac, iPhone and iPad. Internet Explorer is dead and only used in some corporations that developed a lot of inhouse software that requires it and port code to another browser will require a lot of money and time. Old Microsoft Edge will be quickly phased out. As result huge share of browsers will be taken by one of the variants of Chromium that is WebKit. And if we consider mobile browsers, that share will be even bigger.

And it is exactly why I do recommend use Firefox. Somebody would say “Clearly that Chrome must be good, and this is reason why it is used everywhere”. Not really. Google used a lot of “tricks” to force people to install Google Chrome. Many Google services does not work well with Firefox. Some Google websites like YouTube used some specific protocols that available only in Google Chrome and as result YouTube works much better on Google Chrome. There are many other things like that. Also, Chrome is not particularly efficient. You can go ahead and read jokes about Google Chrome and memory. Like “1.5 terabytes of RAM, hopefully now it will be enough for Chrome”. It has such big market share not because it is that good. In fact, it is about the same as Firefox. Something is better here, and something is better there.

But then somebody may ask “why should I change if they are similar?”. Answer is really simple. Chromium and WebKit have together close to 90% of marker share. All browsers have some vulnerabilities. Guess which browser hackers will choose to find them? Of course, they will try to find vulnerabilities in most popular browser. In old days hackers wrote viruses for fun and to prove that they are worth something. These days it is pure business. Steal your data and use your computer for some illegal activities. Hackers will get way more profit if they found vulnerability in browser that used by 90% than in browser that used by 10%. And this is main reason to use Firefox. Yes, occasionally they will find something for Firefox too, but main effort will be on WebKit based browsers.

Next, Google is known as “evil corporation” that steal personal data and used it for their own good. Recently they were fined $5 billion by EU. Many people have no idea how much actually Google knows about you. One of my friends who is software engineer recently was really surprised how much Google knows about him. And he knows about privacy and does not treated it lightly. Google knows where he had been, who are his friends, where he lives etc. This is bad by itself, because who knows what Google decide to do with that data. But data can be stolen from Google. Do you know how many attacks on Google happens every second? They are extremely valuable target and sooner or later one of the attacks will succeed. If by some reason you have to use Chromium based browser, then use new Edge. It does not have built-in Google services and at least your data will be split between few corporations.

Lastly, having one browser meaning there will be no competition. Sure, anybody can create own browser but there will be limited by engine architecture or probably does not have enough manpower to do big changes. But another browser can have better architecture and there something good can be born. For example, Microsoft was able to remove all Google related services from Chromium source code, but for many smaller developers it is almost impossible task. Competition is always good and leads to innovation. Obviously if nobody will use Firefox, then eventually team will collapse, and nobody will continue developing Firefox. Appreciation is quite good factor to motivate people.

And I’m not Firefox fanboy. If you have any other browser that is not WebKit based and you are happy to use it, then use it. I only recommend Firefox, because it is only popular browser that that is not WebKit based. Popular means that web developers check their sites in it and if something does not work, they attempt to fix it.