What is your default browser going into 2026, and when is the last time that changed?

[bkardell@toot.cafe]

What is your default browser going into 2026, and when is the last time that changed?

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@bkardell unfortunately, Firefox. And, I have never changed since the very early days of Firefox.

[bkardell@toot.cafe]

@swelljoe why unfortunately?

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@bkardell Mozilla leadership doesn't want to build a browser, and hasn't wanted to for many years. The alternatives are all made by surveillance capitalists, so Firefox is what I use and will keep using, no matter how bad things get (and the new head of Mozilla is determined to make it very bad indeed with a bunch of AI boondoggles).

[bkardell@toot.cafe]

@swelljoe I am sympathetic to that -- The main challenge here, I think, is that building a browser costs like minimally half a billion a year or so and has no actual model for sponsoring it itself. Mozilla has been particularly bad at making it work beyond the 2004 Google default seach original deal that supports pretty much all of it now.

[swelljoe@mas.to]

@bkardell yeah, I don't actually know how to improve the "fund a browser" problem. They all feel like a compromise for an organization with a core value of privacy. I know chasing every fad in tech that comes along hasn't been great for Mozilla or Firefox.

But, the core problem is funding a huge project in a space led by companies that have an interest in it being very difficult and expensive to make a browser. A hard task requires great leadership and I lack confidence in Mozilla leadership.