I've been contemplating switching back to Firefox from Chrome due to the upcoming changes to ad blockers - Is Brave a good choice for this, or should I go back to FF?
Been rocking Firefox as my daily driver for several years now. I don't understand why someone would not switch to Firefox at this point, unless there's just a really strong personal preference or niche feature.
Despite Mozilla's organizational woes, Firefox remains the one true "free as in free speech" browsers out there that has remained competitive. I'm of the opinion that we need Firefox to keep the Web open.
I just like Brave as a product more, primarily. Chromium native stuff like tab groups and PWAs are nice to have, and I like profiles over containers for isolation purposes (would obviously rather have both).
Plus, and this is somewhat beside the actual browser, I like that the Brave org is toolmaking focused, vs. Mozilla's activism schtick where they say they're just fine with platforms' algorithms getting tuned to favour sources the Mozilla activist people like. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
(Brave is not the only toolmaking focused org - see eg. Vivaldi. Both companies, insofar as they have politics, have politics of user control and privacy and leave the other stuff at the door, and it shows even in their marketing copy being more straightforward and less slimy than Mozilla's modern output)
Brave is a solid option if you don't want to leave the underlying Chromium and it's extension ecosystem but still have privacy capabilities that Google is axing with Manifest v3.
Firefox is also a solid option. Firefox is one of the few stable options remaining to use a non-Chromium based browser. Most popular Chrome extensions have Firefox releases as well so you may not even lose that functionality in a switch.
Advocates for Firefox frequently point out that part of how we got here with the Manifest v3 issues is by consolidating browser technologies. Chrome, Brave, Edge, etc all use the Chromium core which is part of what gives Google such a strong ability to influence web technology developments to their advantage and our detriment. If this is something you care about then it may be worth voting with your feet and giving Firefox a chance.
The new DDG browser may be interesting in this regard. It uses WebKit at least on Mac, but we'll see how their Windows version ends up like. Could very well be Edge WebView2.
I switched from Firefox to Chrome several years ago. After the announcement of the planned changes, I tried switching back to Firefox. I just couldn't stick with it -- Chromium-based browsers are faster (e.g., [1]).
I decided to give Brave a try because it's Chromium-based. It's been great. I did have to modify a few settings to get the look/feel how I like, but it I found it easy, and I expect others may not care. Brave shields block ads without the need of extensions like ublock. I don't have any complaints so far.
If you’re ok spending 1 minute turning off their weird crypto-powered ad stuff (or if you’re ok with it), I personally think Brave is the best Chromium browser available, and I believe they have said they will not be removing Manifest v2 support. Also their built in ad/tracker blocking is nice.
