Ask HN: Why continue to use Firefox?

Now that Firefox's UI is becoming more and more like Chrome's, why should anyone continue to use Firefox?

I'm thinking the reasons might have something to do with:

  - Lower memory usage compared to Chrome [1]
  - Increasingly more of it being written in a fast and memory-safe language, Rust [2]
  - Not belonging to a for-profit company [3]

Would also be nice to know what plans Mozilla has for Firefox in the longer term. Once Firefox becomes a near Chrome clone written in Rust, what comes next?

[1] - https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-uses-less-memory-chrome-edge-safari/

[2] - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla

- To promote and foster diversity between browsers. You don't want to end up with a new Internet Explorer called Chrome.

- Google has already its hands on so many things. If I can prevent it from controlling my browser, I'm good.

- I HATE chrome UI and look & feel

- With FF, I can syn my tabs between several devices while hosting my own sync service .

- Google is not beyond Firefox. I like more Mozilla than Google.

Container tabs[0] (currently an experiment) will hopefully stick around. That alone is reason enough to use it from my point of view. Paired with Cookie AutoDelete it is the most control I've ever had over my privacy in a browser and it feels good.

Fx's new CSS pipeline and the other stuff they're porting from Servo is amazingly cool. Not just tech wise that they can pull this off but the benefits it brings means Fx has a decent chance surpassing other browser's performance, in a few places it already does.

I have control over my data. With Chrome I don't, I'd have to rely on Chromium to be sure and keeping Chromium up to date is tedious.

I used to only use Safari but ever since Firefox 57 showed up (the curently nightly) it's been my daily driver and it's absolutely awesome.

[0]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...

Couple reasons: - Some of the add-ons which are privacy focused are not available in chrome (although with the move to webextensions this may go away) - Momentum. I resisted switching to chrome when it first came on the scene because I didn't want Google having access to my browsing history. That fear has abated, particularly since I owned several Chromebooks, but I've always used Firefox on my Windows and Linux desktops. It still does what I need it to do. - Firefox for Android allows installing extensions, specifically ublock. This was critical for me, and so since I know I'll keep using Firefox on mobile, it's advantageous to keep using Firefox on desktop for syncing.

Chrome stopped all updates (including security) for older Windows versions some years ago. Firefox gets security updates just fine so far (I believe Vista support will get dropped soon). Windows 7 support will continue for a while. I switched my parents' Windows laptops to Firefox 2 years ago.

Firefox on Android (and the new Firefox Focus) feels faster and lighter on resources. I prefer Firefox on my Android devices.

For me, a third reason is that Chrome has started segfaulting big time on my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS laptop. This started very recently. Switched to Firefox.

Aside from all that, for me it's just the principle that it's better to encourage multiple excellent feature-rich cross-platform browsers instead of ending up with a monopoly.