Is Firefox Firefucked?

Summary

Is Firefox Firefucked? 📅 19 Dec 2025 | ⏱️ ~5 minute read I've been using Firefox for over 20 years at this point, but after a stream of cock-ups, I'm thinking about moving on. I’ve been using Firefox since 2005, so not long after it was first released. I distinctly remember the first time I heard about it - I was on a training course with the Army and the instructor was using Firefox. Netscape was effectively dead, and everyone was using Internet Explorer, but I’ve always been a magpie for the new shiny, so when I saw his browser, I asked him about it. He told me about it being a fork of Netscape (which was my browser of choice when I first started using the Internet), so I jumped on board and have been happily using Firefox ever since. Well, I was happy up until the last few years. Slow decline I first wrote about my concerns with Firefox’s direction back in 2022 where I talked about the ever increasing CEO salary, despite their ever decreasing market share, their teaming up with Meta on Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA), them shilling cryptocurrencies, and of course the fact they’re pretty much entirely funded by Google. Well, over the last 3 years, things haven’t gotten any better and my concerns around the direction Mozilla is taking Firefox have continued to rise. On top of the few concerns I had back in 2022, there’s a bloody list of additional concerns I’ve picked up since then: Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA) - In Sept 2024, Mozilla rolled out this new PPA feature that was enabled by default and helped advertisers measure performance without traditional tracking. Adjusted telemetry in mobile app - Firefox mobile versions shipped with a third-party telemetry SDK (Adjust) that sent usage and install data without prominent user disclosure. After pushback, this was later removed [slow clap]. Buying an Ad firm - yes, that’s right, dear reader. Everyone’s favourite FOSS web browser decided to buy an ad firm, because, you know, “privacy-centric adverts”....