# Firefox 1572 Hacker News commenters recommended Firefox and 1371 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 16 years (125 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended as the main independent alternative to Chrome, with full uBlock Origin support and deep customization; critics fault Mozilla's AI features, unwanted additions and settings buried in about:config. ## Why people recommend it - Supports full-featured adblockers like uBlock (3 comments): "I also dislike the choices the product team of Firefox is doing. However, it is the only (afaik) major browser distro that has support for a proper adblocker" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525198)) "Container tabs, independent proxy config (chrome only respects system-wide proxy), vertical tabs, and functional adblockers are the four big features for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662440)) "well firefox+ublock is still an option for those wise enough not to let unknown javascript with new daily zero-days run on their PC" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49777702)) - Independent engine against Chromium monoculture (6 comments): "I just want there to be diversity in the market and not have every viable option be a way for a megacorp to have presence on my computers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50085196)) "It's a reason to encourage people to support Firefox on desktop, since just about everything else is based on the other browser engine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49380916)) "Firefox, and Safari to a more limited extent, are the only web browsers keeping Google from having complete control over web standards" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049045)) - Highly customizable, features removable (3 comments): "One of the nice things about Firefox (other than the relative amount of these things) is the knobs to remove them usually exist somewhere for you to pull." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713743)) "Firefox is also the only browser that supports anything like userChrome.css for customizing tabs, toolbar, address bar, menus, spacing, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49307509)) "I hate the awesome bar. What I do like about Firefox is I can make the awesome bar just a boring address bar and have a separate search bar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49530222)) - Container tabs and separate profiles (3 comments): "Container tabs, independent proxy config (chrome only respects system-wide proxy), vertical tabs, and functional adblockers are the four big features for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47662440)) "So, you can have a separate profiles for something sensitive/invasive (linkedin, shops, etc.) and then you can have a separate profile for everything else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47614718)) "I really appreciate Firefox to have their own certificate DB because it allows to create separate profiles with different trusted certificate sets." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162713)) ## What people warn about - Unwanted features like AI pushed in (5 comments): "deliver features like the AI chatbot integration as first-party extensions that come pre-installed but can be easily managed by users with a much better UI than about:config" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252589)) "it is about force-bundling whatever this-will-make-us-money-feature or we-think-its-a-great-feature idea into the browser without giving the user any real choice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48532746)) "The most annoying thing was when highlighting text a weird icon showed up. I clicked on it, and one of the most prominent buttons on it was "turn this shit off"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46117434)) - Settings hidden in opaque about:config (3 comments): "deliver features like the AI chatbot integration as first-party extensions that come pre-installed but can be easily managed by users with a much better UI than about:config" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252589)) "firefox routinely blows up any policies you set during upgrades, incompatibilities, and an endless about:config that is more opaque than a hunk of room temperature lard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297897)) "I don't trust Mozilla enough. For one, not giving UI options and hiding all the settings in about:config where non-technical users can't access is a shitty thing to do." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46304482)) - Mozilla mismanagement and misplaced priorities (4 comments): "At this point in time, if they had taken all the money they spent on their various projects and put it in a trust they would probably be able to fund development without taking in any more money." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49530993)) "when I look at the UI changes that have been made to Firefox over a period of years, I believe their value to me is closer to zero than their development cost is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45861186)) "Firefox has gone from something I could recommend unreservedly to something I can only suggest while cautioning about it's increasingly user-hostile practices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532191)) - Occasional site compatibility gaps (2 comments): "Practically compatibility with Firefox is pretty good. Maybe once a month I use an e-commerce site or other e-business site where I have to drop down to Chrome, Edge or Safari." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46303517)) "Firefox has poor support for modern web features including video processing and encoding which makes it very bad at web conferencing/video calls" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46469285)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Brave](https://hackerapproved.com/p/brave-browser.md): 397 recommend - [Safari](https://hackerapproved.com/p/safari.md): 307 recommend - [Orion Browser by Kagi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/orion-browser.md): 206 recommend - [LibreWolf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/librewolf.md): 113 recommend - [Waterfox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/waterfox.md): 75 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Firefox", https://hackerapproved.com/p/firefox/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).