Google's grip is slipping: Why I moved my entire life to an open source browser

16 May 2026, 10:00 by Oluwaniyi Raji · Android Police

When I read Google's April 22, 2025, Privacy Sandbox blog post announcing it was dropping the third-party cookies prompt after four years of buildup, I was annoyed but not surprised.

I was one of those who actually believed the implementation was coming. Even when it was pushed back, I figured it was a matter of time before the situation resolved itself.

Third-party cookies aren't the end of the world, but the prompt was going to be a step in the right direction. That blog post felt like the final straw in a long list of Google decisions I'd put up with.

I was already at peak annoyance with Chrome. Then a couple of months later, Chrome nuked Manifest V2 extensions and broke uBlock Origin.

I installed Firefox that same day. I figured a few sites would break, and the experience wouldn't be as smooth, but I needed an alternative.

What I didn't know was how much worse the situation was about to get.

Why I stopped using Chrome and replaced it with this privacy-first browser (and you should too)

I have too many issues with Chrome to keep using it

Posts 3
By Jon Gilbert

Chrome started writing 4GB of AI to my disk

And it doesn't ask first

In May 2026, privacy researcher Alexander Hanff published forensic evidence showing that Chrome had been silently downloading a 4GB Gemini Nano model file called weights.bin to user machines.

The file lives in a folder called OptGuideOnDeviceModel inside Chrome's user data directory. Snopes verified the model on multiple staff machines across Windows and macOS. If you delete the file, Chrome downloads it again.

Google's response confirmed the model and pointed to an opt-out toggle that the company began rolling out in February 2026. However, the settings page enabling the opt-out only shows up after the installation is underway.

In other words, the interface you'd use to refuse the download doesn't exist until the download has already started.

And it doesn't end there. Chrome 147 added an "AI Mode" pill to the address bar that most users would assume runs on the local model that was just installed, but it doesn't.

AI Mode is cloud-backed and sends every query to Google's servers. The on-device Gemini Nano powers smaller features like Help me write and on-device scam detection, which are buried in menus most people never open.

A 4GB silent download that reinstalls if you delete it, and a flagship AI surface that misleads users about where their queries actually go. That's when I stopped thinking of my Firefox switch as a protest and more as a baseline.

Why Firefox, and not Brave

Brave is an easier path, but it falls short

If you want the easiest switch from Chrome, Brave is the more practical answer. Its blocking runs at the engine level, the Chrome extension library is intact, and users are already making the switch without looking back.

I went further because Brave is still downstream of whatever Google ships into Chromium. Gemini Nano landed on Chromium first, and the only reason it doesn't end up on Brave is that Brave's maintainers actively patch it out.

Brave had to do this work because the upstream decision was made for them. Some browsers, like Edge, accepted the change, while others patched around it.

Firefox runs on Gecko and isn't downstream of anything Google controls. When Google makes a decision that the rest of the Chromium ecosystem has to react to, Firefox doesn't have to.

The clearest example is Manifest V3 itself. Google decided that extensions would lose the webRequest API, and the entire Chromium ecosystem had to adjust. Mozilla kept both V2 and V3 alive, and the full uBlock Origin still works on Firefox without issues.

The difference is not "Chromium is bad." It's that one company has total monopoly over the platform when it's the only engine everyone uses.

What Firefox actually got me

Site tracking, default sync encryption, and no AI install

The first thing I did was install uBlock Origin and watch the tracker counts on sites I'd been loading on Chrome for years.

The number of trackers on the pages I regularly visited validated my switch. Those trackers didn't magically appear; Firefox just stopped hiding them.

Firefox Sync uses end-to-end encryption by default, with encryption happening on-device before anything uploads. Chrome offers the same protection only if you set a sync passphrase, which most users never do.

On mobile, the bigger win was that extensions actually work. Firefox for Android supports an extension list, which means uBlock Origin, container tabs, and a few others are available for installation.

I'm not going to pretend it's been seamless. Firefox for Android is not as smooth as Brave for Android in places, especially scrolling on heavy pages and some banking sites that assume Chromium.

A few sites needed me to switch to Chrome to complete a task, but that's the price of engine diversity.

The trade-off only makes sense if you actually value engine diversity. If you don't, Brave will give you 90% of the privacy gains with 0% of the friction.

The Mozilla question, since it's coming

I stuck with Firefox, even with Mozilla's missteps

In July 2024, Mozilla quietly rolled out Privacy-Preserving Attribution, a tracking system developed with Meta. It was on by default and wasn't announced in any meaningful changelog.

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Earlier in 2025, Mozilla removed language from its site that previously stated it doesn't sell user data and never will. The current CEO has publicly said more AI features are coming to Firefox.

That said, Firefox's AI features can be permanently turned off in a few clicks, and they're opt-in by default in most builds.

The Privacy-Preserving Attribution rollout was a misstep, but it didn't write a 4GB file to anyone's disk and reinstall it on deletion.

If Mozilla misbehaves, I can always switch to LibreWolf, a hardened Firefox fork with telemetry stripped and uBlock Origin preinstalled. The engine is still Gecko, and the option to step further sideways is right there if I need it.

This is what many Chromium users don't get. There are genuinely good options outside the Chromium world. If you're leaving Brave, Edge, or Vivaldi, you're either back to Firefox or out of mainstream browsers entirely.

How to ditch Firefox without moving to Blink-based browsers like Chrome

There's more to Gecko than just Firefox

Posts 16
By Daniel Allen

Where this leaves me

I use Firefox for everything personal now, and I'm not interested in going back. The moment Chrome dropped the AI install was when I realized the engine diversity argument ran deeper than personal preference.

Google is, at the end of the day, a business. Alphabet will do what's best for it as a company, even when it's not what's best for the consumer. That's fine, but I'd just rather the most-used software on my machine not be one of them.