Google still pay for Firefox; about $2 per user. So, Chrome and Firefox are funded by the same people. In fact Google upped the money they're paying despite FF's falling users share, what are they getting for their money - I doubt they're giving it out of charity.

It's like price differentiation, I feel. FF is for people who want to avoid Google, but Google are paying to get privacy-infringement lite. Who knows what else besides being default search provider, and getting every search you type in through search suggestions, they're getting for their money?

>cranky devs looking over their shoulder to call them out years later because Mr. Robot may have been able to show them an ad //

Way to underplay things. Do Chrome change their UI (ie chrome) to ad advertising? Do they force add-ons on people that are unremovable in order to advertise a product? And then update, re-placing the advert into users chrome who've removed it? Do they blank out users home-screen settings in order to add advertising? (I think they did do that one?)

Chrome may be spyware, but default so is FF. And Mozilla have shown they're more than happy to mess around with their users browsers for advertising/promotions.

Aside: how is Chromium worse? Waterfox is looking like a good option.