As opposed to building your entire product on your competitor's codebase? That seems far more dangerous to me - at least Mozilla can make a deal with a different search provider (and they have, though I think it was kinda rough)

This thread is so surreal, way below normal HN standards, people blindly yelling their own truths, like we are discussing ie Trump.

And yes you seems to be one hell of a biased user, very hard to agree with you.

Why can't there be 2 alternatives to default Chrome, with their own strengths and weaknesses?

I personally prefer Firefox who is completely independent on code changes on chromium core code (but getting Google's money in same vein as ie Apple is) - once some privacy-removing code change is baked into whole Chromium codebase, Brave's main selling point is gone. But I respect them for offering the best-available solution on Chrome-inclined users.

It's a proxy war for Brandon Eich's political beliefs. Plus a few advertising webmasters thrown in who are really bent out of shape about an adblocker being enabled by default.

BTW I use firefox and voted for those things Eich is against. Not that it should even matter, but it does. That's what this whole flamewar of a comment page is actually about.

People hate Eich and hate crypto, so they get bent out of shape. I don't mind the dislike, but the blatant lies and low information posting gets tiresome.

Google Search is not a competitor to Mozilla Firefox.

Are you serious.