Show me a browser I can pay for that isn't full of bloatware crap and I'll pay for it. I've spent $15 this week alone on software, some of it I just donated money because it was useful once. I am the wrong commenter here to be telling "you're not paying", because I literally pay for all/most of the services and software I use, though I do understand I'm an outlier to some degree.

Safari? I don’t know what counts as ‘this bloatware crap’ but if you haven’t looked into it perhaps it could meet your definition.

Actually, I just started using Safari at home recently, and I love it. Most Apple stuff, while locked down to some extent, seems to give me the freedom to actually be productive and do the tasks I need to do pretty easily. Sure, you have to adopt the "Apple Way" and use their software in somewhat the way that they designed it to be used, but for the most part it's really flexible and able to be used to achieve all of my goals in a simple way, without much fuss. Windows is laughable today and Linux is open and free but also has a minimal level of "fuss" you need to do in order to keep it working and get new software working. With MacOS I find I have to do almost zero maintenance and most of my time is productive. I'm going to switch my work PC to Mac as well as soon as this pile of silicon I'm using dies.

Safari in “I’m a journalist and gonna die” mode (lockdown?) is surprisingly usable and very hardened against tracking.

Unfortunately Safari cannot run uBlock Origin.

Promising

We are inviting you to pay for Orion browser by Kagi (if using macOS/iOS).

Zero-telemetry, with built in adblocker.

Business model: pay for the browser.

Your turn!

Even paid products do this kind of stuff these days.

At the end of the day, only legal requirements are going to curtail this type of behavior.

> If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

> Even paid products do this kind of stuff these days.

Yes, if you pay for the product, then not only are you still the product, but you're a sucker as well.

It's not quite that stark, but I don't see why a company would truly change its business model just because they charge a fee. It's too tempting to "do something with all this data," i.e. treat all consumer software as spyware.

People do pay for Windows, which Edge is a part of. How's that going for you?

Microsoft hasn't been serious about charging users for Windows in a while. Free upgrades to Windows 10, free access to ISOs or tools to generate ISOs, and the penalty for an unlicensed install is no desktop background and a small watermark if you can't manage to trick windows into thinking it's licensed.

Yes, OEMs pay for Windows; probably businesses pay for Windows. It's pretty clear they've gone to an ad-supported model whether they're honest about it or not. And of course, paying for the product doesn't mean they won't suplement invoice revenue with advertising revenue.

> no desktop background

Last time I checked you could still just set the wallpaper via the context menu. It only locks the appearance settings.

I wish this phrase would die. You're the product either way. Company is either going to take advantage of the revenue stream or not regardless of whether you also pay for it.

"You're always the product and willingness and ability to pay for a nonessential service makes your disposable income an even juicer target to advertisers."

I'm pretty sure I had to pay for Windows in order to get Edge.

But I did pay. Edge is a Windows browser and Windows is very not free.

Edge is cross platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/download

The plethora of FOSS browsers bundled in various Linux distros beg to differ.

In the beginning, they did cost money. Netscape offered a free version for home viewers (but charged companies - NetWare came with a user license). Microsoft sold a $29 "Plus Pack" for Windows that included Internet Explorer. That changed when Bill Gates decided to "steal Netscape's oxygen" and become the evil overlord that most people remember him as.

> and become the evil overlord that most people remember him as.

He wasn't the nicest guy much earlier than that.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

People pay for Windows, MacOS iOS and Android based devices. Presumably they’re also paying for the software that runs those devices, ie the OS. And does anyone think that a web browser is not a core part of an OS today? Certainly MS doesn’t.

So yeah, MS is being paid for their browser. But a trillion dollar valuation is simply not enough.

> Presumably they’re also paying for the software that runs those devices

Not on Android. AOSP is free, but if you want to ship the play store then you have to also include the other Google apps. It is the Google data harvesting and advertising that pays for Android.

Companies are perfectly happy to sell you down the river to make a quick buck, too. Proprietary software cannot be trusted, because for-profit institutions cannot be trusted. They aren't in the business of serving you, they're in the business of chasing ever increasing profits.

Maybe those goals align at some point, but corporations' alignment drift makes AI look downright peachy.