Technology

A few things come to mind:

The "Mr. Robot" promotion was pretty bad - they force installed an extension without user interaction. This is IMHO still the worst thing they've done.

Their finances could be seen as a little sketchy, at times, like executive pay vs. layoffs at the start of COVID. The fact that they're hanging off the teat of Google (or maybe Microsoft, which ever search engine has the higher bid at the moment) could also be seen as a conflict of interest.

Some might criticise Mozilla for a lack of focus. While Firefox was getting stale they invested in Pocket, and VPNs and stuff.

It's a thing of the past, but there was this whole thing about Brendan Eich …

Honestly most of these things seem pretty par for the course under capitalism.

I’m not OP, but a big one was breaking a fair number of extensions/add-ons with a major browser update. I forget the exact details, and am not privy to the technical arguments within Mozilla, but I can see how it is a huge turn off for users.

FireFox was also extremely resource intensive at one point.

And their mobile apps are stubbornly bad. There’s no reason not to implement a real tab bar, for example. Card view is terrible on tablet devices.

It just seems like there are a lot of little things they do with FireFox.

Still, it isn’t FireFox trying to end adblocking and start blacklisting people from using services with no actual alternative.

Alphabet needs to be broken up, as does Microsoft and Apple.

Both Roms have extensive instructions on their website. The important thing is whether your device is supported.

calyxos.org wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

You will need to unlock the bootloader and wipe the device. If you've never installed android, here be dragons. A backup device is recommendable to say the least. Not liable, etc..

They use the stock android interface. They’re (oversimplification but) basically android with all the proprietary and Google stuff removed.

LineageOS is derived from the normal android ROM and CalyxOS is similar to android as well, as far as I remember. The look and feel is supposed to be what people are most used to.

Right, except we aren't trying to "replace" youtube. Those who are prepared to put up with youtube can have it. Same with spez/reddit. If people like those platforms, and happy with them then they can stay there. Those of us who don't care for them can develop communities and content elsewhere.

If you're cool with algorithms showing you ads every five minutes then by all means stick with the commercial platforms, but you're also generally welcome to help build or support a platform that provides a better user experience -- and doesn't use revenue growth as the primary motivator for everything.