Browsers

The browser is the single most important piece of software most of us use. Aside from all asartassphone "apps" taken together, the browser collects more of our behavior and leaks more of that information to outsiders than anything else.

All major browsers with one exception are now made by behavior-collection empires, or are based on free software, Chromium, from which Google derives Chrome.

You have every reason to use the browser that isn't, Firefox. Firefox is made by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, entirely of free software anyone can study. copy, modify, reuse and redistribute, which keeps it honest. Please do consider using Firefox all the time, but certainly in my courses.

As of January 2022, Chrome seems to have broken compatibility with Jitsi Meet, the free software private video conferencing server we are using for small-group meetings and remote office hours. I have little doubt this will be fixed in a future release of Chrome, but it's a good time to download Firefox and start using it for everything we do here.

-- EbenMoglen - 14 Jan 2022