Firefox is a legitimate alternative, it works for >99% of the world's websites and is an actual alternative i.e. not a clone of Chrome. I've been using it for nearly the last 5 years full-time and have never needed to open Chrome. I am not sure how one can pretend otherwise, so no, I don't think just saying it's "bad" and ignoring it as an alternative is viable.

Do some Google websites perform worse on Firefox? Sure, but the entire reason that's because people don't use Firefox enough i.e. some websites are worse on Firefox. You just go around and around. If the audience of HN is not able to make that sacrifice (not use some of the GOOG's website) then we deserve the monopoly of Chrome.

Other than that, I also think we need a third alternative for Browsers. Ladybird is in the news these days, and if you're a dev and care about this issue, we should all be contributing to it.

I agree about your clone comment ala Brave, and so on.