The European alternative to Firefox

Firefox is an important independent browser. Most of Mozilla’s revenue comes from a Google search deal, and recent versions add sponsored shortcuts and AI features. Dazr is a Chromium-based alternative with no sponsored content, no AI and no telemetry.

Download Dazr Browser See the comparison

What Firefox still does that Dazr doesn't (yet)

Account-based sync. Firefox Sync moves your bookmarks, history, and passwords across devices. Dazr has no account system by design. If you need cross-device sync, a password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password) handles it cleanly.
Multi-account containers. Firefox's named containers (work / personal / shopping) are the gold standard. Dazr isolates storage per top-level site by default, which covers a lot of what containers were designed for, but explicit named containers are still on the roadmap.
A non-Chromium engine. If supporting Gecko (rather than Chromium) is a principle of yours, Firefox is still the only major option.

On this page

Why some Firefox users look elsewhere
Dazr vs Firefox at a glance
What changes when you switch

Why some Firefox users look elsewhere

The reasons we hear most often.

Mozilla's funding problem

Roughly 80% of Mozilla Corporation's revenue comes from being Google's default search engine in Firefox. The browser whose pitch is "we're not Google" is funded almost entirely by Google. The deal renews periodically, and antitrust pressure on Google may end it.

AI features added by default

An AI chatbot sidebar, AI-generated tab group names, AI alt-text for images. All shipped on by default in recent versions, all sending requests to providers like OpenAI/Mistral/Anthropic. You can turn them off; you couldn't avoid them being there.

Pocket and other unsolicited additions

Pocket is integrated into the browser and surfaces "Sponsored Stories" by default in some regions. In 2017, an unsolicited Mr. Robot promotional add-on appeared in Firefox installs as part of a marketing tie-in with the show; Mozilla apologized after the backlash. The pattern of "we'll ship this thing and apologize if it lands badly" has come up more than once.

Mozilla added an ad-attribution feature

Yes, you read that right. In 2024 Mozilla shipped Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA) — a feature that helps advertisers measure ad effectiveness, built in partnership with Meta. Firefox also sends usage data ("telemetry"), crash reports, and feature experiments ("Studies") back to Mozilla by default. All can be turned off; all start on. Dazr sends nothing.

Mozilla's priorities have changed

Over the last few years Mozilla has had multiple rounds of layoffs on its privacy and platform teams, while expanding into advertising technology (it acquired the ad-tech company Anonym) and AI. Long-time Firefox users say the project feels like it's drifting away from the people who chose it for privacy.

Dazr vs Firefox at a glance

Item by item.

Feature	Mozilla Firefox	Dazr
Telemetry on by default	Yes	No telemetry
Sponsored content (shortcuts, suggestions)	Yes (regional default)	None
AI features by default	Yes (sidebar, alt-text, tab groups)	None, no AI shipped
Funded by Google search deal	~80% of revenue	No Google money
Country / jurisdiction	US (Mozilla Corporation)	EU
Built-in ad blocker	No (requires uBlock Origin)	Yes, by default
Anti-fingerprinting	Partial (resistFingerprinting flag)	On by default
Strips tracking codes (utm_*, gclid, fbclid)	Some (Strict mode)	Aggressive by default
Encrypted DNS (DoH)	Cloudflare default in some regions	European non-profit DNS
Ad-attribution feature (PPA)	Shipped by default	Not shipped
Vertical tabs built in	Yes	Yes
Browser engine	Gecko	Chromium
Account required for sync	Mozilla account	No account, no sync

What changes when you switch

No sponsored content

Dazr's New Tab is empty. The address bar suggests pages from your history and bookmarks, that's it. There is no sponsored content because there is no advertising business behind the project. We can't backslide into ads, because we don't have the org structure to do it.

No sponsored shortcuts on New Tab
No sponsored search suggestions
No "Pocket-style" recommended stories
No promoted extensions on the extensions page

No AI baked into the browser

We removed our AI overview and AI mode features in May 2026 because we didn't think they were what people came to a privacy browser for. There's no chatbot in the sidebar, no AI tab group naming, no AI alt-text generation, no AI summaries. The browser is a browser.

Zero AI requests originating from Dazr itself
You can use any AI website you want, that's the web
No "private AI relay" that's actually a third-party AI provider

Independent funding, EU governance

Dazr isn't funded by Google's search deal, and it can't be, because Dazr isn't a default in any other browser to sell. We don't take VC. We're a small team operating under EU corporate law, accountable to the people who actually use the browser.

No Google search-deal dependency
No board pushing for ad-tech expansion
EU jurisdiction, EU servers, EU-based team
Transparent funding model published when donations open

Questions, answered

Is Dazr a fork of Firefox?

No. Dazr is built on Chromium, not on Gecko. That means it renders pages exactly like Chrome and Edge, which is what most websites are tested against. The privacy story isn't about which engine is underneath, it's about what the browser does with the engine.

Will my Firefox extensions work?

Most of the popular ones have Chromium versions: Bitwarden, 1Password, Dark Reader, Vimium, Tampermonkey. Firefox-specific ones (Tree Style Tab, Container Tabs) won't port directly. Vertical tabs are built into Dazr already.

Firefox is a privacy browser. Why consider Dazr?

Firefox is still better than Chrome on privacy out of the box. But Mozilla's funding is ~80% Google search-deal money, the New Tab page ships sponsored shortcuts by default, the address bar suggests sponsored results in some regions, an AI chatbot was added to the sidebar by default, and there's been a steady creep of opt-out (rather than opt-in) tracking experiments. For people who chose Firefox as an independent alternative, these changes matter.

Does Dazr block ads as well as uBlock Origin?

Dazr ships Ghostery's ad-block engine with EasyList, EasyPrivacy, and uBlock's quick-fix lists, refreshed weekly, the same blocklists uBlock uses. It's built into the browser at the network layer, so there's nothing to install. You can also install uBlock Origin Lite or any other Chromium-compatible blocker on top.

Does Dazr have container tabs?

Not yet. Per-site storage isolation is on by default (cookies, cache, and DNS partitioned per top-level site), which covers most of what containers were originally built to do. Explicit named containers are on the roadmap.

How do I import bookmarks and passwords from Firefox?

Bookmarks: on first launch Dazr offers automatic import from Firefox. Passwords: export from Firefox (Settings → Passwords → Export to CSV) and import into your password manager of choice (Bitwarden, 1Password, KeePassXC). Dazr doesn't store passwords itself, that's by design.

Is Dazr open source?

Parts of Dazr are open source (the fingerprint-defense extension is being released separately) and the rest is on the roadmap. Chromium, the Ghostery adblock engine, and every dependency are already open. We'll write up the full source story when it's ready.

Other comparisons

The European browserWhy an EU-built browser matters, and how Dazr compares with Vivaldi, Mullvad Browser and LibreWolf.Dazr and Google ChromeSame Chromium engine. Differences in ad blocking under Manifest V3, data sent to Google and account sign-in.Dazr and Microsoft EdgeCopilot, Bing and the Microsoft account in Edge, next to Dazr’s defaults.Dazr and BraveBoth block ads and fingerprinting. Brave adds crypto, rewards, a VPN and AI; Dazr does not.

Try Dazr next to Firefox

Dazr imports your Firefox bookmarks on first launch and sends no telemetry.

Download Dazr Browser How privacy works in Dazr