We need a serious effort to fork Firefox that can be maintained as a sustainable open source project. I know there are a few forks floating around, but they're small projects with only a handful of contributors. These kinds of efforts will never be a serious alternative.
A web browser is one of the most important pieces of software nowadays, and currently neither Chromium nor Firefox are true community efforts. We need something on the level of the Linux Kernel Foundation in my opinion.
Just to add and remind, the amount of LOC and work in a web browser and its engine is more than Linux kernel itself at this point. This goes for both Gecko and Blink/WebKit browsers.
People underestimate the amount of work put in modern web browsers. They are ecosystems at this point.
There exist things like NetSurf. Or, remove JS execution from web browsers, and now you have un-bloated web browser that cannot access... 80% of clearnet, and cannot comment on Lemmy.
There have been ideas explored in this direction, like Gemini and Gopher protocols. Some people use them.