I agree, and am looking for other alternatives, that aren't chromium based; but not finding any modern browsers that fit that bill. So I still use Firefox. Any recommendations?
That leaves you with Firefox and chromium derivatives, either LibreWolf if you want something Firefox based or Brave if you chose to get assimilated. Both have their issues: LibreWolf, like Firefox, lacks about a decade in security enhancements chromium implemented and Brave with their cryptoshit and questionable calling home behaviour hasn't been particularly trustworthy.
Welcome to the brave new world.
> Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available?
> Ladybird started as a component of the SerenityOS hobby project, which only allows C++. The choice of language was not so much a technical decision, but more one of personal convenience. Andreas was most comfortable with C++ when creating SerenityOS, and now we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain.
> However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect. We are actively evaluating a number of alternatives and will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future. This process is already quite far along, and prototypes exist in multiple languages.
There's WebKit, which shares lineage with Blink (Chromium) but is separate.