I've been thinking about getting a Nest, but I'm getting a bit paranoid about privacy and stuff. Are there any decent alternatives?

Not only have I seen the last few releases, I have been using Firefox since version 2 and my primary browser on Linux and Windows. And I am generally happy with it. If you don't like the UI/UX, you have multiple options starting from countless addons that can customize just about every pixel of Firefox. And as others mentioned, there are other builds of Firefox for people just like yourself who are not happy with the default UI.

In what way does Firefox want to be Chrome?

You must live in a parallel universe if you believe this. Most European cars, and that includes both Volvo and all German brands simply play in a different (better) league with respect to quality when compared to the Big 3. The latest 3 million car GM recall is just one proof of that.

Consumers can tell the difference between VW made in Mexico and VW made in Germany, and VW is not owned by Chinese. Whoever thinks that Volvos made in China would be (in the near future) as good as Volvos made in Sweden is just delusional. Although, they'd still likely be much better than American cars (GM, Crysler, Ford).

There IS NO new menu! What exactly do you prefer?
There is big difference between not using something and not being able to use something. What you are saying is basically you don't use the start menu which you equally could "not use" if it was there. I can't get used to not having the start menu, because it's not there. It's not that I can't get around it:
- I can install a 3rd party start menu
- I can pin all the apps I need to the taskbar, which is what I do now.
But it is not convenient, it's extra effort. Also, not having start menu really sucks when working over RDP where I have to move the mouse at the exact left bottom corner to get what I need. Yes, I can learn the new patterns, but why do I have to? Especially, on Windows Server where nobody in there right mind would use touch screen.
P.S. The start menu thing has been discussed so many times already.

So does their every indecision. And in this case a wrong decision they've been stubbornly holding on to for too long.

You don't know that [there are much smarter people than me, at Microsoft].
And I actually do know that, because the start menu is just about visual representation of what's installed on the system - all the programs still go to C:\Program Files, for god's sake. If MS couldn't show me a list of shortcuts without breaking something, I would have some bad news for them :-) And let me tell you, as a Windows user I will be judging whether Microsoft makes good things or not, because ultimately they make their products for customers like myself, not for those imaginary people (who are supposedly much smarter than me) who can't admit their own mistakes and give back to users much needed functionality.

One thing about Microsoft that I don't understand is its seeming slowness at doing simple things. OK, everyone agrees there has to be a Start Menu, it is not hard to implement (see lots of 3rd party apps doing just that), it will not break any existing Windows functionality, MS has virtually unlimited highly skilled resources, yet this obvious simple improvement takes months (if not years) to release. Let alone the fact that this problem should never have existed in the first place.

I actually like Australis :)

There are such fundamental differences between Firefox/Mozilla and Chrome/Google that I simply trust Mozilla to do the right thing whereas the times of Google's "do not be evil" are long gone.

Thank you for giving me yet another reason to stick with Firefox. Not that I needed one...

So basically, if you wanna be a prof, don't bother getting a PhD outside the top 10. If you don't wanna be a prof, don't bother getting a PhD at all.

You are really not better. You are much worse because in addition to violating human rights, your own laws and constitution, you Americans also have the guts to chastise everybody else for doing the very same things (just on a smaller scale). You are the pinnacle of hypocrisy.

No worries, Estonia. NSA will make sure Russia will not hack into your internet voting system.

Morals in business and politics? Oh, my...