So a couple of things.

1) Apple would never force "Chromium" on any of their platforms. You might be mistaking it for WebKit, but browsers are not required to use Apple's shipping version of WebKit on a Mac either.

2) Firefox on every single platform not on the iPhone & iPad uses and has always used Gecko. I'm not aware of any other exceptions besides those two platforms, but the Mac definitely isn't one of them.

Yep, you can run Firefox on every Mac released for the past couple of decades. (Maybe more?)

Most of them also work with Linux, although it's a little more spotty on the more recent ARM-based ones ("apple silicon").

Macs are essentially "real computers" that you can run whatever software you want on, whereas iPhones and iPads are much more locked down. (Even when they have the same CPU.)

Yes, and the different browsers on iOS are all actually just skins on top of Safari's WebKit.

macOS isn't locked down like iOS. There are things like SIP which prevent some hacking/customising of the system, but:

1. These can all be disabled by advanced users (largely without consequence)

2. They dont prevent things like installing apps or even gaining root access in the first place.

The very fact that you can install Linux is evidence of the different approach taken with macs (you can't easily install Linux of ios devices)

The last macbook I owned had an Ethernet port, so I wasn't sure how much had changed in the interim. I knew that had added some lockdown and I wasn't sure how much. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

I assume that, by Chromium, you mean WebKit. At any rate, how or why would they have blocked Firefox on a machine where you can compile your own code?

> Can you still get real Firefox on mac?

I have always been able to.

You can use whatever you want on macos