It’s not really one or the other. Firefox and Safari both exist and the incentives of the companies that run them are reasonably aligned with user privacy.
Chrome is the other outlier here. Apple and Microsoft have no real reason to spy on you when you use Safari or Edge and Firefox is operated by a not-for-profit entity. Google and Opera's entire business model depend on surveilling their users.
I think it's accurate to say that their business interests are different, and thus the applications to privacy are different. For example, Safari defaults to "Block cookies from third parties and advertisers". Chrome defaults to allow all cookies by default.
And yet nobody is writing such articles about Firefox. There's plenty that's not privacy-invasive and that Firefox thus does implement, that Safari does not or does buggily.
Firefox has some really good privacy features built-in (some aren't enabled by default and requires minor configuration by users). In contrast, some big tech firms (you know who they are) that have a business model that involves profiting off of users' data are inherently deterred from delivering really good privacy features.
If you care at all about privacy, I don't see how you could stomach either. Firefox is the only reasonable choice when it comes to privacy, and even that isn't perfect.
Both browsers communicate with their owners under various circumstances. Both have it relatively well documented (both with some omissions, as the docs lag behind). Both had screw-ups (probably, non-malicious but just accidental - YMMV) and were caught communicating something (IIRC, non-severe) when they shouldn't have been. Both have their own ecosystem/services (starting with Google and Firefox Accounts respectively) that they actively promote.
This is subjective, but I believe in the large picture neither of browsers has some consistent technological advantage in terms of user privacy (fingerprinting, data leaks, options to block unsafe modern stuff etc). One or another wins over specific cases or introduces some measures before another does, but they feel to be generally on par - at least if we consider available extensions (adblocking, etc) and not just the core features.
The only significant difference I see is that one of the browsers markets itself with heavy use of term "privacy", and other doesn't.
Safari isn't the best answer for user privacy either so why grandstand for it as the only thing users should be allowed to run if that's your only concern? There is always a worse option to point at but that doesn't somehow mean Safari should be the only option.
I don't think there's anything stopping web browsers to have the same level of privacy features as the apps, is there? Apple, Google and Microsoft owns both the OS and the browser, so there's really no excuse I feel.
Firefox is still very imperfect in their prioritising of privacy, but when we're looking at the question of "use Chrome or Firefox", that's hardly significant in comparison.
I'm curious what you're using currently if Firefox's privacy imperfections are of concern? Safari?
Not much about privacy in the comments here, surprisingly. I'd have a lot more jollier sentiments for Firefox if they'd address the sort of issues exemplified here: https://browserleaks.com/
FF is my preferred (chromium 2nd) browser, but there aren't many alternatives. I'm not a dev, but my impression is that modern browsers are designed as advertisement and data-leak protocols with incidental browsing capabilities.
Safari is the most private mainstream browser IMO. Private relay, third party tracking blockers, good enough support for 1Blocker to keep my laptop fan down. I use brave for work though since it’s closest to chrome and the dev tools are better. Their slightly annoying shenanigans every few months still seem better than Google having a high quality data stream directly from the browser itself
How does Firefox win in privacy? Maybe through certain extensions but Safari has the edge in things like private mode tabs not sharing cookies etc. between each other.
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