• whileloop@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is your hourly reminder that Brave is still Chromium and still contributes to Google’s influence over internet standards.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I hate to be a pessimist but if people hate Musk as much as they seem to, but can’t leave twitter,

    or post “Fuck Spez” thousands of times, but won’t leave reddit,

    I’m cautious about how much of an exodous I expect to see from chrome.

    I think its time we face the fact that most people will trade almost anything for convenience.

    • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The piece that gets continuously underestimated is who moves in these small initial jumps. It tends to be the more technically inclined, who over the next couple years, their recommendations will lead to friends and family moving as well, at a slower rate.

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        1 year ago

        The piece that gets continuously underestimated is who moves in these small initial jumps. It tends to be the more technically inclined, who over the next couple years, their recommendations will lead to friends and family moving as well, at a slower rate.

        Sure. And here we are. I’m sure these companies consider us a real fly in the ointment. But I’m not inclined to believe the past is perfectly predictive of the future. What you described is also, in my perspective, how things have gone in the past. But will it happen the same way this time? I don’t know. I’m not confident based on what I’ve seen. They are trying to close in the walls on the internet and they are confident that people are too lazy to stop them.

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If Internet Explorer managed to fall from 96% market share to complete irrelevance, Chrome is not immortal either.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You arent wrong. But, acectdata and mine own, convenience drove that. People are fucking lazy and hate nothing more than to be inconvenienced. When chrome was getting traction, explorer was trasshhhhhhhhh and every one knew it.

        Chrome might be a bit bloated but its no explorer. If it doesn’t hurt people to stay, I don’t think we’ll see a shift.

      • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Times have changed. The userbase that dropped IE was a vastly different one. With the internet being more accessible and more alluring to the massed (i.e. because of social media) convenience is king.

      • BubblyMango@lemmy.wtf
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        1 year ago

        Back then internet users werent normies, but nreds and tech savy people. Also, chrome learned from IE’s mistakes. It wont stop functioning and will keep updating, so the average normy user wont mind.

          • Notorious_handholder@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I genuinely don’t know how Ill use the web without ad block. Cause I damn sure ain’t going back to paying for anti-virus like in the 90’s for a web experience that is objectively worse and less magical enough to risk it.

            Drive by malware and viruses from ads has gotten scarily good at infecting systems without you knowing. It’s worse than ever as it’s not just a sketchy site issue thing anymore either. Even reputable sites have ads that only take one misclick to infect you now

    • manucode@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Browsers at least, unlike social networks, don’t benefit from networking effects. How many people use a specific browser doesn’t directly affect the usefulness of that browser, as users of different browsers can interact with each other to the same degree as users of the same browser. For now at least, as Google’s Web Integrity API could obviously change that if websites start to require and some browser are unable or unwilling to provide it.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How many people use a specific browser doesn’t directly affect the usefulness of that browser, as users of different browsers can interact with each other to the same degree as users of the same browser. For now at least, as Google’s Web Integrity API could obviously change that if websites start to require and some browser are unable or unwilling to provide it.

        Thats a great point and something to consider.

      • Delphia@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        True. I MUST use Edge at work and honestly, its fine. Its not some radical departure from Firefox, i dont have to think too hard about the differences.

    • umulu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I switched to Firefox on windows and android on the same day as I saw that WEI bullshit.

      I don’t know why the fuck I was thinking it would be a worse experience… It’s the same thing.

    • Spudwart@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Google broke on Firefox for a while a day ago for me. Went to some other search engine.

      Jumping from social media is hard.

      Jumping from applications is not.

      teamspeak became Skype which became discord.

      And many of us did leave Reddit. I didn’t even leave because I cared about the protests or what Reddit was doing. I left because many posts were deleted, people left, subreddits became abandoned.

      Lemmy became better than Reddit basically overnight.

    • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      It is a slow process, most will still use it, but it will be less and less as time passes.

      Twitter is a different beast, most of the people you follow on twitter are only active in certain groups.

      All we can do is inform them and focus on what we do, no need to be stuck on what others do.

  • Hobbes@startrek.website
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    I just switched yesterday after learning more about why I should here in Lemmy.

    The last time I tried FF (many years ago) it was incredibly slow, so I went with chrome. But the FF of today is actually noticably quicker.

    Also, FF offered to import all of my bookmarks, autofills, passwords, history, and even my extensions (if a FF version exists of course, almost all of which did) and did so seamlessly. It was the easiest software switch ever.

      • figaro@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        Privacy and not being part of Google would be the biggest reason.

        It also looks kinda nice, in my opinion.

        It’s also faster than chrome now I think.

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          1 year ago

          It’s also faster than chrome now I think.

          Resource management is much better. Chrome will max out the RAM, which slows down the browser. Firefox handles that 100x better.

      • shrugal@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Apart from privacy concerns, Google has started to add some really bad features to Chrome, such as “Manifest V3” and “Web Environment Integrity”. These limit your ability to block ads or generally modify your device or the websites you’re visiting, and are just a bad for the web as a whole. WEI in particular is basically DRM for the web, so Google checks your device and denies you access to websites if they don’t like it. But as long as the majority of people keep using Chrome they can just force these things onto everyone.

    • Hangglide@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I tried FF earlier this year. It sucked. Everything just took extra clicks. The password manager was a pain and didn’t interact with my phone apps properly.

      I know the complaints against chrome. When it starts forcing me to watch ads I might try FF again.

      • pipes@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Hey, at least installing a foss browser won’t slow down your phone like a spyware app, you could always try something like Mull even for only a portion of your browsing if you have ~80MB to spare. I suggest it because I hate some of that extra bullshit that comes with standard Firefox. Also there’s tons of projects that try similar stuff with Chromium! Like Mulch. Way better defaults than Chrome

      • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The Android FF is not a great user experience for sure. On desktop it’s just fine but Android is janky. I tolerate anyway to support Firefox but chrome is miles better on mobile.

    • 😈MedicPig🐷BabySaver😈@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      My friggin’ Chromebook (which works great) can’t install FF.

      I’ve tried rooting into Ubuntu, but, I can’t get it all straightened out. Until I notice truly diminished issues… I’ll use Chromebook as is.

      • Alex@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Not even as an Android app? I’ve run Firefox from crostini as well but the Android approach is a lot easier.

    • Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Idk, I’ve used both browsers and I prefer Chrome in terms of features and UI. But it’s not worth the privacy you get with Firefox

        • drekly@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I use Firefox now and have most of this year.

          One thing that annoyed me was how much more awkward it is to switch between two user profiles .

          In chrome I have a work email a personal email, each with its own account, and a different look. I can immediately tell which I’m using, and can switch between them with the button at the top right.

          I managed to mess around and find an extension which kind of does the same thing, so I’m no longer missing the feature, but it’s definitely jankier and doesn’t work as smoothly.

          Also, I don’t know if it’s a bitwarden issue, but autofill hardly ever works properly.

          Sometimes I want to pull a tab into its own window on the other screen. You’re not allowed to do this when the browser is full screen, only when it’s windowed. Annoying.

          These are my only issues with firefox I can think of.

        • Tiranunossauro@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I personally really miss being able to group tabs. I don’t think you’re able to do it on Firefox, right?

          Firefox has extensions that can help with this, but I find the way Chrome does it extremely useful. I’d still choose Firefox, but there are certainly a couple of features that Chrome has that can be helpful

        • Hangglide@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I put in a good faith effort to switch to FF earlier this year. I really wanted to like it. I consider myself an expert user to so it wasn’t just “I didn’t know what I was doing.” I recently switched back to Chrome. I hope FF gets better because I don’t like recent Chrome news.

      • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Which features? Chrome is barebones imo while others like Edge and Opera are the “glorified” browsers with many features.

          • persolb@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Was just about to say this. I finally switched today because Chrome tried to sign me up automatically for a bunch of ‘privacy enhancements’ which do the opposite.

            The only thing I’m having trouble finding a good version of is tab groups.

            I want tab groups that I can collapse and expand at will. Not one that hides my tabs, and which I can’t see two tab groups concurrently.

        • min_fapper@iusearchlinux.fyi
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          1 year ago

          PWA. Last time I seriously tried Firefox it’s support for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) was non existent. When their issue tracker told me they have no plans for implementing it, I shed a single tear and then moved back to chromium.

        • PigsInClover@lemmy.world
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          I primarily use Firefox, but the big one for me and the reason I haven’t completely deleted Chrome is being able to create shortcuts with the “Open in a new window” option for specific URLs. Granted I’m not very tech savvy (just a little more aware than the average user) and primarily use a mac for my personal computer atm, but that feature is a game changer for me. As far as I know, other popular browsers don’t offer it currently.

          It’s really useful for when there isn’t a download or iOS app for a specific site/service, or when the web app is much better than the app or download option and I still want to be able to use it like a separate app from my browser.

          I also wasn’t able to download any software that wasn’t on the Apple App Store with my work computer for my previous employer (super annoying, but I kind of get it). So it was essential if I wanted to have a separate and dedicated app/window at all for my work calendar, email, etc.

          I love how I can visually organize the web apps I like to use separately from my browser, to save time and energy for daily use. I can customize the name and shortcut icon, pin them to my dock, organize them in folders in my launchpad, and even set them to launch on startup if I want. Not sure if there are reasonably easy ways to mimic this with Firefox, but I haven’t found any yet.

    • mishimaenjoyer@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      same problem we had back in the ie5/6 days: it was just there and most people don’t care. i physically cringe when i watch co-workers using chrome with not even a basic adblocker installed, klicking away ads, promts, pop-ups, videos and whatnot just to access a news article. it’s horrible!

        • tool@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m forced to use either Chrome or Edge for my work computer and it drives me crazy.

          I’ve been a Sysadmin for a ~decade. I can state with 100% certainty that the reason behind that decision is that you can very easily configure Group Policy to control the behavior and visibility/availability of features in Chrome and Edge. Firefox didn’t have that until just a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t great when it first became available. And to be honest, it’s still not fully baked, but it’s at least usable now from an administrative perspective.

          Maybe bring it up to your IT department and include this link in the email/ticket.

    • danielton@lemmy.world
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      People switched because “it’s the fastest” but that hasn’t been my experience with it at all. Sure, it LOOKS more minimalistic than Firefox, but it’s a RAM and CPU hog that litters my computer with Google trash.

      People still download it because “it’s the fastest”

    • Potato_in_my_anus@lemmy.ml
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      Yeah, I’ve been using Firefox exclusively for ages. And also Duckduckgo, I just can’t stand the excessive of Google’s captcha since I always use VPN.

    • ObservantOcelot@lemmy.world
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      I’d use it exclusively, but there’s no Ad Blocker for it on iOS, and I don’t want to run an ad blocking VPN all the time. I also don’t like how there’s no official PWA support on desktop.

      • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
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        Chrome doesn’t support extensions at all on iOS, only Safari does - because of Apple. Firefox would absolutely support extensions and use Gecko on Ios if Apple let them.

        • ObservantOcelot@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, but there are ways other browsers have determined how to have in-built ad blocking. I’m not sure of the ins and outs, but Brave, Samsung Browser, and Edge all have built-in ad blocking on iOS.

      • Reygle@lemmy.world
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        The heck? UBlock works on Mac- ohhh is this an M1/M2 thing I was unaware of?

        Nevermind, you said IOS not MacOS

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        But there is strict tracking protection which acts like a slightly degraded ad blocker. It has blocked everything except YouTube ads and “you have ad blocker enabled” pop ups for me.

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    Showing people that they can avoid ads by switching from chromium might make more people use adblockers.

    I get flabbergasted whenever I talk to someone and realize they’re unaware that such things exist. I hope all (according to the google store entry for ublock origin) 10,000,000 of the ublock origin users switches from chromium based browsers to, say, firefox…

    Feels like chromium is the new internet explorer…

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      I know a lot of Chrome users, and the general story I get from them is nearly always the same infuriating bullshit along these lines:

      “So, I tried the like, Fox Fire thingy, but this one time, like, it took, like, 1.5 seconds to load, so it’s “””“”“”““slow””“”“”“”" so I just use Chrome 'cause it’s, like, faster and stuff."

      Yeah, and I suppose the 427 useless things you have running in your system tray right now don’t have anything to do with your computer being “slow,” right?

      • PastThePixels@lemmy.potatoe.ca
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        Or worse, “Why should I switch to Firefox? Everybody’s complaining about the performance of Firefox compared to Chrome, but Chrome just works for me.”

        Blissfully unaware of the kind of power you’re giving Google over the Internet by using their browser. I once had an experience where someone tried to use this to push me back to using Chrome.

      • tenochtitlan@lemmy.ml
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        There is also the initial load problem where it would take longer to load in Firefox compared to chrome. Yet people will attribute it to the browser and not the fact that assets were already stored in chrome.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      That’s why Google is trying to launch the “Web Integrity API” that will essentially allow them to mandate any website accessible to or using Google Services to ban browsers that have ad blockers.

    • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.orgOP
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      To me it looks like a tech savy kind of hurdle, once people learn about it and start thinkering they start to use it also.

      Better for us when people start caring for what they tolerate from corps.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    You wish that was happening.

    I’m preparing to be completely unsurprised that Firefox’s market share will still be at 3% next month and the month after that.

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    If I had to choose between a tracked, ad-filled experience and a slower, protected experience, I would go back to 1990s style Internet in a second.

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    A few years back when Firefox went through the whole “Quantum” update, I jumped and never looked back. It’s just better in every way, in my opinion.

  • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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    As a user of Linux and primarily FOSS software for 2 years, each time I recommended something FOSS, others had bad luck.

    • I tried switching someone to Linux but I couldn’t achive %100 funnctionality on a Windows only app I set up via Wine. (it is an obscure program, not sth like Adobe or MS Office)
    • I recommended Kdenlive to a Mac user friend, he couldn’t export a video he spent 30 hours on it.
    • I convinced someone to use Libreoffice but they lost data in only 30 mins because I forgot to tell that if you draw more than a few strokes in LO Draw it enters a save loop. This is fixed now thankfully.
    • I recommended VLC for DVD ripping, it entered some sort of loop and failed to export.

    Each of the above examples involve completely different people, by the way.

    • I set up 2 fresh Windows installs for family but installed Firefox with strict protection and uBlock Origin instead of Chrome and… it worked?! They still use Firefox. Maybe the alpenglow theme is too good, I don’t know.
    • RivenRise@lemmy.world
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      You’re right and it’s that sort of stuff that people like you and me will deal with and figure out and move on but unfortunately it’s not the case with regular people. That’s why I never recommend that sorry if stuff to ‘normies’ ie. My mom. Instead I set them up with the lesser of evils that will give them convenience and make them more likely to trust me in the future. That way, if I ever REALLY need them to move on from something they will be more likely to just listen to me and not fight me about it. I just got a couple of friends to switch over to Firefox even though they were chrome fans, all because I have years of goodwill. Ported their bookmarks and got them ublock and they barely even notice a difference.

      • persolb@lemmy.ml
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        I think this is true for everything… we just notice it when we’re the ones ahead.

        Some people can’t change tires, some can’t cook, some can do basic plumbing, some can’t remove appendixes, some can’t swim… whatever.

        Granted, I think the main divide were all on the good side of is “some people know how to search, some people don’t”

  • egeres@lemmy.world
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    What’s the advantage for google of doing this move? People “savy” enough to install an adblock (or even know that it exists) is most likely to switch to a competitor that allows for adblocking

    • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.orgOP
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      Majority will keep using, for a while, until years later more see what has happened and move.

      Mean while profits on marketing go up.

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      The way things are going with data collection and advertising, the EU is bound to put heavy restrictions on it, basically killing the market Google is built on. They are trying to find a middle ground between banning data collection and full on everything being collected you do online, and if ad blockers just happen to die in the crossfire, it’s not Google’s concern.

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    I think firefox should ship with ublock origin installed. (Perhaps also containers).

    Hopefully then more people will migrate faster

    • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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      At least tracking protection should be set to strict, iirc on default setting it barely blocks any ads.

      • PrefersAwkward@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Strict tracking protection makes Firefox on Android a ton faster, especially on any website owned by Google or any link that has a Google wrapper (e.g. clicking a link on the Gmail app)

        • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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          Strict protection on iOS was literally the difference between “I can use this phone” and “brick”. I had an old iPhone, 6 Plus, and Safari lagged to death because it tried to load ads. Firefox didn’t.

            • PrefersAwkward@lemmy.world
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              To add to this, I have uBO installed on FF Android, but Strict Protection still makes things much faster for me. I’m not sure if it’s because of my other Addons, but FF Android is so slow otherwise with certain sites (mostly just Google’s)

  • notenoughbutter@lemmy.ml
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    people when they learn about unlock origin works better with firefox

    I bet most people saying chrome is faster don’t even know about adblockers or are using Google’s websites

    • Mellibird@lemm.ee
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      When I made the switch I was shocked at well it blocks ads. It still surprises me to this day. Yeah, it takes a little longer to load, but I couldn’t care less.