With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.
The best time to switch to Firefox was 5 years ago. The second best is today.
Oops, I switched 15 years ago,
I switch when it was Phoenix, then switch again when it was Firebird, and finally switch when it become Firefox
I went straight from Mozilla Navigator to Firefox 1.0.
Tabs were such a crazy new thing back then. You would show tabbed browsing to someone (rather than opening new windows) and they thought you were a wizard. IE5 didn’t have tabs, so nerds moved to Mozilla/Firefox. Then IE6 came out but still didn’t have tabs. By the time IE7 came out, I’d had tabbed browsing for 5+ years.
you win Firefox!
Hat trick!
Noob. I switched in 2006 - 17 years ago.
What took you so long?!?
I had to pee!
I cannot be 100% certain but I’m confident I was using it not long after the 1.0 release. That’d put me at 2004. 19 years!
Although I did briefly switch over to Chrome when it was new and fast. Then switched back when Firefox had a major optimization pass.
The early Chrome was crazy fast when it had none of the bloat.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/nCgQDjiotG0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Google has a web-browser?
10 to 15 years ago, myself. Don’t remember exactly.
Sorry, that’s 3rd best at most, according to the data above. Sorry, I don’t make the rules!
I use Firefox since it’s release. It was never bad. I don’t get all the Chrome users.
It has a pretty severe memory leak issue during the period where Chrome siphoned off most of its users.
I had the crappiest of PCs in 2006 or 2007 with 768MBs of RAM running Windows XP. Funnily enough the reason I switched to Chrome back then was the immense RAM usage of Firefox compared to Chrome back then. With the big rebranding an rerelease of Firefox in 2017? 2018? I came back and haven’t looked back since.
I used it since netscape navigator XD
Funnily enough - this article is 3 years old
Does it have native dark pages. Why I use brave. Would use Firefox but it’s glaring white
Firefox has dark mode.
Most people aren’t concerned about privacy outside of places like here and Reddit.
With Chrome killing ad blocking, they’ll quickly care
Except most people don’t use adblock. I don’t even know how they live
I’m conviced those people aren’t real and everyone is in fact secretly using an ad blocker.
I mean, how do you not get annoyed with so much ads? People are probabaly lying in surveys to trick youtube to not blocking adblockers.
Hate to say it, but I think you’re giving the average person way too much credit. Most people are just not that smart.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin
Average and below internet users are not the kind of people you meet on Lemmy. They are people like the aging Gen-Xer who doesn’t know the difference between “the internet” and a web browser, or the kid whose parents shoved a tablet in their face to get them to be quiet for an hour.
Most people want computers to be an appliance like a washing machine - the thought that they can shape their own experience on their phone or computer never even occurs to them.
You are mostly right. Think about how many people use chrome on corporate office computers that they do not have permission to install anything on or modify. It’s part of the reason Windows is so dominant. Businesses run windows and chrome a shit ton. I work for a Fortune 100 company. It’s Windows and Chrome across the whole company.
I work for a large company and its the same. They even force-install Chrome despite Edge already being there! Yes, some people will make the privacy argument that Microsoft takes your data, but so will Google, and it’s not as if the business cared either way, because if they did they’d install an adblocker or Firefox, which they don’t.
Permissions, you say? Lemme introduce you to Portable Apps.
Yeah the second anything gets stuck into a USB port, IT is on WebEx like “Get what’s that asshole in pod H-12 doing???”
I forget that these people exist sometimes. I can’t ever go back to the internet with no ad blockers.
You realize the Internet costs money. Those sites don’t charge due to advertising. If everyone used ad blocker. There wouldn’t be internet.
But blind there
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And it exploded because of that. Stuff costs money. You either pay for it or ads though.
I’d prefer having the internet of now than what was before.
You can use ad blocker but I’m pointing out the your theory. Without ads the Internet doesn’t exist in its current form. As long as 90% don’t use ad blocker it’s all good.
I suspect they spend most of their time in apps and not surfing the internet. Just a guess really since I saw the mobile traffic exceeded desktop. A lot of people don’t spend hours on the “internet” surfing. Tic Tok sure. Hell I’m getting more and more like that. Even when I use chrome I still only go the the same sites for the most part. lol
It could be a good thing. Maybe they won’t bother about people blocking ads because they become even less than before.
So maybe you need to pause the ad block a lot less.
They don’t!
They won’t. The vast majority aren’t using any kind of ad-blockers in the first place or Google would go out of business.
The plan to deprecate Chrome V2 extensions has been constantly postponed again and again for years now. There is NO SCHEDULED DATE for this to happen currently, and when it is announced it will be more than 6 months out.
Source: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions/c/zQ77HkGmK9E/m/HjaaCIG-BQAJ?pli=1
If Google really wanted to kill ad blockers, they would have done this years ago.
They don’t. They want to force ad blockers and other similar extensions to use more efficient APIs that don’t slow down the web. Extension developers overall (not just ad blockers) aren’t happy with the changes, so they’re still working on the APIs.
Hmmm, on the bright side, with lemmy going mainstream maybe some of this culture (including privacy and FOSS) becomes more and more openly discussed.
I mean I love Lemmy but I don’t see it going mainstream :/
It’s too weird for the general userAs much as I love Lemmy I don’t see it going mainstream :/
It’s too weird for the general userYeah I agree. Arguably reddit isn’t even mainstream, and it is exponentially larger than Lemmy now and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
I’m really loving Lemmy, but it is not even remotely a factor if we are having a conversation about things that are mainstream enough to reflect popular opinion.
Reddit was too weird for most people until they ended up being in their Google search results for most topics. It will take a while but the Fediverse will eventually reach a level of popularity and mainstream utility.
Then why are you here “Generic User 1234”?
I’m sorry, I don’t know if “general user” means what I think it means. English is not my first language.
What I meant was that most people who use the internet and social media on a regular basis aren’t exactly nerdy/tech-savvy. So as soon as you start talking to them about federated instances and whatnot, they lose interest.
Firefox + Ublock Origin blows Google Chrome out of water.
In adittion to this make sure to disable the telemetry that’s on by default. If you want even better protection from fingerprinting etc, use arkenfox/librewolf (librewolf being preconfigured fork of firefox)
I’d also recommend disabling Normandy in Firefox.
Firefox is a weird buggy mess that constantly freezes.
This is definitely not normal, Firefox never freezes for me. May be worth checking that out, especially your extensions.
Especially your security programs, like third-party antivirus or firewalls. They can install system-level plugins in your browsers, and sometimes those don’t work well. Windows defender and the built in firewall are good enough and play nice with other programs.
The whole Reddit debacle has really made me rethink all my services. I recently installed duck duck go and still getting used to it, so not quite sure if I’m ready to make another drastic change.
I used to love Firefox in 2006 or so, but got Chrome when it was released and forgot about Firefox. I think I’ll open a tab in my chrome browser for the Firefox page now…this is how I remind myself to delve deeper into stuff later. Thanks for the inspiration, everyone. Google has irked me ever since removing the Don’t Be Evil mantra.
Firefox has a super simple way to import everything from your Chrome install. And from what I can tell it has every feature plus more. Was very easy for me to switch. I was actually inspired to try it as my daily driver since Chrome hogs an uncomfortable amount of RAM on my laptop
There was one extension I used in Chrome that I haven’t found a Firefox replacement for, but I stopped trying to look a while ago and just live without it.
Was a specific kind of cookie manager: you could whitelist a set of websites to keep their cookies. Everything else would be deleted when you told the extension to do so.
Too many websites need cookies that stick around indefinitely. But I also don’t want to delete everything everytime I close Firefox, because I may want to keep a website around for a few days without wanting to bother adding it to a whitelist.
Most Chrome extensions can easily be run in Firefox. Simply download the CRX and upload an copy to addons.mozilla.org as an unlisted extension and within a few hours the extension should be approved and ready to install in Firefox.
Firefox has strong support for the extension cookie management APIs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/cookies
Reddit being enshittified is what motivated me to switch back to Android. I don’t want to continue using a a locked ecosystem only for apple to one day say: “Welp, no more adblocks 😜 Oh you use VLC? Dude that’s for pirates only. Signal? That’s for terrorists. Standard Notes? What evil plans are you hiding? Banned Banned and Banned.”
I used iPhones because everyone else was using them so I kinds fell for the peer pressure thinking “Hmm… what are the odds that Apple become evil? Probably don’t have to worry about it.” The Reddit shitshow just triggered a fear in me that made me rethink about my life decisions. Apple’s locked ecosystem suddenly looked terrifying to me, and I just wanna nope out. So I got an Android phone and gave the iPhone to someone. I love my apks and don’t need to worry about Google-Play shennanigans.
I use Vivaldi, which isn’t perfect, but I need tab grouping in some form. Firefox’s solutions for tab groups are meh at best
With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.
It’s no wonder. It’s because people aren’t actually concerned about privacy.
If you ask someone if they’re “concerned about privacy” many people will of course say yes. If you follow up that question with “what are you willing to do about it”, you’ll find that the answer is a resounding “not a God damn thing”. If they were they would spend 3 minutes on Google looking for an alternative browser that works even better than Chrome but without the privacy invasions.
A browser is the low-hanging fruit on the “do-you-care-about-privacy meter”. It’s the one step with no sacrifices and the highest increase in privacy.
Just look at how popular threads is. Only a tiny group of privacy enthusiasts are truly worried about privacy. The general public in the whole world do not give a flying fuck.
threads really blew my mind
It really looks like the general population is actively looking for new ways to get their data harvested and their attention spans damaged. People are rejoicing over a new social media app (and it’s from facebook of all companies!!!). They’re rejoicing over a new poison and that’s mind-blowing to me.
But then again I use Lemmy so who am I to talk? (Whilst Lemmy is an improvement from most other social networks, I still consider any social media use to be a detriment to my life)
I don’t really think using social media is inherently bad or harmful to anyone’s health, since human beings are striving for communication with others. Also I think privacy is a more first world problem as if people in developing countries, are not particularly interested in privacy at all. They are just going for things that are trendy, where a lot of people gather and do the same thing. Threads, TikTok, Twitter and obviously Facebook are all very popular yet the companies never hide their intentions to harvest personal data for profit. I guess if the companies pay people back for use of their data, even more people will say they are willing to give their data in exchange for tiny bit of money.
You’re correct and much more reasonable than I am. I’ve learned from you, thank you.
You may be right. Being on lemmy tends to skew perspectives a little bit.
i would like the government to do something about privacy. i want to use my funny gaming browser without having my data collected in the first place.
What’s a funny gaming browser?
Opera gx. Clearly their marketing paid off
Opera GX
There’s no reason you should be using Chrome. Using Chrome:
- Means you consent to spyware (along with everyone else you interact with)
- Allows Google to continue dictating web standards
- Is a resource hog
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading this comic about the dangers of Chrome: https://contrachrome.com/
If you need to absolutely use a Chromium-based browser, at least use Brave (just for that site).
Not-so-fun fact from the comic Contra Chrome: Google Chrome’s URL bar is called the “omnibox.” The name is derived from the Latin word “omnis,” meaning “everything.”
When you type into the omnibox, it’s sent to Google’s servers and added to your profile forever.
Even if you deleted it or didn’t hit enter.
Some websites just don’t work in Firefox, though. This is more of a fault of the devs, they’ve made websites that were only tested in and only work in Chromium, but it’s the nature of things occassionally.
Lot of those sites work just fine if I change the useragent to chrome for some reason
First and foremost I abandoned Chrome for the 3rd reason and haven’t looked back. One of the largest corporations in the world can’t make a web browser that doesn’t use an obscene amount of ram to open 3 tabs at once :0
Saw this tweet recently:
“Google is pointing out issues with my site performance. It’s forcing me to inspect what I can improve. I finally removed google analytics and mobile performance jumped from 70 to 96.”
I think that should tell you everything you need to know about how bloated Google is.
Or use Chromium. It’s an open source version of chrome. Chromium does not include user tracking and you avoid all the google telemetry bullshit
Outta the box, I’m taking Brave over Chromium. Brave is lighter, has content blockers, and has other privacy features enabled by default.
Outta the box, Brave is a cryptobro nightmare, I’m gonna pass and use Vivaldi.
IMO the thing is that people don’t care about their privacy. Sure, some people around here do, but your average person owns an Alexa, has a FB/Instagram account and constantly posts their location, uses the same password on many sites, uses TikTok, doesn’t block cookies, etc etc etc.
Most people don’t actually care. Some claim they do, but then can’t even be bothered to stop using Instagram etc because of the “inconvenience”… So do they really care?
Some companies (Apple, etc) push their products under a narrative around safety and security, and people will repeat that point as a way to justify a decision they already made, but if they actually cared, they would be doing other things too. But they don’t.
The number of us who do actually care about privacy and security is actually very small.
My biggest issue with FF is the lack of the ability to switch accounts easily. In Chrome I have a work account, a home account, and a side hustle account. Each has their own bookmarks, themes, passwords, and history.
I have tried using FF and the few workarounds to match this feature, but so far it has none worked as smoothly as chromes 2 button clicks to switch accounts.
You can have full on separate profiles in Firefox with no common data between them! Accounts, cookies, settings, extensions and their data, even configuration flags and where the profile folder is located on your computer can be customized for each profile! You can even have multiple profiles open simultaneously. Check out about:profiles
Firefox has Container Tabs, where you can separate your personal, banking, work etc. Aside of that, they are completely separate sets of cookies used. You don’t need to open new window.
Container tabs? They are an official extension but for some reason don’t come pre-installed. I use them extensively for exactly this. Also they are great for paywall evasion, as they don’t count as incognito browsing but can be created and destroyed in seconds.
You can always use firefox’s profiles to manage different profiles and the “profile switcher for Firefox” extension. 2 clicks to change profile that way.
there’s an extention to do that, i believe is called “account switcher” is 3 clicks but… better than nothing
FF has been my daily driver… longer than I can remember on essentially anything that can handle a browser. It’s powerfull, feature rich, extensible, etc. But it does tend gain weight between major overhauls.
Out of curiosity, being a Linux user, I installed Chromium not 2 weeks ago and the thing is fast. It outperforms Firefox on my aging machine by far. And I was actually surprised. Yes, I do have the ghost of Google just waiting to sink its fangs in me, which I dislike, but I really have to admit the browser is fast, light and easy to approach for new users.
Will I let go of FF? Not really but Chromium did manage to get my attention.
Google invested millions in making the fastest JS engine called V8. It is so good that it made JS a feasible backend language (node.js). I have a really fast machine so JS scripts cannot slow it down and Firefox’s spidermonkey is more than fast enough and I really enjoy Firefox user experience
I was impressed with Chromium but not enough to turn away from FF any time soon.
The machine I use on a daily basis is under powered, at best, for the demands of nowadays; it still does its job but it would appreciate being relegated for less intensive functions. But the moment I upgrade for a newer machine, my complaints will be going out the window and my small differences with FF along with it.
But objectively, I have to admit, based on my personal experience, that Chromium is faster than FF on my machine and less resource hungry.
Waiting for Firefox to implement native browser profile switching UI (not container tabs, not desktop shortcuts, not janky workarounds/hacks) and I’ll be there full time.
You can go to about:profiles and save it to your favorites bar. Boom - instant profile switcher. I put the bookmark in the top left of my bookmarks bar on all my profiles and use it to switch between them.
You can just install an addon for that but it’d be great if that would come with ff, I agree.
You mean the
-ProfileManager(-P) flag? That dialog has been there for a long time. I think in some situations it gets displayed automatically at startup and that’s how I discovered it.
Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0 to be enabled. With this, Microsoft and Chrome have built a complete end to end DRM to the BIOS and hardware level.
This gives the end users nothing but is wonderful for Hollywood.
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I have too use Edge at work. Is Edge also implementing this shit?
edge is chromium based so yes
At work I guess you only do work related stuff, so at the end of the day it’s only work-related data that the browser has access to. Why would it matter to you?
99.9% of my the personal browsing I do is in firefox both on phone and desktop, but on work laptop I use Edge because 1. the work web-apps seem to favour chromium based browsers and 2. it’s not my data so I don’t really care about the privacy of my company’s data, they have a data privacy officer to worry about that.
what are some necessary addons besides ublock?
Dark reader - for dark mode everywhere
Decentreyes - for avoiding CDNs that track you
Sponsorblock - to skip sponsored parts on youtube
Enhancer for youtube - for a nicer overall experience, specific quality setting by default, scroll wheel volume, and more
