• maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    So … can we like finally dismiss Google Chrome as the obviously awful idea it is and which should never have made it this far and remind all of the web devs married to it that they’re doing bad things and are the reason why we can’t have nice things?

    Hmmm … a web browser owned by a monopolistic advertising company … how could that possibly go wrong!!!

    XKCD Comic depicting a conversation between someone who send an essay in dot doc, MS Word format, and another trying to convince them to use open source alternatives.  The first person is abusively unconvinced, doesn't care about ensuring we have good software infrastructure and dismisses the open source advocate as smug and "probably autistic".  In the final pane, the first person runs to the open-source-advocate second person panicking about facebook taking over everyone's social lives and doing evil things with it, in response to which the second person simply plays their "world's tiniest open source violin" as a clear "i told you so gesture"

    • Eyron@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Do you remember the Internet Explorer days? This, unfortunately, is still much better.

      Pretty good reason to switch the Firefox, now. Nearly everything will work, unlike the Internet Explorer days.

      • Firefox User
  • mke@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I think some people overestimate how many will migrate to Firefox in the near future over this.

    • High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.
    • Just as many Firefox users like Firefox, lots of Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.
    • The kind of tech-aware person who’d switch over this is much more likely to have seen the news months ago and taken action already.

    As fun as it is to imagine an Adpocalypse shocking the masses and pushing them to try out alternatives to big tech, it’s also way too optimistic, I feel.

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      Yeah, same with people here declaring the death of reddit, or Twitter, or any of these massive, mainstream services. People in bubbles (and Lemmy is definitely a bubble) always seem to underestimate how little everyone else cares or even knows about the things that are important to them. The service needs to be extremely bad in a user experience way, not an ethical way, for an extended period of time and there needs to be a big social movement where lots of people migrate to a direct and equivalent competitor within a short space of time. Most people will not do it on their own, they will wait until they see their peers doing it and only then can a migration start to snowball.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        “Netflix will die when they ban account sharing!!” - Reddit/Lemmy/Techtubers

        Netflix actually went on to have a massive jump in revenue, because most normal people can’t be arsed to set up a Plex/Emby/Jellyfin server and buy a shitload of storage.

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Yeah, I thought about mentioning that. But the comparison goes both ways. Less than 1% of Chrome users switching to Firefox could still mean an increase in Firefox users of over 10%, if I remember my numbers correctly. That’d be a sweet boost for most products.

        • OriginalUsername7@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Ya, it’d still be huge for Firefox, but what I’m really getting at is that even with this change, Chrome is going nowhere. They’re the big fish, they can afford to make these kinds of changes, because the people who care are a very small minority.

          • Huschke@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            To be fair, nerds will tell their tech-illiterate friends about this change and probably influence them enough to consider it. Especially when it’s something as easy as downloading an application.

            It’s much easier to switch a browser then it is to stop using Google, Facebook, etc.

      • Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Depends on their methodology. Sure, a huge proportion of those are users who haven’t heard of uBO, but we’re forgetting a lot of caveats:

        1. Electron exists and lots of apps are built on top of it and identify as “Chrome”. Judging by the numbers most have been weeded out, but some edge cases do visit more sites so they end up in the count.
        2. A lot of workplaces mandate the browser, which is often Chrome. This also gets counted.
        3. A not insignificant amount of Firefox users change their useragent to Chrome.

        All of these skew the numbers towards Chrome. Some Chrome users use a different adblocker which lowers the uBO statistic.

    • Dagamant@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve been on Firefox since manifest v3 was announced. Firefox has its own shortcomings but no dealbreakers.

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          3 months ago

          I don’t like the lack of customisability. I’ve been using Vivaldi for a long time now and nothing comes close to how customisable and feature-packed it is. Everything can be set up and tweaked exactly how I want. My version of Vivaldi would look, feel, and act entirely different to someone else’s, because it does what I want, not the other way around.

          Unfortunately, it’s Chromium-based. But the developers have been working on its native ad blocker in case extensions are impacted. They’re quite a brilliant bunch, so I’m hoping it all goes smooth. I really don’t want to have to go back to Firefox if I can help it. I can’t stand UX for the masses and these guys get it.

    • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
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      There’s also other chromium browsers with built-in ad-blocking that still work AFAIK. If all extensions and forked brower’s ad-blockers stopped working, I think there would probably be a surge in firefox usage (even if there’s not that much change in chromium usage).

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Yeah I use Vivaldi as my daily driver and love it. There’s built in ad blocking but it’s not as good as the extension. If the extension stops working there I’ll switch to Firefox in a heartbeat though

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          3 months ago

          As a supporter of Firefox and FOSS, the closed-source, Chromium-based Vivaldi is my guilty pleasure. It has the best UI experience I’ve found on a browser, and the company behind it doesn’t seem to be very evil.

          • mke@lemmy.world
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            Leaving Vivaldi was a sad moment for me. That UI, that sidebar, the settings, those features…! Goodness. I’m an avid enjoyer of bells and whistles, and Vivaldi’s got all of them and then some. I miss that a bit.

            The folks working on it seem great, check their blog for their decision track record 1 2 3. Did you know they also host a mastodon instance? Literally my only issue with it is the engine, and that just so unluckily happens to be a deal breaker.

          • kautau@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Yeah the founders are ex-Opera devs who left after the company was acquired by Qihoo 360, and the power user UI features are leagues ahead of other browsers I’ve tried. I wish Firefox developer edition would embrace of a philosophy of a more customizable UI centered around power users

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          3 months ago

          Is there any other browser that does a right-side vertical tab bar with compact tabs?

          There’s an extension for Firefox to do it, but it’s a bit clunkier than Vivaldi’s - definitely something I’d only switch to if I really had to… but every other browser I’ve seen only offers left-side vertical tabs at best, which is terrible if you want 3 monitors in a left-to-right layout with your browser on the left.

        • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
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          3 months ago

          Vivaldi is cool. I installed it (for those who wanted a chromium browser) and FF on all the work computers where I work. Eventually uninstalled it because people started playing Vivaldia. Disabled Edge, so now they are FF only.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Hopefully it will give Firefox a bit of a boost anyway. Firefox needs a boost.

    • Gestrid@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.

      You’re not wrong about the high switching cost.

      Switching from Chrome to Vivaldi (because of Chrome’s whole FLoC thing) to Brave (because I didn’t like Vivaldi’s layout) to Firefox (because of Brave’s whole thing) was a pain.

      And I don’t mean as a whole. Taking the time each time to change from one browser to another was always a pain. Transferring bookmarks and passwords was easy (Chrome and Firefox are at least compatible in that regard), but transferring extension settings was a whole different beast.

      Some extensions had cloud sync support. Others had local export support. Some didn’t have either kind, and I’d have to manually copy the settings from one browser over to the other. And that’s not even getting into finding replacements for the Chrome-exclusive extensions (of which there were only a few, thankfully).

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        (because of Brave’s whole thing)

        Ha.

        I’m sorry to hear that, been there (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Firefox in my case). Hopefully we can stick around for a while.

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      3 months ago

      Not to mention all the people who don’t even have an adblocker and for some reason don’t seem to care that their web browsing is infested with ads.

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        A lot of people don’t even know it’s an option, or have grown to believe that’s just how the web is. When was the last time you saw adblockers in mainstream media or news?

        This is why I think it’s so important to keep raising awareness. If you have people in your life who you believe would be better off using uBlock, consider bringing it up when you have the opportunity.

      • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        1 year ago I had basically free Spotify Premium because Safari was unable to play ads. That’s a kind of ad blocking.

          • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            No ad blocker. This bug started to break song playback on Safari (according to Spotify’s forums, I faced no such problem) and then it was fixed so I got ads.

    • experbia@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I agree folks are overestimating how many will switch. but also maybe you’re underestimating too - a lot of browser installations are managed by the “family tech guy”. the father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle who sets up everyone’s new laptops on Christmas and has the suggestions when you look for a new phone. we all know the type. a lot of us are the type.

      setting up granny’s laptop? I’ll install whatever browser lets me automatically block the most “1000th visitor!” banner ads and change the desktop icon to the old AOL icon because that’s all she knows the internet as. she doesn’t know of care about the browser options so it’s up to me. Chrome used to be fast and simple so it was the right choice. Firefox has caught up a fair bit on UX simplicity and speed and now offers better blocking and general security, so it just stole the crown for these installations imo. I trust it more to not let her mess the computer up, so even if I’m not using it as my main personal browser, it gets use here.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I think probably the single most important thing that nobody is saying is that Google have ALL the numbers on this decision and they are not stupid, so it would be silly to assume this will work against their interests. Not only do they know how many people use chrome, their ad network gives them insight into ALL browsers.

    • cmhe@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago
      • Just as some Firefox users like Firefox, many Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.

      Do you have some source for that? IIUC, you mean that more Chrome users like Chrome than Firefox users like Firefox, right?

        • cmhe@lemmy.world
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          Some firefox users like firefox” vs “many chrome users enjoy what they have” sounds to me like something that could have a source. Many sound to me more than some, so this is a comparison, which can be given a better foundation by supplying some numbers.

          • mke@lemmy.world
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            I thought that might’ve been the source of your misunderstanding. Sorry, that’s just how I write sometimes, no deeper meaning intended. As far as I know there’s no public data on what percentage of Firefox and Chrome users like their browsers’ features.

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        No. I simply meant that there exist Chrome users who appreciate what it provides them (features, UI, etc), so for these users to leave they’d have to give up those things. That’s always a hard ask.

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      It’s not like they contracted some sort of terminal illness. Anyone can migrate whenever. It’s not hard.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        I believe that some organizations restrict what applications can be installed on work computers, so that might not necessarily be true, at least for work machines.

        • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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          One more vector of malware for these corporate systems. Sucks for them I suppose.

      • datendefekt@lemmy.ml
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        My organization has blocked all browsers other than Edge and Chrome - and has also blocked all plugins except for UBlock. For security reasons, of course.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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          Everyone knows seeing a bunch of uncontrolled JavaScript-powered ads from who knows what server is good for security.

    • emb@lemmy.world
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      And I mean, there’s still time now. Switching browsers isn’t that bad. Export+import some bookmarks and adjust some settings, good to go.

      I think FF has been a good option for a while. But the second best time is now. I can totally get it if people didn’t want to switch until they had more of a concrete problem.

      • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
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        FF still hasn’t brought back a tab group API for extensions or native tab groups. Extensions can only do so much given what they have to work with. I still use FF on the side, but it simply isn’t a practical as a primary browser for me currently.

        But for casual users, many probably have never even touched their browser settings.

        • _pete_@lemmy.world
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          Tab groups are coming but in the mean time containers work well enough for me with the added benefit that they’ll also block tracking from the sites that are within them.

        • emb@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Understandable, I’m really looking forward to FF getting tab groups too. I don’t know why such a nice feature was left unimplemented for so long. 🫤

      • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        I don’t think safari is even remotely comparable given that it’s a default browser on macs.

        • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world
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          Also, I’m pretty sure it’s not possible to install any other browser on iPhones unless you get root.

          Edit: It looks like you can with iOS 15.0

          • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            Those are all just skins on safari. Until like 6 months ago you couldn’t install any web browser with a renderer other than safari. And that’s only in the EU.

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            3 months ago

            As I understand it, any browser on iPhone has to be built on WebKit, so even if you install fire fox or chrome, it’s running on a totally different web engine than the desktop version. Making them more safari re-skins in the same way that stuff like brave or opera are just chrome reskins.

          • JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’ve had iPhone for years and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t use chrome with it

            Never rooted my phones either. It’s definitely not blocked

        • AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          How so ? The default browser on Windows is Edge, people keep installing Chrome? Chrome is available on MacOS, yet people stick with Safari?

          • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 months ago

            some people stick with safari, but no one is replacing chrome, fire fox, or edge with safari. People choose to replace edge because it is obtrusive and annoying to use, safari isn’t.

            In that context, safari is not a competitor for Firefox in the same way chrome is. It’s comparing apples to oranges.

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    I’m in the process of switching to firefox on all my devices.

    I’ve had enough of Google pushing features like this.

    • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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      Having ublock on mobile is such a breath of fresh air. I wish I had made the transition sooner. I knew this was coming and completed my transition a few weeks back so I could abandon Chrome on my own time table and not on Google’s. Other than a little headache trying to find extension replacements for pc, I’m LOVING it.

    • zarenki@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      I switched from Chrome to Firefox in 2019 because that’s when Google adopted Manifest V3 and I never looked back. There were already articles then describing how it’d break ad blockers, and Firefox had at the time just recently released their “Quantum” overhaul which drastically improved responsiveness.

      I’m a bit surprised it took five years for Google to drop support for Manifest V2, but the threat has long been there.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I use Firefox as my main on my home pc. I keep running into things that don’t work on Firefox. Not by saying they don’t, just by throwing errors that make it sound like I put the wrong data in a field. Is there some magic extension to fix that?

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        I remember the Quantum release. They remade how the browser handled tabs, and with the new release you could handle (almost) unlimited number of tabs. I tried this buy opening as many tabs as I could, it worked flawlessly. I can’t even remember how it was before that, except that it was RAM intensive.

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    “intrusive ads” are the least of the problems, an adblocker is a critical part of any computer’s security suite.

    The internet advertisement companies wont police their ads from maleware, and untill they accept criminal and financial responsibillity when their ads cause harm to the users being served compromised ads from their networks, I won’t even consider disabling my adblocker

  • texasspacejoey@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    I miss the “dont be evil” version of google. Its like, large amounts of money ruin everything

    • ColonelPanic@lemm.ee
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      It’s not just large amounts of money. It’s chasing more and more money each quarter, and when it starts slowing down panic sets in and they start trying to find any and every possible avenue to keep profits up. It’s how we’ve ended up in subscription based hell and it’ll only get worse.

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    There’s only 34 million uBlock Origin users on Chrome? So, billions are using Chrome without any ad-blockers? That’s crazy and unsafe

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      Most users are fucking idiots and will continue to raw-dog the internet while visiting the most malicious sites possible.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      Lemmy has a really biased idea of what the average computer user can do. Imagine Janet in accounting, who calls help desk to reset her password every morning, and takes 30 minutes to remember how to check her email. Or the late GenZ just entering the workforce, who was surprised that their desktop wasn’t a touchscreen, and doesn’t know how a file structure works, because literally every device they’ve used growing up has been either a tablet or a Chromebook. That’s the average user.

    • alphabethunter@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      My boss once asked me to take a look at her computer that was super slow and barely functional, and the thing that surprised me the most was that she had been running Chrome without any adblock since ever, and when I asked her about adblock, she answered: “adwhat?”. Mind you that she’s still a millennial, and only a few years older than me.

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        3 months ago

        I had to use my parents desktop a when I flew home for a bit.

        Surfing the internet is fucking stressful if you don’t have adblocks. So overstimulating!!

        I’m also on windows and for some reason I had to use Edge.

        The Edge home screen is the VERY REASON google killed it back in the 90s. Clean clear search screen. Allows you to think what you are doing with out getting bombarded with ads and posts and ads and markets. Reminded me how terrible the search experience was back in Alta Vista and Yahoo days

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      A lot of them don’t know the difference between ab, abp ublock and ublock origin

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    It deserves mentioning that Firefox on Android supports extensions, so if you uninstall/disable the official YouTube app then add uBlock Origin and Sponsorblock you get a more tolerable experience.

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      Or just use Revanced or Grayjay, both of which are ad free and support sponsor block. Revanced is still a bit more feature complete imo, but also more buggy on my device, and more of a hassle to update. The browser YouTube experience is so bad, ads or ad free.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      Can also use Vinegar (for YouTube) and Baking Soda (for basically every other site with videos) with Safari on iOS. It’s not a perfect solution, but it at least revamps Safari’s built-in video player so watching in the browser is actually tolerable.

      • ondra5@lemm.ee
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        You can also patch YouTube in a similar way as revanced on iOS, I use YTLitePlus. And for Adblock I use the Wipr extension and hush for blocking and auto rejecting cookie popups. No jailbreak needed.

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    3 months ago

    Advertising company makes it harder to block ads on their browser, news at 11.

    Or did anyone forget that they made an explicit effort to block another ad blocking extension a while back, including blocking it from the Chrome store, blocking you from installing it manually and even blocking at least some versions of it from being manually installed in developer mode?

    Ad nauseam, because it also simulated ad clicks and thus ruined their metrics.

    EDIT: Fucking phone autocorrect. “as clocks” -> “ad clicks”.

  • faethon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    At this point I am seriously wondering why people would like to use Chrome over Firefox for instance.

    • Cynicus Rex@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      “What’s a browser?” —the general populace

      I just install uBlock Origin on every device I come across. Graffiti software.

    • rooster_butt@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Because I use chrome for standard use and Firefox for sailing the high seas. And I much prefer just having 2 separate browsers for containerization. I’m just going to have to use librewolf or something when I do get the the mv3 update.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Why not just use something like Fences on Firefox? It allows you to containerize individual tabs. I use it all the time to separate work and personal accounts.

        • faethon@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          This is also how I have it set up, with “firefox multi-account containers” and “simple tab groups” working together, you can have multiple containerized accounts within one firefox instance. Works great!

        • rooster_butt@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Does this allow you enable/disable add-ons on a per container basis? What about bookmarks?

    • miridius@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Personal preference I guess. I’ve tried Firefox many times over the years and always ended up going back to other browsers. I find Firefox doesn’t render some pages quite right, the user agent stylesheet is odd, and the UI is less streamlined. Performance also used to be a problem although I hear it’s caught up now.

      I used to be a Chrome user but now I prefer chromium based alternatives like brave and edge (which incidentally, uBO will keep working on). Chrome is still required for work, but uBO change won’t be an issue I think, there are plenty of other ad blockers that will work with MV3

      • ruabmbua@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Back in the day when I still used windows, I did not even use IE to download Firefox. I used the FTP functionality inside the explorer to download Firefox from the Mozilla FTP.

      • kungen@feddit.nu
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        3 months ago

        That’s Edge’s job. Though I guess they’re basically the same thing…

      • ColdWater@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        I didn’t even need a browser to download another browser, I just git clone it from the AUR :P

    • Prethoryn Overmind@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I am using Firefox as of last week I made the switch to the browser a different password manager and so far it is fine but there have been a couple of hiccups but it’s not necessarily a Firefox issue but an implementation with Android issue.

      For example auto forwarding to an app from a webpage in Firefox has worked half the time for me and the other half not so much.

      This is a small example, having Google Chrome and like wise the Google app be native to Android so they move back and forth between one another and are interchangeable while using my phone is much more smooth on my Android device.

      Other than that, I am not positive as to why. On Desktop, zero issues. Works like a charm.

      • ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Its cool well just message the maintainers of Android to improve it, I’m sure it’s a mistake. Lemme go check who who’s behind it… /s

      • TheBloodFarts@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        Being able to cast seamlessly from Chrome to Chromecast is the only major issue I’ve had since switching to Firefox. It’s possible with Firefox and it works 99% of the time but it feels a little clunky. Completely worth it though overall and not a dealbreaker

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I use multiple profiles in chrome for my different logged in usages, for some reason Firefox makes it hard to switch profiles.

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        “Hard” is a strong word. It’s not built into the default interface, granted, but it’s not that hard to use FF’s command line: firefox -P

        They have said they’re thinking about rejigging the whole thing though.

        • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Ok, telling people to open a command line and TYPE firefox -P is HARD. In chrome you just click the icon in the upper right and select whatever profile you want.

          It makes no sense that you have to either open about:profiles then select “launch in new window” or open the command line to start a new profile, makes NO sense at all.

          You can open a firefox private window with a keyboard shortcut, but if you want to be logged into two different accounts in two different profiles, you have to go through a minimum of three non-intuitive steps.

          Even the extension that adds the profile switching doesn’t work anymore because it’s not maintained.

          • palordrolap@fedia.io
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            3 months ago

            Dude, if that’s all-caps HARD, then I don’t know how you’d classify, say, compiling things from source and fixing any problems that might crop up along the way. Or fixing missing DLL / OCX hell when trying to get an old Windows game running under Linux, because let me tell you, I’ve done both of those and had to give up. firefox -P is heaven by comparison.

            You could even put it into a shortcut and you wouldn’t have to type it any more.

            Yes the interface sucks, but HARD is not it.

      • minstrel@lemmy.eco.br
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        3 months ago

        it has something like ‘-no-remote -p name’ param on cmd that you can do it seamless like chromium, or u can use the fork of the drop official pwa firefox support, it could be better, i know n i get it, but if u just use chromium base for it, than i got u covered

      • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        The profile manager is definitely annoying, but it shouldn’t be that hard to visit about:profiles to switch / open other profiles. Afaik they do work on a better one though.

  • TheFunkyMonk@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Used Chrome forever, switched to Firefox back when this stuff first started going down. No ragerts.

    • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I can’t listen or look at this man anymore after seeing him scrape shit off his feet and eat it in front of a bunch of people. 🤢

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        He has went on record multiple times saying having sex with children (even within the family) or family pets is fine. Eating his foot gunk is the least of my issues with him.

        That said, when it comes to warning about software, he was pretty bang-on.

        • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          How is it that you’re so well-versed in all of Stallman’s negative quotes (from over a decade ago), yet conveniently omitted the fact that he later retracted those statements?

          On September 16, 2019, Stallman announced his resignation from both MIT and FSF, “due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations”.[124] In a post on his website, Stallman asserted that his posts to the email lists were not to defend Epstein, stating "Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve called him a ‘serial rapist’, and said he deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended him—and other inaccurate claims—and feel a real hurt because of what they believe I said.

          The FSF board on April 12 made a statement re-affirming its decision to bring back Richard Stallman.[133] Following this, Stallman issued a statement explaining his poor social skills and apologizing.[134]

          • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Those issues are ones that it’s hard to just walk back with a mea culpa, especially when the apology comes precisely when it starts to impact your career.

            • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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              Stallman spends decades publicly-championing adult-child sexual relations on his personal blog and using his work email address.

              Stallman later comes under fire for strange comments about Epstein’s underage girls/clients. Some people say he should step down, as his poor image jeopardises the effectiveness of the FSF.

              2 days later, Stallman has a sudden change of heart. Child/adult sexual relations are wrong. Children can’t consent.

              Some Linux nerds: “see, he’s changed his mind, he’s a different man!”

              Maybe I’m overly pessimistic, but to me the timing of his epiphany seems rather convenient.

              How ready people are to treat celebrities as deity-like figures is scary to me. Just because Stallman has some great FOSS credentials doesn’t mean he can’t be a total POS in other areas. People bend over backwards to defend him as some saint who can do no wrong, even to the extent of trivialising child rape. It’s scary what a bit of celebrity worship can get people to do.

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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            You mean when he had an epiphany and changed his mind 2 days after his job became under fire?

            Gee, I dunno. Maybe because it was a clear last-ditch effort to save his job, rather than because he genuinely went from his decades-held (and publicly-championed) view that sex with children is ok to sex with children is rape, by sheer coincidence, 2 days after people started requesting he step down over Epstein comments?

            It was about as convincing a statement from Stallman as when Zuckerberg says he cares about privacy.

            Do you genuinely believe him when he says he changed his mind? It’s an awfully convenient timing, even you would have to admit.

            And can I also ask - are you only looking favourably at him because you like him? If Andrew Tate, just before his court case, came out and said that his views on women are wrong and he doesn’t believe that stuff anymore, would you believe him? It seems to me that you’re likely sweeping Stallman being pro-childrape under the rug, because he happens to have cool ideals when it comes to software.

        • Mike@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          Post the link to him saying that having sex with children is okay

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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            It’s pretty well-known at this point, I thought? Regardless:

            “The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

            RMS on June 28th, 2003

            "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

            RMS on June 5th, 2006

            "There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

            RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

            You can find these on Stallman’s blog, which I believe is Stallman.org iirc. Just go to the dates I provided.

            • Mike@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              I cannot find any of this on his blog, why didn’t you just link to his blog?

                • Mike@lemmy.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  You pasted the domain not an actual blog post link. And you’re the one making these claims about him on a forum, does it really surprise you when someone asks for the source? Sorry you had to google something.

    • erwan@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Too bad he spent all his energy getting Linux users to say GNU/Linux instead of talking about the real issues

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Just because that’s all you ever listened to doesn’t mean that’s all he ever said.