this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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As an OSS advocate, I fully agree. Sadly, OSS alternatives have to compete with easily accessible, slick and well-integrated products that are aggressively positioned. Just imagine all the steps you need to go through, just to install Fennec from F-Droid.
I just installed Fennec from F-Droid and it was like three steps. Search, install, and confirm install. I guess if I didn't already have F-Droid, it would be more steps to install it, but that's not too hard either, and you only have to do it once.
It's easy for you and me. But imagine you're Joe Everyman. First off, you need to know about F-Droid and where to download it. Then confirm that the browser can install software. And this is where I would imagine many users second-guessing if everything's legit. And after it's installed, you've got two separate app-stores to deal with. You need to know what you can install where.
If I extrapolate from my mother-in-law, who still can't wrap her head around the concept of an app-store, let alone alternative browsers, that's just too much hassle for most people.
I remember a message appearing on my android device when I first started using F-droid, something like: do not trust any programs you can download from anywhere except places grubby capitalists can molest you and feast on your data.