this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.

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[–] SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de 15 points 2 years ago (4 children)

The best time to switch to Firefox was 5 years ago. The second best is today.

[–] sycamore@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Oops, I switched 15 years ago,

[–] jflorez@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I switch when it was Phoenix, then switch again when it was Firebird, and finally switch when it become Firefox

[–] Yendor@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] sycamore@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

you win Firefox!

[–] gornar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago
[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Noob. I switched in 2006 - 17 years ago.

[–] LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Gork@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The early Chrome was crazy fast when it had none of the bloat.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] eeltech@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

I had to pee!

[–] Sho@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Google has a web-browser?

[–] gornar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Sorry, that's 3rd best at most, according to the data above. Sorry, I don't make the rules!

[–] orphiebaby@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

10 to 15 years ago, myself. Don't remember exactly.

[–] Noxvento@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I use Firefox since it's release. It was never bad. I don't get all the Chrome users.

I used it since netscape navigator XD

[–] Action_Bastid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

It has a pretty severe memory leak issue during the period where Chrome siphoned off most of its users.

[–] DeadNinja@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Funnily enough - this article is 3 years old

[–] Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Does it have native dark pages. Why I use brave. Would use Firefox but it's glaring white

[–] quickpen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

Firefox has dark mode.

[–] everythingsucks@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Most people aren’t concerned about privacy outside of places like here and Reddit.

[–] Aiastarei@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

With Chrome killing ad blocking, they'll quickly care

[–] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] Frostwolf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hmmm, on the bright side, with lemmy going mainstream maybe some of this culture (including privacy and FOSS) becomes more and more openly discussed.

[–] torres@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As much as I love Lemmy I don't see it going mainstream :/
It's too weird for the general user

[–] theragu40@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah 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.

[–] nakamotto@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Firefox + Ublock Origin blows Google Chrome out of water.

[–] Mihuy@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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)

[–] Schal330@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I'd also recommend disabling Normandy in Firefox.

[–] Metallibus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] GigglyBobble@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] kingofras@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Aged like fine milk

[–] Maped@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

2 years later, the "Manifest" is doing it's job and still I know some people that would not leave their favorite Chrome.

[–] FunnyUsername@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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

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[–] Virkkunen@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder how privacy is still a word in the dictionary

[–] peanutdust@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

i use 5 browsers 3 of them are based on firefox

[–] Pyroglyph@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

With the number of people concerned about privacy

That number appears to be very small, all things considered. Out of everyone I know, literally one person cares about privacy. My mother. She will even go as far as to only use her first initial online instead of her name if she can get away with it. However, she uses Chrome all the time because she doesn't understand that your browser also tracks you.

I think that's what it comes down to. A mixture of lack of public interest, and lack of public awareness about tracking/privacy in general. If people can't immediately see how having their data harvested will inconvenience/hurt them, they simply don't care.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2069436850145993

50 States, 50 Protests, 1day

Feb 5 @ your downtown.

[–] AteshgaRubyTeeth@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have too use Edge at work. Is Edge also implementing this shit?

[–] fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] AteshgaRubyTeeth@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

No, at work I regularly do non work related stuff. Also when doing work related stuff I prefer to use firefox as I can use adblockers.

Having said that I understand that I’m using work supplied laptop and if they force me to use Internet Explorer than that’s what I have to use.

Having said that it’s not so important as for my personal browser.

[–] Porka_911@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Chrome does have a use, namely Selenium and automation.

I'm guilty of having Chrome on my PC, as I need to nerf over my favourites to Firefox.

Firefox is my browser of choice on my Google Pixel 7, but then again no doubt it makes little difference.

I just choose to use a VPN, so any targeted adverts are blocked regardless of the profile built up from my browsing habits.

[–] CHKMRK@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

You can use the Gecko webdriver for Selenium

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 2 months ago

As someone else mentioned they have several browsers and so do I. I actually do google stuff in chrome and microsoft stuff in edge and would do apple stuff in its browser if they did not mess up the login stuff. then my firefox is my real browser.

[–] avater@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

what are some necessary addons besides ublock?

[–] fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago

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

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