403
Deciding for ourselves: 98% of people want a browser choice screen, Mozilla study finds
(blog.mozilla.org)
98%? Sounds like bad polling to me
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
403 points (97.2% liked)
Firefox
17857 readers
17 users here now
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
@Zoboomafoo @Vincent given it’s from Mozilla I’d say there’s a very good chance the audience they had access to for the poll skewed significantly towards the Firefox-users demographic 🤔
From the full report:
For the experiment, two panel providers helped us recruit 12,000 survey participants across Spain, Germany, and Poland.
So given that they used third-party providers, I don't think they would have been biased to Firefox users specifically. (And in fact, given the current state of the market, the majority probably wasn't a Firefox user.)
I think if you asked people, it's one of those questions that sound good so of course they'll say yes. In practice, they're too lazy and can't be bothered, and that's where they privacy invasive and monopoly practices take over. Because in the end, path of least resistance and defaults is what determines what the majority do.
But then you have windows 11 where it takes about 5-10 whole minutes to get rid of all the defaults that point to Edge, and even then some things, like help pages links and the start menu's search bar will keep openning Edge.
You of couse have google phones where chrome and google search are shoved to each one of your home pages and to the global phone search bar.
At that point you need to wonder - are people just being lazy, or do those companies make it just hard enough, and often impossible, to not use their pre-defined defaults?
It's both.
Remember when Apple introduced the iOS update to stop cross-app-tracking?
One popup that asks the user if they want to allow this tracking or not, and would you look at that, the majority clicked NO.
People do care, they're just too lazy, even if they're aware.
On what platform do you need to "rely on complex operating system settings" to change the default browser?
Windows
I don't understand? When you launch any browser it's a 1 click "yes" to set as default.
To set it via Windows settings, you just search "browser" and select it from the drop down.
True on Windows 10, but on the release version of Windows 11 it was a bit more complicated:
https://www.theverge.com/22714629/windows-11-microsoft-browser-edge-chrome-firefox
Even today setting Firefox or any Chromium derivative as the default will still let Windows open many things in Edge without any obvious way to change that.
A few days ago at work i was very annoyed and confused at outlook suddenly opening links in edge. "We are opening links in edge so you can do everything in one window" or something. Wasn't hard to disable (though it was more than one click which already feels like too much for something actively ignoring my settings) but shows how they really are trying everything they can to get you to use edge.
And then, for example, press f1 on explorer and see it not giving a fuck about what you choose.
On windows 10 its 1 click away only for Edge. For any other browser the settings page is opened and you do it feom there. Now, for me and you the settings page is the most trivial thing to operate, but for others it might not be.
On windows 11 they have broken down the default browser to a million default settings, and you need to change each and every one individually.
In google pixel a chrome-like search bar is stuck to every page on your homescreen, takes a full row, and very accidently clickable. You need to change the OS or launcher to stop this.
And then some things on all of those systems will always open eith chrome/Edge with no non hackish way of changing that.
Jesus you see why I use Linux?
Same. Those companies abuse the fact they control the platform to push all of their other products. Nowadays to compete with a microsoft product in a fair way you also need to develope a popular deskrop OS, an office suite, cloud services and multiple programmong environments, because each of their products keeps pushing the other peoducts, and the platform control part simply gives them advantages only they can have.
That's awesome, but may I ask what do you use to replace Adobe Suite? Even the next big thing, Affinity, doesn't have Linux builds.
I'm pretty much convinced that anyone that uses Linux either doesn't use their computer much, or they are strictly a developer. Linux is missing way too many pieces of software, or even drivers for things, that would allow the majority of people to switch.
Just thinking about all of the different jobs that my friends and family have, they all use some kind of software or machine that has windows/mac only drivers, that using Linux is not possible.
Most people use their computer solely for browsing the web and looking at images/videos, which linux is completely capable of. Next most used thing is office suites and printing - as long as you dont need to use right-to-left languages, the office suites are completely sufficient. Printers are dependent on the manufacturer, but most work, some with even less problems than on windows.
Now when we jump to the more niche areas, it depends on the area and your needs. Programming is obviously flawless on linux. Photoshoping images should be good enough for hobbyists, but not for some proffesionals. Video editing is really good for all levels, except fpr adobe products (davinchi and KDEnlive for example). Gaming works pretty well, and is improving over time. Other niche fields have linux support/alternatives, or their products may work through wine/proton.
At the end of the day, you can do basically anything on linux, not necessarily with the exact same tools as on windows.
I am a RTL user and LibteOffice is much superior than Microsoft one in this area
Well im having quite some troubles with it often. Msoffice has some annoying anti features related to automatically changing my keyboard layout, but still works better.
What program do you use for filling pdf files in RTL languages? For me no program works properly except adobe pdf.
Each of my family/friends work in different industries. None of us can move to Linux.
I have a print shop, where I run wide format Roland printers and Graphtec plotters. Graphtec needs Windows/Mac, Roland needs Windows.
My dad is a farmer, uses a ton of farming software, all Windows-only.
My girlfriend is a biochemist, and the whole industry runs off Windows-only software/drivers.
I could go on and on, but pretty much Linux cannot be used in any of our fields. So again, I am convinced Linux users are either developers, or don't have jobs, because it's nearly impossible to find any industry that doesn't require Mac or Windows.
Well, for one, there is a difference between using your pc for work or for your hobbies/free time. There are a lot of foss drivers for devices not officially supported on linux. However, since this is your job, you probably have no reason to rely on those when windows just works.
And about the windows-only software, some probably work on linux through wine. However, since this is what they make a living out of, they have no reason to even try that. Windows works for them, why waste time?
On my personal, non-job related pc, i have ran many windows-only apps or windows only peripherals when i made the switch. Overtime i need those less and less (either due to new alternatives or linux support being added).
I edit videos in Shotcut and do photo manipulation with either ImageMagick or GIMP. I don't personally do much vector art, but when I do I use Inkscape.
For video game creation I use mostly Aseprite and Godot. I've got Blender installed and I've been meaning to learn how to use it for aeons.
Though for my current main hustle I mainly use FreeCAD and LibreOffice.
I was having problems with Firefox yesterday and reinstalled it. It was 1 click on Windows 11 for me.
Perhaps second times are different, reinstalls are different, or they changed it. I definitely sae on a friend's computer how many different things dedault to Edge.
Just wait for a bit
What's that mean? It worked. Go jerk off about Linux elsewhere.
It will periodically overwrite user's preference to the ones dictated by Microsoft
Proof? Has never happened to me. Your ass must hurt from pulling that out of it.
98% ???
Did they place a gun in the responders' face?
No shit lmao
This sounds like people wanting to replace edge or IE with chrome, rather than wishing they can have Firefox.
Not saying I'm a fan of Edge, but I booted up my old Surface after not using it for a few years and out of everything Edge was surprisingly one of the most responsive programs. Oddly enough it also opens up PDFs super fast. Guess that's just a long way of me saying it's definitely better than IE and at least a step forward.
It's not any worse than chrome imo, I agree.
Makes sense. If a company uses marker dominance of one product to nudge users to use another, then this should be a crime of anti-competitive behaviour. Instead, companies should be forced to offer all alternatives and not be able to highlight their own product any more than they highlight others.
So I'm just thinking about how this would work, in a perfectly non-competitive world:
There'd need to be some Browser Standards Association to implement and suggest browsers to add to a list of "certified browsers", with transparent requirements to be included to ensure low quality or outdated browsers aren't included. The OS would need to implement that entire list in a randomized format. There'd preferably be some sort of built-in pros/cons list of the browser, I suppose these could be put together by a combination of the BSA and the competing browsers.
But these pros/cons won't be understandable or significant to 95% of people.
The BSA would also want to ensure there's diversity not just in browser and companies (like Opera getting 3 fucking entries), but would also want to ensure there's a variety of browser engines (preferably not just chromium and webkit).
Even having an opinionated choice would be better than what we currently have.
BrowserChoice 's criteria was also OKish though nowadays it would be just reskinned blink and Firefox.
Yeah but giving you choice limits companies abilities to make back room deals among each other to show shit into your face...
Has anyone though about poor business people's ability to control the default?
Well let me be one of the 2% then (seriously who did this poll lol) Idgaf.
Make the choice so it install the browser and uninstall other browsers as well. I can't belive it is not standard with this simple choice that the user should be forced to do on any OS. EU do something about this!