Technology

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

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

Firefox + Ublock Origin blows Google Chrome out of water.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The biggest issue for a lot of people is going to be Microsoft forcing all Office 365 users to use Edge all the time. Our sysadmin recently forced me to uninstall Firefox and Chrome from all workstations unless they had an approved use for it. Everything must be through Edge.

Why? "Security" of course. It's always "security". Curious

Edit: the point is Microsoft could have worked to provide enterprise customers with ways to manage third party browsers going forward. They could have worked with Google and Mozilla to make that happen. They didn't. Not really.

It's that Microsoft continues to make decisions that create rationale for only using them, because that's their business. "Security" gives them an extremely convenient cover for anticompetitive behavior. Anyone that thinks their C-Suite hasn't pulled the defender/365 team into a meeting or two to discuss business strategy has far too much faith in a corporation that deserves very little.

With the number of people concerned about privacy

Generous estimate there. "People" don't care. Who cares if your browser tracks your online presence when everything is connected back to your facebook profile or whatever is trending.

Most individuals embrace convenience above all; literally putting all their private stuff on any online service that tout "shiny feature that you won't even use". Even some privacy-focused people don't see putting all your emails/photo/video/agenda/chat/text messages in one third party opaque service as an issue.

Tons of business do the same, outsourcing the most basic stuff like private discussions and storage to anything "convenient" to not pay for two sysadmin to manage it (leading to most major leaks). I have direct experience of business coming to us, asking "yeah, privacy is good, data ownership and control is mandatory, so we won't host anything and you'll keep all our data, deal?". They prefer have us, a third party, bill them for hosting rather than have some control over it.

My take on this is that while pointing that browsers can be an issue is not a bad thing, the first step would be to get people and business interested in their privacy. Without that, it remains a niche. Sadly.

Google has a vested interest in showing you ads and selling your data.

Firefox does not.

Seems like a pretty clear choice to me.

Using firefox exclusively on all my devices since the last major revamp of the Firefox Android.

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.

This is the problem! :( Monopoly is never good, in this case in particular since it's in the hand of a corporation they make money on people data.

It's ironic that there are over 60 blockable elements and such over Privacy Badger and Ublock origin on that page.

I use Firefox because I don't like how Google acts with regards to web standards being the de facto standard because so many browsers are Chromium based. If everyone is using Chromium then they don't need to obey any standards and can just do whatever they want. There needs to be competition in that space. Microsoft Edge becoming Chromium based was a big problem on that regard.

The irony that Firefox is kept alive in part because Google pays them for Google to be the default search option is not lost on me.

If you're able to, donate to Mozilla as well! Keeping them up and running is imperative.

I've been using Firefox for years.

Chrome is popular because it works. The average person is not going to give up convenience for privacy, even if they claim to care about it. As someone who uses Firefox, I can say that some websites don't work on Firefox and Firefox is often slower than chromium browsers. While I'm ok with that, others might not be.

i still have no clue why people use chrome for the past 5+ years, there's better chromium alternatives if you still want to use chromium for some reason, and there's firefox which doesn't support the chromium monopoly, works really well and doesn't try to restrict you from using adblockers

Android users can use an even more private version with telemetry removed. Keeps updated with current version, but is available via F-Droid repository instead.

Fennec (then install add-on uBlock Origin)

Fuck Chromium-based browsers.

High number of people concerned about privacy?? There's, like, 5 of us unfortunately.

Firefox for Android is a blessing with extensions. Most of my favorite desktop privacy extensions are available on mobile. I love it.

To be honest, Firefox works perfectly fine and it is not that difficult to navigate through.

For me Firefox has some showstoppers that Mozilla doesn't seem too interested in fixing (tablet ui on Android, lack of share target support for pwas). I'm not some hater mind you, I want it to succeed.

I used to use Brave and saw that article last week about how they are selling your data for AI training. I instantly jumped to Firefox

Source: https://stackdiary.com/brave-selling-copyrighted-data-for-ai-training/

I hope more people can become aware of how Firefox is better for your privacy

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

I switched about a year ago. My only complaint on desktop is different short cuts. I hope Firefox sticks around. It's like the last free browser on the web

There's also Librewolf, based on Firefox. Comes with many (but could be better) privacy related settings available in firefox.

From the website:

This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom.

LibreWolf is designed to increase protection against tracking and fingerprinting techniques, while also including a few security improvements. This is achieved through our privacy and security oriented settings and patches. LibreWolf also aims to remove all the telemetry, data collection and annoyances, as well as disabling anti-freedom features like DRM.

Available for Linux, macOs, and Windows.

https://librewolf.net