this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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it baffles me that people are still using Google Chrome.
Most people don't use an ad blocker and most people don't even know this drama exists.
Which makes it weirder why take a grudge against us.
It's a recession and suddenly the money lost to adblockers matters.
Reddit tried to force me ads down the throat and I just stopped using it. Yeah, it's hard, but I ended up having more time for myself. I don't get to send silly Videos to my friends as often, but who gives a fuck. At least I get time to hoover and shit
I noticed my YouTube become extremely slow. I was using edge for watching videos. Chrome eats the ram and this ad block makes it easier to just switch. The next attemp would be how to avoid them showing use chrome whenever I google or use gmail or so.
I'm from the Philippines and I can explain why, at least here, most people still use chrome. Over here, we're much more concerned about our money and time over our rights and privacy, which means we usually just choose the most convenient and cheap money-wise, which is why the majority of us still use chrome and why the government here can get away with so much shit. we don't care about our rights not because we're being given bread and circuses, but because we're too busy making a circus out of ourselves so we can buy bread.
Lol. The privacy bits are what always make me doubt people who say they use iOS for privacy reasons. They'll scream that and then install every google service they can on the same phone.
I don't think that's good excuse. Firefox is free and installing it takes less than 10 minutes.
Don't underestimate people's lack of motivation to switch. Sadly Firefox doesn't come pre-installed on any major phone brands.
I think you misunderstood what they are trying to convey.
Yes, it's quick and easy to install (privacy respecting alternative). But to even get to the point that you recognize that you need that alternative is a time commitment as well. They are so busy trying to stay alive and support themselves that they don't have the extra mental registers to devote to keeping up with privacy implications of popular software.
Not to mention, some software now suffers from IE6-itis, except this time with chromium. So if a user encounters one of those issues on an important site, they're more likely to drift over to the chromium side again. That friction alone causes more hardship for a person in their situation than simply giving up some privacy for convenience.
They're also not even making excuses. They're simply telling you what the point of view is in their world.
Your current approach presents a holler-than-thou attitude that is rude and off-putting. Ultimately, it's not your job nor mine to chastise them for their choices. If they're reading this thread, that shows interest in the topic.
Allow them to discover it for themselves (with guided encouragement and assistance if requested) instead of being guilted into a decision. That will have a much more long-lasting impact.
I see the method you attempt all over the Internet, and it always has the same effect of contributing to a toxic, elitist culture. IMHO, that needs to stop if we have any chance of changing more minds to be privacy-aware.
Fair enough! It does take a lot of time to build an understanding of the issue here and I failed to take that into account. I realize not everyone has that sort of time, inclination or even general interest in the subject and that privacy is not exactly at the top of values for most people.
Still, I think people as individuals are still at least a little bit at fault for the way things are, though certainly the most of it falls on the system that fails to teach people about this sort of stuff and on the corporations that take advantage of that lack of knowledge.
I guess I let my frustration get the better of me in my comment. Sometimes it feels like there's this massive fire raging in the middle of the city and just a handful of us are trying to put out at least a tiny proportion if it while the rest just don't care about it.
Anyways, thank you for the well-written response, kind stranger, and for making me self reflect!
You got it! We all need a little reminder to take context into account sometimes. And I do appreciate what you were trying to do, which is promote privacy. It's a laudable goal, and one that I encourage you to continue. Just remember to meet people where they are, instead of where you want them to be. ;)
it's not about how easy it is to install it's that it has to be installed at all. Over here we prefer phones as there's a lot of cheap phones here that only cost less than $100, and since most phones here come preinstalled with chrome, even if firefox is free and all, why go through the hassle of having to go and install it when Chrome's already there?
most people here have a mindset of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" which explains a lot of things wrong in this country.
Most people just use the default browser on their phone, even in developed countries. Add to that Google's constant nagging to switch to Chrome which has a powerful effect at keeping their dominance.
I use Google Docs a lot and the only reason I haven't uninstalled Chrome is that, for whatever reason, the fonts don't display right on Firefox. They used to years ago but I suspect they changed something to negatively impact other browsers.
Fonts look fine here under FF:
https://i.imgur.com/49rQvIH.png
Chrome is the new IE, some websites only work on it, and i keep chromium for the same reason i had ie back then, to be able to use those sites.
Great translate feature. Instant.
Why? It does everything a non-techie would expect from browser and it performs well, why switch to something else?
That said I think Chrome is a terrible Chromium based browser. Edge and Vivaldi in my opinion are much better options. Edge for most folk and Vivaldi for more adventurous types.
I use Chrome and Firefox it really isn't all that baffling when certain sites just break on Firefox or a dev doesn't use the browser to promote their product.
We use hangouts for work calls and Firefox acts weird with it so keep chrome around for that.. it's super annoying.
Thank you, it's so weird to me that Lemmy users who were here before the reddit migration can't just admit products do certain things better than others and vice versa its not defending or justifying Google irs being rational and seeing a bigger picture. Google is the ass hole no matter what but you can't just say, "Firefox is perfect why are they using Chrome. When Firefox isn't perfect but it is way better since time has come along."
Or you could say that google's hangouts is specifically designed to perform worse in different conditions than it's home base.
What kinds of obscure websites do you visit
I guess guys don't see half the Lemmy posts I do with users complaining they can't download a piece of software like Adobe because Adobe tells them Firefox isn't supported.
I love how Lemmy users live in this small logical fallacy bubble of, "well I don't have it happen to me so therefore you must be the outlier instead."
And why? It has nothing to do with Firefox. So here, You are not using Chrome for its pretending superiority, you use it because of sabotage.
Don't get me wrong, you are totally free to do whatever you want, pal.
It doesn't matter what finger you point where and that is my issue with Lemmy. You can support what you want but the truth is the average user that you want to use Firefox needs a web browser that is supported and works and the truth is average companies used like Adobe don't use it or support it. I never said Firefox was the issue I said, it's not surprising that people keep using Chrome.
Feel how you want but it comes to things just being available Chrome has that edge. I also don't use Firefox to pretend not to use Chrome and that is the funny thing about the average Lemmy user. I use both because both have different benefits. If want to block ads and keep my privacy intact I use Firefox which is why none of my Google life is a part of Firefox. I use Proton and DuckDuckGo when using Firefox and pay for Blokada 6 for VPN usage on my OS and DNS over HTTPS when I use Firefox.
Believe it or not you can use both and remain rational and objective towards what one product does better than the other. It's okay though. Don't get me wrong some of us can be surprised that a product is popular. Some of us choose to understand where the value is in average consumer use case. You are als free to do whatever you want though.
Lemmy is full of users like that I keep saying make these statements, "why doesn't the average user care about their privacy?" Or, "why does the average user still keep using Google or Facebook?" Because the average user can just find those the average user is lazy. They use what everyone is using. However, if web could have a normal discussion you would be surprised to maybe see that isn't always the case. The product has to change and piss people off. Hence Reddit, Twitter, etc.
If you want the average user to move from Chrome to Firefox it is going to take Lemmy users not being smug and subtly saying, "why are they idiots that keep supporting bit companies that are against them." And that is the vibe those questions give off and in return it makes things feel more inclusive and less welcoming. Instead of being "surprised" maybe you should be open to just educating a user or just ask them, "why do you use Chrome over FF?"
I don't know about the Adobe case because I don't use Adobe web services. But it certainly could be Firefox's fault. For a long time I was a regular heavy user of a site that made extensive use of a particular CSS property that just was not implemented on Firefox. For years it just couldn't do the necessary behaviour for that site to work.
I don't use the site anymore, and it looks like Firefox has eventually gotten around to implementing it so it might work. But the point stands that a site not supporting Firefox could be Firefox's fault.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that a unified renderer is a good thing. Having all browsers be chromium based would make developers' jobs easier and would in turn provide users with a better experience. The individual projects like Edge, Vivaldi, and Brave can and should choose not to implement shitty things that Google is doing like Manifest V3 and Web Integrity API, without needing to have their own entire rendering engine like Firefox does.
ISeeThisAsAnAbsoluteWin.pdf
Again with this insufferable Lemmy user response it's a loss because as an average user what do you think my next step is not should be. I am going to download Chrome. Call or a win but you are already missing the point of you think Adobe is losing here.
I don't see the problem, adobe makes their site not work on google. What is firefox going to do? I would like adobe and google to be fined to literal death and have their entire companies split up and reduced to mere shells along with most other big pesudo monopolies. But that won't happen so oh well. Also I've had websites not work on chrome too and in my windows days I had both installed, now I couldn't give a fuck and just close the sites.
I just use edge/chrome for twitch.tv... It's no longer compatible with Firefox for some reason... :(
Edit: twitch does work, I meant the login doesn't. Sorry I was too sleepy to word it correctly. After pressing login even though user and password are correct I get an error message saying my browser is not compatible.
What happens if you switch the user agent header? Most of these sites that don't work with Firefox actually do work but are deliberately designing them not to function with Firefox.
For example, I got Bing AI to work by switching it to mimic Edge.
Twitch absolutely works with Firefox. I don't think I've accessed twitch from any browser other than Firefox now that I think about it.
Maybe I that was a wrong choice of words on my end.
Twitch doesn't let me login. I can watch still. But if I want to earn drops or something I can't, because I can't login. It says my browser is incompatible.
Yeah, that's my bad. I absolutely didn't word that right. I was half asleep already ahaha
Twitch does work, but I can't login. It says my browser is incompatible. The only reason I watch twitch is for twitch drops (I'm not really into live streams tbh) so that defeats the whole purpose.
I will try doing like someone else said and "spoof" my browser version and such. That would be great if it worked.
for real