With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.

377 points

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

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138 points

Oops, I switched 15 years ago,

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55 points

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

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19 points

you win Firefox!

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9 points

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.

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3 points

Hat trick!

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1 point
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17 points

Noob. I switched in 2006 - 17 years ago.

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11 points

What took you so long?!?

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4 points

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.

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4 points

Google has a web-browser?

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3 points

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

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0 points

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

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28 points

Funnily enough - this article is 3 years old

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22 points

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

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14 points

I had the crappiest of PCs in 2006 or 2007 with 768MBs of RAM running Windows XP. Funnily enough the reason I switched to Chrome back then was the immense RAM usage of Firefox compared to Chrome back then. With the big rebranding an rerelease of Firefox in 2017? 2018? I came back and haven’t looked back since.

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

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2 points

I used it since netscape navigator XD

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1 point

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

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3 points

Firefox has dark mode.

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206 points

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

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106 points

With Chrome killing ad blocking, they’ll quickly care

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184 points

Except most people don’t use adblock. I don’t even know how they live

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51 points

I’m conviced those people aren’t real and everyone is in fact secretly using an ad blocker.

I mean, how do you not get annoyed with so much ads? People are probabaly lying in surveys to trick youtube to not blocking adblockers.

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15 points

I forget that these people exist sometimes. I can’t ever go back to the internet with no ad blockers.

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10 points

I suspect they spend most of their time in apps and not surfing the internet. Just a guess really since I saw the mobile traffic exceeded desktop. A lot of people don’t spend hours on the “internet” surfing. Tic Tok sure. Hell I’m getting more and more like that. Even when I use chrome I still only go the the same sites for the most part. lol

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8 points
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It could be a good thing. Maybe they won’t bother about people blocking ads because they become even less than before.

So maybe you need to pause the ad block a lot less.

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3 points

Ah, you met my parents.

I had to install ublock origin on my mother’s Chrome because she never would otherwise. Doesn’t even know how.

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2 points

They don’t!

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10 points

Google’s doing a pretty shitty job on that front since uBlock is already prepared with a new version that will work largely the same after the changeover.

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4 points

Do you have a post clarifying how uBlock got prepared? I can’t seem to find anything

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7 points
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1 point
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2 points

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.

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1 point

I’m going to use Chrome as long as I can. If they update and break my Adblock extensions (and there isn’t a fix in a day or two from devs), I switch browsers or find some other workaround.

I’m glad people with more ability to avoid the problem are trying to do so proactively (via ad-on updates, alternative browsers, etc)… so I don’t need to worry about an ‘escape route’… because I know there will be one.

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-3 points

The plan to deprecate Chrome V2 extensions has been constantly postponed again and again for years now. There is NO SCHEDULED DATE for this to happen currently, and when it is announced it will be more than 6 months out.

Source: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions/c/zQ77HkGmK9E/m/HjaaCIG-BQAJ?pli=1

If Google really wanted to kill ad blockers, they would have done this years ago.

They don’t. They want to force ad blockers and other similar extensions to use more efficient APIs that don’t slow down the web. Extension developers overall (not just ad blockers) aren’t happy with the changes, so they’re still working on the APIs.

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6 points

IIRC the original cutoff date was supposed to be this summer (or possibly winter).

Not surprised you’re being downvoted but definitely disappointed seeing it.

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39 points

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

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73 points

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

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45 points

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.

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12 points

Reddit was too weird for most people until they ended up being in their Google search results for most topics. It will take a while but the Fediverse will eventually reach a level of popularity and mainstream utility.

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4 points

We could have it both, where big instances like LemmyWorld or BeeHaw becomes the well known public interface, while they maintain federation with smaller instances.

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2 points
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-7 points

Then why are you here “Generic User 1234”?

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23 points

I mean I love Lemmy but I don’t see it going mainstream :/
It’s too weird for the general user

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19 points

The irony of this comment duplicating 😅 but yeah you’re right, there needs to be a lot of streamlining first

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14 points

I dunno. Lemmy isn’t all that weird outside the first little bit of choosing an instance and signing up for communities. Everything since that has felt extremely normal to me. Some more thought about that and a good instance onboarding workflow can be implemented, that seems like a solvable problem.

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13 points

Not sure why it’s weird, it’s just reddit but open source?

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5 points
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Lemmy isn’t weird at all. Now P2P platforms like secure scuttlebutt and aether, that’s some weird stuff. I couldn’t get them working at all (or maybe nobody is using these anymore). P2P is very confusing for me. I assume that a federated network is as confusing for many people as p2p social networks are confusing for me. I guess there will be someone out there who reads my comment and be like: “What? P2P networks are so simple, what don’t you understand?” I guess people just have different amount of tolorance to being confused by complexity of something before they just give up. I couldn’t figure out those P2P systems so I just give up.

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2 points

Keep Lemmy Weird

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3 points

I wish that was the case. Privacy is barely a thing in the general public’s eye. FOSS is a spec in the wind in comparison.

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1 point

WHAAT? I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE MEEEEEMEES!!. SPEAK LOUDEERRR!

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10 points

I think lots of boomers and gen-x do care. (At least the ones I know). They just aren’t tech literate enough to do anything about it.

I think we need more privacy oriented devices and software with simple ux, and advertising that isn’t targetted at the tech community.

Run some TV ads for a privacy enabled smartphone, and play up how it works just the same as your current phone but doesn’t spy on you. Shit like that.

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162 points

Firefox + Ublock Origin blows Google Chrome out of water.

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132 points

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.

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85 points

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.

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43 points
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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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7 points

There was one extension I used in Chrome that I haven’t found a Firefox replacement for, but I stopped trying to look a while ago and just live without it.

Was a specific kind of cookie manager: you could whitelist a set of websites to keep their cookies. Everything else would be deleted when you told the extension to do so.

Too many websites need cookies that stick around indefinitely. But I also don’t want to delete everything everytime I close Firefox, because I may want to keep a website around for a few days without wanting to bother adding it to a whitelist.

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11 points

Most Chrome extensions can easily be run in Firefox. Simply download the CRX and upload an copy to addons.mozilla.org as an unlisted extension and within a few hours the extension should be approved and ready to install in Firefox.

Firefox has strong support for the extension cookie management APIs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/cookies

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6 points

I think this might be what you are searching for. I’ve used it a few times and it does everything it promises imho: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete

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1 point

You can do that in the browser settings in both FF and chrome

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1 point

You can do that in the browser settings in bOTH FF and chrome

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16 points
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Reddit being enshittified is what motivated me to switch back to Android. I don’t want to continue using a a locked ecosystem only for apple to one day say: “Welp, no more adblocks 😜 Oh you use VLC? Dude that’s for pirates only. Signal? That’s for terrorists. Standard Notes? What evil plans are you hiding? Banned Banned and Banned.”

I used iPhones because everyone else was using them so I kinds fell for the peer pressure thinking “Hmm… what are the odds that Apple become evil? Probably don’t have to worry about it.” The Reddit shitshow just triggered a fear in me that made me rethink about my life decisions. Apple’s locked ecosystem suddenly looked terrifying to me, and I just wanna nope out. So I got an Android phone and gave the iPhone to someone. I love my apks and don’t need to worry about Google-Play shennanigans.

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10 points

True. It takes a big chance to switch browsers for some. And there may be learning curves, but being intentional about our internet and app use goes a long way to saving headaches in the future. The early investment (ie learning a more open source and free, even FOSS software) will help mitigate loss in case a profit driven company changes or “pivots” to a new direction.

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9 points

The best time to start with a new browser is when you get a new device. Since you have to re enter your logins or re enable your pw manager anyway, it’s just a convenient time. That’s when I switched, about 1 year ago when I upgraded phones.

Duckduckgo app tracking blocker is my new jam too. Which I leaned about here on lemmy about 1 weeks ago when I joined

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10 points

If you use a password manager like bitwarden, there’s no need to enter all your logins. I guess that’s why I’m a bit browser agnostic. I use different browsers for different purposes. And I don’t have to worry about remembering my passwords with bitwarden.

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6 points

The difference between ddg and Firefox for me is that Firefox is a genuinely good product, whereas ddg is noticeably worse than Google. Still trying to find a good search alternative.

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3 points

I recently learned that ddg is a meta search engine which pulls from Bing search, which is probably why it sucks.

Tried out brave search engine (uses it’s own search algorithm) and the results have been better. Probably slightly weaker than google.

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3 points

I do all my personal browsing on Firefox now. I’m still using chrome, but strictly for work stuff. It’s nice to keep those activities separate, especially since many apps I use for work still discriminate against Firefox.

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1 point

If you like the chrome feel, you should check out a browser called brave. It’s built off of chromium (read as: looks like chrome) and can run all the extensions you like, but is built to be privacy minded.

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