Linus and Firefox

[Kuvesz]

Hi all!

 

First post here, registered because I was curious why Linus hates (has a dismissive attitude to be correct) Firefox so much? I mean do you guys think he actually used any Firefox version since 3.5 or something? I feel that since Quantum Firefox is an up to date viable browser and basically the last major one that uses Gecko and not WebKit or Blink (which is a fork of WebKit and is used by google).

I would really love to see a video from LTT actually trying out all major browsers on desktop and mobile (well the actually good Firefox (Preview) for Android is still in very early beta but still) and actually taking a good look at what they can do and what they stand for (Like the pretty good privacy aspects of Firefox). This new Edge video was a good start I think, now it just needs to be made into a series. What do you guys think?

[TetraSky]

Wait, where did Linus ever say he hated Firefox?

[Kuvesz]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Wait, where did Linus ever say he hated Firefox?

Well he laughs and jokes about Firefox users in some videos. Like the latest about Edge.

[NinJake]

I feel like some people get too involved in the Google ecosystem. It makes it a ton easier to use Google for everything. If someone hasn't been around Firefox and don't use it today, chances are they either use Chrome or still use Internet Explorer, it's not that FF is bad, it just isn't as widespread as Google has become. (I Seeeee Yoouuuuuuu)

[minibois]

Just now, TetraSky said:

Wait, where did Linus ever say he hated Firefox?

He's very dismissive about Firefox, wouldn't call it hating:

"[Talking about Chromium Edge] With a well performing, feature-rich, extension-heavy alternative to Chrome on the table - other than FireFox.. Sorry FireFox fans, you are still a thing"

Just kind of a dismissive way to talk about FireFox, a browser which as far as I have heard has gotten a lot better than in the past.

 

But can't blame Linus too much anymore for the content of the videos, he is not the writer of this one after all, Riley wrote this episode. So maybe Rilex has a hate for Firefox..? or it was just an attempt at a comedic line.

I don't have any reason to believe Linus personally hates Firefox, he is a Chrome user.. But I have not heard him talk poorly about FF.

[Kuvesz]

1 minute ago, NinJake said:

I feel like some people get too involved in the Google ecosystem. It makes it a ton easier to use Google for everything. If someone hasn't been around Firefox and don't use it today, chances are they either use Chrome or still use Internet Explorer, it's not that FF is bad, it just isn't as widespread as Google has become. (I Seeeee Yoouuuuuuu)

I find it very disconcerting that most of the stuff people use (search engine, online office software, cloud storage, etc.) is in the hands of a company that is pretty data hungry. Alas, the viable alternatives are few and far between.

[Kuvesz]

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

He's very dismissive about Firefox, wouldn't call it hating:

"[Talking about Chromium Edge] With a well performing, feature-rich, extension-heavy alternative to Chrome on the table - other than FireFox.. Sorry FireFox fans, you are still a thing"

Just kind of a dismissive way to talk about FireFox, a browser which as far as I have heard has gotten a lot better than in the past.

 

But can't blame Linus too much anymore for the content of the videos, he is not the writer of this one after all, Riley wrote this episode. So maybe Rilex has a hate for Firefox..? or it was just an attempt at a comedic line.

I don't have any reason to believe Linus personally hates Firefox, he is a Chrome user.. But I have not heard him talk poorly about FF.

True enough, lets say I didnt mean hate and instead meant that dismissive attitude (which is what I actually did mean). Not sure if I should edit my post though. (Never was a forum person.)

[KING OF THE DIRTY DANS]

I think its because Firefox is kinda a meme at this point

Firefox is not a bad browser, but Like he said IE has more market than FF which is sad.

He probably used it a shit load in the 2000s just like anybody

[NinJake]

Aside from the fact my work is heavily invested in Microsoft products, I'm a huge fan of open source software and try to inform anyone who's mildly tech savvy to think twice about where your data is stored and what not. 90% of the time it's in vein but if people aren't knowledgeable about how vast the "world wide web" has become and how crazy tracking has become, they don't even feel like anything is going on behind the scenes.

 

I'm not hating on Google or Microsoft either, it's just nice to have competition out there, especially competition that cares more about their users than their wallets.

[Kuvesz]

Just now, KING OF THE DIRTY DANS said:

I think its because Firefox is kinda a meme at this point

Firefox is not a bad browser, but Like he said IE has more market than FF which is sad.

He probably used it a shit load in the 2000s just like anybody

A lot of people are still faithful so to speak and it has become a lot better since the Quantum update. (Before that you had to do some real legacy bs)

[minibois]

Just now, Kuvesz said:

True enough, lets say I didnt mean hate and instead meant that dismissive attitude (which is what I actually did mean). Not sure if I should edit my post though. (Never was a forum person.)

A dismissive attitude towards a browser with 5-10% net marketshare, with respectable benchmark numbers and good system resource management might as well be seen as hate.

As someone that doesn't use Firefox as a daily driver, I feel like it's not as big as the alternatives is because:

1. It's not preinstalled (unless you count some Linux distros, which are not big markets)

I feel like that is a very important point, since we're talking about Chrome being preinstalled on Android devices too.

2. It's not owned by a big cooperation like its rivals.

3. not advertised as much as Chrome (an ad on all Google searches telling you to install Chrome..? That will get people to install Chrome)

4. Stigma? I don't know what Firefox' reputation used to be, but perhaps that left a stigma on some people.

[Kuvesz]

Just now, NinJake said:

Aside from the fact my work is heavily invested in Microsoft products, I'm a huge fan of open source software and try to inform anyone who's mildly tech savvy to think twice about where your data is stored and what not. 90% of the time it's in vein but if people aren't knowledgeable about how vast the "world wide web" has become and how crazy tracking has become, they don't even feel like anything is going on behind the scenes.

 

I'm not hating on Google or Microsoft either, it's just nice to have competition out there, especially competition that cares more about their users than their wallets.

Yes, I also work for a company that sometimes likes to undercut the open source community and whenever that happens I feel somewhat guilty about that. Still I try to convince people to quit Google and Microsoft (hope you don't mind).

[NinJake]

Just now, Kuvesz said:

A lot of people are still faithful so to speak and it has become a lot better since the Quantum update. (Before that you had to do some real legacy bs)

I've been using Firefox for years before Chrome even came out. I've tried Chrome and Vivaldi and Opera and Edge and all that jazz but FF is my go-to daily driver. I do use chrome on my cell phone for daily driving and the firefox app on my phone for banking and other confidential access.

 

When there's "more market share" for IE you have to realize how many businesses are still running windows xp and 7, and a lot of the older users in these business only know the "E" (for internet explorer icon) as the only "Internet" around.

[KING OF THE DIRTY DANS]

Just now, NinJake said:

I've been using Firefox for years before Chrome even came out. I've tried Chrome and Vivaldi and Opera and Edge and all that jazz but FF is my go-to daily driver. I do use chrome on my cell phone for daily driving and the firefox app on my phone for banking and other confidential access.

 

When there's "more market share" for IE you have to realize how many businesses are still running windows xp and 7, and a lot of the older users in these business only know the "E" (for internet explorer icon) as the only "Internet" around.

The legacy IE software does exist. Our CIS textbooks really push for IE (for literally every step of anything). Its the same as the US military using XP to this day

[YellowJersey]

1 minute ago, NinJake said:

I've been using Firefox for years before Chrome even came out. I've tried Chrome and Vivaldi and Opera and Edge and all that jazz but FF is my go-to daily driver. I do use chrome on my cell phone for daily driving and the firefox app on my phone for banking and other confidential access.

 

When there's "more market share" for IE you have to realize how many businesses are still running windows xp and 7, and a lot of the older users in these business only know the "E" (for internet explorer icon) as the only "Internet" around.

Same. I love it.

[Kuvesz]

Just now, KING OF THE DIRTY DANS said:

The legacy IE software does exist. Our CIS textbooks really push for IE (for literally every step of anything). Its the same as the US military using XP to this day

Most IE usage probably comes out of Microsoft having old agreements with companies that they have to use their products I think, but I should try to find some ststistics on that.

[NinJake]

1 minute ago, Kuvesz said:

Most IE usage probably comes out of Microsoft having old agreements with companies that they have to use their products I think, but I should try to find some ststistics on that.

If you have any version of a Windows OS ... you already have IE so that skews the numbers just a bit.

[Kuvesz]

Just now, NinJake said:

If you have any version of a Windows OS ... you already have IE so that skews the numbers just a bit.

There was a time when here in the EU if you installed Win7 you could chose between IE Firefox and Chrome (maybe even Opera?) as the browser you wanted to be installed. Good old days.

[Quadriplegic]

22 minutes ago, Minibois said:

 

But can't blame Linus too much anymore for the content of the videos, he is not the writer of this one after all, Riley wrote this episode. So maybe Rilex has a hate for Firefox..? or it was just an attempt at a comedic line.

I don't have any reason to believe Linus personally hates Firefox, he is a Chrome user.. But I have not heard him talk poorly about FF.

Considering RIley has very little tech knowledge, it makes sense his script is bollocks

[Kuvesz]

Just now, Quadriplegic said:

Considering RIley has very little tech knowledge, it makes sense his script is bollocks

Not sure about his tech knowledge, seems like a nice enough guy, I just don't support making fun of an actually good product. (I feel the same about TechLinked pretty much a lot of times.)

[minibois]

5 minutes ago, NinJake said:

If you have any version of a Windows OS ... you already have IE so that skews the numbers just a bit.

The way these browser market share counters work (thankfully mostfully) counteract that.

In short, these stat counters are installed on (many) websites and track user's browser choice that way. Meaning if you actively use IE, you will contribute to these stats. If you just have it installed and never open it, you won't count in. If you use it once to download Chrome/Firefox/whatever you are counted once, but if you visit the site again you now added a 'point'  for the other browser you used.

 

More info:

Spoiler

Statcounter:

Quote

StatCounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally. [...] Every month, we record billions of page views to these sites. For each page view, we analyse the browser/operating system/screen resolution used and we establish if the page view is from a mobile device.

http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#methodology

 

W3Counter (apparently not affiliated with W3 Consortium):

Quote

This site counts the last 15,000 page views from each of approximately 80,000 websites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#W3Counter_(May_2007_to_October_2018)

 

Net Applications:

Quote

The Browser report shows you what people are using to view your site, so you can make better decisions about site layout and design.

http://www.netapplications.com/insights/

 

 

In short, these counters track what people use to access certain websites. 

[NinJake]

5 minutes ago, Minibois said:

In short, these counters track what people use to access certain websites. 

Very cool, but if a random person has a default browser of IE they will still end up using IE for a variety of things. To be honest it's sad but it's just the way the world is that I have users who can't tell me what a web browser is or the difference between IE and Chrome.

[Kuvesz]

4 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Very cool, but if a random person has a default browser of IE they will still end up using IE for a variety of things. To be honest it's sad but it's just the way the world is that I have users who can't tell me what a web browser is or the difference between IE and Chrome.

There was a meme that is related, but with Firefox.

[minibois]

4 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Very cool, but if a random person has a default browser of IE they will still end up using IE for a variety of things. To be honest it's sad but it's just the way the world is that I have users who can't tell me what a web browser is or the difference between IE and Chrome.

That's why I basically said they mostly counteract this.

 

There will still be offices where users can't install a browser of choice, so they have to use IE.

Or if a company uses site A on some system that is just in some warehouse, constantly refreshing a certain page (e.g. a mall that has an interactive map - which is basically just a website) that website (and thus the counter on there) will get artificially get a lot of numbers added.

 

It's not a perfect system, but I find these numbers to be somewhat accurate to reality.

 

Also, random users are not even able to tell me how they get into their email.. Some users use a mail client on their PC, but some use a web interface. But 96% of them just say "I just press the email icon", which can mean either really.

This is just about people not knowing what stuff they use on their PC, their lack of knowledge and interest in this just means they don't know what we consider basic info.

 

21 minutes ago, Quadriplegic said:

Considering RIley has very little tech knowledge, it makes sense his script is bollocks

I really like the guy, but he - in some videos - has not really shown technical prowess on the level of others in the team.

Particularly - if I remember correctly - the 69$ gaming PC (Upgrade?) video showed some misses for him, but also in the "The WEIRDEST PC Parts we Found on AliExpress" it looked like he had no idea what he bought.

 

He seems like a genuinly nice guy, with good charisma and is a good video host (of course he has a lot more experience as compared to some of his colleagues), but as a writer I hope he will be able to 'pick up the pace', so to speak.

 

 

 

[Guest]

The episode was written by Riley, so it’s not from a well-informed perspective