Firefox users down 50 million since 2018

[Doobeedoo]

Well, I'd use it for a bit here and there with bigger releases would be. Though I mostly used Opera and Vivaldi but currently using Edge for a while now.

[Taf the Ghost]

Funny thing about this topic is that it got me thinking about why I use so many different browsers now. The push for Sync/Personal Information collection has meant you really need to segment out "sandboxes" to keep just basic stuff from over-running. It's part of the downside of "customized for you" push. What if "you" is 3 people on the same system? It falls in line with why I moved to DuckDuckGo. Google Search has gotten really bad. If you aren't looking for obscure stuff, Google Search really just gets worse & worse.

 

It's just an interesting Internet journey from the decentralized to standardized to centralized and back to decentralized within the Web.

 

Also, wasn't FF on Mobile like hard terrible for years?

[Kilrah]

2 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

What if "you" is 3 people on the same system?

Then you should have separate user accounts for each of them on the OS.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Java/flash based ads and applets came out and were dominant long long before google got to it. I was playing RS in 2002, and plenty of other 'addicting games' (or math4kids) style pages existed and were ad/malware ridden years before google took over. Now if you mean ads on sites that normal people visited, in an era of barely functional webpages by businesses that were incompetent, sure I guess it's fair to say that the reach expanded substantially under google, but the problem existed long before. Your average gradeschooler ran into it in 2003 onwards, so I don't think using the demarcation of google buying doubleclick in '08 is appropriate.

 

The comments on slowass pages and the bloat that follows is totally fair though. I just don't think claiming it is 'just' or even necessarily mostly 'google's fault' is accurate.

 

Google buying doubleclick was the literal turning point where consolidation in the ad systems started happening. In case people have goldfish memory and forgot about OpenX and Contextweb (aka pulsepoint.) The bleeding edge of ad tech? AppNexus (who developed prebid.js) Unfortunately you know what happened? It (AppNexus) was acquired by AT&T in 2015. Do I even need to explain AT&T. Verizon bought AOL and Yahoo for it's adtech (oath) and divested itself of it this year. AT&T and Verizon are also two of the top 10 spenders on ads, so that explains why they wanted the ad tech businesses, it saves them money.

 

We're literately on the last-grasps of control over ad tech. Those inside the US may not have realized it, but pretty much everything has been consolidated into Google or Facebook. Everyone else is fighting for scraps to get their ads in front of anyone, because the only reliable ad units are now managed by Google, or inside facebook's walled garden. 

 

Facebook screaming bloody murder at Apple shows you how much Facebook has to lose.

 

Prebid was a completely fair, transparent way of making ad units take as little time as needed to be shown, compared to the previous chain-of-hell waterfalls that would keep loading ads in infinite loops until something was shown. Unfortunately google, amazon and facebook don't play ball.

 

[Ydfhlx]

11 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

I switched back to FF because of the 89 redesign

And I switched away.

 

What are the advantages of Firefox over Chrome? "privacy" certainly - but it whitelists Google cookies, and collects a lot of data about user as well. And many people use google search engine as well. Apart from that? Up until half a year ago it used *more* ram than Chrome and wasn't different visually. v89 redesign can be liked or not, but it certainly makes it harder for chrome users to switch.

 

And doesn't fix any problems. Still sites load slower than on Chrome, and some don't load properly. Most notably Google Meets, which is quite useful in work-from-home times, isn't really working flawlessly even now... And I tell you, nothing is as important as reliability in a browser. When you have to have a second browser in case Firefox fails, Mozilla has already fail - that's my experience at least.

[Orcblood]

Their stance on censorship ruined it for me.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, DeScruff said:

Am I the only person in the world who didn't really notice the UI redesign?
Like okay yeah things look a bit different. But I fail to understand how it take more then 5 seconds to get used to. Unless you did some super heavy customization that literally any sort of change would cause it to break, but at that point who's fault is it really?

- A BIT different! The Tabs are no longer connected to the URL bar! the Horror!!!! The Icons... they are rounded!  Things are so spaced out! (You mean the removable "Flexible space" parts if you go into customize toolbar?)

You can disable Proton Interface with my Firefox Tweaker with single click. Thing is, I tried it today again after testing some other new features I've just added and old interface prior Proton just looks so dated. Imagine using Netscape today. Or Firefox 1.0 today. It feels like that. Proton on the other hand feels modern and crisp. Even disconnected tabs feel right. Firefox Tweaker also allows enabling of otherwise hidden Compact mode if you feel new Proton's "Normal" is too big. But frankly, I now feel like compact is too compact. But some might still like it.

[Quackers101]

There are certain things I like and dislike about FF that has been talked about here.

They have many cool projects like google and other companies, but the way FF has gone into a hole is not something I like. From what they want to claim, lesser view on "privacy" and kind of given on the fact on some things they can't change on the web. Like the claims around the VPN and accounts, adding google by default etc. Although a VPN is not that bad, just wish they were more open and if some of the money was to help their view of the web. But as seen when the massive layoff happened, and push for "modern trends" in look and removing settings in the settings menu... it bugs me every time.

 

At least if you know more on the coding side, there are ways to "improve" firefox or other browsers to the use of extensions.

 

Google is nice in some aspects, having some sort of an filter and if you can push the ads through their systems instead of a worse system, if one can tell google what is the right way of having these systems and able to go back to a source/standard than 10 different ones with different behaviors etc? But that said, google also want to push other models that one can very much dislike, like the recently talked about the WEB and ID's etc, for chromium? That other parties don't want, like FF and Edge.

 

Then you have edge, I guess you get most of the features from chrome while sadly getting more microsoft nonsense while less google nonsense? but could be better if you are already using windows anyways. Not sure which is any good, but since you might get more integration between edge and windows it might be useful and back to using a single account for this kind of management of accounts (for windows and edge using the same account?). Also that edge wouldn't go pushing many crazy things that google would do, although they could push more microsoft content and pushed more into windows.

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

I used chrome being a privacy newbie and soon found out the data collection and moved to Mozilla Firefox but now use chrome and brave with vpn and nothing matters except for ad blocking which you can do quite well on almost all browsers 

[poochyena]

firefox on mobile is honestly kinda terrible. I used it though so I can have my bookmarks and log ins synced. I'm sure most people first use chrome on mobile and then use it on desktop for the syncing.

[SeriousDad69]

I switched off Firefox in June after they pushed that UI update(looking at the user chart, looks like ~12 million people joined me). They pretty much just bloated everything up for the 10 people using Firefox with a touchscreen laptop and removed, renamed or moved things just because they felt like it. Firefox user since ~2005, no other UI update triggered me as bad.

Other than the god awful UI update, when I was using Firefox I never noticed anything else that would make me consider switching. I don't really care if a webpage loads in six seconds instead of four seconds, for example. I also don't care if the company takes low IQ social justice warrior stances as long as they don't start violating privacy or usability for a witch hunt or something.

[krakkpott]

I jumped ship to Brave as I had started encountering issues with Firefox on my personal PC, specifically YouTube videos not loading. Now though, I'm considering to go back to Firefox (last tested no longer having that issue), but then I deleted my Firefox account so .

 

Still using it on my work computer though.

[SeriousDad69]

23 minutes ago, krakkpott said:

I jumped ship to Brave as I had started encountering issues with Firefox on my personal PC, specifically YouTube videos not loading. Now though, I'm considering to go back to Firefox (last tested no longer having that issue), but then I deleted my Firefox account so .

 

Still using it on my work computer though.

Had to swap my friend to Brave recently. After some update last month, whenever he'd try to watch a YouTube video Firefox would max out the usage % on his HDD and completely lock his computer up. I get HDDs are slow and shouldn't really be OS drives anymore, but really Firefox?

[WolframaticAlpha]

10 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I mean… i bet most people using firefox still end up using google search? Everyone i know, including myself, does so at least. So its not going to do much against googles dominance i wager.

 

while firefox is an alternative for sure (i use it on my laptop which is 99% offline admittedly) and it does work well enough, if i use it, i still have the feeling like its really just a "middleman" and lacking some features, compared to the "original".

 

 

Just saying, as long people use google services, choice of browser is more or less irrelevant imo.

 

Google Search != Google Web

 

Google has enough power now to enforce its chrome guidelines in the W3C. If this keeps happening, then we will lose the free internet. We will enter another dark age of the web.

 

Google search is a collection of webpages. Chrome and Chromium are the ways that google can fundamentally change the net. MS didn't have a search engine with IE(bing was in 2009), they were still fought against because one company controlliing anything is a bad idea, especially when that company is a multitrillion for-profit

[Taf the Ghost]

I have multiple because I have several screens. I can also isolate different things to the browsers. I also can't quite decide which one I liked, so I kind of just used all of them. Also helps because pages just don't work on some browsers at times.

 

I don't remember what addons I was using with FF, but every update would break something. And I think I only had like 3. But the other thing was FF got really, really sluggish. And I believe it had issues playing Video for a while.

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

Solution just use a paid vpn with whatever browser you like.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

19 hours ago, JuliusW said:

if im not using firefox, what should i use, since I dont like chrome?

 

Join the dark side and use Edge... because it's actually not.... terrible now....

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Join the dark side and use Edge... because it's actually not.... terrible now....

but don't use it without extensions and modifications and DO NOT USE BING

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

3 minutes ago, linux fanboy said:

and DO NOT USE BING

The first thing I do is change the default search engine to Google... (and before people go "bUt DuCkDuCkGo Is So MuCh BeTtEr", I don't care). 

5 minutes ago, linux fanboy said:

but don't use it without extensions and modifications

Is there a specific extension I should have? All I really had installed is the Grammarly, Honey, and Teleparty extensions. 

[YellowJersey]

I honestly don't understand the appeal of chrome. I tried it multiple times (usually because I had to for work) and really didn't care for it. Been using FF for about 15 years now and I'm perfectly happy with it; wouldn't trade it for anything else out there.

[BondiBlue]

5 minutes ago, YellowJersey said:

I honestly don't understand the appeal of chrome. I tried it multiple times (usually because I had to for work) and really didn't care for it. Been using FF for about 15 years now and I'm perfectly happy with it; wouldn't trade it for anything else out there.

Chrome is my go-to for most of my systems. I just use it because the interface is quite minimal (just tabs, page navigation, and a few menu bar icons) from the start, and it's fast on basically any computer. Also, syncing is very easy - 1 sign in for basically everything. 

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

16 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

The first thing I do is change the default search engine to Google... (and before people go "bUt DuCkDuCkGo Is So MuCh BeTtEr", I don't care). 

Is there a specific extension I should have? All I really had installed is the Grammarly, Honey, and Teleparty extensions. 

I personally don't care if I use a vpn but if I don't I will have ublock, bitwarden, decentraleyes, https everywhere, and sometimes cookie autodelete also User agent switcher that is my usual addons (when without vpn) and on bare minimum I have ublock origin with custom settings.

[Luxzio22]

9 hours ago, Orcblood said:

Their stance on censorship ruined it for me.

What did they say? I was an FF user too until they cancelled their CEO over a political donation he made years ago. 

 

I use all of them, except Opera I guess:

Vivaldi - daily driver, steam, youtube, forums, researching. Use DDG when possible, google when it fails

Edge - work email, flicker, Linkedin

Chrome - Prime Video, online registrations

Brave - for potentially shady stuff 

[Nizkus]

I used FF for a long time, until they changed how addons work which made mouse gestures garbage. Luckily Vivaldi came to the scene not that long after, so there is still a place with good mouse gestures. 

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, linux fanboy said:

Solution just use a paid vpn with whatever browser you like.

As soon youre logging into any google or google like services a vpn becomes completely meaningless, they'll immediately know anything they need to identify and follow you…

 

I mean, youre probably going to say "I know…"   but then why using a vpn as argument for more "privacy"?

 

Thats not what vpn is designed or even works for.

 

The only reason  for the average person to use vpn is to counter region blocks… also not what its designed for, but at least *that* works… (most of the time)