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For people who roll their eyes when someone mentions Linux and all of the free and open source projects adjacent to it (including Firefox!), this is exactly why many people value those things. We actually can have freedom in computing and it’s worth pushing for. We don’t have to roll over simply accept what Google, Microsoft and Apple want.
But there are a few specific hardware configurations and specialized jobs that Linux doesn’t work for, therefore nobody should use it!
Any of thousands of people can say this but i don’t see it in the comments below so: I’ve been using a Linux Mint / Windows dual boot system for over 10 years and love it. I think a lot of people see Linux as highly technical, but versions like Mint and Ubuntu are more carefree than Windows nowadays.
Sure but Google also uses tons of open source - android is built on the linux kernel, and even chrome is or is based on open source:
I’m aware, but ultimately they’re still an ad company that uses technology to sell more ads. Any minor aspects of altruism (if it can be called that) can’t wash that away.
Back in the old days when a software contains these crap, considered as adware/malware and people get their pitchforks.
Now: its normal.
Yay for Firefox
Sounds like they really want people to use Firefox!
They fund Mozilla a ton on purpose. They want a small subset of people to use Firefox. It keeps them from the monopoly investigations
I knew about that. They also pay to be the default search engine on Firefox.
But my joke was that these changes make it seem like they don’t want people to use Chrome anymore and switch to Firefox instead. If users knew about this stuff and understood it, Firefox would bounce back.
I have already begun to move from Google services.
Look for other large corporations to continue this trend: offer a product to the masses for free, wait until you have little to no competitors and dominate in market share, then put it behind a pay wall or strongarm changes that most of the population doesn’t understand. Oracle did it with Java, knowing most companies were too invested to look for alternatives, and now Google is doing it with their Chrome baked-in privacy changes and ad crackdown.
I expect to see more of this trend from “free” services as the people continue to wake up and take their personal data seriously. We know the government(s) won’t do a thing to change the status quo, and I have no idea what else to do other than cry into my ramen and binge watch the death of a planet in 4K!
Unfortunately, the rich keep scarcity high to ensure they not only make the most money, but they can use less money to buy favors from those with less. Man greed sucks…
It’s even more insidious when you look at the shit Amazon does, im almost certain they hyper-aggressively track the popularity of products not made by them, ones that are made by small companies (and even individuals in some cases) for the sole purpose of seeing what’s popular with the masses and then they make their own shitty version of said product followed by undercutting the original products cost significantly. And when people go to search they of course put their shit product at the top of the search page so that’s the one the unaware will always buy. It’s kind of a genius business model if we are being honest, if you’re an absolute shit stain that completely lacks morals that is. I just can’t believe they’ve been allowed to do this for so long under the radar because I feel like I never hear people talk about that particular scummy tactic they use.
If users knew about this stuff and understood it, Firefox would bounce back.
I wish that were true. But how long have companies like Google and Meta been tracking people? Ask anyone on the street if they think Google and Meta know everything about them and they’ll say “yes but I don’t care” or “yes but it’s unavoidable”. There’s just no way people don’t know by now what incredibly invasive corporations they are. They just don’t care.
I do think they know these companies are invasive, but they don’t fully understand the ramifications of it, nor do they care to.
While I agree at some level, most users aren’t like you or me. They are my mom, my boss, my mailman. They only care about convenience, and understanding even the difference between browsers is one thing, let alone why they should use a different one. Unfortunately I don’t think that’s like to change. If it was, Facebook wouldn’t exist, if those people cared about their online privacy they wouldn’t use the platform, but here we are
Yeah, people knew enough to ditch IE for Firefox, but I think Google’s marketing convinced everybody that Chrome was the best. Most people tell me they use Chrome because it’s the fastest.
Yeah early on when chrome was released I was a big proponent of it. But that was in Google’s earlier days before they adopted Microsoft’s EEE policy
Really? I always hated it. It was such a resource hog compared to Firefox, and that only got worse as Firefox improved.
My main Linux distro at the time, Fedora, wouldn’t even ship Chromium because of how difficult and inefficient it was to package. It leaves a bunch of Google crap on Mac too.
Was it better on Windows or something? Because it’s always been crap on Linux and Mac.
I made the switch a few weeks ago. While the transition was a little inconvenient, I got everything set up in maybe an hour or two. Performance was wacky for a few hours after that, but it’s settled now for my purposes.
You definitely have to finagle the browser with add-ons and other about:config things to make it work for you, but after that yeah I can say I prefer Firefox over Chrome!
Now I just need to deGoogle everything else…
I actually never stopped using Firefox. I tried Chrome/Chromium on and off since it came out in 2008, but I never understood the appeal. Chrome looks more minimal, but it always ran like crap on Linux and Mac for me. Was it better on Windows or something? The constant memes about Chrome’s RAM and CPU usage would lead me to believe it isn’t.
Check out Vivaldi
Riiiight, because Google wasn’t doing sneaky tracking shit leading up to this. This time, they’ll surely switch, all dozens of them, and a couple might even use Firefox. woohoo
Reality: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Someone reply to me saying they just switched to make this a perfect internet circlejerk.
Sometimes there is a proverbial straw to break a camel’s back.
I mean, for some percentage of users this will be it. Will it be a significant share of Chrome users? Probably not, but it just means those of us who got people to switch to Firefox in the 00’s and Chrome in the early 10’s need to be as vigorous with getting people off Chrome now.
Unironically, yeah, this is the nail in the coffin for me.
But think about it. You’re talking on Lemmy - currently a niche messaging board with a tech focused audience. I don’t think you’d count as the average Chrome user. Most people won’t hear about this or if they do, won’t care.
‘Average user’ just means all traits proportionally blended together, right? Lemmy users are not a huge part of the internet, but our contribution to the ‘average’ is just a big as any other person; and our opinions and knowledge and behaviour does matter. Some might argue that the opinions of tech-focused people matter more because they are more likely to influence other people about tech decisions.
So yeah, we’re a niche group - but the discussion and sharing of ideas is important.
I honestly don’t get why people think chromium browsers are good, for example Firefox in my use case is far faster than chrome… by a long shot. Also if you want to argue…
Mostly for increased privacy but also additional features. Firefox and it’s forks are usually relatively limited in feature set.
Speed isn’t a problem on any of them for me.
something about the way it [chrome] handles memory isolation means i get fewer blue screens at work with all my bloated browser tools loaded at the same time. I have to have ~15 tabs open. It is not my laptop, so I cant go around experimenting with plugins much.
then again who gives a flying fart if chrome tracks me while i use the same internal browser tools day in and day out?
I cannot drag my tabs out properly. Its been the dealbreaker for many years for me, they dont fix it, but i just deal with it now because google is too evik.
That was also my experience with Firefox. I tried it one time because I kept hearing it was better than chrome, and then the absolute first thing I noticed is that they can’t get tab dragging right.
I don’t care how much more “private” it is than chrome. If you can’t even get the first impression on absolute basic UI elements right, I simply have no faith in your browser
Maybe I’ll use Firefox when it matures a bit
Its been around for like 20 years though
I used chrome since it was launched and this summer I switched to Firefox on all devices.
What’s your thoughts on Orion? It’s weirdly niche, but has been killer for me.
Orion is not open source so that’s a no. There is no way to know that what they tell us is true. If they free their code it might become my go to browser as well.
There is a way to tell - just check the binary. Actually, you need to check binaries of open source apps as well.
Check the binary for current outgoing traffic? Sure but instant traffic is not the only way to be tracked, and it is particularly difficult to get an overview for a browser.
A open source project is automatically safer to use. Sure, any binary can be injected with crap but in a closed source app there is really no way to know anything for sure.
The binary is your source. And it’s THE ONLY source of truth.
Sure the binary is what I run, but I am not following what your point is. If you are paranoid about binaries from an open source project, just compile it yourself. It’s easy. That’s just not an argument against open source.
I just switched my internet off!
downvoted for stating facts. I can only give you one updoot brother, you’re the hero we need.
Every single thing about Google sucks nowadays. Great job Sundar, you successfully turned one of the former most exciting companies on the planet into one of the absolute lamest.
Switched back to Firefox. Easy transition. Fuck Google.
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I tried to preach why Google sharing your browsing history with ad partners is bad, but most of my friends don’t seem to care. :(
It’s frustrating, I get it too. Nobody cares until the leopard bites their face. Then it’s too late, and we’re all affected by their indifference/laziness/ignorance.
Honestly, I was already using FF for my home. Made the switch on Mobile after seeing this on the news yesterday. I’m just one person though.
I’ve also switched to FF on both desktop and mobile because of this. So there’s two of us!
Moi makes trois!
I’ve been using Firefox Mobile for years. It’s never let me down and having mobile adblock is great
Yeah, I made the switch on Mobile when YouTube’s ads started getting super annoying. Ad block is a killer app in my book.
I switched my whole family several years back. Nobody has any issues with it.
Please, everyone, stop using Chrome. This is an easy vote with your wallet that doesn’t even require your wallet.
Complacency means the internet gets worse, ads get worse, nickel and diming gets worse. It’s the easiest chance to take a stand you’ll ever have.
I’m fairly confident no one here is using Chrome.
I am …
I use it at work because of it has the best dev tools. Although edge is pretty much the same so I could use that, but not much of an ethical upgrade.
I use it at work because of it has the best dev tools.
Every Chromium fork has those same tools.
I know that. I acknowledged that in the next sentence when I talked about edge.
But it still wouldn’t stop me from using chrome because I need to test with it. It’s what most of our end users use. I’m not about to install Vivaldi or something when we don’t even support it, and none of our users use it.
Okay so I’m just not sure what your point is then.
Serious question: let’s say I continue using Chrome and Privacy Sandbox becomes the norm. How does my internet experience get worse?
One key change in the short term is the Topics API. This is the replacement for 3rd-party cookies in Privacy Sandbox. Basically, it allows sites to query your browser directly about what topics you enjoy, and Chrome will respond with topics based on analysis of your browsing history to allow for targeted ads. If it seems strange that a new “privacy” feature is still serving up data about you for targeted ads – it is. And in fact, a lot of the proposed changes potentially just give Google more sway to act as a middleman, which ultimately gives them more data.
Will your experience change immediately? Likely not, but as with many things in this space, it’s about the dangers of the path and its longer term implications, specifically here about corporate controls and softening the definition of “privacy”.
Here’s a decent overview with more far more details.
I know what the Topics API does. I’m asking for a concrete example of exactly how it’s going to make my internet experience worse. (That Register article doesn’t provide one.)
Losing privacy makes your internet experience worse. That seems pretty clear to me, but if you don’t care about corporations being better suited to target ads to you, then I don’t think anyone would be able to convince you that these changes are bad.
I’d love to debate this with you properly but I’ve got COVID right now and don’t have the energy to put together a decent response, sorry. Basically I just don’t see how the specific features in the new Chrome build let advertisers do anything they can’t already do. I don’t see how they contribute to ads getting worse, or where “nickel and diming” comes into it.
Firefox is the way to go.
Give it time. Greed is greed, just a matter of time. Personally I’m back to use the old carrier pigeon. Kinda slow but probably still better than dialup
Edit: Either y’all don’t get this was a joke, or haven’t been alive long enough to watch your hero’s die.
Either way, fuck Google, sorry to rain on the parade
Or they just didn’t think it was funny…
Absolutely not. I’ve seen what you people think is funny.
oR mAyBe I JuSt got DowNvoTe brIgaDeD
And soon, the carrier pigeon breeders will start tagging them with tracking chips…
Stooooop 😂😂😂
Carrier pigeons are still faster than the internet, tested again this year to prove it
Bandwidth, maybe, but that latency…
What’s Opera based on? My friends mostly use Mac, so they all use Opera and Chrome, but I have gotten them to stop using Chrome.
Nearly every browser is Chromium-based. Additionally, Opera is Chinese-owned.
So? It isn’t google. Also google and Mozilla have Asian employees so I guess you’ll have to be not racist.
I do agree that the Chinese government is problematic though.
I’d like to point out that they said nothing about it being a bad thing and that all they did was say it was Chinese-owned, hence making your comment a pointless attack of nonsense.
I’d like to point out that they said nothing about it being a bad thing
I think it’s pretty clear that that’s exactly what they were implying. What is it that you think they meant by that?
And I agree with them. I also agree that it’s not racist but anything Chinese is pretty much defacto-owned and operated by the CCP.
I personally thought they were implying that China could be a privacy concern, as you don’t have a single clue what happens with your data there. There’s zero reason to assume anything bad especially with a simple statement like that.
I personally thought they were implying that China could be a privacy concern
…and this is a good thing?
Hooray pointless-nonsense-spew!
It uses Chromium as its base, so is essentially Chrome with fancy things attached to it. It uses Blink, Chrome/Chromium’s rendering engine.
We need fewer Chromium-based browsers out there. The greater marketshare they have, the easier it will be for Google to push W3C and everyone else around to conform to their desired business model.
For example, when Google inevitably pushes WEI into Chrome, WebKit and Gecko (Safari-based and Firefox-based browsers) won’t be affected at all.
If, however, 90% of all users end up on Blink (whether it’s Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, or whatever) then Google can do whatever they want to the web.
Chromium is owned by Google. That should be bad enough
Opera was bought by a Chinese data analytics company, and once that happened, they scrapped their engine and used chromium to save money.
They have questionable CCP ties too.
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Maybe use that information to try and influence the public in the same way that cambridge analytica did for the 2016 elections.
Someone having that data is a problem in itself
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lol. This thread is about people mad that google is doing it, and you’re saying so what if a nation state does it?
The answer is the same either way - to either sell the data to a party who want to manipulate you into doing or thinking what they want or by directly manipulating you into doing or thinking what they want.
Same with Reddit and lemmy. It doesn’t take a whole lot of investment (on a state level actor basis) to manipulate small and large communities or individuals into thinking something is normal or mainstream. Or convincing them that everyone loves this product or it’s so popular or whatever.
The CCP censors their entire internet for their people and collects all sorts of information to root out dissidents. What good thing do you think is going to come from them having that data?
Opera has unfortunately given up and switched to Chromium as its backend.
At least its not chrome
It’s lucky I haven’t used Chrome in years. Firefox is much appreciated these days.
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That was completely expected. You give any company monopoly over anything and they will abuse it. This was Chrome dominating browser market. Microsoft did it with IE back in the day. Now Google is doing it again.
Who could have possibly have forseen that a company that makes nearly all of its revenue from data mining and advertising would one day use a popular software tool as a means of data mining and advertising. This is like wheels-within-wherls thinking right here.
