Now if only Apple will let Firefox run its own rendering engine instead of Safari’s.
Like, that’s the only thing I don’t get. Other apps which are not web browsers, fine. Use Safari. But an actual web browser? FFS, let them use their own engine.
its just that Apple forces Webkit to all Apps on the app store.
That’s Apple’s explanation why, but it has flimsy justification. There is no technical reason why Firefox mobile can’t use the Gecko rendering engine on Apple iOS. So, unlike every other graphical OS I’ve ever heard of, you can’t really pick your browser. You can only play dress-up with Safari and pick its outfit.
You can! There’s a browser called reynard and it’s based off gecko web browser but you still need to sideload them, it isn’t available in App Store :-(
The main goal for this browser is to make web browsing usable for older iOS, I find it pretty neat so I wanted to share this!
Man it’s so funny how the only company that even thinks about allowing you to not have AI, gets so much shit from people.
OK you don’t like AI, you can turn in off. They added an option for that. Meanwhile Chrome is automatically downloading 4gb worth of models without your consent. Same with basically each other browser.
Folks are free to use whichever distro they like, Librefox, Waterfox, but remember that without Mozilla foundation the very engine would stop working. Then these forks will not work anymore. Then where will you go? Chromium? Safari?
It’s important to keep companies accountable, but nothing is ever black and white.
People seem to care more about synthetic benchmarks than using a browser that gives them much less tracking and ads. Remember when chrome was popular because its so fast? I never noticed a difference between that and Firefox in ordinary web pages, except Googles, since they are intentionally making it slow for Firefox.
And with all that going on, people still picked chrome. :)
OK you don’t like AI, you can turn in off. They added an option for that. Meanwhile Chrome is automatically downloading 4gb worth of models without your consent. Same with basically each other browser.
Because Chrome is used by normies who have no idea and wont care while Firefox is used by tech-literate users who care and like to tinker. The backlash was because FF implemented AI that you had to go to about:settings to disable. Result of backlash - a switch in settings to disable it.
It would be smart to implement AI and advertise people that they can switch it ON if they want to. Not the other way.
Folks are free to use whichever distro they like, Librefox, Waterfox, but remember that without Mozilla foundation the very engine would stop working. Then these forks will not work anymore
There is nothing to go to. But if we accept the outcome, we just submit to the system. Might as well switch to chrome at that point hoping that Servo gets developed fast enough. Firefox would lose their browser share at an instant once they are not different from chromium based browsers. Basically seppuku themselves.
Not understanding your user base is how you get a backlash.
Maybe Firefox is going to improve performance in android? Also PWA support on android would be great. PWA support is what’s kept me stuck with Brave.
I’ve got to be honest, the occasional glitch in Firefox Android is more than worth the price of not seeing the ads and consent banners that Chrome would have forced me to look at.
Now if Mozilla would finally get a CEO who is not driven by stupid capitalistic bullshit, I would actually start using Firefox again.
Until then, I stick to WaterFox.
Why not LibreWolf?
For the same reason I don’t like Chromium or Alpine Linux. Minimalism can be nice, however in most cases too many features were stripped away to be useful tools. At least for me, so no offense to people who love the minimalistic approach :)
most people are too dumb to find the options menu
Too locked down for the average user.
It genuinely hurts my soul that this is a complete argument.
The idea that users could or should have preferences - to be responsible to opt (in or out) in any capacity is an unreachable goal.
It’s frustrating that a lazy or evil developer can so easily convinve the masses to give up privacy simply by dangling a shiny just outside the default security safeguards.
Ok
It is? I didn’t notice anything. I suppose by virtue of having even heard of it I’m not the average user.
With default settings it will wipe your history and cookies on exit
(Which I happen to forget about every single time I install it on a new machine, I hate this default with a passion)
Then there’s disabled WebGL, which you also have to reenable on a bunch of sites. Not too hard, but probably annoying for some
I forgot about that too. Thanks.
Some websites don’t work correctly, due to the strict settings.
I guess I don’t view those types of sites on my Pc (probably on my phone).
Its a really really simple change to make them work again and iirc you can set a profile but it is mildly technical which means wayyy too difficult for average people
Isn’t waterdox owned by a weird company?
Not anymore. It’s owned by the creator again.
Oh awesome!
I like because it’s essentially a stripped down version of FireFox that runs faster and does without any Google or AI being defaulted to on or being in the browser at all (AI).
Nice but it’s kinda wierd how people decided to use these browsers after this new law was passed, I mean it’s so easy to install apps on smartphones right now but people needed this choice screen to choose another browser of their liking? I would guess it’s probably old people that switched that didn’t know how to install browser without it, I googled but couldn’t find any prove of this tho so it’s just my guts
We tend to overestimate people’s skill in tech. The average user uses what came installed, doesn’t like installing and experimenting apps, uses a browser while logged in to google, taps yes on everything, will install apps when sites ask for it, without even noticing, and will register in every site or app that asks for it, and even give their real email, name, etc
And there are probably many users that do all of this due to being afraid that things might just start breaking, or that more actions they don’t understand will be required to keep the system rolling, if they stray from this path for even a little.
it’s so easy to install apps on smartphones right now
Providing choice as a default is precisely about people who are influenced by defaults. It’s NOT about how feasible something technically is.
It’s laziness. Most people just take the path of the least resistance.
Once you show them the screen, any choice is the same amount of work so they will select what they really want. But without the screen, 90% of people will be good enough with the default option. Or, they might even be mildly uncomfortable with that option, but not enough to do something about it.
It’s laziness. Most people just take the path of the least resistance.
we all do in many parts of life
I didn’t say it’s a bad thing. If someone tried to pay attention to every little choice they make, they would be exhausted before the morning coffee.
What kind of browser I use is important to me, since I am a geek. But I don’t pay attention to many things that more socially adept people would consider important.
the trick is to know what is worth paying attention to and what is not
Rather, the trick is to figure out what is important for you individually and learn to not care for the opinions of others thst go past factual decision making information.
How do?
some things are worth your time and some things are not, you yourself decide what is what. You just have to know what is important to you and consider things that affect that. And to also know what things are not worth giving a fuck. The capitalist society also trys to make you care about worthless things so those too will fill up your attention.
So in essence, if something isnt important to you and not caring about it doesnt make your life more difficult, let that thing go.
If someone tried to pay attention to every little choice they make, they would be exhausted before the morning coffee.
Story of my life.
same
Yeah I guess people doesn’t really care all that much about giving information to big tech, it’s so normalized today, in my university (I am a student) when I tell people I don’t use Instagram or TikTok and whatnot they look at me like I am crazy, tbh maybe if we define crazy as “not doing what everyone around you does” maybe I am
people doesn’t really care all that much about giving information to big tech
I was one of those people some time ago. I remember doing it deliberately and saying “what will they do to me? Offer me a product that better suits my needs?”
I never had any issues because of that…
right now I decline each time, the more work it costs me, the more motivated I am to decline every single marketing consent.
I do it out of spite, because of all the enshitification happening to services I used to like, and I just try to make their life harder.
I really hope that Google will, some day, miss one cent needed for some huge multi billion deal thanks to my resistance! ;)
not all heroes wear capes
people doesn’t really care all that much about giving information to big tech
To be fair, we haven’t had all the consequences of it hit the population yet.
Surveillance pricing might change the narrative
If people are going to talk about the details of their divorce in a tiktok video I doubt they care much that someone is tracking what products they looked at on amazon.
It’s like browser war 1.0 all over again but only on mobile…
(Microsoft had to do the exact same thing after they preinstalled Internet Explorer with Windows)
i’m sure more people would install brave now they know about how great it is
I’m sure more people would delete Brave if they started to apply the same standards they do for Firefox
Oh, you should just disable the rewards the cryptowallet the ads on the homepage and ignore all the nonsense they did in the past, then it’s greaaaaat
It isn’t that weird. Users have a very low tolerance for independence, especially as tech markets itself to less and less tech savvy userbases(like Gen alpha and z). They do what their screens tell them to for the most part.
like Gen alpha and z
As a gen Z who started with Linux with 12, daily driven it since 14 and dipped into Gentoo and arch at 15, I feel offended
We’re both on a Lemmy instance, neither of us represent our generations.
Autistic children will be discluded from the study for skewing results.
i’ve legit seen many people who have no idea what a web browser is, internet == chrome/safari/edge (which opens automatically when clicking a link on some app) for them. this isn’t just older people, actually it’s usually worse with younger people.
Meet my wife! Since this screen, she uses the duckduckgo browser (iOS) Idk why, she neither, but she is happy with it.
If i want the internet, I tap on the little internet app. Wth is a browser?
Chrome disabling ad-blocking doesn’t hurt either.
If something is good enough to do what you want you have no real motivation to change. People posting here are far more concerned about privacy than most people based on how much people seem to voluntarily share online anyway.
Really we should all just be using GNOME Web on a fresh Debian install. It makes me feel relaxed just thinking about it.
There is something humorous to the fact that these users have waited until Firefox has begun the AI enshitification process before switching to it. It’s like they just had to wait until it was no longer the clear. Good choice before they made the switch.
Firefox has begun the AI enshitification process
Dude, it’s like five things – one of which is just translations that can be performed locally, and another of which is an alt text accessibility option – with an obvious universal kill switch (and of course individualized ones). Calm your tits. Chill your balls. I don’t use LLMs at all except for translations, and I still think the whinging over this is completely overblown.
“Begun” implies a slippery slope of much more, and that just doesn’t seem to be the case.
Lol, ok chief.
Firefox lets you implicitly disable or remove them, slop browsers do not.
I don’t like AI either but lets not pretend there’s an equivalency between these browsers.
But this is talking about users who switched to Firefox only AFTER being presented with a choice directly in their face. The Firefox AI options are turned on by default, and I can’t remember if it was easily guided to turn them off. So this group may not find that an easy solution, or find it at all.
The difference is that there is a switch. Chrome does not. Not to mention, Firefox has optional AI features, which is different from a local AI model automatically installed. Mozilla/Mozilla staff has been vocal about how bad of an idea it is to make local AI a web standard reference
The AI stuff is behind a switch I have not seen a single AI feature while using Firefix nor do I see any ads
FireFox was enhittified even before the AI bits: it fucking spies on you
That’s why I use LibreWolf , which is literally just the latest-stable FF build, but with all the AI and telemetry ripped out, uBlock Origin and anti-fingerprinting enabled by default.
It’s literally what FireFox was supposed to be. And they don’t even accept money . God level.
Not denying, but how has it been spying? you mean telemetry?
Yes. “Telemetry” is a nice word for “spying on you”
Yeah ig it is
But there is no mobile version, and their FAQ says it’s unlikely to happen. Instead they point to IronFox, which I presume is nowhere close to feature equivalent to Firefox.
Its feature equivalent but it is so slow compared to Firefox fennec or waterfox.
Ironfox is literally a fork of Firefox Android with additional privacy settings. Why wouldn’t 8 have equivalent features?
which I presume is nowhere close to feature equivalent to Firefox.
why do you presume that?
I’m personally quite partial to Fennec.
Same here. Only thing I am missing from brave is PWA support.
I’ve been using Fennec for a while and it’s been a great experience. Much good. Do recommend.
IronFox, Fennec and Privacy Browser are all decent as far as mobile Firefox, on GrapheneOS I like to use mostly Vanadium and Privacy Browser
