this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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According to statcounter in June 2023 almost 3/4 of browsers used are Chromium (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Sorry in advance for what might appear to be rambling (because it kind of is), but I had a few thoughts and I’m very curious how the community sees these things. I’ll try to do my best to condense them.

After reading through the discussion beneath a post about yet another Brave scandal, I decided to look up the marketshare of chromium. According to statcounter 73.43% of browsers used are chromium based (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Samsung Internet) and only a measly 2.8% use Firefox.

About the statistics: 73% of access to the internet for humans and bots alike go through software largely developed by one player. What are your thoughts on the effect this probably has on the development of the internet as a whole?

About brave and other wildly popular privacy focused products: compared to a lot of people in this fine community I’m a casual-privacist, but I do my best to review what sort of software/hardware I use, weigh opsec and convenience, etc. I also try to stay away from privacy influencers (is that a thing yet? If not, it should be) and the products they tend to shill, which brings me to my next point. What do you think about the scandals surrounding supposedly secure products and services that were heavily pushed by influencers (like brave, all kinds of laughable vpns, password managers, etc.)? Do you think the people who shill these products help or hinder tech literacy? I have a suspicion that most people flirting with the idea of privacy for the first time choose these products and services the same way they would buy a car or a toaster; by googling (affiliate links galore in SEO hell) or watching a video review on youtube and they only long for feeling safe (I’m safe because the talking head said so). What would be a great way to improve the tech/privacy literacy situation? How do we upgrade privacy from being a buzzword in ad campaigns to a life skill (maybe not the best way to describe it, but you get the point)?

Lastly, and thank you for bearing with me here. What’s wrong with Firefox?! Is it the marketing (or lack thereof)?

tldr: basically a long showerthought and an invitation for discussion about the unfair marketshare of chromium, and “privacy focused” products shilled by influencers.

Disclaimer: I don’t know how accurate the linked data is, I did not collect it or review it and I don’t know how trusted the site is supposed to be. True that I have some negative opinions about Brave and I have never used it. Probably never will and the only reason is that it just seems a bit fucky to me, even if it doesn’t have any dangerous faults. Reading the rules, I didn’t find anything that prohibits posta like this, but if I’m mistaken… sorry.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the thing with chromium being everywhere is with the illusion of choice. there's like 10 major browsers, as a end-user who doesn't really know any better they might all seem different but in reality theyrall based on chromium, with Firefox being the exception

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I can see the new EU directive about labelling chromium based browsers, haha.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even vanilla Firefox is better from a privacy point of view than something like Edge or Chrome (both from companies who really want your data), and if you just substitute the name IE for Edge you understand where a big chunk of their user numbers come from. Firefox is solid, even with bugs and glitches it's been my choice since the beginning (to replace its predecessor, Netscape, another solid one).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Edge is at least solid. In an environment like work where privacy is nonexistent I use edge. Mainly because I have/work in multiple azure tenants and this allows me to maintain SSO and separation while still easily switching and syncing data. It’s leagues beyond IE.

That said, beyond that very specific use case (but it is a pretty big use case), I really don’t have much use for it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree it's better than IE was, but let's be fair - that's a low bar. I also (have to) use Edge in a workplace, and for controlled intranet areas it's great. Ironically I still have to use IE partially, since it's a depreciated and not replaced part of Excel/VBA's web browser connection. That change last year made dealing with macros that pull info a lot more difficult to work with in security popups that can't be automated away.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah. The bar was so low it was a black hole for sure.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And chrome is repeating history with that browser share too. I have to use chrome at work and it used to be that I used Firefox at home because of tab containers and a couple other extensions. Now I use it because it's better.

Sometime over the pandemic it shifted. Now chrome is the thing bogging down and Firefox is snappy with a smaller memory footprint.

If this is IE all over again we've got a good 5+ years of slow attrition to look forward to.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course it sucks, but Mozilla definitely isn't helping itself by being quite shady itself, and honestly Firefox is often usable only with grinding of teeth, especially on mobile.

The only real reason to use Firefox at this point is for the principle of it, and maybe some addons (which Mozilla is also trying its best to kill).

Honestly the whole concept of a modern browser is just so fucking wrong. Like OK JavaScript is a good thing to some degree, but almost all of the time, the only thing I need from the browser is to just show me the fucking web site. I don't need it to rat on my codecs, fonts and phone model to the server. I don't need to run a 3D accelerated game engine in the browser. I don't need support for all this bullshit, because the only people that actually take advantage of it are advertisers trying to spy on me.

There's "market" for a small, lightweight browser with no support for all the advanced nonsense that's just fingerprinting bloat. Fuck, I'd probably pay for that rather than using Google's of Mozilla's behemothic crap.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally switched back to Chrome even though I hate it on my phone because for reasons beyond my understanding Firefox does not have pull to reload. Ah but you might say that the nightly version does and I did try to use it for a while, but it also for some reason it very minorly messes with text selection in a way that no other app does.

On desktop Chrome has some great tab management features that I am currently used to, not to mention a bunch of other incredibly minor features. Like why does Firefox reimplement the standard middle click scrolling in windows with its own and not let me use the normal one? The firefox one is weirdly sensitive and I can't change that. All these minor annoyance and added jank mean that I want to switch for privacy, but won't for usability. But Chrome is also getting some BS that Google is trying with extensions so, maybe I will switch... eventually.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firefox on mobile does in fact have pull to reload.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

you ever see a comment and just wonder if it was erroneously sent to you from another timeline via cyberwormholes?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you're still willing to try, on Android there's IceRaven, which implements pull to refresh, and support for more addons. Despite my hatred of FF on Android, I still kinda use it.

Btw instead of Chrome, I've been using Bromite and now Mulch. Bromite is particularly awesome, but no longer supported and it's still Chromium so there's that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

🤢 I think I'm going to be sick. 🥴

I only use lubrewolf behind 7 VPNs.

Yes. I said LUBErewolf

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it less usable than librewolf? Because if it is, I’m in!I’ll just connect through 3 tors, an onion and a carrot, just to be sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's so secure it doesn't allow any text input!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Awesome! Do you know if there is a free (as in free-range) addon that deletes my resolv.conf file as soon as I open the browser? I think that would be a prudent extention to the input blocker, so that the risk of visiting a site is minimal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I wonder what made people switch. I've used Firebird/Firefox since the beginning, have all my settings right and all the right addins. I would expect people to be too lazy to switch, even if Chrome would be better (which it isn't).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What's wrong with Firefox?!

I will get downvotes for this, but you asked:

Firefox is slow and glitchy, and lots of websites break or just perform worse than chrome.

Firefox used to have ~30% market share around 13 years ago, when it was better than the competition. The reason it's dropped so significantly is because better options came along (chrome)

I understand the arguments about Google controlling the internet through chromium. I would love for Firefox to actually be the best browser, but it's not.

And since Firefox users ignore these citisisms and act like it's the best browser ever, there is not enough pressure for Firefox to actually fix these issues, since their users act like it's already the best thing available and perfect in every way. It's very similar to why Linux doesn't catch on.

I have tried just about every browser available. I will use the one that performs the best and has the best features. Currently that is Brave, which is a great browser, but I would absolutely jump to Firefox if things changed and it became the best performing option.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Why down vote an opinion? We are all allowed them.

I've used Firefox since before it was Firefox and haven't witnessed any of the issues you have. As a web developer, I've also never had an issue with Firefox requiring special design considerations( looking at you, MS).

I appreciate the fact that Firefox has small share. I have seen what happens when a company and browser become too large and powerful, as Google Chrome has.

Use what works for you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

source - trust me bro?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

These issues are posted about about all the time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1030fri/why_does_firefox_feel_slowchoppy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/y5o8io/i_love_firefox_but_many_popular_websites_are_slow/

https://www.reddit.com/r/computerscience/comments/12jpdft/why_is_firefox_so_slow_compared_to_other_web/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/11utln3/firefox_feels_slow/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/11y2139/why_is_firefox_so_slow/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/gg8424/why_is_firefox_so_slow/

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/12k4ysr/why_does_reddit_run_slow_on_my_firefox/

And everyone wonders why Firefox has less than a 3% market share

EDIT: Also here are actual benchmark numbers for a more quantitative analysis: https://www.pttrns.com/fastest-browsers-for-windows-10/

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These actual benchmarks are just synthetic ones. In my personal expierence (using (ungoogled-)chromium and firefox side by side on the same sites) neither is noticeable faster or slower.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well in my experience, Firefox is definitely slower, and it is immediately apparent that it is much jankier than Chrome. And as the many posts I linked above show, I am not the only one with this experience.

Also it's hilarious how I give a source and now the goal posts are moved and the benchmarks are "synthetic"

CPU and GPU benchmarks are also "synthetic" but they still show actual differences between what is being tested.

Qualitatively and quantitatively, Firefox is slower.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Makeshift

I've never noticed Firefox to be janky, error-prone, etc. and I use a good number of plug-ins, including sandboxed, categorized tabs, no-script, privacy-badger, and an ad-blocker, among others. I don't doubt that the benchmarks say it's slower, but as a practical matter, I've never thought of the browser as slow.

@CAPSLOCKFTW @privacy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hi there! The links in your response are not clickable for Lemmy users, here are the clickable versions: [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Synthetic CPU and GPU Benchmarks will give you an idea which one might be faster, but in practice a previously "slower" GPU can beat a "faster" one in certain gsmes. Same goes for processors.

And even further: having one GPU running CS:Go with 300 fps and another one with 3000 makes absolutely no difference when playing the game.

I don't disagree with your expierence or the other ones. Might be actually true, might be the result of bias, might be related to other issues, it ultimatively does not matter to me as in my day to day expierence one does not surpasses the other in terms of speed, and I am not the only one with this experience.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@Makeshift @CAPSLOCKFTW for me FF is slower on Android, not on Desktop

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely valid points and I get your choice. Used to hop browsers for about a decade before I settled on firefox, not because of the privacy aspect, it just felt cozy. I guess I’m getting old, I can’t really tell the difference between performance anymore, all browsers feel fast enough. Honestly, didn’t even think speed would be a concern.

…and I’m sure firefox would be a lot less glitchy if I didn’t insist breaking every single page with noscript. Now, where’d I put my tinfoil hat

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I’ll take your word for it, but I never use any other browser so I’m happily ignorant by continuing to use Firefox. A few times I’ve needed to open Edge since it’s already preinstalled on Windows. The few times I’ve done so I’ve not noticed any significant increase in performance. On the contrary, the user experience was pretty horrible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Firefox isn't great (in terms of privacy and security) but I use with though librewolf

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