Just use Firefox. Skip all this bullshit.
I use Firefox because I want you use a web browser whose main focus is browsing the web.
Great, because it comes bundled with an extension to show you news article you may be interested in, occasional ads for their other paid services and will regularly nudge you into donating money so that it can be used for many purpose beside improving the browser.
This is interesting, maybe I changed a settingn years ago but when I start fire fix it just takes me to an empty window until I type something in. Doesn’t try to sell me anything
This is my biggest gripe about Firefox. It keeps trying to recommend “Search with Amazon” instead of google search and a bunch of small little ads baked into the home landing page.
Does it send all your data to china, ms, or google?
Seeing that neither Edge nor Chrome does either of those outside of regular browser operations, which also happens with Firefox, I’m not sure how that’s relevant.
I really really want to believe in firefox but the corporations behind it are way too fishy.
The whole setup of mozilla foundation and mozilla coporation stinks. Mozilla asking for donations when the donation amount is barely 1 percent of their income.
That’s an odd complaint. If they didn’t ask for donations, donations would be a lower % of their income. How many donations do you need before you can ask for donations?
It’s not a matter of how many donation do you need, it’s a matter of why are you asking for donations in the first place. When half the donations barely cover the salary of the head honcho through shifting restricted cash between organizations, you have to have some confidence to prominently display “We exist to advance the interests of people who use the internet — not profit for shareholders.” on your summary.
So dont donate?
Mozilla used to be much smaller and did rely on some form of donations to continue development. That may not be the case today, but the option is still there for those who’d like to
If a corporations earns halve a billion. Does it really need donations?
The whole concept of a parent company owning the foundation is fishy. Its just as strange that firefox seems to be like by privacy people when the owners are as instranparent as mozilla.
Firefox is open source. Check it out for yourself or find a fork that works better for you.
The whole concept of a parent company owning the foundation is fishy.
The non-profit foundation is the parent company. It has some taxable subsidiaries that, among other things, handle certain revenue-generating business deals.
You say that like it is any better.
A non-profit that owns a for-profit company is very well not realy non-profit. Just because all their profit is made by one of their subsidaries? And yet mozilla stand itself on some kind of moral highground.
A non-profit that owns a for-profit company is very well not realy non-profit.
All of the profit of the subsidiary goes to the nonprofit parent, in furtherance of its nonprofit mission. The subsidiary doesn’t exist to make anybody rich but just to earn (taxable) income for the parent.
Earning and profiting are two very different things.
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Sadly Firefox on iPhone doesn’t translate [human languages]. I don’t want to use Chrome on iPhone and Firefox on PC because synchronising bookmarks and history is too important to give up.
I don’t own an iPhone, but this seems like a totally fair criticism and I don’t see any replies refuting it, so what’s with all the downvotes? I swear to god this place is ridiculous sometimes, these people won’t be happy until you jump through every hoop imaginable to use the Lemmy approved software. Only positive feedback allowed!
because this is inherently Apple’s fault and not Mozilla’s.
Apple’s the one forcing every browser on iOS to be a reskinned version of Safari. And it’s perfectly understandable that Mozilla doesn’t want to waste time and resources developing features for a Firefox-branded Safari when they could be working on their own browser.
What’s your point? The dude gave a perfectly valid reason to not using Firefox, regardless of who’s fault it is.
But also, how on earth would building a functional browser for a phone that owns 55% of the US market share be a waste of time and resources?
it’s a perfectly valid reason for not using Firefox, my point is that they’re on the wrong platform. It’s the user’s own fault, because they chose a closed platform like iOS. Developing free software for iOS is a waste of time, since everything is under Apple’s tyrannical rule and they get to decide which web engine you use, they can disallow extensions and make it very hard (and against their ToS) to sideload apps.
I don’t like Mozilla at all, and that’s why I use Firefox derivatives and not Firefox itself, but I’m glad they don’t waste time developing for a re-skinned Safari. Those resources are best used in their own web engine.
these people won’t be happy until you jump through every hoop imaginable to use the Lemmy approved software
and hardware apparently lol
I am also confused. I didn’t know phone browsers were a team sport, but here we are.
Firefox Sync doesn’t work on iPhone?
No, Firefox on iPhone doesn’t translate [human languages]. I don’t want to use Chrome on iPhone and Firefox on PC because they don’t sync between each other.
Doesn’t translate to what…
Human languages. French to English, German to Arabic, that kind of thing.
“Microsoft Edge runs on the same technology as Chrome, with the added trust of Microsoft”
Wow. If there ever was a reason to run, this is it.
To Firefox, sure. But if you’re on Windows and your preferred alternative is Chrome you really might as well stay with Edge and benefit from the integration into Microsoft’s ecosystem. Either way your data is being harvested.
That’s what MS would love to be the reason. Integration with the ecosystem. I still remember the nightmare IE6 was.
I remember that nightmare vividly, my old company was using that piece of absolute garbage up until 2017 or so, until all the critical crap that had it as a hard requirement was replaced.
Indeed. I did web development at the time and I distinctly remember nightmares of doing things by the book and then having to spend 30% more time to make the whole thing work on IE. Sometimes you had to address IE6 and 7 separately. No amount of Microsoft PR these days can’t save them from hatred I have accumulated back then.
Adding a negative number is the same as subtracting a positive number.
I learned that in school.
Friendly reminder that winget comes preinstalled on Windows 11 now.
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
You can install Firefox without even opening Edge!Btw, MS stole it.
Not exactly “stole”; the author was fine about the code being used in this way. What they were upset about is the lack of attribution and communication.
Isn’t this what licenses are for?
The license was Apache 2.0, and there was a tiny bit of attribution…just enough to cover the license requirements.
On Windows 10 too. I always just download from the website or store but I recently experienced the pretty fun of updating my apps over CLI for some reason
Which is something you will need to do to not accept their privacy invasive terms and conditions that you have to accept before using the bloated data harvesting browser.
Why downloading chrome when you are using edge? Download Firefox.
I need chrome to download firefox
And then use Firefox to download Lynx.
This is the way, or even better use LibreWolf
Nah. I’d rather download another browser (besides chrome of course)
Such as…
webkit based thing?
Why are you downloading chrome? You are supposed to download Firefox.
Install. Linux.
Switch to Linux, runaway from the windows shit and depravity.
Because Microsoft is so damn pushy. Literally anytime they ask my feedback is that they need to just fuck off from my PC and do the bare minimum that I require them to do. I don’t need all the bullshit they throw on there to try and get more and more of my data.
Microsoft: Should we invest time and energy into allowing a basic feature in the W11 taskbar, like the ability to ungroup items? No, better divert resources into pushing our shitty browser and making polls!
Dont forget they fucked their own BASIC search feature by making it assume you want to BING websearch when you’re trying to quick locate a file on your computer
Seriously, the number of times I type something into the desktop search and want web search results is exactly zero.
I’m pretty sure this was the final straw for me. Even if Valve didnt support a banger version of Linux that evens the playing field for gaming, win 10 and 11 were always going to make me make the jump to Linux
I’m running w11 and I have no idea why everyone is having all this trouble. I have it set to behave like win 10 and barely notice a difference. But I also have the reg key from my win 10 laptop so I can imagine anyone pirating it without a key is gonna have a bad time.
I’m not pirating came with the laptop.
You cannot ungroup items in the task bar. Such a basic necessity is not available.
I’m actually alright with this, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. It seems totally sensible for them to ask why you don’t want to use Edge and would rather use Chrome.
If we want to prevent monopolies, we need healthy competition. If Microsoft improves Edge based on this user feedback to create an actually good product, then we all win. It means that if Firefox starts to pull the shit that Google is doing, we have a solid alternative.
Of course the manner in which Microsoft does this matters a lot, but the actual concept itself is a good one.
I’m actually alright with this, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. It seems totally sensible for them to ask why you don’t want to use Edge and would rather use Chrome.
I wish for Microsoft to mind their business when I download another browser. A web developer or someone excersizing their freedom of choice should not need to deal with petty and sorry looking surveys.
On the other hand, it is fine to ask how the browser experience is like but not this.
If we want to prevent monopolies, we need healthy competition. If Microsoft improves Edge based on this user feedback to create an actually good product, then we all win. It means that if Firefox starts to pull the shit that Google is doing, we have a solid alternative.
Unfortunately, this privacy invasive feature goes against this concept because it already made the browser worse. Also, Edge is chromium based. Mozilla, Apple’s Safari, and Chromium are the only true browser choices. Edge may bring some UX features, but they are data harvesting focused and not the core browser mechanisms. Microsoft is taking the work Google, and the chromium community puts into the code base and then running their own data harvesting UX on top. It is not a “alternative” browser choice, ever.
With Microsoft’s track record, this survey is not to improve the browser but to harvest more data to pinpoint your identity and behavior to sell to advertisers and data analysts. So the “manner” Microsoft does this is more of a reason for not wanting to have this.
Yeah that’s fair. If they just open a tab that says they’re sorry to see you go but would appreciate feedback, that’d be fine. Trying to block the download to say that, not cool at all
I think it’s a conflict of interest to leverage their position as an OS provider to do this. If they want feedback they can pay a market research firm like a normal company. God knows they have the money.
Its the browser that pops it up. Go download Firefox on Chrome and the same thing happens.
My problem with all of it is, they’ve built that shit into the browser. That means baked into the browser, it is watching what I’m doing and doing things on its own based on what I do.
It leaves the door open for them to bother me/phone home anytime I do something that isn’t in their interests. Are they going to add in similar things for me looking for windows, office, GitHub, or Xbox alternatives?
I feel like a lot of users won’t use edge because of spite. It’s intrusive and manipulative stuff like this which has angered a lot of people. Admittedly, this is one of the more harmless reactions.
Edge: "Nobody likes me. :( "
Microsoft: "Don’t worry. We will make them like you. >:] "
It’s none of Microsoft’s business if I’m using their web browser or not. They shouldn’t be blocking my use of another product just because I don’t like theirs.
But they’re not, you can still download and use any browser you like.
They are throwing unnecessary blockades (the article mentions 4 popups/warnings that Edge is just as good as Chrome).
I just went and downloaded chrome from Edge. Nothing got in my way. There was a notification in the corner suggesting I use edge, and then a banner at the top of the page after I downloaded it, but literally nothing got in my way.
Sure, it’s mildly annoying, but nothing got in my way or prevented me from getting Chrome.
And downloading firefox gave zero notifications or banners, it was just normal. Same with Safari.
I really don’t see what is preventing me from using other browsers here.
If they’re that crazy over their browser, how much other shit are you sending them you don’t know about?
The competition between Chrome and Edge is very shallow, they’re two slightly altered and heavily branded reskins of chromium, the real competition would be Firefox and it’s forks (mullvad, waterfox, librewolf) (and maybe webkit aka safari) Vs chromium but there’s no big corporation behind those (except safari, but it has many of the problems that big corpo chromium browsers have) , so they’re struggling a lot.
Microsoft is synonymous with “healthy competition!” /s
Edge collects your “ctrl-f” in-page searches. Fuck that with a cactus.
I assure you that no percent of the people this poll is aimed at make decisions because of that. They don’t even know about it.
Microsoft: Possibly the biggest motivator in people switching to Linux or MacOS.
I’m about to jump ship to Linux. I have been a Windows user since it first came out. I was DOS savvy before that, but Microsoft has just been getting worse and worse. They have never made a web browser that is worth a teaspoon of salt being high on the list of reasons they suck. Buuuuut, it’s what all the software runs on. Now, though, they have gotten to be such bullies about forced updates and more that I am done. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a little intimidating to have to start all over again, especially since Linux expects you to be very hands on with everything and I have let a looooot of my savvy slip by the wayside, but I feel like I’ve been forced at this point.
Something about boiling a frog
Unless you heavily depend on Adobe or a very niche proprietary software you’ll be fine. Install something user friendly like Linux Mint or Ubuntu and you’ll be fine. If you stick to these distros, Linux is going to be really really easy.
Well, in the case of Linux, also free. Many years ago I built an HTPC to run a media center at home and I got it all done and I realized that I didn’t actually HAVE install media (or a spare license) for windows and it kinda irritated me that a legitimate license was going to cost me like $100 for a computer that wouldn’t ever do anything but stream media from my own server. I had heard of linux before and I really wanted to make sure that my hardware worked without having to figure out how to actually buy windows and wound up installing ubuntu to test it out. I was surprised to discover that once installed it wasn’t really all that different from Windows and decided then and there that this would be perfectly adequate for my HTPC and wound up using linux on various machines ever since. (I always have an old thinkpad running some flavor of linux for most of my general computing).
Like a lot of folks, I think the only thing I use windows for is working remotely and gaming (although, that is less and less the case since I got a steam deck and linux support for gaming has gotten SO much better over the last ten years).
I was surprised to find that gaming on linux just works. Valve has done a wonderful job in improving proton.
Proton is so good now that there are games that have native Linux versions that run better if you play the Windows version with proton.
I virtual machine Linux these days. There is just too much effort in getting everything moved over from streaming video to games. No I don’t want to see a tutorial.
Linux for regular stuff, Microsoft for entertainment. Except porn. I still need Linux for porn because I am not insane
Been Linux full time since February. 100% because of the bullshit MS is pulling. Hard pass.
On a side note, Linux is fantastic now, all my games work, it doesn’t everything I need/want it to do with ease.
both of them are fighting over the exclusive rights to your browsing data and ad-impressions.
They can both suck an egg.
They can both suck an egg.
Self-censorship is the best censorship
advice you should have taken
As someone once said to me. Microsoft is not something you like, but is something you have to withstand due to Enterprise use it so much, and have so many users.
But when it comes to the browser, then you have to follow the standard for HTML, and suddenly you can choose something else.
“have to follow the standard for HTML”
Websites have historically been so godawful about complying with web standards that browsers had no choice but to support grossly non-standard code. Which then became standard. Now the vast majority of the web only works because of browser implementation details. So it’s Chromium and Gecko and nothing else ever again.
Microsoft is actually to blame for that. IE6 was bundled with XP and was so popular that others have been in single digit percentages. MS used this to start modifying standards and developers followed most popular browser. The ever so famous embrace, extend, extinguish tactics MS is so fond of. So JS and CSS being broken for the longest time was thanks to MS and their attempt to secure monopoly, which they succeeded for the better part of the decade.
And now that Microsoft has been driven back on that front, Google has started to use Chrome in the same way.
Indeed. Although Google has less power than what Microsoft did. Chrome’s engine is after all open source and everyone can just diverge. However there are more things than just engine. All Google needs to do is require Chrome to be able to sync bookmarks or something similar and people will ditch others.
So download firefox! Anyway, edge is a reskinned chrome, like nearly all chrome based browsers…
If I can’t use FF or one of its derivatives I will literally use edge just in spite of chrome, and do everything possible to not use chrome
I recommend Ungoogled Chromium if you have to pick a Chromium derivative. It’s a solid browser with the spyware removed, rather than taped over and exchanged with Microsoft’s own.
Is edge based off of chrome?
Yes, at this point the choice is who gets to spy on you.
Yes, but they replaced the Google spyware with the Microsoft one (as you can easily see from the behavior when downloading Chrome)
It’s based on Chromium.
So there’s no spyware to be taped over?
Well, there’s a bit of work to do. See Ungoogled Chromium for an example of a stripped-down Chromium.
Not an easy question. Chromuim by default has pre-made blobs of code from Google that cannot be opened/inspected. We don’t know if Microsoft has replaced or excised those blobs from Edge.
Ungoogled Chromium is a community project that replaces those blobs with code we can see amd audit, but again we don’t know if Microsoft builds off Ungoogled Chromium or just Chromium, because Edge itself is not open source.
Yeah
Microsoft, if they weren’t run by morons could capitalize HARD on Google’s fuckery.
Hey, we’ve got the chromium browser but we won’t be following suit with googles anti ad blocking bullshit!
This would convert a bunch of people, including me. And with me goes pretty much 30 people in my range (family / friends) since I setup their shit anyway.
But, no Microsoft is just licking Google’s asshole and applying lipstick on the chrome turd and wondering why no-one wants it.
Might I add, they keep adding so much useless junk to their browser hopping that any of it will stick, and it’s just bloat and more bloat.
Edge is going full IE6. The Greeks were right, time is a fucking circle, not a line.
But Microsoft don’t want you to block ads either, so they’d never do that anyway.
You can’t blame them for wanting to know. It’s a major market, and they’re getting their asses kicked. If I had to pick one, I’d pick Edge over Chrome, so it’s actually an interesting question anyway.
I switched to chrome just to try it out years ago, and then I probably would have switched to edge when it replaced explorer just to try that out, but Microsoft just got so pushy trying to convince me to use it and forcing it as default and little notifications about how it’s the best that I just refuse to use it out of spite now.
You would rather be edging over chroming.
🤨📸
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6C49HbyiZ0&t=17
You chromed your dick?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=h6C49HbyiZ0&t=17
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You can’t blame them for wanting to know.
I think that the problem here is that Edge inject the poll in a web page, served from a site that is not from Microsoft, not that they asked it.
I would maybe understand that they asked when installing Chrome, or if was from a page from Microsoft. What’s next ? Ask because I use bank A instead of bank B ?
I think the number one answer is just that for so long people have heard not to use MS’s browser and most people have no clue one way or the other so they just follow the herd. (Not insulting them, there is no possible way for anyone to be intimately informed about every single topic and so for things you don’t care one way or the other, might as well follow word of mouth)
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picking between a turd sandwich and a giant douche, what a decision to make. Firefox all the way, nothing stinky happening in that direction, no need to just pick between the two because it will always be NEITHER
