this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Privacy
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Yeah but it's more complicated than that. Do you think the average user that for some reason uses Firefox will try to find out why his Google page isn't working? Last year Google was fined €2.5b due to unfair competition. This is not the first time, Google probably makes a lot of people switch doing these things. The top post of Lemmy is about Google turning itself into spyware and this just shows just how thats accurate.
I honestly think more people are willing to switch than you think
I think the average Firefox user won't be using anything Google (other than YouTube, but even then it'll probably be through alternative frontends).
Google is literally the default firefox search engine.
I think the average Firefox user is smart enough to change the search engine... And disable Mozilla's telemetry... And just not use stock Firefox...
That is wildly optimistic
Why would I disable Mozilla's telemetry though?
Because it is a privacy issue. Turning it off won't turn off all telemetry though. You need to get into the weeds or use librewolf.
Also make sure you turn off "experiments", enable scrict mode, I stall ublock origin, and change the search engine.
How is it a privacy issue? Reading their information page on telemetry data, they don't collect personal data except for temporary collection of the IP address, which gets deleted every 14 days. Do they collect more than they claim?
There information page will just tell you what you want to here. Look at Firefoxs network access and you should see it still try to reach out.
While your statement is true, I install Firefox on any computer I support (family & friends) because I understand it better, can talk them through stuff on the phone and so I can install an ad blocker and not.have to deal with all of that. So now I need to explain to family and friends that Google is to blame, but they don't care and ask me to install "the normal browser". Ugh.
Also, I now have to deal with the Google-heads at work using this as an example of how chrome is the superior browser. Double ugh.
I feel you have a wrong perception of the average Firefox user.
It's not a recent fad for tech and privacy enthusiasts. The browser has been around for 2 decades, many people have been using it since forever and just don't switch to anything else. People around me are all on Firefox (>20% market share in Germany), and yet using the google ecosystem all over.
Granted, in the last 6-12 months privacy enthusiasts came over from Chrome, but that doesn't mean that this is their largest user base. Far from it.