Our laptop is locked. We cannot just install programs into it and there are regular audits on the content of the laptop so no portable applications also.
Of course on my personal laptop I’ve always used FF since I became aware of it, about the year 2007 or so.
OK, I don’t think your work laptop really counts, that’s entirely the decision and fault of your employer. We use Google apps at work but I don’t consider myself to be a Google apps user, just my work is.
Yeah but that in itself underlines the problem. A large part of people’s time is spent on work. And yes people do tend to use what is familiar.
Think of adobe. They offer students free access to adobe products. Which in turn transfers to a workforce that mainly use their products which in turn bleeds unto nonprofessionals using their products because of the abundance of youtube tutorials by professionals on how to use adobe products.
True, on the other hand this is very much employee driven. Some IT guy picked chrome as a company policy, and the reasoning behind it was looking at which browser would cause the least amounts of tickets with people complaining about browser choice.
The same is with office. Do you think a company likes to pay MS for it’s shitty office suite, for when people have to type out 3 lines of text? Of couse not, but it cuts down on whining. (obv. there are places that are “full contact” ms office users, with excel sheets full of macros, but these are quite a minority)
Point is if public opinion would shift to firefox, companies would just roll out an update to use firefox from now on. Yes some webapps would break, but that is like “activeX” dependent sites in 2018… A bit pathetic.
Yeah you are also correct. Now what we need to figure out is how to convince the majority, given that the proliferation of advertising from corporations and sheer exposure due to mere universal availability of chrome and other corp products is a major roadblock to overcome.
I used to be IT and now I’m in sysadmin work. I don’t make corporate software decisions personally but I work with the folks who do. You’re not entirely wrong but you’re being extremely reductive.
Browser decisions are less about complaints and more about minimizing the ability of third party vendors to blame issues with their sites and occasional business required extensions on our browser choice.
Vendors would be more likely to support Firefox if it was more popular with the public, but that’s more of a second order thing than some arbitrary “avoid complaints” decision. Fuck, half of sysadmin is selling the business on whatever shitty change you have to force on them because you don’t have a reasonable choice. Avoiding complaints is so far down the priority list that it’s routinely ignored.
The move to Chrome from IE where I work was caused by the vendor providing our timecard site making changes so it would only work in Chrome. One could argue “just drop the timecard vendor” but that’s a decision outside of IT’s hands (timecard and payroll is HR’s domain) and a change like that is too massive to kick off due to something like what web browser needs to be used. That effects payroll, time cards, employee reviews, taxes, access to benefits… too much to just go “IT says no”
For reference, this was ADP. I know not all of their contracts went through this (my wife’s workplace uses ADP and somehow is still on IE, their lack of IT security scares me) but again, not for IT to negotiate. Best part was that we had other business critical sites that still required IE, so while Chrome was the default, we had people using both.
We’ve since changed to Edge as default as vendors were dragged kicking and screaming away from IE and activeX (shudder), but now we still keep Chrome around for the vendors trying to get out of fixing their shit. Avoiding complaints does come into it, but far less than you’d think.
As far as MS Office goes, yes familiarity to the office workers comes into it (employee efficiency and saving time on training trumps personal stands about open source). There’s a lot more to it though. You can’t call up GNU support when OpenOffice shits the bed, we can and do with Microsoft sometimes just to calm a VIP. Having someone external to blame for things users don’t understand is a valuable tool. We can rely on MS Office having easy configuration options so we can meet the various regulatory requirements our company has. MS Office can be managed through the same tools we already use to manage OS settings in our environment with no custom work or additional software. We don’t rely on sometimes janky open source reverse engineering to open document types we recieve from outside our company, risking formatting issues causing problems with legal documents (yes, incredibly unlikely, but why even open yourself to the risk).
Admittedly, my workplace is “full contact” Office use. The things these bastards get up to with functions and macros is amazing and horrifying. When I was on the helpdesk I lost track of how many times I had to walk high level people through the fact that no their machine was not underpowered, they did not need more RAM, but that they had hit the limit for data in a single sheet in Excel and the only solution was to work with smaller amounts of data at a time. Since I’ve moved to sysadmin I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve had issues escalated to us because some department has constructed a faux DB using a bunch of Excel workbooks and data connectors between them. Just happy I’m not our SQL guy trying to move them away from that, poor bastard.
Anyway, at any medium or larger companies, these decisions have a lot more going on than tech dude preference and trying to avoid complaints.
I lost track of how many times I had to walk high level people through the fact that no their machine was not underpowered, they did not need more RAM, but that they had hit the limit for data in a single sheet in Excel and the only solution was to work with smaller amounts of data at a time
Ooh ooh ooh! I got to do this the other day! Out SAAS database software gives us only limited functions and no SQL access so I dumped half a million rows to Excel to make a spreadsheet following a request from the top. After a couple of hours I had crafted my spreadsheet was about to send it when I was told “oh nevermind, they foind they already have a custom report that shows them the same information”
You nailed it. I use FF for personal stuff, but I need a chromium browser for work (internal sites are wonky on FF).
But I work 8hrs a day for 5 days. I don’t even have 8 hours of total free time on saturday and sunday combined, much less use my pc for that long for personal things.
Why not? Brave is way better than standard chromium or even ungoogled chromium. Brave Shields is one of the best adblockers I’ve seen. Balances blocking trackers and not breaking websites really well.
I have converted over to Linux for a huge portion of my work flow but there is still the 20% I either can’t efficiently replicate or there is just not the software I need.
Where possible I choose to work outside of Microsoft, Google and Apple but to keep a roof over one’s head, I must endure too.
Stop using Chrome outside of work then. Unfortunately we usually can’t control the software environments we work in, but separate your work computing from your home computing. The stuff that Google would gain about your personal life is mostly gained from your personal browsing anyways, assuming you don’t use your work computer for personal browsing (that’s what phones are for).
Saw that, immediately reinstalled Firefox, saw the tab bar was still a mess and reuninstalled Firefox. Is there a non-chromium browser with a decent UI. Firefox is a disaster after 3 tabs.
I am genuinely curious what is your issue with the tab bar? I got a long list of issues I have with FF (still my main browser anyways) but the tab bar is not one of them and I always have 20+ tabs open. Not saying your opinion is wrong, just trying to understand why you think so.
Not OP but I really dislike the way Firefox handles multiple tabs. When there are too many tabs, Chrome would shrink the tabs to icon size, but Firefox insists on keep a weird minimum tab size and make you scroll the tabs awkwardly.
I stopped using Firefox for a long time because of that, until I discovered Sidebery (vertical tabs).
Besides just jumping ship to veritcal tabs, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a user .css customization, settings option, or other small extension to get that in Firefox.
Oh yea, that makes sense. The Chrome ones get super super small I think right? Has been a very long time since I last used it. I personally like it the was FF does it because I can more easily tell what tab is what, but I can totally see how it you would dislike that.
At work I can choose between Edge and Chrome as my only two options. I use Edge, but there’s really no benefit for me to use one over the other. Technically I think I can request Firefox, but it’d have to go through VP-level approvals or something stupid like that.
Based on the “coming back from lunch,” I’d assume this person is on their work computer.
Question: if personalized ads are so great, why can’t I just go into my google account’s settings and put there all the info about me? My income, my interests, ages of my children, my favorite food… Since personalized ads are so good every google users will just fill it in to get the best ads possible, right? Why not give people this option instead of implementing all this trackers?
Because everyone in the game is making money off those trackers. Just because you give them your address and general interests doesn't mean they know you're shopping for a new fence for your house or different daycares for your kids at a specific given time.
They are also scarily accurate too. To the point where some people were finding out their teenage daughters were secretly pregnant when Target would send them an infant coupon package in the mail that was intercepted by them. That was guessed solely on data Google and other entities sold them, that’s crazy.
I love how targeting yourself with ads relevant to your interests is presented as something advantageous for us. Sorry, I don’t desire to be constantly prodded to take interest in new gadgets and cat foods.
On my work devices I try to Google and use as many websites in Spanish as possible. So now when I get Ads I at least get the benefit of learning some new Español
You can set whether information like income, profession, education, etc is used, + or - different topics/brands, as well as see the ads you’ve been shown in the past.
This feature that the OP posted about however is about doing all this in the browser instead of doing the tracking on their servers and across various websites with embedded analytics/tracking code. The end goal is also to get rid of third-party cookies entirely, hopefully shutting down that method of tracking, while still being able to provide targeted advertising.
I’m joking of course but if people really wanted relevant adds they would just set it up like they create playlists in spotify. Spotify doesn’t have to track your browser history to guess what music will you enjoy because people just tell them that. Obviously no one wants personalized ads. Google knows this but they keep pretending that all this tracking is to improve your experience.
It’s funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people. Everyone uses chrome and rarely types in a web address, they just type the name of the thing into Google and trust mommy to show them what’s appropriate. They’ve back doored the entire population into basically what AOL was trying to be 20 years ago.
“we are going to help protect your privacy” from WHO Google? Is it from you? Because it seems like we need protection from you most of all. Constantly being gaslit by mega-corporations is the new American dream. It’s okay because they love us, deep down, and we know that even though they don’t show it.
It’s funny how small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up to a world where the largest advertising firm in the world basically is the internet for the vast majority of people.
In a microcosm of the same kind of creeping normalcy, Bethesda charging a few bucks for horse armor in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was once a reach too far, until it wasn’t.
Now we have Star Citizen levels of grifting as well as ActiBlizz “buy a currency to get a currency that is leveraged as currency to get credit toward a currency in a battle pass” layer cake grifting.
Can you expand on the last paragraph? I am not a gamer, so although I understand most words in that sentence I really have no idea what you’re referring to.
Well, to put it simply there are these things called microtransactions, basically you want items in a game or extra lives or something like that, you can pay for them instead of earning them, sometimes they make it so that certain items can only be paid for, worse they make it so that certain items can only be paid for and will only be offered for a limited amount of time. If you miss the window to buy them now you will never be given another chance. Normally this is something cool like a tie in with a new movie that came out or something of that nature. Fortnite does this a lot, hope you got those Marvel characters when they were offering them cuz you’re not getting them now.
But as if that wasn’t bad enough there was another layer to it, one of the things you can buy with microtransactions, using real money, is a form of money that can only be used in the game.
So, what you give them a dollar, they give you 100 coins, and there isn’t even exchange rate? Of course not
There are various bundles where you can buy the premium currency as it is often called. Typically the more expensive bundles give more, and it’s not tiered properly, so let’s say $5 gives you 800 coins, but $10 gives you 2,000 coins, it’s to goad you and to always buying the higher amount, even if you only want that one item.
But it can get worse, they can set the prices so that you can just barely afford the item you want with that $10 tier, so the next year is 5000 coins for $20. And with that you can get enough coins to buy the item you want and have just a little left over, but not enough for you to do anything with unless you buy a lot of coins to supplement that amount, which can trick you into thinking that you’re getting a good deal when you are actually being fleeced pretty hard.
Fortnite is so bad because despite it being a good game, it does all of the above and targets to children who don’t know anything about money.
There are cases where you can buy one form of Premium currency with real money, so that you can buy a higher tier of Premium currency with the premium currency you bought with real money, forcing you to pay even more.
And this is one reason why modern games suck, the other reason is that everyone is using the same Engine.
That’s fascinating, it’s like microtransaction recursion. I actually want someone to say fuck it and pull the wool off and just create a legitimate gambling first person shooter… I would love that. I used to play counter strike a long time ago and love poker. Just have like an ammo buy in cost that forms the prize pool. Make it tournament style with a bounty a top 3 and just rake part of the pool for profits and all that money your going to have to pour into cheating detection.
I imagine one day these practices will be cracked down upon when the European Union comes out for blood, the European Union is actually pretty good at getting us new laws that help regulate the internet and Technology.
I don’t have a problem with a game that is based on gambling, I just don’t think one should be targeted to children, and I definitely believe that you need to be upfront about what you’re actually doing.
Sadly the European Union is a case of, the wheels of Justice move slowly, but they are moving. Only recently did they make loot boxes illegal, but loot boxes had already been abandoned by the industry in favor of something far worse, the battle pass.
Basically you pay a fee, and then you can unlock various features by doing certain missions, but if you don’t claim everything by the time the battle pass goes off of sale, then tough luck, and if you don’t get that battle pass, you are likely never getting a chance to get those features. So not only does it encourage you to buy a battle pass, but to play the game obsessively to make sure you unlock everything from the battle pass in time. And all that time there are bombarding you with ads for various other products that you can buy with micro transactions. It is Devious.
I play World of Tanks which has frequent battle passes. I used to try and grind earlier but then came a moment where I said fuck it, this feels like work and not fun. So now I just treat the base game as what I get. Any other reward is just a bonus. This change in mindset has worked quite well for me.
They gotta their digital peasantry, I mean users, from other feudal lords, I mean corporations, to maximize their power over them and ability to exploit them, I mean … No wait that’s right.
small incremental changes over the years felt like nothing big was happening and then at some point we all woke up
I (and many others I presume) has been saying Chrome is shit since the beginning. It didn’t feel like nothing was happening, it felt like we were slowly getting to the old days of IE and Netscape.
There are always a few that see this stuff coming, but they usually get looked at like a crazy person shouting about the sky falling.
It also feels like they really push a lot of the terrible on mobile first, get people used to concepts with the “that’s just how mobile is, it’s a different world” and then when most are accustomed to it they move to regular pc enshitification.
I do not like how websites prioritise the mobile view over desktop view even when it is on a desktop. You have a widescreen and want to waste all that horizontal space? Just ridiculous!
Yeah yeah, I understand it is less maintenance from a developer point of view, but still it is infuriating as a user.
Just want to point out that Firefox has sponsored links, sponsored articles, and Mozilla ads that randomly pop up. Is it way better than Chrome and anything Google? Absolutely, by miles and miles. Is it completely innocent in the ad game? No.
I use LibreWolf. It’s a Firefox fork with enhanced privacy and it gets rid of the built in adware. Combine with uBlock Origin for an ad-free experience.
I just use ublock with Firefox, I’m fine with the baked in ads on Firefox I don’t mind supporting them. Considering what the other option is, I want to support them.
Mozilla at least goes to great lengths to ensure any advertising they do is about as privacy friendly as it can be, plus it’s easily disabled in the settings
Chrome is now - and has been for a while - actively a threat towards its users (on top of being one towards the web itself). Here is a recent list of hostile moves, for example.
In terms of threat towards users Windows 10/11 is even worse, by a large margin - it actively and very aggressively spies on you.
Use firefox and switch to Linux (I suggest Debian), comrade penguin-love
Serious question: Why do you use Chrome, a browser made by the world's largest advertising and spying company, when you give the slightest f* about privacy?
At least use Ungoogled Chromium if you're not gonna switch to something actually privacy-focused. Basically the same functionality, but without Google's spyware.
I use it because of inertia. I jumped from Firefox to Chrome back when Chrome was new and came with hot features, like tab isolation, or being ultra fast. Google has gone through enshitification though, and FF has gotten much better since those days. I’ve started the migration back to Firefox now though.
I swapped to Chrome a long time ago, probably around Firefox 7 or so, and never really looked back. I didn’t really have an issue with being part of the Google ecosystem, and they were still in their embrace phase. It’s been a while.
I have both browsers installed at the moment and under Linux/Wayland/Nvidia, Firefox definitely performs miles better (actual HW acceleration!) but Chrome still feels more practical to use, in my opinion. I think my main hang-up is that Chrome’s “Tab Groups” suit my approach to web browsing better than Firefox “Tab Containers”, even factoring in how Multi-Account Containers can make them more useful.
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