Currently a university student, and somewhat frequently, I see Firefox installed on people’s laptops but they also have Chrome installed and are using Chrome, or Edge, or Safari. Rarely do I see Firefox actually being used but I see it installed frequently. Does anyone have a clue as to why they have it installed?
Yea I know Chromium monopoly and open source browser and whatnot but the average Andy does not know what any of that is.
It’s software used to browse the Internet.
It is wild how many people here are offended by me asking a simple question and down voting me. Privacy, open source, customization like CSS, extensions, etc those are all gibberish to non tech savvy users.
I’m trying to see a reason to use Firefox from the perspective of a person who has the mentality of “I got nothing to hide” and “computers are difficult” and love the Google services that come integrated into Chrome.
It’s important to note that you must be willing to learn what things are when interacting with technology.
People want to help, but they don’t want to help someone who might ignore their advice because “it’s too hard!”
Firefox is much faster than Chrome, it uses less memory and it works with everything; unless the website operator has some vendetta against Firefox and intentionally codes their website to work slowly on Firefox. (Google is notorious for this, you should ignore Firefox performance issues on Google owned sites)
With the right plugins you can even defuse the bad code and it is never an issue. uBlock Origin for example is a good plugin.
Ok, I’d say it’s biggest selling point is not being owned by Google - the company with the business model of violating privacy. But if you don’t care about that, think about how short is the battery life on your phone. It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s because of Googles and Facebooks of the world that convert your money that you spend on charging your phone to make money on the data they collect.
It’s tough to answer with anything nontechnical… Best I can cook up off the top of my head is that we all expect the internet to work the same, whether we’re visiting YouTube, or a blog, or… Whatever.
How are those pages coded? Like any human language, we all agreed on what certain mouth sounds mean and do, and don’t agree with just one person getting to define how the language works.
Similarly, why does only Google/chrome get to define how a website’s code works? I don’t know how old you are, but there was a time where sites were just broken based on if you’d used Internet explorer 6, or literally anything else.
Lot of background, but that’s why we care about which browser engine to use. Firefox uses less ram, follows the web’s standards better, and actually gives you control in a way Mozilla can’t undo.
Firefox has been my daily driver for five or six years now, and I think the only reason people still use chrome is habit. Getting people to change is hard, simply because habits have inertia.
Switching to Firefox was super easy for me. Just import all my bookmarks, passwords, etc and I was done. Completely set up in probably 5 minutes, including the installer.
Normies tend to absorb what’s trendy among specialists, regardless of area, without necessarily absorbing why. They hear positive bits about firefox and negative bits about chrome, and add firefox.
a browser that won’t cripple your machine. It used to be the opposite case, but the tables have turned.
Also, you can also use firefox on android and have all extensions (adblockers etc) available on your phone too!
They only know Edge because MS shills it hard and Chrome due to years of using it with OEM installs on Android, familiarity with Google services.
Since ads can be really terrible on mobile, then FF + uBO can be suggested to them.
Does Windows software still do that shit where they bundle a bunch of irrelevant crap with whatever you’re trying to install? I don’t think normies actively think about browser choice and I’ve definitely found browsers that were installed on systems via what I mentioned above in the past.
I use Firefox with ad blockers to watch YouTube. Chrome seems to be allowing them to block my ad blocker
Normies/tech illiterate people are lazy to uninstall software, they have no reason for that. Just look at their taskbar or desktop icons: a lot of useless crap. It was probably preinstalled, or they installed it for one reason, then just forgot about it.
you just called out every Mac user in the world
edit: typo
english please
meant to say call out
oh alright
Having a browser that is not controlled by a company where YOU clearly are the product? Firefox works just fine. Is just as fast as chrome…
I have chrome installed too since there are websites that use features that only work in chrome or to test things. But that is like 0.1% of the time.
clearly did not read the question. Just like all the other 16 down votes on thus post that think I’m bashing Firefox and praising Chrome
That is exactly not the question. Did you only read the title?
The question is for what use those have it who are not interested in keeping their privacy.
Did you even read my comment. Last paragraph, just switch out Chrome for Firefox or any other browser. Your welcome.
Show me a website that only works on Firefox, because I doubt there are any.
I am more or less referring to the situation (that is rare in both directions, i could not even name a site that does not work on firefox from the top of my head) when there are problems with the site that are not even browser specific, clearing cache and reloading, clearing cookies can also resolve that but most of the time opening the content in another browser is faster and easier, especially for non tech savvy users.
I could not even name a site that does not work on firefox from the top of my head
Logmein gotomeeting, ms teams, skype. The former used to work with just a useragent change, then one day it didn’t anymore. The other two works partially, they load and chat works (or at least it did last time I tried), but the actual important feature of them, group voice calls, does not work.
but most of the time opening the content in another browser is faster and easier
There’s support for multiple profiles, where is you create one, that looks like a freshly installed user.
I know, that feature is not too visible to the user…
But then, if they just need another browser for the rare occasion, why don’t they just choose edge? People don’t even unpin it from the taskbar, so it’s just a click away
If you know them, just ask. If you don’t know them, don’t assume people are tech illiterate just because they’ve made different software/hardware decisions from yourself.
Everybody except Richard Stallman is a normie. It’s a stupid word and even dumber concept.
I have Firefox, Chrome, and Brave installed but use Firefox most of the time. I have Brave for websites that need chromium. I have chrome because I’m too lazy to uninstall it. I think you’re probably looking too far into this. It’s easy to install something. Disk space isn’t really at a premium. They easily could’ve installed it in a whim.
Why not ask them directly if you’re curious?
to surf the web?
Unfortunately right now nothing over the default. Obviously is better than chrome but the default browser on any os is good enough for a tech illiterate. Maybe except for safari, that’s the worst browser that I ever used in my life, it’s too dumbed down
So they install it for see if it’s that better, then when they notice it looks and behaves like Chrome without any evident different feature, they don’t switch
If its at University a lot of online classwork requires Chrome, especially proctored test-taking. They might have installed Chrome for that and just kept using it to avoid any problems and having to switch back and forth between browsers.
