With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.
The best time to switch to Firefox was 5 years ago. The second best is today.
Most people aren’t concerned about privacy outside of places like here and Reddit.
Firefox + Ublock Origin blows Google Chrome out of water.
Firefox is a weird buggy mess that constantly freezes.
This is definitely not normal, Firefox never freezes for me. May be worth checking that out, especially your extensions.
The whole Reddit debacle has really made me rethink all my services. I recently installed duck duck go and still getting used to it, so not quite sure if I’m ready to make another drastic change.
I used to love Firefox in 2006 or so, but got Chrome when it was released and forgot about Firefox. I think I’ll open a tab in my chrome browser for the Firefox page now…this is how I remind myself to delve deeper into stuff later. Thanks for the inspiration, everyone. Google has irked me ever since removing the Don’t Be Evil mantra.
IMO the thing is that people don’t care about their privacy. Sure, some people around here do, but your average person owns an Alexa, has a FB/Instagram account and constantly posts their location, uses the same password on many sites, uses TikTok, doesn’t block cookies, etc etc etc.
Most people don’t actually care. Some claim they do, but then can’t even be bothered to stop using Instagram etc because of the “inconvenience”… So do they really care?
Some companies (Apple, etc) push their products under a narrative around safety and security, and people will repeat that point as a way to justify a decision they already made, but if they actually cared, they would be doing other things too. But they don’t.
The number of us who do actually care about privacy and security is actually very small.
With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder how privacy is still a word in the dictionary
The Tech industry has been boiling frogs at an industrial level, they could open a fast food chain. DRM? Everywhere? Owning digital purchases? Nah. Privacy? What’s that?
With the number of people concerned about privacy, it is a wonder why chrome is even popular.
It’s no wonder. It’s because people aren’t actually concerned about privacy.
If you ask someone if they’re “concerned about privacy” many people will of course say yes. If you follow up that question with “what are you willing to do about it”, you’ll find that the answer is a resounding “not a God damn thing”. If they were they would spend 3 minutes on Google looking for an alternative browser that works even better than Chrome but without the privacy invasions.
A browser is the low-hanging fruit on the “do-you-care-about-privacy meter”. It’s the one step with no sacrifices and the highest increase in privacy.
With the number of people concerned about privacy
That number appears to be very small, all things considered. Out of everyone I know, literally one person cares about privacy. My mother. She will even go as far as to only use her first initial online instead of her name if she can get away with it. However, she uses Chrome all the time because she doesn’t understand that your browser also tracks you.
I think that’s what it comes down to. A mixture of lack of public interest, and lack of public awareness about tracking/privacy in general. If people can’t immediately see how having their data harvested will inconvenience/hurt them, they simply don’t care.
The biggest issue for a lot of people is going to be Microsoft forcing all Office 365 users to use Edge all the time. Our sysadmin recently forced me to uninstall Firefox and Chrome from all workstations unless they had an approved use for it. Everything must be through Edge.
Why? “Security” of course. It’s always “security”. Curious
Edit: the point is Microsoft could have worked to provide enterprise customers with ways to manage third party browsers going forward. They could have worked with Google and Mozilla to make that happen. They didn’t. Not really.
It’s that Microsoft continues to make decisions that create rationale for only using them, because that’s their business. “Security” gives them an extremely convenient cover for anticompetitive behavior. Anyone that thinks their C-Suite hasn’t pulled the defender/365 team into a meeting or two to discuss business strategy has far too much faith in a corporation that deserves very little.
With the number of people concerned about privacy
Generous estimate there. “People” don’t care. Who cares if your browser tracks your online presence when everything is connected back to your facebook profile or whatever is trending.
Most individuals embrace convenience above all; literally putting all their private stuff on any online service that tout “shiny feature that you won’t even use”. Even some privacy-focused people don’t see putting all your emails/photo/video/agenda/chat/text messages in one third party opaque service as an issue.
Tons of business do the same, outsourcing the most basic stuff like private discussions and storage to anything “convenient” to not pay for two sysadmin to manage it (leading to most major leaks). I have direct experience of business coming to us, asking “yeah, privacy is good, data ownership and control is mandatory, so we won’t host anything and you’ll keep all our data, deal?”. They prefer have us, a third party, bill them for hosting rather than have some control over it.
My take on this is that while pointing that browsers can be an issue is not a bad thing, the first step would be to get people and business interested in their privacy. Without that, it remains a niche. Sadly.
It might be a niche yeah, but it won’t be when a lawsuit looms. It won’t be when Data Privacy Laws come knocking. People underestimate the value of privacy even though virtually any job has privacy as its most basic requirements. May it be medical records, banks, NDAs, contracts, even the most basic of tasks, has some form of privacy stipulations in it.
As someone pursuing a career in health care I became more and more concerned because some store patient files and notes in unsecured text files/apps like notion, google docs and even excel. I’m sure other jobs and employment has their own privacy issues as well.
Privacy is a niche at face value but so many people underestimate its value. When everything they say or store online and even offline can be hacked, tracked or exploited, anything can be a potential lawsuit without taking the necessary precautions.
Privacy is an ideal but I don’t agree that privacy laws are a looming threat to those who ignore them. Our right to privacy is being swept away at a rapid rate and there will be no repercussions for those who invade our privacy.
It’s a perfect system. People don’t care about their privacy. Companies use all their data for profit and then use that generated money to lobby against privacy laws. They get to get more data, more money, more lobbying.
I don’t think anyone will actually care until it’s too late AND they are personally affected.
I hope that in my lifetime there is a turnaround and people take privacy seriously. I will continue to tote privacy practices and support privacy supporting software until then but god is it exhausting.
As someone pursuing a career in health care I became more and more concerned because some store patient files and notes in unsecured text files/apps like notion, google docs and even excel.
This is just the beginning - the medical space is notoriously awful and also a place where you probably really care about privacy. But using secure alternatives is too annoying for most medical staff and they just see it as ankther hurdle. Actually getting people to use secure software that’s not the software they’re already used to is way harder than it should be.
People just don’t understand or don’t care. Convenience is way more important to people than anything else.
All a for profit business truly cares about, by definition, is profit. Details like “data ownership” and “privacy” are just boxes to be ticked in the most cost effective manner possible. Have you seen how much a good sysadmin costs? Let alone 2? They don’t care about the value of owning their own shit, that’s too abstract of a concept.
Google has a vested interest in showing you ads and selling your data.
Firefox does not.
Seems like a pretty clear choice to me.
Using firefox exclusively on all my devices since the last major revamp of the Firefox Android.
There’s no reason you should be using Chrome. Using Chrome:
- Means you consent to spyware (along with everyone else you interact with)
- Allows Google to continue dictating web standards
- Is a resource hog
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading this comic about the dangers of Chrome: https://contrachrome.com/
If you need to absolutely use a Chromium-based browser, at least use Brave (just for that site).
Not-so-fun fact from the comic Contra Chrome: Google Chrome’s URL bar is called the “omnibox.” The name is derived from the Latin word “omnis,” meaning “everything.”
When you type into the omnibox, it’s sent to Google’s servers and added to your profile forever.
Even if you deleted it or didn’t hit enter.
It’s ironic that there are over 60 blockable elements and such over Privacy Badger and Ublock origin on that page.
