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.
to surf the web?
Privacy, Customization, better for Adblock. Or just to have a alternative if you’re main browser fails
I’ve gotten most of my friends to switch to it by showing them cool customization features
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!
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 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’m a normie who uses firefox because it’s the default in my Fedora machine. On windows I just use edge. While on my Android phone, I use it because I like having extensions.
Are you a normie if you’re using Linux though? (I’m on Silverblue…. Not a normie)
I think most people who have found themselves on the fediverse are probably not normies, even if they might think so.
They hear someone recommend it, maybe on foot of a conversation about privacy concerns, and give it a try.
Doesn’t mean they’ve got to grips with it, but if they haven’t uninstalled it, they probably retain the intent to try.
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.
It’s software used to browse the Internet.
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.
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.
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
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?
The only thing that’s different between Chrome and Firefox for the average user is that WebGL doesn’t work (yet) in Firefox, which I know is technical, but it means some websites that need more graphics processing won’t work in Firefox. Since WebGL is fairly new, I haven’t run across it much, only once or twice.
Huh?
I’ve built simple WebGL renders in Firefox several times. The websites for TWGL and three.js, the two most popular JS libraries for WebGL rendering that contain several demos, also load and work correctly and have for years. It clearly works in Firefox to a significant extent.
There must be something Firefox is not quite compliant with, or less performant at, than Chrome, though. If you look at Patreon’s website since their logo change, it runs fine in Chrome but chugs in Firefox. I don’t know if it’s WebGL related but I wouldn’t be surprised.
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 put every Mac user in the world
english please
meant to say call out
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.
