Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by slovenlyrobot 2356 days ago
Posts like this always come up in these threads and they're really great, but it's worth adding that 'switching to Firefox' isn't something anyone actually has to do. Just start using it for one thing or another and any complete change will happen naturally if it makes any sense. It's a process that involves no effort and no risk

The only thing I use Chrome for is gaming, graphics perf is still miles better than Firefox. But I'd never trust Chrome with anything as much as a private URL or a username or password, for much the same reason I wouldn't stick my hand through the bars of a cage while visiting the zoo. Did they ever get around to fixing that opt-out password sync crap?

3 comments

> 'switching to Firefox' isn't something anyone actually has to do. Just start using it for one thing or another and any complete change will happen naturally

This is going to vary with different people. Have you heard the phrase "Default is destiny"? This is especially true for less technical people (the majority of web users).

Personally I'm not going to dabble, rather keeping to the safe and familiar, so I have to intentionally trial run something as my goto/default.

Chrome isn't the default on a lot of platforms.
It is on chrome notebooks. And every search on google.com prompts you to install chrome for 'a better user experience'. Soon, just by plain nagging, it ends up becoming default
Sure it isn't. Had to set up a Windows 10 laptop recently, and the amount of hoops I had to jump through, just to wrestle the default browser from Edge...!
The default browser on Windows sucks and when you get online and go to Google you get an ad to download Chrome. That sorta makes it the default.
Google has deals with many OEM vendors for Windows laptops and such. Whether it's the platform default is meaningless in this context.
I mostly agree.

I've been using web browsers since the mid 1990's and with the exception of when I first started using them I have never only used one. These days I regularly use Chrome, FF and Safari every day for different tasks.

I'm not alone in this. When I peak at other people's computers I regularly see multiple browsers being used there as well. Even the less computer savy people know to use different browers for different websites depending on what works.

This is all to say I don't quite grasp naive understandings of the browser horse races. There is likely little actual switching going on, and the concept of market share in browsers needs to be reexamined.

Before this, the last time I tried FF was when Servo was in it's early days, it was full of bugs and crappy performance. Couldn't use it for more than a few days and had to switch to Chrome.

But this time, the experience was a lot smoother. So it's not a natural switch which happens with time :)