this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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Firefox

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Firefox spokesperson Christopher Hilton tells The Verge that the browser has seen a more than 50 percent jump in users in Germany and a nearly 30 percent increase in France.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 5 months ago (27 children)

after Apple started letting users choose their default browsers on iOS 17.4 in the EU last week.

Lol, srsly, why does anyone use apple devices willingly. Like for work I sorta get it if there's no alternative but it really took government action to compell this extremely basic customisation.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (5 children)

In the US at least, sadly, it’s imessage. It’s a weird social thing - if you have “green bubbles” people really look down on you.

It’s dumb and superficial, but it works.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago

In the US

It’s dumb and superficial

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (2 children)

So they hook you while you're an insecure teen and by the time you grow up you're too entrenched in their ecosystem?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

They hook you into an ecosystem. That's it, thats the game. I don't think it has too much to do with insecurity. Group chats and video chats with people outside of imessage is awful. Group chats lose a lot of features because SMS was all there was for a long time. Standard (not Google-ified) RCS is still too bare at the moment so I don't think the looming rcs fixes that aspect of it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Yep. Damn near every tween with a phone just HAS to have an iPhone. If you offered a kid a used regular iPhone 12 with a Crack in the screen, or a new Samsung s24 ultra, they're taking the iPhone.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The solution to green bubbles? Use Signal, which has blue bubbles across all platforms.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Signal lets me customize the bubble (and background) colors. I can still make everyone green if I wanted.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Copying my comment from a month ago -

“Finally!

… being able to send longer messages, sending high quality pictures, read receipts, typing indicators, GIFs, location sharing, the ability to send and receive messages over Wi-Fi, and improved group messaging.

And you still see folks thinking color is what’s important.”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Honestly, it's the first thing to come out of iPhone users mouths, and when you tell them about Signal, more often than not they say "eww I'm not installing another app".

They'd rather an Android user spend another $1200 than install a free app. It's not features, it's elitism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I graduated school before smartphones were everywhere but I got a pretty mad when I learned about this. the kids are not ok

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Their integration is the best you can get.

You need to buy an expensive phone, watch, computer (would you like to spend another thousand bucks for a monitorstand?) to take advantage of it, which is why I don't have and don't want anything apple. But if you have that, their software stack is superb.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The software is pretty overrated. Especially safari, which is a legitimately terrible browser and has been for a long time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I had to use firefox for a long time for it's the browser with the highest support across web pages and file formats, whereas chrome and edge will just stop working at times. Firefoxi is, as of 2024, one of the best choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Jup, but that was only relevant on iOS, never for MacOS. Also the digital markets act will end even that.

For example you can make and receive calls on your computer instead of your phone when you are working on your PC. That is unmatched by any other ecosystem.

Edit: for the time and effort you need to put in to make it work. Yes, you can do it with anything. Linux and pine phone will for sure be capable - but no normal person will do that. Because it takes a ton of effort. Apple supports that out of the box and because everything is linked to a single ID it just works.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

You can literally do this with an android too. Link to Windows. I'm unsure how KDE's app is. But its not just apple that lets you use your phone and all its apps on your pc.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Umm, you can do that on any device. It's called Google Meet, Zoom, Discord, or any other countless othe video chatting applications out there.

Apple software is pretty overrated no matter if it's iOS or macOS. I use a MacBook for work and I use exactly zero Apple apps because they just aren't very good.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I'm on iOS and had Firefox as my default for several years. Probably shit journo meant browsing engine.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

No, third-party browsing engines are not a thing that's been implemented yet, and might never be by Firefox. This is about a screen that prompts EU users to pick a browser rather than defaulting to Safari and leaving it up to them to install another.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I believe they meant prompting users to choose a default browser.

Everybody sticks to the default defaults. It’s such a truism that fairness dictated legislators got involved.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The order seems sketchy, that's not A-z. And if they chose to order by application name, safari would be burried way down the list xD.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Is it actually thats funny as fuck. But a bit sus that safari is still at the top

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Just a coincidence. Safari was 8th or 9th for me while Vivaldi was first.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

The only thing new is that the first time it prompts you to pick which app to pick as your default (and installs it). Only the prompt is new, manually installing something and making it default has been an option for a while.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Reading through the replies, I'm amazed anyone went through the effort to install Firefox but didn't bother changing the default browser to it. Something in this story smells fishy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Eh. I have fiddled with many different browsers as my default. Doesn't mean much when it's all WebKit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Doesn't really seem like the same motivation as what would suddenly lead to a 50% increase in adoption in the EU. I just don't really see the cause and affect between apple prompting you and suddenly firefox uptick. I'm guessing most people who used to install it never realised just installing it didn't make it the default (but they should've when they open any url).

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