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Deciding for ourselves: 98% of people want a browser choice screen, Mozilla study finds

Deciding for ourselves: 98% of people want a browser choice screen, Mozilla study finds | The Mozilla Blog

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/browser-choice-screen-study/

What if we got to easily choose our web browser, and didn’t have to rely on complex operating system settings to change the pre-installed default? At Moz

Deciding for ourselves: 98% of people want a browser choice screen, Mozilla study finds | The Mozilla Blog

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/firefox@lemmy.ml/t/476611

What if we got to easily choose our web browser, and didn’t have to rely on complex operating system settings to change the pre-installed default?

Do you keep the default browser on your Linux distro, or do you change it? If yes, why?

55 comments

Rexios

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There is literally no way 98% of people even know what a browser is

FilthyShrooms

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"You know the app you use to connect to the internet? Would you like to be able to choose which app to use?"

"Cool, I'll mark you as yes, just like everyone else"

PhatInferno

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"You mean my email?"

starman

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More like: "You mean facebook?"

KSPAtlas

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Probably some selection bias there

aeternum

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it's the blue e, right?

DoctorWhookah

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The button for the internet!

yum13241

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As a kid, I used to call IE "Saturn E". Ya know, cuz IE has a ring around it?

duncesplayed

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If you ever see a headline that says "x% of people believe/want/feel y", it's nonsense. You can manufacture a crooked methodology to get x% of people to say anything.

"Can I have a minute of your time? There has been evidence that people who use alternative browsers are more likely to commit acts of terrorism and human trafficking. Would you be in favour of more support for alternative browsers, or would you rather have higher quality public schools?"

And just like magic, you can now write a headline that only 2% of people want a browser choice screen.

Chewy7324

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Yes, the percentage is high. Most people would be annoyed to have another selection screen in the setup process.

But I do think I saw more people using non-Google search engines since Google was forced to provide a search engine selection screen in the setup process.

dyma

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my gf's mom ended up a firefox user because it had the cute fox logo, she didn't even know what it was called

eumesmo

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That's so cute >.<

Grangle1

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To me it sounds like an idea most people would say is a good idea because people like choice on principle, but the vast majority of people will then just use Chrome anyway.

Chewy7324

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But at least they can decide for themselves, even if it's just because of the logo. The friction to switch the browser after the fact is way too high, especially on mobile nearly all people use the default browser.

ulu_mulu

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This is about Windows, why did you post it here?

Chewy7324

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The study is also about Android. But the main reason I crossposted here is because I was curious what the opinion of this community about browser screens in the setup process is.

Our research involved 12,000 people in Germany, Spain and Poland setting up a highly realistic virtual Windows or Android device.

https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/choicescreen/

Edit: I believe that this study is also applicable to desktop Linux users, since those are generally more tech-savy.

flontlocs

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At least depending on the district, users can be sent directly to the store page.

Windows, however, needs a choice screen.

sunoc

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I've been trying Librewolf as a Flatpak on my work machine lately and it's going great! It's really a no-BS Firefox + privacy settings by default; love it. But in general I keep the default Firefox that come with my distro.

Jumuta

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Librewolf doesn't respect my kde theme :(

crmsnbleyd

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I believe that's part of the anti fingerprinting, you can turn it off if you wish

silasmariner

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I usually install like 4 browsers, and keep a chromium one for a few tabs that for whatever reason are hostile to the others

kaboom36

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I kept the default browser on my distro of choice but that was because firefox is my personal browser of choice anyways

Retiring

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I change it, because my distro came with pale moon browser which looks like something from the early 2000s

s20

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Out of curiosity, what distro comes with Pale Moon as the default browser?

Retiring

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Manjaro i3

s20

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Really? Huh.

Yeah, that kinda tracks. Thanks!

Chewy7324

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Which distro is that, if you don't mind?

Retiring

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Manjaro i3

InvaderDJ

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I've never really understood this argument. The history of browsers shows that a browser choice screen isn't necessary. IE used to be dominant until it started sucking so much that people looked for alternatives. For a while that alternative was Firefox, then Chrome came along and people moved to that.

I think the problem for alternate browsers on PC is that all browsers are good enough at the things most people care about that they don't look at alternatives anymore. Most pre-built computers come with Chrome pre-installed and if it isn't, people seek it out on their own to download it. More savvy users know about Chrome's issues, but those aren't issues users really care about.

What does need to be addressed is how iOS and Windows either don't really allow you to use another browser, or make it difficult to switch. iOS needs to allow other rendering engines so alternative browsers aren't just a skin over Safari and Windows needs to stop with preventing users from changing the default browser for things like widgets.

Chewy7324

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The dominance of Internet Explorer had longstanding negative effect on the web. Even today there're industrial and internal banking applications that only run on IE, and nothing else. With Chromium being increasingly the only supported browser we soon won't have a choice which browser to use for certain websites anymore (e.g. Firefox).

IE's decline came to be because it was slow and didn't progress for many years, unlike Firefox at the time. With Google being interested in the continued development of the web this won't happen. Google pushes detrimental standards like "Web Environment Integrity API" today, they tried it with FLoC a while back. If Google succeeds in making the web more closed, another browser won't have a chance to catch up.

At this point we have only 3 mostly feature complete browser engines (Chromium's, Safari's and Firefox's). With Firefox declining it might soon only be 2 that work on all websites. It isn't good for an open standar if there're only few implementations.

InvaderDJ

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With Chromium being increasingly the only supported browser we soon won't have a choice which browser to use for certain websites anymore (e.g. Firefox).

That’s where I disagree. I think that if we do get an internet where Chrome is the only option and it sucks, we’ll get another browser option. Firefox for example went through a few years of being a bad browser but it has gotten past those hurdles. People are lazy and change is slow, but once it starts I think it is unstoppable.

FarLine99

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Firefox hardened with Betterfox, Chromium for some sites which are broken because of ad/fingerprint blocker, firefox itself.

sounddrill

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I use regular firefox and cromite on android

varaki

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Same here, but on Linux I use a customized version of betterfox user.js

owatnext

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Do you keep the default browser on your Linux distro, or do you change it?

Void doesn't come with a default. I just use xbps to download Firefox on a fresh install.

rush

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Permanently Deleted

owatnext

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The thing I love about Void: the only default is xbps and runit. Everything else is at your discretion.

rush

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Permanently Deleted

somenonewho

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At work I use Ubuntu which comes with Firefox by default so yeah I use the default.

At home with arch I have to download one anyway ... so I use Firefox.

There has been only a brief period since I first started using Firefox that I used another browser as my main (chrome/chromium back when Netflix only worked on it properly) When Firefox rolled out "quantum" I jumped back never regretted it. Still one of the only remaining browsers.

captainlezbian

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I changed mine. I love that librewolf is a thing but I wanted some of the convenience that Firefox has over it

Chewy7324

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As someone who considered switching to LibreWolf, what are some examples of conveniences found on Firefox that are not available on LibreWolf? I'm mainly sticking to Firefox since I want to sync my bookmarks between devices.

Miyabi

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Librewolf is able to do that by turning sync on in the librewolf settings.

Chewy7324

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Oh thank, you maybe I'll finally use it for a while.

captainlezbian

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Firefox is my password manager. Also syncing bookmarks and passwords between devices.

Mandy

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Isn't that 98% OF a total of 3% market share, a market share that's still on a steady decline

So basically just under 3% of people (provided Mozilla's data is accurate), which means...nothing cause ain't noone listens to the tiny minority, as much as I would like it to be not the case

Khanzarate

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No. Mozilla is a nonprofit that includes Firefox, but is not Firefox.

Bias is one of the first things anyone learns in statistics, they didn't just poll Firefox users to figure out who likes browser choice. The article says who they polled.

Mandy

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neither the article nor the research their pulling from does tho? all i see is "people"

Khanzarate

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There's a link to the actual report in the article, which has further links to the documents used in the survey.

To be specific, this wasn't a traditional questionnaire, they made limited-functionality desktop environments and had people try out different options.

The link in the article.

Mandy

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i looked over that one, no wonder i found it so confusing (maybe my limited knowledge of english got in the way?) thanks for clarifying

Khanzarate

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No worries. Its an interesting study, and Mozilla does good work.

Engywuck

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Better if Mozilla stop crying and unfuck their browser, instead of spending money on useless shit and offensive CEO paychecks and blaming eveyone but themselves for their failure.

nicklowbar

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"I am so smart but i have no idea what im talking about"

silasmariner

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A troll fishing for downvotes! Finally this place is starting to feel like Reddit 😂

Infiltrated_ad8271

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You're right about the second one, but don't worry boy, the internet can help you with that!

https://fosspost.org/mozilla-go-unfck-yourself/

https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

Engywuck

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Yawn... Here they come Mozilla's shills. I'm not goig to engage here. Enjoy you dying browser while it last and thank Mozilla for its slow demise.

s20

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I feel like the response may be as much to your open hostility as it is to your point.

It's a point I agree with, before you blast me - I remember reading the mozilla should unfck itself article a while back and nodding along while I read it. And while I use Firefox (or a derivative) every day because it's part of my feeble stand against Google's browser engine monopoly, it definitely needs to unfck itself.

lukas

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Permanently Deleted

nxfsi

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Vanilla Firefox with default settings is actually horrible ngl