• mke@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I think some people overestimate how many will migrate to Firefox in the near future over this.

    • High switching cost compared to finding another extension (e.g. uBO Lite), even if the resulting experience is worse.
    • Just as many Firefox users like Firefox, lots of Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.
    • The kind of tech-aware person who’d switch over this is much more likely to have seen the news months ago and taken action already.

    As fun as it is to imagine an Adpocalypse shocking the masses and pushing them to try out alternatives to big tech, it’s also way too optimistic, I feel.

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, I thought about mentioning that. But the comparison goes both ways. Less than 1% of Chrome users switching to Firefox could still mean an increase in Firefox users of over 10%, if I remember my numbers correctly. That’d be a sweet boost for most products.

        • OriginalUsername7@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Ya, it’d still be huge for Firefox, but what I’m really getting at is that even with this change, Chrome is going nowhere. They’re the big fish, they can afford to make these kinds of changes, because the people who care are a very small minority.

          • Huschke@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            To be fair, nerds will tell their tech-illiterate friends about this change and probably influence them enough to consider it. Especially when it’s something as easy as downloading an application.

            It’s much easier to switch a browser then it is to stop using Google, Facebook, etc.

      • Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Depends on their methodology. Sure, a huge proportion of those are users who haven’t heard of uBO, but we’re forgetting a lot of caveats:

        1. Electron exists and lots of apps are built on top of it and identify as “Chrome”. Judging by the numbers most have been weeded out, but some edge cases do visit more sites so they end up in the count.
        2. A lot of workplaces mandate the browser, which is often Chrome. This also gets counted.
        3. A not insignificant amount of Firefox users change their useragent to Chrome.

        All of these skew the numbers towards Chrome. Some Chrome users use a different adblocker which lowers the uBO statistic.

    • Dagamant@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’ve been on Firefox since manifest v3 was announced. Firefox has its own shortcomings but no dealbreakers.

      • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        1 year ago I had basically free Spotify Premium because Safari was unable to play ads. That’s a kind of ad blocking.

          • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            No ad blocker. This bug started to break song playback on Safari (according to Spotify’s forums, I faced no such problem) and then it was fixed so I got ads.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I think probably the single most important thing that nobody is saying is that Google have ALL the numbers on this decision and they are not stupid, so it would be silly to assume this will work against their interests. Not only do they know how many people use chrome, their ad network gives them insight into ALL browsers.

    • experbia@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I agree folks are overestimating how many will switch. but also maybe you’re underestimating too - a lot of browser installations are managed by the “family tech guy”. the father, mother, brother, sister, aunt or uncle who sets up everyone’s new laptops on Christmas and has the suggestions when you look for a new phone. we all know the type. a lot of us are the type.

      setting up granny’s laptop? I’ll install whatever browser lets me automatically block the most “1000th visitor!” banner ads and change the desktop icon to the old AOL icon because that’s all she knows the internet as. she doesn’t know of care about the browser options so it’s up to me. Chrome used to be fast and simple so it was the right choice. Firefox has caught up a fair bit on UX simplicity and speed and now offers better blocking and general security, so it just stole the crown for these installations imo. I trust it more to not let her mess the computer up, so even if I’m not using it as my main personal browser, it gets use here.

    • cmhe@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago
      • Just as some Firefox users like Firefox, many Chrome users enjoy what they have too. They don’t want to lose that.

      Do you have some source for that? IIUC, you mean that more Chrome users like Chrome than Firefox users like Firefox, right?

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        No. I simply meant that there exist Chrome users who appreciate what it provides them (features, UI, etc), so for these users to leave they’d have to give up those things. That’s always a hard ask.