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aeva

ars technica: we don't know how they did it but google chrome now extracts a pint of blood every time you log on

chrome user, dizzy from blood loss: I swear to god I am like this close to switching to firefox

another chrome user, on the verge of fainting from severe blood loss: no need to resort to that, just switch to [insert today's trendy chrome fork here] and be smart like meeee

163 comments
aeva

90% of you are in this picture and I don't like it

doomgirl

@aeva Firefox, Firefox! :blobfoxhyper:

jell

@aeva But but but, they just read the 'Is Firefox Stinky, Paid For In Small Part By Alphabet Inc' research paper which found that, to great surprise, Firefox is stinky!

Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:

@aeva funnily enough, I remember a poll on Mastodon (pre Musk migration) where Firefox turned out to be the majority browser, which surprised me a lot. May be it's time to run a new one.

aeva

@isagalaev normally I'd question the wisdom of putting too much trust in a social media poll but I haven't had a single enraged person in my mentions frothing about how firefox killed jfk or something so I think you might be on to something with this "[this corner of] mastodon is mostly cool people" theory of yours

Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:

@aeva I wouldn't go as far as characterizing people based just on that, but it's an interesting data point nonetheless.

Arne Brasseur

@aeva @isagalaev I did a poll like that just yesterday! Small sample size but Firefox is a pretty clear winner. At least we can conclude I have cool followers toot.cat/@plexus/1110224573685

Kegthoth-Rha
@aeva @isagalaev I think I remember that pole, and got kind of annpyed that FF and Chrome were the only options.
Ik why, its because everyone who used Brave/Edge/whatever would hit "Other" even though they're Chrome, but still.
gkrnours

@aeva I'm this close to forking firefox so I have classic one for work and a rebranded one like ice weasel but with and icon I would commission.

I'm glad I switched to Fx

astra 🐶

@aeva would be great if firefox's engine were easier to reuse. i've seen it cited as being difficult to use as the reason we don't see this happening with firefox.

aeva

@astra what really? but they rewrote it in rust

wizzwizz4

@aeva @astra Servo is fairly easy to use, but Servo's features were backported into Gecko, the main part of which is quite tightly-coupled with Firefox.

🏔️ owl 🌲

@astra @aeva yeah, I use qutebrowser, for disability reasons. I would love it if it used the firefox engine instead, but that doesn't seem possible.
I hope there will be another reusable engine eventually, whether that's the recently resurrected-without-mozilla Servo, or libweb from serenityOS, or something else.

Decivex

@astra @aeva I've done some research into what it would take and the only documentation I could find is over a decade old.

DELETED

@aeva I'm in the 1% that has been using Mozilla, since Mozilla was Netscape.

aeva

some of you people still read reddit and it shows. muting this

sumokirby

@aeva Don't you know? You can just go to Settings > Privacy > Blood Donations and toggle it off.

Until the next update, anyway.

aeva

@sumokirby the toggle switch is between "on" and "turn back on next time I open the browser"

Oblomov

@smn @aeva @sumokirby "one pint in a go" vs "one pint over your browsing session"

aeva

@Rose_On_Mars yes. it was pitched on the blog of one of the project's senior developers, to a small and insignificant fanfare of public outcry and minor criticism including the world health organization making a public statement to the effect of "don't do that people need blood to live", to which google responded with a long and evasive screed about how this is bullying, this isn't the right way to criticize the company, and github is only for agreeing with them and free crowd sourced labor

Kiloku

@aeva and the fork doesn't actually remove the bloodletting feature, it just spreads it out throughout your session until you give the pint anyway

tudza

@aeva I prefer my forks to be made of titanium, or at least stainless steel

José Albornoz

@aeva “and this probably still won't make people switch to Firefox.”

aeva

@eljojo I'm just aghast at what chrome users keep demonstrating willingness to put up with, but then again [mumbles something about global warming and the pandemic]

aeva

@phanjam you must be pretty happy about this no looking back right

Phanjam

@aeva yes thats actually what i told myself "dont look back". So far, havent felt any such urge either 👍

KeyJ

@aeva I fully get and support your statement, and if a decent(!) Firefox-based browser emerges, I'll be happy to switch. Until then, I'll have to make do with a (comparatively heavily modified) Chromium fork.

In fact, that's maybe one of the reasons why Firefox is such a distant second to the Chromium family: It seems to be harder to fork and extend, for whatever technical or legal reasons. I can imagine that some of the Chromium forks out there would rather be Firefox forks if they could.

aeva

@KeyJ god fucking damn it man you broke my combo, I got all the way to 127 boosts without a single dog shit opinion in my mentions

Simon Eilting

@KeyJ @aeva what on earth makes you think that forking your browser is something that is on the minds of 80% of internet users?

KeyJ

@eseilt @aeva I'm not talking about the majority of users who just use Chrome/Edge/Safari because it's kinda pushed onto them and they don't care.

My feeling (and it's really just that!) is that if it was as simple to derive a custom browser off Firefox as it obviously is for Chromium, some (if not most) of the Chromium derivatives would be Firefox derivatives instead.
It wouldn't magically bring Firefox (+derivatives) to 50% market share of course, but the gap would be a little narrower.

Preston Is Not My Real Name

@KeyJ @eseilt @aeva

Wouldn't that entail all of the downsides of using Gecko (tiny market share, poor support from websites) without the relatively good brand recognition of Mozilla? There's lot of FF derivatives out there - LibreWolf, IceCat, PaleMoon - but they're mostly kinda...worse? I think the Chromium clones are doing it because it's well-supported by websites, idk if it's actually easier.

Emme Ci 🍉

@KeyJ @aeva Firefox is a very usable browser based on gecko, the Firefox engine.

Nazo

@aeva It's all I can do to not scream when people start advertising their own Opera GX plugins or themes or whatever because you know they're not going to want to hear "ok but that's a bad browser, please don't use it," lol.

Jimmy Hoke :tardis:

@aeva Sure I had to sacrifice my firstborn to install it, but I really don't feel like switching.

Alex

@aeva Firefox is incredibly thirsty for your metadata, used to send 112 requests just on startup.
Ungoogled Chromium is where its at, since Pale Moon is going south now =/

Adventurer #Harris

@aeva

Rip the bandage off. It is a very fast adjustment. Faster than switching from the birdsite to the Mastodon site.

DaCool

@aeva I mainly use FF but for everything else (PWA* and other edge use cases) I am thankful that Ungoogled Chromium exits.

These opens ource devs dedicated to (making) FOSS independent of tech giants do humanities best work.

* I tried the PWA addon for FF, didn't work, unfortunately.

Luna :verified_trans: :cat_is_blob_and_lesbian:

@DaCool@layer8.space @aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place gnome web is also an option for pwa, if you're on Linux (although performance currently isn't great on heavier websites)

Maddy

@aeva I refuse to experience the internet on mobile without Firefox Mobile Beta + uBlock (and friends).

Simon Eilting

@aeva I see my dad roughly twice a year. Every time I uninstall Chrome and make FF the default browser. Every time I come back, Chrome is back on there and set as the default.

He doesn't know how it happens and he's not doing it on purpose and he doesn't want it (but doesn't realise it until I point it out). It's just a thing that is forced upon the tech-illiterate.

Mrs Beanbag

@aeva @eseilt i thing i have witnessed with older people using computers is a dialog pops up, and they just click "ok" to make it go away, without even reading it.

Paul-Jan

@mrsbeanbag @aeva @eseilt addendum: also older people that are quite a bit younger than me.

Mrs Beanbag

@pauljan @aeva @eseilt lol yes, have to remember sometimes that i am also older people now

AndrewFelix 🐀 🇵🇸

@aeva as soon as Firefox has an web app sidebar I’m switching over from Edge *faints*

Alex Keane

@aeva I use Firefox for everything but signing into my work intranet where stuff like my time clock exists because there is some weird error (no clue what non standards compliant code on the site throws a freaking clock error under firefox)

Internet Hedgehog

@aeva third chrome user: "Firefox asked me to donate blood once so it's basically as bad as Chrome"

Piousunyn

@aeva DuckDuckGo is a good option, unless you know something I do not.

crimson2877

@aeva i used to primarily use safari until like 3 months ago what does that say about me (got suckered into trying arc, which is chrome, which sucks, but arc is fine and i'm lazy enough to not switch back)

Wilhelm

@aeva what's up with people saying Firefox is as bad as Chrome for privacy? Ever heard the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good"?

Oh no, Firefox is sending anonymous usage statistics that you can turn off which are governed by a legal document that describes how they can and cannot use it. Whelp, guess there's no such thing as a privacy focused browser, might as well use Google Chrome.

TSource Engine Query
@aeva

firefox user, looks pale from blood loss: but mozilla said they care about privacy!
Pantrygheist

@aeva the next hot chromium fork will sequence DNA from your blood samples to make a you a nifty NFT.

chylex

@aeva I've actually been close to switching away from firefox because mozilla keeps making dumb changes that break my workflow >_> but I ended up editing the sources and compiling firefox myself, rather than switch to a chrome fork

Suecris

@aeva I just switched from Chrome to Firefox today - it was painless, offered to fetch all my bookmarks and passwords, did it seamlessly. I'm liking the crisper font, too - easier to read!

DELETED

@aeva If chrome took my blood, I'd use it regularly.

Though, to be fair, that's my primary medical treatment.

DELETED

@aeva

its my way to contribute blood!

Martin Guay 👨‍💻🌈🎮📱🍁

@aeva Firefox is my primary browser like many. I do flip-flop between Chrome, Edge, Brave, etc. But mainly Firefox has been the go-to for years.

moved from udongein
@aeva
> we don't know how they did it but google chrome now extracts a pint of blood every time you log on

Ultrakill: The Origins
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