Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser
bugzilla.mozilla.org
bugzilla.mozilla.org
We absolutely continue to respect that check box. We won't always check at startup if Firefox is your default browser. When that box is left checked, you get a modal/prompt at every single startup. It literally always checks if Firefox is your default.
In contrast, the work resulting from this bug is just checking every 5 weeks and we happen to not be default, we'll ask with a more gentle infobar. We won't display the more disruptive modal/prompt.
I love Firefox, just stop shooting yourself in the foot. There is no way that is a fair interpretation of that option.
You know what's annoying? Asking me to change something that I've already said no to, especially when you don't give me an obvious way to turn it off. 5 weeks, 5 days, 5 months, doesn't matter.
You already asked at install time and every time I started FireFox until finding and changing that setting. If I still haven't approved it and you keep asking, you're just going to piss me off.
Respect your users, Mozilla.
It's one thing to not ask your users for consent to a thing; it's another to ask them for consent, then intentionally ignore it and do the opposite. One is idiocy; the other borders on malice.
No, thanks; I'm just browsing.
Is there anything I can help you with?
I just said "no, thanks."
Is there anything I can help you with?
Hello?
Is there anything I can help you with?
#$&@! Leave me alone. I'm not a criminal for just browsing here. Can you stop profiling me too?
Is there anything I can help you with?
...
It's just non-stop with Mozilla, isn't it?
They have the curious pairing of technical excellence, and a long history of awful non-technical decision-making.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14754740
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616740
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391659
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10680925
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24144137
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26262031
> Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Every change is decided in private. By the time anyone outside Mozilla becomes aware of them it's too late to provide any input. Discussion of such decisions is forbidden on bugzilla, and the forums are ignored.
The only way to provide meaningful feedback is to quit Firefox. But I don't want to use Chrome. sigh
The main comments were people complaining about the foundation but I see you may have been pointing out the pocket recommendations.
Glad it can be turned off but I bet it won't sync to all my other systems.
They completely ignore the fact that Firefox got big because technical users were installing it on computers of their less technically literate relatives. Now they changed the Firefox to be carbon copy of Chrome so powerusers no longer have any reason to use it, let alone install it for other people. My reason to keep using it is at this point only desire to avoid Chrome monoculture.
[Edit] Just edited this message with lynx.
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[1]: (not me, I'm horrible at maintaining projects, though I would help)
Could they also show the modal 99.99% of the time and claim that meets the language they used?
Nobody cares if the option doesn't literally imply it'll never "nudge" the user, I'd be annoyed regardless. And it's the only option visible to normal users.
Stuff like this just keeps coming up completely souring it’s reputation.
At least anecdotally speaking, they’re shooting themselves in the foot and I’ll put off touching FF for another few months until I forget about this.
Chrome/Chromium/Brave have 10 times the amount of dark patterns. It's sad but the complexity and cruft of browser APIs have created an effective browser duopoly. There are no alternatives for any kind of mainstream usage.
Mozilla could learn from this.
Thanks Brendan.
What even are they doing? What is their goal with all these user-hostile changes?
If it's to try juicing up active userbase just be a good browser and wait for chrome to make a change that annoys everyone (FLoC seems like a good candidate)
Don't fuck me over but....
I swear to the gods if there was one decent browser that wasn't fucking FF...
Apparently it will annoy you as well. :)
Would you like to renew Firefox as your default browser now before time runs out? Act now before prices go up! Supplies are limited! Not valid in AK, HI, and Guam.
Big banner with: "You're already browsing in the new Microsoft Edge Keep using to get world class performance with more privacy, more productivity, and more value"
Ridiculous. I never saw that before as I always install FF first so I do it from Safari. Edge comes auto deployed by work.
And mozilla isn't even the first link it found. #1 is Opera and #2 is Vivaldi despite having 'download firefox' as the search term.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/new-we...
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/welcom...
Mozilla would be far more effective if they would just properly align their incentives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation#Antitrust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
So many people would be tremendously happy about a free Web Browser that is not run by corporate interests, respects privacy and offers power user features.
And yes it could run on donation just fine. Wikipedia is running on donations and it more than well financed.
I have so often wished for a way to directly donate to and only to Firefox development but no they know better.
Not to mention the GNU project has proven that developers are in fact willing to work for the greater good for free, especially if you pick a license that protects users freedom instead of corporate interest.
How much of Chrome's current marketshare can be attributed to:
1) Bundling Chrome with Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Java, and multiple free antivirus suites, with a pre-checked "make Chrome my default browser" box
2) Putting "try Chrome" nagware popups on the Google homepage of Firefox users (and other browsers) - the most visited website on the planet.
I would argue a HUGE percentage of it. I'm not the "just click OK" type and it still slipped past me once.
Still, I'm sad to see this. It's a poor omen for Firefox.
While they scream constantly about these particular issues I have yet to see someone post a viable solution to FireFox's increasingly shrinking market share and there will be a point when the google search box either wont or cant pay the bills any longer.
1. Stop alienating the people who care about things like this. Normal computer-illiterate users will not be convinced to switch to your browser. The last decade or so is evidence of that. Word of mouth is what unseated IE last time, but if you keep pissing off the people who actually care about their browser, you think that word is going to be positive?
2. Start respecting your users rather than regarding them with the same disdain as Chrome and GNOME with a thin veneer of "but we're not Google" to paper it over as a selling point. "We give a shit about you" (when backed by matching actions.. i.e. the opposite of the last 10 years of Firefox) is a selling point. "We're basically Chrome but made by someone else who uses a lot more flowery words about 'privacy' and 'empowerment'" is not.
That's it. Firefox isn't losing market share because of malfeasance, they are losing it because of an infuriating series of self-owns and poor decisions.
While I'm not necessarily representative of a broader population, I find that I prefer different web browsers based on what I want to do in my browser.
For example, I really like Safari for shopping because of its first class support for Apple Pay on my Mac. I just tap my finger on the sensor, and I'm done.
When I use Google Meet, Safari doesn't work great, so I will boot up Brave or Chrome.
For reasons that are unclear to me, Firefox renders pages with extremely rich and bright colors that jump right off the page. So I love using Firefox for browsing pages with a lot of photos or interesting graphic design.
Apps like https://www.choosyosx.com have helped make workflows like the above a bit easier, but are far from perfect. I wonder if there is a place for Mozilla to explore a way to make the UX for multiple browser vendors even better. I think many people would love to have Firefox as their default browser for 80 - 90% of the web, but not 100%.
What is their fault is bugging users with no way of turning it off.
I guess you're using a high-gamut display, and Firefox fails to map sRGB colors properly. When websites say #FF0000, they expect that the red pixels leak a bit of green/blue light wavelengths, and correctly operating browsers will add a bit of green (and blue?) if you have a high-gamut display (where red pixels don't leak green/blue light wavelengths), except in images and colors specifically tagged to produce "super-saturated" colors beyond sRGB. Firefox doesn't do this by default, which is "wrong" in a sense.
Just guessing here, but I strongly suspect that by "performance" they're only paying attention to the number of people who made Firefox the default browser right away and totally ignoring the number of people who were so irritated that they won't use Firefox again, ever, unless forced to do so.
It's like the websites that justify throwing up a million interstitial popups by claiming that it increases mailing list signups by 0.012%, while blithely ignoring all the people who are angered by such time-wasting shenanigans.
You're allowed to ask me to install your software/subscribe to your newsletter/like your app on the App Store.
Once.
More than that and I'm going to do anything I can to avoid using your product ever again.
Doing the right thing is to ask once, and stop asking. To do something different is horribly stupid and reflects very poorly on Firefox as a whole.
YouTube keeps asking me if I want to switch to a paying account and I keep clicking no. It’s very annoying and the fact that Firefox is following this tactic is truly sad.
It's not a good user experience, even for people who are used to things not working perfectly.
Even with all the dirty tricks, Firefox is not able to claw back any user share.
Mozilla is being run into the ground with leadership entropy like an empire in decline.
New mozilla, you have made extensions worse, cancelled numerous awesome projects, and laid off hundreds of employees, while giving your new CEO a huge raise: this nag screen, is it really the best move?
[1]: Donations on mozilla.org go to Mozilla Foundation, and that money is not spent on Firefox as such. Limited partnerships with Mullvad for VPN aren’t enough and aren’t even available around the world. This needs a larger effort. Firefox development gets money mainly from the search partnership with Google.
"Please consider using Firefox as your default browser because [insert what FF is all about] matters."
"Browser monoculture leads to [insert it here], why not help out by using Firefox as your default browser?"
You get the idea.
Again, inadvisable, but if you all are going to do it anyway, really do it. Have some fun, be passionate.
Maybe it will work despite the naysayers, myself included. Sometimes things do.
That way, every browser would think that it is already the default.
Doesn’t someone somewhere have a De-Fucked Firefox fork that is actually kept up to date?