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Comment by Vvector | Hacker News Reader

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Don't complain about a company having a monopoly while using their products WHEN THERE ARE COMPLETELY FREE AND VIABLE ALTERNATIVES.

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And alternatives that I honestly think are better.

One reason I'm unwilling to move from Firefox right now: Recommended Extensions.

They're extensions that are checked by Mozilla employees for quality, security and privacy. Extensions have such unfettered access to my browsing, and so many have such nefarious practices that I'll only install extensions that Mozilla vets.

This argument of allegedly hostile addons is true to an extend. They theoretically do indeed have access to your browsing, just like your browser has access to your browsing.

However the security argument was used to inhibit ad blockers and get more control about browsers, an already quite restricted ecology. I gladly have the option to vet addons myself just like I do vet browser vendors. Some of the later and attached companies might have questionable goals.

For me this feature of Firefox is the least important, but demands differ I guess.

Dear sir/madam, that's a browser. This is a feature of Google Search, which is a search engine.

This doesn't happen in FF using Google Search.

It's still rolling out. It's not browser specific.

Hate to tell you this but Mozilla is also going to drink the AI kool aid soon judging by their plans for Firefox in recent months.

They're also planning shopping ads. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1858644 https://old.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/18du4qs/firefox_a...

I’m not saying FF is perfect but just this week a coworker fixed this major lag issue on one of our pages and did a pull request. I tested it but that page didn’t have any issues on my machine, switched from FF to Chrome and the page was unusable. Apparently “border-radius” can cause absolute havoc sometimes (at least it did in Chrome)

Yet FF also wanted to capture user search data. I feel that ff is also not the best option.

Now everybody is going to reply with all the reasons they can’t switch off Google.

Yeah, free and "viable" alternatives funded at 90% by said monopoly haha.

Lots of people are getting paid by Google to be default.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday confirmed that Google pays Apple 36% of Safari search revenue, under the terms of a default search agreement that is core to the Justice Department’s antitrust claims.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/google-pays-apple-36percent-...

There's no way Mozilla can win on this. You can't charge for a browser at the scale to compete with Google, not enough people will pay. When they start to open up alternative services that actually could generate revenue, people yell at them and tell them to work on the browser.

This is 100% on the consumers, over and over open source projects receive no funding and exist by virtue of big companies subsidizing them because nobody is willing to pay for their principles.

This is 100% on the government failing to regulate monopolies. This is 100% on Microsoft antitrust action over the browser war being allowed to degenerate into farce. This is 100% on people defending arrangements like this by guilt-tripping consumers: instead of Mozilla's relationship with Google being corrupt, it's actually the entire rest of the world that is corrupt.

If Firefox can't survive without Google, then at least they won't be able to beard for Google's monopoly.

First, Mozilla's execs killed ff and made the organization into basically a subsidiary of Google, dependent on its support.

Second, ff comes with Google as its default search - so that's going to suck.

I will be happy for you to yell at me to use Firefox when you have fired Mozilla's execs, and dropped Pocket and the Google default search. Until then, I feel like you're not facing reality about what ff has become due to it's cooperation with Google.

> Second, ff comes with Google as its default search - so that's going to suck.

I'm confident that if you can post on HN you can figure out how to change a default setting

Sure I can change the default setting.

And I can also dog Mozilla for accepting the money.

And I can also dog anyone who thinks they did nothing wrong.

Are you in the final category? Want to debate about it? I invite you to make an opening position statement.

i heard there's a lot of old timers here... who knows if they know how to deal with new tech

I hear there are heckling assholes here too. They talk some shit, but never make a real point. Have you seen any around?

Here's the deal. My elderly mom and dad are being eaten alive by software that takes advantage of their ignorance, and that needs to change. Mozilla's part of that, and they need to change.

Google pays for the default setting because it matters

Yes, it's so non-technical users will get stuck with Google

But that's a problem for those users

What's the problem?

It's inaccessibility caused by corporate corruption. Innocent users get stuck with a increasingly bad search, for a few million bucks a year.

Old people are very dear to me, and seeing them get taken advantage of on every digital platform is breaking my heart.

I have to fight, for the sake of my parents and other old folks, if for no other reason. Perhaps you feel me, perhaps you don't.

Thanks for your comment, it made me think of why I care about this.

Hope you have a nice day, and think of your own old peeps, and get to give them some love!

i feel for you!

i tried to lure my parents towards the Matrix protocol but apparently having a connection error each other month is unacceptable... we returned to the well working Whatsapp! i wonder what would be their opinions if i took their Android devices and substituted all their apps for FOSS alternatives & an un-googled Lineage

but yeah, i think fighthing for what's right, specially when you can; is important... but the vast majority will just use what's the most convenient & shutdown all the doors with rude comments, despite if the are about freedom

Don't complain about a product when it's free.

Exactly how many dollars is OP paying google to complain about 3 second delay times?

What's his premium support plan and how does that pay employees to handle his banalities?

Ad supported products aren’t free, if they were, Google would not be one of the world’s richest companies. Ad supported products are just priced in a sufficiently convoluted manner that the customers don’t know how much the ad companies are making off them.

Having a convoluted pricing scheme shouldn’t make a company immune to criticism.

Free as in,the user isn't paying for it. If you are paying 100k in google ads, I guess you can complain.

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