Firefox saw an increase in users (~50% in Germany and ~30% in France) following Apple’s default browser changes in the EU.
Firefox saw an increase in users (~50% in Germany and ~30% in France) following Apple’s default browser changes in the EU.
Firefox spokesperson Christopher Hilton tells The Verge that the browser has seen a more than 50 percent jump in users in Germany and a nearly 30 percent increase in France: Brave saw a similar increase in users after Apple started letting users choose their default browsers on iOS 17.4 in the EU la...
Firefox spokesperson Christopher Hilton tells The Verge that the browser has seen a more than 50 percent jump in users in Germany and a nearly 30 percent increase in France.
You're telling me that anticompetitive practices stifle competition?
For real though, this is great news. Glad the EU finally got apple to open things up a bit, even if it's only in the EU.
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after Apple started letting users choose their default browsers on iOS 17.4 in the EU last week.
Lol, srsly, why does anyone use apple devices willingly. Like for work I sorta get it if there's no alternative but it really took government action to compell this extremely basic customisation.
In the US at least, sadly, it’s imessage. It’s a weird social thing - if you have “green bubbles” people really look down on you.
It’s dumb and superficial, but it works.
In the US
It’s dumb and superficial
Copying my comment from a month ago -
“Finally!
… being able to send longer messages, sending high quality pictures, read receipts, typing indicators, GIFs, location sharing, the ability to send and receive messages over Wi-Fi, and improved group messaging.
And you still see folks thinking color is what’s important.”
I graduated school before smartphones were everywhere but I got a pretty mad when I learned about this. the kids are not ok
Their integration is the best you can get.
You need to buy an expensive phone, watch, computer (would you like to spend another thousand bucks for a monitorstand?) to take advantage of it, which is why I don't have and don't want anything apple. But if you have that, their software stack is superb.
I'm on iOS and had Firefox as my default for several years. Probably shit journo meant browsing engine.
No, third-party browsing engines are not a thing that's been implemented yet, and might never be by Firefox. This is about a screen that prompts EU users to pick a browser rather than defaulting to Safari and leaving it up to them to install another.
The only thing new is that the first time it prompts you to pick which app to pick as your default (and installs it). Only the prompt is new, manually installing something and making it default has been an option for a while.
That’s a valid question, and I have a long answer to share.
short version: suitable balance between convenience and privacy.
Long version: I started with Android, because it allowed me to customize things just the way I like it, unlike iOS where ridiculous restrictions was a reoccurring theme at the time (and still is to a lesser extent). Just using a custom ringtone was convoluted enough whereas many other basic things were completely impossible.
Like, does any car manufacturer sell a car where you can’t adjust the seat, open the windows or change the radio station? Well, Apple makes phone in that same style, and it’s completely absurd.
Eventually, I got tired of the spyware part of Google’s business plan, so I switched to to Lineage OS, which allowed me to get rid of most of that nonsense. I was still bothered by GAPPS, so I reinstalled (again), but completely de-googled this time. For several years, I went back and forth between both styles, to figure out what’s an acceptable balance of convenience and privacy.
This went on for many eyars until 2019 when my bank notified me that the paper code booklet will be phased out in the coming years. I was still using the old-school method of verification because the mobile app refused to work with anything other than stock Android with all the Google bloat still in it.
Some other important apps failed a similar way, and various work-arounds didn’t really work. I came to realize, that in the world of 2010, you kinda could still get away with having reasonable levels of privacy, but in the 2020s the world around me had already changed to such an extent that sticking to the same level of privacy was getting harder and harder. So some sort of change was necessary. Either I’ll have to cut down on features and convenience dramatically, or give up a part of my privacy. I chose the latter.
Around the same time iOS 14 came out, which allowed you to change your default browser. As usual, iOS was many many many years behind Android, but at least one of the obvious basic settings was finally made available. At that point I realized that it’s surprisingly difficult to find the right balance between privacy and convenience. I had only bad options available, so I picked the one that seemed least bad to me.
I mean, iOS is still trash, but now it’s barely tolerable trash. It took Apple like 10 years to make the software just barely tolerable, so switching earlier would have been incredibly frustrating.
Brain dead convenience and simplicity
This change doesn't do anything that you couldn't do before. It's just a prompt forcing you to pick an option before you can access the web vs just having safari and needing to find an alternative. It's the same story as on a PC in Windows.
I use it because I'm tired of Androids shit. I have both an Android phone and an iPhone and I only use the android phone for things that I cannot do on the iPhone. And if I wasn't a massive computer nerd I'd just forgo the second phone entirely.
Ease of use. Your average grandma is more likely to understand how to use "the apple" instead of "the droid".
I don’t think that’s true. Old people are struggling with every phone OS. My mom has an Android phone and nothing really seems more difficult on it than on the iPhone I have to use for work.
It’s just that there are differences, but saying that iOS is so much easier doesn’t seem true to me.
Just look at how difficult it is to move an app from one app to another file on iOS. I might be stupid but I’m always struggling with that😅
Now apply the DMA to Microsoft and Windows so they stop changing the default to Edge every 2 days
Has that actually happened? You sure you didn't click some "I agree" button after an update?
Windows has never set a new default browser for me without asking. Sure, it asked a few times, but unless I agreed, no settings were changed.
It never reset the setting for me either, but it definitely doesn't always respect your wishes. It just goes ahead and opens certain links in edge despite the setting.
Sometimes after an update (luckily I never update my windows because I use it once every 2 months), it will start edge in a full screen window that I cannot close until it stops doing its stupid animation. Maybe I also clicked an I agree button inadvertently, but I never intentionally set edge as default
DMA applies to Microsoft as well. They have been making changes.
Yeah, as the majority of the time, regulations work!
good regulations work. there are also lots of bad ones.
It's the point if "majority of". It doesn't include all of them.
Historically, we experienced the last 50 years disregulation. We should not confuse disregulation and regulation. What is also the point of "majority of". It only include the regulations.
Go, firefox!
Very nice. Nobody wants to use Safari anyway, they were forced by Apple.
Thank you EU!
Now just finish off iMessage and we're done (I'm talking about categorising it as a gatekeeper, since what I've recently noticed is the amount of people who are close to me (classmates, old friends) that switched to apple is growing rapidly, and I'm now waiting for a day someone will be confused as to why I can't use iMessage (mark my words at least here in Czechia iPhone users are going to be a problem, I hope that the situation doesn't end up like in the US)
The only thing I'll credit Safari with is killing Flash.
Huh? I fucking love Safari. Clean layout, integrates with iCloud passwords & OTP (while also cleaning up OTP codes from SMS and Mail.app afterwards), tons of extensions, doesn’t drain the battery on my aging MacBook Pro, supports Profiles, it’s perfect for my needs. I’m also just a huge fan of stock apps, tbh.
That's cool and all, but doesn't the iOS version of Firefox use the same engine as Safari? If so, does changing browsers on iOS amount to anything else than a skin change?
There is a work-in-progress version of Firefox for iOS with Gecko engine.
But, there is also a challenge that Mozilla is facing as Apple is still trying to make life of developers of other browsers as difficult as possible.
So, not sure how the whole thing will turn out.
Very interesting. I wonder if this will result in the EU putting even more pressure on Apple.
The appearance and how you use it is a very important part of a browser, also there are things like sync of history/bookmarks/etc. and "send a tab to Firefox on another device" functionality.
I'm hoping, the same isn't true for Chrome. Safari on iOS was the only other browser that still had relevance, because of this somewhat shitty tactic from Apple.
I’m confused - does it explicitly ask you now?
I’ve had firefox as default for a while now
Yes. Probably if you already changed the default it didn't ask you again
But I was told firefox was doomed because safari is superior to everything????
love to see it!
Where's the article? All I see is 3 paragraphs
Is is weird that I don't care? It seems to me that people choose Apple. I don't get why the EU is targeting Apple. Companies just shouldn't make a ios version of an app if they don't like Apples ecosystem. I for one don't want to use a locked down ecosystem.
Your experience is subjective
That's fair
Or companies like Apple just don't enter markets where there are laws they don't like.
