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
So they hook you while you’re an insecure teen and by the time you grow up you’re too entrenched in their ecosystem?
They hook you into an ecosystem. That’s it, thats the game. I don’t think it has too much to do with insecurity. Group chats and video chats with people outside of imessage is awful. Group chats lose a lot of features because SMS was all there was for a long time. Standard (not Google-ified) RCS is still too bare at the moment so I don’t think the looming rcs fixes that aspect of it.
Yep. Damn near every tween with a phone just HAS to have an iPhone. If you offered a kid a used regular iPhone 12 with a Crack in the screen, or a new Samsung s24 ultra, they’re taking the iPhone.
The solution to green bubbles? Use Signal, which has blue bubbles across all platforms.
Signal lets me customize the bubble (and background) colors. I can still make everyone green if I wanted.
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.”
Honestly, it’s the first thing to come out of iPhone users mouths, and when you tell them about Signal, more often than not they say “eww I’m not installing another app”.
They’d rather an Android user spend another $1200 than install a free app. It’s not features, it’s elitism.
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.
The software is pretty overrated. Especially safari, which is a legitimately terrible browser and has been for a long time.
I had to use firefox for a long time for it’s the browser with the highest support across web pages and file formats, whereas chrome and edge will just stop working at times. Firefoxi is, as of 2024, one of the best choices.
Jup, but that was only relevant on iOS, never for MacOS. Also the digital markets act will end even that.
For example you can make and receive calls on your computer instead of your phone when you are working on your PC. That is unmatched by any other ecosystem.
Edit: for the time and effort you need to put in to make it work. Yes, you can do it with anything. Linux and pine phone will for sure be capable - but no normal person will do that. Because it takes a ton of effort. Apple supports that out of the box and because everything is linked to a single ID it just works.
You can literally do this with an android too. Link to Windows. I’m unsure how KDE’s app is. But its not just apple that lets you use your phone and all its apps on your pc.
Umm, you can do that on any device. It’s called Google Meet, Zoom, Discord, or any other countless othe video chatting applications out there.
Apple software is pretty overrated no matter if it’s iOS or macOS. I use a MacBook for work and I use exactly zero Apple apps because they just aren’t very good.
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.
Are you telling me every Android phone manufacturer globally prompts their user base to select all their default apps, instead of defaulting to whatever Google, Samsung or some telco choose?
I have a hard time believing that considering all the bloatware…
You are prompted what app to use when trying to do something, yes. If you click a link in an app for the first time, it will ask you what browser to open it into
Samsung browser isn’t bad, but I occasionally used opera to download web pages in PDF more reliably. Chrome is there, it’s basic and fast…but it’s not the best browser.
So Samsung’s default to Samsung browser, and the problem isn’t specific to Apple or iOS?
Samsung phones come with two types of default, the Google apps and the Samsung ones. So yes, they’re all there taking away your memory space.
I believe they meant prompting users to choose a default browser.
Everybody sticks to the default defaults. It’s such a truism that fairness dictated legislators got involved.
The order seems sketchy, that’s not A-z. And if they chose to order by application name, safari would be burried way down the list xD.
It’s randomized
Is it actually thats funny as fuck. But a bit sus that safari is still at the top
Just a coincidence. Safari was 8th or 9th for me while Vivaldi was first.
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.
Reading through the replies, I’m amazed anyone went through the effort to install Firefox but didn’t bother changing the default browser to it. Something in this story smells fishy.
Eh. I have fiddled with many different browsers as my default. Doesn’t mean much when it’s all WebKit.
Doesn’t really seem like the same motivation as what would suddenly lead to a 50% increase in adoption in the EU. I just don’t really see the cause and affect between apple prompting you and suddenly firefox uptick. I’m guessing most people who used to install it never realised just installing it didn’t make it the default (but they should’ve when they open any url).
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.
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😅
I’ve worked in tech support for a long time and personally I also struggle with using Apple devices because of how ass backwards everything is on an Apple device as compared to everything else.
But in my experience the people who don’t understand what file is are more comfortable on Apple devices. It’s by design.
All the elderly people in my family use Android… and they never complained about it. So what gives? I bet that if I’d give them an iPhone they’d be very annoyed and won’t understand how it works.
Apple catered to technologically challenged from the beginning and now they’re all used to using their stuff.
Lol
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.
“androids shit”
Explanation?
See my other reply
I use it because I’m tired of Androids shit
Care to explain further? Android and iOS do mostly the same BS, except android edges out iOS in side loading, customizability and root access. Even on Google’s flagship Pixels, unlocking the bootloader and gaining root is no problem.
Android has zero browser engine restrictions. Every browser can use either WebView’s engine or their own.
Oh yea I forgot about that lol, android also doesn’t handicap the NFC chip for “reasons” lmao (Dunno if Apple is still doing that, I’m not 100% up to date on their shenanigans)
I had an iphone. I’m not going back there because of how restrictive the platform is, but for the basic things it could do, the experience was generally just a lot nicer and more polished.
And that’s honestly why I love the iPhone so much. I just realized I stopped caring about doing anything but basic things, and god damn does it do it so well.
The UI and UX overall are so much nicer on iOS. Especially with gestures, Android’s gesture system is half baked at best.
Sure you can’t rice your phone, but I don’t want to rice my phone. With Android I’m tempted to do stupid shit to my phone because I could, which then causes the phone to be unstable or just not work at all and I have to wipe and reload. With iOS that’s not an option, and honestly I’ve grown past that shit. When Cyanogenmod died all interest I had left in Android died with it. And over the years I’ve found out I wasn’t alone. Root is great, but have you ever just had a phone that works?
Even when I don’t do stupid shit I’ve experienced so many bugs. My camera for example runs at 2fps on my Pixel 4, and I can’t figure out why. UI and UX for apps aren’t as rigidly followed on Android to the experience is a lot less consistent (insert Apple not following their own guidelines meme). And honestly I run into so many more bugs in various apps on Android. In the past year I’ve had maybe 5 app crashes on iOS using it as my main phone. On my Android phone I’ve had at least twice that + at least one full phone crash.
Also the SOCs available on Android phones are garbage. I haven’t looked much into the SD 8 gen2/gen3, but I honestly doubt they’d be as efficient as Apple’s silicon + deep hardware software tie in. (insert iPhone 15 overheating).
Ok so you hate android because you couldn’t stop tinkering with it and it got unstable? And you love apple because they don’t let you tinker with it?
You must the only one who is actually benefiting from apples anti-consumer practices. Keep using apple. It seems the right choice for you.
If you don’t tinker with Android it is stable and has almost no bugs. Can’t speak for apps because that is the developers responsibility.
And yes Android phones are usually more inefficient but as long as I can use it a whole day without charging I don’t care.
Ok so you hate android because you couldn’t stop tinkering with it and it got unstable?
It’s unstable without tinkering with things too. Usually the OS is fine, it’s the individual apps that are the problem, even the built in stuff from Google has problems. My current device isn’t even some shitty Samsung or Motorola phone, it’s a Pixel 4. What’s supposed to be the gold standard.
You must the only one who is actually benefiting from apples anti-consumer practices.
Is preventing users from rooting their phone doing stupid shit and breaking their phone really anti consumer? Anti enthusiast? Yes. Anti consumer? Not so much. And it’s not like you can even do that on all Android phones.
It is anti-consumer. And yes many Android phones are anti-consumer too just not as bad as Apple yet.
I as the consumer want to have the option to do what I want with my device. I want to be able to root it, install software that isn’t meant for it and even flash a completely different os.
It’s a choice. Nobody has to do but should be able to if they want to. Taking this choice away is anti-consumer.
Gluing in a battery into a phone when there’s no need to because it even has space left to make the old swapable ones possible is anti-consumer because you take the option away to change it without breaking your phone.
i have a rooted android (running calyx) and it just works and its great. i never fuck around with it at all, whether due to necessity or ricing desires.
Lmao, so most of your problem with android is your own self control and third-party app aesthetics. Btw, I have root enabled right now and my phone has never had an issue just working (and it’s a Pixel Fold, a first gen Google product no less).
You complain of gestures, yet, you’re silent on iOS’s shit notification system? Has iOS finally gotten the ability to turn off individual app notification channels yet? (As in, you can turn all of an apps “promotional” notifications off, but leave actual important ones on)
Bugs are in everything, iOS has had it’s fair share of nasty bugs. On top of that, the Pixel 4 is rather old, latest Pixels have been solid performers for the most part.
Android SOCs aren’t currently beating Apple SOCs, but they’re far from garbage and it’s doubtful you’ll be able to tell the difference in real world usage
You complain of gestures, yet, you’re silent on iOS’s shit notification system?
I have no qualms with iOS’s notifcation system. iOS handles it in app, vs android you’d have to do that in the settings, and not all apps support this. Slack for example does it in app on both iOS and Android. And Discord just doesn’t do either.
latest Pixels have been solid performers for the most part.
The Tensor chips have been hot garbage. There’s a reason I haven’t upgraded my Android phone to one of those. I won’t complain about this pixel performing on par with an iPhone 2 years older than it, and worse than my iPhone 15. But 2 fps in the camera there’s something wrong. And all the stuttering since new just isn’t acceptable. The difference is VERY noticeable when the phone throttles to 10fps in maps. I had to resort to underclocking in order to maintain decent performance longer term at the expense of even worse performance in day to day tasks.
The Tensor chips have been hot garbage. There’s a reason I haven’t upgraded my Android phone to one of those. I won’t complain about this pixel performing on par with an iPhone 2 years older than it, and worse than my iPhone 15. But 2 fps in the camera there’s something wrong. And all the stuttering since new just isn’t acceptable. The difference is VERY noticeable when the phone throttles to 10fps in maps. I had to resort to underclocking in order to maintain decent performance longer term at the expense of even worse performance in day to day tasks.
Fair point, Tensor chips have not been…the greatest…lmao but it’s not that bad on my Pixel Fold and that’s the thing about android, you’re not stuck to one manufacturer.
Samsungs are pretty solid and they completely lock you out of the bootloader so it might be more your style. Or maybe you’re feeling spicy and want to give the OnePlus Open a try. Or maybe the Nothing phone.
Brain dead convenience and simplicity
Now apply the DMA to Microsoft and Windows so they stop changing the default to Edge every 2 days
Apparently, Microsoft now allows uninstalling Edge, to comply with the DMA. What that means in practice, I have no idea.
Not in the US. In EEA* as pointed out by BaardFigur
EEA**
thanks, ill change it
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.
I believe, the behaviour is different, depending on where you’re from. In the EU, Microsoft is comparatively well-behaved. In the US, they’re extra icky.
I’m in the US and that has never happened to me, and neither has a lot of the other wild shit people claim microsoft does every day.
What I see a lot of the time is default pdf viewers and the like being left on Edge. They also hide the default browser setting in outlook to default to Edge.
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 of “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.
See: GDPR with massive fines for small companies but almost nothing for tech giants, and the complete lack of any action against non-compliant or maliciously compliant cookie banners.
Most tech giants are compliant now (which is the actual goal of regulation, not fines). Although they’ve had fines too.
90 million € for Google? I’m sure they learned their lesson.
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.
Boiling frog syndrome. Enjoy your walled garden.
Hey, we don’t need that negativity here. We need that negativity for the apple fan boys who’d die to buy the latest phone, than to re-use an old one.
Luckily they last a super long time with regular software updates and security patches!
Is it walled, though? What am I missing? I use Firefox now and then and don’t see anything other than uBlock origin that I’m missing out on (and I much prefer using NextDNS globally on my systems). In fact, I prefer a lot of the Safari extensions. Gotta love the “it just works” part of stock apps. Can’t say the same for Firefox…
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 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
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.
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.
