this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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[–] Auster@kbin.social 77 points 1 year ago (25 children)
[–] Larvitar@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How do you "de-google" when most websites expect most browsers to use chromium and start requiring this to ensure ~~companies buying ad space get the best bang for their buck~~ security?

[–] linuxisfun@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Most websites? Haven't come across one yet (I am using Firefox on all devices and don't have any other browser installed) ... Do you have any examples?

[–] brihuang95@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't think this comment is accurate, the only website that gives you a subpar experience to incentivize you to use a Chromium-based browser that I've come across is, well, google.com on mobile.

Luckily you can download a plugin on Firefox to trick google.com to show you the Chromium experience, or you can just use something like startpage.

[–] linuxisfun@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's true. Luckily I removed Google Search Fixer from my browser this week, as I finally gave up on Google search (hopefully this time it's permanent).

In my opinion its results have been getting so bad (including boolean searches) in the last months that I feel that other search engines don't provide a significantly worse experience anymore. I was unable to find content on Google that I know I found there before and where I know that it's still on the internet, as I was able to find it with other search engines. I actually found that for example Bing gave me much more results when filtering by date range, e. g. searching for web content dated before 2005.

Google's web DRM project was the final straw for me to finally be serious about trying other search engines again (all my previous attempts eventually failed due to my boolean search requirement) and use as little Google services as possible. I have also tried to lower my usage of YouTube over the last couple of months by primarily subscribing to channels I know from YouTube on PeerTube and by using the Piped frontend more. Since I subscribed to YouTube channels via RSS already, it wasn't difficult to switch the RSS feed over to PeerTube instead. ;)

[–] Jmr@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I selfhost SearXNG. Its pretty good. And you can turn on and off different search engines (e.g Google, Bing, Yahoo)

[–] Cubes@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Snapchat web client doesn't work on Firefox :( that's the only one I've run into

[–] linuxisfun@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Interesting! I have actually never used Snapchat, so I haven't come across this.

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 2 points 1 year ago

Google search on FF Android, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Snapchat web, are all apps that have missing features on Firefox or straight up don't work.

[–] penguin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For me, when a website doesn't work in Firefox but does in Chrome or edge, most of the time the real reason is due to me switching from a browser with dozens of add-ons to one with 0.

Otherwise Firefox works fine everywhere.

[–] maynarkh@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Not yet, this is what this change enables. This is just starting now.

[–] brothershamus@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firefox and ublock origin to start. Site requires Chromium? Buh bye now.

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Good luck with that when the site is your bank, your doctor, or your government.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve been de-Googled for 6 months now and the internet works just fine on Firefox and Safari. No significant differences.

[–] dukethorion@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For now. This is a near-future thing.

[–] deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

That’s fine, they’ll lose my traffic.

So many people are acting like they have no choice, like you absolutely have to have everything that everyone else has. You’re obligated to use such and such platform.

Try suffering for what you believe in over convenience for a bit. Things might just change if you give up some things because they’re shit

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We do to google what we should have done to Microsoft: we stop visiting those sights

[–] Neato@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

But we didn't do it with MS. And they saw that. They were the last real antitrust case that was big.

[–] Auster@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree it is an uphill battle, but it must start somewhere. Else, it only gets worse, and then movements against such abuses will get easily crushed. As I like to say, "the hardest part of a journey is the first step", but also "the future belongs to those who prepare now".

[–] 30isthenew29@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If I can’t internet without ads, I can’t internet at all.

[–] whatsarefoogee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Except it's practically impossible to exist in modern society without internet. Unless you're rich and you can get other people to do internet-requiring tasks for you.

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Same. If my pihole breaks the internet because of this, welp. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[–] EyesEyesBaby@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I can count the websites I'm using that don't work with Firefox on one hand.

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