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Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

bugzilla.mozilla.org

31–40 of 98 posts

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#31
post #9

Heh, this won't annoy me in particular since Firefox is already my default. Instead, it'll specifically annoy web developers who prefer some other browser, but are being good netizens and testing in Firefox too. I'm not really okay with making Firefox more annoying for these developers. It's their preference, and the checkbox in settings that is meant to control this prompt should actually control this prompt, all th…

Actually, it will annoy me in particular even though FF is my default browser. Technically, Choosy (https://www.choosyosx.com/) is my default "browser" on macOS and FF is the preferred browser in Choosy. I hope there will be an about:config preference to disable "nudging".

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#32
post #10

> I hope this is either a bug, or misunderstanding: this apparent change does not respect the "Always check if Firefox is your default browser" setting. 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, t…

This justification is making me strongly reconsider my browser choice.

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#33
post #10

> I hope this is either a bug, or misunderstanding: this apparent change does not respect the "Always check if Firefox is your default browser" setting. 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, t…

> just stop shooting yourself in the foot 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.co…

Which is a shame because the technical is entirely subordinate to and for the sake of the non-technical ultimately.

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#35
post #10

> I hope this is either a bug, or misunderstanding: this apparent change does not respect the "Always check if Firefox is your default browser" setting. 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, t…

> just stop shooting yourself in the foot 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.co…

bring back Brendan Eich?

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#37

I think this zero-sum game thinking, where Firefox is either the default browser or it isn't, is antiquated. 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. Wh…

> 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.

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.

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#38
post #5

Still nowhere near as bad as Windows popping up a system level notification on consumer configurations of Windows 10, with a big advertisement for Edge and trying to get people to change their browser to Edge.

It's even worse. When you launch Edge just to go to search and type 'download firefox' Edge tries to stop you by putting a nag banner right inside the search results.

Confirmed on Mac too..

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.

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#39
post #17
post #10

> I hope this is either a bug, or misunderstanding: this apparent change does not respect the "Always check if Firefox is your default browser" setting. 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, t…

> Why 5 weeks? [...] It's not often enough that it will annoy users. 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 askin…

But this is somehow even worse: they do give you an obvious way to turn it off, then they ignore that setting 5 weeks later.

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.

Re: Firefox to regularly nag users to change their default browser

#40
Chrome is better than Firefox for most everyday use. I use Firefox because I don’t want to use a Google browser and I like the idea of having browsers that aren’t based on Chromium, but for goodness’ sake at least make me not hate that choice. I cannot, and do not, recommend Firefox to anybody because it’s not good enough. This is not helping.
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