While Chrome Dominates, Microsoft Edge Struggles To Attract New Users (neowin.net) 172
An anonymous reader quotes Neowin's report on the newest browser-usage figures from NetMarketShare:
Microsoft Edge only commands a market share of 5.65% -- which is an increase of only 0.02 percentage points compared to last month... it only grew by 0.56% year-over-year. On the other hand, Google Chrome has continued its dominance with a market share of 59.49%. As a point of reference, this is a sizeable growth of 10.84 percentage points year-over-year... Data from another firm, StatCounter, depicts an even more depressing situation for Microsoft. According to the report, Edge sits at 3.89%... Chrome is the king of all browsers according to these statistics as well, with a market share of 63.21% -- a decrease of 0.14 percentage points compared to last month. Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari command 14%, 9.28%, and 5.16% respectively.
The firm also calculates that when it comes to desktop operating systems, Windows has 91.51% of all users, followed by MacOS at 6.12 and Linux at 2.36%.
The firm also calculates that when it comes to desktop operating systems, Windows has 91.51% of all users, followed by MacOS at 6.12 and Linux at 2.36%.
Edge's OK (Score:3, Interesting)
It was a POS when it came out but it got better. Now, it's usable.
Interesting to think that forcing the Windows 10 upgrade while Edge was a total turd may have accidentally killed the web browser market for Microsoft.
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"usable"? Even links is usable
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Lynx
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Yes, that, too.
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Re: Edge's OK (Score:2)
Hell yeah!
Re: Edge's OK (Score:1)
I just telnet to port 80 and manually type in all the HTTP commands for my daily web surfing needs. For HTTPS I have to use the s_client of openssl, but whatever. My brain renders all the visuals from my terminal at the fastest speed, than "Edge". Hold on, mom is calling from upstairs, BRB.
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Then you have Safari and Opera trailing around too.
And here's a list of more browsers: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/... [thewindowsclub.com]
Anyway - Microsoft browsers are only useful as a last resort if you can't get anything else to work. Mostly on company intranets.
Re: Edge's OK (Score:2)
Not just that; they are also useful for downloading Chrome, apparently.
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What is Microsoft waiting for?
You fundamentally misunderstand Microsoft's motives. Microsoft's strengths have traditionally been bringing power user functionality to products that are also relatively easy to understand by novice users. However, that all changed when the iPhone came out, and then Steve Ballmer laughed at it, and then ended up eating his foot.
After that, Microsoft changed its business strategy to target the lowest common denominator of users, because if it worked really well for Apple, then clearly it will work for them a
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This is the same company that couldn't better Netscape for 3 version of their browser, so they bought a rendering engine and built IE4 around it. That same rendering engine is the core of Edge, 20 years later.
MS is rather bad at making software, they're much better at buying into market segments they want to be in, then using their dominant market position to push "their" product. Trident, Excel, Visio, Skype, Nokia, the list g
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I disagree. Microsoft's UI design language just plain sucks, and Edge is no exception. A great example of why it sucks is this page:
https://www.bing.com/translato... [bing.com]
On laptop and touch screens, the light grey to the right of the "auto-detect" dropdown box sends an impression (to most users I show it to) that this is where you're supposed to type the text. But it's not, where you're supposed to type text is in the little box below it with an outline so thin that it's barely even visible on many screens, so i
Sucks on multiple fronts (Score:2)
It's neither compatible with IE, nor better.
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But it comes with extra spyware, designed to integrate with Windows 10's spyware!
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But Microsoft spyware is BEST spyware! Chortle. When you have an OS which detects you changing your browser and then pleads with you to give Edge a chance and people still have something better in mind, you really need to rethink your strategy. Oh, this is Microsoft we're talking about here - fuck the User and full steam ahead with the OS rental plans.
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Netscape 4 detected you changing your browser and pleaded.
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And it didn't help at the time either :)
Even with aggressive defaults (Score:1)
Even with aggressive defaults or the missing eu browser ballot, most users appear to be deciding they do not want to use edge on Windows 10.
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But are people willing to pay $50 to leave Edge behind? Windows 10 S is locked down to run only Edge, just as iOS is locked down to run only Safari and other Apple WebKit wrappers. As of July 2017, Windows 10 S is targeted toward the school market, but I've read rumors here on Slashdot that Microsoft plans to eventually replace Windows 10 Home on new PCs with Windows 10 S.
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Just as is the case with Apple, rumors on Slashdot determine what I believe about Microsoft.
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Windows 10 S is locked down to run only Edge
No. You can run other browsers. It's just that Edge is always the default browser. Read the Windows 10 S FAQ [microsoft.com]
Would have to wrap EdgeHTML (Score:3)
From the Windows 10 S FAQ: "When in Windows 10 S configuration, you are able to download any browser available in the Windows Store"
From "Windows Store Policies" [microsoft.com], as reported in "Microsoft Has Effectively Banned Third-Party Browsers From the Windows Store" by Catalin Cimpanu [bleepingcomputer.com]:
Thus all web browsers for Windows 10 S are wrappers for the same EdgeHTML engine that Microsoft Edge uses, in the sam
Mobile (Score:1)
I use Chrome on my phone and tablet but don't even have it installed on my Window 10 desktop. There I use SeaMonkey, with Edge in the places where NoScript won't let through must see pages.
Depicts an depressing situation (Score:4, Insightful)
depicts an even more depressing situation for Microsoft. According to the report, Edge sits at 3.89%...
when it comes to desktop operating systems, Windows has 91.51% of all users...
Depicts an even more depressing situation for the world...
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>> Linux at 2.36%
Linux increased it's desktop market share. That's good, but a long way remaining to the top.
Probably next year Linux could overtake Edge, that would be cool.
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X11/Linux taking desktop usage share away from Windows 10 is good for people who want to work on projects requiring more than one window at a time without being beholden to a known private spy agency.
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Good for me.
It means more and more companies are switching to Linux desktops, which makes sense when nearly all infrastructure and often also products run Linux.
This means my next job could has more chances to be bound to a Linux workstation, which would make me a happier guy.
I already had the delight to work in a 95% Linux environment for 3 Years, it was like being on holiday, but at work.
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It's good for almost everyone who is not a tech giant like Microsoft or Apple.
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<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Oculus_Rift">Doesn't it already?</a> If not then you probably shouldn't hold your breath.<br>
Also, <a href="https://www.khronos.org/openxr">OpenXR is like OpenGL but for VR</a>.
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What is missing in that 91.51% of desktop users, is the rapid shrinking of that desktop user market, now smaller that smart phones. Which is why when you total up desktop, notebooks, smart phones, smart TVs, tablets windows loses to Linux and even Apple is looking to pass M$. So how rapidly will the desktop market shrink, is the real question and it most certainly is shrinking and that is what will kill M$ because they can not fall back to the server market, their game console market is shrinking and they a
User Interface (Score:5, Insightful)
It all comes down to the user interface.
I'd still be with firefox if they didnt butcher the interface trying to copy windows ribbon with a shytty alternative.
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I'd still be with firefox if they didnt butcher the interface trying to copy windows ribbon
I use Firefox all the time and I have no idea what ribbon interface you're talking about. When I use Firefox on Windows I turn on the menu and I also switch to the Compact Light theme, which is one of the three default themes.
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The fundamental point that both Microsoft and Google are missing with the latest iterations of their browser, is that Internet Explorer offered an alternative to Chrome that gave people more personally configurable options, plenty of corporate configurable options via group pol
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You're basing your desktop choice on what browser is installed by default on the desktop OS? Browsers used to be something we installed after we chose an OS. Ooops, they still can be and are.
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Try Windows 10S!
It's a real product that exists and Microsoft is pushing right now!
And the default browser is locked to Microsoft Edge and cannot be changed. You can install other browsers, but every link you click in an email, or in a store, or in a notification, or anything is going to take you right back to Edge.
The future!
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None of the Apple executives use Macs these days and it shows.
Not because I don't believe you but because I'd like to send that off to a few Mac zealots I know.
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Too late they shouldn't have tried to become Chrome Jr.
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Why should I have to go hunting for a theme just to undo all of the stupid changes to the Firefox UI? Anyway, I stopped using it when I found that Chrome was faster at javascript (I use Ext JS a lot) but I do miss Firebug. I'd even go so far as to say that the world only needs one rendering engine: everyone should just use chromium. There, internet problem solved.
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Both are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually still really bad news for consumers. Both browsers are designed to lock you into an ecosystem. In Chrome's case it is Google's advertising ecosystem; Edge is designed to keep you dependant on Microsoft tech. What is really needed is a move to Firefox and (yes) Opera. A diversification of browsers is good for compatibility and standards compliance and liberates users from monopolistic corporation whose motivations are unclear and convoluted.
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This is actually still really bad news for consumers. Both browsers are designed to lock you into an ecosystem. In Chrome's case it is Google's advertising ecosystem; Edge is designed to keep you dependant on Microsoft tech. What is really needed is a move to Firefox and (yes) Opera. A diversification of browsers is good for compatibility and standards compliance and liberates users from monopolistic corporation whose motivations are unclear and convoluted.
With Chrome you can go into the settings and change what you want to be tracked or not tracked. In fact, you don't even have to log in to Google so if they are tracking for advertising purposes all they have is an IP address. There is also an "Incognito window" (Pretty well all browsers have this) although this does not stop tracking by ISP's and the target site. Yes TOR can but you have to trust that the site operators respect your privacy.
Personally, I would rather trust a browser not to be annoying wit
Re:Both are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You could also always just go for a chromium based browser like SRiron that strips the Google ogling from the Chrome.
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Yes, posting from Vivaldi now.
It's the best I've tried.
Re:Both are bad (Score:5, Insightful)
So no, nobody is going to be moving to Firefox, nor should they, and their existing userbase will largely be abandoning them this year. I'll be using a pre-57 version for as long as that's viable, then that's it.
You say Yes to Opera, but does it really offer a compelling alternative to MS/Chrome like Firefox used to? Doesn't seem that way. The Pale Moon fork of Firefox seems like the only reasonable alternative at this point. But that's never going to be mainstream. So Edge v. Chrome here we come.
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SeaMonkey is also a choice.
But it's never going to be mainstream.
But who cares about it being mainstream??? Isn't this Slashdot?
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There probably wouldn't be much opposition to it if there were something that would replace it without losing functionality.
But there isn't.
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Have you tried Vivaldi?
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Personally, I strongly dislike Chromium because it's hard to use and feels limited.
I use Edge for Netflix and nothing else (Score:5, Insightful)
Edge is the only browser that Netflix supports for 1080p (and even 4K streaming with certain processors). All other browsers are stuck at 720p or less for Netflix. It's an artificial limitation created by Netflix for piracy protection, but until I set up another device (perhaps an Amazon Fire TV) that can do as well or better for Netflix, I'll stick with Edge. Netflix's Windows 10 app will also allow 1080p, but the interface is a bit wonky, and for some reason, it doesn't work well on my laptop (though it works perfectly well for another laptop I have, and I have no idea why.) The app will just up and crash.... but, Edge works just fine.
Sure, I could use a different browser and watch Netflix in 720p, but why when Edge can do better?
My 1080p smart TV has its own Netflix app, but I believe it's also limited to 720p (it's pretty old for a 1080p TV)... maybe if/when I get a 4K TV I'll just use the app that comes with it instead.
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I tend to agree... but, it's their official reason.
I don't think Netflix really cares about piracy -- they dominate the online streaming market & they're about to surpass any cable company in terms of subscriptions in the USA alone (assuming they haven't already). Why would they care if anyone pirates Orange is the New Black when almost everyone has a subscription and can watch it for free (with paid subscription) whenever they like anyway. Watching a pirate version just means you aren't using Netfli
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Fair point. I was limiting my focus to Windows, Linux, and Android as that's all that's in my household. I often forget there are Mac and iOS users out there. I don't know why that is since my cousins use Mac laptops exclusively.
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Thanks for the tip... but, my issue is entirely different.
If I run the Netflix App at all (without even logging into the Netflix App), it will crash. Sometimes it will let me play one movie, then refuse to go back to the browse screen... and then freeze/lock up. I assume the app itself is corrupt and/or it's not playing well with video drivers.
It's the strangest thing as I have no issues with any other software on that laptop. I think I made some attempts at googling fixes for it, but didn't find anyt
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As an update, I fixed my Netflix App issue. Uninstalled, Re-installed... then noticed the app would still open, but remain minimized. It was trying to display on a monitor that didn't exist. I told the computer to display to 1 monitor only... and that didn't work. Then, I reversed the monitor display settings (monitor 1, monitor 2 to monitor 2, monitor 1 instead) , and the app suddenly appeared where I could move it to where I needed it... then I swapped the monitors back.
So... the app is stupid
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It makes you wonder if they bother testing anything.
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I do this too for Firefox and Chrome. Sometimes it's just easier to use separate browsers than to switch users.
This is kind of why I like having multiple browsers anyway -- backups should one fail and for different uses.
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I just use multiple FF incognito mode windows.
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Because I have a laptop with a really long HDMI cable connected to a 60" TV that I regularly use for gaming, multimedia streaming, and watching my cable TV streaming from without a cable box. (Spectrum TV's browser based streaming is actually a LOT better than their coax-based tv without a box, and it's faster switching channels and searching than the HDTV box) So, basically the laptop is already connected to the TV, so opening a browser to watch Netflix is trivial. I used to use the SmartTV's Netflix
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I tend to agree that 720p is fine for most uses. I watch Netflix on a Linux machine in 720p, but it has a 24" monitor. For the size and the distance from the screen, I really can't tell if the stream is 720 or 1080p on the 24" screen. But, my TV is 60", and I can usually tell the difference between 1080p and 720p, though not always. I've heard of the speed modifiers before, and while that's very interesting, I don't find myself needing to speed through shows. I watch them for leisure and often pau
Chrome, the One Percenter (Score:4, Funny)
Chrome may only be 59.49% of the market share, but it owns 99% of the memory out there. It's the browser one percenter!!
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I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome (Chrome portable actually because Google won't let you change the install directory on regular Chrome). The speed increase is incredible, granted my PC is quite old.
I do notice that sites like Wired and WaPo have started telling me I am using an ad blocker. When I Google for a solution all I get instructions for uninstalling an extension, but I have no extensions to uninstall, and I can't find anything in the settings.
I may have to go back to Firefox for this rea
Can Chrome become the new IE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Chrome becoming the new IE is what I'm afraid of. Its market share is >60 and rising fast - at this rate in a few years Chrome is reaching 90% and everything else is marginalised. That opens up the opportunity for Google to start "extending" its browser and for web developers to develop sites that are Chrome-only as "it's what everyone uses", instead of coding to standards as they just about have to in the current situation.
The risk of Google stopping browser innovation and stalling the web for a decade is less likely than back in the IE vs Netscape days but it is a distinct possibility when we again have a single browser dominating the field.
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It would be a problem, but not as huge as the IE f***up..
The issue with IE was that it not only prevented other browser from gaining popularity, but also preventing people from running anything else than Windows, and it still does in some cases (there *still* exists IE6 only sites!!). I would say this is one of the causes they have reach such a user-count today. If applications would have been built for multiple platforms it would be a fight for what is best, not what has the largest user-base... And with a
You needn't worry (Score:2)
Re:Can Chrome become the new IE? (Score:5, Interesting)
Partially, I agree with this - anyone having 90% of a market in just about any computing segment turns into a problem pretty quickly. Google, however, is in a place where they've been EEEing 'the internet'. Google fonts are everywhere. Google AMP is becoming a de facto requirement for mobile sites. GCC might be bouncing between second and third place with Microsoft for cloud hosting, but don't underestimate Google's ability to play the long game. Google also basically-owns the advertising market, meaning that they largely control the financial aspect of what runs many of the smaller sites. Even if they switched market shares with Opera, an internet without Google is basically a broken internet now.
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an internet without Google is basically a broken internet now.
Indeed. And that's pretty scary in itself.
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If you think that open source software and technologies can be used to EEE, you don't understand how open source works.
I'm well aware of how open source works. I'm also aware of how Google AMP works, and it still involves a dependency on Google [theregister.co.uk]. More to the point, Google isn't using AMP to EEE the internet, they're using their search indexing algorithm - which is not open source, to do so, and using AMP as a part of preferable rankings. That's the kind of thing that would have gotten 90's Microsoft in trouble, but since it's Google, and AMP is open sourced, and they're a darling of Silicon Valley, it's not a problem.
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Use a standards compliant browser off the beaten path and you'll run into all sorts of barriers you can't get around and sites that don't work well, all because they are wittingly or unwittingly designed with Chrome in mind.
That may be the case, but all that means to me is that those are sites that I will never go to. Much like sites that don't work if I've disabled javascript or block ads: that's fine, those sites are now nonexistent to me.
It hasn't harmed my browsing experience at all.
Have to code better (Score:2)
Imagine been able to create something useful on a Microsoft OS thats not a computer game.
Edge does nothing thats useful.
Been a browser that can surf the web without crashing or not failing as much is not a really a selling point.
Re: Have to code better (Score:2)
There are many useful pieces of software on Windows otherwise no one would use it.
When "other" eats most of the half of IE... (Score:2)
A differential shows that more than a half of percentage points lost by IE (.71%) since the last month go to "other" (.38% increase) which is more than twice larger than the increase in Safari points (.16%) which is actually a largest winner (by a small margin) last month (Chrome has only .13% increase)
Month June, 2017
Chrome 0.0013
Internet Explorer -0.0071
Firefox 0.0004
Microsoft Edge 0.0002
Safari 0.0016
Other 0.0038
Sum 0.0002
And someone thinks this is news? (Score:2)
Microsoft products can attract users only and only if they can create an "artificial" environment where that product is the only one to work.
For example, can you tell me where and when a Microsoft browser is preferable to any other one?
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You don't remember the time when Netscape was becoming so broken that people longed for the much better working and faster IE?
That, by the way, was only partly due to the strong lock-in MS created with their extensions. A lock-in that led to the disaster of IE6 (which, when it was just released, was a pretty advanced browser).
Re: And someone thinks this is news? (Score:2)
Nope... you win the thread.
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On a touchscreen, actually. Edge has a reasonable tablet/touch UI. Chrome and Firefox used to, but they removed them.
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Is there anyone really using a Microsoft environment with a touch UI?
to desktop operating systems (Score:1)
The phase out of W7 flattened in the last year. The year before it was slowly dropping, but now it is steady percentage. W10 continues to grow but at the expense of earlier W versions. I suspect that some of the incentives MS was offering to upgrade to W10 expired last year.
Edge is usable now (Score:1)
The problem is Microsoft (Score:4)
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When was Microsoft ever "nice guys"?
Excellent situation (Score:3)
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I agree wholeheartedly!
Linux is, in my opinion, in a bit of a sweet spot. Popular enough to have decent development happening, but not so popular that it suffers from all of the various nastiness that happens to popular operating systems.
Gosh (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, I wonder why people don't really choose to use a browser that's a replacement for a previously atrocious browser from the same company, that was foisted upon people resulting in monopoly lawsuits, that choose just about every non-standard and insecure method of rendering a page that it possibly could, that only ever runs on a single operating system, is again bundled so you can't avoid it and pesters the shit out of you on upgrades to make it the default AGAIN, and really doesn't do anything that other browsers don't do, while also NOT doing quite a lot of things that other browsers do.
I can't possibly work it out.
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Bingo!
Not a fan of Edge, but.... (Score:2)
add-ons make the difference (Score:4, Interesting)
I stick with Firefox because of the addons. No Flash nonsense with slide shows, popups, flashing adverts, etc. No unwanted trackers or spyware. No suspicious remote scripts. And the ability to change the format of a page: for instance, seeing Slashdot the full width of the window instead of wasting half my expensive screen space.
It seems that some of these addons are available for other browsers, but perhaps less effective. I'd experiment with other browsers but I really don't care as long as Firefox gives me a clean browsing experience. Yes, your browser may be 1.6% faster, but if it can't cut the crap from the screen I don't care. The choice of browser for me is not a religious obsession, it is simply a plea for peace of mind as I try to navigate aggressive web pages and preserve some privacy.
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Yes, I am the same. I don't really care about speed -- all of the browsers are fast enough. I really care about two things: the user interface and whether or not I can have the functionality that NoScript provides. RIght now, that means Firefox with the Classic Theme Restorer.
Once CTR stops working, I think that Pale Moon is the only refuge left.
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HackTheWeb
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
Firefox's FireFTP (Score:2)
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91.5% of users on Windows isn't that surprising, the real fun stat will be how many are on 10.
Windows worked really hard to shove that down peoples throats weather they wanted it or not. I bet adoption numbers are lower than MS wants by a lot.
Currently Windows 10 is 26.8% compared to Windows 7 at 49.04%. What is surprising is Windows XP is at 6.94% while Windows 8.1 is at 6.4 and Windows 8 is at 1.37%. Check out the following site [netmarketshare.com] for more information on Linux (2.36%) and Mac (3.49%). Actually, the site is worth bookmarking since it can usually settle or create arguments pretty quickly. :)
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You have some selection bias going on. Your enterprise clients are likely dominated by a particular demographic and not representative of the population as a whole.
That said, About 75% of the Windows users I personally know are using Windows 7 on their personal machines (and about half of the WIn 10 people really, really wish they had Windows 7 back, the other half don't care). It's somewhere near 100% Windows 10 on their works machines.
But I have the same selection bias thing going on.
Four-function calculator filling a 10 inch screen (Score:2)
Desktop? But my tablet is on the desktop.
To me a "desktop operating system" is one whose GUI shows more than one window at a time, as opposed to the "all maximized all the time" window management policy of stock Android versions 6 ("Marshmallow") and earlier, where a four-function calculator fills the screen.
Surfing on a "desktop" copy of Windows or a "non-desktop" Android device is still surfing the web. Writing documents in Windows or Android is still writing documents.
Can you surf the web in half the screen and write a document about the site you're surfing in the other half? Or do you have to switch back and forth and suffer doorway amnesia [scientificamerican.com]?
Re: Not flamebait (Score:1)
Agreed.
Windows is still king on the desktop but the desktop market is in decline. Instead of one desktop or laptop, many users have multiple devices. Like tablets, phones, etc. I have friends that have ditched their laptops all together and just use their phone/pad.
Sure Windows is king but the kingdom is shrinking.
Re: Not flamebait (Score:2)
The consumer desktop market is for sure but the business desktop won't be switching huge spreadsheets, graphic design and so many other things to a 12in iPhone that actually costs more than a laptop.
Same thing happened to me; submissions marked SPAM (Score:2)
... then I could not post any replies. It took me a couple of months to figure out what had happened. I had just figured Slashdot was failing with some weird error message, guessing incorrectly perhaps related to the IP range of my ISP. I was also going through mixed feelings about Slashdot, so fixing it was not high on my priority list.
I eventually had to contact someone at Slashdot via email to fix my account. Then I could post again.
But they never unmarked the submissions as SPAM.
Here are the three submi