4 ms·

How again is advertising ( which Google is in a much better position to do anyways ) going to get people choose a Browser which as you pointed out is not techni

How again is advertising ( which Google is in a much better position to do anyways ) going to get people choose a Browser which as you pointed out is not technically superior and requires additional steps for users to install? Originally I thought their strategy was to offer an alternative ecosystem (Persona, Thunderbird) which could potentially have matured in integration with Firefox to provide a better experience than on Chrome (maybe they also could have purchased Evernote or some similar product that benefits greatly from a dedicated ecosystem). But they killed off the former two and failed with FirefoxOS, so I have no idea what their strategy is at this point ( probably most of their market-share is exactly those that switched to Firefox when the choice was firefox vs. ie6 but that's a constantly diminishing segment ).

Sylos 10y ago
By advertising not for being technologically superior, but by getting people to realize that hey, maybe you don't want to stick all of your data into that proprietary hole where the biggest advertising company in the world sits on the other end. That's something which is hard to explain in person, but can be communicated rather well as a general message.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  > but by getting people to realize that hey, maybe you don't want to stick all of your data into that proprietary hole where the biggest advertising company in the world sits on the other end. That argument works for maybe 1% of browser users - that's not nearly enough to support Mozilla. That said having a dedicated user-base that really doesn't want to switch helps a lot but it seems to me like they are blowing by failing to do anything for the rest of users.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    I think, you underestimate for how many people this works. Non-technical people very much orient themselves based on what they know they can trust. If they don't understand the consequences of something, they will try to err on the safe side. See for example anti-virus software. This will is not terribly strong, as even already having to remember a few more letters in a password can completely shatter it, but in the case of Firefox vs. Chrome, that difference is practically nonexistent for the average user, so being told to use Firefox, because it's safer for you, for reasons that you don't understand, but smart people say it, so it's probably true, that can very much influence them to switch over.

Sylos 10y ago

By advertising not for being technologically superior, but by getting people to realize that hey, maybe you don't want to stick all of your data into that proprietary hole where the biggest advertising company in the world sits on the other end. That's something which is hard to explain in person, but can be communicated rather well as a general message.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
> but by getting people to realize that hey, maybe you don't want to stick all of your data into that proprietary hole where the biggest advertising company in the world sits on the other end. That argument works for maybe 1% of browser users - that's not nearly enough to support Mozilla. That said having a dedicated user-base that really doesn't want to switch helps a lot but it seems to me like they are blowing by failing to do anything for the rest of users.
- Sylos 10y ago
  I think, you underestimate for how many people this works. Non-technical people very much orient themselves based on what they know they can trust. If they don't understand the consequences of something, they will try to err on the safe side. See for example anti-virus software. This will is not terribly strong, as even already having to remember a few more letters in a password can completely shatter it, but in the case of Firefox vs. Chrome, that difference is practically nonexistent for the average user, so being told to use Firefox, because it's safer for you, for reasons that you don't understand, but smart people say it, so it's probably true, that can very much influence them to switch over.