3 ms·

Why is the market share of Firefox in Germany so much higher?

18 points by jlelse 6y ago

tobltobs 6y ago
> Are people in Germany more critical of Google? I somehow don’t believe that… For historical reasons (NS, Stasi) Germans value their privacy very high. Google is collecting a lot of data and therefore they are critical. 10 years ago, before Chrome vs. Firefox it was IE vs. Opera. This is also the reason why still a lot of Germans avoid using credit cards.
- jlelse 6y ago
  Yeah that's right, but people also use Google to search and use Windows on the desktop.
- Argorak 6y ago
  It may be a factor, but it is no the root and the concept is not privacy, though. The root is the 1983 supreme court decision around informational self-determination. The right has constitutional rank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determinati... Privacy is a part of that, but not all of it. A second cultural aspect is that Germans tend to have higher trust into the state, but lower trust in companies when it comes to such subjects, while in the US, this is reversed.
Arnt 6y ago
Germany's been an outlier for many IT things. IIRC the Psion PDAs and the ARM (that is, the original computer, running RiscOS, not its CPU) were vastly more popular in Germany than in the other big countries. Maybe you could say, as a rule of thumb, that if engineers tend to like a particular IT product, then that product will be more popular in Germany than in the other big countries.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
I guess the reach of German IT media like heise-Verlag on reviews and buyer guides may have something to do with it.
- detaro 6y ago
  I'd also guess this played a part. Not just the heise publications, also many "lower-end" magazines with more popular reach were touting Mozilla Suite and then Firefox a lot to the professional and enthusiast crowd - who then put Firefox on their relatives etc PCs, so a large audience is familiar with it. Not sure other languages had such media that much? Combine that with an attitude that's maybe not chasing trends that much if things work, maybe less advertising impact by Google (although they have the nudges in their products here too, but I feel like I see more in english spaces), and people stick to it longer?
craftoman 6y ago
Because they value security and privacy. They just prefer to work with Microsoft Office rather than have 50 different web apps that drain all their data for no reason.

18 points by jlelse 6y ago

> Are people in Germany more critical of Google? I somehow don’t believe that… For historical reasons (NS, Stasi) Germans value their privacy very high. Google is collecting a lot of data and therefore they are critical. 10 years ago, before Chrome vs. Firefox it was IE vs. Opera. This is also the reason why still a lot of Germans avoid using credit cards.

jlelse 6y ago
Yeah that's right, but people also use Google to search and use Windows on the desktop.
Argorak 6y ago
It may be a factor, but it is no the root and the concept is not privacy, though. The root is the 1983 supreme court decision around informational self-determination. The right has constitutional rank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_self-determinati... Privacy is a part of that, but not all of it. A second cultural aspect is that Germans tend to have higher trust into the state, but lower trust in companies when it comes to such subjects, while in the US, this is reversed.

Arnt 6y ago

Germany's been an outlier for many IT things. IIRC the Psion PDAs and the ARM (that is, the original computer, running RiscOS, not its CPU) were vastly more popular in Germany than in the other big countries. Maybe you could say, as a rule of thumb, that if engineers tend to like a particular IT product, then that product will be more popular in Germany than in the other big countries.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

I guess the reach of German IT media like heise-Verlag on reviews and buyer guides may have something to do with it.

detaro 6y ago
I'd also guess this played a part. Not just the heise publications, also many "lower-end" magazines with more popular reach were touting Mozilla Suite and then Firefox a lot to the professional and enthusiast crowd - who then put Firefox on their relatives etc PCs, so a large audience is familiar with it. Not sure other languages had such media that much? Combine that with an attitude that's maybe not chasing trends that much if things work, maybe less advertising impact by Google (although they have the nudges in their products here too, but I feel like I see more in english spaces), and people stick to it longer?

craftoman 6y ago

Because they value security and privacy. They just prefer to work with Microsoft Office rather than have 50 different web apps that drain all their data for no reason.