Normies used to use IE. Then their techier friends asked them if they have used FF or Chrome and they moved on. Don’t underestimate the impact of local experts on the choices of people who don’t care/have time to explore.
Because both were a lot faster than IE. Nowdays almost everyone uses Chrome, Safari or Edge. Because Firefox is rather slow given the current competitors, not because the others care more about privacy (Also because that's just what their devices come with)
The "normie" internet is some kind of hell, but they seem to be content.
"We" need to do more / better to educate them!
I tried to implement pi-hole for some extended family members. They asked me to turn it off within a week because they couldn't watch advertising videos to earn a new 'life' on candy crush (or something closely resembling that).
I can't relate to "normies" anymore, it's too late for me...
Techies care enough about ad blockers that they will install Firefox on normies computers, just so when their normie friend wants to show them a youtube video, they don't spend 15 seconds watching some absurd commercial.
Ad blocking is at least as big a deal as speed in terms of browsing comfort.
I keep seeing this comment on Hacker News and it makes me wonder. Do you only speak to engineers in your life? I'm on the side of people who think this is a violent threat against the openness of the web, but let's be real. Most of the people you'll run into on the street will have no better sense of this than they did the paradigm shift to HTTPS. In fact it will likely be even more transparent than that, which is part of what makes it so insidious. If you're waiting for a public to mobilise against a self-evident threat, this will fly into being without protest. Most people will need to be made to understand its danger, because they absolutely will not flee by themselves.
Well, considering most people using a browser don't even know of the existence of ad-blockers, I'd wager that no, most people will continue to use whatever is already installed to continue browsing Facebook as usual.
I think survey results showing 40% using ad-blockers is sufficient to question your assertion that most people don't know about ad-blockers. Folks may not all be using them, but I think a majority certainly are aware. And outside the U.S., even a majority use them in some countries.
Ordinary folks on the Internet have friends and family that are technically inclined and often seek advice from them. But most of the time, ordinary folks figure things out just fine in their own.
