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For general-purpose use this may be true. For specialized Web-based tools, like access to medical or legal systems, not as much: the users are conditioned to work with a specific browser (many remember MSIE-only apps), and are used to the idea that their workstation has all kinds of Internet access limitations, along with a corporate policy that expressly forbids arbitrary browsing.

[Edited: typo]

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The browser familiarity might have been more true 15-30 years ago.

The installation of any software and management of it is norhing tnew in the corporate world.

Chrome may be chrome. Chrome is not the default on windows computers in corporations. Edge usually is.

After it's installed, professionals much more now know today how to remember which icon to select and run.

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Have done small to medium institutional rollouts of Firefox in different orgs, some of which were on top of a Linux base and others a Windows base. Windows deployments include Firefox in the base image and configuration is managed with AD and Ansible. Linux deployments manage configuration with Ansible. The preinstalled browsers were removed or disabled.

All users received an orientation and were informed that Firefox is the only approved browser.

Firefox was pinned to the desktop and taskbar, usually with the name "INTERNET" as the web browser is commonly known here.

The number of support tickets was very small. Usually if a user reported a problem with the web browser, it was a page that was also broken in Chrome or some other network issue.

Users reacted positively when they saw that there are no ads in Firefox. uBlock Origin was preinstalled.

Without ads and tracking scripts the web browser is massively faster, which also was perceived by users.

If there is any initial resistance to Firefox, it usually melts quickly.

The only bother has been the frequent UI updates to Firefox, which occasionally cause frustration until we apply a new configuration to revert whatever fresh horrors Firefox designers have birthed. With ESR, these problems are less frequent.

I hope this Firefox Enterprise freezes the UI to the classic "tabs look like tabs" aesthetic, maintaining the option of vertical tabs.

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I briefly read institutional as 'intentional', with both in mind, the standardization of experience is something that's really wroth thinking about.

One feeling I am starting to get is server side web apps might make more of a re-emergence, because putting so much application and business logic in the front end serves as a bigger footprint for possible security issues.

With respect to resistance to browsers (or preference for something else), I agree that users seek familiarity and those who got to start with Firefox do still remember it.

Mozilla is just one org, but it's relative independence will hopefully provide other perspectives to using a web browser as a universal interface, not just for humans, but our new sentence-dna containing friends.

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I wish this was true. At my org we had to add Chrome to the base image because otherwise we get so many tickets/calls about it even though we provide it via an internal software distribution service that any user has access to. People like what they like and are very resistant to change.
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I wish that was true too.

I remember one place simply changed the icon and watched the issues drop.

People really can be creatures of habit.

Some enterprises i've seen put in their own icon for a web browser (imagine starting with an intranet) and that helps separate it a bit more.

This might not be for everyone, nor ideal in all cases but people seemed to be OK with the idea of having a dashboard to launch their work from.

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I've found this to be one of those issues that just seems completely normal when you first hear it but when you dig into the actual users, the "why" starts to get lost.

My anec-data on the subject seems to imply it affects a very specific segment of people: The "I only use a (usually Windows) computer at work" folks. The odd part of that is that almost all of them seem to own iPhones or iPads (specifically not Android devices) and since they use these devices, exclusively, outside of work and one can assume they're probably opening Safari for browsing, why do they have such a strong association that Chrome must be "the browser." This segment, though, seems to make up a large majority of "knowledge workers" outside of IT.

Now, like probably a lot of us here, I'm the tech support for everyone who knows I "play with computers professionally." One of the first things I do is remove the Chrome and Edge icon from the task bar[0] and add Firefox with a small set of extensions that generally keep me from having to revisit them due to malware. I usually just tell them "The button you use to get on the Internet changed but it's the same." ... and Bob's your uncle. I return a year later, the same Firefox icon is in the same place, updated several versions and all is well. They all vaguely knew they were using something different before, some knew it was called Chrome or Edge, but "the icon changed" is all I've had to say for probably a decade since the two browsers' core functionality is close enough that they generally cover every site the older generation would be expected to visit.

It feels like a variation of "they've got enough knowledge to be dangerous."

[0] I don't think I've ever seen my parents, aunts/uncles, extended older family every try to find a program through that menu that pops up when you click the button that used to be called the "Start" button. :)

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Assuming this is not NYC: how many of the people in the group you're describing drive reliable, used cars that they own outright, and how many lease new? I think I know which, and if so, it would go a long way towards characterizing their mindset.

I think it's a status play, for people who have been convinced that status is tantamount to utility. If you lower yourself to options that aren't well-known to be high status, or at least known - particularly ones that require tinkering of any sort - you are wasting time, and worse, you are signalling to other people that you're a time-waster, that your time isn't valuable, and that your choice to waste time rather than use the default or high-status option shows that you have a defect in judgment.

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Many years ago I installed Firefox 0.6 on my mother-in-law’s laptop and gave it the IE logo - she never noticed, it never got updated, but she never had any malware problems.
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In my workplace a lot of people used to like firefox because it was the only browser on which the pac proxy setting was not enforced by group policy so it allowed them to have their corporate apps to actually work regardless of the network they were connected to.

They lost fierefox a few months ago due to new compamy policy and with it lost access to some apps when working from home. We know it is related to the proxy config but company is so big and processes are such a mess nobody knows who should be contacted and by which email alias or service now ticket.

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An earlier company I worked at had this same issue with Internet Explorer. It was after IE had been deprecated by microsoft as a browser but our IT department still had it as a downloadable application. Most of my team's on-call issues were from internal users using IE to access our site, even after we added an IE compatible popup that would tell them NOT to use IE.
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Chrome, or Firefox are third party browsers to the operating system.

The internet explorer/edge issues were due to a web browser that was built into the operating system, and owned by the operating system company (Microsoft in this case).

There was a popular trend for a while that IE was the windows feature that let you download a different browser.

Apple had a similar run with Safari and from what I recall had to change.

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Change the icon to look like Chrome?
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MSIE style internet globe or GTFO
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and change the name shown to "Google" because people call it that, because that is the default home page.
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To "Moogle"
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deleted
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BILLION DOLLAR IDEA
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> people are going to try and install Chrome at all costs

Mozilla might have anticipated this when they wrote "Diversify your browser engine" as one of the selling points.

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/enterprise/firefox-enterprise/...

Diversification is a good idea, personally I use both Chrome and Firefox every day (and sometimes Lynx).

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Firefox works with uBlock--maybe that alone is enough incentive
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We used to install FF and Chrome on the local PCs at work to ensure this would not be an issue. The office workers just used Edge.
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Also, half the sites on the Internet don’t work properly on anything but chrome. At home, I’m an ardent and committed Firefox user, at work, I use Chrome like everyone else (and keep anything personal as far away from it as I can).
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"Half the sites" is a huge overstatement. I very rarely find sites that do not work on Firefox.
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Completely agree. I've used Firefox as my primary browser for over twenty years and it's less than once a week that I come across something that needs Chrome.
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I'm so old I still feel like Chrome is new.
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Get off MySpace, Jeeves!
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I tried for a year to use it before just switching to Brave and getting the best of both worlds.
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I don’t think you’re getting the best of Firefox by using Chromium
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[dead]
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