It's easy to change Firefox default search engine to DuckDuckGo. As soon as my Debian 11 linux boots, I always start Firefox ESR and change the Default Search Engine to DuckDuckGo. Easily done: (1) left-click hamburger button (the 3 horizontal lines at top right corner of Firefox window); (2) left-click "Settings" menu item; (3) left-click "Search" menu item on left side of window; (4) open "Default Search Engine" drop-down list (left-click small "v"); (5) left-click "DuckDuckGo" item in drop-down list; (7) left-click hamburger button (the 3 horizontal lines at top right corner of Firefox window); (8) left-click "New window" menu item- - see new Firefox window open, with DuckDuckGo as search engine; (9) left-click "+" sign in Firefox title bar -- see new page open in current Firefox window, with DuckDuckGo as search engine; -------- Original Message -------- SUBJECT: Re: [GTALUG] Google is ruled a monopoly so Firefox is at serious risk DATE: 2024-08-13 11:59 FROM: Karen Lewellen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> TO: "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@mimosa.com>, GTALUG Talk <talk@gtalug.org> Well..its not quite this simple. Starting with a question? can attachments be sent to the list? My media hat on, its because I have a copy of this ruling, but you can find it as well. i suggest using duckduckgo instead of Google though. The correct situation is that Google is violating antitrust laws by paying companies , and apparently that includes Mozilla for them to force users to have default access to Google's search engine only. What I find really concerning about what you share though may be a misconception on my part. I have always believed that Mozilla was a nonprofit organization. Meaning that Google would be donating funding to Mozilla..then taking that same amount off their taxes to create an antitrust situation..which speaking personally feels both illegal and immoral on several levels for me. Anyway, the ruling, which will be challenged in court for many many years, will require google to stop buying competitors out of the search engine market, allowing end users to choose what search tool they want instead. As I said,i have a copy of the decision, there is allot of press on the case. Kare On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Apparently 90% of Mozilla's funding comes from Google. Google pays that money to be the default search engine for Firefox. Google may have to stop. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

actually, this is one of the strongest legal cases against google. Documentation by percentage of users who either cannot, or are not shown clearly how to change the default. Or not knowing they have a choice. One person's ease is another person's complexity. If consumers were changing regularly, it would be reflected in usage. besides if the playing field were even Google would not have to pay companies not to allow choices automatically. Kare On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, Steve Petrie via talk wrote:

It's easy to change Firefox default search engine to DuckDuckGo.

As soon as my Debian 11 linux boots, I always start Firefox ESR and change the Default Search Engine to DuckDuckGo.

Easily done:

(1) left-click hamburger button (the 3 horizontal lines at top right corner of Firefox window);

(2) left-click "Settings" menu item;

(3) left-click "Search" menu item on left side of window;

(4) open "Default Search Engine" drop-down list (left-click small "v");

(5) left-click "DuckDuckGo" item in drop-down list;

(7) left-click hamburger button (the 3 horizontal lines at top right corner of Firefox window);

(8) left-click "New window" menu item- - see new Firefox window open, with DuckDuckGo as search engine;

(9) left-click "+" sign in Firefox title bar -- see new page open in current Firefox window, with DuckDuckGo as search engine;

-------- Original Message --------

SUBJECT: Re: [GTALUG] Google is ruled a monopoly so Firefox is at serious risk

DATE: 2024-08-13 11:59

FROM: Karen Lewellen via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

TO: "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@mimosa.com>, GTALUG Talk <talk@gtalug.org>

Well..its not quite this simple. Starting with a question? can attachments be sent to the list? My media hat on, its because I have a copy of this ruling, but you can find it as well. i suggest using duckduckgo instead of Google though. The correct situation is that Google is violating antitrust laws by paying companies , and apparently that includes Mozilla for them to force users to have default access to Google's search engine only. What I find really concerning about what you share though may be a misconception on my part. I have always believed that Mozilla was a nonprofit organization. Meaning that Google would be donating funding to Mozilla..then taking that same amount off their taxes to create an antitrust situation..which speaking personally feels both illegal and immoral on several levels for me. Anyway, the ruling, which will be challenged in court for many many years, will require google to stop buying competitors out of the search engine market, allowing end users to choose what search tool they want instead. As I said,i have a copy of the decision, there is allot of press on the case. Kare

On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

...

Apparently 90% of Mozilla's funding comes from Google. Google pays that money to be the default search engine for Firefox. Google may have to stop. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

---

Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

[top-posting for Karen] Our policy has been: no attachments. But links are fine. "force users to have default access to Google's search engine only." is too strong a phrase. More like "makes google the default search engine. A user can easily override that default for any individual search or for all future searches. But defaults are powerful. Non-profits can do business: they can go beyond donations. They must not make much net profit over the longer term. For example, I spend a lot of money buying parking from hospital foundations.

From: Karen Lewellen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> To: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com>, GTALUG Talk <talk@gtalug.org> Cc: Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2024 11:59:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Google is ruled a monopoly so Firefox is at serious risk

Well..its not quite this simple. Starting with a question? can attachments be sent to the list? My media hat on, its because I have a copy of this ruling, but you can find it as well. i suggest using duckduckgo instead of Google though. The correct situation is that Google is violating antitrust laws by paying companies , and apparently that includes Mozilla for them to force users to have default access to Google's search engine only. What I find really concerning about what you share though may be a misconception on my part. I have always believed that Mozilla was a nonprofit organization. Meaning that Google would be donating funding to Mozilla..then taking that same amount off their taxes to create an antitrust situation..which speaking personally feels both illegal and immoral on several levels for me. Anyway, the ruling, which will be challenged in court for many many years, will require google to stop buying competitors out of the search engine market, allowing end users to choose what search tool they want instead. As I said,i have a copy of the decision, there is allot of press on the case. Kare

On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

...

Apparently 90% of Mozilla's funding comes from Google. Google pays that money to be the default search engine for Firefox. Google may have to stop. --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

--- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

Evan, The antitrust case is not about browsers. It is entirely about the search engine access provided, say on a phone or a computer, when someone opens a browser like Firefox and wants to search. The distinction is important Legally, because Google's defense is that their search tool is the best technology so..it should be the default. However Google used their money to insure a market advantage by paying companies to make it the default, which impacts user decisions in the end. Does that make sense? Kare On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:

Exactly the opposite case, IMO.

Google needs (and has always needed) Firefox, exactly to demonstrate that the Chromium engine is not a monopoly. No matter how this case ends, it will not result in pressuring Google to get rid of its biggest browser rival.

- Evan

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 10:49 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk < talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

Apparently 90% of Mozilla's funding comes from Google. Google pays that money to be the default search engine for Firefox. Google may have to stop.

Speaking personally that depends on how this is being done. If, as I asked, Firefox is apart of a nonprofit organization, then google should not be donating, then getting this money back in tax benefits. The requirement to pull back on their antitrust payments might expose this other illegal benefit for the company. That again assumes Mozilla is a 501,c,3, equal in the u. s. to a charity. Kare On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 12:17 PM Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> wrote:

The antitrust case is not about browsers.

I know that. I was responding to Hugh's comment that the court action on search might affect Firefox funding. Even if Google is forced to change its funding model from "pay to be the default search" to something else, it cannot be seen to remedy one monopoly situation by creating another,

- Evan

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation

At least wikipedia claims that Google pays Mozilla Corporation which is a taxable entity. I could have misread and misunderstood the article though. Thanks for that link, most informative indeed. The setup seems to be that Mozilla corporation manages the commercial business, the things that would limit the foundation in terms of funding,

Hi there, On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, Dhaval Giani wrote: then turns around and reinvests all of the profits not consumed by business costs back to the foundation. Someone should update those numbers, the percentage provided is from 2006..and Google is spending billions on blocking their search engine competitors. And, basically, that is the problem. Antitrust is rooted in the idea that a company with very deep pockets uses those pockets to prevent others in the same industry from reaching the market equally. I note too that the click-through add process likely? means those doing ad business with google are persuaded by numbers showing how much of the search engine market Google controls. The point is that Google is not earning that market share fairly, they are basically paying companies not to allow for any other default search options. Consider how strongly that impacts even popular culture. How often you have come across the term search, with google, as in I googled to reach xYZ. This is not about an end user's ability to change their default search engines, it is about Google insuring that the first engine much of the market things of is google, by buying others out of equal market consideration. When i do a search for example, I can type elinks www.duckduckgo.com For the market to be reasonably balanced, any end user should be able to type the search engine wish, no default gui wise at all. Certainly no need to manipulate that choice. Speaking to the topic behind this thread, Mozilla should be able to negotiate deals with others, and other companies should reasonably feel they have a fighting chance at some of the browser market. How ever that might look. The media coverage on this ruling touches on just how much money google was spending to insure they were the default. Yes, even tax exempt organizations stateside can, after a fashion, produce revenue outside of donations. However, after a certain level that income becomes subject to taxes there. Girl scout cookies are a simple example. after a certain percentage, the money earned from sales is considered taxable. it seems Mozilla is avoiding this limit by having the corporation as a separate subsidiary, with that subsidiary supporting the foundation's mission by reinvesting the profits back to them. Kare

Dhaval

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 5:46 PM Steve Litt via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

Evan Leibovitch via talk said on Tue, 13 Aug 2024 12:23:27 -0400

...

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 12:17 PM Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net> wrote:

The antitrust case is not about browsers.

I know that. I was responding to Hugh's comment that the court action on search might affect Firefox funding. Even if Google is forced to change its funding model from "pay to be the default search" to something else, it cannot be seen to remedy one monopoly situation by creating another,

As a Linux user quite able to choose search engines and browsers, what I find sad is that today all browsers suck, and Chromium sucks the least.

There are two kinds of browsers:

1) Browsers respecting the html/css/js standards.

2) Browsers that wing it, delivering something other than what the author of the 100% validated web page desired.

Right off the bat, #2 are useful only for niche activity. Nobody has the time to try dillo, figure out if they're seeing the information correctly, and if not use a browser in the #1 group. So let's discuss group #1:

Firefox is a sluggish, resource gulping pig that can bring a well-resourced computer to its knees, and it needs weekly to monthly maintenance to prevent its piggity from growing the way windows registry piggity grows with time. In my opinion it's total junk.

IMHO Chromium is the best, but it's a pig that sucks and can bring your computer to its knees with a few javascript-rich sites.

I used to be a big Qutebrowser fan, with its superior keyboard interface, but the fact is it's piggier than Chromium.

Palemoon? I have no idea how good or bad it is, but it doesn't matter because https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 . I don't cooperate with that kind of projects.

Otter-browser fails miserably when trying to render the content at Buick.Com. Sure, buick.com is a standards-hostile crap website, but as a practical day in and day out life matter, we need to be able to have a semi reasonable rendering of even these horrible sites.

Eolie seems OK, although the interface is a little bit tough to use (no big deal), and it occasionally gets funky in rendering some sites (youtube for instance). I haven't used it with tons of tabs though.

Epiphany has a user-hostile interface and from my experimentation can't render even the simplest sites. It's broken.

Vivaldi renders OK and is about as piggy as Chromium.

Vimb seems to be a very good browser. It renders well and if you're familiar with Vim, you have an excellent foundation for operating Vimb. Be aware that Vimb has no tabs, so when you press t to "tabopen", you're really creating a new Vimb process. In some situations this can lead to a less efficient workflow. I have no data on how piggy or not Vimb is.

Luakit is a small-resource browser with an unusual and hard to remember user interface. It seems to render well. However, on my Void Linux setup it's useless because it intermittently terminates with no message.

Fifteen years ago Midori was a hopeless piece of junk, but it's improved steadily until now I'd call it "the little browser that could". Not quite as univerally renderable as Chromium, it comes close, with a smaller footprint. Its user interface is just like Chromium and Firefox, so you'll instantly know how to operate it.

Opera seems like a decent Chromium replacement. I have no idea of its resource usage.

The Surf browser doesn't work on my Void Linux setup. I can't input a URL.

Netsurf can't render worth a plugged nickel. Useless.

MS Edge seems like a fairly competent browser on my wife's windows machine, but it doesn't run under Linux.

BOTTOM LINE: You have to look long and hard for a decent browser, and I wouldn't call any of them excellent. I'd say that Chromium is the most likely to render "correctly" in iffy situations. Midori, Vimb, Vivaldi, Opera, and Otter-Browser are all valuable in many situations.

SteveT

Steve Litt

http://444domains.com --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

In my experience, FF (I switch back and forth between FF-Dev, ESR, and Librewolf) is way less resource intensive than the Chromimum based browsers, and as for disk usage, right now, I have 1.8G on disk split between 4 profiles, not really that much of a piggy. I have used all the others your mentioned, and I agree, rendering is not great on most of them, but that is to be expected, the days of devs testing for every browser/os combo are long gone, right now you test on Chrome, and if you are halfway competent, on FF ESR and call it a day. Also, the CSS/HTML/JS/Whatever standards are NEVER fully implemented, and if they are, the site doing that is more of a labour of love. FYI, MS Edge is Chromium based, so is Opera and Vivaldi and a LOT of the others, we literally have 2 major rendering engines right now, and a couple of minor ones that no one outside of their dev community uses them. Also, MS Edge does run on Linux, I use it for some specific corporate sites, and it works well on my Debian/Sid setup. -nick

Steve Litt via talk wrote on 2024-08-13 14:46:

Palemoon? I have no idea how good or bad it is, but it doesn't matter becausehttps://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86 . I don't cooperate with that kind of projects.

I get a 404 on that link. I cannot find issue 86 in the issues list; I think someone's deleted it. What happened in issue 86? rb

oh..do. not. get. me. started on amazon Canada. currently amazon Canada his their site coded so that a person using keyboard only processes cannot refuse joining amazon prime. I wish I were joking. simple example, I still have said tp-links and other items in my cart, I choose proceed to check out, and confirm my payment method. I am then automatically taken to a page telling me how much I really truly sincerely ought to try prime. There is a link alt-tagged as continue without the amazon prime benefits. However, according to the status bar the link ends in display.html..hiting entre on this link takes you in a circle. The only form submit button? requires you to join prime, and one cannot continue past the page. I do agree about google searches though, they are getting far less accurate, with my fear that they employ AI soon, making matters worse. Cheers, Kare On Tue, 13 Aug 2024, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 12:17:06PM -0400, Karen Lewellen via talk wrote:

...

Evan, The antitrust case is not about browsers. It is entirely about the search engine access provided, say on a phone or a computer, when someone opens a browser like Firefox and wants to search. The distinction is important Legally, because Google's defense is that their search tool is the best technology so..it should be the default. However Google used their money to insure a market advantage by paying companies to make it the default, which impacts user decisions in the end. Does that make sense?

Well I would say google had the best search for many years which is what made them popular. These days their search is terrible. I don't know if there is anyone actually good out there, because google probably killed of most of the search competition over the years, so now they don't have to be good anymore and can prioritize other things instead.

Google search is not quite as bad as search on amazon, but they are heading in that direction.

-- Len Sorensen

On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 7:54 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

I'm going to whine about search. I'd really like hints for better search.

...

From: Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org>

...

Well I would say google had the best search for many years which is what made them popular. These days their search is terrible. I don't know if there is anyone actually good out there, because google probably killed of most of the search competition over the years, so now they don't have to be good anymore and can prioritize other things instead.

Why is Google's search less good? There are a couple of reasons that I can think of:

- SEO, a whole field of endeavour designed to screw up search.

- synthetic crap web pages.

- (perhaps) Google guessing that your search was too precise and therefor yielding results that are out of scope.

If it is applicable, scholar.google.com seems much better. But I almost never think to use it.

...

Google search is not quite as bad as search on amazon, but they are heading in that direction.

Amazon search is bad because they want to push things at you that you didn't ask for. Really bad. They prioritize partly by criteria that are not in your interest:

- sold by Amazon itself

- prioritized by giving extra money to Amazon (Amazon's Choice)

- deprioritized if it is sold for less on other sites (really! this is probably and should be illegal)

- things that a vaguely related to your search queries

The very first chunk of items are "sponsored" listings. Notice that these, on each page.

If you try to change this by sorting by price, low to high, it leaves the very first chunk unchanged (they are not, in Amazon's mind, actually search results!). Then it starts with low cost things that don't match the search terms well. So sorting is useless.

For example, I just now searched for "Ryzen mini PC", sorted by price, low to high. The first 15 actual results (as opposed to unsorted ads at the top) had Intel processors. Sheesh!

But AliExpress search is much much worse. Who would have thought that possible?

Maybe its all about holding your time captive - - - you know - - - like Ikea - - in the knowledge that you are quite likely to buy more junk! Regards

Something I read a while ago, very relevant to this discussion: https://www.techspot.com/news/102765-who-prabhakar-raghavan-why-accused-kill... On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 1:36 PM Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 08:25:30AM -0500, o1bigtenor via talk wrote:

...

Maybe its all about holding your time captive - - - you know - - - like Ikea - - in the knowledge that you are quite likely to buy more junk!

I know the location of the shortcuts at my local Ikea. That is very useful when you know what you want and just want to go get it.

-- Len Sorensen --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 08:54:46AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Why is Google's search less good? There are a couple of reasons that I can think of:

- SEO, a whole field of endeavour designed to screw up search.

- synthetic crap web pages.

- (perhaps) Google guessing that your search was too precise and therefor yielding results that are out of scope.

For a long time, google supported putting things in quotes to indicate "must be in result" and putting a - in front of someting to say "must not be in result". They mostly ignore that now and give you results that contain what you explicitly said you did not want. That's not an SEO problem. Actual matching keyword search worked very well back when google did that. They clearly no longer do, and I don't know if anyone else does either. I will accept that perhaps for most users that is not the way they understand doing searching, but for those that understood it, it was very powerful and very accurate. Now no one gets accurate results with google anymore. And while sometimes entertaining, the list of other things people searched for really isn't helpful.

If it is applicable, scholar.google.com seems much better. But I almost never think to use it.

Well I am usually looking for web sites, not academic papers.

Amazon search is bad because they want to push things at you that you didn't ask for. Really bad. They prioritize partly by criteria that are not in your interest:

- sold by Amazon itself

- prioritized by giving extra money to Amazon (Amazon's Choice)

- deprioritized if it is sold for less on other sites (really! this is probably and should be illegal)

- things that a vaguely related to your search queries

The very first chunk of items are "sponsored" listings. Notice that these, on each page.

If you try to change this by sorting by price, low to high, it leaves the very first chunk unchanged (they are not, in Amazon's mind, actually search results!). Then it starts with low cost things that don't match the search terms well. So sorting is useless.

If I want to buy a case for my phone, being able to search for cases that fit only that model of phone and which are cases would be helpful. A case for a different phone is not going to interest me, and neither is a different model of phone, and I am definitely not looking for a charging cable or a tablet or whatever else they decide to put in the results.

For example, I just now searched for "Ryzen mini PC", sorted by price, low to high. The first 15 actual results (as opposed to unsorted ads at the top) had Intel processors. Sheesh!

But AliExpress search is much much worse. Who would have thought that possible?

Ouch, I must admit I have not tried that in a long time. -- Len Sorensen