Why Linux users use Firefox?
That’s true, most Linux users prefer to use Firefox as their primary web browser. There are multiple reasons for this
Linux's users are more educated and concerned about privacy and data protection than the average user. The Linux community also cares more about privacy. And if there are different choices of web browser to be more careful about data protection, Firefox is the most known of them. Linux users use Firefox also because the Mozilla Foundation has been very implicated into web development for years now, as most developers prefer to use Linux, they also use Firefox.
Linux is a family of operating system, but the most popular Linux operating system is Ubuntu, and Ubuntu does have Firefox as a default web browser at the installation.
Why does Ubuntu come with Mozilla Firefox?
About licenses
You need to know that Ubuntu is trying to use as much as possible software with open-source licenses. And for example, the Google Chrome web browser does not have an open-source license. That’s the first reason why Firefox has been chosen by Ubuntu to be their default web browser because Firefox is an open-source browser
Privacy and data protection
Ubuntu is also looking at privacy and user data protection, they do not want their user to have their data used by a lot of commercial companies without any control over it. Firefox is an excellent web browser for privacy and data protection compared to others.
Firefox is careful about how your data is used, compared to Google Chrome, which can even use some of your data in incognito mode.
Is there any relation between Mozilla Firefox and Ubuntu ?
While there is a relationship between Microsoft Edge and Windows as both are made by Microsoft, there is no relation between Mozilla and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. So this choice cannot be explained by any kind of relation.
But Ubuntu is not the only Linux operating system, there are a lot of different ones. Still, Firefox is very popular with Linux users.
Why is Firefox so popular on Linux ?
Again, I think the main reason here is privacy and data protection, but there are still a few other reasons.
The Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, is a non-profit foundation. It means that they will not try to make more money than needed. While we can guess that other web browsers like Google Chrome are trying to make money on their use as much as possible, Mozilla will just try to make enough money to not lose any.
The difference is huge, as Mozilla is not trying to make money from them, the users trust the organization when they say they want to protect them.
Reputation is important. For example, the fact that the Opera browser is owned by the Chinese is a good reason to not use Opera for some people
Development
While this is not right today anymore, in the past Firefox was a really good web browser for development purposes. A lot of developers worked on this browser to make the best web application. There is still a kind of heritage about it, for example, there is still a lot of documentation about web development on the Mozilla websites.
A lot of developers are still using Firefox, and especially the Firefox nightly version, to test their web application with the future web browsers features.
Resources usage
Even if a lot of people considered the Google Chrome web browser as the better one, it still uses a lot of resources to work, especially a lot of RAM. Compared to it, Firefox is not using so much RAM.
A lot of people are using a Linux operating system because they do not have a lot of hardware power and resources, or because they need to have most of them focused on other tasks. In this case, it makes sense to use Firefox instead of Google Chrome.
Should you be using Firefox instead of Google Chrome ?
It’s ok to use Google Chrome if you do not have any issues with it and if you like it. But if you care about privacy and want to have more control other your data, then Firefox will be better for you. We wrote an entire article explaining the reasons why people choose Firefox over Chrome
In any case, it’s always good to have both installed on your computer or smartphone. We never know what will happen tomorrow, and your favorite website might have some temporary compatibility issue with Google Chrome or Firefox. As they are different, having an issue on one does not mean you will have the same issue on the other one.
Author
Maxime Levesque is a technical engineer with more than 5 years of professional experience. He is an expert in computer and phones, mostly on Apple products. Maxime is also the founder of TechBrowser.
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