this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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unpopular opinion preinstalling any browser is wrong
Found the Arch user.
i think it is very beneficial for the average user to have one of each common software category preinstalled
as long as you can uninstall everything
I think you mistyped "popular"
That’s the lemmy echo chamber. Poll a hundred people on how to get a program onto a computer without a browser and I’d be surprised if five people answered something other than a disk or that it’s impossible
These days, they are probably not even going to answer with that. Optical media is almost dead now.
Thumb drive then
Even saying "with a package manager" it's much easier to have a browser to make a search to know what you want to enter to install using the package manager!
I'm sure many Linux users would be dead in the water if they were provided a computer with a distro without a browser/GUI package manager and no alternative way to access the internet.
Where the fuck would that be a popular opinion?
Quick! You need to install a program, but you can't remember the exact name of it. You have no browser installed nor a GUI package manager. What do you do?
There is no situation where you need to install a package while having no Browser installed.
My point is that you should install the browser you want, no have preinstalled programs you may not want or live without a browser.
Okay, how are you going to install a browser if you don't know what to type? Sure, I know FF is Mozilla.Firefox, but not everyone does. And besides, I actually want Vivaldi(...only as an example) instead, which I don't know the package name for. Without a pre-existing browser or external help, how am I supposed to install Vivaldi?
I'm not disagreeing there should be options on OS setup, firefox being pre-installed with no input is barely better than Edge being pre-installed, but no browser at all by default is just stupid for most people. If we're going with the idea of options on setup, the no browser at all option should exist, but only if it's behind at least 1 but preferably 2 "Are you absolutely sure?" confirmation checks.
Mhm this reminds me of the time when we had in the EU a choice dialog after first boot where you had a selection of browsers to install from.
I'm kinda hoping they bring this back, then I can move to the EU and be done.
I think it's fine if you give the option to uninstall it, many users wouldn't know where to look to install the browser right away and they need access to the internet to find out (because they're not familiar with the command line), they probably have a phone to look stuff up, but that's bad user experience.
Otherwise a first run welcome screen that asks the user which browser they want to install out of a selection (including none) can be a good solution
If a Distro preinstalls the Torbrowser it is based. Or maybe a Firefox that is actually debloated and hardened, not just having fancy bookmarks and a custom start page (looking at you Fedora)
That's a pretty bad take, people into tech seem to mostly use firefox, people who aren't probably don't care, and for the people who know baout it and prefer another, can well, just uninstall it, so why not just have firefox so its simpler for everyone?? Like, on Manjaro and Garuda I could do well with that, but what if I use Ubuntu? The browser I like the most is Vivaldi, witch isn't on the package manager, meaning that I need to download a browser to download another one instead of just using the one already in it to get it