Giving
Tweet
I remember people telling me that the only way to make life slow down is to do new things. I remember original experiences much more than routine days, and I’ve had entire months and semesters slip through my memory by just getting into a settled rut of day to day activities. It’s scary how fast time moves, and it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon.
Every month, I find something that is original and different, and try it out for the entire month, just to mix up my routine. Last November, I only listened to Bossa Nova music for the entire month. This October, I decided to attend a conference for the first time, which was incredibly enriching. This month I decided to change something that lies at the very core of almost all of my daily activities.
I changed my default browser from Chrome to Firefox. Firefox Developer Edition to be specific. I also switched my default search engine to DuckDuckGo.
Lifestyle Change
This may seem like a very minor change, but for me this feels like a head transplant. I’ve used Chrome since before I did web development, and the first thing I’ve done on all of my computers is set Chrome to be the default browser. The Chrome developer tools feel like an extension of my hands; they are so natural at this point that I know them better than any software I’ve ever used.
Since I felt so comfortable with Chrome, I figured it would be a good candidate to change in my life, and really jar the way I lived day to day. The initial switch was rather tough; the browser didn’t know my history yet, didn’t know any of my passwords, and had none of the customizations or extensions that I had set up in Chrome. After a few hours of using it though, I’ve fallen completely in love with Firefox. And it’s not just the dark theme, the advanced customization, or the wealth of developer tools. I really bought into what the purpose of Mozilla as a whole is.
Outlook Change
When I read Mozilla’s manifesto, I realized that a lot of their mission was in line with what I believed about the nature of the web, and my idealist hope for what the web could be. I have always felt that if I had only one humanitarian effort to contribute to, I would try to bring Internet access to people in developing countries. The digital disparity between the Internet access that we have in the United States and the lack of Internet access in many countries is astonishing. I know that the web has been the greatest tool for advancing my career and connecting me to friends from across the world, and I believe it has the power to greatly improve lives of the global community.
Since it is very close to the holidays, I donated to Mozilla in order to support things like Firefox and all of the other initiatives that they are working on. I want to make the web a better place, and I feel like donating to Mozilla will make that happen.
I will always remember this December as the month that I switched to Firefox.
Tweet