Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#261

Post by Zancarius » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

kome wrote: post #228

chronial wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your are mixing “English, the lingua franca”, with “English, the language spoken in the US”. Why would using the lingua franca that everyone agrees on be imperialism?

Because there is no such a thing like “English, the lingua franca”; changing the name do not change the content. We should stop self-deluding ourselves in believing that English exits in a geopolitical void. English is the language of the anglosphere, and speaking English is a huge favor to those economies, and that comes with a sense of cultural inferiority as well, in many peoples.

There is a such thing as "English, the lingua franca" no matter how much one tries to will it away.

Aviation is a curious industry. English is commonly spoke between flight crews and ground stations world wide (with few but notable exceptions). Circumstances where the English meaning of a word wasn't well understood by the flight crew or the wrong words were spoken have, on occasion, lead to disaster--Avianca Flight 52 [1] comes to mind, among others.

I simply cannot agree that mutual intelligibility is bad simply on the merit that it somehow creates a "sense of cultural inferiority."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#262

Post by bobajeff » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

callahad wrote: post #250

bobajeff wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember Firefox being well over 30%. The highest I've seen them had been 27%. That said I can see how users don't like Mozilla's attitude. I've actually noticed it as far back as Firefox 3.5. I know users didn't like the changes post Firefox 2.0. It's too bad Firefox wasn't componentized enough to separate UI from the layout engine and JavaScript engine. I myself like Australis but I'm also someone who's lov…

> tracker blocking Try opening a private browsing window in Nightly and see what you get... ;-) Edit: Here's a screenshot for folks without Nightly handy. http://imgur.com/5khKObb . This is still a work in progress, but we're getting there.

Had to look it up since I'm not on Nightly or a desktop. I assume your talking about this:

https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2015/07/user-study-of-tracking-p...

Do you know when this will make it to the stable release or when it will be on by default?

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#263

Post by dhimes » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

rc4algorithm wrote: post #141

SkatAndRap wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox users see through this feel-good marketing nonsense from Mozilla. They've seen Firefox's UI change for the worse in so many ways, even in the face of wide opposition. They've seen unwanted bloat, like Hello and Pocket, forced upon them, again in the face of wide opposition. They've seen their requests for bug fixes and performance improvements go unheeded, sometimes for years. The easy use of extensions has b…

You're being pretty grim. Hello is fucking awesome, and while I don't use Pocket it isn't the end of the world. Firefox isn't Lynx, but even as a Unix guy I enjoy and appreciate it. I also appreciate that they're trying to be more attractive to the masses, which is societally beneficial.

I am grateful for Hello now that MS owns Skype.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#264

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

djent wrote: post #232

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theme is the problem I'm referring to.

The cool thing about themes is that you can change them. Developer Edition just comes with a different default theme.

For some reason I thought you couldn't change it. That's fine, then.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#265

Post by soapdog » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #255

soapdog wrote: post #217

Folks, There are FOUR VERSIONS OF FIREFOX WITH A SWITCH TO DISABLE THIS if you're so inclined. You can use: Nightly, Dev Edition, Unbranded Stable and Unbranded Beta. All of which have a switch that you can set to disable addons signing requirement. In contrast there are only two versions where this is a requirement, Stable and Beta. If you doubt the usefulness of this you haven't seen a browser being hijacked by mal…

> There are FOUR VERSIONS OF FIREFOX WITH A SWITCH TO DISABLE THIS While that may be true, requiring that you run a non-standard version of Firefox to be able to use "random" extensions will probably have a chilling effect on the Firefox extension ecosystem. That, and it reeks of Chromeism.

you will be able to run "random" extension if the developer care enough about it and about the new security procedures to sign it. After all, it takes only couple seconds for the signing to work.

The versions I quoted are not non-standard. They are all versions of Firefox being worked on and with all the relevant teams. All those versions eventually become Firefox Stable and after that becomes outdated and a new release is now current. Versions goes from Nightly -> DevEdition -> Beta -> Stable. Each version has some tweaks, for example DevEdition is where they seed and test new devtools. Which means that for the developers, thats the best edition to develop with (still test on the other versions).

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#266

Post by soapdog » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:30 PM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #264

djent wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cool thing about themes is that you can change them. Developer Edition just comes with a different default theme.

For some reason I thought you couldn't change it. That's fine, then.

Not only you can download a new theme but you can also develop a whole new one if you'd like.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#267

Post by flippinburgers » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

Who wants malware affecting all of the naive users on the internet? I don't. I think you can all put your pitchforks away and take a deep breath knowing that Firefox is trying to improve the experience for people who are not like yourselves. The process is automated and takes little time. Stop acting so entitled.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#268

Post by SkatAndRap » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

soapdog wrote: post #200

userbinator wrote: post #103

Mozilla's hypocrisy is astounding: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2013/01/29/putting-users-i... "Users should have the choice of what software and plugins run on their machine." https://blog.mozilla.org/theden/2014/12/15/introducing-a-sma... "Firefox is dedicated to putting users in control of their online experience" More recently: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/06/02/firefox-puts-you-in... "Firefox Puts You…

WTF people. So much hate for Mozilla these days, this appear pitchfork group. Lets review what the article says: addons needed to be signed. The process is automated. It takes only seconds. It prevents some malware from spreading. You can still host your addon wherever you want. This is just an extra step that can actually improve security. It requires more effort by the part of the developer but it also helps preven…

It's not "hatred" you're seeing. It's exasperation after repeated disappointment, so much of it totally unnecessary.

Many of us have been using software from Mozilla, and Netscape before them, for decades now. Generally we've been happy with the software. We were more than happy with earlier versions of Firefox, in fact. But lately we've seen changes made that have not benefited the users of Mozilla's software.

Your comment actually describes some of the problems we're talking about. Users and developers now have to jump through one hoop after another just to get a basic installation of Firefox working.

It wasn't always like that. We used to be able to download a sub-10 MB installer, run it, and have a usable installation of Firefox ready for use.

Now we have to choose from the "correct" stream, download a 40 MB or larger installer, run it, change numerous about:config options to allow us to install our own custom unsigned extensions and to disable unwanted functionality that Mozilla has added, manually remove unwanted toolbar buttons, install a number of third-party extensions that also fix additional problems introduced by Mozilla, and in the end we're still stuck with a user interface and a user experience that isn't very good.

Now if we're developing extensions, we'll have to also jump through more hoops thanks to this signing process. You say it "takes only seconds", but I've seen enough comments here from other developers saying they've been waiting months for reviews. That's not acceptable.

Firefox used to get better with each release. A new release of Firefox was something we'd look forward to. But lately, each new release of Firefox has brought us new problems to deal with, without bringing any notable improvements.

Repeatedly disappointed people will express their disappointment. Don't misinterpret it as "hatred". See it for what it is: disappointment!

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#269

Post by SkatAndRap » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

asadotzler wrote: post #237

SkatAndRap wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been looking at https://input.mozilla.org/ now and then for a long time, and I am still astounded at how it's typically around 90% unhappy, 10% happy. I know that some Mozilla supporters will justify that huge difference by saying, "but unhappy people will always complain and happy people won't say anything", but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Here we have Mozilla's own stats saying that a lot of t…

"I have been looking at https://input.mozilla.org/ now and then for a long time, and I am still astounded at how it's typically around 90% unhappy, 10% happy." I've been reading Mozilla's bug system for 17 years and the bug numbers keep going up. That can't be a good sign.

It's disappointing to see Mozilla's leadership respond with sarcasm and denial when faced with the fact that 80% or more of their users are not happy with recent versions of Firefox.

Re: Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

#270

Post by chriswarbo » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #113

chriswarbo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't use many extensions but I'm finding I have to use more as Mozilla remove features from Firefox. To me, that's the way Firefox should work: a fast, lightweight browser, with a powerful extension system. I get disappointed when Mozilla add "features" to Firefox, like PDF viewers, Pocket, etc.

The PDF viewer is rather important if only for security.

I disagree. Having no PDF viewer is more secure than having a PDF viewer.

I'd have no problem with Mozilla releasing a separate PDF viewer, either as an extension, a standalone application or even a Web site. I also have no problem with Mozilla setting Firefox's default PDF application as a stub which downloads their separate viewer. But it shouldn't be built in to Firefox.

In any case, it is not the job of a Web browser to subvert the user's OS setup.