Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#281

Post by skrebbel » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #198

skrebbel wrote: post #182

My company makes pluggable chat software. I'm sad about this development, because it means that we can't audibly notify users anymore when someone writes a message to them. I wonder whether there's a way around that, but I don't see it.

Some of your competitors have been using it for a fake "ding" sound and a generic message when you visit a site. So while I sympathize a little, it is for the greater good.

True! That really sucks.

I was thinking something like a browser could allow audio in response to, say, a push notification (akin to how they allow popups to be created after user click events) but that'd be easily gameable for the situation you describe. There's no way a browser can distinguish between a legitimate message from a human and robospam.

Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#282

Post by jimmaswell » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

Reposting from the other thread:

Slowly but surely the creative potential of the web is eroded until nothing is left but plain text and ads, to thunderous applause. Gross overreaction after gross overreaction and now we're in a state where extensions are a shallow husk of their former glory, you need to jump through legally vague ridiculous hoops to do anything involving user data, a vast trove of great Flash content is no longer accessible to the average user, web apps with sound and video aren't allowed to work seamlessly without an obnoxious "click here to let the webpage do what it should be able to do anyway" button, and various other unnecessary restrictions. How soon until it's the default that you need to give a website permission to display images and you need a license to make a webpage? That's the direction it feels like we're heading in. I'm saddened that the golden age of the web is probably behind me, but at least I was alive for it.

I went over the subject here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19087332

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#283

Post by tehlike » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #225

anoncake wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Word processors? Only if you're requiring something like Markdown. You havent heard of LibreOffice?

Everything old is new again. 'offline' apps, 'local' cloud. Its the future!

Web apps are boon to linux people. Most companies would not even bother developing for linux first

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#284

Post by andrepd » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #215

an4rchy wrote: post #159

Does this include Netflix? It's been getting really annoying to have random videos your mouse is on, as you scroll, start playing automatically.

I've pretty much entirely gone back to pirating because of those fucking auto-play trailers they have now (and this is on the Roku app, where Firefox wont' help me).

~~I've~~ A friend of mine has done the same, but only because they require him to install surveillance software on his machine, turn off his VPN, switch to a different browser, and at the end of it all they refuse to serve him video at more than 720p...

Two clicks and he's watching the same episode at 4K on any platform he well likes, with no spyware running on his machine.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#285

Post by Sharlin » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #192

Sharlin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point I knew it was time to close firefox when the fans started blowing at max speed. In my experience on Mac the guilty party has consistently been the plugin container (or rather something inside it, presumably a bad video codec). `killall plugin-container` fixes the problem without having to restart Firefox, but unfortunately also crashes many if not most tabs (appears everything wants to use a multimedi…

The "plugin-container" executable is used for all sandboxed processes on Windows. That started out as plug-ins, but now includes web renderers. So the "something inside it" could be script on a web page, or part of Gecko's rendering pipeline, or pretty much anything. And killig it crashes tabs because it's the thing rendering those tabs. It might make sense to rename the executable to make things clearer, but there a…

Oh, my experience was on Mac like the GP’s. Edited to clarify. On Windows or Linux I haven’t encountered a similar 100% CPU use problem, which has led me to suspect it’s specifically the Mac version of some plugin that’s the problem.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#286

Post by benj111 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #271

Slowly but surely the creative potential of the web is eroded until nothing is left but plain text and ads, to thunderous applause. Gross overreaction after gross overreaction and now we're in a state where extensions are a shallow husk of their former glory, you need to jump through legally vague ridiculous hoops to do anything involving user data, a vast trove of great Flash content is no longer accessible to the a…

Staying on the subject at hand, do you not find it annoying trying to find which tab, and where on the tab a video is playing?

"I'm saddened that the golden age of the web is probably behind me"

Funny, I'd place the golden age before all these things you cite.

Out of curiosity what's your favourite website, what most sums up your golden age?

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#287

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #279

saagarjha wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't share what I'm looking at in macOS' Maps.app like I can on the Google Maps website, pure downgrade. But you can? For example, https://maps.apple.com/?ll=36.103117,-103.901438&spn=0.00098... > Or look at macOS' News.app. Another downgrade from reading news in a browser tab. It has no tabs. There's no right-click. It implemented its own back button. It only supports the few news sources that come preinstalled…

Your maps.apple.com example is perfect: the recipient needs to have an Apple device and Maps.app to see the link. It's like a peek into how things might've been in a dismal alternate reality. Now try this: https://goo.gl/maps/dvhDpd93gJs

Did you try clicking on the link I posted? On my Linux machine, it redirects to Google Maps.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#288

Post by StavrosK » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #273

StavrosK wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, my non-dev version has an "install addon from file" menu item.

Are you sure Firefox doesnt check the signature if you use that menu item?

I'm pretty sure, as I haven't signed my extensions before loading them.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#289

Post by cmurf » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #110

shrikant wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which OS / package manager are you using? I haven't noticed this behaviour on my Linux (Kubuntu) or macOS installs -- both Firefox Dev Edition though.

Under linux with apt/dnf. These package managers update Firefox while it is running. On MacOS or Windows (maybe even Linux with the Mozilla updater, never tried it), the updater does the update on the next restart.

Exactly. The package manager method of updating stomps on the in-use libraries for the running application. The built-in Mozilla updater knows better, downloads an update payload but doesn't apply it until the user relaunches and on "first run" it actually does the update rather than launching, and after that completes it launches the updated application. It's the same on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Chrome on macOS and Windows keeps itself up to date; for whatever reason Chrome on Linux installs a google.chrome repository, uses the distro package manager, and clobbers the running binary. shrug

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#290

Post by ken » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #5

> Added basic support for macOS Touch Bar This was actually one of my major annoyances, since I use this feature often. I'm glad they added it, chances are others use it too.

This is rather surprising to me, as they still don't correctly support all the native Mac keyboard editing commands which have been part of the OS (and every physical keyboard) since 10.0.

I really don't understand the priorities of the Mozilla/Firefox project.

Yes, there are bugs filed on the other keyboard issues -- some more than 10 year old, e.g., 433966 or 429043. I could probably fix them myself, with enough effort, but Mozilla has the weirdest architecture so all my Mac programming knowledge won't help much. The last time I filed a minor bug against Firefox (context menus appear in the wrong place by a couple pixels), it was tagged "[good first bug]" -- and it ended up taking some poor soul 7 months and 790 lines to fix, and I still don't think it's correct.

I think it's time for someone to out-Firefox Firefox. The free and open nature is great, but the UI is collapsing under its own weight.