Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes • Hacker News Board

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#91

Post by MauranKilom » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

binaryjay wrote: post #56

hinkley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why we all should have shouted louder when Google set this precedent five years ago. This is going to become the status quo. If Google can do it why can’t we?

It's absolutely amazing how some people can find new ways to blame Google for something they had nothing to do with. Just Incredible. Additionally, if it had not been for the money given to Mozilla by Google the development of Firefox would have severely been in decline and possibly abandoned. >And this is why we all should have shouted louder when Google set this precedent five years ago. Do you also shout loud when…

Your argument would be stronger if that list was actually products and services. Listing every MS store ever closed and every platform or every version of a no-longer-sold product line makes it meaningless.

I mean, that list has MS-DOS. To which we still have backwards compatibility. And it's twice as old as Google.

Also, tone.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#92

Post by basilgohar » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

timvisee wrote: post #67

Sad! Developer of `ffsend` here. I've built `ffsend` as CLI tool for Send to securely share files from the command line. It has been a great success! Thanks Mozilla, for building and providing this amazing service! For the interested: https://github.com/timvisee/ffsend I'm currently hosting a public Send instance myself to ffsend keep working. Let's see how long I can keep this going (and funded).

I'm interested in knowing the infrastructure you've setup to continue this service.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#93

Post by basch » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #70

Animats wrote: post #62

That's progress. I just want the browser, not a "cloud service". Now to lose "Pocket" and bring back a bookmarks toolbar that lets you find things locally.

Everyone in tech circles keeps saying this, and I agree, but until Mozilla finds a killer app Firefox’s only value is as an ad for Google Search. Which is honestly super depressing so I will applaud any attempt they make at an actual sustainable income stream.

>until Mozilla finds a killer app

I hate to say it, but that killer app could be ... a directory. A more portal like, tree like way to browse the web. Search has become so unruly. A person new to the web sits at a blank search box, and it might be hard to learn all the great places there are to visit. With the paradox of choice, people get so overwhelmed they just fall back to infinite feeds because browsing is so endlessly open ended. Everyone needs a "start page" of some sort, and I wouldnt mind if the msn's and drudge reports of the world had some nice fresh competition.

Shopping leading you to wirecutter type things, in a slowly refined way. Recipes organized in a mildly coherent way. Crafts, ways to find local home contractors. Wikis of the best way to browse the web. Best practices for life. Promote financial literacy, web surfing literacy, comparison shopping literacy, seo avoidance literacy. Make it easier to navigate the plague the modern web has become, and get people directly to useful things. In a way, designed with purpose and experience in mind.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#94

Post by jdashg » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

thesimon wrote: post #73

varbhat wrote: post #22

Looks like Mozilla is becoming VPN company shifting it's previous focus which was on browserware. Mozilla VPN seems to be just rebranded resell of Mullavad VPN with Mozilla Goodies. Mozilla Monitor seems to use https://haveibeenpwned.com/ (also as seen in Firefox desktop) Mozilla Firefox Private Network looks like another Cloudflare Warp's rebrand (with litte good additions maybe?) seeing that it uses Cloudflare . Mo…

>and Management division may force in future to ditch Gecko and adopt Webkit/Blink in the hope that it could bring more userbase (just my thought) to lessen maintainance and focus on revenue. They laid off most people working on Servo, so the adoption of WebKit/Blink seems rather likely.

Servo was never actually the heir-apparent to Gecko.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#95

Post by ImprobableTruth » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

codefined wrote: post #55

wsowens wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really cool and will probably fill the void that Firefox Send left for me. Out of curiosity, how do you deal with all that bandwidth? Are you self-hosted?

We are self-hosted, I'd _hate_ to think of the costs of hosting this service through AWS or similar who charges for ingress / egress. We have 5gbps of bandwidth and 12TB of storage that I've dedicated to the service (costing me ~£30/mo, so a fairly trivial sum). I'm hoping that if we ever exceed 12TB / 5gbps, others will similarly host their own versions of the application. I've heard of half a dozen people already w…

>5gbps of bandwidth and 12TB of storage that I've dedicated to the service (costing me ~£30/mo, so a fairly trivial sum).

I assume you're using hardware you own and the thirty pounds are just networking costs?

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#96

Post by timvisee » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

basilgohar wrote: post #92

timvisee wrote: post #67

Sad! Developer of `ffsend` here. I've built `ffsend` as CLI tool for Send to securely share files from the command line. It has been a great success! Thanks Mozilla, for building and providing this amazing service! For the interested: https://github.com/timvisee/ffsend I'm currently hosting a public Send instance myself to ffsend keep working. Let's see how long I can keep this going (and funded).

I'm interested in knowing the infrastructure you've setup to continue this service.

It's rather simple actually. Currently hosting it on a clean DigitalOcean droplet with an additional disk, which has been running for ~2 months now.

It runs Send in Docker. I set up this configuration for it: https://github.com/timvisee/send-docker-compose

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#97

Post by hinkley » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

binaryjay wrote: post #56

hinkley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why we all should have shouted louder when Google set this precedent five years ago. This is going to become the status quo. If Google can do it why can’t we?

It's absolutely amazing how some people can find new ways to blame Google for something they had nothing to do with. Just Incredible. Additionally, if it had not been for the money given to Mozilla by Google the development of Firefox would have severely been in decline and possibly abandoned. >And this is why we all should have shouted louder when Google set this precedent five years ago. Do you also shout loud when…

> Do you also shout loud when Microsoft set a precedent for shutting down products and services?

Relentlessly. If you get me talking about MS you won’t be able to get me to shut up.

They’re a bully who was never broken and that just invites more bullies.

Whatever tiny power I have to prevent another Microsoft from ever happening again, I will happily use it, and proactively. I think you’ll find that some of the “unfair” venom FB, Google and Amazon get is from people who feel the same way. Take them down a notch while they’re still in arm’s reach.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#98

Post by bachmeier » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

Hate to say it, given that I've been using Firefox as my browser since before it was called Firefox, but I think Mozilla is done if they can't find a way to monetize these services. There's just a complete of leadership. I hope there's a non-Mozilla fork of Firefox that keeps it going. A big challenge I know but Google gets all your data once Firefox is dead.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#99

Post by basilgohar » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

timvisee wrote: post #96

basilgohar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in knowing the infrastructure you've setup to continue this service.

It's rather simple actually. Currently hosting it on a clean DigitalOcean droplet with an additional disk, which has been running for ~2 months now. It runs Send in Docker. I set up this configuration for it: https://github.com/timvisee/send-docker-compose

I presume bandwidth and storage are the main concerns since I doubt compute dominates in this kind of service.

Re: Update on Firefox Send and Firefox Notes

#100

Post by timvisee » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

basilgohar wrote: post #99

timvisee wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather simple actually. Currently hosting it on a clean DigitalOcean droplet with an additional disk, which has been running for ~2 months now. It runs Send in Docker. I set up this configuration for it: https://github.com/timvisee/send-docker-compose

I presume bandwidth and storage are the main concerns since I doubt compute dominates in this kind of service.

You're right! Luckily files have a maximum lifetime of 1 day, which helps with storage. Almost no computing needed. Expensive en/decrypting operations are done on the client.