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Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

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Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#221

Post by ascagnel_ »

roca wrote: post #164
coldtea wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the experience is so much better why are Apple scared to let other browsers into the app store? Well, the weasel word "scared" kind of begs the question. Who said it's "scared"? Apple spearheaded the modern browser with Safari. Chrome wasn't even a thing then (it forked off of Apple's work on Safari/Webkit later, just like v8 came after Apple's own JSC JIT work). As for Mobile Safari, it took several years for A…

Mobile Safari does hold the Web back. Examples are easy to find: Safari doesn't support the standard unprefixed fullscreen API, while Firefox and Chrome have for years, so Web developers have to write a bunch of compatibility crap or accept fullscreen not working on iOS. Firefox and Chrome have supported WebGL2 for years, iOS Safari still doesn't.

> Safari doesn't support the standard unprefixed fullscreen API, while Firefox and Chrome have for years, so Web developers have to write a bunch of compatibility crap or accept fullscreen not working on iOS.

Having used an iPad for general web browsing for a while, the worst change they made was allowing web apps write their own fullscreen interfaces. I can't think of any video website where they've done a better job at basic video player controls than what the OS does natively.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#222

Post by toyg »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #214
toyg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the lack of creativity and courage in the managerial class. Support can very much be a profit center. Support personnel is relatively cheap; if their services are priced correctly, they can easily become a stream of recurring income - and everybody knows that "recurring income is best income". However, this requires efficiency and creativity at the managerial level. It's easier to see support as a burd…

I feel like this is a double edged sword. Corporations have already embraced this idea of converting cost centers into profit centers and it makes life more difficult for consumers. Every time I call support at my ISP, because my internet is down, they work on my problem and tell me that my plan is slow and that I can upgrade my package for an increase in my bill. This sets up perverse incentives, that as far as I ca…

I agree that what is good for an individual company is not necessarily good for consumers or the market as a whole, and that there is always a balance to find, but that's another issue. After all, the ideal scenario for a company is to have customers pay for support without actually using it most of the time.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#223

Post by toyg »

zepto wrote: post #217
toyg wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you’re into fraud, “accounting” and “accounts payable” are examples of cost centers. You don’t hire a bunch of innovative people to boost it because it’s not going to ever increase your revenue. You're so, so spectacularly wrong on this, I am honestly gasping for air. Accountants are the only people who know if your company is alive or a walking dead. How do you expect to run a company if you don't know reli…

I generally agree with you about not dismissing the value of accounting. However this: “Accountants are the only people who know if your company is alive or a walking dead.“ I disagree with. A walking dead company is only walking dead until one of its initiatives pays off. The accountants will only know this after the fact , whereas numerous other functions may know it to varying degrees of confidence before the fact…

> The accountants will only know this after the fact

The accountants know when your debits have to be repaid, how likely they are to be repaid or refinanced by then, and what the penalty for not doing so will be. I'd argue that, in most cases, nobody employed in the development/production chain will have that information, possibly not even the CEO.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#224

Post by nomel »

bzb6 wrote: post #184
SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using firefox on macos right now and I can't see what the issue is. The the menus show up in the main top bar like every other app. Am I missing something?

I know of a lot of people like that, when presented with very illogical UI decisions, or controls that look absolutely nothing like the rest of the system, they just cannot see what the issue is. I wonder if it’s poor eyesight, lack of attention, or whatever.

People that come from a Linux desktop background seem to be immune to these things. The rough sandpaper that is open source UI will eventually wear anyone’s awareness down.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#225

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

icebraining wrote: post #200
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you "secure" machines if they are windows ones and dumb people plugin flash drives and click on big shiny download ram buttons. genuinely curious.

One way to do it is to whitelist all binaries in the system, and sandbox all applications (to prevent chances of a malicious PDF/image/etc abusing a buggy application).

can you do that on windows? every single exe, every process?

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#226

Post by zepto »

toyg wrote: post #223
zepto wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you about not dismissing the value of accounting. However this: “Accountants are the only people who know if your company is alive or a walking dead.“ I disagree with. A walking dead company is only walking dead until one of its initiatives pays off. The accountants will only know this after the fact , whereas numerous other functions may know it to varying degrees of confidence before the fact…

> The accountants will only know this after the fact The accountants know when your debits have to be repaid, how likely they are to be repaid or refinanced by then, and what the penalty for not doing so will be. I'd argue that, in most cases, nobody employed in the development/production chain will have that information, possibly not even the CEO.

Sure, but accountants will not know the likelyhood of success of a new product or service, how the features will affect sales, the likelyhood of making large sales, the state of strategic relationships, etc. etc.

Yes, they may have models and estimates, but the real information will be in the hands of those involved directly.

Even things like refinancing and the options for doing so can be affected by things like letters of intent from potential large clients, industry validation, etc.

Just knowing numbers and dates isn’t enough.

I’m not saying accounting isn’t important, but it just isn’t the only source of truth.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#227

Post by lern_too_spel »

coldtea wrote: post #110
lern_too_spel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. No, they explicitly disallow other implementations, whether they JIT or not. Since Apple's WebKit is missing so many features, this has the effect that GP noted. "2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript." https://developer.apple.com…

> No, they explicitly disallow other implementations, whether they JIT or not. Since Apple's WebKit is missing so many features, this has the effect that GP noted. So, do you know people who prefer web apps over native apps for their Android, where "other browsers" are not disallowed, and Chrome is available? I'm sure you'll find some. I doubt you'll find any significant percentage though. I, personally, never do, an…

> So, do you know people who prefer web apps over native apps for their Android, where "other browsers" are not disallowed, and Chrome is available?

I do. Twitter's PWA is superior to its native app, and I can customize it with extensions. I prefer mobile Firefox over mobile Chrome though.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#228

Post by rockdoe »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #212
kzrdude wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the application knows the tasks better than the OS?

The OS already needs to properly schedule tasks of different load intensities and match them to the available cores, which might already be running different processes. An application has strictly less visibility into whats going on overall in the system, what else is using resources etc., so I don't see how it can decide any better? All it needs to do is set the proper priorities, so the OS scheduler knows whats mor…

If you read the linked bug, isn't that exactly what's being proposed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678083#c3

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#229

Post by rockdoe »

msh wrote: post #177
terhechte wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IT department at the place where I work installs antivirus on all Macs. I’d guess it is the same at most bigger corporations

But was it not just a specific product?

How many anti-viruses for macOS are there exactly? If it's the most popular one (whatever that is), it probably doesn't change much about the problem.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#230

Post by glandium »

macintux wrote: post #213
Steltek wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be expected that during this transition, everyone will have one x86 app or another. An upgrade breaking nearly 100% of users is a laughed-out-the-door bad user experience.

The point to Rosetta this misses, however, is that for the vast majority of use cases it’s silently re-installed on demand.

It essentially works only when launching apps from the Finder or the dock (not when app A launches app B, except if it did something about it, but that's unlikely) and brings up a prompt window. The opposite of silent.
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