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Firefox Hello

mozilla.org

211–220 of 239 posts

Re: Firefox Hello

#211
Sending a link is stupid.

I want my browser to ring when there is an incoming call.

Firefox should have an open socket connection to Mozilla servers and deliver services thru that, just like android cloud messaging, like alerts, notifications, push apis, etc.

Re: Firefox Hello

#212
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see where this stands three years from now. Mozilla is working on some pretty neat stuff; and is paying attention to the rest of the world, not just the American/European/Japanese market. Also since they are a foundation owned corporation with a public benefit mission https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/moco/ they can take a longer-term view than some of the other big players. Having played with one of the…

The underlying problem and a source of debate is this "public benefit" part, as perceived by some engineers vs others. The problem is simple to describe, but nearly impossible to solve. On the one hand, ask anyone whenever they want to have video conferencing without having to download additional software and based on open standards blah blah — and you're likely to hear "yeah, that's cool, where do I get it?" before…

Except this isn't "bundled with a monolithic browser blob"; it's enabled by supporting WebRTC, and it's compatible with other WebRTC implementations.

That we're even discussing this goes to show the tragic decline of critical thinking and basic reading comprehension on this board.

Re: Firefox Hello

#213

It seems there is a lot of confusion going on here. Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way. The "firefox hello" button that has shown up in recent versions of the browser is a bit of UI magic over an API to this website. The video conferencing code is not implemented in the browser. If you send a firefox hello link to a chrome user, it opens the webpage wh…

I have a success story with that. I moved abroad and I have a chat with my parents using Skype from time to time. After the Microsoft acquisition Skype had to be upgraded and the old version stopped working. My parents aren't tech-savvy really and I failed to diagnose their problem remotely, so I tried https://talky.io/ (just because I watched Sam Dutton talk about WebRTC and he used that web for a demo). It worked (…

The problem I had doing something similar was getting the link to them. You need some other out-of-band communication method, whereas with skype you just agree to a time of the week when to sign on and call each other. Email sort-of works, but not as easily as the central logged-in lobby system.

Re: Firefox Hello

#214
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying problem and a source of debate is this "public benefit" part, as perceived by some engineers vs others. The problem is simple to describe, but nearly impossible to solve. On the one hand, ask anyone whenever they want to have video conferencing without having to download additional software and based on open standards blah blah — and you're likely to hear "yeah, that's cool, where do I get it?" before…

Except this isn't "bundled with a monolithic browser blob"; it's enabled by supporting WebRTC, and it's compatible with other WebRTC implementations. That we're even discussing this goes to show the tragic decline of critical thinking and basic reading comprehension on this board.

I thought the topic quickly moved to be about A/V conferencing, WebRTC and other features in general, not Hello in particular. There isn't much to discuss about yet-another-WebRTC-site, so the topic had shifted.

And then everything depends on how one views things. Firefox is a monolithic blob, and WebRTC is a fairly tightly integrated part of it. This is valid point to discuss.

For one, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have WebRTC as a part of the browser and not as an fairly autonomous plugin/extension (bundled with browser default packaging, no problems here). Tight vs loose coupling.

You know, one thing I absolutely love about Flash is that I can completely remove or selectively disable it as I see fit. ;)

Re: Firefox Hello

#215
post #6

I saw the tag line, liked what I saw until "powered by Telefonica". Seriously, I've lived in more than half of the European countries for a while, and never ever EVER saw such a shitty internet service as in Spain over their network. Lack of service for hours every day, substandard speeds... It made me anticipate a move to Portugal by one year because of their shitty service.

Actually my experience is entirely different. Extremely good service, even in remote locations. Whereas in the UK, most providers except very expensive ones are a nightmare.

Re: Firefox Hello

#216
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had contributed to chromium for weeks, and then google come with it's monthly dump and overwritten everything you and others did in the open, you would have a different opinion.

Sorry, but what the FUD is this? Chromium has never done anything of the sort. It's developed completely in the open and has a huge number of non-Google contributors committing code every day.

Chromium proper is indeed developed in the open, but the Chromium browser as a whole is not, perhaps that's what was intended above, so there might be a confusion of terminology here.

For example, v8 - a very important part of Chromium - is not developed fully openly: major features are developed secretly and land as surprises, like CrankShaft and TurboFan, and also daily development consists of patches landing with little or no public discussion behind them.

Re: Firefox Hello

#217

Sending a link is stupid. I want my browser to ring when there is an incoming call. Firefox should have an open socket connection to Mozilla servers and deliver services thru that, just like android cloud messaging, like alerts, notifications, push apis, etc.

Mozilla != Google

Funding such services is a big decision for them -- they're the ones that have to support it, keep it up, and pay for it (for the life of the service). As they make money in a distinctly different way from Google, they don't have the same positive feedback loop -- Google is happy to provide you free web services because you are the product.

Re: Firefox Hello

#218

Sending a link is stupid. I want my browser to ring when there is an incoming call. Firefox should have an open socket connection to Mozilla servers and deliver services thru that, just like android cloud messaging, like alerts, notifications, push apis, etc.

Firefox Hello does have an open socket connection to Mozilla servers. This is why once you give out the link, Hello can ring the browser to indicate someone has joined the conversation.

Since Hello currently doesn't have a Friends list or a way to utilize existing social networks, passing a link to a friend is how you give them permission to ring your browser.

Re: Firefox Hello

#219
post #116
post #97

Since no one realizes that Mozilla actually develops stuff in the open (vs. code/project-dumps like Google after its 'done'), here's the Mozilla project page for Hello (previously called Loop): https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop A bunch of the hypothetical questions here on HN could be answered easily by skimming over this page and some of the pages linked in. Edit: I'm not suggesting its bad or good to get a project to a…

I don't have any problem with people making open source projects and then publishing them once they are finished. It's still open source.

Open source is better than not, but there's some great insights in Eric Raymon's paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar[0] with regards to how release early, release often is better for the author, community, and (open source) project both in the near and long term. Releasing it, bugs and all, early on can build a real community in ways that dumping a finished project can never do.

For example, look at projects like the original Netscape/Mozilla or Libreoffice open source projects and how long they took to build communities (with the former, they really didn't exist with non-AOL communities until AFTER a complete rewrite - Firefox - was launched; same was true with StarOffice/OpenOffice/Libreoffice). Then look at the similarly sized projects of Linux distributions, KDE, GNOME, and many others.

Being able to get involved with a project early on, before it's too big to really jump into quickly and make a meaningful contribution, really helps build that initial core of developers who believe in and want/need the project.

1. http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/

Re: Firefox Hello

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a success story with that. I moved abroad and I have a chat with my parents using Skype from time to time. After the Microsoft acquisition Skype had to be upgraded and the old version stopped working. My parents aren't tech-savvy really and I failed to diagnose their problem remotely, so I tried https://talky.io/ (just because I watched Sam Dutton talk about WebRTC and he used that web for a demo). It worked (…

This is exactly the sort of thing it is fantastic at. Being able to email or SMS people link and have it Just Work without passwords or accounts or port forwarding is actually really nifty, and exactly what you need to start a chat with grandma. For the record, my experience has been that firefox hello is superior in quality to skype.

Awesome testimonial. If it's superior (or even close to comparable) to skype, I'm switching immediately.
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