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Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

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Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#171

Post by nyanpasu64 »

sabellito wrote: post #86
causi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, can you just say "we've got themes?" No one is going to remember Firefox as the next MLK Jr because they let you turn the window chrome orange. Meanwhile Firefox Android is still a slow, unstable garbage pile. How many years now since Mozilla began developing exclusively for headline writers instead of their users?

I use FF Android every day, including watching videos, and haven't noticed the "unstable garbage pile". Are you being hyperbolic?

On Firefox Nightly, I randomly get tabs that break and show an interactive version of the previously switched-to tab until you restart the browser, dragging a text handle to the left of a Hacker News comment crashes the entire browser, etc.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#172

Post by dblohm7 »

saint-loup wrote: post #94
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak. Even posts I should be professionally partial to, like those about UI design, rub me of the wrong way. It's often full of "creating delightful experiences" and "streamlining a seamless flow".

Former Mozilla engineer here.

> I observed the change in tone in Mozilla blog posts, from experts talking about their craft to marketspeak.

I think I can explain what you're seeing here. The original blog.mozilla.org was run very much like the old "MSDN blogs" from Microsoft (think Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing.)

When I started at Mozilla a decade ago, my manager told me to file a request for my own space on blogs.mozilla.org -- which was denied. I was told that this was because blog.mozilla.org was being refocused as the "official" Mozilla blog.

People who already had accounts on there were grandfathered in, which is why some people (Nick Nethercote's blog come to mind) still had blogs on there. Obviously as those developers moved on, those employee blogs have gradually died off.

These days, if you want technical content, you'll need to look at hacks.mozilla.org for "officially sanctioned" pieces, or look at the blogs that publish to planet.mozilla.org for developer blogs (though much like blogging in general, there is much less traffic on there compared to a decade ago).

TL;DR: The focus of blog.mozilla.org is primarily corporate and marketing at this point.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#174

Post by ndriscoll »

Spivak wrote: post #133
stoplying1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should re-read the complaints with slightly more empathy for both sides. I love my purple Firefox (apparently via Colorways). Meanwhile, the "Colorways" feature UX and messaging is stupid and confusing . I'm not exaggerating, me and others are quite confused about what it is/isn't and if it's going away. All for freaking what? My mom sees that shit? She's gonna go "uh I don't know what Colorways is, why's…

> All for freaking what? Because they wanted something to talk about social media that was fun and limited time. They were following the Nike playbook with shoe drops including the terminology. Look at the screenshot in the blog post about colorways the art is even a shoe with a basketball. They were trying something new . Limited time cosmetic drops for browsers that get people hyped in every other context. It confu…

> Every non-chrome browser has to answer the question "why use me instead of Chrome" and for Firefox it's the activism. you might not like that but it's what Mozilla's got.

The problem is that Mozilla's raison d'etre used to be about technical merit and user agency, including privacy and customization features. Chrome doesn't set a particularly high bar here, so Firefox could still be about this (and in fact Firefox is still the better choice despite themselves), but over the last few years they've gone in exactly the wrong direction.

Browsers were themeable 20 years ago. Everything used to be themeable. Things like CSS show these roots in their design, but Mozilla thinks that user stylesheets are a "legacyUserProfileCustomizations" instead of a fundamental design feature now.

The whole idea of limited time marketing is to create anxiety and FOMO. It's completely anti-ethical to user-focused design.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#175

Post by s_ting765 »

dont__panic wrote: post #159
s_ting765 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. Biggest reason I refuse to use Firefox no matter how bad Chromium is. I sometimes use Firefox Focus for doing searches on my phone and the thing is always pinging mozilla services. Some of them location related. No way to turn any of these off on what is supposed to be an incognito…

You feel like Firefox doesn't respect your privacy, so you use Google's phone-home software instead? Sounds kinda like "Biggest reason I refuse to use weed no matter how bad methamphetamine is" to me. Unless you're using UnGoogled Chromium and blocking requests by IP or something.

Mozilla's Firefox is the 'Google' of the FOSS world. Too big, too data (telemetry) hungry. They have even experimented with doing ads. I could go on and on.

You cannot be preaching about privacy and refuse to provide a simple toggle to opt-out of all telemetry in your software.

FYI I do use ungoogled chromium as my main browser.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#176

Post by throwaway82390 »

stoplying1 wrote: post #29
hbn wrote: post #9

> Last year we launched Firefox Colorways, a new desktop feature that allowed our users to express their most authentic selves and bring joy while browsing the web > “‘Independent Voices’ are the voices of the past and present that create a better future,” said Keely Alexis. “I chose this [analogy] as my inspiration for the collaboration because it feels authentic to me but it also aligns with Firefox and the vision…

Does it still have the cursed text with it that says "going away in (some month soon)". It's so stupid and confusing and baffling that I want to rage quit Firefox with this as the absolute last straw. Like wtf, you're gonna take back my color in a few months? Just pull the upsell for it? Why the hell am I having to wonder about any of this? Why on God's green earth was this done instead of spending any effort getting…

New colorway themes are a limited time offer because that will create seasonal excitement and users will be more likely to customize their Firefox theme if they know the other options will be taken away from them in a few months. Or at least that's product management's hypothesis for increasing user engagement.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#177

Post by mdaniel »

user3939382 wrote: post #16

Why don’t you give power users at the very least in about:config an option to disable ALL phoning home by Firefox upon launch and exit. As it stands even with all telemetry off Firefox is extremely chatty and I’ve had Mozilla developers tell me they have no intention to fix this. You can profile this yourself on macOS with Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI). Until this is fixed all I can do is roll my eyes when I…

I realized while reading your comment they actually do have the perfect button for "I wish to disable browser telemetry": the DNT checkbox

Its whole premise is "I, as a user of this browser, do not want to participate in tracking activities." I don't see why mozilla should be exempt from that intention. I'd be some top shelf :chefs_kiss: if mozilla.org honored the DNT but the browser itself didn't

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#178

Post by jrootabega »

traceroute66 wrote: post #165
jrootabega wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a miscommunication/misalignment of expectations. Private windows have privacy (more than non-private windows, at least), but they do not have privacy or isolation from each other. Unless you use add-ons, the isolation boundary is the profile. You need multiple profiles to keep them from sharing with each other. The main problem then, IMO, is that it is not well-supported for a user to use template profiles or au…

> It's a miscommunication/misalignment of expectations. Private windows have privacy (more than non-private windows, at least), but they do not have privacy or isolation from each other Ok fine, but why can't it be a checkbox option in preferences ? Why can't I tick a box that says "isolate private windows" ?

I would like that option as well. The closest Mozilla will officially let you get is multi-account containers.

But it's just not a bug, and I think it should be clear that it will never be a feature.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#179

Post by firefoxkekw »

marcodiego wrote: post #12

I have to repost it aagain: Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular browser. Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.

You are literally helping the "big corpo" doing that.

Firefox was mostly funded by Alphabet/Google to avoid antitrust lawsuits/promote their search engine, one of the best scenarios for the "big corpo" is a product (firefox) that doesn't have many users and cater to the most anti-corpo users (users that wouldn't like to use "big corpo" products anyway). At this point mozilla is just a bussiness expense for the big corpo, the cost of doing bussiness.

"Big corpo" can argue, "look we are even funding the competence", the competence need to be small but relevant enough, so while you are thinking that you are fighting the "big corpo" the reality is that you are just helping to keep firefox relevant enough that the "big corpo" can't be sued.

Re: Firefox Private Browsing mode upgrade

#180

Post by rPlayer6554 »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #171
sabellito wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use FF Android every day, including watching videos, and haven't noticed the "unstable garbage pile". Are you being hyperbolic?

On Firefox Nightly, I randomly get tabs that break and show an interactive version of the previously switched-to tab until you restart the browser, dragging a text handle to the left of a Hacker News comment crashes the entire browser, etc.

Then stop using nightly.....
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