Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90 • Hacker News Board

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#21

Post by handrous » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

ferdowsi wrote: post #6

Nicksil wrote: post #2

>If you are a Firefox user, you don’t have to do anything to benefit from this security advancement. The epitome of corporate speak: "we're taking away a feature of this software. You're welcome." I expect that kind of talk from Google; hearing it from Mozilla makes me a little sad.

Firefox removing support for non-encrypted data protocols makes me more confident in them, so consider me a fan of this messaging.

ftps exists. The solution to http wasn't getting rid of it, it was pushing for more https.

I'm not saying there weren't good reasons to get rid of ftp support, but that doesn't seem like one.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#22

Post by rovr138 » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

ferdowsi wrote: post #6

Nicksil wrote: post #2

>If you are a Firefox user, you don’t have to do anything to benefit from this security advancement. The epitome of corporate speak: "we're taking away a feature of this software. You're welcome." I expect that kind of talk from Google; hearing it from Mozilla makes me a little sad.

Firefox removing support for non-encrypted data protocols makes me more confident in them, so consider me a fan of this messaging.

http, dns, and other things are unencrypted.

What would happen if they rip it out?

What should be done is push for things like ftps or add big warnings around it.

That wasn't the decision. Maintaining this was.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#23

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #5

Nicksil wrote: post #2

>If you are a Firefox user, you don’t have to do anything to benefit from this security advancement. The epitome of corporate speak: "we're taking away a feature of this software. You're welcome." I expect that kind of talk from Google; hearing it from Mozilla makes me a little sad.

While I agree with removing FTP support, I also agree that phrasing is pretty disgusting.

We'd be even more secure if they took away HTTP and HTTPS support

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#24

Post by woodrowbarlow » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

psa: windows explorer.exe, macos finder, and gnome nautilus / kde dolphin all support connecting to an FTP server.

explorer: right click "my computer" -> map network drive. (or just ctrl+L and type an FTP url.)

finder: go -> connect to server

nautilus/dolphin: network -> connect to server (or just ctrl+L and type an FTP url.)

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#25

Post by johannes1234321 » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #10

tyingq wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not within the charter of a modern web browser" That barrier seems pretty porous these days. Being that you can access serial ports via JS, for example :)

Hmmm... would it be possible to write an ftp client in browser JS? I think probably not.

Yes, you can build an FTP client in JavaScript. However the browser won't let you escape the sandbox and open an arbitrary port ... but on Node.js or FirefoxOS (haha) there shouldn't be a problem, except weirdness in standard interpretation :)

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#26

Post by notamy » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

liketochill wrote: post #19

jrochkind1 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm... would it be possible to write an ftp client in browser JS? I think probably not.

I don’t program web sites or web browsers, but with wasm or web sockets can’t you make a web page that opens a connection and sends arbitrary binary data to another server without any http?

> but with wasm or web sockets can’t you make a web page that opens a connection and sends arbitrary binary data to another server without any http?

I can't speak to WASM, but websockets are literally just a layer over HTTP in some regards -- a websocket connection is initiated by sending an HTTP request with the Upgrade header.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#27

Post by metalliqaz » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

rovr138 wrote: post #22

ferdowsi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox removing support for non-encrypted data protocols makes me more confident in them, so consider me a fan of this messaging.

http, dns, and other things are unencrypted. What would happen if they rip it out? What should be done is push for things like ftps or add big warnings around it. That wasn't the decision. Maintaining this was.

they will surely rip them out when they have fallen to the levels of usage that FTP is at now

Edit: not sure why this is being downvoted... if you read the actual link, it says they intend to deprecate HTTP.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#28

Post by josteink » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #23

hnarn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with removing FTP support, I also agree that phrasing is pretty disgusting.

We'd be even more secure if they took away HTTP and HTTPS support

With us all being secured from Gopher already, that’s all that remains to establish a 100% secure browser.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#29

Post by amelius » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #11

Nicksil wrote: post #2

>If you are a Firefox user, you don’t have to do anything to benefit from this security advancement. The epitome of corporate speak: "we're taking away a feature of this software. You're welcome." I expect that kind of talk from Google; hearing it from Mozilla makes me a little sad.

but why? maintaining features is cost

Perhaps one day we can have a programming language that allows us to write software that doesn't rot or corrode.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#30

Post by handrous » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

liketochill wrote: post #19

jrochkind1 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm... would it be possible to write an ftp client in browser JS? I think probably not.

I don’t program web sites or web browsers, but with wasm or web sockets can’t you make a web page that opens a connection and sends arbitrary binary data to another server without any http?

Last I checked you'd still be speaking HTTP (even if it's "WebSockets"), not raw TCP. Certainly there's no UDP support. You'd need a translating proxy of some kind.