Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's your choice. Some other people only visit trusted sites.
Those people can choose to disable automatic updates.
Not in Firefox on Ubuntu, there is no option under settings to disable it, that's the problem.
Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
201–210 of 285 posts
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edge has vertical tabs built in. Many other browsers can be made to have vertical tabs with plugins.
Edge is not free. I wouldn't seriously consider using a non-free application for something as essential as everyday web browsing. You can't really have usable vertical tabs in Chromium via plugins either, unless you're content with wasting a lot of horizontal space for an ugly sidebar and vertical space for uselessly duplicated tab bar. Firefox is the only actual choice I'm aware about.
> I wouldn't seriously consider using a non-free application for something as essential as everyday web browsing.
Why? Are you considering forking Firefox?
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefox on Ubuntu (which I'm not using anymore for these and other reasons) and presumably on other OSs does exactly that: refuse to open new tabs/sites once every two weeks or so, telling me "one more thing we need to do" ie self-update. So you're loosing all your browsing context, though FF does a better job restoring it after restart than it used to, but still that's user-hostile and self-important as fuck. And th…
Go to Firefox settings and disable auto-update? `about:config` > `app.update.auto: false`
This doesn't work. The only way to disable autoupdates on Firefox is to install a policy file:
https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates
https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Nag...
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those people can choose to disable automatic updates.
Not in Firefox on Ubuntu, there is no option under settings to disable it, that's the problem.
Firefox on Ubuntu (on most distros, in fact) doesn't update itself automatically at all, which is why there's no option to disable it. It's apt (or snap?) that updates it.
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#205So the "movement" against modern browser features is not a movement and has nothing to do with these features but its simply a version of "kids these days lost their ways" thinking. A version of conservatism, I guess. "Everything was better in the good old days" and "The new generation is horrible, the humanity is doomed" kind of thoughts are probably a manifestation of fading youth.
This strikes me as somewhat dismissive. My take is that the concerns raised in 1999 are even more true now. The problems we have with low-quality, bloated websites with questionable content are worse, and the rise of 'software that knows best' is only accelerating. If anything, this seems precient.
Also notable is this statement in the context of modern SaaS products:
"Who knows whether a new version will be available and usable when the current one stops working?"
With SaaS products the company can go out of business; they can change the product on you without your opt-in, making it unusable (or less usable) for your purposes and there is no way to downgrade to the previous version; they can stop supporting your web browser; your account can get disabled or compromised; new policies and regulations on data retention and privacy could render a particular SaaS product unusable for your purposes.
What are you meant to do if a SaaS tool you depend on suddenly stops working? How do you install the old version and get back to work?
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#206So the "movement" against modern browser features is not a movement and has nothing to do with these features but its simply a version of "kids these days lost their ways" thinking. A version of conservatism, I guess. "Everything was better in the good old days" and "The new generation is horrible, the humanity is doomed" kind of thoughts are probably a manifestation of fading youth.
I don't remember ever being excited about disruptive software updates. If anything, I'm more patient at sitting through an app update on a weak cell signal than I was when I was younger.
I remember the days of waiting for the early adopters, reading the reviews and letting bug fixes and patches get released before making an informed decision to upgrade, if upgrading was considered worth it.
For things like security patches, pushing updates has been a net positive IMO.
For absolutely everything else, it's a disaster. I always used to think that the "free software purists" were a bit too radical for my tastes ... but now, in the era of SaaS, I find myself agreeing with them. I want to own and be in control of my hardware and software. Let me decide if upgrading is worth it.
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#207So the "movement" against modern browser features is not a movement and has nothing to do with these features but its simply a version of "kids these days lost their ways" thinking. A version of conservatism, I guess. "Everything was better in the good old days" and "The new generation is horrible, the humanity is doomed" kind of thoughts are probably a manifestation of fading youth.
20 years from now there will be HN posts like "In my good old days we wrote efficient Electron apps that only used 2 GB of RAM to display a todo list, today's developers are lazy, there is no need to ask the AI to synthesize such a simple app, and certainly it shouldn't need a QPU (QuantumProcessorUnit) to run".
One can only hope we'll still have mrtksn to set them straight.
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefox on Ubuntu (which I'm not using anymore for these and other reasons) and presumably on other OSs does exactly that: refuse to open new tabs/sites once every two weeks or so, telling me "one more thing we need to do" ie self-update. So you're loosing all your browsing context, though FF does a better job restoring it after restart than it used to, but still that's user-hostile and self-important as fuck. And th…
> and presumably on other OSs Nope, it only happens when something outside changed Firefox's files (in this case when Ubuntu swapped files because dpkg updated Firefox). This never happens* in Windows and macOS (it might nag, but you can definitely dismiss it). It seems that johnchristopher has a suggestion to disable auto-updates on a specific application in Debian and Ubuntu (haven't tested it though): https://news…
> Nope, it only happens when something outside changed Firefox's files … This never happens* in Windows and macOS (it might nag, but you can definitely dismiss it).
Happens with multiple Firefox instances too, `firefox -P -no-remote` (I think in recent versions the -no-remote is redundant), even on Windows with official installers. In that case you don't even get the error message; new tabs just remain blank. There might be a delay between process A's update and symptoms appearing in process B; not sure.
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go to Firefox settings and disable auto-update? `about:config` > `app.update.auto: false`
This doesn't work. The only way to disable autoupdates on Firefox is to install a policy file: https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_Make_Mozilla_Firefox_Stop_Nag...
Wow, this actually DOES appear to shut down autoupdating. Thanks!
Re: Why I Don't Use Netscape (1999)
#210Oh my, the mention of DJ Delorie brought me back memories: That's the famous DJGPP C/C++ compiler which along with Allegro library was the bomb to develop MSDOS games back in the day!