Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox 69.0 Released

mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 331 posts

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#271

Post by veidr »

smt88 wrote: post #126
veidr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get so much value from Pocket that I even switched from Instapaper. It's not Pocket that's the problem, it's the gross attempted force-feeding (that just makes me want to try some other browser like Brave (not an endorsement, just what I personally would investigate next)). How about, instead of "we plastered all this shit from the crap we bought onto every single browser window you henceforth open, you mindl…

Last time I installed Brave, the new tab page had a link to a cryptocurrency news site (probably a paid placement). If you want the least-gross behavior, it's not going to come from a for-profit startup.

Maybe not, but it seems to be the least annoying right now.

I've never seen it show me an ad (including paid placement type ads) so far. I guess if they junked up their new tab page with intrusive encouragement to start using Brave Rewards and Basic Attention Token (BAT) then that would sort of be the equivalent of what Firefox is doing...

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#272

Post by bscphil »

Aardwolf wrote: post #82

> For our users in the US or using the en-US browser, we are shipping a new “New Tab” page experience that connects you to the best of Pocket’s content. With all due respect, if you have to call it an "experience" you know it's something nobody asked for :p

I wonder what this means exactly and how it could possibly be worse than what's already the default.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#273

Post by steve19 »

isarat wrote: post #185

The privacy aspect of Firefox is great. The containers also a great thing and help us to a great extend. Beyond the privacy aspects, I really wish if Firefox pays attention to little things that can make the life of a user a bit better. - The Firefox sign in process is considerably improved, with a link based sign in with email. The fact is that you will not be singed in to email on the first time usage. So you are b…

> - The containers concept is really great but not for most of the general users to make use of it. It’s still a bit geeky in nature.

This. Containers are quite complicated to reason about, require a fair amount of setup and do not sync. Not to mention the color pallete is bizarrely limited.

I use both Firefox and Chrome but use Chrome for work because Profiles are much easier to use. I just open another profile, which loads with a nice theme and a set of extensions (limiting my exposure to some extensions in other profiles).

Profiles are so simple and just work.

Firefox of course has profiles, but you cannot run two of them at the same time without using the command line (or creating shortcuts to launch multiple versions of the browser).

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#274

Post by bscphil »

Amezarak wrote: post #241
bovine3dom wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated :) You can still install Tridactyl in a normal installation of Firefox by following the instructions on our readme [1]. Admittedly, that may cease to be the case if Mozilla ever tire of us; people in locked-down corporate environments would then find it hard or impossible to install Tridactyl but we'd make it as easy as possible for everyone else. On topic, I'd argue…

Firefox gained the marketshare it did because power users relentlessly evangelized it to non-power users. There was some of the same phenomenon with Google, but the real difference is that Google pushed Chrome very strongly on the biggest web properties in the world, had it packaged in some other software installers, and advertised it. That's why Chrome has the market-share it does today. Mozilla appears to now be co…

This is it, exactly. No browser has ever gotten a dominant market share by convincing user Joe Average that it was better for their needs. That is an approach that is doomed to fail.

Just about every person I know that uses or used to use Firefox does so because I told them to use it or (more likely) I installed it for them. That's how most people start using Firefox.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#275

Post by acdha »

rhizome wrote: post #268
acdha wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If advertisers aren’t seeing returns, they’ll eventually shift spending since video ads are expensive to produce and place. I wouldn’t bet against them finding something even more annoying, however.

Of course they're going to come up with new and exciting forms of interruption, but "shift spending" is extremely malleable, and agencies will still provide the feature for a price. Also, it's my understanding that there are no "returns" per se on brand advertising (vs. product advertising), regardless of medium.

No “returns” in directly measurable sales but all but the most unconcerned companies are going to look at interactions and ask whether they’re getting enough versus the cost, especially since the Facebook measurement scandal got a lot of attention.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#276

Post by bhaile »

RussianCow wrote: post #13

I've been using the Firefox 69 beta since it came out, and with auto-playing audio and video set to blocked, some sites still somehow manage to auto-start muted videos. Is this a bug I should report, or is there some exception that websites are taking advantage of (like starting the video via an event handler like onscroll)?

I had to set this value in about:config media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed;false

Now, no video auto-plays when I interact on the page.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#277

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

Aardwolf wrote: post #54

> The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound. Good. I know a news website that was on purpose disabling sound on videos to prevent that. So not only does it autoplay, you need to click to unmute anyway to actually hear it! Why do news websites want to shove autoplaying videos on people's throat…

There's about a thousand cynical answers to your question, but the truth is simply that not everyone is like your (or me): all measures (return visits, pages/visit, conversions, etc) just happen to be better for autoplaying video.

I would totally agree with you and the others that it's an annoying practice. Yet then again when I blanket-banned autoplay, I was annoyed by youtube videos no longer doing it.

Turns out we like it where we expect it. Just not from random google results to sites we rarely visit.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#279

Post by khaledh »

Aardwolf wrote: post #54

> The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound. Good. I know a news website that was on purpose disabling sound on videos to prevent that. So not only does it autoplay, you need to click to unmute anyway to actually hear it! Why do news websites want to shove autoplaying videos on people's throat…

Just bookmark https://www.bbc.com/news and you'll be happy.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#280

Post by driverdan »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #96
Aardwolf wrote: post #54

> The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound. Good. I know a news website that was on purpose disabling sound on videos to prevent that. So not only does it autoplay, you need to click to unmute anyway to actually hear it! Why do news websites want to shove autoplaying videos on people's throat…

Fantastic news for people, like me, who spend a lot of time with $10/GB hotspot data prices. I'd click a link to a 5KB news article only to find it streaming HD video of talking heads reading the article.

Why are you spending so much? There are many ways to get bandwidth for less. AT&T Home Wireless (doesn't have to be used at home) is $1/GB. There are many resellers of unlimited hotspots. Sometimes deals come up, like Verizon's now discontinued prepaid unlimited hotspot for $65/m.
Post reply on HN