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Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

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Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#31
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an extension called Classic Theme Restorer that aims to do it, as well as customize australis.

The fact that such an extension exists, and that it may get broken again in later versions, says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation.

They didn't make the addon. What, you want them to go back on 15 years of history and make the UI non-customizable? What are they, Google?

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#32
post #6
post #2

So.. can I disable australis somehow?

Have you at least tried it or are you simply change averse? I have done the move a few weeks back, and I don't regret my decision. The toolbar and my add-ons located there still work very well, also the new menu gives a quick access to useful features.

I got the Australis updates yesterday, tried it for half an hour. Never use the menu, want my tab real estate back, so I got the addon to fix it.

The shiny gloss over everything is still annoying, and they made the RSS icon monochrome rather than the normal RSS icon when you can sub to feeds, but otherwise I can just get rid of the menu I'd never use and have my old UX back.

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#33
post #11

So now I need to give them my email address plus remember yet another password for sync? Do not want. I always thought the old model with the sync keys was pretty sweet. Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted? It better be!

You can run your own Firefox sync server, but it's a pain to implement. http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html Once it's up and running, though, it's seamless. Edit: Hmm. Looks like they're happy to break this: " Some unknown proportion of the user base uses their own Sync servers ... [Asa] I don't think we should worry too much about this group. If we can identify them and message them that'd be suffi…

That's not a very reassuring attitude. Hopefully the new Firefox Accounts authentication server will be easy enough to deploy and configure as an alternative to private Sync servers.

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#34
post #14
post #11

So now I need to give them my email address plus remember yet another password for sync? Do not want. I always thought the old model with the sync keys was pretty sweet. Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted? It better be!

In times of free and secure password managers "remembering passwords" should really be a non-issue.

Let's just plug KeyPass here since its open source and brilliant: http://keepass.info/ Also for the linux and co (incl osx & win too actually) users: https://www.keepassx.org/news/

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#35
post #28
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree, Australis only breaks visual add-ons like Vertical Tabs, and the like. Not sure where NoScript comment is coming from?

For now Australis only breaks visual add-ons, but I can see a drive to align, i.e. remove features from, the desktop version so it is more like the mobile versions. The thinking being - Australis is visually more like the Android version of Firefox, why not make its add-on model more like the Android add-on model? i.e. Neutered. The NoScript comment is because that is the "killer app" for Firefox for me, and on mobil…

We have indeed seen a severe dumbing-down of all of the major desktop browsers over the past few years, as mobile devices have become more widely used. So I think that what you're saying is happening, and will continue to happen.

Desktop browser users should not have to suffer because mobile users choose to use platforms that are crippled in so many ways. Nor should desktop browser users have to install numerous extensions just to bring modern desktop browsers back to the level of usability we had a few years earlier. Yet with each new release of the major desktop browsers, we find ourselves in the position of reduced functionality, and the need for more and more extensions to restore the now-missing functionality.

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#36

I've been patiently waiting for Firefox to fix their ugly UI, I look forward to finally ditching Chrome and returning to a browser made by a company whose primary concern isn't accumulating data on its users.

FXChrome solved the problem for me (chrome-like theme for firefox, its perfect). I am glad someone finally told them their last design iteration was horrendous. Honestly, who makes these decisions over there?

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#37
post #17

In this new version, Mozilla presents a major user interface overhaul Australis that makes it easy to customize your browser. The amount of doublespeak Mozilla has been putting out recently is astounding. Read the comments here for example (I don't know if they've changed anything since then, but I doubt it): https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/11/australis-is-landing-in-... All they appear to be doing is chasing Chrome…

I worry that desktop Firefox will go the way of the Android version or the neutered Firefox OS browser, where you cannot install the vital security add-on NoScript due to the incompatible add-on model that the mobile versions use. That used to work on Android, but no longer (and it seems the noscript dev is not a fan of the mobile platform). There are many more add-ons that only work on the desktop version. They shou…

The problem is that most existing extensions are based on XUL, which is terrible and impractical for good mobile UIs.

There is a more abstract addon API (used by restartless addons) and your favourite ones just need to be updated.

Also, NoScript is not a "vital security add-on".

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#38
The real strength of Firefox vs Chrome is in FF's real (as in not android-"open-source") open source philosophy which makes forked projects like Palemoon possible (I personally prefer Palemoon at the moment due to more conservative release cycle and UI plus strong security focus)

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#39
post #11

So now I need to give them my email address plus remember yet another password for sync? Do not want. I always thought the old model with the sync keys was pretty sweet. Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted? It better be!

> Is the synced data end-to-end encrypted?

Yes.

Re: Firefox 29 beta arrives with easy Sync tool....

#40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that such an extension exists, and that it may get broken again in later versions, says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation.

> says a lot about what Mozilla really think of customisation. Oh? And what is that? "Customization is great and you should have the option to do so"? Try having a "classic theme restorer" with Chromium. > it may get broken again in later versions Future changes may cause incompatibilities in any project. That is why such changes are released in major new versions so that add-on developers have plenty of time to make…

It's different when breaking changes are infrequent and optional. This is no longer the case with firefox: breaking changes can come at any time and you generally don't have the option to upgrade (although I do recall there being an option to turn off auto updating, I'm not sure this is a good solution though).
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