Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#301

Post by notatoad » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

tim58 wrote: post #266

notatoad wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm of the mindset that code written 20 years ago should run today. Given that chrome didn't exist 20 years ago, this seems like a fairly absurd position to apply to this situation. No code from 20 years ago relies on chrome having ftp support.

Web browsers existed 20 years ago. We should be able to visit and use a website written in 1999 on any modern browser.

and you can. but an FTP dump is not a website, and a browser not having native support for non-http protocols does not break websites.

FTP links will still work, they just won't be displayed in a browser anymore. People are blowing this way out of proportion, as if FTP is some critical underpinning of the web or web browsers are a critical part of FTP. Web browsers have always been terrible FTP clients, anybody who uses FTP on a regular basis uses a better client. The most tangible impact of this change is to give grumpy internet commenters something to complain about.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#302

Post by tptacek » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

tim58 wrote: post #295

tptacek wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then use a different browser, because Chromium is not and never has been of the preservationist mindset you're talking about.

I do. Chromium/Chrome has a huge impact on the entire web ecosystem, to the point that they have an impact on people that do not use their products.

I'm grateful for that. Why should I cheerlead efforts to keep technology mired in the 1970s? That's what FTP is: a 1970s design, and not in a good way.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#303

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #65

mlyle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a lot harder to become technically competent these days. Before, computers compelled you to have a certain level of technical competence to be a user. Now, the barrier to entry is a lot lower, but there aren't many of the very young learning their way around command lines, etc. The resources once you are on the track to doing technical stuff are far better, but you're less likely to end up on that track-…

> Now, the barrier to entry is a lot lower, but there aren't many of the very young learning their way around command lines, etc. I'm a fairly young person. What I've seen over the past few years is technology is finally useful and accessible to everyone. Forcing people to use the command line isn't a useful skill for 99.5% of people anymore, it's just senseless gatekeeping to make it a computer requirement. I got in…

I firmly believe that the best technology can do both. Tools should be designed firstly for the 95% of users who only need them at a surface level, but provide pathways that encourage users to explore deeper, as they become ready.

macOS kind of does this, whether intentionally or not. On the surface, it's a basic consumer machine, with a web browser, media player, and office suite. But dig a little deeper, and you'll discover Automator, a great little tool for automating menial tasks which puts you in a programmer mindset. Probe deeper still, and you may discover the Terminal icon, full of secrets to be discovered.

It could be taken further. Imagine if TextEdit had built-in syntax highlighting whenever it detected code. "Regular" users would never see the highlighting, and professional programmers would stick to real IDE's or more advanced editors. But as a hidden built-in, it could be a wonderful stepping stone.

Now compare all of this to iOS. Yes, it's true, no one really wants to program on an iPhone anyway—but what happens if you give a child an iPad instead of a laptop? There's now much less opportunity for them to grow and discover more. This isn't to say that every child with a Mac will discover the terminal and become a power user, but some will, and be thankful for the opportunity.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#304

Post by viburnum » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

First they came for Gopher ...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#305

Post by quotemstr » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

ivanfon wrote: post #244

quotemstr wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That protocol is effectively part of HTTP now.

The WebSocket Protocol is an independent TCP-based protocol. Its only relationship to HTTP is that its handshake is interpreted by HTTP servers as an Upgrade request. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6455#section-1.7

Effectively.

If you do connection setup, service disambiguation, redirects, and so on with HTTP and switch to a non-HTTP interactive protocol, what you've effectively done is create an HTTP sub-protocol, and I don't care what the document you quoted says.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#306

Post by louiz » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

qzx_pierri wrote: post #280

syshum wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Surprising given Mozilla Stance to duplicate and support everything Google does in a effort to chase relevancy again Mozilla has lost the ability to be an independent protector of the Open Web

It's sad because they don't need to. Quantum is great, and you can remap your keybinds and use MaterialFox to get (almost) the exact same experience. Of course your average pleb won't go through this effort, but people need to know how good Firefox has gotten. And to the people who disagree: Firefox has always been great, but it often came with a lot of bugs and inconveniences. It didn't use to be as accessible. http…

> Quantum is great, and you can remap your keybinds

Please explain how. Since firefox 57 (quantum), there's precisely no way to do that properly...

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#307

Post by peterangular » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #242

Jaruzel wrote: post #221

There are 100,000s of resources on publicly accessible FTP servers and the removal of direct access to these files via one of the worlds most used browsers is major blow for information storage and retrieval on the internet. It is obvious that the next FTP related headline we see from Google is when (not, if) they drop FTP links from all Google search results. There's no point them listing FTP urls in the results if…

Nah. Average consumers almost never touch ftp anymore. I'm a tech pro and even I haven't used ftp in years. Having ftp servers accessible from a browser is a fairly useless luxury at this point. Dedicated ftp clients are very easy to come by for anyone.

I'm a tech pro too and I need it to pull down large FCC and census datasets, but I'm not too concerned about it being removed from the browser. Anyone who still is utilizing FTP is probably savvy enough to install a better tool that's feature-rich like Filezilla.

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#308

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

Good. Honestly it was always weird to me that browsers ever supported FTP in the first place, it seemed so arbitrary. (Why not gopher and telnet too?)

You'll still be able to download an ftp: link by your browser opening your local FTP client, same as a magnet: opening your local torrenting client -- as it should be.

And honestly, if you're one of the few people who actually need to regularly download files with FTP, don't you want a better standalone client anyways?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#309

Post by insulanian » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #297

qzx_pierri wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad because they don't need to. Quantum is great, and you can remap your keybinds and use MaterialFox to get (almost) the exact same experience. Of course your average pleb won't go through this effort, but people need to know how good Firefox has gotten. And to the people who disagree: Firefox has always been great, but it often came with a lot of bugs and inconveniences. It didn't use to be as accessible. http…

Have they fixed the issue with excessive resource consumption when using Firefox on a Retina MacBook?

+1

I tried to switch to FF on multiple occasions, but it's a CPU hog on MacBook. Why is this issue ignored for so long?

Re: Google Plans to Deprecate FTP URL Support in Chrome

#310

Post by markbnj » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

I've used FTP for many years, and I still use it to manage the file system of my blog, which is running on a cheap VPS. I doubt, though, that even 1 in 100 non-technical Internet users knows what it is. There are several good clients available. I think you can even still use Windows Explorer. I can't think of a strong argument for Google to maintain support in Chrome.