Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two years without saying which APIs they needed.
Simply false. You don't appear to know what you're talking about, so maybe you should stop pretending. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061
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Firefox 57.0 Released
341–350 of 836 posts
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
> most of the bickering is "I want XUL and nothing else" I don't know that that's fair. The discussions I've seen and participated in have revolved around equivalency, not identity. > how many of those lamenting the absence of some API have actually told Mozilla what they need? The Vimperator devs and some users have been very clear on that point. > Mozilla has been very responsive and helpful. Not everything was pos…
> I don't know that that's fair. The discussions I've seen and participated in have revolved around equivalency, not identity. I've developed a couple of Firefox extensions. One of those was an e10s-compatible replacement for Vimperator, because Vimperator relied on XUL[0]. (Vimperator broke long before Firefox 57, because e10s broke backwards compatibility with some extensions long before Firefox 57 did). The old ex…
electrovim is in no way a replacement for Vimperator. It's a couple of keyboard shortcuts. None of the current vim-like plugins for FF57 match what vimperator/pentadactyl can do. The problem I have isn't that they broke legacy things, it's that they broke legacy things without offering a path to rebuild them.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#343I just upgraded. It completely changes the chrome of the browser on OSX and it is _absolutely hideous_. There are a lots of unnecessary animations that I find very jarring. I don't know if there's a way to change it back yet. UPDATE: There is a "Customize Firefox" button which allows modifying the theme, which fixes the colors, but not the shape of the tabs or the animations. UPDATE: In about:config, you can disable…
Do you have any specific examples?
> Do you have any specific examples?
Labels of background tabs became very transparent. This makes them completely unreadable, as my desktop background is quite dark. So, these tab labels are written with black letters on a dark blue background. So freaking good usability! /s
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#344I just upgraded. It completely changes the chrome of the browser on OSX and it is _absolutely hideous_. There are a lots of unnecessary animations that I find very jarring. I don't know if there's a way to change it back yet. UPDATE: There is a "Customize Firefox" button which allows modifying the theme, which fixes the colors, but not the shape of the tabs or the animations. UPDATE: In about:config, you can disable…
I haven't used Firefox for years, and to me it felt very natural and smooth on OS X when I tried the new version today.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree with this. I think it was a mistake on Mozilla's part not to put more effort into extension parity before the switch-over. But I'm relatively optimistic for the future.
Mozilla absolutely made the right decision to dump a decade's worth of legacy code to improve performance, and make the future happen now. Let's be real: had they supported legacy extensions, extension developers would ignore porting until Mozilla finally said "that's been long enough, we're removing legacy support". The result is simply that the rough transition happens now instead of a couple of years down the line…
You forget the big technical issue: many web extension API features that are needed to port old Firefox extensions do not exist yet (e.g. filesystem access) or are conservatively crippled (e.g. adding buttons, menu items, other GUI elements).
Your 2-3 months of frantic effort will start not immediately but in a vague future when the Firefox team feels like improving the web extension API. It is fairly obvious from API documentation and bug discussion threads that they only care for feature parity with Chrome web extensions, not with old Firefox extensions.
The transition could have been managed gradually, by piece by piece replacement of the old extension API with the new web extension API (made available to old style extensions). Extension developers would have made the small changes needed to port from a deprecated old API to a new API that does the same thing, up to the final step of reorganizing without significant code changes the old extension, now relying exclusively on web extension APIs, into a web extension. Abandoned extensions would have fallen by the wayside very fast, deficient APIs would have been fixed before actual usage, and Firefox would have moved forward without betraying users.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, good to know. Ideally it should also derive another key when logging into Sync, so it's never sent verbatim even through a secure channel.
We do :) The full details are at https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server/wiki/onepw-protoc... , but basically we derive two separate keys: one for authentication, that gets sent over the wire, and a completely different one for decrypting the sync key, which is not set over the wire. This means that even if you can observe the entire transaction, you still aren't able to derive the decryption key. It's more or les…
Perfect. So web login does that too, I guess. Therefore as good as before but easier to use. I'm happy I don't need to trust the server.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
High time that passwords management was integrated into the OS, where it belongs. These days its not just sites, but hundreds of apps too that want your passwords, and browser based extensions can't interface with other apps. On the other hand a standalone password manager has at best a flaky interaction with web pages inside a browser window, and often has to be supported by an in-broswer extension, adding to comple…
I really doubt a Microsoft Windows integrated password manager could be conveniently accessed from Android, OSX or Ubuntu. In fact, I imagine almost every OS vendor would try some form of lock-in.
An application can read from one store and send data to another app to persist into another store.
The one issue I see is that to sync properly such app would need a changelist (with the vector clocks and stuff), and the only thing most credential stores provide is the current state and no history track. An app may implement such list to itself, though, outside of the OS credential storage - without actual credentials, just referring to the record IDs so it's not too sensitive.
Another is, such external app would need to repeatedly access the credential store. If there is no API to detect if the store is locked or not, it may either require to keep it unlocked, or spam user with access prompts or something like that.
Oh, and it would be problematic if the store pins records to the applications and doesn't allow e.g. Chrome to access Firefox passwords and vice versa. You'll need highly privileged access (root) or somehow hook another app and inject yourself into its address space (WinHook, Xposed, etc).
But e.g. Windows Vault KDE or Gnome keyring sync is certainly possible. In theory. Don't know if anyone had ever implemented it in practice, though.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#348Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#349Just updated it on Android... and I wish I hadn't. The very first thing I was greeted with on the "top sites" page was a bunch of "Recommended by Pocket" links, and no way to disable that. I can't find anything in about:config to disable this either. How about NO, goddammit? Shame on you, Mozilla.
Those can be disabled from the new tab page itself.
Ah, better. It was not at all obvious how to get rid of it.
Hamburger -> General -> Home -> Top Sites
Then it can be toggled off. Whew!
EDIT: It's still not nice to have this sort of thing come up by surprise.
Re: Firefox 57.0 Released
#350I just upgraded. It completely changes the chrome of the browser on OSX and it is _absolutely hideous_. There are a lots of unnecessary animations that I find very jarring. I don't know if there's a way to change it back yet. UPDATE: There is a "Customize Firefox" button which allows modifying the theme, which fixes the colors, but not the shape of the tabs or the animations. UPDATE: In about:config, you can disable…
And it's impossible to put the tabs beneath the address bar, or to have actual toolbars. Decades of UI/UX knowledge, down the drain. Usability is gone.
> toolbars
Man, am I glad that UI/UX knowledge went down the drain