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Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

blog.mozilla.org

41–50 of 350 posts

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#41
Mozilla is the last organization keeping us from the complete takeover of the web by Google/Webkit and they seem to be held to an impossibly high standard by users. There's no FTP support in Chrome, there's terrible support for Adblock, there's telemetry, etc, but somehow Mozilla has to be 100% perfect.

This is why we can't have nice things and why the internet is going to become Chrome-first.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#42
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why? maintaining features is cost

Perhaps one day we can have a programming language that allows us to write software that doesn't rot or corrode.

The main issue with old code, is that it slows down refactoring.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#43
post #14
post #12

This is frustrating. FTP is really handy for distributing some files and there are lots of servers in place that now Firefox users can’t access. One can argue that servers should upgrade, and that’s valid. But they don’t and they likely won’t do this just harms Firefox’s user base and is one more reason I no longer recommend Firefox. They just don’t seem user friendly as they once were. I would expect Mozilla to advo…

People made exactly the same arguments, almost to the letter, about universalizing TLS. The arguments were made in good faith, often by very clueful people, but it's hard to dispute the positive results of the change. FTP needs to go.

While we are at it, let's remove the domain name and replace it with something readable and maybe just default to Google without the ability to change your home or maybe Facebook. /s

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#44
post #36

I don't understand all the negativity around this. People complained when Firefox added Pocket, in part because they took a browser extension and made it a feature that was ostensibly unrelated to web browsing. Now they're taking an old feature that's definitely not related to web browsing and removing it, and people are still complaining? Firefox can't be everything. It should focus on being a great browser and not…

FTP is Internet browsing, it's just not not "web".

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#45
post #12

This is frustrating. FTP is really handy for distributing some files and there are lots of servers in place that now Firefox users can’t access. One can argue that servers should upgrade, and that’s valid. But they don’t and they likely won’t do this just harms Firefox’s user base and is one more reason I no longer recommend Firefox. They just don’t seem user friendly as they once were. I would expect Mozilla to advo…

FTA: "To date, many malware distribution campaigns launch their attacks by compromising FTP servers and downloading malware on an end user’s device using the FTP protocol."

It removes a malware vector going through Firefox.

But seriously, who's serving FTP but doesn't serve HTTPS?

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#46
post #2

>If you are a Firefox user, you don’t have to do anything to benefit from this security advancement. The epitome of corporate speak: "we're taking away a feature of this software. You're welcome." I expect that kind of talk from Google; hearing it from Mozilla makes me a little sad.

I thought we should be familiar with this kind of corp speak from Firefox team. This is what they say every time they break or remove useful features in the pursuit of chromification.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#47
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but why? maintaining features is cost

Perhaps one day we can have a programming language that allows us to write software that doesn't rot or corrode.

You can do that in any language; just write software that no one uses. The rest of it needs to be maintained regardless of what language was used.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#48
post #12

This is frustrating. FTP is really handy for distributing some files and there are lots of servers in place that now Firefox users can’t access. One can argue that servers should upgrade, and that’s valid. But they don’t and they likely won’t do this just harms Firefox’s user base and is one more reason I no longer recommend Firefox. They just don’t seem user friendly as they once were. I would expect Mozilla to advo…

I used to agree with this, but with how easy it is to run MITM attacks these days I think there is a pretty compelling argument for removing plaintext FTP. I don't think FTPS should go, but tbh I don't think I have ever encountered an FTPS server in-the-wild.

It's one thing to have your password stolen, but another thing entirely to have your download and its shasum/md5sum/whatever sidecar file replaced in-flight

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#49
Let's look at this from the other end of the horse.

FTP is a horrible kludge that needs to be depreciated. SFTP is better. The number of ports needed, holes punched in firewalls, everything sent in plain-text, inability to traverse NAT without more kludge and hacky work-arounds. We only tolerate it because it was the only thing that worked.

There are better/newer methods that should be embraced.

We don't bemoan the death of Gopher, or Finger do we? Hell no. FTP does have it's uses, but I'd dare wager that every-single-instance could be upgraded to SFTP and the world would move on.

Legacy, ancient apps that haven't been touched in 40 years; will break. Let them.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#50
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah ftp support should be backed in the operating system. In KDE, it's simple to open an ftp link in Dolphin as if it was a local folder and I think it's the same for GNOME, but I have no idea about if it's possible in macOS and windows.

Last I checked FTP was part of the web?

Nope, literally not. It's an internet service, sure, but not the web.
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