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Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

blog.mozilla.org

1–10 of 350 posts

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#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.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#3
It's unfortunate that this had to happen, but the landscape around FTP is increasingly unexamined and part of a dead era. The effort required to build in robust SFTP support as well as convert existing FTP users to it is non-trivial, and not within the charter of a modern web browser.

It's sad, but not surprising.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#4

It's unfortunate that this had to happen, but the landscape around FTP is increasingly unexamined and part of a dead era. The effort required to build in robust SFTP support as well as convert existing FTP users to it is non-trivial, and not within the charter of a modern web browser. It's sad, but not surprising.

"not within the charter of a modern web browser"

That barrier seems pretty porous these days. Being that you can access serial ports via JS, for example :)

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#5
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.

While I agree with removing FTP support, I also agree that phrasing is pretty disgusting.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#6
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.

Firefox removing support for non-encrypted data protocols makes me more confident in them, so consider me a fan of this messaging.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#8

I expect this to have very little impact on anything.

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.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#9
post #5
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.

While I agree with removing FTP support, I also agree that phrasing is pretty disgusting.

Especially because "The FTP protocol itself has been disabled by default since version 88", so any user that hadn't opted in to FTP protocol already had the "benefit" of the "security enhancement", no?

But, hey, if you are not yet a FF user, here's where you can download it, in case you're looking for a browser that... lacks FTP support. Something many users are likely to be seeking out.

Re: Stopping FTP support in Firefox 90

#10
post #4

It's unfortunate that this had to happen, but the landscape around FTP is increasingly unexamined and part of a dead era. The effort required to build in robust SFTP support as well as convert existing FTP users to it is non-trivial, and not within the charter of a modern web browser. It's sad, but not surprising.

"not within the charter of a modern web browser" That barrier seems pretty porous these days. Being that you can access serial ports via JS, for example :)

Hmmm... would it be possible to write an ftp client in browser JS? I think probably not.
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