Can Firefox make a comeback?
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@sumireko said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Even using the FF config generator, it took me a couple minutes to figure out how to get Pocket to GTFO
FF just updated for me this morning, and for me the process was
- Read your post, switch to the window and confirm that Pocket is indeed there
- Right click on the icon
- Select the "Remove" option
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@gąska said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Mozilla Foundation's brillant marketing strategy.
I don't have any personal experience, but it seems to me that the person who wrote that was more likely on a hallucinogen than speed.
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I have decided to try the synchronization feature, but if I can self-host it.
I can run the server from this repo, but so far can't find a way to tell the browser to use it.
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From the readme:
Now go into Firefox's about:config page, search for a setting named "tokenServerURI", and change it to point to your server
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@timebandit the readme is slightly wrong.
identity.fxaccounts.remote.email.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3&action=email identity.fxaccounts.remote.force_auth.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/force_auth?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3 identity.fxaccounts.remote.signin.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/signin?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3 identity.fxaccounts.remote.signup.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/signup?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3 identity.fxaccounts.settings.devices.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/settings/clients?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3 identity.fxaccounts.settings.uri;https://accounts.firefox.com/settings?service=sync&context=fx_desktop_v3 identity.sync.tokenserver.uri;https://token.services.mozilla.com/1.0/sync/1.5
Changing the last one will change where things sync to, but will still use MoCo infrastructure for authentication and adding new devices. You'll have to run a Firefox-Account-compatible IdP to completely segregate everything, but
The process for doing so is currently very experimental and not well documented.
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@twelvebaud said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
The process for doing so is currently very experimental and not well documented.
AKA: it's open source
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@hungrier said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@sumireko said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Even using the FF config generator, it took me a couple minutes to figure out how to get Pocket to GTFO
FF just updated for me this morning, and for me the process was
- Read your post, switch to the window and confirm that Pocket is indeed there
- Right click on the icon
- Select the "Remove" option
It doesn't show up at all when you're in Customize mode, so that would've probably caused some confusion for him initially.
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Ok so here's something weird: I have Firefox 57.0 (64-bit) installed on two computers, and on one of them, the close tab icon only appears on the active tab, but on the other one, it appears on all tabs (either all the time, or maybe just when you hover over the tab? I'd have to check later).
Wish I knew what
about:config
setting is making it show up, so that I can fix the other browser to have it on every tab also...
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@twelvebaud said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Changing the last one will change where things sync to, but will still use MoCo infrastructure for authentication and adding new devices.
Thank you for the links.
That is indeed the problem: I changed only the last entry as the doc suggested but it had no effect.
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@anotherusername
Used to be browser.tabs.closeButtons, but it's been removed a while ago.In any case, I'm looking at my own Firefox windows and I'm seeing some with close buttons in all tabs, and some without.
It's related to the number of tabs on each window. Once tabs start becoming sufficiently narrow, the close buttons hide (which makes sense).
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@anotherusername Ok, try this in your
userChrome.css
1.#tabbrowser-tabs .tab-content:not([selected="true"]) .tab-close-button { display: none; }
WOMM.
1 This is a file under a
chrome
directory under your profile folder. If you haven't already, just create filechrome/userChrome.css
under your profile folder. The easiest way to open your profile folder is through Help menu > Troubleshooting information; press the Open folder button in the Profile Folder row.
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: So, funny story, every since Firefox updated yesterday, the ad block thing hasn't been working.
: hm, let me look at it...So yeah, for some reason it had updated Firefox, but it didn't download the version of AdBlock Plus that worked with it; AdBlock Plus was listed in the "legacy addons" as incompatible. When she clicked "find a replacement", AdBlock Plus was the 2nd suggestion in the list, and it installed fine.
Seriously though?
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@gąska said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Mozilla Foundation's brillant marketing strategy.
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My Firefox usage updates:
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Speed on my Windows PC-s is pretty damn great. Feels faster and smoother than chrome.
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Speed in VM, without hardware acceleration is subpar compared to Chrome. They are obviously offloading a lot to GPU and it sounds their future strategy is to rely even more on that.
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Dev tools are worse than chrome, mostly due to speed.
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Biggest dev tools annoyance is "Request URL" in the network tab. Unlike in Chrome, it gets cut off if it overflows. So every URL I want to see looks like "http://myserver.name.anothername.com/api/...."
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Biggest dev tool upside - better code highlighting. Unlike stupid Chrome, they know how to highlight ES6 string syntax (`) HOW HARD IS IT TO ADD SOME SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING, GOOGLE!?
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When you right click 32-bit PNG image and "copy", the background is black instead of transparent
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"Window Saver" extension is definitely subpar compared the the Chrome one. Biggest peeves:
- It doesn't remember pinned tabs
- It blindly brings back windows, instead of checking if they are already opened
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Pressing ALT brings up menu bar, which jelly-potatoes the content.
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I couldn't find a good RSS subscribe button add-in. The "best" one in the store doesn't seem to work consistently (had problems with feedburner pages).
I will probably switch back to chrome for dev (definitely in VM), and keep using both Chrome && FF for dicking around.
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
I couldn't find a good RSS subscribe button add-in. The "best" one in the store doesn't seem to work consistently (had problems with feedburner pages).
<sarcasm>Why, you just go directly to the RSS feed itself! You can only choose from three outdated readers, two of which don't even work anymore, but we feel this feature is so critically important we even throw out any web developer's attempt to style it so we can show you that button!</sarcasm>
Still bitter about bug 338621, can't you tell?There's a built-in Subscribe button in the Customize pane that should take you to that page, with a list of RSS readers in a banner at the top. You can choose a program on your computer, or a web-based reader can call
navigator.registerContentHandler()
to add itself to the list.
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So the new NoScript is out. I don't know how well it works compared to its predecessor because they changed the UI so much I'm not sure that I'm doing the same things I was doing before. For now there's no equivalent to "All all temporarily (because I don't want to bother figuring out what combination of scripts make the video play/page load on this weird site)" which hurts a bit. Also they seem to have used "uncheck to enable" checkboxes despite the label saying "Allow". Hmm....
I also tried adding uMatrix to uBlock Origin. That brought FF 57 to a crawl, enough that it took a minute or so to get the Add-Ons screen up so I could disable it.
Will have to play with it more later. Maybe around FF 58?
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Memory usage after a few days of work. That 2.5 GB thing remains even when I close all but one tab.
After a full close & reopen, it goes away.
Looks like a leak.
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@cartman82 IMPOSSIBLE!
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@twelvebaud It's fascinating how companies (mainly Google and Microsoft) managed to practically kill RSS/Atom, a standard that worked well and many companies and customers had embraced, just because they wanted you to use social media or whatever their motivation was.
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Memory usage after a few days of work. That 2.5 GB thing remains even when I close all but one tab.
After a full close & reopen, it goes away.
Looks like a leak.
There's a reason why I close all programs at the end of the day... (unless something is doing active work - then I pray to doG that a reboot doesn't happen)
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@dcon said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
There's a reason why I
close all programsshut down my computer at the end of the day...
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@lb_ said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@dcon said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
There's a reason why I
close all programsshut down my computer at the end of the day...Nah, I want the computer for download that multiGB update overnight... The system memory leaks are auto-solved when the computer reboots. Oh, wait. Corp required me to encrypt the disk. System's not coming back up without manual intervention. Fuck.
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@dcon said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Corp required me to encrypt the disk. System's not coming back up without manual intervention.
Yup. Thanks for scheduling updates "outside working hours," but outside working hours, it's either asleep in a bag with no network access or asleep locked in a metal cabinet, which, even if wake-on-LAN is enabled, makes WiFi access a tad problematic. And the minor issue of not waking up without the Bitlocker PIN.
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@hardwaregeek said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Bitlocker PIN
I've got mine setup using a USB fob... (that's what IT wanted at that time)
So, in theory, if I left that plugged in, the computer would at least reboot...
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@anonymous234 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@twelvebaud It's fascinating how companies (mainly Google and Microsoft) managed to practically kill RSS/Atom, a standard that worked well and many companies and customers had embraced, just because they wanted you to use social media or whatever their motivation was.
Disagree.
RSS is a crappy medium for consuming the web.
It just keep piling up new and new content, without any social cues which one might be worth your time. You have to be super disciplined with maintaining and pruning your feeds, which just gets tiring after a while.
When you read an article in one of your feeds, then what? You have no integrated way to share it with other people. Commenting is relegated into a 1000 little comment sections spread around the internet, where no one has any kind of persistent social presence or relationship with other people there.
So most times, you just close the article and move on to the next one. The author not only doesn't get the ad revenue, they don't even get the minimal metrics telling them someone has actually read the article.
RSS is by all measures worse than even the most basic social network feed, with likes/upvotes and comments. It lost on merit, not through some grand conspiracy.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
But I haven't found one outright recommending Firefox. Hmm....
Mozilla re-upped with Google (apparently), but it's hard to imagine why Google would start recommending Firefox over Chrome on their web properties.
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
When you read an article in one of your feeds, then what? You have no integrated way to share it with other people.
You used to, before Google shut down Google Reader (their by far most successful social network at the time.) That's one of the reasons everybody was so fucking pissed at them for doing that.
@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
The author not only doesn't get the ad revenue,
They do if they put the ad in their RSS content. I mean, that's their choice, not something inherent to the RSS protocol.
@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
RSS is by all measures worse than even the most basic social network feed, with likes/upvotes and comments.
There's at least one measure it's better on: it's decentralized.
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@blakeyrat said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
RSS is by all measures worse than even the most basic social network feed, with likes/upvotes and comments.
There's at least one measure it's better on: it's decentralized.
Agreed. But that's sort of an abstract long-term benefit, like eating healthy. It can't compete with that tasty deep fried bacon of social networks' immediate gratification.
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
It can't compete with that tasty deep fried bacon
Nothing can.
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@hardwaregeek said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
It can't compete with that tasty deep fried bacon
Nothing can.
Damn. I think it's time for an early lunch now...
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@twelvebaud said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
It's ironic -- and sad -- that ads and certain analytics frameworks are still so bad that blocking them can come out ahead.
Blocking means you've got CPU used to manage the blocking… but significantly less network traffic (including to far fewer unique hosts) and that's a win and likely to continue to remain so. At least until DNS becomes magically instant, reliable and free… ;)
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@dkf Not to mention that rendering and (in some cases) running the ads can take a not-insignificant amount of CPU.
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@anotherusername said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@dkf Not to mention that rendering and (in some cases) running the ads can take a not-insignificant amount of CPU.
Tell me about it. Those stupid "mobile" video ads? Not only eats bandwidth like a mofo, but fires up my phone in a way not seen since Discourse...
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
RSS is by all measures worse than even the most basic social network feed, with likes/upvotes and comments. It lost on merit, not through some grand conspiracy.
I must have different completely different measures. I can always share links. RSS isn't about sharing, it's about having your favorite things all sitting there showing you what there is to read. I haven't seen any sort of social media that even tries to do anything like an RSS feed.
FTR, I use the Slick RSS extension in Chrome all the time.
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@boomzilla said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
I must have different completely different measures. I can always share links. RSS isn't about sharing, it's about having your favorite things all sitting there showing you what there is to read. I haven't seen any sort of social media that even tries to do anything like an RSS feed.
RSS is for things I know I like. Social media is for things I don't know about but might be interested in.
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@dkf said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Social media is for things I don't know about but might be interested in.
And then I can add them to my RSS feeds!
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@anotherusername said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Fuck.
So I just updated Firefox on my home computer... and promptly remembered that userscripts aren't files anymore, which means that my clever scheme to keep them synchronized on both of my computers using Dropbox isn't going to work...
Firefox Sync can do that I think.
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
When you read an article in one of your feeds, then what? You have no integrated way to share it with other people. Commenting is relegated into a 1000 little comment sections spread around the internet, where no one has any kind of persistent social presence or relationship with other people there.
RSS is by all measures worse than even the most basic social network feed, with likes/upvotes and comments. It lost on merit, not through some grand conspiracy.Those likes and comments are most annoying to me.
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@Polygeekery said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
It is just now starting to recover, by adopting pretty much all the features that made Chrome what it is.
Which would mean there is no compelling reason for average people to switch.
If they continue to allow Flash after Chrome totally disables it, then I predict a huge resurgence in Firefox usage.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@accalia said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@Polygeekery said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@accalia said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
seriously, stop sprinkling the word quantum around like it's magick pixie dust.....
Why? It worked with "the cloud".
Not found.
Fixed:
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@Atazhaia said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@kt_ I was using a general 'you' rather than specifically directed at you. I dunno of a good replacement word that doesn't sound like I'm pretending I'm royalty too.
Third person is good for that: one, some, someone, some people, people, etc. :)
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@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
So... do you think Firefox can make a comeback?
Fuck you, give me status bar.
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@lorne-kates said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
Fuck you, give me status bar.
I hadn't realised that anyone had integrated the Status Thread into Firefox…
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@lorne-kates said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@cartman82 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
So... do you think Firefox can make a comeback?
Fuck you, give me status bar.
During the 10 years between getting my first internet connection and all browsers phasing out status bars, not once have I used it in any meaningful way.
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@djls45 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
If they continue to allow Flash after Chrome totally disables it, then I predict a huge resurgence in Firefox usage.
Someone should make a .swf to .wasm converter, or maybe even a just Wasm Flash emulator.
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@zecc said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
@djls45 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
If they continue to allow Flash after Chrome totally disables it, then I predict a huge resurgence in Firefox usage.
Someone should make a .swf to .wasm converter, or maybe even a just Wasm Flash emulator.
There were several projects about this, but most are several years abandoned.
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I think if Firefox could actually come up with a great new rendering engine built on a great new programming language, a non-shitty interface and a great plugin system, then...
it still wouldn't make a difference. As long as Chrome continues to function decently and Google continues spending 5000 quadrillion dollars every year to promote it to literally everyone, I don't see what Firefox or anyone else could do*.
Yes, Firefox took over IE6 once, but that's because IE6 was a piece of shit (even by the time's standards) and Microsoft didn't actually care about it until after Firefox took over.
*Actually, there is one thing they could do: Chrome is heavily tailored to casual users, which has left the "power user" market ripe for taking, but that's not what they seem to care about.
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@anonymous234 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
the "power user" market
I used to use Firefox because of all the possessed functionality it offered over Chrome, but they keep fucking it down and now it's up longer holding that position in my mind...
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@anonymous234 said in Can Firefox make a comeback?:
I think if Firefox could actually come up with a great new rendering engine built on a great new programming language, a non-shitty interface and a great plugin system, then...
Wait, sorry, I wanted to just highlight one part of that:
a great plugin system
See, they arguably had that, but after adding in a copy of Chrome's plugin system, they eventually threw out the old system in Firefox 57.