Firefox, again



  • They should make sure to re-enable spacebar heating as well.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @Zecc said:

    And it disabled my own, unpacked, not even under my profile directory, extension because "it could not be verified for use in Firefox". Had to set xpinstall.signatures.required to false, because apparently it's all or nothing.

    Goddammit.


    I was wrong. With xpinstall.signatures.required set to false, under about:addons I can now press the button to enable or disable addons individually.

    So other than a stern yellow warning crying "Foul!" and the addon being disabled this is pretty much exactly the same situation before the upgrade.

    So well done Mozilla on doing nothing but making me lose my time.

    Of course, the plan is for this workaround to be gone in future versions of FF. The only way to run my own addon will be to either submit it to Mozilla for signing or to run Firefox Developer Edition; which is otherwise different from regular Firefox because..... it's on a more experimental channel? And it comes with Valence pre-installed? I guess?


    I get what Mozilla are trying to achieve, I really do. If they make a safer default browser configuration for regular Joe Shmoe, and if they eventually remove the pre-installed bloat that is the developer tools, that's a Good Thing.

    But in the Real World what is going to happen is they are going to piss off both addon users and developers. Put a heavily worded warning when I'm prepared to open up a potentially huge security hole, sure. But don't flat out block me. It's my own foot to shoot.


  • 🚽 Regular

    Anyone knows if I can write to external SQLite files directly from a Chrome extension? I might port my addon yet.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Zecc said:

    the plan is for this workaround to be gone in future versions of FF

    Oh, like how Chrome did this with the SPI capability? Well, at least they're following along...
    Soon enough people won't be able to hack their browsers into shape, and developers won't be able to get users to autohack their plugins into them....
    Not sure if that's a good thing or not...



  • Maybe with sqlite.js via the Emscripten version?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Firefox's ongoing mission to become the worst browser with the lowest marketshare continues-- and it's a rousing success!

    Stats from a semi-popular blog I followed. Just look at those soaring Firefox stats!

    top 5 for 2008:

    1. IE - 63.95%
      2. Firefox - 27.99%
    2. Safari - 6.07%
    3. Chrome - 0.70%
    4. Opera - 0.61%

    Here's the top 5 for 2012:

    1. IE - 26.83%
    2. Safari - 22.50%
    3. Chrome - 22.26%
      4. Firefox - 20.47%
    4. Android Browser - 3.57%

    Here are the browsers used by visitors to this site in 2013:

    1. Safari - 27.83%
    2. Chrome - 25.10%
    3. Internet Explorer - 18.08%
      4. Firefox - 13.14%
      Android Browser - 7.04%

    Here are the browsers used by visitors to this site in 2015:

    1. Chrome - 39.29%
    2. Safari - 29.33%
    3. Internet Explorer - 12.60%
      4. Firefox - 9.19%
    4. Android Browser - 2.40%

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    And Opera still isn't even close 😆


  • 🚽 Regular

    browser.fullscreen.animate is being ignored, so I have to put up with an almost-one-second fade to black when toggling in and out of fullscreen. Fuck.



  • Hedgewars is pretty good though.


  • 🚽 Regular

    Wonderful.

    Now every time I press one of the volume buttons on my keyboard, while watching a full screen video, a tooltip occupying about one sixth of the screen height slides in from the top to remind me youtube.com is full screen, then slides back up.

    Not annoying at all.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Zecc said:

    Wonderful.

    Now every time I press one of the volume buttons on my keyboard, while watching a full screen video, a tooltip occupying about one sixth of the screen height slides in from the top to remind me youtube.com is full screen, then slides back up.

    Not annoying at all.

    #IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOUTUBE.COM IS IN FULL SCREEN MODE!

    Firefox, away! 🦊.... what the fuck, 99% of the forum is foxes, and we don't have a fox emjoi? FUCKING JOKE RUINED!


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Zecc said:

    slides in from the top

    Ah! So that's how you get it to appear on touch-only tablets with no keyboard!
    I never would have thought that in order to exit Full Screen Mode you had to use the VOLUME KEYS!!!!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Android? Just swipe down from the top, no?


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @loopback0 said:

    Android?

    Windows. I typically need to wobble my finger along the top edge of the screen for it to appear, especially if I full-screened a site that doesn't explicitly recognize it's in full screen (i.e. not a media-player control).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Tsaukpaetra said:

    Windows.

    Oh, that's different.



  • @Zecc said:

    Wonderful.

    Now every time I press one of the volume buttons on my keyboard, while watching a full screen video, a tooltip occupying about one sixth of the screen height slides in from the top to remind me youtube.com is full screen, then slides back up.

    Not annoying at all.

    It doesn't do that for me.


  • 🚽 Regular

    This was on Linux. I shall try it on Windows when I get the chance. (version 43.0 btw)


  • 🚽 Regular

    No repro of the volume keys issue on Windows, same browser version.

    Might be related to the fact that on Linux I get an OSD display of the volume change, which I don't get on Linux.



  • Lately Firefox has been refusing to display PDFs with the built-in PDF viewer. Or with the Adobe Reader plugin. Or any fucking way at all.

    On my work PC[1], it prompts to download the PDF. (Choosing to preview it in Firefox just opens a new window that also prompts to download the PDF.) On my personal laptop, it's even worse; it just opens a blank tab with nothing in it at all and no way to download the PDF or even grab its URL without trying to go back to where you came from and get the URL to download it directly (those stupid javascript:openPdf() links are the worst).

    [1] edit: what the hell. It's working again now on my work PC. I changed:

    ...and then it opened up in Reader, so I changed back:

    ...and then the built-in preview started working[2]. But I know I futzed around with that setting before (without it helping).

    Anyway, it's still not working on the personal laptop.

    [2] edit: Okay, it's still not working for some PDFs (I presume they have the force download header), or for local PDFs (file:// URIs). So some PDFs won't preview, and after I download them, they still won't preview, so I have no alternative but to open them in Adobe Reader. :facepunch:

    That's probably why I thought the Action setting had no effect the first time I tried changing it...



  • Last time I tried the preview in FF, it totally blew chunks for pdfs that had fill in fields. Fuck them. I'll stay with Adobe. (wait, did I actually say that???)


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dcon said:

    Last time I tried the preview in FF, it totally blew chunks for pdfs that had fill in fields. Fuck them. I'll stay with Adobe. (wait, did I actually say that???)

    Right sentiment, wrong execution.

    FoxIt PDF reader.

    Also:
    about:config
    pdfjs.disabled TRUE



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Right sentiment, wrong execution.

    FoxIt PDF reader.

    I should try that at some point ... but ... lazy.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dcon said:

    @Lorne_Kates said:
    Right sentiment, wrong execution.

    FoxIt PDF reader.

    I should try that at some point ... but ... lazy.

    Y'know, there's already a browser for people who can't be arsed (or brained) to fiddle with config options. It's called Chrome. At least that way you know there aren't any options for the shit they're sliding down your throat, and you can just lay back and let it flow.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dcon said:

    pdfs that had fill in fields

    … are an idea that blows chunks in the first place.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    FoxIt

    I quite enjoy SumatraPDF - lean, fast, and capable of opening more than just PDFs (MOBI, ePub, CBZ, and I think djvu files too).


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    @Lorne_Kates said:
    FoxIt

    I quite enjoy SumatraPDF - lean, fast, and capable of opening more than just PDFs (MOBI, ePub, CBZ, and I think djvu files too).

    I don't like the new ui. A bit too sleek for me but I keep using it because it's not shit. Something I like about software.



  • @dkf said:

    @dcon said:
    pdfs that had fill in fields

    … are an idea that blows chunks in the first place.

    As the person who gets the entries for our dog show, fill-in forms ROCK! 89.343% of people have shitty penmanship (that email bounced, let's try a different spelling. Well, fuck, time to call them). Only problem is, only about 1/10 of the people use them. sigh.



  • HTML forms should work just fine for anything submitted electronically.

    If they do want to print it, just give them a link that generates a PDF from what they entered. Or, if you're really lazy, just a nicely-formatted HTML document that won't look like crap after it's printed.



  • @anotherusername said:

    HTML forms should work just fine for anything submitted electronically.

    If they do want to print it, just give them a link that generates a PDF from what they entered. Or, if you're really lazy, just a nicely-formatted HTML document that won't look like crap after it's printed.

    The PDF style still works best for our purposes. I need the original signed form. (Yeah, I didn't mention that part before)



  • Then just have them submit the HTML form, give them the PDF, and have them print and sign it.

    If you're really picky, make the HTML form look exactly like the PDF form, so it's good enough if they're idiots and print that instead.



  • @anotherusername said:

    Then just have them submit the HTML form, give them the PDF, and have them print and sign it.

    Oh yeah, that makes sense. I now of an electronic entry and a separate signed form. So now I have to make sure I have the signed forms for all the electronic ones. And guess what, they still have to fill those out so I know who the hell it is!! (Um "Jane Smith"? I have 2 of those. And 5 dogs named Rex.)

    No. Editable PDFs just work.

    Now, if the organization who sponsors this changes the requirements so I now longer need to send in the signed form, then the PDFs can die in a pit of fire. (Have I mentioned that Acrobat 8 is a fucking hideous piece of crap?)


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @dcon said:

    5 dogs named Rex.

    Sigh, I miss my Samantha...



  • @Tsaukpaetra said:

    Sigh, I miss my Samantha...

    Yeah... I've lost 2 in the last 14 months...



  • Be more careful with your Samanthas!



  • @dcon said:

    Oh yeah, that makes sense. I now of an electronic entry and a separate signed form.

    You don't have to do anything with the electronic entry, other than generate a PDF for them to download. You can put the entire entry and the generated PDF into a temporary table, say "download link is valid for 48 hours", and then silently expire anything in the table that's older than 2 days or something like that.

    Oh, and put a nonce in the download link so they can't change the ID param to get someone else's entry form. Or just encrypt the param (as in, actually encrypt with a private key) so it's a hex blob that you can easily decode but they can't change.

    Or... hell, just generate a PDF, email it to them with instructions to print and sign, and dump everything in the bit bucket.

    @dcon said:

    No. Editable PDFs just work.

    "Editable" and "PDF" are two words that should not be put in the same sentence. :doing_it_wrong:



  • @dcon said:

    The PDF style still works best for our purposes.

    How about a .docx? 🚎


    Filed under: obligatory deleting dots


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @anotherusername said:

    Oh, and put a nonce in the download link so they can't change the ID param to get someone else's entry form. Or just encrypt the param (as in, actually encrypt with a private key) so it's a hex blob that you can easily decode but they can't change.
    What if they md5 it and use a * as salt? 🚎


  • 🚽 Regular

    So this happened:

    There goes another of the few remaining reasons I keep Firefox as my main browser.

    I have to hand it to them though, it seems like they are handling the transition well.

    When you update to Firefox 45, you will see a special tab explaining what has happened. All your existing Tab Groups will be bookmarked automatically and stored in the Bookmarks folder. You will be able to access them by clicking the Bookmarks button in the toolbar.

    At that time, you will also be given the opportunity to restore background groups into separate windows, if you wish.

    Finally, we'll make a one-time backup of your Tab Groups data that will be stored in your profile folder. Add-ons may be able to use this data to recreate your Tab Groups.

    If you want a direct replacement for the Tab Groups feature, try the "Tab Groups" add-on. It was created directly from the Firefox code and works just like the current feature. It will be as if the feature wasn't removed from Firefox. This add-on aims to fully replace Tab Groups in Firefox, providing a similar and hopefully even enhanced experience. You can install Tab Groups from the add-ons website.

    If you install the add-on before you update to Firefox 45 please note:

    • Your Firefox Tab Groups will be automatically migrated to the add-on.
    • Firefox won't turn your groups to bookmarks as described above.

    I've installed the addon and it seems like nothing happened. That's ...a good thing?

    Addendum: something did happen. This: changed to this: . Other than that everything seems the same. Cool.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Remember when add-ons were used to ADD new functionality (that the browser developer might roll into core features)-- rather than a desperate scramble to restore features that have been dropped for no good reason. When your community has to spend all their time just bringing the browser's "useful" level back up to baseline, and never elevating it beyond that-- you've fucked up-- way up-- like so far up that you have to stop measuring "how high up we've fucked" and start measuring "how far away from the Earth we've fucked"


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    "how far away from the Earth we've fucked"

    Mile high club is :arrows:



  • @dcon said:

    Last time I tried the preview in FF, it totally blew chunks for pdfs that had fill in fields.

    When pdf.js first appeared in Firefox, none of my users noticed any difference between that and the embedded Adobe Reader it forcibly replaced, because they're not really observant that way. But none of them could print PDFs successfully any more.

    I don't like pdf.js.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    FoxIt PDF reader.

    Can that print PDFs at anything approaching a decent speed yet? Last time I compared, Adobe Reader would happily saturate a 45ppm photocopier while Foxit barely managed two pages per minute.



  • I do like pdf.js, but I wish it could print PDFs better.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    Remember when add-ons were used to ADD new functionality (that the browser developer might roll into core features)-- rather than a desperate scramble to restore features that have been dropped for no good reason.

    In principle it's okay - refactor the product into a barebones, simple browser, which doesn't need to be screwed around with as frequently, while providing additional, more power-user functionality via a system of add-ons.

    Then again, it is Mozilla...


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @flabdablet said:

    Can that print PDFs at anything approaching a decent speed yet? Last time I compared, Adobe Reader would happily saturate a 45ppm photocopier while Foxit barely managed two pages per minute.

    Sounds like the Adobe converter is producing efficient postscript, whereas the Foxit converter is producing big-ass bitmaps. There's a huge difference right there. Unfortunately, any gradient anywhere in the page will force the use of bitmaps, as Postscript doesn't have an efficient way of representing them (unlike PDF).


  • 🚽 Regular

    So today the Tab Groups extension updated and out of the blue opened a new tab with about:tabgroups#about.

    The page shows version 2's release notes. LuĂ­s Miguel, if you're reading this, your hard work is appreciated!

    At the end of the page, this:


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Zecc said in Firefox, again:

    this video:

    So (my) summary: Dude turns off his computer, Firefox escapes into reality, wishes him a happy birthday, then sets his hair on fire for a few seconds?

    Well it isn't Japanese at least...


  • 🚽 Regular

    RIP TabGroups addon. You shall be missed.

    I'd link to chrome://tabgroups/content/lastnotice.html but you wouldn't see anything, so here's a screenshot:

    0_1485612931462_Screen Shot 2017-01-28 at 14.12.46-fullpage.png

    Here's the text, in case you rather not read off an image
    I cannot continue working on my add-ons anymore. I'm sorry, but it's time.

    Some time ago, Mozilla announced WebExtensions as the future of Firefox add-ons. At the time, it was not fully clear to me what this would mean for my add-ons, I was optimistic in that they would at least keep working in some way, but over this past year it became clear that this is not the case.

    WebExtensions are great for adding functionality to the browser, and without a doubt are versatile and easy to use. However, manipulation of the browser window's interface and functionality will be extremely limited by definition, and even if it wasn't, the implementation of such abilities is nearly impossible to achieve in WebExtensions.

    Four out of five of my add-ons rely heavily on these abilities: FindBar Tweak, Beyond Australis, OmniSidebar and Puzzle Bars. From all of those, probably only FBT's Find All feature could work as a WebExtension; I wrote it following the suggestion of several users at the time, I have never used it myself, I don't think I've clicked that button a single time since; in fact I keep that feature disabled in my main profile and only really use it when someone reports a problem with it.

    Tab Groups has a shot. I took on this project after it was decided to remove the built-in Tab Groups from Firefox, as I thought it could be a good and fun learning experience; it hasn't been, if anything it's been stressful and time-consuming. I don't really use groups outside of my development profile, with my browsing habits I only find them useful to a point, they're helpful for my development/coding workflow, but I've used them maybe twice in my main profile during normal browsing.

    Its core functionality and basic workflow probably can be made into a WebExtension, but only after an almost complete rewrite of the code (with some major work done on Firefox's side as well!), and still stripped down of at least some of its features. Many of the new groups features I've wanted to add since the beginning are impossible though, for the same reason as I mentioned above: they either don't fit the scope of what can be allowed through WebExtensions or their implementation would be far too complex to do on my own.

    I have fought for keeping the current system working together with WebExtensions, not only to keep all of my add-ons alive, but also because I believe a can-do-whatever-you-want extension system like exists today is the best quality Firefox has over other browsers. Unfortunately I've failed to convince them of this, as have they failed to convince me of the benefits they expect to achieve with a WebExtensions-only system.

    To their merit, as far as I'm concerned, everyone at Mozilla involved with WebExtensions, and even those that aren't, have discussed every fine point on the subject ad nauseum. To those I say thank you for putting up with me and sharing your in-depth views on the issue over these past few months, I appreciate that a project of this magnitude demands an incredible effort, and that the ultimate goal is only a better product for everyone. I'm sure it's no surprise to you that I don't agree with a WebExtensions-only world, but I hope that over our talks I have made clear my reasons for that, and that at no point did I bear anyone any ill-will; as I keep saying despite my skepticism, prove me wrong.

    (For those who have not followed these discussions, if you care about my full opinion on the subject, you can find my posts spread out over forums and mailing lists all around.)

    Still, what most prompts me to write this is how left out this all makes me feel. The category of extensions I am most interested in, which all my add-ons belong to, is discarded both in principle and by the impossibility of implementing them in an acceptable way in WebExtensions. Beyond losing what I have worked for so hard in the past few years, it's seeing all that work categorized as irrelevant and undesirable to the point that it's categorically ruled out in the new system. To be frank, I did not expect this to happen with Mozilla, ever, regardless of their motivations for adopting this strategy.

    So let's sum up. My only available path forward is to spend the better part of a year, probably more, on the tedious and stressful task of rewriting one of my add-ons and part of another, both of which will result in only already existing functionality that brings me no gain and in which I have no personal interest, to retain maybe a third of my current user-base, in favor of a system that will exist for reasons with which I don't agree, with further development of novel features being subject to a bottleneck on Mozilla's side rather than on myself.

    Adding to that, Firefox and my add-ons are not my life, by themselves they don't and will never support me by far, nor am I a Mozilla paid employee who can spend his (full-)time working on his add-ons and on Firefox itself to add the ability to support them (because I also don't expect, or even want, anyone at Mozilla to do my work for me, as that kinda defeats the point of them being my add-ons, that's the whole thing that lured me in to this add-ons world in the first place).

    Oh, by the way, I already did all that. It took me a year and a half of extensive rewritting to make my add-ons e10s/multiprocess compatible, something that is being rolled out only now, all with the prospect of a long-lasting life for them. And the WebExtensions announcement was made not two months after. "Demotivating" doesn't quite cover it...

    No, that's not going to happen.

    These are the last updates to my add-ons. They will cease working with Firefox 57 next November. By then hopefully some alternatives appear. My code is up on Github, so anyone interested can fork it. If there's some need for me to do some transition work on your behalf, for instance to migrate users from my add-ons to yours, I'm only an e-mail away.

    I apologize to every single one of my users for not being able to keep the promises I have made you since I started. You have all been incredibly supportive, I have the most awesome users I could have ever asked for. I only hope you understand that I don't have the availability to continue past this point. And quite frankly, seeing the add-ons I care most about being left out like this, I don't really have the will to do it either; their part in making my browser behave as awesome as it does now is what really brought me so far.

    I am also happy to have been part of an amazing community. Thank you so much to everyone, at Mozilla, fellow add-on developers and everyone else, who has helped me, taught me, and made me feel included over these years. Awesome people!

    For over a decade I have supported and defended Mozilla and Firefox (sometimes in weird ways). I truly hope this is a move in which they succeed, as the alternative won't be a pleasant outcome to anyone in the online world, and I wish I could be a part of it and help construct and hone it to the outstanding platform they intend it to become. It's unfortunate that we have such divergent paths, I remain pessimistic about Mozilla's current strategy, so I must make a new one for myself. Still, I wish the best of luck to everyone there; I'm still afraid you'll need it.

    Onwards!

    Quicksaver - LuĂ­s Miguel


  • 🚽 Regular

    INB4 Lorne Kates posting link to Firefox 22.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Zecc said in Firefox, again:

    INB4 Lorne Kates posting link to Firefox 22.

    I was going to post an entire thread about how the second-last cheerleaders of Firefox (the plugin developers) are jumping ship.

    Which means the last cheerleaders (people who use Firefox because of the plugins that Chrome doesn't have) will be next.


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