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DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updatesDiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updatesPosted Jul 6, 2012 20:39 UTC (Fri) by sblack (guest, #81076)Parent article: DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates
There's nothing wrong with rapid releasing as long as a) the APIs are treated as sacred (so that extensions don't needlessly break) b) the update process is painless, and c) you don't radically change the UI without a damn good reason for it.
Firefox's approach to rapid releases broke all those rules. They're gradually getting the upgrade process to be less obtrusive, but they're still breaking user extensions left and right and they're still making unnecessarily drastic changes to the UI.
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DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 6, 2012 23:06 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
As far as I know, the problem is that there really is no API for extensions. They have access to all of Firefox' internals, thus keeping the API stable would mean to stop Firefox development altogether.
This doesn't apply to the extensions built with the Add-On SDK
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 3:31 UTC (Sat) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Maybe they should then follow the Linux model and pull all popular extensions in the Firefox source repository, perhaps along with a testsuite for each one?
After all, Mozilla is a corporation with employees, so they should be able to simply hire maintainers to review and merge patches for the resulting gigantic source tree.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 17:14 UTC (Sat) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] This won't be enough. It's the unpopular extensions that are important much more than the popular ones. The strength is in (1) the long tail and (2) distributed effort in maintaining that tail.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 13:51 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Thanks for saying it loud.Stable binary interfaces (ABIs) are perhaps a bad idea for the Linux kernel, but they are a necessity for applications with third-party modules. Especially if you want your module ecosystem to thrive. Chrome has been getting away with lots of UI changes (e.g. in preferences), but somehow they are painless to users. Yes, things move around but are not hard to find. Why Mozilla hackers feel the need to change the UI when their main problem is speed is a mystery to me. I find myself using Chrome more and more, despite its irritating "send every keystroke back to the mothership" policy (and I cannot use Chromium for professional reasons).
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 9, 2012 13:02 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
> I find myself using Chrome more and more, despite its irritating "send every keystroke back to the mothership" policy
I wish people would stop repeating this fallacy.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 9, 2012 13:09 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] No doubt it's all conspiracy theories. Why is it asking me to log in to the browser then? It says on every open tab "Not signed in to Chrome (You're missing out -- sign in)". What am I missing out? Why is it sending every keystroke on the google search bar? Why are they implementing "do not track" as it says on the link you sent? Why is web history enabled by default? Why keep all the information by default? You know, I'm not comfortable with all this.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 9, 2012 22:10 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
Oh oh, here we go, let me put my tinfoil hat...
> Why is it asking me to log in to the browser then? It says on every open tab "Not signed in to Chrome (You're missing out -- sign in)". What am I missing out?
Setting synchronization. Some of us have to use two, three, or even a hundred different computers. If you log into the browser, the browser extensions and settings are replicated throughout all of its instances.
> Why is it sending every keystroke on the google search bar?
So that you can see the search results two to twenty times faster.
> Why are they implementing "do not track" as it says on the link you sent?
Because the users demand it. I do.
> Why is web history enabled by default?
It's not. You have to explicitly enable it, and you have to re-enter your password in order to do so. It's really hard to enable it by accident.
> Why keep all the information by default?
It's not. It just retains the information you want it to retain, it's possible to encrypt your settings and bookmarks with a second pass phrase so that not even google can see it.
> You know, I'm not comfortable with all this.
You can still use it, just do not log in.
The drones are coming Posted Jul 9, 2012 22:52 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Reading between lines in your mail, it appears that Chrome is actually sending every keystroke to the mothership. By default, except for web history which I never accepted but found enabled one day. You can (or will be able to) avoid some or all of it with extra settings, but right now (unless you take precautionary measures) everything is sent and stored. Given that the US government has the right to access all that information without a search warrant, I would think it is likely they are filtering all that data and sipping it for, don't know, terrorist-related patterns. Given that all that data correlates nicely with your gmail inbox (also available) and now with your real name and stats (thanks to Google+), it only takes a few keystrokes to point the drones your way...Quick, do they make 10-feet-thick titanium-foil hats?
The drones are coming Posted Jul 10, 2012 1:29 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
> Reading between lines in your mail, it appears that Chrome is actually sending every keystroke to the mothership.
Being really clear: Chrome sends every keystroke IN THE OMNIBOX to the mothership if Google is the default search engine (which is normally the default, yes) and you enable smartmatching (which is also the default). So, yes.
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