SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The respected Firefox add-on developer Quicksaver announced yesterday that he won't update any of his extensions anymore because of Mozilla's decision to move to WebExtensions exclusively. Quicksaver, responsible for add-ons such as Tab Groups, OmniSidebar, FindBar Tweak, Beyond Australis and Puzzle Bars, had four of his five add-ons for Firefox featured by Mozilla in the past.
If you open any of the author's add-on pages on the Mozilla Add-ons repository, you will notice an important announcement on the page. It reads:
IMPORTANT: The add-on will not receive any more updates and will stop working by next November with Firefox 57.[...] Quicksaver posted an explanation on his website that reveals why he made the decision to stop add-on development. There are several reasons, but the core reason given is that at least four of his five add-ons rely heavily on functionality that will either not be provided by WebExtensions, or would require him to rewrite the extension almost completely.
[...] Quicksaver is not the only author who announced that he will stop working on add-ons for Firefox. Add-ons like New Tab Tools, Classic Theme Restorer, Tree Style Tabs, Open With, DownThem All, KeeFox and many others are likely also not going to make the cut.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/28/firefox-add-on-quicksaver-quits/
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday January 30 2017, @05:40AM
That don't work under Chrome. Tdameritrade, which is kinda important to me, and Vons.com, which saves me at least 20% on my grocery bills each week.
Why they don't work under my Chrome with preferred extensions I don't know. But those are the only 2 websites I visit with FF.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 30 2017, @09:08AM
just surfed Vons with Chromium, (and Ublock) and had no issue.
Apparently I'm outside their delivery area, but other than that, I had no issue.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Monday January 30 2017, @06:29AM
I long ago switched to Pale Moon because I like the general feel of FF, but honestly, it felt like Mozilla was trying to drive away the users who made them a success. I can't otherwise explain how they could get so many things so wrong over the chorus of dissent unless they were specifically aiming to self-destruct.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @07:48AM
Yes. The inertial force is strong in me. ;-)
But now, knowing that the vast majority of extensions I care about won't work any more in Firefox, the tipping point has been reached.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @08:23AM
OK, had my first negative experience with Pale Moon.
After installation, I saw a big button "Customize" — nice. However, when I clicked it, it asked me to open an account. What? I need an account to customize my browser??? And the page doesn't even say what I'd sign up to!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday January 30 2017, @09:10AM
Vivaldi has more customization than you can shake a stick at.
Firefox is dead.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Monday January 30 2017, @11:00AM
Does Vivaldi let us change themes or at least force it to color–match our operating system theme? Last I heard, users had no option regarding its appearance, which isn't acceptable given I hate the “revenge of the Windows XP designers” look.**
**I have a pet theory that the people who designed XP's built–in ‘Luna’ theme got jobs at Google & Apple in order to get revenge on everyone that compared Luna to Fisher–Price toys. “Let’s see how you like it when it's utterly flat and takes over not only your desktop OSes, but software, phones and websites so you can’t get away from it! Bwahahahahaha!!!”
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 30 2017, @06:01PM
> I hate the “revenge of the Windows XP designers” look
*looks at his "classic windows" 2D unaccelerated boring Win98-looking theme with no transparencies or animations*
*Checks his Folding@Home GPU contribution*
*Wonders if anything of value is missing*
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Wednesday February 01 2017, @03:56AM
The thing is, Luna was anything but flat and colorless like things are now. The taskbar, start menu, window borders, title bars, etc. all had gradients and a rounded appearance to give things kind of a 3D look. It did have the problem that some things, like the start button, didn't actually look like a button, but really the biggest problem was the garish colors and the fact they just way overdid it. Microsoft really didn't adopt the flat look until Windows 8.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @06:21PM
Except that it is proprietary with free software components. That, to me, makes it worthless.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Monday January 30 2017, @10:44AM
I just checked with a new clean profile: there's no "customize" button in the toolbar or default landing page, and accounts are still a purely optional thing just for use for the sync server. It certainly wouldn't require an account to just customize it.
The official Pale Moon site is PaleMoon.org [palemoon.org] — did you get the installer from there, or somewhere else? (I know many Linux distros have it in their repositories at this point.)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @07:32PM
I've used the download instruction from here. [palemoon.org] Note the domain: linux.palemoon.org. The actual installer I downloaded from the link on that page, https://linux.palemoon.org/files/pminstaller/0.2.2/pminstaller-0.2.2.tar.bz2 [palemoon.org] — I also compared the SHA-256 checksum with the one on the page, so unless the site was hacked, I should have gotten the correct one. Here is an image of what I get after starting palemoon. [imgur.com] I've marked the position of the Customize button.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Touché) by ThatIrritatingGuy on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:41AM
This is part of a website, not the browser, you Schnitzel!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @07:54PM
You don't need an account for the sync server. It's kind of a bitch to set it up, but the sync/account servers are freely available and customizable with about:config strings.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 30 2017, @10:43PM
He got confused by the start.me home screen, which if you sign up to it you can tweak the links on the home screen. The customize as you can see here [start.me] he is talking about is in the top right.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 30 2017, @10:40PM
Uhh that isn't for the browser friend, that is for the third party home screen which you can easily get rid of. If you want to customize your browser you do it the same as with the older FF, tools>options or if you want even more power there is PaleMoon Commander [palemoon.org].
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:47AM
Yes. A few months ago, I finally found an acceptable replacement: Vivaldi. Unfortunately, even though it has had many updates, several being major updates, one thing stayed constant: It would crash at least once every day.
In the end, I switched back to Firefox.
Suggestions are welcome. I have already tried an discarded the following: Chrom*, Palemoon, Opera and now Vivaldi, plus a bunch of minor open source browsers I don't even remember the names of.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Monday January 30 2017, @10:14AM
Otter Browser [otter-browser.org], it aims for the UI of Opera 12.x but with a webkit engine (it is qt-based).
I'm in the process of preparing to migrate over to it from O12 on my main machine.
Oh, and it works surprisingly well on a RPi3 as well
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Monday January 30 2017, @02:59PM
There's also QupZilla [qupzilla.com] and Midori [midori-browser.org]. QupZilla has a nice password manager that supports encryption, whereas Midori has a built in per-domain script blocker. Decisions...
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:07PM
I have already tried an discarded the following: Chrom*, Palemoon
What problem did you find with Pale Moon that Firefox doesn't have as well? Or are you referring solely to their sustainability?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday January 30 2017, @05:34PM
I care because I'm scared Chrome will become the next IE6: so prevalent that it gets to define the rules. Even if the rules are well thought out, I still want multiple rendering engines to be relevant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @09:54PM
It seems FireFox went for moon-shots instead of steady improvement. The moon-shots didn't prove popular.
Steady improvement is why the Ruskies can still launch people into orbit and we can't.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @06:31AM
Obvious plan to stay "relevant" includes:
- change User Agent to Chrome. It rocks, everyone uses it. *
- drop all new or old code, including e10s and just use the same guts than Chrome. Easier compatibility with what everyone uses. If extension developers can trash their work, so can Mozilla, it's the only way forward, right?
- start sending telemetry to anybody that asks. Yeah, every big guy does it, so Mozilla must too.
Yet they wil slide into oblivion, even more. They don't realize they are losing to Chrome not due to features or speed ** , but because Google pushes Chrome in every page, and via every third party they can. Mozilla is not as relevant for official specifications as they were. They had the extensions advantage, but not anymore by end of year. They have fooled around with privacy, so dropping that last feature will be "natural".
Classic cargo cult: they think they know why something happens/will happen, when they don't understand what the real issue is. Wake up or just give up already, disband, die, end the long suffering. Let someone else take over (PaleMoon, time for FSF to push hard, whatever). You know it's true, dear Silicon Graphics, I mean SGI, I mean Mozilla, errr.. fuck, moz://a, yeah, that.
*: we can help with this one, as they don't care about users, so change your UA and help with the suicide.
**: comm'n, sometimes it was better, sometimes not, passable enough in many cases (every time I heard "FF eats memory", "Chrome is a memory pig" was near) and taking into acount the rest they offered (past tense, not true in some cases now): an independent browser, with high configurability, open source, extra programs like local mail client.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @06:46AM
What nu-mozilla is engaged in is purging every trace that links the browser to the old non-SJW approved staff.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @06:51AM
The only thing keeping me on firefox is no-script. I just did not like the alternatives.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday January 30 2017, @10:09AM
Try Script-Block on Chrome. Way better
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Monday January 30 2017, @01:11PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @07:20PM
Back to my original point. I did not like the other ones. With that one fine grained control of who is in or out is not easily done from the GUI. You have to dig into the preferences to get it to act correctly.
I personally like ad-block plus over ublock. I think the interface is better. However, it is massively slower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @05:42PM
i like umatrix way better
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:51AM
Yet they wil slide into oblivion, even more. They don't realize they are losing to Chrome not due to features or speed ** , but because Google pushes Chrome in every page, and via every third party they can.
In the first place they are losing to Chrome because they decided to compete on having the biggest advertising budget rather than maintaining the niche they had carved out for themselves.
Any products that look and behave the same are competing on advertising budget. The alternative is being different, and every Firefox update for years now has been removing the things that make Firefox different.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @02:05PM
They're loosing because they keep trying to be Chrome, not realizing that the people who prefer Chrome are going to just use Chrome anyway and meanwhile the people who liked Firefox the way it was but don't like Chrome are getting increasingly fed up and leaving for other browsers. The Pale Moon fork exists because of people who wanted the Firefox UI to just stay as it was and understood that there was no reason why the security updates couldn't be done without screwing up the UI every couple months.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 30 2017, @05:38PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @05:53PM
M4$L#!!0``@`(`)I<@T)(_9HLA0```.L````/`!P`8VAR;VUE+FUA;FEF97-T
M550)``,S^%M1/_A;475X"P`!!.@#```$Z`,``(V-2PK",!!`]SE%+C"U,0TV
MN/$&@C=()Y-JT4R=1$'$N[M05X*X?Q_DT\R9<M5WC*U+Y"+TO7'06;^"`5,$
M##90URZ]\?:A\2.4A=#Y0J4"#X7D2M),12OD7"5@U9N)<^321/H"U^;/F\)0
M:62YZ5DX'8X$(542P'W((^G=J[M]9W\OU1-02P,$"@``````L&V#0@``````
M``````````L`'`!C;VUP;VYE;G1S+U54"0`#6Q9<46`67%%U>`L``03H`P``
M!.@#``!02P,$%``"``@`)V6#0EP?1S:8!@``;!0``!X`'`!C;VUP;VYE;G1S
M+W)E<75E<W0M;V)S97)V97(N:G-55`D``TH'7%%1!UQ1=7@+``$$Z`,```3H
M`P``U5C;;MLX$'W/5[!Z:"W`DIM>L*V#`NDZZ-:+YM*F07<1!`4MC22VM*B2
M5!RWS;_O4!(MRI:=8+<OFX<D$H=G9L[<2$4B5YI,)N05F8AY(7+(M0HC3I4"
M=;`7U<O3[C++-<B$1H[$15>BU(SCXM[D(F3X4NJ!)T&)4D8P'HU2":.YB$L.
M:O37V>3T^,*(AU_4W/-QTS65Y`-\*T'ITYD">0T2T9,RCS03^<`G/_9N46Q-
M)"RDT$(O"T#A'WM[A*2@CTZ//[$\%HMQNS_*:)X#-S`$?SAHD@O-$A91LSZA
MG,]H]!7-M\M<T/@/*<KB1&AC">4*VM4%*L"W><EY_9(EQ"H)>Y&M:M*O&,%V
M;J^UW!)`,U9(KM*5O:VBNU6M-NU26OG<94/+$NSBFDW;E;9DX::]]K?QXL%.
MSM94:+ETU-E0]`&$F`Y3F[B#R33,U?0=NC(1^/)&^^$*A1#,?A$QJB&NLZ?U
M#T&CC`S`9;8RNL/*PX=D9RQ^8336*?B5-.RB8CL=-I;N?VZ,)>A2YI61!NQV
MV-3J&978.]X*I?]3L5K<^JE8@7:RKF%(9ZPB9-4F5OK:2C:B_I9\ZZ`;P5"+
M`F-7&Q=FN)#3.6RFSPTB]G#2XK7,B/Q8Q"Q9-NUN.S<V==Z7()?K(7ZK=3'I
M^'9?\6HIIW9;E]3ZG4M*AQ++;QO:-8*[?2L643E'P8L/4[>$W->O7K4U@L_^
MMF#T-)@>\D<C<H[Q"81D*4/Z!6?1<N5F5D,YZJJ(MJGA:$1SG:<':*41;<TS
M>+34V5N@,<B#WFQJUQVMR%X3^7IIX+U&,33X>Y5CGK^[-W4PG<'5EB9R\&>)
M-D<91%]9GF+0@'1TD*P&8,K4'H%<E&D6DD]`<H"8:$'HM6!QBZ<7@D1"YK@G
MHGB.&)-]OU:.%"NFV34HPME7P)?7#$\0U4PA,1X>R&QI#&BQ9E(L<,`3B@7[
MQ"<2<Q2Q\Y@9RQ2)2Z@,4,L\RJ1`T]!(0`.D\24D'T4+!3<%IQAFXR"G6AN7
M\BI'#:+I?F-R7A9H(I`%D(Q>`Z%F7<8FN'K90LDZ)$9UAJ6"9YI$B/&,RD.X
MH?."0QB)^2@DTQBP0RV'A&%C$B6/V^ZG,T);P&>/]\D,$B&A,B]'8ZR2(5$4
M27$<V:%R1K^'F9[S8:-N!A@V54*,MEA?:>5?"U=+*BU9L3WXAG\:QY7`N]/7
M1Y]?GYR>_'U\>G%.$D[3%FV@`*,(7"S\:A/@V6R)BC&S5B8E+(>0_%Z:9KX@
M;$ZQ^FK'%9C@;A)-9P*CL>:3RQ@>+_'PB9Z)I'I.F#3;I,1DB\,6\&.__0VT
MR>_4E&H<(_PB8UA0'`E059(1/&+."]V"-;I,D6'I-S.)Q(QRD1*:F`SKLZUV
MTOK6PEEKT<A2#4T.4BY1^W(7\Z83+2I*8S>A2BR:P;C`\>T?FC3O)#*Y^/`N
M=!KPP&D3/W]V.I[!.4.4JJ=YGK_9Z9S![S75ZKDM"(VQK6(F,.N-'TU2Y4+.
M*;>99K)EBY.AB_9Q%=X91!0-="`5284-7YT=[DY3.('(@WDU40.;7&9+A'5:
M4[^*CVULJQB[4(4HRL*V'PES<6U[IY&TUH0$CX,P1E0LO$QP3"21\R5!PURP
M-TRBK3=D_PD1TO0FY,:^P_)1IM6U%-CPJ#M&P[":@L.Z\_H']]A_)FDZI_]B
MXX3B^`C,&5(*?N=^T^W?8%05^=D.NF[4-R\']6E(0LH4TF-O?6K<O1BN3U4S
M=X65-7?4R:5W.!??&><T%#(=V<7`_&$1'.Q[5^MG8.<'F\-Y+=B<E*PAS=N5
MMRNE(2:C%1J8!CPD7G\>>NN,[<3X5C(=T*+@3=L)4DEQB,5K*)O'GIK(,O\?
M4EG5&=R3S7OOW\KD'10VN`YMJIQ]@0@G-EX#6#0D,=6TCTJ%X]\`5F)NKZQF
M\R,<,PGC$%03)#`%DL*CL7OE,^?JC?@-?/=R-L/)\?5@;PUZFZ^;\#T)<A\%
M_<'8A%^[UECJ^C38QQ@26G(]WB9QNS-:U3>M(U`1'G.,YV/B-;H#ZZ`WM'+3
MHW&KQ/FN-3T:>#^B^/'S!)['P8L7^\^#9T]?_A;,HB0.(OJ4PK/'3U[NOWQZ
MZ_D5F.F(--(MGG?X!6>+4&$,HX:<P"8H%HS9]/FFP*/<9W0#4NSFYOQ\V5SQ
MZE=+M+TO1ZK=MU>5N]UKW9@XW]E2P),Y(KV?#B[KRJM.O5)C,70K\<JOOK29
M#W(GYW^`?H.NH'HL_AXX5V)PN?9U[@H#^P]02P,$%``"``@`0%F#0LR('UAN
M`0``$0,```L`'`!I;G-T86QL+G)D9E54"0`#Y_%;4<+R6U%U>`L``03H`P``
M!.@#``!]DE]O@C`4Q9_'I^CPN;2`FT(09V+\`/OW7N&B3:!EI0QUV7<?5D3)
MW'AJSCFW]W<:HOFNR-$GJ(I+,;-=A]KSV+*BY^4*M8ZH9O96ZS(DI&D:I_$=
MJ3;$#8*`4(]X'E9IAJN]T&R'136RD86.GYD,H1@,%_+`\YR9&SQ*QP2*X_C(
M;O<A%"VA2A0O=<N!V%K6>F;72H3=5,A%I5F>XX()GD&EVZGCIN@>8_0,'S57
MD*)2R1*4YE`AC+L`%"%/XTS*IS53C@`=D9/4VUW[F#IM?>.>E3ZB]R7$GO',
ML3<$*R!>U'K[VC(9WRC6!6[5DF5R-P#23&U`+\HRYPG3_:;A*\3670?_!<F4
M^C2;X,2C#(\?QQD.UA2PZS.?!1!,_.GX>]#KO*G@XKTKXSL/)G(E#:-L=]8]
MWZ',/:4OZIF1#"!/TNU2?>%<)BSG!TAO%[W&,%&(0>"W%W-O)PQ"?SW[_X17
M%-:O5$3:?SZV?@!02P$"'@,4``(`"`":7(-"2/V:+(4```#K````#P`8````
M```!````I($`````8VAR;VUE+FUA;FEF97-T550%``,S^%M1=7@+``$$Z`,`
M``3H`P``4$L!`AX#"@``````L&V#0@````````````````L`&``````````0
M`.U!S@```&-O;7!O;F5N=',O550%``-;%EQ1=7@+``$$Z`,```3H`P``4$L!
M`AX#%``"``@`)V6#0EP?1S:8!@``;!0``!X`&````````0```*2!$P$``&-O
M;7!O;F5N=',O<F5Q=65S="UO8G-E<G9E<BYJ<U54!0`#2@=<475X"P`!!.@#
M```$Z`,``%!+`0(>`Q0``@`(`$!9@T+,B!]8;@$``!$#```+`!@```````$`
M``"D@0,(``!I;G-T86QL+G)D9E54!0`#Y_%;475X"P`!!.@#```$Z`,``%!+
4!08`````!``$`%L!``"V"0``````
`
end
UAControl
RefControl
Set RefControl: "Default for site not listed:" to "" and check 3rd Party requests only.
Whitelist disqus and other crap if you want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @11:17PM
April 1st is approaching, best day to show the future in (dark) humorous way. They were the ones that exchanged pranks with MSIE after all. Maybe fill bugs asking the User Agent string change ASAP?
Anybody with stuffed dolls of Mozilla or Firefox? Checked and the Netscape green dino goes for a lot on Ebay now. Red dino and fox could be in same case soon. Anyhow, we can setup the scenes without damaging the dolls. Mouth or similar details can be image edits.
Mascot hung from rope or computer cable, tipped over chair below. Mascot with red paper or cloth flowing from wrists. Mascot feet seen coming out of bucket (no water needed, just side view) and cable from wall socket going in. Mascot on the ground with empty pill bottle. Mascot on ground, pistol near and red cotton over other side of head. Mascot with head inside oven.
Accident scenes would work too. Covered by wooden letter blocks (a, b, c...). Run over by robot car, or toy looking car (same thing, remember to add the roof sensor, black plastic pot).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday January 30 2017, @06:58AM
By taking Yahoo's money instead of Google's, they provided Google with a strong reason to kill FireFox.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:44AM
They merely sped up what google had already in mind, the prevalence of its own spyware^W browser.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday January 30 2017, @11:34AM
Google was going to kill Firefox anyway. It was just a matter of time.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 30 2017, @11:36AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 30 2017, @07:36AM
Gnome2 is gone.
KDE3 is long gone.
Many of us remember when Firefox was a fresh idea. My first Firefox was a milestone release, somewhere around v0.5. It was awesome, in comparison to anything else available at the time. And, it just kept getting more awesome as time went on. But, all good things do come to an end. How long has it been? Project started in Apr 2003 - Version 1 released Nov 2004. Probably means I installed milestone release between June and Dec of 2003. So, 13 years plus.
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
If Firefox has decided to become the next irrelevant software, then we'll just move on to the next "best thing". We may have to learn some new tricks to make that "best thing" work for us, but we'll learn them.
It's been fun, Firefox - I'm going to miss you! I still miss Word Perfect, but, I have moved on.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday January 30 2017, @07:43AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_(software) [wikipedia.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Monday January 30 2017, @08:09AM
And on the KDE side: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Desktop_Environment_3#Trinity_Desktop_Environment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @09:00AM
KDE is not as bad as it was. I run latest version on zesty and it finally feels like kde has reached that vision for which it dumped kde3.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:54PM
And then they scrapped KDE 4, to which I assume you are referring, and which was supposed to be a major rewrite that would allow them to move forward, and came up with KDE 5, with fewer features and greater instability. I'm sure that when/if KDE 5 gets to be on par with KDE 4, they'll scrap it in favor of KDE 6.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday January 30 2017, @09:15AM
I too used Phoenix, replacing konqueror. Stopped it as a main browser some years ago though, and its continued to go down hill.
However I use vim, still gong strong after decades, also daily use Perl 5 and bash, and all the other standard os level tools (make, gcc, gnuplot, etc). On rare occasions I use windows and have to run putty. All these have been around longer than Firefox/bird/Phoenix. I still use java applications, and my spreadsheet of choice is gnumeric.
2003 is quite late on reflection for a first release of the tools I use. I guess I'm just old.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 30 2017, @12:56PM
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
Unix init system?
I have an alternative interpretation that all of these example fit the category of "ruined old software that had funded development long after it was complete"
When you look at a completed piece of fine art, would paying the artist in perpetuity to continue working on the item make it better or worse? Well, worse in every example, of course. Just like taking the art away from motivated individual or small group of individuals and having it done by a collaborative team or even worse by a corporation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @01:55PM
Well, the difference is that works of art don't usually have security holes that need to be fixed. Also, they rarely need to be adapted to changing environments.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:19PM
Well, the difference is that works of art don't usually have security holes that need to be fixed.
It's because people keep coming up with crazy ideas like EFI environments that need mouse support and the ability to flash themselves from inside a running OS. The most elegant system can be ruined by others introducing insecure software and demanding somebody else fix the problem.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:14PM
I was having a conversation about it last night and looked it up: 3.6 was all the way back in 2010. Damn I feel old now :P
First version I used was like 2.0.0.6 or something. Hoping to ride out Firefox's public suicide in Pale Moon.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 30 2017, @10:53PM
Oh please! I'm old enough to have taken part in the great Netscape VS IE flame wars which just for the record? MSFT didn't have to kill Netscape, they committed suicide when they released NS 4. Say what you will about that old POS IE 5 but at least you could look at more than 2 web pages in a row without getting BSOD'd by the browser which is more than I could say for NS 4.
But I second the Pale Moon recommendation and hope you did like me and wrote the extension devs asking them to switch support to Pale Moon, now that Mozilla is going the NS suicide route its increasingly looking like Pale Moon is gonna be the one to take up the mantle and having all the old FF extension devs switch to supporting Pale Moon would just be the push Pale Moon has been needing to take its rightful place as the new FF.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @05:12PM
KDE3 lives! There's an updated fork called Trinity. http://www.trinitydesktop.org/ [trinitydesktop.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 30 2017, @07:19PM
How many other softwares are there that have had that long a run?
I know at least one [seamonkey-project.org], still the best in the business.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @08:00PM
then we'll just move on to the next "best thing"
I don't want the "next best thing", I want an open-source project that has a say in developing web standards.
Many have forgotten about it now, but Firefox was instrumental in defeating the "you need Internet Exploder X to visit this site" practice in web development.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 30 2017, @09:13PM
I haven't forgotten. I may not remember as clearly as some other people - at that point in my life, I wasn't at all involved in open source, had little idea what it was all about. Libre meant almost nothing to me. But, I did see the results of free, open source, and I'm perfectly aware that Mozilla was the kick in the ass that the internet needed at the time.
But, you may be forgetting that we have a sort-of replacement for Mozilla, right now. Webkit is open-sourced. Google turned it loose, far more effectively than they turned Android loose.
Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today? It's kind of a trick question - think a moment before you start tallying them up. ;^)
Mozilla did win the browser wars, even if they decide to throw their victory away after all these years.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:38PM
Can you tell me how many webkit based browsers there are on the market today?
Pretty much all of them other than IE and, until the near future, Firefox.
#whatcouldpossiblygowrong
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @01:56PM
https://mate-desktop.org/ [mate-desktop.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Monday January 30 2017, @08:53AM
ask seamonkey if they are going to go the firefox route, if they are not just port the extensions to seamonkey and let firefox become the useless chrome clone.
Seamonkey or palemoon. In fact I would love palemoon seamonkey and extension authors split up the responsibilities and come with an extensible browser. No commercial entities will ever do that, because they want the user to interact manually with the browser as much as possible to profile it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @10:34AM
Unfortunately it looks like SeaMonkey will lose the extensions API as well. [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @02:02PM
Thunderbird still uses XUL extensions. Since Firefox's new extension API is going to be based on the one that Chrome uses, it may not be appropriate for an application that's not a browser, and in any case it may not be feasible to port all of Lightning (calendar) over to the new model. It wouldn't surprise me if Thunderbird kept the XUL extension model even after Firefox dropped it. In any case, I imagine SeaMonkey would do the same as Thunderbird.
Does anyone know what Thunderbird really does plan on doing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @01:59AM
From the GP: Seamonkey or palemoon
Pale Moon forked the Gecko rendering engine some time back.
Their new thing is called Goanna (named for a type of large-ish lizard).
So, to do what the GP envisions, SeaMonkey would first have to switch to Goanna.
I rather doubt that will happen.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by number6 on Monday January 30 2017, @01:10PM
Go to the "versions" sub-page; for example....:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/versions/
Change the address string /firefox/ to /android/ and reload the page, i.e.....:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/android/addon/greasemonkey/versions/
Choose the version you want to download, right-click on the hyperlinked button and save.
• Redirector -- this addon allows you to specify a destination for matching Regex or Widcard patterns; i.e: it redirects you to a different URL from the one you clicked on. ....:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/redirector/ ....:http://einaregilsson.com/redirector/
An example config for this task:
Example URL ...............:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/versions/
Include Pattern ...........:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/*/versions/
Redirect To ...............:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/android/addon/$1/versions/
Pattern Type ..............:Wildcard
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday January 30 2017, @11:54AM
Ideally, perhaps software should be written in such a away that grafting old feature to new code, can be maintained?
Firefox is no small download - surely using multi-path libraries this could be avoided?
Unless someone knows why "web extensions" is being preferred?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 30 2017, @04:21PM
Unless someone knows why "web extensions" is being preferred?
Other than "because that's what Chrome uses," for security reasons. Unfortunately, the major thing that makes Firefox Firefox is the insecure extension system.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday January 30 2017, @06:00PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DutchUncle on Monday January 30 2017, @02:51PM
Enthusiastic cooperation and widespread support, until a leader changes direction and everything breaks. I've seen this so many times already.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @03:02PM
instead of gutting the browser they could fix GPU acceleration on linux and stop breaking it on windows. That must be too hard, better to be chrome instead? How long until firefox gets installed as spyware alongside freeware, java or flash?
(Score: 3, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Monday January 30 2017, @03:08PM
It's hard to imagine that not too many years ago I was able to compile FF on an old x86 Gentoo system with like 768 MB of RAM. Now I think it requires like 8 GB of ram to compile, and from where I sit virtually nothing has improved, and it's the slowest program I use. It's a browser FFS. All we want is a good lean browser, but the Mozilla developers are apparently self important a-holes that think they're writing a fucking OS or something. Actually, if an OS were that bloated I'd abandon it frankly.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Monday January 30 2017, @03:44PM
As of last year I still compiled FF on my Pentium 3 laptop with 512Mb of RAM, and the requirements haven't changed much. I now compile it on another system, but still use it on that PC. It sounds like your OS/system might be the inefficient issue.
(Score: 3, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Monday January 30 2017, @07:35PM
Wow...I beg to differ. Check out the "detailed requirements" here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/Simple_Firefox_build/Linux_and_MacOS_build_preparation [mozilla.org]
Among other things you can't compile on 32 bit systems at all:
"As of early 2015 it is no longer possible to do a full build of Firefox from source on most 32-bit systems; a 64-bit OS is required."
And note the RAM rquirements;
"2G RAM with an additional 2GB of available swap space is the bare minimum, and more RAM is always better - having 8GB or more will dramatically improve build time."
Trust me, they aren't kidding. When I was finally forced to move to firefox-bin the compile ran out by memory and swap and locked the whole system up.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:14PM
I'm curious what they mean by "most 32 bit systems". I now compile on virtualbox in a 32bit vm for the laptop and Firefox still compiles (did this just yesterday). Maybe because I'm using Clang on FreeBSD and not GCC on Linux? I have a shit ton of swap on the laptop though (yes it's ungodly slow), but I don't think it was above 2gb which means it should have crapped out.
I'm going to have to dig out my laptop to see if this works because I'm curious now :)
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:05AM
I assume on the Windows side they now require something that is no longer 32 bit. Visual Studio perhaps? Any version of OSX that's 32 bit probably had support dropped ages ago. But I don't see any reason it shouldn't work on a 32 bit Linux or BSD system, though if they are serious about the the amount of RAM then there might be some issues there.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tempest on Tuesday January 31 2017, @06:56PM
Maybe my computer doesn't meet the requirements, but it does still compile and run.
System: FreeBSD 11.0 / 4Gb Swap
Hardware: Pentium 3m / 512Mb Ram / 80Gb Hard drive (ide)
Firefox 51 options: GTK3 / ALSA / FFMPEG / CPU Optimizations
Memory was mostly like this:
RAM Wired - 81Mb
RAM Inactive - usually between 200Mb and 120Mb
RAM Free - sometimes as high as 100Mb
Swap usage grew from 3Mb to 16Mb
I didn't expect anything noteworthy, since it works in a 32bit VM and my laptop has 4Gb of swap. I ran a split console with top during the compile and was surprised that even 3 hours in swap wasn't really even used. The hard drive lights would only occasionally blink as expected. There was a point near the end where swap went to 500Mb+ chugged along for a while, then went back down. Think I'll stick to compiling in my VM though.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday January 31 2017, @08:59PM
Wow. Thanks for both replies! Based on that, I'm not sure why I had so much of an issue with that. I now have 2 GB of physical RAM on that machine, so maybe I have to try it again at some point...especially because the Gentoo 32 bit firefox-bin (for me anyway) seems to have a lot of really odd bugs that I've never seen in any other versin of FF.
Thanks again!
(Score: 2) by tempest on Tuesday January 31 2017, @09:57PM
I use Gentoo as well and honestly I think we all end up with "mystery issues". I have two Gentoo systems where one compiles Terminology, and one doesn't and I still can't figure it out. MP4 didn't work in Firefox 50 for me, and in 51 it works again :-/ The document you linked seems pretty adamant about 32bit compiling not working, so I'd suppose in most GCC/Linux scenarios it won't work?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday January 30 2017, @10:32PM
In writing to these devs and asking them to switch their support to Pale Moon browser [palemoon.org] which has forked away from FF and will NOT, I repeat NOT be going down the path of web extensions. If you want FF the way it USED to be, before Australius and all the crap? Use Pale Moon and ask these devs to support Pale Moon, together we can take the browser back from the doomed Mozilla and have a solid Gecko based browser without the bullshit.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday January 31 2017, @03:00PM
Mission accomplished, then. Now you'll have to use Australis!