[gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Danny YUE]

Hi all,

I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
today I found its new version really sucks.

Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
new version some features must perish.

Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.

So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?


Danny

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[konsolebox]

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
> Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
> extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.
>
> So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?

Not a guru, but if it's something that enhances add-on security
without sacrificing flexibility, I don't mind.

-- 
konsolebox

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[R0b0t1]

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 7:38 AM, konsolebox <konsolebox@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
>> extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.
>>
>> So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?
>
> Not a guru, but if it's something that enhances add-on security
> without sacrificing flexibility, I don't mind.
>

I've seen some questionable choices w.r.t. security being made. Things
aren't being made less secure, but choices made in the interest of
security don't really seem to relate to it. The last big extension
update was like that. There was some easy way to get around the
sandbox that Mozilla made for Firefox.

This update will break my favorite extension, Vimperator. I am already
looking at replacements for Firefox due to this. So far I have found
qutebrowser which isn't really as featureful.

R0b0t1.

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Rasmus Thomsen]

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Hi,

I feel like firefox 57 is an awesome release, it's finally competitive with chromium in terms of speed. It also looks a lot better than older ff versions ( IMO ). It's kinda sad that they broke the addon compatibility, but I guess that was required for progressing.

Regards,
Rasmus

-------- Original Message --------
On 7 Sep 2017, 14:26, Danny YUE wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
> today I found its new version really sucks.
>
> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
> new version some features must perish.
>
> Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
> extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.
>
> So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?
>
> Danny

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Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Ralph Seichter]

On 07.09.2017 14:26, Danny YUE wrote:

> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
> today I found its new version really sucks.

If you're curious about Mozilla's move to the WebExtensions API, see
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/ . You'll
probably have more in-depth discussions about this on other mailing
lists, since it is not Gentoo-specific.

-Ralph

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Danny YUE]

On 2017-09-07 13:00, Ralph Seichter <m16+gentoo@monksofcool.net> wrote:
> On 07.09.2017 14:26, Danny YUE wrote:
>
>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>
> If you're curious about Mozilla's move to the WebExtensions API, see
> https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017/ . You'll
> probably have more in-depth discussions about this on other mailing
> lists, since it is not Gentoo-specific.
>
> -Ralph

Thanks so much for the link.

Well, I know it is not the perfect place but I don't want to spam my
inbox with Firefox topics, so that's why I don't subscribe that mail
list and am asking here. ;-)

By the way I have not used Firefox 57 yet...
I have set keyword ~amd64 so my version is 55.0.2 currently.


Danny

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Ralph Seichter]

On 07.09.2017 15:20, Danny YUE wrote:

> Well, I know it is not the perfect place but I don't want to spam my
> inbox with Firefox topics, so that's why I don't subscribe that mail
> list and am asking here. ;-)

And you believe that spamming the inbox people interested in Gentoo
(that's why we subscribed to this mailing list) is OK ? ;-) Seriously,
this is completely off-topic here, so please use the appropriate mailing
lists instead. Thanks.

-Ralph

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Danny YUE]

On 2017-09-07 14:47, Ralph Seichter <m16+gentoo@monksofcool.net> wrote:
> On 07.09.2017 15:20, Danny YUE wrote:
>
>> Well, I know it is not the perfect place but I don't want to spam my
>> inbox with Firefox topics, so that's why I don't subscribe that mail
>> list and am asking here. ;-)
>
> And you believe that spamming the inbox people interested in Gentoo
> (that's why we subscribed to this mailing list) is OK ? ;-) Seriously,
> this is completely off-topic here, so please use the appropriate mailing
> lists instead. Thanks.
>
> -Ralph

Maybe this can be understood as "application software discussion in
Gentoo"? XD

Let's just stop here...sorry for any potential spam.


Danny

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Dale]

Ralph Seichter wrote:
> On 07.09.2017 15:20, Danny YUE wrote:
>
>> Well, I know it is not the perfect place but I don't want to spam my
>> inbox with Firefox topics, so that's why I don't subscribe that mail
>> list and am asking here. ;-)
> And you believe that spamming the inbox people interested in Gentoo
> (that's why we subscribed to this mailing list) is OK ? ;-) Seriously,
> this is completely off-topic here, so please use the appropriate mailing
> lists instead. Thanks.
>
> -Ralph
>

If he's using or planning to use Firefox on Gentoo, that is on topic. 
It is certainly not completely off-topic. 

I might add, using your logic, if a person has a question about the use
of or changes to any software, they should ask on the mailing list for
that software and not here on Gentoo lists.  The only topic that would
be on-topic would be questions about emerge/portage/openrc/and friends
since they are the only things that are Gentoo and doesn't come from
somewhere else.  A large portion of the software that people ask about,
including Firefox, comes from somewhere besides Gentoo.  Also, I've been
known to ask questions about M$ OSs before.  People here that use and
have a answer, they help where they can. 

Just my $0.02 worth.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Ralph Seichter]

On 07.09.17 22:04, Dale wrote:

> If he's using or planning to use Firefox on Gentoo, that is on topic.

If you read the OP again, you'll find that it had no relation to Gentoo
whatsoever. Danny himself agreed this is not the right mailing list, so
please let's leave it at that.

-Ralph

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Dale]

Ralph Seichter wrote:
> On 07.09.17 22:04, Dale wrote:
>
>> If he's using or planning to use Firefox on Gentoo, that is on topic.
> If you read the OP again, you'll find that it had no relation to Gentoo
> whatsoever. Danny himself agreed this is not the right mailing list, so
> please let's leave it at that.
>
> -Ralph
>
>


I also read this:

> By the way I have not used Firefox 57 yet...
> I have set keyword ~amd64 so my version is 55.0.2 currently.

To me, that looks like he is using Firefox on Gentoo and keeping it at a
older version until he can find out where extensions are headed.  Since
he seems to be using Gentoo, and Firefox on it, that's Gentoo related
enough.  The question is about Firefox itself but still Gentoo related. 

So, it's on topic enough and let's leave it at that. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Mick]

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On Thursday, 7 September 2017 22:24:09 BST Dale wrote:
> Ralph Seichter wrote:
> > On 07.09.17 22:04, Dale wrote:
> >> If he's using or planning to use Firefox on Gentoo, that is on topic.
> > 
> > If you read the OP again, you'll find that it had no relation to Gentoo
> > whatsoever. Danny himself agreed this is not the right mailing list, so
> > please let's leave it at that.
> > 
> > -Ralph
> 
> I also read this:
> > By the way I have not used Firefox 57 yet...
> > I have set keyword ~amd64 so my version is 55.0.2 currently.
> 
> To me, that looks like he is using Firefox on Gentoo and keeping it at a
> older version until he can find out where extensions are headed.  Since
> he seems to be using Gentoo, and Firefox on it, that's Gentoo related
> enough.  The question is about Firefox itself but still Gentoo related. 
> 
> So, it's on topic enough and let's leave it at that. 
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 

We're dealing with all sorts of questions on this M/L.  I even recall a thread 
with a guy receiving advice how to tune his motorbike because it was misfiring 
on higher altitude (or something like that).  Of course, that was not the main 
topic he posted to ask help for, but while he was here it would be rude not to 
offer help to a fellow gentooer!  LOL!

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Dale]

bytesink@monksofcool.net wrote:
> On 07.09.2017 23:24, Dale wrote:
>
>> So, it's on topic enough and let's leave it at that.
> Sigh. What you quoted was not part of the OP. To cut things short:
> *Plonk*
>
> -R
>



It's in the 5th message in the thread.  I quoted his reply to Ralph. 
Maybe you missed Ralph's reply??

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 09/07/2017 07:47 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
> On 07.09.2017 15:20, Danny YUE wrote:
> 
>> Well, I know it is not the perfect place but I don't want to spam my
>> inbox with Firefox topics, so that's why I don't subscribe that mail
>> list and am asking here. ;-)
> 
> And you believe that spamming the inbox people interested in Gentoo
> (that's why we subscribed to this mailing list) is OK ? ;-) Seriously,
> this is completely off-topic here, so please use the appropriate mailing
> lists instead. Thanks.
> 
> -Ralph
> 
> 
> 
gentoo-user is for support *and* general talk.

https://gentoo.org/get-involved/mailing-lists/

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Adam Carter]

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On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
> today I found its new version really sucks.
>
> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
> new version some features must perish.
>

I am assuming that most actively developed addons will be updated before 57
drops, so the transition wont be too painful. Is the issue you're having
with FoxyProxy related to it relying on features that are no longer
available under the new framework?

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Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Danny YUE]

On 2017-09-08 00:48, Adam Carter <adamcarter3@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>>
>> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
>> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
>> new version some features must perish.
>>
>
> I am assuming that most actively developed addons will be updated before 57
> drops, so the transition wont be too painful. Is the issue you're having
> with FoxyProxy related to it relying on features that are no longer
> available under the new framework?

Yes. The FoxyProxy author declared that some features are no long
available under the new framework.
I am really depressed about it because I just use that plugin every time
I use Firefox.


> This update will break my favorite extension, Vimperator. I am already
> looking at replacements for Firefox due to this. So far I have found
> qutebrowser which isn't really as featureful.
>
> R0b0t1.

I am using Keysnail, no idea whether or not it will be deprecated.

If the features I want are blocked by the new framework, I'm afraid I
would lock the version (fortunately it's Gentoo) for a long time, until
I find replacement for plugins, or even Firefox...

Danny

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[R0b0t1]

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 8:22 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2017-09-08 00:48, Adam Carter <adamcarter3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>>>
>>> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
>>> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
>>> new version some features must perish.
>>>
>>
>> I am assuming that most actively developed addons will be updated before 57
>> drops, so the transition wont be too painful. Is the issue you're having
>> with FoxyProxy related to it relying on features that are no longer
>> available under the new framework?
>
> Yes. The FoxyProxy author declared that some features are no long
> available under the new framework.
> I am really depressed about it because I just use that plugin every time
> I use Firefox.
>
>
>> This update will break my favorite extension, Vimperator. I am already
>> looking at replacements for Firefox due to this. So far I have found
>> qutebrowser which isn't really as featureful.
>>
>> R0b0t1.
>
> I am using Keysnail, no idea whether or not it will be deprecated.
>
> If the features I want are blocked by the new framework, I'm afraid I
> would lock the version (fortunately it's Gentoo) for a long time, until
> I find replacement for plugins, or even Firefox...
>

I saw some people talking about creating a non-Mozilla LTS Firefox
version. I'm not sure how well that will work but I wish them luck. In
the case of Vimperator, it looks like a lot of the breaking changes
revolve around what you can and can't do to the UI. I run Vimperator
with 'gui="none,tabs"' which is something worth looking up if you
haven't seen it.

Keysnail looks nice but it seems like it doesn't modify the GUI.
There's a few Vim inspired addons for Firefox, but none of them are as
comprehensive as Vimperator. There's a lot of Vim mimicry that I'm not
even aware of in the addon, it's extremely comprehensive.

Thanks for the suggestion,
     R0b0t1.

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Dale]

Danny YUE wrote:
> On 2017-09-08 00:48, Adam Carter <adamcarter3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>>>
>>> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
>>> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
>>> new version some features must perish.
>>>
>> I am assuming that most actively developed addons will be updated before 57
>> drops, so the transition wont be too painful. Is the issue you're having
>> with FoxyProxy related to it relying on features that are no longer
>> available under the new framework?
> Yes. The FoxyProxy author declared that some features are no long
> available under the new framework.
> I am really depressed about it because I just use that plugin every time
> I use Firefox.
>
>
>> This update will break my favorite extension, Vimperator. I am already
>> looking at replacements for Firefox due to this. So far I have found
>> qutebrowser which isn't really as featureful.
>>
>> R0b0t1.
> I am using Keysnail, no idea whether or not it will be deprecated.
>
> If the features I want are blocked by the new framework, I'm afraid I
> would lock the version (fortunately it's Gentoo) for a long time, until
> I find replacement for plugins, or even Firefox...
>
> Danny
>
>


It's been mentioned before in other threads recently, have you looked at
Palemoon?  I have it installed here from a overlay.  I haven't checked
on it recently but if this new plugin thing with Firefox leaves some of
my plugins unusable, I may be looking at some other options myself.  I
might add, Seamonkey is stepping on a nerve or two of mine as well. 

I've been wondering about this plugin thing myself since I heard about
it a few weeks ago.  Sort of glad to see a discussion about it.  Hoping
to find out what others think this is going to end up looking like. 

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[R0b0t1]

On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 9:21 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Danny YUE wrote:
>> On 2017-09-08 00:48, Adam Carter <adamcarter3@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Danny YUE <sheepduke@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>>>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>>>>
>>>> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
>>>> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
>>>> new version some features must perish.
>>>>
>>> I am assuming that most actively developed addons will be updated before 57
>>> drops, so the transition wont be too painful. Is the issue you're having
>>> with FoxyProxy related to it relying on features that are no longer
>>> available under the new framework?
>> Yes. The FoxyProxy author declared that some features are no long
>> available under the new framework.
>> I am really depressed about it because I just use that plugin every time
>> I use Firefox.
>>
>>
>>> This update will break my favorite extension, Vimperator. I am already
>>> looking at replacements for Firefox due to this. So far I have found
>>> qutebrowser which isn't really as featureful.
>>>
>>> R0b0t1.
>> I am using Keysnail, no idea whether or not it will be deprecated.
>>
>> If the features I want are blocked by the new framework, I'm afraid I
>> would lock the version (fortunately it's Gentoo) for a long time, until
>> I find replacement for plugins, or even Firefox...
>>
>> Danny
>>
>>
>
>
> It's been mentioned before in other threads recently, have you looked at
> Palemoon?  I have it installed here from a overlay.  I haven't checked
> on it recently but if this new plugin thing with Firefox leaves some of
> my plugins unusable, I may be looking at some other options myself.  I
> might add, Seamonkey is stepping on a nerve or two of mine as well.
>
> I've been wondering about this plugin thing myself since I heard about
> it a few weeks ago.  Sort of glad to see a discussion about it.  Hoping
> to find out what others think this is going to end up looking like.
>

Palemoon is a good mention. As I've expressed previously on
gentoo-user, I was concerned about using it due to the slow
application of security patches. Someone responded that this is no
longer the case.


If anyone has time to join some of the Mozilla mailing lists I think
it would be worth it to ask them about their decisions. They seem to
be making most of their choices without user input. To be fair, I
doubt there are many users on the development mailing lists.

In this case I actually think switching to WebExtensions addons is the
start of a good idea as I can see some of the benefit, but asking that
plans for adding back some of the now missing API be created sounds
like a good idea.

Hopefully I will have time to do this myself, but if anybody gets to
it before me that would be appreciated. I am extremely busy now. I'm
suggesting this here because it seems like people here will be
affected and know enough to hold a conversation with the developers
who are making decisions.

My personal experience with Mozilla is that no one is authorized to
make changes. So why are there changes?

Cheers,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Taiidan]

To me it seems as though it is more so a political change not so much a 
change done for some technical improvement (there aren't any).

Mozilla is closer and closer with google, as evidenced by making 
telemetry opt-out rather than opt-in [1] and all the "safe" browsing and 
downloading "features" which sends a list and hashes of all the files 
you download to google for inspection.

This is going to break a variety of beloved addons as the new method 
can't support heavy modification of firefox.


[1] as if anyone WANTS to be spied on, the average user has no idea what 
telemetry is and or would believe mozillas bullshit reasoning of "we do 
this to make the browser better, trust us!" I myself have noticed it 
mysteriously turned back on a variety of times similar to windows not to 
mention the annoying practice of allowing addons to randomly open 
windows every update without permission (10 addons 10 windows to inform 
of random changes no one cares about, and now my ISP knows what addons I 
use as it loads their websites - yay)

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 09/07/2017 05:26 AM, Danny YUE wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
> today I found its new version really sucks.
> 
> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
> new version some features must perish.
> 
> Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
> extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.
> 
> So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?
> 
> 
> Danny
> 
<user-hat>
I switched to Pale Moon a while ago, though I suspect fewer and fewer
mainstream sites will work with it as devs will begin requiring features
enabled in newer Firefox and Chrome (e.g. WebRTC, EME, localStorage,
etc). GitHub has already dropped support for Pale Moon, despite PM
supporting just about everything GitHub makes use of.

Losing XUL may be great from a security standpoint, but the feature-set
is lacking, it negatively impacts performance (no cache sharing,
blockers can't block correctly without a full render prior) and it all
reeks of a code merge. Why else would Mozilla be putting all this work
into looking *and* acting like Chrome? This behavior is that of a
company that is looking to get out of the market. They've already
abandoned their phone OS and their e-mail/calendar client. Firefox is
just the final nail in the coffin. Servo isn't up to snuff yet, and the
power users that gave Firefox its popularity are (like me) disinterested
in what passes for "modern Web". Many websites are flat-out malicious,
and more are insecure in general, largely due to feature creep in the
browser. Without the ability to protect yourself, it becomes a risky
decision to continue browsing a space filled with surveillance and
malware. In short, it's a dumpster fire. Like all grim scenarios,
however, there are sites out there that don't abuse people. But that
number is dwindling every day.

Aside from that, the hard requirement on PulseAudio is another strike
against it, and their culture wrt diversity is off-putting. Mozilla
isn't the Web leader it once was. To its credit, I don't think any
organization is "leading" the Web well. With the W3C approving DRM as a
standard in HTTP, it indicates a corporate acquisition of the standards
body, and it's no longer fit for purpose. We need a browser that is
opinionated and sticks to the standards that make sense, and hands
control of media to other programs. That would severely simplify the
browser, and leverage software that's generally already on a computer.
Web browsers as they are are fine for netbooks, which have little in the
way of system software. But for desktop machines, at least, most things
can be handed to a media player, PDF viewer, etc. The code's already
there: there are handlers for different protocols like irc:, mailto:,
torrent:, etc. Adding handlers via MIME-type would be fine.

As it is, I already don't read much on the Web. The experience has
become crap, even with blocking extensions. More trouble than it's
worth, most of the time. I have better things to do than endlessly tweak
my privacy just so sites don't slurp up all the metadata they can on my
connection. uBO, Privacy Badger, uMatrix, and others are great -- huge
jumps in quality compared to their predecessors -- but the rampant
misuse of the medium leaves me disinterested in the Web.

So few websites these days are designed with graceful degradation in
mind, let alone accessibility. It's all ECMAscript bells and whistles,
web "apps", etc. to the point where you have two systems: your Gentoo
system and your Web browser. I try to reduce complexity where possible,
balanced against safety. That leads me to an upstream who won't screw
with my interface and disrupt the add-on ecosystem because "this is
better for you".

Based on what I've read so far, Moonchild is up front about any
breakage, and warns about unsupported compilers or settings. One of our
regulars (Walter Dnes) helps maintain PM for us, too, so that's even
better. :)

But to be fair, I'll try it out when 57 is released so I have a stronger
opinion. I suspect I will be let down.
</user-hat>
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Danny YUE]

On 2017-09-11 01:19, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 09/07/2017 05:26 AM, Danny YUE wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I have been using FoxyProxy in Firefox for a really long time, until
>> today I found its new version really sucks.
>> 
>> Then I read the comment from author who declared that the old version
>> can *only* be used before (roughly) end of 2017 before Firefox 57 and in
>> new version some features must perish.
>> 
>> Afterwards I found that it seems Firefox 57 will use a new ecosystem for
>> extensions and be more strict for plugin developers.
>> 
>> So Firefox gurus, what do you think about it?
>> 
>> 
>> Danny
>> 
> <user-hat>
> I switched to Pale Moon a while ago, though I suspect fewer and fewer
> mainstream sites will work with it as devs will begin requiring features
> enabled in newer Firefox and Chrome (e.g. WebRTC, EME, localStorage,
> etc). GitHub has already dropped support for Pale Moon, despite PM
> supporting just about everything GitHub makes use of.
>
> Losing XUL may be great from a security standpoint, but the feature-set
> is lacking, it negatively impacts performance (no cache sharing,
> blockers can't block correctly without a full render prior) and it all
> reeks of a code merge. Why else would Mozilla be putting all this work
> into looking *and* acting like Chrome? This behavior is that of a
> company that is looking to get out of the market. They've already
> abandoned their phone OS and their e-mail/calendar client. Firefox is
> just the final nail in the coffin. Servo isn't up to snuff yet, and the
> power users that gave Firefox its popularity are (like me) disinterested
> in what passes for "modern Web". Many websites are flat-out malicious,
> and more are insecure in general, largely due to feature creep in the
> browser. Without the ability to protect yourself, it becomes a risky
> decision to continue browsing a space filled with surveillance and
> malware. In short, it's a dumpster fire. Like all grim scenarios,
> however, there are sites out there that don't abuse people. But that
> number is dwindling every day.
>
> Aside from that, the hard requirement on PulseAudio is another strike
> against it, and their culture wrt diversity is off-putting. Mozilla
> isn't the Web leader it once was. To its credit, I don't think any
> organization is "leading" the Web well. With the W3C approving DRM as a
> standard in HTTP, it indicates a corporate acquisition of the standards
> body, and it's no longer fit for purpose. We need a browser that is
> opinionated and sticks to the standards that make sense, and hands
> control of media to other programs. That would severely simplify the
> browser, and leverage software that's generally already on a computer.
> Web browsers as they are are fine for netbooks, which have little in the
> way of system software. But for desktop machines, at least, most things
> can be handed to a media player, PDF viewer, etc. The code's already
> there: there are handlers for different protocols like irc:, mailto:,
> torrent:, etc. Adding handlers via MIME-type would be fine.
>
> As it is, I already don't read much on the Web. The experience has
> become crap, even with blocking extensions. More trouble than it's
> worth, most of the time. I have better things to do than endlessly tweak
> my privacy just so sites don't slurp up all the metadata they can on my
> connection. uBO, Privacy Badger, uMatrix, and others are great -- huge
> jumps in quality compared to their predecessors -- but the rampant
> misuse of the medium leaves me disinterested in the Web.
>
> So few websites these days are designed with graceful degradation in
> mind, let alone accessibility. It's all ECMAscript bells and whistles,
> web "apps", etc. to the point where you have two systems: your Gentoo
> system and your Web browser. I try to reduce complexity where possible,
> balanced against safety. That leads me to an upstream who won't screw
> with my interface and disrupt the add-on ecosystem because "this is
> better for you".
>
> Based on what I've read so far, Moonchild is up front about any
> breakage, and warns about unsupported compilers or settings. One of our
> regulars (Walter Dnes) helps maintain PM for us, too, so that's even
> better. :)
>
> But to be fair, I'll try it out when 57 is released so I have a stronger
> opinion. I suspect I will be let down.
> </user-hat>

Such a long response, thank you Daniel.

I don't know if adding DRM into HTTP protocol is a good idea.
Maybe it does help reduce spreading of pirate, but HTTP then somehow
works beyond "transfer".

Personally speaking, I prefer to be able to pick software in a grand
market, instead of integrate everything into one big monster with
security/privacy holes.

I would like to try 57 also (with old Firefox profile backup).


Danny

Re: [gentoo-user] What do you think about Firefox 57?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 06:19:55PM -0700, Daniel Campbell wrote
> 
> Based on what I've read so far, Moonchild is up front about any
> breakage, and warns about unsupported compilers or settings. One of our
> regulars (Walter Dnes) helps maintain PM for us, too, so that's even
> better. :)

  A bit of clarification; I'm not a programmer/developer.  I volunteer
to do a couple of niche builds.

* the SSE-only linux build for Pentium-3-class machines
* the 32-bit linux "unstable" build

  I have a few desktops and laptops at home.  I wanted maximum optimized
manual builds for my machines.  I set up separate working directories
for each machine, with symlinks to the same source directory.  The build
script was the same, so it was also a symlink.  The only differences
were the mozconfig files, and a small "customize" include file.  From
there, it's a minor incremental effort to add another directory or two.
The major part of the effort was setting up a CentOS 6.5 chroot to match
the build environment for the mainstream linux build.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications