Slashdot Mirror
Fear of Porn URL Exposure Discourages Firefox 3 Upgrade
Barence writes "Mozilla's Security team has disclosed a very interesting piece of research which suggests people refused to upgrade to Firefox 3 because they were afraid the browser would expose their porn collection. Mozilla's research found that the number one reason for not upgrading was the new location bar, and the fact that it delved into people's bookmark collections to suggest sites as they typed. 'When we expanded the capabilities of the location bar to search against all history and bookmarks in Firefox 3, a lot of people contacted us to say that they had certain bookmarks they didn't really want to have displayed,' Firefox's principal designer, Alex Faaborg, tactfully explains. 'In some cases users had intentionally hidden these bookmarks in deep hierarchies of folders, somewhat similar to how one might hide a physical object.'"
Then making it a configurable option: Enable/disable. Or am I missing something?
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
As time goes on, will we learn to be more circumspect, or will society change to accept that people are not perfect?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
That would certainly be a problem, but I think for most people porn and work are kept separate and yet they still have those concerns:
1. Maybe you don't want your wife and kids to have porn urls popping up on the browser
2. Maybe you don't want slashdot popping up at work, thereby allowing them to realize that it's not blocked like every other site.
Use different browsers for different purposes.
For example, use Google Chrome for your porn browsing, and then Firefox for your legit browsing.
In other words... Don't cross the streams!!
Translation: People who typed "en." to bring up the last few times they'd visited en.wikipedia.org, "fi" to bring up the last few times they'd visited "finance.google.com", or "fa" for either "fark.com" or "failblog.org", were sick and tired of having to deal with "English, ASCII, and Unicode", "How to manage a thousand Files of data", and "The Awfulbar is a Failure because it mixes URLs, "TITLE" fields in bookmarks and TITLE headers all into one giant mishmash of UI hell."
It's got nothing to do with pr0n, it's got everything to do with the fact that some people want a URL bar to act as a Bar with URLs, and the Firefox Design Team wants the "Location" bar to deal with "everything you ever visited, ever, with ever-changing menus".
What's the first thing experienced Windows users do when they sit down in front of a new machine? They turn off the "Disable infrequently-used menu options" option in the Start Menu, and again in all of the MS Office apps.
Software that automatically changes menus or frequently-used options around as a "favor" to the user was bad UI practice five years ago in Windows and Office, and it's bad UI practice today in Firefox. Unfortunately, it's such a clever bad idea that it'll never go away.
Oh stop with the morals and ethics stuff. I should be able to do whatever I want to do, regardless of what I promised or said I'd do or what is good for my relationships with other people or what is good for other people. And, by the way, all this corporate and political corruption is really getting on my nerves, why can't they be good, ethical, moral, scientific, non-hypocritical promise-keeping citizens like me?
[/sarcasm]
forget porn, the last thing I need is my boss over my shoulder instructing me to type in a link and my prevalent searches of hot jobs, career builder and our competitor sites career section to pop up.
Wrong. Maybe you just need a wife who is into porn as well. Having a healthy sex drive is not a fault.
Maybe you don't want your wife and kids to have porn urls popping up on the browser
Maybe if you're married & have children you shouldn't be looking at porn, then you wouldn't have that problem...
Hah, are you kidding me!? I date girls that don't care if I look at porn because they like it too, and I'm not gonna marry anyone so prudish that she cares, because it's just porn! My only concern would be my kids finding it, but really I'd just have my own user account or my own computer so it wouldn't be a big deal.
You seriously are ridiculous if you think that being married means you can't enjoy porn, with or without your wife.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Yeah, but Chrome doesn't even have Print Preview
At least IE has some nice page formatting options.
Is watching others have sex instead of having sex with your spouse healthy?
I don't know about "healthy", but a bottle of wine and some porn can often lead to "sex with your spouse", quite the opposite of what you imply.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
My experience says that it's the female sex drive that ceases.
Besides, I don't see an issue: I have my account on the computer, she has hers.... She doesn't know my password. I surf anything I want and she won't know.
Every user on a computer should have their own account... no excuses...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Two words: "Guest Account"
I do not get this, in the day and age of computers that are finally pretty much all multi-user capable... nobody uses it.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
where's the porn-block extension for autocomplete? Can we get a system that ties into one of those child protecting porn blockers but instead of blocking the content, it just hides it (no history, autocomplete, etc)? Who wants to switch to private browsing mode everytime a questionable link catches your eye and you think it might be time for a little R&R...lets put these content filters to work for us!
Bottles.
It's got everything to do with the fact that some people want a URL bar to act as a Bar with URLs, and the Firefox Design Team wants the "Location" bar to deal with "everything you ever visited, ever, with ever-changing menus".
Amen, brother.
I didn't install Firefox 3 until there was a plugin to kill the Awesomebar. It really was a dealbreaker for me.
I hate UIs that try to be helpful but end up distracting or otherwise messing up a clean interface.
The old Google autocomplete was a great example of this - it'd type directly into the search bar while you typed in your search term, which means that if you typoed and needed to delete the last key entered, you'd delete the autocomplete instead, which broke, you know, typing. It was also distracting seeing text appear where you're typing, not only because it was constantly flashing words before your eyes, but also because if you're a touch typist you use the text up there to make sure you haven't typoed, and seeing an 'f' appear on the screen when you're about to type an 'm' triggers that correction reflex.
The current design is much better, with the dropdown box at least off to the side while you type in your search term.
My wife and I are 41 and 43. That "old fart" stigma is not related to age but to how far a stick is up their rectum.
Naked bodies are not "dirty" sex is not "dirty" Those that believe it is have a serious emotional problem or physiological disorder. and yes I know this goes against the grain of the Puritanical popular stance that has overtaken the United states.
Who cares, My wife and I have sex with the windows open in the summer when it's a nice night out, and she is one hell of a screamer.
I can watch a movie where someone gruesomely tortures people to death in a public theater, but god forbid should we watch two people love each other in a sexual moment.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That would certainly be a problem, but I think for most people porn and work are kept separate and yet they still have those concerns
For the most part I'd agree. I know personally that though I surf a decent amount of porn, and I surf a lot of "non work related" sites at work (gotta break up the monotony somehow), I know very well not to touch porn sites with a 10 foot firewall when at work. It's just not something a smart person does. They'll forgive you for playing solitaire at work. They'll forgive you for Slashdot. They'll even forgive you for Myspace. You get caught surfing porn at work though and 99% of the time you're gone, no questions asked. Still, every so often we'll catch some idiot doing it, much to my amazement.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Trust issues much? I haven't used a non-shared password on a home computer since I left a dorm. My wife knows every password I have, and so do some trusted friends.
The old adage that social engineering is the best security hole in the world goes both ways; a little bit of trust is a hell of a lot better than a lifetime of looking over your shoulder. If you're afraid of your wife seeing things, maybe you should (a) not do those things, or (b) talk to your wife about why you think it shouldn't be a problem, or (c) remain single. Hiding shit is not a good long-term plan.
I saw quite a few complaints about this behavior early on. The response was essentially that's tough, take it or leave it. Apparently a number of users left it.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
So if someone snoops around in your browser, they would see an addon called "HistoryBlock" which contains a list of all the sites you didn't want them to know you visit.
Classic.
For all you people who would usually just take offense to his question, instead show him proof that pornography is not an unhealthy addition to a relationship.
Is there any evidence that it is? Aside from the morality brigade, that is.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"