Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Partners Up With LG To Combat Apple and Google
MrSeb writes "At Mobile World Congress, which begins in three days, Mozilla will finally take the wraps off the Mozilla Marketplace and allow developers to submit their open web technology (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS) apps. While the Marketplace will play an important role in keeping Firefox in step with Chrome, these apps will actually play a far more important role: Boot to Gecko (B2G), Mozilla's upcoming smartphone and tablet OS, will also use the Marketplace. For B2G to succeed it must have apps, and to create apps you need developers. That's why, at MWC, according to a source close to the matter, Mozilla will also be announcing that it has partnered up with LG to make a developer-oriented B2G-powered mobile device. Even more interestingly, Brendan Eich, Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer, says that it will unveil other partners at MWC as well — probably carriers, who are eager to use the open B2G and its Marketplace to escape the huge control that Apple and Google currently exert in the smartphone space."
Dear Mozilla,
I have been a tester from mozilla M18.
I hope this is true opensource and a good product.
Sincerely,
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
probably carriers, who are eager to use the open B2G and its Marketplace to escape the huge control that Apple and Google currently exert
I suspect B2G comes somewhere behind WebOS and possibly even Windows Phone 7 and whatever the Linux flavor is called these days (not Meego, the other one(?) that came after it) in degree of carrier eagerness. If carriers are rushing to escape Apple and Google then they do have choices.
How would one make a barcode scanner application for this platform? I was under the impression that web browsers had no standardized, widely implemented way to (ask for the user's permission to) read from the camera and microphone (if any) connected to a device.
Come to think of it, the 'LG XULRunner' would actually be a better-than-average name for a cellphone...
If LG is doing it, the point is to stick it to Samsung. Those companies hate each other even more than Apple hated Microsoft in the 1990s...
I think a company announcing they're NOT doing a marketplace would probably get bigger headlines these days.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I just wish I could open up a wormhole, and send this headline to the version of myself who existed 10 years ago. That would be one confused sonofa...
Free unix account: freeshell.org
As anyone who has ever hosted their own extensions knows, you can forget about self-hosting once there is an "app store". Great. You can still host your own software, but nobody's going to find it, and if you want to be found, you have to accept the middleman. This is a game that I won't play. Fuck the middleman.
How is something like B2G going to be both FOSS and yet prevent OEMs from modifying the hell out of it so it's inconsistent and incompatible with other B2G devices a la various Android?
Give me a call when Chrome has NoScript and isn't developed by a company that has grown notorious for its privacy issues, user web tracking, and targeted ads.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Firefox crashes too often. Each release fixes a stunningly large number of bugs. But as stability doesn't noticeably improve, each release must be introducing a comparably large number of bugs.
I used to beta test Mozilla back in the early days when nobody else use it. It is kind of discouraging that it is still the most unstable app I use, all these years later.
same here, but then I switched back sometime around FF10. Much happier with it than back in the 3.x days. I now go back and forth without much concern.
Mozilla has found another source of income in addition to Google. With LG's money, Mozilla will be able to add features that counter Chrome's increased share in the browser marketplace. I assume FirefoxOS will counter ChromeOS and webOS more than Android and iOS.
Wether or not this adversely affects Mozilla's ability to increase user satisfaction with FireFox being used as a browser remains to be seen. I hope and wish them the best, but am concerned that they will lose focus on their core product which should be a web browser people would actually like to use (or in my case continue to use).
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
If B2G is as slow and has the memory leaks of Firefox, I don't think I'd want to develop for it. Right now, it often requires 1GB of RAM dedicated to Firefox with Firebug running -- and that with only one page open! Imagine what will happen when you have your app running for a significant period what that would do to the device along with other programs running in the background.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
Windows Phone 7 is peering through a window to watch the fight, eyes welling with tears.
Well, ever since FF10 it keeps crashing constantly. So now im switching to Opera.
Your tablet will be out of date
http://saveie6.com/
Does it still freezes up every few seconds? I know it uses less resources.
Even IE 8 is feels faster and more responsive than FF 3.6. FF had some bad releases
http://saveie6.com/
NoScript is not that big of a deal as it once was. It was mainly used for XSS filtering and cross domain scripting protection. All the major browsers do this by default now in their javacript engines and security features without it.
I used to install NoScript and simply disabled it, which left it open to run AJAX but blocked global cross domain scripting. Now I do not need to do this.
http://saveie6.com/
Could be time to switch back for the same reasons.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/macbook-air-chrome-16-firefox-9-benchmark,3108-18.html
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
uhhh, I don't like Microsoft's practices either, but WP7/8 look nothing like they copied anything out of anyone's software... I've never see the Metro UI anywhere else. As for gnome, you might have a fighting chance at that... but then again, how else do you propose to have a task switcher? All the common ideas have been implemented by the big two desktop OSes
YO DAWG, I herd you like apps, so we put a marketplace in yo app so you can use apps in yo app!
LG? I've owned LG phones in the past. While they were inexpensive, they were the cheapest (quality wise) phones I've ever owned, and simultaneously lacked features common on competing products. Mozilla could have made a better choice by going with pretty much any other company.
That sounds like your personal experience which isn't a reflection of the general NoScript user. I never used it exclusively for XSS filtering. Yes, it was a major bullet point, but lets not pigeonhole it into being the only relevant feature just because you're a Chrome fanboy trying to justify your decision (at least that's how your post comes across to me).
The 3.x days? You mean last year? (Seriously, 4.0 was only released in March 2011.)
I hope it makes sense and is well done. I guess the sign of it becoming real is when google applauds it at the same time as apple/microsoft sue Mozilla. So, 6 months? Again, how it is designed is going to be important. Anyone can clone the whole smartphone layout as it exists but they're going to need to do something *different* for it to be worthwhile.
I should also point out that apple and google are considered competition, but Microsoft is not (as microsoft is not relevant in the smartphone market). Quite a telling point.
B2G is just ane of the attempts at creating a "web" OS, or actually an environment for which applications can be written in HTML/JS.
We already had HP WebOS, Blackberry WebWorks, JIL, BONDI, ChromeOS, PhoneGap, Appcelerator, WAC and finally Tizen.
Nothing new here. Move along.
"Give me a call when Chrome has NoScript and isn't developed by a company that has grown notorious for its privacy issues"
What privacy issues? Seriously, be specific. This meme of Google-evil-privacy-invader has grown up, but without any real substance. I think it's the result of a very successful FUD campaign because when I look for actual problems there's not much there.
I can think of two real privacy issues Google has had. The logging of packet content during Wifi scanning, and the Buzz decision to automatically connect people to others in their contacts. Those two mistakes were serious, but they hardly show a pattern.
There have also been lots of complaints about the StreetView cameras, but it's pretty well-established that what can be seen from public roads is not private. Google goes beyond the legal requirements by blurring faces, license plate numbers and other items that could potentially raise privacy concerns.
What else? Anything?
Um, am I right in thinking this will give carriers more control over my phone?
From TFA, "Basically, Apple and Google have so much control over the smartphone landscape that carriers have effectively become nothing more than retailers. Worse than that, their infrastructures have been reduced to that of a dumb pipe, where it is Apple and Google who ultimately decide how the network will be used."
I don't know about other countries, but the last thing I would ever do in the US is give a mobile carrier more control over my phone. It that is the case, I'll pass.
Not as often as your grammar checker does.
I want this account deleted.
No doubt. I would switch in a second if it wasn't for that. Firefox is so tedious though. It crashes once a day on my computer (apparently it's some problem specific to this type of laptop graphics card driver on Windows 7). Nonetheless all the other browsers seem to work without crashing...
It's cute to watch a certain type of geek when he's delusional enough to think that a plan such as this will work. They don't understand the way business incentives actually work, which makes it even funnier when their predictions don't come true. ;-)
NoScript and AdBlock have been available forever for Chrome. If you don't trust Google free free to use Chromium (as I do), the fully open source version. It turns out Google doesn't care about people who care about their privacy because there aren't enough of us to matter to their bottom line.
When did you last use FF ? v3.5 ?
I use both right now, on win7, Linux Mint and CrunchBang. My FF always has 20-30 tabs opened, it's my main browser, I only use Chrome when have no browser opened and I don't want to wait for FF to start with my 30 opened tabs.
Based on my experience, FF 10 isn't bloated at all. It's as fast as Chrome and has way more useful plugins.
On an unrelated note I trust mozilla a gazillion times more than I trust google.
Yes because One year is such a short time in software developement nowadays...
Mozilla claims that they are 'the good guys' because they promote an 'open' Web, versus Apple and Google's 'closed' Web.
First of all, I'm sick of this 'open Web vs walled gardens' argument. The important thing is the Internet, not the Web. As long as we have interconnected networks, everybody can use them for whatever they like, be it the HTTP protocol or some other alternative.
Second, the usability of the web apps simply sucks, because the web wasn't designed for them. I prefer an app with an interface that takes all the advantages that the hardware offers, although it lives in a walled garden.
they hacked my safari to steal my data against my explicit decisions for them not to do so.
IE9 is awesome. on par with the other browsers.
Look LG & Moz aren't doing this to fight some evil in the world. They are doing this because they have a product (and/or services) they want to sell. I am not saying this isn't a good thing, but this is good old fashioned competition, not a holy quest.
What do you know I wrote a novel
Isn't everything about mobile phones patented? How is Mozilla planning to survive the lawsuits?
Will it also save you 15% on your car insurance?
I accidentely modded you down...
In browser time yes. Remember how IE 9 was competitive and was the fastest browser under any benchmark except Google's V8 javascript one?
Now it is slow and only half as fast as Chrome and FF. FF realized this and would be killed as users would look at the html 5 spec support and benchmarks and within weeks would be behind the competition again.
FF 3.6 really is slow. I fired it up last week and the scrolling up and down was glacial compared to the more modern browsers. Google Maps were painfull too
http://saveie6.com/
Don't get me wrong. Microsoft and Nokia advertise the hell out of it and are doing whatever they can to sell it. But, as an iPad to Windows 8 tablet convert for the past 3 months, I have to say that if Microsoft does get Windows 8 Phone up and running on an x86 platform with moderate battery life, I'll consider dumping iPhone as well. See, on my Windows 8 tablet, I run iTunes desktop which lets me keep all my music, movies and videos. I have apps like TomTom for U.S. and Western Europe which were big investments I'll need an iPhone for, but the rest of the apps were a buck or two and most of the ones I actually use are free. So, I really think I'd be happier with a Windows 8 Phone than a iPhone if the Windows 8 Phone is like the Windows 8 tablet which gives me the ability to plug it into a screen and keyboard and use it as a PC as well.
I'm looking forward to a time when I can have the power of a dual core Sandy Bridge Core i5 as a telephone running Windows 8 with the phone interface when I carry it and the desktop interface when it's docked. A single device to do everything. Then I can have some sort of laptoppish dock for when I need a desktop on the road. This way, I can find a dock with the perfect screen and perfect keyboard and then find a PC/Phone with the perfect specs and only upgrade one or the other when I find something much better.
I type this now from an AWESOME Asus N53SV notebook with a Core i7, 16 Gigs of RAM and dual 400GB 525/500 MB/sec SSDs... it has the worst keyboard and trackpad EVER!!!! though. I would love to buy the ultimate keyboard and screen dock... use it until I'm 150 years old and then just upgrade the computer part which would effectively be my phone as well.
So... bash Windows Phone all you want.... but the way things are going, Windows 8 Phone will almost certainly be the first truly converged device operating system. Able to run Windows Metro, Windows Desktop, Android, etc... apps. Able to run practically every program made since 1978. Able to work on phone, tablet, laptop, desktop and TV all equally well. Etc... Sure, it could end up being a niche, but I'm pretty sure that this is what people will demand in the years to come.
LG is what you buy when you desperately need a phone while your real phone is in for repair.
I have heard of old people and REALLY poor people using LG phones because they're cheap. The old people don't want the gadget phones and LG makes some with big buttons. The poor people just want a phone and you couldn't just reach into the telephone recycling boxes in the past, so you bought an LG.
It's been a shit idea for the past 12 years. I was demoing products like this back at CeBit 2000 with Ericsson. It was a bad idea back then, it's a slightly less bad idea today.
I have a Samsung Series 7 Slate and I can run IE, Opera, Chrome, Safari and that one from the guys who rewrote Netscape's old crap... can't remember their name since they died so long ago.
How about a device which runs them all and if you need one, run that one. If you need another, run the other instead.
Oh.... sorry. Forgot, these days we're support to have some sort of compatibility between browsers by using standards and stuff. But still.. my tablet run Windows, Linux, Android, Mac OS X or a pile of other operating systems. Choice is nice.
It's not about the only browser without a tablet presence trying to get a tablet presence by latching onto the last major electronics company to not have a tablet strategy?
You're saying they have a product. I see it more as not having a product and slapping some shit together hoping what they poop out will become a product.
My FF always has 20-30 tabs opened
What size and resolution is (are) your monitor(s)? Is it usable, or do you have to [ctrl]+[tab] between all your tabs so much that by the time you get the tab you want, the day is over?
Besides this, I HAVE TO use FF10 for work, and it is a pity to start it up in the morning. Takes so long that I have time to grab a coffee. Otherwise, it's pretty fast for browsing once it's started.
I use it to block facebook and google analytics javascripts as well.
From what I heard from other posts, this isn't an uncommon usage.
I'm a browser whore...I bounce from Firefox, into Chrome, over to Opera, and maybe a little IE if I'm feeling like I need something to fail. IE and Firefox are the worst, with Chrome in the middle and Opera at a solid #1. Opera is a like a red-headed step child (whatever that is). It works VERY well, has no memory leaks, no perceivable bloat, completely compliant (never had any issues) and it just works. Yet no one will use it because "it isn't very popular." Best excuse I've heard. Not like it matters, as a tool it renders the internet perfectly. I use Firefox for development work and as a second browser (I usually have two open to segregate tasks beyond tabbing). I use Opera as my private browser. IE is just there, because..... it is just there. It is more of a curiosity anymore.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Dude, you need grouped, colored tabs on the side instead of the top. Like the parent, I always have 20+ tabs open, often peaking at 80+ when doing research. (E.g. open children from a search - those tabs now in a collapsible group. repeat.) And yes, I ctrl+tab a lot for switching back and forth between a small subset of tabs.
Use this for 3.6.x : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-kit/
This for 4.x+ : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabkit-2nd-edition/ (not nearly as feature complete)
[FF10 startup] takes so long that I have time to grab a coffee
I'm sorry if you have that slow of a work desktop. Every advanced user needs at least 2 monitors and a decent box, if they want to be productive on the computer.
My current instance of 3.6 has been running for about 2 weeks. Using 500G resident, while the plugin-container is using 900M resident. I restart FF every few weeks to wipe flash cookies and reduce memory.
ScriptNo extension.
Jesus dude, welcome to 2010.
No problem.
Seriously, no problem - I've called Doctor Who, and I'll be going back in time to a point when Mozilla was able to create a browser that doesn't completely fucking suck in every way.
I'll be calling you in a few years, err, a few years ago; how does this time travel thing work? Whatever - Firebird, here I come!
Under that definition of "real time", I'd argue that "real time" performance isn't needed for the intended use. You don't need to analyze 20+ frames per second because the image from a handheld camera pointed directly at a barcode isn't going to be changing that fast. It's not like you're scanning strobe-lit products going down a high-speed conveyor. I think ZXing does a quick pass looking for the big black boxes in concentric rings at the corners of the QR code and processes the image further (possibly taking half a second or so) once it finds them.
That's genius right there. A shame you didn't sign that one.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If loading many tabs on startup is a burden, make sure to defer loading of tabs until they're selected.
Options -> General -> "Don't load tabs until selected" (checkbox)
Apparently you can't be touched by irony and/or you don't like making sense.
I meant to say (to be clear) that 12 months is a very long time considering how fast browser tech advances nowadays, which you seemed to disagree with, but you provided a example that was 100% backing my view.
So Again : FF 3.6 OLD SLOW BAD. FF10 NEW FAST GOOD. Got it ?
On my laptop (Core 2 duo P8600, 2GB RAM, aka crap) FF10 with a fresh session (0 tabs) opens in a little under 2.5 seconds under win7.
So either you run pretty fast, or your PC is full of bloatware/very slow.
Then again that would be so surprising, the same laptop boots to CATIA V5 in less than 10 seconds, but it takes my university's Quad Core XEON with 16GB RAM over a minute to start the same application.
Also to consider, when you see the desktop screen of win7, the boot process isn't complete, so it's no freaking use clicking on FF 10 icon, because there are 20 processes running in the background.
I love you.
they hacked my safari to steal my data against my explicit decisions for them not to do so.
Google "hacked" Safari? I'm intrigued. Please explain.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
you asked for examples of goog privacy violations. there you go. my safari was set (by me) for a specific privacy setting, but goog exploited HTML hacks to get around this setting.
you asked for examples of goog privacy violations. there you go. my safari was set (by me) for a specific privacy setting, but goog exploited HTML hacks to get around this setting.
Can you explain in more detail what exactly Google did?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
lmgtfy http://bit.ly/AwgQMK
Dude, stop posting in every Google story trying to defend them. Google fucked up with the Safari thing. Otherwise management wouldn't have asked for an emergency frontend push to disable the 'feature'. Are you really that thick or you're just so brainwashed that cannot accept the fact that Google screws up from time to time.
--
I care about my privacy, so I NEVER use any Google products.
lmgtfy http://bit.ly/AwgQMK
I knew what you were referring to... my suspicion is that you don't.
Were you logged into a Google account? Because if you weren't, then Google didn't do anything.
If you were, then Google worked around the Safari restriction to show you what you had asked to be shown. The degree of "invasion of privacy" is really debatable here. You had basically expressed two opposing requests, one to Safari and one to Google. Google fulfilled your request to Google in spite of the fact that you'd given opposite information to Safari. And what Google actually did was to (a) enable "+1" button to work and (b) personalize the ads shown to you.
Also, it's worth pointing out that Google has now stopped this practice -- but Facebook continues. Not that being better than Facebook on privacy is anything to be proud of, but it does show that Google tries to do the right thing. Facebook had long made a practice of working around these sorts of browser privacy settings in order to make the ubiquitous "Like" buttons work. I'm sure some Google engineers figured that wasn't unreasonable so that the "+1" buttons could work, and also figured that nobody must mind because no one had ever called Facebook on it. When called on it, Google stopped, though.
In any case, I agree with the AC at the top of this thread... if this is the extent of Google's "pattern of privacy abuse", someone's FUD machine has been extraordinarily effective.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You had basically expressed two opposing requests, one to Safari and one to Google. Google fulfilled your request to Google in spite of the fact that you'd given opposite information to Safari.
this is the best summary I've read of the issue to date. Two conflicting requests. However, given two conflicting requests, wouldn't the appropriate thing to do be respect the most conservative / privacy request? second most appropriate, pop up a prompt saying that you need to change the safari settings to get the full google experience. I'm sure we could think of many possible approaches to this conflict. But the very bottom of the barrel is for goog to secretly override the safari settings without informing the user. this is why it's shady at best. I would expect it more from warez.ru not google.com.
I agree that given conflicting requests, the best thing to do is to respect the most conservative. Even better would be to find some way to highlight to the user that Google's +1 button isn't going to work properly on various sites because of the Safari privacy setting so the user understands the nature of their choice and can make an appropriate decision.
I think this situation was the result of a decision to follow the lead of Facebook, which is clearly not what Google should be doing, but it's somewhat understandable because respecting the privacy decision means that on many sites for users of Safari the Facebook "Like" button works while the Google+ "+1" button does not. Anyway, I agree that the choice was wrong, but I can understand the competitive motivation, and it's hard to classify really as "privacy invasion", even though it technically is overriding of a user's privacy selection.
The "+1" button actually could be made to work even with the privacy setting in place, but it will require sites that host the button to implement some server-side code, so the Javascript can send requests to the hosting site, which will then forward the requests back to Google. But that's a sufficiently-large burden that few sites will be willing to do it. They're willing to host "+1" buttons because it adds some value to their users and costs them nothing more than adding a small snippet of HTML. But they're not going to be willing to modify their server-side code.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Nobody gives a shit about your opinion, hunting asshole. Fuck you and the fucking assholes you work for!