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Mozilla Is Working On a Firefox OS-powered Streaming Stick

Posted by Soulskill on from the casting-video-is-finally-arriving dept.

SmartAboutThings writes: Mozilla took the world by surprise when it announced that it was developing a Firefox operating system that would be used for mobile phones, particularly in developing markets. Such devices have already arrived, but they aren't the only targets for the new operating. According to a report from GigaOM, Mozilla is currently working on a secretive project to develop a Chromecast-like media streaming stick powered by Firefox-OS. Mozilla's Christian Heilmann shared a picture of a prototype.

89 comments

  1. Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This "I wanna be like Chome!!!" is getting out of hand.

    1. Re:Chromecast-like? by NotInHere · · Score: 0

      They should copy other stuff first, for example the multiprocess design. Why does Electrolysis have such a slow roadmap?

    2. Re:Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      >Why does Electrolysis have such a slow roadmap?

      Because you have to do it one follicle at a time.

    3. Re: Chromecast-like? by Champion3 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because those other browsers didn't have a huge extension ecosystem to contend with. Are you going to go and tell every extension author, big or small, new or old, maintained or not, that they need to rewrite their add on to work with electrolysis? No, you have to make e10s seamlessly compatible with the legacy, single-threaded APIs that those extensions use. That's hard.

      --
      I'm going to the casino. Don't gamble.
    4. Re: Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they should have polled their user base.

      I hope the people using these legacy extensions pay mozilla enough to make *those users* their highest priority.

    5. Re:Chromecast-like? by davester666 · · Score: 1

      It's probably going to be a Steaming Stick...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    6. Re:Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, but you're AC so no points for you!

    7. Re: Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Mozilla has NEVER released an update that breaks extensions.

      Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

      The real reason they don't is because it's hard and it's not fun. Hard stuff that isn't fun doesn't get done by volunteers.

    8. Re: Chromecast-like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla is all corporate now with a board of directors. They aren't the old grassroots new-browser movement they were before, and they are getting paid to be a part of the project. Time to work on things whether they want to or not -- because it's their job, like the rest of us.

  2. Mozilla doesn't build hardware by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mozilla doesn't build hardware. We make software, including Firefox OS. Firefox OS is a completely open platform freely available for any company to build on top of without restriction. There are dozens of companies building Firefox OS-based products today and there will be more tomorrow, covering mobile phones, tablets, TVs, set top boxes, game consoles, streaming dongles, wearables, and more. Some of those companies are working directly with Mozilla and others are taking the code and running with it on their own.

    1. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by rubycodez · · Score: 0

      and google doesn't make google glass or chromebooks

    2. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by asa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your attempt to confuse here isn't really helpful.

      Google does *sell* Google Glass and Nexus phones and tablets and Chromecast and Nest and soon Dropcams and probably more. They are "Google products" branded and sold by Google as theirs.

      Mozilla only has one device that it works on directly, the Firefox OS Flame reference phone. The rest of the hardware you see out there is being made and sold by someone else.

      And that's not just true of the hardware. Much of the work going on to extend Firefox OS software into areas outside of phones is being done by third parties for their products.

    3. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      point missed by such a wide margin lol, did you actually read the comment?

    4. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While we've got you here, when are you going to fix Firefox so it works like Firefox again? I'm moving all my customers to Pale Moon because FF 29 really ruined Firefox.

    5. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're an idiot. Please sit down and shut up.

    6. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla doesn't build hardware.

      Could have fooled me. My new experimental OS that runs as a VM in x86, x86-64, ARM or ASM.js thinks Firefox is an input and display server, with a segmented multi-thread model, geared around ArrayBuffer message passing.

      Mozilla might as well make hardware, browsers are simply the platform for the next wave of applications to leverage. Hell, some some zany fools are even compileling into Firefox's ASM.js from C. You make virtual hardware. Keep mutating it like crazy though, letting Emscripten idiots define your standard (instead of having multiple heaps acceessible from one context, come the fuck on man) instead of thinking things through to be most efficiont (instead of just what Emscripten needs) and you'll go extinct. Get your shit straight, and you'll be the new OS and hardware vendors of the future.

    7. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Elbart · · Score: 1

      The only things missing now are buyers and users.

    8. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Mozilla doesn't build hardware. We make software

      Really? I thought YOU fucked up user interfaces.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    9. Re:Mozilla doesn't build hardware by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Are you smoking something? You appear to be confused about what hardware is and what creating it actually entails from design through to manufacture. Its a *teensy* bit harder and more expensive than writing a VM.

  3. Much needed feature by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Please add an auxiliary audio output that doesn't require HDMI to get audio. TOSLINK or analog left/right, as long as we can route the audio somewhere else than the display itself.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    1. Re: Much needed feature by Trinn · · Score: 2

      I think the answer is obvious from the parent post. Without a dedicated receiver to route signals, hdmi all goes to one place, and many people prefer other speakers than their display has. I should also point out that the digital pcm streams in hdmi are easy to rip if hdcp is not active on the link, so your assumption is off. On the other hand I believe drm schemes only hurt the customer and the artist, only serving to enrich the content distribution cartels.

    2. Re:Much needed feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably the same reason I want that, so I can use extra computer monitors (a 21" 4:3 for example) with an HDMI to DVI adapter, and still be able to hear the audio through a set of speakers.

    3. Re:Much needed feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      google

    4. Re: Much needed feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a decent receiver which handles HDMI, but I ended up putting my Chromecast directly into the TV and using the digital audio out to feed the receiver which as better speakers than the TV. I don't know why the grandparent poster thinks there is a problem. He must have super cheap equipment.

    5. Re: Much needed feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My TV is a computer monitor. No speakers, no audio output. Why pay for a stupid TV if I'm not going to use its decoder box? We're in 2014, streaming is all that matters now. A decent 23" ISP widescreen computer monitor, Apple TV and good headphones is all you need.

    6. Re: Much needed feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does it work when the TV screen is off? Chromecast can stream music as well as video, but it is silly and wasteful to have a big TV screen on when you don't actually need it.

    7. Re: Much needed feature by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I think the answer is obvious from the parent post. Without a dedicated receiver to route signals, hdmi all goes to one place, and many people prefer other speakers than their display has.

      So you use a HDMI receiver or the digital output of your TV or a HDMI splitter with audio-out. That way you dont need audio and video cables running to every device.

    8. Re: Much needed feature by exomondo · · Score: 1

      My TV is a computer monitor. No speakers, no audio output. Why pay for a stupid TV if I'm not going to use its decoder box?

      Because your monitor doesn't have audio output, really the answer is right there just before the question. The decoder is hardly an expensive component.

  4. no need to be secretive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...when you are doing something completely unoriginal.

  5. Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why has Mozilla been doing so much stupid shit lately? They pretty much killed Thunderbird, which was my favorite email client. They've been dumbing down Firefox, too. Now it has a really stupid user interface that I find really difficult to use. Firefox is still really slow and uses a lot of memory compared to Chrome. I don't even know why I still use Firefox. It's probably just because of Firebug. I've only heard very bad reviews of Firefox OS. Everyone who uses it says that the phones suck dink, the OS is really limited and shitty, there are no apps for it, and you're better off using a real mobile OS like iOS or Android. Then there are their other failed projects like that OpenID clone thing that never took off. Then there's that programming language that they're working on. I can't remember the name of it either but now that Apple has announced Swift it sounded like Swift does everything that Mozilla's new language did. Now I learn about this gadget today and I think it's just one more stupid thing that they're wasting their money on. Nobody really wants it and nobody is going to use it because it's probably going to be total shit compared to Chromecast and all the others that are already out there being used. Mozilla needs to stop playing catch up and they need to innovate or something. Just doing what Google or Apple or Microsoft has done, but doing it years later and doing a bad job at it to boot just doesn't make any sense!

    1. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

      thunderbird still around and just going to community development model. or you're going to pay mozilla for the expense of keeping it purely in house? no? you've never contributed to anything? then shut the fuck up.

    2. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by grim4593 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How has Thunderbird been killed? It is a stable mature piece of software. There are very few features that they could add to it without making a bloated piece of software.

    3. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      really slow and uses a lot of memory compared to Chrome

      Not according to benchmarks. Firefox in the last couple of years turned into the least memory intensive browser. And as for speed, well, it's not far behind Chrome, with the added bonus of not being Chrome.

    4. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by colfer · · Score: 2

      TB has some architectural problems and the withdrawal of paid developers by Mozilla makes it unlikely they will be fixed. The problem I ran into is that attachments cannot easily be stored separately from messages. That column showing the attachment count is actually just a guess. The db does not have real info on the MIME situation in messages. All that work is done on the fly whenever you open the message. You can detach the attachments from messages and store them separately, but only by clicking on messages one-by-one. There is an extension that attempts to automate detachment through filters, but it will crash if it encounters too many messages with attachments at one time, since the task is asynch. I confirmed all this with the extension developer - not the crashes, but the architecture and the fact that the db only guesses at the attachment count when you view the message list. Of the 12,000 current extensions, I found two or three that attempted to deal with detachment.

    5. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      There are very few features that they could add to it without making a bloated piece of software.

      Yeah, 'cause if the UI stopped refusing keyboard input while it was indexing a large folder the users would revolt!

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How has Thunderbird been killed?

      I can't point to an exact version or moment in time, but few who use Thunderbird will argue that it didn't start to become increasingly dysfunctional at some point in time over the past few years. Thunderbird manages to crash in weird, unique ways that don't seem to plague other apps. I've had Thunderbird crash my Linux desktop to the point where it couldn't even respond to the "press the power button to hibernate" setting (it goes without saying that the rest of the system was frozen hard). I've had weird crashes under Windows, too (though no locked-hard systemwide freezes), but on Windows, its search capabilities seem to be almost permanently broken and dysfunctional... and have been, for years.

      Thunderbird plugins now break with every new release, and seem to be more brittle than even binary kernel drivers on an Android phone that's been reflashed to a newer version of Android than the manufacturer supports. Apparently, somebody with influence over Thunderbird's architecture made the fucked up decision that instead of trying to maintain a stable API that breaks only for good reason, they'd just indiscriminately break any extension not explicitly compiled for that specific new release (which means that every time Thunderbird updates, the version number changes and every plugin breaks for hours, days, weeks, months, or permanently). The fact that you can hand-hack older extensions so newer versions of Thunderbird can use them is proof that Thunderbird itself is broken, because that logic should be part of Thunderbird... not something users have to put up with to keep it functioning.

      Worst of all... there's no good alternative that isn't at least as dysfunctional as Thunderbird itself... and that includes mighty Microsoft Outlook (which, by intent and design, has completely borked &broken handling of IMAP4 disconnected mode).

      Let's not forget that Thunderbird (and Firefox) have somehow managed to acquire security vulnerabilities that leave users vulnerable to more "drive-by" exploits than any other goddamn mail client or browser in existence (including IE). A decade ago, Moz was the golden example of open-source superiority. At some point about 5 years ago, it totally lost its way. After being forced to reinstall goddamn Windows TWICE due to drive-by zero-day Firefox exploits, I swore off of Firefox (for a few years, at least) and grudgingly went back to IE (keeping Chrome around as a backup, but generally being annoyed by its lack of fine-grained configurability compared to IE and Firefox).

      I wish to god somebody knew what the fuck is now wrong with Thunderbird and Firefox & could fix it. I guess the early 2000s were just the archetypical "golden age" that occurs a few years after some disruptive technology becomes commercially viable, but before the same technology gets pwn3d and hijacked by big corporations that only know how to destroy everything they touch.

    7. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by grim4593 · · Score: 1

      Maybe I am an anomaly but I have not had the issues you describe. Thunderbird doesn't randomly crash for me much less hardlock my computer. My extensions don't break, not that I have many installed. Searching works great for me; I have 8 email accounts set up, most which go back nearly a decade and I can easily search for what I need without much of a delay (I have a SSD).

    8. Re:Why so much stupid shit, Mozilla? by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      Contact syncing? (eg: CardDav). That's been on their plate for years, and it's a pretty important feature nowadays that we have stuff like smartphone which we want to keep in sync.

      There's a few other critical features/issues still open which never got the attention they deserved.

  6. What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by mmell · · Score: 2
    Sorry - my hearing's shot. A couple years in the field artillery will do that to ya!

    Mozilla should go back to doing what they have always done best - annoying the shit out of Microsoft in the browser wars.

    1. Re:What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla should go back to doing what they have always done best - annoying the shit out of Microsoft in the browser wars.

      Microsoft's very much an also-ran at this point. Google's a much bigger problem; they're not nearly as bad as MS was (and still is), but that doesn't mean their only desire is to empower users. They may not hate software freedom, privacy, web standards etc., but they seem them as tools to achieve their goals, nothing more.

      Also, tomorrow's browser wars will be (and, arguably, today's browser wars are) being fought on mobile devices. Many people are already accessing the web on phones, phablets, tablets etc. And many people, especially in the developing world, do not even have any other devices - certainly not actual computers.

      What Mozilla is doing is making perfect sense.

    2. Re:What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a true idiot. Please sit down and shut up.

    3. Re:What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was this intended as a reply to some other comment? Because if not, then it sounds like you should be saying that to yourself first before you say it to others.

    4. Re:What was that, "Steaming Brick"? by CongoMongo · · Score: 1

      Hey, it's easy enough to misclick. ;)

  7. I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

    This is a fantastic idea. One that fits with what Mozilla does already. The perfect expansion of their work: 64 bit Firefox.

    Yeah, I know it's radical. And maybe they will struggle at first. But who knows, maybe they will succeed where so many other browser vendors have failed.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    1. Re:I've got a great idea! by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Firefox already is 64-bit and has been for quite a while.

      Just, not on Windows. I think their excuse was something to do with third party plugins not being 64-bit. (Although I'm pretty sure they have a 32-bit plugin shim that works on Linux and Mac OS X, so whatever.)

      I don't really care, though, since Firefox 30 entirely broke Firefox with the proxy where I work. Now I can't access outside sites at all due to OCSP errors and I can't access internal sites since they removed NTLMv1 support as a "security hole."

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      You hear that whooshing sound? Coming from somewhere over your head? Don't bother looking up. I'm well aware of waterfox and 64 bit nightlies.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    3. Re:I've got a great idea! by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      Why are you using "Waterfox" and 64 bit nightlies? The official Firefox builds themselves have been 64 bit for several years now.

      Assuming you're using Mac OS X or 64-bit Linux. It's just Windows that doesn't have a 64-bit Firefox for some dumb, poorly explained reason. (Keep in mind that 64-bit Firefox on Mac OS X managed to support 32-bit plugins, so it's not that. Clearly they can manage.)

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Assuming you're using Mac OS X or 64-bit Linux. It's just Windows that doesn't have a 64-bit Firefox for some dumb, poorly explained reason.

      Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

      My job requires specialized software that only runs on windows. And truthfully, the 32 bit version of Firefox works fine. But as you put it, it's dumb and poorly explained.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    5. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If all you whiners would just read the bug tracker you'd be able to see right away what the reasons are: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...

    6. Re:I've got a great idea! by Tridus · · Score: 1

      It'll be coming real soon now. Chrome just came out with a 64 bit version, and the Mozilla policy is pretty much "copy anything Chrome does."

      So, no worries!

      --
      -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    7. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      Mac OS supports shipping both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries in a single executable. That's what Firefox on Mac does.

      That _is_ a viable solution on Windows, albeit with multiple executables, but it about doubles the size of the download. Unfortunately, Windows users are very sensitive to the download size for their web browsers; past experiments have shown uptake dropping rapidly as the download size increases.

    8. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love it when Firefox users say this, because the more you say it the less people want to use Firefox. It won't be long now before Firefox implodes entirely because its fanbase would rather be counter-productively snarky than actually help Mozilla out. In the meantime, no other browser vendor has a large contingent of users who openly mock and ridicule their favorite browser. Even Opera gets more love from its fanbase post-Chromium-revamp than Firefox does. It's almost purely negative snark now, just like Explorer back in the day. And Mozilla deserves that for catering to such a mediocre fanbase for far too long.

    9. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if they'd go back to the 4.0 UI and stop making stupid changes that bloat the browser with features no one wants (location bar bullshit) and leave unpopular addons as addons (tab candy, sync). People wouldn't bitch so much. Maybe if they'd fix their stupid shitty single threaded execution so a tab can't freeze the rest of the browser, people would like it. Maybe if, instead of adopting every change google makes in an effort to turn what used to be a lean browser one could easily extend into a second rate chrome, they focused on making the underlying tech work, people would stop mocking them.

    10. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if they'd go back to the 4.0 UI and stop making stupid changes that bloat the browser with features no one wants (location bar bullshit) and leave unpopular addons as addons (tab candy, sync). People wouldn't bitch so much. Maybe if they'd fix their stupid shitty single threaded execution so a tab can't freeze the rest of the browser, people would like it. Maybe if, instead of adopting every change google makes in an effort to turn what used to be a lean browser one could easily extend into a second rate chrome, they focused on making the underlying tech work, people would stop mocking them.

      This, except you misspelled "3.6 UI". The tech is decent, the performance is adequate, but the UX post 4.0 has been shit. Changing the UI every time a UXtard wants to feel important isn't productivity. (Fuck you, Asa, for what your leadership has done to a once-wonderful product.)

    11. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      Its user base would rather help than be snarky, but it's hard to help when Mozilla completely rejects you.

      More on-topic, I found this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.platform/oB-GAXt6Ijo/lUgjfUZ8ArEJ. Apparently "working on it" is the new way to spell "ignoring".

    12. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      This sounds like an actual use for that stub installer that you serve by default to Windows users. Just have it pick which version to download.

    13. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      You mean have it download both versions, on 64-bit, right? It's not a matter of choosing: you need a 32-bit process to run the plug-ins in, and a 64-bit one for the actual browsing.

      This is doable, and being worked on; it's just not been a top priority for various reasons.

    14. Re:I've got a great idea! by Dagger2 · · Score: 1

      I was assuming that the 32-bit plugin process could be a lightweight shim. I doubt it'd need 64-bit versions of all 54 MB of the dlls that Firefox ships with.

    15. Re:I've got a great idea! by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      Uhm... 64bit firefox has been around for over half a decade. Wake up, dude!

    16. Re:I've got a great idea! by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Dude! I know! And have used it! Uhm... have you ever heard of sarcasm?

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    17. Re:I've got a great idea! by BZ · · Score: 1

      That would take a lot more development effort, since plug-ins depend on a lot of functionality being present in-process with them that's based on libraries that make up a good bit of that 54MB.

      On Mac, the plugin process is the same binary as the 32-bit Firefox process...

    18. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      have you ever heard of sarcasm?

      you're doing it wrong.

    19. Re:I've got a great idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take a look at the setting network.negotiate-auth.allow-insecure-ntlm-v1 ?

  8. DRM, DTCP, HDCP, NDA by tepples · · Score: 1

    I thought it needed to be secretive in order to appease the owners of copyright in the motion pictures that would be streamed through this device.

    1. Re:DRM, DTCP, HDCP, NDA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He was talking about the "secretive project" which is not so secretive. But what are you talking about?

  9. Flash Player is 32-bit by tepples · · Score: 1

    A 64-bit Firefox would require more progress on Shumway, a free JavaScript-powered replacement for Adobe's proprietary 32-bit Flash Player.

    1. Re:Flash Player is 32-bit by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      and there was a 64 bit version of Adobe flash, but I don't think it's been updated in years.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    2. Re:Flash Player is 32-bit by Desler · · Score: 1

      Flash has had 64-bit versions for all Windows, OS X and Linux since version 11 from 2011.

  10. Why? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Do they have the content to support 'yet another smart tv platform'?

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Why? by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      It's based on a browser. I'm guessing their content source will be what we call "The Internet". Millons of videos ready to watch.

  11. You don't make OS's either by Viol8 · · Score: 2

    You've done the same as google did with Android - take Linux, write a few hardware specific drivers and shove a roll-your-own graphics interface on top. Its a pity you and Google don't give credit where its due frankly but oddly enough the word linux never seems to mentioned in any of your or their presentations. As if the effort of the thousands of people who helped develop linux counts for sweet FA in your marketing.

    1. Re:You don't make OS's either by mrjatsun · · Score: 2

      They did the same think linux did with GNU, take the GNU's code, shove a little kernel underneath. Its a pity it's not called GNU Linux.. removes-tounge-from-cheek.

      Seriously though, relax. There's decades of code and efforts that this leverages. Just enjoy the free code available even if you don't use it. Don't get all stressed out if they don't thank every one. This isn't the Oscars.

    2. Re:You don't make OS's either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you mean GNU/Linux?

    3. Re:You don't make OS's either by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Its not a case of thanking them , its merely a case of acknowledging the fact that its not entirely of their own making. But instead they pretend they wrote the entire thing. Point taken about GNU.

    4. Re:You don't make OS's either by hobarrera · · Score: 1

      The linux proyect does not distribute any GNU code. Third parties create "GNU/Linux" distrinutions, and some of them mention GNU intheir name (eg: Debian GNU/Linux).

  12. OS-Powered? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Steaming Heap!

  13. Thunderbird is not mature, and it's not stable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How can a piece of software like Thunderbird, which had over 600 open bug reports the last time I checked, be considered "stable" and "mature"? Clearly it's in need of a lot of fixing! It's the exact opposite of "stable" and "mature".

    Removing the very bloat you fear is exactly the kind of thing they should still be doing, along with resolving those 600+ open bug reports. Once those bugs are fixed, they can spend the time optimizing the performance and reducing the resource consumption of Thunderbird.

    But alas, Mozilla has turned it over to a "community development model", which is just a polite and politically correct way of saying it's a totally dead project to them, even if you choose to live in a state of denial over this fact.

  14. WTF? "the only operating." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "but they aren't the only targets for the new operating."

    And that was it. It ends right there. Did nobody actually notice?

  15. Porn... by Rick+Richardson · · Score: 1

    Chromcast: no porn! http://gigaom.com/2014/02/03/no-chromecast-porn-apps/
    Firefoxcast: porn!

    1. Re:Porn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats what Ive been waiting for -- a porn stick. better yet, also have a plug in to make it easy to save the video for later.

  16. Nice, but... by Trikoloko · · Score: 1

    Please let me know when they start making a web browser that whan updating does not disable half of the user extensions without warning.

    --
    My cellphone ringtone is a ring tone.
    1. Re:Nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a thought: stop whining and start realizing that the more customizing you do, the more likely it is to break when an update comes out. If you just can't deal with that, then stop pretending it's someone else's fault. Especially when your only contribution to the cause is using the free browser and acting entitled because of that.

    2. Re: Nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ummm are your serious? so you are saying it's the users fault for installing extensions. stop stickin up for the incompetents at Mozilla, it's their code, they need to fix it.

  17. YOU CAN'T FUCKING SAY THAT TO ASA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    HOLY FUCK SON! YOU'RE REPLYING TO ASA DOTZLER!

    YOU CAN'T FUCKING SAYING WHAT YOU JUST SAID TO HIM, SON!

    Look, Asa is more than just a God. He is the God Almight of the Almighty Gods. He is The Master, The Creator, The Founder and The Omnipotent Being.

    When Asa writes something, you don't just read it. You revere every single character it contains. You revere the whitespace between those characters. You revere the entire message, because it represents The All-knowing All-powerful Nature of Asa.

    Asa, PLEASE FORGIVE THIS POOR SOUL! He knows not what he is saying! Please, Asa, please don't hold it against him! He's just a Rubyist! We beg you to spare his rotten soul! PLEASE! WE BEG YOU!

  18. Formats supported? by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 1

    I suspect I can safely assume that it'll be easy for anyone (e.g. MediaGoblin or other projects) to write an interface to it. Can we also safely assume it'll support all media formats that Firefox supports natively (i.e. .ogg [vorbis], .ogv [theora/vorbis], .webm [vp8/vorbis], .opus [opus audio in ogg], and .webm version 2 [vp9/opus])?

    (and, seriously, why doesn't Mozilla throw in with MediaGoblin, or perhaps start a similar project to help end-users host their own "content"? It seems like an obvious direction for Mozilla's heavy emphasis on "web video" these days.)

    --
    Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
  19. Fuck you Asa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    [b]Fuck you for what you and your UX idiots have done to Firefox.[/b]

  20. Nice name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read the name as "streaming sick"... perhaps that's what it does when there's a stack overflow... ;-)