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Firefox 34 Arrives With Video Chat, Yahoo Search As Default
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 34 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Major additions to the browser include a built-in video chat feature, a revamped search bar, and tab mirroring from Android to Chromecast. This release also makes Yahoo Search the default in North America, in place of Google. Full changelogs: desktop and Android."
Just what I wanted for xmas time, more bloat.
video chat ? Where I send someone a web link? That's goofy.
And it doesn't work with Safari or Internet Explorer ... so most people won't even be able to click on the link, and it doensn't work with iOS devices... because no firefox and doesn't work with safari... so... useless? Why is this a core feature?
This should be an addon... that almost nobody uses instead of a feature that almost nobody uses.
At least as an addon, any security issues inherent to a feature that lets the browser turn on your camera and microphone aren't part of the browser.
I love firefox.. I really do, and the alternatives are all far more awful, so I don't see myself switching, but I just don't see the point of this at all.
Speaking of what everyone wants, hoo-ray for the built-in video chat! They finally relented, after years of users clamoring for this necessary feature, to bundle it into their flagship product *even though* it meant they would have to postpone fixing some of the regressions that have come up recently.
Thanks Firefox. Thirefox.
A lot.
Firefox lost me at least 10 versions ago, or whatever.
So sometime last week then?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Firefox was supposed to be just a browser. Has Mozilla forgotten why Firefox was created in the first place?
"Pale Moon" is one possible alternative fork. Anybody want to recommend others?
Table-ized A.I.
I was really hoping that when Mozilla's contract with Google ran out the whole bloated business would collapse and they would go back to just making a browser that people actually want to use. But a new money truck just arrived in town and they can continue to add more and more useless 'features' while destroying all the things that made Firefox popular in the first place.
The last version I want is V28. After that, their password sync system was changed in ways I no longer trust. NoScript, AdBlockPlus, Ghostery help keep me safe, and browsing fast; and there's no Google spyware. So it's still the best option.
John
Firefox 32 happily connects to DD-WRT's self-signed 512-bit cert.
Firefox 33 blocks DD-WRT's SSL cert, claiming "Secure Connection Failed" (Error code: sec_error_invalid_key), with no option to override.
Firefox 34 just lies and claims "The connection was interrupted". Like the fuck it was. It works *right now* in the other browser in my virtual machine, from the same PC. Even after restarting firefox, and even after restarting the machine.
Assholes got feedback that users need to access our HTTPS-encrypted DD-WRT, so they changed the message and claimed it was reset. This sounds like a case of "Let's just play the 'What problem? I don't have that problem on my machine. Oh, your connection was reset? That must be a problem with the device.' game"
Right, Firefox (previously Firebird (previously Phoenix)) was a spin-off from the Mozilla suite which contained, among other things, a chat platform and other sundry cruft. The Phoenix (then Firebird (then Firefox)) people got fed up with the bloat and decided to make a fast and lean browser.
Come full circle, Firefox has. Now it's about time to fork a decent, lean browser off of Firefox...
capcha: mosaics -- maybe that's a sign of where the future lies
http://www.seamonkey-project.o...
Not the OP but what convinced me is that when you delete something out of your history Chrome still presents it on the startup screen and the url bar as if it was never deleted...so either each of those has some redundant history database that they aren't telling you about or deleting your browsing history is like deleting email in gmail, you can't see it anymore but google can...
Make that STILL out.
When the naval-gazing derpfest at FF rolled out that hideous chrome-knockoff "Australis" interface revamp in v29, I used the debian equivalent of the middle finger: sudo apt-mark hold firefox
to stem the tide of f**ck-the-user UI design, common features hidden behind weird hamburger buttons, and unreadably huge defaults.
WOW. MUCH HUGE. SO WHITESPACE IS THE NEW CAPSLOCK.
That gave a me a little time to explore options. With a little work, I can make Seamonkey usable, but I do lament the loss of an easy choice that IU can recommend to less geeky friends. IE is a lost cause even on my work machines and msft doesn't remotely give a shit about user feedback. Chrome's entire skeletal structure is made from IE spyware toolbars working together as a virtualized/rootkit OS. And Firefox's UI team has gone full "Grinch paradigm" [To quote the original: "Here's our new, wonderful product. Isn't it wonderful? Don't you just love it? What do you mean it doesn't do something essential that you've been able to do for years and you don't like it? You ingrate! You're GOING to like our new product! We're not going to fix it just because you and 100,000 whiny little dweebs claim to need those missing functions!" ]
Screw this. I'm gonna donate a little more money to the upstarts, because Firefox is lost.
I think not...(*poof*)
That's never what Firefox was about. It was a big rewrite because a bunch of Mozilla devs decided they wanted everything written their way and if it wasn't they'd rather restart from scratch. Even initial versions were actually more heavyweight and leaked more memory than mozilla suite. It should never have existed in the first place, they should have just moved the browser in Suite to a standalone download for those who wanted just that functionality.
Amusingly enough the old Mozilla Suite is still chugging along as SeaMonkey. Its still more performant than firefox and doesn't suffer from the feature creep or the "what features of chrome UI do we want to rip off this build" issues that FF does. Its a better product by a longshot.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Chromium. It is Chrome, but missing all the Google spyware. Add on the extensions: Adblock Plus (most viruses come in through ads, also they're annoying), Disconnect (not ghostery - they help advertisers), HTTPS Everywhere (can't be too careful), ScriptSafe (NoScript in spirit on Chrome). Grab the 32-bit (the 64-bit seems unstable) version from woolyss, just keep in mind these are dev builds so expect bugs from time to time, and expect to have to go back to an older version sometimes so keep around your older installers: http://chromium.woolyss.com/
I think he's referring to that ice cream sandwich (That's what I call it) icon that is the settings...the three horizontal lines thing that the UX retards have replaced the wrench or gear icon with.
-- Fuck Beta
Don't worry about it, next week you'll be running Firefox 35 anyway.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Well, the Phoenix name could be used again and be symbolic as well.
And there will be something for virtual reality tossed in.
Speaking of what everyone wants, hoo-ray for the built-in video chat! They finally relented, after years of users clamoring for this necessary feature, to bundle it into their flagship product *even though* it meant they would have to postpone fixing some of the regressions that have come up recently.
Thanks Firefox. Thirefox.
A lot.
This (web video chat) is something that really should have been put in Thunderbird not Firefox, but unfortunately the powers that be at Mozilla seems to have decided that it should join SeaMonkey in being their neglected redhead step child, while they continue to throw shit into Firefox (which was meant to be the striped down powerful simple browser), or try to compete outside of their core competency focusing on projects like FirefoxOS, or Mozilla Marketplace, all the while trying to ape chromes interface.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
And "web" should have stopped at HTML 4.01 ? What an odd number to pick.
People don't realize that this battle will not ever end. What exactly is "just a browser" supposed to do these days ? Javascript, flash, webgl, java applets ? WebSockets ? Maybe rewind the clock and go back to nonstandard video as well .. RealVideo .
So now firefox went and officially made WebRTC an actual visible thing, it is immediately bloat. How are the other half assed standard(ish) web tech crammed in over the years not bloat ?
This is a continuous evolution of web as a platform. You either try and stay at the forefront and be part of shaping the platform, or stay in the stone age - i bet IE can still run VBScript with some defaults. Maybe they still have Gopher client built in too.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Is it too much to ask that when updating an existing installation, it leaves all the current settings alone ?
OK now I set the default search back to Google, what else do I have to do.
BTW I don't have (or want) a webcam connected to my PC
The Firefox welcome page says
"We've partnered with Yahoo to bring you better search results".
It means that:
- internal testing showed that Yahoo results were better,
- the Firefox team cares more about the quality of search results than the bid money.
No. A self-signed SSL certificate is no worse than no SSL. The correct thing for browsers to do when encountering a self-signed SSL certificate is accept it silently, but not display any of the UI elements indicating that the site is secure (and to have a prominent red {insecure} label for every site that doesn't have the padlock). A self-signed cert protects your connection from passive adversaries and, as we have learned recently, that's a very important threat model to care about. Making it appear to users that a self-signed SSL cert is less secure than an unencrypted connection is not helpful.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Even initial versions were actually more heavyweight and leaked more memory than mozilla suite
That's not quite what I remember. Phoenix (then Firebird, then Firefox) and Thunderbird (or whatever it was called back then) between them used more memory than the Mozilla suite, but Firefox was lighter than using the Mozilla suite and just the browser. The big appeal of separating the two was that the browser was a buggy piece of crap and every time it crashed it took out everything else sharing the XUL runtime, including the mail client (which then had to spend time recovering corrupted databases on next launch). With Firefox, only the browser crashed and restarted quite quickly. Given that the browser crashed at least once an hour back then, it was a bit advantage. No one cared about memory leaks, because the browser didn't stay up long enough for them to become apparent. It was only after they fixed the stability issues that people started noticing.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
a self signed cert does *not* protect your connection from anything, unless the client already knows what to look for to ensure the cert they have is the cert you intended them to use
Yes it does, it protects you against passive adversaries. Compromising an SSL connection with a self-signed certificate requires an active adversary (i.e. one who will modify traffic, not just sniff it). This is still possible with a signed cert if you're sufficiently large as the trust model for SSL (in the absence of certificate transparency, which isn't yet widely deployed) means that if any registrar is compromised (e.g. the one owned by the Turkish intelligence agency that all major browsers trust) then they can sign certificates for any domain.
A self-signed cert that is silently accept it is much much worse than no SSL at all, because it allows the user to make assumptions about their use of the website which are absolutely not true
No, displaying a user interface element indicating the site is secure when it only has a self-signed certificate is worse than no SSL. Rendering self-signed SSL certs in exactly the same way as unencrypted connections (as I suggested) is better, because it allows people to roll out SSL cheaply and makes the world no worse, just raises the costs for interception.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sigh... I can't tell if you're arguing this because you don't understand the English language, of if you're just trolling.
If somebody has to "be presenting their own" certificate, then they are NOT PASSIVE!! A passive network attacker is, for example, somebody sitting at a coffee shop with the WiFi card in promiscuous mode, watching all the traffic that gets sent over that (open) network. In that position, the attacker cannot do a damn thing about a self-signed cert. Now, if they are able to use ARP spoofing or DNS hijacking or can configure the router's upstream host or something like that, then they can intercept traffic and present their own certificate, sure. That requires an *active* attack, though.
The reason that passive attacks are so concerning right now is that it's pretty trivial for ISPs and governments to record all network traffic that they want to. It just costs money for storage and storage bandwidth. However, they aren't actively intercepting that traffic, just passively recording it for later data mining. TLS, even using anonymous Diffie-Hellman or a self-signed certificate, is sufficient to completely defeat that kind of monitoring.
You're basically arguing that since an armored car can't tae a hit from the cannon of a main battle tank, there's no point in armoring them at all and it would be better for them to go unarmored so as not to lure people into a false sense of security. Turns out that's bullshit: the typical threat to people moving valuables is from small arms (which an armored car can shrug off just fine), and the typical threat to browser privacy is from pervasive passive monitoring, which self-signed certs defeat. Not that I would ever argue that it's better to have a self-signed cert than a CA-signed one, but it's not as *much* worse as you seem to think.
Besides, there's things you can do to make a self-signed cert even more secure. For example, you (the user) can add *just that cert* to your trust store. Now, if an attacker tries to substitute their *own* self-signed cert, your browser should object, or at least won't show the site as truly secured. For applications (including a few browsers) that support certificate pinning, this can also be used with self-signed certs in a trust-on-first-use basis (take a look at, for example, HTTP Public Key Pinning).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Mozilla are throttling the chat feature.
To enable, go to about:config, and set loop.throttled to false. Otherwise there is a one in ten chance of having the feature. Currently I think the servers are struggling. It's a new feature and as such needs to bed in whilst capacity is judged.
HTH.
Why UNIX?
Yes if Yahoo results were so much better, everyone would be using them/bing.
They forgot the most import bullet point though
- Yahoo paid us the most
My big peeve (other than unannounced un-revertable UI changes) is... uh, wait.
My big peeve (other than unannounced un-revertable UI changes and breaking extensions with every release)... oops, let me start again
My big peeve (other than unannounced un-revertable UI changes, breaking extensions with every release, and mothballing Sunbird) is...
Aw, crap. Now I forget. :)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The Firefox welcome page says
"We've partnered with Yahoo to bring you better search results".
It means that:
- internal testing showed that Yahoo results were better,
- the Firefox team cares more about the quality of search results than the bid money.
Please mod parent Funny.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
There are five tiers:
This works with no interstitial in all browsers.
This shows the "unknown issuer" interstitial in most major browsers and the "struck-out https" in Chrome.
This shows "This website does not supply ownership information" and "Organization: <Not part of certificate>" in Firefox's Page Info > Security and shows the "legitimate business" interstitial in Comodo Dragon.
This shows the business's trading name in in Firefox's Page Info > Security and skips the interstitial in Comodo Dragon.
This shows the business's trading name and address and triggers the green address bar.
You appear to have confused tier 2 (self-signed) with tier 3 (CA-signed, domain-validated). A certificate that triggers the "legitimate business" warning is not a self-signed certificate. It is a certificate issued by a certificate authority trusted by the browser. For example, Starfield is a CA known to several browsers. A certificate for "slashdot.org" with no organization issued by Starfield would trigger "legitimate business" interstitial, but a certificate for "slashdot.org" with organization "Dice Holdings" issued by the same CA would skip it. Self-signed certificates are a completely separate issue.