Mozilla To Remove Hello In Firefox 49 (softpedia.com)

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Mozilla To Remove Hello In Firefox 49 (softpedia.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 31, 2016 @10:35AM from the goodbye,-Hello dept.

Firefox's voice and videoconferencing add-on was described as "the first global communications system built directly into a browser" -- but things change. An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: An entry on Mozilla's issue tracker opened on July 17 reveals ongoing efforts from Mozilla engineers to remove the Hello system add-on from default Firefox installations starting with version 49, set for public release on September 13, 2016. Mozilla added Hello to Firefox in version 34, released on December 1, 2014, and from the beginning, it was part of the browser's core code, but was moved in December 2015 into a separate add-on, one that came pre-installed with Firefox, making Hello its first ever system add-on.

Mozilla plans to remove Hello from the codebases of Firefox Beta 49, Firefox Developer Edition 50, and Firefox Nightly 51. Based on the currently available information, the deadline for the Hello code removal operations is for this Monday, August 1, after which the first Firefox builds with no Hello integration will be available for testing, and will ship out in the fall with the stable release.
The article suggests this may have been a space-saving measure, "since Mozilla is focused on rebuilding Firefox's code from scratch to keep up with speedier competitors like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi."

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It had built in conferencing? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 10:53 · Score: 0

Must have been a great feature.
1. Re: It had built in conferencing? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:13 · Score: 0
  
  My thought exactly.
Rebuilding firefox by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 10:53 · Score: 0

I have rewritten firefox from scratch to be faster and lightweight.
PRINT "Firefox"
EXIT 0
1. Re: Rebuilding firefox by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:03 · Score: 0
  
  Why not print "FF"? Would be faster than your wordy solution.
A step back towards sanity by KiloByte · 2016-07-31 10:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Great! Now please remove Pocket and Australis as well, bring tabs back to their ergonomic place not on top, stop hiding "http://" from URLs as if it were a "default" protocol (it's not -- names like ftp.*.debian.org are assumed to be FTP even if they don't support FTP anymore), drop that annoying "reader mode", etc. (Yeah, there are extensions or about:config settings to mask most of those, but most users don't know that.)
On the other hand, instead of copying Chrome, please work on actual security improvements, like DANE (currently marked "WONTFIX").

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
1. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:05 · Score: 0
  
  I'm planning on making my own web browser eventually, actually a replacement for web, HTML5 is a huge mess. But it will take a LONG time for this to be completed.
2. Re:A step back towards sanity by ArmoredDragon · 2016-07-31 11:08 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Great! Now please remove Pocket and Australis as well, bring tabs back to their ergonomic place not on top, stop hiding "http://" from URLs as if it were a "default" protocol
  
  How is tabs not being on top somehow ergonomic? The titlebar is a waste of space; I'm glad they got rid of it.
3. Re:A step back towards sanity by Leslie43 · 2016-07-31 11:12 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  This, so much this. All of it.
  If we wanted Chrome we would just use Chrome.
  
  Some of their steps have been infuriating, whoever is directing their development should have been removed a long time ago. I'll toss in another obvious misstep, and that was the decision to focus on 32bit instead of 64bit, how they thought that was a good idea is beyond me, luckily public outcry got them to pull their head out of their @ss.
4. Re: A step back towards sanity by Bradmont · 2016-07-31 11:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Whoa whoa whoa.... Don't you dare touch reader mode. It is one of the best features on any browser at the moment. But I mean, who wants to be able to actually read an article without navigating all the crap and clickbait covering 90% of most web pages these days...
5. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:16 · Score: 0
  
  I can tell you have a number of things you take issue with. However I have a differing view from yours, at least on most points.
  I can understand the removal of Pocket--it's something that fits squarely in the realm of what an extension should do. However, I happen to like Australis and tabs on top (which is their somewhat logical place as the address bar refers to the current page). The "http://" being hidden is something of use for users who aren't as experienced as power users, and I would like to note that "https://" is not hidden and is, at least for the sites I use, more universally the "default". Just because you haven't used reader mode doesn't mean it's not incredibly useful and something which should be baked right into the browser. You seem to be arguing from a user perspective, but from a user perspective Mozilla has made some very prudent choices with these items. You seem to be arguing more about changes which fit your own use case, which sounds far more like a power user, in which case you have provided the solutions yourself (extensions/about:config changes).
  With regards to the DANE bug, you'll note the the comment at the bottom of that chain says it's marked WONTFIX because there is another bug report and they are not sure which direction they are going to go[1]. Just because they are making more visual changes does not mean they are ignoring actual security improvements.
  [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=672600#c64
6. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:23 · Score: 0
  
  It probably has to do with total ineptness on the part of their devs. I'll hazard their JS or whatever they call the XUL runner bullshit uses tons of ints to store pointers instead of intptr_t or something like that. Fixing shit like that takes time, time they chose to use to fuck up the UI another couple of dozen times.
  But yeah. It's great that they are removing a fucking mistake. Now they just need to scrap TabCandy, Pocket, LocationBar2, and pretty much every boneheaded idiotic mis-feature they've added since 3.0
7. Re:A step back towards sanity by arth1 · 2016-07-31 11:24 · Score: 0
  
  If you want a Firefox based browser without Australis or the other crap, there's Palemoon. Added bonus: It was forked before the annoying bug that causes proxy pac use to freeze up after a certain number of requests, and that Mozilla apparently don't care about. (My guess is that they'll just drop pac support like they dropped support for half a dozen other useful things)
  Palemoon is still bloated, sluggish and eats gobs of memory, and lack many (but not all) of the removed features, but that's true for every Firefox-based browser since the Brendan Eich days.
  The Netscape days are over, and Firefox is on life support.
8. Re:A step back towards sanity by LinuxIsGarbage · 2016-07-31 11:28 · Score: 2
  
  I created an image to deploy on shared workstations, using Firefox as the browser.
  Set history to delete at close, disabled password saving nags, hid useless Pocket and hello icons, disable their wretched PDF viewer, added uBlock, set search to Google, etc. Thought I had everything good to go.
  Deploy the image on a new machine a couple months later... "You haven't used Firefox in a while. Would you like to Refresh the settings, losing all the customization you added?"
  Why the fuck do they keep coming up with new features that just annoy you? Why do plugins feel they have to launch their webpage every time they're updated? Why can't the browser just get out of the way?
9. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  Web designers don't seem to want to separate coding functionality and content, so let them do both in one language. Something like, I don't know, Display Postscript?
10. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:47 · Score: 0
  
  If you ask me, tabs and bookmarks are begging to be reverted too. Who wants their browser to change, let alone evolve? Just give us a stripped-down Gopher client already. And if Mozilla doesn't agree with me, they're clearly copying Chrome.
  Seriously, you guys crack me up with this childish bickering about Firefox not doing exactly what you want, and trying to paint your petty complaints as legit just 'cause.
11. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:52 · Score: 0
  
  What really irks me about hiding the protocol is that half the time when I try to copy a URL out of the address bar, the copied text is *also* missing the protocol. If I force the protocol to always display, it always copies properly too. Every time they muck around with stuff like this that didn't need touched in the first place, it seems to introduce yet more bugs...
  Glad to hear Hello is out. I have not encountered one single person who actually used it. I hope they've decided to quit trying to be an entire operating system and focus back on being a web browser.
12. Re: A step back towards sanity by tnk1 · 2016-07-31 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I quite agree. It's not perfect, but it actually makes some otherwise unreadable pages readable.
  Granted, this isn't Firefox's reader mode. I haven't used FF in years ever since they fixed whatever was paging out my tabs.
  At this point they need to cut down to a fast engine, and then pick something to focus on that Chrome does not do already. That's less a problem of coding and more a problem of vision and direction. FF squandered its lead by bloating right the fuck up. Its hard to understand why the FF developers don't understand that after all these years. People left IE and old Netscape because FF was faster and saner than the alternative. It was clean. Then they shat it right up and turned it into an overweight has-been. Microsoft can glide on their momentum, but not many other groups can.
13. Re: A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:09 · Score: 0
  
  Its hard to understand why the FF developers don't understand that after all these years. People left IE and old Netscape because FF was faster and saner than the alternative. It was clean. Then they shat it right up and turned it into an overweight has-been. Microsoft can glide on their momentum, but not many other groups can.
  That's the thing, lean only goes so far. You can only get so much speed out of a browser, and really a lot of that is better handled by hardware design, and leanness is not exactly a selling feature that you can keep using.
  After that, your developers start thinking about what people need, what people really need.
14. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:17 · Score: 0
  
  Don't be too quick to conclude with the sanity clause.
  They will revive a lighter version but it won't be called Hello. A prank memo circulating among insiders calls version 50 A Return to Hell No!
  An Anonymous Insider
15. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  The titlebar is a waste of space; I'm glad they got rid of it. Flag as Inappropriate
  
  Worry less about 16 pixels there - and the 16 pixels for the status bar that Mozilla's UXtards deleted in Mozilla 4.0 - but ignore the fact that no browser provides a way to permanently disable the CSS position:fixed attribute that leads to 300-pixel-deep navbars and shit all over NYTimes, Washington Post, and fucking half the rest of the web.
16. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-07-31 12:40 · Score: 1
  
  The title bar is a standard interface element. It must always be present, except when a program is in full screen mode. OBEY THE HIG.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
17. Re:A step back towards sanity by KiloByte · 2016-07-31 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  The titlebar is a waste of space; I'm glad they got rid of it.
  It's gone only on Windows. Then there's the thrice-damned hamburger menu, that's unremovable without an extension, and clumsily provides 1/10 of functionality for menu bar it purports to replace.
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
18. Re: A step back towards sanity by tnk1 · 2016-07-31 13:11 · Score: 1
  
  I did say they needed to pick something to work on after cutting back, and while it could be speed, I did not mean the focus had to be on speed itself. I agree that you can't just be leaner, because that's not enough for a top browser, being the speed demon is a trap because it locks you out of adaptability.
  Having said that, there is a niche for fast and lean too, you just need to find the right use cases. That would have to be a decision they would make.
  In any event, they need to get back to basics on this and in order to make that something that they can do without basically deleting the source code and starting again, they need to dig back into what make the browser usable and then build on that foundation. They need to have a foundation for the browser which is something that can be built on. Nobody needs another Chrome. We may need a Chrome *competitor*, but FF isn't even in the same league at present. You aren't a competitor just because you're there, you're a competitor by competing. FF is just there right now. There is no compelling reason to use it unless you have a favorite plug-in or you just don't feel like switching.
  I was in the same boat. When I tried Chrome the first time, I stopped using it because the tabs would seem to page out when I wasn't using them. So I was happy to call that experiment completed and go back to FF. Except, FF just kept getting slower and slower. Odd decisions were made which I didn't understand which didn't do anything to help me with what I needed a browser to do.
  I started to get the idea that they thought they could do anything they wanted because they were now the top browser. Which works for those projects which stay on the top of their game, but if they don't, they lose focus and suffer.
  So Chrome got a second chance from me. And that time it worked. And it has remained working.
  I'm not someone who changes for the sake of change. In fact being told that Chrome was the new "thing" actually made it less appealing to me. But I'm not stupid. If something works, I'll use it, but if it stops working, it gets replaced as soon as possible. FF basically stopped working to my specifications, so it got replaced.
  I know what it will take to get me to install it again, and a minor re-write isn't going to get me to waste my time while they figure it out.
19. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-07-31 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder if it varies per machine, but it *always* copy the protocol for me, be it an X11 mouse copy or a copy/paste. Maybe it works on X11.
20. Re: A step back towards sanity by Luthair · 2016-07-31 13:19 · Score: 0
  
  Press alt, real men don't use the mouse to open menus.
21. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-07-31 13:36 · Score: 1
  
  32 pixel height is a lot, there are a great many with strictly less than 1024 pixels of monitor height. Hundreds of millions people.
  And I've not found something better than Mate with bottom panel and top panel.
  I have a title bar (with a centered title) which you can pry from my hot sweaty hands. Have disabled the menu bar for once and I'm finding my GUI / OS set up neater than usual. With a single-panel-on-bottom desktop I like to keep the menu bar enabled.
  It's pretty bad that there isn't a button on the top left to show the menu bar. Hitting Alt or F10 sucks.
  For the horrible ribbons (didn't know they called that a navbar) either you're hopeless, and you need that vertical space. Or the site doesn't have it and you need the vertical space. Reader mode may be a mitigation else I can't recommend Nuke Anything Ehnanced enough. It's been working the same for over a decade, right-click on useless stuff (including "privacy notices" from google).
22. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 14:17 · Score: 0
  
  Most people, most of the time, use their browser maximised, for the very simple reason that they want to be able to see as much as possible on a single screenful, and because most websites don't cope well with narrow window widths. Now, why exactly would a maximised window need a title bar? It serves no function and any imagined function it might have had is already served by the tab caption.
  It's just a waste of space and if I'm really honest I wonder what purpose the title bar serves in other applications. I guess it serves a place to pick up the window, but do we need to reserve quite as much space for that? And that's the only purpose. The window buttons could easily go to the right of the tool bar or menu, the icon to the left. The caption serves to identify what you're working on, but you can already see that by just looking at it. And the task bar displays the file name as well. And without a title bar, a maximised window would have its tool bar or menu at the top screen edge, making it easier to click on.
  I think we should ditch title bars.
23. Re: A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 14:26 · Score: 0
  
  I did say they needed to pick something to work on after cutting back, and while it could be speed, I did not mean the focus had to be on speed itself. I agree that you can't just be leaner, because that's not enough for a top browser, being the speed demon is a trap because it locks you out of adaptability.
  Hence the problem for the developers, and why they start making a Multi-tool, which is a lot heavier than a knife.
  After all, people sure end up needing lots of things.
  
  I know what it will take to get me to install it again, and a minor re-write isn't going to get me to waste my time while they figure it out.
  So what they need is something NEW and EXCITING that you never saw before. Like a laser. Yes, add a laser to it.
24. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-07-31 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  And without a title bar, a maximised window would have its tool bar or menu at the top screen edge, making it easier to click on.
  Infinite vertical targeting, that's why a Mac-style global menu bar is a good thing. Too bad almost no one copied it, and the only example that comes to mind - Ubuntu's Unity - is seriously flawed in many other respects. But anyway, I don't want to sacrifice actual usability for a few vertical pixels. If your screen is so damn low-res that this is an issue, the problem is your hardware. Crap, this wouldn't even be worth debating if it wasn't for the idiotic move from 4:3 to widescreen.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
25. Re: A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  Its hard to understand why the FF developers don't understand that after all these years. People left IE and old Netscape because FF was faster and saner than the alternative. It was clean. Then they shat it right up and turned it into an overweight has-been. Microsoft can glide on their momentum, but not many other groups can.
  That's the thing, lean only goes so far. You can only get so much speed out of a browser, and really a lot of that is better handled by hardware design, and leanness is not exactly a selling feature that you can keep using.
  After that, your developers start thinking about what people need, what people really need.
  I'm of the opinion that a lot of software could be much faster, if we were willing to code it low level enough, but then that is not justified for a lot of software. As far as leanness not being what is needed, I'm less than sure that is true. Lean= battery life, or in the case of large companies lean=electric bill. I'm somewhat dubious about this rewrite idea though. Perhaps you have to rewrite large blocks, but you try to not be too many months out from something that could, possibly, be released.
  Off hand, I'd probably pick this priority list. 1) Secure -- Isolate each tab from any other tab and the rest of the system. 2) Fast Enough to satisfy most. 3) Stable -- Run it for weeks without restarting it. If your low here, then this is a higher priority. Every time someone has to restart a system or a browser is a chance for them to consider something else. 4) Flexible. Plugins are useful things. Make sure they don't mess up (1). 5) Speed/Efficiency. The argument has been made at work that Java and such for a lot of things is good enough, even for real time applications. I'm not sure I agree, but making c++ equally secure and stable can be more difficult and even then c++ can hide a lot of complexity. Perhaps everyone should code more in raw C, making sure to always use the least memory and resources possible. For something used by so many, it may even be worth it.
  Just for fun, here is Joel's discussion about factories. It seemed somehow appropriate.
  http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?joel.3.219431.12
26. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:45 · Score: 0
  
  Most people, most of the time, use their browser maximised
  Is this still true in the age of widescreen monitors? I suppose most web designers are browsing that way, but is that really how people prefer to view web pages? One super-wide, super-squat window that is awkward to read and equally awkward to scroll?
27. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 16:31 · Score: 0
  
  Who wants their browser to change, let alone evolve?
  Change for change, etc.
28. Re:A step back towards sanity by JohnFen · 2016-07-31 17:05 · Score: 2
  
  The titlebar is a waste of space; I'm glad they got rid of it.
  Useless to you, maybe, but I find it useful enough that I use a plugin to put it back.
29. Re:A step back towards sanity by ChunderDownunder · 2016-07-31 17:19 · Score: 1
  
  I'm reading your comment in widescreen right now.
  It fits on one line, why would I want to line wrap?
30. Re: A step back towards sanity by KiloByte · 2016-07-31 19:51 · Score: 1
  
  Not sure what you mean. Bare alt does nothing, alt-letter works with the normal (ie, non-default) menu, doesn't appear to do anything with the hamburger abomination, ... am I missing something?
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
31. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 20:38 · Score: 1
  
  set browser.urlbar.trimURLs=false to unhide the protocol.
32. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 22:23 · Score: 0
  
  If you don't like the browser fixing your broken urls, don't feed it broken urls. Stick the ftp:// at the front. It's not unreasonable for a browser in the absence of the protocol to guess that something starting with ftp. is a FTP url, a www. is an HTTP url etc.
33. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 22:31 · Score: 0
  
  I think other vendors didn't copy the Mac menu bar because it is pretty counter-intuitive that the behaviour of something potentially far outside the window changes depending on which window is active. It also makes it impossible to click on a menu of an inactive window and it treats menus different from tool bars, whereas the current trend in user-interface design is to unify them.
  > I don't want to sacrifice actual usability for a few vertical pixels.
  The thing is, I don't think any actual usability is lost by ditching title bars. And you get infinite vertical targeting on maximised windows for the tool bar, menu or tab bar, plus those ‘few vertical pixels’ are another line of text, no matter how you slice it.
  In other words, title bars bring us *no benefit at all*, they take up space, they're in the way, so why keep them?
34. Re:A step back towards sanity by AmiMoJo · 2016-07-31 23:40 · Score: 1
  
  The PDF viewer is great. I use the Chrome port of it instead of the built-in one or some third party plug-in. It's pure Javascript so everything runs in the Browser's deepest sandbox, which is far safer than a binary plug-in. It's better than the standard Chrome one too, especially since you can display the PDF table of contents by default.
  What is your preference? I used to use SumatraPDF, but the plug-in was discontinued due to being x86 only and everyone removing NSAPI support.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
35. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 23:48 · Score: 0
  
  Hey, reader mode is great and should be available on all sites, not just some time.
36. Re: A step back towards sanity by TheLongshot · 2016-07-31 23:50 · Score: 1
  
  Alt in Windows brings up the menu bar, which I think the OP was suggesting would bring back the functionality you were missing.
37. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 00:41 · Score: 0
  
  Most people, most of the time, use their browser maximised
  Is this still true in the age of widescreen monitors? I suppose most web designers are browsing that way, but is that really how people prefer to view web pages? One super-wide, super-squat window that is awkward to read and equally awkward to scroll?
  No it is not true. You have a few shouty people here claiming it's all widescreen viewing but that is bs. Who sits and swivels their heads back and forth, over and over reading ~240+ characters in a line? I guess if you made your font size 40 points or something. Hell, I see more and more people turning their widescreen monitors 90 degrees into portrait mode to get more vertical space and a more narrow horizontal viewing area.
  "The internet; a place where one person does something, yet they tell you everyone on earth does that same thing. It's a place of projection." ~
38. Re:A step back towards sanity by LichtSpektren · 2016-08-01 00:42 · Score: 1
  
  I'll agree to removing Hello and Pocket because they're both bloatware (if you want them, use an extension to get them).
  
  Reader seems like a nice feature, I don't see any reason to remove it.
  
  I don't understand the Australis bitching. Just install Classic Theme Restorer.
39. Re: A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 01:05 · Score: 0
  
  Try F10.
40. Re:A step back towards sanity by Merk42 · 2016-08-01 01:10 · Score: 1
  
  How is tabs not being on top somehow ergonomic?
  Baby Duck
41. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-08-01 01:39 · Score: 1
  
  They identify the application, and provide a place to drag the window around. That's real usability. Also, it's a matter of consistency. Every application must OBEY THE HIG.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
42. Re: A step back towards sanity by JohnFen · 2016-08-01 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, years the software industry made an economic decision that developer time was more valuable than software efficiency on the hypothesis that increasing hardware power will make up for the decrease in software efficiency. That decision reduced overall software quality quite a lot. It was a terrible decision at the time, and is increasingly terrible as time goes on.
43. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 02:34 · Score: 1
  
  HIG = Human Interface Guidelines: guidelines, not laws. They're only there to serve the users, not to rule them and they must be regarded critically since sometimes they aren't in the user's best interest when applied too rigidly.
  Let's look at a maximised browser window for example.
  - Is there any need to identify the application? No, you already know it's the browser. There could be a need to identify the document, but the tab bar, which now appears where the title bar used to be, and the address bar do just that.
  - Is there any need to drag the window around? No, because you cannot actually drag a maximised window without restoring it, which can be done using the restore button.
  So a title bar serves no benefit in this case, but it does come at a cost: it will make one less line of text fit on screen and it will make clicking on the tabs more clumsy since the user cannot use infinite vertical targeting if the title bar sits between the tab bar and the screen edge.
  So the user is best served by removing the title bar.
44. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-08-01 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  Let's look at a maximised browser window for example.
  That's a mistake. Sometimes I need it non-maximized. Then your "ideal" design becomes a hindrance. All for a few pixels, to compensate for your subpar hardware. What we need is, at least, to move away from 16:9 to 16:10 monitors and demand better pixel density. Shit like 1366x768 laptops, that's not even worth taking in account! Also, since consistency is essential to produce user-friendly software, any developer who deviates from the HIG without some damn good reason is not worth his salt.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
45. Re:A step back towards sanity by JohnFen · 2016-08-01 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  Too bad almost no one copied it
  I'm very pleased that almost nobody copied it. I strongly dislike this aspect of the Mac UI.
46. Re:A step back towards sanity by Keybounce · 2016-08-01 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  ^^^ MOD PARENT UP ^^^
47. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 05:13 · Score: 0
  
  Oh read posts before you answer to them. I didn't say a browser window must always be maximised and I didn't say non-maximised browser windows don't need a place to grab them. (But now we're on the subject, when you restore a Firefox window there's plenty room above the tab bar to grab the window.
  Neither is the quality of your hardware any factor in this. Inserting a title bar between the top screen edge and the tab bar will always hinder usability because it will always frustrate infinite vertical targeting: if you overshoot you end up on the useless title bar. And removing a title bar will always add another line of text.
  As an aside, regarding your irrelevant resolution worship, ultra-high resolution screens, no matter their physical size, are a pain unless you change the DPI settings to make text bigger. (I know, I've worked with one.) But the whole resolution thing is a red herring and completely irrelevant to the question of whether we need title bars on browser windows. We don't, and the usability penalty for including them is too big to tolerate those useless bits of decoration any longer.
48. Re: A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 05:50 · Score: 0
  
  I3wm, pentadactyl, new_window 0pixel. UI solved but I'm a filthy minimalist
49. Re:A step back towards sanity by TheReal_sabret00the · 2016-08-01 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  This is the post that echoes my thoughts the closest. The people that yearn for pre-Australis design really worry me.
50. Re:A step back towards sanity by mattventura · 2016-08-01 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  But the problem is that putting something at the top requires bumping something else off the top. So you have to pick between tab bar (best for browsing), menu bar (best for most non-browser programs), and the title bar (best for when you drag windows around a lot, e.g. multiple monitors). However, in browsing, the title bar is often the only place where you can actually see the full window title, other than hovering over an individual tab.
51. Re:A step back towards sanity by mattventura · 2016-08-01 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  - Is there any need to drag the window around? No, because you cannot actually drag a maximised window without restoring it, which can be done using the restore button.
  So an extra click for zero benefit? In most WMs, MS Windows included, dragging a maximized window will restore it and start dragging all in one go. You also have the ability to drag it to another monitor, or to drag it to the far left or right to "maximize" it to half the monitor. Sure, most of these can be done with keyboard shortcuts, but so can switching between tabs.
52. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 06:57 · Score: 0
  
  It's retards like you who are killing the web. You, and your arrogance should be taken out and shot at dawn.
  There's a limit for how long lines can be before they get seriously uncomfortable to try to read. Unfortunately no "web developer" has ever heard of it. Which is why everyone hold them in such contempt.
53. Re:A step back towards sanity by KiloByte · 2016-08-01 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  What we need is, at least, to move away from 16:9 to 16:10 monitors
  Why would 16:10 be enough? I prefer 16:12 (aka 4:3) or better.
  For now, I use legacy monitors while their supplies last.
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
54. Re:A step back towards sanity by KiloByte · 2016-08-01 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  don't feed it broken urls. Stick the ftp:// at the front.
  Why would anyone want to ever use ftp:// for this millenium? If a protocol is default, it should be default for every hostname; I don't expect a small rodent themed page for kids to be accessed with gopher:// so neither should ftp.debian.org be accessed using some pointless ancient protocol.
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
55. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 07:43 · Score: 0
  
  This one seems pretty controversial, many love it and many hate it. Can't it be an option??
56. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-08-01 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  I said "at least" because it's a compromise: there are not enough people demanding a return to 4:3, but there are still some 16:10 options. (The problem with old monitors is, TN has shit color quality.)
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
57. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-08-01 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  Believe it or not, the title bar displays a title.
  I do rely on it to know what a tab's web page is about.
  Tabs have titles too, but truncated. For instance a tab is name "Microsof...", fair enough it's about Microsoft something. If I select this tab the title now says Micro... and the page's content would let me know what it's about, except for all the off-topic material. Task bar currently says "Micr...". What does say the title bar? 'Microsoft Brings ChakraCore to Linux and OSX - Slashdot - Mozilla Firefox'
  Bingo! I know what the page is about, and that still works even if all my tabs are about Microsoft, Micromachines or Micropenis.
58. Re:A step back towards sanity by CanadianMacFan · 2016-08-01 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  For myself I use the tabs most so the best position for them to be is at the bottom, below the bookmarks. When they were put at the top it meant that I had to move the mouse, and my eyes, a lot more to the tab bar. I've used the Classic Theme Restorer to move the tab bar back to the most convenient place for me.
59. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-08-01 14:46 · Score: 1
  
  I agree about monitors often having too high a resolution (for instance, 1920x1080 on 15.6" is terrible)
  I disagree about the title bar being that useless, since other ways to get the full title are too cumbersome.
  Now, I tried enabling the title bar in Windows 7 : instead of being centered the title is aligned on the left, and I hate the font rendering too. So it sucks ass, but only in that particular window manager / desktop environment.
60. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-08-01 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  There's a huge ass 1:1 monitor : Eizo EV2730Q, with a 1920x1920 resolution.
  It costs a ton, but it exists. It's even affordable if you don't need a very powerful computer otherwise.
  I wish TV execs had chosen something less wide than 16:9 twenty-something years ago. 5:3 is something I would have compromised on, that is 15:9 or 1.66:1.
  16:9 TV and video is even worse than 16:9 computer monitors, since the only way to get rid of them is to destroy the universe and start over.
61. Re:A step back towards sanity by Blaskowicz · 2016-08-01 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  It is, in about:config
62. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 19:31 · Score: 0
  
  Zero benefit? You get infinite vertical targeting for the tabs and extra screen space. That's huge compared to maybe avoiding an extra click in some niche scenarios.
  Keep in mind that most people haven't got a second monitor, that it's possible to drag the tabs themselves and that switching between tabs using the keyboard is a pain in the ass unless the tabs are really close to each other.
  You're falling into the trap of thinking that you are representative of the average population. But you're not, you're a special snowflake. Firefox is a browser which aims to be usable by the general population. You cannot expect Mozilla to make Firefox worse for the average user just to make your niche use case marginally easier. And Firefox already accommodates people with special needs much better than most other software. You want a title bar? Click the menu, select Customise, click the Title Bar toggle at the bottom left.
63. Re:A step back towards sanity by Stormwatch · 2016-08-02 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  It fits on one line, why would I want to line wrap?
  Because the world is not made of tweets, and when you have a very wide block of text, it gets visually confusing. The rule of thumb is: 60-70 characters per line give the best readability.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
64. Re:A step back towards sanity by ChunderDownunder · 2016-08-02 12:00 · Score: 1
  
  And that should be a function of the operating system, not the web page.
  I would expect text to reflow, as it does on Slashdot, to the width of a user's browser. If they wish less horizontal width then they may resize the window according to preference.
  Worse, you get horizontal scroll bars when resizing a window thinner than the designer had expected. 'Desktop' websites don't reflow on mobile and involve annoying zooming to read - as an excuse to build a fancy app that no one really needs or wants but all their competitors have, so we won't customise or fix our broken web page for small screens.
  Instead, designers have largely adopted your 60-70 character adage to serve annoying ads either side of the content.
65. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 07:52 · Score: 0
  
  But do you really rely on it *enough* to justify bumping the tab bar off the top screen edge? I don't think so.
  Personally, I've used Firefox since the early days and when the title bar disappeared I did think about turning it on again. But I decided to try to work without it, and I can count the number of times this year that I've hovered to see a tab's title on the fingers of one hand. I don't think there's really on single reason why this is, but a combination of factors. For example, I've usually seen the page title or something else describing the page when I clicked the link, otherwise I wouldn't have clicked it. And many sites nowadays put the most important bits of the title first. (This is similar to the way the titles of application windows has changed in response to the appearance of the task bar. It used to say ‘Microsoft Word - Document1’ so the task bar displayed ‘Microsoft ...’ Nowadays applications tend to put the document name first.) Due to the display of the favicons one tends to visually remember what is what. When you press ^W you tend to return to the previous tab you're working on. The tab bar has got a drop-down arrow which displays all titles, not just the current one. And so on.
  I'd say the big Reason is that the title bar is, for almost all users, gone forever and people are working in their enlightened self-interest to make sure we'll never need it again.
66. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  It is an option and you don't even need to install a plug-in or dive into about:config.
  Open the menu, click ‘+ Customise’ and there's a toggle on the bottom-left.
67. Re:A step back towards sanity by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 07:59 · Score: 0
  
  In your use case it's actually better to put the tabs back on top. You'll thank me later. Yes, you'll make more mouse kilometres, but... it will take less time and effort, because you can just sort of flick your mouse to the top screen edge. Just try it for a month, you can always turn CTR back on if it doesn't work for you.
Hashtags like the cool kids: by Zanadou · 2016-07-31 11:01 · Score: 1

#suddenoutbreakofcommonsence
1. Re:Hashtags like the cool kids: by bheerssen · 2016-07-31 19:21 · Score: 1
  
  #suddenoutbreakofproperspeeling
  
  --
  (Score: -1, Stupid)
keep up with speedier competitors by fustakrakich · 2016-07-31 11:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi...
and Seamonkey...

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
1. Re:keep up with speedier competitors by antdude · 2016-07-31 12:21 · Score: 1
  
  SeaMonkey is faster? It's a suite product based on Mozilla's products. :/
  
  --
  Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
2. Re:keep up with speedier competitors by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  It's not named Firefox. That makes it better around here.
3. Re:keep up with speedier competitors by dryeo · 2016-07-31 16:49 · Score: 2
  
  SeaMonkey is faster? It's a suite product based on Mozilla's products. :/
  Yes, though not as much as it used to be. Simple UI, none of this crap like hello, same Gecko and JavaScript engines. Most add-ons work or can be easily converted to work.
  Firefox became more bloated and slower then SeaMonkey around version 3, at least /. loaded much faster back then (might have been ver 3.5 or 3.6). Might vary on different platforms.
  Worth trying if you don't mind the old fashioned interface and perfect for grandmothers and such who freak out when every version of FF is different.
  Only problem is a shortage of developers so sometimes releases get skipped.
  
  --
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Firefox's real problems going unaddressed by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:12 · Score: 0

Firefox has spent too much time adding useless crap like Hello. There are far more pressing issues. If I leave Firefox, it will be because of the abysmal performance problems which have been plaguing it for years. Background it, and you'll hear your CPU howling like a banshee while it displays a few otherwise static pages. People have been reporting these kinds of problems for years, but Mozilla closes problem reports with the meh button.

> , "since Mozilla is focused on rebuilding Firefox's code from scratch to keep up with speedier competitors like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi."

haha! that's exactly what Mozilla did and look what happened to them: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/...
1. Re: Firefox's real problems going unaddressed by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  All new source code! As if source code rusted.
  Rust... Mozilla... Irony...
2. Re:Firefox's real problems going unaddressed by ChunderDownunder · 2016-07-31 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  Background it, and you'll hear your CPU howling like a banshee while it displays a few otherwise static pages.
  Maybe then there's some truth to Microsoft's claim that Edge consumes less battery.
3. Re:Firefox's real problems going unaddressed by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:30 · Score: 1
  
  You may have a point! Not so much Edge doing anything new or innovative, but just avoiding the coding mistakes that turned FF into a CPU pig. FF's mistake has been arrogance. Calls for a faster cleaner browsing experience has been ignored in favor of shovelware craplets.
To keep up with speedier competitors by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:12 · Score: 0

like Chrome, Opera, and Vivaldi
and Edge
hello goodbye by brasselv · 2016-07-31 11:15 · Score: 1

I mean, goodbye hello.

--
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
Australis by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:18 · Score: 0

G'day mate!!
Obligitory theme song by Camel+Pilot · 2016-07-31 11:48 · Score: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
1. Re:Obligitory theme song by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  Personally I prefer this one
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoyvvEWHodk
Too late. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 11:59 · Score: 0

Already switched to Brave.
Saves a step by nowsharing · 2016-07-31 12:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Now when I install a fresh FF it will be one less thing to do in about:config...

Disable Firefox Hello
loop.enabled = false

Disable Pocket
browser.pocket.enabled = false

Disable One-Click Search Bar (no longer working)
browser.search.showOneOffButtons = false

Enable Firefox Tracking Protection
privacy.trackingprotection.enabled = true

Disable Tab Animations
browser.tabs.animate = false

Disable Search in Url Bar
browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete = false
1. Re:Saves a step by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 13:18 · Score: 0
  
  Sure, and it's one more thing that someone else has to do now. Your point was...?
2. Re:Saves a step by XnavxeMiyyep · 2016-07-31 13:33 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget this one:
  
  Disable Full Screen "Warning" Popup
  full-screen-api.warning.delay = 0
  full-screen-api.warning.timeout = 0
  
  --
  I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
3. Re:Saves a step by postmortem · 2016-07-31 13:59 · Score: 1
  
  Classic theme restorer add-on takes care of the one-click search bar
4. Re:Saves a step by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 16:02 · Score: 0
  
  i dont understand people that will go to such ways for the old theme. the old theme is pretty poor useability wise. i dont care that the "new" theme looks a bit like chrome. it works well.
5. Re:Saves a step by legRoom · 2016-07-31 16:29 · Score: 2
  
  Unlike Australis, Classic Theme Restorer is very configurable and allows elements from the new and the old theme to be mixed-and-matched freely. Visually, I am using the new theme, but I use Classic Theme Restorer to tweak various small things about it for better usability.
6. Re:Saves a step by JohnFen · 2016-07-31 17:13 · Score: 1
  
  the old theme is pretty poor useability wise.
  That's a pretty individual thing, though. Things that you find hard to use may be things that others find are the easiest. But, what legRoom said -- I use the plugin to restore some of the old things that work better for me, and I keep some of the new things that work better for me.
7. Re:Saves a step by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 01:58 · Score: 0
  
  Classic theme restorer has options for most of that
your problem by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:16 · Score: 0

Linux has had 64 bit FF for a long time.
Stop using a toy OS if you aren't happy with 32 bit binaries.
About time... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:20 · Score: 0

About time guys... now try the same thing with Pocket... even if I love the add-on...
all i can say is... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:43 · Score: 0

GOOD RIDDANCE. i found it offensive when that piece of bloatware was added. i have nothing against the software or the functionality, and i'm not saying it was poorly written. i'm saying thatmozilla should never have forced it on their users in the first place.
More by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 12:56 · Score: 2, Informative

Bring back the real about:blank (and remove the gears in about:blank).
Remove Pocket
Remove Australis
Remove safe browsing (i.e., calling-home to google for every site you visit). At least it should be opt-in, not opt-out.
Remove Geo tracking completely (geo.enabled=false in about:config.) That should have been opt-in and not opt-out.
Remove anything related to facebook. "social.manifest.facebook" and all the "social.*" settings - WTF do they need to be in my browser?\
Set the default search engine to startpage or duckduckgo, not google.
1. Re: More by Luthair · 2016-07-31 13:20 · Score: 1
  
  The safe browsing stuff makes sense for the average user
2. Re:More by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:24 · Score: 0
  
  The default search engine setting is their main source of revenue (Yahoo). At least they aren't jerks about it - If you change the setting, it won't be reverted.
3. Re: More by geminidomino · 2016-08-01 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  The "average user" ditched FF for Chrome a long time ago.
Never noticed by drolli · 2016-07-31 13:07 · Score: 1

this, and never wanted to.
Whatever by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 13:16 · Score: 0

Whatever, Firefox. You do you.
What happens when you make assumptions... by Leslie43 · 2016-07-31 13:24 · Score: 2

How about you stop assuming things about people you know nothing about.
My desktop, laptop, tablet, and server all run Linux, and I was an Android rom developer for several years.

And by the way,
Not every Windows user is an ignorant fool, it's people like you who give Linux a bad rep.
1. Re:What happens when you make assumptions... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 02:10 · Score: 0
  
  If all your stuff is Linux, then why are you whining about something that doesn't affect you?
These developers don't know what they're doing... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 14:10 · Score: 1

When Firefox Hello was introduced, I found it strange that a video chat program was included with a web browser. I tried out using it, and have used it many times to talk with friends and family. I liked it, because my friends and family who are not computer experts can just immediately use it in their browser without installing an application like Ekiga or Linphone (I refuse to use Skype because it is proprietary).
But what I found extremely annoying, is that in each successive Firefox release, major features and functionality of Hello were changed. At some point, the ability to share tabs was added. And all your tabs were shared by default. Annoying, but not a big deal to turn off. At some point, the "maximize" button was removed, and I could no longer put my friends' video-feed on full-screen. And after all the work that has gone into it, they now want to remove it all?
I usually don't like to be rude, or offend people, but in this case, I have to make an exception. The firefox developers who are making these decisions about Hello are completely incompetent, and know absolutely nothing about software engineering. The FIRST STEP, should be to come up with a vision, design goal, and plan, for how to incorporate video chat into a web browser. The NEXT STEP, should be to implement that vision. And NOT make major design changes every release. The stupidity of these developers is simply beyond belief. If I were their manager, I would call them into my office, and tell them "You're Fired!"
Re:These developers don't know what they're doing. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 14:12 · Score: 0

We need Trump to be the CEO of Mozilla/Firefox.
Make Firefox Great Again!
Timmy Cook by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 14:36 · Score: 0

None other.
Usage by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:04 · Score: 0

I've never used pocket or hello. Consider them to be more buttons that I'll never ever use cluttering up my window. I only need Home and Download. Everything else I get from the Menu Bar (which is hidden by default). One right click in the right spot will bring Menu Bar and Bookmarks Toolbar back. Sometimes more is just more. Suggested websites, auto complete, don't need it. I already know where I want to go on a daily basis and how to get search results I need. The one add-on I really love is Persona's (themes) they are beautiful on Windows 7.
Remove the SJWs from Mozilla... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:09 · Score: 0, Funny

n/t
Don't forget autoplay! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 15:12 · Score: 0

media.autoplay.enabled = false
Note: May break YouTube HTML5 videos with pre-roll ads
Re:These developers don't know what they're doing. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 16:35 · Score: 0

> The firefox developers who are making these decisions about Hello are completely incompetent, and know absolutely nothing about software engineering.

Nor about not sharing your tabs open to butt-plugs.com with grandma.
Re: disable.curb.feelers by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-31 17:50 · Score: 0

Seriously? "Nigger-rig"? Are you over 60?
It was a nice feature by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 00:48 · Score: 0

Nice feature and the idea behind it is great. But yeah, never caught on. I was much more ok witht his being bundled than with pocket honestly.
Firefox had an update since 2013? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 03:02 · Score: 0

I long ago gave up installing FF updates. Why do I have to learn a totally different UI every month or two, re-hack a dozen different settings, figure out how to defeat 30 new stupid bloatware slowware features, and waste time re-downloading auto-installs that invariably fail?
It's as if my car decided every couple of months to put the steering wheel in the rear seat, and put it under a tilt-up bar that looks just like 7 steering wheels. Oops, this month it's in the trunk, and I need a different key for each door. Next month my car is green and pink and I can't even find it in the lot...
1. Re:Firefox had an update since 2013? by Keybounce · 2016-08-01 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately, all these new features come with websites that insist on them or won't work.
  You really want to know problems? Play with ESR. The "long term stable" release. Major features/changes tend to land right after an ESR release.
  Staying on ESR means fewer changes, no more nightly surprises, no more constantly changing interface every 6 weeks, etc.
  BUT ... since major features come out the next 6 week cycle? Websites wind up using them. Suddenly, the long-term stable system becomes unable to access site after site.
  And you want to use something even older? Good luck.
Re:These developers don't know what they're doing. by BKDotCom · 2016-08-01 05:28 · Score: 1

> If I were their manager, I would call them into my office, and tell them "You're Fired!"
Developers have the leeway to make decisions (without running everything through managerment & commitee) ?! haha
It's the manager that needs fired
Re:These developers don't know what they're doing. by BKDotCom · 2016-08-01 05:30 · Score: 1

Build a "wall" around it / make it closed source!
"space-saving measure?" by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 06:24 · Score: 0

A FACE-saving measure, more likely. They're removing it because almost no one uses it -- casual users don't even know what it is, and power users disable it from about:config the first chance they get.
Re: disable.curb.feelers by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-01 16:39 · Score: 0

nigga nigggggggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa nigga nigggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
it is still understood no matter the age. there is no simpler way to state "put on so much extraneous extra fucking bullshit" than nigger rig.
If he is 60 though, respect your elders you little fucking bitch. The generations nowadays are all pussy. The advice given sounds feasible too.
Re: disable.curb.feelers by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-02 18:28 · Score: 0

Fucking racist.