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Firefox is fine. The people running it are not

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  • Companies should be allowed to make a profit, you need that to cover bad years, invest in the future of the company, etc. A company without profit (unless it is a non-profit) will not survive.

    And what share of the profit should go right in executives pockets? How many employees should be laid off to increase this profit? Is 6 million $/yr enough for a CEO to feed their fucking family?

  • Sadly I am running into more and more things that don't work on firefox. Stuff like medical record portals, financial websites for my companies retirement plan. Stuff I have little choice about. And most fail silently. They don't say it is the browser. I don't know how they are doing it, but google is winning the fight.

    When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that's what most people use.

    It's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  • But it literally is the same. The only difference is the user space. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD shows this. Different operating system same user space.

    Take a look at Wikipedia for more info.

    An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
    Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, peripherals, and other resources.

    an operating system is comprised of the kernel, as well as system libraries and system utilities… user space is irrelevant to the classification of what is and isn’t an operating system: the concept of user space doesn’t even exist in some operating systems

    the concept of a kernel isn’t even useful to define operating systems… look at things like ROS for example

  • So what do we do ? Go to Chromium & expand it's monopoly ?

    FF forks like LibreWolf, IronFox, WaterFox etc...
    have to become their own thing via Servo, at least until we get LadyBird.

    There's Seamonkey as well; which is an entire suite of apps bundled with a browser (Email, RSS, IRC etc..)

    I used basilisk for a short while. Very minimal browser, indeed.

    But it's chromium, so you do you. I personally favour anything that doesn't bloat me. Early on I used opera back on a j2me device, there was also a browser with a nice data saving feature, I had access to all cricket news and cricket sport teams because it was heaviliy featured there, there was a squirrel as a logo but it's all I remember.

    Edit it was ucbrowser

  • I don't understand how you can't.

    In a business setting, it's called "professionalism", and in a personal setting it's called being a nice person. Most of my family is against gay marriage and don't believe in gender fluidity, yet when my sister in law said her child is non-binary and would like to be referred to with they/then, they complied. Why? Believing those things doesn't mean you hate LGBT people, it just means you disagree about policy. They love my sister in law and her kids, so they'll do what they can to help them feel comfortable around them and want to participate in family gatherings.

    I personally believe strongly that marriage should be available to all consenting adults, but I also believe gay marriage goes against God's plan. Why? I believe everyone has the right to make their own choices and whether that's acceptable to God isn't my business. Maybe I'm misreading things, IDK, but my personal religious beliefs only guide my personal decisions and I believe I am supposed to love everyone regardless of their lifestyle. Whether someone else is sinning isn't really my business, nor should it impact my love for them. And maybe they're not sinning, again, IDK, it's not my business.

    I support same sex marriage (my church doesn't) because I believe in freedom of choice, and that policy merely increases options for others and doesn't decrease mine. Likewise for most LGBT policies, like bathroom use or gender change on IDs, you do you. We had an LGBT candidate at work (pretty obviously trans), and I was happily surprised that wasn't an issue for my very conservative coworker during the interview (they're an observant Muslim with conservative social views), and I went out of my way to make sure we both corrected for any subconscious bias we might have.

    I don't know Brendan Eich, maybe he's actually a terrible person, idk. What I do know is he had a long career at Mozilla (nearly 20 years), and there were no public complaints about him until he was chosen as CEO. From all accounts, people were only mad about his $1k donation to prop 8, not about his conduct at work or anything of that nature. The board even asked him to stay in another capacity, but he left because he loved Mozilla and obviously he wasn't able to be an effective leader if his presence encouraged people to recommend against using Firefox and other Mozilla products.

    To me, it's a crazy overreaction, he donated a pretty modest amount one time, six years prior, and had no complaints during his position as CTO. He absolutely got brigaded because someone decided to dig up donation records. If they didn't, he probably would've been a successful CEO and refocused on the tech, instead of whatever nonsense the follow-up CEOs have been doing.

    I disagree with Eich's political views, but also think he was the best person for the CEO role. He seemed like a competent professional, and he was certainly technically competent given his long technical career at Mozilla.

    I also believe gay marriage goes against God’s plan

    I support same sex marriage (my church doesn’t) because I believe in freedom of choice

    I applaud you for supporting same-sex marriage, but - apologies if this sounds like I'm picking on you, I'm really not - this is like someone who claims to be a young-earth creationist but agrees that radiocarbon dating is accurate. I don't understand how these mutually-exclusive thoughts can happily coexist in your mind. I wish we could discuss this over a drink because I'm very intrigued by whatever epistemic process led you there.

  • When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that's what most people use.

    It's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    It's so damn stupid. If your site works meaningfully differently in Firefox vs Chromium, you're already doing something very, very wrong.

  • an operating system is comprised of the kernel, as well as system libraries and system utilities… user space is irrelevant to the classification of what is and isn’t an operating system: the concept of user space doesn’t even exist in some operating systems

    the concept of a kernel isn’t even useful to define operating systems… look at things like ROS for example

    If you define it that way you are right. Yah. But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    Really great read.

    I urge you to take a look at https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ It’s the exact same utilities and everything but a completely different kernel. It really highlights the difference here. How would your definition account for this?

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code? It has all the system libraries and system utilities that you associate with Linux.

  • If you define it that way you are right. Yah. But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    Really great read.

    I urge you to take a look at https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ It’s the exact same utilities and everything but a completely different kernel. It really highlights the difference here. How would your definition account for this?

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code? It has all the system libraries and system utilities that you associate with Linux.

    But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    the common understanding is that android is a different operating system to ubuntu, and macos is a different operating system to openbsd

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code?

    it is what it is: a completely different thing… BSD system tools with a linux kernel

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    Firefox still hasn't fixed Bug 1938998 despite me reporting it multiple times. There's a reason why Firefox is almost non existent on mobile. I've been using the internet for 26 years, and have used Mozilla based browsers since 2001, I want them to survive to the next era of the internet, but they are struggling to keep up. Opera and Edge already gave up their engines, Webkit and Blink are basically the same engine with different standards enabled, and Firefox is under 2% on some days on Statcounter. I feel that soon AI based browsers using their own AI-engine will probably take over the internet soon anyway.

  • Did you read the article? It says Firefox is the best choice you have, and all of the criticism is directed at the organization's leadership.

    … leadership impacts the product. Ff might be the best choice rn, but leadership will fuck it up.

  • But the common understanding is a bit different than yours.

    the common understanding is that android is a different operating system to ubuntu, and macos is a different operating system to openbsd

    Would Debian GNU/kFreeBSD be 50% Linux, 50% FreeBSD under your definition even though it has no Linux code?

    it is what it is: a completely different thing… BSD system tools with a linux kernel

    You’re gunna do you and use your own definitions and I respect that. But the first line from the page is

    Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.

    It is literally GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set

    You can say Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is BSD system tools with a Linux kernel but you would be evidently and clearly wrong.

    Anyways. I wish you well. Best of luck.

  • You’re gunna do you and use your own definitions and I respect that. But the first line from the page is

    Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port that consists of GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set.

    It is literally GNU userland using the GNU C library on top of FreeBSD's kernel, coupled with the regular Debian package set

    You can say Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is BSD system tools with a Linux kernel but you would be evidently and clearly wrong.

    Anyways. I wish you well. Best of luck.

    okay, sorry i got the kernel and system tools mixed up in my head after reading it. that proves nothing other than the fact that you’re looking for a gotcha rather than a serious discussion

  • okay, sorry i got the kernel and system tools mixed up in my head after reading it. that proves nothing other than the fact that you’re looking for a gotcha rather than a serious discussion

    That’s ok! I was just trying to help you see the difference. You do now. It’s a win/win. There was a reason why I kept on brining up Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. It really highlights the difference.

  • When I asked a couple of developers who work on websites/webapps with a lot of moving parts, they said it was easiest to just test for chrome, since that's what most people use.

    It's turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    It's ironic that I use Firefox personally but unfortunately we prioritized Chrome when I did more front end work too. Firefox would often render views differently compared to Chrome (Safari was also a shetshow) and we had to prioritize work ofc, especially for legacy stuff.

    The thing is, as a pure guess, I would bet that it's Chrome that's not adhering to the web standards.

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    One observer has been spectating and commentating on Mozilla since before it was a foundation – one of its original co-developers, Jamie Zawinksi

    ...

    Zawinski has repeatedly said:

    Now hear me out, but What If…? browser development was in the hands of some kind of nonprofit organization?

    In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

    1. Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
    1. Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
    1. There is no 3.

    This makes sense to me. I initially thought everything that Proton does, that should have been Mozilla. They should have been a collection of services to compete with like O365 and Google One. So I didn’t see a problem with Mozilla selling a VPN, even though if I remember right it being just a Mullvad rebrand.

    Right now to me it looks like Proton is the closest mostly missing a web browser and a more cloud office offering.

    Mozilla functioning more as the reference browser for others to finish packaging and supporting sounds good to me because Mozilla doesn’t seem to be great at attracting general users or even picking what businesses to try and break into.

    Linux kernel devs do Linux kernel development and distros small and large do the integration with everything else needed for an operating system, branding, support, etc. Sounds like Mozilla should have been the core devs for a number of reference software projects. Firefox browser engine. Maybe an equivalent to Electron based on Servo. Shouldn't have dropped Rust and been the steward for the reference Rust compiler. Could have been the steward for FirefoxOS/KaiOS/etc. Support PostmarketOS maybe.

    Linux foundation stewards or contributes to all sorts of software projects not just the kernel but they're all pretty much things that are relevant for users of Linux operating systems. Mozilla could have found some software centric focus that in some way came together thematically. I would guess privacy focused browser and software services

  • It's so damn stupid. If your site works meaningfully differently in Firefox vs Chromium, you're already doing something very, very wrong.

    This is like telling people that they are doing something wrong when they don't "buy low and sell high" when they're trading. Obviously. Issues with browser parity are born from a difficulty of the how and the when, not the what.

  • That’s ok! I was just trying to help you see the difference. You do now. It’s a win/win. There was a reason why I kept on brining up Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. It really highlights the difference.

    and my point is that these things aren’t definitions that have particularly concrete categories… an operating system is not a single thing: it can be many different things which include things like GUIs even… as much as we try to fit the world into neat little boxes, that’s just not how things work

    even the categories of operating systems is messy: take single user vs multi user… macos is single user, but openbsd is multi user… in the beginning, the kernel was largely the same but due to the system tools and configuration, macos became a different classification of operating system

    it’s all super messy, and saying that windows vista and windows 11 are the same operating system is extremely reductive

  • and my point is that these things aren’t definitions that have particularly concrete categories… an operating system is not a single thing: it can be many different things which include things like GUIs even… as much as we try to fit the world into neat little boxes, that’s just not how things work

    even the categories of operating systems is messy: take single user vs multi user… macos is single user, but openbsd is multi user… in the beginning, the kernel was largely the same but due to the system tools and configuration, macos became a different classification of operating system

    it’s all super messy, and saying that windows vista and windows 11 are the same operating system is extremely reductive

    But we can agree that there are upper and lower limits though. And I believe that we can now agree that system utilities and system libraries are outside of that limit. Just because the edge are fuzzy, don’t mean we can’t come to any conclusions at all.

    Any now stepping way way back. I think we can now agree that Fedora, Ubuntu and other distros run the same operating system. That operating system being Linux.

  • Firefox still hasn't fixed Bug 1938998 despite me reporting it multiple times. There's a reason why Firefox is almost non existent on mobile. I've been using the internet for 26 years, and have used Mozilla based browsers since 2001, I want them to survive to the next era of the internet, but they are struggling to keep up. Opera and Edge already gave up their engines, Webkit and Blink are basically the same engine with different standards enabled, and Firefox is under 2% on some days on Statcounter. I feel that soon AI based browsers using their own AI-engine will probably take over the internet soon anyway.

    I use it on mobile. It's mostly OK tbh, and the addition of a working ad blocker means it's far better than Chrome for me.

    In fairness that is an invalid URL in my book, but it should at least be consistent across desktop and mobile, or at least tucked behind an option.

  • You called what?

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    What I'm speaking about is that it should be impossible to do some things. If it's possible, they will be done, and there's nothing you can do about it. To solve the problem of twiddled social media (and moderation used to assert dominance) we need a decentralized system of 90s Web reimagined, and Fediverse doesn't deliver it - if Facebook and Reddit are feudal states, then Fediverse is a confederation of smaller feudal entities. A post, a person, a community, a reaction and a change (by moderator or by the user) should be global entities (with global identifiers, so that the object by id of #0000001a2b3c4d6e7f890 would be the same object today or 10 years later on every server storing it) replicated over a network of servers similarly to Usenet (and to an IRC network, but in an IRC network servers are trusted, so it's not a good example for a global system). Really bad posts (or those by persons with history of posting such) should be banned on server level by everyone. The rest should be moderated by moderator reactions\changes of certain type. Ideally, for pooling of resources and resilience, servers would be separated by types into storage nodes (I think the name says it, FTP servers can do the job, but no need to be limited by it), index nodes (scraping many storage nodes, giving out results in structured format fit for any user representation, say, as a sequence of posts in one community, or like a list of communities found by tag, or ... , and possibly being connected into one DHT for Kademlia-like search, since no single index node will have everything), and (like in torrents?) tracker nodes for these and for identities, I think torrent-like announce-retrieve service is enough - to return a list of storage nodes storing, say, a specified partition (subspace of identifiers of objects, to make looking for something at least possibly efficient), or return a list of index nodes, or return a bunch of certificates and keys for an identity (should be somehow cryptographically connected to the global identifier of a person). So when a storage node comes online, it announces itself to a bunch of such trackers, similarly with index nodes, similarly with a user. One can also have a NOSTR-like service for real-time notifications by users. This way you'd have a global untrusted pooled infrastructure, allowing to replace many platforms. With common data, identities, services. Objects in storage and index services can be, say, in a format including a set of tags and then the body. So a specific application needing to show only data related to it would just search on index services and display only objects with tags of, say, "holo_ns:talk.bullshit.starwars" and "holo_t:post", like a sequence of posts with ability to comment, or maybe it would search objects with tags "holo_name:My 1999-like Star Wars holopage" and "holo_t:page" and display the links like search results in Google, and then clicking on that you'd see something presented like a webpage, except links would lead to global identifiers (or tag expressions interpreted by the particular application, who knows). (An index service may return, say, an array of objects, each with identifier, tags, list of locations on storage nodes where it's found or even bittorrent magnet links, and a free description possibly ; then the user application can unify responses of a few such services to avoid repetitions, maybe sort them, represent them as needed, so on.) The user applications for that common infrastructure can be different at the same time. Some like Facebook, some like ICQ, some like a web browser, some like a newsreader. (Star Wars is not a random reference, my whole habit of imagining tech stuff is from trying to imagine a science fiction world of the future, so yeah, this may seem like passive dreaming and it is.)
  • Using Signal groups for activism

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    You're using a messaging app that was built with the express intent of being private and encrypted. Yes. You're asking why you can't have a right to privacy when you use your real name as your display handle in order to hide your phone number. I didn't ask anything. I stated it definitively. If you then use personal details as your screen name, you can't get mad at the app for not hiding your personal details. I've already explained this. I am not mad. I am telling you why it's a bad product for activism. Chatting with your friends and clients isn't what this app is for. That's...exactly what it's for. And I don't know where you got the idea that it's not. It's absurd. Certainly Snowden never said anything of the sort. Signal themselves never said anything of the sort. There are other apps for that. Of course there are. They're varying degrees of not private, secure, or easy to use.
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    And they all suck, my boss is still alive.
  • Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates

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    I always say there are drivers out there who only survive by the grace of other drivers.
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    I thought we were going to get our share of the damages
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    Wow, that's really concerning! It's crazy how these breaches can lead to such massive losses. If anyone's dealing with crypto fraud, I’ve heard Segev LLP is a solid firm that helps people and companies navigate these situations. Stay safe, everyone!