9 ms·

Remove Firefox Hello from FF49

74 points by onli 10y ago

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Thank GOD. Hello wasn't a bad idea, but nobody used it, and it sure as heck didn't belong in firefox's default distribution.
- kirkdouglas 10y ago
  It seems that they will make Hello an add-on instead.
  - morganvachon 10y ago
    Which they should have done with Pocket as well. Yet it lives on, forcing those who don't want it to go through the steps to disable it. It can't be completely removed without gutting it from the codebase and rebuilding it yourself. I'm not saying a clipping service like Pocket is bad, or a WebRTC service like Hello shouldn't exist, but it should never have been part of the base install. One of the greatest strengths of browsers like Firefox and Chrome is the ability to use plugins, yet Mozilla chose to forego that twice over.
    - sp332 10y ago
      Right-click -> remove from toolbar. Unless you count that as two "steps".
      - gorhill 10y ago
        Unlike other add-ons you disable, Pocket will still always be in memory after you disable it. See `about:memory`.
        sp332 10y ago
        It's not in my about:memory. Did you set up an account first before you disabled it? Does it go away if you log out and restart? Edit: 49.0a2 "Developer Edition" on Win10
      - morganvachon 10y ago
        It's a little more complicated than that. Pocket is part of the application itself, not a plugin, and you have to go into about:config to fully disable it, else it will continue to have access to anything you type into the address bar. http://www.howtogeek.com/228863/how-to-remove-firefox-hello-and-pocket-from-firefox/ http://www.howtogeek.com/228863/how-to-remove-firefox-hello-...
        sp332 10y ago
        Do you have a source for that last part?
        morganvachon 10y ago
        Common sense. One has to assume that Pocket will take the path of least resistance, seeking constant read access to the URL bar so it can perform a one-click save. It may be possible for them to come up with a way to get the URL without having read access, perhaps by having Firefox pass the URL only when asked for by Pocket, but I saw nothing like that in the Firefox code when this partnership was first announced. Granted, I haven't looked since, but why would they change it? And since Pocket's code is proprietary and closed, there's no way to audit what they do and how they do it. So, one has to assume a lazy, insecure method on their part until they prove otherwise. Assuming benevolence and diligence from a company that is blatantly anti-open-source is foolish.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    That's much more reasonable.
  - onli 10y ago
    That's the part I do not really get. It already is an addon, kind of. They introduced the concept of system addons, that are addons code wise, but can't be managed via the addon interface, and that is what Hello was already. This bugreport however seems to be about removing that system addon. Maybe they want to transform it into a regular addon. But the bugreport does not mention it, and I saw no additional explication elsewhere.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
amq 10y ago
Next on the list: Pocket, closed-source EME, Flash.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  Are you suggesting that Firefox should remove support for EME and legacy plugins like Flash? It seems like like that will achieve little more than pissing off their users.
  - amq 10y ago
    Firefox should at least ask users before enabling closed-source plugins, and give a simple way to enable/disable them like any other plugin. Or even better: distribute a clean browser and let users install things like Flash and EME as plugins.
    - blowski 10y ago
      They do - if you don't like it, don't install it. Or even fork it. The default distribution is trying to provide the best experience for the majority of users and Flash is unfortunately necessary for that.
  - rye_bother 10y ago
    Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) are something I've never actually seen used anywhere. Adobe Flash: why isn't it dead yet? Pocket is retarded, and it's icon is a non-sequiteur, with no clear purpose. It's a non-obvious add-on that found it's way into the default build probably due to funding. And chatting and video calls with a browser extension alway felt very Netscape Navigator to me.
    - pix64 10y ago
      Netflix uses EME. Amazon Prime Video also I believe.
      - 10y ago
lmedinas 10y ago
I don't get why Firefox tends to add and remove feature so often. Even if it's because of money, this is hurting the user base. Firefox Hello was probably an atempt to fuel WebRTC or provide some capabilities to Firefox OS. But it was included in the main distribution - Firefox - spending resources for what ?
- binaryanomaly 10y ago
  Agree, imho it's a bad strategy to add such things to your core product and risk loosing loyal users. Looks like they have somehow realized that though as the approach with "experiments" is a different one.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  Not just that. Mozilla is completely losing focus. They used to stand for "keeping the web open" and they've been doing a shit job of it lately. * Messing up the marketing behind critical projects (Persona) and then shutting them down when their usage is too low for their taste. * Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. * Putting a ton of money into Firefox OS, an atrociously bad and slow OS that had the worst mobile UX I've ever experienced. Then putting even more money into the Flame so that they can have a bad OS on dedicatedly-bad hardware. * Constantly messing up feature development on Firefox with Hello, Pocket and more, all pointing to Mozilla clearly not understanding the Firefox userbase. * In the mean time, Firefox is still far slower than chrome. Scrolling especially. Gmail and irccloud are unusable for me on Firefox. My own project hits Firefox's performance issues (compare seeking on this player in Chrome/Firefox: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF - Firefox is a solid 10x slower). So to recap: Axing critical projects in a market they understand, so that they can spend the money on futile projects in a market they don't understand. Introducing controversial new features in Firefox while the browser is still far slower than Chrome, losing what's left of their market share. And this is just the big stuff, I could go on for another 10 paragraphs. Mozilla is heading into a mountain. They need to seriously rethink their structure and priorities if they want to avoid a crash. Edit/PS: Most of these issues are structural. Pocket's functionality is useful in a web browser. A truly-free mobile OS/smartphone is also something we need. And foss communications are extremely important to the web, which is currently locked in to hangouts/messenger. But Mozilla is messing all these up at every corner; underestimating costs, underestimating effort, misunderstanding (being disconnected from) their userbase, not marketing anything properly and giving up too easily.
Brakenshire 10y ago
Never really understood why people were strongly opposed to Firefox Hello. As far as I understand, it's a minimal wrapper on WebRTC. Seems to be no argument on bloat, perhaps a minimal argument on confusing the user? Or was there some privacy implication I hadn't heard of?
- favadi 10y ago
  It is just not useful for anything. You can't tell your friends to install Firefox for a video call.
  - iamd3vil 10y ago
    You don't need Firefox for a video chat. It sends a link and you can open it in any browser.
  - amelius 10y ago
    Why can't we in 2016? What is so special about "installing" software as opposed to just running it, that it needs additional consideration?
- adrusi 10y ago
  Well for one, Firefox Hello works with a centralized signaling server running proprietary code. Not appealing to the contingent of Firefox users who use it because it's the most in-line with free software ideals of the popular browsers.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    running proprietary code No, the server is MPLv2 licensed: https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server
    - adrusi 10y ago
      As I understand, It uses Telefonica's proprietary (and misleadingly named) OpenTok platform. The README you linked even mentions specifying TokBox credentials.
SlySherZ 10y ago
My question to everyone is: What is the reason for a _browser_ to have an integrated _chat client_? In my opinion, it doesn't make any sense. We should keep separated tools that do different jobs, and make each one general enough that it can be used in every situation.
- gpvos 10y ago
  I used to agree, but even I now sometimes use the camera of my phone.
  - kwanbis 10y ago
    That is a totally different need. You carry one gadget instead of two, and the camera gets benefits from the connectivity of the phone.
  - SlySherZ 10y ago
    That's a very good point, some things are very good at doing everything. But I don't think that should apply to the browser. Firefox already gives you extensions, which means you can add to it whatever you need. Would you say the browser should come with a painter program by default? Maybe a file manager too? What about a specific program to print for a specific printer? At what point should you stop reinventing the wheel?
  - adrusi 10y ago
    There's an important difference between hardware and software. Hardware takes up space. It would probably be better to have a dedicated DSLR and a dedicated radio communication device that have a standard method of interoperability, if not for the fact that you'd have to carry them both around. You'd have better quality photos, and could take both wide-angle and zoomed shots, and you could swap out your camera to suit your needs, instead of always having the one camera soldered onto your phone. Software takes up no space.
    - gpvos 10y ago
      I agree and understand; I was being a bit facetious there. However, I actually still don't quite understand why browsers can play video and audio. I much rather play those in dedicated software, to the extent that I regularly view the source of such pages to figure out the URL of the media to be played. I guess this is because of ease of use for the average user, and occasionally for DRM, but it annoys me to no end. Playing all video or audio in the same software means a much better and consistent user interface for things like rewind, pause, full screen, etc.
GrayShade 10y ago
I suspect they found some really bad security problems. The bug in cause is listed as blocking two other private issues.
- reubenmorais 10y ago
  The blocked bugs are not security problems.
  - davidgerard 10y ago
    If not security, what are the reasons for Mozilla bugs to go private?
    - ianbicking 10y ago
      Hello has been a partner project, and partners are not generally as transparent as Mozilla so it requires somewhat more careful release of information.
- nnethercote 10y ago
  There are good web clients for video chat, e.g. talky.io. Therefore it doesn't make that much sense for Firefox to have its own version.
niftich 10y ago
On this thread about 'reducing flash usage in Firefox' [1] a few days ago, I articulated a point that I've been witnessing for a while: Mozilla products have three distinct audiences, and their wants and needs are often contradictory. These audiences are, in increasing order of vocalness: [a] the impressionable; the next-wave of web user who has recently gotten online [b] the alternative-seeker; the average web user who is uneasy with Google [c] the idealist; the open web, open-source advocate There is, of course, some amount of overlap between the audiences. But Chrome (despite Chromium), Edge, and Safari are largely missing audience [c] entirely; some of audience [b] will try to avoid any Chromium-derived product. These and other interactions create conflicting pressures between people who want Firefox have close feature-parity with Chrome, and people who want Firefox to stick closer to the mission of providing an open, elegant, minimalist browser open to user customization. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691

74 points by onli 10y ago

Thank GOD. Hello wasn't a bad idea, but nobody used it, and it sure as heck didn't belong in firefox's default distribution.

kirkdouglas 10y ago
It seems that they will make Hello an add-on instead.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  Which they should have done with Pocket as well. Yet it lives on, forcing those who don't want it to go through the steps to disable it. It can't be completely removed without gutting it from the codebase and rebuilding it yourself. I'm not saying a clipping service like Pocket is bad, or a WebRTC service like Hello shouldn't exist, but it should never have been part of the base install. One of the greatest strengths of browsers like Firefox and Chrome is the ability to use plugins, yet Mozilla chose to forego that twice over.
  - sp332 10y ago
    Right-click -> remove from toolbar. Unless you count that as two "steps".
    - gorhill 10y ago
      Unlike other add-ons you disable, Pocket will still always be in memory after you disable it. See `about:memory`.
      - sp332 10y ago
        It's not in my about:memory. Did you set up an account first before you disabled it? Does it go away if you log out and restart? Edit: 49.0a2 "Developer Edition" on Win10
    - morganvachon 10y ago
      It's a little more complicated than that. Pocket is part of the application itself, not a plugin, and you have to go into about:config to fully disable it, else it will continue to have access to anything you type into the address bar. http://www.howtogeek.com/228863/how-to-remove-firefox-hello-and-pocket-from-firefox/ http://www.howtogeek.com/228863/how-to-remove-firefox-hello-...
      - sp332 10y ago
        Do you have a source for that last part?
        morganvachon 10y ago
        Common sense. One has to assume that Pocket will take the path of least resistance, seeking constant read access to the URL bar so it can perform a one-click save. It may be possible for them to come up with a way to get the URL without having read access, perhaps by having Firefox pass the URL only when asked for by Pocket, but I saw nothing like that in the Firefox code when this partnership was first announced. Granted, I haven't looked since, but why would they change it? And since Pocket's code is proprietary and closed, there's no way to audit what they do and how they do it. So, one has to assume a lazy, insecure method on their part until they prove otherwise. Assuming benevolence and diligence from a company that is blatantly anti-open-source is foolish.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  That's much more reasonable.
- onli 10y ago
  That's the part I do not really get. It already is an addon, kind of. They introduced the concept of system addons, that are addons code wise, but can't be managed via the addon interface, and that is what Hello was already. This bugreport however seems to be about removing that system addon. Maybe they want to transform it into a regular addon. But the bugreport does not mention it, and I saw no additional explication elsewhere.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

amq 10y ago

Next on the list: Pocket, closed-source EME, Flash.

matthewmacleod 10y ago
Are you suggesting that Firefox should remove support for EME and legacy plugins like Flash? It seems like like that will achieve little more than pissing off their users.
- amq 10y ago
  Firefox should at least ask users before enabling closed-source plugins, and give a simple way to enable/disable them like any other plugin. Or even better: distribute a clean browser and let users install things like Flash and EME as plugins.
  - blowski 10y ago
    They do - if you don't like it, don't install it. Or even fork it. The default distribution is trying to provide the best experience for the majority of users and Flash is unfortunately necessary for that.
- rye_bother 10y ago
  Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) are something I've never actually seen used anywhere. Adobe Flash: why isn't it dead yet? Pocket is retarded, and it's icon is a non-sequiteur, with no clear purpose. It's a non-obvious add-on that found it's way into the default build probably due to funding. And chatting and video calls with a browser extension alway felt very Netscape Navigator to me.
  - pix64 10y ago
    Netflix uses EME. Amazon Prime Video also I believe.
    - 10y ago

lmedinas 10y ago

I don't get why Firefox tends to add and remove feature so often. Even if it's because of money, this is hurting the user base. Firefox Hello was probably an atempt to fuel WebRTC or provide some capabilities to Firefox OS. But it was included in the main distribution - Firefox - spending resources for what ?

binaryanomaly 10y ago
Agree, imho it's a bad strategy to add such things to your core product and risk loosing loyal users. Looks like they have somehow realized that though as the approach with "experiments" is a different one.
scrollaway 10y ago
Not just that. Mozilla is completely losing focus. They used to stand for "keeping the web open" and they've been doing a shit job of it lately. * Messing up the marketing behind critical projects (Persona) and then shutting them down when their usage is too low for their taste. * Axing Thunderbird, one of the last usable non-web-based email clients. I don't like nor use TB, but maintaining a decent email client cant be that hard for Mozilla, and it is important for the web. * Putting a ton of money into Firefox OS, an atrociously bad and slow OS that had the worst mobile UX I've ever experienced. Then putting even more money into the Flame so that they can have a bad OS on dedicatedly-bad hardware. * Constantly messing up feature development on Firefox with Hello, Pocket and more, all pointing to Mozilla clearly not understanding the Firefox userbase. * In the mean time, Firefox is still far slower than chrome. Scrolling especially. Gmail and irccloud are unusable for me on Firefox. My own project hits Firefox's performance issues (compare seeking on this player in Chrome/Firefox: https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF https://hsreplay.net/replay/vZEz7JoNnfgVo34HJUHhEF - Firefox is a solid 10x slower). So to recap: Axing critical projects in a market they understand, so that they can spend the money on futile projects in a market they don't understand. Introducing controversial new features in Firefox while the browser is still far slower than Chrome, losing what's left of their market share. And this is just the big stuff, I could go on for another 10 paragraphs. Mozilla is heading into a mountain. They need to seriously rethink their structure and priorities if they want to avoid a crash. Edit/PS: Most of these issues are structural. Pocket's functionality is useful in a web browser. A truly-free mobile OS/smartphone is also something we need. And foss communications are extremely important to the web, which is currently locked in to hangouts/messenger. But Mozilla is messing all these up at every corner; underestimating costs, underestimating effort, misunderstanding (being disconnected from) their userbase, not marketing anything properly and giving up too easily.

Brakenshire 10y ago

Never really understood why people were strongly opposed to Firefox Hello. As far as I understand, it's a minimal wrapper on WebRTC. Seems to be no argument on bloat, perhaps a minimal argument on confusing the user? Or was there some privacy implication I hadn't heard of?

favadi 10y ago
It is just not useful for anything. You can't tell your friends to install Firefox for a video call.
- iamd3vil 10y ago
  You don't need Firefox for a video chat. It sends a link and you can open it in any browser.
- amelius 10y ago
  Why can't we in 2016? What is so special about "installing" software as opposed to just running it, that it needs additional consideration?
adrusi 10y ago
Well for one, Firefox Hello works with a centralized signaling server running proprietary code. Not appealing to the contingent of Firefox users who use it because it's the most in-line with free software ideals of the popular browsers.
- icebraining 10y ago
  running proprietary code No, the server is MPLv2 licensed: https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server https://github.com/mozilla-services/loop-server
  - adrusi 10y ago
    As I understand, It uses Telefonica's proprietary (and misleadingly named) OpenTok platform. The README you linked even mentions specifying TokBox credentials.

SlySherZ 10y ago

My question to everyone is: What is the reason for a _browser_ to have an integrated _chat client_? In my opinion, it doesn't make any sense. We should keep separated tools that do different jobs, and make each one general enough that it can be used in every situation.

gpvos 10y ago
I used to agree, but even I now sometimes use the camera of my phone.
- kwanbis 10y ago
  That is a totally different need. You carry one gadget instead of two, and the camera gets benefits from the connectivity of the phone.
- SlySherZ 10y ago
  That's a very good point, some things are very good at doing everything. But I don't think that should apply to the browser. Firefox already gives you extensions, which means you can add to it whatever you need. Would you say the browser should come with a painter program by default? Maybe a file manager too? What about a specific program to print for a specific printer? At what point should you stop reinventing the wheel?
- adrusi 10y ago
  There's an important difference between hardware and software. Hardware takes up space. It would probably be better to have a dedicated DSLR and a dedicated radio communication device that have a standard method of interoperability, if not for the fact that you'd have to carry them both around. You'd have better quality photos, and could take both wide-angle and zoomed shots, and you could swap out your camera to suit your needs, instead of always having the one camera soldered onto your phone. Software takes up no space.
  - gpvos 10y ago
    I agree and understand; I was being a bit facetious there. However, I actually still don't quite understand why browsers can play video and audio. I much rather play those in dedicated software, to the extent that I regularly view the source of such pages to figure out the URL of the media to be played. I guess this is because of ease of use for the average user, and occasionally for DRM, but it annoys me to no end. Playing all video or audio in the same software means a much better and consistent user interface for things like rewind, pause, full screen, etc.

GrayShade 10y ago

I suspect they found some really bad security problems. The bug in cause is listed as blocking two other private issues.

reubenmorais 10y ago
The blocked bugs are not security problems.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  If not security, what are the reasons for Mozilla bugs to go private?
  - ianbicking 10y ago
    Hello has been a partner project, and partners are not generally as transparent as Mozilla so it requires somewhat more careful release of information.
nnethercote 10y ago
There are good web clients for video chat, e.g. talky.io. Therefore it doesn't make that much sense for Firefox to have its own version.

niftich 10y ago

On this thread about 'reducing flash usage in Firefox' [1] a few days ago, I articulated a point that I've been witnessing for a while: Mozilla products have three distinct audiences, and their wants and needs are often contradictory. These audiences are, in increasing order of vocalness: [a] the impressionable; the next-wave of web user who has recently gotten online [b] the alternative-seeker; the average web user who is uneasy with Google [c] the idealist; the open web, open-source advocate There is, of course, some amount of overlap between the audiences. But Chrome (despite Chromium), Edge, and Safari are largely missing audience [c] entirely; some of audience [b] will try to avoid any Chromium-derived product. These and other interactions create conflicting pressures between people who want Firefox have close feature-parity with Chrome, and people who want Firefox to stick closer to the mission of providing an open, elegant, minimalist browser open to user customization. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691