6 ms·

You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.

by zaarn 8y ago

SilasX 8y ago
And I've explained that you can't expect the average newbie coder to navigate the recompilation process; I'm unsure why you blithely dismiss people who aren't as capable as you.
- zaarn 8y ago
  I don't because I also mention the developer edition and nightly, which allows unsigned addons and has regular updates. I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. Mozilla is making tradeoffs in protecting the average user and giving the power users a little bit less freedom unless they use an edition of firefox intended for power users and developers. Simple as that.
- scarface74 8y ago
  1. So you have the set of people who would be much better off in a “walled garden”, in my experience that is almost everyone. 2. You have the set of people who can compile the code from source and who want to get outside of the wall. 3. You have the set of people who want to get out of the wall but don’t have the technical expertise to know the dangers of doing so. 4. You have people who have the technical expertise to know the dangers but not the technical expertise to compile code. I think people in group 4 should learn how to be in group 2, because we have almost four decades worth of evidence to know how badly people in group 3 can do. Edit: changed group 2 to group 3 in the last sentence.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Perhaps, they forced them to do that in the middle of their workday in order to get their UX back. Imagine if your computer crashed and when it restarted it came with the mouse drivers disabled and you had to use the arrows to move the mouse around, and you were reassured you could sign up for WDN to restore use of the mouse. And I don’t think expecting the user to personally recompile for every update is reasonable, especially if you claim to let users gain control of their machines again.
    - dictum 8y ago
      Compiling a browser isn't exactly a walk in the park for the average 5 year+ old PC, either. Googlers working on Chromium dev get maxed-out machines for this reason.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      The same users who have complete “control of thier computer” who don’t know what they are doing is what causes all of the crapware, malware, ransomware on many Windows based PCs. I’m all for platforms being in a wall gardener by default where you have to jump through a few hoops to unlock an “advanced mode”. And signing up for WDN (Windows Developer Network?) hopefully you would get signed drivers. You can’t imagine the number of times my mom has done the perfectly reasonable thing of searching for Windows printer drivers on Google and ended up installing crapware from a third party site instead of getting the official driver. Signing requirements from MS would hopefully alleviate that and let advanced users try to figure out how to load unsigned drivers. (Also tangentially, why are printer drivers still a thing on Windows anyway? Anyone who connects a Mac, iPad, or iPhone to my home network - if I give them access to the non-guest network - automatically can print.)
the8472 8y ago
Then you don't get security updates. That's forcing users to make uncomfortable tradeoffs.
- zaarn 8y ago
  The developer edition allows you to use unsigned addons, that has security updates. You can't live in the modern world and expect all choices to be handed down without consequences and tradeoffs.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Right, we can't. Unless we're promising to give users control over their machines and there are trivial ways to accommodate this means of giving them control.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      Users will abuse the ability to control their own machines. Given full administrative privilege on their machine, it takes, by my experience, about a month until the machine either has various pieces of malware installed or their malware has malware installed. The average user cannot be trusted with full control of their machine and it's fairly reasonable to say that power users need to take the extra steps to, for example, install a power user edition of firefox.
      - SilasX 8y ago
        I'm not asking for full administrative privilege. I'm asking for: "If the user goes into a deep part of the obscure developer options and bypasses the warnings about unsigned addons, and then uses a non-obvious but documented process for side-loading, something virus peddlers can't really walk users through, then Firefox should honor that while explicitly displaying the list of unsigned addons the users added." >I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. And I and others have explained how those involve unacceptable tradeoffs and run directly contrary to "give users back control over their machines" ethos, though not, of course, to your extremely limited version of the ethos.

You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.

by zaarn 8y ago

You can toggle a compile option to allow unsigned addons. I've mentioned this repeatedly and I'm unsure how you didn't notice that.

SilasX 8y ago

And I've explained that you can't expect the average newbie coder to navigate the recompilation process; I'm unsure why you blithely dismiss people who aren't as capable as you.

zaarn 8y ago
I don't because I also mention the developer edition and nightly, which allows unsigned addons and has regular updates. I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. Mozilla is making tradeoffs in protecting the average user and giving the power users a little bit less freedom unless they use an edition of firefox intended for power users and developers. Simple as that.
scarface74 8y ago
1. So you have the set of people who would be much better off in a “walled garden”, in my experience that is almost everyone. 2. You have the set of people who can compile the code from source and who want to get outside of the wall. 3. You have the set of people who want to get out of the wall but don’t have the technical expertise to know the dangers of doing so. 4. You have people who have the technical expertise to know the dangers but not the technical expertise to compile code. I think people in group 4 should learn how to be in group 2, because we have almost four decades worth of evidence to know how badly people in group 3 can do. Edit: changed group 2 to group 3 in the last sentence.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Perhaps, they forced them to do that in the middle of their workday in order to get their UX back. Imagine if your computer crashed and when it restarted it came with the mouse drivers disabled and you had to use the arrows to move the mouse around, and you were reassured you could sign up for WDN to restore use of the mouse. And I don’t think expecting the user to personally recompile for every update is reasonable, especially if you claim to let users gain control of their machines again.
  - dictum 8y ago
    Compiling a browser isn't exactly a walk in the park for the average 5 year+ old PC, either. Googlers working on Chromium dev get maxed-out machines for this reason.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The same users who have complete “control of thier computer” who don’t know what they are doing is what causes all of the crapware, malware, ransomware on many Windows based PCs. I’m all for platforms being in a wall gardener by default where you have to jump through a few hoops to unlock an “advanced mode”. And signing up for WDN (Windows Developer Network?) hopefully you would get signed drivers. You can’t imagine the number of times my mom has done the perfectly reasonable thing of searching for Windows printer drivers on Google and ended up installing crapware from a third party site instead of getting the official driver. Signing requirements from MS would hopefully alleviate that and let advanced users try to figure out how to load unsigned drivers. (Also tangentially, why are printer drivers still a thing on Windows anyway? Anyone who connects a Mac, iPad, or iPhone to my home network - if I give them access to the non-guest network - automatically can print.)

the8472 8y ago

Then you don't get security updates. That's forcing users to make uncomfortable tradeoffs.

zaarn 8y ago
The developer edition allows you to use unsigned addons, that has security updates. You can't live in the modern world and expect all choices to be handed down without consequences and tradeoffs.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Right, we can't. Unless we're promising to give users control over their machines and there are trivial ways to accommodate this means of giving them control.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    Users will abuse the ability to control their own machines. Given full administrative privilege on their machine, it takes, by my experience, about a month until the machine either has various pieces of malware installed or their malware has malware installed. The average user cannot be trusted with full control of their machine and it's fairly reasonable to say that power users need to take the extra steps to, for example, install a power user edition of firefox.
    - SilasX 8y ago
      I'm not asking for full administrative privilege. I'm asking for: "If the user goes into a deep part of the obscure developer options and bypasses the warnings about unsigned addons, and then uses a non-obvious but documented process for side-loading, something virus peddlers can't really walk users through, then Firefox should honor that while explicitly displaying the list of unsigned addons the users added." >I'm not dismissing people who aren't as capable as me either, I've mentioned alternative approaches and I'm getting tired of having to repeat "there is the dev and nightly edition" to the same 5 people over and over again. And I and others have explained how those involve unacceptable tradeoffs and run directly contrary to "give users back control over their machines" ethos, though not, of course, to your extremely limited version of the ethos.