6 ms·

It's a good article, but in my experience explaining this stuff over and over again in HN and other fora, people don't actually want to know. They have their na

by roca 6y ago

It's a good article, but in my experience explaining this stuff over and over again in HN and other fora, people don't actually want to know. They have their narrative and they're sticking to it.

zeveb 6y ago
My issue is simply that I want an extension mechanism which I can use to do anything to my browser. For me, 'extension security' means 'I must write C++ to add the functionality I want,' and I never, never want to write C++.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  What prevents you from writing a patch for Firefox then? After all, it is one of the great advantages of FOSS. At this level of power you'd likely have to change the addon every upgrade anyways.
  - smegger001 6y ago
    because what you are purposing is fork a browser which is only slightly less complicated than fork operating system and involves a major investment in time/money to maintain.
    - newscracker 6y ago
      To whatever extent, there have been forks that are still alive today that support XUL extensions. Pale Moon [1] is one of them. [1]: https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      So would an extension with that kind of power. FWIW, extensions as they are already do require quite a bit of maintenance, and it is also reasonable unlikely that any one source file would be modified in one given update.
  - zeveb 6y ago
    > What prevents you from writing a patch for Firefox then? 'I never, never want to write C++.' Seriously, I can't say how much I want not to write C or C++. Life is too short to use unsafe languages.
- throwanem 6y ago
  So, install Firefox 56, or 52 ESR, and never update it. Or run PaleMoon or one of its relatives, I suppose; that community's doing what it can to preserve archives of XUL-based extensions and API documentation.
- jfb 6y ago
  I've wanted something more like Emacs for the web -- a bunch of fast primitives and hooks everywhere, with a good-enough language to allow me to modify everything about the browser as I see fit, without having to drop down into the C++ hex mines.
  - Certhas 6y ago
    I think this is the honest answer. The people upset simply don't want a browser with measurable market share. In the Stack overflow survey Emacs has a market share of <5%. Non programmers have never heard of Emacs. If Firefox was targeting these users there would be no Firefox...
    - anoncake 6y ago
      If the web wasn't so overly complicated a niche browser like that would be viable.
    - jfb 6y ago
      Right. My old boss at Apple used to encourage me to rant about how our products should work, and then shake his head and with a Gallic chuckle say, "we'd go broke if we made products for you".
  - zeveb 6y ago
    That's exactly what I want: an Emacs for the web. Or enough web-browsing capability built into Emacs to just browse every site in Emacs. Seriously, though, I want the software I run to obey me, not someone else: not Microsoft, not Apple, not some government on the other side of the world — and not Mozilla. I want to be able to modify its functionality in a straightforward manner, in a reasonably-sane garbage-collected language (so, not C, not C++, not Java and not JavaScript). I would like to be able to add pull data from sites I visit and plumb it through the rest of my system using something like Plan 9's plumber. I don't want a browser which says, 'sorry, I won't trust you to choose the extensions you like.'
- narag 6y ago
  Have you checked Chromium Embedded Framework? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework There are bindings for several languages, no need to write C++.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  There are still some forks of firefox around, you can use those. I'm glad they traded out some configurability for security and multiprocess browser. I'm sure they would accept any patches from you that allowed the old configurability with the current performance, stability and security.
spartanatreyu 6y ago
In my honest opinion retrospectives like these are generally useful, even when the audience may have an opposite and/or charged recollection
3minus1 6y ago
just ftr here's one person that found the article quite enlightening
sfink 6y ago
I'm hoping it will be valuable to use as a link to point people to. Right now, it's more effort than it's worth to rehash bits and pieces of the argument. I'm bookmarking it for future use.
cxr 6y ago
> They have their narrative and they're sticking to it. That's exactly how reading Mozilla apologetics comes across. I'd say pre-registration could help sift out the bullshit from the well-founded predictions, but there's seemingly no way to get Firefoxers to deviate from their narrative, and the proof would come at a time that's too late to act on, anyway. For all the retrospectives that exist about Jobs's ability to captivate, Mozilla folks have a self-perpetuating echo chamber/reality distortion field of their own—except the only thing it's good for is a thousand self-inflicted wounds and a smug sense of persecution. Terrible combo.

by roca 6y ago

It's a good article, but in my experience explaining this stuff over and over again in HN and other fora, people don't actually want to know. They have their narrative and they're sticking to it.

zeveb 6y ago

My issue is simply that I want an extension mechanism which I can use to do anything to my browser. For me, 'extension security' means 'I must write C++ to add the functionality I want,' and I never, never want to write C++.

sudosysgen 6y ago
What prevents you from writing a patch for Firefox then? After all, it is one of the great advantages of FOSS. At this level of power you'd likely have to change the addon every upgrade anyways.
- smegger001 6y ago
  because what you are purposing is fork a browser which is only slightly less complicated than fork operating system and involves a major investment in time/money to maintain.
  - newscracker 6y ago
    To whatever extent, there have been forks that are still alive today that support XUL extensions. Pale Moon [1] is one of them. [1]: https://www.palemoon.org/ https://www.palemoon.org/
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    So would an extension with that kind of power. FWIW, extensions as they are already do require quite a bit of maintenance, and it is also reasonable unlikely that any one source file would be modified in one given update.
- zeveb 6y ago
  > What prevents you from writing a patch for Firefox then? 'I never, never want to write C++.' Seriously, I can't say how much I want not to write C or C++. Life is too short to use unsafe languages.
throwanem 6y ago
So, install Firefox 56, or 52 ESR, and never update it. Or run PaleMoon or one of its relatives, I suppose; that community's doing what it can to preserve archives of XUL-based extensions and API documentation.
jfb 6y ago
I've wanted something more like Emacs for the web -- a bunch of fast primitives and hooks everywhere, with a good-enough language to allow me to modify everything about the browser as I see fit, without having to drop down into the C++ hex mines.
- Certhas 6y ago
  I think this is the honest answer. The people upset simply don't want a browser with measurable market share. In the Stack overflow survey Emacs has a market share of <5%. Non programmers have never heard of Emacs. If Firefox was targeting these users there would be no Firefox...
  - anoncake 6y ago
    If the web wasn't so overly complicated a niche browser like that would be viable.
  - jfb 6y ago
    Right. My old boss at Apple used to encourage me to rant about how our products should work, and then shake his head and with a Gallic chuckle say, "we'd go broke if we made products for you".
- zeveb 6y ago
  That's exactly what I want: an Emacs for the web. Or enough web-browsing capability built into Emacs to just browse every site in Emacs. Seriously, though, I want the software I run to obey me, not someone else: not Microsoft, not Apple, not some government on the other side of the world — and not Mozilla. I want to be able to modify its functionality in a straightforward manner, in a reasonably-sane garbage-collected language (so, not C, not C++, not Java and not JavaScript). I would like to be able to add pull data from sites I visit and plumb it through the rest of my system using something like Plan 9's plumber. I don't want a browser which says, 'sorry, I won't trust you to choose the extensions you like.'
narag 6y ago
Have you checked Chromium Embedded Framework? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework There are bindings for several languages, no need to write C++.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
There are still some forks of firefox around, you can use those. I'm glad they traded out some configurability for security and multiprocess browser. I'm sure they would accept any patches from you that allowed the old configurability with the current performance, stability and security.

spartanatreyu 6y ago

In my honest opinion retrospectives like these are generally useful, even when the audience may have an opposite and/or charged recollection

3minus1 6y ago

just ftr here's one person that found the article quite enlightening

sfink 6y ago

I'm hoping it will be valuable to use as a link to point people to. Right now, it's more effort than it's worth to rehash bits and pieces of the argument. I'm bookmarking it for future use.

cxr 6y ago

> They have their narrative and they're sticking to it. That's exactly how reading Mozilla apologetics comes across. I'd say pre-registration could help sift out the bullshit from the well-founded predictions, but there's seemingly no way to get Firefoxers to deviate from their narrative, and the proof would come at a time that's too late to act on, anyway. For all the retrospectives that exist about Jobs's ability to captivate, Mozilla folks have a self-perpetuating echo chamber/reality distortion field of their own—except the only thing it's good for is a thousand self-inflicted wounds and a smug sense of persecution. Terrible combo.