10 ms·

Firefox just walked away from a key piece of the open web [progressive web apps]

33 points by Nrbelex 6y ago

mnd999 6y ago
Discussed previously here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25589177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25589177
- tompark 6y ago
  Also yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25919018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25919018 Off-topic, but how does the exact same URL get submitted again within a day? Do you need a certain level of karma to do that?
ohgodplsno 6y ago
Oh hey, more fearmongering and horrible clickbait about Firefox, it had been a few hours without some! Firefox just dropped the single site browser feature. The thing that was hidden under a flag for the executable, that you had to actually dig for quite a bit to find. The thing that didn't work that well to begin with. Link in your site that redirects to another site? Well, your window is now a... multiple site browser, because it's going to stay in there. But no, surely it's Firefox moving away from a key piece of the open web, and not because the feature never worked that well in the first place. Or that barely anyone used it.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Thanks for the context. I had trouble parsing the article because it was so blogspammy.
- ballenf 6y ago
  FWIW, I use a program called "flow" on MacOS that does this but using Safari. Use it for slack and a music streaming, and dev kanban board. Anything can be made to be stuck to front or back. Eliminates all the buttons, and gets a custom title. It could be better and I know the same exists and is more popular for Chrome, but I wanted the absolute lowest CPU possible for MacOS.
  - ohgodplsno 6y ago
    But I take it that if you were to click on a link in one of those windows, your Slack window now becomes... a Gitlab window.
    - ballenf 6y ago
      That's a customizable setting in Flow. You can have it launch your default browser or open it internally. There's also the pros and cons of auth/cookie isolation. You'll need to log in to Slack again. But if you use it for, say, Facebook it will work like the isolation feature in FF.
  - addicted 6y ago
    There used to be something like this built on Firefox. I'm not sure what happened to it.
    - FrontAid 6y ago
      Maybe you are referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Prism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Prism
  - marczellm 6y ago
    Aren't you referring to Fluid? https://fluidapp.com/ https://fluidapp.com/
rafaelturk 6y ago
We're investing a lot in PWA is our safe harbor bet against market domination from Google Play and Apple Store.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  How so, though? Those platforms' market dominantion is a reflection of the fact that they have _devices_; Mozilla, as far as I know, don't have devices and jailbreaking is off the table for the majority of device users.
andrefuchs 6y ago
Wasn't FirefoxOS basically based on the idea of PWA like apps?
jjice 6y ago
> Mozilla has always championed the open web. So why is it abandoning desktop web apps, the most powerful alternative to proprietary App Stores? Most powerful? Define powerful here. If we're talking about convenience, I guess, but even then, a standard webpage is fine. In terms of amount of things it can do, no way. Not having access to a file system or standard sockets immediately disqualifies it from being the second most powerful option in my mind. Maybe the word "powerful" is being used differently here, but I don't know what definition they could be using.
- true_religion 6y ago
  There is a file api in the works for web apps. Web app functionality is restricted but it closely mirrors that of apps on mobile devices which are largely sandboxed especially in ios.
StavrosK 6y ago
Oh no, Firefox hates the open web?! Better use Chrome then! I don't understand how these article writers are doing more good than harm.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rebelwebmaster 6y ago
The article goes out of its way to quote a Google engineer but doesn't bother talking to anyone at Mozilla outside of quoting bug comments?
- ThePimpOfSound 6y ago
  Hi, I'm the author of this story. Mozilla declined to make anyone available for an interview and would only provide canned responses to questions via email (included in the story).
jangid 6y ago
This article talks about one of my pains. This idea of apps was once explored by Mozilla. Remember XUL? XULRunner? I wish they come up with something of that sort soon. Not only that. I also want Mozilla to come up with an alternate for NodeJS. Why can't Firefox's JS engine be separated?
disposekinetics 6y ago
This feels like the right decision to me. It feels user-hostile to disguise web pages as executables.
- jessehattabaugh 6y ago
  Imagine if they had said that about HTML forms back in the '90s
jessehattabaugh 6y ago
Honestly firefox's PWA support always sucked it didn't support extensions, or the Share Target API, and Firefox installed PWAs don't show up in the "Remove Program" ui on windows, or even the app drawer on Android from time to time. Even Safari has a better PWA experience. This looks like Mozilla cutting bait when they know they can't compete. Firefox is in a death spiral. It's been a good run!
hbogert 6y ago
wow that fastcompany, did anyone opt out of all ads and cookies? that list is unbelievable.

33 points by Nrbelex 6y ago

mnd999 6y ago

Discussed previously here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25589177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25589177

tompark 6y ago
Also yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25919018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25919018 Off-topic, but how does the exact same URL get submitted again within a day? Do you need a certain level of karma to do that?

ohgodplsno 6y ago

Oh hey, more fearmongering and horrible clickbait about Firefox, it had been a few hours without some! Firefox just dropped the single site browser feature. The thing that was hidden under a flag for the executable, that you had to actually dig for quite a bit to find. The thing that didn't work that well to begin with. Link in your site that redirects to another site? Well, your window is now a... multiple site browser, because it's going to stay in there. But no, surely it's Firefox moving away from a key piece of the open web, and not because the feature never worked that well in the first place. Or that barely anyone used it.

paulgb 6y ago
Thanks for the context. I had trouble parsing the article because it was so blogspammy.
ballenf 6y ago
FWIW, I use a program called "flow" on MacOS that does this but using Safari. Use it for slack and a music streaming, and dev kanban board. Anything can be made to be stuck to front or back. Eliminates all the buttons, and gets a custom title. It could be better and I know the same exists and is more popular for Chrome, but I wanted the absolute lowest CPU possible for MacOS.
- ohgodplsno 6y ago
  But I take it that if you were to click on a link in one of those windows, your Slack window now becomes... a Gitlab window.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    That's a customizable setting in Flow. You can have it launch your default browser or open it internally. There's also the pros and cons of auth/cookie isolation. You'll need to log in to Slack again. But if you use it for, say, Facebook it will work like the isolation feature in FF.
- addicted 6y ago
  There used to be something like this built on Firefox. I'm not sure what happened to it.
  - FrontAid 6y ago
    Maybe you are referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Prism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Prism
- marczellm 6y ago
  Aren't you referring to Fluid? https://fluidapp.com/ https://fluidapp.com/

rafaelturk 6y ago

We're investing a lot in PWA is our safe harbor bet against market domination from Google Play and Apple Store.

imbnwa 6y ago
How so, though? Those platforms' market dominantion is a reflection of the fact that they have _devices_; Mozilla, as far as I know, don't have devices and jailbreaking is off the table for the majority of device users.

andrefuchs 6y ago

Wasn't FirefoxOS basically based on the idea of PWA like apps?

jjice 6y ago

> Mozilla has always championed the open web. So why is it abandoning desktop web apps, the most powerful alternative to proprietary App Stores? Most powerful? Define powerful here. If we're talking about convenience, I guess, but even then, a standard webpage is fine. In terms of amount of things it can do, no way. Not having access to a file system or standard sockets immediately disqualifies it from being the second most powerful option in my mind. Maybe the word "powerful" is being used differently here, but I don't know what definition they could be using.

true_religion 6y ago
There is a file api in the works for web apps. Web app functionality is restricted but it closely mirrors that of apps on mobile devices which are largely sandboxed especially in ios.

StavrosK 6y ago

Oh no, Firefox hates the open web?! Better use Chrome then! I don't understand how these article writers are doing more good than harm.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rebelwebmaster 6y ago

The article goes out of its way to quote a Google engineer but doesn't bother talking to anyone at Mozilla outside of quoting bug comments?

ThePimpOfSound 6y ago
Hi, I'm the author of this story. Mozilla declined to make anyone available for an interview and would only provide canned responses to questions via email (included in the story).

jangid 6y ago

This article talks about one of my pains. This idea of apps was once explored by Mozilla. Remember XUL? XULRunner? I wish they come up with something of that sort soon. Not only that. I also want Mozilla to come up with an alternate for NodeJS. Why can't Firefox's JS engine be separated?

disposekinetics 6y ago

This feels like the right decision to me. It feels user-hostile to disguise web pages as executables.

jessehattabaugh 6y ago
Imagine if they had said that about HTML forms back in the '90s

jessehattabaugh 6y ago

Honestly firefox's PWA support always sucked it didn't support extensions, or the Share Target API, and Firefox installed PWAs don't show up in the "Remove Program" ui on windows, or even the app drawer on Android from time to time. Even Safari has a better PWA experience. This looks like Mozilla cutting bait when they know they can't compete. Firefox is in a death spiral. It's been a good run!

hbogert 6y ago

wow that fastcompany, did anyone opt out of all ads and cookies? that list is unbelievable.