5 ms·

Firefox 119 unleashes PDF prowess and Sync sorcery

33 points by lproven 3y ago

tetris11 3y ago
The tone and hype in the article is a little bit dramatic for my tastes, but at the same time I'm happy that PDFs can be now annotated in Firefox. This is an incredibly useful feature.
- lproven 3y ago
  I wrote it as well as submitted it. (I do not, FWIW, write or choose the headlines.) I am puzzled. In what way do you find it "dramatic"?
  - dopidopHN 3y ago
    I had the same reaction and it’s “sorcery” that did it for me.
    - I_complete_me 3y ago
      I guess he went for attractive alliteration.
      - pstuart 3y ago
        always attempt attractive alliteration
      - lproven 3y ago
        Again: I don't write the headlines. I do give my stories headlines, but more often than not the editors write their own and I have no control over that. They are much more experienced than me in writing snappy headlines that attract readers, which is not my job. So no, I did not go for it. I do use judiciously alliteration and all sorts of things, sure, but my headlines are rarely used, so they'd be in the body copy, not the titles or subtitles.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    I initially had a reaction to the page content, but upon second read it actually seems okay. I think then, my reaction was to some title keywords ("unleash" "prowess" "sorcery"), which then spilled over mentally into the content. It's otherwise a good article with nice links to further reading.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Like I said: I don't write, or choose, the headlines. None of those words occur in the article itself. (The word "unleash" occurs in the headline to a story of mine that is linked from this one in the automatically-generated backlinks section. I used words like "thread" and "labyrinth" when trying to riff upon the Minotaur codename for Ubuntu 23.10. I guess the sub-editors picked up on that. I don't think the original Minotaur myth involves leashes.) Thanks for the comment. I do try to write useful, informative stuff, so it worries me when people react negatively to it.
montroser 3y ago
Firefox is pretty good these days, but I'm not sure about all of this feature creep. Seems like much of this could just live as extensions. The one place where I wish they'd invest would be in getting AEC (audio echo cancellation) up to par so I could use Firefox for my WebRTC calls at work.
- chownie 3y ago
  The PDF features are actually an extension, just one built in as Firefox's default pdf viewer. It's called pdf.js https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/ https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/ You can actually use this pdf viewer in another browser like Chrome if you'd like, there's a demo URL on there.
  - remram 3y ago
    That's just abusing the term. If it's built-in, and written by the same team, in what way is it "extension"?
    - chownie 3y ago
      I don't believe it's abuse of the term, it's not part of Firefox's source code -- as far as I'm aware it's literally a web extension that's batched in after build time. It also exists in isolation with exactly the same featureset on the demo link on that README page. With regards to "written by the same team", from the same file: > PDF.js is community-driven and supported by Mozilla. Glancing at the contributors, the vast majority of the additions have come from (in order of most to least) a Google developer, an unidentifiable internet rando, two mozilla devs and someone who works for a Dutch IT firm.
      - remram 3y ago
        Ok, that's fair. It's more than just "using the extension API" like I suspected. Thanks!
  - alexjplant 3y ago
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
So PDF annotation is nice, but I don't understand what the actual improvement to the sync feature supposed to be?
- remram 3y ago
  Maybe they finally sync search engines between devices? edit: No, after 16 years, still can't have custom search engines on all your devices. But hey, at least we can drop images onto PDFs. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444284 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444284
- lproven 3y ago
  [Author/submitter here] There is a button in the tab bar that lets you pick up tabs from your other devices. This uses the Mozilla Sync functionality that also syncs bookmarks, login IDs, passwords and extensions between browsers. Now the "tabs on other devices" functionality has its own name: Mozilla View. I actually quite like it and am already finding it useful. I don't use their tab bar, though, so I added a button to the extensions menu.
KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
Are the account data end to end encrypted? What data does Mozilla hand over in the event of a subpoena or data center raid?
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/how-firefox-sync-keeps-your-secrets-if-tls-fails-14420d45885c https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/how-firefox-sync-keeps-your-...
xrd 3y ago
Does this mean Firefox extensions can now interact with PDFs? Previously this wasn't possible. Anyone know?
- lproven 3y ago
  I don't think so. It means the PDF renderer _is_ an extension. Maybe it's possible to write extensions for that extension? Extensions for other extensions are already a thing and TreeStyleTabs uses them.

33 points by lproven 3y ago

The tone and hype in the article is a little bit dramatic for my tastes, but at the same time I'm happy that PDFs can be now annotated in Firefox. This is an incredibly useful feature.

lproven 3y ago
I wrote it as well as submitted it. (I do not, FWIW, write or choose the headlines.) I am puzzled. In what way do you find it "dramatic"?
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  I had the same reaction and it’s “sorcery” that did it for me.
  - I_complete_me 3y ago
    I guess he went for attractive alliteration.
    - pstuart 3y ago
      always attempt attractive alliteration
    - lproven 3y ago
      Again: I don't write the headlines. I do give my stories headlines, but more often than not the editors write their own and I have no control over that. They are much more experienced than me in writing snappy headlines that attract readers, which is not my job. So no, I did not go for it. I do use judiciously alliteration and all sorts of things, sure, but my headlines are rarely used, so they'd be in the body copy, not the titles or subtitles.
- tetris11 3y ago
  I initially had a reaction to the page content, but upon second read it actually seems okay. I think then, my reaction was to some title keywords ("unleash" "prowess" "sorcery"), which then spilled over mentally into the content. It's otherwise a good article with nice links to further reading.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Like I said: I don't write, or choose, the headlines. None of those words occur in the article itself. (The word "unleash" occurs in the headline to a story of mine that is linked from this one in the automatically-generated backlinks section. I used words like "thread" and "labyrinth" when trying to riff upon the Minotaur codename for Ubuntu 23.10. I guess the sub-editors picked up on that. I don't think the original Minotaur myth involves leashes.) Thanks for the comment. I do try to write useful, informative stuff, so it worries me when people react negatively to it.

montroser 3y ago

Firefox is pretty good these days, but I'm not sure about all of this feature creep. Seems like much of this could just live as extensions. The one place where I wish they'd invest would be in getting AEC (audio echo cancellation) up to par so I could use Firefox for my WebRTC calls at work.

chownie 3y ago
The PDF features are actually an extension, just one built in as Firefox's default pdf viewer. It's called pdf.js https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/ https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/ You can actually use this pdf viewer in another browser like Chrome if you'd like, there's a demo URL on there.
- remram 3y ago
  That's just abusing the term. If it's built-in, and written by the same team, in what way is it "extension"?
  - chownie 3y ago
    I don't believe it's abuse of the term, it's not part of Firefox's source code -- as far as I'm aware it's literally a web extension that's batched in after build time. It also exists in isolation with exactly the same featureset on the demo link on that README page. With regards to "written by the same team", from the same file: > PDF.js is community-driven and supported by Mozilla. Glancing at the contributors, the vast majority of the additions have come from (in order of most to least) a Google developer, an unidentifiable internet rando, two mozilla devs and someone who works for a Dutch IT firm.
    - remram 3y ago
      Ok, that's fair. It's more than just "using the extension API" like I suspected. Thanks!
- alexjplant 3y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

So PDF annotation is nice, but I don't understand what the actual improvement to the sync feature supposed to be?

remram 3y ago
Maybe they finally sync search engines between devices? edit: No, after 16 years, still can't have custom search engines on all your devices. But hey, at least we can drop images onto PDFs. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444284 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444284
lproven 3y ago
[Author/submitter here] There is a button in the tab bar that lets you pick up tabs from your other devices. This uses the Mozilla Sync functionality that also syncs bookmarks, login IDs, passwords and extensions between browsers. Now the "tabs on other devices" functionality has its own name: Mozilla View. I actually quite like it and am already finding it useful. I don't use their tab bar, though, so I added a button to the extensions menu.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago

Are the account data end to end encrypted? What data does Mozilla hand over in the event of a subpoena or data center raid?

SushiHippie 3y ago
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/how-firefox-sync-keeps-your-secrets-if-tls-fails-14420d45885c https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/how-firefox-sync-keeps-your-...

xrd 3y ago

Does this mean Firefox extensions can now interact with PDFs? Previously this wasn't possible. Anyone know?

lproven 3y ago
I don't think so. It means the PDF renderer _is_ an extension. Maybe it's possible to write extensions for that extension? Extensions for other extensions are already a thing and TreeStyleTabs uses them.