11 ms·

Features Firefox should implement to weaken Facebook's stranglehold of the web

146 points by forteller 13y ago

maaarghk 13y ago
Just ship diaspora by default. If I had any time to donate to OSS development, I'd be there. And I think lots of other devs who want to make a difference to the world through OSS should consider it.
devx 13y ago
It would be nice if they could secure communications end-to-end going through Facebook chat or Google Talk, too, but I'm not sure that's possible anymore, with both of them using pretty proprietary protocols or API's now.
icebraining 13y ago
The site is not loading for me, here's the Coral Cache: http://blogg.forteller.net.nyud.net/2013/first-steps/ http://blogg.forteller.net.nyud.net/2013/first-steps/
- forteller 13y ago
  Thanks! I also put up a mirror over on WP.com: http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps-to-weaken-facebook-and-take-back-the-web/ http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps...
yukkurishite 13y ago
Not only are there plenty of applications that already do this, you could also develop a firefox plugin for it. Why on Earth would you want it in the browser core?
- forteller 13y ago
  Well, as I say in the blog post: «I’m sure there are some extensions out there doing all this already. But that’s just not good enough. It needs to be built into the browser to make it easy and visible enough.» What do I mean not visible enough? For people to use it, they need to know about it. Most people don't even know they can use extensions (or even what a browser is), but they do know that Facebook has a chat function, because it's right there. Remember, this is not about making life easier for geeks like us. It's about making it just as seamless to use Open web technologies/social networks for normal people as it is to use closed/private systems like Facebook.
  - yukkurishite 13y ago
    But what added value would there be in implementing it in firefox core? What do you mean by "easy and visible enough"?
    - maaarghk 13y ago
      Seems pretty clear to me - you open a new tab and you get a social page which isn't facebook. some of your friends are on it. who needs FB?
    - sshannon 13y ago
      Maybe you should re-read the article which explains with words and diagrams what "easy and visible enough" means. The point of adding it to core is also argued in the article, which proposes an alternative to the monopoly Facebook and Google are currently obtaining. Forteller already addressed both these questions!
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Most people don't even know they can use extensions (or even what a browser is), but they do know that Facebook has a chat function, because it's right there. This seems to suggest a web app or suite of web apps that "competes" with Fb, in some sense. You don't have to install (or even know the URL of) a web app! Mozilla may get there eventually, but they're not going to travel the obvious, NSA-(or plug in your favorite bad actor-)vulnerable way. I think their current work with identity on Persona could grow into that, but they're going to keep it distributed, which I appreciate. EDIT: Now that I've RTFA, I find that you also are thinking along these lines. However, I think you've glossed over who is actually running the server. In order for Persona to function, in order for all my data to be synced across all my devices, in order for any of my friends to see any of my comments, someone has to pay an electric bill every month. If there is a vast marketplace of server-operators, they can compete on price, {NSA, advertising}-resistance, etc. I could see Mozilla carrying the web to that paradise of individual autonomy, but I could also see Fb and Fb-alikes derailing the effort along the way. They embraced-and-extended the web once already; I can imagine them doing it again: "Sure I can chat with my friends and "like" my favorite brands through Firefox, but did you see that Facebook allows me to frobnicate my Facebook snorrzlers as well?"
forteller 13y ago
Sorry about my server going down! You can read a mirror over on WordPress.com: http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps-to-weaken-facebook-and-take-back-the-web/ http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps...
hynahmwxsbyb 13y ago
What stranglehold? Does anyone really use Facebook anymore?
- antocv 13y ago
  Exactly, other than to like each others inane posts, repost reddit/9gag-content and look at baby pictures, circle jerk around. Occasionaly ask whats up and setup meetups with friends. Sure thats exciting and fun for many users. But thats a drop in the ocean of what you can do on the internet. I know many people who do only that and think thats what the internet is for and there is not much else to do, for them facebook is the internet. Sigh. Not much to do about that, since those users are the problem, some people just dont want to do anything else than circlejerk with their friends.
- blisterpeanuts 13y ago
  It's not that easy to avoid Facebook. Many sites are switching to FB social plugin for talkbacks. I've stopped posting comments and questions on many news sites after they started requiring a Facebook identity. Or else I open an incognito window, use my alternative Facebook identity created just for talkbacks, but for some reason my comments don't appear in the stream. I wish there were a better alternative (could this be an opportunity?).
- olliesaunders 13y ago
  You obviously don’t socialize with non-programmers very much
- pjbrunet 13y ago
  There was a trending headline last week (didn't bother to read it) FB reported teen traffic is down. Maybe it's just me but when I go out various places in Austin I don't hear people talking about Facebook anymore. And I see fewer "Like us on Facebook" signs on trucks and business storefronts.
apricot13 13y ago
didn't flock try to do this and fail? they did go a bit over the top with the social integrations though. I personally prefer having my chat and browser separate although I do agree with the need for RSS to be simplified/made more understandable for the level of the average facebook user.
- forteller 13y ago
  Yes, you're right. They tried to integrate social networks in the browser. But as you say: They went over the top. I'm just suggesting making feeds easier/better and integrating a chat function not dependent on Facebook or any other of the big, closed players. The other important reason why Flock failed was that they where new. Firefox already has a huge user base who would just get these new functions trough a normal update. It's about visibility: People can't use what they don't know exists. Most people didn't know Flock existed.
antocv 13y ago
Since you mentioned the horror that is XMPP, I am glad to know that this idea and any project will fail and end up on the trashcan of internet history just like all other "federation"/XMPP technologies, such as... oh wait we dont actually have or use XMPP for anything it was meant to be. Thats right, its only facebook and google internally that take advantage of XMPP while keeping the rest out. Thats what federation does and this idea is no better than jabber which we thought was a good idea 11 years ago. This is a bad idea because a web browser should not become a chat or client as well. You know what is a good solution to the "facebook is taking over the web" Remove their like-buttons from your pages! It is all of the web devleopers of the world who chose to add facebook scripts to their webpage that are the problem. Thats what needs to be solved. Facebook wouldnt be nearly what it is if it wasnt for all those webdevs that thought it was good idea to run fb scripts and snitch out their and the webs user. This battle can be moved to the browser if need be, just run ghostry and better privacy by default, block all accessess to facebook domains form any other domains, and thats it.
- forteller 13y ago
  > This is a bad idea because a web browser should not become a chat or client as well. Well, the browser already is a chat client for millions of people. It's called Facebook. So since the browser already is the only chat client tons of people use, why not make it a client for a Free/Open chat system instead of Facebooks chat system, that they control, censor, give access to to NSA, etc. > Remove their like-buttons from your pages! I agree we should do this. But that won't help people keep in contact with their friends. And so it won't change the thing I'm focusing on here.
  - antocv 13y ago
    If your goal is to have a free and open uncontrolled, uncensored chat-system that is NSA kinda proof then lets do that, Im all for it. I just dont think XMPP fulfills the uncontrolled and uncensored and surveillence resistent parts. We need to look at web of trust, bitmessage and such instead, those are more fun problems than "to spite facebook". But sure, any solution will benefit greatly if its bundled with the browser since that appears to be the only program most users actually use on their computing devices. Imagine if Tor and a tor-relay or even tor-exit-node came preconfigured with every Firefox and turned on by default. That would be fun.
tehwalrus 13y ago
I'd love it if this sort of thing worked. I see a few problems: 1) All the people are on facebook. Only a % use firefox (as opposed to chrome, and all the others,) so this doesn't actually mirror your existing friend network, let alone solve the problem of making it easier (which is the only way people will actually switch.) 2) Facebook and google chat already have a list of your friends/contacts right there to hand. Firefox would need to gather this data somehow, which would either be intrusive (think LinkedIn "import your gmail contacts") or annoying (I am not going to mess around exporting things manually, and neither will the real humans). 3) Existing network implementations. As per Adam Lerymenko's "Redecentralize" talk[1], all the existing services are based on centralised network architectures. Unless Mozilla build their own central network of contacts etc, we'll be stuck using the existing monolithic sites that don't respect privacy as backends. Which (as per the Talkilla example) isn't the point. If Zero tier one et al are successful one day, then maybe we'll all be own our own separate VPNs with our friends (although that doesn't mirror the global social graph either.) [1] http://redecentralize.org/interviews/2013/07/30/02-adam-zerotierone.html http://redecentralize.org/interviews/2013/07/30/02-adam-zero...
- e12e 13y ago
  Regarding 3) Mozilla already runs free sync servers, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to allow syncing of contacts (In fact, extending Mozilla sync api/service to support Thunderbird might be a good idea...?). Other alternatives are syncing contacts via IMAP or LDAP -- although I'm not entirely sold on either of those... As for "liberating" your contacts from Facebook/Google/Etc -- your browser might actually have an advantage -- everyone that uses these sites, already trusts their browser with the login information. That's not much of a stretch to implement some wrappers around the various apis to get a "local" (in browser profile) copy of the list(s). Firefox (or Iceweasel) already manages many of my passwords, I'd have no problem syncing my contacts with Firefox too (although I currently don't see much of a need for it. Might make a good addon either way -- makes using disconnected webmail services even easier if Firefox has my address list...).
  - tehwalrus 13y ago
    re: saving passwords in a browser: oh yeah, people still do that. I haven't for years. I leave a few auth cookies around, true, but not for sensitive sites.
darklajid 13y ago
I like both ideas, a lot. I'm a heavy FF user (usually > 100 tabs open, heavily customized, running Aurora) but never used these live updates. I didn't even know that they exist. A decent (stable, open) xmpp client somewhere in my FF session would be much appreciated, given that GTalk's going away/moving to Hangouts and I'm migrating to my self-hosted XMPP server.
- mfincham 13y ago
  What does an XMPP client built in to FF give you that a normal stand-alone XMPP client wouldn't?
  - forteller 13y ago
    It gives you a huge network/user base who would never install a stand-alone client, but who let Facebook lock them in to their chat system because it's dead simple. Remember, this is not about making life easier for geeks like us, people who actually know what XMPP is. It's about making it just as seamless to use Open web technologies/social networks for normal people as it is to use closed/private systems like Facebook.
    - nodata 13y ago
      Firefox was founded to replace bloated Mozilla. Adding a chat client won't help.
      - anon1385 13y ago
        Mozilla got bloated because the creators wanted users to live their entire computing lives inside a single application. The reasons for wanting that are always the same: it gives the creator the most power. Of course this time around there is a slight difference; rather than adding a chat client to the browser they will prefer to keep adding features to the browser until somebody can write a chat client inside it. Either way the original criticism still stands, which is that doing everything in a single application means duplicating a lot of the work of the host OS, but generally not as well (from window management to scheduling threads to reclaiming memory to supporting hardware features like parallel computation to managing files). The current plan at Mozilla seems to be for Firefox to be an OS that people use for everything, not just one of many applications that people use. This would give them a great deal of power. The power to kill services or applications that they don't like (e.g. Facebook), the power to prevent application developers supporting hardware they don't like (e.g kinect) and so on. More so than the traditional desktop OSs which have been open in allowing anybody to write software that talks directly to the hardware: browsers are sandboxes that prevent hardware access. Note: none of this means I like Facebook. I refuse to use it. However I don't think Mozilla should be killing things on their platform just because they don't like them, especially when they are trying to set themselves up as an OS provider.
acdha 13y ago
I hope they run with the idea of a single dedicated share button (like iOS): you can add the services you use, rather than those that a publisher chose to embed, and with more work it'd be nice for starting to back away from endless third-party tracking because you wouldn't need to execute FB/Twitter/etc. JavaScript on every page in the hopes that someone will use it. There was some noise about this in August but it doesn't look like more than an initial trial balloon: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/06/firefox-makes-it-easy-to-share-your-favorite-content-with-friends-family/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/06/firefox-makes-it-ea...
- voyou 13y ago
  Web Intents[1] would have helped with this, but they don't seem to have got much traction (Wikipedia says Google have stopped working on the idea). 1: http://webintents.org/ http://webintents.org/
  - acdha 13y ago
    Agreed - I remember hearing about that but it feels like a relic of the days when Google wasn't trying to shove everyone into Google+
vaadu 13y ago
Shoving more bloated code into my browser is hardly a good thing. Firefox needs to stay focused on 4 things: speed, security, standards, stability Chrome has done this and thrived. I still use Firefox for the extensions and the fact that Google can not be trusted.
- Zoomla 13y ago
  Chrome also thrives because so many people use Google's search engine and they keep telling you to install Chrome...
  - OvidNaso 13y ago
    I do wonder, in the early days of Chrome, how many people downloaded Firefox, did their first search with the default search engine, then downloaded Chrome.
    - Zoomla 13y ago
      This is an interesting question that Google can probably answer, but I would guess that most people don't download it on the first ad impression.
- reubenmorais 13y ago
  That's a very conflicting message. You don't want "bloated code", but you use Firefox for its extensions. You think browsers should focus on 4 things, but one of the main factors keeping you away from Chrome is not in that list.
  - HelloMcFly 13y ago
    I prefer to pick and choose which code to add to the "bloat" rather than having all of it prepackaged for me.
- tuxracer 13y ago
  People are forgetting Firefox's roots. Mozilla's original browser included an XMPP IM client, IRC client, email client, and (oh yeah) browser. It was a slow bloated mess. The whole point of Firefox was to be a lean single-purpose app and let add-ons fill other needs on a case-by-case basis. People like the author of this article are basically asking Firefox to coalesce back into what it was split off from in the first place.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pfraze 13y ago
There's a weird parallel to having browsers implement applications and having governments handle business needs. There's only one upstream, and it can destroy the downstream whether it works or not. You gotta be really selective about what you implement there. It's more important that FF enable downstream to make applications which can then compete with Facebook and break the silos model, which I think is happening with WebRTC.
junto 13y ago
I have previously thought about a similar idea, where we have a standard for a social media stream. People can pick lots of different social media hosting companies. You tap in your social media updates and your hosting company hosts that stream. You tell your friends your social media URL and they add it to their social media client. If your browser had a client, then it would be responsible for merging all of those feeds into one news feed (just like Facebook's). The important thing here is that everything can be decentralized. It is a bit like merged RSS feeds. Of course a majority of people would hand that responsibility over to a social media hosting company (such as Facebook), but if you really wanted to, you could write your own client, or hook it directly into your website. Everything would be secure by default.
- forteller 13y ago
  That sounds exactly like the idea behind federated social networks. I've blogged about that in my post 'Think like the internet – Or how to fight Facebook, and win" http://blogg.forteller.net/2011/think-internet/ http://blogg.forteller.net/2011/think-internet/
gesman 13y ago
People have an organic need to procrastinate and Facebook satisfied this urge of the weak.
- adam419 13y ago
  Well said
runn1ng 13y ago
So... the future should be to feature bloat browsers. Opera already tried that. They weren't very succesful.
- lucideer 13y ago
  I think someone's mixing up correlation with causation again . . .
- clarry 13y ago
  They've been feature bloated for a while now, and are still growing all the time. Before Google gave the order to kill IE6 and the world switched from optional to mandatory JS, one could've easily used something like links, w3m, lynx, or a small 3kloc browser hacked in a weekend (been there, done that). Things more or less just worked, and looked the way you wanted things to look. Now? How many lines of code do you have in Gecko or Webkit, and a reasonable browser built around them? And all the things they depend on? Let's not forget you also need support for one of the most complex programming languages. Browsers really are HUGE.
abolishme 13y ago
Am I the only one around here // who thinks Facebook works just fine!? Also, if you want to compete with Facebook. Find a way to make a social network company grow to 100s of employees without advertisements. That's really all it would take.
pjbrunet 13y ago
If you want to weaken Facebook, here's an idea. Get a dot-com and put it on a business card with your email address and/or phone number. When you meet people, give them that card. That's what I do. I keep them in my wallet. So much easier (less awkward) than exchanging phone numbers. I'm not even that extroverted and I'm surprised how many cards I give out. I always get a positive reaction to the card and never once had someone look at the card and say anything about Facebook. It's also revealing to see how different people react to the card. If more people did this, I think it would cut Facebook out of more social interactions.
- forteller 13y ago
  Yes, that's a good thing. But it's only one tiny piece of the puzzle. It's like saying "if you want to tackle climate change don't try to lobby the government for stricter regulations or for a price on carbon, just recycle your trash". This is such a huge problem that we need both tiny, personal initiatives, and systemic change. We can put all our eggs in either one.
  - pjbrunet 13y ago
    I agree it's a tiny thing, but I think that first exchange has untapped potential. I like what Moo is doing, for example.
- tommorris 13y ago
  Obligatory plug: http://indiewebcamp.com/ http://indiewebcamp.com/ :)
code_duck 13y ago
Facebook's functions seem a lot more reminiscent of web forums - database driven HTTP sites - than XMPP chat systems.
code_duck 13y ago
Facebook's functions - photos with comments, user profile pages, persistent content - are more similar to web forums - database driven HTTP sites - than to an XMPP chat system.
- forteller 13y ago
  Absolutely. That's why I say we need many more things to take down Facebook. This is just about starting, making it a little bit easier for people to not spend close to 100% of their online lives in the walled garden of Facebook, by giving them an easy option for two of their functions. It's not about replacing Facebook completely, it's just a start.
shmerl 13y ago
I think it's a wrong comparison. Direct competitors to Facebook are decentralized social networks like Diaspora, not browsers.
- forteller 13y ago
  Did you read the article? It's about weakening, not replacing. As I say: «Facebook is taking over the web and we need to save it. The issue is too complex to have one solution. The most obvious solution is federated social networks, but it’s also a very long term solution. We need more, sooner. One of these thousand small solutions should be to take back chat and subscriptions, by making them dead simple to use for everyone straight from the browser.»
  - shmerl 13y ago
    While commonly used, chat is just one feature there. There are many popular and closed chat services like Whatsapp for example which aren't connected to social networks. So I don't see why you focus on this problem in the context of Facebook. The problem is a problem in itself. I.e. "how to break the walls of walled garden instant messaging networks".
    - forteller 13y ago
      Yes, you are of course right about that. It might just be a sign of my age that I just mentioned Facebook as the bad guy in my post… :)
wahsd 13y ago
He makes a good point about all of those issues. It is already all kind of there in Firefox in one form or another. Especially about the RSS feed feature, everyone cried a river when Google stupidly got rid of it's reader; here ya go, manage your feeds in the browser. Bam, done! It was right there in front of us all along. Side note; interestingly enough HN does not have an RSS feed. Just saying.
- robdrimmie 13y ago
  HN does have an RSS feed, there's a link (https://news.ycombinator.com/rss https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) in the footer. It's not identified in a link as an alternate so auto-discovery may be difficult.
- tommorris 13y ago
  "manage your feeds in the browser" Okay, and that syncs my feeds to read offline to my phone and iPad and keeps track of what I have and haven't read across platforms, right? Oh, wait.
Tloewald 13y ago
Facebook has a stranglehold on the web?!
machbio 13y ago
From the Business point of view, it should embrace facebook - if user experience turns out bad, they will shift to chrome..which firefox would not want for itself
zaachary 13y ago
Chris from the Identity team at Mozilla posted this in a separate discussion, but it's a point that shouldn't be missed: "Mozilla Persona is Free and Open Source all the way down, which is great, but not quite good enough. You need to be able to choose your own provider and switch from one (say Mozilla) to another (say Google or your own server) whenever you want. So Mozilla Persona should just be one of many options for your online account." The author has a common misunderstanding of what Persona is and what it does. Persona is not an account system and it is not "provided" by Mozilla. It is a federated identity protocol that allows you to use your existing identity (e.g., at Google or Yahoo or Facebook) to authenticate to relying parties. The "account" is held by the Identity Provider (assuming the IdP speaks Persona), and the IdP may also speak other federated identity protocols, e.g., OpenID Connect. Related confusion is in the below statement: "Why not have your Persona account also handle your subscription list and logs?" There is no Persona account, unless the author means the user's account at her Identity Provider.

146 points by forteller 13y ago

Just ship diaspora by default. If I had any time to donate to OSS development, I'd be there. And I think lots of other devs who want to make a difference to the world through OSS should consider it.

devx 13y ago

It would be nice if they could secure communications end-to-end going through Facebook chat or Google Talk, too, but I'm not sure that's possible anymore, with both of them using pretty proprietary protocols or API's now.

icebraining 13y ago

The site is not loading for me, here's the Coral Cache: http://blogg.forteller.net.nyud.net/2013/first-steps/ http://blogg.forteller.net.nyud.net/2013/first-steps/

forteller 13y ago
Thanks! I also put up a mirror over on WP.com: http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps-to-weaken-facebook-and-take-back-the-web/ http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps...

yukkurishite 13y ago

Not only are there plenty of applications that already do this, you could also develop a firefox plugin for it. Why on Earth would you want it in the browser core?

forteller 13y ago
Well, as I say in the blog post: «I’m sure there are some extensions out there doing all this already. But that’s just not good enough. It needs to be built into the browser to make it easy and visible enough.» What do I mean not visible enough? For people to use it, they need to know about it. Most people don't even know they can use extensions (or even what a browser is), but they do know that Facebook has a chat function, because it's right there. Remember, this is not about making life easier for geeks like us. It's about making it just as seamless to use Open web technologies/social networks for normal people as it is to use closed/private systems like Facebook.
- yukkurishite 13y ago
  But what added value would there be in implementing it in firefox core? What do you mean by "easy and visible enough"?
  - maaarghk 13y ago
    Seems pretty clear to me - you open a new tab and you get a social page which isn't facebook. some of your friends are on it. who needs FB?
  - sshannon 13y ago
    Maybe you should re-read the article which explains with words and diagrams what "easy and visible enough" means. The point of adding it to core is also argued in the article, which proposes an alternative to the monopoly Facebook and Google are currently obtaining. Forteller already addressed both these questions!
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Most people don't even know they can use extensions (or even what a browser is), but they do know that Facebook has a chat function, because it's right there. This seems to suggest a web app or suite of web apps that "competes" with Fb, in some sense. You don't have to install (or even know the URL of) a web app! Mozilla may get there eventually, but they're not going to travel the obvious, NSA-(or plug in your favorite bad actor-)vulnerable way. I think their current work with identity on Persona could grow into that, but they're going to keep it distributed, which I appreciate. EDIT: Now that I've RTFA, I find that you also are thinking along these lines. However, I think you've glossed over who is actually running the server. In order for Persona to function, in order for all my data to be synced across all my devices, in order for any of my friends to see any of my comments, someone has to pay an electric bill every month. If there is a vast marketplace of server-operators, they can compete on price, {NSA, advertising}-resistance, etc. I could see Mozilla carrying the web to that paradise of individual autonomy, but I could also see Fb and Fb-alikes derailing the effort along the way. They embraced-and-extended the web once already; I can imagine them doing it again: "Sure I can chat with my friends and "like" my favorite brands through Firefox, but did you see that Facebook allows me to frobnicate my Facebook snorrzlers as well?"

forteller 13y ago

Sorry about my server going down! You can read a mirror over on WordPress.com: http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps-to-weaken-facebook-and-take-back-the-web/ http://forteller.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/mirror-first-steps...

hynahmwxsbyb 13y ago

What stranglehold? Does anyone really use Facebook anymore?

antocv 13y ago
Exactly, other than to like each others inane posts, repost reddit/9gag-content and look at baby pictures, circle jerk around. Occasionaly ask whats up and setup meetups with friends. Sure thats exciting and fun for many users. But thats a drop in the ocean of what you can do on the internet. I know many people who do only that and think thats what the internet is for and there is not much else to do, for them facebook is the internet. Sigh. Not much to do about that, since those users are the problem, some people just dont want to do anything else than circlejerk with their friends.
blisterpeanuts 13y ago
It's not that easy to avoid Facebook. Many sites are switching to FB social plugin for talkbacks. I've stopped posting comments and questions on many news sites after they started requiring a Facebook identity. Or else I open an incognito window, use my alternative Facebook identity created just for talkbacks, but for some reason my comments don't appear in the stream. I wish there were a better alternative (could this be an opportunity?).
olliesaunders 13y ago
You obviously don’t socialize with non-programmers very much
pjbrunet 13y ago
There was a trending headline last week (didn't bother to read it) FB reported teen traffic is down. Maybe it's just me but when I go out various places in Austin I don't hear people talking about Facebook anymore. And I see fewer "Like us on Facebook" signs on trucks and business storefronts.

apricot13 13y ago

didn't flock try to do this and fail? they did go a bit over the top with the social integrations though. I personally prefer having my chat and browser separate although I do agree with the need for RSS to be simplified/made more understandable for the level of the average facebook user.

forteller 13y ago
Yes, you're right. They tried to integrate social networks in the browser. But as you say: They went over the top. I'm just suggesting making feeds easier/better and integrating a chat function not dependent on Facebook or any other of the big, closed players. The other important reason why Flock failed was that they where new. Firefox already has a huge user base who would just get these new functions trough a normal update. It's about visibility: People can't use what they don't know exists. Most people didn't know Flock existed.

antocv 13y ago

Since you mentioned the horror that is XMPP, I am glad to know that this idea and any project will fail and end up on the trashcan of internet history just like all other "federation"/XMPP technologies, such as... oh wait we dont actually have or use XMPP for anything it was meant to be. Thats right, its only facebook and google internally that take advantage of XMPP while keeping the rest out. Thats what federation does and this idea is no better than jabber which we thought was a good idea 11 years ago. This is a bad idea because a web browser should not become a chat or client as well. You know what is a good solution to the "facebook is taking over the web" Remove their like-buttons from your pages! It is all of the web devleopers of the world who chose to add facebook scripts to their webpage that are the problem. Thats what needs to be solved. Facebook wouldnt be nearly what it is if it wasnt for all those webdevs that thought it was good idea to run fb scripts and snitch out their and the webs user. This battle can be moved to the browser if need be, just run ghostry and better privacy by default, block all accessess to facebook domains form any other domains, and thats it.

forteller 13y ago
> This is a bad idea because a web browser should not become a chat or client as well. Well, the browser already is a chat client for millions of people. It's called Facebook. So since the browser already is the only chat client tons of people use, why not make it a client for a Free/Open chat system instead of Facebooks chat system, that they control, censor, give access to to NSA, etc. > Remove their like-buttons from your pages! I agree we should do this. But that won't help people keep in contact with their friends. And so it won't change the thing I'm focusing on here.
- antocv 13y ago
  If your goal is to have a free and open uncontrolled, uncensored chat-system that is NSA kinda proof then lets do that, Im all for it. I just dont think XMPP fulfills the uncontrolled and uncensored and surveillence resistent parts. We need to look at web of trust, bitmessage and such instead, those are more fun problems than "to spite facebook". But sure, any solution will benefit greatly if its bundled with the browser since that appears to be the only program most users actually use on their computing devices. Imagine if Tor and a tor-relay or even tor-exit-node came preconfigured with every Firefox and turned on by default. That would be fun.

tehwalrus 13y ago

I'd love it if this sort of thing worked. I see a few problems: 1) All the people are on facebook. Only a % use firefox (as opposed to chrome, and all the others,) so this doesn't actually mirror your existing friend network, let alone solve the problem of making it easier (which is the only way people will actually switch.) 2) Facebook and google chat already have a list of your friends/contacts right there to hand. Firefox would need to gather this data somehow, which would either be intrusive (think LinkedIn "import your gmail contacts") or annoying (I am not going to mess around exporting things manually, and neither will the real humans). 3) Existing network implementations. As per Adam Lerymenko's "Redecentralize" talk[1], all the existing services are based on centralised network architectures. Unless Mozilla build their own central network of contacts etc, we'll be stuck using the existing monolithic sites that don't respect privacy as backends. Which (as per the Talkilla example) isn't the point. If Zero tier one et al are successful one day, then maybe we'll all be own our own separate VPNs with our friends (although that doesn't mirror the global social graph either.) [1] http://redecentralize.org/interviews/2013/07/30/02-adam-zerotierone.html http://redecentralize.org/interviews/2013/07/30/02-adam-zero...

e12e 13y ago
Regarding 3) Mozilla already runs free sync servers, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to allow syncing of contacts (In fact, extending Mozilla sync api/service to support Thunderbird might be a good idea...?). Other alternatives are syncing contacts via IMAP or LDAP -- although I'm not entirely sold on either of those... As for "liberating" your contacts from Facebook/Google/Etc -- your browser might actually have an advantage -- everyone that uses these sites, already trusts their browser with the login information. That's not much of a stretch to implement some wrappers around the various apis to get a "local" (in browser profile) copy of the list(s). Firefox (or Iceweasel) already manages many of my passwords, I'd have no problem syncing my contacts with Firefox too (although I currently don't see much of a need for it. Might make a good addon either way -- makes using disconnected webmail services even easier if Firefox has my address list...).
- tehwalrus 13y ago
  re: saving passwords in a browser: oh yeah, people still do that. I haven't for years. I leave a few auth cookies around, true, but not for sensitive sites.

darklajid 13y ago

I like both ideas, a lot. I'm a heavy FF user (usually > 100 tabs open, heavily customized, running Aurora) but never used these live updates. I didn't even know that they exist. A decent (stable, open) xmpp client somewhere in my FF session would be much appreciated, given that GTalk's going away/moving to Hangouts and I'm migrating to my self-hosted XMPP server.

mfincham 13y ago
What does an XMPP client built in to FF give you that a normal stand-alone XMPP client wouldn't?
- forteller 13y ago
  It gives you a huge network/user base who would never install a stand-alone client, but who let Facebook lock them in to their chat system because it's dead simple. Remember, this is not about making life easier for geeks like us, people who actually know what XMPP is. It's about making it just as seamless to use Open web technologies/social networks for normal people as it is to use closed/private systems like Facebook.
  - nodata 13y ago
    Firefox was founded to replace bloated Mozilla. Adding a chat client won't help.
    - anon1385 13y ago
      Mozilla got bloated because the creators wanted users to live their entire computing lives inside a single application. The reasons for wanting that are always the same: it gives the creator the most power. Of course this time around there is a slight difference; rather than adding a chat client to the browser they will prefer to keep adding features to the browser until somebody can write a chat client inside it. Either way the original criticism still stands, which is that doing everything in a single application means duplicating a lot of the work of the host OS, but generally not as well (from window management to scheduling threads to reclaiming memory to supporting hardware features like parallel computation to managing files). The current plan at Mozilla seems to be for Firefox to be an OS that people use for everything, not just one of many applications that people use. This would give them a great deal of power. The power to kill services or applications that they don't like (e.g. Facebook), the power to prevent application developers supporting hardware they don't like (e.g kinect) and so on. More so than the traditional desktop OSs which have been open in allowing anybody to write software that talks directly to the hardware: browsers are sandboxes that prevent hardware access. Note: none of this means I like Facebook. I refuse to use it. However I don't think Mozilla should be killing things on their platform just because they don't like them, especially when they are trying to set themselves up as an OS provider.

acdha 13y ago

I hope they run with the idea of a single dedicated share button (like iOS): you can add the services you use, rather than those that a publisher chose to embed, and with more work it'd be nice for starting to back away from endless third-party tracking because you wouldn't need to execute FB/Twitter/etc. JavaScript on every page in the hopes that someone will use it. There was some noise about this in August but it doesn't look like more than an initial trial balloon: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/06/firefox-makes-it-easy-to-share-your-favorite-content-with-friends-family/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/06/firefox-makes-it-ea...

voyou 13y ago
Web Intents[1] would have helped with this, but they don't seem to have got much traction (Wikipedia says Google have stopped working on the idea). 1: http://webintents.org/ http://webintents.org/
- acdha 13y ago
  Agreed - I remember hearing about that but it feels like a relic of the days when Google wasn't trying to shove everyone into Google+

vaadu 13y ago

Shoving more bloated code into my browser is hardly a good thing. Firefox needs to stay focused on 4 things: speed, security, standards, stability Chrome has done this and thrived. I still use Firefox for the extensions and the fact that Google can not be trusted.

Zoomla 13y ago
Chrome also thrives because so many people use Google's search engine and they keep telling you to install Chrome...
- OvidNaso 13y ago
  I do wonder, in the early days of Chrome, how many people downloaded Firefox, did their first search with the default search engine, then downloaded Chrome.
  - Zoomla 13y ago
    This is an interesting question that Google can probably answer, but I would guess that most people don't download it on the first ad impression.
reubenmorais 13y ago
That's a very conflicting message. You don't want "bloated code", but you use Firefox for its extensions. You think browsers should focus on 4 things, but one of the main factors keeping you away from Chrome is not in that list.
- HelloMcFly 13y ago
  I prefer to pick and choose which code to add to the "bloat" rather than having all of it prepackaged for me.
tuxracer 13y ago
People are forgetting Firefox's roots. Mozilla's original browser included an XMPP IM client, IRC client, email client, and (oh yeah) browser. It was a slow bloated mess. The whole point of Firefox was to be a lean single-purpose app and let add-ons fill other needs on a case-by-case basis. People like the author of this article are basically asking Firefox to coalesce back into what it was split off from in the first place.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pfraze 13y ago

There's a weird parallel to having browsers implement applications and having governments handle business needs. There's only one upstream, and it can destroy the downstream whether it works or not. You gotta be really selective about what you implement there. It's more important that FF enable downstream to make applications which can then compete with Facebook and break the silos model, which I think is happening with WebRTC.

junto 13y ago

I have previously thought about a similar idea, where we have a standard for a social media stream. People can pick lots of different social media hosting companies. You tap in your social media updates and your hosting company hosts that stream. You tell your friends your social media URL and they add it to their social media client. If your browser had a client, then it would be responsible for merging all of those feeds into one news feed (just like Facebook's). The important thing here is that everything can be decentralized. It is a bit like merged RSS feeds. Of course a majority of people would hand that responsibility over to a social media hosting company (such as Facebook), but if you really wanted to, you could write your own client, or hook it directly into your website. Everything would be secure by default.

forteller 13y ago
That sounds exactly like the idea behind federated social networks. I've blogged about that in my post 'Think like the internet – Or how to fight Facebook, and win" http://blogg.forteller.net/2011/think-internet/ http://blogg.forteller.net/2011/think-internet/

gesman 13y ago

People have an organic need to procrastinate and Facebook satisfied this urge of the weak.

adam419 13y ago
Well said

runn1ng 13y ago

So... the future should be to feature bloat browsers. Opera already tried that. They weren't very succesful.

lucideer 13y ago
I think someone's mixing up correlation with causation again . . .
clarry 13y ago
They've been feature bloated for a while now, and are still growing all the time. Before Google gave the order to kill IE6 and the world switched from optional to mandatory JS, one could've easily used something like links, w3m, lynx, or a small 3kloc browser hacked in a weekend (been there, done that). Things more or less just worked, and looked the way you wanted things to look. Now? How many lines of code do you have in Gecko or Webkit, and a reasonable browser built around them? And all the things they depend on? Let's not forget you also need support for one of the most complex programming languages. Browsers really are HUGE.

abolishme 13y ago

Am I the only one around here // who thinks Facebook works just fine!? Also, if you want to compete with Facebook. Find a way to make a social network company grow to 100s of employees without advertisements. That's really all it would take.

pjbrunet 13y ago

If you want to weaken Facebook, here's an idea. Get a dot-com and put it on a business card with your email address and/or phone number. When you meet people, give them that card. That's what I do. I keep them in my wallet. So much easier (less awkward) than exchanging phone numbers. I'm not even that extroverted and I'm surprised how many cards I give out. I always get a positive reaction to the card and never once had someone look at the card and say anything about Facebook. It's also revealing to see how different people react to the card. If more people did this, I think it would cut Facebook out of more social interactions.

forteller 13y ago
Yes, that's a good thing. But it's only one tiny piece of the puzzle. It's like saying "if you want to tackle climate change don't try to lobby the government for stricter regulations or for a price on carbon, just recycle your trash". This is such a huge problem that we need both tiny, personal initiatives, and systemic change. We can put all our eggs in either one.
- pjbrunet 13y ago
  I agree it's a tiny thing, but I think that first exchange has untapped potential. I like what Moo is doing, for example.
tommorris 13y ago
Obligatory plug: http://indiewebcamp.com/ http://indiewebcamp.com/ :)

code_duck 13y ago

Facebook's functions seem a lot more reminiscent of web forums - database driven HTTP sites - than XMPP chat systems.

code_duck 13y ago

Facebook's functions - photos with comments, user profile pages, persistent content - are more similar to web forums - database driven HTTP sites - than to an XMPP chat system.

forteller 13y ago
Absolutely. That's why I say we need many more things to take down Facebook. This is just about starting, making it a little bit easier for people to not spend close to 100% of their online lives in the walled garden of Facebook, by giving them an easy option for two of their functions. It's not about replacing Facebook completely, it's just a start.

shmerl 13y ago

I think it's a wrong comparison. Direct competitors to Facebook are decentralized social networks like Diaspora, not browsers.

forteller 13y ago
Did you read the article? It's about weakening, not replacing. As I say: «Facebook is taking over the web and we need to save it. The issue is too complex to have one solution. The most obvious solution is federated social networks, but it’s also a very long term solution. We need more, sooner. One of these thousand small solutions should be to take back chat and subscriptions, by making them dead simple to use for everyone straight from the browser.»
- shmerl 13y ago
  While commonly used, chat is just one feature there. There are many popular and closed chat services like Whatsapp for example which aren't connected to social networks. So I don't see why you focus on this problem in the context of Facebook. The problem is a problem in itself. I.e. "how to break the walls of walled garden instant messaging networks".
  - forteller 13y ago
    Yes, you are of course right about that. It might just be a sign of my age that I just mentioned Facebook as the bad guy in my post… :)

wahsd 13y ago

He makes a good point about all of those issues. It is already all kind of there in Firefox in one form or another. Especially about the RSS feed feature, everyone cried a river when Google stupidly got rid of it's reader; here ya go, manage your feeds in the browser. Bam, done! It was right there in front of us all along. Side note; interestingly enough HN does not have an RSS feed. Just saying.

robdrimmie 13y ago
HN does have an RSS feed, there's a link (https://news.ycombinator.com/rss https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) in the footer. It's not identified in a link as an alternate so auto-discovery may be difficult.
tommorris 13y ago
"manage your feeds in the browser" Okay, and that syncs my feeds to read offline to my phone and iPad and keeps track of what I have and haven't read across platforms, right? Oh, wait.

Tloewald 13y ago

Facebook has a stranglehold on the web?!

machbio 13y ago

From the Business point of view, it should embrace facebook - if user experience turns out bad, they will shift to chrome..which firefox would not want for itself

zaachary 13y ago

Chris from the Identity team at Mozilla posted this in a separate discussion, but it's a point that shouldn't be missed: "Mozilla Persona is Free and Open Source all the way down, which is great, but not quite good enough. You need to be able to choose your own provider and switch from one (say Mozilla) to another (say Google or your own server) whenever you want. So Mozilla Persona should just be one of many options for your online account." The author has a common misunderstanding of what Persona is and what it does. Persona is not an account system and it is not "provided" by Mozilla. It is a federated identity protocol that allows you to use your existing identity (e.g., at Google or Yahoo or Facebook) to authenticate to relying parties. The "account" is held by the Identity Provider (assuming the IdP speaks Persona), and the IdP may also speak other federated identity protocols, e.g., OpenID Connect. Related confusion is in the below statement: "Why not have your Persona account also handle your subscription list and logs?" There is no Persona account, unless the author means the user's account at her Identity Provider.