15 ms·

Introducing Mozilla Firefox Accounts

173 points by ibsathish 13y ago

SkyMarshal 13y ago
Getting a 404 on the linux dl link for FF Auror, required to test this new feature: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/firefox-28.0a2.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates... Same with all the English (US) versions in fact. Other languages appear to work.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- heycam 13y ago
  Try http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/firefox-29.0a2.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates... instead. Not sure why the Aurora landing page is not using the right link.
  - mnordhoff 13y ago
    The version number was bumped, like, yesterday. Probably just an oversight or a cached web page.
yeukhon 13y ago
I have to dig this up (sorry Brian, your talk was awesome and visually easy to get involved; kudos to identity team) http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/ http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/
- lotharrr 13y ago
  Thanks! Glad you liked it! I plan to do a proper brown-bag Air-Mozilla presentation of it soon, so we'll have a video recording available online (and not just the slides). FYI, I showed three different designs in that presentation, to compare/contrast 1: original J-PAKE, 2: intermediate not-used SRP thing, 3: final non-SRP "onepw" design. More than one audience member was left confused about which one we're using for Sync. Tell your friends: we're deploying the last one, nicknamed "onepw", from page 20 of that slide deck: http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/20 http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/20 cheers, -Brian (member of Mozilla FxA/Sync team)
mcpherrinm 13y ago
I'm really disappointed this doesn't authenticate against Persona. Supporting Persona in Firefox seems to be pretty slow coming, and this seems like a big blow against having that smoothly integrating it.
- chuckharmston 13y ago
  Some background about the relationship between Persona and Firefox Accounts: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox_Accounts https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox_Accounts https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.mozillians/pv5VN2dNYJA/FVbHZr0XpV4J https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.mozillians/pv5VN2dNY... tl;dr: it's coming, and this is an important engineering milestone on that path. I'm sure Lloyd and callahad will be chiming in with more details. (Source: Mozilla employee, not on the Identity team)
- untilHellbanned 13y ago
  yeah was wondering about that. very strange, should know better from Google, etc. about the value of the universal login. I wanna love Mozilla (even bought a Firefox OS phone!) but this is pretty low-level.
- espadrine 13y ago
  It actually uses Persona inside, and it's an email-as-ID as well. Also, this is a new occurrence of scrypt used in the wild.
  - chuckharmston 13y ago
    That's not quite accurate; Firefox Accounts uses the BrowserID Protocol, of which Persona is an implementation. That is to say, it authenticates using BrowserID assertions, but does not directly tie in to Persona accounts. Yet. https://developer.mozilla.org/Persona/Glossary https://developer.mozilla.org/Persona/Glossary
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      You mean it doesn't use Mozilla's bridge? Presumably, if you have your own IdP, it will use it, since it uses BrowserID.
BorisMelnik 13y ago
Love it. I abandoned the old sync. Figuring out how to set it up was more difficult than trying to learn Julia. Only thing I didn't love was the icon, but its beta so hey. Link to Aurora nightly: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/
- emn13 13y ago
  How is Options>Sync>Pair a Device and follow the directions difficult? I mean, it was definitely too many steps, and it wasn't labelled clearly enough which device was the master and which was the slave, but those are more like "users won't bother to find it" troubles, rather than it actually being difficult if you want to turn it on.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Please see the presentation. It gives you some clue why the old sync wasn't user friendly (you probably can guess already). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7200425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7200425 Basically, many assumed it was a backup program. Recovery was painful. There was multiple iterations of enhancement before they decided to roll out Fx Account, it was clear that users didn't like the original Sync. Fx Account is more than Sync. This is like having a Google account and allows you to connect to Mozilla services like Marketplace and all instances of Firefox a user owns.
    - emn13 13y ago
      Oh yeah, I totally agree the old sync wasn't friendly - but that's something totally different. It wasn't intuitive, and it was surprising in that it really was just a sync, not a backup. Nevertheless, it was still pretty easy to enable if you actually wanted to. Easy can still be frustrating (as in why all these steps and which machine is which, and why do I even need to look up how to do this?), and it can still be user unfriendly (as in not allowing recovery).
  - arawde 13y ago
    The steps to turn on sync for devices where you don't have access to both at the same time are a bit mangled since you're required to use the recovery key. I'm hoping with this it will turn into something close to Chrome's sync
johnchristopher 13y ago
Will I be able to use a Firefox Account in Google chrome ?
jeena 13y ago
Will it still work with the self hosted sync server? Or will there be a self hosted one for Firefox Accounts? And I hope they will implement it on Firefox OS very soon, otherwise the whole syncing is not really that interesting.
- mziulu 13y ago
  I expect those of us that host their own Sync server will have to deploy this[0] one instead. This is the general idea I got reading [1]. [0]: https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefox-sync/ https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefo...
  - darklajid 13y ago
    That.. looks quite a convoluted setup for 'simple' private hosting. Plus, the instructions seem quite sparse. Is that something Mozilla is officially endorsing or something that might perhaps work, good luck with that?
    - kbrosnan 13y ago
      New Sync has been development for about a quarter. Right now all effort on the Sync project is to get the basic workflows finished and testing the various Sync clients (Fx Desktop/Fx Android). The team is looking to have a more understandable self deployment strategy by the time this ships in Firefox release ~12 weeks. This is not a promise though. Engineering work is tricky to estimate.
- holygoat 13y ago
  Self-hosting is on its way!
redditivist 13y ago
That was a lot of text to say: "Today, we’re introducing Firefox Accounts as a safe and easy way for you to create an account. With Firefox Account can integrate services, like Firefox Sync. Firefox Sync enables syncing of passwords, bookmarks, history, and open tabs across devices, now even easier to setup the service and add multiple devices"
SkynetSystems 13y ago
This is a nice idea in theory, but after all the NSA revelations, we should all be very weary of cloud based data storage. Mozilla is based in the US, so what is stopping the NSA issuing them demands to hand over the user accounts? Browser data is just too detailed and sensitive, I would rather run Firefox portable off a flash drive and carry it with me.
xiaq 13y ago
> Last year, we created a new team at Mozilla to explore one specific area of the Web that’s grown with the explosion of mobile devices — the cloud (sometimes called Internet servers). Hey Mozilla, you are too honest about the cloud thing. :)
- nathancahill 13y ago
  Truth.
  - xiaq 13y ago
    Yeah, after reading this I can imagine myself translating "we have a cloud" to "WE GOT SERVERS LOL" and the like...
- pekk 13y ago
  I think they were trying to avoid bitter criticism from an army of neckbeard comic guys.
insertnickname 13y ago
>the cloud (sometimes called Internet servers)
iSnow 13y ago
How is this any better or different than one of the other cloud providers? I read nothing about self-hosting this, nothing about end-to-end encryption, nothing about Persona. I understand Mozilla is in a tight place with no access to iOS, little market share in mobile in general and the new walled gardens erected by Google, Apple, FB and soon Microsoft. But simply playing copy cat and catchup does not cut it.
- kijin 13y ago
  Click on "same browser-based encryption". It's a link to an earlier blog post where they explain the encryption methods used in Firefox Sync. It mentions end-to-end encryption, too.
  - tobehonest 13y ago
    As Mozilla is a US-based organization, is anyone afraid of the NSA/USG commandeering Mozilla to setup pen-register/password-interception a la Lavabit? Only a couple of months ago comments like mine would have been passed off as tin-foil conspiracy. Now, I think everyone's sense of normal is now tightly wrapped in tin-foil, encased in lead.
    - riquito 13y ago
      Opposite to Lavabit, Mozilla can't decrypt your data, so I can't see this happening, unless they change the open source client code without anyone noticing.
      - rhelmer 13y ago
        The "change the open source client code without anyone noticing" attack vector is important too: https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/
lazyjones 13y ago
How long till this is integrated with the main sponsor's unloved child, G+? I've got more pressing matters than yet another account with personal information and data kept in the US ...
- ersii 13y ago
  Mozilla is an independent non-profit organization. Yes, they do get a lot of revenue from Google - but they do not control Mozilla.
- riquito 13y ago
  Mozilla has been sponsored by Google since long ago, but they always thought about people first. In fact, if you don't trust them you can run your own sync server in whatever country you like.
- holygoat 13y ago
  Mozilla Corporation gets paid by Google to offer Google as a search engine to Firefox users. There's no sponsorship relationship — it's a mutual exchange of value. See the corporation's audited financial statements: https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Financials_2012.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi...
fibo 13y ago
Finally! Doh, I need to install Aurora by now
jemeshsu 13y ago
I hope Firefox will implement multiple accounts within the browser, similar to Chrome multiple accounts. If it is backed by Persona, then I will be able to have web sessions based on email accounts from different providers.
RexRollman 13y ago
I have no problem with Mozilla doing this so long as its not pushed down my throat. I have no desire to use a cloud service.
- Pacabel 13y ago
  While they can, of course, do whatever they want, I am disappointed by the development of unnecessary peripheral functionality such as this. I think that the resources put toward this endeavor could have been better spent on improving the performance of Firefox, or perhaps reducing its memory usage, or even fixing the numerous bugs that affect it. Firefox isn't as bad as it once was with respect to those things, but there's still much room for improvement. Functionality that's useful to a comparatively small number of users should be prioritized well behind core functionality that affects basically all Firefox users.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Of course those are priorities. That's why it says right at the top that one team has been working on this. It's not like all developers need to be doing the same thing all the time.
  - potch 13y ago
    Engineers aren't just resources to be allocated. Quality isn't a zero-sum game. If a manager said "all of you should only be working on performance", it would be a waste of a lot of people's time who aren't performance engineers.
  - 21echoes 13y ago
    > I am disappointed by the development of unnecessary peripheral functionality such as this. users expect their browser preferences, history, bookmarks, and passwords to be synced across devices. for a significant chunk of ff users, this is in no sense "unnecessary peripheral functionality"
graetzer 13y ago
Does anyone know if there will be a standalone client library for this API? I build an iOS browser that works with the old sync api and building a client on my own is probably a bad idea
- holygoat 13y ago
  The storage API is very similar -- a few record extensions, a few headers changed. The auth layer is completely new, and there's no iOS client library for it, nor any plans for one that I know of.
  - graetzer 13y ago
    Do you think it would be possible to re-use the sync-code from firefox directly? The library wouldn't have to be iOS specific.
PeterWhittaker 13y ago
Mozilla is a trusted organization Trust is such a poor and overloaded word. What is Mozilla "trusted" to do? That's a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps thinking in terms of expectations would be better: My expectation is that Mozilla will produce a decent browser, with occasional bumps and steps backwards in response to some flavour du jour, most notably in the area of wouldn't it be cools that break usability. Not to mention the mobile browser considering my tablet and phone to be the "same type of device", when my tablet is much closer to my computer - and it's the computer's UX I want everywhere, not the phone's. My expectation is that Mozilla will produce a half-decent email client that I have no real reason to use. My expectation is that in doing these things Mozilla software will mostly stay out of my way, mostly work as I expect (sync the function works pretty much as expected, sync the UX is awful - I still need all manner of extension and app to get the "move easily from one device to another" experience I really want). My expectation is that Mozilla will occasionally cook up something new, e.g., Persona, that I really don't see a need for, and that Mozilla will be unable to articulate why that new thing is needed, cool, or anything else. If Mozilla disappeared tomorrow, I would be quite upset, because FF sucks far less than every other browser - maybe that's because I am so used to it, that I've made it work for me, but moving to anything else would be painful. My expectation is that they will continue to deliver excellent B+ software that is adequate to my needs and wants. But why on earth would I expect that I could trust Mozilla with anything more than my sync information? I trust Mozilla about as much as I trust my bank, as much as I trust Google, and, to be fair, more than I trust facebook. But again, trust is the wrong word: I expect Google to mine my information, make the occasional misstep, but to by and large attempt to keep my information safe and secure, because if they don't, it ain't just mine they release, it's millions of ours, and they cannot afford that. I expect my bank to mess up UX occasionally, but to do security reasonably well, and to not share my personal overmuch, because of the regulatory framework in Canada: They just cannot mess this up without serious consequence. I expect facebook to mine, share, intrude, mess around, and generally do stupid things. I am never disappointed. What should I expect of Mozilla Accounts? Nothing. Nothing at all, because "Accounts" is so not what I think of when I think "Mozilla". I hear "Mozilla" I think "FireFox", I think half-decent browser, better than others, adequate email client, neither better nor worse, I think confusing cross-device UX... ...but do I think trust? Nope. And the "occasional bump in response to something shiny" mentioned above means I never will - at least not without major public rebranding. If I am going to trust you, you need to convince me you are rock-steady reliable, and never prone to blowing with the wind.
Eleutheria 13y ago
> Does Firefox Accounts provide email? No. Bummer. I've been waiting for more than ten years to get a firefox email account. What's the easiest way to have hundreds of millions of loyal followers that use your web services on a daily basis? Email. That's the starting point, besides the browser.
chippy 13y ago
I wouldn't mind the server side component to this. I'd like to run my own server so that my devices can use. You'd imagine it would be available with it being Mozilla, right? Edits: YES! https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server
- holygoat 13y ago
  Both the auth server and the Sync server are available.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

173 points by ibsathish 13y ago

Getting a 404 on the linux dl link for FF Auror, required to test this new feature: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/firefox-28.0a2.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates... Same with all the English (US) versions in fact. Other languages appear to work.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
heycam 13y ago
Try http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/firefox-29.0a2.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates... instead. Not sure why the Aurora landing page is not using the right link.
- mnordhoff 13y ago
  The version number was bumped, like, yesterday. Probably just an oversight or a cached web page.

yeukhon 13y ago

I have to dig this up (sorry Brian, your talk was awesome and visually easy to get involved; kudos to identity team) http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/ http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/

lotharrr 13y ago
Thanks! Glad you liked it! I plan to do a proper brown-bag Air-Mozilla presentation of it soon, so we'll have a video recording available online (and not just the slides). FYI, I showed three different designs in that presentation, to compare/contrast 1: original J-PAKE, 2: intermediate not-used SRP thing, 3: final non-SRP "onepw" design. More than one audience member was left confused about which one we're using for Sync. Tell your friends: we're deploying the last one, nicknamed "onepw", from page 20 of that slide deck: http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/20 http://people.mozilla.org/~bwarner/warner-rwc2014/#/20 cheers, -Brian (member of Mozilla FxA/Sync team)

mcpherrinm 13y ago

I'm really disappointed this doesn't authenticate against Persona. Supporting Persona in Firefox seems to be pretty slow coming, and this seems like a big blow against having that smoothly integrating it.

chuckharmston 13y ago
Some background about the relationship between Persona and Firefox Accounts: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox_Accounts https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Firefox_Accounts https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.mozillians/pv5VN2dNYJA/FVbHZr0XpV4J https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.mozillians/pv5VN2dNY... tl;dr: it's coming, and this is an important engineering milestone on that path. I'm sure Lloyd and callahad will be chiming in with more details. (Source: Mozilla employee, not on the Identity team)
untilHellbanned 13y ago
yeah was wondering about that. very strange, should know better from Google, etc. about the value of the universal login. I wanna love Mozilla (even bought a Firefox OS phone!) but this is pretty low-level.
espadrine 13y ago
It actually uses Persona inside, and it's an email-as-ID as well. Also, this is a new occurrence of scrypt used in the wild.
- chuckharmston 13y ago
  That's not quite accurate; Firefox Accounts uses the BrowserID Protocol, of which Persona is an implementation. That is to say, it authenticates using BrowserID assertions, but does not directly tie in to Persona accounts. Yet. https://developer.mozilla.org/Persona/Glossary https://developer.mozilla.org/Persona/Glossary
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    You mean it doesn't use Mozilla's bridge? Presumably, if you have your own IdP, it will use it, since it uses BrowserID.

BorisMelnik 13y ago

Love it. I abandoned the old sync. Figuring out how to set it up was more difficult than trying to learn Julia. Only thing I didn't love was the icon, but its beta so hey. Link to Aurora nightly: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-aurora/

emn13 13y ago
How is Options>Sync>Pair a Device and follow the directions difficult? I mean, it was definitely too many steps, and it wasn't labelled clearly enough which device was the master and which was the slave, but those are more like "users won't bother to find it" troubles, rather than it actually being difficult if you want to turn it on.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Please see the presentation. It gives you some clue why the old sync wasn't user friendly (you probably can guess already). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7200425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7200425 Basically, many assumed it was a backup program. Recovery was painful. There was multiple iterations of enhancement before they decided to roll out Fx Account, it was clear that users didn't like the original Sync. Fx Account is more than Sync. This is like having a Google account and allows you to connect to Mozilla services like Marketplace and all instances of Firefox a user owns.
  - emn13 13y ago
    Oh yeah, I totally agree the old sync wasn't friendly - but that's something totally different. It wasn't intuitive, and it was surprising in that it really was just a sync, not a backup. Nevertheless, it was still pretty easy to enable if you actually wanted to. Easy can still be frustrating (as in why all these steps and which machine is which, and why do I even need to look up how to do this?), and it can still be user unfriendly (as in not allowing recovery).
- arawde 13y ago
  The steps to turn on sync for devices where you don't have access to both at the same time are a bit mangled since you're required to use the recovery key. I'm hoping with this it will turn into something close to Chrome's sync

johnchristopher 13y ago

Will I be able to use a Firefox Account in Google chrome ?

jeena 13y ago

Will it still work with the self hosted sync server? Or will there be a self hosted one for Firefox Accounts? And I hope they will implement it on Firefox OS very soon, otherwise the whole syncing is not really that interesting.

mziulu 13y ago
I expect those of us that host their own Sync server will have to deploy this[0] one instead. This is the general idea I got reading [1]. [0]: https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server [1]: https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefox-sync/ https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2014/02/07/a-better-firefo...
- darklajid 13y ago
  That.. looks quite a convoluted setup for 'simple' private hosting. Plus, the instructions seem quite sparse. Is that something Mozilla is officially endorsing or something that might perhaps work, good luck with that?
  - kbrosnan 13y ago
    New Sync has been development for about a quarter. Right now all effort on the Sync project is to get the basic workflows finished and testing the various Sync clients (Fx Desktop/Fx Android). The team is looking to have a more understandable self deployment strategy by the time this ships in Firefox release ~12 weeks. This is not a promise though. Engineering work is tricky to estimate.
holygoat 13y ago
Self-hosting is on its way!

redditivist 13y ago

That was a lot of text to say: "Today, we’re introducing Firefox Accounts as a safe and easy way for you to create an account. With Firefox Account can integrate services, like Firefox Sync. Firefox Sync enables syncing of passwords, bookmarks, history, and open tabs across devices, now even easier to setup the service and add multiple devices"

SkynetSystems 13y ago

This is a nice idea in theory, but after all the NSA revelations, we should all be very weary of cloud based data storage. Mozilla is based in the US, so what is stopping the NSA issuing them demands to hand over the user accounts? Browser data is just too detailed and sensitive, I would rather run Firefox portable off a flash drive and carry it with me.

xiaq 13y ago

> Last year, we created a new team at Mozilla to explore one specific area of the Web that’s grown with the explosion of mobile devices — the cloud (sometimes called Internet servers). Hey Mozilla, you are too honest about the cloud thing. :)

nathancahill 13y ago
Truth.
- xiaq 13y ago
  Yeah, after reading this I can imagine myself translating "we have a cloud" to "WE GOT SERVERS LOL" and the like...
pekk 13y ago
I think they were trying to avoid bitter criticism from an army of neckbeard comic guys.

insertnickname 13y ago

>the cloud (sometimes called Internet servers)

iSnow 13y ago

How is this any better or different than one of the other cloud providers? I read nothing about self-hosting this, nothing about end-to-end encryption, nothing about Persona. I understand Mozilla is in a tight place with no access to iOS, little market share in mobile in general and the new walled gardens erected by Google, Apple, FB and soon Microsoft. But simply playing copy cat and catchup does not cut it.

kijin 13y ago
Click on "same browser-based encryption". It's a link to an earlier blog post where they explain the encryption methods used in Firefox Sync. It mentions end-to-end encryption, too.
- tobehonest 13y ago
  As Mozilla is a US-based organization, is anyone afraid of the NSA/USG commandeering Mozilla to setup pen-register/password-interception a la Lavabit? Only a couple of months ago comments like mine would have been passed off as tin-foil conspiracy. Now, I think everyone's sense of normal is now tightly wrapped in tin-foil, encased in lead.
  - riquito 13y ago
    Opposite to Lavabit, Mozilla can't decrypt your data, so I can't see this happening, unless they change the open source client code without anyone noticing.
    - rhelmer 13y ago
      The "change the open source client code without anyone noticing" attack vector is important too: https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/ https://brendaneich.com/2014/01/trust-but-verify/

lazyjones 13y ago

How long till this is integrated with the main sponsor's unloved child, G+? I've got more pressing matters than yet another account with personal information and data kept in the US ...

ersii 13y ago
Mozilla is an independent non-profit organization. Yes, they do get a lot of revenue from Google - but they do not control Mozilla.
riquito 13y ago
Mozilla has been sponsored by Google since long ago, but they always thought about people first. In fact, if you don't trust them you can run your own sync server in whatever country you like.
holygoat 13y ago
Mozilla Corporation gets paid by Google to offer Google as a search engine to Firefox users. There's no sponsorship relationship — it's a mutual exchange of value. See the corporation's audited financial statements: https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Financials_2012.pdf https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Fi...

fibo 13y ago

Finally! Doh, I need to install Aurora by now

jemeshsu 13y ago

I hope Firefox will implement multiple accounts within the browser, similar to Chrome multiple accounts. If it is backed by Persona, then I will be able to have web sessions based on email accounts from different providers.

RexRollman 13y ago

I have no problem with Mozilla doing this so long as its not pushed down my throat. I have no desire to use a cloud service.

Pacabel 13y ago
While they can, of course, do whatever they want, I am disappointed by the development of unnecessary peripheral functionality such as this. I think that the resources put toward this endeavor could have been better spent on improving the performance of Firefox, or perhaps reducing its memory usage, or even fixing the numerous bugs that affect it. Firefox isn't as bad as it once was with respect to those things, but there's still much room for improvement. Functionality that's useful to a comparatively small number of users should be prioritized well behind core functionality that affects basically all Firefox users.
- sp332 13y ago
  Of course those are priorities. That's why it says right at the top that one team has been working on this. It's not like all developers need to be doing the same thing all the time.
- potch 13y ago
  Engineers aren't just resources to be allocated. Quality isn't a zero-sum game. If a manager said "all of you should only be working on performance", it would be a waste of a lot of people's time who aren't performance engineers.
- 21echoes 13y ago
  > I am disappointed by the development of unnecessary peripheral functionality such as this. users expect their browser preferences, history, bookmarks, and passwords to be synced across devices. for a significant chunk of ff users, this is in no sense "unnecessary peripheral functionality"

graetzer 13y ago

Does anyone know if there will be a standalone client library for this API? I build an iOS browser that works with the old sync api and building a client on my own is probably a bad idea

holygoat 13y ago
The storage API is very similar -- a few record extensions, a few headers changed. The auth layer is completely new, and there's no iOS client library for it, nor any plans for one that I know of.
- graetzer 13y ago
  Do you think it would be possible to re-use the sync-code from firefox directly? The library wouldn't have to be iOS specific.

PeterWhittaker 13y ago

Mozilla is a trusted organization Trust is such a poor and overloaded word. What is Mozilla "trusted" to do? That's a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps thinking in terms of expectations would be better: My expectation is that Mozilla will produce a decent browser, with occasional bumps and steps backwards in response to some flavour du jour, most notably in the area of wouldn't it be cools that break usability. Not to mention the mobile browser considering my tablet and phone to be the "same type of device", when my tablet is much closer to my computer - and it's the computer's UX I want everywhere, not the phone's. My expectation is that Mozilla will produce a half-decent email client that I have no real reason to use. My expectation is that in doing these things Mozilla software will mostly stay out of my way, mostly work as I expect (sync the function works pretty much as expected, sync the UX is awful - I still need all manner of extension and app to get the "move easily from one device to another" experience I really want). My expectation is that Mozilla will occasionally cook up something new, e.g., Persona, that I really don't see a need for, and that Mozilla will be unable to articulate why that new thing is needed, cool, or anything else. If Mozilla disappeared tomorrow, I would be quite upset, because FF sucks far less than every other browser - maybe that's because I am so used to it, that I've made it work for me, but moving to anything else would be painful. My expectation is that they will continue to deliver excellent B+ software that is adequate to my needs and wants. But why on earth would I expect that I could trust Mozilla with anything more than my sync information? I trust Mozilla about as much as I trust my bank, as much as I trust Google, and, to be fair, more than I trust facebook. But again, trust is the wrong word: I expect Google to mine my information, make the occasional misstep, but to by and large attempt to keep my information safe and secure, because if they don't, it ain't just mine they release, it's millions of ours, and they cannot afford that. I expect my bank to mess up UX occasionally, but to do security reasonably well, and to not share my personal overmuch, because of the regulatory framework in Canada: They just cannot mess this up without serious consequence. I expect facebook to mine, share, intrude, mess around, and generally do stupid things. I am never disappointed. What should I expect of Mozilla Accounts? Nothing. Nothing at all, because "Accounts" is so not what I think of when I think "Mozilla". I hear "Mozilla" I think "FireFox", I think half-decent browser, better than others, adequate email client, neither better nor worse, I think confusing cross-device UX... ...but do I think trust? Nope. And the "occasional bump in response to something shiny" mentioned above means I never will - at least not without major public rebranding. If I am going to trust you, you need to convince me you are rock-steady reliable, and never prone to blowing with the wind.

Eleutheria 13y ago

> Does Firefox Accounts provide email? No. Bummer. I've been waiting for more than ten years to get a firefox email account. What's the easiest way to have hundreds of millions of loyal followers that use your web services on a daily basis? Email. That's the starting point, besides the browser.

chippy 13y ago

I wouldn't mind the server side component to this. I'd like to run my own server so that my devices can use. You'd imagine it would be available with it being Mozilla, right? Edits: YES! https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server

holygoat 13y ago
Both the auth server and the Sync server are available.

deleted 13y ago

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