13 ms·

No Surprises (2009)

67 points by marcolinux 11y ago

mahouse 11y ago
(2009)
- tedunangst 11y ago
  The internet is a source of constant dynamic change and the flexibility to adopt new synergies is essential to maintaining best in class shared experiences.
  - codewithcheese 11y ago
    The marketing speak is strong with this one...
    - gadders 11y ago
      I think that was the joke.
    - baseballmerpeak 11y ago
      I'm now one "synergy" away from a Buzzword Bingo.
  - batou 11y ago
    I've never had coffee come out of my nose before. Thank you for that experience :) I just sat through an hour of shit like that. My eyelids were so heavy they nearly became a singularity.
  - hughw 11y ago
    More than 140 characters, unfortunately.
specto 11y ago
I guess this is a quip against Mozilla adding the 3rd party functionality?
- bananaoomarang 11y ago
  Probably more thinking of Mozilla replacing default search with Yahoo, without asking the user.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It's stuff like this that has an indirect effect that is much more serious than the change itself. Not all that long ago there was a thread here about 'why those bloody end users don't keep their systems up-to-date'. Well, there you have it: because they never just get the fixes, they also get all kinds of other junk rammed down their throats, if such an upgrade does not break their systems entirely. And so the end-users get wise and stop updating their systems, resulting in systems that are then wide open to malicious parties. I feel that I'm pretty tech savvy and in spite of that I've got a hard time clicking the 'upgrade' button next to my browser for that exact reason, it's a toss-up if it will actually do something useful for me or if it will cause me no end of misery to try to restore the situation back to working after a failed update. I'd need a couple of extra hands to count the number of times where an update to an otherwise perfectly functioning system caused it to break and in some cases that in turn led to a complete re-install. In tech we even have a meme for that: "If it isn't obviously broken, don't fix it!".
    - Programmatic 11y ago
      You raise an extremely good point that describes my feelings lately perfectly. How do HN folks manage the inevitable change in and monetization of popular and useful products? I'm having serious heartburn consuming updated products (e.g. Win 10 and FireFox). It seems that the forced dichotomy is Control, Ease of use, Features within 3 years: Pick two. I had been really happy with my customized FireFox and locked down Windows 7 from the control and usefulness standpoint but FF has been taking liberties that parent notes and Windows has a "new direction" than the standalone value they provided with Win 7. Now it feels like they're yanking the rug out, and constantly evaluating the large amount of technology I rely on is tiring.
AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
Does this mean they'll be rolling back the Pocket integration?
- brandonwamboldt 11y ago
  I doubt it, this blog post is 6 years old. Mozilla no longer have the same beliefs in this area, clearly. Just look at Pocket integration and the recent Yahoo! search engine change.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- Programmatic 11y ago
  No it's the standard that they demand of the add-ons and not the browser, you see.
- JohnTHaller 11y ago
  This policy has zero to do with Pocket if you actually read it. It's about changing the user's search engine and homepage. Unless of course you wanted to get in a completely unrelated jab at Pocket again because reasons. Get over Pocket. There's no closed source code included. The open source code that integrates with Pocket is never executed due to lazy loading if you don't specifically use Pocket. No money changed hands. It was implemented because users had been asking for the functionality for years and Mozilla determined that it made more sense to partner with the best in breed provider of the service rather than reinvent the service and support it on an ongoing basis themselves. You can right-click and remove it if you don't want it.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    >> "No money changed hands." Money changing hands would have been better. That would've been a valid reason. >> "best in breed provider of the service" Or providers could have just created extensions. Now that Mozilla picked a winner competition suffers.
  - deleted 11y ago
LeoNatan25 11y ago
Is that a surprise in your pocket, or are you just happy to throw away my privacy?
- drdaeman 11y ago
  Pocket is small stuff. A button on the taskbar that can be removed. Or completely disabled in about:config. Surprising, but not much damage. For me the Sync surprise was much more disappointing. They broke the feature to the extent it became unusable for me any more (unless I spend some more weekends trying to understand their poorly-documented proprietary protocol mess, which is not how I'd like to spend time).
  - sirn 11y ago
    Unfortunately the View Pocket List menu entry in Bookmarks menu cannot easily be removed. (It is there even with browser.pocket.enabled set to false). Fortunately for me that I don't access the Bookmarks menu too often to be annoyed by it.
    - gorhill 11y ago
      > Unfortunately the View Pocket List menu entry in Bookmarks menu cannot easily be removed. It will be removed if you remove the Pocket icon using the (right-click) contextual menu on the icon. The entry is not removed if you remove manually using the `about:config` way. Related bugzilla entry[1]: > The normal/supported way to remove Pocket works fine: Right click the button, select "Remove from toolbar". [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1171569 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1171569
  - Programmatic 11y ago
    It's not about how hard it is or isn't to disable. It's about how a lot of users suddenly wondered what scummy software they downloaded that put that button in their browser, only to be left feeling extremely dirty when they found out it was Mozilla. It makes you wonder what other liberties they'll take to make a couple bucks and when the other shoe will drop. It has made me start actively evaluating alternatives, when previously I considered it to be the best.
mrweasel 11y ago
So Googles Safe Browsing will finally be opt-in?
- eli 11y ago
  That seems like a poor example of something that should be opt-in. The people who would benefit most from it seem the least likely to opt-in to optional features.
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    True, but I would like to know that my non-Google browser contacts Googles server every now and then. If the goal is "no surprises", then users should be made aware of this feature and allowed to opt-in or out easily.
    - eli 11y ago
      It's pretty benign. I'm not sure "warning you about potential phishing sites" is the sort of surprise they were trying to move away from. Would you consider being warned of a revoked SSL certificate a surprise too?
      - mrweasel 11y ago
        >Would you consider being warned of a revoked SSL certificate a surprise too? I suppose not, but it's not the feature I find surprising, it's that it's a Google service in a browser I picked because it's not a Google product. Yeah, I know, the SSL revoking is a service provided by each of the certificate providers, so it's sort of the same thing. Google search is in Firefox as well, but it's not surprising, it's kinda obvious really. They could do so similar with the anti-phishing/malware thing. On the phising site warning just write "This is a Google provided service, click to opt-out".
arca_vorago 11y ago
So does that mean the WebRTC issues will be made visible to the average user?
Tepix 11y ago
I consider the way they hid the "block third party cookies" option a surprise. Mozilla is so dependent on Google and other companies' money, they can't be completely trusted to offer the best privacy out of the box. The fact that Safari has 3rd party cookies disabled by default whereas Firefox hasn't... is both telling and sad.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- stefanix 11y ago
  Just checked, got totally surprised. Firefox basically overwrote my previous setting on third-party cookies. As you said the new checkbox is very much hidden: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-third-party-cookies https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-third-party-coo...
  - Programmatic 11y ago
    Look into RequestPolicy [Continued], it prevents those third party sites from even loading data via a request in the first place. It's very nice having that level of control if you find it to be worth the time to fiddle with a few sites' request settings. I find that I prefer the simplicity in a site loaded without a lot of third party BS (and often not even CSS for sites that use a CDN for it).
feld 11y ago
Sounds like FreeBSD's POLA https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/freebsd-glossary.html#pola-glossary https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/f...
l1n 11y ago
Might be better to change the link to the official policy: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/AMO/Policy/Reviews#section-defaults https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/AMO/Policy/Revie...
criley2 11y ago
Does "No Surprises" mean I won't find unwanted Firefox extensions pre-installed by Mozilla that are impossible to remove and only serve to reduce privacy by opening up new unwanted avenues to access my input and broadcast it over third party non-mozilla private networks? Shouldn't I at least be able to opt-out of a private video service running on a third party server that I have no terms of use or privacy policy covering? "All changes must be ‘opt-in’, meaning the user must take non-default action to enact the change." Right, just like I "opt-ed" in to Firefox Hello. I can't even "opt out" of Firefox Hello! "Uninstalling the add-on restores the user’s original settings if they were changed. I wish. Just goes to show that they're pushing an uneven playing field where Firefox Extensions are auto-installed, can't be removed, and can break all the rules. But hey, at least everyone ELSE can't break all the rules. Funny that they won't even apply this philosophy to their own products and services that they are forcing into user installations without an opt-in or opt-out.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- atopal 11y ago
  Firefox Hello is opt-in. If you don't use it, it will just be a button in your toolbar, it will do absolutely nothing before you opt-in, by making a call. As a bonus: You can make video calls without ever having to create an account.
  - criley2 11y ago
    >"Firefox Hello is opt-in. If you don't use it, it will just be a button in your toolbar, " Are you being serious right now? Ok, how about this, We auto-install the Ask Toolbar on every single Firefox installation, 100%, everyone gets the Toolbar. But don't worry! If you don't click on the Toolbar which automatically installs and appears in your browser, you won't use it! It's "Opt in"! The funny part is, can you tell me how to uninstall Firefox Hello completely? Mozilla's NO SURPRISES policy says I should be able to uninstall unwanted extensions with no loss to my browser. So, can you help me achieve NO SURPRISES by removing the surprising and unwanted third party Hello feature?
eule 11y ago
I was pretty surprised when tabs suddenly were on the top.
noja 11y ago
Well, I didn't expect that.
emddudley 11y ago
This is from 2009.
vdaniuk 11y ago
This derogatory treatment of Mozilla by hivemind consensus emerging from opinions of a vocal minority is a curious phenomena and a indicator of the increasing ideological rift in open source community. It can be roughly summarized as a conflict between deontological and consequentialist ethics. User privacy, "meritocracy", freedom from DRM/EME, etc above all else vs strategical trade-offs that strengthen competitive positions against Chrome, Edge and Safari.
- vetinari 11y ago
  How exactly destroying user's trust wrt privacy and including extensions no one wanted does strategically strengthen against competition? I would say it weakens Mozilla's position.

No Surprises (2009)

67 points by marcolinux 11y ago

mahouse 11y ago

(2009)

tedunangst 11y ago
The internet is a source of constant dynamic change and the flexibility to adopt new synergies is essential to maintaining best in class shared experiences.
- codewithcheese 11y ago
  The marketing speak is strong with this one...
  - gadders 11y ago
    I think that was the joke.
  - baseballmerpeak 11y ago
    I'm now one "synergy" away from a Buzzword Bingo.
- batou 11y ago
  I've never had coffee come out of my nose before. Thank you for that experience :) I just sat through an hour of shit like that. My eyelids were so heavy they nearly became a singularity.
- hughw 11y ago
  More than 140 characters, unfortunately.

specto 11y ago

I guess this is a quip against Mozilla adding the 3rd party functionality?

bananaoomarang 11y ago
Probably more thinking of Mozilla replacing default search with Yahoo, without asking the user.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  It's stuff like this that has an indirect effect that is much more serious than the change itself. Not all that long ago there was a thread here about 'why those bloody end users don't keep their systems up-to-date'. Well, there you have it: because they never just get the fixes, they also get all kinds of other junk rammed down their throats, if such an upgrade does not break their systems entirely. And so the end-users get wise and stop updating their systems, resulting in systems that are then wide open to malicious parties. I feel that I'm pretty tech savvy and in spite of that I've got a hard time clicking the 'upgrade' button next to my browser for that exact reason, it's a toss-up if it will actually do something useful for me or if it will cause me no end of misery to try to restore the situation back to working after a failed update. I'd need a couple of extra hands to count the number of times where an update to an otherwise perfectly functioning system caused it to break and in some cases that in turn led to a complete re-install. In tech we even have a meme for that: "If it isn't obviously broken, don't fix it!".
  - Programmatic 11y ago
    You raise an extremely good point that describes my feelings lately perfectly. How do HN folks manage the inevitable change in and monetization of popular and useful products? I'm having serious heartburn consuming updated products (e.g. Win 10 and FireFox). It seems that the forced dichotomy is Control, Ease of use, Features within 3 years: Pick two. I had been really happy with my customized FireFox and locked down Windows 7 from the control and usefulness standpoint but FF has been taking liberties that parent notes and Windows has a "new direction" than the standalone value they provided with Win 7. Now it feels like they're yanking the rug out, and constantly evaluating the large amount of technology I rely on is tiring.

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago

Does this mean they'll be rolling back the Pocket integration?

brandonwamboldt 11y ago
I doubt it, this blog post is 6 years old. Mozilla no longer have the same beliefs in this area, clearly. Just look at Pocket integration and the recent Yahoo! search engine change.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Programmatic 11y ago
No it's the standard that they demand of the add-ons and not the browser, you see.
JohnTHaller 11y ago
This policy has zero to do with Pocket if you actually read it. It's about changing the user's search engine and homepage. Unless of course you wanted to get in a completely unrelated jab at Pocket again because reasons. Get over Pocket. There's no closed source code included. The open source code that integrates with Pocket is never executed due to lazy loading if you don't specifically use Pocket. No money changed hands. It was implemented because users had been asking for the functionality for years and Mozilla determined that it made more sense to partner with the best in breed provider of the service rather than reinvent the service and support it on an ongoing basis themselves. You can right-click and remove it if you don't want it.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "No money changed hands." Money changing hands would have been better. That would've been a valid reason. >> "best in breed provider of the service" Or providers could have just created extensions. Now that Mozilla picked a winner competition suffers.
- deleted 11y ago

LeoNatan25 11y ago

Is that a surprise in your pocket, or are you just happy to throw away my privacy?

drdaeman 11y ago
Pocket is small stuff. A button on the taskbar that can be removed. Or completely disabled in about:config. Surprising, but not much damage. For me the Sync surprise was much more disappointing. They broke the feature to the extent it became unusable for me any more (unless I spend some more weekends trying to understand their poorly-documented proprietary protocol mess, which is not how I'd like to spend time).
- sirn 11y ago
  Unfortunately the View Pocket List menu entry in Bookmarks menu cannot easily be removed. (It is there even with browser.pocket.enabled set to false). Fortunately for me that I don't access the Bookmarks menu too often to be annoyed by it.
  - gorhill 11y ago
    > Unfortunately the View Pocket List menu entry in Bookmarks menu cannot easily be removed. It will be removed if you remove the Pocket icon using the (right-click) contextual menu on the icon. The entry is not removed if you remove manually using the `about:config` way. Related bugzilla entry[1]: > The normal/supported way to remove Pocket works fine: Right click the button, select "Remove from toolbar". [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1171569 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1171569
- Programmatic 11y ago
  It's not about how hard it is or isn't to disable. It's about how a lot of users suddenly wondered what scummy software they downloaded that put that button in their browser, only to be left feeling extremely dirty when they found out it was Mozilla. It makes you wonder what other liberties they'll take to make a couple bucks and when the other shoe will drop. It has made me start actively evaluating alternatives, when previously I considered it to be the best.

mrweasel 11y ago

So Googles Safe Browsing will finally be opt-in?

eli 11y ago
That seems like a poor example of something that should be opt-in. The people who would benefit most from it seem the least likely to opt-in to optional features.
- mrweasel 11y ago
  True, but I would like to know that my non-Google browser contacts Googles server every now and then. If the goal is "no surprises", then users should be made aware of this feature and allowed to opt-in or out easily.
  - eli 11y ago
    It's pretty benign. I'm not sure "warning you about potential phishing sites" is the sort of surprise they were trying to move away from. Would you consider being warned of a revoked SSL certificate a surprise too?
    - mrweasel 11y ago
      >Would you consider being warned of a revoked SSL certificate a surprise too? I suppose not, but it's not the feature I find surprising, it's that it's a Google service in a browser I picked because it's not a Google product. Yeah, I know, the SSL revoking is a service provided by each of the certificate providers, so it's sort of the same thing. Google search is in Firefox as well, but it's not surprising, it's kinda obvious really. They could do so similar with the anti-phishing/malware thing. On the phising site warning just write "This is a Google provided service, click to opt-out".

arca_vorago 11y ago

So does that mean the WebRTC issues will be made visible to the average user?

Tepix 11y ago

I consider the way they hid the "block third party cookies" option a surprise. Mozilla is so dependent on Google and other companies' money, they can't be completely trusted to offer the best privacy out of the box. The fact that Safari has 3rd party cookies disabled by default whereas Firefox hasn't... is both telling and sad.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
stefanix 11y ago
Just checked, got totally surprised. Firefox basically overwrote my previous setting on third-party cookies. As you said the new checkbox is very much hidden: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-third-party-cookies https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-third-party-coo...
- Programmatic 11y ago
  Look into RequestPolicy [Continued], it prevents those third party sites from even loading data via a request in the first place. It's very nice having that level of control if you find it to be worth the time to fiddle with a few sites' request settings. I find that I prefer the simplicity in a site loaded without a lot of third party BS (and often not even CSS for sites that use a CDN for it).

feld 11y ago

Sounds like FreeBSD's POLA https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/freebsd-glossary.html#pola-glossary https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/f...

l1n 11y ago

Might be better to change the link to the official policy: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/AMO/Policy/Reviews#section-defaults https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/AMO/Policy/Revie...

criley2 11y ago

Does "No Surprises" mean I won't find unwanted Firefox extensions pre-installed by Mozilla that are impossible to remove and only serve to reduce privacy by opening up new unwanted avenues to access my input and broadcast it over third party non-mozilla private networks? Shouldn't I at least be able to opt-out of a private video service running on a third party server that I have no terms of use or privacy policy covering? "All changes must be ‘opt-in’, meaning the user must take non-default action to enact the change." Right, just like I "opt-ed" in to Firefox Hello. I can't even "opt out" of Firefox Hello! "Uninstalling the add-on restores the user’s original settings if they were changed. I wish. Just goes to show that they're pushing an uneven playing field where Firefox Extensions are auto-installed, can't be removed, and can break all the rules. But hey, at least everyone ELSE can't break all the rules. Funny that they won't even apply this philosophy to their own products and services that they are forcing into user installations without an opt-in or opt-out.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
atopal 11y ago
Firefox Hello is opt-in. If you don't use it, it will just be a button in your toolbar, it will do absolutely nothing before you opt-in, by making a call. As a bonus: You can make video calls without ever having to create an account.
- criley2 11y ago
  >"Firefox Hello is opt-in. If you don't use it, it will just be a button in your toolbar, " Are you being serious right now? Ok, how about this, We auto-install the Ask Toolbar on every single Firefox installation, 100%, everyone gets the Toolbar. But don't worry! If you don't click on the Toolbar which automatically installs and appears in your browser, you won't use it! It's "Opt in"! The funny part is, can you tell me how to uninstall Firefox Hello completely? Mozilla's NO SURPRISES policy says I should be able to uninstall unwanted extensions with no loss to my browser. So, can you help me achieve NO SURPRISES by removing the surprising and unwanted third party Hello feature?

eule 11y ago

I was pretty surprised when tabs suddenly were on the top.

noja 11y ago

Well, I didn't expect that.

emddudley 11y ago

This is from 2009.

vdaniuk 11y ago

This derogatory treatment of Mozilla by hivemind consensus emerging from opinions of a vocal minority is a curious phenomena and a indicator of the increasing ideological rift in open source community. It can be roughly summarized as a conflict between deontological and consequentialist ethics. User privacy, "meritocracy", freedom from DRM/EME, etc above all else vs strategical trade-offs that strengthen competitive positions against Chrome, Edge and Safari.

vetinari 11y ago
How exactly destroying user's trust wrt privacy and including extensions no one wanted does strategically strengthen against competition? I would say it weakens Mozilla's position.