[HN Gopher] We're making Firefox accessible and delightful for e... ___________________________________________________________________ We're making Firefox accessible and delightful for everyone Author : Amorymeltzer Score : 55 points Date : 2022-12-05 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org) | hulitu wrote: | > We're making Firefox accessible and delightful for everyone | | Then don't draw anything in the titlebar and let the user decide | how big shall be the scrollbar . For a start ... | smeagull wrote: | Could they stop disabling the browser when it updates (running | against the about:config settings) so that I don't lose work when | I have a partially functional browser that won't load new pages | which breaks every single page application? | lucb1e wrote: | > a partially functional browser that won't load new pages | | I thought it was just me because it was going on for so long! | | Since maybe half a year, every time you use Firefox for a while | (I suspend to RAM when not using my system), it starts to | cheerfully go "whoops, this tab has crashed!" or "We need just | one tiny thing to keep going [nuke1 and restart whole browser | as the only button]". Makes me want to firewall mozilla IP | ranges and subscribe to an rss feed to see when a security | release came out so that I can go to the update menu manually | and do it not when I am in the middle of looking something up | during a phone call with someone. | | It's also not as though this uses the regular updates | mechanism. There is still Menu -> About -> "you're up to date" | / "click here to download update" / "click here to restart to | apply update" and it will also notify you of those releases. | This is some other mechanism going on under the hood. Perhaps | the Experiments thing that gets randomly deployed to random | people's browsers, not sure, I thought I disabled all of that | years ago. | | 1Yes I know firefox and other browsers nowadays have this | textarea/input content restoring and such. Ask me how well that | works now that every developer decided they're too cool for | basic HTML elements whose functionality have been honed for | close to three decades now, and would rather re-invent | everything from page loading to input fields by using dynamic | javascript instead. | anm89 wrote: | Yeah, is that why they forcefully shut down my browser mid | session any time they feel like updating? | | Seriously thinking of moving away from firefox these days | babypuncher wrote: | I've never had this happen on Windows or macOS. In Linux, I | have had Firefox complain when my package manager updates | Firefox while it is running, which I think is perfectly normal. | | What an odd thing to randomly complain about, and completely | off-topic in regards to the article. | b1476 wrote: | Agreed. I often update (in Fedora) which causes Firefox to be | restarted - never had any issues clicking the 'restart | Firefox' button though which relaunches it and opens the last | session, often opening dozens of older tabs without issue. | Bizarre thing to complain about. | lofaszvanitt wrote: | Nope, on ubuntu you get a popup while you are browsing the net | saying that SNAP UPDATES ARE POSTPONED because you started | something that is entombed in a snap... | | Then it does this every time you boot your os and start the | browser first. | | Maybe, next time, before you start your browser it should | update the snaps, then let you use the browser. NOOOOOOOO | WAAAY! Display the popup for 2 weeks... or before you commit | self harm you do the update yourself. | | And we are going to Mars! | lucb1e wrote: | I'm not the parent poster, but this happens to me as well. It's | new and didn't happen about a year ago or before that. | | To everyone saying this is Snap: I'm using Debian. It does not | have snap. | | To everyone saying this is apt: no, I also do not apt upgrade | and then wonder why tab processes suddenly can't talk to the | master process anymore. Unattended upgrades is not installed on | this system (it's not a server and I do manual upgrades | regularly, it's not as though that unexpectedly reports that | there aren't any to be applied). | | It happens both on systems where firefox-esr is installed via | apt and where Firefox is installed directly from Mozilla | without going through apt (stability vs. timely features). | | I do remember that this indeed happens when I once did upgrade | via apt and then continued using Firefox. Similar effect with | e.g. Signal. | jacquesm wrote: | This could well be an issue with 'snap', see earlier thread on | the subject. | NoahKAndrews wrote: | I believe that only happens when a Linux package manager | updates Firefox while it's running. | eikenberry wrote: | How can this happen when Linux package managers don't auto- | update (without help)? I mean if you don't want Firefox | updated while you are using it you just just don't update it. | If your distro has some sort of auto-update by default (do | any do this?, I thought available update notifications was | the standard) then disable it and get control of that back. | Auto-updating packages is an anti-pattern (ie. bad). | mjw1007 wrote: | It can also happen if you have two copies of 'stock' Firefox | running (with different profiles) and one of them runs the | update. | deathanatos wrote: | ... it doesn't, and I've just run `pacman -S` to check. (& it | didn't.) | | (It does cause some tabs to message that a browser restart is | required. Even so ... this is really the first I hit this, as | I'm usually doing updates when it is opportunistic to do so, | such as right before a reboot (so any kernel updates | happen).) | TillE wrote: | Probably. Never seen anything like that on Windows or macOS. | OscarCunningham wrote: | I get 'Firefox needs to restart' all the time on MacOS. | eropple wrote: | Right, but it doesn't auto-update and kill your session. | micahdeath wrote: | Happens on Windows | smeagull wrote: | Happens on Mac all the time. | deathanatos wrote: | ... Firefox on my work macOS is presently has an emblem | on the hamburger menu, and if you open the menu: "Update | available -- restart now". I've been delaying for days? | weeks? at this point. | | Clicking it causes the browser to disappear for ~20 | seconds, +10s for the UI to become available. | LightHugger wrote: | I laughed... mozilla isn't the first company to hide user | unfriendly nonsense under a guise of accessibility, but they're | certainly in the running for causing the most annoyance with it! | wlesieutre wrote: | What's user unfriendly about copying text out of images and | making screenreaders faster? | Barrin92 wrote: | That image to text feature is great. I have someone who is almost | blind in my immediate family and the increase of text screenshots | is a really big problem for people who rely on screen readers. As | a side-note this seems to be fueled by short-form platforms like | Twitter that impose character limits, really not a good thing. | worble wrote: | This is offtopic (and probably against the rules) but why is it | that every thread about Firefox seems to be filled with toxic | vitriol? It seems that everything Firefox does causes anguish for | everyone in the comments, but I rarely see such hate leveraged at | Chrome posts/updates. What causes this effect? | i_am_proteus wrote: | I use Firefox, except when I need to look at a web site that | was developed by people who don't care about Firefox users. | | When I see Firefox roll out features that don't really change | anything, all the while steadily losing market share, I'm | disappointed. | | But I also can't think of anything Mozilla could do to fight | the dominance of Chrome and Safari, so I guess it's not that | disappointing. | adamrezich wrote: | your point might've been more salient if you'd waited for said | vitriol to actually materialize before posting | macspoofing wrote: | I don't think the hate is directed towards Firefox, but rather | Mozilla. I know I lost faith in Mozilla when they posted a blog | entry a couple years ago to detail reasons behind their | restructuring and what their renewed focus is, and made it seem | like Firefox was an afterthought [1]. | | Choice quote: | | >Mozilla exists so the internet can help the world collectively | meet the range of challenges a moment like this presents. | Firefox is a part of this. * _But we know we also need to go | beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies | that both excite them and represent their interests.*_ | (emphasis mine) | | What other products? The entire organizational focus should be | centered on Firefox so that it can meaningfully compete with | Chrome, as Firefox is the _only_ truly open alternative to | Safari /Chrome. | | A little below that, they list their new 5 areas to focus on | and ... no mention of Firefox there. | | [1]https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/changing-world- | changing-... | fruffy wrote: | It seems this is because the company has broadly shifted focus | to softer social issues rather than technical topics. Mozilla | keeps struggling with market share and users are anguished to | see that their (former) favorite browser is investing resources | in topics they find to be a distraction. | | At least that is my interpretation. Mozilla is not addressing | the same audience any longer, a lot of which is technically- | minded folk on HN, Reddit, /g/, etc. | mgkimsal wrote: | Possibly a sense of betrayal? There was a time when FF seemed | like it had a future of being a large player in the browser | market. Hanging in single-digit usage seems like that time has | come/gone, yet we continue to see loads of things that are... | ancillary to that earlier dream of 'being #1' (or just a larger | player). | | Some announcements are 'nice', but almost all seem to point to | 'too little too late' for the original dream. | | I say this as someone who uses chrome/ff/safari daily, and | threw a 'Mozilla release party' (with a Mozilla cake!) back | when Mozilla hit 1.0, and donated early on to FF/mozilla. | | They seemingly squandered years becoming less and less relevant | to day to day usage, and it bugs some folks. On top of that, we | get treated to press releases and social media tidbits now and | then of "we're laying off dozens/hundreds of people, and our | CEO makes millions of dollars". Depressing to see what it's | become vs what people expected years ago... | hairofadog wrote: | I think for the same reason that nobody is as critical of the | Star Wars movies as the most die-hard Star Wars fan, or the | same reason that nobody hates anybody as much as ex-spouses | hate each other after a marriage gone wrong. | wryun wrote: | Chrome is understood to be controlled by a profit-seeking | corporation. If people are using Chrome, they're mostly ok with | this. | | Firefox is controlled by a not-for-profit which is dedicating | to making the internet a better place. People who would also | like to make the internet a better place tend to get quite | worked up when they feel Mozilla is not doing what they'd do. | | (Disclaimer: I mostly happily use Firefox) | dec0dedab0de wrote: | Because it used to feel like Firefox was on our side. At some | point over the last 20 years it started to feel like they | didn't care about us anymore. It felt like they cared more | about attracting others than keeping us around because they | know we're stuck without any viable alternatives. Everybody has | always known Chrome was evil, so no one bothered getting an | emotional attachment, at best the only argument anybody had in | favor of chrome was that it was fast. | pessimizer wrote: | > It felt like they cared more about attracting others than | keeping us around | | And worse, they weren't (and aren't) even attracting others, | so their antagonism towards their long-term users was even | less justified. | lofaszvanitt wrote: | Maybe because people in the know think that Chrome is pure evil | and Firefox should be the shiny knight in golden armor to | behead the evil monster, but in reality it's a clown disguised | as a knight. | | The announcement reads: "more than 1 billion people around the | world who live with disabilities." | | And with the new ocr image feature they will all become Firefox | users, just watch the usage statistics in the next few months. | | That's why. | yamtaddle wrote: | I'm pretty sure the OCR thing is just enabling a recent-ish, | built-in Mac and iOS platform feature (I bet it already | worked on FF iOS, in fact, since that's Webkit under the | hood). | | Thought it is a pretty great feature, to be fair. | kdmccormick wrote: | This is exactly the vitriol that GP is talking about. Yes, | their market share is low, and yes, they're working on | accessibility features anyway. Why does that bother you so | much? | PuppyTailWags wrote: | tbh I think the ocr image feature is precisely the sort of | thing I want people working on browsers to be thinking about. | A lack of accessibility in technology is a huge barrier to an | increasingly bigger facet of interacting with society. | Working on increasing accessibility is the sort of fighting- | for-the-little-guys I want a nonprofit to be doing. | cosmotic wrote: | Firefox team has a history of making huge, sweeping UI changes | which users absolutely hate. Chrome has remained largely | unchanged since its first version. Users that chose Firefox | because of the way the UI works at that moment often have the | rug pulled out from under them. | noicebrewery wrote: | I wouldn't be surprised if there was some light brigading going | on from rivals. There's also some really lazy frontend devs out | there that get indignant about testing on Firefox. | | Chrome is the new IE and Google is the new Microsoft. They make | up their own standards on a whim, which thanks to market | dominance everyone is forced to follow. They collect user data | without permission. They waste computer resources. They push | people towards other Google products in an anti competitive | way. | | Mozilla has made some dumb mistakes here and there but it pales | in comparison to the very serious threat that Chrome, and | Chromium in general has to the free web and to users. | | It's worth noting that the complaints below have nothing to do | with the article, which shows a pretty promising tech, and are | just bagging out FF because just as you said, that's what | happens on HN. | Klonoar wrote: | >I wouldn't be surprised if there was some light brigading | going on from rivals. There's also some really lazy frontend | devs out there that get indignant about testing on Firefox. | | The vitriol comes from people who want Firefox to return to | being "just a browser", and to be honest more often than not | are the Linux crowd. It's seemingly got nothing to do with | rivalry (all the browser vendors are actually fairly chummy | with each other) and frontend devs are more likely to just | ignore Firefox than to complain about it (IME). | | HN has also just become far more vitriol-filled as of late. | That's devolving into meta commentary and outside the | purposes of this thread, though - just can't leave it | uncommented on here. | pessimizer wrote: | > Mozilla has made some dumb mistakes here and there but it | pales in comparison to the very serious threat that Chrome, | and Chromium in general has to the free web and to users. | | The company that owns Chrome is nearly the sole financial | support of Firefox. | morvita wrote: | Which is also based entirely on their market dominance. I'm | 100% convinced Google continues handing millions of dollars | a year to Mozilla so Google can point at Firefox as | competition when the regulators come knocking. | BlackLotus89 wrote: | Yeah I'm a firefox user and I don't click on posts about | chrome. This is just a guess, but maybe everyone left using | firefox does so because they believe in a free and open web and | privacy and wish for firefox to succeed, but often feel | disappointed when many news about firefox seem like step | backwards. I for one am ok with how firefox is right now, it | could be better, I hope that mozilla invests more in firefox, | but I'm still holding out for alternatives like ladybird even | if they are years away from being a usable alternative. Anyway | just my 2 cents ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-05 23:00 UTC)