You'll be happy to know that somebody recently started working on the date/time input types bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=888320
If you have a bugzilla account, you can CC yourself on the bug to catch future updates :-)
If you have a bugzilla account, you can CC yourself on the bug to catch future updates :-)
[1] Not exaggerating: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=390936
As a developer, this destroys the credibility of Firefox when it comes to interoperability, and in the outside world I have been perceiving a rise of Chrome-only web applications, this can't be a coincidence.
As far as web compatibility and standards, the inconsistency is part of Mozilla. Is Firefox a tool for open web standards advocacy? Some in Mozilla feel that way. Do we just want Firefox to render things well? There's a whole team for that too (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Compatibility). And of course there's Bugzilla, which can feel like a lottery – it's very hard to know who you encounter when you enter the project through there.
This stuff is hard, and making the right choices is hard – I'm sure Mozilla has not always made the right decisions, but I personally prefer ongoing struggles to make the right decision over a consistent and credible stance.
There is in fact a middle ground between "free for all, implement whatever you want" and "implement only what is precisely required by a standards document". In fact, this middle ground is the only way to make a practical browser engine. The two extremes are untenable.
There are definitely some 10 year old bugs, just like there are funny, off-topic, celebratory bugs (https://bugzil.la/1000000). Like callahad said, you can tweak your email settings, and the bugzilla email headers are super easy to filter on.
Despite vocal and repeated requests and complaints, Mozilla refuses to back down and remove things that users did not ask for and do not want; instead Mozilla does things like sneak Pocket support in in a point-release without any advance warning or any chance for the community to give feedback. And note that Pocket has had a fully functional Firefox extension ever since it was Read-It-Later--there was absolutely no technical reason to build in support for Pocket and deprecate the extension.
Mozilla has never been forthcoming about the real reason for doing this. In fact, the few Mozillians who have spoken about it seem to have had no idea why it happened, either.
Instead all we get is vague "people want to save things, this makes it easier for people to save things" statements. Well, people want to use Facebook, too: where is the built-in Facebook plugin? Where's the built-in Netflix extension? Amazon shopping support? etc. Clearly the decision to build in new Pocket code had nothing to do with a principled policy of making things easier for users.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Mozilla cut a deal and is getting money for it. And if that is the case, what is to stop them from doing the same for anything else? What if Microsoft cuts a deal to build in Bing support? etc.
> where is the built-in Facebook plugin?
> Where's the built-in Netflix extension?
> Amazon shopping support?
> What if Microsoft cuts a deal to build in Bing support?
These default search engines are how Mozilla makes 95% of its income (donations are basically a drop in the bucket, and because of tax laws they aren't allowed to use donation funds to finance Firefox development anyway). Mozilla sees this as a problem and has been actively looking for ways to diversify its revenue streams in the past years (go read any of their past financial statements to see them explicitly categorize their over-reliance on search engine revenue as a potential threat to the company), which has led to things like FirefoxOS (in the hope that telecoms would toss some cash Mozilla's way) and the "suggested sites" on the New Tab page. This why I find it extremely unlikely that someone "cut a deal", because Mozilla would want people to know that they're succeeding at the task of finding alternate revenue streams.
Yes, I remember. Another example of CADT-style development.
> Users demanding Netflix support is literally the reason why Mozilla was strongarmed into adding support for EME, despite trying to hold out against it for so long.
EME is about more than just Netflix, though, and I was referring to site-specific support, just like the Pocket support only works with Pocket. As I wrote on the mozilla-governance list, what should have been done instead is to define and implement a save-for-later API (which could be built-in to the Firefox Places/bookmarks/etc API), which Pocket could then add support for on its end, and then users could choose to sync with a save-for-later API provider.
> Click in the search box, type a query, and at the bottom of the suggestions dropdown you'll see that Amazon is one of the search engines supported out-of-the-box. I actually use this fairly regularly.
Yes, I know how the search engines work, thanks; I've been using Firefox since at least Phoenix 0.6. Again, that is not the same thing. The search engine API is a standard that is used by many web sites to let their site-specific engines get added to the list. In contrast, the Pocket support only works with Pocket. An analogy would be if Mozilla added an Amazon-only sidebar that integrated Amazon.com logins and shopping lists and order status, etc. They aren't doing that, so they shouldn't have done it with Pocket, either.
> This why I find it extremely unlikely that someone "cut a deal", because Mozilla would want people to know that they're succeeding at the task of finding alternate revenue streams.
Now that is an interesting point, and thanks for sharing that. However, I'm still skeptical, because, again, we still have not heard an actual explanation for why Pocket was added, other than vague "it helps people save stuff, and people want to save stuff [even though they could already do that]."
There must have been some kind of inside deal. If not, what other explanation is there? Mozilla added Pocket support suddenly, without any community input, going against established Mozilla policy regarding features being in addons. Mozilla has shown a pattern of removing features and leaving the community to reimplement them in addons, yet here it does the opposite, and for a proprietary service! And it has ignored repeated requests for an explanation of the real reason.
So some kind of secret, inside deal is the only answer I can see. If it wasn't for money, it must have been for something. If you are in fact right that they would want people to know about a deal for money, then what does that suggest? Why would it need to be kept secret? What is going on here?
Whatever the real story, the way they are handling it undermines trust.
I suspect that set is precisely equal to the set of projects that just close bugs en masse after a certain date.
It's frustrating seeing them spend so much time on Firefox OS, Hello, etc. and not on making Firefox a really good, standards compliant browser.
You then chose to respond with sarcasm and disdain. What productive outcome could we possibly reach from that exchange?
To advocate the devil, s/he'd like to change future plans. You did confirm it's being worked on, but the comment you're responding to tries to get you (mozilla) to work on implementing standards more often.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree, I'm underinformed (though I also ran into Firefox not having input types and am also not a fan of recent experiments, I can't tell whether the concept of doing such experiments isn't worth doing), I'm just pointing out there is something behind the negative sarcasm.
You need to realize that behind every sarcastic, disdainful comment about Mozilla or Firefox is years, often nearly decades, of Firefox usage, contribution, and promotion. When people come to trust and rely upon a tool for getting work done for many, many years, and then the organization responsible for that tool starts changing priorities in ways that negatively effect the tool's usability and usefulness, people react negatively.
And when the organization then gets defensive and offended at people's negative reactions, it creates a self-reinforcing cycle of negativity and not-listening-to-the-other-side.
Mozilla makes a great browser, saving the world from Microsoft and IE. Nearly two decades later, Mozilla starts mucking with the UI, chasing the mythical never-used-the-Internet-before-and-will-always-be-that-way user, forcing unwanted, unrequested features upon all users, etc.
Naturally, people respond negatively. "Why are you doing this, Mozilla? Why are you ruining this great browser? Why are you now chasing numbers and mythical unicorn users instead of pursuing excellence and usefulness like you always have before?"
Then Mozilla employees get defensive and respond with, "What? Why don't you like what we're doing? Why aren't you being nice to us? We're doing this for you! Stop being mean!" And then they say to each other--especially on Bugzilla reports--"Ugh, more comments from the peanut gallery."--or in Mozilla-speak, "advocacy"--"Locking this bug to editbugs-privileged only accounts."
So now we have two sides that are offended by each other and not listening to each other. But the two sides are not equal, for without users, what is the point of Mozilla and its products? Plenty of well-made software has fallen into obscurity over the years when people weren't using it. And without Firefox, what are users left with but poor imitations?
Undoubtedly Chrome has had an impact here, but Mozilla is mistaken to imitate Chrome to recapture its users. Some people leave Firefox for Chrome because they prefer Chrome, or because Chrome is faster (and they don't mind its memory usage). But other people leave Firefox for Chrome because--wait for it--Firefox has stopped being Firefox! They figure, well, if Firefox is going to try to be a poor imitation of Chrome, I might as well just use Chrome.
But what we really want is authentic Firefox, the browser that we started using when IE ruled the world and Phoenix rose from the ashes of Netscape to save us from the Evil Empire. Microsoft isn't the threat to the Internet it used to be, but monoculture will always be a threat, and proprietary, walled-garden, app-store-style software is a growing threat to user freedom and empowerment.
We need Firefox to be Firefox, not Chrome, not Mozilla's experiment of the month, not Mozilla's platform for enacting social change.
I guess the problem is that Mozilla is literally not who it used to be, because the people are different, and they have different ideas. Probably money has something to do with that; a few years of hundred-million-dollar+ deals obviously has an impact. People get used to the money, and when it comes down to it, they'll do whatever they think it takes to keep the money flowing, even if it means undoing what made them successful.
But the root problem is the Rug Problem: people react negatively when the rug is yanked out from under them without their consent. Mozilla should recognize this and not react defensively.
Instead, Mozilla should interpret every such comment as evidence of bugs in the Mozilla organization, people, processes, and priorities. When "customers" are unhappy, smart companies don't get offended and tell off their customers, they figure out why customers are unhappy, and they make them happy again.
As for myself, I'm keeping an eye on Pale Moon, which has made a commitment to stability in API and UI, and to usefulness for its users. I wish Mozilla would make the same commitment to its users and extension developers.
Is it so surprising that power users are the most vocal one's and do complain if one of their pet features is going to be axed? (And many of our pet features have disappeared since that Chrome UI annoyance called Australis has ruined a big part of Firefox)
And instead that Mozilla goes back a step towards power users and brings our features back what do we get instead? Features which more simple minded users do want and prefer.
It is the deconstruction of Firefox as geek base what we hate and that is the reason we are so vocal about it.
The moment where Mozilla makes a significant turn back to their roots, the moment will be the one where complaints are going to stop or at least where people can believe in Firefox again.. a little bit.
if (requestFeature(x)) { complain(); } else { complain(); }
I promise you that I legitimately do hear the frustrations felt by long-time power users of Firefox. I don't agree with all of them, but I do my best to represent them internally nonetheless. To your concerns regarding stable APIs: that's exactly what WebExtensions are designed to address: decoupling add-on APIs from implementation details so that we can keep add-ons working, even as we refactor Firefox to be faster, more stable, and more efficient.
Ok, that sounds nice, but is this yet another extension API that does it Chrome-style, restricting extensions to a solitary button in a solitary toolbar, rather than giving them the freedom to truly extend the browser and its UI? Because if I wanted handicapped extension APIs, I'd just use Chrome.
And besides, isn't that what Jetpack was supposed to be? How long until the next extension API that will get it right This Time?
One of the foundational pillars of Firefox is its powerful extension API, however messy and difficult-to-refactor it may be. Take that away, and it's just another browser, no better than Chrome.
WebExtensions are likely to be The One True API. Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Firefox all support them, and we're all working on standardizing them at the W3C: https://www.w3.org/community/browserext/
> If I wanted handicapped extension APIs, I'd just use Chrome.
Though we're trying to avoid reinventing wheels, we're not limiting ourselves to Chrome's APIs. For example, https://bugzil.la/1242871 extends Chrome's webRequest API to provide additional metadata needed by the NoScript and RequestPolicy add-ons. The initial development is focused on Chrome parity, since that covers most add-ons, but once we get there you'll see more of an emphasis on landing APIs that are needed by existing, more powerful Firefox add-ons.
If you're an add-on developer yourself and are concerned about APIs you need, please fill out this survey so we have a record of it: https://docs.google.com/a/mozilla.com/forms/d/1PtRXcs9UHVMjg...
I'm actually not, and one reason is because I've seen over the years how extension authors have to keep up with the churn constantly breaking things, and that's not a pool I want to wade into. I'm amazed that, e.g. the Pentadactyl authors have the time and patience to do so.
So, if this new API stabilizes things long-term, that's fantastic. I would love to have extensions that never break again.
But forgive me for being skeptical, because with the CADT-style development models ruling the world nowadays, what usually happens is, the old API is deprecated and dumped before the new one has feature parity, leaving authors and users hanging. And with Mozilla's trend of imitating Chrome, this seems even more likely.
I can hear the cries now of, "The old API is too hard to maintain, so we're removing it in Firefox 72. We hope to reach approximate feature parity by Firefox 84, but we do not plan to reimplement all features in the new API. Regrettably, this will prevent some addons from being ported to the new API," with the implied, "But 'no one' [compared to the number of users on the Internet] was using those addons anyway, so who cares." And cue me switching browsers.
Please prove me wrong. :)
As far as web standards go, Gecko's the only open-source browser controlled by a nonprofit. The alternative is a webkit monoculture, a world controlled by Apple and Google (oh, and Microsoft). Within Mozilla, the Firefox and Platform teams are super focused on improving standards compliance and squashing bugs. Things are getting better :-)
But it is no real browser and only an advanced web app bundled with Chromium. Also, smashing a wrapper on top of Chromium with features and call it a day is one of the most stupid things ever which a group of developers can do.
But Vivaldi shows what guys do when they have respect of power users. They add features we want and we prefer and not only features what simple users or Chrome users want and prefer.
Firefox started working on many features for power users (look at testpilot’s vertical tabs), but let’s hope they#ll do more.
Why people value simplicity and minimalism and design more higher today than having customization features and options?
I know, the name thing, what can you do? I worked on Persona before this, so I guess I'm not surprised by the Mozilla enthusiasm for reusing project names.
Have you tried the Activity Stream add-on? Captures so much of what we wanted to do with Chronicle. It's amazing what that team was able to crank out in four months.
The Search add-on turned out really well, though I wound up having to rewrite it in XUL after the MVP feature set got trimmed. It took some pretty strange requestAnimationFrame hacks to get highlight stealing working, I blogged about it: http://6a68.net/2016/highlight-stealing-hack/
Let's round up the Chronicle alums and grab drinks in SF sometime!
See you in the comments section ^_^
That test pilot is only damage control as you are now not only facing Chrome, also frustrated users move on to Brave or Vivaldi.
If you ever decide to stop being the Chrome users and general less advanced users darling i think about using Firefox again. But until that point, alternatives here i stay.
I am starting to suspect that their prominent placement and sudden appearance in the default Firefox UI caused people to think that they are taking a larger amount of Mozilla's development resources than is actually the case.
To bring it back on topic to Test Pilot - hopefully this will help the overall Firefox community vet these types of ideas before they make it to the default UI.
Even if the outcome is ultimately the same (new feature is added/default UI is changed, which makes some subset of people legitimately unhappy), it gives a wider audience a chance to test and provide feedback and generally socialize new ideas.