- impossible to put an image into a clipboard (so that user can e.g. paste it outside a browser)
- no PWA mode (impossible to put an icon of a website to your homescreen, which will open the website without a browser UI)
- impossible to have keyboard shortcuts with Alt https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1568130
I literally implemented support for the navigator.clipboard.write API, with image/png support included, in today's Firefox Nightly version: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1619947
Enabling it on release might take a bit longer though. The specification is currently not in a good shape. And there are some open questions around permissions etc.
There are other use cases though that aren't supported by PNG, such as vector images and animated images. Or more niche use cases like RAW images.
Animated images could definitely be somewhat useful though, albeit much more niche than static raster images. In most cases where I want an animated image on my clipboard, a link will suffice. What I want may not map to the majority of course, but at least PNG support is a start!
Yes, but I don't think you can set the MIME type. So whatever you paste in would have to be smart enough to look at a text/plain clipboard data and figure out if it looks like an SVG (or whatever).
text/plain
text/uri-list
text/csv
text/html
image/svg+xml
application/xml, text/xml
application/json
Raster image support should also be able to support stuff drawn on a canvas element, so I think it is a great place to start.
I beg you, do not let websites put things into my clipboard.
Reading/writing clipboards is a problem for sandboxing since they act as a bridge to another layer that otherwise has no contract or understanding of the application. So are many other features not just on browsers but on any application that for some reason needs to handle a gazillion tings (on Linux subscribing to system/user dbus messages is a big issue and out of the box totally unmitigated).
[1] If a monolith like chrome/firefox needs to understand/parse hundreds of protocols, technology-standards, etc, is a challenge to sandbox, maybe it isn't the sandboxing but the application that is the wrong tool for the users threat-model? Note, there is also Tor/Tails/QubesOS if isolation between user-space applications is a serious concern.
But there are extensions that do a similar thing, eg Brief. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brief/ And once you've got past the pain of the move, they do a much better job.
If Brief synced what you've read between Firefox instances (desktop / mobile in particular for me), it would be heaven. It might even be enough to turn induce me to create an account and turn on Firefox sync. However that is a forlorn wish given it hasn't been updated in 2 years now.
Firefox for Android has this. Are you referring to Firefox for desktop?
I tried the keyboard shortcut fiddle with FF86 and it works just fine after clicking in the white part once.
That's news to me. I do that almost on a daily basis with Firefox.
I can do without the clipboard or PWA mode. Performance and responsiveness are what converted me and plenty others from Firefox when Chrome first appeared. If Firefox performance is at least close to Chrome/Chromium it'd make switching back much more appealing.
I also switched to Chrome rims ago when it came out due to how buttery smooth it was, but switched back after it starter to get slow.
Chrome's a memory hog and it runs slow and clunky on older devices, in my experience.
Chrome seem to struggle when there are tens of tabs.
Google web applications still not great, but still usable I find. Facebook performance isn't great either.
Sadly Google will typically "accidentally sabotage" performance of their key apps on Firefox.
I suggest to try Firefox as side browser for your light browsing need. Maybe like when reading news, social media browser, or anything make sense for you.
This worked for me, in my case, now chrome is my side browser.
Wait, why should web pages be able to usurp keyboard shortcuts traditionally reserved for the browser itself?
When I was playing a Counter Strike web app example posted here a few months ago, it was endlessly frustrating to have Control and W mapped to actions that you may want to perform simultaneously while also not being able to suppress default behavior. I kept accidentally closing the tab as a result...
I personally think that the ability to override default shortcuts isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I definitely think it should be opt-in, like capturing the mouse cursor is. There should be strict separation between "app" features and what a default website should be able to do. Overriding shortcuts should be one of the "app-only" features imo.
So play the native version - problem solved.
This drive to accomodate people misusing the web for apps just bloats browsers (making it prohibitively expensive to develop alternative implementations) while adding tons of privacy leaks and attack surface for exploits.
Normally, the fact that practically nobody actually uses Firefox would mean it's not a huge problem. But the only standalone VR headsets with a Chromium-based browser are the Facebook headsets. If Firefox were better, I could be running twice as many of the not-Facebook-encumbered Pico Neo headsets for the same price. As it stands, Oculus for Business headsets are almost the same price as a Valve Index, once you add in the mandatory "support" yearly licensing fee.
I assume you mean "practically nobody without an adblocker". I dread the day we could have to live without Firefox. Don't dismiss it like that, please.
Mozilla has never been a competitive company. They've always leaned heavily on the illusion of being a non-profit. They've always sold the "eat your vegetables" version of web browsing, without actually offering anything compelling over the competition. We're just expected to use Firefox because "it's made by not-Google".
You were clearly the issue in the other thread.
With Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave all running on Chrome, we're getting awfuly close to a browser monoculture - one controlled by Google.
Supporting FF might be a pain in some cases, but failing to do so drives users away from FF in the long run, and drives away FF users from your site.
I know web devs have limited resources, but look at it this way: supporting FF and Chrome is a lot less of a pain than it used to be supporting IE.
My job is not to drive users to Firefox. My job is to create a product that people can use. And in my particular case, my job involves creating a product that doesn't physically harm people.
I agree that browser monoculture is a problem. But there is another problem that Mozilla is not the company that is helping with the problem.
EDIT: to go a little further on this, it's not physically possible to create a good WebXR experience in Firefox, at this time. Despite their announcements of focusing on Hubs as one of the few projects they kept around after the most recent purge, there are key technologies that are fundamentally missing from Firefox that have no replacement. And then they have the termerity to user-agent sniff Chromium browsers on desktop PCs and tell you that they supposedly don't support WebXR, that you need to download Firefox to use Hubs. So it seems even Mozilla doesn't really give a shit about the Open Web.
Why shouldn't the browser have VR APIs? WebXR allows us to iterate faster, across more devices, and more easily integrate with other services than building in a framework like Unity can do for us. I've spent the last 6 years doing nothing but WebXR and Unity work and WebXR is hands down far easier to develop the sort of application we're building.
No, you're not going to build MS Flight Simulator in WebXR, but you probably weren't going to do that in Unity, either, and ain't nobody got the budget for AAA++ graphics anyway. The folks who do graphically intensive work in Unity have stripped large parts of Unity away to make it possible.
I don't understand your last question.
As a user I create separate Firefox profiles for every site I want to use as a PWA, add a desktop short-cut and some custom userChrome.css, but while the result is okay, it sucks to set it up.
The only positive seems to be, that I can disable the buggy Spotify service-workers while keeping them enabled for other pages.
It would be awesome, if the PWA implementation would even support the system tray (similar to kdocker), but just the basic functionality would be better than the status quo.
No idea what you mean. I can use any image. Right click - "Copy Image". Then paste it anywhere like in image editor. Works without any problems.
Firefox 86.0b1, Debian testing / KDE Plasma 5.20.5.
Isn't it possible with the convenient "Capture screeenshot" feature in Firefox (the 3 dots next to the address bar)?
That's a feature. Websites should not have access to my clipboard.
> - no PWA mode (impossible to put an icon of a website to your homescreen, which will open the website without a browser UI)
That's a feature. Icons on my home screen should only ever be native applications. Use bookmarks for websites instead.
> - impossible to have keyboard shortcuts with Alt https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1568130
Just build a native app. It's literally what you want.
Being able to take an image from the web page and place it on the clipboard is not 'the website having access to my clipboard'. It's the _browser_ having access.
Going in the reverse direction, placing data from the clipboard into the web page, is more tricky, but Firefox already does a good job of blocking clipboard accesses unless they're the direct result of user action (keyboard shortcut or button press).
The question is whether the website should be able to push images to the clipboard by itself, which it shouldn't. Firefox already supports doing what you're talking about.
I don't like the way clipboard access is handled in browsers either, but the fact remains that if I'm using an in-browser image editor, select a part of the image and press CTRL+C, I want that portion of the image in my clipboard. How it gets there is an implementation detail that the average user doesn't and, if it doesn't affect security/privacy, shouldn't have to care about. And since it's write-only, there's no security/privacy concern.
Having a feature that breaks user's security is not a feature.
Anyways, this is far more time than I'm willing to spend talking to someone who thinks their PoV is the only correct one (I just now recognize your username from a few other threads under this post). Cheeers!
You can be right, but the market has a final word.
Today, many people enjoy using advanced apps, that can be "installed" and "uninstalled" in one second (by opening and closing a website), without leaving any track (mess) in your computer.
Why shouldn’t I be allowed to put a bookmark as an icon? That’s essentially what a PWA is anyways. A fancy bookmark that behaves like a native app. Why are you the arbitrator of what I can do?
What happened to giving users control?
What if "literally what I want" is to edit a photo without installing any software?