Mozilla’s Firefox OS Gives The Open Web Top Billing On Mobile | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla’s Firefox OS Gives The Open Web Top Billing On Mobile

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73 pointsjlongster41 comments

The best part is the idea that apps are back to the web. The idea that I have to install however many apps is ridiculous. I want the conference "app" just for the conference and to save if I want. The idea that I could just go run an app for now and not permanently install… yay

Ok, the real best thing is that this is the best yet for privacy and freedom, better than any other phone out there.

Right - just google for a different app every time you want to get something done.

Also, storing all your data on someone else's server is obviously the best thing yet for privacy and freedom.

Sorry, are you being sarcastic?

I already stored all my data on Google server thanks to Android. And I use google maps and google now so they know more about me than my wife does.

In fact most of my apps on android and iOS like linkedin, facebook, twitter, instagram, mint etc are storing my data on their server.

So you have no private data and don't believe others should either, good for you.

What stops you from storing your data on your own server, or in LocalStorage?

If you write all your own apps, nothing.

For the example given ("conference app"), a chromeless web page that can optionally be saved as an icon to the homescreen seems appropriate. Web applications already have many restrictions on privacy - you need to fetch the data in any case, and these types of apps are sandboxed from each other too in FirefoxOS.

I do think it's worth thinking through privacy/security/freedom implications, here is my opinion (not necessarily my employer's):

All web apps can of course operate completely in offline mode (as well as privileged FirefoxOS apps[1], which have access to APIs to use more of the device features and are the bigger concern here) - all of the apps that ship with the phone do operate and store data offline, for instance (e.g. you can have a local calender, it's not stored on Mozilla's servers).

Knowing whether you can trust an app to treat your data as they say they will is not anything unique to the platform (who/where do you get it from, etc). Mozilla is very serious about this type of thing (I work full-time on various Mozilla server projects so I constantly experience first-hand how important this is to everyone, e.g. application design, handling crash reports, etc.)

However there does need to be a balance between the needs/desires of the platform provider (including built-in apps), third-party app developers and the end user - developers of third-party apps should have the ability to make choices about where data is stored, privacy policies and so on, and users should be able to install the apps that they want to.

[1] - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/...

Yes, privacy decisions should be made by third parties and end users can take it or leave it.

My point was that the assertion that this OS is somehow superior to android or iOS in terms of freedom or privacy is completely unfounded.

Why is this being downvoted? It is just a restatement of the comment I'm replying to.

To address your first point (my other comment was focused on the second):

You do not need to search every time, this type of app can be saved to the home screen. You could think of it like a bookmark to a tab that will run chromeless in it's own process (so no access to cookies etc. in your main browser process). For all practical purposes it is a low-privileged "hosted" app like any other - has it's own icon, possible to terminate, sandboxed and so does not share data with other apps.

FirefoxOS has a feature that allows you search and browse a set of these apps provided by everything.me but it's also possible to do this directly from the built-in browser app.

Presumably the code for those apps is also cached on the device so you don't have to be connected in order to run them.

My point was not to attack Firefox OS, but to point out that these home screen apps are indistinguishable from "installed" apps.

Yes. That's the point of the manifest file. It's the same as the HTML5 offline manifest file.

Apple patented the idea to temporarily install apps based on location: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/05/apple-re....

I just bought the ZTE phone for cheap dev thrills when I have time .... I think the built-in FM radio tuner will be going with me to the ballpark though. :)

I have been surprised by the phone. Didn't think my $80 would go so far. A few complaints here and there, but not enough to keep me from using it as my full-time phone for now.

I got one too, for development purposes. Wont be able to use it as my primary phone until it has OpenVPN and OpenPGP support though. Suspect I'll be waiting a while.

> A few complaints here and there, but not enough to keep me from using it as my full-time phone for now.

Same here, and unfortunately OTA is not working:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=908512

It's also a huge step up from my feature phone. :)

Yeah that is frustrating. I was able to update some apps, but the OS update is not working. I heard about the 1.1 update which speeds things up, but turns out that bug is for a 1.0 update. I think the keyboard is the biggest holdup right now. It is slow to register, and doesn't have much of an auto-correct. They have an auto-suggest which isn't as useful. I don't want to dwell on the negatives, but there are a few issues.

Yes, there are a few issues, but the OS is really promising and I like the device.

At first I wasn't sure if I was leaving behind my Android phone, but I'm going to do it and trust things will improve although right know my smartphone is not as smart as it used to be.

For me the biggest issue is the email app not supporting self-signed certificates. I've been self-hosting my mail for the last 10+ years and this is the first time I regret it ;)

EDIT: ate a word

Totally Off-topic, but you can get free certificates from StartSSL [1]. I'm using one of those for my personal server and I've had no issues at all. Firefox and thunderbird recognize the CA by default, so I guess Firefox OS should too.

[1] http://www.startssl.com/

I did that last night and the client is still a little bit picky. I only managed to make it work with smtps, the regular smtp with STARTTLS didn't work.

Oh, well... now I have mail back in my phone. I guess the "0.1alpha" in the User-Agent is well deserved ;)

Yes, this is frustrating me as well. I have confidence it will get resolved.

I noticed that on my phone, it has actually vanished from notifications at the moment and yet it's been there all day, so maybe something is already underway.

I'm dying to get my hands on one of these phones. Unfortunately they aren't available in my country yet. Does anybody know how I can order one?

Ebay. I'm not even kidding, the ZTE Open is being sold semi-officially through there.

I am not privy to any details about this, but AFAICT it's official, not semi-official - http://www.ebay.com/itm/271258990669

The seller is named "zte_us", I don't know how that can be independently verified but Mozilla blogged about it and other outlets picked it up https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/12/zte-will-soon-start...

Well shoot, the $80 ones from zte_us are all sold out (probably because of this article!) and it's now going on eBay for quite a bit more — I see some $120 and up.

I didn't buy one of these before because I wasn't sure what US carriers it would work with, if any, or if it was strictly for development. But doing a little research, it's a GSM phone, so apparently AT&T or T-Mobile would work, while Verizon or Sprint would not. Someone please correct that if I'm mistaken.

They are on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00ES1H0KK and on eBay: http://r.ebay.com/lrk5WY

I just received mine yesterday and this was the exact thing that struck me after a few hours. The integration is kind of subtle if you aren't looking for it. Once you realize its there, the whole experience seems revolutionary.

I don't know if its a direct result, but I could see how this integration yields a lot of benefits. For one, even with the low specs of the Open, things move much faster when compared to a similar specced Gingerbread phone I was using earlier this year. The way that the search works is similarly amazing as the apps load quickly, even without pinning them to the phone. There are also little things, like the fact that you can save animated gifs and have them run in the Gallery viewer.

It certainly has a long way to go with some aspects of usability. For one, I have yet to find a way to remove files without connecting to a computer. Navigation could also use some work, as some apps require you to start over instead of providing a "back" button.

Considering I bought the phone just to play around, I have been really impressed and can't wait to see it grow.

One minor correction, the geolocation API is available to all apps + sites, just as it is in the browser (with a confirmation)

... and manifest != manifesto.

I believe the highest spec'd FirefoxOS phone so far (pre-orderable) is the 150€ Peak+ from Geeksphone: http://shop.geeksphone.com/en/phones/8-peak.html

I hope they add C-library support soon so things like PhoneGap plugins can work with the OS. It seems like a natural fit.

Uhh... Wouldn't it make more sense to just create a PhoneGap wrapper in Javascript?

I mean, PhoneGap is mostly just javascript bindings for things like camera og sensors, which Firefox already has js bindings for, right?

If you have your own plugins or native libraries that none of the Firefox OS stuff will cover functionality for now or in the future, then no, it's not enough. Also games are huge part of mobile sales, and sales is the biggest driver of developer adoption. I feel like webOS's slowness in adopting native access kneecapped them in game porting. As a new platform, the less barriers the better to getting games ported, the better.

As Skinney says, Mozilla are creating JS APIs for access to hardware and commonly needed phone features in Firefox OS. Check out the WebAPI list: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI#APIs

Some of these APIs are also available or planned for the Firefox Desktop and Android versions (availability column).

PhoneGap will be supporting FirefoxOS directly as a supported platform:

http://phonegap.com/blog/2013/07/31/phonegap-30-faq/

Sort of the whole point of Firefox OS is that the apps are just web technology, and it's coming from people whose mission is to promote open web technology. I don't see how "ignore the web technology and write apps in C" would further that mission.

I'm still surprised that Telefónica is not selling them in Mexico... I'll have to wait more to get one.

I picked one up just to tinker with, and am impressed so far. It's no Nexus 4, but it's not meant to be.

How does it compare to an older phone, say, a Nexus S?

If I had to choose between the two I would pick a Nexus S running something like CM10 for my "daily driver", but everybody's needs are different. As a "first smartphone" I could see lots of people going for FFOS over a featurephone.

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