Mozilla in 2013 | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla in 2013

blog.mozilla.org

188 pointsrobin_reala81 comments

I'm really surprised by the naysayers in this thread. Mozilla is a not-for-profit. The largest and most influential when it comes to action on the web given their footprint directly in-front of the users.

You're complaining about lack of some edge-css features, silly bugs that have been open for a long time, and the fact that they may be chasing down some avenues that yield little fruit.

But, the web I envision without them is one that I do not want any part of. While I switched and used Chrome (for the tools), lately, the only browser vendor that I trust is Mozilla. I switched back to FF, donated, and decided to start dipping into their code/docs to see if I can help out.

While certainly not perfect, they are the company that we should be supporting. Not necessarily financially, but by being advocates, code/doc junkies and designers.

Here's to Mozilla and here's to 2014. Congrats!

Agreed. Mozilla, Wikipedia and the Internet Archive keep alive the Web as it used to be, before getting commodified.

Totally agree! Support diversity and a not for profit that champions user privacy and an open web.

Reading this post I wanted to buy a tee-shirt or two because I like Firefox and wanted to help them a bit (and help them alleviate their dependancy on Google's $$) but I was unable to find a page with Mozilla products... It's a shame because I think people would love to contribute by buying a goodie or something. I know I still can donate money but maybe I'm a bit selfish but I find it not to be as fun as getting something in return.

Hi All,

We are working to set up a gear store. Hopefully, we'll be able to announce it early in the new year.

In the meantime, if you know someone who is an e-commerce / systems integration expert, please point them at this opening:

http://careers.mozilla.org/en-US/position/oOP3Xfwn

Thanks,

Now, that is what I call an inspiring connectivity with the public.

If you donate 30$ or more you can get a t-shirt: https://sendto.mozilla.org/page/contribute/join-mozilla?sour.... However a proper Firefox store has sadly been missing for some time now.

Ah great, I don't know why but when I follow the donate link from the main Mozilla page it goes to this url https://sendto.mozilla.org/page/contribute/EOYFR2013-tabzill... and there's no tee-shirts on this one.

Anyway thanks for the link that's what I was looking for.

+1 thanks for that link. I just joined. thanks!

It's not quite the same, but I nabbed about twenty Rust stickers from this year's Mozilla Summit in Toronto. I might be willing to part with some for people who've made donations, if anyone's interested. :)

I had a really cool "Firefox 1.0" poster I purchased years ago (IIRC, my name was included on it because of my donation/purchase) but, sadly, I've moved since then and I've no idea what happened to it. I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it in an old picture a few days ago.

edit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eggplant/40525989/

I remember getting a Firefox polo a while back (9 years ago?). Must've been the reward for a donation. Still makes an impact - people keep asking what I did to get it.

I wanted to give 3$ to Firefox but their form for submitting credit cards is weird and it needs my address for some reason?! Anyway the address was wrong and I can't be really bothered to try all the addresses I used in previous 4 years.

If GoG doesn't need my address why would Mozilla? And further more why should it complain about wrong address.

Umm, that's standard anti-fraud for e-commerce sites. I'm pretty confused actually at your surprise, I've never paid for anything by credit card without requiring at least a zip code, and usually a full address.

GoG doesn't, and a couple of other high-profile sites don't (Amazon for example), but the vast, vast majority of card payment forms on the Internet require a full address as for fraud prevention. Do you not often buy things on the Internet?

I do buy things often using GoG, or Amazon, or Kickstarter or PayPal. I've never had to enter my address before.

Hell, smaller companies asked for address but never checked it against my CC info (which is outdated anyway). I never had to enter the correct address for one of them.

I want to donate, but this form just bounces me I've so far tried at least 10 different combinations. I have no idea what bank entered as its information.

PayPal definitely asks for a full address when you sign up or pay by card directly. And I don't know about Kickstarter, but I just checked Indiegogo which I regularly use, and they require a full address for billing.

My understanding of the system is that usually the address can be wrong so long as your card/connection/purchase/etc doesn't look suspicious, but different payment processors have different fraud profiles, so some might pay more attention to the address than others.

Well used PayPal as payment option. Seems to be the easiest.

Requiring (at least) the zip code of your billing address is a pretty standard (anti-fraud) practice.

I went to the Mozilla Festival in London this year and was amazed at just how much does Mozilla does. They're very far from just a browser manufacturer.

Keep up the good work with asm.js! It would be nice to see more apps developed in C++ for web in 2014.

>In 2013 we launched Firefox OS , the first open Web devices based entirely in Web technologies

This early sentence really derailed me. There is so much going on:

-What is an "open web device", what qualifies? Maybe put a link here?

-Why is Firefox OS called an OS if it is actually devices?

-Is being based IN web technologies the same as being based ON web technologies?

-And there is a weird implication here that there have been open web devices NOT based on web technologies but now we have open web devices that actually ARE based on web technologies. That can't be right, can it?

From what I can tell the sentence should read something like, "In 2013 we launched Firefox OS, the first [mobile?] operating system based entirely on Web technologies."

My interpretation:

"Web device" implies a device that allows browsing the web (such as a smartphone or tablet). "open" implies that it is open source to some extent (similar to Android).

"based entirely on web technologies" differentiates it from Android in that all apps are web apps and use standardized web APIs to access the hardware rather than having native apps that use proprietary APIs.

It does seem weird that the sentence use the term "OS" to describe devices, though.

I would really love to see Mozilla team up (and/or buy) DuckDuckGo. Not only for a better search experience, but it would just be great to see Mozilla sever its ties with Google - a company who seems blatantly at odds with the very principals of trust, privacy, and transparency that Mozilla is boasting here.

According to Wikipedia[1] over 80-90% (or $163 million in 2011) of Mozilla's funding comes from Google. I'd love to see Mozilla be more independent from Google, but I don't think they're going anywhere without them anytime soon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google

I think that would put them in an extremely uncomfortable place financially.

I thought about and had to work with Mozilla today. "Seven years have passed without this bug being fixed." https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349259

I guess we should just give up on everything Mozilla does, then.

Doing other things (that very few people are interested in or want) does not excuse having a broken browser stay unfixed for years. Firefox is well on its way to being the next IE6.

It's not always about what people are interested or want. Sometimes people give up on their long term interests for short term gain. Mozilla is about the long run.

And if it weren't for Firefox, you'd still be developing for IE6.

I'm sure that they care about those bugs, but right now the major battle for everyone is in the mobile platform area. If Firefox OS doesn't gain a foothold we're basically in walled garden area forever (even though Android is OSS I don't trust Google to not become reactionary once the market is saturated and Android dominates it; and through patents + branding Google can still prevent major forks if it wants to).

So for your own long term sake, you'd better wish that they do make it, even if they have to postpone a few CSS bug fixes.

Mozilla is about the nothing. They are not about the long run, they are conceding control of the browser market to google. Firefox OS is never going to be relevant, will have no impact on phones, and doesn't help anyways. Phones are just computers, we would already have linux, netbsd and openbsd available for them if the hardware were documented. Making a bad OS out of a browser is not solving the problem, because the problem is closed hardware, not closed software. And no, firefox developers do not care about those bugs, they have been open for 7+ years.

You can always submit a patch, remember that the source is Open, and everyone is welcome to contribute.

My cringe with Firefox are misfeatures like window.onbeforeunload. They deliberately break the expected behavior due to an unreasonable decision, but no browser is perfect.

That patch would not be welcome. The patch to make the behavior intuitive is literally to remove "!important" from one CSS file. They're not changing because they're afraid to break the web.

> They're afraid to break the web.

They tried a fix and it broke YouTube. So it seems like a reasonable fear. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349259#c54

> The patch ... is literally to remove "!important" from one CSS file

It isn't a simple one line fix, as Firefox developer kindly explained. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349259#c76

>That patch would not be welcome.

They describe what work would be required (and where the changes would likely be) for the patch to be accepted in the bug. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349259#c80

It's a one-line fix to make it intuitive, but that's not what's needed here. Ultimately there should be some spec so that browser vendors can converge towards a single behavior.

Can you elucidate? From my naive understanding of the back button API, I always thought Firefox's default behavior (not firing onpopstate on page load) made way more sense than say Chrome's. I guess both vendors make silly decisions sometimes.

>remember that the source is Open, and everyone is welcome to contribute.

Problem is, not everybody knows C++. Having a bug open for 7 years makes me think the issue will never be resolved. All I can do is wait or use another browser. One annoyance I have with Firefox is the lack of built in keychain support. This really summarizes how I feel: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400#c94

That fix wouldn't require C++ knowledge at all. It involves changing some CSS. The issue is the effect it would have on sites that expect it to be styled the way that it is.

The one I linked to ( https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400 ) would, it was a different example.

As for the original bug, this post: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349259#c82 seems to suggest every browser but Firefox supports changing line-height. Wouldn't Firefox be going against the expected behavior?

I don't know enough code to do that.

If you need that much styling control over a text area, using a content editable region and Javascript for the interaction is almost certainly a better option.

An even better option is to use emscripten to bundle custom HTML rendering engine that would draw styled text input using Wayland server running on <canvas>

You kid, but despite how horrifying that is, something like it will probably end up happening.

Why not just CSS? All I want is to set the line-height.

15 years and counting! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=540

"Last year I asked for requirements that would lead to the successful closure of this bug. [...] I haven't heard back."

If no one can even provide that...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/perspective.png

Wishes for Mozilla in 2014:

-Accept cryptocurrency donations; -Break free from Google/surveilance as default search; -DDGo as default search; -Firefox OS becomes as adopted as iOS and Android; -Firefox browser regain market share back from Chrome/surveillance.

Mozilla also recently helped Eloquent JavaScript 2nd edition reach its funding goal: https://eloquentjavascript.net/2nd_edition/donors.html

No mention of Fira? This is a great font! Thanks Mozilla! https://github.com/mozilla/Fira

I am happy ..But I want you people better than chrome in all terms.You are guys doing well but you need to do hardwork..

In the mean time, everyone just want a better browser.

Really? The last time I've thought to myself "gee, my browser is missing a feature I'd really like" or "all my browser needs to get better is (some improvement)" was... 2008? 2009? I'm not sure, I just know it's been a while.

And it doesn't really matter what browser I was using at the time. Chrome, Firefox, even Safari.

What do you want to make your browser better?

I agree, I think the sentiment for better browsers resonates with web developers. I'm personally more excited by Firefox OS.

My favorite browser features are ones that combat user-hostile website features. For example: popup blockers, cookie blockers, Safari Reader.

I would love to see more features along those lines, such as de-pagination and blocking popover psuedo-windows. However as Firefox is funded indirectly through advertising, Mozilla's loyalties are necessarily mixed.

Try FF on windows 8. It's an abysmal experience. Try to remove Google vom FF Android. Not possible.

I could go on and on.

You can change the search engine in menu -> Settings -> Customise -> Search settings. Is there some other form of unremovable Google integration?

Seems like you can't delete the built-in search providers since the new home screen landed.

Goes off to file a bug...

This bug has existed for a while. It' being worked on, and quite actively this last week.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=910189

css grid support, flex-wrap support

flex-wrap is in Nightly, CSS Grids don’t have a stable spec yet.

To be complete, if all goes well flex-wrap will be in Firefox 28 (unprefixed). It is in Nightly and Aurora.

CSS Grid implementation will start in 2014. A dev has been assigned to it, but I don't know where it stands in its work pile (quite high though). But plans can be changed, so beware...

That's awesome about flex-wrap! I have been waiting a long time.

> stable spec

I'd really like to see more vendor prefixes for support. I mean, basic flexbox support was rolled out quickly, and the spec changed like three times. Mozilla has a new 'avoid vendor prefixes' thing, which I think is the wrong approach. I'd rather just use a tool like autoprefixer to generate all of the browser-incompatible CSS until we can all agree.

I can't believe I am praising IE for being forward thinking! (they have full CSS grid support, per the draft)

Experimental support ala prefixes is still happening, they just stick it behind prefs now, so devs can turn them on to experiment with, but they can't be used in production sites. This was done in response to webkit becoming the new IE6, especially in mobile land, where countless (shitty) devs were using prefixed properties as essential parts of their stylesheets, thus breaking sites for other perfectly good browsers like Firefox and Opera.

Also grid isn't really a case of IE being forward thinking, Microsoft just happened to create the grid spec, so it's more a case of pushing their own solution, rather than being fast on implementing a new tech.

I believe MS came up with the grid spec, or at least the original draft editors were three MS employees and glazou: http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-css3-grid-layout-20110407/ . This was published five days before the first platform preview of IE10.

It does seem like a neat spec though, I’d welcome inclusion as another tool in the box.

We (Bloomberg) hired Igalia to help put some resources on implementing CSS Grid. The original MS authors didn't like the initial spec so they've been working on an improved spec w/ others (Google, Igalia) and Igalia is landing code for it in both WebKit and Blink. So it is definitely moving forward..

> Mozilla has a new 'avoid vendor prefixes' thing

FWIW, Google Blink also takes this position: http://www.chromium.org/blink#vendor-prefixes

Correct, but unfortunately, WebKit (and Safari) has not and introduced lately (read: this quarter) new properties with prefixes.

I'd welcome support for outline.

Dart

Not sure why this was downvoted, I'd like to see a DartVM as well, once the spec is standardized.

This really resonates with me: "Mozilla is dedicated to offering users privacy and transparency and we are honored to be an organization that users trust."

Thank god for Mozilla, they are one of the few tech companies I still trust in these troubled times.

I like to think if the NSA asked for direct access to their servers (such as Google were revealed to have granted), Mozilla would have no shortage of whistle-blowers.

I thought the way the NSA got direct access to Google's servers was by running taps into Google fiber optics?

Why didn't Google encrypt the fiber traffic between their data centers? I understand that private fiber links are supposed to be "secure", but telecoms like AT&T have a history of letting the NSA tap their networks.

That's what Google tried to claim once Snowden forced their hand, but the leaked PRISM documents contradict their official stance. I know which I choose to believe.

The PRISM documents (not the same as the PRISM program) proved that the NSA had access to Google's servers. Google claimed that they didn't give the NSA access, and at the time many people assumed they were lying.

But a later Snowden leak showed that the NSA was tapping Google's fiber in a way consistent with the extra information we knew they were getting for PRISM, so Google appears not to have lied about that after all. The codename for the tap is apparently MUSCULAR[1].

Google is still totally turning over tons of data to the NSA under PRISM[2], but that goes through Google's lawyers and the court system so bad as it is, direct server access is much worse.

[1]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/new-docs-show-nsa...

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

> but the leaked PRISM documents contradict their official stance.

Mind posting a source confirming this? It's just that I don't believe you is all.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-...

There are a lot of Google employees on HN who try to suppress information whenever anyone posts sources. Pretty pitiful.

"Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program."

The PR response from Google is irrelevant, just attempting a cover up.

So you come to a conclusion and then ignore any contradictory evidence, because it all must be part of the conspiracy.

Seems level-headed and reasonable.

That was written before the October leaks that showed what's actually going on.

Implement CSS grid already

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