Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star Firefox 34, just released, adds support for Mozilla’s web-based Skype-competitor, Firefox Hello. Firefox 34 also drops Google as the default search engine for US users, gives Mac fans the ability to play native H.264 video and eliminates a major security vulnerability. Phew! But is it any good? This is the first version of …
34 major releases, really, or is that just 3 major releases and a few minors for each. After some brainstorming and serious butt scratching, I would suggest dividing everything by 10. Let's call it FF 3.4, there now doesn't that sound a little more serious.
Firefox version 35 new feature/change log which states "Changed the font in a hidden T&C s disclaimer".
C'mon guys , let's stop the version number wars. They are not really fooling anyone, if anything it just sounds amateur..
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sometime shortly after version 4 they switched to the 'rapid release' system - presumably to make their version numbers comparable to chrome in the dubious hope that higher version numbers would increase adoption (which has evidently failed on both accounts: chrome remains the only browser with growing adoption, and still has a higher version number).
That eliminates the headaches that arise if, for example, you've got Skype but your family prefers Facetime and your employer wants everything to happen over Google Hangouts.
Does it? Does it really?
Looks more like this is just yet another wasteground - you can't talk to people on Facetime, you can't talk to people on Skype, you can't talk to people on Google Hangouts.
If all these things were redesigned for WebRTC, then you could use any WebRTC client, of which this is one, to talk to any other client. In reality, none of the people you want to talk to are using WebRTC.
Of the providers I listed, I can only see Hangouts ending up WebRTC enabled. Facetime and Skype are platforms to drive you to purchase related technologies (Apple devices, Windows licenses), you don't drive that by allowing any old client to talk to your platform.
They might be using already skype, but they could also be persuaded to try the thingy built into their version firefox (well, at least once they upgrade).
Those skypicles you communicate with might well be "using" it once you say - "can't do skype atm - try the firefox browser version instead - here's a link".
Sigh....
http://blogs.skype.com/2014/10/27/bringing-interoperable-real-time-communications-to-the-web/
An article about enabling WebRTC using Skype components. So you can call WebRTC from IE.
How does this relate to calling Skype from WebRTC? Do you thin MS will abandon Skype?
Next...
Skype is available on both Apple's OS X and iOS. I Skype with my friends on their Windows machines from my iPad and Mac all the time. Not to mention, use Skype Out to dial phone numbers. Skype is completely platform independent. Facetime only works with Apple devices it's true, but also moot as it sucks so bad there's just no reason ever to use it.
Much as I hate Skype (the interface sucks, and it's made by Microsoft, who I simply don't trust), I keep using it. Why? Because it works on Android, Windows, OSX, Linux and iOS, it can dial out to real phones, and everybody I need to talk to on it has an account.
As a commenter above said though, a simple alternative built into the majority of browsers would be very welcome, and very easy to start using.
Skype is available on both Apple's OS X and iOS. I Skype with my friends on their Windows machines from my iPad and Mac all the time. Not to mention, use Skype Out to dial phone numbers. Skype is completely platform independent.
Yes, Skype is wonderfully multi platform - you can call SKYPE users on windows from SKYPE on your ipad.
You cannot call Facetime from Skype on Windows though can you, which was in fact the point - well done for ignoring it, have you considered a career in politics?
Tom38: you rightly point out the typical chicken-and-egg problem with new apps - many people won't want to use it until there is a large user base.
However, there is a need for a standards-based protocol with GPL apps to use it. Hopefully Firefox will succeed at this without the rollout problems with protocols such as CalDAV.
Telefonica are behind Tokbox, which IIRC is the back-end system which powers Firefox Hello.
Now I'm not usually one to bash Firefox or Mozilla (I use a FxOS phone, FFS!), but IMO this is a stupid thing for Mozilla to embed directly in the web browser. It's effectively siding with one particular WebRTC service provider, and directly competing with all the other providers out there - providers which rely on Mozilla to remain neutral (at least technologically). Unless Telefonica came to them with a big bag of money, I really don't understand what they were thinking.
Not to mention that the feature may well suddenly stop working at some point in the future, once the business deal has run its course.
We've never really seen that play out in court. WebM was the result of further work which was purchased from another company (can't be arsed to look it up right now) and more work done. Even though there were threats from the 264 bullies, I don't really recall that lawsuits were brought against either side for stepping on toes. It would have been interesting to see.
... because of patents?
Not really, because of the lack of hardware support: H264 was already supported in most hardware configurations so there was no battle to fight. Google has indemnified all users and paid the MPEG patent pool what they wanted.
WebM did play a role in keeping H264 free (as in beer) and Google is able to mandate hardware support for it for the next generations (On9 has already been released) for Android. For most of us free to use (both to create and play) is all that really matters but there are also some benefits in competing technologies: H265 and On9 do do some things differently.
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But they fixed it anyway. Pre FF 34 I could change the search engine from a pull-down, select text, right-click and search using that engine. Now I have to copy the text, paste it in the box (not Paste and Search), then select the search engine. It adds extra steps and gives no improved functionality!
Firefox, I;ve found, is one of those things which used to be nice. But now is not. It has so many things I dislike. I spend my time in either getting rid, or finding how to get back. Like the back button that takes you, willy-nilly to a Google search page. So to go back one page back, it's two pages back and one page forward. Why? Another is the crowding of super-thumb images of old pages on a new tab. Why? . It serves no useful purpose. There are many others. I've not abandoned Firefox. I've merely ditched the latest and gone back to Ver 27, when things were much saner.
I've merely ditched the latest and gone back to Ver 27, when things were much saner.
I installed v 29, and got stung by that Australis crap, and re-install v 28, and plan to stay there.
If FF continues to 'decline' in usability, then it is something else.
"No more security fixes for you. What a relief."
Gotta make your choices. I find the security risk is worth the better functionality (for me anyways) of FF 27/28. Maybe that doesn't work for you, so that's your choice. I expect that some day I'll have to bite the bullet and let FF update, but for now it's not worth it.
Followed by a list of steps that have to be followed to initiate a conversation, including some handy qualification and directional assistance along the way to explain the non-obvious.
And this is an improvement on "Double-click the contact you wish to chat with and start typing your message" ?
How ? O.o
"Firefix Hello" ?
More like:
"FireFox How May We Direct Your Call. Press 1 to... Press 2 to .. Press 3 to... Thank You. Please Hold While We Try To Connect You. Your Call May Be Important To Us"
who wishes to use a web browser for, well, web browsing?
Not for web development, not for telephoning, not as TV replacement, etc...
Why does everyone and dog have to turn their product into an "eierlegende Wollmilchsau" (an egg-laying wool and dairy pig)?
For my purposes, all just ballast.
Or can I de-activate all this stuff? (Wasn't FF once supposed to be modular?)
I quite like all singing, all dancing browsers with the kitchen sink built in, but that's why I use SeaMonkey and used to use Opera when it wasn't crap. I used to use Firefox when I preferred something more slimline and would be cheesed with the current FireFox if that was still what I wanted from a browser.
There's only one thing I wish Firefox would commit to fixing. The amount of resources their browsers use. I've read they're "very committed and concerned" about the amount of memory their browser use and they are constantly trying to improve this problem. I've been using FF for about 7 years now and unfortunately I have yet to see this and the fact they're spending time with enhancements like this tells me they're working on things that no one is really requesting. I've never had a conversation with anyone who said "I wish my browser would do the same thing as Skype". FF's suggestion for enhancing speed has always been to systematically go through your plug-ins and see which ones are using all the memory. Because of this I have learned to keep my plug-ins to a minimum but it still seems like there's one or two memory hogs - so I have to systematically take time and go through each one - which begs the question why bother with plug-ins at all? Well, because they make life easier and more productive. If FF is always blaming the plug-ins why not create a tool or dashboard that helps the user managing this process better, a tool that evaluates the plug-ins to see which ones are draining resources so I don't have to use the "hunt and disable" method? Better yet, not only does this dashboard help manage resources but it can also suggest alternatives to a plug-in that's wrecking havoc on the browser. That would be a great release! You might ask, why I don't change browsers. I've tried and unfortunately FF is the least of multiple evils. IMO they all suck... FF just sucks least... even if it's by a thread.
About two weeks ago I got a survey pop-up from FF asking about my user experience and the first question was how satisfied am I with my browser. I responded that I'm completely dissatisfied with my experience. The survey ended immediately with a note saying I'd be contacted by email from FF. It's been two weeks and nothing.
Rant over - that is all.
Every year or two I try out Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Twice I've tried out Opera.
I need some of the extras FF has.
Comparing IE and Google Chrome add-ons to FF is like comparing Windows Phone add-ons to iPhone add-ons.
Except IE and Google Chrome aren't less expensive.
I find FF fast enough, and much faster than manually doing things in IE in Chrome.
Mozilla's Thunderbird on the other hand is really really slow.
Thunderbird, I notice likes its RAM.
Yesterday I came in having left my machine running over a long weekend, and the machine was crawling. Thunderbird was eating about 4GB RAM all on its own. Hit ^Q and let Thunderbird shut down, significant RAM got freed, then I re-started Thunderbird and all ran sweetly after that.
Extensions are a common cause of slowness, in my case I have:
- Enigmail
- Lightning
- SoGO connector
and not much else that I can recall.
WebRTC is a great idea. But, like a lot of other things, just not ready for prime time yet. First, the idea: a primarily peer-to-peer (which theoretically makes it more private) video and voice chat service that's built into the browser instead of implemented as a bolt-on plugin (making it more stable?). But the actual implementation across the many experimental services that have popped up over the last year or so is spotty. Even Tox, the stack that Firefox is using for its central proxy service (this gets the conversation going between clients and is supposed to help get around network impediments -- but that does not address service quality), has come up short in the testing I've done over the last 6 months. As for the smiley icon not showing up right away, that's officially due to Mozilla's staging the deployment of the code -- although it's not mentioned in any of the official release doc or official blog posts. You have to go to the fora or raise a ticket to find out about that. Personally I think they "throttled" (that's what the relevant parameter in about:config is called) its installation because it really isn't ready yet and they don't want to have to deal with all the confused users who will start calling in once they actually try it. To me this is another example of really good ideas being implemented bady for the sake of hitting a deadline and giving the appearance of progress. But as Richard Feynman once wrote, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
I've been using https://appear.in for ages for my professional multiple person VCs.
it works on Win7 / ubuntu laptops with both chrome and FF and chrome for android flawlessly. (this is not exhaustive, just all the configs I know people have used hassle free)
This really does not belong in my browser. Just because I am looking at a website it means I am available for video chat? No. But it will show me as online apparently. The two options are "Available" or "Do Not Disturb".
I just don't understand this. I want my web browser to browse websites. I don't want it to arrange phone calls or video chats. If I did I would use an add-on of some kind. This is one of the worst things Mozilla have done in a very long time. I really mean that.
This is one of the worst things Mozilla have done in a very long time. I really mean that.
Wow...hyperbole much? It's a standards-based implementation of a new open protocol that's been intended since HTML5 and the newer JS versions were planned. Chrome also has it, but I don't recall such a whine-fest when they dared to add newer standards support to their browser.
Oooh look Google isn't the *default* search engine. Except that presumably would't apply to upgrades, since it would be extremely bad form to change a user's default search engine without asking them. So wouldn't that mean that thee change only applies to fresh installs which will be a very small proportion of the total number of installs.
For me it would seem better to give the user a list of search engines to choose from at install, rather than force a "choice" upon them.
BTW do Google still give Mozilla a big chunk of their funding? If so, for how long will that last?
Yahoo wants to be the default Firefox search engine.
Judging by how slow it is to fix bugs in its IM product and how many popular Yahoo services Yahoo has dropped without consultation, I don't think Yahoo gives a darn about reliability or customer service.
Why would I use them as my search engine?
First thing I did when I upgraded Firefox was to switch back to good old reliable Google.
Google is motivated by profits, but unlike Yahoo, Google knows that to make profits you have to care about customers and support them.
Wow, the bitching is strong with this thread.
It's an open web standard. Firefox added support for a new open standard. That is what you are complaining about. Chrome already had support for it, but Mozzy have apparently completely ruined their browser by adding support for a feature no-one is forcing you to use.
For those of us that do want video conferencing without vendor lock-in (that's quite a lot of us, chum), this is great to finally see arrive, and I've been waiting on it. Thank you Moz, for continuing to properly support modern open web standards.
1. I remember years ago when they declared that the browser should only pack the minimum necessary core features and everything else (such as, at the time, a download progress bar or a status bar) would have to be provided by add-ons. So far so good, but then it turns out that you can "like" stuff on so-called "social media" via core features in Firefox, as well as a bunch of other Twatterbook crap that they have "integrated". Same with the developer features (useful as they might be to me as a developer). So, why did this need to be bundled in the core, instead of provided via an add-on?
2. I notice that the thing uses a proxy of some sort to establish the calls. Is the source code or that part of the system also free and open, and reasonably sane to install on a private server? Or does one depend on Mozilla and/or their chosen "partners" for it? What is their (Mozilla and "partners") privacy policy?
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