* Posts by Caspy7

17 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jan 2013

Meego, webOS, Sailfish OS, and now Firefox OS: Ex-Nokia man Jaaksi joins Mozilla

Caspy7

No complaints.

Works great for me.

JavaScript CPU cache snooper tells crooks EVERYTHING you do online

Caspy7

Re: Disable JavaScript?

NoScript let's you choose what javascript loads (such as from what origin). It's not just turning off javascript.

I'd also throw in uBlock which allows you to block more than just ads (and is much better on performance & memory usage).

Mozilla peers into processes with student-built forensics probe

Caspy7

Re: Encryption software

I know little about the topic. Do many disk encryption schemes hold the key in memory?

Unity, Mozilla team up to bring PEW! PEW! PEW! to browsers, too

Caspy7

Re: hmm

You understand correctly.

Asm.js code is just JS code. It does not gain any additional access to your browser/hardware than a normal web page. There's no additional security risk in running it.

Google has tweaked their Javascript for performance and the other browsers (at least notably Firefox and Chrome) have tuned their engines to run gmail and docs code as fast as possible. Asm.js code won't be as noticeable/appreciated in something like an office suite as it is in very high performance situations like those that manipulate (or generate) graphics, such as image editors, audio editors and games.

Asm.js could be used in replacing a desktop virtualization client like Citrix, but something like WebRTC which is well suited to directly streaming video between two points would play a particularly significant role. (I'm, however, uncertain about the high performance mechanics necessary for a desktop virtualization client beyond video streaming part.)

FREAK show: Apple and Android SSL WIDE OPEN to snoopers

Caspy7

Workaround

This article didn't mention it explicitly, but Firefox does not have this vulnerability, so if you're on an unpatched Android/Chrome/Mac you can use Firefox and not be at risk of this attack.

Mozilla's Flash-killer 'Shumway' appears in Firefox nightlies

Caspy7

Re: I thought that HTML5

Yes, HTML5 is now getting (and has gotten in many ways) to a place where it can replace the functions of Flash.

However there are folks and companies still producing it - and much content already made in it that nobody wants to bother porting - but still frequently used (like games).

In recent years the NPAPI version of Flash (the one Firefox uses) has been allowed by Adobe to languish. There have been longstanding issues unattended to and Adobe primarily issues updates when yet-another-exploit has been discovered. Their treatment of this version of Flash has genuinely hurt user experience in Firefox and Mozilla knows it.

So beyond an overall better experience, security should be better, Firefox can finally detect which tab is playing sound (and mute it) and it's being built in web tech, so any browser maker can take and use it (like Opera did with PDF.js) - meaning that potentially Adobe can stop punishing us with their half-assed fixes.

Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star

Caspy7

Re: So who pays for the servers?

As I understand it, It is peer-to-peer (and encrypted).

It's a serious step up over the security of Skype.

Caspy7

Soon...

Appears it may arrive with 36: http://redd.it/2ogcsr

Caspy7

Re: 34?

Mozilla is rolling out the feature incrementally (instead of going from zero to millions overnight) but you can circumvent this and turn on the feature yourself using these directions:

http://winaero.com/blog/enable-firefox-hello-to-use-webrtc-features/

Mozilla re-negotiates Google multi-million dollar sugar-daddy deal

Caspy7

Re: I wonder if Google would consider dropping the Mozilla deal?

Microsoft has repeatedly demonstrated a tendency to throw gobs of cash for long periods at losing products until they succeed or have burned to a crisp.

I think MS would love the default search spot in Firefox - and possibly meet or beat Google's offering.

The last time this negotiation came around about a month beforehand Mozilla partnered with MS to release a version of Firefox "powered by Bing" (had its own website and everything). I don't think this was an accident, but a demonstration that they were willing to pull the trigger and use a different search engine.

Caspy7

"Mozilla re-negotiates Google multi-million dollar sugar-daddy deal"

Congrats. You got me to click on this story with the implication that there was a conclusion.

But you don't know anything about the outcome of this supposed "multi-million dollar sugar-daddy deal" which for all we know may not pan out.

I did come away with a healthy dose of negativity against Mozilla for being so audacious at (maybe) having the search deal.

You beat everyone to the punch at (possibly) reporting this story.

Cheapo Firefox OS mobes to debut in India – definitely not one for selfie-conscious users

Caspy7

Re: Good.

I'm uncertain exactly what you mean by Libre phone, but wanted you to know that these phone's hardware are not fully open. Despite Mozilla's desires, manufacturers/vendors make the hardware closed and also make the closed drivers that talk to them.

So down at the basic level there are some bits of code talking to the hardware that are not open.

I know that Mozilla does not like this situation and think they are probably looking to how it can change in the future, but at the moment they have little control. I think FxOS phones are at least the *most* open (viable) smartphones right now.

As to battery life, that has been on their radar since the inception of the project I believe. I've heard good things about the early models already released.

Firefox OS lands in Germany – with France, Asia, and more to come

Caspy7

Re: so much potential, so little momentum..

This post from Mozilla makes the case that there is indeed strong momentum (though the numbers surely don't look highly significant compared to Android): https://blog.mozilla.org/?p=7895

On the topic of US entry, Sprint had originally thrown their hat in verbally, but later backed off. I'm pretty sure that they and others have not yet partnered with with Mozilla to introduce FxOS phones to the US because of it's perceived maturity. Most Americans have some particular expectations of a smartphone and many would likely be disappointed at the state that the OS was in (also worth mentioning is a smaller number of apps). Many western reviewers who have gotten their hands on devices, being used to Android and iPhones, have panned them.

The last I heard Mozilla *was* interested in bringing them to the US (hence the Sprint partnership) but they do not currently have a willing partner.

Dev delays push ship date of Metro-ized Firefox to January 2014

Caspy7

Why It Matters

For those who hate Metro and wonder why this matters:

1) Windows 8 only allows *one* default browser for both environments. If you don't have a Metro version then users will eschew you in lieu of an alternate browser.

2) Windows 8 has become an inevitability. New PCs ship with Windows 8 and with Microsoft finally dropping support for Windows XP, there will be yet another large influx of Windows 8 users - either from users upgrading to the latest OS or simply replacing their computers.

Beware the ad-punting crapware-laden Firefox, warn infosec bods

Caspy7

Re: Firefox WTF?

Chrome went 9 (and a half) versions in in a year. But I never hear anyone complaining about that.

WTF is... WebRTC?

Caspy7

See The Demo

For those liking to see this in useful action, here is a video demo that a couple Firefox devs made with WebRTC.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6-rAv6bU8Q

A couple notes about the video:

- The split screen effect is achieved through the video capture software & has nothing to do with WebRTC.

- The sidebar and persistent hovering video is achieve through the Social API and only used to better demo WebRTC.

- One thing they didn't demo was permissions. Just like when a website wants your location, you have the option to allow for now, allow always, never or ignore (aka "not now"). So not only would a network/user need permission to connect to you, they would need permission to share different types of data with you.

Caspy7

No

You know how when you go to a website and it wants to access your location and you can say, "yes, just for now", "yes, always", "no, never" or ignore it (AKA "no, for now")?

That's how it will work. If you never want to hear from that site again, that's an option.

And as always (in Firefox) there will be the ability to turn off the functionality entirely.