It's about as good as not having it at all. Check out Chrome's _usable_ implementation, where I have such a breakthrough (and apparently insurmountable for Mozilla) feature as conveniently switching between profiles.
Wow, is it really that difficult to click "launch profile in a new browser"? I mean I know we're all becoming spoiled brats over time, but to consider a click or two "unusable" is truly beyond the pale.
Nobody is "prohibited" from doing so. You want a Firefox that lets you do whatever you want, you can easily use an unbranded or pre-release build, or even roll your own or use someone else's lightly-tweaked fork. Nobody owes you an officially supported product that's for a wide audience and is also a complete free for all. Even Ubuntu and other Linux distros require you to opt into third-party software channels. You just don't like the specific choice that Mozilla is giving you, but it's still very easily there.
Assuming that device is actually worth accessing, then you could still keep and use an old version of a browser for that purpose. Newer browser versions should be pushing the web forward where possible.
I agree with you in the case of old encryption methods (plain DES, RC4, NULL cipher) but not all protocol problems are because of the lack of a recent encryption algorithm.
There's heaps of old modems that use a weak DH key and will never see a firmware update. You're left with either accessing the device insecurely over HTTP, hoping your ISP will send you a new one (good luck with that) or paying for your own modem which will probably never be allowed on the ISPs network.
Weak DH keys should not be that hard to keep in the code base yet still most browsers will present an impassable TLS error screen.
Those modems should no longer be being used, period. If someone cannot afford a replacement and has an incompetent ISP incapable of providing them with a subsidized replacement, then that is a separate problem that needs addressing as soon as possible.
Perpetuating it won't do, and if in doing so we're perpetuating a larger impending security issue, then we need to resolve it stat, not defer everything because there is heaps of old hardware lying around.
That may be easy to say and harder to resolve, but there comes a time when problems need to be resolved. Maybe that won't be 2020, if the desired timeline proves unrealistic, but two years is plenty of time to move on it. It generally takes far longer to deprecate and remove protocols from the web than it does to get a replacement modem.
Again, I have to wonder what divisions in Apple you're talking about. The folks I know working on WebKit practically have zero decision making power. It's all about saving face and keeping Safari viable as the only engine on iOS.
I get the impression that people claiming that companies like Apple are "engineering-driven" are only talking about their new, non-core projects. But then my perceptions are only colored by the folks I know working at those companies, so whatever.
Not in any of the areas I'm familiar with. For instance they can't even fix long-standing standards-compliance bugs or other interop issues in Blink or YouTube or Google Search... they're way too busy pushing redesigns and features that will help them keep their tenuous performance leads on their own web properties.
They have very intelligent and capable folks trying to "do no evil", but ultimately they're a business, not a charity. They rarely actually care about their engineers' opinions unless it helps with public image or maintaining a competitive edge (no matter how artificially) or helping them start a new product line (or close one that isn't paying the bills).
Thankfully I will say that it sounds like there is just enough blowback over the past two or three years that it's not all bad. But it's certainly not a place that I would call "run by engineers", and hasn't been for at least 4 years now.
Not really, Firefox and Chrome supported the picture element well before Safari did. It was part of the nascent HTML5 standard.
I believe what WebKit introduced was the analogous CSS image-set property, which likely influenced the picture's element's development (but image-set still hasn't managed to escape draft-spec territory).
No, he wasn't. He wasn't accepted as CEO by enough employees, but he could have stepped down and retained another position in the company, like CTO. Even he recognizes that Mozilla leadership wanted him to stay on board, but he chose to quit and pursue his own project. Which is fine. It just doesn't mean he was "forced" out any more than the people who quit because they couldn't stand him being CEO were "forced" out.
Why are you asserting false claims without being able to support them?
As CEO I had already reorged Mozilla, and CTO was lined up for someone else (Andreas Gal). I was not offered any particular C level position by anyone with authority over such things.
I did not leave because of any of my employees objecting to me. If you are thinking of the handful of Mozilla Foundation employees who tweeted on March 27th against me (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozil...), none of them worked for me. The Mozilla Foundation is arms-length from the Mozilla Corporation.
I also did not quit to pursue my own project; Brave was not founded until May 2015. I resigned to avoid Mozilla taking any more damage from mob action kicked off by someone who demanded that I be "completely removed from any day to day activities at Mozilla" (http://web.archive.org/web/20180621041436/http://www.teamrar... -- the blog seems broken but the Web archive has snapshots).
It's clear you just asserted falsehoods that make you comfortable. But you not only did not know what you were asserting to be true, you could not possibly know whether it was true. That's wishful thinking at best, and tantamount to lying at worst.
By this logic they had already long legitimized it through their grudging support for Flash. But don't let that stop you from trying to act like it's magically different.
>where Mozilla will always be at a disadvantage
They were always at a disadvantage in the fight against DRM. They never had any real control over it to begin with, and had to constantly be at a disadvantage while it was Flash-based. The fact that they adopted EME changes nothing at all, except that some people on the Internet took it personally because they wanted to.
>the way that they worship at the feet of Google
Suuuure they do. Just like they worshiped at the feet of Yahoo before.
>The biggest mistake that Mozilla is making is adopting the for-profit paradigm that their competitors have
Some hard evidence for this shift in their mentality would sure be nice. Simply owning a corporation doesn't mean you're suddenly driven by a profit motive. Nor does the fact that you may earn some revenue from things that some people love to hate.
>Mozilla is not a business, and they don't need to convince people who don't care about web browsers or privacy to use their web browser.
They have always been a business. A non-profit organization is legally a type of business. And even by non-legal definitions they are still a business. A business does not mean "a profit-driven venture".
Just like their mission has always been to make products for everyone, whether or not they happen to hold strong beliefs about privacy or DRM or even web browsers.
>We are truly entering a dark age of technology.
I've been hearing that since I was just a kid. I'm sorry that Mozilla didn't win your DRM war for you (and me), but that doesn't mean they've given up on all attempts to avert your "dark age" prophecy. But they're just a couple of thousand people. They won't be able to avert every disaster.
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