Seriously, I've lived in more than half of the European countries for a while, and never ever EVER saw such a shitty internet service as in Spain over their network. Lack of service for hours every day, substandard speeds... It made me anticipate a move to Portugal by one year because of their shitty service.
Telefónica bought pretty much every South American national phone monopoly when the country privatized it. I dealt with them while living in Chile and let me tell you: Comcast's customer service is top notch compared to them.
By putting that logo in there, Mozilla is pretty much shutting down any chance of adoption in South America. In my case, even Microsoft's logo would be easier to swallow.
I mean, they do deliver decent internet, but their customer service is awful.
Actually from my experience that was pretty good compared to uh... Telefonica in Argentina.
And then people complain about Comcast!
I'm currently with them because my preferred cable provider (R) didn't have coverage in my building a year ago, but now they do have coverage, so I'm probably saying bye-bye to Telefonica soon. Yes, the service is now technically good, even probably the best (FTTH), but who cares if all their policies (the above is just an example but there are lots more) are set to nickel-and-dime the customers, and to sell more and more and more. You can't even do a technical service call without them spamming you and trying to sell you stuff. R doesn't have FTTH but has a much, much better customer service (including automatic improvements in the bandwidth for time to time, without even asking).
To add insult to injury, there is no simple way of disabling the functionality[1]. Firefox Hello is ludicrous.
[1] about:config is not a valid value of simple
Exactly. Firefox doesn't include "Firefox Hello" anymore than it includes "Gmail". Instead, Firefox (and other web browsers) include XMLHttpRequest and WebRTC, which can be used to implement whatever you want.
I'm getting pretty tired of hearing this trope ("teh bloat!") anytime a browser announces new functionality. Browsers are among the most successful pieces of consumer software in existence, so let's maybe admit they've done something right? But moreover, you have the ability -- really, unprecedented for software so complex and in such wide use -- to fork not one but two excellent open-source browsers, plus an excellent rendering engine. If you think you know better than Mozilla and/or Google, go for it. It's not lost on anyone at Mozilla that this is how Firefox originated.
</rant>
I used to have a cassette player that had a tape recorder on it. It made it bigger and heavier, and probably more expensive and I never used the record feature.
Just because part of the product works well, doesn't mean the rest of it is good.
For video, Firefox contains a video codec. Surfing to YouTube lets the YouTube web page play video. Firefox does not contain a "Youtube Player".
That's exactly the opposite of what they have done here. They have added basically added a "Telefonica WebRTC Player". That's wrong. They should have added WebRTC generically so that you go to a web page at Telefonica to use it. Or better yet, use it with a server you trust.
All I have to do is right-click on the icon and click "Remove from toolbar", or "Customize" and remove it.
But wait, you say, it's not actually removed... well, for the sort of person that "about:config" is not a valid answer, it is removed.
If your actual complaint is about the functionality / bloat, well, it turns out WebRTC is required for firefox to be a browser and the delta from that to this is essentially nothing.
Chrome is automatically updated to be jam-packed full of browser-specific APIs and functionality.
Like when Chrome automatically updated and registered itself as a background service without permission.
Or when Chrome automatically installed a microphone listening service for always on "OK Google" hotword detection.
Or the fact that Chrome Apps are less and less "webpages" and more and more "applications that only support the Chrome API".
"To add insult to injury, there is no simple way of disabling the functionality"
I wish I got paid my hourly rate for the sheer amount of time I spend combing through Google Product Forums reading about what arcane chrome://flags or commandline ---arg is required to disable their new functions.
It's a shame what's happening to the web.
This time we don't have an all powerful Microsoft fighting the web, but Google seems very wiling to take their place. Last browser wars stopped the web evolution for about a decade, just because of a single party that didn't want to be nice.
We've apparently decided that we should use "the web" for everything, whether or not it's a good fit. So yeah, browsers are unavoidably going to accumulate features that used to be the responsibility of apps or the OS. And there will be lots of browser-specific functionality unless you're willing to wait 5 years for W3C or WHATWG or whoever to finalize a standard.
And in other people's view, it is nonsense, and they liked their Mozilla with built-in mailer, Opera, etc.
And of course there's the huge ecosystem of browsers add-ons and plugins, that do exactly that: implement X functionalities outside of web pages.
>Firefox Hello is ludicrous.
Haven't seen any argument about it. Not being able to disable it and not wanting browsers to include X functionality doesn't translate to "ludicrous".
I don't really do lots of video, so... ::meh:: ... but I am fine with rebuilding the old Netscape system. :)
I'll agree if you amend "allow a web page to implement X" to "allow a web page or an extension to implement X."
Because Hello is built right into Firefox, you can rest easy knowing that your conversations and information will remain private and secure.
I'm not sure exactly why this is though.
Also, out of curiosity more than anything else, what's a decent web-site that implements the same functionality (i.e. set up a VOIP session, let people join by sending a link, ideally anonymously)? I could've sworn AOL had a service like this, but Google results return nothing.
A bunch of the hypothetical questions here on HN could be answered easily by skimming over this page and some of the pages linked in.
Edit: I'm not suggesting its bad or good to get a project to a more polished state before open-sourcing it, mainly just pointing out that for good/bad, Mozilla does happen to keep the entirety of the process very open.
If a company periodically dumps a large project tree online but continues the development and management behind closed doors, it makes it very difficult anyone else to make use of or build upon the source without forking it completely (and forking has its own risks).
This is why windlep is pointing out that Mozilla "develops in the open", as opposed to being merely open source.
* Open source contributors have to approach the codebase from a much more advanced, and often more burdened or rigid, state
* The mainline developers, who worked on the code before release, aren't necessarily used to, or open to, accepting contributions as if the project had been developed in the open from a much more primitive state.
* Sometimes the dump literally just means "here's the code", and isn't an indication that the project is looking for significant or lasting contributions at all.
* Sometimes when companies open source their stuff what they're really doing is putting it out to pasture... but this isn't always apparent upon release.
* Often the project isn't hosted on a neutral platform, like Github or the company still works on v2 in a private fork.
For example, look at projects like the original Netscape/Mozilla or Libreoffice open source projects and how long they took to build communities (with the former, they really didn't exist with non-AOL communities until AFTER a complete rewrite - Firefox - was launched; same was true with StarOffice/OpenOffice/Libreoffice). Then look at the similarly sized projects of Linux distributions, KDE, GNOME, and many others.
Being able to get involved with a project early on, before it's too big to really jump into quickly and make a meaningful contribution, really helps build that initial core of developers who believe in and want/need the project.
despite your edit - I'm felling you are suggestiong it's worse model.
All of this means you can't get away with shady stuff, or cool stuff that doesn't align with the project. But products need to evolve to stay competitive, and the downside is that the added friction from having to respond to people who are not in the payroll about what to develop and what to release means Firefox doesn't have the capacity to move as fast as Chrome does, for example.
Firefox hello is a website that implements webRTC based video conferencing in a browser agnostic way.
The "firefox hello" button that has shown up in recent versions of the browser is a bit of UI magic over an API to this website. The video conferencing code is not implemented in the browser.
If you send a firefox hello link to a chrome user, it opens the webpage when they click on it instead of the UI element.
I actually think it's really neat, and have replaced skype with it since it works so widely and doesn't require everyone to have an account to use it.
I moved abroad and I have a chat with my parents using Skype from time to time. After the Microsoft acquisition Skype had to be upgraded and the old version stopped working. My parents aren't tech-savvy really and I failed to diagnose their problem remotely, so I tried https://talky.io/ (just because I watched Sam Dutton talk about WebRTC and he used that web for a demo).
It worked (to be completely fair, slightly worse than an average Skype session), and it kind of blew my mind. My parents weren't impressed though, when I explained them how amazing was that we were video conferencing using a website and open standards.
EDIT: typos
For the record, my experience has been that firefox hello is superior in quality to skype.
It's very misleading. The page is full of quotes like these:
"All you need is Firefox"
"Get Firefox to get started"
"Want to start using Hello? All you need is Firefox"
"Get Firefox and start your first conversation"
Then the link you get can be used on any browser.
If I'm wrong, I'd love to know how to start a conversation from a different browser.
Presumably offering routing servers and transit. Plus Telefonica bought TokBox[1], whose tech powers the backend
In other words, can Telefonica make it easy to spy on all Firefox Hello talks, or only on the browser-to-phone ones? (which is to be expected, I guess).
When you send a FF Hello invite to a Chrome user, it works fine.
I.o.w.: why is this not just a website?
Firefox Hello also is a website, it's just running inside the browser. http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/compon...
> Hello is super easy to use and your friends and family don’t even need Firefox to join your conversation. As long as they have a compatible browser, they’re good to go.
as far as i've read this is basically appear.in but with some native buttons in firefox, and optional firefox account integration.
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/82/slides/rtcweb-13.pdf
The peer-to-peer WebRTC connection uses DTLS+SRTP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datagram_Transport_Layer_Secur...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Real-time_Transport_Pro...
A secure and easy to use solution for web chat is really needed. If it's easy to use but insecure, that simply raises the bar for competing secure solutions to meet, which is a shame.
When I say screen share, I mean not just the browser's screen but the whole computer screen?
I think the point of pre-bundling it is to get more attention and in that way to promote WebRTC, which is a good goal.
Size-wise, I didn't look at the code but this is likely a tiny extension, it's just a little UI over WebRTC.
Presumably though instead of FF dev team making a Moz sponsored extension Telefonica came to them and said "we'll give you this barrel of cash if we can put our name on a new part of FF that gets default installed".
Indeed Moz could have just had Telefonica named as devs on an extension and shipped it as default - which would seem more natural. The way it is makes it more like a marketing move to hijack FF as a place to put an advert.
Appear.in seems to work fine and without messing with my browser chrome.
I still miss Mozilla Composer and Microsoft Frontpage for writing abysmal HTML with <strong> everywhere.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1127178
Not sure this is necessarily enough info to go on, but it's reproducible on my end for sure - it wasn't a one-off.
thanks.
Mozilla is working on some pretty neat stuff; and is paying attention to the rest of the world, not just the American/European/Japanese market.
Also since they are a foundation owned corporation with a public benefit mission https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/moco/ they can take a longer-term view than some of the other big players.
Having played with one of the flame dev phones for FirefoxOS I wouldn't be too surprised if within the decade they are dominant in areas of the world that don't have an installed base ( rural india, sub-saharan africa outside of SA, etc. ).
Remember that more people are going to acquire mobile internet devices in the next 5 years than were on the internet in 1998.
The problem is simple to describe, but nearly impossible to solve.
On the one hand, ask anyone whenever they want to have video conferencing without having to download additional software and based on open standards blah blah — and you're likely to hear "yeah, that's cool, where do I get it?" before you finish the questions. Because, without going in much detail this all sounds awfully good.
On the other hand, a few engineers have issues with this. Questions like "why this is bundled in giant monolithic browser blob" are perfectly valid. Especially those who value classic UNIXes' approach to do things, may be well dissatisfied with this kind of stuff being done in the name "public benefit", considering this as yet another case of "dancing bunnies" problem, with masses being ignorant of the issues.
Lately I'd been bothered by poor quality experience and sometimes even spam requests on Skype. Hangouts was never my thing and Firefox Hello seems like a breath of fresh air just at the right time. Keep it up!
I want my browser to ring when there is an incoming call.
Firefox should have an open socket connection to Mozilla servers and deliver services thru that, just like android cloud messaging, like alerts, notifications, push apis, etc.
Funding such services is a big decision for them -- they're the ones that have to support it, keep it up, and pay for it (for the life of the service). As they make money in a distinctly different way from Google, they don't have the same positive feedback loop -- Google is happy to provide you free web services because you are the product.
Since Hello currently doesn't have a Friends list or a way to utilize existing social networks, passing a link to a friend is how you give them permission to ring your browser.
-----
Dear Mozilla,
Firefox is a browser. Can you please stop with the feature creep? That'd be lovely. Remember, you're a browser, not an operating system. Oh, you'd like to be an operating system? Cool, then make an OS (o hai there Firefox OS) and keep that functionality there. Stop adding extra features that are not needed to browse the internet.
It seems only Lynx cares about an authentic node-to-node / client-to-server relationship without all the privacy concerns :-(
Firefox, like Chrome, is going overboard with non-web-browsing features. Some less technical users surely will appreciate that, but at some point it becomes less of a browser and more of a pseudo-OS.
If people don't voice their opinion against this direction, then Mozilla will continue down this path. I don't think it's too much to ask a web browser to be a web browser and nothing more.
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/compon...
I don't think this is such a great idea, at least in my case, if I'm sending someone link for them to open instantly then I'm probably already using a platform that supports video conversations - for example Skype, which also has IM and some other stuff that FF Hello doesn't.
I can totally imagine this for the video conferences we have with external partners in our group. These are usually scheduled ahead of time, so we could just arrange that people check their inbox for the link. Email is what most people use in these projects, while IM'ing is very exotic and practically not used.
Next issue, I'm using a docked laptop and it defaulted to the cam in the folded laptop instead of the cam pointed at me..
But if it comes as a Firefox only extension I am fine with it.
Btw, I tried hello a couple of weeks ago and it felt like voice/video over the net 5 or 6 years ago, no proper echo cancelation, similar to the old video plugin in pidgin. Also, there is no text IM.
[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/where-firefox-hello-but...
Google Hangouts-like screen sharing without the need for an account would be awesome.
Anyone got a way to disable it yet?
