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inficetegodwottery · 5 months

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A call for aid from Firefox Users

I have absolutely no fucking idea how to solve these problems, and there are asks with no answers all over the internet elsewhere that are years old.

There is a weirdly hostile atmosphere on Reddit's Firefox boards to asking questions about features Firefox doesn't seem to have. And obviously, official support forums are about as helpful as they ever are. Given that I've seen and reblogged countless extremely informative posts about Firefox stuff on Tumblr, I just have to hope one of you guys knows answers to some of these issues.

Because I want to move away from Chrome. I really, really do. It is a constant source of stress and fear at this point. Google is an insanely evil fucking company and I despise them, and admire Firefox's stances on privacy and commitment to user security. But I cannot use a browser that lacks so many of the organizational elements I'm used to using in order to deal with my extreme neurodivergence and inability to process information all at once combined with my tendency towards flitting from one train of thought to another constantly.

Using Firefox (I've tried to switch five times over six or seven years) in the past has been overwhelming and stressful and completely devoid of certain features I could use to control those feelings on browsers like Chrome, Opera, and even Safari.

So if anyone has any solutions or suggestions for the specific issues I describe below, it would be an enormous weight off my shoulders, and help me feel a lot safer than I do now.

I'll admit that my tab fever is insane, and I've regularly racked up 2000+ tabs on Chrome. But I can sleep/unload just about all of those tabs constantly, making it so I can keep my trains of thought completely paused without the slightest impact on my computer's performance while I work on something else, and come right back to them without having to dig through the Bookmark system. And the way I generally keep that insane number of bookmarks organized is with separate windows and TAB GROUPING. Bless tab grouping, the saviour of my sanity. With that feature, I can have a completely organized tab tree with color coding, searchable groups, easily group and ungroup tabs or move them to different windows, and I can manage all of them from the same UI I'm managing ungrouped tabs from.

This is a feature which Firefox appears to fundamentally lack, despite apparently having had it implemented fully at some point.

I will say that I tried several addons before making this post, specifically Simple Tab Groups, which was atrocious, and Panorama View actually looks fantastic, but also.... Firefox has placed a security warning on that one. Great.

So if anyone knows of a hidden browser settings option, an overlooked tab grouping addon, or some other way to implement that feature on Firefox, I would be eternally in your debt. I just do not have the ability to process or work on a browser that I can only have like forty tabs open without losing track of everything I'm doing because they're all on a single ribbon. Or completely overloading my RAM.

On that note, is there any setting to make the browser use less memory? I've had the core process run up to almost a dozen gigs of RAM with only twenty tabs open, and there's absolutely no way it needed all that processing power for four YouTube tabs and a bunch of settings pages.

Lastly, there are a number of times while I was using Firefox that I lost power or the program crashed (and it crashed a LOT) and I lost everything. Every tab, every bit of work I was doing at the time, with no way to recover them. I've had that happen with Chrome too, but WAY less often, and when it recovers all my tabs it does so while PRESERVING MY TAB GROUPS, and it also doesn't load every tab in until I actually move to that tab. Firefox loads every tab it's recovering all at once, which usually completely locks up my computer.

At this point I'm pretty much only using Firefox to watch YouTube videos past the adblock, despite desperately wanting to transfer literally everything over to a browser that I KNOW is the safer and better option. But every time I've tried, the total inability to organize like I used to, losing all my progress and being unable to regain it whatsoever, or just using up four times the amount of resources that my browsing would on another platform has drive me away. I don't want to be driven away. I want to solve this, but I've had to accept that I can't do that alone.

I greatly appreciate any help or advice anyone can give. Even if just only one of these questions gets answered or only one of these problems gets solved, that's a win in my books. And thank you for reading, even if you don't have any of the answers I'm looking for.

#firefox #mozilla firefox #mozilla #browser wars #chrome #browsers #accessibility #browser accessibility

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hubris-i · 1 year

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Anyway if you aren't using Firefox yet, what's wrong with you

You can find out if you're using a Chrome derivative <here>

And Firefox derivatives can be found <here>

#poll #browser wars #firefox #chrome #chromium

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coochecacher69 · 16 days

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#girl interupted syndrome #hell is a teenage girl #just girly things #2014 grunge #2014 nostalgia #2014 tumblr #chrome hearts #emo #2014 #spotify #submisive and breedable #thick dick daddy #bouncing titts #spilled thoughts #thick and juicy #stranger things #style #star wars

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lackluster-draws · 28 days

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Got around to doing a height comparison ref for all my charr

#gw2 #gw2 art #guild wars 2 #guild wars 2 charr #gw2 charr #charr #charr oc #my oc #skull blindwrecker #chrome spitshine #luka keen #remus bloodshot #luka #lackluster draws #i drew luka's prosthetic leg in the sketch but somehow I deleted it?? and never put it back lmao

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mediasaurs · 8 months

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TRM Round 1: Beast Wars (Megatron) vs. Chrome game T. rex

Beast Wars (Megatron) – Having renamed himself after the original Megatron, Megatron the Predacon travels to a prehistoric Earth in an attempt to change the past. In order to survive the powerful energon field, he takes on the form of a purple T. rex. Megatron is a bold and cunning, if arrogant, leader of the Predacons and serves as a constant and serious threat to the Maximals, led by Optimus Primal. Like his namesake, Megatron has no problem mistreating his subordinates and will do anything to win. Yesssssss.

Chrome game T. rex – If you’re using Chrome and you lose a network connection, here’s a little guy to keep you entertained while you wait. It’s a simple runner game, but the ubiquity of Chrome (and network connection errors) means this humble T. rex is known far and wide.

#t. rex madness #t. rex #tyrannosaurus #tyrannosaurus rex #dinosaur #dinosaurs #beast wars #chrome

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fiatluxillustration-portfolio · 1 month

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Digital Sketchbook - Queen Amidala's Starship

Created with Procreate

𝙵𝚒𝚊𝚝 𝙻𝚞𝚡 𝙸𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Web apps could de-monopolize mobile devices

Mobile tech is a duopoly run by two companies — Google and Apple — with a combined market cap of $3.5 trillion. Each company uses a combination of tech, law, contract and market power to force sellers to do commerce via an app, and each one extracts a massive commission on all in-app sales — 15–30%!

This is bad for users and workers. Many companies’ gross margins are less than 30%. In some categories, that means there’s no competition. Take audiobooks: publishers wholesale their audiobooks to retailers at a 20% discount, so a retailer that sells its audiobooks through an app, paying a 30% commission, will lose money through every sale.

This is why the only convenient mobile audiobook stores are Apple Books (a front-end for Amazon’s Audible) and Google Books: Apple doesn’t have to pay the Apple tax, and Google doesn’t have to pay the Google tax, and that means that Apple and Google can demand crippling discounts and preferential treatment from publishers and independent authors.

The app tax is a tax on the workers whose creative works are sold on mobile platforms, because creative workers have the least bargaining power in this monopolized supply-chain. Our publishers can squeeze us — and the editorial workers, narrators, and sound technicians who work on our books — to make up the difference.

Independent authors who sell directly on these platforms, meanwhile, have even less leverage and get even worse terms. Things aren’t much better at the other end of the supply-chain, either: while firms prefer to wring concessions out of their workers and suppliers, they’re not averse to raising prices on customers, providing that all the competitors do so as well.

Since every competitor is also selling through an app store and either paying a direct app tax or ceding margin to the mobile duopoly as a condition of selling in their in-house, pre-installed stores, they all have the same incentive to raise prices.

Economists call this the monopsony problem (or, since we’re talking about two companies, a duopsony or oligopsony problem). That’s an unwieldy and esoteric term, so Rebecca Giblin and I coined a much better one, and wrote a book about it: Chokepoint Capitalism:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Theoretically, there’s a way to avoid the app store chokepoint: web apps. These are part of the HTML5 standard, and if a browser fully implements that standard, then developers can make a self-encapsulated “app” that’s delivered in the browser, complete with an icon for your home screen, capable of doing anything an app store app can do.

A company that wants to sell stuff without paying the app tax could hypothetically deliver a web app that the user could download and install via their browser. This doesn’t just avoid the app tax, it also overrides the app stores’ editorial control, like Apple’s decision to block privacy tools in China to aid in state surveillance.

But you can’t have a web app without a web-app-compatible browser, and you can’t get a web-app-compatible browser in Apple’s App Store. The only browsers permitted in the App Store are those based on WebKit, the browser engine behind Safari. This means that every browser on Ios, from Firefox to Edge to Chrome, is just a reskinned version of Safari.

That’s a problem, because Webkit suuuuuuucks. Without the discipline imposed by either regulation or competition, Apple has systematically underinvested in Webkit, so that major bugs remain unaddressed for years and years. Some of these bugs are functional — Webkit just doesn’t act the way its documentation says it does — but others represent serious security vulnerabilities.

This is an important point: app store proponents say that denying users the right to choose where they get their apps and excluding competitors is necessary, the only practical way to prevent security risks to users. But while app stores can prevent the introduction of insecure or malicious code, they can also block the introduction of code that fixes defects in the manufacturer’s own security.

Mobile companies don’t want insecure code on their platforms, but they also don’t want to erode their profits. An Iphone with a working VPN app is more secure than one that lacks that app, but if that Iphone is owned by a Chinese person, it endangers Apple’s access to low-waged Chinese labor and 350 million affluent Chinese consumers.

Likewise, a third party might create a browser engine that corrects the security defects in Webkit, but if Apple allows users to install such a browser engine, they will lose the ability to extract billions through the app tax.

Companies never solely pursue their customers’ interests. Instead, they seek an equilibrium that allocates as much value as possible to their shareholders. This allocation is limited by both competition (the fear that a bad service will drive customers to a rival) and regulation (the fear that a bad service will attract crushing fines).

The less competition and regulation a company faces, the more value it can take from its users and give to its shareholders. Here, mobile platforms have it easy: they don’t have to worry about competition because of regulation. Laws like Section1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Article 6 of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD) make it illegal to jailbreak a phone to install third-party apps. Jay Freeman calls this “felony contempt of business model” — that is, the government will punish your competitors for trying to compete with you. Nice work if you can get it.

As the old joke goes, “if you wanted to get there, I wouldn’t start from here.” The rules that should promote better corporate conduct (through competition) instead encourage worse behavior, by putting companies in charge of who gets to compete with them, in the name of user safety.

Meanwhile, users are increasingly trapped inside walled gardens, because their media, apps, and data are locked up in mobile silos and switching to a rival means enduring the switching costs of leaving it all behind. Mobile companies claim to have built fortresses to keep bad guys out, but those high walls make fortresses into prisons that keep customers locked in.

But anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. The manifest unfairness and insecurity of the regulation-backed walled garden model has attracted the interest of new trustbusters, competition regulators from China to the EU to the USA to the UK.

The UK plays a key role here. The country’s Competitions and Markets Authority boasts the largest workforce of technical experts of any competition regulator in the world: the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit has 50+ full-time engineers, which allows it to produce the most detailed, most insightful market investigations of any nation’s competition regulators.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-markets-unit

(Don’t get too excited, though: in keeping with the UK’s abysmal standard of government competence, Parliament has yet to pass the long-overdue secondary legislation that would give the DMU its own enforcement powers. Ugh.)

Last June, the CMA proposed a market investigation into cloud gaming and mobile browsers (gaming is the largest source of app store revenue and cloud gaming is a way to avoid the app tax, so it’s a closely related issue):

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/mobile-browsers-and-cloud-gaming

There were many significant submissions over this proposal, including comments that EFF legal intern Shashank Sirivolu and I drafted:

https://www.eff.org/document/comments-electronic-frontier-foundation-cmas-inquiry-mobile-browsers-and-cloud-gaming

Many commenters (including EFF) proposed that the CMA should intervene to improve the state browser engines competition on Ios and Android (Android allows multiple browser engines, but doesn’t give them the same hardware access that Chrome and its Blink engine enjoy).

This argument seems to have landed for the CMA. Today, they announced that they would go ahead with a full-fledged market study into mobile browsers and cloud gaming:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63984ce2d3bf7f3f7e762453/Issues_statement_.pdf

The most obvious outcome of this study would be an order forcing the mobile vendors to open up to full-featured, alternative browser engines. This is compromise solution, between forcing open app stores onto the platforms — which would mean forcing Apple to allow sideloading and policing Google’s use of contracts to limit third-party stores — and doing nothing.

A browser engine mandate is less satisfying than open app stores, but it is also more achievable, and easier to monitor and enforce. With Android, Google proved that you don’t have to use hardware locks to prevent third-party app stores — you can use a hard-to-detect web of contracts and incentives to create an app store monopoly that’s nearly as airtight as Apple’s.

But policing whether a platform permits rival, full-featured browser engines — ones that enable web apps and cloud gaming without paying the app tax — is much easier. Also easier: developing objective standards for evaluating whether a browser engine is secure and robust. Open Web Advocacy’s criteria are a great starting point:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1118238/Open_Web_Advocacy_-_Consultation_response_-_Publication_version.pdf#h.q9nder968wzm

The CMA announcement is welcome, but has some gaps. It under-emphasises the importance of hardware access (for web apps to compete with native apps, they need full hardware access), and could leave new browser engines at the mercy of the existing review teams that review all the other apps in the app store (who reject rival browser engines out of hand).

Meanwhile, while I was writing this article, Mark Gurman published a jaw-dropping scoop in Bloomberg: Apple will open its Ios platform to rival app stores by 2024, in order to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA):

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-apple-allow-users-to-install-third-party-app-stores-sideload-in-europe I’m still absorbing this news, but I think this complements the CMA browser engine work, rather than rendering it redundant. Alternative app stores don’t necessarily mean alternative browser engines. Apple says it will have security standards for alternative app stores, and these standards could well include a ban on browser engines. At a minimum, it’s clear that different levels of scrutiny need to be applied to apps, app stores, and browser engines, as each one poses different threats and opportunities.

[Image ID: London's Canary Wharf, a high-rise business district that is home to the UK Competition and Markets Authority. The colours of the buildings have been inverted, and the sky has been filled with a Matrix 'waterfall' graphic. In the foreground is an ogrish giant, standing at a console, yanking on a lever in the shape of a golden dollar-sign. The console is emblazoned with the logos for Chrome and Safari. The ogre is disdainfully holding aloft a mobile phone. On the phone's screen is a Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a business-man with a dollar-sign for a head. The phone itself is limned with a greenish supernova of radiating light.]

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newcathedrals · 2 months

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trying to do research for an essay and the website I was referencing showed me a Paramount+ ad with Damian Lewis in it. How am I supposed to get any work done around here?

#damian lewis #hbo war #i need to clear my cookies or something. chrome knows too much about me

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ghoulishsleep · 1 year

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The Doctor | Part 5 | The Mandalorian

< PART 4 | Part 6 >

SUMMARY: The Mandalorian makes his departure. The Doctor has visitors.

PAIRING: slow burn Din Djarin x afab!reader

(no physical descriptions or y/n; has vague relatives, a surname, and backstory/personality)

WARNINGS: canon-typical violence, implied needles

WC: 1.6k+

A/N: I'm so excited to share this lil bit! 😌 I haven't written any action-y stuff in a while so I hope this is up to par. Also, kinda rawdogging this - I just finished, slapped it into grammarly to catch my big mistakes, and decided it's time to post. Enjoy!

Sure enough, the Mandalorian kept true to his word.

You saw him and the Child off around dusk, padding through damp grass to where the Razor Crest first touched down outside of town. By some shred of grace, you were allowed to carry the baby, whose little hands touching your face in a gentle goodbye nearly brought tears to your eyes. You would miss him and mourn the ambiguous could be of his guardian.

The Mandalorian didn’t seem mad but locked down in what little he let on. You regret speaking impulsively – you should have just rattled on about something mundane, like the plants you were harvesting or the weather. Anything else, rather than asking questions that are none of your business, especially with a bounty hunter. You wipe a hand down your face, realizing how lucky you are. Though (vaguely) familiar, you don’t know the Mandalorian. For all you know, you were toeing a fine line in asking.

When the light of the thrusters fades into the distant blue-grey atmosphere, you trudge back through the treeline into town to pick up something to eat, as much a treat as it is to placate for the severe misstep. You find yourself entwined in an unwilling conversation while waiting for Yvret to finish your order, dismissing what questions that come your way about “Mando” with a shrug and crooked smile.

Where is he going? (I don’t know.)

Why did he leave so quickly? (I don’t know.)

Will he be back? (I don’t know.)

He was nice. (I know.)

Opening your mouth last time earned you knowledge of someone tantalizingly new and adventurous: a wounded, russet-armored man who took a chance on a sparsely populated moon that a stranger suggested he visit for his poor healing. That Mandalorian provided you the tiniest, secondhand morsel of a life you would pursue the remainder of your university stint.

The bounty hunting part frightened you at the time, though the rest satisfied a deep itch you’d always had. Of wandering. Adventure. Freedom. Your formative years were spent mostly on rebel bases, so you craved it. But you couldn’t – shouldn’t – participate in the alliance. It was too dangerous. In the name of the education your parents so kindly sponsored, you placated yourself with field schools on far-off, less habitable planets to study robust and sometimes dangerous plant life.

When your second field school wrapped up, you traveled home from university one last time before the destruction of Alderaan. When an invitation to transfer to Naboo was extended, you were already assimilated into a role with your father. Resigned yourself to the moon, studying its flora in your free time, back to restlessness. (You couldn’t bear to tell your father.) Now, look at you.

So — you’re blissfully unaware as far as the townsfolk are concerned. Not ignorant and torn up over crossing an easily-assumed boundary. Hopefully, you can keep it going; otherwise, you might never hear the end of “running off that nice fellow, Mando,” were they privy to your last few tense hours.

Once home, you soak. Eat in the tub. Pull yourself out sluggishly. The toll of the day is weighing on you now, manifested in the dull ache of your lower back and the fuzz around the edges of your consciousness. You consider calling your mother to seek comfort from a loved one parsecs away, but disappointedly put a pin in that when 2-1B pipes up that it’s definitely too early on Yavin 4. Instead, he urges you to go to bed, sweetening the deal by offering to settle in your room for the night. You can’t complain.

With 2-1B sat in the worn armchair opposite the bedside table, the gentle whirring of parts dissolves into a white noise that lulls you into easy slumber.

You wake to persistent knocking at your front door. Blearily – foolishly – you half-hope that the Mandalorian will be there, green baby tucked under an arm. You’ve run to the clinic in slippers enough times that you pull on a pair of boots and a soft coat on your trudge to the door. 2-1B follows behind, in case you’re needed.

The door slides open, and you pull the zip high on your coat, covering your throat from the bite of morning air. Two men stand on the stoop, expressions pleasant despite their grizzled appearance. You look between them, and they look at you. For a long moment. They don’t look hurt, and you definitely don’t recognize them. They glance at one another briefly. You try to keep an open posture.

“How can I help you?” You ask finally, uncertainty curving your brow.

“Have you seen our friend, Mando?” One asks, proffering a puck from his pocket. Sure enough, it fizzles alight with the Mandalorian’s likeness, helm shimmering in its image. You want to roll your eyes but resist the urge – whatever Maker is out there really won’t give you a break right now, will they?

You look at his hologram closely, knitting your brow. “That could be anybody with a helmet on. Got a holo without it? Or a name?”

“’S all we got, miss.”

“Then I’m afraid not. I’ve read about Mandalorians but never met one,” you sigh wistfully. You think you’re selling it. “I’ve heard they’re rare.”

“That’s funny ’cause we know you have.”

Hopefully, the chill that ripples down your spine isn’t too noticeable. “And how would you ‘know’ this if it were true? This is a small moon, a small town. Locals don’t take kindly to strangers.”

They share an amused look, one bouncing their brows at the other, before their steely gazes return to you.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure.” One says, and has he taken a step closer? You take one back, hand resting on the doorframe.

“I dunno. It was pretty simple.” The other sighs, clicking his tongue in faux disappointment. Slowly, they begin their advance. “This is a town of old scuds, sweetheart. A lil’ strongarming and a few folks mentioned our buddy stayed here, in your place. You have history.”

You blink, having to stifle the pang of hurt. Fear. You care so kriffing much, and it’s inevitable they can glean as much from the wild look in your eyes. Their smug expressions, like they’ve won, make your skin tingle and tears prickle the corners of your eyes.

“If by history, you mean the one time we met ten years ago, sure.” You scoff automatically, cheeks feeling hot now. You aren’t sure what you expect, keeping up this crumbling farce for someone you really have no clue about, but you’ll feel lucky with your life and all four limbs. At least you’ve got a med droid. (If they don’t disassemble him for parts). “He’s got shitty red plate armor and a shiny helmet. That’s all I’ve got.”

It’s a stretch – you don’t know how long he’s looked like he does – but the dated description is enough for their eyes to meet briefly, providing you with an adequate enough window to retreat and slap the door closed. It’s so unbelievably stupid, but now that adrenaline propels you forward, it feels almost thrilling, like what you once chased. Almost because, this time, you’re dealing with bounty hunters sent for a Mandalorian instead of a carnivorous plant or two.

“Come, quickly!” You hiss at the droid, bounding down the hall and opening every door, hoping to slow them down. They pound on the door behind you, shouting indiscernibly.

“What is the plan?” 2-1B asks, looming protectively as you slide the blaster rifle out of its case, now laid out on the bed. Transparisteel shatters distantly as they probably crash through the most accessible route: the great window in the living room.

“I’m going to stun them when they come in. Then I need you to sedate them.” You whisper shakily. “Maker, we should have a real plan for this.” His eyes flicker as you check the gas canister and rise, fingers flipping a small switch near the trigger. There’s no time for affirmation or reflection because you can hear one fast approaching, the tread of his boots sloppy compared to the light-footed Mandalorian.

2-1B flanks you at the ready as you brace the rifle at your shoulder, finger hovering. The rush is making your face numb, and fingers tremble somehow harder. The mere moments drag into hours, and you focus on the corner where they should emerge.

At the first lick of dark fabric, your body pulls tight, and you take the shot. It’s the one who held the puck – he collapses in a heap, blaster skittering away by sheer force. 2-1B pivots the tiniest bit, and you nod. He pulls the man out of sight from the door.

You wait some time before the other comes around – or, it feels like a while, the roaring staccato of your heart practically drowning out any noise from the rest of the house as he rifles through things. Calls his partner’s name once, which you immediately forget.

When he’s down the hall, you speak, “F-fine, I’ll tell you where he’s going! Please, just don’t hurt me.” The sob that forces its way from your chest is genuine, tears flowing freely. The man to your left makes a low sound, wide eyes staring at you, and his partner sounds to pick up the pace. You almost don’t get him in time, firing simultaneously. He drops hard. The bolt he fires is hot, melting the fibers of your jacket to your shoulder, where it grazes past and burns into the wall behind you. You’re sure it hurts, but you can’t feel it yet.

You finally let out a long breath, shoulders sinking. The rifle drops to your side, held by its sling.

< PART 4 | Part 6 >

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