Talk:Firefox/Archive 8

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Fall Cleaning...

It's time to do some fall cleaning! Guess what that means! We've got to clean up the article, make it a little more coherent, get a screenshot of FFX2 running Windows Vista, for which the current theme was designed, and more flow to the article. More pictures would be nice also, and I like the idea of a gallery at the bottom. But changes must be made. See you soon when it's time for spring cleaning (FFX3) Kingy 01:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, according to the designers of the FFX2 UI, they kept an XP look and decided to hold off on using a Windows Vista look until FFX3. You can listen to the interview with them at TWiT.tv---> http://www.twit.tv/itn38 --Phnx2ashes 21:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I was not aware of that. However, I am aware that most people think it looks a lot better in Vista than it does in XP Kingy 05:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
You know very well that that statement contains "weasel Words" :). I like the way any application looks in Vista, but FFX2's UI was made for XP, Linux, and Mac OS X "Tiger". --Phnx2ashes 19:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

How should we include other builds?

I tried to make a separate article but that got deleted. It doesn't seem like a good idea to put it in this article but,I still think we should included it somewhere. Does anyone have any ideas? Mike92591 23:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted passage from intro

On October 19 2005, Firefox reached its 100 millionth download (see Download count below). Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29 2005, with more than 2 million downloads within the first 36 hours.[1] Firefox hit 200 million downloads on July 31 2006, according to the Spread Firefox website.[2]

Criticism - prefetching

I have added this comment on Talk:Link prefetching, but after a while I think it more belongs here.

The following has been recently removed from the article with comment "rvt. link prefetching is explain on own article.":

"Link prefetching involves an optimization technique that utilizes the browser's idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future.

For example, if you search for "internet explorer", Firefox may connect with Microsoft's server (first link returned by Google), even if you eventually choose a link to Wikipedia."

I think it should be mentioned in this article, because this has obvious privacy implications. (And considering the fact that it is used by Google, it can also falsify referer stats on http servers.)

Standardization body of HTML is w3c.org. Prefetching used in Firefox (and other Gecko-based web browsers) is enabled by default AND is NOT standardized in the same time. (In FF there is even no GUI to disable this feature. Bugs in Mozilla's Bugzilla related to this are closed with WONTFIX; look thread "Criticisms of 2.0" above for more info.)

How does prefetching work in FF? When there is somewhere in the page <link rel="prefetch" href="http://some.url"> then browser may in idle time "prefetch" http://some.url. But you know what? There is no value "prefetch" for "rel" in HTML standard! See here then click on "rel", you land here, then click on "link-types" and you finally land on "Link types". You see? There is no "prefetch".

Also, standard says (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#h-12.3): (about <link>) "This element defines a link. Unlike A, it may only appear in the HEAD section of a document, although it may appear any number of times." But Firefox (and other Gecko-based browsers) recognizes <link rel="prefetch"> even in <body>. Another breaking of standard. 193.219.28.146 18:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Implementing a feature not in a standard is not the same as breaking a standard. Does any W3C standard say that a user agent MUST NOT do link prefetching? If not, then link prefetching is allowed by the standards. Also, the W3C standard you are quoting above saying that <link> many appear only in the HEAD section of a document applies to whether the HTML is valid. That means an HTML document with a <link> element in the body does not conform to the standard; it does not mean that a browser that recognizes a <link> element in the body does not conform to the standard. Please read standards documents carefully; they mean only what they say, not other things that you might want to read into them. -- Schapel 18:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, this is you, who don't understand what standards are created for.
I think it is not accident, that one of the most popular search engine on Earth returns sometimes these "not conforming HTML documents", and that FF and other browsers from Mozilla Corporation process them.
From criticism section in article about MSIE:
"Other criticisms, mostly coming from technically proficient users and developers of websites and browser-based software applications, concern Internet Explorer's support of open standards, because the browser often uses proprietary extensions (...)." "Internet Explorer's ubiquity, in spite of its inferiority in this area, frustrates developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code and the advanced functionality it provides, because they are often stuck coding pages around Internet Explorer's bugs, proprietary featureset, and missing standards support instead."
I see double standards here. MSIE - bad, FF - good, whatever the reality is. To all blind FF's defenders out there -- please, stop groupthinking and try to be fully objective and not biased.
Read also about <a ping> / <area ping> atribute, which is also not standardized (and really, REALLY bad). 193.219.28.146 18:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If you can find a reliable source to cite that criticizes Firefox's prefetching, feel free to add it to the article. We're not "defending Firefox" but merely upholding Wikipedia's policies and explaining what the standards documents really say. -- Schapel 19:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
"Try to take a breath and remain coherent." Please, don't write "we", when you are writing on your behalf only. Thank you.
And about finding reliable source -- I've described it quite clearly and broadly, I think. Should I put all this on some page, and then add it as reliable source to article? 193.219.28.146 21:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
No, you may not put your original research on a page, and then use that page as a reliable source. Read the "Self-published sources" part at the link I gave. If you want to say something about Firefox, please say it, and then cite a reliable source that says the same thing that you say in the article. Surely you can understand this simple policy? -- Schapel 22:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Does that mean, that researchers (generally - people that know something about given subject) are not able to edit Wikipedia (to be exact - articles related with their field of interest)? 193.219.28.146 22:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Anyone can edit Wikipedia so long as they cite reliable sources. If you did research on Firefox code and wrote a paper with your conclusions, and then got your paper published by a reliable source, you would be able to add your conclusions to this article, if you provide the proper citations. -- Schapel 00:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, 'we' generally refers to the community - 'we' in this case is all those people who have spent years creating the policies that you have been pointed at and also Schapel and myself.-Localzuk(talk) 22:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that you treat these policies very selectively. For example: Schapel claims that some uncorrect source is a "reliable source" (see thread "Criticism of 2.0"). You also claim, that source code is not "reliable source". Such behaviour is so biased, that it is even not funny... 193.219.28.146 22:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
First you accuse us of groupthink, and then you criticize us whenever we have the slightest disagreement? Such behavior is so biased, that it is even not funny... The truth is, we're not all going to agree on what constitutes a reliable source. There are judgment calls that must be made. In the case of source code, I think we do agree that the source code is a reliable source, but any conclusions based upon an analysis of source code that is not published by a reliable source is original research. -- Schapel 00:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
"Authors may wish to define additional link types not described in this specification. If they do so, they should use a profile to cite the conventions used to define the link types. Please see the profile attribute of the HEAD element for more details."[1] "Although LINK has no content, the relationships it defines may be rendered by some user agents."[2] Regardless, this constitutes original research.--Nonpareility 19:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
FF (and other Gecko browsers) succesfully process <link rel="prefetch"> regardless of the contents of the HEAD element. You can create HTML documents (and put it on some server) that only contains:
<link rel="prefetch" href="whatever">
and FF will try to prefetch "whatever".
And about original research again... I guess adding 2 and 2 is also original research (unless it is not bad for FF, of course...). But anyway, this behaviour is documented, e.g. here: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Link_prefetching_FAQ 193.219.28.146 18:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, adding two and two on your own is original research (see "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position"). Do you see anywhere in Wikipedia where someone has done original research? If so, feel free to point it out and remove the offending material. It should not be in here. -- Schapel 19:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't mean to jump in here, but I think the point is that User:193.219.28.146 is probably right: There may be an unfair criticism for Internet Explorer as opposed to FireFox. Unfortunatley, an encyclopedia is not the place to make that argument. Firefox is 3 years old, while IE is 10. History has much to do with the disparity as does user adoption. Again, the debates on "standards vs. extensions" for the Web will occur (and are occurring), but they will likely be in other fora, but not in Wikipedia. Let's agree to give this issue more time, and wait for better sources. --71.161.215.75 00:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's unfair. To take apart the quote from the MSIE article: Firefox is not ubiquitous; Firefox does not have inferior support of web standards; it does not frustrate developers who want to write standards-compliant, cross-browser code and the advanced functionality it provides; and developers are not stuck coding pages around Firefox's bugs, proprietary featureset, and missing standards support instead. It's not that saying it about MSIE is good and about Firefox is bad. It's that saying it about MSIE is correct and saying it about Firefox is incorrect. If you disagree, find a reliable source that says any of these things about Firefox. If there's any truth about it, I'm sure you can find some mention of it somewhere right now. Firefox uses the same Gecko engine that's been around for eight years. -- Schapel 04:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You're rejecting the chance for some criticisms to be made of Firefox, in the future. Will Firefox face equal criticisms as that of MSIE? No, they probably won't make the same mistakes, verbatim. That was never anyone's point. The point is that Firefox extensions may earn future criticism, whether Firefox's ubiquity changes or not. Obviously, User:193.219.28.146 wishes to make this point right now, as original research and a campaign against a "NPOV" bias. I think we should wait and see: They may happen, they may not. We'll know when they do. --75.68.201.229 17:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Version image

For some non-existent reason the infobox uses an image for the version number. This seriously needs changing, it looks weird and is completely pointless.

Just to make people aware that List of Firefox extensions has been placed for proposed deletion. Dunno what impact this will have. --tgheretford (talk) 19:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It'll have no impact if the deletion template is removed. I've requested further justification of the deletion on the talk page. The deletion template specifically says that anyone who objects should remove it, and if the requester can't fully justify deleting the article, I'll remove the proposed deletion template (if someone else doesn't do it first). It may be a legitimate concern, it may be a misunderstanding, or it may just be creative vandalism. If it really doesn't belong on Wikipedia, I'm certainly not going to stand in the way of its deletion, but judging from all of the other articles that fit the requester's objection, I kind of doubt the article should really be removed. -Erik Harris 20:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I have de-prodded it as the article has some value. It does need work to get rid of the non-notable and unimportant ones.-Localzuk(talk) 20:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Firefox 3.0

It looks they are finishing Firefox 3.0 Alpha 1, it appears in several FTP-folders like this --Denniss 15:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Those are just nightly builds, the same as have been available for about a year. -- Schapel 16:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Allegations that this article is not NPOV

I see that there are allegations that the Firefox article does not conform to Wikipedia's official NPOV policy. What are the specifics of these allegations? It seems like many people are concerned that some criticisms of Firefox are not addressed. Does anyone have reliable sources to cite so these criticisms can be verified? -- Schapel 18:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Read my comments on this page above, all of them.
Some links (I guess you will consider them "not reliable", but I don't care; you're not the only person, who edits Wikipedia):
"By default, Firefox checks the web pages that you visit against a list of suspected web forgeries (a "blacklist") that is downloaded to your hard drive at regularly scheduled intervals (e.g., approximately twice per hour)"
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html : "We may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of Google." (i.e. sell it for example, I believe)
Sorry, but Blogs and forums are not acceptable sources. This is accepted per guideline (which is an extension of WP:V). Unless you can provide us with a source that states these things, that is reliable, they cannot be included. Also, this does not warrant stating that the entire article is POV - missing one, minor, fact out of the article does not make the entire article POV.-Localzuk(talk) 18:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
If Blogs and forums are not acceptable sources, please check Footnotes in the article and remove all sources that are blogs and forums. There are a lot of them. Also, above I mentioned few pages, that are NOT "blogs and forums", namely http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/privacy/firefox-en.html , http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html , http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.send_pings . So, please don't ignore my points and don't take only what is convenient for you.
Looking at the footnotes, I see only a handful - which, when I have time and inclination, I will remove. Also, those references are all well and good for describing the features - but without a separate source we cannot draw any conclusions from them - so we can't mention any criticism.-Localzuk(talk) 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
There is not only "one minor fact" missing. There are at least three issues worth mentioning (and criticizing): 1) prefetching 2) "ping" attribute and 3) antiphishing (I've described why it is bad in my previous postings on this page.)
And I would say, considering the article is about a browser that has gone through multiple iterations and has a lot more about it than these, minor, issues - they are still minor. Ok, they should be included - but only if they are well sourced.-Localzuk(talk) 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Please, read also article about groupthinking. Really, I am not some Microsoft zealot, I like and love OSS as the next guy and I care about web standards. That's all... And I am really upset about direction that MoFo/FF is heading for... 193.219.28.146 22:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
And that shows that you are editing in a biased manner - please leave your bias at the door before editing. It doesn't help an article. (Looking at your talk page, you seem to have a problem with bias)-Localzuk(talk) 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
You can look all you want in history and talk page of this IP, but all your conclusions will be probably wrong. Why? Because this IP is a proxy (now you can tell this to some admin, and he will block this IP; I guess few persons will be REALLY happy about this). It is NOT open-proxy, but this proxy is accessible for quite a large group of people in Poland (potentially, hundreds of thousands, I believe).
Personally, I edited only articles about Mozilla Firefox and Link prefetching (actually, only talk pages, with small exceptions). I'm not responsible for edits made by others. And I'm not going to register at the moment. If this address is blocked -- you will not see me anymore here (at least, not in the nearest future). 193.219.28.146 00:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, please propose what you would like to include, as you seem to misunderstand the purpose of our policies (you seem to see them as a hinderence to including information, but they are there to prevent nonsense and opinion being included).-Localzuk(talk) 19:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
There should be separate Criticism section in the article. NOTHING is perfect. There are such sections in articles about other major browsers, namely Opera and MSIE. So, it should be also here. Read my comments on this page (e.g. threads "Criticisms of 2.0", "Criticism - prefetching", "Allegations that this article is not NPOV") about what should be included. I am not native English speaker (as you've probably noticed), so I don't want modify article personally. But I gave sufficient details, what's wrong with FF (especially 2.0), I think. 193.219.28.146 22:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but a seperate criticism section has a huge set of problems attached to it - namely all those we have discussed in the past. We even removed the seperate article on that subject and merged it back in. Why should we break up the flow of an article in order to create a 'pro' vs 'anti' division? Since we have removed the section and seperate page the page has suffered from much less problems regarding trolling, pov warring etc...
Using other articles as an example is not a good idea - simply because those are the ones in the wrong, not this one...-Localzuk(talk) 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
LoL, that's so funny, that I'm even not going to comment it... 193.219.28.146 00:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I apologize, I guess I was too harsh a bit. You are probably right in the long run, but problem is that at present some random user after browsing articles about major browsers could easily be under impression that FF is the best. I guess policies are not used in the same manner by all people involved in creating articles about different browsers, which is not good, I think. 193.219.28.146 22:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
If you want something added to the article, then go ahead and add it. Be bold. Is the real reason you're upset is that you think you should be directing us what to do (telling us what to add to the article), and we're not doing it (adding it)? Don't worry about doing something wrong. If what you write is not grammatically correct or is not NPOV, we may fix it. However, if you just write your original research, don't be surprised if someone simply deletes it, as they should. -- Schapel 23:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Try to take a breath and remain coherent. The first O'Reilly article is a criticism about Google's extension, not about Firefox. The statement "By default, Firefox checks the web pages that you visit against a list of suspected web forgeries (a "blacklist") that is downloaded to your hard drive at regularly scheduled intervals (e.g., approximately twice per hour)" is merely an explanation of how Firefox's antiphishing works. Feel free to add that to the article, as it is verified by reliable sources. I still don't see any criticism of Firefox's antiphishing that is verified by a reliable source. -- Schapel 19:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
This extension is now part of the FF2. Antiphishing is from Google. BTW:
(in directory with source code of FF2:)
$ grep -r 'The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Google Inc' . | wc -l
194
Interesting, isn't it? Oh, and if you still claim, that source code is not "reliable source", than add this sentence to the article about WP:RS. 193.219.28.146 22:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, it isn't really that interesting - seems how some of the key developers of Firefox work for Google... You can include information from source code, but you cannot draw any conclusions from it. We have said this time and time again. Have you read any of the policies I have posted links to?? If you haven't, I don't see how we can discuss this - as you simply will not understand our policies.-Localzuk(talk) 22:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
So why there is no mention about close relationship between Google and MoFo in the article? It should be mentioned, because it has quite obvious implications (at least, they are obvious for some people...).
It seems to me that for few persons all policies are basically reduced to "criticism of FF is BAD, don't do it". 193.219.28.146 00:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Which persons would those be? I can't seem to recall anyone taking that attitude. Can you show a specific instance of any person suppressing the inclusion of any criticism into this article, when there was a reliable source cited? -- Schapel 01:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to be clear about this O'Reilly article - this extension is now part of the FF2 indeed, but it was probably improved somehow since time of writing this article. For example, some official source says that "The algorithm for encrypting lookups is RC4.". So it is probably a little better in this regard, but generally the points are still valid. (My personal opinion is that this "phishing protection" thing is included because Google wants to gather more URLs and statistics about users. Then, they can sell it or use to optimize their services. So, when you are recommending FF to some user, you are effectively helping Google to make a buck.) 193.219.28.146 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I have said this to various users - please leave your POV at the door before editing. It does not help in creating a NPOV article. Your comments above simply amount to original research - and unless you can provide an up to date reference for this then it is opinion and conjecture only, so cannot be included.-Localzuk(talk) 22:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I realize that my opinion about FF and Google is, well, only opinion. I'm not going to include it, don't worry. I also realize that this will be probably never included in the article. Reasons are obvious - Google is not interested in spreading this information very widely, so "reliable source" (i.e. message from Google or FF's devs) will never appear. 193.219.28.146 22:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
There are reliable sources other than Google or Mozilla. I'm sure if there's a valid criticism of the Google/Mozilla connection that's notable enough to include in this article that some reliable reporter or author will write about it. When that happens, you are free to cite that source and say what the source says in the article. -- Schapel 16:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
How about this one?
"(...) Mitch pointed to his experience with Firefox (he is the chairman of the Mozilla Foundation).(...) Firefox’s revenue share with Google (the search toolbar in the browser) generates about $50 million a year, he said."
I know there is "blogs." in domain, but even Bruce Schneier has blog these days, you know... 193.219.28.146 02:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't sound like any sort of criticism, but anyway I'm sure we can find a source which everyone agrees is reliable that confirms that Mozilla receives millions of dollars per year from Google. Mozilla employees confirm it; it isn't anything that's being kept secret, as you keep implying. There's an internetnews.com article and an Information Week article that confirm this fact. -- Schapel 03:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I came across this and Googled "criticisms of firefox" out of curiousity, and that lead me to the following user page: User:Avillia/Fire. Now, I'm not saying that's a reliable source, but surely there's got to be some citable sources of the information there. P.S. I use Firefox exclusively, if that matters (it shouldn't, but you never know). --Chris Pickett 06:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that appears to be a version of the original criticisms article, and some of the information is citable and has been included in this article and its sub-articles. It's not as though this article and its sub-articles don't have any criticisms (ex: Firefox being slow to start up, Firefox uses too much memory, Firefox doesn't pass Acid2, Firefox isn't "free" according to Debian and FSF, Firefox doesn't come out of the box with features that other browsers have), it's just that they're not gathered together in a section marked "Criticism". It's a better flow (and arguably more NPOV) to talk about Firefox's licensing in its entirety (including the criticisms), than it is to speak positively about Firefox's licensing in one section, then to trash it in another.--Nonpareility 18:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What the problem seems to be

Well, from having discussed this issue now for a day, it appears that 1923.219.28.146's complaint is that 3 things aren't discussed in the article - prefetching, anti-phising (and with it the link to Google) and the ping attribute. I have not seen a single person argue that this information should not be included. The only arguments have been that in order to include information about these things, we need to have reliable sources to back claims up. We cannot analyse source code and provide an explanation of what it means - as that is original research - instead we must look for other people who have provided the same critique. I think the phrase 'if it is important enough to be on the site, it will have reliable third party sources to back it up' goes well here. All we are asking is that our policies be upheld and reliable sources be provided. Also, all users should asssume good faith and not make wide sweeping allegations of 'groupthink' etc...-Localzuk(talk) 07:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You know, I read through it, and there are a good number of external links, along with cited response to the criticism in User:Avillia/Fire. That user doesn't appear to be a troll based on User page and edit history.
It looks like it's an earlier version of the Criticisms of Firefox article. From a quick check of it, I saw what seemed to be several criticisms that have been addressed in Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2. For others, I think no one could find reliable sources to cite. If anyone wants to, go ahead and read it carefully and try to find reliable sources to cite for those criticisms, and I would have no problem with anyone adding them to this article, as long as the added material conforms to all Wikipedia policies. -- Schapel 13:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, that is an early version of the now re-merged criticisms article. Most of the includable information on that page has been included in this one already. Also, there is a considerable usage of blogs, forums and the like as references on that page which are not reliable sources so would not hold up to be included here.
Again, the onus is on the user stating that this article is POV to provide reliable third party sources for his claims else the information simply cannot be included. I still do not believe that this article is POV - what do other people think?-Localzuk(talk) 22:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Why de-archive the entire thing?

To the anon who de-archived the entire talk page - why did you do this? The topics on this page were (and once again, are) stale - adding a random comment to a section that was started 2 months ago is likely to be ignored. Instead, why not bring up what you wish to discuss as a new section? Also, why is this article not NPOV? There hasn't been any reasons given as such. I am going to remove the tag. Please only re-add it if you can explain why it is POV. (BTW, take a look through the archives to see where criticism is).-Localzuk(talk) 18:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thread "Criticism - prefetching" was started 2 weeks ago, not 2 months ago, and it is still active. Article is very NPOV POV, see my reply for Schapel above and all my comments on this page. 193.219.28.146 18:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
So why did you de-archive the entire 73kb of this page? Rather than just that section? Also, as I state above - the missing out of a single fact about a product does not make an article POV.-Localzuk(talk) 18:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Not "single fact", as I've explained above. But OK, you're probably right that reverting whole page was not that smart... Anyway, if you are going to archive it, please leave all threads related with criticism. I believe it is important, because it seems that article needs some work... 193.219.28.146 00:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. ^ Dotzler, Asa (2005-11-30). "Firefox and more: more than two million". Retrieved 2006-10-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Jamey (2006-07-31). "200,000,000 Downloads". spreadfirefox.com. Retrieved 2006-10-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)