Back

Moving on, I wrote about my thoughts of #mozilla #firefox's prospects after the demise of XUL-based extensions post version 57.

I revisited this topic over time, but in 2017 we were deep in the middle of discussion around whether this would be the death of Firefox for a significant portion of the "power user" base.

Did you lose extensions? Did Firefox die for you then?

Do you agree with me that Firefox post-57 is still a good browser? Read on:

https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2017/08/09/post-57-what-is-firefox-unique-selling-proposition.html

At some point my interest in #opendata intersected with meatspace and I started contributing to #openstreetmap

I posted about how to get started editing on it back in 2018 - since then, I updated the post a bit to talk about my current mapping activity and how you might want to map on #android

Hat tip as well to @aredridel for their thoughts on digital redlining that felt important to mention in my updated post.

#maps #activism

https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2018/05/25/how-to-get-started-contributing-to-openstreetmap.html

I'm one of those people that still has a non-streaming music library stored locally, so I had set up #Airsonic to manage my #music library and manage conversion from #flac and other music formats for playback on mobile.

To scratch my own itch, I configured Airsonic to convert my FLAC music transparently to #opus on download, and shared my config.

Hope it scratches your itch too!

https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2018/08/12/does-airsonic-support-opus.html

Starting off Friday with a post about containers in the #firefox #browser.

Containers allow you to segregate your cookies on a per-tab basis, allowing you to separate your cookie jars arbitrarily.

In 2019, someone had a question about the #facebook container that #mozilla released, and how it differed from the standard container #extension.

If you use Facebook (why?), I think it is worth using: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2019/02/04/is-there-any-difference-between-facebook-container-and-firefox-multi-account-containers.html

I saw @hipsterelectron mention that #duckduckgo is pushing Bing #AI excerpts of pages.

I'm still looking for a #search engine when looking for information on the web, not an oracle, so I tend to try to actively ignore AI results.

Still, it reminded me that other options exist, like @StartpageSearch. After I talked about them on Twitter, their account actually followed me!

Read the post: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2018/11/14/what-search-engine-do-you-use.html

Here's one for the #linux users -- specifically those who run #debian or derivative distributions like #ubuntu and #linuxmint

If you put a web browser binary somewhere on your filesystem (like inside of $HOME), the rest of your OS doesn't know that you can use that app to open links.

I pointed someone over to a resource on how to teach Debian that your manually-installed browser can open links: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2019/02/05/how-can-i-set-a-manually-installed-browser-as-the-default-on-debian-ubuntu-mint.html

Hope it continues to help people!

Something more interesting for the former #Mac fans now using #linux -- you may wonder why Linux users try to run #windows apps when they can't find a Linux native app rather than a #macos app - aren't Linux and MacOS more similar, given that they are both #unix systems?

Unfortunately, it isn't easy to run Mac apps on Linux, even years later: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2018/09/18/when-linux-native-software-isnt-available-why-do-we-emulate-the-windows-version-arent-mac-and-linux-more-similar.html

Did you know that #ui notifications in #firefox for #microsoft #windows are native?

That wasn't the case in 2019: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2019/02/05/what-ever-happened-to-native-windows-notifications-in-firefox.html

Do you prefer OS native notifications? Controls?

Think back to your upgrade to #macos Mojave - did you notice that Apple dropped font smoothing on non-high DPI displays?

Well, a lot of people did when they were using #firefox, because it arrived with a bug that coincided with the macOS release that made fonts too blurry.

Mozilla eventually released a fix matching the platform behavior: https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2019/01/23/text-in-fonts-too-bold-or-blurry-in-firefox-on-macos-mojave.html

Sometimes, you just gotta have fun with your devices.

Every once in a while, I decide to try to spruce up my application UIs by using themes. While a lot of people tend to go cutesy, I end up playing with #retrocomputing themes - UIs that were used in the past but aren't anymore, or sometimes, themes that were unreleased.

While playing with #firefox color, I put together a theme resembling the unreleased #macos Drawing Board theme for Mac OS 8.

Hope you enjoy it!

https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2018/06/06/firefox-color-theme-inspired-by-classic-mac-os-drawing-board.html

Every once in awhile, people switching from #Chrome to #Firefox realize that their #chromecast won't work in Firefox.

People often wonder why #mozilla simply doesn't pay people to implement support in Firefox.

I've written up some thoughts as to why doing this really ought to be up to #Google -- they produce the proprietary product intended to promote Chrome usage:

https://www.quippd.com/social/comments/2020/01/22/does-firefox-support-chromecast-and-accelerated-mobile-pages.html

PS: Nothing stops people from keeping a Chromium browser installed to "cast" videos.

@z3rOR0ne I mention that in my post, unfortunately it only works for CLI apps, and running GUI apps remains experimental.

@freechelmi Are you running an unsupported macOS? That can be annoying. There's always OpenCore Legacy Patcher: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/ for those machines.

I think that support is going to vary based on the hardware, but Linux can definitely be an option for older Mac hardware, if hardware is supported.

@yoasif well almost , i run the latest supported on mba 2013 which is big sur

Running unsupported macos might be against my religion

@freechelmi Unfortunately Big Sur is unsupported as of September 26, 2023.

If your software isn't supported on that OS, I would look at other options for your OS.

Web browsers in particular seem to require Catalina (both Chrome and Firefox), so I hope you aren't browsing the web on that machine in #macos.

@yoasif thx i know :-) this is why i provide linux in this machines , keeping people on mac os is a dead end

@lianna @hipsterelectron @StartpageSearch Really?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0elzk24dno

@yoasif @hipsterelectron @StartpageSearch Yes. I work in the field.

I said "large amounts of language data". A few one-sentence (if at all) notifications are not enough data to reliably summarise, especially when context or cultural knowledge like irony or metaphors are required to understand large parts of the content.

@lianna @hipsterelectron @StartpageSearch Is this enough data?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11gzejgz4o

@yoasif @hipsterelectron @StartpageSearch Do you even know anything about how the technology works or are you just googling "AI fail bbc"?

@lianna @hipsterelectron @StartpageSearch I don't claim to be an expert in any way, I just know that the products don't work, no matter how the technology is designed to work.

Why should I believe a summary with lies in it? Why should I waste my time consuming content that the vendor disclaims?

Getting fake knowledge isn't a goal for me even if technologists and business want me to rely on it.