Linux

48239 readers

557 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

nooter692@lemmy.ml

MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml

cypherpunks@lemmy.ml

cyclohexane@lemmy.ml

d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz

-47

What the heck is this trash shipping with firefox? about:compat (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by mvirts@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Visit about:compat in your firefox. I find it insane that these exist.

Edit: I've learned that this is part of the webcompat system addon developed by Mozilla and other contributors. I see why this is beneficial default behavior, since FF has no chance of getting enough market share to matter more if things are broken.

However, this behavior is too intrusive for my taste. For example this injection: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/8a4afb4d34f8/browser/extensions/webcompat/injections/js/bug1472075-bankofamerica.com-ua-change.js is basically just to silence annoying user reports.

Also, Every site FF pretends to be a different UA on is artificially reducing FF market share data.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

            
              Why is this trash? It's making websites that are hostile work properly?
The example you linked literally doesn't reduce FFs marketshare. It's a fix for a website that's hostile towards macOS and Linux users, by pretending to be FF on Windows...

[–] mvirts@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I believe including specific site fixes in the main browser release is a bad idea. It seems like many disagree with that belief, and that's fine.
For that example I take issue with the justification in the comment above the code that the problem solved is a high volume of reported issues. That injection solves a problem for webcompat, not Firefox.

What I mean by market share is for each individual site that Firefox pretends to be another browser on, that site's statistics will show very few or no Firefox users. Sites that are already broken probably don't care, but they may see that as justification to disregard Firefox users i During future changes.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If they are having to add compat, it is because it is a popular site that is already ignoring Firefox. I am sure they have communicated the problems. The website operators don’t care.

What hurts Firefox market share is when regular users have problems on the sites they frequent. The lower Firefox market share, the fewer sites care about it ( as you seem to understand ). Firefox has to make these kinds of fixes.