Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora: * GPU acceleration * Integration with the desktop's geolocation services * On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox at the moment * Integration with the desktop's notification system * Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work) * UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd party theme and extensions) * GTK3 support * High-DPI support * Touch input support
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default?
Hi Elad, Some of the issues you mention we actually have people in the desktop team at Red Hat working on, like the GTK3 port.
In general I am tempted to keep Firefox as our primary browser for a variety of reasons like brand recognition, security updates and web site support. So while I am positive to the effort the Web team are undertaking I am having a hard time convincing myself they would be a better choice for us despite the integration advantage they bring.
Christian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elad Alfassa" elad@fedoraproject.org To: "Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop" desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Friday, June 6, 2014 5:52:33 PM Subject: Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox at the
moment
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd party theme
and extensions)
- GTK3 support
- High-DPI support
- Touch input support
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default? -- -Elad Alfassa.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 12:03 PM, Christian Schaller cschalle@redhat.com wrote:
Hi Elad, Some of the issues you mention we actually have people in the desktop team at Red Hat working on, like the GTK3 port.
In general I am tempted to keep Firefox as our primary browser for a variety of reasons like brand recognition, security updates and web site support. So while I am positive to the effort the Web team are undertaking I am having a hard time convincing myself they would be a better choice for us despite the integration advantage they bring.
I agree. Martin's gtk3 firefox COPR looked very nice. I hope it starts to get more frequent updates again soon.
josh
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Christian Schaller cschalle@redhat.com wrote:
Hi Elad, Some of the issues you mention we actually have people in the desktop team at Red Hat working on, like the GTK3 port.
In general I am tempted to keep Firefox as our primary browser for a variety of reasons like brand recognition, security updates and web site support. So while I am positive to the effort the Web team are undertaking I am having a hard time convincing myself they would be a better choice for us despite the integration advantage they bring.
Christian
I'm well aware of the efforts going on to port firefox to GTK3.
Nevertheless, this port won't get us much, because Firefox will still look alien to the rest of the desktop (which is something upstream is unwilling to change, and Fedora people objected to including the "Firefox GNOME" theme by default).
Even after the GTK3 port is done, High-DPI and touch input support won't be supported (at least, not anytime soon). How can we advertise high-dpi and touch input support as features of our product if our default web browser, arguably the most important app for most users, doesn't support them?
I wanted to raise a couple of more points about how upstream treats Linux, but I'd rather stick with constructive criticism here.
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On 06/06/2014 12:20 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Christian Schaller <cschalle@redhat.com mailto:cschalle@redhat.com> wrote:
Hi Elad, Some of the issues you mention we actually have people in the desktop team at Red Hat working on, like the GTK3 port.
In general I am tempted to keep Firefox as our primary browser for a variety of reasons like brand recognition, security updates and web site support. So while I am positive to the effort the Web team are undertaking I am having a hard time convincing myself they would be a better choice for us despite the integration advantage they bring.
Christian
I'm well aware of the efforts going on to port firefox to GTK3. Nevertheless, this port won't get us much, because Firefox will still look alien to the rest of the desktop (which is something upstream is unwilling to change, and Fedora people objected to including the "Firefox GNOME" theme by default).
Is there any reason that this cannot be packaged separately from the 'firefox' SRPM and included as part of Fedora Workstation? I don't think it's an unreasonable thing for the Workstation WG to decide should be default on that Product.
Even after the GTK3 port is done, High-DPI and touch input support won't be supported (at least, not anytime soon). How can we advertise high-dpi and touch input support as features of our product if our default web browser, arguably the most important app for most users, doesn't support them?
Ship with Epiphany as well as Firefox? Then we can have useful UI in the gnome-initial-setup perhaps that asks if you're using a touchscreen or detects hi-dpi and then advises you to change the default browser to Epiphany.
I wanted to raise a couple of more points about how upstream treats Linux, but I'd rather stick with constructive criticism here.
Thank you, that's always preferable.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 12:31 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
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On 06/06/2014 12:20 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Christian Schaller <cschalle@redhat.com mailto:cschalle@redhat.com> wrote:
Hi Elad, Some of the issues you mention we actually have people in the desktop team at Red Hat working on, like the GTK3 port.
In general I am tempted to keep Firefox as our primary browser for a variety of reasons like brand recognition, security updates and web site support. So while I am positive to the effort the Web team are undertaking I am having a hard time convincing myself they would be a better choice for us despite the integration advantage they bring.
Christian
I'm well aware of the efforts going on to port firefox to GTK3. Nevertheless, this port won't get us much, because Firefox will still look alien to the rest of the desktop (which is something upstream is unwilling to change, and Fedora people objected to including the "Firefox GNOME" theme by default).
Is there any reason that this cannot be packaged separately from the 'firefox' SRPM and included as part of Fedora Workstation? I don't think it's an unreasonable thing for the Workstation WG to decide should be default on that Product.
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
josh
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:33 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
I know we are not allowed to apply unauthorized patches. I didn't realize extensions might also be impermissible. If so, that would be a strong argument against Firefox.
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On 06/06/2014 01:18 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:33 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
I know we are not allowed to apply unauthorized patches. I didn't realize extensions might also be impermissible. If so, that would be a strong argument against Firefox.
We should invoke the lawyers here, but I doubt that this would be impermissible. I suspect that Firefox implicitly allows this simply by offering a public extension interface and a freely-available mechanism to apply them.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 1:26 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
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On 06/06/2014 01:18 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:33 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
I know we are not allowed to apply unauthorized patches. I didn't realize extensions might also be impermissible. If so, that would be a strong argument against Firefox.
We should invoke the lawyers here, but I doubt that this would be impermissible. I suspect that Firefox implicitly allows this simply by offering a public extension interface and a freely-available mechanism to apply them.
Is a theme an extension? Does it require patches to Firefox? I literally don't know the answer to those questions, and I'm overly cautions when it comes to modifications in regards to the TM aspects. Also, I completely missed the "packaged as a separate SRPM" part.
If a GNOME theme is nothing more than an extension then I would agree with Stephen's assessment, but he's probably correct that we should get it reviewed either way. Apologies if I caused undue alarm.
josh
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On 06/06/2014 01:26 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On 06/06/2014 01:18 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:33 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
I know we are not allowed to apply unauthorized patches. I didn't realize extensions might also be impermissible. If so, that would be a strong argument against Firefox.
We should invoke the lawyers here, but I doubt that this would be impermissible. I suspect that Firefox implicitly allows this simply by offering a public extension interface and a freely-available mechanism to apply them.
It was pointed out to me off-list that Mozilla does in fact have trademark restrictions on shipping plugins, extensions and themes by default:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/ contains the following phrasing:
"If you want to ship extensions, themes or plug-ins installed by default or as part of the same installation process as the Mozilla products (as opposed to, say, linked as XPIs from the default start page), and you plan on distributing them under any Mozilla Marks, you must first seek approval from us. What we find acceptable will depend on the effect of the extensions, themes and plug-ins on the Mozilla product. To give examples, changing the theme of one product to another, equally high-quality and aesthetically pleasing theme would be considered. A combination of ten different extensions with three toolbars and seven context menu items probably wouldn't be."
So we might be able to ship with these extensions, but we would need Mozilla's approval first.
Seriously, it's like they're going out of their way to discourage us from using their product.
On Fri, Jun 06, 2014 at 02:29:50PM -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On 06/06/2014 01:26 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On 06/06/2014 01:18 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:33 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
It might run afoul of the Firefox trademark thing. A rebranded "IceWeasle GNOME" loses all the brand recognition.
I know we are not allowed to apply unauthorized patches. I didn't realize extensions might also be impermissible. If so, that would be a strong argument against Firefox.
We should invoke the lawyers here, but I doubt that this would be impermissible. I suspect that Firefox implicitly allows this simply by offering a public extension interface and a freely-available mechanism to apply them.
It was pointed out to me off-list that Mozilla does in fact have trademark restrictions on shipping plugins, extensions and themes by default:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/ contains the following phrasing:
"If you want to ship extensions, themes or plug-ins installed by default or as part of the same installation process as the Mozilla products (as opposed to, say, linked as XPIs from the default start page), and you plan on distributing them under any Mozilla Marks, you must first seek approval from us. What we find acceptable will depend on the effect of the extensions, themes and plug-ins on the Mozilla product. To give examples, changing the theme of one product to another, equally high-quality and aesthetically pleasing theme would be considered. A combination of ten different extensions with three toolbars and seven context menu items probably wouldn't be."
So we might be able to ship with these extensions, but we would need Mozilla's approval first.
Seriously, it's like they're going out of their way to discourage us from using their product.
I wouldn't say that. It's relatively simple for themes and extensions to render the final result ugly or unusable in a way that reflects poorly on Mozilla/Firefox. We require people who recombine Fedora with other software not to use our trademarks to refer to their resulting effort. No difference here IMHO other than Mozilla trying to acknowledge that some distributions might want to do exactly what we're talking about, and they want to leave the door open.
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On 06/06/2014 02:29 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Seriously, it's like they're going out of their way to discourage us from using their product.
I need to apologize for this. It was said in frustration (and not really even in frustration of this situation). I was having a frustrating day and this seemed at the time to be just one more hurdle.
Please forgive my hasty words.
I should also note that someone from Mozilla reached out to me overnight and stated that they would be certainly willing to work with us to approve Workstation-specific Firefox defaults:
" Mozilla is watching the discussion on Fedora Desktop ML and I just wanted to point out that getting approval to package in plugins and extensions is not impossible or hard to do. Mozilla has these restrictions to protect the end user not to make it hard on partners from shipping stuff to their users. For instance Ubuntu ships a number of extensions baked into their package.
You can see our discussion about the issues raised on Desktop ML here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.planning/PjkCRmkkFmQ
We would obviously love for Firefox to continue to be the default offered to Fedora Users and we know there are a lot of Mozillians that are contributors to both projects and enjoy that default. "
I certainly would call this an act of good faith from Mozilla and believe that we should join this discussion thread so we can work with them to come to a mutually-beneficial outcome.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:31 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
Is there any reason that this cannot be packaged separately from the 'firefox' SRPM and included as part of Fedora Workstation? I don't think it's an unreasonable thing for the Workstation WG to decide should be default on that Product.
There was a thread about this in this list few months ago.
People have objected to adding it for various reasons: 1) Having it installed doesn't make it default. To make it default you need to patch Firefox to load it if it's installed, or load the default if it isn't 2) Some people claimed that it would cause bad user experience if the theme stops being maintained and we'd have to revert users to the default theme 3) People who don't use GNOME desktop don't want this theme
Ship with Epiphany as well as Firefox? Then we can have useful UI in the gnome-initial-setup perhaps that asks if you're using a touchscreen or detects hi-dpi and then advises you to change the default browser to Epiphany.
That's not ideal at all in my opinion. It goes against the usual GNOME UI patterns.
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 12:31 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Ship with Epiphany as well as Firefox? Then we can have useful UI in the gnome-initial-setup perhaps that asks if you're using a touchscreen or detects hi-dpi and then advises you to change the default browser to Epiphany.
I do not think we should install two different browsers, or let the user pick during install or initial-setup. This would not be a good user experience.
We should pick one browser over the other after evaluating which comes closest to meeting our requirements, even though one may not be entirely superior to the other.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 6:20 PM, Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Even after the GTK3 port is done, High-DPI and touch input support won't be supported (at least, not anytime soon). How can we advertise high-dpi and touch input support as features of our product if our default web browser, arguably the most important app for most users, doesn't support them?
This is not really true.
HIDPI works really well (I have a hidpi laptop here) just not out of the box already. Firefox has a scale factor that you can set. It is set to -1 by default it should just be set to whatever the xsettings value is (which shouldn't be that hard to do).
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:37 PM, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 6:20 PM, Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Even after the GTK3 port is done, High-DPI and touch input support won't
be
supported (at least, not anytime soon). How can we advertise high-dpi and touch input support as features of our product if our default web
browser,
arguably the most important app for most users, doesn't support them?
This is not really true.
HIDPI works really well (I have a hidpi laptop here) just not out of the box already. Firefox has a scale factor that you can set. It is set to -1 by default it should just be set to whatever the xsettings value is (which shouldn't be that hard to do).
Allow me to answer your comment with three links, as you said it
"shouldn't be hard":
http://xkcd.com/1349/ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=975919 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1060770
Also, high-dpi support is only one issue out of two I raised here, the other is touch support, which is completely non-existent on Firefox on Linux. I'd assume it would be a bit easier for upstream to implement it when the Gtk3 port is ready, but like most issues I raised here it's a vast amount of bugs which all depends on eachother getting fixed, while both upstream and the Red Hat firefox team don't have enough resources to fix any time soon by the looks of it.
My point in this thread is that Firefox should either be improved, or replaced - the current situation is far from being ideal.
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:37 PM, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 6:20 PM, Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Even after the GTK3 port is done, High-DPI and touch input support won't be supported (at least, not anytime soon). How can we advertise high-dpi and touch input support as features of our product if our default web browser, arguably the most important app for most users, doesn't support them?
This is not really true.
HIDPI works really well (I have a hidpi laptop here) just not out of the box already. Firefox has a scale factor that you can set. It is set to -1 by default it should just be set to whatever the xsettings value is (which shouldn't be that hard to do).
Allow me to answer your comment with three links, as you said it "shouldn't be hard":
http://xkcd.com/1349/ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=975919 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1060770
Non of those links contradict what I said.
So once again:
1) Firefox high dpi support works pretty well already if configured correctly (also stated in one of your bugs);
"Perhaps. But a gtk2 build works pretty well on my high DPI laptop running Fedora 20."
2) To configure it correctly we just need to set one value 3) We already compute the desired value and export it through xsettings 4) Reading an x settings value is not rocket science
Which part is wrong? None.
Also, high-dpi support is only one issue out of two I raised here,
Where did I state this is the only issue?
My point in this thread is that Firefox should either be improved, or replaced - the current situation is far from being ideal.
We should improve it. The alternatives are worse (both epiphany and chromium).
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 8:03 PM, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
Non of those links contradict what I said.
My intention was not to contradict you. What I meant to say is that if you
know (or think) is easy, you should either say so in the relevant bugs, or write patches to fix them.
On 06/06/2014 12:20 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
I'm well aware of the efforts going on to port firefox to GTK3. Nevertheless, this port won't get us much, because Firefox will still look alien to the rest of the desktop
What elements of firefox are you referring to here that would "look alien to the rest of the desktop"?
The work that the GNOME integration team does on the theme[1] and the theme tweaker extension[2] gets FIrefox (GTK2 version) looking pretty close to most default gnome apps, not perfectly integrated, but definitely not "alien", IMHO.
cheers, ryanlerch
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adwaita/ [2] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gnome-theme-tweak/
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
On 06/06/2014 12:20 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
I'm well aware of the efforts going on to port firefox to GTK3. Nevertheless, this port won't get us much, because Firefox will still look alien to the rest of the desktop
What elements of firefox are you referring to here that would "look alien to the rest of the desktop"?
The work that the GNOME integration team does on the theme[1] and the theme tweaker extension[2] gets FIrefox (GTK2 version) looking pretty close to most default gnome apps, not perfectly integrated, but definitely not "alien", IMHO.
cheers, ryanlerch
[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adwaita/ [2] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gnome-theme-tweak/
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
Talking about default firefox, not firefox with 3rd party modifications. Last time we discussed shipping this theme by default the consensuses was that we shouldn't due to the points I raised before.
Note that shipping this theme by default is not as easy as packaging it and adding it to comps, Firefox will need to be patched to load it if it's installed and load the default Firefox theme if it is not.
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 18:52 +0300, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default?
As a full-time Epiphany user, I'm confident in saying that Firefox should remain the default browser in Fedora 21. Let me preface this with a defense of Epiphany:
Epiphany's desktop integration is dramatically better than Firefox's, and I believe it is very important to plan for it to eventually replace Firefox as the default browser in Fedora Workstation. Firefox's developers have shown no interest in attempting to conform to the GNOME HIG, and the newest version of Epiphany is very good at doing so (with the sole exception of the bookmarks dialog, which will need to be rewritten in the future). I think brand recognition is not an appropriate metric by which to choose the default browser. I also think extensibility is not an important metric. Epiphany is intentionally as simple as possible, and users who rely on particular Firefox extensions should feel welcome to install Firefox. (Firefox should certainly be featured in GNOME Software if it were not to be the default.)
I've found that website compatibility issues exist, but they are rare and not significant enough to disqualify it from becoming our default. A notable exception would be YouTube, which is completely broken in Epiphany lacking the H.264 codec from rpmfusion (which shouldn't be necessary as YouTube has WebM videos). This would need to be fixed.
But I think Epiphany is not yet ready to replace Firefox, and will likely be received negatively by users if this were to happen now. To name just a few issues with the latest version: there are serious unresolved TLS security issues, the adblocker blocks all sorts of legit images and styling, opening History hangs the browser, it loads HTTPS pages that fail certificate validation with no warning (and sometimes spuriously fails pages that ought to validate), and it reports Mac OS X in the user agent, tricking sites into displaying Mac-specific downloads and information.
The version of Epiphany in Fedora 20 crashes almost every single time it is closed, and often when you try to open hyperlinks from a different program. This has been fixed upstream for a while, but it's an indication that nobody is maintaining it in Fedora.
I instead recommend packaging GNOME integration Firefox extensions and installing them by default. They are not as good as Epiphany and never will be, but it's better than nothing.
Michael
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 18:52 +0300, Elad Alfassa wrote:
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox
at the moment
This happens because Google's geolocation service, that Firefox uses by default, requires an API Key. If we (Fedora) acquire one from Google and include it on our Firefox build geolocation will work just fine.
That's why Firefox geolocation works on Mozilla's linux builds or other distributions (eg. Arch).
Alternatively we could use Mozilla's location service by default.
On 06/06/2014 11:52 AM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
I know its not our only Target Audience, but the PRD makes it pretty clear that we are targeting Developers. For the potential web developer using Fedora, is there the same (or even simiar) range of web developer extensions and tools available in epiphany that firefox currently has?
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox
at the moment
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd
party theme and extensions)
- GTK3 support
- High-DPI support
- Touch input support
How important are each of these features to our target audience? It is worth (by default) to replace the features that firefox does have (that epiphany doens't) with these features that epiphany has that firefox doesn't?
regards, ryanlerch
GNOME Web 3.12 (and, of course, WebKitGTK+ 2.4.2) are really good.
I noted just a few minor issues (and I'm using them via COPR).
Also, about (web) developers:
1 - I believe the default "Inspector" of both browsers nowadays is much better than several (or all) extensions that Firefox can offer. 2 - Additional development needs should be met by GEdit and/or GNOME IDE. My points are:
1 - Include GNOME Web for default will give him more attention, more (official) testing, more bug reports, more fixes and improvements, and so on.
2 - To me, Fedora spending resources on improving Firefox, instead of GNOME Web, seems the wrong direction.
So, I strongly vote for GNOME Web to be the default browser for Fedora Workstation.
(note: I'm a long, long time Web/Epiphany user and a amateur web dev).
Em Sex, Jun 6, 2014 em 12:52 , Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org escreveu:
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox
at the moment
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd
party theme and extensions)
- GTK3 support
- High-DPI support
- Touch input support
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default? -- -Elad Alfassa.
A point no one has brought up is that Mozilla is spending huge amounts of effort to improve their browser, the entirety of which we can take advantage of vs the situation with WebKit and how it is not used by any major browser in its entirety (yes, the js engine matters, a lot). Related to the first point is Mozilla's work on azure. Currently in nightly you can switch drawing libraries from Cairo to skia. Yes, it's too unstable to use by default, for now, but it provides nice speedups for canvas operations, and uses less power (I.e., my fan didn't need to crank on). When we make the move to Wayland we're going to be relying on glamour to provide our 2d acceleration and skia has a far better story when it comes to gl acceleration. Yeah, we're still stuck with Cairo, but there's no reason not to make the situation better where we can.
Speaking /entirely/ from a layman's perspective, I disagree with this proposal. I have GNOME Web on my machine as a secondary browser; while I do like its UI and its GTK support, these are only marginal considerations before the rest of the functionality in Firefox.
In the spirit of "Don't fix what's not broken" and "tyranny of the masses," I think that, constraining our view to Fedora users only, Firefox has a bigger userbase than Epiphany. Speaking purely for the layman end-user, it would appear a strange decision to abruptly abandon Firefox for GNOME Web. Yes, I am aware just how easy it us to run "su -c 'yum install firefox'," but not all unfortunate end-users are able, and I suspect the move would generate a great deal of bad publicity and FUD on the eye-rolling review sites.
Yammering aside, I see Christian Schaller has actually summed up my points better than all my blabbering here. I do, however, agree with you (Elad) and Michael Catanzaro in that shipping two browsers won't work very well. Michael's usability questions also apply. For some reason I'm obligated to kill Epiphany every time after I close it (the process lingers?) and the compatibility issues are a little irksome (Google Images, for example, refuses completely to give my its modern continuously-scrolling interface).
I would appreciate more exposure for GNOME Web, but shipping it by default might not attract the right audience for that. And I don't quite understand how Fedora contributing to Firefox "instead of" GNOME Web is the wrong direction, if anyone could expand on that for me?
On 06/06/2014 08:52 AM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox
at the moment
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd
party theme and extensions)
- GTK3 support
- High-DPI support
- Touch input support
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default? -- -Elad Alfassa.
Speaking purely for the layman end-user, it would appear a strange decision to abruptly abandon Firefox for GNOME Web. Yes, I am aware just how easy it us to run "su -c 'yum install firefox'," but not all unfortunate end-users are able, and I suspect the move would generate a great deal of bad publicity and FUD on the eye-rolling review sites.
There is no need to use the command line to install a new app. Anyone can easily install Firefox if they really want/need it.
For some reason I'm obligated to kill Epiphany every time after I close it (the process lingers?) and the compatibility issues are a little irksome (Google Images, for example, refuses completely to give my its modern continuously-scrolling interface).
This is a bit of FUD. GNOME Web stable (3.12) already fixed these (and others) problems. And also has brought some big improvements.
I would appreciate more exposure for GNOME Web, but shipping it by default might not attract the right audience for that. And I don't quite understand how Fedora contributing to Firefox "instead of" GNOME Web is the wrong direction, if anyone could expand on that for me?
I don't think that give preference to a program that still uses old technologies (GTK 2, GStreamer 0.10) and that "supports/promotes" closed technologies (patented codecs, Flash, DRM) is exactly according to the Fedora "mission".
Especially when the upstream already have many resources but doesn't seem to give much importance to the platform on which Fedora is based (or to Fedora itself).
But this is just, you know, my opinion.
Fair points all around, Diogo. I completely forgot about the GUI front-end. And I have been rather blind to upstream since I assume package maintainers keep things pretty up-to-date. I think others have addressed concerns about GTK2 &c, but I guess I have to concede the closed software. There isn't much to say about that except for usability: if Mozilla wants to play the usability game, it can't always turn its nose up at codecs, Flash (which hopefully the web is moving away from), or DRM. And I suspect not supporting all these (save for Flash, or dirty Gstreamer plugins? not entirely sure) plays a part in Epiphany's continued role as an underdog relative to Firefox. I suspect much the same for the zealously ideal-centered Trisquel users, and perhaps in a broader view many of the stricter approaches to free software.
I don't think we are owed anything by Mozilla, given their weighty task across all platforms (something something open web), so I can't say anything about upstream apparently snubbing Fedora. Compared to the snippets about why Chrome/ium isn't packaged for Fedora, I think Firefox should surely be one of our better options.
I add, also without sarcasm (I'm very wordy but I really, really hope my sincerity comes across), that this is just my opinion. If everyone else calls for Epiphany to supplant Firefox, I guess there must be some very good reasons (currently beyond my grasp). I hope that someone will change my view if this is so.
On Sat, 2014-06-07 at 08:41 -0700, Kalvin Lee wrote:
There isn't much to say about that except for usability: if Mozilla wants to play the usability game, it can't always turn its nose up at codecs, Flash (which hopefully the web is moving away from), or DRM. And I suspect not supporting all these (save for Flash, or dirty Gstreamer plugins? not entirely sure) plays a part in Epiphany's continued role as an underdog relative to Firefox.
Nah, Epiphany can use Flash and all gstreamer plugins you have installed. If your distro installs them for you, great! Fedora can't.
On Fri, 2014-06-06 at 20:09 -0700, Kalvin Lee wrote:
Yes, I am aware just how easy it us to run "su -c 'yum install firefox'," but not all unfortunate end-users are able,
If Epiphany were to replace Firefox, then Firefox would still be a featured app with a huge banner across the top of the software center (on rotation). There is no way we would ever expect users to use the command line.
Michael's usability questions also apply.
To be very clear: I believe all these usability issues are fixable and that Epiphany should be reconsidered once they are fixed. I'm really very pro-Epiphany, I just happen to agree with you that it is not good enough yet and will draw criticism if we switch before it's ready. Maybe it will be ready in one year, or half a year, or never.
For some reason I'm obligated to kill Epiphany every time after I close it (the process lingers?)
This is fixed in 3.12 (the same issue is also causing 99% of the crashes), but it was never backported to 3.10. All bug reports in Red Hat Bugzilla are ignored. Alas.
and the compatibility issues are a little irksome (Google Images, for example, refuses completely to give my its modern continuously-scrolling interface).
This is half Epiphany's fault for failing in its attempts to pretend to be Safari on OS X, but mostly Google's fault for giving us a shitty website when it doesn't recognize the browser. Anyway newer WebKit does a better job at pretending to be Safari, and Google gives us the correct website again, so fortunately this specifically is not an issue anymore.
The problem is that every time WebKit changes its user agent to fix some websites, other websites break. This is server-side nonsense that has nothing to do with Epiphany's ability to render websites accurately (the most important criterion of all, and a strength of Epiphany). I think the fix for the Google homepage and Google Images broke Google Maps. Alas.
I would appreciate more exposure for GNOME Web, but shipping it by default might not attract the right audience for that. And I don't quite understand how Fedora contributing to Firefox "instead of" GNOME Web is the wrong direction, if anyone could expand on that for me?
The reason is that Firefox does not integrate well with GNOME, and it never will. It does not use the standard GTK+ widgets that 100% of the other programs in the default install use, and it never will. It does not follow GNOME design patterns, such as using header bars with big blue or red action buttons on top, and I don't see that changing either. The menu in the upper right is alien in GNOME. Two years after the release of GNOME 3.4, Firefox does not have an app menu, which is unacceptable and should be *on its own* grounds to disqualify it from the default install, if not for the fact that nothing is really ready to replace it. (I'm aware that a couple other programs, Evolution, Firewall, and SELinux Troubleshooter, also do not have app menus. I think those should be disqualified as well, but those are easier for us to fix than to argue about.)
Perhaps with themes and extensions -- and it's great that Mozilla is interested in allowing extensions -- these issues can be papered over well enough to be satisfied with Firefox long-term. When I last used the suite of GNOME integration extensions (HTitle, Adwaita, and there was one other I can't remember), a year or two ago, they were good but not really good enough. Perhaps they've improved since then.
None of this is to say that Firefox is somehow "bad" -- I believe it is currently the only browser suitable to be the default in Fedora Workstation -- just that we can provide a better user experience with a browser that uses the same technologies and follows the same design patterns as the rest of the desktop.
Michael, your points are all true and essentially unassailable. As an Openbox user I confess myself out of touch with usability issues in GNOME, and as a lazy user I confess myself out of touch with upstream. Perhaps I will play with newer versions of Epiphany later to see how it goes.
But I guess for all my blabbering it boils down exactly to what you mentioned: Epiphany isn't quite ready. If upstream is as good as I've been hearing, I actually do think there's some hope. I only worry that some along-for-the-ride users will grumble at Firefox being shunted out, ideology or no. Mozilla has had a long time to polish Firefox and give it (less platform-independent usability) that GNOME Web hasn't quite gotten to.
All the same, Stephen's link looks very promising, recalling the complaint about upstream not working enough with the Fedora team. I hope we can get some dialogue going. This is healthy discussion.
I add an apology: I think my not using GNOME might be glossed over, but I was very remiss not to investigate upstream Epiphany builds. Sorry. I live under a rock.
On Sat, 2014-06-07 at 10:39 -0700, Kalvin Lee wrote:
I add an apology: I think my not using GNOME might be glossed over, but I was very remiss not to investigate upstream Epiphany builds. Sorry. I live under a rock.
Not really. Very few users would download and build a newer version than is provided by their distro, and that Epiphany has been improving so much recently is unusual.
(This brings up another issue with Epiphany: the release cycle should be adjusted to cater to distros that cannot upgrade its dependencies in a stable release. Or maybe it'd be mostly sufficient if Fedora was willing to do major WebKit updates?)
To sum up this thread:
The general consensus on this list is that Firefox will stay the default browser.
To address the issues that were raised:
GPU Acceleration: in the works, not stable enough yet, but I'm happy to see Mozilla is working on improving this for Linux. In addition to make the browser faster, it will also make it grind less CPU time and, as reported here, save battery - and longer battery time on laptops is always appreciated.
Geolocation: Upstream's bugzilla have obsolete patches to make Firefox use Geoclue2, but nobody wants/has the time/is working on getting them fixed and merged. As a workaround until those patches get merged (if ever) we can use the Mozilla Location Services instead of Google's location services, see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1063739
Desktop Notifications: Not addressed in this thread. Upstream has a bug about this with discussion and implementation notes, but no patches. see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=858919
URL Scheme handler support: Not addressed in this thread. We want irc://, magnet:// and such links to work if the user has an app installed for them. Right now they don't. This also prevents us from adding a software:// URL scheme to make linking to apps in GNOME Software possible. Downstream bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1105640
UI that matches the rest of the desktop: We can't do anything about this. To ship the theme by default, we need permission from Mozilla, and we need to be able to promise that the theme will remain supported and that Firefox updates won't break it, degrading the user's experience to the default theme. We also need a way for the theme to be loaded by default - simply installing it is not enough. This will require patching Firefox. Patching, packaging and getting permission from Mozilla is not impossible, but it seems that giving the promise that the theme will remain supported for the forseeable future is impossible in the current state of things. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=867020 and this mailing list thread from August 2012: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2012-August/007612.html Note that the Firefox GTK3 port doesn't affect this point, because even Firefox with the GTK3 patches still looks exactly like GTK2 Firefox.
GTK3 Support: Still in the works, not stable enough at the moment. No ETA either from what I can see.
High-DPI Support: According to certain people this issue should be "not too hard" to fix, but unless someone is going to write patches, it's not going to happen
Proper touch input support: Won't be possible before the GTK3 port is complete. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711711 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=978679
Hi Elad,
I have update dev.planning list of Mozilla regarding this discussion.
On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 2:26 AM, Elad Alfassa elad@fedoraproject.org wrote:
To sum up this thread:
The general consensus on this list is that Firefox will stay the default browser.
To address the issues that were raised:
GPU Acceleration: in the works, not stable enough yet, but I'm happy to see Mozilla is working on improving this for Linux. In addition to make the browser faster, it will also make it grind less CPU time and, as reported here, save battery - and longer battery time on laptops is always appreciated.
Geolocation: Upstream's bugzilla have obsolete patches to make Firefox use Geoclue2, but nobody wants/has the time/is working on getting them fixed and merged. As a workaround until those patches get merged (if ever) we can use the Mozilla Location Services instead of Google's location services, see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1063739
Desktop Notifications: Not addressed in this thread. Upstream has a bug about this with discussion and implementation notes, but no patches. see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=858919
URL Scheme handler support: Not addressed in this thread. We want irc://, magnet:// and such links to work if the user has an app installed for them. Right now they don't. This also prevents us from adding a software:// URL scheme to make linking to apps in GNOME Software possible. Downstream bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1105640
UI that matches the rest of the desktop: We can't do anything about this. To ship the theme by default, we need permission from Mozilla, and we need to be able to promise that the theme will remain supported and that Firefox updates won't break it, degrading the user's experience to the default theme. We also need a way for the theme to be loaded by default - simply installing it is not enough. This will require patching Firefox. Patching, packaging and getting permission from Mozilla is not impossible, but it seems that giving the promise that the theme will remain supported for the forseeable future is impossible in the current state of things. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=867020 and this mailing list thread from August 2012: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2012-August/007612.html Note that the Firefox GTK3 port doesn't affect this point, because even Firefox with the GTK3 patches still looks exactly like GTK2 Firefox.
GTK3 Support: Still in the works, not stable enough at the moment. No ETA either from what I can see.
High-DPI Support: According to certain people this issue should be "not too hard" to fix, but unless someone is going to write patches, it's not going to happen
Proper touch input support: Won't be possible before the GTK3 port is complete. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711711 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=978679
-- -Elad Alfassa.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
It seems that the decision has already been made, but let me add a few things I've been thinking, anyway:
A big feature of Fedora Next/Workstation initiative is stop gluing things and start building something more coherent. To do so would require not only Fedora contribute to the upstream as well as influence it.
Therefore, since Fedora is in much better position to influence the development of the Web (as well as GNOME as a whole) than Firefox, I believe that preinstall Firefox on Workstation (making it a official part of the whole), especially patched with some extensions, isn't the best option.
In other words, at least for me, to put the focus in Firefox will not help GNOME Web to get "ready", and will not help Fedora reach its goals.
Thanks for reading.
Hello All,
We've been watching this discussion from the Mozilla side and I come sharing my own thoughts.
Some months ago Ubuntu had a similar discussion in regards to whether continuing to have Firefox as the default browser was the right decision. Ubuntu decided after much debate to keep Firefox for a number of reasons including that its users really value it as a browser and technically it was much more superior to the alternative they were looking at.
In regards to plugins being shipped with Firefox I think this is something Mozilla would be happy to do if you want to have that discussion. After all Ubuntu (Canonical) bakes in some extensions. The review process exists to protect users not to restrict partners.
In regards to Firefox supporting distros like Fedora although Linux is a minority operating system I can say Linux has a lot of allies upstream as many Mozillians run popular distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint etc. (Many would probably be disappointed if Firefox was not offered by default)
I hope that before jumping to Gnome Web you will work with upstream to push support for things you need.
Cheers and keep the good work on Fedora!
On Jun 8, 2014 12:02 PM, "Diogo Campos (cadastros)" < cadastros@diogocampos.com.br> wrote:
It seems that the decision has already been made, but let me add a few
things I've been thinking, anyway:
A big feature of Fedora Next/Workstation initiative is stop gluing things
and start building something more coherent. To do so would require not only Fedora contribute to the upstream as well as influence it.
Therefore, since Fedora is in much better position to influence the
development of the Web (as well as GNOME as a whole) than Firefox, I believe that preinstall Firefox on Workstation (making it a official part of the whole), especially patched with some extensions, isn't the best option.
In other words, at least for me, to put the focus in Firefox will not
help GNOME Web to get "ready", and will not help Fedora reach its goals.
Thanks for reading.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
On 06/06/2014 05:52 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
It's supported by Firefox. But it depends what do you actually means - there are many layers of acceleration. Can you be more specific here? Do you have any #BZ?
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox at
the moment
It's because we need an API key to Google Geolocation service. If Evince has the API key, we can use it in Firefox too (see rhbz#1063739).
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
That's true. It's on our TODO list. Patches are always welcome :)
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
Can you point me to #BZ? I'm not aware of it.
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd party
theme and extensions)
- GTK3 support
Will be addressed by Gtk3 port. Our optimistic target is Firefox 32.
- High-DPI support
Already on TODO list - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=975919
- Touch input support
On progress - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=978679
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Can you be more specific here what is leaved behind? All upstream Gtk3 bugs should be registered to:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627699
And as you can see, various people are submitting patches and the project is moving rapidly. And I'm picking the "unowned" bugs.
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps we should consider it as the default?
Mozilla invests money and people to the Firefox Gtk3 port (for instance Collabora writes the gtk2 plugin support code - mozbz#624422) and so we should do. It would be a wrong signal from us to leave the Gtk3 Firefox behind.
ma.
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Martin Stransky stransky@redhat.com wrote:
On 06/06/2014 05:52 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?
I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking and getting worse all the time.
Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:
- GPU acceleration
It's supported by Firefox. But it depends what do you actually means - there are many layers of acceleration. Can you be more specific here? Do you have any #BZ?
I don't have BZ numbers for this because I don't know which bugs are really relevant. I also don't pretend to know a lot of the internal architecture of Firefox. Here is what I do know: 1. about:support says no windows are accelerated 2. WebGL is very slow 3. Various people at MozCamp last year told me that yes, Firefox still doesn't use GPU acceleration on Linux. Some of them claimed the GTK3 port will make it possible, but they had no technical details to give me. 4. At some point, mesa drivers were specifically blacklisted in Firefox, but afaik that was for mesa older than 7, and we are on 10.2 on Rawhide today and Firefox still reports no acceleration 5. This seems relevant https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=594876 6. Setting layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true does not do anything
- Integration with the desktop's geolocation services
- On that note, geolocation doesn't work at all in Fedora's firefox at
the moment
It's because we need an API key to Google Geolocation service. If Evince has the API key, we can use it in Firefox too (see rhbz#1063739).
Evince doesn't use geolocation afaik - it's a PDF reader.
Also, afaik there's no app in Fedora with Google API key. I strongly recommend we use the Mozilla Location Services at least until GeoClue2 support is implemented in Firefox. Geoclue2 will mean GPS devices (and theoretically cellular tower IDs, I don't know if that's implemented) will be supported for more accurate location. GeoClue2 uses the Mozilla Location Services by default as well.
- Integration with the desktop's notification system
That's true. It's on our TODO list. Patches are always welcome :)
Nice to hear.
- Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)
Can you point me to #BZ? I'm not aware of it.
Seems that you found it already. For later reference: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1105640
- UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without installing 3rd party
theme and extensions)
- GTK3 support
Will be addressed by Gtk3 port. Our optimistic target is Firefox 32.
The GTK3 port addresses the GTK3 support, but it doesn't alter the browser's UI: it looks and behaves on Linux just like it does on Windows. Try installing the Firefox GNOME theme: https://github.com/gnome-integration-team/firefox-gnome and see how Firefox will suddenly look at lot more like other apps do, and follow the GNOME HIG more closely. Unfortunately, there's no real solution to this as we can't ship the extension by default (I listed the reasons in other places in this thread) and upstream still belives Firefox should look the same on all platforms instead of looking native to the platform and more similar to other apps in the platform. This might work well for Windows where every app looks differently, but GNOME, much like iOS, has a well defined set of Human Interface Guidelines. All GTK3 apps look roughly the same, with symbolic icons, similar tabs, similar buttons. Firefox looks extremely different.
- High-DPI support
Already on TODO list - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=975919
- Touch input support
On progress - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=978679
Great to hear!
Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have incomplete
patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).
Can you be more specific here what is leaved behind? All upstream Gtk3 bugs should be registered to:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627699
And as you can see, various people are submitting patches and the project is moving rapidly. And I'm picking the "unowned" bugs.
Not a gtk3 issue, but it seems that GeoClue2 support has an out-of-date patch and nobody who knows how / has the time to implement it https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485472
Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and better, perhaps
we should consider it as the default?
Mozilla invests money and people to the Firefox Gtk3 port (for instance Collabora writes the gtk2 plugin support code - mozbz#624422) and so we should do. It would be a wrong signal from us to leave the Gtk3 Firefox behind.
ma.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
I appreciate you took the time to reply here even tho it has already been decided that Firefox will remain the default.
On 06/10/2014 06:33 AM, Martin Stransky wrote:
It's supported by Firefox. But it depends what do you actually means - there are many layers of acceleration. Can you be more specific here? Do you have any #BZ?
It's probably related to this: http://featherweightmusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/no-more-main-thread-openg...
However, since cairo is accelerated I'm not sure "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1" is necessary.
On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 12:02 AM, Michael Cronenworth mike@cchtml.com wrote:
On 06/10/2014 06:33 AM, Martin Stransky wrote:
It's supported by Firefox. But it depends what do you actually means - there are many layers of acceleration. Can you be more specific here? Do you have any #BZ?
It's probably related to this: http://featherweightmusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/no- more-main-thread-opengl-in-firefox.html
However, since cairo is accelerated I'm not sure "GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1" is necessary.
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
WebGL is still really slow, so I'm not sure it's properly accelerated.
On 06/10/2014 11:03 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
WebGL is still really slow, so I'm not sure it's properly accelerated.
Usually, you can set webgl.force-enable to activate acceleration. This wiki page provides some details (but is quite Windows/Android-focused and likely outdated):
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Blocklisting/Blocked_Graphics_Drivers
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org