[conspire] (forw) [DNG] Life After Firefox 56

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Thank you for the advance warning.   Having once used Netscape, I have
> typically installed both Seamonkey and IceWeasel | Firefox.   I wish
> the the composer feature of Seamonkey had more support, but it much
> better than the IceWeasel | Firefox.

The good news is that, at minimum, it turns out that Firefox-ESR will
be a workaround (not to mention SeaMonkey, Waterfox, and Pale Moon).

As I said in my first footnote (and in a brief follow-up discussion on
the SVLUG main mailing list), I recognise that Mozilla, Inc. is
responding to a genuine and serious problem.  When I first saw
http://addons.mozilla.org/ in operation in (I think) the early 2000s, 
I immediately saw that it was going to become a security nightmare
because there is absolutely zero effort to quality-control anything.  
It's just an anything-goes bazaar.  And, sure enough, just like
http://gnome-look.org/ (ref:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22625/Malware_Hidden_Inside_Screensaver_Theme_on_GNOME-Look), it's become a Typhoid Mary.

Adding urgency to that, and to the wide perception that Google Chrome is
safer even if it is a RAM and performance hog, Firefox has by pretty
much all industry measures been losing market share with a steep and
almost linear race towards zero.  They are being forced to make drastic
changes, by market realities.

And there's really nothing wrong with code signing -- as long as users
can control the keychain.

> Since smart phones have a clock ap, there is no need for stand-alone 
> wristwatchs.

Funny, that.  Last year, I was out with friends, and one of the ones
I've known longest called to me and archly said 'Rick!  You have one of
those "wrist clocks" [pantomiming the quotation marks].  Pray tell, what
time is it?'  I gave him the time from my cheap-ass Casio watch, and 
on a hunch looked around.  Sure enough, nobody else was wearing a watch.
The world had changed yet again, and once again I hadn't really noticed.

I'm reminded of when I was driving on the west side of San Francisco,
and remembered that there was a store I needed to find.  For that, I
needed the street address, which I'd forgotten to look up in advance,
so didn't have with me.  Going on decades of habit, I looked for a
telephone booth, because, y'know, find the booth, use the white pages,
get the address.  I slowly realise there really aren't any booths any
more along 19th Avenue.  I think 'Wait, I'll stop in Stonestown Mall.
There's always a pay phone near the restrooms.'  Long walk, eventually
find a pay 'phone, but no telephone directory and no sign one was ever
there.

For just one moment, I think 'Wait, this is ridiculous.  How do people
find a store's street address while out in public, if there aren't white
pages out in public any more.  They _must_ be around, somewhere!'

And then I remember, no, they don't have to, not at all.  The world has
changed.  People use smartphones, tablets, or laptops, and just find the
place on the Internet, using bandwidth from either a cellular network or
public WiFi.  Right.

Can't turn back the clock.  So, going forward, I remember to either look
up information like that at home, or bring a tablet or laptop.

But I continue to love my cheap-ass Casio watches.