It's kind of odd that the consumer versions of Chrome and (especially) Firefox are loaded with developer-oriented features. I use these every day, but there's not a great reason for these to be in the main release.
Perhaps there is an opportunity for a developer-focused web browser with all the complicated bells and whistles. Or, a consumer-focused browser without them.
Or perhaps a hidden developer menu, visible once you have done a specific action.
For example, in the last Android version you have to tap 7 time on the "Android version" field in the "About" screen to enable the developer menu. A casual user will never go there.
Or maybe just hide developer options in a about:developer menu.
The debate between power and simplicity in software continues on. Should you make features that are scary, and only useful to a handful of your users?
My $.02: Let Firefox continue to be feature-packed. Why? The other (popular) browsers are lacking by default (default being without plugins) in this regard. Keeping Firefox feature-loaded out of the box reduces the hassle for somebody that needs access to powerful web tools, when the alternative is downloading a bunch of plugins/ extensions/ bloatstuff.
I fully agree. Although some buttons might be hidden away a bit better, perhaps moved to about:config or have them trigger a warning, I love that Firefox has these features. I've used almost all of the mentioned features (including turning off images), so none of them are useless to me.
But 'Load images automatically' and Enable Javascript should not be those that are moved. I remember how a few years back I had to regularly uncheck the 'load images automatically' box just to get my slow like death internet load things that mattered. I'm sure there are many places in the world where people have to still deal with that regularly. Same goes with javascript - security, privacy for those who know how it might affect their normal browsing.
Disabling these on mobile is especially nice due to bandwidth costs and limitations. On Firefox for Android, images can be disabled by settings the permissions.default.image option to 2 in about:config. JavaScript can be toggled with the javascript.enabled option.
IIRC, Chrome for Android does not allow the user to disable image loading. Opera and Opera Mini do, and also allow the user to load images at lower quality. "Internet" (stock browser) does on my phone. Dolphin does.
My $.02: Let Firefox continue to be feature-packed.
IMHO, this depends on the features.
For example, I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to introduce an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Adobe Reader, but I wish they hadn't. I frequently use on-line services that provide PDFs for various reasons, and after the first 48 hours I had to Google the settings to make Firefox just shut up and let Adobe Reader do its job, because too much functionality was badly presented or simply didn't work at all. Now I've just got all that extra code I'm never going to use bloating my browser.
If you're viewing content that's based on HTML and comes embedded in a web page, like images or HTML5 videos, sure, make the browser handle it. But you can download many kinds of data over the Internet, and the idea that a browser should become some sort of all-inclusive operating system/distro bundle that can interpret them all itself feels very unhealthy to me. What happened to using one tool for one job, and making each tool a specialist that does its job well?
While I agree that some of these options need to be hidden away better, a lot of the complaints would be fixed by adding easy reset-to-default buttons, or even some marker to show when something is changed from the default.
If users go messing around in the important internals of the necessarily complex machine that is the browser then they deserve what problems they have. In short: If you don't understand an advanced option, stay the fuck away from it.
Also, the article suggests making certificate management an add-on, among other things. That is the stupidest and most insecure thing I've heard the past 2 years.
> If users go messing around in the important internals of the necessarily complex machine that is the browser then they deserve what problems they have. In short: If you don't understand an advanced option, stay the fuck away from it.
You've clearly never observed non-technical people using a new product. Telling users it's there fault doesn't generate revenue. Making your product idiot proof does.
>Telling users it's there fault doesn't generate revenue.
To be fair, there's only one browser right now that has "generate revenue" as a goal, and that's Chrome.
And I, for one, am tired of being hamstrung by "idiot proofing". What ever happened to "if something is important to you, DON'T fuck around with it if you don't know what you're doing!"
This is good life advice. What happens when you go mucking about in the internals of any sufficiently complex system without knowing what you're doing?
> To be fair, there's only one browser right now that has "generate revenue" as a goal, and that's Chrome.
Completely untrue. Let's put it another way - the only browser out there not to "generate revenue", is Firefox (and even then it does generate a tidy amount from search referrals).
Chrome - pushes Google services and ChromeOS.
Safari - Apple-only. Nuff said.
IE - the original bad-apple of browsers. Once it killed off it's competition (ie, web standards), team was disbanded.
back on topic, perhaps the best answer is to provide a reset button or when erroring, provide actual locations to fix your issue (ie, the SSL disabled issue).
Maybe you're in the business or have a moral mission of providing life lessons to customers. I'm in the business of helping them avoid life lessons by having stuff behave as expected.
And it's considered "stuff not behaving as expected" that when you clear a box that says "display images" that images are no longer displayed? (One of the examples from TFA)
It's interesting that you think it's "the stupidest and most insecure thing you've heard in 2 years", because I think the certificate UX we have in modern browsers is the probably the worst security misfeature on the entire Internet, responsible for not just for the battle between end users and "self-signed certificate" warnings but for the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of random CA=YES certs that could sign a Yahoo Mail domain cert.
Could you tell me more about how important the browser certificate UX we have now is worth defending, or even keeping? I think we should just jettison it completely and let extensions take over.
Be careful taking this advice. "Get rid of all the options" can actually be quite powerful... it makes software that "just works". But it also makes software that "just doesn't work". The reason that these suggestions make sense is that Firefox allows plugins and extensions which CAN allow for these things.
Perhaps the moral of the story is to build your software with layers of configurability. In layer one, there are hardly any choices, but there is an "advanced" button to allow further configuration. In layer 2, there are many more options, but still only "frequently-used" features... however, there is a plug-in or scripting system that allows adding additional features if a developer makes them. The ecosystem of plug-ins would be layer 3 (note that this only works if you provide a common place to DISTRIBUTE the plug-ins and you make an effort to filter out malware). Finally, layer 4 would be the ability to build one's own plug-ins, but this layer would only be available to developers.
I have some software (like browsers, IDEs, and even older things like Emacs) that works like this today... but maybe all software should be built with layers of configurability.
Be careful taking this advice. "Get rid of all the options" can actually be quite powerful... it makes software that "just works". But it also makes software that "just doesn't work".
To be fair, the post didn't advocate getting rid of "all the options". It advocated getting rid of options that almost never make sense to use. For many of the examples given, that would continue to apply even for power users.
Indeed, I am in full agreement with the original post -- which proposed this policy for Firefox, a tool that HAS multiple layers of configuration. My only point was for others not to blindly apply "remove options", but to consider what Firefox REALLY has, which is different layers of configurability.
While disabling Javascript is something sure to break a lot of websites, it is something that I use regularly to test the websites that I am building so that I can confidently assert that disabling Javascript won't break MY website.
Same thing with disabling images. I have built web applications for the browser constrained (think remote science stations in Antarctica), and we often wish to test rendering without images (or with massively deferred image loading) or with only partial page renders to ensure that the first content loaded is the first content displayed for those situations where they are needed.
Sure, I'm a fringe case, but for some people, "breaking the internet" is a job requirement.
I'm not a UI guy, so my point wasn't whether or not the checkboxes should or shouldn't exist, but to clarify that all the use cases he asserted "broke the entire internet" had valid uses and represented the desired behavior.
That it happens to break a few popular websites doesn't mean that the entire internet is broken, or that that wasn't the desired effect.
Over the years I've gradually concluded that extension mechanisms are actively harmful. Firefox leaves features that should be integrated (tab management, developer tools) down to extensions; in Opera these features were always more usable and better integrated. Emacs defers to extensions for things that Vim does natively - and again, the result is those features are more usable and better integrated. Eclipse makes everything a plugin, and often this leaks up to the user; it frequently happens two features will either not integrate nicely with each other or even be impossible to install at the same time; contrast with IntelliJ IDEA where all the features are built in, with the result that it "just works".
i agree with a lot of these, but there should be some middle ground between a options-for-everyone dialog and about:config. many of those options should be in a power user menu, along with many about:config settings.
i still cannot believe they removed "homepage in new tabs" setting...you now need an addon for this. wtf?
I've resigned to the fact that I'm probably going to get fucked over by people removing options from existing software (software that self-updates, by the way, and that needs in some aspects to be updated in order to stay useful, but you get all updates whether you like them or not). I understand, you're all busy people, and I'm not paying so I shouldn't complain, and who wants to work on backward compatible cruft when you could be building the next 'awesome bar'. I get all of that and people need to make trade offs - heck, I do it myself in my own software.
But then please for the love of god make about:config something that can be used without trawling mozilla.org discussion threads or random about.com 'articles'. There are hundreds and hundreds of about:config options, most of them more useless than the next, except for maybe 25 or so of them. If mozilla is already tracking so much, why don't they track the most-often changed settings through about:config and put them in their own section at the top of the list? Or, here's a radical idea, why don't they put the options in a tree rather than a flat list? Maybe ordered in a way that makes a bit of sense, but I may be pushing it there, I know. Why are we punched in the face with an 'options' dialog that (it seems) should have, in the eyes of most 'designers', only a very few options to the point where it becomes useless for 'advanced users', or kicked in the behind with an about:config page that could, functionally, just have well displayed 50 kb of output from /dev/urandom?
This : http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-cost... applies not to just Google Reader, guys... I've been using Firefox since the milestone builds of what back them was still just called 'Mozilla', if I'm remembering correctly, and I have yet to find something better (at least if you count in all the addins) but damn, if I were religious I'd do a prayer every time I see it 'installing updates', out of fear of what it's going to screw me over with in 'interface innovation' this time.
But then please for the love of god make about:config something that can be used without trawling mozilla.org discussion threads or random about.com 'articles'.
I think one of the reasons that about:config is not easy to use is because it shouldn't be easy to use.
If it was a nice window with checkboxes and dropdowns and tabs for groups of related options, then it would become a de facto settings dialog a thousand times more problematic than the legitimate settings dialog.
If options are removed from the preferences panels, something easier to use than about:config should exist, or about:config should become less useless.
When did warnings indicating that "this option will destroy your computer if set carelessly" become verboten? Why waste the expensive time of advanced users for no real benefit to the masses?
What a fascinating comment: "expensive time of advanced users"? As if knowing what, say, SSL 3.0 means is somehow a marker of a more valuable person, more worthy of not having their time wasted.
It might be good for you to remember that those "masses" are just people with other things to do with their lives - they're doctors, lawyers, concert violinists, nuclear physicists, biologists, teachers, ... and they just want their damned browser to work without having to mess around, and preferably not break with cryptic error messages they don't care about, because, frankly, they have better things to do.
Advanced users are the only ones who will be "mess[ing] around" in the advanced settings dialogs. Sane defaults and easy-to-customize advanced options are not mutually exclusive.
I think you missed the point here, doctor, lawyers and otherwise supposedly busy non-advanced users will not delve in about:config at all, hence cannot waste any of their time there.
It's only the advanced users who are willing go through this path because they want to tweak a settings. And the question would be, is it really worth making such an impractical tool out of about:config and thus wasting time of advanced users when it was designed for their own use, for the sake of keeping non-advanced users out this setting panel.
I plead with anyone reading this to not be overly dogmatic with streamlining away all options and configuration. I find this irksome on my mobile devices and as the religion of simplification leaks into the desktop space, I find it outright frustrating.
Firefox has about:config as a saving grace, so if options were removed from its user interface, I would be able to make do. In fact, I'd pay money to see about:config or similar in every application. For example, I set slider.snapMultiplier to zero to remove that annoying snap-back on the scrollbar thumb when you drift too far in the perpendicular. Good luck describing that one in a dialog box.
But unfortunately, in other products, hiding options is often just straight-up removing options.
While I appreciate reducing confusion by hiding options that are difficult to describe, I would prefer an "advanced settings" section. Perhaps consider three tiers, as with Firefox (options, advanced, and about:config).
I was really upset at all the options I lost in applications on my phone when it updated from Ginderbread to ICS. I wanted a more powerful phone. But now many of the features I typically used are gone. Note to developers: beating iOS doesn't necessarily mean becoming more like it.
Note to developers: beating iOS doesn't necessarily mean becoming more like it.
That is SO very well said... I wish I'd thought of that myself. In particular, I wish I'd thought to say - about 10 years ago - "Note to developers: beating Internet Explorer doesn't necessarily mean becoming more like it."
I still remember so may discussions about Firefox (and Mozilla the browser before that) where somebody proposed something and it was shot down because "That's not the way Internet Explorer does it" or "IE doesn't have that". sigh
I was thinking about something like that. Why don't they also include settings to turn off HTML and CSS (you can through extensions) then? Javascript (and images, for that matter) is as inherent to the Web as HTML, stop with that already.
A lot of people will try to argue on the JavaScript part because of accessibility, but even in that case, WebAIM's screen reader results seem to indicate that 98% have JS turned on http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/#javascript
Singling out Firefox isn't particularly fair: Chrome has the Content Settings panel (which allows you to disable images and javascript), Safari lets you disable javascript, and IE certainly did both, at least historically. This article just reads like beating up everybody's favourite browser punching bag to me.
Every feature has its place, and when you start pandering to the lowest common denominator of users is when you've decided that you know better than everybody else.
The author is "now doing Product Design Strategy at Mozilla ". What you're saying is true, and likely the author has realized it as well, but "fairness" is probably less of a priority to him than fixing the product he's responsible for.
"Do not show any images" under two links is a lot better than Auto Load images in a tab, javascript disabling is a lot more useful than he implies, IE has been beaten enough as it is.
I felt he chose Firefox because a lot of that UI was designed after IE and never changed. At least most other browsers seem to have thought about what to show in easy to get to pages.
I couldn't disagree more, until I moved in to my own house I was using a £15/month wireless internet dongle for my main daily browsing. Most websites would inundate my browser with constant AJAX requests, draining my internet at a ridiculous rate (Facebook was a pretty nasty one for this) and the ability to turn off my javascript at the click of a button probably saved me somewhere in the region of £30 per month, not a major gain, but when you're homeless it makes all the difference.
(Although, this says more about the state of wireless internet fees, 15GB for £15, then £100 per GB after that, ridiculous!)
But why should I have to install an addon? This is something already built in to the browser, in all honesty, if you removed a feature I used frequently then told me to go elsewhere to re-download it, I would be going elsewhere to download some software and the software would be Google Chrome.
You already know why it should be in an add-on: because your use case is a rare one, and rare features for particular audiences don't belong in the main browser UI.
There are some fields where "But it's traditional," is a reasonable response to a proposed change. But software isn't really one of them.
So the solution for someone with expensive bandwidth limitations is to download additional software on top of the software they already downloaded just to configure a setting that was already inside of the first download?
Yes and if you want to browse more securely with Javascript turned off, you should also download a 3rd party add-on from unknown developer that will do this for you ;-)
I was surprised he mentioned Javascript in the same breath as images. While turning it off should take a little bit of effort from the user (since the result is non-obvious) it is a mandatory part of a web browser, since you may not trust the websites you are going to.
How many users turn off JavaScript when visiting an untrusted site? I for one never have in over 15 years.
And if you did turn it off, and the site doesn't work, what do you do? Read the source code and look for malicious JavaScript? Your down to the 0.0001%.
I run with javascript off full-time, except for a whitelist. I use Chrome's basic settings to do this (not a plug-in). It's actually really handy, since most sites don't really need javascript to serve their purpose. It has made reading news online much more enjoyable. I find that on a majority of sites, javascript is used only to serve ads or pop up annoying "join our useless mailing list" dialogs.
Agreed. Apple AFAIK allow the user to disable JavaScript in the iOS Safari options http://osxdaily.com/2012/11/18/disable-javascript-safari-ios... and Android browsers have the option too. Maybe the browser designers know something the article writer doesn't: enough people need the option and are smart enough to understand the consequences.
The 'get rid of all the options' philosophy is probably the single biggest reason when Gnome seems to have fragmented and was for several years a constant source of friction and hate between devs and certain corners of the community. However, it didn't have a robust support for plugins and behind-the-scenes configurability was sometimes limited and often overly arcane.
That said, while it's true that many of the options you mention are likely used be a very small % of users, and some are even dangerous for regular users to touch, they are also options that people who do use them will find critical, and they are options that people who do use them will be suspicious of in 3rd party extensions -- I mean who wants to install some random extensions named 'powerCert' or 'sslMan' with the purpose and powers of playing with certs on your behalf?
To a certain extent I think some of the options discussed could indeed be rolled into configure via about:config, I find the idea that it makes sense for others to be rolled into '3rd party extensions' a little troubling.
And some I think should remain, but could use some better 'branding.'
This is what happens when there is no meaning (semantics) behind core page markup. Small changes have seemingly arbitrary results that completely break the page.
I don't think he is saying the text box is gone, just that the box has no defined border to see it.
I am not seeing this issue now in Firefox or Safari. I seem to remember that this was an issue in the past (maybe 6 or more months ago when I was running with out image loading). Then as I recall, Google was using a background image for the box.
Unlike what's shown in the article, if I disable the 'Load images automatically' in my Firefox (Windows 7), I still see the search box on Google. Perhaps an Apple bug?
In recent versions, Apple as moved many of these options (such as Disable Images) into the Develop menu which has to be explicitly enabled via Preferences -> Advanced -> Show Develop Menu.
I agree with many of the others on this thread that FireFox's about:config is not the place for these things. It is nice that FF has such low level access to such settings, but it is not much more friendly than editing an Apache config file.
I am also a little concerned about moving these into Add-On which have their own set of issues for most people. How often have you sat at someone else's web browser to see it filled with all sorts of extra menu bars and enhancements that make the browsing experience even more confusing and slows every thing down (not to mention the potential privacy issues).
I agree that there should be an option to reset default settings or at least start with default settings.
However removing most options (and functionality) just for those users and situations where something might stop working, is wrong. Sure (some) settings could be tucked away better, but doing so to the extreme will influence how users view and use software.
This nurtures the sort of environment where users will kick and scream if a setting they altered does influence the usability of an application. The result: fewer and fewer options. Or options with large yellow safety warnings a la "stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork might result in loss of eyesight".
Just tried it here, and the answer is... it doesn't. Though maybe it does sometimes for somepeople?
edit to add: I really liked the image options available in Opera Mobile for use in low-bandwidth situations, which include replacing the image with an appropriately sized rectangle of an average color, with the alt text in it, but I'm guessing they require a proxy, or else I'd suggest adding them to Android Firefox.
Dumbing down or idiot-proofing software doesn't make it more user friendly or easier to use. As an anectode, I had had to import my own certificates, disable/enable js, disable/enable image loading , set up cache size manually and other stupid crap in situations unrelated to development.
An equally valid counter argument to simplification can be made: Leave the software as is. It is a known quantity. Create an "easy mode" add on instead for people who really need it.
I hope we won't see firefox equivalent of iphone (just an example among many, don't jump on me) in the future.
Why should your workflow be prioritised over other peoples?
Why should other people, who don't know much, have to go get an extension while you, who does know enough to go get an extension, get to use the product as-is?
It is not prioritising my workflow but not changing already working software.
Idiot proofing is often necessary when the end user have to be spoon fed software and it is done by someone else who is perfectly capable of finding the said software on the internet form its official source, installing the package, finding the "easy mode" form its official source and clicking install button when the software prompts you to do so.
Alternatively, a version of software can be shipped by "easy mode" installed and enabled by default, just like how you choose which OS/localisation combo to download. Difference being that, software ships with rich configuration options by default and you can access them when you need it just by disabling "easy mode", not downloading something. No need to overhaul existing UI which is familiar to millions already, and prioritise people who cannot be trusted not to fiddle with options they don't know, just because you can.
Please don't misunderstand this article: it's not about removing checkboxes or functionality, it's about an opportunity to change the UI of settings to a better one.
I was so happy reading this because it seems that some big dogs are finally realizing the problem that I noticed some time ago [1], but I'm nowhere near as good at elaborating my points or causing change.
The innate problem with checkboxes is that while they communicate if something is on or off, they don't communicate what the optimized default value was (and unless you know what you're doing and a have a good reason to override it, it's probably better to leave it alone).
The reason extensions are mentioned has little to do with whether 3rd or 1st parties make them, but rather that their UI has a beautiful property: by default your extensions list is empty (ala clean slate), and everything just works.
Fixing unwanted issues is easy because it's just a matter of removing unwanted extensions from an explicit list of changes appled.
I think the main takeaway message here is that the UI for software settings can be made better without crippling the customizability or flexibility. Just present a view where it's easy to see what's been changed.
What's wrong with giving users options? I think it's an insult to peoples' intelligence. Cars give users the option to drive into a brick wall at 80 MPH, but this doesn't mean people will be inclined to do so.
I often wish software would insult my intelligence in this way more often. I have enough choices in life. Most of Ye time I just want other people to make the best choice for me.
3D computer games on the PC are especially bad -- with a dozen weird graphic options you cannot really evaluate. What will setting texture quality to "Very High" instead of "High" really mean and how much slower will my game run? Maybe the effect won't even be noticable until a later level. "Occular Blimspace Remapping" is set to 2x but can go up to 16x, how much do I need? Are the autodetected settings optimal or could my game be much better looking if I just increased something, but what?
"While you are trying to find optimal gfx settings, we also detected you are having difficulty passing level 4. Shall we play instead of you so you can go on with your life?"
What's wrong with it is that it adds a hidden cost to the software that makes it harder to develop. Every option splits your application into at least two possible states. If you have 1000 options, that's 2^1000 different states that you have to support.
Every feature added has to make sure it doesn't break one of these states, making it harder and harder to develop for.
Making something an option should not be the default behavior.
So developer comfort takes precedence over user choice? Or are you saying options are just way more difficult to implement than they are worth (considering the small proportion of users actually take advantage of them)?
Edit: reread my post again: just to be clear, I do use a number of plug-ins, but don't think it makes sense to require plug-ins for such basic security related items as turning off scripting or javascript, or for turning off functionality such as loading pics on a slow connection.
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So, in order to turn off features such as javascript for privacy or security at less trusted or unknown sites, the author wants me to trust not only the security and code quality of the browser but also the security and code quality of a 3rd party plug-in?
I really don't like this trend toward moving toward plug-ins for everything - although I am OK with moving things to about:config.
As it is, I really hate the fact that I have to install additional plugins in order to turn off all scripting - seems that this - if anything! - should be a built-in option.
This makes me trust Firefox less. I switched to Firefox back when it was around version 0.6 or 0.7 - its greatest selling point then was that it could not run ActiveX and that this was good from a security standpoint. As it is now I don't see any benefit to it compared to IE from a security standpoint and only stick with it due to the great number of options that are easily configurable in about:config.
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[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 212 ms ] threadIt's kind of odd that the consumer versions of Chrome and (especially) Firefox are loaded with developer-oriented features. I use these every day, but there's not a great reason for these to be in the main release.
Perhaps there is an opportunity for a developer-focused web browser with all the complicated bells and whistles. Or, a consumer-focused browser without them.
Or perhaps they start as "consumers" and then learn development?
What happens to that process if you hide the things they could use to undertake it?
Then I, for one, would have never learned how to code.
For example, in the last Android version you have to tap 7 time on the "Android version" field in the "About" screen to enable the developer menu. A casual user will never go there.
Or maybe just hide developer options in a about:developer menu.
"Fun historical fact: If you disabled JavaScript in Netscape 4, css would also stop working — because css was applied to the page using… JavaScript."
My $.02: Let Firefox continue to be feature-packed. Why? The other (popular) browsers are lacking by default (default being without plugins) in this regard. Keeping Firefox feature-loaded out of the box reduces the hassle for somebody that needs access to powerful web tools, when the alternative is downloading a bunch of plugins/ extensions/ bloatstuff.
IIRC, Chrome for Android does not allow the user to disable image loading. Opera and Opera Mini do, and also allow the user to load images at lower quality. "Internet" (stock browser) does on my phone. Dolphin does.
IMHO, this depends on the features.
For example, I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to introduce an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Adobe Reader, but I wish they hadn't. I frequently use on-line services that provide PDFs for various reasons, and after the first 48 hours I had to Google the settings to make Firefox just shut up and let Adobe Reader do its job, because too much functionality was badly presented or simply didn't work at all. Now I've just got all that extra code I'm never going to use bloating my browser.
If you're viewing content that's based on HTML and comes embedded in a web page, like images or HTML5 videos, sure, make the browser handle it. But you can download many kinds of data over the Internet, and the idea that a browser should become some sort of all-inclusive operating system/distro bundle that can interpret them all itself feels very unhealthy to me. What happened to using one tool for one job, and making each tool a specialist that does its job well?
If users go messing around in the important internals of the necessarily complex machine that is the browser then they deserve what problems they have. In short: If you don't understand an advanced option, stay the fuck away from it.
Also, the article suggests making certificate management an add-on, among other things. That is the stupidest and most insecure thing I've heard the past 2 years.
You've clearly never observed non-technical people using a new product. Telling users it's there fault doesn't generate revenue. Making your product idiot proof does.
To be fair, there's only one browser right now that has "generate revenue" as a goal, and that's Chrome.
And I, for one, am tired of being hamstrung by "idiot proofing". What ever happened to "if something is important to you, DON'T fuck around with it if you don't know what you're doing!"
This is good life advice. What happens when you go mucking about in the internals of any sufficiently complex system without knowing what you're doing?
Completely untrue. Let's put it another way - the only browser out there not to "generate revenue", is Firefox (and even then it does generate a tidy amount from search referrals).
Chrome - pushes Google services and ChromeOS.
Safari - Apple-only. Nuff said.
IE - the original bad-apple of browsers. Once it killed off it's competition (ie, web standards), team was disbanded.
back on topic, perhaps the best answer is to provide a reset button or when erroring, provide actual locations to fix your issue (ie, the SSL disabled issue).
Could you tell me more about how important the browser certificate UX we have now is worth defending, or even keeping? I think we should just jettison it completely and let extensions take over.
Perhaps the moral of the story is to build your software with layers of configurability. In layer one, there are hardly any choices, but there is an "advanced" button to allow further configuration. In layer 2, there are many more options, but still only "frequently-used" features... however, there is a plug-in or scripting system that allows adding additional features if a developer makes them. The ecosystem of plug-ins would be layer 3 (note that this only works if you provide a common place to DISTRIBUTE the plug-ins and you make an effort to filter out malware). Finally, layer 4 would be the ability to build one's own plug-ins, but this layer would only be available to developers.
I have some software (like browsers, IDEs, and even older things like Emacs) that works like this today... but maybe all software should be built with layers of configurability.
To be fair, the post didn't advocate getting rid of "all the options". It advocated getting rid of options that almost never make sense to use. For many of the examples given, that would continue to apply even for power users.
I'm fairly sure there is an alternative solution to this problem that does not involve adding an extra option in the UI...
While disabling Javascript is something sure to break a lot of websites, it is something that I use regularly to test the websites that I am building so that I can confidently assert that disabling Javascript won't break MY website.
Same thing with disabling images. I have built web applications for the browser constrained (think remote science stations in Antarctica), and we often wish to test rendering without images (or with massively deferred image loading) or with only partial page renders to ensure that the first content loaded is the first content displayed for those situations where they are needed.
Sure, I'm a fringe case, but for some people, "breaking the internet" is a job requirement.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer...
So I think removing those from the config UI is an excellent choice.
That it happens to break a few popular websites doesn't mean that the entire internet is broken, or that that wasn't the desired effect.
> Emacs defers to extensions for things that Vim does natively - and again, the result is those features are more usable and better integrated.
Vim has an extension mechanism too. It may not be quite as flexible as Emacs, but it is much more flexible than most programs.
i still cannot believe they removed "homepage in new tabs" setting...you now need an addon for this. wtf?
But then please for the love of god make about:config something that can be used without trawling mozilla.org discussion threads or random about.com 'articles'. There are hundreds and hundreds of about:config options, most of them more useless than the next, except for maybe 25 or so of them. If mozilla is already tracking so much, why don't they track the most-often changed settings through about:config and put them in their own section at the top of the list? Or, here's a radical idea, why don't they put the options in a tree rather than a flat list? Maybe ordered in a way that makes a bit of sense, but I may be pushing it there, I know. Why are we punched in the face with an 'options' dialog that (it seems) should have, in the eyes of most 'designers', only a very few options to the point where it becomes useless for 'advanced users', or kicked in the behind with an about:config page that could, functionally, just have well displayed 50 kb of output from /dev/urandom?
This : http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-cost... applies not to just Google Reader, guys... I've been using Firefox since the milestone builds of what back them was still just called 'Mozilla', if I'm remembering correctly, and I have yet to find something better (at least if you count in all the addins) but damn, if I were religious I'd do a prayer every time I see it 'installing updates', out of fear of what it's going to screw me over with in 'interface innovation' this time.
(done ranting now)
I think one of the reasons that about:config is not easy to use is because it shouldn't be easy to use.
If it was a nice window with checkboxes and dropdowns and tabs for groups of related options, then it would become a de facto settings dialog a thousand times more problematic than the legitimate settings dialog.
1) search Google about something, read blog, follow instructions is an amazing pattern people have learned and apply regardless of wisdom or skill
It might be good for you to remember that those "masses" are just people with other things to do with their lives - they're doctors, lawyers, concert violinists, nuclear physicists, biologists, teachers, ... and they just want their damned browser to work without having to mess around, and preferably not break with cryptic error messages they don't care about, because, frankly, they have better things to do.
It's only the advanced users who are willing go through this path because they want to tweak a settings. And the question would be, is it really worth making such an impractical tool out of about:config and thus wasting time of advanced users when it was designed for their own use, for the sake of keeping non-advanced users out this setting panel.
Firefox has about:config as a saving grace, so if options were removed from its user interface, I would be able to make do. In fact, I'd pay money to see about:config or similar in every application. For example, I set slider.snapMultiplier to zero to remove that annoying snap-back on the scrollbar thumb when you drift too far in the perpendicular. Good luck describing that one in a dialog box.
But unfortunately, in other products, hiding options is often just straight-up removing options.
While I appreciate reducing confusion by hiding options that are difficult to describe, I would prefer an "advanced settings" section. Perhaps consider three tiers, as with Firefox (options, advanced, and about:config).
That is SO very well said... I wish I'd thought of that myself. In particular, I wish I'd thought to say - about 10 years ago - "Note to developers: beating Internet Explorer doesn't necessarily mean becoming more like it."
I still remember so may discussions about Firefox (and Mozilla the browser before that) where somebody proposed something and it was shot down because "That's not the way Internet Explorer does it" or "IE doesn't have that". sigh
Every feature has its place, and when you start pandering to the lowest common denominator of users is when you've decided that you know better than everybody else.
I felt he chose Firefox because a lot of that UI was designed after IE and never changed. At least most other browsers seem to have thought about what to show in easy to get to pages.
(Although, this says more about the state of wireless internet fees, 15GB for £15, then £100 per GB after that, ridiculous!)
There are some fields where "But it's traditional," is a reasonable response to a proposed change. But software isn't really one of them.
It is brandished right and left as if obvious, but it is never explained.
And if you did turn it off, and the site doesn't work, what do you do? Read the source code and look for malicious JavaScript? Your down to the 0.0001%.
Extension.
That said, while it's true that many of the options you mention are likely used be a very small % of users, and some are even dangerous for regular users to touch, they are also options that people who do use them will find critical, and they are options that people who do use them will be suspicious of in 3rd party extensions -- I mean who wants to install some random extensions named 'powerCert' or 'sslMan' with the purpose and powers of playing with certs on your behalf?
To a certain extent I think some of the options discussed could indeed be rolled into configure via about:config, I find the idea that it makes sense for others to be rolled into '3rd party extensions' a little troubling.
And some I think should remain, but could use some better 'branding.'
> From the Content panel in our settings, try unchecking the box:
> Here’s how Google’s front page looks like if you uncheck that box:
> [shows image of Google home page w/o search textbox]
I'm not seeing that problem when I try it. Why would a textbox disappear if images aren't loaded?
http://cl.ly/image/1U2o090Q0K1i
Background images are used to give its visual appearance. Without them, it's a `border: none` text field - effectively invisible.
I am not seeing this issue now in Firefox or Safari. I seem to remember that this was an issue in the past (maybe 6 or more months ago when I was running with out image loading). Then as I recall, Google was using a background image for the box.
I agree with many of the others on this thread that FireFox's about:config is not the place for these things. It is nice that FF has such low level access to such settings, but it is not much more friendly than editing an Apache config file.
I am also a little concerned about moving these into Add-On which have their own set of issues for most people. How often have you sat at someone else's web browser to see it filled with all sorts of extra menu bars and enhancements that make the browsing experience even more confusing and slows every thing down (not to mention the potential privacy issues).
However removing most options (and functionality) just for those users and situations where something might stop working, is wrong. Sure (some) settings could be tucked away better, but doing so to the extreme will influence how users view and use software.
This nurtures the sort of environment where users will kick and scream if a setting they altered does influence the usability of an application. The result: fewer and fewer options. Or options with large yellow safety warnings a la "stabbing yourself in the eye with a fork might result in loss of eyesight".
Just tried it here, and the answer is... it doesn't. Though maybe it does sometimes for somepeople?
edit to add: I really liked the image options available in Opera Mobile for use in low-bandwidth situations, which include replacing the image with an appropriately sized rectangle of an average color, with the alt text in it, but I'm guessing they require a proxy, or else I'd suggest adding them to Android Firefox.
An equally valid counter argument to simplification can be made: Leave the software as is. It is a known quantity. Create an "easy mode" add on instead for people who really need it.
I hope we won't see firefox equivalent of iphone (just an example among many, don't jump on me) in the future.
Why should other people, who don't know much, have to go get an extension while you, who does know enough to go get an extension, get to use the product as-is?
Idiot proofing is often necessary when the end user have to be spoon fed software and it is done by someone else who is perfectly capable of finding the said software on the internet form its official source, installing the package, finding the "easy mode" form its official source and clicking install button when the software prompts you to do so.
Alternatively, a version of software can be shipped by "easy mode" installed and enabled by default, just like how you choose which OS/localisation combo to download. Difference being that, software ships with rich configuration options by default and you can access them when you need it just by disabling "easy mode", not downloading something. No need to overhaul existing UI which is familiar to millions already, and prioritise people who cannot be trusted not to fiddle with options they don't know, just because you can.
I was so happy reading this because it seems that some big dogs are finally realizing the problem that I noticed some time ago [1], but I'm nowhere near as good at elaborating my points or causing change.
The innate problem with checkboxes is that while they communicate if something is on or off, they don't communicate what the optimized default value was (and unless you know what you're doing and a have a good reason to override it, it's probably better to leave it alone).
The reason extensions are mentioned has little to do with whether 3rd or 1st parties make them, but rather that their UI has a beautiful property: by default your extensions list is empty (ala clean slate), and everything just works.
Fixing unwanted issues is easy because it's just a matter of removing unwanted extensions from an explicit list of changes appled.
I think the main takeaway message here is that the UI for software settings can be made better without crippling the customizability or flexibility. Just present a view where it's easy to see what's been changed.
[1] https://github.com/shurcooL/Software-Settings/wiki/Software-...
What's wrong with it is that it adds a hidden cost to the software that makes it harder to develop. Every option splits your application into at least two possible states. If you have 1000 options, that's 2^1000 different states that you have to support.
Every feature added has to make sure it doesn't break one of these states, making it harder and harder to develop for.
Making something an option should not be the default behavior.
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So, in order to turn off features such as javascript for privacy or security at less trusted or unknown sites, the author wants me to trust not only the security and code quality of the browser but also the security and code quality of a 3rd party plug-in?
I really don't like this trend toward moving toward plug-ins for everything - although I am OK with moving things to about:config.
As it is, I really hate the fact that I have to install additional plugins in order to turn off all scripting - seems that this - if anything! - should be a built-in option.
This makes me trust Firefox less. I switched to Firefox back when it was around version 0.6 or 0.7 - its greatest selling point then was that it could not run ActiveX and that this was good from a security standpoint. As it is now I don't see any benefit to it compared to IE from a security standpoint and only stick with it due to the great number of options that are easily configurable in about:config.