Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania, when Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and allowing us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania, when Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and allowing us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
+1 to that. Additionally, the proposed method wouldn't even work because we blacklist crappy browsers from receiving JS.
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 1:37 PM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania, when Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people
with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and allowing us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The best way we can invest in Firefox is via open web technology such as push notifications imo.
On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 at 16:51 Max Semenik maxsem.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to that. Additionally, the proposed method wouldn't even work because we blacklist crappy browsers from receiving JS.
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 1:37 PM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania,
when
Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people
with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and
allowing
us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Best regards, Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]]) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi,
On 08/31/2017 01:51 PM, Max Semenik wrote:
+1 to that. Additionally, the proposed method wouldn't even work because we blacklist crappy browsers from receiving JS.
This isn't strictly true, we give legacy browsers some JS to make new HTML5 elements work using html5shiv[1]. And I think the specific implementation can be fleshed out a little later, that was just a concept/idea. :)
[1] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/369991/
-- Legoktm
On 31 August 2017 at 21:37, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania, when Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and allowing us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
+1 on appearing to be a slippery slope and benefiting from wider, political, discussion.
I've promoted Wikimedia and projects as being deliberately agnostic. Strategically, locking Wikimedia into fixed relationships with other organizations with their own drives and timelines, is going to increase risks downstream.
Fae
Personally (because I have no expertise in thing kind of thing in my WMF capacity), I'd very much support this. It *would *be showing a bias towards Mozilla and Firefox, but I think it's entirely reasonable for us to be biased towards non-profit, open technology. A web with Firefox as a strong player is considerably more hospitable to us than one without.
I agree this should be discussed in a wider forum like on Meta, but I look forward to supporting it there too :)
On 31 August 2017 at 14:20, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 August 2017 at 21:37, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania, when Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned was that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support at Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option. I was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people
with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and allowing us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with us: Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
+1 on appearing to be a slippery slope and benefiting from wider, political, discussion.
I've promoted Wikimedia and projects as being deliberately agnostic. Strategically, locking Wikimedia into fixed relationships with other organizations with their own drives and timelines, is going to increase risks downstream.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
There's a pile of minor open source browsers too ... maybe redirect to a page with a list.
- d.
On 31 August 2017 at 22:48, Neil Patel Quinn nquinn@wikimedia.org wrote:
Personally (because I have no expertise in thing kind of thing in my WMF capacity), I'd very much support this. It *would *be showing a bias towards Mozilla and Firefox, but I think it's entirely reasonable for us to be biased towards non-profit, open technology. A web with Firefox as a strong player is considerably more hospitable to us than one without.
I agree this should be discussed in a wider forum like on Meta, but I look forward to supporting it there too :)
On 31 August 2017 at 14:20, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 31 August 2017 at 21:37, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
This was something that came up during "The Big Open" at Wikimania,
when
Katherine Maher talked with Ryan Merkley (CEO of Creative Commons) and Mark Surman (ED of Mozilla Foundation). One of the themes mentioned
was
that our projects need to work together and support each other.
In that vein, I'm interested in what people think about promoting Firefox to users who are using legacy browsers that we don't support
at
Grade A (or some other criteria). As part of the "drop IE8 on XP" project[1] we're already promoting Firefox as the alternative option.
I
was imagining it could be a small and unobtrusive bubble notification[2], similar to those that Google pushes Chrome on people
with.
If users use modern browsers, they're going to have better security support, and most likely a better experience browsing Wikimedia sites too. We'd be improving the web by reducing legacy browsers, and
allowing
us to move forward with newer technology sooner (ideally).
And we'd be supporting a project that is ideologically aligned with
us:
Mozilla.
Thoughts, opinions?
[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T147199 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bubble_notifications
Thanks, -- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
Suggesting Firefox for IE8 on XP makes sense because it is basically the only option for that platform that is reasonably secure and not super obscure. Promoting firefox is general for legacy browsers seems like a slippery slope to me.
Additionally, I think this is more a political than a technical decision, and one that would require consultation with the general Wikimedia community (e.g. Meta RFC).
-- Brian
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
+1 on appearing to be a slippery slope and benefiting from wider, political, discussion.
I've promoted Wikimedia and projects as being deliberately agnostic. Strategically, locking Wikimedia into fixed relationships with other organizations with their own drives and timelines, is going to increase risks downstream.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Neil Patel Quinn https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Neil_P._Quinn-WMF, product analyst Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi,
On 08/31/2017 02:20 PM, Fæ wrote:
+1 on appearing to be a slippery slope and benefiting from wider, political, discussion.
Just to clarify, I fully plan on turning this into a wider discussion on Meta or alternative venue if/when pursuing this further. I was just trying to use wikitech-l as a place to gauge initial reactions from.
Where do you think the slippery slope would lead us to? I don't think we're ever going to tell our users to start using GNU/Linux or something.
I've promoted Wikimedia and projects as being deliberately agnostic.
I think we aim for this, but this isn't the actual case when it comes to browser support. For some time Chromium users had better load performance than Firefox users due to how localStorage was used, and in another case Opera 12 users couldn't access some pages with apostrophes in them.
In this case, I'm deliberately proposing that we do take a side and align ourselves with Mozilla/Firefox. The main takeaway I got from the Wikimania session I mentioned earlier was that all of us free software and open content projects need to work together and support each other.
We've already seen the open web lose when Mozilla gave into EME, simply because it didn't have enough market share to actually make a difference[1]. I'm afraid of the future where we no longer have an ally who can defend and push the shared Wikimedian ideals in the web browser space.
Strategically, locking Wikimedia into fixed relationships with other organizations with their own drives and timelines, is going to increase risks downstream.
I do agree this adds risks to us, like in terms of public image if something bad happens regarding Firefox. But I don't think it should be a locked/fixed relationship, it should be something that we can say "no this isn't working" and turn off whenever we need to.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-us...
-- Legoktm
The recent update of Firefox has made it worse, it basically kills most of the extensions, deletes your browser bookmark cache and make nearly all legacy addons useless, so yeah no, unless Firefox stop making things worse, they should not be the alternative, most would rather stick with Google Chrome...It has become a danger to even try to update your browser cause something else breaks after every update..
On 9/1/17, Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
On 08/31/2017 02:20 PM, Fæ wrote:
+1 on appearing to be a slippery slope and benefiting from wider, political, discussion.
Just to clarify, I fully plan on turning this into a wider discussion on Meta or alternative venue if/when pursuing this further. I was just trying to use wikitech-l as a place to gauge initial reactions from.
Where do you think the slippery slope would lead us to? I don't think we're ever going to tell our users to start using GNU/Linux or something.
I've promoted Wikimedia and projects as being deliberately agnostic.
I think we aim for this, but this isn't the actual case when it comes to browser support. For some time Chromium users had better load performance than Firefox users due to how localStorage was used, and in another case Opera 12 users couldn't access some pages with apostrophes in them.
In this case, I'm deliberately proposing that we do take a side and align ourselves with Mozilla/Firefox. The main takeaway I got from the Wikimania session I mentioned earlier was that all of us free software and open content projects need to work together and support each other.
We've already seen the open web lose when Mozilla gave into EME, simply because it didn't have enough market share to actually make a difference[1]. I'm afraid of the future where we no longer have an ally who can defend and push the shared Wikimedian ideals in the web browser space.
Strategically, locking Wikimedia into fixed relationships with other organizations with their own drives and timelines, is going to increase risks downstream.
I do agree this adds risks to us, like in terms of public image if something bad happens regarding Firefox. But I don't think it should be a locked/fixed relationship, it should be something that we can say "no this isn't working" and turn off whenever we need to.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-us...
-- Legoktm
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-1 to linking any resource which is not itself free software, translatable with free software and managed by a privacy-compliant org.
Positive example of what I mean: https://pdfreaders.org/ .
At least until a proper resource exists, just directing people to the latest Firefox is probably the most reasonable option (we certainly can't support the incumbent).
Nemo
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 6:55 AM Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
At least until a proper resource exists, just directing people to the latest Firefox is probably the most reasonable option (we certainly can't support the incumbent).
Is linking to Firefox and Chromium an option?
-Chad
Why dont we link to an list of web browsers compatible with wmf projects and let the user decide
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 6:55 AM Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
At least until a proper resource exists, just directing people to the latest Firefox is probably the most reasonable option (we certainly can't support the incumbent).
Is linking to Firefox and Chromium an option?
-Chad _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I understand the desire to avoid playing favorites by directing users to a list of browsers rather than a single one, but I think that cuts against *both *the goals of doing this in the first place.
The first goal is to nudge users to upgrade from an insecure, less-capable browser to a modern one. But if we present them a list of 10 alternatives (or even 2), they're far more likely to get stuck in choice paralysis [1] and far less likely to actually do what we want and upgrade.
The second goal is to strengthen non-profit, open-web-focused browser makers by increasing their market share. As I see it, the best way to do this is to nudge all our users towards a single, high-quality browser which already has significant market share, rather than distributing them across many different browsers with tiny market shares.
I'd suggest that the best areas for debate are (1) whether these are good goals, (2) whether their benefits justify interrupting users' browsing, and (3) which single browser would be the best destination
Obviously, my answers are (1) yes, (2) yes, and (3) Firefox, but some will disagree :)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
On 1 September 2017 at 12:15, zppix e megadev44s.mail@gmail.com wrote:
Why dont we link to an list of web browsers compatible with wmf projects and let the user decide
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 6:55 AM Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
At least until a proper resource exists, just directing people to the latest Firefox is probably the most reasonable option (we certainly can't support the incumbent).
Is linking to Firefox and Chromium an option?
-Chad _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I personally use firefox on desktop and safari on my mobile (im lazy to install an web browser on mobile lol) but I don't think we should make users feel like we're pushing them towards a certain browser because someone(s) agree the browser is recommended. While yes people may see the list and get overwhelmed and not update but at the same time not showing them more than one option can cause the same thing because they feel we support one thing over another. All in all I have no issue recommending firefox i just have an issue not giving the user a feeling of choice of modern browsers.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 5:56 PM, Neil Patel Quinn nquinn@wikimedia.org wrote:
I understand the desire to avoid playing favorites by directing users to a list of browsers rather than a single one, but I think that cuts against *both *the goals of doing this in the first place.
The first goal is to nudge users to upgrade from an insecure, less-capable browser to a modern one. But if we present them a list of 10 alternatives (or even 2), they're far more likely to get stuck in choice paralysis [1] and far less likely to actually do what we want and upgrade.
The second goal is to strengthen non-profit, open-web-focused browser makers by increasing their market share. As I see it, the best way to do this is to nudge all our users towards a single, high-quality browser which already has significant market share, rather than distributing them across many different browsers with tiny market shares.
I'd suggest that the best areas for debate are (1) whether these are good goals, (2) whether their benefits justify interrupting users' browsing, and (3) which single browser would be the best destination
Obviously, my answers are (1) yes, (2) yes, and (3) Firefox, but some will disagree :)
On 1 September 2017 at 12:15, zppix e megadev44s.mail@gmail.com wrote:
Why dont we link to an list of web browsers compatible with wmf projects and let the user decide
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 12:09 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 6:55 AM Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
At least until a proper resource exists, just directing people to the latest Firefox is probably the most reasonable option (we certainly can't support the incumbent).
Is linking to Firefox and Chromium an option?
-Chad _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Neil Patel Quinn https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Neil_P._Quinn-WMF, product analyst Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 3:57 PM Neil Patel Quinn nquinn@wikimedia.org wrote:
I understand the desire to avoid playing favorites by directing users to a list of browsers rather than a single one, but I think that cuts against *both *the goals of doing this in the first place.
The first goal is to nudge users to upgrade from an insecure, less-capable browser to a modern one. But if we present them a list of 10 alternatives (or even 2), they're far more likely to get stuck in choice paralysis [1] and far less likely to actually do what we want and upgrade.
Indeed. A big list of "HEY PICK ONE OF THESE" means we'll end up fracturing our users over a bunch of browsers that most of us would never even use ourselves. I merely suggested Chromium alongside Firefox because it's also free/open, even if driven by the BIG EVIL GOOGLE.
The second goal is to strengthen non-profit, open-web-focused browser makers by increasing their market share. As I see it, the best way to do this is to nudge all our users towards a single, high-quality browser which already has significant market share, rather than distributing them across many different browsers with tiny market shares.
Indeed, like I said above. However high quality is subjective...my experiences with Firefox have been horrible the last several years, which is why I stick to Chromium/Chrome mostly. That's why I'd suggest like basically 2-3 options tops so we don't play favorites :)
I'd suggest that the best areas for debate are (1) whether these are good goals, (2) whether their benefits justify interrupting users' browsing, and (3) which single browser would be the best destination
Obviously, my answers are (1) yes, (2) yes, and (3) Firefox, but some will disagree :)
(1) Eh, maybe. I care mostly because these older platforms are horribly insecure and if we can get people on a half-decent browser on those platforms then that's a win (cf: T118181 and all its various linked tasks). Javascript is wayyyyy down the list of why I care here :)
(2) We already interrupt some of these users anyway per the TLS migration stuff I mentioned in (1) above. I think the rollout there--start with small percentages and slowly ramp up prior to there being a deadline is a good route to go.
(3) I would *really* like to have 2--maybe 3--browsers to list. There's zero reason to make users think there's only one option when there's a couple of valid ones.
-Chad
Hi,
On 09/01/2017 07:06 PM, Chad wrote:
(3) I would *really* like to have 2--maybe 3--browsers to list. There's zero reason to make users think there's only one option when there's a couple of valid ones.
I think Neil hit my goals on the head, and ideally there would be multiple browsers we could recommend. Skipping the "support a like minded organization" part for a bit, here's the criterion I would want to see for a web browser we recommend:
1. Free software/open source 2. Privacy friendly 3. Good security track record and active security team 4. Easy for non-technical users to use
Firefox and Chromium both clear 1-3 pretty easily.
For #4 I think Firefox also meets it - I know people have concerns with Firefox dropping legacy XUL addons or other changes to defaults, but I don't think people coming from IE 8 would really care or even notice.
According to the "Download Chromium" page[1], their builds are based on the current master, and don't auto update. So I don't think that would meet the criteria for #4 since users would need to download updates manually. And Google Chrome, which does have auto updating, doesn't meet #1 or #2.
After Firefox and Chromium, there's a bunch of open source web browsers listed on [2], but a brief spot check showed many as being Linux only (or outdated Mac builds). One that looked promising was Brave[3], though it's a relatively new browser and I would need to do more research regarding #3.
Ultimately I think Firefox is the best and probably only choice for us to recommend to users. Given that Mozilla is an organization that is aligned with us ideologically, I feel comfortable recommending their product on Wikimedia sites, and trust they're not suddenly going to add privacy invasive features. That said, if there's another browser that also meets the criterion listed above, I would be totally open to recommending it well.
[1] https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)
-- Legoktm
Hi!
After Firefox and Chromium, there's a bunch of open source web browsers listed on [2], but a brief spot check showed many as being Linux only (or outdated Mac builds). One that looked promising was Brave[3], though it's a relatively new browser and I would need to do more research regarding #3.
I've been using Brave for a couple of months occasionally, and it seems to work pretty well. It has (some) adblocking in default config, and some other privacy-enhancing settings, which are probably not very important for Wikimedia sites but may either break some other sites or make them bearable :) It's pretty young, so I don't think we can say much about security record yet - IIRC it's based on Chromium, and it's updated pretty frequently, and it's easy to use (though the UI might be a bit more spartan then others for now, and not many extensions available - but for ex-IE users it may not be an issue).
Gonna be honest...after using Firefox almost exclusively for the last 10 years whenever I had a choice, I'm ready to give up on it. I don't expect all the bells and whistles (and privacy compromises) of the big commercial browsers, but Firefox has decided to take a path that is actively awful. It's not just awful on Wikipedia (where I know logged-in users with lots of preferences and scripts are always going to be slow), it is awful on every website I go to, and it crashes on a multiple-times-a-day basis. It does this on all three of my computers. I've been trying to stay loyal and look at the bigger "free knowledge" bit...but I have had six crashes today and I'm done. I hear this a lot from people I know outside of Wikimedia, and I've been told its unreliability is why several companies have decided against adding it (or have removed it) as an acceptable alternate browser.
So no, I do not think it would be a good idea for anyone, let alone the Wikimedia Foundation, to advocate on behalf of this software.
Risker/Anne
On 3 September 2017 at 03:22, Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi!
After Firefox and Chromium, there's a bunch of open source web browsers listed on [2], but a brief spot check showed many as being Linux only (or outdated Mac builds). One that looked promising was Brave[3], though it's a relatively new browser and I would need to do more research regarding #3.
I've been using Brave for a couple of months occasionally, and it seems to work pretty well. It has (some) adblocking in default config, and some other privacy-enhancing settings, which are probably not very important for Wikimedia sites but may either break some other sites or make them bearable :) It's pretty young, so I don't think we can say much about security record yet - IIRC it's based on Chromium, and it's updated pretty frequently, and it's easy to use (though the UI might be a bit more spartan then others for now, and not many extensions available - but for ex-IE users it may not be an issue).
-- Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Gonna be honest...after using Firefox almost exclusively for the last 10 years whenever I had a choice, I'm ready to give up on it. I don't expect all the bells and whistles (and privacy compromises) of the big commercial browsers, but Firefox has decided to take a path that is actively awful. It's not just awful on Wikipedia (where I know logged-in users with lots of preferences and scripts are always going to be slow), it is awful on every website I go to, and it crashes on a multiple-times-a-day basis. It does this on all three of my computers. I've been trying to stay loyal and look at the bigger "free knowledge" bit...but I have had six crashes today and I'm done. I hear this a lot from people I know outside of Wikimedia, and I've been told its unreliability is why several companies have decided against adding it (or have removed it) as an acceptable alternate browser.
So no, I do not think it would be a good idea for anyone, let alone the Wikimedia Foundation, to advocate on behalf of this software.
As long as we are going on anecdotal evidence, I run Firefox ESR 52.3.0 on an OSX laptop all day every day and can not remember the last crash I had. I do shutdown the browser every evening which may or may not avoid serious memory leaks. In my personal past experience, Firefox crashes were almost always correlated with buggy user installed, community developed extensions.
Bryan
On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:
In my personal past experience, Firefox crashes were almost always correlated with buggy user installed, community developed extensions.
Which are going to be axed in the next release and replaced with a Chrome-like limited-but-safe API for extensions, and that has everyone up in arms. It's hard to please users :)
In any case I would care more about linking to a user-friendly and well-maintained landing page (e.g. does it offer useful choices if you visit it from a mobile device?) than the specific selection of browsers offered - given the relatively small ratio of grade C visits, we are unlikely to alter the browser landscape much either way. And I doubt we want to deal with maintaining such a page ourselves.
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely doing it because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and showing them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
In mobile the situation is a lot different, grade C doesn't mean old crappy browser, but it means HTML only browser, and there are millions of people opting in to those experiences to get a faster and more data constrained experience, because of the cost of mobile data on their countries, or the speeds of the network. Those people are using Opera mini or UC browser at will, because it is actually a better experience for them, and showing them a banner about changing to a different browser when their browser is neither old, nor outdated, is only going to be a negative experience for them on the sites.
I personally don't think it is worth doing generally for all grade C. Maybe it is worth identifying specific UA or UA ranges of browsers that are specially problematic and that we know are usually used by choice and not forced upon the user, and showing a message to those only. That way we could avoid degrading the experience to users that are using a grade C by choice, like the Opera mini ones.
My 2 cents.
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 7:40 AM Gergo Tisza gtisza@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:
In my personal past experience, Firefox crashes were almost always correlated with buggy user installed, community developed extensions.
Which are going to be axed in the next release and replaced with a Chrome-like limited-but-safe API for extensions, and that has everyone up in arms. It's hard to please users :)
In any case I would care more about linking to a user-friendly and well-maintained landing page (e.g. does it offer useful choices if you visit it from a mobile device?) than the specific selection of browsers offered - given the relatively small ratio of grade C visits, we are unlikely to alter the browser landscape much either way. And I doubt we want to deal with maintaining such a page ourselves. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:28 AM Joaquin Oltra Hernandez < jhernandez@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely doing it because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and showing them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
To be honest, bugging these users means hopefully they'll bug their IT managers to finally get their fucking asses in the 2010s and stop being irresponsible. I won't lose any sleep over annoying them...
However, there's two other groups who would be annoyed/confused by such banners:
* Parents/grandparents who got their Windows XP laptop 12 years ago and don't know how to upgrade--nor do they care, as long as they can check their e-mail and print pictures :) * People in lower-income locales for whom upgrading is a cost-prohibitive endeavor
-Chad
Just to throw in some other datasets to look at:
The US .gov publishes all browser/traffic information in csv/json [1]. The gov.uk publishes similar data [2]. I realize this is centered mainly on people who live in those countries, but it may be helpful to look at other large traffic-getting domains and see similarities and differences to the browser usage on Wikipedia [3].
[1] https://analytics.usa.gov/data/, Code: https://github.com/18F/analytics.usa.gov [2] https://data.gov.uk/data/site-usage#browsers_names [3] https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/#desktop-site-by-browser...
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 11:47 AM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:28 AM Joaquin Oltra Hernandez < jhernandez@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely doing
it
because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and
showing
them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
To be honest, bugging these users means hopefully they'll bug their IT managers to finally get their fucking asses in the 2010s and stop being irresponsible. I won't lose any sleep over annoying them...
However, there's two other groups who would be annoyed/confused by such banners:
- Parents/grandparents who got their Windows XP laptop 12 years ago and
don't know how to upgrade--nor do they care, as long as they can check their e-mail and print pictures :)
- People in lower-income locales for whom upgrading is a cost-prohibitive
endeavor
-Chad _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 05/09/2017 17:47, Chad wrote:
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:28 AM Joaquin Oltra Hernandez < jhernandez@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely doing it because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and showing them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
To be honest, bugging these users means hopefully they'll bug their IT managers to finally get their fucking asses in the 2010s and stop being irresponsible. I won't lose any sleep over annoying them...
That is not how it works in a big company. To deploy a new browser you gotta: * update the base images used to deploy the workstations * revalidate all the applications * revalidate all the web apps with that new browser (cough ActiveX, Java, Flash, obsolete js etc) * roll it incrementally to the ten or hundred of thousands of workstation
That is a 12-18 months project and you don't do it "just" to upgrade a browser that is however working fine for your business applications.
In the end the IT managers cant do it as easily as they would want due to time/cost. I got your point for sure, and I am pretty sure web compatibility has forced them to update their browser already, they are just lagging by a few years.
However, there's two other groups who would be annoyed/confused by such banners:
- Parents/grandparents who got their Windows XP laptop 12 years ago and
don't know how to upgrade--nor do they care, as long as they can check their e-mail and print pictures :)
- People in lower-income locales for whom upgrading is a cost-prohibitive
endeavor
-Chad
I am pretty sure the popup would be annoying to a lot of users. Hopefully when most websites no more work in their browser, they would eventually switch to a new computer. But that can take a decade+ to achieve :-(
If we crafted nice tutorials as to how to install and use the few browsers we offer, that might help. Chrome and Firefox most probably already have such tutorials for all the OSes they support.
On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:31 AM Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
On 05/09/2017 17:47, Chad wrote:
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:28 AM Joaquin Oltra Hernandez < jhernandez@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely
doing it
because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and
showing
them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
To be honest, bugging these users means hopefully they'll bug their IT managers to finally get their fucking asses in the 2010s and stop being irresponsible. I won't lose any sleep over annoying them...
That is not how it works in a big company. To deploy a new browser you gotta:
- update the base images used to deploy the workstations
- revalidate all the applications
- revalidate all the web apps with that new browser (cough ActiveX,
Java, Flash, obsolete js etc)
- roll it incrementally to the ten or hundred of thousands of workstation
That is a 12-18 months project and you don't do it "just" to upgrade a browser that is however working fine for your business applications.
In the end the IT managers cant do it as easily as they would want due to time/cost. I got your point for sure, and I am pretty sure web compatibility has forced them to update their browser already, they are just lagging by a few years.
I'm well aware of how corporate IT works. A 12-18 month project....that should've been started in May 2010 when Microsoft announced the end of XP support. That's like 80+ months and counting. I'm sorry, but if you're the IT executive who thinks that is acceptable then you should resign in absolute shame and leave the field IT.
I never said it was cheap, or easy, but that it has to be done. Maybe if we annoy the CEO of a company a directive will magically come down from on high ;-)
I am pretty sure the popup would be annoying to a lot of users. Hopefully when most websites no more work in their browser, they would eventually switch to a new computer. But that can take a decade+ to achieve :-(
The internet is quickly disappearing from these browsers. Warning them beforehand is better than just one day going dark with no explanation.
If we crafted nice tutorials as to how to install and use the few browsers we offer, that might help. Chrome and Firefox most probably already have such tutorials for all the OSes they support.
Link to their sites. They typically have nice big INSTALL ME buttons on their homepages :)
-Chad
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Joaquin Oltra Hernandez jhernandez@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think that people using old browsers on desktop, are most surely doing it because they have to (company policy on locked down computers) and showing them a banner or similar is only going to detract from their experience with information they don't neither want nor need.
They may not be allowed to upgrade, but they must know they *should* upgrade, if they are using an insecure browser.
In mobile the situation is a lot different, grade C doesn't mean old crappy browser, but it means HTML only browser, and there are millions of people opting in to those experiences to get a faster and more data constrained experience, because of the cost of mobile data on their countries, or the speeds of the network. Those people are using Opera mini or UC browser at will, because it is actually a better experience for them, and showing them a banner about changing to a different browser when their browser is neither old, nor outdated, is only going to be a negative experience for them on the sites.
I personally don't think it is worth doing generally for all grade C. Maybe it is worth identifying specific UA or UA ranges of browsers that are specially problematic and that we know are usually used by choice and not forced upon the user, and showing a message to those only. That way we could avoid degrading the experience to users that are using a grade C by choice, like the Opera mini ones.
Yes, these cases are different. From the original message I understood that this was to target old browsers only, but perhaps multiple banners could be displayed depending whether the user is browsing with an insecure browser or with one that has reduced functionality.
My 2 cents.
On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 7:40 AM Gergo Tisza gtisza@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:13 PM, Bryan Davis bd808@wikimedia.org wrote:
In my personal past experience, Firefox crashes were almost always correlated with buggy user installed, community developed extensions.
Which are going to be axed in the next release and replaced with a Chrome-like limited-but-safe API for extensions, and that has everyone up in arms. It's hard to please users :)
In any case I would care more about linking to a user-friendly and well-maintained landing page (e.g. does it offer useful choices if you visit it from a mobile device?) than the specific selection of browsers offered - given the relatively small ratio of grade C visits, we are unlikely to alter the browser landscape much either way. And I doubt we want to deal with maintaining such a page ourselves. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
2017-09-05 2:08 GMT+02:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
Firefox has decided to take a path that is actively awful.
Which is?
Are we running same firefox? I have same experience like you, but with Chrome. Firefox is best performing and rock solid compared to anything else to me and I run it on all my computers including virtual boxes, with ~100 tabs I achieved months of uptime with no crash. Can't say this about chrome or others.
On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 at 02:08, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Gonna be honest...after using Firefox almost exclusively for the last 10 years whenever I had a choice, I'm ready to give up on it. I don't expect all the bells and whistles (and privacy compromises) of the big commercial browsers, but Firefox has decided to take a path that is actively awful. It's not just awful on Wikipedia (where I know logged-in users with lots of preferences and scripts are always going to be slow), it is awful on every website I go to, and it crashes on a multiple-times-a-day basis. It does this on all three of my computers. I've been trying to stay loyal and look at the bigger "free knowledge" bit...but I have had six crashes today and I'm done. I hear this a lot from people I know outside of Wikimedia, and I've been told its unreliability is why several companies have decided against adding it (or have removed it) as an acceptable alternate browser.
So no, I do not think it would be a good idea for anyone, let alone the Wikimedia Foundation, to advocate on behalf of this software.
Risker/Anne
On 3 September 2017 at 03:22, Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi!
After Firefox and Chromium, there's a bunch of open source web browsers listed on [2], but a brief spot check showed many as being Linux only (or outdated Mac builds). One that looked promising was Brave[3],
though
it's a relatively new browser and I would need to do more research regarding #3.
I've been using Brave for a couple of months occasionally, and it seems to work pretty well. It has (some) adblocking in default config, and some other privacy-enhancing settings, which are probably not very important for Wikimedia sites but may either break some other sites or make them bearable :) It's pretty young, so I don't think we can say much about security record yet - IIRC it's based on Chromium, and it's updated pretty frequently, and it's easy to use (though the UI might be a bit more spartan then others for now, and not many extensions available - but for ex-IE users it may not be an issue).
-- Stas Malyshev smalyshev@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 1:37 PM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
We could send them to something like https://whatbrowser.org/ or https://browsehappy.com/ Motivating users to update their outdated browsers would definitely be a good idea. It has the usual problem of notifications though: prompting the user repeatedly with the same message gets annoying quickly, and we cannot easily rely on the browser to remember whether it has already seen the message in the past as the browser could have cookies disabled etc.
On 01/09/2017 01:58, Gergo Tisza wrote:
On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 1:37 PM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
I'm concerned this would be seen as an inapropriate bias.
We could send them to something like https://whatbrowser.org/ or https://browsehappy.com/ Motivating users to update their outdated browsers would definitely be a good idea.
+1
Tell people to update very old browser, sure. Advertise a specific one, no no.
KTC
On 1 September 2017 at 01:58, Gergo Tisza gtisza@wikimedia.org wrote:
We could send them to something like https://whatbrowser.org/ or https://browsehappy.com/
whatbrowser.org is definitely a nice experience, but it does require JS to work; it fails to load both your current browser and suggestions for others without JS. A lot of older browsers do have Javascript support, so that might not be a problem, but perhaps it could be for some browsers.
Speaking of neutrality, it's important to note that whatbrowser.org is owned and run by Google. I don't think that's a problem, since the site is fairly neutral in its assessment and recommendations.
Dan
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org