Divergent News on FirefoxOS

Almost 15 days ago, with a heavy heart, I said good-bye to my FirefoxOS phone because of Mozilla's decision to stop the distribution of the devices.

Today, I read these two articles:  The first one describes how Mozilla is dropping all other projects to focus only on the Firefox browser.  The writer emphasizes the irrelevancy of FirefoxOS and supports Mozilla's decision to stay on focus with the browser. 

The second article, however, mentions how Mozilla's strategy is not to ditch FirefoxOS, but to take it to different devices where it can enjoy more success: tablets, keyboard computers, and routers, for example.   Does this mean that FirefoxOS enjoyed more success as a smart TV OS than we have heard about?

Interesting...

Mozilla, what are you up to?

Firefox says Hello! on PCLinuxOS and OpenMandriva

The new update to Firefox 35 is available on PCLinuxOS and OpenMandriva.

I have been expecting this update because it includes Hello, the new video-call feature from Mozilla.

For those of us who don't use Facebook, SpyMe, er, Skype, or are not satisfied with Google Hangouts, Firefox Hello stands as an interesting option to communicate using video.

Oh, and it says that you do not even need to use Firefox... Only sharing the link is enough. I have to try that.

The new MS Spartan browser, with its so-much-acclaimed-as-modern technologies (that basically bind you to MS cloud), should learn something.

From .flv to mp3 with Firefox add ons

Sometimes I need to get the audio from a video in YouTube, which I download using Download Helper, the convenient Firefox add-on.

Normally, I prefer to do the process myself: that is, I extract the audio with a program (VLC) and then use Audacity to convert the file to whatever audio format I  like.  The advantage of this approach is that I stand on my own feet and can get my .mp3 file all the time and the way I like it.  The downside is that, depending on the distro I am using, I might not have the tools available.

If you do not know how to use those tools (or ignore how to use the Linux terminal to achieve that purpose easily), you can always take a point-and-click approach to convert .flv videos to .mp3 files thanks to a Firefox add-on called BestVideoDownloader 2 (you can get it here).  This add-on relies on a transcoding Web service called converttomp3.net.

Once you have installed BestVideoDownloader 2,  go to your desired YouTube video, play it and scroll down to look under the title.  Right next to the like/dislike buttons, you will see the downloading icon of BestVideoDownloader 2.

 
 Click on it and a drop-down menu with format options will appear.  Select the one you prefer.  I used MP3 192 Kbps:

Once you select the format, you will see a button indicating that you can proceed to the download service:

You will be taken to converttomp3.net service, which will indicate that the conversion of the file is in progress:

The conversion will finish and the service will ask you to specify the .mp3 file tags.  Simply click on "CONTINUE": 

This will take you (finally!) to the download page.  Notice that the service will only store your .mp3 for two hours.

This process is certainly convenient, but it has a main drawback: you depend on the service to be up and running for your conversion to work.   Another potential problem can be that, depending on the version of Firefox that you use (or if you update the browser in the future), the add-on might stop working until it catches up with the browser version.

Updates knocking on the door!

Ah, updates!

I remember that, back in my days as a Windows ME user, I learned to be truly afraid of them.  Updates were supposed to help your computer but, almost inevitably, something would go very wrong after applying them.

I would have thought that, by now, Microsoft mastered the process of providing updates that do not break your computer.  However, that is not the case.  A colleague told me that her husband applied updates to her Windows 7 desktop and the old MS magic was performed just the same: the sound card went crazy and refused to work with the microphone and the webcam also stopped working.

And then, there's the celebrated Microsoft update to convert your Windows 8 RT computer into a Windows 8.1 RT... brick!  It went so bad that Microsoft had to prevent people from installing it.

I don't know if they fixed it but, according to this post, the update to Win 8.1 now seems to convert your computer into a cat (because it does not play nicely with mice).

To be fair, I have also heard complaints on updates coming from Linux users.  I myself have messed up with some Linux installs because of carelessness during the updating process.  My last experience was when I tried to install PCLinuxOS 2013.10.  Of course, it was all my fault: I had been sluggish with my bi-weekly updating process and, being PCLOS a semi-rolling distro, that is a rather serious mistake.

I learned my lesson and today's PCLOS update went smoothly.  It was a major one, too: it converted my KDE 4.10.5 laptop into a KDE 4.11 machine.

By the way, I am also getting a Mageia update with Firefox 25... At last!  This thing of not being able to read PDF files directly from the browser was getting me frustrated...

It's great that updates come around!

Random thoughts

Well, thanks to Megatotoro's review of Pisi Linux here (and his output problem), I have been fooling around with my "From-PC-to-TV" output lately.  I finally discovered how to have two different monitors on KDE.  I'll write about it soon.

I need some time to install Pisi myself.  Maybe next weekend.  And I need to learn how to install the newer versions of Firefox on Mageia 3, 64 bits.

The PCLinuxOS update went good.  I only encountered a minor sound problem because my previous sound configuration was invalid in the new KDE 4.10.4.  Yet, it was a matter of changing the position of devices in the hierarchy.  Oh, and the new login screen looks great!  No wonder PCLinuxOS is now ranked #3 on DistroWatch's chart.

Speaking of the chart, OpenMandriva has climbed positions in DistroWatch.com quite rapidly: from #200 it has gone up to #8.

I hope DistroWatch soon includes Pisi, too.

Wheee!  I am still waiting for the new Elive Release...and the Vivaldi tablet...and the Firefox tablet.

And the Jetpack 2 game for Linux.

Typying in Japanese with Firefox: SCIM in Mandriva 2011/Mageia 2

Yesterday, I shared how to get SCIM to behave correctly to handle Japanese typying in PCLinuxOS 2013.02.  Thanks to that discovery, I learned the way to enable SCIM when using Firefox in Mandriva 2011/Mageia 2.

First of all, let me say that while iBus does the same and can be installed fairly easy in both Mandriva 2011 and Mageia 2, the problem is that it ruins the keyboard accents in Spanish for those people who work in that language with LibreOffice.  Therefore, SCIM is a better option.

I am running Firefox 19.0 at the moment, but this trick works with previous versions of the browser and future ones, too (Aurora and Nightly).

To activate Japanese IME (SCIM) in Mandriva 2011 or Mageia 2, the following packages are needed:

1. Japanese fonts (Use MCC to get them)
2. Scim (and all of its dependencies)
3. Canna (and its dependencies)
4. Anthy (and its dependencies)
5. UIM (make sure that the bridging packages are included)

Once all the packages are installed,open the terminal Konsole and use SU to log in as root with your password.

Then go to /etc/sysconfig by using
cd..
cd..
cd etc
cd sysconfig

once there, activate Kwrite by typying
export $ (dbus-launch)
kwrite

The idea is to modify a file called i18n.
When Kwrite is functional, using the open icon, and locate the file i18n to open it. Once it is displayed, append the following lines to the end of the file and save it.

GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
QT_IM_MODULE=scim
XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"
XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM

Close the terminal and then go to usr/share/X11/xdm
Once there, open Konsole and type su and the system will ask you for your root password.  Enter it and then type
export $ (dbus-launch)
then type kwrite (to start Kwrite and edit a file)

Once Kwrite appears, open the file Xsession with it. You have to append the following lines before the line that starts with exec

SCIM working with Firefox in Mandriva 2011

 
export XMODIFIERS=@im=xim  
export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
export XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"

Save and log out and back in to your session.  That's the end of the show.  From now on, your browser will accept Japanese input for searches, or searches in other languages (Korean, Thai, etc) as long as you have the fonts for those languages installed.

The good thing about this method is that it also enabled SCIM for LibreOffice 4 (which is not in the official repositories of Mandriva/Mageia yet).

SCIM working with LibreOffice 4 in Mageia 2

Test driving Firefox 9

Following a rapid release schedule that has upset several people, Firefox 9 was made available yesterday. Although it has been said that Google Chrome has taken the #2 browser market share position, I will continue using the Mozilla browser because, to be honest, none of the arguments against Firefox has been heavy enough for me to drop it. In addition, I like Mozilla's open Web philosophy and the useful extensions that can be incorporated to "the little browser that could".

Hence, I downloaded Firefox 9 and unzipped the tar file. Since the created directory is called "firefox", I changed its name to "firefox9" to be able to run the previous version if the new browser failed the test. Then, after opening Konsole and typing SU and my root password, I used this command to move the folder:
cp -r /home/my directory/Downloads/firefox9 /usr/lib/

I then added the menu entry and started Firefox 9. It first checked compatibility with my add-ons (WOT, NoScript, Zotero, Webmail notifier, Ad Block Plus, Download Helper) and loaded without much trouble. The add-ons are working flawlessly, too.

Is Firefox 9 faster? Well, Google+ lasted 2.67 seconds to load with Firefox 7.01. It took me 1.12 seconds to load this page with Firefox 9. The time difference is not a big concern for me, but it seems vital for some other people.

Aside from that, my untrained eye only caught two other differences: outline for missing icons and the page reload button.
Firefox 7.01: Blank page icon





Firefox 9: Outline of missing icon


As for the page reload button, it is inside the address bar in FF9.


I consider my test drive a success. I'll keep the new version to see how it performs. I have tried all critical pages (including the financial institution with which I do online banking) and I haven't had any major problem so far, only some funny display issues here at Blogger. I can live with it, though.

I'm a 7 user now!

Only it's not Windows 7, but Firefox 7.

I downloaded it as a .tar.bz2 file and used alien to convert it into an RPM. You do that by typing SU in Konsole, then your root password. You have to use this this command:

alien -r firefox-7.0.tar.bz2

(Obviously you need to have alien installed)

You wait a bit and then the terminal tells you that it's done. You find a firefox-7.0-2.noarch.rpm file and click on it to install it.

That's it.

I noticed that this procedure substituted the Firefox 6 that I downloaded from the MIB repos.

Since I'm still using Mandriva 2010.2, I guess that's the best way to switch to Firefox 7 which, by the way, is performing great in my system. All my favorite add-ons work and it's fast. About the changes, well, to be honest, I see the same browser I was using... I guess they are only visible to technical users.

Firefox grita: "¡Esto es PERSONAL!"

Una de las características que me llamó la anteción del navegador Firefox era la facilidad con la que se le podía añadir complementos para extender sus funcionalidades. Hay complementos para virtualmente TODO: saber el clima en diferentes países y ciudades (muy útil cuando uno viaja de Costa Rica a Brasil, por ejemplo), monitorear las cuentas de email con una frecuencia establecida por el usuario, y cientos más. Además, la facilidad con la que era posible cambiar los temas del navegador, en otras palabras, la apariencia visual del mismo, me sorprendió. No había muchas opciones entonces, pero Mozilla tuvo una revelación y amplió el enfoque comunitario de Firefox con una idea básica en el mundo de las computadoras: si está demostrado que los usuarios se sienten más a gusto con una computadora PERSONALIZADA (pregunten a quienes compraron Windows 7 Starter), ¿por qué no dejarlos que CAMBIEN LA APARIENCIA DE FIREFOX A SU GUSTO?

Sin embargo, causó sorpresa cómo la gente se identificó con Firefox. La creatividad de los usuarios se desató y las apariencias, llamadas PERSONAS (sí, "PERSONA", en ESPAÑOL) cuentan con una enorme galería que se expande. Hay de todo: desde imágenes nacionalistas (típico gracias a la Copa Mundial), hasta temas abstractos. Las PERSONAS se pueden probar con solamente colocar el puntero sobre ellas y, si a uno le gusta cómo se ve el navegador "vestido" con ellas, se hace click para seleccionar la preferida y ya.

Además, el sitio cuenta con un eficiente buscador (¡hasta en eso pensaron!) para tratar de localizar apariencias que uno quisiera probar primero. Sin muchas esperanzas, digité en el buscador "Linux" y me abrumó encontrar más de una página con posibilidades. Hay PERSONAS para Ubuntu, Arch, Mint (se llevan el premio, como siempre...¡esa identidad verde y fresca se las trae!), OpenSuse, Debian... Me dio gusto ver que hasta Mepis, una distro no tan conocida, estaba representada en el sitio. Megatotoro añadió su contribución más tarde.

Yo no pude contenerme y decidí crear una de mi distro Linux favorita: Mandriva. No es una gran obra de arte, pero que se me permita hacerla habla de libertad y sentido de comunidad. Por cierto, el proceso fue sencillísimo (si uno ha manipulado imágenes antes, claro), ya que el sitio le indica claramente al usuario qué debe hacer. Los resultados son visibles: hoy uso esa PERSONA en mi Firefox... Es indesciptible cómo una acción tan aparentemente insignificante le otorga a uno un sentido de pertenencia y de satisfacción. Ya la sensación de "yo controlo mi computadora" se extiende desde el momento en que uno observa el sistema operativo, las configuraciones personales del escritorio y ahora hasta la apariencia y desempeño del browser.


Y lo mejor de todo: como debe ser el software ¡FUNCIONA EN WINDOWS, LINUX Y MAC!

Para probarlo:

http://www.getpersonas.com/es/

The Epic War of Browsers

Since Symantec released its report in 2005, Microsoft lobbyists have quoted the old document to make people believe that Internet Explorer is the safest browser today. Their idea is to tell users that Mozilla Firefox might make one's computer vulnerable to attacks.

Symantec, the company that flags Norton Antivirus, stated back then that there were 25 vulnerabilities in Firefox while Internet Explorer had only 13. This is the part that supporters of IE love to repeat. The part that they don't want us to consider is this:

1. The Mozilla Foundation started in 2003, so Firefox was a fairly young browser back then. Yet, its problems were solved in a period of THREE DAYS. Some of the noted problems of IE are still there today.
2. From the 25 problems in Firefox, only 8 were considered as real threats by Symantec ...the SAME NUMBER OF PROBLEMS THAT WERE FOUND IN INTERNET EXPLORER. This means that the young Mozilla product and Microsoft's 10-year-old browser WERE TIED REGARDING PERFORMANCE.
3. According to Secunia (a Danish company that checks the security of software products), up to 2010, IE keeps a total of 19 vulnerabilities that have not been fixed, while Firefox has only 3.

MY EXPERIENCE
I have learned everything I know about computers empirically. Being a heavy Internet surfer, when I decided to use Firefox three years ago (I still used Windows back then), I discovered that IE was sluggish, prone to crashes and, above all, UNSAFE. I had little control over the browsing experience, which meant that I would catch lots of viruses by merely going online. I had to format my computer at least once every two months. By switching to Firefox, the number of infections decreased considerably. Of course I got viruses, but these came from USB drives, not the Internet. Thanks to the security add-ons in Firefox, browsing the Web became a less problematic hobby. I used (and have kept using) three add-ons:
1. WOT. It alerts you if you are visiting a dangerous site by blocking the page BEFORE you get in.
2. AdBlock Plus. This add-on blocks ads, which lets you browse faster and, at the same time, gives you protection against malware masked as Web page elements.
3. NoScript. It prevents Java script from executing. This might be problematic in some pages that require Java to run properly, but you can always choose to enable the scripts temporarily when you visit them (security implies a mild inconvenience, you know? Otherwise, we wouldn't have gates or locks in our houses. PROTECTION DOES NOT EQUAL COMFORT, BUT CONTROL!).

The argument that IE is the best browser because it is the one used most widely constitutes an AD POPULUM fallacy and a false perception. Many people use IE simply because it comes bundled with Windows OS and they know no better. However, if numbers justify anything, Firefox took 30% of the Web browser preference in November 2006 and kept going up. As a result, Microsoft launched its desperate spy campaign (I bet you have seen the dialog "Your system is vulnerable because the original settings have been changed, blah, blah") to make users who had installed Firefox commit to IE. Microsoft is saying that the slight decrease on the usage of Firefox in March 2010 represents satisfaction with IE8. I disagree. Firefox opened the eyes of users, so, depending on their preference, they now use Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, and even KDE's Konqueror.

This is the reality: In May 2010, the IE family (6, 7, and 8 combined) had a 26% usage while Firefox ALONE had a 46.9% usage. Combining Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari, the IE defector percentage goes up to 64.9%. Times change, Ballmer...

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

As for me, I'm not going back to IE. Much less with IE8...Who wants a browser that requires 4 Gigabytes of space to try to emulate the browsing experience you get with one that needs less than 8 Megabytes??


By the way, a firefox is NOT a fox, but a kind of panda (Ailurus fulgens)! This is it:

This site has many good pictures of the cute animal:
http://klopik.com/dikie-zhivotnye/190-krasnaya-panda.html