Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

begin Karsten M. Self quotation of Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 12:36:14PM -0800:

> The one feature which _would_ be damned useful in a browser, first
> voiced to my knowledge by Don Marti, would be an option to run an
> underprivileged, chrooted, and otherwise sandboxed instance in such a
> way that malicious external code and data would have a minimal
> opportunity to cause havoc on my own systems.

I do something sort of like this, daily, to deal
with...let's just say a legacy web application.
Run it as a different user.
  ssh -X legacy <at> localhost firefox http://internal.example.com/legacy/

There is a good reason to have something like
"profiles" -- testing web sites.  Have your own
profile with your own choice of font settings,
extensions, and other personalization, plus a profile
with stock settings, or maybe one with the red/green
color blindless simulator on.

--

-- 
Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti <at> zgp.org

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Re: All DJB's software released to public domain

on Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 01:57:35PM -0800, Dan Martinez (dfm <at> razorwind.org) wrote:
> Bob Bernstein wrote:
> 
> > what reason(s) could there be for saddling your readers with that
> > Latin extravagance? This is the sort of thing that gets some kids
> > beat up a lot after school.
> 
> Is there anyone in the present audience who *didn't* get beat up, or
> at least harassed, after or mayhap even during school? Grade-school
> abuse is practically the sine qua non of geekdom, the nudge that
> guides us down a different path.

*Group Huggles*

Peace.

--

-- 
Karsten M. Self <karsten <at> linuxmafia.com>        http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten
    Ceterum censeo, Caldera delenda est.

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Re: All DJB's software released to public domain

On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 01:57:35PM -0800, Dan Martinez wrote:
> Bob Bernstein wrote:
> 
> > what reason(s) could there be for saddling your readers with that
> > Latin extravagance? This is the sort of thing that gets some kids
> > beat up a lot after school.
> 
> Is there anyone in the present audience who *didn't* get beat up, or
> at least harassed, after or mayhap even during school? Grade-school
> abuse is practically the sine qua non of geekdom, the nudge that
> guides us down a different path.
> 

I did but it was lethal for the opposition.  

Canarsei was a tough town.

Ruben

> Dan
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Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 09:32:14PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> begin Karsten M. Self quotation of Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 12:36:14PM -0800:
> 
> > The one feature which _would_ be damned useful in a browser, first
> > voiced to my knowledge by Don Marti, would be an option to run an
> > underprivileged, chrooted, and otherwise sandboxed instance in such a
> > way that malicious external code and data would have a minimal
> > opportunity to cause havoc on my own systems.
> 
> I do something sort of like this, daily, to deal
> with...let's just say a legacy web application.
> Run it as a different user.
>   ssh -X legacy <at> localhost firefox http://internal.example.com/legacy/
> 

What are user accounts for?

> There is a good reason to have something like
> "profiles" -- testing web sites.  Have your own
> profile with your own choice of font settings,
> extensions, and other personalization, plus a profile
> with stock settings, or maybe one with the red/green
> color blindless simulator on.
> 

Thats hardly a good enough reason to waste so much coding effort into.

Its a waste to accomedate windows systems which are otherwise multiuser
challenged.  I hate wasting resorces for such things and it also tends to
destroy GNU/X11 compatability.

Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

On Saturday 01 December 2007 08:28:20 pm Ruben Safir wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 09:32:14PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> > begin Karsten M. Self quotation of Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 
12:36:14PM -0800:
> > > The one feature which _would_ be damned useful in a browser,
> > > first voiced to my knowledge by Don Marti, would be an option
> > > to run an underprivileged, chrooted, and otherwise sandboxed
> > > instance in such a way that malicious external code and data
> > > would have a minimal opportunity to cause havoc on my own
> > > systems.
> >
> > I do something sort of like this, daily, to deal
> > with...let's just say a legacy web application.
> > Run it as a different user.
> >   ssh -X legacy <at> localhost firefox
> > http://internal.example.com/legacy/
>
> What are user accounts for?
>
> > There is a good reason to have something like
> > "profiles" -- testing web sites.  Have your own
> > profile with your own choice of font settings,
> > extensions, and other personalization, plus a profile
> > with stock settings, or maybe one with the red/green
> > color blindless simulator on.
>
> Thats hardly a good enough reason to waste so much coding effort
> into.
>
> Its a waste to accomedate windows systems which are otherwise

Re: All DJB's software released to public domain

On Friday 30 November 2007 01:57:35 pm Dan Martinez wrote:
> Bob Bernstein wrote:
> > what reason(s) could there be for saddling your readers with that
> > Latin extravagance? This is the sort of thing that gets some kids
> > beat up a lot after school.
>
> Is there anyone in the present audience who *didn't* get beat up,
> or at least harassed, after or mayhap even during school?
> Grade-school abuse is practically the sine qua non of geekdom, the
> nudge that guides us down a different path.
>
> Dan

Dan,

   The secret was to make sure that enough people owed you so that you 
were the last person on the lists....

James

Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

on Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 05:04:30PM -0800, James Sparenberg (james <at> linuxrebel.org) wrote:
> On Saturday 01 December 2007 08:28:20 pm Ruben Safir wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 09:32:14PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> > > begin Karsten M. Self quotation of Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 
> 12:36:14PM -0800:

<Digressed thread on Firefox profile merits/demerits snipped>

> I've tended to notice that there seem to be two camps within the Linux 
> community.  
> 
> Camp #1  "I know what is best for you, so since I don't want to do it 
> you aren't allowed to do it."
> 
> Camp #2 "I don't care what features it has, as long as I'm not forced 
> to use the ones I don't like."  
> 
> I'll personally stick with camp #2 .... acknowledge that Nokia is in 
> camp #1 (long story) and move on.  
> 
> But really does it hurt you that someone else uses a product 
> differently than you?  

In an internetworked world, yes.  There are secondary effects, and some
of them (Slammer, SoBig, spam in general) can be quite noxious.

Take a look at the ills plaguing the legacy MS Windows computing world,
and note how many of them boil down to really, really stupid (and
far-to-evident) bone-headed design decisions made years ago.  Many of
which were pointed out as stupid well before they were exploited.

Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

On Tuesday 04 December 2007 05:39:22 pm Karsten M. Self wrote:
> on Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 05:04:30PM -0800, James Sparenberg 
(james <at> linuxrebel.org) wrote:
> > On Saturday 01 December 2007 08:28:20 pm Ruben Safir wrote:
> > > On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 09:32:14PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> > > > begin Karsten M. Self quotation of Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at
> >
> > 12:36:14PM -0800:
>
> <Digressed thread on Firefox profile merits/demerits snipped>
>
> > I've tended to notice that there seem to be two camps within the
> > Linux community.
> >
> > Camp #1  "I know what is best for you, so since I don't want to
> > do it you aren't allowed to do it."
> >
> > Camp #2 "I don't care what features it has, as long as I'm not
> > forced to use the ones I don't like."
> >
> > I'll personally stick with camp #2 .... acknowledge that Nokia is
> > in camp #1 (long story) and move on.
> >
> > But really does it hurt you that someone else uses a product
> > differently than you?
>
> In an internetworked world, yes.  There are secondary effects, and
> some of them (Slammer, SoBig, spam in general) can be quite
> noxious.
<snip>

Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

> 
> I've tended to notice that there seem to be two camps within the Linux 
> community.  
> 
> Camp #1  "I know what is best for you, so since I don't want to do it 
> you aren't allowed to do it."
> 
> Camp #2 "I don't care what features it has, as long as I'm not forced 
> to use the ones I don't like."  
> 
> I'll personally stick with camp #2 .... acknowledge that Nokia is in 
> camp #1 (long story) and move on.  
> 
> But really does it hurt you that someone else uses a product 
> differently than you?  
> 

Hello James

I don't know what your message has to do with what I wrote.

As for the last line, the answer is I don't know, but likely 
it does sometimes, and it depends on the product.  If it is a 
product like MS Windows which PAYS LOT OF MONEY to companies and
the NYC government to exclude use of competing systems, then
the answer is obviously yes.

Start a new thread if you want to discuss this.

Ruben

Re: Firefox Profiles are a Good Idea

> 
>    But here I'm seeing (perhaps I'm wrong) something less clearly a 
> design flaw and more so into the viable but not desirable usage 
> range.   

Hello James

I'm making an assumption of experience here with the reader that perhaps you
don't have.  What does Firefox do if it crashes and you restart it>

What does it do when you start it more than once?

For example I can NOT stand people using their desktop as a 
> file system, and maximizing every application on a 1600x1280 screen 
> (then typing a word doc in 10 pt font. ?!?)  but there is no solid, 
> definable problem in doing that other than it drives me nuts.  
> Conversely when Linspire (then Lindows) came out running everthing as 
> root, I could accurately point to a serious design flaw.  
> 
>    Jeff Raskin was one of those who often took the "Father knows best" 
> attitude to UI design.  He told the story of turning background 
> foreground and font color to red on an Ultimate Usability app design.  
> He thought it was good to protect the user from doing this.  I 
> contend that it's much more fun to laugh after they do, do it, then 
> walk away giggling.  

Not when your in charge of tech support or when you have 6 kids.  Some of us 
have to actually live in the world and our time is of some import.

>