Re: power user UI

[Kevin Dangoor]

(subject changed to protect beltzner's thread)

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 11:01 AM, <emanuele...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 3:35:26 PM UTC+2, Gavin Sharp wrote:
> > Thanks for the feedback Andrew. Unfortunately your views aren't shared
> > by the Mozilla project - users who don't understand the intricacies of
> > crypto and SSL aren't "idiots", they're just people for whom other
> > concerns are quite reasonably more important, and they represent the
> > majority of our user base. While you may think that we shouldn't
> > bother trying to make a web browser for them, we disagree.
>
> The currently undergoing UI simplification, though, seems to be driving
> away more and more power users. I'm currently enrolled in an IT Master's
> Degree course, and I'm noticing how a good amount of colleagues are
> switching to Chrome by the day.
> The advantages Firefox used to have for a power user are decreasing, and
> the UI is getting as 'bad' as Chrome's (yes, I call it a bad UI design,
> which started with with moving tabs to the titlebar and removing the RSS
> icon, now arrived to the removal of favicons from the location bar, and
> it'll very likely end up getting us space-wasting, curvy tabs soon - though
> I realize that may be personal preference. Replace 'bad' with
> 'Chrome-like' when reading, if you prefer), why not just switch to Chrome
> altogether, which is possibly less buggy in many places? (Firefox still
> doesn't have swipe animations and modern scrollbars in OS X Lion just to
> say one, not to mention the currently missing tab detach animation - you
> never know if you're detaching a tab, moving it around, or making it into a
> bookmark until it's already too late...) And that's what I've seen many
> power users do.
>
> Originally, the majority of users of Firefox (or Phoenix, Firebird, etc)
> were power users, attracted by the plain design and customizability of the
> browser (I'm one of those). And I believe you should still consider them
> as one of the targets.
>

Web developers are probably about 2% of Firefox's users. "Power users" are
probably a few % more. Making Firefox's out-of-the-box experience cater to
non-power users makes sense purely based on numbers.

Of course, Firefox also does cater to "power users" through add-ons.
Perhaps we could do a better job catering to this group of people by
promoting an add-on collection, or even maintaining some add-ons... but,
the first step would be to identify what power users have in common, if
anything. If someone has already done that, I'd be curious to see those
results.

Here's an example: I put the RSS icon back on my toolbar. That likely makes
me a "power user"... but would every power user want that icon on their
toolbar today? Probably not.

Kevin

--
Kevin Dangoor

work: http://mozilla.com/
email: kdan...@mozilla.com <k...@blazingthings.com>
blog: http://www.BlueSkyOnMars.com

[Ron Hunter]

Well, from what I have seen, power users are a pretty diverse group,
with various needs. I doubt any given 'package' would be in general
use. One thing most seem to agree on is that they DON'T want silent
updates. Go figure.

[Philip Chee]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:50:31 -0400, Kevin Dangoor wrote:
> (subject changed to protect beltzner's thread)
>
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 11:01 AM, <emanuele...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Originally, the majority of users of Firefox (or Phoenix, Firebird, etc)
>> were power users, attracted by the plain design and customizability of the
>> browser (I'm one of those). And I believe you should still consider them
>> as one of the targets.

Somebody seems to have forgotten his history. Phoenix/Firebird was
intended from day one to be targeted at mom'n'pop users. A lightweight,
pared down, simplified web browser. It was the Mozilla Suite (now
SeaMonkey) which had a certain currency with power-users and to this day
a significant percentage of SeaMonkey users are still power-users.

Phil

--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

[Robert Strong]

Which is already simple to accomplish (uninstall the service or change
settings in options) in case anyone doesn't know that they can disable
silent updates.

Cheers,
Robert

[Andrew Joakimsen]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 13:59, Ron Hunter <rphu...@charter.net> wrote:

>
>
>>
> Well, from what I have seen, power users are a pretty diverse group, with
> various needs. I doubt any given 'package' would be in general use. One
> thing most seem to agree on is that they DON'T want silent updates. Go
> figure.
>

> Without a doubt. Especially these days where there are a new release with
the same look and function but new bugs or "enhancements" for stupid people.

And Emanuele with all due respect, if we are indeed trying to simplify the
interface as you say... why don't we simplify the SSL error messages? Right
now in Firefox it is about 3 or 4 clicks and multiple sub-tabs and windows
are involved to bypass the SSL error pages and in all the other major
browsers this process only takes 1 click and all the information is
presented on single page/pane and all interaction takes place. Which is
more simpler: 1 click and 1 window/message or 4 clicks, 2 tabs and 2
windows?

[Rick Alther]

While you can tweak some prefs to get this down to 2 or 3 clicks,
allowing only a single click to bypass a valid security warning is a bad
idea, especially when it comes to SSL. It gets people too much in the
habit of just click "accept" and moving on without realizing the
potential danger there.

In my everyday use I tend to only find "bad" certs (mostly self-signed)
on internal company intranets. Out on the Internet, when you see one,
it should be raising alarms and not be dismissed in with a thoughtless
click.

- Rick

[Martijn]

I still just dismiss all those bad certs warnings, It makes me feel
annoyed, though, that I have to click through all those buttons to see
the site that I want to visit.

Regards,
Martijn


> - Rick
> _______________________________________________
> dev-apps-firefox mailing list
> dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox



--
Martijn Wargers - Help Mozilla!
http://quality.mozilla.org/
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla_QA_Community
irc://irc.mozilla.org/qa - /nick mw22

[Robert Kaiser]

Martijn schrieb:

> I still just dismiss all those bad certs warnings

Then you might have entered your password into a phishing site already
or installed a Trojan, and I neither feel compassion for that nor want
Firefox to support this behavior.

Robert Kaiser

[Ron Hunter]

I get, maybe, one cert warning in a blue moon, and I don't do phishing
sites as I can smell them a mile away. And most Windows users are
well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware. Of
course if the site can fool, or scare you into downloading and
installing malware, no program is going to protect against that.
That's why UAC is turned off here.

[Robert Kaiser]

Ron Hunter schrieb:

> And most Windows users are
> well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware.

You are joking, right?

Robert Kaiser

[Jay Garcia]

On 01.05.2012 13:04, Robert Kaiser wrote:

Surely not built-in protection but maybe he means by 3rd party
application(s). My KAV hasn't let me down .. yet.

--
Jay Garcia - www.ufaq.org - Netscape - Firefox - SeaMonkey - Thunderbird
Mozilla Contribute Coordinator Team - www.mozilla.org/contribute/
Mozilla Mozillian Member - www.mozillians.org
Mozilla Contributor Member - www.mozilla.org/credits/

[Ron Hunter]

No.

[Ron Hunter]

On 5/1/2012 1:11 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
> On 01.05.2012 13:04, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
>> Ron Hunter schrieb:
>>> And most Windows users are
>>> well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware.
>>
>> You are joking, right?
>>
>> Robert Kaiser
>
> Surely not built-in protection but maybe he means by 3rd party
> application(s). My KAV hasn't let me down .. yet.
>

Windows 7 comes with MSE, which is perfectly adequate for protection
against malware. At least it is the only thing I have been running on
two Win7 desktops for two years, and a Win7 laptop for nearly a year.
No problems so far.

[Jay Garcia]

On 01.05.2012 16:29, Ron Hunter wrote:

--- Original Message ---

> On 5/1/2012 1:11 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>> On 01.05.2012 13:04, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>>
>> --- Original Message ---
>>
>>> Ron Hunter schrieb:
>>>> And most Windows users are
>>>> well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware.
>>>
>>> You are joking, right?
>>>
>>> Robert Kaiser
>>
>> Surely not built-in protection but maybe he means by 3rd party
>> application(s). My KAV hasn't let me down .. yet.
>>
> Windows 7 comes with MSE, which is perfectly adequate for protection
> against malware. At least it is the only thing I have been running on
> two Win7 desktops for two years, and a Win7 laptop for nearly a year. No
> problems so far.
>
>

In that case, I'll have to agree with Robert, sorry.

[Daniel Cater]

It hasn't come bundled with any copy of Windows 7 that I've ever installed.

Which edition and region are you referring to?

(Although this issue is largely irrelevant as your claim is baseless and ignores zero-day viruses).

[Jay Garcia]

On 02.05.2012 14:40, Daniel Cater wrote:

--- Original Message ---

> On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 10:29:47 PM UTC+1, Ron Hunter wrote:
>> On 5/1/2012 1:11 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>> > On 01.05.2012 13:04, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>> >
>> > --- Original Message ---
>> >
>> >> Ron Hunter schrieb:
>> >>> And most Windows users are
>> >>> well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware.
>> >>
>> >> You are joking, right?
>> >>
>> >> Robert Kaiser
>> >
>> > Surely not built-in protection but maybe he means by 3rd party
>> > application(s). My KAV hasn't let me down .. yet.
>> >
>> Windows 7 comes with MSE, which is perfectly adequate for protection
>> against malware. At least it is the only thing I have been running on
>> two Win7 desktops for two years, and a Win7 laptop for nearly a year.
>> No problems so far.
>
> It hasn't come bundled with any copy of Windows 7 that I've ever installed.
>
> Which edition and region are you referring to?
>
> (Although this issue is largely irrelevant as your claim is baseless and ignores zero-day viruses).

Windows 7 or any other Windows for that matter does not come with MSE,
but it is a free download. Possible that Win 7 was purchased from a 3rd
party vendor with it already installed?? Dunno

[Ron Hunter]

Daniel,
I have been using Windows since 1995, and the only time I have gotten
any kind of infection was when I accidently double-clicked a virus
download that I was planning to disassemble. Since WinXP, I haven't
every seen a virus or trojan on my computers, and for over two years I
ran with no AV or firewall. Then I added a firewall program, and only
recently installed the AV part of MSE, which is a free download, and
will install if you let it. It works on WinXP, Vista and Win7. It may
not be the best solution, but it, along with good operating practices,
has worked for me.

[Ron Hunter]

On 5/2/2012 2:48 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
> On 02.05.2012 14:40, Daniel Cater wrote:
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
>> On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 10:29:47 PM UTC+1, Ron Hunter wrote:
>>> On 5/1/2012 1:11 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
>>>> On 01.05.2012 13:04, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>>>>
>>>> --- Original Message ---
>>>>
>>>>> Ron Hunter schrieb:
>>>>>> And most Windows users are
>>>>>> well-protected against trojans, worms, viruses, and such malware.
>>>>>
>>>>> You are joking, right?
>>>>>
>>>>> Robert Kaiser
>>>>
>>>> Surely not built-in protection but maybe he means by 3rd party
>>>> application(s). My KAV hasn't let me down .. yet.
>>>>
>>> Windows 7 comes with MSE, which is perfectly adequate for protection
>>> against malware. At least it is the only thing I have been running on
>>> two Win7 desktops for two years, and a Win7 laptop for nearly a year.
>>> No problems so far.
>>
>> It hasn't come bundled with any copy of Windows 7 that I've ever installed.
>>
>> Which edition and region are you referring to?
>>
>> (Although this issue is largely irrelevant as your claim is baseless and ignores zero-day viruses).
>
> Windows 7 or any other Windows for that matter does not come with MSE,
> but it is a free download. Possible that Win 7 was purchased from a 3rd
> party vendor with it already installed?? Dunno
>

Win7 comes with the Windows 7 firewall, and it will ask you to install
MSE. The package includes a firewall, AV and Real-time Malware protection

[Jay Garcia]

So what you said is inaccurate, doesn't "come" with Win 7. Just getting
this straight for others reading here.

[Ron Hunter]

On 5/2/2012 4:20 PM, Jay Garcia wrote:
> On 02.05.2012 16:17, Ron Hunter wrote:
>
> --- Original Message ---
>
>>> Windows 7 or any other Windows for that matter does not come with MSE,
>>> but it is a free download. Possible that Win 7 was purchased from a 3rd
>>> party vendor with it already installed?? Dunno
>>>
>> Win7 comes with the Windows 7 firewall, and it will ask you to install
>> MSE. The package includes a firewall, AV and Real-time Malware protection
>>
>
> So what you said is inaccurate, doesn't "come" with Win 7. Just getting
> this straight for others reading here.
>

Well, it did in the sense that it was in the software on my computer,
and the AV part was added somewhat later. The Firewall is standard.
Computers these days come with a truckload of software. Much of it is
nothing more than advertising, but some is quite useful. I already had
been using Windows Defender on my WinXP system(s), so I knew I wanted
that to supplement the firewall. Free software that works well, and
doesn't burden the system is a thing of beauty.

[Justin Dolske]

On 5/2/12 6:07 PM, Ron Hunter wrote:
> [...]

Can we end this thread already? As fascinating as the history of AV
software on Windows may be, this has strayed pretty far from anything
relevant to Firefox. Thanks.

Justin

[Daniel Cater]

This is an anecdote and nothing more. You are detached from reality if you think that virus infections are:

a) Entirely avoidable
b) Entirely the fault of the user (not "good operating practices")

A zero-day vulnerability paired with a zero-day virus is unlikely to be preventable nor detectable.

How would you even know that you'd avoided infection? There could be some malicious code lying dormant on your system right now.

[Daniel Cater]

I don't know what you mean by "it will ask you to install MSE". This is not something I have experienced.

[Asa Dotzler]

Daniel, please stop.

- A

[Ron Hunter]

It was two years ago, but I remember getting an update that asked if I
wanted MSE to install. This may have been an introduction notice. In
any case, Win7 firewall is OOB, and the rest is FREE. What more could
you want?

[Ron Hunter]

You can't KNOW, just as you can't know that you won't be killed on the
way to the grocery store, or that a tornado won't life your house and
drop in on the wicked witch of the west. But with reasonable
precautions (and good operating practices), you can avoid the problem in
most cases.
Using the internet presupposes some level of risk. It's rather like one
of those spiffy radar detectors. THey work great for everyone AFTER the
first guy that comes by after the cop turns on his meter.
Of course I handle that problem too, just by not driving too fast, and
it is possible to avoid most risks online by some reasonable operating
practices, such as avoiding porn websites, hacker sites, and pirate sites.

[David]

Ron,

This is only one of the things that chaps my hide when users complain
that a Mozilla update *killed my little waving hand icon Theme!!!* while
installing a security patch.

As you know. If you are connected to The Internet you are never safe.
So? Install updates and patches as they show up.

Care to be *really* safe? Disconnect the LAN cable and cut off the end,
Throw the end in the trash and the cable on the floor. Then? You *might*
be safe. Surfing The Internet kinda' sux though. :-)

--

David

[Asa Dotzler]

Seriously, guys, stop!

- A