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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "firefox". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Don't trust Firefox to backup your session

      I just got bit in the ass by this. I had my firefox open with all my open tabs as per usual. I notice that one of the tabs that I expect to exist is not there, so I went into my history and...

      I just got bit in the ass by this.

      I had my firefox open with all my open tabs as per usual. I notice that one of the tabs that I expect to exist is not there, so I went into my history and noticed for some reason, it covers only 2 days of history.

      ducking told me to open firefox in troubleshoot mode to see if that would get me more of my history back. It did not but what it wound up doing is losing the session that had my open tabs. I closed firefox and re-opened it, all my open tabs gone. I power down my machine and started it back up, same story.

      long story short, I am now following the recommendations on here to create regular backups of my firefox session cause apparently that is something that can be lost.

      Btw the fact that is not a default feature of firefox to create multiple backups of your open session and deletes backups if you close and re-open is the dumbest logic imo

      20 votes
    2. Chrome/Firefox Plugin to locally scrape data from multiple URLs

      As the title suggests, I am looking for a free chrome or firefox plugin that can locally scrape data from multiple URLs. To be a bit more precise, what I mean by it: A free chrome or firefox...

      As the title suggests, I am looking for a free chrome or firefox plugin that can locally scrape data from multiple URLs. To be a bit more precise, what I mean by it:

      • A free chrome or firefox plugin
      • Local scraping: it runs in the browser itself. No cloud computing or "credits" required to run
      • Scrape data: Collects predefined data from certain data fields within a website such as https://www.dastelefonbuch.de/Suche/Test
      • Infinite scroll: to load data that only loads once the browser scrolls down (kind of like in the page I linked above)

      I am not looking into programming my own scraper using python or anything similar. I have found plugins that "kind of" do what I am describing above, and about two weeks ago I found one that pretty much perfectly does what is described ("DataGrab"), but it starts asking to buy credits after running it a few times.

      My own list:

      • DataGrab: Excellent, apart from asking to buy credits after a while
      • SimpleScraper: Excellent, but asks to buy credits pretty much immediately
      • Easy Scraper: Works well for single pages, but no possibility to feed in multiple URLs to crawl
      • Instant Data Scraper: Works well for single pages and infinite scroll pages, but no possibility to feed in multiple URLs to crawl
      • "Data Scraper - Easy Web Scraping" / dataminer.io: Doesn't work well
      • Scrapy.org: Too much programming, but looks quite neat and well documented

      Any suggestions are highly welcome!

      Edit: A locally run executable or cmd-line based program would be fine too, as long as it just needs to be configured (e.g., creating a list of URLs stored in a .txt or .csv file) instead of coded (e.g., coding an infinite scroll function from scratch).

      8 votes
    3. Getting tired of Firefox

      Am I the only one? They've made some serious improvements and I generally enjoy using Firefox but I occasionally run into issues that just shows complete disregard for end users. Assuming, of...

      Am I the only one?

      They've made some serious improvements and I generally enjoy using Firefox but I occasionally run into issues that just shows complete disregard for end users. Assuming, of course, my issues are not isolated.

      Every month or so, when Firefox updates, it completely resets itself. This doesn't happen with every update, but Mozilla pushes an update that breaks the functionality of my browser. My browser settings, my userChrome profile, my extensions and their settings, and my bookmarks are all gone. Everything.

      I do have sync but that doesn't work properly either. It only syncs some of my settings (which actually makes it harder for me to figure out what's enabled/disabled) and while I do get my bookmarks (none of which have their favicons), the extensions that manage to sync (meaning the ones that were installed from the store) don't sync their settings unless they have cloud support.

      I do not understand this. Why do I, as an end user who care about Mozilla's mission, have to deal with this? I'd overlooked many of Firefox's shortcomings in the past, but when the browser works, it works well. I have some issues, but browsers are complicated and running into issues are to be expected. I understand that, but I simply cannot understand how eager they are to break the end user's workflow. Isn't it supposed to be a cardinal sin for every software company, especially the ones trying to survive, to not do this?

      I just spent roughly half an hour of my day to get my browser back to its previous state. Adding the times I had had to deal with this issue before, I've spent hours on dealing with Firefox that I shouldn't have. I don't think I have another half an hour to spare for it and I don't want to anymore, but is there even an alternative for Windows that suck less?

      (Apologies for the rant, but I needed to vent and perhaps get a discussion going about the current state of browsers.)

      29 votes
    4. Having trouble staying logged in here, and elsewhere on iOS

      I’ve been running into a minor annoyance of late, I tend to get logged out of ~ on a page refresh (I.e., pull the screen down) on iOS after about a day or less. I have also noticed that my outlook...

      I’ve been running into a minor annoyance of late, I tend to get logged out of ~ on a page refresh (I.e., pull the screen down) on iOS after about a day or less. I have also noticed that my outlook web also does a thing where it seems to forget that I’m signed in under an account, and asks me to input an email, but if I refresh, there’s a 50/50 shot it will see I’m logged in and drop me into the outlook web client.

      I recall some of these threads from a few years ago here (but having issues finding them in search) and seem to remember the consensus being “check your add-ons”…. But this is happening on the super nerfed Firefox for iOS (I.e., there are no add-in’s to my knowledge).

      I’m running Ffirefox 115 if that helps at all

      12 votes
    5. Question about using AppleTV+ in Firefox browser

      For the life of me I am unable to find the "up next" area to watch things I have added to watch. The left top of the screen has the AppleTV+ logo, and the right top has the settings. Can any of...

      For the life of me I am unable to find the "up next" area to watch things I have added to watch. The left top of the screen has the AppleTV+ logo, and the right top has the settings. Can any of you help me get this sorted?

      3 votes
    6. Email forwarding services

      Hello everyone. The other day, Firefox Monitor warned me that my personal e-mail was found on a data leak from Gravatar (belongs to Automattic; WordPress's parent company). Funnily, I don't have...

      Hello everyone.

      The other day, Firefox Monitor warned me that my personal e-mail was found on a data leak from Gravatar (belongs to Automattic; WordPress's parent company). Funnily, I don't have any account (and never had) with them, but nevertheless, I tried to log in, and it failed. I tried to recover my password, and it said "no e-mail found". Maybe a false positive from Firefox's side?

      Anyway, that situation got me thinking that I should never use my personal email except on super important websites. For example, with Christmas gift buying, I've used my personal e-mail on multiple online websites (I usually try to avoid Amazon) and I shouldn't have done that.

      Of course, Firefox recommended their own service Firefox Relay, which it does look interesting. Afterwards, I've searched on HackerNews to see what other people recommended.

      These were the recommendations (apart from FF Relay):


      A few questions:

      1. Do you use any of these three services?
      2. How happy are you with the service that you use?
      3. Is there something better?

      I actually like Firefox's implementation because it is actually quite cheap (€12 per year), it is an easier way to support Firefox's development (instead of donation to the Mozilla Corporation) and I trust Firefox more on the security side of things. Nevertheless, the other two services seem more feature complete and I actually do not like that FF Relay "forces" you to use a domain like "alias@mozmail.com" or a custom domain like "alias@mydomain.mozmail.com". My goal would actually be "alias@mydomain.com" for my own contact with other people. On website registrations, @mozmail.com is okay, I guess.

      I already have my own domain that I've bought from Namecheap and I think instead of associating an e-mail to my domain, I actually would prefer to use one of these services. The reason is that my website/e-mail domain could be reused if I stop paying. Some websites and/or people could have this e-mail and someone could impersonate me. With an e-mail forwarding service, I can easily and quickly delete/disable/change the alias. I'm not sure if I'm putting too much expectation on a forwarding service, but, I would like to know what do you think. 🙂

      14 votes
    7. Tab viewer/organizer?

      Weird question, but does anyone know of a simple tab viewer or organizer for Firefox (bonus points if it works on iOS)? I have... way too many tabs open, and I want to see what I can bookmark...

      Weird question, but does anyone know of a simple tab viewer or organizer for Firefox (bonus points if it works on iOS)? I have... way too many tabs open, and I want to see what I can bookmark before closing rather than having to either close everything or manually check each tab.

      11 votes
    8. I am a Mozilla employee, AMAA

      Hi everybody, happy Friday! I am Aaron Klotz, a Staff Software Engineer on the GeckoView team at Mozilla Corporation. I have worked at Mozilla since the fall of 2012 and have worked on three...

      Hi everybody, happy Friday! I am Aaron Klotz, a Staff Software Engineer on the GeckoView team at Mozilla Corporation.

      I have worked at Mozilla since the fall of 2012 and have worked on three different teams across that time: Performance, Platform Integration & Security Hardening, and finally GeckoView.

      Given the recent news about layoffs, I thought it might be cathartic to do an AMA to share my experiences at Mozilla and try to set the record straight the best that I can. I would not dare try this in other forums, but since the Tildes community is capable of civil discussion, I'll do it here! I provided some proof a long time ago when I first joined Tildes, and I'd like to think that many people in this community are willing to vouch for me at this point, but if you want more, I can add it.

      Obviously I cannot discuss issues that are covered by my NDA (but fortunately most issues are not covered), and some details I might want to avoid out of sensitivity for people who were laid off. AMAA!

      EDIT 1: Also to make clear (if it wasn't obvious): These opinions are mine and mine alone, do not reflect the opinion of any Mozilla entity, etc. etc.

      EDIT 2: I'm logging off for the night, but I'll try to follow up throughout the weekend if I have time. Thanks for all the questions! Hopefully I've cleared up some things for you!

      EDIT 3: Okay, I think I've gone through the other questions asked over the weekend, but I'm going to stop now! Thanks for your interest! Now, I've got a mobile browser to help build!

      98 votes