Last week we shared a number of updates with our community of users, and now we want to share them here: At Mozilla, we work hard to make Firefox the best
How is displaying a password in a certain font “broken” when you can easily copy/paste it? People who rally against Firefox sure do point to ridiculous, non-existent “problems” as an excuse to keep using laughable Chromium/derivatives.
I will have to check whether the font in the address bar has the same issue (edit: yes it does). But the reason the “make password visible” feature exists at all (instead of just “copy password to clipboard”) is to make the password readable by eyeball. It fails to do that. That failure is why there is an open Bugzilla ticket. If it worked properly, there would be no ticket or it would have been closed. But making it work is treated as an enhancement rather than a fix. Gack.
Also, pasting the password into the address bar drops it into the search system and maybe leaks it, who knows. Not a good idea.
Good points, why not change it and recompile Firefox and see what font works. Then you can submit a pull request for this issue and they might actually accept it
That’s interesting. Last time I did it I had to manually install a ridiculous amount of dependencies one by one, among other things. I will have to try Nixos (or Guix) sometime. Computers are faster now too. I remember taking way more than 2 hours but it was on a slow machine by today’s standards. Thanks.
That’s why I love NixOS, some dude (okay sometimes it’s me) already figured out how to compile all the software and built the binaries if you want them
Hardy har har. I have a saved password on my phone and I want to use it on my laptop. This happens now and then but not often enough to want to introduce another software dependency and its security problems. It’s a password (randomly generated, but still), not War And Peace. Simple enough-- read it off the phone and type it into the laptop, but no. They used a font that makes some characters indistinguishable, there is a 2 year old open ticket to fix it, and you sit there making wisecracks. Found the issue:
So copy and paste it into something else on your computer if you’re too blind to see the difference in letters in that font (I can tell, easily) and tell it to use another font. PEBCAK issue, not a real one.
This is on my phone (Android Firefox), not the computer (desktop Firefox). Yes some of the characters in the font are indistinguishable. That’s why there’s a ticket open after all. And even if crappy workarounds exist, it can and does still suck. Thus, JMINS.
Why do you defend this crap? I never understand what makes people do that.
“FIREFOX SUX BECAUSE MY OUTSIDER 0.00000001% USE CASE AND I OPENED A TICKET BOOHOO!”
This is how you sound. Just because there’s a ticket open for outlier bullshit doesn’t make it valid to gripe about endlessly, especially when there are so many possible, simple ways around it. Slightly annoying does not mean broken.
I didn’t open that ticket. I encountered the issue, went to the tracker, and found there was already a ticket open.
Tickets have priority labels. The existence of a workaround like pasting the password to a program with a different display font means this bug is not a showstopper. That doesn’t mean it is not a bug.
No it’s not just this one bug. There are plenty more. I can link more tickets if you want. I was going to do that but the discussion about the password font bug spiralled.
What is happening is mostly an attitude problem, it seems. People like you, seeing a code bug, instead of fixing it (or in this case at least recognizing that it should be fixed), go around searching for rationalizations for leaving it unfixed. It being unfixed while Mozilla continues to bloat up the browser with more new crap is instead evidence of Mozilla’s priorities being screwed up.
How is displaying a password in a certain font “broken” when you can easily copy/paste it? People who rally against Firefox sure do point to ridiculous, non-existent “problems” as an excuse to keep using laughable Chromium/derivatives.
The idea is to be able to read the password with your eyeballs, so you can type it into another computer. This fails.
Paste it into the address bar to read it?
Mobile Firefox copy/paste
I will have to check whether the font in the address bar has the same issue (edit: yes it does). But the reason the “make password visible” feature exists at all (instead of just “copy password to clipboard”) is to make the password readable by eyeball. It fails to do that. That failure is why there is an open Bugzilla ticket. If it worked properly, there would be no ticket or it would have been closed. But making it work is treated as an enhancement rather than a fix. Gack.
Also, pasting the password into the address bar drops it into the search system and maybe leaks it, who knows. Not a good idea.
Good points, why not change it and recompile Firefox and see what font works. Then you can submit a pull request for this issue and they might actually accept it
Have you ever compiled Firefox? If not, it’s best not to suggest that to others. It’s not for the faint of heart.
Anyway the usual fixed width fonts like Courier work, or they could put it in about:config.
Yes, but I used the NixOS “recipe”. I just tell it the new source folder in my config and do a
sudo nixos-rebuild swirch --impureIt takes two hours, but completely hands off
That’s interesting. Last time I did it I had to manually install a ridiculous amount of dependencies one by one, among other things. I will have to try Nixos (or Guix) sometime. Computers are faster now too. I remember taking way more than 2 hours but it was on a slow machine by today’s standards. Thanks.
That’s why I love NixOS, some dude (okay sometimes it’s me) already figured out how to compile all the software and built the binaries if you want them
deleted by creator
You have a computer in front of you and yet you’re relying on wetware? Found the issue.
Hardy har har. I have a saved password on my phone and I want to use it on my laptop. This happens now and then but not often enough to want to introduce another software dependency and its security problems. It’s a password (randomly generated, but still), not War And Peace. Simple enough-- read it off the phone and type it into the laptop, but no. They used a font that makes some characters indistinguishable, there is a 2 year old open ticket to fix it, and you sit there making wisecracks. Found the issue:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_justification
So copy and paste it into something else on your computer if you’re too blind to see the difference in letters in that font (I can tell, easily) and tell it to use another font. PEBCAK issue, not a real one.
This is on my phone (Android Firefox), not the computer (desktop Firefox). Yes some of the characters in the font are indistinguishable. That’s why there’s a ticket open after all. And even if crappy workarounds exist, it can and does still suck. Thus, JMINS.
Why do you defend this crap? I never understand what makes people do that.
“FIREFOX SUX BECAUSE MY OUTSIDER 0.00000001% USE CASE AND I OPENED A TICKET BOOHOO!”
This is how you sound. Just because there’s a ticket open for outlier bullshit doesn’t make it valid to gripe about endlessly, especially when there are so many possible, simple ways around it. Slightly annoying does not mean broken.
Phones have copy/paste, by the way.
I didn’t open that ticket. I encountered the issue, went to the tracker, and found there was already a ticket open.
Tickets have priority labels. The existence of a workaround like pasting the password to a program with a different display font means this bug is not a showstopper. That doesn’t mean it is not a bug.
No it’s not just this one bug. There are plenty more. I can link more tickets if you want. I was going to do that but the discussion about the password font bug spiralled.
What is happening is mostly an attitude problem, it seems. People like you, seeing a code bug, instead of fixing it (or in this case at least recognizing that it should be fixed), go around searching for rationalizations for leaving it unfixed. It being unfixed while Mozilla continues to bloat up the browser with more new crap is instead evidence of Mozilla’s priorities being screwed up.
Get over it.