On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Matthew Toseland <toad at amphibian.dyndns.org> wrote: > Okay, having investigated this, I'm fairly confident of the current theory: > - If a copy of Firefox is already running with the default profile, and we > launch a copy with our profile (-no-remote -P <profile name>), everything > works fine (as long as our copy exits before the default one does). > - The default Firefox obviously doesn't have the -no-remote command line > option. We do. > - If the default profile is NOT running when we load our copy of firefox with > our custom profile, when the link to firefox is clicked on, it coalesces with > our copy and opens a new window using our profile and not the default > profile. Therefore, it appears that the user's firefox has been damaged and > we've deleted all their bookmarks etc etc. > > You can replicate this easily enough: create a custom theme (e.g. by > installing freenet), exit all copies of firefox, launch one > with "firefox -no-remote -P <profile name>", then launch a second copy with > just "firefox". The second will assume it is supposed to be an extra window > for the first, and will use the custom profile, not the default profile. If > however you exit the custom profile first, the second instance will use the > default profile. > > As far as I can see, we have three options: > 1. Don't ship a custom firefox theme. Ask users to tweak their firefox theme > for better freenet performance, knowing full well that it is a security risk > and a waste of bandwidth when accessing the regular web. Anyway, nobody will > even if we DO ask them to: people are lazy, and it involves somewhat arcane > config setting. > 2. Ship a copy of Portable Firefox (~ 6MB), or some other self contained > browser. Find some way to auto-update it. > 3. Give up and hope people will realise that opening 10 freesites in separate > tabs and then trying to get to the stats page isn't a good idea. No, they > won't realise this, they'll assume Freenet is broken - our own regular users > do this on the IRC channel. > > Anyone got any better ideas? >
I think we are making an overly complex solution to a minor problem. Other than the theme issue, why not just recommend the addon FasterFox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269 Quite a few people run it so it really doesn't identify Freenet users. Recommend the "Optimized" profile which stays within RFC specs. Maybe offer to install it for them during the Freenet install? -- I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it. - Voltaire Those who would give up Liberty, to purchase temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Ben Franklin
