firefox and yahoo spaz!

[Opsa]

Recently I got a window from Firefox saying that I needed to upgrade to the new firefox. I stupidly complied, as I was trying to get work done and wanted the window out of my face. I then got a window saying that I could not upgrade because I didn't have the latest version of operating system.

Okay. I know. I can't really afford it right now, so I have not been able to upgrade my OS. It'll just have to wait until I get some sort of money, somehow. But running a community children's theater pays me nothing for all my work, and that's something I need to fix, eventually, but I'm just getting it going now.

So today I notice that my Yahoo account has gone back to Yahoo Classic- which I haven't had in at least a year! I don't know how this happened. I immediately changed my yahoo password again. But this is stressing me out.

[Sibling DavidH]

I keep getting the same kind of crap from Zone Alarm.  First, I need to upgrade, then at the last possible moment they tell me I'll have to pay for it. 

[Opsa]

A hug to you for having to put up with this, too.

Vhat IS dis?! Some kind of viral scheme? Can we warn anyone? I don't even know where to report this, if at all.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I suspect the window was false, unless you are using Windows 98 I seriously doubt that FF won't update (as I have WinXP on a laptop and have had no issues updating at all). FF has an auto update feature, go to the menu Help|About Firefox and it should tell you if it is up to date and if not it will start downloading the latest update.

Just out of curiosity what OS are you using?

[pieces o nine]

I am actually posting from a spankin new laptop just picked up today, partly due to no-longer-endurable frustration with just the sort of thing Opsa is describing. It is completely aggravating, and they keep peppering you with these prompts, even through a Kaspersky uber firewall, so I *think* they are legitimately from Firefox and Yahoo.

I posted a couple pleas for help in Technolust to keep my XP running longer  --[and big thanks again to all who came through with tips and trick]s--  but the constant sparring between Yahoo, Google, and Moxilla (with some residual, deeply-buried IE crap now and then for good measure) for the last few months was driving me batty. I also got fairly regular messages prompting me to 'update' Firefox. If I ignored them I would abruptly lose the ability to see any Flash content, for example. If I allowed it, I would suddenly lose the ability to see any Java content. Either way  ('out-of-date' or 'upgraded')  I would get a prompt that it would now refuse to work with Yahoo, which effectively prevented me from logging into my email account or, if I was able to leap that incredibly tall hurdle, prevent me from reading any new mail there. Despite legitimate software set to install updates automatically, there would be prompts insisting that I completely eradicate all traces of the 'outdated' version first, as they were just not able to follow through on a regular program of updates to THEIR OWN PRODUCT. Yeah, I do not think so. And your 'punishing' me by no longer allowing me to access *any* of the news links on the Yahoo or Google homepages is not enough to break me...

Meanwhile Yahoo was retaliating, demanding that I constantly 'upgrade' to all kinds of fantabulous security systems (such as tying to me cell phone -- hello, do not have one right now). Yahoo then would sabotage itself by trying to keep me out of my account -- or anything other (such as YouTube, linked to my Yahoo addy) because I  wasn't coughing up a cellphone number. Niiiiiice. And no, for the umpteenth time, I do *NOT* want to install Google Chrome on top of this mess. Can I plz has teh internets, without teh greefs.

This Toshiba cost more than I should be spending now (although it is amusing to reflect how each of my (grudgingly!) upgraded computers does so much more, in much less space, for much less money. The XP will be stripped down to just my (out of date!) Adobe CS package as it cannot work on new system (another reason I've put it off as long as humanly possible) and kept for personal drafting and writing alone.

Opsa, I certainly hope our resident tech supports can help you! It's quite an annoying problem.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Recently I got a window from Firefox saying that I needed to upgrade to the new firefox. I stupidly complied, as I was trying to get work done and wanted the window out of my face....

Oh, I am so very sorry.

I allowed my laptop (win XP) to "update" to the "latest" version of FF.... a mistake.  Fortunately?  I use that 'top seldom.

I'm still on version 3-something on my main box.  Playing around with the latest has put me ... off.

So off?  I uninstalled the crapware firefox for Android from my tablet, and installed Opera mini (at a suggestion) ... it just works.   And the firefox v8 (or whatever) is also crap, the one running on my old XP laptop.  

The horrid thing has a 100% new "interface" that is just not... usable to an old fart like me...

So they lied-- you don't need a new OS.

What you >>do<< need?  Is the latest updates for XP from Micro$oft...   the message was misleading-- another reason it's crap.

Google and you'll find entire groups of folk p!ssed off at the newest incarnation of 'Fox.   Who have returned to 3-something.  

So, I'm still on 3-something, running on Win7-64 ultimate on my main box.   And I'm using Opera mini on my Android tablet.  (I try to avoid surfing on my android smartphone-- screen's too tiny--- I tend to tether it to the tablet instead).

[Griffin NoName]

You have my deepest sympathy. Computer software should just WORK. As an ex-professional, it disgusts my sense of right/wrong. However, I have no tips.

[Opsa]

I'm on OS X 10.4.11. Tiger. (Mac). I guess they want me to buy the next version, but I'm not able to right now.

I totally hear you, Po9, about those nagging prompts that ask for your cell phone/mobile device number. I don't give it to them, either.

The only nice thing that came out of this (I... hope...) is that I was mysteriously put back into Yahoo mail classic, which I greatly preferred over the later versions, and thought I could not get back. I tried to get back to classic some months ago and was told it was no longer possible.

...and you're right, Zone. Firefox does update itself automatically, so what was I thinking, falling for this? I guess I was thinking "GAR! Give me back my previous screen, you fiends!"

[Aggie]

2011 is pretty much where I get off the technology bandwagon, and I'm quite sure I stayed on the train a couple of stops too long.  I'm not sure I can even get a decent dumbphone from my (budget) cell provider any more.  I'll have to snap one up soon because I have some earned credits that'll get me a free phone, but from the bit of research I've done, the remaining dumbphones on offer seem to be plagued with problems.  I think the idea is that you'll hate them so much, you'll be coerced into buying a smartphone.  F*ck that...  I will not buy a smartphone type device until it's capable of completely replacing a PC by docking with peripherals (i.e. as proper portable computer, not a shiny piece of brain-destroying pocket distraction).

Tech giants seem to be following the modern supermarket model - make everything confusing as hell, and people will buy more shit because they're too confuzzled to make intelligent decisions.

The rate of change is getting ridiculous in these products; Firefox in particular has stated they will make many frequent new version numbers rather than small sub-changes to existing versions, plus an occasional major upgrade.

[Sibling DavidH]

I don't use Fartbox any more; Chrome is quicker and doesn't play all these tricks.  It tries to spy a bit, but Ghostery stops all the crud except for Google Analytics.  I buy almost nothing on line so I don't care what data they gather.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I don't use Fartbox any more; Chrome is quicker and doesn't play all these tricks.  It tries to spy a bit, but Ghostery stops all the crud except for Google Analytics.  I buy almost nothing on line so I don't care what data they gather.

Ghostery?  I have chrome, but I hated the interface too much to switch from FF version 3 (the latest FF is 8 I think...).

Recently, I tried to find the equivelent of my beloved "no script" extension for Chrome, and found one but it was neither automatic (like noscript) nor intuitive.  I left it running, though.  It was something.

I may look into Ghostery... I'm unhappy with verson 3... FF sent me a message they are not going to support it anymore, and I'll be left behind eventually.

Hmmmmm.... so far I like Opera mini on my tablet, even though it's interface is klunky (to me).

Yeah... I'm a fuddy-duddy-- I don't much care for changin' the menus...

... dammit..... get off my lawn! desktop!

[pieces o nine]

I remember trying to explain to clients why we could not longer print documents for them created three full versions of (no longer manufactured) software packages back. I felt badly for them -- they knew that their software was working just fine for their purposes, and didn't understand why "we" were upgrading on purpose to force them to buy new, expensive software (and hardware if needed). Built-in obsolescence is the two-edged sword of ingenuity and industrialization. Those clients were also expecting *their* clients to purchase more products, whether they (clients) wanted or 'needed' them or not.

But not all of us are businesses, and it is annoying to be treated as though we are all incorporated, competitive beings in all aspects of our lives. (example: my music system is THIRTY YEARS OLD and yet, with the addition of one component in the 90's it still functions beautifully and plays all the cds in my collection perfectly without constantly harassing me to 'update') Even if the day that the cd/dvd format is completely phased out occurs in my lifetime, my system will continue performing perfectly.  To design a computer to essentially fail in 3-5 years is disgusting, imo.

One of the signs that one is ... aging ... is the sense that one can no longer (or no longer cares to) 'keep up'. If I were younger I *would* accept the pressure to keep current more readily, as I could see it consider it as continuing career development, but it is not and will not be. This is a lovely machine, but I'm not "happy" to have acquired it as I was with others in the past -- does that make sense?

II hope you are able to sort out the prompts and petty glitches, Opsa! I'll be following this thread to keep current on what *not* to do with this one.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Opas, I don't know how harassing works in the closed garden of Apple but if is like some of their other endeavors it can't be fun.
---
I don't mind changes, to a degree, for instance at first the new interface for FF without the menus wasn't easy (you can enable them if you want BTW) but now I don't use the old menus. Where I stayed behind is with M$ office and their ribbon which I positively despise, and the fact that options that were before available on a right click no longer are there. Something similar happens with the latest interface of Ubuntu that hides many options that were easily available before. Apparently maximum simplicity for certain common tasks became the bane of power user tasks that now beg to hunt them in an interface that isn't intuitive at all, make 70% of dumb users happy to find the obvious stuff in their noses, and leave the remaining 30% to fend for themselves. This is the future of dumb interfaces it seems. 

[Aggie]

Apparently maximum simplicity for certain common tasks became the bane of power user tasks that now beg to hunt them in an interface that isn't intuitive at all, make 70% of dumb users happy to find the obvious stuff in their noses, and leave the remaining 30% to fend for themselves. This is the future of dumb interfaces it seems.  

I've been listening to CBC podcasts* like crazy lately, and heard a segment on smartphone-based "virtual wallets" (Google Wallet has gone to trial in the US already I think).  Privacy matters were being discussed, in relation to the application of all the information this could potentially provide to advertisers  - they could, if allowed, literally know exactly what you buy, where and when, and know exactly how to target you.  The comment was made that of course the user would be able to choose to adjust their privacy settings to prevent this.

In light of what Zono points out about dumb interfaces, and with how I've seen Facebook and their ilk handle privacy matters, I fear we will see disparity in tech-savvyness follow the same pattern that income disparity has taken over the last century.  The American Dream^TM has been based on the prospect that ANYONE can rise to the top if they work hard enough and are bright enough, but the system is not set up to allow this and the reality is that having the savvy to do so is not purely a matter of choice and will.  So too, I see management of personal privacy - it'll be possible to keep yourself from being relentlessly data-mined, but to do so will take a level of dedication and self-education that few people will bother with.   The difficulty of being an empowered user with a dumb interface is...   I don't know that it's intentional, but I don't think it's dis-intentional.

The result is that the vast body of the tech-using population will be an open book to shit-peddlers advertisers and be every more coerced into buying more crap.  But hey!  You'll be able to pay just by tapping your phone at the counter.  That'll make it easy to make good consumer decisions, no? [/rant]



<sub>*luuuuvs CBC radio, and also luuuuvs living in a country that spends tax dollars to keep its citizens informed about world events, social concerns, technology**, the medical system**, how the advertising industry manipulates us**, spirituality** and other matters via a thoroughly liberally-biased public media outlet.  

**Referring to the radio programs Spark; White Coat, Black Art; The Age of Persuasion; and Tapestry; respectively.</sub>    

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The truth is that all retailers are doing their best to exploit impulse buys in their customers, nothing new if you go to a supermarket but more efficient while online. If you think that it will be possible for you to hide, you're in for a surprise, targeted ads will go at you in the street, in mass transit systems, in malls, in theatres, in digital radio and TV. Even if you hide your identity, algorithms will process your appearance to give you the closest match, and a number of retailers will 'reward' you if you expose your identity to them (ever heard of loyalty cards?).

It is unavoidable unless you want to live in some sort of commune with limited internet access (wanna go amish? ), but as any other circumstance there will be some ways to deal with the system (ie, ad, script, cookie, tracker, etc blockers in browsers now) and savvy users will be able to take advantage of those. You can't prevent them from trying and they can't prevent you/us from trying to defend ourselves, just like any other evolutionary war out there.

[Aggie]

It is unavoidable unless you want to live in some sort of commune with limited internet access

That, my dear Sibling, is the plan.

You can't prevent them from trying and they can't prevent you/us from trying to defend ourselves, just like any other evolutionary war out there.

I think the Cold War is perhaps a more apt comparison...  the US forced the Soviets to collapse basically by outspending them (vast oversimplification, I know).  Care to guess who's got more resources in this conflict?

I'm not terribly susceptible to marketing ploys or impulse buys - albeit more than I'd like to admit, I'm sure.  It's how aggressively they are now building individual profiles that chafes me - the bastids would have your genome mapped and linked to your facebook account if they could figure out how.  

[Griffin NoName]

As I have no money. I am not tempted byt the evil adverts. Not that I ever took any notice of them.

However, I do object to anything which forces upgrades with associated costs. I can''t afford them. Soon the impoverished will be unablr to function. This is discriminatory.

[Sibling DavidH]

That's my attitude, too.  We spend little, are not possessions-oriented and consider ourselves pretty resistant to selling, although I sometimes wonder about how far some of our choices were conditioned by these pressures.

But then I find that my good old whatsit no longer works because they've upgraded the whatsit-handler, without asking me.  Or my friends all have the incompatible  whatsit-handler 2.iii.

[Opsa]

I hear ya. But in a way it's kind of freeing to not have a problem with shopping at thrift stores. I love the thrill of the hunt! And I love having to be creative. And looking like an individual!

I'd try living beyond the grid. It would be hard at times, though. But what isn't?

[Sibling DavidH]

Oh, yes, charity shops (as we call thrift stores) are wonderful.  We get all sorts of goodies from them, especially interesting clothes.  Also lots of stuff for Cap'n B.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

You can't prevent them from trying and they can't prevent you/us from trying to defend ourselves, just like any other evolutionary war out there.

I think the Cold War is perhaps a more apt comparison...  the US forced the Soviets to collapse basically by outspending them (vast oversimplification, I know).  Care to guess who's got more resources in this conflict?

The soviets didn't collapse outspent, many analysts have looked into their model and it could have gone on easily for 30-50 more years no problem, and that assuming no internal changes. What brought the system down was the speed of social change with Gorbachov's perestroika, and the (fortunate) lack of forcefulness* to prevent the runaway. Were they as capable as the west militarily? Perhaps they weren't in equal footing in a number of military endeavors, but on the one that mattered, number of nuclear heads and means to place them on their targets, they were more than capable to hold their own.

I do understand what you say though, although you could easily say that that is just the status quo (the ability of a citizen to protect his/her interests from the powerful has always been limited, and the past decades with some sort of little balances are quickly eroding). The powerful will always have the odds in their favor, no real change there.


*There was an attempt to hold the union by force but it wasn't forceful enough. In comparison the Chinese had no qualms when the protests showed up not long after.

[Aggie]

I do understand what you say though, although you could easily say that that is just the status quo (the ability of a citizen to protect his/her interests from the powerful has always been limited, and the past decades with some sort of little balances are quickly eroding). The powerful will always have the odds in their favor, no real change there.

We should be thankful that we are sitting here whinging about how tech corporations are going to more effectively advertise to us, and not that death squads will be at our door because we spoke out against the elites.  There have always been much worse abuses of power, and I daresay that there always will be. 

_{some of my paranoia about lack of privacy does reflect a fear that the elites will not hesitate to seize this data to send the death squads at our door, if the shit ever really hits the fan.  I am not anti-authority but have a rather pessimistic view of trusting them to play by their own rules, or even to make rules in the interest of the public}

I do feel, however, that we are passing from a consumerist society to a hyper-consumerist society, and that there is a one-sided arms race going on with regards to privacy concerns on the internet. Let me paint a broad metaphor:  You live in a city where much of the economy is driven by a large chemical factory in the area.  The city is a lovely place to live, with lots of services and entertainment available, and all your friends and family live in this city.  The chemical plant is known to release emissions which are not acutely toxic but are reasonably likely to take 5 to 10 years off your lifespan.  Exposure is ubiquitous within the city limits.  You can protect yourself from these fumes, but it requires wearing a full-face respirator and a chemical protective suit at all times, and take extra precautions in purifying your drinking water.  Your alternatives are:  a) Live life normally and die a little younger  b) Take the precautions to protect your health, although it's inconvenient   c)  Move far out of the city, losing all the services and personal connections that the city provides, and probably your job in the process  (there's no other cities or towns in this metaphor)

That's about how I see this issue.



PS Scratch oversimplification, and substitute myth instead.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Wanna hear pessimistic? The elites will eliminate dissenters and everyone not useful to them, when they start feeling that they have no other option, that is, when resource depletion will prevent our still growing population to survive as they are now. First it will be the dissenters but that will not be enough to balance things out so genocide cannot be that far from that point.

I'm quite Malthusian on that view, and despite the fact that population should stabilize in about 50-70 years to between 9-11 billion, the rate of resource depletion will make that population unsustainable. With some luck I will not have the "pleasure" to witness those beautiful times but my son likely will.

[Sibling DavidH]

Bloody malware!  I decided to install Waterfox, which is a well-known version of Firefox for 64-bit systems, and is supposed to be faster.  I ran the huge setup file, and AVG stopped it from opening a Trojan called isearchall.exe.  Thanks, AVG; balls to Waterfox.

Mind you, the filename's a bit of a giveaway.

[Opsa]

Weird! I've never heard of it. Proves what I know.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Bloody malware!  I decided to install Waterfox, which is a well-known version of Firefox for 64-bit systems, and is supposed to be faster.  I ran the huge setup file, and AVG stopped it from opening a Trojan called isearchall.exe.  Thanks, AVG; balls to Waterfox.

Mind you, the filename's a bit of a giveaway.

A quick perusal of the intertubes seems to link that key-logger with the optional AVG crapware packaged with Waterfox-- using a custom install with only the bare-minimum Waterfox stuff seems to skip trying to install the malware.

I haven't tried it though.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If you want a 64 bit Firefox you have to get Nightly which is the official Mozilla 64 bit implementation and as it's name implies is compiled nightly. I've been using it for a while and it does work and even there are plugins (flash, silverlight) for it. You have to dig to get to it because Mozilla isn't to interested in publicize it (you will find it close to the bottom of the page):

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-central/

[Sibling DavidH]

Thank you, folks!  I'll try this Nightly.
Isn't it ironical that my existing AVG caught malware which AVG was trying to sneak in.

EDIT: I've installed Nightly and it imported all my bookmarks and add-ons automatically.  It does seem faster; I have hopes.  I'm doing this edit on it.

[Opsa]

Bravo Zono!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

 
---
Nightly seems to be faster for certain things and slower for others, the advantage is when you have 200 tabs open and are eating more memory which a 64 bit app manages better. Hopefully it works for you, remember that for all practical purposes you are beta testing so you may find more crashes than with the release (32bit) version.

[Sibling DavidH]

Thank you, Zono - I'll live with the odd crash now and again.