Month: July 2021

Firefox / Mozilla – on Windows – decided I did not need a Bookmarks button. WTH?

Two environments: work and home. Two platforms: Linux and Windows. Symptom is only on Windows, but spanned both work and home.

I do use the Firefox Sync feature, but of course two different email accounts for work versus home. I realize I am kind of stretching things; but, I use the Firefox sync thing across both Windows and Linux for both work and home.

Once I finally figured out how to get the Bookmarks button back, I tried to synchronize now to get the good/repaired installation of Firefox on Windows to propagate over to the broken versions. That did not work.

So: Firefox on Linux (both work and home) did not lose the Bookmarks button. Firefox on Windows (all machines) lost the bookmarks button. If it were a Firefox Sync thing, I would have thought that the repaired Windows installation would have propagated over to the other Windows machines.

Also, if it were a Firefox Sync thing, I don’t think it would have happened at the same time on two different accounts (work and home). Sure, I could have hit a bad keystroke and removed this button I wanted in one browser, and then Sync propagated the bad config. But that it happened at both work and home at the same time makes me think that it was a new build of Firefox that just clobbered the thing.

I am disappointed that 1) Mozilla didn’t have quality checks in place to catch this first, and 2) that Firefox Sync does not propagate the repair to the synchronized machines.

So, on every Windows machine, I now need to do:

(hamburger menu) –> More Tools –> Customize Toolbar

Then on the new screen, find the Bookmarks Menu button, and drag it to the toolbar. Repeat for all the Windows machines you have.

Microsoft as bully, yet again

Personally, I think that people have the capacity to be both humble and bullies. But it is a conflict, and, some people think they are being helpful when actually they are bullying. “If only you did things my way, and then everything will be better” says the bully under the delusion of being helpful.

Recently, Microsoft pushed out an update to Windows 10 which adds a “News and Interests” widget to the Windows task bar. You don’t get a choice; it will be installed whether you want it or not. You can turn it off after the fact, of course. But what the person at Microsoft behind this change does not care to hear is that I didn’t want to be violated in the first place.

All it really does is remind me that I don’t have control of this machine; Microsoft does.

Thanks, Microsoft. I already dislike you, but, I hadn’t gotten a recent reminder of why.

“What’s the big deal‽‽‽ It’s just a little thing. I was being helpful and making your life better” says the bully. Yeah, no. I hear what you are saying, and I see through the deceit (conceit) that this is somehow for my good. It is not. It is an ego stroke for yourself and nothing more.

If it were really for my good, it would be turned off by default, and not installed by default. Microsoft could say “we added a new feature, if you want”, and I’d be fine with that. But pushing it without permission tells the truth of the act.

Abandoned LastPass

LastPass was, for seven years, my password manager of choice. I liked that Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation liked it. I liked that it had Yubikey support. I liked that it had an app for my iPhone. I liked that because it was a cloud service, my passwords followed me around.

The idea is a good one, too: memorize a single complex password, use it plus 2FA (“second factor authentication” in this case my Yubikey) and then make the passwords on every other web site extremely complex. Like Hn6k344SdRt#CT_Epste1nd1dn’tk1llh1mself_PFnPr2XP#J$4P*@Lyxi!r complex.

I did not mind paying for that service, since I know that it costs money to run servers and pay employees and such. The price really wasn’t too bad, either.

But somewhere along the line, the creators of LastPass decided to cash out. They sold the company to LogMeIn. But now, the LogMeIn folks are out cash money, and they need to make that money back; the quicker, the better. Suddenly I and all their other customers began to look like marks to be played.

Sigh.

For several months, I wanted to take a screen shot of my LastPass initial login screen, and then post the screenshot to the Reddit Asshole Design community. What it was, was that all of a sudden, LastPass would post a fake “Warning – We Care About Your Security” alert every time I logged in. But what it really was, was a request to put my credit card number on file with them, so they could auto-renew. It wasn’t about my security. It was about theirs. I’m going to need to buy a pair of cowboy boots, the bullshit is getting so deep around here.

This was a constant reminder that the company had changed, and wasn’t the same company I signed up with. What finally pushed me over the edge was their announcement that as of March 16, 2021 you have to pay, or else “no passwords for you!” if you want to use LastPass on mobile. So now we see their true character: “I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don’t Alter It Any Further.”

And I’m out.