Mozilla Has 'No Plans' To Offer Firefox Without Pocket (venturebeat.com) 199
An anonymous reader writes: In June, Mozilla integrated Pocket into Firefox, garnering a mixed response from the browser's community. This week, VentureBeat stumbled upon a Bugzilla ticket (bug 1215694) to "move Pocket to a built-in add-on" and immediately reached out to the company. "There are currently no plans to offer a version of Firefox that doesn't include Pocket," said Dave Camp, Firefox's director of engineering.
Could you at least hint what "Pocket" is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks Dicedot. Please, you know, edit.
Re:Could you at least hint what "Pocket" is? (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I can tell, it's a 3rd party bookmarking system.
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You know this system is probably used for advertising metrics.
Re:Could you at least hint what "Pocket" is? (Score:5, Informative)
"...the manner in which videos, articles or content has been accessed, saved and shared. We may use aggregated information to offer a list of top sites or content, or to make suggestions to our users or to report on usage and trends. We may also analyze and use aggregated information to improve the products and services that we offer, and to develop new products and services. "
Yep.
https://getpocket.com/privacy [getpocket.com]
It's written a bit slimy, making strong statements then giving really innocent examples. I'm reading it while trying to keep in mind that a service to store your bookmarks is going to have to have a privacy policy which allows them to store your bookmarks.
Everything free is malware these days, and many things paid.
Re:Could you at least hint what "Pocket" is? (Score:5, Funny)
"You know this system is probably used for advertising metrics."
Only of use in the USA then, thats the only place that still uses feet, pounds and acres
the rest of the world already uses the metric system.
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If you actually read, it's been brought up many times. Not to mention the search bar is over there.
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Dice has no pants.
Re:Could you at least hint what "Pocket" is? (Score:5, Informative)
Pocket is a proprietary usage tracking system. You sign up for an account, which is how the tracking is performed. Then you can save Web pages, videos, etc. to your hard drive using the Pocket system to you can view the content offline later. All the while, Pocket is building a database of what you saved, which laws you've broken (to be handed over to law enforcement upon request), what your viewing preferences are, etc.
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Pocket is a proprietary usage tracking system. You sign up for an account, which is how the tracking is performed. Then you can save Web pages, videos, etc. to your hard drive using the Pocket system to you can view the content offline later. All the while, Pocket is building a database of what you saved, which laws you've broken (to be handed over to law enforcement upon request), what your viewing preferences are, etc.
mod up
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I have said this before and will say it again (lacking the ability to do so myself): Firefox needs to get forked and all the clutter needs to be removed.
browser.pocket.enabled = false (Score:5, Informative)
Re: browser.pocket.enabled = false (Score:5, Insightful)
But that doesn't change the fact that the guys at Mozilla have lost it. Who is picking up the torch? Non-profit, open-source, privacy-aware fork. Please?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed, been using palemoon for awhile and very happy with it. Basically Firefox before it started to suck with the improvements that actually matter.
I really hope the project keeps on trucking, for now it's definitely the best option for the Firefox user who's getting tired of all the bullshit.
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It's very nice to see such a relevant post.
From personal and professional experience, I'd suggest that you treat Windows 8 much like the market treated WinME, and simply jump straight to Windows 10. It does have issues, but it's avoided the user interface errors that Windows 8 insisted on, and it's much better supported than Windows 8 is now.
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If you want the project to continue? Then please leave the new start page [start.me] and use it for any searches or click throughs to places like FB or Flicker as the devs get a couple cents for clicks which goes to keeping the team up and running. I personally have NO problem with an arrangement like this as it means I can keep my Adblock on and still support the team so I use it all the time, I hope others do as well to keep the project going strong.
As for the Linux build being a year old? I try my damnedest to avoid Linux (because I find it buggy as fuck) so I only recently came across it thanks to MSFT forcing me to try to find affordable alternatives to Windows "all ur data belong to us" 10 Spyware Edition being the only one you can actually purchase. Personally I'll probably be going to Windows 8.1 but most of my customers don't have the option and once Win 7 reaches EOL I'll have to have a functional alternative, hence why I'm looking at Linux software now, not to mention my Vista customers will be hitting EOL soon and I wouldn't wish Win 10 on my worst enemies.....well maybe the FOSSIes, because that would be funny, but otherwise no..
If you are now looking at Linux, consider PC-BSD. I've found it very smooth to work w/, and like you've noted, it doesn't break previous drivers. I got it when PC-BSD was10.0. My only beef - getting WiFi support on the Intel WiFi chipset. It comes w/ a wide variety of DEs, but leaves out some interesting ones, like Razor-qt and LXQT: that's due to their Linux specific dependencies. However, I use Lumina, a new DE which is really smooth and largely stays out of your way.
For Steam users, v11 will hav
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What do your customers do with their computers, usually? Check out GhostBSD or even PCBSD. If you want a decent ecosystem in the Linux world, that means systemd is going to be there, if not now then shortly. Personally, it's not bad at all in my experience. However, if you want to stay away from it, GhostBSD would probably be a good choice for you and your customers - it's solid, secure, and pretty easy to figure out. If you've just got average customers doing average things then it may well be an option.
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ReactOS isn't going anywhere but much can be done on GhostBSD - except they'd need alternatives to their Windows software. I can't think of anything that I, personally, need from the Windows side of things so I'm quite happy without it. There is, literally, not one piece of compelling software that makes me even consider using it in a VM. If they've a compelling reason to remain on Windows then I'd probably just leave them on 7 or 8.1 and hope that the tide turns at Microsoft before those are completely EOL
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The problem is they ALL have at least a couple Windows programs they consider "must have",
You can always side-step that Using Wine, or a Virtual Machine. Remote Desktop also works, but I never had to go deeper than the virtual machine. The problem I see is that users panic when they hear that the OS is "Not Windows". I have heard it is possible to make desktop look like Windows, but never tried that myself.
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GhostBSD only comes with the two but I am given to understand that you can use other DE if you want to install them. I've never done so. I'm a fan of LXDE but I find MATE to be quite workable with GhostBSD. I have played with PC-BSD a few times and it just seemed, well, rudimentary. I do like basic and functional but PC-BSD looks a whole lot like Windows 95. I admit, I did not spend enough time with it to go on and try to find other DE - at all. I simply used the stock configuration or a while until I decid
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Which is why I was careful to say that it was true only for me. Lots of others have vastly different use-cases. These days? I'm quite OS agnostic but I don't use Windows simply because I don't prefer it. I'll use it, if I must. I don't have to, so I don't. I prefer Linux, it's just more logical to me. I don't mind BSD but there's a lot about it that I've yet to learn. A goodly portion of my career was tied into Sun so I expect to spend more time in BSD-land in the near future. I don't mind OS X but, again,
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Welcome to 1979 and DOS...I mean Bash prompts.
Actually, Windows has a 1979 cmd prompt; Bash is ahead by leaps and bounds: adjustable fonts/colors, unicode, piping and redirection. In fact, I am using Cygwin on Windows and Bash works with network drives, while CMD cannot... The funny aspect is that MS copied Unix output redirection: to my amazement a.exe > logfile 2>&1 actually works on Windows "1979" CMD prompt.
second you have to scratch anything below the surface
I found Gnome2 to have all the GUI teaks and controls I ever need. Currently experimenting with Cairo (looks like Mac), and it has mo
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As for the Coward that posted a link to Debian? Sorry but I don't support an OS that goes against its own charter to force shit down its users throats, if I wanted that shit I'd take Windows 10.
???? You're going to need to explain that one. Are you referring to the adoption of systemd? (That seems a very long way from Microsoft's current actions with Windows 10, but hey, maybe you hate linux but have a soft spot for sysvinit ...)
Thanks for the link to Pale Moon, though. Looks good!
Re: browser.pocket.enabled = false (Score:4, Insightful)
These Windows vs Linux (vs Mac) are so ridiculously "last century".
Yes, Linux is terribly buggy and limited as a Desktop system. But it has been extremely stable and generally a pleasure to work with as a server system.
Macs are great desktop systems with the advantage of also having a real shell, and generally having Unix under the hood.
Windows is the most stable desktop system I know (as long as it is not infected by malware), and has the greatest choice of high quality software in almost all categories. But I would certainly hate it if I needed to use it as a server.
As it is, I use all 3 daily, and usually have a couple of ssh and/or VNC windows to other systems open. Just use the right tool for the job. This juvenile OS war is so passé...
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I would always live in fear with windows 10. Fear, that the next update brings tracking stuff, which is not blocked, yet.
I do not want a cat & mice game, where i always need to hide. I want a system i can trust.
Too little too late (Score:2)
I ran Palemoon for a while but it was still slow compared to Chrome. There is a reason Firefox is tanking and Chrome is growing. The product is simply better.
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You can get uMatrix which is a billion and three times better than NoScript. I'm an Opera user and was disappointed with the lack of NoScript but then I found uMatrix and took the time to learn to use it. It's much, much more powerful. There is a slight learning curve but it's all good. You can export your settings as a .JSON and import them or back them up. 'Tis pretty awesome once you get past the learning curve and it's not that steep. It's like an old-school software firewall for your browser.
Pale Moon 64-bit edition, tools, add-ons (Score:2)
Joke:
Instead of browser.pocket.enabled = false in Firefox,
browser.adult.supervision.enabled = true in Pale Moon.
Pale Moon has tools for backup and migration.
Adblock Latitude [palemoon.org] blocks ads. There are other Pale Moon ad-ons [palemoon.org], and usually Firefox add-ons work perfectly.
"Pale Moon Commander
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I think you can also use ublock origin in pale moon? But abl is also good.
Re: browser.pocket.enabled = false (Score:2)
I've been playing with Pale Moon on Android and i feel it is more stable than Firefox so far.
I also havd Pale Moon on my Funtoi workstation. Anyone on Funtoo/Gentoo there is an official Pale Moon overlay in layman. Simply run:
# layman -S
# layman -a palemoon
# emerge palemoon
Replace palemoon with palemoon-bin on the last one if you would prefer a prebuilt binary, though that kind of negates the point of Gentoo/Funtoo.
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There are some strange installers on Linux. I'm used to this. However, Pale Moon is just the strangest one that I think I've ever seen.
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Re: browser.pocket.enabled = false (Score:5, Informative)
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Non-profit, open-source, privacy-aware fork.
With a non-shitty interface.
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Something like Vimperator installed by default? Most users would probably find it confusing.
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/Oblg. No plans to use Firefox then (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad to see once a web browser that once was a bastion of open source become yet-another-sell-out.
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SystemD (Score:1)
It already has.
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You nailed it. This hit piece on Linus [computerworld.com] just came out 2 days ago.
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People gave up on it because it had tons of problems and the developers at Mozilla are a bunch of clueless douchebags.
Firefox is dead and there is zero reason to use it when there are many vastly superior choices.
Re:/Oblg. No plans to use Firefox then (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly curious what the "superior" choice is?
The spyware known as Chrome/Chromium? Internet Explorer? The unstable Opera? What is it, man? Please tell us what your awesome browser is so we can join you because frankly I'm out of ideas.
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I don't see how the UI changes have anything to do with Mozilla "selling out". I quite like how Firefox looks right now but that doesn't mean I approve of Mozilla including Pocket, for example.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Pale Moon fork that includes Australis. :-)
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Chromium doesn't have spyware. You can check the binaries yourself. [chromium.org]
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PaleMoon
SRWare Iron
Epic Privacy Browser
Opera
Seriously, turn in your leet creds on the way out the door if you have to ask such a question.
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Have you tried Vivaldi?
It has the google search-as-you type spyware like all browsers, but you can disable it. Supposed to harken back to ye olde Opera interface, but built on a modern framework.
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What's broken in Opera? I use all three builds (dev, beta, and stable) on a fairly regular basis. I suspect you've either not used it or not used it in a while. It was pretty rough when they moved to the Chromium fork but they've made it damned stable and fairly light. The added bonus is that it doesn't have the Google tracking shit in it. It has been pretty good since about ten versions ago.
Iceweasel for Windows? (Score:1)
Someone can make a build excluding all the objectionable content, right? You just can't call it Firefox if you do.
Re:Iceweasel for Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
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Palemoon has (or had, I never used it) a Bookmark and Settings Sync service very similar to the one present in Firefox. It was a first-party tool maintained by the people who are responsible for Palemoon.
IIRC, both Chrome and Firefox for Windows are also packaged as web installers rather than .MSIs or the like. This is not unprecedented behavior.
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I'm to lazy to actually look it up - but sync should be the service that allows you to store your bookmarks remotely so you can use them across platforms and systems.
It would make sense that they would be shut down if pocket is a third party bookmarks service. Sync was a Mozilla in house thing and even though the ability was built in, it was optional and required you to create an account before anything was transferred.
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No, sync should be the service that allows you to store your bookmarks wherever you choose.
I'd much rather have my stuff on a USB drive in my pocket than on a server who knows where run by unknown slimecocks.
Re:Iceweasel for Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
I just did. Alas, I do not wish to download anything that only offers a so-called "web installer".
You don't have to. The offline installers are linked from the 'Download' dropdown menu right there on their home page.
Re: Iceweasel for Windows? (Score:3)
Sync in Palemoon is based on the old Sync 1.1 in Firefox. Everything is encrypted client-side and your key is never transmitted. Sync 1.5 is what is currently included in recent Firefox builds. It does transmit your key.
You run your own Sync 1.1 server, and configure Pale Moon to use it instead if that tickles your fancy. See here: https://docs.services.mozilla.... [mozilla.com]
Was great now just dead (Score:1)
I guess the Pocket is then one of those things that are not bloat from Mozilla point of view. Thankfully we can now be get rid of Classic theme restorer plugin instead, so we can truly embrace the full Mozilla experience by pocketing our chats while we share the rich converged and aligned experience with the Mozilla social media features.
Re:Was great now just dead (Score:4, Funny)
At Mozilla, it is our job to continue to synergistically leverage others' long-term high-impact technology as well as continue to competently supply seven-habits-conforming meta-services for 100% customer satisfaction.
It's also our objective to completely integrate cutting-edge catalysts for change so that we may endeavor to conveniently customize holistic solutions while maintaining the highest standards.
http://cmorse.org/missiongen/ [cmorse.org]
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Lololo god bless you for picking one with "meta-services".
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I'm howlin' mad: (Score:4, Interesting)
Pale Moooooon
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Thanks Moonchild Productions.
Re:I'm howlin' mad: (Score:4, Interesting)
SeaMonkey [seamonkey-project.org] and rarely changed on the front end.
After all this time... (Score:2)
I still have no f***ing idea what Pocket is, and why I should have it in my browser.
Dictator of engineering (Score:5, Funny)
Dave Camp, Firefox's director of engineering
At first glance, my brain quickly read "dictator of engineering" :-)
No problem. (Score:5, Informative)
[about:config] browser.pocket.enabled = false
Every time Mozilla releases an update, I have to search through the config settings for new ".enabled" things to disable. (sigh)
Re:No problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time Mozilla releases an update, I have to search through the config settings for new ".enabled" things to disable.
Don't forget the part where you hope to hell they haven't removed even more "about:config" settings you rely on since "nobody uses the feature we intentionally hid behind an obscure configuration setting (surprise!)".
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Or you could just, you know, not use it. It's been there for months. I've never even noticed it. I don't use a Firefox account, so who cares about Pocket integration anyway?
Please forgive my ignorance, (Score:4, Insightful)
but why does Pocket matter?
When they first introduced it, I right clicked it and removed it from my toolbar. I haven't thought of it since, yet there are people threatening to boycott Firefox over it.
I've never about:config disabled it. Is it selling my privacy? Doubling firefox's memory usage? Supporting terrorism?
Why is it news worthy?
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This is one reason i remember:
multiple vulnerabilities exposed in pocket.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/1... [slashdot.org]
Re:Please forgive my ignorance, (Score:5, Interesting)
but why does Pocket matter?
Its not what it is, it's what it represents.
Pocket is a proprietary system, with a commerical company behind it, that produced an addon that a small number of people used.
That was fine. Nobody objected to it. Nobody cared.
Then one day, pocket was integrated into the browser. Why? WHY? What possible reason was there to integrate a 3rd party commercial add on directly into the codebase.No good one.
The free software people were pissed at having a proprietary service.
The no-bloat were pissed off at another completely pointless feature; especially when the add-on was working just fine for the people who wanted it.
And the rest of us look at it as the thin edge of the wedge; as in if Mozilla is willing to just thrust this on us... where does it end? Facebook integration next built right in? Twitter after that? Snapchat? Zynga games? Chatroulette? Not as addons... all built right in to firefox.
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Why? Everybody wants to get paid. You know, damned well, that they're getting a kickback from the ad revenue from the Pocket folks.
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I don't have a good solution to this problem but it's obviously a very thin line between "acceptable commercial add-ons that make Mozilla money" and "intrusive add-ons that turn users away".
I'd gladly contribute a few dollars every year if that meant I'd get a cleaner browser but making a Firefox an ad-sponsored or paid without ads product is difficult since it's open source.
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Pocket matters because it's THE symbol of Mozilla ignoring its strengths and leveraging its weakness.
What strengths Mozilla/Firefox have (or is perceived to have)? Promotion of open standards instead of proprietary solutions; care for users' privacy; powerful addon infrastructure that allows me to run niche functionality like Pocket if I like it.
And what did they do? They built in a proprietary solution that has unnecessary privacy considerations that is NOT an addon.
It's not about technology, it's about do
Isn't pocket just bookmarks (Score:3)
Doesn't FF already do that (Score:2)
What about old Pocket extension?! (Score:2)
From what I gather I'm not in majority but for sure I'm not alone in actually WANTING Pocket and MORE, I want back the FUNCTIONALITY from that extension which is way beyond the stupid FF button. I still have it (thanks to some obscure thread on some other site) but it won't be updated and supported anymore.
about:config (Score:2)
about:config , then
browser.pocket.enabled
to "false".
Fuck Firefox (Score:2)
Not So (Score:1)
They're simply going with option B.
Iceweasel (Score:2)
But the browser you build is not a Firefox® browser. Instead, Gentoo users have to go the Iceweasel route.
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But the browser you build is not a Firefox® browser. Instead, Gentoo users have to go the Iceweasel route.
That's incorrect. The Mozilla license forbids distribution of the Firefox package if built from modified sources, but anyone building Firefox for himself or herself is free to build the package to suit. That's what happens on Gentoo machines when building Firefox without the bindist USE flag. The firefox on my machines is is Mozilla-branded Firefox, but with Gentoo patches. I can't distribute that, but I can sure use it.
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sudo euse -D bindist && sudo emerge firefox
That said, when Mozilla jumped the shark, I ditched SJWfox and switched to Chrome.
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Bah, you already have that button .. reply to your friend with "Fuck Off".
Or, do you just want some sort of passive aggressive thing where you can quietly throw a tantrum and block sites?
You don't need a damned button to be antisocial.
Re:I hate social media (Score:4, Insightful)
Hehe,
Yea, I was thinking up some humorous opposite to social media. Every website is now tied into Facebook and Google plus with share and plus and thumbs up icons, that track users every move online. And the use of tracking cookies so once you ever return to site they get a history where you went.
Social media is the culprit that allows spying like NSA does, how folks get doxxed, etc. It's my opinion websites should have never fell for the trap adding Google analytics code, Stay counter, Facebook, Google plus, double click, twitter, etc
Since every single site is connected back to Facebook, Plus, Twitter
You don't need to get access to other site's logs, you got all the federal, tracking cookies, every single site a user has surfed daily can be logged.
So my satire on the antisocial media. I wish these sites would all unlink from social sites. Remove Facebook, analytics, stay counter and double click tracking which all are even here on Slashdot.
I already use adblock with 5 blocklists for various things from tracker blocklists , ad lists, social media blocking, anti adblock blocks, then noscript, then greasemonkey plugin script running 'antiAdblock killer'
Just to get a look at content like we had in 90s.
I see the web like a newspaper if I want to cut out an article and toss rest in trash, or pull the comics out and toss rest in trash I can.
Web site owners want the freedom to do what they want on their sites, which is fine, but they scream and cry and don't want users to have freedom to use the web how the user wants. To those site owners that's why I say "fuck off"
And my idea for Antisocial Media Web 3.0 :-P
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Edge is a bit faster, but using it for script development/debugging? Really kind of a pain in the ass.
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http://www.opera.com/download/... [opera.com]