Users of Buffer on Chrome are unable to post to social sites directly from web pages. Buffer says the problem will be fixed soon.
Posts published in “Browsers”
Just when you thought that web browsers were becoming boring, Mozilla announced that Firefox 52 now supports WebAssembly, which brings greatly enhanced speeds to web apps. Learn more about how this expands the capabilities of the web for everyone.
For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.
Now that Thunderbird is back in the Debian repositories, the decade long dispute that led to all Mozilla products in Debian being rebranded has ended.
The hatchet is finally completely buried. Iceweasel was laid to rest a year ago with the return of Firefox to Debian. Now, Icedove gets to go gently into that good night as well, as the Thunderbird email client returns to Debian.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
“Software Freedom” shouldn’t mean “use free software or else.” It should mean you are free to use the software you choose.
Roblimo’s Hideaway
I have the Chrome web browser running full-screen on my Ubuntu desktop. Not Chromium, but proprietary Chrome — because it suits my needs better than open source Chromium. I also like Chrome better than Firefox, and I say this after using only Firefox for a week and trying hard to like it.
Some of this may be habit. We humans tend to prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar, and I’ll admit that I have gotten used to Chrome and its features.
Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.
Also included, Flash on life support, Mageia’s new release, Ubuntu sets date for “Zesty Zapus” and our News Wire gets an RSS feed.
FOSS Week in Review
Outside of FOSS, the news becomes too depressing and repetitive to read. Gamergate has taken over our country and is set to move into the White House and to have free rein in the halls of congress. Roles are being reversed and it’s rapidly becoming politically incorrect to express concerns for our mother the earth or for the creatures who inhabit it, while it’s perfectly fine to label anyone who advocates for equality as a “social justice warrior” who should have no place within any organization.
If you think I’m bummed out, you’re right. At least for the time being, in the world of FOSS life goes on as usual…
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
What’s it like to advocate for open source and be a rep for Mozilla in Slovenia? Nino Vranešič tells all. The FOSS Force Video Interview…
Raspbian, the Raspberry Pi’s most well known distro, has an exciting new look and feel with Pixel.
The Raspberry Pi Report
A couple of weeks ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced they had tuned up the look and feel of Raspbian. The new buzzword created to help bring about the message that the UI had changed was dubbed “Pixel,” which stands for “Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight.” While I’m not completely sold on trying to make Pixel stand for something, what I am completely sold on is what it has brought to the table for the Raspberry Pi. With Pixel, Raspbian has the look and feel of an elegant OS and I’m beyond happy that they have put this together for the Raspberry Pi community. I’ve tried out Pixel for the past week and here’s my take to date.
In addition to hosting a Raspberry Pi meetup in Washington D.C., Isaac Carter is a co-host on mintCast. He’s also a software engineer who enjoys working with Java, JavaScript, and GNU/Linux. When he’s not coding, you can find him reading on any number of subjects or on the golf course.
Also included: Yahoo’s big hack, Garrett on Lenovo, new Audacious and GNOME, and Ubuntu get’s ready for Yakkety Yak.
FOSS Week in Review
I spent time this week terminating a Yahoo account I’ve had since way back in the last century. For years, the My Yahoo page was my “home” page whenever I fired-up the old dial-up to go online, but over time the portal (remember portals?) became less and less relevant and I found my visits to Yahoo becoming less and less frequent. By the time I closed the account, prompted by news of a massive hack involving 500 million accounts going back to 2014, I hadn’t visited my Yahoo page in well over a year. RIP Yahoo. It was nice knowing you.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Also included: Canonical joins The Document Foundations advisory board, Chromium coming to Fedora, OpenVZ now a complete Linux distro and GNU Linux-libre Kernel 4.7 released.
FOSS Week in Review
It’s not FOSS, but I reckon the biggest story in tech this week, ignoring claims of Russia hacking for Trump, is the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion. Considering that traffic watcher Alexa says the site is the fifth most visited address on the web, that seems like something of a bargain to me. Add to that Yahoo’s prime Silicon Valley real estate and the price seems to be in the “it fell of the truck” category. The sale puts Verizon in control of both America Online and Yahoo, so I suspect we’ll be seeing Verizon trying to compete with Google and Bing for a share of the search advertising market.
Meanwhile in the world of FOSS…
LibreOffice has been in the news this week. The big story, which we first heard on Tuesday, is that Canonical has joined The Document Foundation’s advisory board. In case you’re new in town, TDF is the nonprofit that controls the development of LibreOffice.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Skype has announced an alpha version of a new client for Linux. Given Skype’s ownership by Microsoft, will Linux users care?
Breaking News
So Skype on GNU/Linux is finally getting something of an upgrade. This will be welcome news for some. Others will mumble “not on my machine” and go about their business. I can imagine nothing in the FOSS sphere as controversial as running a Microsoft owned product on Linux.
The announcement came about an hour ago via a post on the Skype site after an “exciting news for Linux users” teaser was posted on July 8. An “Alpha version of a new Skype for Linux client” has been released which uses WebRTC, and the Skype folks are eager to find testers for feedback. Downloads are available as both deb packages and RPMs. It’s stressed that this alpha version “is not a fully functioning Skype client as of yet” but it’s promised that a fully functioning version will be available pronto.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Numbers supplied by Opera show that the browser’s new Power Saving Mode, currently found only in developer builds, can considerably extend laptop battery life.
The folks behind the free but proprietary Opera browser announced today that the latest developer build includes Power Saving Mode, a new feature that the company claims can extend battery life by up to 50 percent. If true, this could be a serious game changer. Free and open source software advocates should hope that the developers at Mozilla are paying attention.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux