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Planet Mozilla Projects - https://planet.mozilla.org/projects/Open Policy & Advocacy: How the U.S. Government is leading by example on artificial intelligence
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/28/us-government-use-of-ai/
<p>For years, the U.S. government has seen the challenges and opportunities of leveraging AI to advance its mission. Federal agencies have tried to use facial recognition to identify suspects and taxpayers, raising serious concerns about bias and privacy. Some agencies have tried to use AI to identify veterans at higher risk of suicide, where incorrect predictions in either direction can harm veterans’ health and well-being. On the flip side, federal agencies are already harnessing AI in promising ways — from making it easier to forecast the weather, to predicting failures of air navigation equipment, to simply automating paperwork. If harnessed well, AI promises to improve the many federal services that Americans rely upon every day.</p>
<p>That’s why we’re thrilled that, today, the White House established a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/28/fact-sheet-vice-president-harris-announces-omb-policy-to-advance-governance-innovation-and-risk-management-in-federal-agencies-use-of-artificial-intelligence/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">strong policy</a> to empower federal agencies to responsibly harness the power of AI for public benefit. The policy carefully identifies riskier uses of AI and sets up strong guardrails to ensure those applications are responsible. And, the policy simultaneously creates leadership and incentives for agencies to fully leverage the potential of AI.</p>
<p>The policy is rooted in a simple observation: not all applications of AI are equally risky or equally beneficial. For example, it’s far less risky to use AI for digitizing paper documents than to use AI for determining who receives asylum. The former doesn’t need more scrutiny beyond existing rules, but the latter introduces risks to human rights and should be held to a much higher bar.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_2349" style="width: 6010px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/M-memo-flow-1.png"><img alt="Diagram explaining how today's new policy works for mitigating AI risks." class="size-full wp-image-2349" height="3375" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/M-memo-flow-1.png" width="6000" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-2349">Diagram explaining how today’s new policy works for mitigating AI risks.</p></div>
<p>Hence, the policy takes a risk-based approach to prioritize resources for AI accountability. This approach largely ignores AI applications that are low risk or appropriately managed by other policies, and focuses on AI applications that could meaningfully impact people’s safety or rights. For example, to use AI in electrical grids or autonomous vehicles, it needs to have an impact assessment, real-world testing, independent evaluation, ongoing monitoring, and appropriate public notice and human override. And, to use AI to filter resumes and approve loans, it needs to include the aforementioned protections for safety, mitigate against bias, incorporate public input, conduct ongoing monitoring, and provide reasonable opt-outs. These protections are based on common sense: AI that’s integral to domains like critical infrastructure, public safety, and government benefits should be tested, monitored, and include human overrides. The specifics of these protections are aligned with years of rigorous research and incorporate public comment so that the interventions are more likely to be both effective and feasible.</p>
<p>The policy applies a similar approach to AI innovation. It calls for agencies to create AI strategies with a focus on prioritizing top AI use cases, reducing barriers to AI adoption, setting goals around AI maturity, and building the capacity needed to harness AI in the long run. This, paired with actions in the AI Executive Order that surge AI talent to high-priority locations across the federal government, sets agencies up to better deploy AI where it can be most impactful.</p>
<p>These rules are also coupled with oversight and transparency. Agencies are required to appoint senior Chief AI Officers who oversee both the accountability and innovation mandates in the policy, and agencies also have to publish their plans to comply with these rules and stop using AI that doesn’t. In general, federal agencies also have to report their AI applications in annual AI use case inventories, and provide additional information about how they are managing risks from safety- and rights-impacting AI. The Office of Management and Budget will oversee compliance, and that office is required to have sufficient visibility into any exemptions sought by agencies to the AI risk mitigation practices outlined in the policy. </p>
<p>These practices are slated to be highly impactful. Federal law enforcement agencies — including immigration and border enforcement — should now have many of their uses of facial recognition and predictive analytics subject to strong risk mitigation practices. Millions of people work for the U.S. Government, and now these federal workers will have the protections outlined in this policy if their employers try to surveil and manage their movements and behaviors via AI. And, when federal agencies try to use AI to identify fraud in programs such as food stamps and financial aid, those agencies will now have to make sure that the AI actually works and doesn’t discriminate. </p>
<p>These rules also apply regardless of whether a federal agency builds the AI themselves or purchases it from a vendor. That will have a large market-shaping impact, as the U.S. government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, and agencies will now be incentivized to only purchase AI services that comply with the policy. The policy further directs agencies to share their AI code, models, and data — promoting open-source approaches that are <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/whitepaper/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">vital</a> for the AI ecosystem broadly. Additionally, when procuring AI services, the policy recommends that agencies promote market competition and interoperability among AI vendors, and avoid self-preferential treatment and vendor lock-in. This all helps advance good government, making sure taxpayer dollars are spent on safe and effective AI solutions, not on risky and over-hyped snake oil from contractors.</p>
<p>Now, federal agencies will work to comply with this policy in the coming months. They will also develop follow-up guidance to support the implementation of this policy, advance better procurement of AI, and govern the use of AI in national security applications. The hard work is not over; there are still outstanding questions to tackle as part of this future work, such as figuring out how to embed open source requirements more explicitly as part of the AI procurement process, helping to reduce agencies’ dependencies on specific AI vendors. </p>
<p>Amidst a flurry of government activity on AI, it’s worth stepping back and reflecting: today is a big day for AI policy. The U.S. government is leading by example with its own rules for AI, and Mozilla stands ready to help make the implementation of this policy a success.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/28/us-government-use-of-ai/">How the U.S. Government is leading by example on artificial intelligence</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-28T09:24:31+00:00Nik MardaSeaMonkey: SeaMonkey 2.53.18.2 is out!
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2024/03/28/seamonkey-2-53-18-2-is-out/
<p>Hi everyone!</p>
<p>The SeaMonkey Project team is pleased to announce the immediate release of SeaMonkey 2.53.18.2, which is a security release. Please checkout [1] and/or [2].</p>
<p>Please note that the updates are forthcoming.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p>[1] – <a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.18.2">https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.18.2</a></p>
<p>[2] – <a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.18.2">https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.18.2</a></p>
<p> </p>2024-03-28T04:58:26+00:00ewongThe Mozilla Blog: Readouts from the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/readouts-columbia-convening/
<p>On February 29, Mozilla and the Columbia Institute of Global Politics brought together over 40 leading scholars and practitioners working on openness and AI. These individuals — spanning prominent open source AI startups and companies, non-profit AI labs, and civil society organizations — focused on exploring what “open” should mean in the AI era. We <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/introducing-columbia-convening-openness-and-ai/">previously wrote</a> about the convening, why it was important, and who we brought together.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Today, we are publishing two readouts from the convening. </h3>
<p>The first is a <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/technical-readout-columbia-convening-on-openness-and-ai/">technical memorandum</a> that outlines three different approaches to openness in AI, and highlights different components and spectrums of openness. It includes an extensive appendix that outlines key components in the AI stack, and describes how more openness in each component can help advance system and societal goals. Finally, it outlines open questions that would be worthy of future exploration, digging deeper into the specifics of openness and AI. This memorandum will be helpful for technical leaders and practitioners who are shaping the future of AI, so that they can better incorporate principles of openness to make their own AI systems more effective for their goals and more beneficial for society. </p>
<p>The second is a <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/policy-readout-columbia-convening-on-openness-and-ai/">policy memorandum</a> that outlines how and why policymakers should support openness in AI. It outlines the societal benefits from openness in AI, provides a higher-level overview of how different parts of the AI stack contribute to different opportunities and risks, and lays out a series of recommendations about how policymakers can advance openness in AI. This memorandum will be helpful for policymakers, especially those who are <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/25/mozilla-cdt-openness-ai-letter/">grappling</a> with the details of policy interventions related to openness in AI.</p>
<p>In the coming weeks, we will also be publishing a longer document that goes into greater detail about the dimensions of openness in AI. This will help advance our broader work with partners and allies to tackle complex and important topics around openness, competition, and accountability in AI. We will continue to keep <a href="http://mozilla.org/research/cc">mozilla.org/research/cc</a> updated with materials stemming from the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/readouts-columbia-convening/">Readouts from the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-27T21:50:42+00:00Sarah VasquezOpen Policy & Advocacy: Pathways to a fairer digital world: shaping EU rules to increase consumer protection and choice online
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/27/pathways-to-a-fairer-digital-world-shaping-eu-rules-to-increase-consumer-protection-and-choice-online/
<p>In the evolving digital landscape, where every click, swipe, and interaction shapes people’s daily lives, the need for robust consumer protection has never been more paramount. The propagation of deceptive design practices, aggressive personalization, and proliferation of fake reviews have the potential to limit or distort choices online and harm people, particularly the most vulnerable, by tricking them into taking actions that are not in their best interest, causing financial loss, loss of privacy, security, and well-being.</p>
<p>At Mozilla, we are committed to building a healthy Internet – an Internet that respects fundamental rights and constitutes a space where individuals can genuinely exercise their choices. Principles 4 and 5 of our <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/">Manifesto</a> state that individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it, while their security and privacy are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. In today’s interconnected world, these are put at stake.</p>
<p>Voluntary commitments by industry are not sufficient, and legislation can play a crucial role in regulating such practices. Recent years have seen the EU act as a pioneer when it comes to online platform regulation. Updating existing EU consumer protection rules and ensuring strong and coherent enforcement of existing legislation will build on this framework to further protect EU citizens in the digital age.</p>
<p>Below, we summarise our <strong>recommendations to EU policymakers ahead of the next European Commission mandate 2024-2029</strong> to build a fairer digital world for users and consumers:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Addressing harmful design practices</b> – Harmful design practices in digital experiences – such as those that coerce, manipulate, or deceive consumers – are increasingly compromising user autonomy and reducing choice. They not only thrive at the interface level but also lie deeper in the system’s architecture. We advocate for a clear shift towards ethical digital design through stronger regulation, particularly as technology evolves. This would include stronger enforcement of existing regulations addressing harmful design practices (e.g., GDPR, DSA, DMA). At the same time, the EU should update its consumer protection rules to prohibit milder ‘dark patterns’ and introduce an anti-circumvention clause to ensure that no bypassing of legal requirements by design techniques will be possible.</li>
<li><b>Balancing personalization & privacy online </b>– Personalization in digital services enhances user interaction but poses significant privacy risks and potential biases, leading to the exposure of sensitive information and societal inequalities. To address these issues, our key recommendations include the adoption of rules that will ensure the enforcement of consumer choices given through consent processes. Such rules should also incentivise the use and uptake of privacy-enhancing technologies through legislation (e.g. Consumer Rights Directive) to strike the right balance between personalization practices and respect of privacy online.</li>
<li><b>Tackling fake reviews</b> – The growing problem of fake reviews on online platforms has the potential to mislead consumers and distort product value. We recommend stronger enforcement of existing rules, meaningful transparency measures, including explicit disclosure requirements for incentivized reviews, increased accountability for consumer-facing online platforms, and consistency across the EU and internationally in review handling to ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of online reviews.</li>
<li><b>Rethinking the ‘average consumer’</b> – The traditional definition of the ‘average consumer’ in EU consumer law is characterised as <i>“reasonably well informed, observant, and circumspect”</i>. The digital age directly challenges this definition as consumers are increasingly more vulnerable online. Due to the ever-growing information asymmetry between traders and consumers, the yardstick of an ‘average consumer’ does not necessarily reflect existing consumer behaviour. For that reason, we ask for the reevaluation of this concept to reflect today’s reality. Such an update will actively lower the existing threshold and thus increase the overall level of protection and prevent the exploitation of vulnerable groups, especially in personalised commercial practices.</li>
</ul>
<p>To read our detailed position, click <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/Mozilla_Digital-Fairness-Paper.pdf"><b>here</b></a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/27/pathways-to-a-fairer-digital-world-shaping-eu-rules-to-increase-consumer-protection-and-choice-online/">Pathways to a fairer digital world: shaping EU rules to increase consumer protection and choice online</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-27T08:09:10+00:00Tasos StampelosSUMO Blog: Introducing Konstantina
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2024/03/25/introducing-konstantina/
<p>Hi folks,</p>
<p>I’m super excited to share that <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/kpapadea/">Konstantina</a> is joining the Customer Experience team to help with the community in SUMO. Some of you may already know Konstantina because she’s been around in Mozilla for quite a while. She’s transitioning internally from the Community Programs team under Marketing to the Customer Experience team under the Strategy and Operation.</p>
<p>Here’s a bit more about Konstantina in her own words:</p>
<blockquote><p>Hi everyone, my name is Konstantina and I am very happy I am joining your team! I have been involved with Mozilla since 2011, initially as a volunteer and then as a contractor (since late 2012). During my time here, I have had a lot of roles, from events organizer, community manager to program manager, from working with MDN, Support, Foxfooding, Firefox and many more. I am passionate about communities and how we bring their voices to create great products and I am joining your team to work with Kiki on creating a great community experience. I live in Berlin, Germany with my partner and our cat but I am originally from Athens, Greece. Fun fact about me, I studied geology and I used to do a lot of caving, so I know a lot about ropes and rappelling (though I am a bit rusty now). I also love building legos as you will soon see from my office background. Can’t wait to get to know you all more</p></blockquote>
<p>Please join me to welcome Konstantina (back) to SUMO!</p>2024-03-25T14:17:46+00:00Rizki KelimutuThe Mozilla Blog: 6 takeaways from The Washington Post Futurist Tech Summit in D.C.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/ai-mozilla-the-washington-post-tech-policy/
<p>A full conglomerate including journalists from The Washington Post, U.S. policymakers and influential business leaders gathered for a day of engaging discussions about technology March 21 in the nation’s capital.</p>
<p>Mozilla sponsored “The Futurist Summit: The New Age of Tech,” an event focused on addressing the wide range of promise and risks associated with emerging technologies — the largest of them being Artificial Intelligence (AI). It featured interviews moderated by journalists from The Post, as well as interactive sessions about tech for audience members in attendance at the paper’s office in Washington D.C.</p>
<p>Missed the event? Here are six takeaways from it that you should know about:</p>
<p><strong>1. How OpenAI is preparing for the election.</strong></p>
<p>The 2024 U.S. presidential election is one of the biggest topics of discussion involving the emergence and dangers of AI this year. It’s no secret that AI has incredible power to create, influence and manipulate voters with misinformation and fake media content (video, photos, audio) that can unfairly sway voters.</p>
<p>OpenAI, one of the biggest AI organizations, stressed an importance to provide transparency for its users to ensure their tools aren’t being used in those negative ways to mislead the public.</p>
<p>“It’s four billion people voting, and that is really unprecedented, and we’re very, very cognizant of that,” OpenAI VP of Global Affairs Anna Makanju said. “And obviously, it’s one of the things that we work — to ensure that our tools are not used to deceive people and to mislead people.”</p>
<p>Makanju reiterated that AI concerns with the election is a very large scale, and OpenAI is focused on engaging with companies to hammer down transparency in the 2024 race.</p>
<p>“This is like a whole of society issue,” Makanju said. “So that’s why we have engaged with other companies in this space as well. As you may have seen in the Munich Security Conference, we announced the Tech Accord, where we’re going to collaborate with social media companies and other companies that generate AI content, because there’s the issue of generation of AI content and the issue of distribution, and they’re quite different. So, for us, we really focus on things like transparency. … We of course have lots of teams investigating abuse of our systems or circumvention of the use case guidelines that are intended to prevent this kind of work. So, there are many teams at OpenAI working to ensure that these tools aren’t used for election interference.”</p>
<p>And OpenAI will be in the spotlight even more as the election inches closer.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-launch-better-gpt-5-chatbot-2024-3"> According to a report from Business Insider</a>, OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5 this summer, which will reportedly eclipse the abilities of the ChatGPT chatbot.</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-74520" height="683" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/03/2024-03-21_TheWashingtonPostLive-TheFuturistSummit-TheNewAgeofTech-0088-2-1024x683.jpg" width="1024" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The futurist summit focused on the wide range of promise and risks associated with emerging technologies</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><strong>2. Policymakers</strong> <strong>address the potential TikTok ban.</strong></p>
<p>The House overwhelmingly voted 352-65 on March 13 to pass a measure that gives ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, a decision: Sell the social media platform or face a nationwide ban on all U.S. devices.</p>
<p>One of the top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), addressed the national security concerns around TikTok on a panel moderated by political reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell alongside Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.).</p>
<p>“There is something uniquely challenging about TikTok because ultimately if this information is turned over to the Chinese espionage services that could be then potentially used for nefarious purposes, that’s not a good thing for America’s long-term national security interests,” Werner said. “End of the day, all we want is it could be an American company, it could be a British company, it could be a Brazilian company. It just needs not to be from one of the nation states, China being one of the four, that are actually named in American law as adversarial nations.”</p>
<p>Young chimed in shortly after Warner: “Though I have not authored a bill on this particular topic, I’ve been deeply involved, for several years running now, in this effort to harden ourselves against a country, China, that has weaponized our economic interdependence in various ways.”</p>
<p>The fate of the measure now heads to the Senate, which is not scheduled to vote on it soon.</p>
<p><strong>3. Deep Media AI is fighting against fake media content.</strong></p>
<p>AI to fight against AI? Yes, it’s possible!</p>
<p>AI being able to alter how we perceive reality through deepfakes — in other words, synthetic media — is another danger of the emerging technology.<a href="https://deepmedia.ai/"> Deep Media AI</a> founder Rijul Gupta is countering that AI problem with AI of his own.</p>
<p>In a video demonstration alongside tech columnist <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/geoffrey-a-fowler/">Geoffrey Fowler, </a>Gupta showcased how Deep Media AI scans and detects deepfakes in photos, videos and audio files to combat the issue.</p>
<p>For example, Deep Media AI can determine if a photo is fake by looking at wrinkles, reflections and things humans typically don’t pay attention to. In the audio space, which Gupta described as “uniquely dangerous,” the technology analyzes the waves and patterns. It can detect video deepfakes by tracking motion of the face — how it moves, the shape and movement of lips — and changes in lighting.</p>
<p>A good sign: Audience members were asked to identify a deepfake between two video clips (one real, one AI generated by OpenAI) at the start of Gupta’s presentation. The majority of people in attendance guessed correctly. Even better: Deep Media AI detected it was fake and scored a 100/100 in its detection system. In other words, it got it right perfectly.</p>
<p>“Generative AI is going to be awesome; it’s going to make us all rich; it’s going to be great,” Gupta said. “But in order for that to happen, we need to make it safe. We’re part of that, but we need militaries and governments. We need buy-in from the generative AI companies. We need buy-in from the tech ecosystem. We need detectors. And we need journalists to tell us what’s real, and what’s fake from a trusted source, right? I think it’s possible. We’re here to help, but we’re not the only ones here. We’re hoping to provide solutions that people use.”</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-74510" height="683" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/03/2024-03-21_TheWashingtonPostLive-TheFuturistSummit-TheNewAgeofTech-1586-1024x683.jpg" width="1024" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">VP of Global Policy at Mozilla, Linda Griffin, interviewed by The Washington Post’s Kathleen Koch.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><strong>4. Mozilla’s push for trustworthy AI</strong></p>
<p>As we continue to shift towards a world with AI that’s helpful, it’s important we involve human beings in that process as much as possible. It’s concerning if companies are making AI while only thinking about profit and not the public. That hurts public trust and faith in big tech.</p>
<p>This work is urgent, and Mozilla has been delivering the trustworthy AI report — <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/whitepaper/">which had a 2020 status update in February</a> — to aid in aligning with our vision of creating a healthy internet where openness, competition and accountability are the norms.</p>
<p>“We want to know what you think,” Mozilla VP of Global Policy Linda Griffin said. “We’re trying to map and guide where we think these conversations are. What is the point of AI unless more people can benefit from it more broadly? What is the point of this technology if it’s just in the hands of the handful of companies thinking about their bottom line?</p>
<p>“They do important and really interesting things with the technology; that’s great. But we need more; we need the public counterpoint. So, for us, trustworthy AI, it’s about accountability, transparency, and having humans in the loop thinking about people wanting to use these products and feeling safe and understanding that they have recourse if something goes wrong.”</p>
<p><strong>5. AI’s ability to change rules in the NFL (yes!).</strong></p>
<p>While the NFL is early in the process of incorporating AI into the game of football, the league has found ways to get the ball rolling (pun intended) on using its tools to make the game smarter and better.</p>
<p>One area is with health and safety, a major priority for the NFL. The league uses AI and machine learning tools on the field to grab predictive analysis to identify plays and body positions that most likely lead to players getting injured. Then, they can adjust rules and strategies accordingly, if they want.</p>
<p>For example, kickoffs. Concussions sustained on kickoffs<a href="https://operations.nfl.com/updates/the-game/nfls-prioritization-of-player-safety-leads-to-promising-injury-data-for-2023-season/"> dropped by 60 percent</a> in the NFL last season, from 20 to eight. That is because kickoffs were returned less frequently after the league adjusted the rules governing kickoff returns during the previous offseason, so that a returner could signal for a fair catch no matter where the ball was kicked, and the ball would be placed on the 25-yard line. This change came after the NFL used AI tools to gather injury data on those plays.</p>
<p>“The insight to change that rule had come from a lot of the data we had collected with chips on the shoulder pads of our players of capturing data, using machine learning, and trying to figure out what is the safest way to play the game,” Brian Rolapp, Chief Media & Business Officer for the NFL, told media reporter Ben Strauss, “which led to an impact of rule change.”</p>
<p>While kickoff injuries have gone down, making this tweak to one of the most exciting plays in football is tough. So this year, the NFL is working on a compromise and exploring new ideas that can strike a balance to satisfy both safety and excitement. There will be a vote at league meetings this week in front of coaches, general managers and ownership about it.</p>
<p><strong>6. Don’t forget about tech for accessibility.</strong></p>
<p>With the new chapter of AI, the possibilities of investing and creating tools for those with disabilities is endless. For those who are blind, have low vision or have trouble hearing, AI offers an entire new slate of capabilities.</p>
<p>Apple has been one of the companies at the forefront creating features for those with disabilities that use their products. For example, on iPhones, Apple has implemented live captions, sound recognition and voice control on devices to assist.</p>
<p>Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives at Apple, gave insight into how the tech giant decides what features to add and which ones to update. In doing so, she delivered one of the best talking points of the day.</p>
<p>“I think the key to that is really engagement with the communities,” Herrlinger said. “We believe very strongly in the disability mantra of, nothing about us without us, and so it starts with first off employing members of these communities within our ranks. We never build for a community. We build with them.”</p>
<p>Herrlinger was joined on stage alongside retired Judge David S. Tatel, Mike Buckley, the Chair & CEO of Be My Eyes and Disability reporter for The Post Amanda Morris. When asked about the future of accessibility for those that are blind, Patel shared a touching sentiment many in the disability space resonate with.</p>
<p>“It’s anything that improves and enhances my independence, and enhances it seamlessly is with what I look for,” Tatel said. “That’s it. Independence, independence, independence.”</p>
<a class="ft-c-inline-cta" href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new?utm_medium=mozilla-websites&utm_source=blog.mozilla.org&utm_content=inline-cta">
<div class="ft-c-inline-cta__media">
<img alt="" class="attachment-1x1 size-1x1" height="512" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2020/12/Fx-Browser-icon-fullColor-512-512x512.png" width="512" /> </div>
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<h3>Get Firefox</h3> <span>Get the browser that protects what’s important</span> </div>
</a>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/ai-mozilla-the-washington-post-tech-policy/">6 takeaways from The Washington Post Futurist Tech Summit in D.C.</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-25T14:00:00+00:00Aron YohannesThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: March 2024 Community Office Hours: Open Forum and FAQ
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/march-2024-community-office-hours-open-forum-and-faq/
<p><img alt="Community Office Hours March 2024: Open Forum and FAQ" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/03/community-office-hours-1.png" width="640" /></p>
<p>This month’s topics for our Thunderbird Community Office Hours will be decided by you! We’d like to invite the community to bring their questions, comments, and general conversation to Team Thunderbird for an informal and informational chat. As always, send your questions in advance to <a href="mailto:officehours@thunderbird.net">officehours@thunderbird.net</a>!</p>
<p>Be sure to note the change in day of the week and time, especially if you’re in Europe and not on summer time yet!</p>
<h3>March Office Hours: Open Forum and FAQ</h3>
<p>While we love having community office hours with specific topics, from our design process to Add-ons, we want to make time for an open forum, where you bring the topics of discussion. Do you have a great idea for a feature request, or need help filing a bug? Or do you want to know how to use SUMO better, or get some Thunderbird tips? Maybe you want to know more about Team Thunderbird, whether it’s how we got started in open source to how we like our coffee. This is the time to ask these questions and more!</p>
<p>We also just got back from SCaLE21x, and we had so many great questions from people who stopped by the booth. So in addition to answering your questions, whether emailed or live, we’d like to tackle some the things people asked most during our first SCaLE appearance.</p>
<h3>Catch Up On Last Month’s Thunderbird Community Office Hours</h3>
<p>While you’re thinking of questions to ask, watch last month’s office hours with John Bieling all about Add-on development. We had a fantastic chat about the history, present state, and future of Add-ons, with advice on getting involved in development and support. Watch the video below and read more about our guest at <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/february-2024-thunderbird-office-hours-add-ons/">last month’s blog post.</a></p>
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<h3>Join The Video Chat</h3>
<p><strong>Date and Time: </strong>Wednesday, March 27 at 17:00 UTC</p>
<p><strong>Direct URL to Join:</strong> <a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/95272980798">https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/95272980798</a></p>
<p>Meeting ID: 95272980798</p>
<p>Password:<strong> </strong>439169</p>
<p><strong>Dial by your location:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>+1 646 518 9805 US (New York)</li>
<li>+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)</li>
<li>+1 647 558 0588 Canada</li>
<li>+33 1 7095 0103 France</li>
<li>+49 69 7104 9922 Germany</li>
<li>+44 330 088 5830 United Kingdom</li>
<li>Find your local number:<a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO"> https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/march-2024-community-office-hours-open-forum-and-faq/">March 2024 Community Office Hours: Open Forum and FAQ</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-25T11:00:00+00:00Monica Ayhens-MadonOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla, Center for Democracy and Technology call for openness and transparency in AI
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/25/mozilla-cdt-openness-ai-letter/
<p><strong>Update | 27 March 2024:</strong> Mozilla has submitted its <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/Mozilla-RfC-Submission-Dual-Use-Foundation-Models-With-Widely-Available-Model-Weights.pdf">comments</a> to the NTIA’s consultation on openness in AI models referenced in this blog post originally. Drawing on Mozilla’s own history as part of the open source movement, the submission seeks to help guide difficult conversations about openness in AI. First, we shine a light on the different dimensions of openness in AI, including on different components across the AI stack and development lifecycle. Second, we argue that openness in AI can spur competition and help the diffusion of innovation and its benefits more broadly across the economy and society as a whole; that it can advance open science and progress in the entire field of AI; and that it advances accountability and safety by enabling more research and supporting independent scrutiny as well as regulatory oversight. In the past and with a view to recent progress in AI, openness has been a key tenet of U.S. leadership in technology — but ill-conceived policy interventions could jeopardize U.S. leadership in AI. We also recently published the <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/technical-readout-columbia-convening-on-openness-and-ai/">technical</a> and <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/policy-readout-columbia-convening-on-openness-and-ai/">policy</a> readouts from the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI to serve as a resource to the community, both for this consultation and beyond.</p>
<hr />
<p>Civil society and academics are joining together to defend AI openness and transparency. Mozilla and the <a href="https://cdt.org/press/cdt-and-mozilla-join-civil-society-orgs-and-leading-academics-to-urge-the-secretary-of-commerce-to-protect-ai-openness/">Center for Democracy & Technology</a> (CDT), along with members of civil society and academia, have united to underscore the importance of openness and transparency in AI. Nearly 50 signatories sent a <a href="https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Civil-Society-Letter-on-Openness-for-NTIA-Process-March-25-2024.pdf">letter</a> to Secretary Gina Raimondo in response to the U.S. Commerce Department’s request for comment on openness in AI models.</p>
<p>“We are excited to collaborate with expert individuals and organizations who are committed to seeing more transparent AI innovation,” said Jenn Taylor Hodges, Director of US Public Policy & Government Relations at Mozilla. “Open models in AI will promote trustworthiness and accountability that will better serve society. Mozilla has a long history of promoting open source and fighting corporate consolidation on the Internet. We are bringing those values and experiences to the AI era, making sure that everyone has a say in shaping the future of AI.”</p>
<p>There has been a noticeable shift in the AI landscape toward closed systems, a trend that Mozilla has diligently worked to counter. As detailed in the recently released <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/whitepaper/">Accelerating Progress Toward Trustworthy AI</a> report, prominent AI entities are adopting closed systems, prioritizing proprietary control over collaborative openness. These companies have advocated for increased opacity, citing fears of misuse. However, beneath these arguments lies a clear agenda to stifle competition and limit oversight in the AI market.</p>
<p>The joint <a href="https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Civil-Society-Letter-on-Openness-for-NTIA-Process-March-25-2024.pdf">letter</a> was sent in advance of the Department of Commerce’s <a href="https://www.ntia.gov/federal-register-notice/2024/dual-use-foundation-artificial-intelligence-models-widely-available">comment deadline</a> on AI models which closes March 27. Endorsed by science policy think tanks, advocates against housing discrimination, and computer science luminaries, it argued:</p>
<ul>
<li>Open models have significant benefits to society: They help advance innovation, competition, research, civil and human rights protections, and safety and security.</li>
<li>Policy should look at marginal risks of open models compared to closed models: Commerce should look to recent Stanford and Princeton research, which emphasizes limited evidence that open models create new risks not present in closed models.</li>
<li>Policy should focus more on AI applications, not models: Where openness makes AI risks worse, policy interventions are more likely to succeed in going after how the AI system is deployed, not by restricting the sharing of information about AI models.</li>
<li>Policy should proactively advance openness: Policy on this topic must be developed and vetted by more than just national security agencies, and should promote more R&D into open approaches for AI and better standards for testing and releasing open models.</li>
</ul>
<p>“The range of participants in this effort – from civil liberties to civil rights organizations, from progressive groups to more market-oriented groups, with advocates for openness in both government and industry, and a broad range of academic experts from law, policy, and computer science – demonstrates how the future of open innovation around powerful AI models is critically important to a wide variety of communities,” said Kevin Bankston, Senior Advisor on AI Governance for CDT. “As our <a href="https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Civil-Society-Letter-on-Openness-for-NTIA-Process-March-25-2024.pdf">letter</a> highlights, the benefits of open models over closed models for competition, innovation, security and transparency are rather clear, while the risks compared to closed models aren’t. Therefore the White House and Congress should exercise great caution when considering whether and how to regulate the publication of open models.”</p>
<p>Mozilla’s upcoming longer submission to the Commerce Department’s request for comment will include greater details including expanding on Mozilla’s long history of increasing privacy, security, and functionality across the internet through its products, investments, and advocacy. It highlights key findings from the recent <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/introducing-columbia-convening-openness-and-ai/">Columbia Convening on Openness and AI</a>, and explains how openness is vital to innovation, competition, and accountability – including <a href="https://open.mozilla.org/letter/">safety and security</a>, as well as protecting rights and freedoms. It also takes on some of the most prominent arguments driving the push to limit access to AI models, such as claims of “unknown unknown” security risks.</p>
<p>The joint <a href="https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Civil-Society-Letter-on-Openness-for-NTIA-Process-March-25-2024.pdf">letter</a> and Mozilla’s <del>upcoming</del> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/Mozilla-RfC-Submission-Dual-Use-Foundation-Models-With-Widely-Available-Model-Weights.pdf">response</a> to the call for comments demonstrates how openness can be an enabler of a better future – one where everyone can help build, shape, and test AI so that it works for everyone. That is the future we need, and it’s the one we must keep working toward through policy, technology, and advocacy alike.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/25/mozilla-cdt-openness-ai-letter/">Mozilla, Center for Democracy and Technology call for openness and transparency in AI</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-25T09:07:46+00:00Udbhav TiwariThe Mozilla Blog: How AI is unfairly targeting and discriminating against Black people
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/artificial-intelligence-dangers-black-people-african-americans/
<p>The rise of <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/next-steps-for-mozilla-and-trustworthy-ai/">Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here,</a> and it’s bringing a new era of technology that is already creating and impacting the world. <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozillas-biggest-ai-moments/">It was the story of 2023, </a>and its emphasis isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.</p>
<p>While the creative growth of AI occurring so rapidly is a fascinating development for our society, it’s important to remember its harms that cannot be ignored, especially pertaining to racial bias and discrimination against African-Americans.</p>
<p>In recent years, there has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/technology/facial-recognition-race-artificial-intelligence.html">research revealing </a>that AI technologies have struggled to identify images and speech patterns of nonwhite people. Black AI researchers at tech giants creating AI technology <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/technology/artificial-intelligence-google-bias.html">have raised concerns</a> about its harms against the Black community. </p>
<p>The concerns surrounding AI’s racial biases and harms against Black people are serious and should be a big focus as 2024 gets underway. We invited University of Michigan professor, Harvard Faculty Associate and former Mozilla Foundation Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI, Apryl Williams, to dive into this topic further. Williams studies experiences of gender and race at the intersection of digital spaces and algorithmic technocultures, and her most recent book, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=33064">“Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating,” </a>exposes how race-based discrimination is a fundamental part of the most popular and influential dating algorithms.</p>
<p><strong>To start, as a professor, I’m curious to know: How aware do you think students are of the dangers of the technology they’re using? Beyond the simple things like screen time notifications they might get, and more about AI problems, misinformation, etc.?</strong></p>
<p>They don’t know. I show two key documentaries in my classes every semester. I teach a class called “Critical Perspectives on the Internet.” And then I have another class that’s called “Critical AI” and in both of those classes, the students are always shook. They always tell me, “You ruin everything for me, I can never look at the world the same,” which is great. That’s my goal. I hope that they don’t look at the world the same when they leave my classes, of course. But I show them <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PATwEnvbbxI">“Coded Bias” by Shalini Kantayya</a> and when they watched that just this past semester they were like, “I can’t believe this is legal, like, how are they using facial recognition everywhere? How are they able to do these things on our phones? How do they do this? How do they do that? I can’t believe this is legal. And why don’t people talk about it?” And I’m like, “Well, people do talk about it. You guys just aren’t necessarily keyed into the places where people are talking about.” And I think that’s one of the feelings of sort of like these movements that we’re trying to build is that we’re not necessarily tapped into the kinds of places young people go to get information.</p>
<p><strong>We often assume that AI machines are neutral in terms of race, but research has shown that some of them are not and can have biases against Black people. When we think about where this problem stems from, is it fair to say it begins with the tech industry’s lack of representation of people who understand and can work to address the potential harms of these technologies?</strong></p>
<p>I would say, yes, that is a huge part of it. But the actual starting point is the norms of the tech industry. So we know that the tech industry was created by and large by the military, industrial, complex — like the internet was a military device. And so because of that, a lot of the inequity or like inequality, social injustice of the time that the internet work was created were baked into the structure of the internet. And then, of course, industries that spring up from the internet, right? We know that the military was using the internet for surveillance. And look now, we have in 2024, widespread surveillance of Black communities, of marginalized communities, of undocumented communities, right? So really, it’s the infrastructure of the internet that was built to support white supremacy, I would say, is the starting point. And because the infrastructure of the internet and of the tech industry was born from white supremacy, then, yes, we have these hiring practices, and not just the hiring practices, but hiring practices where, largely, they are just hiring the same kinds of people — Cisgender, hetero white men. Increasingly white women, but still we’re not seeing the kinds of diversity that we should be seeing if we’re going to reach demographic parity. So we have the hiring. But then also, we have just the norms of the tech industry itself that are really built to service, I would say, the status quo, they’re not built to disrupt. They’re built to continue the norm. And if people don’t stop and think about that, then, yeah, we’re going to see the replication of all this bias because U.S. society was built on bias, right? Like it is a stratified society inherently. And because of that, we’re always going to see that stratification in the tech industry as well.</p>
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<p><strong>Issues of bias in AI tend to impact the people who are rarely in positions to develop the technology. How do you think we can enable AI communities to engage in the development and governance of AI to get it where it’s working toward creating systems that embrace the full spectrum of inclusion?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, we should enable it. But also the tech industry, like people in these companies, need to sort of take the onus on themselves to reach out to communities in which they are going to deploy their technology, right? So if your target audience, let’s say on TikTok, is Black content creators, you need to be reaching out to Black content creators and Black communities before you launch an algorithm that targets those people. You should be having them at your headquarters. You should be doing listening sessions. You should be elevating Black voices. You should be listening to people, right? Listening to the concerns, having support teams in place, before you launch the technology, right? So instead of retroactively trying to Band-aid it when you have an oops or like a bad PR moment, you should be looking to marginalize communities as experts on what they need and how they see technology being implemented in their lives.</p>
<p><strong>A lot of the issues with these technologies in relation to Black people is that they are not designed for Black people — and even the people they are designed for run into problems. It feels like this is a difficult spot for everyone involved?</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I feel like it’s really hard for good people on the inside of tech companies to actually say, “Hey, this thing that we’re building might be generating money, but it’s not generating long-term longevity,” right? Or health for our users. And I get that — not every tech company is health oriented. They may act like they are, but they’re not, like to a lot of them, money is their bottom line. I really think it’s up to sort of like movement builders and tech industry shakers to say or to be able to create buy-in for programs, algorithms, ideas, that foster equity. But we have to be able to create buy-in for that. So that might look like, “Hey, maybe we might lose some users on this front end when we implement this new idea, but we’re going to gain a whole lot more users.” Folks of color, marginalized users, queer users, trans users, if they feel like they can trust us, and that’s worth the investment, right? So it’s really just valuing the whole person, rather than just sort of valuing the face value of the money only or what they think it is, but looking to see the potential of what would happen if people felt like their technology was actually trustworthy.</p>
<p><strong>AI is rapidly growing. What are things we can add to it as it evolves, and what are things we should work to eliminate? </strong></p>
<p>I would say we need to expand our definition of safety. I think that safety should fundamentally include your mental health and well-being, and if the company that you’re using it for to find intimacy or to connect with friends is not actually keeping you safe as a person of color, as a trans person, as a queer person, then you can’t really have like full mental wellness if you are constantly on high alert, you’re constantly in this anxious position, you’re having to worry that your technology is exploiting you, right? So, if we’re going to have all of this buzz that I’m seeing about trust and safety, that can’t just stop at the current discourse that we’re having on trust and safety. It can’t just be about protecting privacy, protecting data, protecting white people’s privacy. That has to include reporting mechanisms for users of color when they encounter abuse. Whether that is racism or homophobia, right? Like it needs to be more inclusive. I would say that the way that we think about trust and safety and automated or algorithmic systems needs to be more inclusive. We really need to widen the definition of safety. And probably the definition of trust also. </p>
<p>In terms of subtracting, they’re just a lot of things that we shouldn’t be doing, that we’re currently doing. Honestly, the thing that we need to subtract the most is this idea that we move fast and break things in tech culture. It’s sort of like, we are just moving for the sake of innovation. We might really need to dial back on this idea of moving for the sake of innovation, and actually think about moving towards a safer humanity for everybody, and designing with that goal in mind. We can innovate in a safe way. We might have to sacrifice speed, a nd I think we need to say, it’s okay to sacrifice speed in some cases.</p>
<p><strong>When I started to think about the dangers of AI, I immediately remembered the situation with </strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html"><strong>Robert Williams a few years ago,</strong></a><strong> when he was wrongly accused by police that used AI facial recognition. There is more to it than just the strange memes and voice videos people create. What are the serious real world harms that you think of when it comes to Black people and AI that people are overlooking?</strong></p>
<p>I don’t know that it’s overlooked, but I don’t think that Black people are aware of the amount of surveillance of everyday technologies. When you go to the airport, even if you’re not using Clear or other facial recognition technology at the airport for expedited security, they’re still using facial recognition technology. When you’re crossing borders, when you are even flying domestically, they’re still using that tech to look at your face. You look into the camera, they take your picture. They compare it to your ID. Like, that is facial recognition technology. I understand that that is for our national safety, but that also means that they’re collecting a lot of data on us. We don’t know what happens with that data. We don’t know if they keep it for 24 hours or if they keep it for 24 years. Are they keeping logs of what your face looks like every time you go? In 50 years, are we going to see a system that’s like “We’ve got these TSA files, and we’re able to track your aging from the time that you were 18 to the time that you’re 50, just based on your TSA data,” right? Like, we really don’t know what’s happening with the data. And that’s just one example. </p>
<p>We have constant surveillance, especially in our cars. The smarter our cars get, the more they’re surveilling us. We are seeing increasing use of those systems and cars being used, and police cases to see if you were paying attention. Were you talking on your phone? Were you texting and driving? Things like that. There is automation in cars that’s designed to identify people and to stop right to avoid hitting you. And as we know, a lot of the systems misidentify Black people as trash cans, and will instead hit them. There are so many instances where AI is part of our life, and I don’t think people realize the depth of which it really does drive our lives. And I think that’s the thing that scares me the most for people of color is that we don’t understand just how much AI is part of our everyday life. And I wish people would stop and sort of think about, yes, I get easy access to this thing, but what am I trading off to get that easy access? What does that mean for me? And what does that mean for my community? We have places like Project Blue light, Project Green Light, where those systems are heavily surveilled in order to “protect communities.” But are those created to protect white communities at the expense of Black and brown communities? Right? That’s what we have to think about when we say that these technologies, especially surveillance technologies, are being used to protect people, who are they protecting? And who are they protecting people from? And is that idea that they’re protecting people from a certain group of people realistic? Or is that grounded in some cultural bias that we have. </p>
<p><strong>Looking bigger picture this year: It’s an election year and AI will certainly be a large talking point for candidates. Regardless of who wins this fall, in what ways do you think the administration can ensure that policies and enforcement are instilled to address AI to make sure that racial and other inequities don’t continue and evolve?</strong></p>
<p>They need to enforce or encourage that tech companies have the onus of transparency on them. There needs to be some kind of legislative prompting, there has to be some kind of responsibility where tech companies actually suffer consequences, legal consequences, economic consequences, when they violate trust with the public, when they extract data without telling people. There also needs to be more two-way conversations. Often tech companies will just tell you, “These are the terms of service, you have to agree with them,” and if you don’t, you opt-out, that means you can’t use the tech. There needs to be some kind of system where tech companies can say, “Okay, we’re thinking about rolling this out or updating our terms of service in this way, how does the community feel about that?” And a way that really they can be accountable to their users. I think we really just need some legislation that makes tech companies sort of put their feet to the fire in terms of them actually having responsibility to their users.</p>
<p><strong>When it comes to fighting against racial biases and struggles, sometimes the most important people that can help create change and bring awareness are those not directly impacted by what’s going on — for example, a white person being an ally and protesting for a Black person. What do you think most normal people can do to influence change and bring awareness to AI challenges for Black people?</strong></p>
<p>I would say, for those people who are in the know about what tech companies are doing, talk about that with your kids, right? When you’re sitting down and your kids are telling you about something that their friend posted, that’s a perfect time to be like, “Let’s talk about that technology that your friend is using or that you’re using.” Did you know that on TikTok, this happens? Did you know that on TikTok, often Black creator voices are hidden, or Black content creators are shadow-banned? Did you know what happens on Instagram? These kinds of regular conversations, that way, these kinds of tech injustices are part of the everyday vernacular for kids as they’re coming up so that they can be more aware, and also so that they can advocate for themselves and for their communities.</p>
<a class="ft-c-inline-cta" href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new?utm_medium=mozilla-websites&utm_source=blog.mozilla.org&utm_content=inline-cta">
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<img alt="" class="attachment-1x1 size-1x1" height="512" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2020/12/Fx-Browser-icon-fullColor-512-512x512.png" width="512" /> </div>
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<h3>Get Firefox</h3> <span>Get the browser that protects what’s important</span> </div>
</a>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/artificial-intelligence-dangers-black-people-african-americans/">How AI is unfairly targeting and discriminating against Black people</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-19T16:00:00+00:00Aron YohannesThe Mozilla Blog: Dr. J. Nathan Matias on leading technology research for better digital rights
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/dr-j-nathan-matias-digital-rights-science-cornell-university/
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<p><em>At Mozilla, we know we can’t create a better future alone, that is why each year we will be highlighting the work of 25 digital leaders using technology to amplify voices, effect change, and build new technologies globally through our <a href="https://rise25.mozilla.org/?_gl=1*585km0*_ga*MTY1MDQ4MTg2NC4xNjk5NDc0NTE5*_ga_X4N05QV93S*MTcwNzE4MDk3Ny40NC4wLjE3MDcxODA5NzcuMC4wLjA." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Rise 25 Awards.</a> These storytellers, innovators, activists, advocates. builders and artists are helping make the internet more diverse, ethical, responsible and inclusive.</em></p>
<p><em>This week, we chatted with winner Dr. J. Nathan Matias, a professor at Cornell University leading technology research to create change and impact digital rights. He leads the school’s Citizen and Technology Lab (CAT) and is the co-founder of the <a href="https://independenttechresearch.org/">Coalition for Independent Technology Research, </a>a nonprofit defending the right to ethically study the impact of tech on society. We talk with Matias about his start in citizen science, his work advocating for researchers’ rights and more.</em></p>
<p><strong>As a professor at Cornell, how would you gauge where students and Gen Z are at in terms of knowing the dangers of the internet?</strong></p>
<p>As a researcher, I am very aware that my students are one narrow slice of Americans. I teach communication and technology. I teach this 500 student class and I think the students I teach hear about people’s concerns, about technology, through media, through what they see online. And they’re really curious about what if that is true and what we can do about it. That’s one of the great joys of being a professor, that I can introduce students to what we know, thanks to research and to all the advocacy and journalism, and also to what we don’t know and encourage students to help create the answers for themselves, their communities and future generations.</p>
<p><strong>To kind of go a little bit even further, as a professor, what are the things that you try to instill with them, or what are core concepts that you think are really important for them to know and try to hammer down to them about the internet and the social impacts of all of these platforms?</strong></p>
<p>If I’m known for one thing, it’s the idea that knowledge and power about digital technologies shouldn’t be constrained to just within the walls of the universities and tech companies. Throughout my classes and throughout my work, I actively collaborate with and engage with the general public to understand what people’s fears are to collect evidence and to inform accountability. And so, my students had the opportunity to see how that works and participate in it themselves. And I think that’s especially important, because yeah, people come to a university to learn and grow and learn from what scholars have said before, but also, if we come out of our degrees without an appreciation for the deeply held knowledge that people have outside of universities, I think that’s a missed opportunity. </p>
<p><strong>Beyond the data you collect in your field, what other types of data collection out there creates change and inspires you to continue the work that you do?</strong></p>
<p>I’m often inspired by people who do environmental citizen science because many of them live in context. We all live in contexts where our lives and our health and our futures are shaped by systems and infrastructures that are invisible, and that we might not appear to have much power over, right? It could be air or water, or any number of other environmental issues. And it’s similar for our digital environments. I’m often inspired by people who do work for data collection and advocacy and science on the environment when thinking about what we could do for our digital worlds. Last summer, I spent a week with a friend traveling throughout the California Central Valley, talking to educators, activists, organizers and farmworkers and communities working to understand and use data to improve their physical environment. We spent a day with <a href="https://ccejn.org/author/cesar/">Cesar Aguirre</a> at the Central California Justice Network. You have neighborhoods in central California that are surrounded by oil wells and people are affected by the pollution that comes out of those wells — some of them have long been abandoned and are just leaking. And it’s hard to convince people sometimes that you’re experiencing a problem and to document the problem in a way that can get things to change. Cesar talked about ways that people used air sensors and told their stories and created media and worked in their local council and at a state level to document the health impacts of these oil wells and actually get laws changed at the state level to improve safety across the state. Whenever I encounter a story like that, whether it’s people in Central California or folks documenting oil spills in Louisiana or people just around the corner from Cornell — indigenous groups advocating for safe water and water rights in Onondaga Lake — I’m inspired by the work that people have to do and do to make their concerns and experiences legible to powerful institutions to create change. Sometimes it’s through the courts, sometimes it’s through basic science that finds new solutions. Sometimes it’s mutual aid, and often at the heart of these efforts, is some creative work to collect and share data that makes a difference.</p>
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<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-74412" height="1024" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/03/Mozilla_rise25_Dr.J-Nathan-Matias_2-683x1024.jpg" width="683" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Dr.J Nathan Matias at Mozilla’s Rise25 award ceremony in October 2023.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><strong>When it pertains to citizen science and the work that you do, what do you think is the biggest challenge you and other researchers face? And by that I mean, is it kind of the inaction of tech companies and a lot of these institutions? Or is it maybe just the very cold online climate of the world today?</strong></p>
<p>It’s always hard to point to one. I think the largest one is just that we have a lot more work to do to help people realize that they can participate in documenting problems and imagining solutions. We’re so used to the idea that tech companies will take care of things for us, that when things go wrong, we might complain, but we don’t necessarily know how to organize or what to do next. And I think there’s a lot that we as people who are involved in these issues and more involved in them can do to make people aware and create pathways — and I know Mozilla has done a lot of work around awareness raising. Beyond that, we’ve kind of reached a point where I wish companies were indifferent, but the reality is that they’re actively working to hinder independent research and accountability. If you talk to anyone who’s behind the <a href="https://independenttechresearch.org/">Coalition for Independent Tech Research,</a> I think we would all say we kind of wish it we didn’t have to create it, because spending years building a network to support and defend researchers when they come under attack by governments or tech companies for accountability and transparency work for actually trying to solve problems, like, that’s not how you prefer to spend your time. But, I think that on the whole, the more people realize that we can do something, and that our perspective and experience matters, and that it can be part of the solution, the better off we are with our ability to document issues and imagine a better future. And as a result, when it involves organizing in the face of opposition, the more people we’ll have on that journey</p>
<p><strong>Just looking at this year in general with so much going on, what do you think is the biggest challenge that we face this year and in the world? How do we combat it?</strong></p>
<p>Here’s the one I’ve been thinking about. Wherever you live, we don’t live in a world where a person who has experienced a very real harm from a digital technology — whether it’s social media or some kind of AI system — can record that information and seek some kind of redress, or even know who to turn to, to address or fix the problem or harm. And we see this problem in so many levels, right? If someone’s worried about discrimination from an algorithm in hiring, who do you turn to? If you’re worried about the performance of your self-driving car, or you have a concern about mental health and social media this year? We haven’t had those cases in court yet. We’re seeing some efforts by governments to create standards and we’re seeing new laws proposed. But it’s still not possible, right? If you get a jar of food from the supermarket that has harmful bacteria, we kind of know what to do. There’s a way you can report it, and that problem can be solved for lots of people. But that doesn’t yet exist in these spaces. My hope for 2024 is that on whatever issue people are worried about or focused on, we’ll be able to make some progress towards knowing how to create those pathways. Whether it’s going to be work so that courts know how to make sense of evidence about digital technologies —and I think they’re going to be some big debates there — whether it’s going to involve these standards conversations that are happening in Europe and the U.S., around how to report AI incidents and how to determine whether an AI system is safe or not, or safe for certain purposes and any number of other issues. Will that happen and be solved this year? No, it’s a longer term effort. But how could we possibly say that we have a tech ecosystem that respects people’s rights and treats them well and is safe if we don’t even have basic ways for people to be heard when things go wrong, whether it’s by courts or companies, or elsewhere. And so I think that’s the big question that I’m thinking about both in our citizen science work and our broader policy work at Cat Lab.</p>
<p><strong>There’s also a bigger problem that so many of these apps and platforms are very much dependent upon us having to doing something compared to them. </strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. I think a lot of people have lost trust in companies to do things about those reports. Because companies have a history of ignoring them. In fact, my very first community participatory science project in this space, which started back in 2014, we pulled information from hundreds of women who faced online harassment. And we looked at the kinds of things they experienced. And then whether Twitter back then was responding to people’s reports. It revealed a bunch of systemic problems and how the company has handled it. I think we’ve reached the point where there’s some value in that reporting, and sometimes for good and sometimes those things are exploited for censorship purposes as well — people report things they disagree with to try to get it taken down. But even more deeply, those reports don’t get at the deeper systemic issues. They don’t address how to prevent problems in the first place, or how to create or how to change the underlying logics of those platforms, or how to incentivize companies differently, so that they don’t create the conditions for those problems in the first place. I think we’re all looking for what are the right entities? Some currently exist, some we’re going to have to create that will be able to take on what people experience and actually create change that matters.</p>
<p><strong>We started Rise25 to celebrate Mozilla’s 25th anniversary, what do you hope people are celebrating in the next 25 years?</strong></p>
<p>I love that question because my first true encounter with Mozilla would have been in 2012 at the Mozilla festival, and I was so inspired to be surrounded by a room of people who cared about making the Internet and our digital worlds better for people. And it was such a powerful statement that Mozilla convened people. Other tech institutions have these big events where the CEO stands on a stage and tells everyone why what they’re doing is revolutionary. And Mozilla did something radically different, which was to create a community and a space for people to envision the future together. I don’t know what the tech innovations or questions are going to be 25 years from now — there will probably be some enduring ones about access and equity and inclusion and safety for whatever the technologies are. My hope is that 25 years from now, Mozilla will continue to be an organization and a movement that listens and amplifies and supports a broad and diverse community to envision that together. It’s one of the things that makes Mozilla so special, and I think is one of the things that makes it so powerful.</p>
<p><strong>What is one action you think that everybody can take to make the world and their lives online better?</strong></p>
<p>I think the action to believe yourself when you notice something unusual, or have a question. And then to find other people who can corroborate and build a collective picture. Whether it’s by participating in the study at Cat Lab or something else. I have a respiratory disability, and it’s so easy to doubt your own experience and so hard to convince other people sometimes that what you’re experiencing is real. And so I think the biggest step we can do is to believe ourselves and to like, believe others when they talk about things they’ve experienced and are worried about but use that experience as the beginning of something larger, because it can be so powerful, and make such a huge difference when people believe in each other and take each other seriously.</p>
<p><strong>What gives you hope about the future of our world?</strong></p>
<p>So many things. I think every time I meet someone who is making things work under whatever circumstances they have — unsurprising as someone who does citizen and community science. I think about our conversations with Jasmine Walker, who is a community organizer who organizes these large spaces for Black communities online and has been doing it for ages and across many versions of technology and eras of time. And just to see the care and commitment that people have to their communities and families as it relates to technology — it could be our collaborators who are investigating hiring algorithms or communities we’ve talked to. We did a study that involved understanding the impact of smartphone design on people’s time use, and we met a bunch of people who are colorblind and advocates for accessibility. In each of those cases, there are people who care deeply about those around them and so much that they’re willing to do science to make a difference. I’m always inspired when we talk, and we find ways to support the work that they’re doing by creating evidence together that could make a difference. As scientists and researchers, we are sometimes along for the ride for just part of the journey. And so I’m always inspired when I see the commitment and dedication people have for a better world.</p>
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<img alt="" class="attachment-1x1 size-1x1" height="512" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2020/12/Fx-Browser-icon-fullColor-512-512x512.png" width="512" /> </div>
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<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/dr-j-nathan-matias-digital-rights-science-cornell-university/">Dr. J. Nathan Matias on leading technology research for better digital rights</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-18T14:00:00+00:00Aron YohannesThe Mozilla Blog: Introducing Didthis: A New App For Hobbyists
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/introducing-didthis-a-new-app-for-hobbyists/
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<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img alt="Logo for didthis - a hand snapping over a yellow background " class="wp-image-74487" height="510" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/03/Didthis-Logo.png" style="width: 245px; height: auto;" width="417" /></figure></div>
<p>Everyone has a hobby. More generally, everyone has things they’re interested in or passionate about. And pursuing those interests is one of the big reasons that we use the Web. The online world is a great place to connect with our fellow hobbyists and enthusiasts, to learn from them, and to share our own knowledge and accomplishments.</p>
<p>But so much of this happens today in online spaces where things can quickly turn sour. Big social media platforms increasingly expose us to toxic behavior. Interests groups and forums can be unwelcoming or intimidating to newcomers. These bad experiences are driving more and more people off of the open Web and into the protected enclaves of the so-called “<a href="https://maggieappleton.com/cozy-web">cozy web</a>.” Additionally, social media distractions and the pressure to keep up with posting can more often stall your progress rather than accelerating it.</p>
<p>Over the past year we’ve been actively exploring the idea of <a href="https://links.email.mozilla.org/els/v2/KAWzCy~4~6QY/SmxpcWVTSUcxK0pUZ0RnbWlqSlhtdDZqTlRCWGxCNDBYVXc4VG5SK3JCSHlLYXQ2SGUyeVIvS05sK3NOMjFwclZhdCtnaEk5OHBSc1JUQmU3UThHczB3ZWZFNi9qNk5WUms4cGp6OURmSmM9S0/">healthy alternatives to today’s social media</a>. Today we’re sharing our latest experiment on the topic.</p>
<p><a href="https://didthis.app/?utm_medium=mozilla-websites&utm_source=blog.mozilla.org&utm_campaign=didthis_ios_launch&utm_content=distilled-na"><strong>Didthis</strong></a><strong>, a Mozilla innovation project, is a new app for anyone with a project-oriented hobby or personal interest.</strong> Whether you’re learning to knit a sweater, crafting a side table, or practicing a new recipe, Didthis makes it easy to keep track of your passion projects, capturing photos, links, and notes along the way and assembling your updates into a timeline that tells the story of your project. It’s a personal record of your progress, an acknowledgement of what you learned from your setbacks, and a celebration of your growth as a hobbyist. </p>
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<p>Didthis isn’t really “social media,” at least not yet. Didthis is about being useful to <em>you</em> as you pursue your personal interests. We’re not following the typical social media playbook, here, and that’s intentional. <strong>Everything you post on Didthis is private by default.</strong> If you want, you can choose to share a link to your project with anyone you want: friends, family, or fellow hobbyists on social media or the “cozy web.” If people like Didthis, we’ll add social and community functionality over time, but our focus will always be on healthy interactions over virality.</p>
<p>For now, we’ve set up our own Discord server where Didthis users can connect with us to share feedback. We’ve also got a dedicated “show and tell” channel where Didthis users can optionally share their project updates with fellow hobbyists in our small but growing community. </p>
<p>You can try Didthis on the Web by visiting <a href="https://didthis.app/?utm_medium=mozilla-websites&utm_source=blog.mozilla.org&utm_campaign=didthis_ios_launch&utm_content=distilled-na">https://didthis.app</a>. Our Web app works on both desktop and mobile devices. We also have an early iOS app that is available in the App Store for US and Canada (with Android to follow).</p>
<p>As this is still an experiment, we are eager for you to share your feedback at any time in the Didthis Discord channel. If you prefer to share more privately, you can email our entire team directly at didthis@mozilla.com.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/introducing-didthis-a-new-app-for-hobbyists/">Introducing Didthis: A New App For Hobbyists</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-15T15:00:00+00:00Rebecca SmithThe Mozilla Blog: Larissa May reflects on empowering the next generation’s relationship with technology
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/larissa-may-rise25-social-media-technology-mozilla/
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<p><em>At Mozilla, we know we can’t create a better future alone, that is why each year we will be highlighting the work of 25 digital leaders using technology to amplify voices, effect change, and build new technologies globally through our <a href="https://rise25.mozilla.org/?_gl=1*585km0*_ga*MTY1MDQ4MTg2NC4xNjk5NDc0NTE5*_ga_X4N05QV93S*MTcwNzE4MDk3Ny40NC4wLjE3MDcxODA5NzcuMC4wLjA." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Rise 25 Awards.</a> These storytellers, innovators, activists, advocates, builders and artists are helping make the internet more diverse, ethical, responsible and inclusive.</em></p>
<p><em>This week, we chatted with activist Larissa May, the founder of <a href="https://www.halfthestoryproject.com/our-team">#HalfTheStory, </a>a nonprofit dedicated to empowering the next generation’s relationship with technology. With talked with May about the role technology played in her mental health, how #HalfTheStory evolved from a project in her college dorm room to what it is today, and her work in policy advocating for tech companies to build solutions to help youth thrive.</em></p>
<p><strong>You know firsthand how toxic social media can be for kids. It has changed a lot in recent years, for the good and the bad. What do you think is the biggest danger kids face in 2024, and what can we do to combat it?<br /></strong><br />The average American teenager will spend approximately 30 years of their life behind screens. The greatest danger children, and indeed all of us, face lies in the uncertainties surrounding social media and its technologies. Technology evolves rapidly, outpacing both human understanding and legislative frameworks.</p>
<p>In 2024, we are witnessing the emergence of AI, with its potential for positive innovation, while also getting glimpses of its perilous side, whose full extent eludes us. Formerly innocuous interactions, such as a mere comment now hold the potential to morph into deceptive deep fakes, amplifying the challenges posed by social media. The velocity of AI’s advancement often outpaces our comprehension, leading to profound emotional ramifications, not only for our children but also for our societal fabric and economy. </p>
<p><strong>Watching the growth of the #HalfTheStory movement has certainly had a big impact on you. Has anything surprised you along the way that you weren’t expecting?</strong></p>
<p>What surprised me most along the way was realizing that most adults grapple with their relationship with technology just as much as children do. Now, as an adult who was once a child with a dream and an idea – which became #HalfTheStory – I’ve come to understand that while our focus may be on safeguarding children, we must also provide support to the adults who guide them. Demonstrating and modeling healthy relationships with technology is a crucial piece of this puzzle.</p>
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<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-74320" height="1024" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/02/Mozilla_rise25_Larissa-May-and-Guest_1-683x1024.jpg" width="683" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Larissa May and her husband at Mozilla’s Rise25 award ceremony in October 2023.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><strong>From the spotlight you’ve received in recent years – Good Morning America, your Ted Talk, TIME, Forbes, NBC, etc. — which experience made you stop and reflect on the magnitude of the work you do?</strong></p>
<p>There is no destination or pot of gold. In fact, the goalpost is always moving. There isn’t a day that I don’t wake up without wonder and awe for the journey and where it’s taken me. Sometimes I struggle to fully understand the magnitude and the impact of this nonprofit. There are moments every week that surprise me, whether it be the people who slide into my DMs, full circle moments, or people that I meet on the street who’ve known about #HalfTheStory or shared their own story with HTS many years ago.</p>
<p>Although the big accolades and TV segments are meaningful, I think the moments that are the most striking for me are the ones that happen behind closed doors, the messages that I receive, the one-off text messages with young people, and the aha moments that help me better understand the realities that young people are facing so that I can create a voice in every room where a decision is being made about them.</p>
<p><strong>What do you think is the biggest challenge we face in the world this year on and offline?</strong></p>
<p>Social media has perpetuated so many of the inequalities we see in the world. The online “realities” we see are not the whole story and make it more difficult for us to be able to see people from where they come from and to walk in their shoes. </p>
<p>During this year, especially when an election is happening in America, this is especially dangerous as social media often can keep us in our own ecosystems and eco chambers. It’s up to us to break through those so that we can understand multiple perspectives and have empathy for what other people are going through.</p>
<p>Social media feeds on emotions and combative behavior – that’s just how the algorithm works. We have to step outside of our algorithm and into our humanity.</p>
<p><strong>Where do you draw inspiration from to continue your work as an activist today?</strong></p>
<p>Teen work makes the dream work. I draw my inspiration from the future and the heartbeat of #HalfTheStory, our community. </p>
<p><strong>What is one action that you think everyone should take to make the world and our lives a little better?</strong></p>
<p>One simple action you can take is to put your phone down and engage in eye contact, genuinely seeking to understand someone’s story and background. Often, we become ensnared in our own egos, identities, and digital distractions, overlooking those right in front of us who may need our support the most.</p>
<p>To create more room for the present moment, I employ a few strategies. I set away messages for my text messages, switch my phone to grayscale mode, and strive to make my technology less addictive by hacking my algorithm. These practices help me liberate my mind and savor the moments between the hustle and bustle of daily life.</p>
<p><strong>We started Rise25 to celebrate Mozilla’s 25th anniversary, what do you hope people are celebrating in the next 25 years?</strong></p>
<p>In the next 25 years, I hope that humanity is celebrating humanity. I think for many years we’ve celebrated tech and innovation and as we’ve done that we lost touch with ourselves, our souls, and the things that make us human. I do believe that we will see a pendulum swing – we are even seeing it with some of our teens now.</p>
<p>Being human and accessing screen-free experiences really is a luxury, and connection that is not simulated is one of the most precious things that we have. Time is a non-renewable resource, so I hope we don’t spend the next 25 years behind our screens. What gives me hope for the future is our teens.</p>
<p><strong>What gives you hope about the future of our world?</strong></p>
<p>Our society loves to paint a story of darkness and digital sickness, but I get to witness the digital wellness revolution unfold every day before my eyes.</p>
<p>Our teens are paving the path forward. They are the heart and soul of #HalfTheStory and I’m the lucky leader that gets to sail alongside them into a brighter horizon. </p>
<p>The future is BRIGHT (with less blue light). </p>
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<h3>Get Firefox</h3> <span>Get the browser that protects what’s important</span> </div>
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<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/larissa-may-rise25-social-media-technology-mozilla/">Larissa May reflects on empowering the next generation’s relationship with technology</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-15T15:00:00+00:00Aron YohannesMozilla Add-ons Blog: Manifest V3 & Manifest V2 (March 2024 update)
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/
<p>Calling all extension developers! With Manifest V3 picking up steam again, we wanted to provide some visibility into our current plans as a lot has happened since we published our <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-firefox-recap-next-steps/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">last update</a>.</p>
<p>Back in 2022 we released our initial implementation of MV3, the latest version of the extensions platform, in Firefox. Since then, we have been hard at work collaborating with other browser vendors and community members in the W3C WebExtensions Community Group (<a href="https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/webextensions/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">WECG</a>). Our shared goals were to improve extension APIs while addressing cross browser compatibility. That collaboration has yielded some great results to date and we’re proud to say our participation has been instrumental in shaping and designing those APIs to ensure broader applicability across browsers.</p>
<p>We continue to support DOM-based background scripts in the form of Event pages, and the blocking webRequest feature, as explained in <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/05/18/manifest-v3-in-firefox-recap-next-steps/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">our previous blog post</a>. Chrome’s version of MV3 requires service worker-based background scripts, which we do not support yet. However, an extension <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/background#browser_support" rel="noopener" target="_blank">can specify both</a> and have it work in Chrome 121+ and Firefox 121+. Support for Event pages, along with support for blocking webRequest, is a divergence from Chrome that enables use cases that are not covered by Chrome’s MV3 implementation.</p>
<p>Well what’s happening with MV2 you ask? Great question – in case you missed it, <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to-mv3" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Google announced</a> late last year their plans to resume <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline" rel="noopener" target="_blank">their MV2 deprecation schedule</a>. Firefox, however, has no plans to deprecate MV2 and will continue to support MV2 extensions for the foreseeable future. And even if we re-evaluate this decision at some point down the road, we anticipate providing a notice of at least 12 months for developers to adjust accordingly and not feel rushed.</p>
<p>As our plans solidify, future updates around our MV3 efforts will be shared via this blog. We are loosely targeting our next update after the conclusion of the upcoming <a href="https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/issues/525" rel="noopener" target="_blank">WECG meeting</a> at the Apple offices in San Diego. For more information on adopting MV3, please refer to our <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/manifest-v3-migration-guide/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">migration guide</a>. Another great resource worth checking out is the recent FOSDEM presentation a couple team members delivered, <a href="https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2412-firefox-android-and-cross-browser-webextensions-in-2024/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Firefox, Android, and Cross-browser WebExtensions in 2024</a>.</p>
<p>If you have questions, concerns or feedback on Manifest V3 we would love to hear from you in the comments section below or if you prefer, drop us an <a href="mailto:mozilla-add-ons-community@mozilla.com">email</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/13/manifest-v3-manifest-v2-march-2024-update/">Manifest V3 & Manifest V2 (March 2024 update)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons">Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-13T22:40:34+00:00Edward SullivanThe Mozilla Blog: Creator Nyamekye Wilson is uplifting Black women in STEM and creating a talent pipeline for the next generation
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/nyamekye-wilson-black-sisters-in-stem-google/
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<p><em>At Mozilla, we know we can’t create a better future alone, that is why each year we will be highlighting the work of 25 digital leaders using technology to amplify voices, effect change, and build new technologies globally through our <a href="https://rise25.mozilla.org/?_gl=1*585km0*_ga*MTY1MDQ4MTg2NC4xNjk5NDc0NTE5*_ga_X4N05QV93S*MTcwNzE4MDk3Ny40NC4wLjE3MDcxODA5NzcuMC4wLjA." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Rise 25 Awards.</a> These storytellers, innovators, activists, advocates. builders and artists are helping make the internet more diverse, ethical, responsible and inclusive.</em></p>
<p><em>This week, we chatted with Nyamekye Wilson, a creator that is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.blacksis.org/">Black Sisters in STEM,</a> a group building one of the largest talent pipelines of Black college women in STEM. Her passion for global STEM and bridging the gender gap gave birth to a six-figure tech company while she was working at Google. We talk with Nyamekye about the challenges she’s faced in her career, starting a Black nonprofit, where she draws inspiration from and more.</em></p>
<p><strong>OK, first off, where did the phrase “the Moses of STEM” originate from for you?</strong></p>
<p>It came to me at church, and it was something that I just knew and I just heard and my brain is like “the Moses of them.” And then it was something that I spoke over to the team like a fellow — like that is really perfect, that’s exactly who you are. </p>
<p>The historical figure of Moses, he was someone who led people out of activity. And so really with Black Sisters in STEM, it’s not just a workplace organization, it’s so much more than that. It is really that we are taking Black women out of a lot of the activity that they’ve learned over time from a very young age of things that we cannot be, things that we cannot do, places we cannot go. Who we cannot be. And so, when it comes to the Moses of STEM, it’s really about unearthing and bringing people out of a lot of bondage and most of that bondage is always in the mind. </p>
<p><strong>You mentioned a lot of the different experiences and labels you’ve dealt with in your career — racism, sexism, classism — that we face in schooling and in the workforce in general. Which issue would you say was the one that really ignited the fire for you and the work that you do right now the most?</strong></p>
<p>I would say it was really the concept of intersectionality. When I did leave my finance major in college, I went into sociology and women, gender and sexuality studies, that’s when I got introduced to Kimberlé Crenshaw and her concept of intersectionality. And that was the first time in life that I actually heard a philosophy that actually spoke to my experience. </p>
<p><strong>What are the biggest challenges that you’ve had to face starting a Black nonprofit that most people might not be aware of?</strong></p>
<p>We are not the ones in the world of philanthropy, typically, when it comes to running systems and running things at a large level. Even when you look at places like Africa or places like the Caribbean, or even Black American communities in the U.S., a lot of organizations aren’t run by us, aren’t founded by us in our community to support us. So that’s one thing, the funding structure and really understanding that some of the relationships are doing a lot of funding with the people that are running them. </p>
<p>Number two is that it can be very difficult to fight for something that you also share the identity of. This is something that we notice in the civil rights movement — it’s a lot of fatigue to fight for the rights of your people when you are also the people that are inclusive of those fights, right? It’s a constant mental war, I would say, because it’s like, I’m not just talking about Black women from afar, I am the Black woman who’s been through that. I am the Black woman who did not have the support. I am the Black woman who, you know, went through the question and anxiety trying to get to the place where I’m trying to get to my girl’s to. I am the Black woman who gained over 60 pounds trying to take my family out of poverty and be the first person in my family to have a six-figure career right out of college. That is a mental battle that you constantly have to do. And so you really have to have a lot of mental attitude. You really have to work with the best interactions and best relationships that maybe other populations more likely have — they don’t have to do half the work because if they came from a very wealthy area, they’re likely to have that and some people in those areas have a foundation, it’s very likely. And they likely have those people to be family friends or family connections — it makes it so much easier when you can just go to their house, or you can just call them and say, “hey, I have this idea.” That’s how money moves by relationship. Essentially, it always moves by relationship because money is a trust factor. And when you have the relationship, someone who has known you since you were five, and they’ve been friends with your mom and dad for 20 years, that trust factor is already there. Versus, a young Black girl coming to the phone with her story and her narrative and you’ve never met her in your life. You don’t know anything about her. You don’t know anything about the organization. Now, I have to do 10 times the work. And plead to you who I am, plead to you what we’re doing at Black Sisters to get that trust, compared to someone with less information because that’s someone who you’ve known your whole life. And that’s just human nature. But that human nature is now, again, back to the systems of racism. That effect of racism is now causing more work for me.</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-74287" height="1024" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/02/Mozilla_rise25_Nyamekye-Wilson_1-683x1024.jpg" width="683" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Nyamekye Wilson at Mozilla’s Rise25 award ceremony in October 2023.</figcaption></figure></div>
<p><strong>Where do you draw inspiration from in continuing the work that you do today? </strong></p>
<p>I would say what inspired me really is my faith. I’m a very faith-based person, very spiritual person, and my faith in Christ is what keeps me going. Because if not, it would be very hard to do this work. Number two of what keeps me going is knowing that where I come from had even less access, even less opportunity and seeing what they were able to create and what they were able to be so inspiring. </p>
<p>I’ve always loved learning about civilized movements, learning about things that MLK was a part of. All of these people — Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, — when you read and watch, we just learn about the level of resilience and the level of fortitude and the level to feel and see a better world completely at the expense of themselves. As much as there is a need for a better world, the world I’m seeing is way better than the world they had. And if they could affect that global change, I can, too. </p>
<p>And then I would also say, in alignment with that, my own mother. She is a perfect example. Single mother. She really held the weight of my entire family on her shoulders. And she never gave up. One of the most consistent, one of the most brilliant, one of the most hardworking — if not the most hardworking — brilliant person I know. Through all that she’s given, that I already have, it inspires me to do more.</p>
<p><strong>What is one action that everybody can take to make our world a little bit better?</strong></p>
<p>I would say take the time to learn. After going through sociology, women, gender and sexuality studies, I just realized that was a wealth of knowledge that everyone in this world should have. Unfortunately, that’s not how most of the education systems are. … Being a viable part of the society, it is really important to understand what has to be reading and what has to do with where the society is right now. I don’t think a lot of people do enough research.</p>
<p> And then, number two, after you do that research, have some sort of goals around supporting people who are putting their efforts in changing that society and changing that world. And be very intentional about it. Look at who is running those companies. Look at the impact of their companies. Look at who they’re supporting — and everyone at every level. </p>
<p>Whether you give your time, whether you give your money, whether you give whatever, I don’t think there’s ever enough people to give. You can even give your amplification, right? Amplifying something on social media. Amplifying and making sure you forward a newsletter. Making sure you promise on something. You don’t understand what that could potentially do, especially if you have a certain network. You have a certain network and if you’re on LinkedIn and you have the time to comment on a Black Sisters post, you are doing a lot for us. Because now your entire network is going to be seeing that consistently. And that is something that’s completely free and didn’t take many minutes to do. </p>
<p>And then also, if you have the capacity, make sure you’re also giving on a yearly basis as much as you can budget for. </p>
<p><strong>We started Rise 25 to celebrate Mozilla’s 25th anniversary. What do you hope that people are celebrating in the next 25 years?</strong></p>
<p>I hope people are celebrating a society that provides opportunities based off of potential and not race, color, gender, etc. I hope that potential means opportunities and that people are celebrating the fact that they are in a city, space, etc. that allows for potential and opportunities to always be on equal footing. And not be based off of things that you cannot control. </p>
<p><strong>What gives you hope for the future of our world?</strong></p>
<p>What gives me hope is hope (laughs). What gives me hope is the ability to know that human beings have and will always have the luxury of bringing stories of seeing things progress, of moving and changing the world. And it’s going to be something that has been done throughout. So many people have different stories. It’s everything. And so, I really believe that if there’s a force that keeps me going, I think it’s a way that people can hold onto that.</p>
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<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/nyamekye-wilson-black-sisters-in-stem-google/">Creator Nyamekye Wilson is uplifting Black women in STEM and creating a talent pipeline for the next generation</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-13T18:39:41+00:00Aron YohannesOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla joins allies to co-sign an amicus brief in State of Nevada vs. Meta Platforms defending end-to-end encryption
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/12/nevada-e2ee-amicus/
<p>Mozilla recently signed onto an <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/03/nevada-v-meta-amicus-brief.pdf">amicus brief</a> – alongside the <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/reject-nevadas-attack-encrypted-messaging-eff-tells-court">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a> , the <a href="https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2024/03/nevada-wants-to-reduce-online-protections-for-children/">Internet Society</a>, <a href="https://signal.org/">Signal</a>, and a broad coalition of other allies – on the Nevada Attorney General’s recent attempt to limit encryption. The amicus brief signals a collective commitment from these organizations on the importance of encryption in safeguarding digital privacy and security as fundamental rights.</p>
<p>The core of this dispute is the Nevada Attorney General’s proposition to limit the application of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for children’s online communications. It is a move that ostensibly aims to aid law enforcement but, in practice, could significantly weaken the privacy and security of all internet users, including children. Nevada argues that end-to-end encryption might impede some criminal investigations. However, as the amicus brief explains, encryption does not prevent either the sender or recipient from reporting concerning content to police, nor does it prevent police from accessing other metadata about communications via lawful requests. Blocking the rollout of end-to-end encryption would undermine privacy and security for everyone for a marginal benefit that would be far outweighed by the harms such a draconian limitation could create.</p>
<p>The case, set for a hearing in Clark County, Nevada, encapsulates a broader debate on the balance between enabling law enforcement to combat online crimes and preserving robust online protections for all users – especially vulnerable populations like children. Mozilla’s involvement in this amicus brief is founded on its long standing <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/mozilla-campaign-encourages-people-to-understand-encryption-1.3460109">belief</a> that encryption is an essential component of its core <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/about/manifesto/">Manifesto</a> tenet – privacy and security are fundamental online and should not be treated as optional.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/12/nevada-e2ee-amicus/">Mozilla joins allies to co-sign an amicus brief in State of Nevada vs. Meta Platforms defending end-to-end encryption</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-12T23:23:24+00:00Udbhav TiwariOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla Joins Amicus Brief Supporting Software Interoperability
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/11/mozilla-joins-amicus-brief-supporting-software-interoperability/
<p>In modern technology, interoperability between programs is crucial to the usability of applications, user choice, and healthy competition. Today Mozilla has joined an <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2024/03/11/eff_et_al_amicus_brief28.pdf">amicus brief</a> at the Ninth Circuit, to ensure that copyright law does not undermine the ability of developers to build interoperable software.</p>
<p>This amicus brief comes in the latest appeal in a multi-year courtroom saga between Oracle and Rimini Street. The sprawling litigation has lasted more than a decade and has already been up to the Supreme Court on a <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/586/17-1625/">procedural question</a> about court costs. Our amicus brief addresses a single issue: should the fact that a software program is built to be interoperable with another program be treated, <i>on its own</i>, as establishing copyright infringement?</p>
<p>We believe that most software developers would answer this question with: “Of course not!” But the district court found otherwise. The lower court concluded that even if Rimini’s software does not include any Oracle code, Rimini’s programs could be infringing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work">derivative works</a> simply “because they do not work with any other programs.” This is a mistake.</p>
<p>The classic example of a derivative work is something like a sequel to a book or movie. For example, The Empire Strikes Back is a derivative work of the original Star Wars movie. Our amicus brief explains that it makes no sense to apply this concept to software that is built to interoperate with another program. Not only that, interoperability of software <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2019/09/Mozilla-Competition-Working-Paper.pdf">promotes competition and user choice</a>. It should be celebrated, not punished.</p>
<p>This case raises similar themes to another high profile software copyright case, <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google">Google v. Oracle</a>, which considered whether it was copyright infringement to re-implement an API. Mozilla submitted an <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2019/02/Mozilla-Google-v-Oracle-Amicus-Brief.pdf">amicus brief</a> there also, where we argued that copyright law should support interoperability. Fortunately, the Supreme Court <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/software-innovation-prevails-in-landmark-supreme-court-ruling-in-google-v-oracle/">reached the right conclusion</a> and ruled that re-implementing an API was fair use. That ruling and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade">other important fair use decisions</a> would be undermined if a copyright plaintiff could use interoperability as evidence that software is an infringing derivative work.</p>
<p>In today’s brief Mozilla joins a broad coalition of advocates for openness and competition, including the <a href="https://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a>, <a href="https://publicknowledge.org/">Public Knowledge</a>, <a href="https://www.ifixit.com/">iFixit</a>, and the <a href="https://www.repair.org/">Digital Right to Repair Coalition</a>. We hope the Ninth Circuit will fix the lower court’s mistake and hold that interoperability is not evidence of infringement.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/11/mozilla-joins-amicus-brief-supporting-software-interoperability/">Mozilla Joins Amicus Brief Supporting Software Interoperability</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-12T03:10:46+00:00Daniel Nazerhacks.mozilla.org: Improving Performance in Firefox and Across the Web with Speedometer 3
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/03/improving-performance-in-firefox-and-across-the-web-with-speedometer-3/
<p>In collaboration with the other major browser engine developers, Mozilla is thrilled to <a href="https://browserbench.org/announcements/speedometer3">announce Speedometer 3</a> today. Like previous versions of Speedometer, this benchmark measures <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/webvision/full/#performance">what we think matters most</a> for performance online: responsiveness. But today’s release is more open and more challenging than before, and is the best tool for driving browser performance improvements that we’ve ever seen.</p>
<p>This fulfills the <a href="https://twitter.com/mozhacks/status/1603435347190419456">vision set out in December 2022</a> to bring experts across the industry together in order to rethink how we measure browser performance, guided by a shared goal to reflect the real-world Web as much as possible. This is the first time the Speedometer benchmark, or any major browser benchmark, has been developed through a cross-industry collaboration supported by each major browser engine: Blink, Gecko, and WebKit. Working together means we can build a shared understanding of what matters to optimize, and facilitates broad review of the benchmark itself: both of which make it a stronger lever for improving the Web as a whole.</p>
<p>And we’re seeing results: <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-firefox-got-faster-for-real-users-in-2023/">Firefox got faster for real users in 2023</a> as a direct result of <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/09/faster-vue-js-execution-in-firefox/">optimizing</a> <a href="https://spidermonkey.dev/blog/2023/11/27/newsletter-firefox-118-121.html">for</a> Speedometer 3. This took a coordinated effort from many teams: understanding real-world websites, building new tools to drive optimizations, and making a huge number of improvements inside Gecko to make web pages run more smoothly for Firefox users. In the process, we’ve shipped <a href="https://mzl.la/4bYLwtn">hundreds of bug fixes</a> across JS, DOM, Layout, CSS, Graphics, frontend, memory allocation, profile-guided optimization, and more.</p>
<p>We’re happy to see core optimizations in all the major browser engines turning into improved responsiveness for real users, and are looking forward to continuing to work together to build performance tests that improve the Web.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/03/improving-performance-in-firefox-and-across-the-web-with-speedometer-3/">Improving Performance in Firefox and Across the Web with Speedometer 3</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2024-03-11T16:00:36+00:00Brian GrinsteadThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: February 2024 Progress Report
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-february-2024-progress-report/
<p><img alt="a dark background with Thunderbird and K-9 Mail logos centered, with the text "Thunderbird for Android, February 2024 Progress Report"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/03/K9-February-2024-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<p>Welcome to a new report on the progress of transforming K-9 Mail into Thunderbird for Android. I hope you’ve enjoyed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year">extra day</a> in February. We certainly did and used this opportunity to release <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/towards-thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-6-800-simplifies-adding-email-accounts/">a new stable version</a> on February 29.</p>
<p>If you’re new to this <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/category/thunderbird-mobile/">series</a> or the unusually long February made you forget what happened the previous month, you might want to check out <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-january-2024-progress-report/">January’s progress report</a>.</p>
<h3>New stable release</h3>
<p>We spent most of our time in February getting ready for a new stable release – K-9 Mail 6.800. That mostly meant fixing bugs and usability issues reported by beta testers. Thanks to everyone who tested the app and reported bugs <img alt="❤" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2764.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<p>Read all about the new release in our blog post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/towards-thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-6-800-simplifies-adding-email-accounts/">Towards Thunderbird for Android – K-9 Mail 6.800 Simplifies Adding Email Accounts</a>.</p>
<h3>What’s next?</h3>
<p>With the new account setup being mostly done, we’ll concentrate on the following two areas.</p>
<h4>Material 3</h4>
<p>The question of whether to update the user interface to match the design used by the latest Android version seems to have always split the K-9 Mail user base. One group prefers that we work on adding new features instead. The other group wants their email app of choice to look similar to the apps that ship with Android.</p>
<p>Never updating the user interface to the latest design is not really an option. At some point all third-party libraries we’re using will only support the latest platform design. Not updating those libraries is also not an option because Android itself is constantly changing and requires app/library updates just to keep existing functionality working.</p>
<p>I think we found a good balance by not being the first ones to update to <a href="https://m3.material.io/">Material 3</a>. By now a lot of other app developers have done so and countless bugs related to Material 3 have been found and fixed. So it’s a good time for us to start switching to Android’s latest design system now.</p>
<p>We’re currently still in a research phase to figure out what parts of the app need changing. Once that’s done, we’ll change the base theme and fix up the app screen by screen. You will be able to follow along by <a href="https://forum.k9mail.app/t/how-do-i-become-a-beta-tester/68">becoming a beta tester</a> and installing K-9 Mail 6.9xx beta versions once those become available.</p>
<h4>Android 14 compatibility</h4>
<p>K-9 Mail is affected by a couple of changes that were introduced with Android 14. We’ve started to look into which parts of the app need to be updated to be able to target Android 14.</p>
<p>We’ve already identified these:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.android.com/about/versions/14/changes/schedule-exact-alarms">Schedule exact alarms are denied by default</a> – For some reason Google decided to also apply this change to apps targeting Android 13. We already mentioned this in our <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-november-december-2023-progress-report/">November/December 2023 progress report</a> in the section “Push Not Working On Android 14”.</li>
<li><a href="https://developer.android.com/about/versions/14/behavior-changes-14#safer-intents">Restrictions to implicit and pending intents</a> – This affects the way we communicate with the crypto provider app (<a href="https://www.openkeychain.org/">OpenKeychain</a>) when using OpenPGP.</li>
</ul>
<p>Our current plan is to include the necessary changes in updates to the K-9 Mail 6.8xx line.</p>
<h3>Community Contributions</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/tanoDxyz">S Tanveer Hussain</a> submitted a pull request to update the information about third-party libraries in K-9 Mail’s <em>About</em> screen (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7601">#7601</a>)</li>
<li>GitHub user <a href="https://github.com/LorenzHo">LorenzHo</a> provided a patch to not focus the recipient input field when the <em>Compose</em> screen was opened using a mailto: URI (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7623">#7623</a>). Unfortunately, this change had to be backed out later because of unintended side effects. But we’re hopeful a modified version of this change will make it into the app soon.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you for your contributions!</p>
<h3>Releases</h3>
<p>In February 2024 we published a new stable release:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.800">K-9 Mail v6.800</a> (2024-02-29)</li>
</ul>
<p>… and the following beta versions:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.715">K-9 Mail v6.715 (beta)</a> (2024-02-01)</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.716">K-9 Mail v6.716 (beta)</a> (2024-02-13)</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.717">K-9 Mail v6.717 (beta)</a> (2024-02-16)</li>
</ul>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-february-2024-progress-report/">Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: February 2024 Progress Report</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-11T13:00:00+00:00ckettiThe Mozilla Blog: Evaluating LLM models at scale
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/evaluating-llm-models-at-scale/
<p><em>(To read the complete Mozilla.ai learnings on LLM evaluation, please visit the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.ai/exploring-llm-evaluation-at-scale-with-the-neurips-large-language-model-efficiency-challenge/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Mozilla.ai blog</a>)</em></p>
<p>Large language models (LLMs) have rapidly advanced, but determining their real-world performance remains a complex challenge in AI. <a href="https://www.mozilla.ai/">Mozilla.ai</a> participated in <a href="https://neurips.cc/">NeurIPS 2023</a>, one of the most prominent machine learning conferences, by co-sponsoring a <a href="https://llm-efficiency-challenge.github.io/challenge.html">challenge</a> designed to address evaluating models by focusing on efficient fine-tuning of LLMs and developing robust evaluation techniques. </p>
<p>The competition emphasized fine-tuning LLMs under precise hardware constraints. Fine-tuning involves updating specific parts of an existing LLM with curated datasets to specialize its behavior. The goal was to fine-tune models within 24 hours on a single GPU, making this process more accessible to those without access to high-performance computational clusters.</p>
<p>Mozilla.ai played a key role in evaluating the results of these fine-tuning experiments. We used tools like HELM, a framework developed at Stanford for running various tasks to assess LLM performance. However, evaluating LLMs is hard due to the stochastic nature of the responses of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(deep_learning_architecture)">transformer models</a>: a model can give different answers every time it is provided with a given prompt and there are many ways to measure these responses. This complexity makes it challenging to compare models objectively and decide which models are truly “best”.</p>
<p>The competition highlighted the rapidly evolving nature of LLMs. New models, fine-tuning techniques, and evaluation methods are being constantly introduced so reliable and standardized evaluation of LLMs will be crucial for understanding their capabilities and ensuring they are <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/whitepaper/">trustworthy</a>.</p>
<p>Open source plays a big role in this area <em>because</em> evaluation is such a multifaceted problem. Being able to work in a collaborative manner and with open-source systems is crucial for moving forward toward a better framework that could eventually be used in the field by many people.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://www.mozilla.ai/">Mozilla.ai</a> we believe in the importance of establishing robust and transparent foundations for the entire evaluation landscape. This is why we are working on several tracks of work to support this. On the experimentation side, we are focused on research approaches that allow for a clear definition of metrics and transparency and run repeatable evaluations. On the infrastructure side, we’re developing reliable and replicable infrastructure to evaluate models and store and introspect model results.</p>
<p><br />Read the whole set of learnings in the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.ai/exploring-llm-evaluation-at-scale-with-the-neurips-large-language-model-efficiency-challenge/">Mozilla.ai blog</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/evaluating-llm-models-at-scale/">Evaluating LLM models at scale</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-07T15:00:00+00:00MozillaThe Mozilla Blog: Introducing the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/introducing-columbia-convening-openness-and-ai/
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><em>We brought together experts to tackle a critical question: What does openness mean for AI, and how can it best enable trustworthy and beneficial AI?</em></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="Group photo of the participants at The Columbia Convening on Openness and AI in February" class="wp-image-74387" height="616" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/278/files/2024/03/conveningai_graylock4824_1_-1024x616.jpg" width="1024" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Participants in the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI.</figcaption></figure>
<p>On February 29, Mozilla and the Columbia Institute of Global Politics brought together over 40 leading scholars and practitioners working on openness and AI. These individuals — spanning prominent open source AI startups and companies, non-profit AI labs, and civil society organizations — focused on exploring what “open” should mean in the AI era. Open source software helped make the internet safer and more robust in earlier eras of the internet — and offered trillions of dollars of value to startups and innovators as they created the digital services we all use today. Our shared hope is that open approaches can have a similar impact in the AI era.</p>
<p>To help unlock this significant potential, the Columbia Convening took an important step toward developing a framework for openness in AI and unifying the openness community around shared understandings and next steps. Participatants noted that: </p>
<ul>
<li>Openness in AI has the potential to advance key societal goals, including making AI safe and effective, unlocking innovation and competition in the AI market, and bringing underserved communities into the AI ecosystem.</li>
<li>Openness is a key characteristic to consider throughout the AI stack, and not just in AI models themselves. In components ranging from data to hardware to user interfaces, there are different types of openness that can be helpful for accomplishing different technical and societal goals. Participants reviewed research mapping dimensions of openness in AI, and noted the need to make it easier for developers of AI systems to understand where and how openness should be central to the technology they build.</li>
<li>Policy conversations need to be more thoughtful about the benefits and risks of openness in AI. For example, comparing the <a href="https://crfm.stanford.edu/open-fms/paper.pdf">marginal risk</a> that open systems pose in relation to closed systems is one promising approach to bringing rigor to this discussion. More work is needed across the board — from policy research on liability distribution, to more submissions to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s <a href="https://www.ntia.gov/federal-register-notice/2024/dual-use-foundation-artificial-intelligence-models-widely-available">request for comment</a> on “dual-use foundation models with widely available model weights.”</li>
<li>We need a stronger community and better organization to help build, invest, and advocate for better approaches to openness in AI. This convening showed that the openness community can have collaborative, productive discussions even when there are meaningful differences of opinion between its members. Mozilla committed to continuing to help build and foster community on this topic.</li>
</ul>
<p>Getting “open” right for AI will be hard — but it’s never been more timely or important. Today, while everyone gushes about how generative AI can change the world, only a handful of products dominate the generative AI market. The lack of competition in AI products today is a real problem. It could mean that the new AI products we’ll begin to see in the next several years won’t be as innovative and safe as we need them to be – but instead, be built on the same closed, proprietary model that has defined roughly the last decade of online life. That’s why Mozilla’s recent report on <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/research/library/accelerating-progress-toward-trustworthy-ai/"><em>Accelerating Progress Toward Trustworthy AI</em></a> doubles down on openness, competition, and accountability as vital to the future of AI.</p>
<p>We know a better future is possible<em>. </em>During earlier eras of the Internet, open source technologies played a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4693148">core role</a> in promoting innovation and safety. Open source software made it easier to find and fix bugs in software. Attempts to limit open innovation — such as export controls on encryption in early web browsers — ended up being counterproductive, further exemplifying the value of openness. And, perhaps most importantly, open source technology has provided a core set of building blocks that software developers have used to do everything from create art to design vaccines to develop apps that are used by people all over the world; it is <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4693148">estimated</a> that open source software is worth over $8 trillion in value. </p>
<p>For years, we saw similar benefits play out for AI. Industry researchers openly published foundational AI <a href="https://papers.nips.cc/paper_files/paper/2017/file/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Paper.pdf">research</a> and <a href="https://papers.nips.cc/paper_files/paper/2017/file/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Paper.pdf">frameworks</a>, making it easier for academics and startups to keep pace with AI advances and enabling an ecosystem of external experts who could challenge the big AI players. But, the benefits of this approach are not assured as we enter a new wave of innovation around AI. As training AI systems requires more compute and data, some key players are shifting their attention away from publishing research and toward consolidating competitive advantages and economies of scale to enable foundational models on demand. As AI risks are being portrayed as murkier and more hypothetical, it is becoming easier to argue that locking down AI models is the safest path forward. Today, it feels like the benefits and risks of AI depend on the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90992180/this-is-the-right-lesson-to-take-from-the-openai-debacle">whims of a few tech companies</a> in Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>This can’t be the best approach to AI. If AI is truly so powerful and pervasive, shouldn’t AI be subject to real scrutiny from third-party assessments? If AI is truly so innovative and useful, shouldn’t there be more AI tools and systems that startups and small businesses can use?</p>
<p>We believe openness can and must play a key role in the future of AI — the question is how. Late last year, we and over 1,800 people signed our<a href="https://open.mozilla.org/letter/"> letter</a> that noted that although the signatories represent different perspectives on open source AI, they all agree that open, responsible, and transparent approaches are critical to safety and security in the AI era. Indeed, across the AI ecosystem, some advocate for staged release of AI models, others believe other forms of openness in the AI stack are more important, and yet others believe every part of AI systems should be as open as possible. There are people who believe in openness for openness’ sake, and others who view openness as a means to other societal goals — such as identifying civil rights and privacy harms, promoting innovation and competition in the market, and supporting consumers and workers who want a say about how AI is deployed in their communities. We were thrilled to bring together people with very divergent views and motivations for openness collaborating on strengthening and leveraging openness in support of their missions.</p>
<p>We’re immensely grateful to the participants in the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Anthony Annunziata</strong> — Head of AI Open Innovation and AI Alliance, IBM</li>
<li><strong>Mitchell Baker</strong>— Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation</li>
<li><strong>Kevin Bankston</strong> — Senior Advisor on AI Governance, Center for Democracy and Technology</li>
<li><strong>Adrien Basdevant</strong> — Tech Lawyer, Entropy Law</li>
<li><strong>Ayah Bdeir</strong> — Senior Advisor, Mozilla</li>
<li><strong>Philippe Beaudoin</strong> — Co-Founder and CEO, Waverly</li>
<li><strong>Brian Behlendorf</strong> — Chief AI Strategist, The Linux Foundation</li>
<li><strong>Stella Biderman</strong> — Executive Director, EleutherAI</li>
<li><strong>John Borthwick</strong> — CEO, Betaworks</li>
<li><strong>Zoë Brammer</strong> — Senior Associate for Cybersecurity & Emerging Technologies, Institute for Security and Technology</li>
<li><strong>Glenn Brown</strong> — Principal, GOB Advisory</li>
<li><strong>Kasia Chmielinski</strong> — Practitioner Fellow, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society</li>
<li><strong>Peter Cihon</strong> — Senior Policy Manager, Github</li>
<li><strong>Julia Rhodes Davis</strong> — Chief Program Officer, Computer Says Maybe</li>
<li><strong>Merouane Debbah</strong> — Senior Scientific AI Advisor, Technology Innovation Institute</li>
<li><strong>Alix Dunn</strong> — Facilitator, Computer Says Maybe</li>
<li><strong>Michelle Fang </strong>— Strategy, Cerebras Systems</li>
<li><strong>Camille François</strong> — Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs</li>
<li><strong>Stefan French</strong> — Product Manager, Mozilla.ai</li>
<li><strong>Yacine Jernite</strong> — Machine Learning and Society Lead, Hugging Face</li>
<li><strong>Amba Kak</strong> — Executive Director, AI Now Institute</li>
<li><strong>Sayash Kapoor</strong> — Ph.D. Candidate, Princeton University</li>
<li><strong>Helen King-Turvey</strong> — Managing Partner, Philanthropy Matters</li>
<li><strong>Kevin Klyman</strong> — AI Policy Researcher, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI</li>
<li><strong>Nathan Lambert</strong> — ML Scientist, Allen Institute for AI </li>
<li><strong>Yann LeCun</strong> — Vice President and Chief AI Scientist, Meta</li>
<li><strong>Stefano Maffulli</strong> — Executive Director, Open Source Initiative</li>
<li><strong>Nik Marda</strong> — Technical Lead, AI Governance, Mozilla</li>
<li><strong>Ryan Merkley</strong> — CEO, Conscience</li>
<li><strong>Mohamed Nanabhay</strong> — Managing Partner, Mozilla Ventures</li>
<li><strong>Deval Pandya</strong> — Vice President of AI Engineering, Vector Institute</li>
<li><strong>Deb Raji</strong> — Fellow at Mozilla and PhD Student, UC Berkeley</li>
<li><strong>Govind Shivkumar</strong> — Director, Investments, Omidyar Network </li>
<li><strong>Aviya Skowron</strong> — Head of Policy and Ethics, EleutherAI</li>
<li><strong>Irene</strong> <strong>Solaiman</strong> — Head of Global Policy, HuggingFace</li>
<li><strong>Madhulika Srikumar</strong>, Lead for Safety Critical AI, Partnership on AI</li>
<li><strong>Victor Storchan</strong> — Lead AI/ ML Research at Mozilla.ai</li>
<li><strong>Mark Surman</strong> — President, Mozilla Foundation</li>
<li><strong>Nabiha Syed</strong> — CEO, The Markup</li>
<li><strong>Martin Tisne</strong> — CEO, AI Collaborative, The Omidyar Group</li>
<li><strong>Udbhav Tiwari</strong>, Head of Global Product Policy, Mozilla</li>
<li><strong>Justine Tunney</strong> — Founder, Mozilla’s LLaMAfile project</li>
<li><strong>Imo Udom</strong> — SVP of Innovation, Mozilla</li>
<li><strong>Sarah Myers West</strong> — Managing Director, AI Now Institute</li>
</ul>
<p>In the coming weeks, we intend to publish more content related to the convening. We will release resources to help practitioners and policymakers grapple with the opportunities and risks from openness in AI, such as determining how openness can help make AI systems safer and better. We will also continue to bring similar communities together, helping to keep pushing forward on this important work.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/introducing-columbia-convening-openness-and-ai/">Introducing the Columbia Convening on Openness and AI</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-06T16:00:00+00:00Rebecca SmithOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla Mornings: Choice or Illusion? Tackling Harmful Design Practices
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/05/mozilla-mornings-choice-or-illusion-tackling-harmful-design-practices/
<p><b>The first edition of Mozilla Mornings in 2024 will explore the impact of harmful design on consumers in the digital world and the role regulation can play in addressing such practices.</b></p>
<p>In the evolving digital landscape, deceptive and manipulative design practices, as well as aggressive personalisation and profiling pose significant threats to consumer welfare, potentially leading to financial loss, privacy breaches, and compromised security.</p>
<p>While existing EU regulations address some aspects of these issues, questions persist about their adequacy in combating harmful design patterns comprehensively. What additional measures are needed to ensure digital fairness for consumers and empower designers who want to act ethically?</p>
<p>To discuss these issues, we are delighted to announce that the following speakers will be participating in our panel discussion:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Egelyn Braun</b>, Team Leader DG JUST, European Commission</li>
<li><b>Estelle Hary</b>, Co-founder, Design Friction</li>
<li><b>Silvia de Conca</b>, Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam</li>
<li><b>Finn Myrstad</b>, Digital Policy Director, Norwegian Consumer Council</li>
</ul>
<p>The event will also feature a <b>fireside chat with</b> <b>MEP Kim van Sparrentak</b> from Greens/EFA.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Date: </b>Wednesday 20th March 2024</li>
<li><b>Location:</b> <a href="https://www.l42.be/">L42</a>, Rue de la Loi 42, 1000 Brussels</li>
<li><b>Time: </b>08:30 – 10:30 CET</li>
</ul>
<p>To register, <b>click </b><a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mozilla-mornings-choice-or-illusion-tackling-harmful-design-practices-tickets-845906347657?aff=oddtdtcreator"><b>here</b></a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/03/05/mozilla-mornings-choice-or-illusion-tackling-harmful-design-practices/">Mozilla Mornings: Choice or Illusion? Tackling Harmful Design Practices</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-03-05T20:00:19+00:00Tasos StampelosThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Towards Thunderbird for Android – K-9 Mail 6.800 Simplifies Adding Email Accounts
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/towards-thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-6-800-simplifies-adding-email-accounts/
<p><img alt="Graphic announcing "Thunderbird for Android" with a Thunderbird icon, and "K-9 Mail 6.800 Released" with a red envelope icon representing K-9 Mail" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/03/K-9-Mail-6.800-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<p>We’re happy to announce the release of K-9 Mail 6.800. The main goal of this version is to make it easier for you to add your email accounts to the app.</p>
<p>With another item crossed off the <a href="https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/android-roadmap">list</a>, this brings us <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/">one step closer towards Thunderbird for Android.</a></p>
<h3>New account setup</h3>
<p>Setting up an email account in K-9 Mail is something many new users have struggled with in the past. That’s mainly because automatic setup was only supported for a handful of large email providers. If you had an email account with another email provider, you had to manually enter the incoming and outgoing server settings. But finding the correct server settings can be challenging. </p>
<p>So we set out to improve the setup experience. Since this part of the app was quite old and had a couple of other problems, we used this opportunity to rewrite the whole account setup component. This turned out to be more work than originally anticipated. But we’re quite happy with the result.</p>
<p>Let’s have a brief look at the steps involved in setting up a new account.</p>
<h4>1. Enter email address</h4>
<p>To get the process started, all you have to do is enter the email address of the account you want to set up in K-9 Mail.</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_enter_email_address.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1582" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_enter_email_address-600x1270.png" style="width: 350px;" width="600" /></a></figure></div>
<h4>2. Provide login credentials</h4>
<p>After tapping the <em>Next</em> button, the app will use Thunderbird’s Autoconfig mechanism to try to find the appropriate incoming and outgoing server settings. Then you’ll be asked to provide a password or use the web login flow, depending on the email provider.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_configuration_found.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1583" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_configuration_found-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_sign_in.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1586" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_sign_in-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a></figure>
</figure>
<p>The app will then try to log in to the incoming and outgoing server using the provided credentials.</p>
<h4>3. Provide some basic information about the account</h4>
<p>If your login credentials check out, you’ll be asked to provide your name for outgoing messages. For all the other inputs you can go with the defaults. All settings can be changed later, once an account has been set up.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_display_options.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1584" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_display_options-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_sync_options.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1585" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_6.8_sync_options-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a></figure>
</figure>
<p>If everything goes well, that’s all it takes to set up an account.</p>
<p>Of course there’s still cases where the app won’t be able to automatically find a configuration and the user will be asked to manually provide the incoming and outgoing server settings. But we’ll be working with email providers to hopefully reduce the number of times this happens.</p>
<h3>What else is new?</h3>
<p>While the account setup rewrite was our main development focus, we’ve also made a couple of smaller changes and bug fixes. You can find a list of the most notable ones below.</p>
<h4>Improvements and behavior changes</h4>
<ul>
<li>Made it harder to accidentally trigger swipe actions in the message list screen</li>
<li>IMAP: Added support for sending the ID command (that is required by some email providers)</li>
<li>Improved screen reader experience in various places</li>
<li>Improved display of some HTML messages</li>
<li>Changed background color in message view and compose screens when using dark theme</li>
<li>Adding to contacts should now allow you again to add the email address to an existing contact</li>
<li>Added image handling within the context menu for hyperlinks</li>
<li>A URI pasted when composing a message will now be surrounded by angle brackets</li>
<li>Don’t use nickname as display name when auto-completing recipient using the nickname</li>
<li>Changed compose icon in the message list widget to match the icon inside the app</li>
<li>Don’t attempt to open file: URIs in an email; tapping such a link will now copy the URL to the clipboard instead</li>
<li>Added option to return to the message list after marking a message as unread in the message view</li>
<li>Combined settings “Return to list after delete” and “Show next message after delete” into “After deleting or moving a message”</li>
<li>Moved “Show only subscribed folders” setting to “Folders” section</li>
<li>Added copy action to recipient dropdown in compose screen (to work around missing drag & drop functionality)</li>
<li>Simplified the app icon so it can be a vector drawable</li>
<li>Added support for the IMAP MOVE extension</li>
</ul>
<h4>Bug fixes</h4>
<ul>
<li>Fixed bug where account name wasn’t displayed in the message view when it should</li>
<li>Fixed bugs with importing and exporting identities</li>
<li>The app will no longer ask to save a draft when no changes have been made to an existing draft message</li>
<li>Fixed bug where “Cannot connect to crypto provider” was displayed when the problem wasn’t the crypto provider</li>
<li>Fixed a crash caused by an interaction with OpenKeychain 6.0.0</li>
<li>Fixed inconsistent behavior when replying to messages</li>
<li>Fixed display issue with recipients in message view screen</li>
<li>Fixed display issues when rendering a message/rfc822 inline part</li>
<li>Fixed display issue when removing an account</li>
<li>Fixed notification sounds on WearOS devices</li>
<li>Fixed the app so it runs on devices that don’t support home screen widgets</li>
</ul>
<h4>Other changes</h4>
<ul>
<li>Removed Hebrew and Korean translations because of how incomplete they were; <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/tb-android/">volunteer translators welcome</a>!</li>
</ul>
<h4>Known issues</h4>
<ul>
<li>A fresh app install on Android 14 will be missing the “alarms & reminders” permission required for Push to work. Please allow setting alarms and reminders in Android’s app settings under <em>Alarms & reminders</em>.</li>
<li>Some software keyboards automatically capitalize words when entering the email address in the first account setup screen.</li>
<li>When a password containing line breaks is pasted during account setup, these line breaks are neither ignored nor flagged as an error. This will most likely lead to an authentication error when checking server settings.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Where To Get K-9 Mail Version 6.800</h3>
<p>Version 6.800 has started gradually rolling out. As always, you can get it on the following platforms:</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/thundernest/k-9/releases/tag/6.800">GitHub</a> | <a href="http://f-droid.org/packages/com.fsck.k9/">F-Droid</a> | <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9">Play Store</a></p>
<p>(Note that the release will gradually roll out on the Google Play Store, and should appear shortly on F-Droid, so please be patient if it doesn’t automatically update.)</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/towards-thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-6-800-simplifies-adding-email-accounts/">Towards Thunderbird for Android – K-9 Mail 6.800 Simplifies Adding Email Accounts</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-04T14:00:00+00:00ckettiMozilla Add-ons Blog: Developer Spotlight: YouTube Search Fixer
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/01/developer-spotlight-youtube-search-fixer/
<p>Like a lot of us during the pandemic lockdown, Shubham Bose found himself consuming more YouTube content than ever before. That’s when he started to notice all the unwanted oddities appearing in his YouTube search results — irrelevant suggested videos, shorts, playlists, etc. Shubham wanted a cleaner, more focused search experience, so he decided to do something about it. He built <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/youtube-suite-search-fixer/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">YouTube Search Fixer</a>. The extension streamlines YouTube search results in a slew of customizable ways, like removing “For you,” “People also search for,” “Related to your search,” and so on. You can also remove entire types of content like shorts, live streams, auto-generated mixes, and more.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_9138" style="width: 262px;"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-9138" height="463" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/files/2024/03/blog_YTSF_UI-252x463.png" width="252" /><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-9138">The extension makes it easy to customize YouTube to suit you.</p></div>
<p>Early versions of the extension were less customizable and removed most types of suggested search results by default, but over time Shubham learned that different users want different things in their search results. “I realized the line between ‘helpful’ and ‘distracting’ is very subjective,” explains Shubham. “What one person finds useful, another might not. Ultimately, it’s up to the user to decide what works best for them. That’s why I decided to give users granular control using an Options page. Now people can go about hiding elements they find distracting while keeping those they deem helpful. It’s all about striking that personal balance.”</p>
<p>Despite YouTube Search Fixer’s current wealth of customization options (a cool new feature automatically redirects Shorts to their normal length versions), Shubham plans to expand his extension’s feature set. He’s considering keyword highlighting and denylist options, which would give users extreme control over search filtering.</p>
<p>More than solving what he felt was a problem with YouTube’s default search results, Shubham was motivated to build his extension as a “way of giving back to a community I deeply appreciate… I’ve used Firefox since I was in high school. Like countless others, I’ve benefited greatly from the ever helpful <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">MDN Web Docs</a> and the incredible <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">add-ons ecosystem</a> Mozilla hosts and helps thrive. They offer nice developer tools and cultivate a helpful and welcoming community. So making this was my tiny way of giving back and saying ‘thank you’.”</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_9139" style="width: 610px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-9139 size-large" height="338" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/files/2024/03/blog_YTSF_flower-600x338.png" width="600" /><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-9139">When he’s not writing extensions that improve the world’s most popular video streaming site, Shubham enjoys photographing his home garden in Lucknow, India. “It isn’t just a hobby,” he explains. “Experimenting with light, composition and color has helped me focus on visual aesthetics (in software development). Now, I actively pay attention to little details when I create visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces.”</p></div>
<p><i>Do you have an intriguing extension development story? Do tell! Maybe your story should appear on this blog. Contact us at </i><b><i>amo-featured [at] mozilla [dot] org</i></b><i> and let us know a bit about your extension development journey. </i></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2024/03/01/developer-spotlight-youtube-search-fixer/">Developer Spotlight: YouTube Search Fixer</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons">Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog</a>.</p>2024-03-01T19:43:06+00:00Scott DeVaneyThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: February 2024
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-monthly-development-digest-february-2024/
<p><img alt="Stylized Thunderbird icon with a code prompt in its center, against a purple background." class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/Developer-banner.png" width="640" /></p>
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<p>Hello Thunderbird Community! I can’t believe it’s already the end of February. Time goes by very fast and it seems that there’s never enough time to do all the things that you set your mind to. Nonetheless, it’s that time of the month again for a juicy and hopefully interesting Thunderbird Development Digest. </p>
<p>If this is your first time reading our monthly Dev Digest, these are short posts to give our community visibility into features and updates being planned for Thunderbird, as well as progress reports on work that’s in the early stages of development. </p>
<p>Let’s jump right into it, because there’s a lot to get excited about! </p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Rust and Exchange</strong></h3>
<p>Things are moving steadily on this front. Maybe not as fast as we would like, but we’re handling a complicated implementation and we’re adding a new protocol for the first time in more than a decade, so some friction is to be expected.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, you can start following the progress in our <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thundercell">Thundercell repository</a>. We’re using this repo to temporarily “park” crates and other libraries we’re aiming to vendor inside Thunderbird.</p>
<p>We’re aiming at reaching an alpha state where we can land in Thunderbird later next month and start asking for user feedback on Daily.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Mozilla Account + Thunderbird Sync</strong></h3>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-full is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/Sync-Doodle-Alex-e1709165902878.png"><img alt="Illustration of a continuous cycle with a web browser window, a sync or update icon, and a server rack, indicating a process of technological interaction or data exchange." class="wp-image-1576" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/Sync-Doodle-Alex.png" style="width: 398px; height: auto;" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Illustration by Alessandro Castellani</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Things are moving forward on this front as well. We’re currently in the process of setting up our own SyncServer and TokenStorage in order to allow users to log in with their Mozilla Account but sync the Thunderbird data in an independent location from the Firefox data. This gives us an extra layer of security as it will prevent an app from accessing the other app’s data and vice versa.</p>
<p>In case you didn’t know, you can already use a Mozilla account and Sync on Daily, but this only works with a staging server and you’ll need an alternate Mozilla account for testing. There are a couple of known bugs but overall things seem to be working properly. Once we switch to our storage server, we will expose this feature more and enable it on Beta for everyone to test.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Oh, Snap!</strong></h3>
<p>Our continuous efforts to own our packages and distribution methods is moving forward with the internal creation of a Snap package. (For background, last year we took ownership of the <a href="https://flathub.org/apps/org.mozilla.Thunderbird">Thunderbird Flatpak</a>.)</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/packages-1.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1589" height="707" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/packages-1.jpg" style="width: 648px; height: auto;" width="2048" /></a></figure>
<p>We’re currently internally testing the Beta and things seem to work accordingly. We will announce it publicly when it’s available from the Snap Store, with the objective of offering both Stable and Beta channels.</p>
<p>We’re exploring the possibility of also offering a Daily channel, but that’s a bit more complicated and we will need more time to make sure it’s doable and automated, so stay tuned.</p>
<p>As usual, if you want to see things as they land you can always check the <a href="https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/pushloghtml">pushlog </a>and <a href="https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2024/">try running daily</a>, which would be immensely helpful for catching bugs early.</p>
<p>See ya next month,</p>
<p><strong>Alessandro Castellani</strong> <em>(he, him)<br /></em><strong>Director of Product Engineering</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-block-pullquote" style="border-width: 2px; border-radius: 10px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><blockquote><p>If you’re interested in joining the technical discussion around Thunderbird development, consider joining one or several of our <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com">mailing list groups here</a>. </p></blockquote></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-monthly-development-digest-february-2024/">Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: February 2024</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-02-29T13:00:00+00:00Alessandro CastellaniThe Mozilla Blog: Mozilla Announces Call for Entries for the 2nd Annual Rise25 Awards in Dublin, Ireland
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-rise25-ai-nominations/
<p class="has-text-align-center"><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/rise25/nominate/">www.mozilla.org/rise25/nominate/</a></p>
<p>On the heels of Mozilla’s <em>Rise25 Awards</em> in Berlin last year, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be returning once again with a special celebration that will take place in Dublin, Ireland later this year.</p>
<p>The <em>2nd Annual Rise25 Awards </em>will feature familiar categories, but with an emphasis on trustworthy AI. We will be honoring 25 people who are leading that next wave of AI — who are using philanthropy, collective power, and the principles of open source to make sure the future of AI is responsible, trustworthy, inclusive and centered around human dignity. </p>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/ai/ai-2023s-most-celebrated-influencer/">2023 was indeed the year of AI</a>, and as more people adopt it, we know it is a technology that will continue to impact our culture and society, act as a catalyst for innovation and creation, and be a medium to engage people from all walks of life in conversations thanks to its growing ubiquity in our everyday lives.</p>
<p>We know we cannot do this alone: At Mozilla, we believe the most groundbreaking innovations emerge when people from diverse backgrounds unite to collaborate and openly trade ideas. </p>
<p>So if you know someone who you think should be celebrated, <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/rise25/nominate/">we want to hear from you</a>! </p>
<p>Five winners from each of the five categories below will be selected to make up our 2024 Rise25 cohort: </p>
<p><strong>Advocates </strong>–<strong> </strong><em>Guiding AI towards a responsible future</em></p>
<p>These are the policymakers, activists, and thinkers ensuring AI is developed ethically, inclusively, and transparently. This category also includes those who are adept at translating complex AI concepts for the broader public — including journalists, content creators, and cultural commentators. They champion digital rights and accessible AI, striving to make AI a force for societal good.</p>
<p><strong>Builders </strong>– <em>Developing AI through ethical innovation</em></p>
<p>They are the architects of trustworthy AI, including engineers and data scientists dedicated to developing AI’s open-source language infrastructure. They focus on technical proficiency and responsible and ethical construction. Their work ensures AI is secure, accessible, and reliable, aiming to create tools that empower and advance society. </p>
<p><strong>Artists </strong>– <em>Reimagining AI’s creative potential</em></p>
<p>They transcend traditional AI applications, like synthesizing visuals or using large language models. Their projects, whether interactive websites, films, or digital media, challenge our perceptions and demonstrate how AI can amplify and empower human creativity. Their work provokes thought and offers fresh perspectives on the intersection of AI and art.</p>
<p><strong>Entrepreneurs </strong>– <em>Fueling AI’s evolution with visionary ventures</em></p>
<p>These daring individuals are transforming imaginative ideas into reality. They’re crafting businesses and solutions with AI to meet societal needs, improve everyday life and forge new technological paths. They embody innovation, steering startups and projects with a commitment to ethical standards, inclusiveness and enhancing human welfare through technology.</p>
<p><strong>Change Agents </strong>– <em>Cultivating inclusive AI</em></p>
<p>They are challengers that lead the way in diversifying AI, bringing varied community voices into tech. They focus on inclusivity in AI development, ensuring technology serves and represents everyone, especially those historically excluded from the tech narrative. They are community leaders, corporate leaders, activists and outside-the-box thinkers finding ways to amplify the impacts of AI for marginalized communities. Their work fosters an AI environment of equality and empowerment.</p>
<p>This year’s awards build upon the success of last year’s programming and community event in Berlin, which brought to life what a future trustworthy Internet could look like. Last year’s event <a href="https://rise25.mozilla.org/">crowned</a> trailblazers and visionaries across five distinct categories: Builders, Activists, Artists, Creators, and Advocates. (Psst! Stay tuned as we unveil their inspiring stories in a <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/trisha-prabhu-rise25-rethink-cyberbullying/">video series</a> airing across Mozilla channels throughout the year, leading up to the <em>2nd Annual Rise25 Awards</em>.)</p>
<p>So join us as we honor the innovators, advocates, entrepreneurs, and communities who are working to build a happier, healthier web. <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/rise25/nominate/">Click here to submit your nomination today.</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-rise25-ai-nominations/">Mozilla Announces Call for Entries for the 2nd Annual Rise25 Awards in Dublin, Ireland</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/">The Mozilla Blog</a>.</p>2024-02-27T17:02:35+00:00DamianoThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: January 2024 Progress Report
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-january-2024-progress-report/
<p><img alt="a dark background with Thunderbird and K-9 Mail logos centered, with the text "Thunderbird for Android, January 2024 dev digest"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/K9-Mail-Dev-Digest-Feb-2024-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<p>A new year, a new progress report! Learn what we did in January on our journey to transform K-9 Mail into Thunderbird for Android. If you’re new here or you forgot where we left off last year, check out the <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-november-december-2023-progress-report/">previous progress report</a>.</p>
<h3>Account setup</h3>
<p>In January most of our work went into polishing the user interface and user experience of the new and improved account setup. However, there was still one feature missing that we really wanted to get in there: the ability to configure special folders.</p>
<h4>Special folders</h4>
<p>K-9 Mail supports the following special folders:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Archive</strong>: When configured, an <em>Archive</em> action will be available that moves a message to the designated archive folder.</li>
<li><strong>Drafts</strong>: When configured, the <em>Save as draft</em> action will be available in the compose screen.</li>
<li><strong>Sent</strong>: Messages that have been successfully submitted to the outgoing server will be uploaded to this folder. If this special folder is set to <em>None</em>, the app won’t save a copy of sent messages.<br />Note: There’s also the setting <em>Upload sent messages</em> that can be disabled to prevent sent messages from being uploaded, e.g. if your email provider automatically saves a copy of outgoing messages.</li>
<li><strong>Spam</strong>: When configured, a <em>Spam</em> action will be available that moves a message to the designated spam folder. (Please note that K-9 Mail currently does not include spam detection. So besides moving the message, this doesn’t do anything on its own. However, moving a message to and from the spam folder often trains the server-side spam filter available at many email providers.)</li>
<li><strong>Trash</strong>: When configured, deleting a message in the app will move it to the designated trash folder. If the special folder is set to <em>None</em>, emails are deleted permanently right away.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the distant past, K-9 Mail was simply using common names for these folders and created them on the server if they didn’t exist yet. But some email clients were using different names. And so a user could end up with e.g. multiple folders for sent messages. Of course there was an option to manually change the special folder assignment. But usually people only noticed when it was too late and the new folder already contained a couple of messages. Manually cleaning this up and making sure all email clients are configured to use the same folders is not fun.</p>
<p>To solve this problem, <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6154">RFC 6154</a> introduced the SPECIAL-USE IMAP extension. That’s a mechanism to save this special folder mapping on an IMAP server. Having this information on the server means all email clients can simply fetch that mapping and then there should be no disagreement on e.g. which folder is used for sent messages.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s still some email providers that don’t support this extension. There’s also cases where the server supports the feature, but none of the special roles are assigned to any folder. When K-9 Mail added support for the SPECIAL-USE extension, it simply used the data from the server, even if it meant not using any special folders. Unfortunately, that could be even worse than creating new folders, because you might end up e.g. not having a copy of sent messages.</p>
<p>So now the app is displaying a screen to ask the user to assign special folders when setting up an account. </p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_account_setup_special_folders_mapping.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1547" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_account_setup_special_folders_mapping-600x1270.png" style="width: 400px;" width="600" /></a></figure></div>
<p>This screen is skipped if the app receives a full mapping from the server, i.e. all special roles are assigned to a folder. Of course you’ll still be able to change the special folder assignment after the account has been created.</p>
<h4>Splitting account options</h4>
<p>We split what used to be the <em>account options</em> screen into two different screens: <em>display options</em> and <em>sync options</em>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-6 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_account_options_old.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1550" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_account_options_old-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Before: Account options</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_display_options.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1549" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_display_options-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After: Display options</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_sync_options.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1548" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_sync_options-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After: Sync options</figcaption></figure>
</figure>
<h4>Improved server certificate error screen</h4>
<p>The screen to display server certificate errors during account setup has received an overhaul.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-8 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_old.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1554" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_old-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Before: Certificate error screen</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_1.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1552" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_1-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After: Initial certificate error screen</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_2.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1553" height="1270" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/k9mail_certificate_error_2-600x1270.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">After: Advanced certificate error screen</figcaption></figure>
</figure>
<h4>Polishing the user experience</h4>
<p>With the special folders screen done, we’re now feature complete. So we took a step back to look at the whole experience of setting up an account. And we’ve found several areas where we could improve the app. </p>
<p>Here’s an (incomplete) list of things we’ve changed:</p>
<ul>
<li>We reduced the font weight of the header text to be less distracting.</li>
<li>In some parts of the flow there’s enough content on the screen that a user has to scroll. The area between the header and the navigation buttons at the bottom can be very small depending on the device size. So we included the header in the scrollable area to improve the experience on devices with a small screen.</li>
<li>There are a couple of transient screens, e.g. when checking server settings. Previously the app first displayed a progress indicator when checking server settings, then a success message for 2 seconds, but allowed the user to skip this screen by pressing the <em>Next</em> button. This turned out to be annoying and confusing. Annoying because the user has to wait longer than necessary; and confusing because it looked like user input was required, but by the time the user realizes that, the app will have most likely switched to the next screen automatically.<br />We updated these transient screens to always show a progress indicator and hide the <em>Next</em> button, so users know something is happening and there’s currently nothing for them to do.</li>
<li>We also fixed a couple of smaller issues, like the inbox not being synchronized during setup when an account was configured for manual synchronization.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Fixing bugs</h3>
<p>Some of the more interesting bugs we fixed in January:</p>
<ul>
<li>When rotating the screen while selecting a notification sound in settings, some of the notification settings were accidentally disabled (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/7468">#7468</a>). </li>
<li>When importing settings a <em>preview lines</em> value of 0 was ignored and the default of 2 was used instead (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/7493">#7493</a>).</li>
<li>When viewing a message and long-pressing an image that is also a link, only menu items relevant for images were displayed, but not ones relevant for links (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/7457">#7457</a>).</li>
<li>Opening an attachment from K-9 Mail’s message view in an external app and then sharing the content to K-9 Mail opened the compose screen for a new message but didn’t add an attachment (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/7557">#7557</a>).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Community Contributions</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/new-sashok724">new-sashok724</a> fixed a bug that prevented the use of IP addresses for incoming or outgoing servers (<a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7483">#7483</a>).</p>
<p>Thank you <img alt="❤" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2764.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<h3>Releases</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.714">K-9 Mail v6.714 (beta)</a> (2024-01-04)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>If you want to help shape Thunderbird for Android, </strong><a href="https://forum.k9mail.app/t/how-do-i-become-a-beta-tester/68"><strong>become a beta tester</strong></a><strong> and provide feedback on new features while they are still in development.</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-january-2024-progress-report/">Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: January 2024 Progress Report</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-02-15T17:21:18+00:00ckettiThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: February 2024 Community Office Hours: All About Add-Ons!
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/february-2024-thunderbird-office-hours-add-ons/
<p><img alt="A graphic with an icon representing community, set inside the Thunderbird logo, with the text "Thunderbird Community Office Hours for February 2024: Add-Ons"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/community-office-hours-FEB-2024.png" width="640" /></p>
<p>The topic for this month’s Thunderbird Community Office Hours takes a short break from the core of Thunderbird and takes us into the world of extensions we call <a href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/">Add-ons</a>. These allow our users to add features and options beyond the customization already available in Thunderbird by default.</p>
<h3>UPDATE: Video Replay Now Available</h3>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
</div></figure>
<h3>February Office Hours Topic: Add-ons</h3>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-full is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/JohnBieling.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1538" height="400" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/JohnBieling.jpg" style="width: 244px; height: auto;" width="400" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">John Bieling: Sr. Software Engineer, Add-ons Ecosystem</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>We want it to be easy to make Thunderbird yours, and so does our community. The Thunderbird <a href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/">Add-on page</a> shows the power of community-driven extensions. There are Add-ons for everything, from themes to integrations, that add even more customization to Thunderbird.</p>
<p>Our guest for this month’s Thunderbird Community Office Hours is John Bieling, who is the person responsible for Thunderbird’s add-on component. This includes the WebExtension APIs, add-on documentation, as well as community support. He hosts a frequent open call about Add-on development and is welcoming to any developers seeking help. Come join us to learn about Add-on development and meet a key developer in the space.</p>
<h3>Catch Up On Last Month’s Thunderbird Community Office Hours</h3>
<p>Before you join us on February 22 at 18:00 UTC, watch last month’s office hours with UX Engineer Elizabeth Mitchell. We had some great discussion around the Message Context Menu and testing beta and daily images. Watch the video and read more about our guest at <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/january-2024-thunderbird-community-office-hours-how-to-join-us/">last month’s blog post</a>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Watch January’s Office Hours session, all about the message context menu</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Join Us On Zoom</h3>
<p>(Yes, we’re still on Zoom for now, but a Jitsi server for future office hours is in the works!)</p>
<p><strong>When</strong>: <strong><a href="https://time.is/1800_22_Feb_2024_in_UTC?February_2024_Thunderbird_Community_Office_Hours">February 22 at 18:00 UTC</a></strong> (10am PST / 1pm EST / 7pm CET)</p>
<p><strong>Direct URL To Join:</strong> <a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/92739888755?pwd=c1pDVkJVVitwK3ZhMVdOYVk3dlZiQT09">https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/97506306527</a><br />Meeting ID: 97506306527<br />Password: 319424</p>
<p><strong>Dial by your location:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>+1 646 518 9805 US (New York)</li>
<li>+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)</li>
<li>+1 647 558 0588 Canada</li>
<li>+33 1 7095 0103 France</li>
<li>+49 69 7104 9922 Germany</li>
<li>+44 330 088 5830 United Kingdom</li>
<li>Find your local number:<a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO"> https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The call will be recorded and this post will be updated with a link to the recording afterwards.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/february-2024-thunderbird-office-hours-add-ons/">February 2024 Community Office Hours: All About Add-Ons!</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-02-14T17:27:03+00:00Monica Ayhens-MadonThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird In 2023: The Milestones and The Lessons We Learned
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-in-2023-the-milestones-and-the-lessons-we-learned/
<p><img alt="A dark background with the old and new Thunderbird logos side by side, with the text "Thunderbird 2023 Recap"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/milestones-blog-1.jpg" width="640" /></p>
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</div>
<p>The Thunderbird Project enjoyed a fantastic 2023. From my point of view – as someone who regularly engages with both the community and our team on a daily basis – the past year brought a renewed sense of purpose, sustainability, and excitement to Thunderbird. Let’s talk about a few of the awesome milestones Thunderbird achieved, but let’s also discuss where we stumbled and what lessons we learned along the way. </p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Our 2023 Milestones</h3>
<p>The biggest milestone of 2023 was <strong>Thunderbird 115 “Supernova.”</strong> This release marked <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/the-future-of-thunderbird-why-were-rebuilding-from-the-ground-up/">the first step</a> towards a more flexible, reliable, and customizable Thunderbird that will accommodate different needs and workflows. Work has been long underway to modernize huge amounts of old code, with the aim of modernizing Thunderbird to deliver new features even faster. The “Supernova” release represented the first fruits of those efforts, and there’s a lot more in the pipeline! </p>
<p>Alongside Supernova came a <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/introducing-the-brand-new-thunderbird-logo/">brand new Thunderbird logo</a> to signal the revitalization of the project. We finally (even a bit reluctantly) said goodbye to our beloved “wig on an envelope” and ushered in a new era of Thunderbird with a refreshed, redesigned logo. But it was important to honor our roots, which is why we hired Jon Hicks – the designer of the original Firefox and Thunderbird logos – to help us bring it to life. <em>(Now that you’ve all been living with it for the last several months, has it grown on you? Let us know in the comments of this post!)</em></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1532" height="1120" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/02/image.png" width="1600" /></figure>
<p>One 2023 milestone that deserves more attention is that we hired a dedicated User Support Specialist! Roland Tanglao has been working enthusiastically towards removing “documentation debt” and updating the 100s of Thunderbird support articles at <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird">support.mozilla.org</a> (which you’ll see us refer to internally as “SUMO”). Beyond that, he keeps a watchful eye on our <a href="https://matrix.to/#/#thunderbird:mozilla.org">Matrix community support channel</a> for emerging issues, and is in the forums answering as many help questions as humanly possible, alongside our amazing support volunteers. In a nutshell, Roland is doing everything he can to improve the experience of asking for and receiving support, modernize existing documentation, and create new guides and articles that make using Thunderbird easier.</p>
<p>These are some – not all – of our accomplishments from last year. But it’s time to shift focus to where we stumbled, and how we’ll do better. </p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Lessons We Learned In 2023</h3>
<p>In 2023, we failed to finish some of the great features we wanted to bring to Thunderbird, including Sync and Account Hub (both of which, however, are still in development). We also missed our target release window for Thunderbird on Android, <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/">after deciding</a> it was worth the extra development time to add the kind of functionality and flexibility you expect from Thunderbird software. </p>
<p>Speaking of functionality you expect, we hear you loud and clear: you want Exchange support in Thunderbird. We’ve already done some exploratory work, and have enabled the <a href="https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2469-thunderbird-how-to-exchange-rot-for-rust/">usage of Rust in Thunderbird</a>. This is a complex topic, but the short version is that this opens the doors for us to start implementing native support for the Exchange protocol. It’s officially <a href="https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap">on our roadmap</a>!</p>
<p>We also believe our communication with you has fallen short of where it needs to be. There are times when we get so excited about things we’re working on that it seems like marketing hype. In other situations, we have over-promised and under-delivered because these projects haven’t been extensively scoped out.</p>
<p>We’re beginning to solve the latter issue with the recent hiring of Kelly McSweeney, Senior Technical PM. She joined our team late last year and brings 20 years of valuable experience to Thunderbird. In a nutshell, Kelly is building processes and tools to accurately gauge how long development time will realistically take, from extensive projects to the tiniest tasks. Basically, she’s getting us very organized and making things run much more efficiently! This not only means smoother operations across the organization, but also clearer communication with you going forward. </p>
<p>And communication is our biggest area of opportunity right now, specifically with our global Thunderbird community. We haven’t been as transparent as an open source project should be, nor have we discussed our future plans frequently enough. We’ve had several meetings about this over the past few weeks, and we’re taking immediate steps to do better. </p>
<p>To begin with, you’ll start seeing monthly Developer Digests <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/thunderbird-monthly-development-digest-january-2024/">like this one</a> from Alex, aimed at giving you a closer look at the work currently being planned. We’re also increasing our activity on the <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/latest">Thunderbird mailing lists</a>, where you can give us direct feedback about future improvements and features. </p>
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</div></figure>
<p>In 2024 you can also look forward to monthly community <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/january-2024-thunderbird-community-office-hours-how-to-join-us/">Office Hours sessions</a>. This is where you can get some face time (or just voice time) with our team, and watch presentations about upcoming features and improvements by the developer(s) working on them. </p>
<p>One last thing: In 2023, Thunderbird’s Marketing & Communications team consisted of myself and Wayne Mery. This year Wayne and I are fortunate to be working alongside new team members Heather Ellsworth, Monica Ayhens-Madon, and Natalia Ivanova. Together, we’re going to work diligently to create more tutorials on the blog, more <a href="https://youtube.com/@thunderbirdproject">video guides</a>, and more content to help you get the most out of Thunderbird – with a focus on productivity. </p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How To Stay Updated</h3>
<p>Thank you for being on this journey with us! If you want to get more involved and stay in touch, here are the best places to keep up with what’s happening at Thunderbird:</p>
<ul>
<li>We will be more active right here on this blog, so come back once or twice per month to see what’s new.</li>
<li>If you enjoy the technical bits, want to help test Thunderbird, or you’re part of our contributor community, these <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com">mailing lists at Topicbox</a> are ideal. </li>
<li>Follow us on <a href="https://mastodon.online/@thunderbird">Mastodon</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/mozthunderbird">X/Twitter</a> for more frequent – and fun – updates!</li>
<li>Join our <a href="https://matrix.to/#/#thunderbird:mozilla.org">Thunderbird Community Support</a> room on Matrix if you need some help.</li>
</ul>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/02/thunderbird-in-2023-the-milestones-and-the-lessons-we-learned/">Thunderbird In 2023: The Milestones and The Lessons We Learned</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-02-12T16:38:54+00:00Jason EvangelhoMozilla L10N: A Deep Dive Into the Evolution of Pretranslation in Pontoon
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2024/02/07/a-deep-dive-into-the-evolution-of-pretranslation-in-pontoon/
<p>Quite often, an imperfect translation is better than no translation. So why even publish untranslated content when high-quality machine translation systems are fast and affordable? Why not immediately machine-translate content and progressively ship enhancements as they are submitted by human translators?</p>
<p>At Mozilla, we call this process <i>pretranslation</i>. We began implementing it in Pontoon before COVID-19 hit, thanks to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalol/">Vishal</a> who landed the first patches. Then we caught some headwinds and didn’t make much progress until 2022 after receiving a significant development boost and finally launched it for the general audience in September 2023.</p>
<p>So far, 20 of our localization teams (locales) have opted to use pretranslation across 15 different localization projects. Over 20,000 pretranslations have been submitted and none of the teams have opted out of using it. These efforts have resulted in a higher translation completion rate, which was one of our main goals.</p>
<p>In this article, we’ll take a look at how we developed pretranslation in Pontoon. Let’s start by exploring how it actually works.</p>
<h3>How does pretranslation work?</h3>
<p>Pretranslation is enabled upon a team’s request (it’s off by default). When a new string is added to a project, it gets automatically pretranslated using a 100% match from translation memory (TM), which also includes translations of glossary entries. If a perfect match doesn’t exist, a locale-specific machine translation (MT) engine is used, trained on the locale’s translation memory.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1656" style="width: 2052px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-01-31-at-20.35.08.png"><img alt="Pretranslation opt-in form" class="wp-image-1656 size-full" height="2266" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-01-31-at-20.35.08.png" width="2042" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1656"><i>Pretranslation </i><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/sl/"><i>opt-in form</i></a><i>.</i></p></div>
<p>After pretranslations are retrieved and saved in Pontoon, they get synced to our primary localization storage (usually a GitHub repository) and hence immediately made available for shipping. Unless they fail our quality checks. In that case, they don’t propagate to repositories until errors or warnings are fixed during the review process.</p>
<p>Until reviewed, pretranslations are visually distinguishable from user-submitted suggestions and translations. This makes post-editing much easier and more efficient. Another key factor that influences pretranslation review time is, of course, the quality of pretranslations. So let’s see how we picked our machine translation provider.</p>
<h3>Choosing a machine translation engine</h3>
<p>We selected the machine translation provider based on two primary factors: quality of translations and the number of supported locales. To make translations match the required terminology and style as much as possible, we were also looking for the ability to fine-tune the MT engine by training it on our translation data.</p>
<p>In March 2022, we compared Bergamot, Google’s Cloud Translation API (generic), and Google’s AutoML Translation (with custom models). Using these services we translated a collection of 1,000 strings into 5 locales (it, de, es-ES, ru, pt-BR), and used automated scores (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLEU">BLEU</a>, <a href="https://github.com/m-popovic/chrF">chrF++</a>) as well as manual evaluation to compare them with the actual translations.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1658" style="width: 1788px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/performance.png"><img alt="Performance of tested MT engines for Italian (it)." class="wp-image-1658 size-full" height="1056" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/performance.png" width="1778" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1658"><i>Performance of tested MT engines for Italian (it).</i></p></div>
<p>Google’s AutoML Translation outperformed the other two candidates in virtually all tested scenarios and metrics, so it became the clear choice. It supports over 60 locales. Google’s Generic Translation API supports twice as many, but we currently don’t plan to use it for pretranslation in locales not supported by Google’s AutoML Translation.</p>
<h3>Making machine translation actually work</h3>
<p>Currently, around 50% of pretranslations generated by Google’s AutoML Translation get approved without any changes. For some locales, the rate is around 70%. Keep in mind however that machine translation is only used when a perfect translation memory match isn’t available. For pretranslations coming from translation memory, the approval rate is 90%.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1657" style="width: 1970px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/Posnetek-zaslona-2024-01-31-ob-20.29.29.png"><img alt="Comparison of pretranslation approval rate between teams." class="wp-image-1657 size-full" height="910" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/Posnetek-zaslona-2024-01-31-ob-20.29.29.png" width="1960" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1657"><i>Comparison of </i><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/insights/"><i>pretranslation approval rate</i></a><i> between teams.</i></p></div>
<p>To reach that approval rate, we had to make a series of adjustments to the way we use machine translation.</p>
<p>For example, we convert multiline messages to single-line messages before machine-translating them. Otherwise, each line is treated as a separate message and the resulting translation is of poor quality.</p>
<p><i>Multiline message:</i><br />
<code></code></p>
<pre style="background: #dfdfdf; padding: 15px; border-radius: 10px;">Make this password unique and different from any others you use.
A good strategy to follow is to combine two or more unrelated
words to create an entire pass phrase, and include numbers and symbols.</pre>
<p><i>Multiline message converted to a single-line message:</i><br />
<code></code></p>
<p style="background: #dfdfdf; padding: 15px; border-radius: 10px;">Make this password unique and different from any others you use. A good strategy to follow is to combine two or more unrelated words to create an entire pass phrase, and include numbers and symbols.</p>
<p>Let’s take a closer look at two of the more time-consuming changes.</p>
<p>The first one is specific to our machine translation provider (Google’s AutoML Translation). During initial testing, we noticed it would often take a long time for the MT engine to return results, up to a minute. Sometimes it even timed out! Such a long response time not only slows down pretranslation, it also makes machine translation suggestions in the translation editor less useful – by the time they appear, the localizer has already moved to translate the next string.</p>
<p>After further testing, we began to suspect that our custom engine shuts down after a period of inactivity, thus requiring a cold start for the next request. We contacted support and our assumption was confirmed. To overcome the problem, we were advised to send a dummy query to the service every 60 seconds just to keep the system alive.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1655" style="width: 280px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/giphy.gif"><img alt="Giphy: Oh No Wow GIF by Little Princess Ember" class="wp-image-1655 size-full" height="480" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/giphy.gif" width="270" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1655">Image source: <a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/xQyL1JfcCjGu3hUm1A">Giphy</a>.</p></div>
<p>Of course, it’s reasonable to shut down inactive services to free up resources, but the way to keep them alive isn’t. We have to make (paid) requests to each locale’s machine translation engines every minute just to make sure they work when we need them. And sometimes even that doesn’t help – we still see about a dozen <i>ServiceUnavailable</i> errors every day. It would be so much easier if we could just customize the default inactivity period or pay extra for an always-on service.</p>
<p>The other issue we had to address is quite common in machine translation systems: they are not particularly good at <a href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/119256504?pli=1">preserving placeholders</a>. In particular, extra space often gets added to variables or markup elements, resulting in broken translations.</p>
<p><i>Message with variables:</i></p>
<pre style="background: #dfdfdf; padding: 15px; border-radius: 10px;">{ $partialSize } of { $totalSize }</pre>
<p><i>Message with variables machine-translated to Slovenian (adding space after $ breaks the variable):</i></p>
<pre style="background: #dfdfdf; padding: 15px; border-radius: 10px;">{$ partialSize} od {$ totalSize}</pre>
<p>We tried to mitigate this issue by wrapping placeholders in <span translate=”no”>…</span>, which tells Google’s AutoML Translation to <a href="https://cloud.google.com/translate/troubleshooting">not translate the wrapped text</a>. This approach requires the source text to be submitted as HTML (rather than plain text), which triggers a whole new set of issues — from adding spaces in other places to escaping quotes — and we couldn’t circumvent those either. So this was a dead-end.</p>
<p>The solution was to store every placeholder in the <a href="https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/advanced/glossary">Glossary</a> with the same value for both source string and translation. That approach worked much better and we still use it today. It’s not perfect, though, so we only use it to pretranslate strings for which the default (non-glossary) machine translation output fails our placeholder quality checks.</p>
<h3>Making pretranslation work with Fluent messages</h3>
<p>On top of the machine translation service improvements we also had to account for the complexity of Fluent messages, which are used by most of the projects we localize at Mozilla. <a href="https://projectfluent.org/">Fluent</a> is capable of expressing virtually any imaginable message, which means it is the localization system you want to use if you want your software translations to sound natural.</p>
<p>As a consequence, Fluent message format comes with a syntax that allows for expressing such complex messages. And since machine translation systems (as seen above) already have trouble with simple variables and markup elements, their struggles multiply with messages like this:<br />
<code></code></p>
<pre style="background: #dfdfdf; padding: 15px; border-radius: 10px;">shared-photos =
{ $photoCount ->
[one]
{ $userGender ->
[male] { $userName } added a new photo to his stream.
[female] { $userName } added a new photo to her stream.
*[other] { $userName } added a new photo to their stream.
}
*[other]
{ $userGender ->
[male] { $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to his stream.
[female] { $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to her stream.
*[other] { $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to their stream.
}
}</pre>
<p>That means Fluent messages need to be pre-processed before they are sent to the pretranslation systems. Only relevant parts of the message need to be pretranslated, while syntax elements need to remain untouched. In the example above, we extract the following message parts, pretranslate them, and replace them with pretranslations in the original message:</p>
<ul>
<li><i>{ $userName } added a new photo to his stream.</i></li>
<li><i>{ $userName } added a new photo to her stream.</i></li>
<li><i>{ $userName } added a new photo to their stream.</i></li>
<li><i>{ $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to his stream.</i></li>
<li><i>{ $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to her stream.</i></li>
<li><i>{ $userName } added { $photoCount } new photos to their stream.</i></li>
</ul>
<p>To be more accurate, this is what happens for languages like German, which uses the same <a href="https://cldr.unicode.org/index/cldr-spec/plural-rules">CLDR plural forms</a> as English. For locales without plurals, like Chinese, we drop plural forms completely and only pretranslate the remaining three parts. If the target language is Slovenian, two additional plural forms need to be added (two, few), which in this example results in a total of 12 messages needing pretranslation (four plural forms, with three gender forms each).</p>
<p>Finally, Pontoon translation editor uses <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/sl/firefox/all-resources/?string=192297">custom UI for translating access keys</a>. That means it’s capable of detecting which part of the message is an access key and which is a label the access key belongs to. The access key should ideally be one of the characters included in the label, so the editor generates a list of candidates that translators can choose from. In pretranslation, the first candidate is directly used as an access key, so no TM or MT is involved.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1654" style="width: 526px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/inter-keyboard-image3.png"><img alt="A screenshot of Notepad showing access keys in the menu." class="wp-image-1654 size-full" height="319" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/inter-keyboard-image3.png" width="516" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1654"><i>Access keys (not to be confused with shortcut keys) are used for accessibility to interact with all controls or menu items using the keyboard. Windows indicates access keys by underlining the access key assignment when the Alt key is pressed. Source: </i><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/inter-keyboard"><i>Microsoft Learn</i></a><i>.</i></p></div>
<h3>Looking ahead</h3>
<p>With every enhancement we shipped, the case for publishing untranslated text instead of pretranslations became weaker and weaker. And there’s still room for improvements in our pretranslation system.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayanaa-rahman/">Ayanaa</a> has done extensive research on the impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) on translation efficiency. She’s now working on integrating LLM-assisted translations into Pontoon’s Machinery panel, from which localizers will be able to request alternative translations, including formal and informal options.</p>
<p>If the target locale could set the tone to formal or informal on the project level, we could benefit from this capability in pretranslation as well. We might also improve the quality of machine translation suggestions by providing existing translations into other locales as references in addition to the source string.</p>
<p>If you are interested in using pretranslation or already use it, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Please leave a comment, reach out to us on <a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#pontoon:mozilla.org">Matrix</a>, or <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues">file an issue</a>.</p>2024-02-07T10:55:23+00:00Matjaž HorvatMozilla L10N: L10n Report: February 2024 Edition
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2024/02/02/l10n-report-february-2024-edition/
<p><i>Please note some of the information provided in this report may be subject to change as we are sometimes sharing information about projects that are still in early stages and are not final yet. </i></p>
<h3>New content and projects</h3>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in Firefox desktop</h4>
<p>While the amount of content has been relatively small over the last few months in Firefox, there have been some UI changes and updates to privacy setting related text such as form autofill, Cookie Banner Blocker, passwords (about:logins), and cookie and site data*. One change happening here (and across all Mozilla products) is the move away from using the term “login” to describe the credentials for accessing websites and instead use “password(s).”</p>
<p>In addition, while the number of strings is low, Firefox’s PDF viewer will soon have the ability to highlight content. You can test this feature now in Nightly.</p>
<p>Most of these strings and translations can be previewed by checking a Nightly build. If you’re new to localizing Firefox or if you missed our deep dive, please check out our <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/07/27/l10n-report-july-2023-edition/#firefox-schedule">blog post from July</a> to learn more about the Firefox release schedule.</p>
<p>*Recently in our <a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">L10N community matrix channel</a>, someone from our community asked how the new strings for clearing browsing history and data (see screenshot below) from Cookie and Site Data could be shown in Nightly.</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/unnamed.png"><img alt="Pontoon screenshot showing the strings for clearing browsing history and data from Cookie and Site Data." class="aligncenter wp-image-1648 size-large" height="560" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/02/unnamed-600x560.png" width="600" /></a>In order to show the strings in Nightly, the privacy.sanitize.useOldClearHistoryDialog preference needs to be set to false. To set the preference, type about:config in your URL bar and press enter. A warning may pop up warning you to proceed with caution, click the button to continue. On the page that follows, paste privacy.sanitize.useOldClearHistoryDialog into the search field, then click the toggle button to change the value to false.</p>
<p>You can then trigger the new dialog by clicking “Clear Data…” from the Cookies and Site Data setting or “Clear History…” from the History. (You may need to quit Firefox and open it again for the change to take effect.).</p>
<p>In case of doubts about managing about:config, you can consult the <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/about-config-editor-firefox">Configuration Editor guide on SUMO</a>.</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in mobile</h4>
<p>Much like desktop, mobile land has been pretty calm recently.</p>
<p>Having said that, we would like to call out the new Translation feature that is now available to test on the latest Firefox for Android v124 Nightly builds (this is possible only through the secret settings at the moment). It’s a built-in full page translation feature that allows you to seamlessly browse the web in your preferred language. As you navigate the site, Firefox continuously translates new content.</p>
<p>Check your Pontoon notifications for instructions on how to test it out. Note that the feature is not available on iOS at the moment.</p>
<p>In the past couple of months you may have also noticed strings mentioning a new shopping feature called “Review Checker” (that we mentioned for desktop in our November <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/11/03/l10n-report-november-2023-edition/">edition</a>). The feature is still a bit tricky to test on Android, but there are instructions you can follow – these can also be found in your Pontoon notification archive.</p>
<p>For testing on iOS, you just need to have the latest <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ios/testflight/">Beta version</a> installed and navigate to the product pages on the US sites of<a href="http://amazon.com"> amazon.com</a>,<a href="http://bestbuy.com"> bestbuy.com</a>, and<a href="http://walmart.com"> walmart.com</a>. A logo in the URL bar will appear with a notification, to launch and test the feature.</p>
<p>Finally, another notable change that has been called out under the Firefox desktop section above: we are moving away from using the term “login” to describe the credentials for accessing websites and instead use “password(s).”</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in Foundation projects</h4>
<p>New languages have been added to Common Voice in 2023: Tibetan, Chichewa, Ossetian, Emakhuwa, Laz, Pular Guinée, Sindhi. Welcome!</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in Pontoon</h4>
<h5>Improved support for mobile devices</h5>
<p>Pontoon translation workspace is now responsive, which means you can finally use Pontoon on your mobile device to translate and review strings! We developed a single-column layout for mobile phones and 2-column layout for tablets.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1637" style="width: 262px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/android.png"><img alt="Screenshot of Pontoon UI on a smartphone running Firefox for Android" class="wp-image-1637 size-medium" height="560" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/android-252x560.png" width="252" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1637">Screenshot of Pontoon UI on a smartphone running Firefox for Android</p></div>
<h5>2024 Pontoon survey</h5>
<p>Thanks again to everyone who has participated in the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/12/20/2024-pontoon-survey-results/">2024 Pontoon survey</a>. The 3 top-voted features we commit to implement are:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3031">Add ability to edit Translation Memory entries</a> (611 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3032">Improve performance of Pontoon translation workspace and dashboards</a> (603 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2310">Add ability to propose new Terminology entries</a> (595 votes).</li>
</ol>
<h3>Friends of the Lion <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2022/10/2-Lions-01-600x553-1.png"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-1585 alignright" height="232" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2022/10/2-Lions-01-600x553-1-252x232.png" width="252" /></a></h3>
<p>We started a series called “Localizer Spotlight” and have published <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/08/31/localizer-spotlight-victor-ibragimov-tajik-locale/">two</a> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/09/29/localizer-spotlight-meet-reza-persian-locale/">already</a>. Do you know someone who should be featured there? Let us know <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOr7tvM7ygIQwP0lrPh8XUeMb0GtDIPWJL-mOoK7z8uHbbgA/viewform?usp=sf_link">here</a>!</p>
<p>Also, do someone in your l10n community who’s been doing a great job and should appear in this section? <a href="mailto:l10n-drivers@mozilla.org">Contact us</a> and we’ll make sure they get a shout-out!</p>
<h3>Useful Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">#l10n-community channel on Element (chat.mozilla.org)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/l10n/547">Localization category on Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/mozilla_l10n">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/">L10n blog</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Questions? Want to get involved?</h3>
<p>If you want to get involved, or have any question about l10n, reach out to:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/mZuzEFP7EcmgBBTbvtgJP2LFFTY/">Francesco Lodolo (flod)</a> – Engineering Manager</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/CMLZ_n1lNNSfQScLGE2yBmlS55w/">Bryan</a> – l10n Project Manager</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/3LPn77ppB_IQ9F6ruL5lw2IVrvQ/">Delphine</a> – l10n Project Manager for mobile</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/jIdunhnZ8Edgi9npILuSoFvf5ZY/">Peiying (CocoMo)</a> – l10n Project Manager for mozilla.org, marketing, and legal</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/m6r3HOfoijMdyeJNKKFHchjjRbw/">Francis</a> – l10n Project Manager for Common Voice, Mozilla Foundation</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/lY_FTvtnYcVoDP7JYZjMsm6tRno/">Théo Chevalier</a> – l10n Project Manager for Mozilla Foundation</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/dvgiVCmoeidF2xcqSnBHtpzLTFU/">Matjaž (mathjazz)</a> – Pontoon dev</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/pmz0uSCe_Mk9Td1cksHLI1y471k/">Eemeli</a> – Pontoon, Fluent dev</li>
</ul>
<p>Did you enjoy reading this report? <a href="mailto:l10n-drivers@mozilla.org">Let us know</a> how we can improve it.</p>2024-02-02T08:07:37+00:00Matjaž Horvathacks.mozilla.org: Announcing Interop 2024
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/02/announcing-interop-2024/
<p>The <a href="https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop#the-interop-project">Interop Project</a> has become one of the key ways that browser vendors come together to improve the web platform. By working to identify and improve key areas where differences between browser engines are impacting users and web developers, Interop is a critical tool in ensuring the long-term health of the open web.</p>
<p>The web platform is built on interoperability based on common standards. This offers users a degree of choice and control that sets the web apart from proprietary platforms defined by a single implementation. A commitment to ensuring that the web remains open and interoperable forms a fundamental part of Mozilla’s <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/">manifesto</a> and <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/webvision/">web vision</a>, and is why we’re so committed to shipping Firefox with our own <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)">Gecko</a> engine.</p>
<p>However interoperability requires care and attention to maintain. When implementations ship with differences between the standard and each other, this creates a <a href="https://2023.stateofcss.com/en-US/usage/#css_pain_points">pain point</a> for web authors; they have to choose between avoiding the problematic feature entirely and coding to specific implementation quirks. Over time if enough authors produce implementation-specific content then interoperability is lost, and along with it user agency.</p>
<p>This is the problem that the Interop Project is designed to address. By bringing browser vendors together to focus on interoperability, the project allows identifying areas where interoperability issues are causing problems, or may do in the near future. Tracking progress on those issues with a public metric provides accountability to the broader web community on addressing the problems.</p>
<p>The project works by identifying a set of high-priority focus areas: parts of the web platform where everyone agrees that making interoperability improvements will be of high value. These can be existing features where we know browsers have slightly different behaviors that are causing problems for authors, or they can be new features which web developer feedback shows is in high demand and which we want to launch across multiple implementations with high interoperability from the start. For each focus area a set of web-platform-tests is selected to cover that area, and the score is computed from the pass rate of these tests.</p>
<h3>Interop 2023</h3>
<p>The <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/02/announcing-interop-2023/">Interop 2023</a> project covered high profile features like the new :has() selector, and web-codecs, as well as areas of historically poor interoperability such as pointer events.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-48086" height="407" src="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2024/01/Interop-2023-500x407.png" width="500" /></p>
<p>The <a href="https://wpt.fyi/interop-2023">results</a> of the project speak for themselves: every browser ended the year with scores in excess of 97% for the prerelease versions of their browsers. Moreover, the overall Interoperability score — that is the fraction of focus area tests that pass in all participating browser engines — increased from 59% at the start of the year to 95% now. This result represents a huge improvement in the consistency and reliability of the web platform. For users this will result in a more seamless experience, with sites behaving reliably in whichever browser they prefer.</p>
<p>For the :has() selector — which we know from author feedback has been one of the most in-demand CSS features for a long time — every implementation is <a href="https://wpt.fyi/results/css/selectors?label=experimental&label=master&product=chrome&product=firefox&product=safari&aligned&view=interop&q=label%3Ainterop-2023-has">now passing 100%</a> of the web-platform-tests selected for the focus area. Launching a major new platform feature with this level of interoperability demonstrates the power of the Interop project to progress the platform without compromising on implementation diversity, developer experience, or user choice.</p>
<p>As well as focus areas, the Interop project also has “investigations”. These are areas where we know that we need to improve interoperability, but aren’t at the stage of having specific tests which can be used to measure that improvement. In 2023 we had two investigations. The first was for accessibility, which covered writing many more tests for ARIA <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Roles">computed role</a> and <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Accessible_name">accessible name</a>, and ensuring they could be run in different browsers. The second was for mobile testing, which has resulted in both Mobile Firefox and Chrome for Android having their initial <a href="https://wpt.fyi/runs?label=master&from=2024-01-10T00%3A00&product=firefox_android&product=chrome_android">results in wpt.fyi</a>.</p>
<h3>Interop 2024</h3>
<p>Following the success of Interop 2023, we are pleased to confirm that the project will continue in 2024 with a new selection of focus areas, representing areas of the web platform where we think we can have the biggest positive impact on users and web developers.</p>
<h4>New Focus Areas</h4>
<p>New focus areas for 2024 include, among other things:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Popover_API">Popover API</a> – This provides a declarative mechanism to create content that always renders in the topmost-layer, so that it overlays other web page content. This can be useful for building features like tooltips and notifications. Support for popover was the #1 author request in the recent State of HTML survey.</li>
<li><a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_nesting">CSS Nesting</a> – This is a feature that’s already shipping, which allows writing more compact and readable CSS files, without the need for external tooling such as preprocessors. However different browsers shipped slightly different behavior based on different revisions of the spec, and Interop will help ensure that everyone aligns on a single, reliable, syntax for this popular feature.</li>
<li>Accessibility – Ensuring that the web is accessible to all users is a critical part of <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/">Mozilla’s manifesto</a>. Our ability to include Accessibility testing in Interop 2024 is a direct result of the success of the Interop 2023 Accessibility Investigation in increasing the test coverage of key accessibility features.</li>
</ul>
<p>The full list of focus areas is available in the <a href="https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop/blob/main/2024/README.md">project README</a>.</p>
<h4>Carryover</h4>
<p>In addition to the new focus areas, we will carry over some of the 2023 focus areas where there’s still more work to be done. Of particular interest is the Layout focus area, which will combine the previous <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layout/Flexbox">Flexbox</a>, <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/grid">Grid</a> and <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_grid_layout/Subgrid">Subgrid</a> focus area into one area covering all the most important layout primitives for the modern web. On top of that the Custom Properties, URL and Mouse and Pointer Events focus areas will be carried over. These represent cases where, even though we’ve already seen large improvements in Interoperability, we believe that users and web authors will benefit from even greater convergence between implementations.</p>
<h4>Investigations</h4>
<p>As well as focus areas, Interop 2024 will also feature a new investigation into improving the integration of WebAssembly testing into web-platform-tests. This will open up the possibility of including WASM features in future Interop projects. In addition we will extend the Accessibility and Mobile Testing investigations, as there is more work to be done to make those aspects of the platform fully testable across different implementations.</p>
<h3>Partner Announcements</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Apple</strong>: <a href="https://webkit.org/blog/14955/the-web-just-gets-better-with-interop/">The web just gets better with Interop, now for 2024</a></li>
<li><strong>Bocoup</strong>: <a href="https://bocoup.com/blog/interop-2024">Interop 2024</a></li>
<li><strong>Google</strong>: <a href="https://web.dev/blog/interop-2024">Interop 2024</a></li>
<li><strong>Igalia</strong>: <a href="https://www.igalia.com/2024/interop-2024-launches.html">Interop 2024 Launches</a></li>
<li><strong>Microsoft</strong>: <a href="https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2024/02/01/microsoft-edge-and-interop-2024/">Microsoft Edge and Interop 2024</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/02/announcing-interop-2024/">Announcing Interop 2024</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2024-02-01T17:05:30+00:00James GrahamThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: January 2024
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/thunderbird-monthly-development-digest-january-2024/
<p><img alt="Stylized Thunderbird icon with a code prompt in its center, against a purple background." class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/Developer-banner.png" width="640" /></p>
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<p id="defanged2-docs-internal-guid-143fabb5-7fff-ee66-6ae0-7abd9defdc45">Hello Thunderbird Community! I’m very happy to kick off a new monthly Thunderbird development recap in order to bring a deeper look and understanding of what we’re working on, and the status of these efforts. (We also publish monthly progress reports on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/category/thunderbird-mobile/">Thunderbird for Android</a>.)</p>
<p>These monthly digests will be in a very short format, focusing primarily on the work that is currently being planned or initiated that is not yet fully captured in BugZilla. Nonetheless, we’re putting it out there to cherish and fully embrace the open nature of Thunderbird. </p>
<p>Without further ado, let’s get into it!</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>2024 Thunderbird Development Roadmaps</strong> <strong>Published</strong></h3>
<p>Over at DTN, we’ve published initial 2024 roadmaps for the work we have planned on <a href="https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap">Thunderbird for desktop</a>, and <a href="https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/android-roadmap">Thunderbird for Android</a>. These will be updated periodically as we continue to scope out each project. </p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Global Message Database</strong></h3>
<p>Our database is currently based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_(file_format)" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Mork</a>, which is a very old paradigm that creates a lot of limitations, blocking us from doing anything remotely modern or expected (a real threaded conversation view is a classic example). Removing and reworking this implementation, which is at the very core of every message and folder interaction, is not an easy lift and requires a lot of careful planning and exploration, but the work is underway.</p>
<p>You can follow the general effort in <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1572000" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bug 1572000</a>.</p>
<p>The first clean up effort is targeted at removing the old and bad paradigm of the <em>“non-unique unique ID”</em> (kudos to our very own Ben Campbell for coining this term), which causes all sorts of problems. You can follow the work in <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1806770" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bug 1806770</a>.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Cards view final sprint</strong></h3>
<p>If you’re using Daily or Beta you might have already seen a lot of drastic differences from 115 for Cards View.</p>
<p>Currently, we’re shaping up the final sprint to polish what we’ve implemented and add extra needed features. We’re in the process of opening all the needed bugs and assigning resources for this final sprint. You can follow the progress by tracking <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1861062" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">this meta bug</a> and all its child bugs.</p>
<p>As usual, we will continue sharing plans and mock-ups in the <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/ux" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">UX mailing list</a>, so make sure to follow that if you’re interested in seeing early visual prototypes before any code is touched.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Rust Implementation and Exchange</strong> <strong>Support</strong></h3>
<p>This is a very large topic and exploration that requires dedicated posts (which are coming) and extensive recaps. The short story is that we were able to enable the usage of <strong>Rust </strong>in Thunderbird, therefore opening the doors for us to start implementing native support for the <strong>Exchange </strong>protocol by building and vendoring a Rust crate.</p>
<p>Once we have a stable and safe implementation, we will share that crate publicly on a <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">GitHub repo</a> so everyone will be able to vendor it and improve it.</p>
<p>Make sure to follow <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/planning" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">tb-planning</a> and <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/developers" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">tb-developers</a> mailing lists to soon get more detailed and very in depth info on Rust and Exchange in Thunderbird.</p>
<p>As usual, if you want to see things as they land you can always check the <a href="https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/pushloghtml" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">pushlog </a>and try running dail<a href="https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/2024" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">y</a>, which would be immensely helpful for catching bugs early.</p>
<p><strong>Alessandro Castellani</strong> <em>(he, him)</em><br />Director of Product Engineering</p>
<figure class="wp-block-pullquote" style="border-width: 2px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400;"><blockquote><p>If you’re interested in joining the discussion around Thunderbird development, consider joining one or several of our <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com">mailing list groups here</a>. </p></blockquote></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/thunderbird-monthly-development-digest-january-2024/">Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: January 2024</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-01-30T04:33:52+00:00Alessandro Castellanihacks.mozilla.org: Option Soup: the subtle pitfalls of combining compiler flags
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/01/option-soup-the-subtle-pitfalls-of-combining-compiler-flags/
<p><i>Firefox development uncovers many cross-platform differences and unique features of its combination of dependencies. Engineers working on Firefox regularly overcome these challenges and while we can’t detail all of them, we think you’ll enjoy hearing about some so here’s a sample of a recent technical investigation.</i></p>
<p>During the Firefox 120 beta cycle, <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1861365">a new crash signature appeared on our radars with significant volume</a>.</p>
<p>At that time, the distribution across operating systems revealed that more than 50% of the crash volume originates from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS users.</p>
<p>The main process crashes in a <code>CanvasRenderer</code> thread, with the following call stack:</p>
<pre>0 firefox std::locale::operator=
1 firefox std::ios_base::imbue
2 firefox std::basic_ios<char, std::char_traits<char> >::imbue
3 libxul.so sh::InitializeStream<std::__cxx11::basic_ostringstream<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > > /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/gfx/angle/checkout/src/compiler/translator/Common.h:238
3 libxul.so sh::TCompiler::setResourceString /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/gfx/angle/checkout/src/compiler/translator/Compiler.cpp:1294
4 libxul.so sh::TCompiler::Init /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/gfx/angle/checkout/src/compiler/translator/Compiler.cpp:407
5 libxul.so sh::ConstructCompiler /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/gfx/angle/checkout/src/compiler/translator/ShaderLang.cpp:368
6 libxul.so mozilla::webgl::ShaderValidator::Create /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/dom/canvas/WebGLShaderValidator.cpp:215
6 libxul.so mozilla::WebGLContext::CreateShaderValidator const /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/dom/canvas/WebGLShaderValidator.cpp:196
7 libxul.so mozilla::WebGLShader::CompileShader /build/firefox-ZwAdKm/firefox-120.0~b2+build1/dom/canvas/WebGLShader.cpp:98</pre>
<p>At first glance, we want to blame WebGL. The C++ standard library functions cannot be at fault, right?</p>
<p>But when looking at the WebGL code, the crash occurs in the perfectly valid lines of C++ summarized below:</p>
<pre>std::ostringstream stream;
stream.imbue(std::locale::classic());</pre>
<p>This code should never crash, and yet it does. In fact, taking a closer look at the stack gives a first lead for investigation:<br />
Although we crash into functions that belong to the C++ standard library, these functions appear to live in the firefox binary.</p>
<p>This is an unusual situation that never occurs with official builds of Firefox.<br />
It is however very common for distribution to change the configuration settings and apply downstream patches to an upstream source, no worries about that.<br />
Moreover, there is only a single build of Firefox Beta that is causing this crash.</p>
<p>We know this thanks to a unique identifier associated with any ELF binary.<br />
Here, if we choose any specific version of Firefox 120 Beta (such as 120b9), the crashes all embed the same unique identifier for firefox.</p>
<p>Now, how can we guess what build produces this weird binary?</p>
<p>A useful user comment mentions that they regularly experience this crash since updating to <var>120.0~b2+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1</var>.<br />
And by looking for this build identifier, we quickly reach <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/firefox-next">the Firefox Beta PPA</a>.<br />
Then indeed, we are able to reproduce the crash by installing it in a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS virtual machine: it occurs when loading any WebGL page!<br />
With the binary now at hand, running <code>nm -D ./firefox</code> confirms the presence of several symbols related to libstdc++ that live in the text section (<code>T</code> marker).</p>
<p>Templated and inline symbols from libstdc++ usually appear as weak (<code>W</code> marker), so there is only one explanation for this situation: firefox has been statically linked with libstdc++, probably through <code>-static-libstdc++</code>.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the build logs are available for all Ubuntu packages.<br />
After some digging, we find <a href="https://launchpadlibrarian.net/697121043/buildlog_ubuntu-bionic-amd64.firefox_120.0~b9+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_BUILDING.txt.gz">the logs for the 120b9 build</a>, which indeed contain references to <code>-static-libstdc++</code>.</p>
<p>But why?</p>
<p>Again, everything is well documented, and thanks to well trained digging skills we reach <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1856861">a bug report</a> that provides interesting insights.<br />
Firefox requires a modern C++ compiler, and hence a modern libstdc++, which is unavailable on old systems like Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.<br />
The build uses <code>-static-libstdc++</code> to close this gap.<br />
This just explains the weird setup though.</p>
<p>What about the crash?</p>
<p>Since we can now reproduce it, we can launch Firefox in a debugger and continue our investigation.<br />
When inspecting the crash site, we seem to crash because <code>std::locale::classic()</code> is not properly initialized.<br />
Let’s take a peek at the implementation.</p>
<pre>const locale& locale::classic()
{
_S_initialize();
return *(const locale*)c_locale;
}</pre>
<p><code>_S_initialize()</code> is in charge of making sure that <code>c_locale</code> will be properly initialized before we return a reference to it.<br />
To achieve this, <code>_S_initialize()</code> calls another function, <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>.</p>
<pre>void locale::_S_initialize()
{
#ifdef __GTHREADS
if (!__gnu_cxx::__is_single_threaded())
__gthread_once(&_S_once, _S_initialize_once);
#endif
if (__builtin_expect(!_S_classic, 0))
_S_initialize_once();
}</pre>
<p>In <code>_S_initialize()</code>, we first go through a wrapper for <code>pthread_once()</code>: the first thread that reaches this code consumes <code>_S_once</code> and calls <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>, whereas other threads (if any) are stuck waiting for <code>_S_initialize_once()</code> to complete.</p>
<p>This looks rather fail-proof, right?</p>
<p>There is even an extra direct call to <code>_S_initialize_once()</code> if <code>_S_classic</code> is still uninitialized after that.<br />
Now, <code>_S_initialize_once()</code> itself is rather straightforward: it allocates <code>_S_classic</code> and puts it within <code>c_locale</code>.</p>
<pre>void
locale::_S_initialize_once() throw()
{
// Need to check this because we could get called once from _S_initialize()
// when the program is single-threaded, and then again (via __gthread_once)
// when it's multi-threaded.
if (_S_classic)
return;
// 2 references.
// One reference for _S_classic, one for _S_global
_S_classic = new (&c_locale_impl) _Impl(2);
_S_global = _S_classic;
new (&c_locale) locale(_S_classic);
}</pre>
<p>The crash looks as if we never went through <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>, so let’s put a breakpoint there and see what happens.<br />
And just by doing this, we already notice something suspicious.<br />
We do reach <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>, but not within the firefox binary: instead, we only ever reach the version exported by liblgpllibs.so.<br />
In fact, liblgpllibs.so is also statically linked with libstdc++, such that firefox and liblgpllibs.so both embed and export their own <code>_S_initialize_once()</code> function.</p>
<p>By default, <i>symbol interposition</i> applies, and <code>_S_initialize_once()</code> should always be called through the procedure linkage table (PLT), so that every module ends up calling the same version of the function.<br />
If symbol interposition were happening here, we would expect that liblgpllibs.so would reach the version of _S_initialize_once() exported by firefox rather than its own, because firefox was loaded first.</p>
<p>So maybe there is no symbol interposition.</p>
<p>This can occur when using <code>-fno-semantic-interposition</code>.</p>
<p>Each version of the standard library would live on its own, independent from the other versions.<br />
But neither the Firefox build system nor the Ubuntu maintainer seem to pass this flag to the compiler.<br />
However, by looking at the disassembly for <code>_S_initialize()</code> and <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>, we can see that the exported global variables (<code>_S_once</code>, <code>_S_classic</code>, <code>_S_global</code>) <b>are</b> subject to symbol interposition:</p>
<p>These accesses all go through the global offset table (GOT), so that every module ends up accessing the same version of the variable.<br />
This seems strange given what we said earlier about <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>.<br />
Non-exported global variables (<code>c_locale</code>, <code>c_locale_impl</code>), however, are accessed directly without symbol interposition, as expected.</p>
<p>We now have enough information to explain the crash.</p>
<p>When we reach <code>_S_initialize()</code> in liblgpllibs.so, we actually consume the <code>_S_once</code> that lives in firefox, and initialize the <code>_S_classic</code> and <code>_S_global</code> that live in firefox.<br />
But we initialize them with pointers to well initialized variables <code>c_locale_impl</code> and <code>c_locale</code> that live in liblgpllibs.so!<br />
The variables <code>c_locale_impl</code> and <code>c_locale</code> that live in firefox, however, remain uninitialized.</p>
<p>So if we later reach <code>_S_initialize()</code> in firefox, everything looks as if initialization has happened.<br />
But then we return a reference to the version of <code>c_locale</code> that lives in firefox, and this version has never been initialized.</p>
<p>Boom!</p>
<p>Now the main question is: why do we see interposition occur for <code>_S_once</code> but not for <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>?<br />
If we step back for a minute, there is a fundamental distinction between these symbols: one is a function symbol, the other is a variable symbol.<br />
And indeed, the Firefox build system uses the <code>-Bsymbolic-function</code> flag!</p>
<p>The ld man page describes it as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>-Bsymbolic-functions
When creating a shared library, bind references to global function symbols to the definition within the shared library, if any. This option is only meaningful on ELF platforms which support shared libraries.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>As opposed to:</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>-Bsymbolic
When creating a shared library, bind references to global symbols to the definition within the shared library, if any. Normally, it is possible for a program linked against a shared library to override the definition within the shared library. This option is only meaningful on ELF platforms which support shared libraries.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Nailed it!</p>
<p>The crash occurs because this flag makes us use a weird variant of symbol interposition, where symbol interposition happens for variable symbols like <code>_S_once</code> and <code>_S_classic</code> but not for function symbols like <code>_S_initialize_once()</code>.</p>
<p>This results in a mismatch regarding how we access global variables: exported global variables are unique thanks to interposition, whereas every non-interposed function will access its own version of any non-exported global variable.</p>
<p>With all the knowledge that we have now gathered, it is easy to write a reproducer that does not involve any Firefox code:</p>
<pre>/* main.cc */
#include <iostream>
extern void pain();
int main() {
pain();
std::cout << "[main] " << std::locale::classic().name() <<"\n";
return 0;
}
/* pain.cc */
#include <iostream>
void pain() {
std::cout << "[pain] " << std::locale::classic().name() <<"\n";
}
# Makefile
all:
$(CXX) pain.cc -fPIC -shared -o libpain.so -static-libstdc++ -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions
$(CXX) main.cc -fPIC -c -o main.o
$(CC) main.o -fPIC -o main /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-redhat-linux/13/libstdc++.a -L. -Wl,-rpath=. -lpain -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions
./main
clean:
$(RM) libpain.so main
</pre>
<p>Understanding the bug is one step, and solving it is yet another story.<br />
Should it be considered a libstdc++ bug that the code for locales is not compatible with <code>-static-stdlibc++ -Bsymbolic-functions</code>?</p>
<p>It feels like combining these flags is a very nice way to dig our own grave, and <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=112551">that seems to be the opinion of the libstdc++ maintainers indeed</a>.</p>
<p>Overall, perhaps the strangest part of this story is that this combination did not cause any trouble up until now.<br />
Therefore, we suggested to the maintainer of the package to stop using <code>-static-libstdc++</code>.</p>
<p>There are other ways to use a different libstdc++ than available on the system, such as using dynamic linking and setting an <code>RPATH</code> to link with a bundled version.</p>
<p><a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1861365#c11">Doing that</a> allowed them to successfully deploy a fixed version of the package.<br />
A few days after that, with the official release of Firefox 120, we noticed a very significant bump in volume for the same crash signature. Not again!</p>
<p>This time the volume was coming exclusively from users of NixOS 23.05, and it was huge!</p>
<p>After we shared the conclusions from our beta investigation with them, the maintainers of NixOS were able to <a href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/269571#issuecomment-1825836670">quickly associate</a> the crash with <a href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/192459">an issue that had not yet been backported </a>for 23.05 and was causing the compiler to behave like <code>-static-libstdc++</code>.</p>
<p>To avoid such mess in the future, <a href="https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/rMOZILLACENTRAL0930954b46bbc315ffcb92658bde0efc2945b04b">we added detection for this particular setup in Firefox’s configure</a>.</p>
<p>We are grateful to the people who have helped fix this issue, in particular:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz) who quickly fixed the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS package, and Amin Bandali (bandali) who provided help on the way;</li>
<li>Martin Weinelt (hexa) and Artturin for their prompt fixes for the NixOS 23.05 package;</li>
<li>Nicolas B. Pierron (nbp) for helping us get started with NixOS, which allowed us to quickly share useful information with the NixOS package maintainers.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/01/option-soup-the-subtle-pitfalls-of-combining-compiler-flags/">Option Soup: the subtle pitfalls of combining compiler flags</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2024-01-29T18:18:33+00:00Serge GueltonThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: January 2024 Community Office Hours: Context Menu Updates
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/january-2024-thunderbird-community-office-hours-how-to-join-us/
<p><img alt="The blue Thunderbird is circled around a heart created by clasped hands, in the featured image for the Thunderbird Community Office Hours blog post." class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="320" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/Community-Default.png" width="640" /></p>
<p><strong>UPDATE: Our January Office Hours was fantastic! Here’s the full video replay.</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
</div></figure>
<h3>A New Year of New Office Hours</h3>
<p>We’re back from our end of year break, breaking in our new calendars, and ready to start 2024 with our renewed, refreshed, and refocused community office hours. Thank you to everyone who joined us for our November session! If you missed out on our chat about the new Cards View and the Thunderbird design process, you can find the video (which also describes the new format) in this <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/upcoming-thunderbird-community-office-hours/">blog post</a>. </p>
<p>We’re excited for another year of bringing you expert insights from the Thunderbird Team and our broader community. To kick off 2024, and to build on November’s excellent discussion, we’ll be continuing our dive into another important aspect of the Thunderbird design process.</p>
<h3>January Office Hours Topic: Message Context Menu</h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/tb-context-menu-design-plan.png"><img alt="The image shows a mock-up of a nested Thunderbird context menu, with the Organize menu option opening to a menu that lists, from top to bottom, Tag, Archive, Move To, Copy To, Convert To. Tag has been chosen in this mock up, and from top to bottom, this menu lists New Tag, Manage Tags, Remove All Tags, Important, Work, Personal, To Do, Later. The tags all have a color-coded tag icon to their left." class="wp-image-1498" height="957" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/tb-context-menu-design-plan.png" width="1183" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Mock-up: designs shown are not final and subject to change. </figcaption></figure>
<p>We’ve been working on some significant (and what we think are pretty fantastic) UI changes to Thunderbird. Besides the new Cards View, we have some exciting overhauls to the Message Context Menu (aka the right-click menu) planned. UX Engineer Elizabeth Mitchell will discuss these changes, and most importantly, <em>why </em>we’re making them. Additionally, Elizabeth is one of the leaders on making Thunderbird accessible for all! We’re excited to hear how the new Message Context Menu will make your email experience easier and more effective.</p>
<p>If you’d like a sneak peak of the Context Menu plans, you can find them <a href="https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/ux/T3d84faa372bf41a8">here</a>.</p>
<p>And as always, if you have any questions you’d like to ask during the January office hours, you can e-mail them to <a href="mailto:officehours@thunderbird.net">officehours@thunderbird.net</a>.</p>
<h3>Join Us On Zoom</h3>
<p>(Yes, we’re still on Zoom for now, but a Jitsi server for future office hours is in the works!)</p>
<p><strong>When</strong>: <strong><a href="https://time.is/1800_25_Jan_2024_in_UTC?January_25_Thunderbird_Community_Office_Hours">January 25 at 18:00 UTC</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Direct URL To Join:</strong> <a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/92739888755">https://mozilla.zoom.us/j/92739888755</a><br />Meeting ID: 92739888755<br />Password: 365021</p>
<p><strong>Dial by your location:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>+1 646 518 9805 US (New York)</li>
<li>+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)</li>
<li>+1 647 558 0588 Canada</li>
<li>+33 1 7095 0103 France</li>
<li>+49 69 7104 9922 Germany</li>
<li>+44 330 088 5830 United Kingdom</li>
<li>Find your local number:<a href="https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO"> https://mozilla.zoom.us/u/adkUNXc0FO</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The call will be recorded and this post updated with a link to the recording afterwards.</p>
<h3>Stay Informed About Future Thunderbird Releases and Events</h3>
<p>Want to be notified about upcoming releases AND Community Office Hours? Subscribe to the <a href="https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=c_f7b7f2cea6f65593ef05afaf2abfcfb48f87e25794468cd4a19d16495d17b6d1%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FNew_York">Thunderbird Release and Events Calendar</a>!</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1489" height="315" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2024/01/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape-600x315.jpg" width="600" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/01/january-2024-thunderbird-community-office-hours-how-to-join-us/">January 2024 Community Office Hours: Context Menu Updates</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2024-01-19T19:09:07+00:00Monica Ayhens-MadonOpen Policy & Advocacy: Platform Tilt: Documenting the Uneven Playing Field for an Independent Browser Like Firefox
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/19/platform-tilt/
<p>Browsers are the principal gateway connecting people to the open Internet, acting as their <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/webvision/full/#agency">agent</a> and shaping their experience. The central role of browsers has long motivated us to build and improve Firefox in order to offer people an independent choice. However, this centrality also creates a strong incentive for dominant players to control the browser that people use. The right way to win users is to build a better product, but shortcuts can be irresistible — and there’s a long history of companies leveraging their control of devices and operating systems to tilt the playing field in favor of their own browser.</p>
<p>This tilt manifests in a variety of ways. For example: making it harder for a user to download and use a different browser, ignoring or resetting a user’s default browser preference, restricting capabilities to the first-party browser, or requiring the use of the first-party browser engine for third-party browsers.</p>
<p>For years, Mozilla has engaged in dialog with platform vendors in an effort to address these issues. With renewed public attention and an evolving regulatory environment, we think it’s time to publish these concerns using the same transparent process and tools we use to <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions">develop positions</a> on emerging technical standards. So today we’re publishing a new <a href="https://mozilla.github.io/platform-tilt/">issue tracker</a> where we intend to document the ways in which platforms put Firefox at a disadvantage and engage with the vendors of those platforms to resolve them.</p>
<p>This tracker captures the issues we experience developing Firefox, but we believe in an even playing field for everyone, not just us. We encourage other browser vendors to publish their concerns in a similar fashion, and welcome the engagement and contributions of other non-browser groups interested in these issues. We’re particularly appreciative of the efforts of <a href="https://open-web-advocacy.org/">Open Web Advocacy</a> in articulating the case for a level playing field and for documenting self-preferencing.</p>
<p>People deserve choice, and choice requires the existence of viable alternatives. Alternatives and competition are good for everyone, but they can only flourish if the playing field is fair. It’s not today, but it’s also not hard to fix if the platform vendors wish to do so.</p>
<p>We call on Apple, Google, and Microsoft to engage with us in this new forum to speedily resolve these concerns.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/19/platform-tilt/">Platform Tilt: Documenting the Uneven Playing Field for an Independent Browser Like Firefox</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-01-19T14:05:36+00:00MozillaMozilla L10N: Advancing Mozilla’s mission through our work on localization standards
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2024/01/18/advancing-mozillas-mission-through-our-work-on-localization-standards/
<p>After the previous post highlighting <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2024/01/15/mozilla-localization-in-2023/">what the Mozilla community and Localization Team achieved in 2023</a>, it’s time to dive deeper on the work the team does in the area of localization technologies and standards.</p>
<p>A significant part of our work on localization at Mozilla happens within the space of Internet standards. We take seriously our commitments that stem from the <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/">Mozilla Manifesto</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>We are committed to an internet that includes all the peoples of the earth — where a person’s demographic characteristics do not determine their online access, opportunities, or quality of experience.</p></blockquote>
<p>To us, this means that it’s not enough to strive to improve the localization of our products, but that we need to improve the <i>localizability</i> of the Internet as a whole. We need to take the lessons we are learning from our work on Firefox, Thunderbird, websites, and all our other projects, and make them available to everyone, everywhere.</p>
<p>That’s a pretty lofty goal we’ve set ourselves, but to be fair it’s not just about altruism. With our work on <a href="https://projectfluent.org/">Fluent</a> and <a href="https://projectfluent.org/dom-l10n-documentation/">DOM Localization</a>, we’re in a position where it would be far too easy to rest on our laurels, and to consider what we have “good enough”. To keep going forward and to keep improving the experiences of our developers and localizers, we need input from the outside that questions our premises and challenges us. One way for us to do that is to work on Internet standards, presenting our case to other experts in the field.</p>
<p>In 2023, a large part of our work on localization standards has been focused on <a href="https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg">Unicode MessageFormat 2</a> (aka “MF2”), an upcoming message formatting specification, as well as other specifications building on top of it. Work on this has been ongoing since late 2019, and Mozilla has been one of the core participants from the start. The base MF2 spec is now slated for an initial “technology preview” release as a part of the 2024 Spring’s <a href="https://cldr.unicode.org/">Unicode CLDR</a> release.</p>
<p>Compared to Fluent, MF2 corresponds to the syntax and formatting of a single message pattern. Separately, we’ve also been working on the syntax and representation of a <a href="https://github.com/eemeli/message-resource-wg">resource format</a> for messages (corresponding to Fluent’s FTL files), as well as championing JavaScript language proposals for <a href="https://github.com/tc39/proposal-intl-messageformat">formatting messages</a> and <a href="https://github.com/tc39/proposal-intl-message-resource">parsing resources</a>. Work on standardizing DOM localization (as in, being able to use just HTML to localize a website) is also getting started in <a href="https://www.w3.org/blog/2019/w3c-and-whatwg-to-work-together-to-advance-the-open-web-platform/">W3C/WHATWG</a>, but its development is contingent on all the preceding specifications reaching a more stable stage.</p>
<p>So, besides the long term goal of improving localization everywhere, what are the practical results of these efforts? The nature of this work is exploratory, so predicting results has not and will not be completely possible. One tangible benefit that we’ve been able to already identify and deploy is a reconsideration of how Fluent messages with internal selectors — like <a href="https://projectfluent.org/fluent/guide/selectors.html">plurals</a> — are presented to localizers: Rather than showing a message in pieces, we’ve adopted the MF2 approach of presenting a message with its selectors (possibly <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/fr/firefox-profiler/app.ftl/?string=224370">more than one</a>) applying to the whole message. This duplicates some parts of the message, but it also makes it easier to read and to translate via machine translation, as well as ensuring that it is internally consistent across all languages.</p>
<p>Another byproduct of this work is MF2’s <a href="https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/tree/main/spec/data-model">message data model</a>: Unlike anything before it, it is capable of representing all messages in all languages in all formats. We are currently refactoring our tools and internal systems around this data model, allowing us to deduplicate file format-specific tooling, making it easier to add new features and support new syntaxes. In Pontoon, this approach already made it easier to introduce syntax highlighting and improve the editing experience for right-to-left scripts. To hear more, you can join us at FOSDEM next month, where we’ll be <a href="https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-1759-a-universal-data-model-for-localizable-messages/">presenting on this</a> in more detail!</p>
<p>At Mozilla, we do not presume to have all the answers, or to always be right. Instead, we try to share what we have, and to learn from others. With many points of view, we gain greater insights – and we help make the world a better place for all peoples of all demographic characteristics.</p>2024-01-18T07:33:03+00:00Francesco Lodolo [:flod]SeaMonkey: Teething problems with archives
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2024/01/17/teething-problems-with-archives/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>I am currently fixing a mess with the archives for 2.53.18.1.</p>
<p>There are a lot of extraneous artifacts that were stored there and now I’m cleaning them up.</p>
<p>Thankfully, this will be the last time I’m using this way of pushing to release.</p>
<p>My apologies for the mess.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>2024-01-17T08:46:43+00:00ewongSeaMonkey: SeaMonkey 2.53.18.1 updates
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2024/01/17/seamonkey-2-53-18-1-updates/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>Just want to mention that the updates will be available soon.</p>
<p>Thank you for your patience.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>2024-01-17T00:33:12+00:00ewongSeaMonkey: SeaMonkey 2.53.18.1 is out!
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2024/01/17/seamonkey-2-53-18-1-is-out/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>Happy New Year, everyone!</p>
<p>The SeaMonkey Project is pleased to announce the very first release the year: SeaMonkey 2.53.18.1! As it is a security fix, please check out [1] and/or [2] for release notes.</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p>[1] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.18.1</p>
<p>[2] – https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.18.1</p>
<p> </p>2024-01-17T00:27:06+00:00ewongMozilla L10N: Mozilla Localization in 2023
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2024/01/15/mozilla-localization-in-2023/
<h3>A Year in Data</h3>
<p>The Mozilla localization community had a busy and productive 2023. Let’s look at some numbers that defined our year:</p>
<ul>
<li>32 projects and 258 locales set up in <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/">Pontoon</a></li>
<li>3,685 new user registrations</li>
<li>1,254 active users, submitting at least one translation (on average 235 users per month)</li>
<li>432,228 submitted translations</li>
<li>371,644 approved translations</li>
<li>23,866 new strings to translate</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/slide.png"><img alt="Slide summarizing the activity in Pontoon over 2023. It includes the Mozilla Localization team logo (a red and black lion head) and an image of a cartoonish lion cub holding a thank you sign. Data in the slide: * 32 projects and 258 locales set up in Pontoon * 3,685 new user registrations * 1,254 active users, submitting at least one translation (on average 235 users per month) * 432,228 submitted translations * 371,644 approved translations * 23,866 new strings to translate" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1638" height="338" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/slide-600x338.png" width="600" /></a>Thank you to all the volunteers who contributed to Mozilla’s localization efforts over the last 12 months!</p>
<p>In case you’re curious about the lion theme: localization is often referred to as <i>l10n</i>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeronym">numeronym</a> which looks like the word <i>lion</i>. That’s why our team’s logo is a lion head, stylized as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_(mascot)">original Mozilla logo by artist Shepard Fairey</a>.</p>
<h3>Pontoon Development</h3>
<p>A core area of focus in 2023 was <b>pretranslation</b>. From the start, our goal with this feature was to support the community by making it easier to leverage existing translations and provide a way to bootstrap translation of new content.</p>
<p>When pretranslation is enabled, any new string added in Pontoon will be pretranslated using a 100% match from<a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/localizer-documentation/tools/pontoon/glossary.html#translation-memory"> translation memory</a> or — if no match exists — we’ll leverage<a href="https://cloud.google.com/translate/automl/docs"> Google AutoML Translation</a> engine with a model custom trained on the existing locale’s translation memory. Translations are stored in Pontoon with a special “pretranslated” status so that localizers can easily find and review them. Pretranslated strings are also saved to repositories (e.g. GitHub), and eventually ship in the product.</p>
<p>You can find more details on how we approached testing and involved the community in <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/07/20/pretranslation-in-pontoon-beta-testing-results-and-next-steps/">this blog post</a> from July. Over the course of 2023 we pretranslated 14,033 strings for 16 locales across 15 projects.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the year, we also worked on two features that have been long requested by users: 1) it’s now possible to use Pontoon <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/localizer-documentation/tools/pontoon/users.html#appearance">with a light theme</a>; and 2) we improved the translation experience on mobile, with the original 3-column layout adapting to smaller screen sizes.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1636" style="width: 610px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/light-theme.png"><img alt="Screenshot of Pontoon's UI with the light theme selected." class="size-large wp-image-1636" height="505" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/light-theme-600x505.png" width="600" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1636">Screenshot of Pontoon’s UI with the light theme selected.</p></div>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1637" style="width: 262px;"><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/android.png"><img alt="Screenshot of Pontoon UI on a smartphone running Firefox for Android" class="wp-image-1637 size-medium" height="560" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2024/01/android-252x560.png" width="252" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-1637">Screenshot of Pontoon UI on a smartphone running Firefox for Android</p></div>
<p>Listening to user feedback remains our priority: in case you missed it, we have just published the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/12/20/2024-pontoon-survey-results/">results of a new survey</a>, where we asked localizers which features they would like to see implemented in Pontoon. We look forward to implementing some of your fantastic ideas in 2024!</p>
<h3>Community</h3>
<p>Community is at the core of Mozilla’s localization model, so it’s crucial to identify sustainability issues as early as possible. Only relying on completion levels, or how quickly a locale can respond to urgent localization requests, are not sufficient inputs to really understand the health of a community. Indeed, an extremely dedicated volunteer can mask deeper problems and these issues only become visible — and urgent — when such a person leaves a project, potentially without a clear succession plan.</p>
<p>To prevent these situations, we’ve been researching ways to measure the health of each locale by analyzing multiple data points — for example, the number of new sign-ups actively contributing to localization and getting reviews from translators and managers — and we’ve started reaching out to specific communities to trial test interventions. With the help of existing locale managers, this resulted in several promotions to translator (Arabic, Czech, German) or even manager (Czech, Russian, Simplified Chinese).</p>
<p>During these conversations with various local communities, we heard loud and clear how important in-person meetings are to understanding what Mozilla is working on, and how interacting with other volunteers and building personal connections is extremely valuable. Over the past few years, some unique external factors — COVID and an economic recession chief among them — made the organization of large scale events challenging. We investigated the feasibility of small-scale, local events organized directly by community members, but this initiative wasn’t successful since it required a significant investment of time and energy by localizers on top of the work they were already doing to support Mozilla with product localization.</p>
<p>To counterbalance the lack of in-person events and keep volunteers in the loop, we organized two virtual fireside chats for localizers in <a href="https://mozilla.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=22033059-56cf-4da9-94e5-aff1000a82ab">May</a> and <a href="https://mozilla.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=04ccfe85-e565-4981-bd93-b0a701255d69">November</a> (links to recordings).</p>
<h3>What’s coming in 2024</h3>
<p>In order to strengthen our connection with existing and potential volunteers, we’re planning to organize regular online events this year. We intend to experiment with different formats and audiences for these events, while also improving our presence on social networks (did you know <a href="https://mozilla.social/@localization">we’re on Mastodon</a>?). Keep an eye out on this blog and <a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">Matrix</a> for more information in the coming months.</p>
<p>As many of you have asked in the past, we also want to integrate email functionalities in Pontoon; users should be able to opt in to receive specific communications via email on top of in-app notifications. We also plan to experiment with automated emails to re-engage inactive users with elevated permissions (translators, managers).</p>
<p>It’s clear that a community can only be sustainable if there are active managers and translators to support new contributors. On one side, we will work to create onboarding material for new volunteers so that existing managers and translators can focus on the linguistic aspects. On the other, we’ll engage the community to discuss a refined set of policies that foster a more inclusive and transparent environment. For example, what should the process be when a locale doesn’t have a manager or active translator, yet there are contributors not receiving reviews? How long should an account retain elevated permissions if it’s apparently gone silent? What are the criteria for promotions to translator or manager roles?</p>
<p>For both initiatives, we will reach out to the community for feedback in the coming months.</p>
<p>As for Pontoon, you can expect some changes under the hood to improve performances and overall reliability, but also new user-facing features (e.g. fine-grained search, better translation memory management).</p>
<h3>Thank you!</h3>
<p>We want to thank all the volunteers who have dedicated their time and skills to localizing Mozilla products. Your tireless efforts are essential in advancing the Mozilla mission of fostering an open and accessible internet for everyone.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, we are excited about the opportunities that 2024 brings. We look forward to working alongside our community to expand the impact of localization and continue breaking down language barriers. Your support is invaluable, and together, we will continue shaping a more inclusive digital world. Thank you for being an integral part of this journey.</p>2024-01-15T08:30:10+00:00Francesco Lodolo [:flod]Open Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla Weighs in on State Comprehensive Privacy Proposals
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/11/mozilla-weighs-in-on-state-comprehensive-privacy-proposals/
<p style="text-align: center;">[Read our letters to legislators in <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/01/MA-DPPA-Letter-Mozilla.pdf">Massachusetts</a> and <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2024/01/ME-DPPA-Letter-Mozilla.pdf">Maine</a>.]</p>
<p>Today, Mozilla is calling for the passage of strong state privacy protections, such as those modeled off of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act at the federal level. Today’s action came in the form of letters to relevant committee leadership in the Massachusetts and Maine legislatures encouraging them to consider and pass proposals that have been introduced in their respective states.</p>
<p>At Mozilla, we believe that individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. In the best of worlds, this “privacy for all” mindset would mean a law at the federal level that protects all Americans from abuse and misuse of their data, which is why <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2022/08/24/its-time-to-pass-u-s-federal-privacy-legislation/">we have advocated</a> for decisive action to pass a comprehensive Federal privacy law.</p>
<p>Recently, however, even more states are considering enacting privacy protections. These protections, if crafted incorrectly, could create a false facade of privacy for users and risk enshrining harmful data practices in the marketplace. If crafted correctly, they could provide vital privacy protections and drive further conversation of federal legislation.</p>
<p>The proposals we weighed in on today meet the Mozilla standard for privacy because they: require data minimization; create strong security requirements; prohibit deceptive design that impairs individual autonomy; prohibit algorithmic discrimination; and more.</p>
<p>Mozilla has previously <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2021/11/11/mozilla-submits-comments-to-the-california-privacy-protection-agency/">supported</a> legislative and regulatory action in California, and we hope to see more state legislatures introduce and pass strong privacy legislation.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/11/mozilla-weighs-in-on-state-comprehensive-privacy-proposals/">Mozilla Weighs in on State Comprehensive Privacy Proposals</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2024-01-11T19:23:35+00:00Noam KantorSUMO Blog: Introducing Mandy and Donna
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2024/01/04/introducing-mandy-and-donna/
<p>Hey everybody,</p>
<p>I’m so thrilled to start 2024 with good news for you all. Mandy Cacciapaglia and Donna Kelly are joining our Customer Experience team as a Product Support Manager for Firefox and a Content Strategist. Here’s a bit from them both:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://people.mozilla.org/p/mandycacciapaglia">Mandy Cacciapaglia</a> — Product Support Manager for Firefox</li>
</ul>
<blockquote><p><i>Hi there! Mandy here — I am Mozilla’s new Product Support Manager for Firefox. I’m so excited to collaborate with this awesome group, and dive into Firefox reporting, customer advocacy and feedback, and product support so we can keep elevating our amazing browser. I’m based in NYC, and outside of work you will find me watercolor painting, backpacking, or reading mysteries.</i></p></blockquote>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://people.mozilla.org/p/donnakelly">Donna Kelly</a> — Content Strategist</li>
</ul>
<blockquote><p><i>Hi everyone! I’m Donna, and I am very happy to be here as your new Content Strategist on the Customer Experience team. I will be working on content strategy to improve our knowledge base, documentation, localization, and overall user experience!</i><i>In my free time, I love hanging out with my dog (a rescue tri-pawd named Sundae), hiking, reading (big Stephen King fan), playing video games, and anything involving food. Looking forward to getting to know everyone!</i></p></blockquote>
<p>You’ll hear more from them in our next <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Community_Calls">community call</a> (which will be on January 17). In the meantime, please join me to congratulate and welcome both of them into the team!</p>2024-01-04T13:16:37+00:00Rizki KelimutuSUMO Blog: 2023 in a nutshell
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/12/22/2023-in-a-nutshell/
<p>Hey SUMO nation,</p>
<p>As we’re inching closer towards 2024, I’d like to take a step back to reflect on what we’ve accomplished in 2023. It’s a lot, so let’s dive in! <b></b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Overall pageviews</b></li>
</ul>
<p>From Jan 1st to the end of November, we’ve got a total of 255+ million pageviews on SUMO. We’ve been in a consistent pageview number drop since 2018, and this time around, we’re down 7% from last year. This is far from bad, though, as this is our lowest yearly drop since 2018.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Forum</b></li>
</ul>
<p>In the forum, we’ve seen an average of 2.8k questions per month this year. This is a 6.67% down turn from last year. We also see a downturn in our answer rate within 72 hours, 71% compared to 75% last year. We also see a drop in our solved rate, 10% this year compared to 14% last year. On a typical month, our average contributors on the forum excluding OP is around 200 (compared to 240 last year).</p>
<pre><code><em>*See</em></code><a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Glossary"><code><em> Support glossary</em></code></a><b></b></pre>
<ul>
<li><b>KB</b></li>
</ul>
<p>We see an increase over different metrics on KB contribution this year, though. In total, we’ve got a total of 1990 revisions (14% increase from last year) from 136 non staff members. Our review rate this year is 80%, while our approval rate is 96%, compared to 73% and 95% in 2022). In total, we’ve got 29 non-staff reviewers this year.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Localization</b></li>
</ul>
<p>On the localization side, the number is overall pretty normal. Total revision is around 13K (same as last year) from 400 non-staff members, with 93% review rate and 99% approval rate (compared to 90% and 99% last year) from a total of 118 non-staff reviewers.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Social Support</b></li>
</ul>
<p>From year to date, the Social Support contributors have sent a total of 850 responses (compared to 908 last year) and interacted with 1645 conversations. Our resolved rate has dropped to 40.74%, compared to 70% last year. We have made major improvements on other metrics, though. For example, this year, our contributors were responsible for more replies from our total responses (75% in total compared to 39.6% last year). Our conversion rate is also improving from 20% in 2022 to 52% this year. It means, our contributors have taken more role in answering the overall inbounds and have replied more consistently than last year.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Mobile Store Support</b></li>
</ul>
<p>On the Mobile Store Support side, our contributors this year have contributed to 1260 replies and interacted with <span>3149</span> conversations in total. That makes our conversion rate at 36% this year, compared to 46% last year. And those are mostly contributions to non-English reviews.</p>
<hr />
<p>In addition to the regular contribution, here are some of the community highlights from 2023:</p>
<ul>
<li>We did some internal assessment and external benchmarking in Q1, which informed our experiments in Q2. Learn the results of those experiments from <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-06-28">this call</a>.</li>
<li>We also updated our contributor guidelines, including <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/knowledge-base-articles/716332">article review guidelines</a> and created <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/contributors/716669?last=86622">a new policy around the use of generative AI</a>.</li>
<li>By the end of the year, the Spanish community has done something really amazing. They have managed to translate and update 70% of in-product desktop articles (as opposed to 11% when we started the <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/l10n-forum/716602?last=86632">call for help</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>We’d also like to take this opportunity to highlight some Customer Experience team’s projects that we’ve tackled this year (some with close involvement and help from the community).</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Information Architecture (IA) — </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/jcajinarobleto/"><b>Josh Cajinarobleto</b></a></li>
</ul>
<p>We split this one into two concurrent projects:</p>
<ul>
<li>Phase 1 Navigation Improvements — initial phase aims to:
<ul>
<li>Surface the community forums in a clearer way</li>
<li>Streamline the Ask a Question user flow</li>
<li>Improve link text and calls-to-action to better match what users might expect when navigating on the site</li>
<li>Updates to the main navigation and small changes to additional site UI (like sidebar menus, page headers, etc.) can be expected</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Cross-system content structure and hierarchy — the goal of this project is to:
<ul>
<li>Improve our ability to gather data metrics across functional areas of SUMO (KB, ticketing, and forums)</li>
<li>Improve recommended “next steps” by linking related content across KB and Forums</li>
<li>Create opportunities for grouping and presenting content on SUMO by alternate categories and not just by product</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Research project — </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/cjordan2/"><b>Cindi Jordan</b></a></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Project Background:</em></p>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>This research was conducted between August 2023 and November 2023. The goal of this project is to provide actionable insights on how to improve the customer experience of SUMO.</li>
<li>Research approach:
<ul>
<li>Stakeholder engagement process</li>
<li>Surveyed 786 Mozilla Support users</li>
<li>Conducted three rounds of interviews recruited from survey respondents:
<ul>
<li>Sprint 1: Evaluated content and article structure</li>
<li>Sprint 2: Evaluated the overall SUMO customer experience</li>
<li>Sprint 3: Co-design of an improved SUMO experience</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>This research was conducted by PH1 Research, who have conducted similar research for Mozilla in 2022.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Please consider</i></b><b>: Participants for this study were recruited via a banner ad in SUMO. As a result, these findings only reflect the experiences and needs of users who actively use SUMO. It does not reflect users who may not be aware of SUMO or have decided not to use it. </b></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Executive Summary:</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Users consider SUMO a trustworthy and content-rich resource. SUMO offers resources that can appropriately help users of different technical levels. The most common user flow is via Google search. Very few are logging in to SUMO directly.</li>
<li>The goal of SUMO should be to assist Mozilla users to improve their product experience. Content should be consolidated and optimized to show fewer, high quality results on Google search and SUMO search. The article experience should aim to boost relevance and task success. The SUMO website should aid users to diagnose systems, understand problems, find solutions, and discover additional resources when needed.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Recommendations:</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Our recommendation is that SUMO’s strategy should be to provide a self-service experience that makes users feel that Mozilla cares about their problems and offers a range of solutions appealing to various persona types (technical/non-technical).</li>
<li>The pillars for making SUMO valuable to users should be:
<ul>
<li>Confidence: As a user, I need to be confident that the resource provided will resolve my problem.</li>
<li>Guidance: As a user, I need to feel guided through the experience of finding a solution, even when I don’t understand the problem or solutions available.</li>
<li>Trust: As a user, I need to trust that the resources have been provided by a trustworthy authority on the subject (SUMO scores well here because of Mozilla).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Wagtail migration — </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/aparise"><b>Abby Parise</b></a><b> and team</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Modernizing our CMS can provide significant benefits in terms of user experience, performance, security, flexibility, collaboration, and analytics.</li>
<li>This resulted in a decision to move forward with the plan to migrate our CMS to Wagtail — a modern, open-source content management system focused on flexibility and user experience.</li>
<li>We are currently in the process of planning the next phases for implementation.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Support operations — </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/SUMOsJR"><b>JR</b></a><b>, </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/jcuevas805/"><b>Joe</b></a><b>, and </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/olivia3"><b>Olivia</b></a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Pocket migration to SUMO
<ul>
<li>We successfully migrated and published 100% of previously identified Pocket help center content from HelpScout’s CMS to SUMO’s CMS, with proper redirects in place to ensure a seamless transition for the user.</li>
<li>The localization community began efforts to help us localize the content, which had previously only been available in en-US.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-accounts-renamed-mozilla-accounts">Firefox account to Mozilla account rebrand</a> in early November.</li>
<li>Officially supporting account users and login less support flow (read more about that <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/11/01/mozilla-account-rename-changes-on-the-support-flows/">here</a>).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Postgres migration — </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/akatsoulas/"><b>Tasos</b></a><b>, </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/sellis1/"><b>Smith</b></a><b>, and </b><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/ryanjohnson/"><b>Ryan</b></a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>This was a very challenging project, not only because we had to migrate our large codebase and very large data set from MySQL, but also because of the challenge of performing the actual data migration within a reasonable period of time, on the order of a few hours at most, so that we could minimize the disruption to users and contributors. In the end, it was a multi-month project comprising coordinated research, planning and effort between our engineering team and our SRE (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_reliability_engineering">Site Reliability Engineering</a>) team. We’re now on a much better database foundation for the future, because:
<ul>
<li>Postgres is better suited for enterprise-level applications like ours, with very large datasets, frequent write operations and complex queries.</li>
<li>We can also take advantage of connection pooling via <a href="https://www.pgbouncer.org/">PgBouncer</a>, which will improve our resilience under huge and often malicious traffic spikes (which have been occurring much more frequently during the past year).</li>
<li>Last but not least, our database now supports the full unicode character set, which means it can fully handle all characters, including emoji’s , in all languages. Our MySQL database had only limited unicode support, due to its initial configuration, and rather than invest in resolving that, which would have meant a significant chunk of work, we decided to invest instead in Postgres.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>This year, you all continue to impress us with the persistence and dedication that you show to Mozilla by contributing to our platform, despite the current state of our world right now. To every single one of you who contributed in one way or another to SUMO, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude because without you all, our platform is just an empty shell. To celebrate this, we’ve prepared <a href="https://mzl.la/sumo-dashboard">this simple dashboard</a> with contribution data that you can filter based on username so you can see how much you’ve accomplished this year (we talked about this in <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-12-13">our last community call this year</a>).</p>
<p>Let’s be proud of what we’ve accomplished to keep the internet as a global & public resource for everybody, and let’s keep on rocking the helpful web through 2024 and beyond!</p>
<p><i>If you’re a looker and interested in contributing to Mozilla Support, please head over to our</i><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/contribute"> <i>Contribute page</i></a><i> to learn more about our programs!</i></p>2023-12-22T18:37:06+00:00Rizki KelimutuOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla’s Comments to FCC: Net Neutrality Essential for Competition, Innovation, Privacy
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/12/22/mozillas-comments-to-fcc-net-neutrality-essential-for-competition-innovation-privacy/
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/121497799035/1"><i>[Read our full submission here]</i></a></p>
<p>Net neutrality – the concept that your internet provider should not be able to block, throttle, or prioritize elements of your internet service, such as to favor their own products or business partners – is on the docket again in the United States. With the FCC putting out a <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/03/2023-23630/safeguarding-and-securing-the-open-internet">notice of proposed rulemaking</a> (NPRM) to reinstate net neutrality, Mozilla weighed in last week with a clear message: the FCC should reestablish these common sense rules as soon as possible.</p>
<p>We have been fighting for net neutrality <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/in-california-an-important-victory-for-net-neutrality/">around</a> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2015/10/24/net-neutrality-amendments-and-final-vote-in-the-eu/">the</a> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2020/09/14/mozilla-applauds-trai-for-maintaining-the-status-quo-on-ott-regulation-upholding-a-key-aspect-of-net-neutrality-in-india/">world</a> for the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2023/12/39773937-2010-Mozilla-Comment-on-Under-Developed-Issues-in-Open-Internet-proceedings.pdf">better </a><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2014/07/Mozilla-NN-Comments-July-2014.pdf">part</a> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2014/09/Mozilla-NN-Reply-Comments-Sept-2014.pdf">of</a> a decade and a half. Most notably, this included <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-files-suit-fcc-protect-net-neutrality/">Mozilla’s challenge</a> to the Trump FCC’s dismantling of net neutrality in 2018.</p>
<p>American internet users are on the cusp of renewed protections for the open internet. Our recently submitted comment to the FCC’s NPRM took a step back to remind the FCC and the public of the real benefits of net neutrality: Competition, Grassroots Innovation, Privacy, and Transparency and Accountability.</p>
<p>Simply put, if the FCC moves forward with reclassification of broadband as a Title II service, it will protect innovation in edge services; unlock vital privacy safeguards; and prevent ISPs from leveraging their market power to control people’s experiences online. With vast increases in our dependence on the internet since the COVID-19 pandemic, these protections are more important than ever.</p>
<p>We encourage others who are passionate about the open internet to file reply comments on the proceeding, which are due January 17, 2024.</p>
<p>You can read our full comment <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/121497799035/1">here</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/12/22/mozillas-comments-to-fcc-net-neutrality-essential-for-competition-innovation-privacy/">Mozilla’s Comments to FCC: Net Neutrality Essential for Competition, Innovation, Privacy</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2023-12-22T14:44:29+00:00Jenn Taylor HodgesMozilla L10N: 2024 Pontoon survey results
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/12/20/2024-pontoon-survey-results/
<p>The results from the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/11/29/vote-for-new-pontoon-features/">2024 Pontoon survey</a> are in and the 3 top-voted features we commit to implement are:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3031">Add ability to edit Translation Memory entries</a> (611 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3032">Improve performance of Pontoon translation workspace and dashboards</a> (603 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2310">Add ability to propose new Terminology entries</a> (595 votes).</li>
</ol>
<p>The remaining features ranked as follows:</p>
<ol start="4">
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2232">Add ability to preview Fluent strings in the editor</a> (572 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2276">Link project names in Concordance search results to corresponding strings</a> (540 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2255">Add “Copy translation from another locale as suggestion” batch action</a> (523 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2076">Add ability to receive automated notifications via email</a> (521 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2138">Add Timeline tab with activity to Project, Locale, ProjectLocale dashboards</a> (501 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2108">Add ability to read notifications one by one, or mark notifications as unread</a> (495 votes).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2059">Add virtual keyboard with special characters to the editor</a> (469 votes).</li>
</ol>
<p>We thank everyone who dedicated their time to share valuable responses and suggest potential features for us to consider implementing!</p>
<p>A total of 365 Pontoon users participated in the survey, 169 of which voted on all features. Each user could give each feature 1 to 5 votes. Check out the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHU0FIIlO2CDsoQmB1gwSQez-5Z37a_F/view?usp=sharing">full report</a>.</p>
<p>We look forward to implementing these new features and working towards a more seamless and efficient translation experience with Pontoon. Stay tuned for updates!</p>2023-12-20T18:13:47+00:00DelphineThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: When Will Thunderbird For Android Be Released?
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/
<p><img alt="" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/TB-Release-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<p>When will Thunderbird for Android be released? This is a question that comes up quite a lot, and we appreciate that you’re all excited to finally put Thunderbird in your pocket. It’s not a simple answer, but we’ll do our best to explain why things are taking longer than expected. </p>
<p>We have always been a bit vague on when we were going to release Thunderbird for Android. At first this was because we still had to figure out what features we wanted to add to K-9 Mail before we were comfortable calling it Thunderbird. Once we had <a href="https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/android-roadmap">a list</a>, we estimated how long it would take to add those features to the app. Then something happened that always happens in software projects – things took longer than expected. So we cut down on features and aimed for a release at the end of 2023. As we got closer to the end of the year, it became clear that even with the reduced set of features, the release date would have almost certainly slipped into early 2024.</p>
<p>We then sat together and reevaluated the situation. In the end we decided that there’s no rush. We’ll work on the features we wanted in the app in the first place, because you deserve the best mobile experience we can give you. Once those features have been added, we’ll release the app as Thunderbird for Android.</p>
<h3>Why Wait? Try K-9 Mail Now</h3>
<p>But of course you don’t have to wait until then. All our <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android">development</a> happens out in the open. The stable version of K-9 Mail contains all of the features we have already completed. The beta version of K-9 Mail contains the feature(s) we’re currently working on. </p>
<p>Both stable and beta versions can be installed via <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/">F-Droid</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9">Google Play</a>. </p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-the-thunderbird-blog wp-block-embed-the-thunderbird-blog"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-november-december-2023-progress-report/">Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: November/December 2023 Progress Report</a></blockquote>
</div></figure>
<h3>K-9 Mail’s Future</h3>
<p>Side note: Quite a few people seem to love K-9 Mail and have asked us to keep the robot dog around. We believe it should be relatively little effort to build two apps from one code base. The apps would be virtually identical and only differ in app name, app icon, and the color scheme. So our current plan is to keep K-9 Mail around. </p>
<p>Whether you prefer metal dogs or mythical birds, we’ve got you covered.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/">When Will Thunderbird For Android Be Released?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2023-12-18T18:01:33+00:00ckettiThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: November/December 2023 Progress Report
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-november-december-2023-progress-report/
<p><img alt="a dark background with thunderbird and k-9 mail logos centered, with the text "Thunderbird for Android, November 2023 progress report"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/K9-November-2023-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<p>In February 2023 we <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/03/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-february-progress-report/">started</a> publishing monthly reports on the progress of transforming K-9 Mail into Thunderbird for Android. Somewhat to my surprise, we managed to keep this up throughout the entire year. </p>
<p>But since the end of the year company shutdown is coming up and both Wolf and I have some vacation days left, this will be the last progress report of the year, covering both November and December. If you need a refresher on where we left off previously, know that the <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/">progress report for October</a> is only one click away.</p>
<h3>New Home On Google Play</h3>
<p>If you’ve recently visited <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9">K-9 Mail’s page on Google Play</a> you might have noticed that the developer name changed from “K-9 Dog Walkers” to “Mozilla Thunderbird”. That’s because we finally got around to moving the app to a developer account owned by Thunderbird.</p>
<p>I’d like to use this opportunity to thank <a href="https://metasocial.com/@jesse">Jesse Vincent</a>, who not only founded the K-9 Mail project, but also managed the Google Play developer account for all these years. Thank you <img alt="♥" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2665.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-the-thunderbird-blog wp-block-embed-the-thunderbird-blog"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/">When Will Thunderbird For Android Be Released?</a></blockquote>
</div></figure>
<h3>Asking For Android permissions</h3>
<p>Previously, the app asked the user to grant the permission to access contacts when the message list or compose screens were displayed. </p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-12 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-2.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1468" height="1333" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-2-600x1333.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Permission prompt in message list screen</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-3.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1469" height="1333" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-3-600x1333.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Permission prompt in compose screen</figcaption></figure>
</figure>
<p>The app asked for the contacts permission every time one of these screens was opened. That’s not as bad as it sounds. Android automatically ignores such a request after the user has selected the “deny” option twice. Unfortunately, dismissing the dialog e.g. by using the back button, doesn’t count as denying the permission request. So users who chose that option to get rid of the dialog were asked again and again. Clearly not a great experience.</p>
<p>So we changed it. Now, the app no longer asks for the contacts permission in those screens. Instead, asking the user to grant permissions is now part of the onboarding flow. After adding the first account, users will see the following screen:</p>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-4.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1470" height="1333" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-4-600x1333.png" style="width: 341px; height: auto;" width="600" /></a></figure></div>
<p>The keen observer will have noticed that the app is now also asking for the permission to create notifications. Since the introduction of notification categories in Android 8, users have always had the option to disable some or all notifications created by an app. But starting with Android 13, users now have to explicitly grant the permission to create notifications.</p>
<p>While the app will work without the notification permission, you should still grant it to the app, at least for now. Currently, some errors (e.g. when sending an email has failed) are only communicated via a notification. </p>
<p>And don’t worry, granting the permission doesn’t mean you’ll be bombarded with notifications. You can still configure whether you want to get notifications for new messages on a per account basis.</p>
<h3>Improved Account Setup</h3>
<p>This section has been a fixture in the last couple of progress reports. The new account setup code has been a lot of work. And we’re still not quite done yet. However, it already is in a state where it’s a vast improvement over what we had previously.</p>
<h4>Bug fixes</h4>
<p>Thanks to feedback from beta testers, we identified and fixed a couple of bugs.</p>
<ul>
<li>The app was crashing when trying to display an error message after the user had entered an invalid or unsupported email address.</li>
<li>While fixing the bug above, we also noticed that some placeholder code to validate email addresses was still used. We replaced that code and improved error messages, e.g. when encountering a syntactically valid, but deliberately unsupported email address like <code>test@[127.0.0.1]</code>.</li>
<li>A user reported a crash when trying to set up an account with a particular email domain. We tracked this down to an MX DNS record containing an underscore. That’s not a valid character for a hostname. The app already checked for that, but the error wasn’t caught and so crashed the app.</li>
</ul>
<h4>User experience improvements</h4>
<p>Thanks to feedback from people who went through the manual setup flow multiple times, we identified a couple of usability issues. We made some changes like disabling auto-correct in the server name text field and copying the password entered in the incoming server settings screen to the outgoing server settings screen.</p>
<p>Hopefully, automatic account setup will just work for you. But if you have to use the manual setup route, at least now it should be a tiny bit less annoying.</p>
<h4>Edit server settings</h4>
<p>Editing incoming or outgoing server settings is not strictly part of setting up an account. However, the same screens used in the manual account setup flow are also used when editing server settings of an existing account (e.g. by going to <em>Settings → [Account] → Fetching mail → Incoming server</em>). </p>
<figure class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-14 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-5.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1471" height="1333" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-5-600x1333.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Incoming server settings screen during manual account setup</figcaption></figure>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-6.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1472" height="1333" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/12/image-6-600x1333.png" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Incoming server settings screen when editing an existing account</figcaption></figure>
</figure>
<p>The screens don’t behave exactly the same in both instances, so some changes were necessary. In November we finally got around to adapting the screens. And now the new UI is also used when editing server settings.</p>
<h3>Targeting Android 13</h3>
<p>Every year Google <a href="https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk">requires</a> Android developers to change their apps to support the new (security) features and restrictions of the Android version that was released the prior year. This is automatically enforced by only allowing developers to publish app updates on Google Play when they “target” the required Android version. This year’s deadline was August 31.</p>
<p>There was only one change in Android 13 that affected K-9 Mail. Once an app targets this Android version, it has to ask the user for permission before being able to create notifications. Since our plans already included adding a new screen to ask for permissions during onboarding, we didn’t spend too much time worrying about the deadline.</p>
<p>But due to us being busy working on other features, we only got around to adding the permission screen in November. We requested an extension to the deadline, which (to my surprise) seems to have been granted automatically. Still, there was a brief period of time where we weren’t able to publish new beta versions because we missed the extended deadline by a couple of days.</p>
<p>We’ll prioritize updating the app to target the latest Android version in the future.</p>
<h3>Push Not Working On Android 14</h3>
<p>When Push is enabled, K-9 Mail uses what the developer documentation calls “exact alarms” to periodically refresh its Push connection to the server. Starting with Android 12, apps need to request a separate permission to use exact alarms. But the permission itself was granted automatically.</p>
<p>In Android 14 (released in October 2023) Google changed the behavior and Android <a href="https://developer.android.com/about/versions/14/changes/schedule-exact-alarms">no longer pre-grants this permission to newly installed apps</a>. However, instead of limiting this to apps targeting Android 14, for some reason they decided to extend this behavior change to apps targeting Android 13.</p>
<p>This unfortunate choice by the creator of Android means that Push is currently not working for users who perform a fresh install of K-9 Mail 6.712 or newer on Android 14. Upgrading from a previous version of K-9 Mail should be fine since the permission was then granted automatically in the past.</p>
<p>At the beginning of next year we’ll be working on adding a screen to guide the user to grant the necessary permission when enabling Push on Android 14. Until then, you can manually grant the permission by opening Android’s <em>App info </em>screen for the app, then enable <em>Allow setting alarms and reminders</em> under <em>Alarms & reminders</em>.</p>
<h3>Community Contributions</h3>
<p>In November and December the following contributions by community members were merged into K-9 Mail:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/bernhard-fp">@bernhard-fp</a> contributed a patch to <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7372">disable autocorrect in server settings input fields</a>.</li>
<li>Another contribution by <a href="https://github.com/bernhard-fp">@bernhard-fp</a> was to adjust our theme so <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7389">rounded corners of buttons in the new setup screens match the ones in the rest of the app</a>.</li>
<li>When composing a message it’s currently not possible to move a recipient from one field to another using drag and drop. <a href="https://github.com/rezazarchi">Reza Zarchi</a> <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7407">added a copy button to the recipient dropdown</a> so users can work around this limitation.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks for the contributions! <img alt="❤" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2764.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<h3>Releases</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.712">K-9 Mail v6.712 (beta)</a> (2023-11-30)</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.713">K-9 Mail v6.713 (beta)</a> (2023-12-04)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>If you want to help shape future versions of the app, </strong><a href="https://forum.k9mail.app/t/how-do-i-become-a-beta-tester/68"><strong>become a beta tester</strong></a><strong> and provide feedback on new features while they are still in development.</strong></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-november-december-2023-progress-report/">Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: November/December 2023 Progress Report</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2023-12-18T18:01:21+00:00ckettiMozilla Add-ons Blog: A new world of open extensions on Firefox for Android has arrived
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/12/14/a-new-world-of-open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-has-arrived/
<p>Woo-hoo you did it! Hundreds of add-on developers heeded the call to make their desktop extensions compatible for today’s debut of a new open ecosystem of Firefox for Android extensions. More than 450 Firefox for Android extensions are now discoverable on the <i>addons.mozilla.org</i> <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">(AMO) Android homepage</a>. It’s a strong start to an exciting new frontier of mobile browser customization. Let’s see where this goes.</p>
<p>Are you a developer who hasn’t migrated your desktop extension to Firefox for Android yet? Here’s a good <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/developing-extensions-for-firefox-for-android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">starting point for developing extensions for Firefox for Android</a>.</p>
<p>If you’ve already embarked on the mobile extension journey and have questions/insights/feedback to offer as we continue to optimize the mobile development experience, we invite you to <a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/top-apis-mising-on-firefox-for-android/124506" rel="noopener" target="_blank">join the discussion about top APIs missing on Firefox for Android</a>.</p>
<p>Have you <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=WebExtensions" rel="noopener" target="_blank">found any Firefox for Android bugs</a>? Do tell!</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/12/14/a-new-world-of-open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-has-arrived/">A new world of open extensions on Firefox for Android has arrived</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons">Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog</a>.</p>2023-12-14T18:20:24+00:00Scott DeVaneySeaMonkey: Updates fixed
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/12/14/updates-fixed/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>The updates have been fixed as well well as a lot of the missing files.</p>
<p>Seems like as if I simply cannot handle multiple changes at the same time.</p>
<p>My apologies for the inconveniences caused.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p> </p>2023-12-14T01:26:14+00:00ewongSeaMonkey: Updates… erm.. update.
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/12/13/updates-erm-update/
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I have taken a look at what’s going on and am a bit puzzled.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Linux-i686 locales</strong>:
<ul>
<li><em>Missing</em>: el, en-US, es-AR, es-ES, fi, fr, ka, nb-NO, nl, pl, pt-PT, ru, sk, sv-SE</li>
<li><em>Existing</em>: cs, de, en-GB, hu, it, ja, pt-BR, zh-CN, zh-TW</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Linux x86-64 locales</strong>:
<ul>
<li><em>Missin</em>g: de, el, en-US, es-ES, hu, it, ka, nb-NO, ru, sk, sv-SE, zh-TW</li>
<li><em>Existing</em>: cs, en-GB, es-AR, fi, fr, ja, nl, pl, pt-BR, pt-PT, zh-CN</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Mac locales</strong>:
<ul>
<li><em>Missing</em>: cs, en-US, es-AR, fr, pt-BR, sk, zh-CN</li>
<li><em>Existing</em>: de, el, en-GB, es-ES, fi, hu, it, ja-JP-mac, ka, nb-NO, nl, pl, pt-PT, ru, sv-SE, zh-TW</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Win32 Locales</strong>:
<ul>
<li><em>Missing</em>: cs, de, fi, nl, pl, pt-PT, ru, sv-SE</li>
<li><em>Existing</em>: el, en-GB, en-US, es-AR, es-ES, fr, hu, it, ja, ka, nb-NO, pt-BR, sk, zh-CN, zh-TW</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Win64 locales</strong>:
<ul>
<li><em>Missing</em>: cs, de, en-GB, en-US, fr, it, ja, pl, pt-BR</li>
<li><em>Existing</em>: el, es-AR, es-ES, fi, hu, ka, nb-NO, nl, pt-PT, ru, sk, sv-SE, zh-CN, zh-TW</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>No, I have no understand of the pattern of missing files.</p>
<p>So I’ll be changing the updates to using the ‘old’ place while I fix the ‘new’ place. (*wink*)</p>
<p>:ewong</p>2023-12-13T01:28:17+00:00ewongSeaMonkey: Migration away from archive.mozilla.org addendum
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/12/13/migration-away-from-archive-mozilla-org-addendum/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>In my previous blog post on the SeaMonkey Project migrating away from archive.mozilla.org, it seems as there is some misunderstanding in the wording(I’ve just changed it on the request of Mozilla).</p>
<p>When I stated “We need to stop using archive.mozilla.org” and “They will most likely be left as is until Mozilla blows it away (or I do).”, I literally meant “We” as in “the SeaMonkey Project”.</p>
<p>So in essence, what I *was* trying to state (and failing miserably) is that “The SeaMonkey Project needs to migrate away from archive.mozilla.org.” After 2023, when you go to https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/”, you will not see seamonkey there.</p>
<p>End of an era.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>2023-12-13T00:54:27+00:00ewongSeaMonkey: Updates issue
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/12/12/updates-issue/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>It seems like as if there are some missing updates and I’m currently working on it.</p>
<p>Sorry for the inconvenience.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p> </p>2023-12-12T23:59:23+00:00ewonghacks.mozilla.org: Puppeteer Support for the Cross-Browser WebDriver BiDi Standard
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/12/puppeteer-webdriver-bidi/
<p>We are pleased to share that <a href="https://pptr.dev/">Puppeteer</a> now supports the next-generation, cross-browser <a href="https://w3c.github.io/webdriver-bidi/">WebDriver BiDi standard</a>. This new protocol makes it easy for web developers to write automated tests that work across multiple browser engines.</p>
<h3>How Do I Use Puppeteer With Firefox?</h3>
<p>The WebDriver BiDi protocol is supported starting with <a href="https://pptr.dev/webdriver-bidi">Puppeteer v21.6.0</a>. When calling <code>puppeteer.launch</code> pass in <code>"firefox"</code> as the product option, and <code>"webDriverBiDi"</code> as the protocol option:</p>
<pre><code class="hljs javascript">const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
product: 'firefox',
protocol: 'webDriverBiDi',
})</code></pre>
<p>You can also use the <code>"webDriverBiDi"</code> protocol when testing in Chrome, reflecting the fact that WebDriver BiDi offers a single standard for modern cross-browser automation.</p>
<p>In the future we expect <code>"webDriverBiDi"</code> to become the default protocol when using Firefox in Puppeteer.</p>
<h3>Doesn’t Puppeteer Already Support Firefox?</h3>
<p>Puppeteer has had experimental support for Firefox based on a partial re-implementation of the proprietary <a href="https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/">Chrome DevTools Protocol</a> (CDP). This approach had the advantage that it worked without significant changes to the existing Puppeteer code. However the CDP implementation in Firefox is incomplete and has significant technical limitations. In addition, the CDP protocol itself is not designed to be cross browser, and undergoes frequent breaking changes, making it unsuitable as a long-term solution for cross-browser automation.</p>
<p>To overcome these problems, we’ve worked with the WebDriver Working Group at the W3C to create a standard automation protocol that meets the needs of modern browser automation clients: this is WebDriver BiDi. For more details on the protocol design and how it compares to the classic HTTP-based WebDriver protocol, see our <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/12/cross-browser-testing-part-1-web-app-testing-today/">earlier</a> <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/01/improving-cross-browser-testing-part-2-new-automation-features-in-firefox-nightly/">posts</a>.</p>
<p>As the standardization process has progressed, the Puppeteer team has added a WebDriver BiDi backend in Puppeteer, and provided feedback on the specification to ensure that it meets the needs of Puppeteer users, and that the protocol design enables existing CDP-based tooling to easily transition to WebDriver BiDi. The result is a single protocol based on open standards that can drive both Chrome and Firefox in Puppeteer.</p>
<h3>Are All Puppeteer Features Supported?</h3>
<p>Not <a href="https://puppeteer.github.io/ispuppeteerwebdriverbidiready/">yet</a>; WebDriver BiDi is still a work in progress, and doesn’t yet cover the full feature set of Puppeteer.</p>
<p>Compared to the Chrome+CDP implementation, there are some feature gaps, including support for accessing the cookie store, network request interception, some emulation features, and permissions. These features are actively being standardized and will be integrated as soon as they become available. For Firefox, the only missing feature compared to the Firefox+CDP implementation is cookie access. In addition, WebDriver BiDi already offers improvements, including better support for multi-process Firefox, which is essential for testing some websites. More information on the complete set of supported APIs can be found in the <a href="https://pptr.dev/webdriver-bidi">Puppeteer documentation</a>, and as new WebDriver-BiDi features are enabled in Gecko we’ll publish details on the <a href="https://fxdx.dev/">Firefox Developer Experience blog</a>.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, we believe that the WebDriver-based Firefox support in Puppeteer has reached a level of quality which makes it suitable for many real automation scenarios. For example at Mozilla we have successfully <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/pull/17172">ported</a> our Puppeteer tests for <a href="https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/">pdf.js</a> from Firefox+CDP to Firefox+WebDriver BiDi.</p>
<h3>Is Firefox’s CDP Support Going Away?</h3>
<p>We currently don’t have a specific timeline for removing CDP support. However, maintaining multiple protocols is not a good use of our resources, and we expect WebDriver BiDi to be the future of remote automation in Firefox. If you are using the CDP support outside of the context of Puppeteer, we’d love to hear from you (see below), so that we can understand your use cases, and help transition to WebDriver BiDi.</p>
<h3>Where Can I Provide Feedback?</h3>
<p>For any issues you experience when porting Puppeteer tests to BiDi, please open issues in the <a href="https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/issues/new/choose">Puppeteer issue tracker</a>, unless you can verify the bug is in the Firefox implementation, in which case please <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Remote%20Protocol&component=WebDriver%20BiDi">file a bug on Bugzilla</a>.</p>
<p>If you are currently using CDP with Firefox, please join the <a href="https://matrix.to/#/#webdriver:mozilla.org">#webdriver matrix channel</a> so that we can discuss your use case and requirements, and help you solve any problems you encounter porting your code to WebDriver BiDi.</p>
<p><strong>Update</strong>: The Puppeteer team have published “<a href="https://developer.chrome.com/blog/puppeteer-webdriver-bidi-2023">Harness the Power of WebDriver BiDi: Chrome and Firefox Automation with Puppeteer</a>“.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/12/puppeteer-webdriver-bidi/">Puppeteer Support for the Cross-Browser WebDriver BiDi Standard</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-12-12T16:14:03+00:00James GrahamSeaMonkey: SeaMonkey 2.53.18 is now out!
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/12/12/seamonkey-2-53-18-is-now-out/
<p>Hi All,</p>
<p>The SeaMonkey project is pleased to announce the immediate release of 2.53.18 version of this long standing Internet Suite.</p>
<p>Please check out [1] and/or [2]. Also note, the updates should be up now.</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p>[1] – <a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.18">https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/seamonkey2.53.18</a></p>
<p>[2] – <a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.18">https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/2.53.18</a></p>2023-12-12T08:29:39+00:00ewongOpen Policy & Advocacy: Mozilla and Allies Say No to Surveillance Blank Check in NDAA, Yes to Strong Surveillance Protections
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/12/08/mozilla-and-allies-say-no-to-surveillance-blank-check-in-ndaa-yes-to-strong-surveillance-protections/
<p>Today Mozilla, along with a group of builders and supporters of innovation, sent a letter calling on the US House of Representatives to pass strong surveillance reform proposals such as the Government Surveillance Reform Act (GSRA) and the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act (PLEWSA).</p>
<p>In line with <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/07/27/mozilla-calls-on-congress-to-reform-fisa/">our previous call</a> for reform, our letter also highlighted the need for codification of the scope of surveillance proposed in the Administration’s own Executive Order on “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities” and opposed a months-long reauthorization of Section 702 that would effectively greenlight surveillance abuses.</p>
<p>Both GSRA and PLEWSA take critical steps forward in protecting Americans from overbroad surveillance, such as imposing warrant requirements for queries of US person data and banning warrantless purchases of sensitive information on Americans from data brokers. We do, however, encourage Congress to examine how it can further strengthen PLEWSA.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, House and Senate Intelligence Committees are also considering proposals of their own, proposals that would entrench the surveillance status quo.</p>
<p>Those wishing to get involved can <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/126lljPxCTu3qiyFGlVziYh_w4J7cdhB7LOQKKNN9J7s/edit">add their names</a> to our letter and do their part to engage Congress on this important issue.</p>
<p>You can find the letter <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/files/2023/12/FISA-Reauthorization-Letter-12.8.pdf">HERE</a>.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/12/08/mozilla-and-allies-say-no-to-surveillance-blank-check-in-ndaa-yes-to-strong-surveillance-protections/">Mozilla and Allies Say No to Surveillance Blank Check in NDAA, Yes to Strong Surveillance Protections</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy">Open Policy & Advocacy</a>.</p>2023-12-08T15:04:55+00:00Noam KantorSUMO Blog: What’s up with SUMO – Q4 2023
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/12/07/whats-up-with-sumo-q4-2023/
<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>The last part of our quarterly update in 2023 come early with this post. That means, we won’t get the data from December just yet (but we’ll make sure to update the post later). Lots of updates after the last quarter so let’s just dive in!</p>
<h3>Welcome note and shout-outs from Q4</h3>
<ul>
<li>Welcome to <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/philipp2005/">Philipp T</a>, and <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/harsxv/">Harry S</a> to the Social and Mobile Store Support program.</li>
<li>Thanks for everybody who helped translated our KB articles to Spanish & reviewed the revisions for the past 3 months. Thanks to <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/pascalchevrel">Pascal</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Nukeador">Nuke</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/avelper">Ángela</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/pablo.carrillo">Pablo.carrillo</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/pcp04">Gerardo</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/noelonassis">Fernando</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/zupe">Zupe</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/italodeox">Italodeox</a>, <a href="http://support.mozilla.org/user/didielpimentel/">Silverio</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/uribetxebarria">Uribetxebarria</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/jamj">Jamj</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/ff.pub.ro">Ff.pub.ro</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/martin.chile">Martin.chile</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/vhrc99">Vhrc99</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/josmiguel92">Josmiguel92</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/seresgavillar">Seresgavillar</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/franjb68">Franjb68</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/javimarsal">Javimarsal</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/priscillamdominguez">Priscillamdominguez</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/telecoamlg">Telecoamlg</a>, and <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/julioadrianortiz320">Julioadrianortiz320</a>.</li>
<li>Congratulations for <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/handisutrian">Handi S</a> & <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/hilillosconchems/">Carlos Tomás</a> for becoming a new locale leader for Indonesian and Catalan.</li>
<li>Thanks also to everybody who helped with the localization of <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/pocket-firefox-account-migration">Pocket migration to Mozilla accounts FAQ article</a>. Thank you to <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/wxie2016/">Wxie</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/irvin/">Irvin</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/markh2/">Mark H</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Mozinet//">Pierre</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Artist/">Artist</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/michro/">Michele</a>, <a href="http://support.mozilla.org/user/marsf/">Marsf</a>, <a href="http://support.mozilla.org/user/dskmori/">Daisuke</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/hyeonseok/">Hyeon Soek</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/TyDraniu/">Krzysztof</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/cesperanc/">Cláudio</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Goudron/">Valery</a>, and <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/lsiebert/">Lucas</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you know anyone that we should feature here, please contact <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/kelimutu">Kiki</a> and we’ll make sure to add them in our next edition.</p>
<h3>Community news</h3>
<ul>
<li>Kiki back from <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/716421#post-85784">maternity leave</a> and Sarto bid her farewell, all happened in this quarter.</li>
<li>We have a new contributor policy around the use of generative AI tools. This was one of the things that Sarto initiated back then so I’d like to give the credit to her. Please take some time to read and familiarize yourself with <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/contributors/716669?last=86622">the policy</a>.</li>
<li>Spanish contributors are pushing really hard to help <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/l10n-forum/716602?last=86632">localize the in-product and top articles for the Firefox Desktop</a>. I’m so proud that at the moment, 57.65% of Firefox Desktop in-product articles have been translated & updated to Spanish (compared to 11.8% when we started) and 80% of top 50 articles are localized and updated to Spanish. Huge props to those who I mentioned in the shout-outs section above.</li>
<li>We’ve got new locale leaders for <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/locales/ca/">Catalan</a> and <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/locales/id/">Indonesian</a> (as I mentioned above). Please join me to congratulate <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/handisutrian">Handi S</a> & <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/hilillosconchems/">Carlos Tomás</a> for their new role!</li>
<li>The Customer Experience team is officially moved out from the Marketing org to the Strategy and Operations org led by <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/about/leadership/#suba-vasudevan">Suba Vasudevan</a> (more about that in our community meeting in Dec).</li>
<li>We’ve migrated Pocket support platform (used to be under Help Scout) to SUMO. That means, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/products/pocket">Pocket help articles</a> are now available on Mozilla Support, and people looking for Pocket premium support can also <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/pocket/form">ask a question</a> through SUMO.</li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-accounts-renamed-mozilla-accounts">Firefox account is transitioned to Mozilla account</a> in early November this year. Read <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-accounts-transition-mozilla-accounts/">this article</a> to learn more about the background for this transition.</li>
<li>We did a SUMO sprint for the Review checker feature with the release of <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Firefox119">Firefox 119</a>, even though we couldn’t find lots of chatter about it.</li>
<li>Please check out <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/l10n-forum/716620?last=86446">this thread</a> to learn more about recent platform fixes and improvements (including the use of emoji! )</li>
<li>We’ve also updated and moved Kitsune documentation to GitHub page recently. Check out <a href="http://support.mozilla.org/forums/contributors/716649?last=86541">this thread</a> to learn more.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Catch up</h3>
<ul>
<li>Watch the monthly community call if you haven’t. Learn more about what’s new in <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-10-25">October</a>, <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-11-15">November</a>, and <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-12-13">December</a>! <b>Reminder:</b> <i>Don’t hesitate to join the call in person if you can. We try our best to provide a safe space for everyone to contribute. You’re more than welcome to lurk in the call if you don’t feel comfortable turning on your video or speaking up. If you feel shy to ask questions during the meeting, feel free to add your questions on the contributor forum in advance, or put them in our Matrix channel, so we can answer them during the meeting. First time joining the call? Check out</i><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-participate-sumo-contributor-meetings"><i> this article</i></a><i> to get to know how to join. </i></li>
<li>If you’re an NDA’ed contributor, you can watch the recording of the Customer Experience weekly scrum meeting from <a href="https://mzl.la/SUMO-release-scrum">AirMozilla</a> to catch up with the latest product updates.</li>
<li>Consider subscribe to <a href="https://mzl.la/3NZO8tI">Firefox Daily Digest</a> to get daily updates about Firefox from across different platforms.</li>
</ul>
<p>Check out <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/sumo-project/projects/1">SUMO Engineering Board</a> to see what the platform team is currently doing and submit a report through <a href="https://mzl.la/47zWgf1">Bugzilla</a> if you want to report a bug/request for improvement.</p>
<h3>Community stats</h3>
<h4>KB</h4>
<p><b>KB pageviews (*)</b></p>
<pre>* KB pageviews number is a total of KB pageviews for /en-US/ only</pre>
<table style="height: 109px;" width="549">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Month</b></td>
<td><b>Page views</b></td>
<td><b>Vs previous month</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oct 2023</td>
<td>7,061,331</td>
<td>9.36%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nov 2023</td>
<td>6,502,248</td>
<td>-7.92%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Dec 2023</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 KB contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/AliceWyman">AliceWyman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/markh2/">Mark Heijl</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Mozinet">Pierre Mozinet</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Artist">Artist</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/michro/">Michele Rodaro</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>KB Localization</h4>
<p><b>Top 10 locales based on total page views</b></p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Locale</b></td>
<td><b>Oct 2023 </b><p></p>
<p><b>pageviews (*)</b></p></td>
<td><b>Nov 2023 pageviews (*)</b></td>
<td><b>Dec 2023 </b><p></p>
<p><b>pageviews (*)</b></p></td>
<td><b>Localization progress (per Dec, 7)(**)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/de/localization">de</a></td>
<td>10.66%</td>
<td>10.97%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>93%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/fr/localization">fr</a></td>
<td>7.10%</td>
<td>7.23%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>80%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/zh-CN/localization">zh-CN</a></td>
<td>6.84%</td>
<td>6.81%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>92%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/es/localization">es</a></td>
<td>5.59%</td>
<td>5.49%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>27%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/ja/localization">ja</a></td>
<td>5.10%</td>
<td>4.72%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>33%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/ru/localization">ru</a></td>
<td>3.67%</td>
<td>3.8%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>88%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/pt-BR/localization">pt-BR</a></td>
<td>3.30%</td>
<td>3.11%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>43%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/it/localization">It</a></td>
<td>2.52%</td>
<td>2.48%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>96%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/zh-TW/localization">zh-TW</a></td>
<td>2.42%</td>
<td>2.61%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/pl/localization">pl</a></td>
<td>2.13%</td>
<td>2.11%</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>83%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<pre>* Locale pageviews is an overall pageviews from the given locale (KB and other pages)
** Localization progress is the percentage of localized article from all KB articles per locale</pre>
<p><b>Top 5 localization contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/michro/">Michele Rodaro</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/markh2/">Mark Heijl</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/d.spentzos/">Jim Spentzos</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Artist">Artist</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/TyDraniu/">Chris</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Forum Support</h4>
<p><b>Forum stats</b></p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Month</b></td>
<td><b>Total questions</b></td>
<td><b>Answer rate within 72 hrs</b></td>
<td><b>Solved rate within 72 hrs</b></td>
<td><b>Forum helpfulness</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oct 2023</td>
<td>3,897</td>
<td>66.33%</td>
<td>10.01%</td>
<td>59.68%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nov 2023</td>
<td>2,660</td>
<td>64.77%</td>
<td>9.81%</td>
<td>65.74%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Dec 2023</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 forum contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/287">Cor-el</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/davidsk">Davidsk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/sfhowes/">Sfhowes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/1185547">Paul</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/@next/">Next</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Social Support</h4>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Channel</b></td>
<td><b>Total tweets</b></td>
<td><b>Total moderation by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Total reply by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Respond conversion rate</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oct 2023</td>
<td>311</td>
<td>209</td>
<td>132</td>
<td>63.16%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nov 2023</td>
<td>245</td>
<td>137</td>
<td>87</td>
<td>63.50%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Dec 2023</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
<td>TBD</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 Social Support contributors in the past 3 months: </b></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Mad_Maks/">Tim Maks </a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Fjoerfoks/">Wim Benes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Dan2023/">Daniel B</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/philipp2005/">Philipp T</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Mozinet">Pierre Mozinet</a></li>
</ol>
<h4>Play Store Support</h4>
<p>Firefox for Android only</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Channel</b></td>
<td><b>Total reviews</b></td>
<td><b>Total conv interacted by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Total conv replied by contributors</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Oct 2023</td>
<td>6,334</td>
<td>45</td>
<td>18</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Nov 2023</td>
<td>6,231</td>
<td>281</td>
<td>75</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Dec 2023</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 Play Store contributors in the past 3 months: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/philipp2005/">Philipp T</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Mad_Maks/">Tim Maks </a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Fjoerfoks/">Wim Benes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Dan2023/">Daniel B</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/harsxv/">Harry S</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Product updates</h3>
<p>To catch up on product releases update, please watch the recording of the Customer Experience scrum meeting from <a href="https://mzl.la/SUMO-release-scrum">AirMozilla</a>. You can also subscribe to the AirMozilla folder by clickling on the Subscribe button at the top right corner of the page to get notifications each time we add a new recording.</p>
<h3>Useful links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#SUMO:mozilla.org">#SUMO Matrix group</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/sumo/">SUMO Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums">Contributor forums</a></li>
<li>Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/SUMO_Mozilla">@SUMO_mozilla</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FirefoxSupport">@FirefoxSupport</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/">SUMO Blog</a></li>
</ul>
<p> </p>2023-12-08T07:13:08+00:00Rizki KelimutuWeb Application Security: Mozilla VPN Security Audit 2023
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2023/12/06/mozilla-vpn-security-audit-2023/
<p>To provide transparency into our ongoing efforts to protect your privacy and security on the Internet, we are releasing a security audit of <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/">Mozilla VPN</a> that<a href="http://cure53.de/"> Cure53</a> conducted earlier this year.</p>
<p>The scope of this security audit included the following products:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for macOS</li>
<li>Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Linux</li>
<li>Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Windows</li>
<li>Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for iOS</li>
<li>Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Android</li>
</ul>
<p>Here’s a summary of the items discovered within this security audit that the auditors rated as medium or higher severity:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-003: DoS via serialized intent </b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Data received via <i>intents</i> within the affected activity should be validated to prevent the Android app from exposing certain activities to third-party apps.</li>
<li>There was a risk that a malicious application could leverage this weakness to crash the app at any time.</li>
<li>This risk was addressed by Mozilla and confirmed by Cure53.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-008: Keychain access level leaks WG private key to iCloud </b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Cure53 confirmed that this risk has been addressed due to an extra layer of encryption, which protects the Keychain specifically with a key from the device’s secure enclave.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-009: Lack of access controls on daemon socket</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Access controls to guarantee that the user sending commands to the daemon was permitted to initiate the intended action needs to be implemented.</li>
<li>This risk has been addressed by Mozilla and confirmed by Cure53.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-010: VPN leak via captive portal detection </b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>Cure53 advised that the captive portal detection feature be turned off by default to prevent an opportunity for IP leakage when using maliciously set up WiFi hotspots.</li>
<li>Mozilla addressed the risk by no longer pinging for a captive portal outside of the VPN tunnel.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-011: Lack of local TCP server access controls</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>The VPN client exposes a local TCP interface running on port 8754, which is bound to localhost. Users on localhost can issue a request to the port and disable the VPN.</li>
<li>Mozilla addressed this risk as recommended by Cure53.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>FVP-03-012: Rogue extension can disable VPN using mozillavpnnp (High)</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>mozillavpnnp does not sufficiently restrict the application caller.</li>
<li>Mozilla addressed this risk as recommended by Cure53.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’d like to read the detailed report from Cure53, including all low and informational items, you can find it <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security/files/2023/12/Cure53-Final-Audit-Report.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2023/12/06/mozilla-vpn-security-audit-2023/">Mozilla VPN Security Audit 2023</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security">Mozilla Security Blog</a>.</p>2023-12-06T17:00:37+00:00Jenifer Boscaccihacks.mozilla.org: Firefox Developer Edition and Beta: Try out Mozilla’s .deb package!
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/firefox-developer-edition-and-beta-try-out-mozillas-deb-package/
<p class="p-rich_text_section">A month ago, <a class="c-link" href="https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2023/10/30/introducing-mozillas-firefox-nightly-deb-packages-for-debian-based-linux-distributions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">we introduced our Nightly package</a> for Debian-based Linux distributions. Today, we are proud to announce we made our <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">.deb</code> package available for Developer Edition and Beta!</p>
<p class="p-rich_text_section">We’ve set up a new APT repository for you to install Firefox as a <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">.deb</code> package. <a class="c-link" href="https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/system-requirements" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">These packages are compatible with the same Debian and Ubuntu versions as our traditional binaries.</a></p>
<p class="p-rich_text_section">Your feedback is invaluable, so don’t hesitate to <a class="c-link" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=__default__&blocked=1799516&product=Release%20Engineering&component=General" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">report any issues</a> you encounter to help us improve the overall experience.</p>
<p class="p-rich_text_section">Adopting Mozilla’s Firefox <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">.deb</code> package offers multiple benefits:</p>
<ul class="p-rich_text_list p-rich_text_list__bullet">
<li>you will get better performance thanks to our advanced compiler-based optimizations,</li>
<li>you will receive the latest updates as fast as possible because the <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">.deb</code> is integrated into Firefox’s release process,</li>
<li>you will get hardened binaries with all security flags enabled during compilation,</li>
<li>you can continue browsing after upgrading the package, meaning you can restart Firefox at your convenience to get the latest version.</li>
</ul>
<div class="p-rich_text_section">To set up the APT repository and install the Firefox <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">.deb</code> package, simply follow these steps:</div>
<div></div>
<pre class="c-mrkdwn__pre"><code><code># Create a directory to store APT repository keys if it doesn't exist:
sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
# Import the Mozilla APT repository signing key:
wget -q <a class="c-link" href="https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg" data-sk="tooltip_parent">https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg</a> -O- | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc > /dev/null
# The fingerprint should be 35BAA0B33E9EB396F59CA838C0BA5CE6DC6315A3
gpg -n -q --import --import-options import-show /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc | awk '/pub/{getline; gsub(/^ +| +$/,""); print "\n"$0"\n"}'
# Next, add the Mozilla APT repository to your sources list:
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc] <a class="c-link" href="https://packages.mozilla.org/apt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://packages.mozilla.org/apt" data-sk="tooltip_parent">https://packages.mozilla.org/apt</a> mozilla main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null
# Update your package list and install the Firefox .deb package:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox-beta # Replace "beta" by "devedition" for Developer Edition</code></pre>
<div class="p-rich_text_section">And that’s it! You have now installed the latest Firefox Beta/Developer Edition .deb package on your Linux.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="p-rich_text_section">Firefox supports more than a hundred different locales. The packages mentioned above are in American English, but we have also created .deb packages containing the Firefox language packs. To install a specific language pack, replace <span style="color: #ff0000;"><code class="c-mrkdwn__code">fr</code></span> in the example below with the desired language code:</div>
<pre class="c-mrkdwn__pre"><code>sudo apt-get install firefox-beta-l10n-fr</code></pre>
<div class="p-rich_text_section">To list all the available language packs, you can use this command <i>after</i> adding the Mozilla APT repository and running <code class="c-mrkdwn__code">sudo apt-get update</code>:</div>
<pre class="c-mrkdwn__pre">apt-cache search firefox-beta-l10n</pre>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/firefox-developer-edition-and-beta-try-out-mozillas-deb-package/">Firefox Developer Edition and Beta: Try out Mozilla’s .deb package!</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-11-30T19:55:38+00:00Johan Lorenzo (Mozilla)Mozilla L10N: Vote for new Pontoon features
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/11/29/vote-for-new-pontoon-features/
<p>It’s been a while since we have asked Pontoon users what new features should we develop, which is why we have decided to run another <a href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7621087/768de71f09d5">survey</a> now.</p>
<p>But first, let’s take a look at the top-voted features from the last round that are all live now:</p>
<ol>
<li>Provide new contributors with guidelines before adding their first suggestion (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2305">details</a>).</li>
<li>Notify suggestion authors when their suggestions get reviewed (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2094">details</a>).</li>
<li>Pre-fill editor with 100% Translation Memory matches when available (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2050">details</a>).</li>
</ol>
<p>In addition to those, we also implemented a couple of features that didn’t make it into top 3:</p>
<ul>
<li>Expose managers on team dashboards to help users get in touch with them easily (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2157">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add a light theme (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2141">details</a>).</li>
</ul>
<p>You asked, we listened! 🙂</p>
<h3><a href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7621087/768de71f09d5">2024 Survey</a></h3>
<p>It’s now time to vote again! We’re working on <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org">Pontoon</a> Roadmap for 2024 and we commit to implement at least 3 top-voted features by Pontoon users.</p>
<p>Please let us know by December 11 how important for you are the features listed below in this quick 5-minute <a href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7621087/768de71f09d5">survey</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Add virtual keyboard with special characters to the editor, customizable per locale <span class="reference"><a class="issue-link js-issue-link" href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2059">(details)</a>.</span></li>
<li>Add “Copy translation from another locale as suggestion” batch action (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2255">details</a>).</li>
<li>Link project names in Concordance search results to their corresponding strings (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2276">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add ability to edit Translation Memory entries (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3031">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add ability to propose new Terminology entries (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2310">details</a>).</li>
<li>Improve overall performance of Pontoon translation workspace and dashboards (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/3032">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add ability to preview Fluent strings in the editor (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2232">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add ability to receive automated notifications via email (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2076">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add ability to read notifications one by one, or mark notifications as unread (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2108">details</a>).</li>
<li>Add Timeline tab with activity to Project, Locale, ProjectLocale dashboards (<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues/2138">details</a>).</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that at the end of the <a href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7621087/768de71f09d5">survey</a> you will be able to add your own ideas, which you are always welcome to submit on <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pontoon/issues">GitHub</a>.</p>2023-11-29T21:34:14+00:00DelphineThe Mozilla Thunderbird Blog: Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: October 2023 Progress Report
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/
<p><img alt="a dark background with thunderbird and k-9 mail logos centered, with the text "Thunderbird for Android, October 2023 progress report"" class="attachment-640x360 size-640x360 wp-post-image" height="360" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/K9-October-2023-768x432.jpg" width="640" /></p>
<div class="wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-button has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-element-button" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=de&u=https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Auf Deutsch übersetzen</a></div>
<div class="wp-block-button has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-element-button" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=es&u=https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/upcoming-thunderbird-community-office-hours/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Traducir al español</a></div>
<div class="wp-block-button has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-element-button" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=fr&u=https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Traduire en français</a></div>
<div class="wp-block-button has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-element-button" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=it&u=https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Traduci in italiano</a></div>
<div class="wp-block-button has-custom-font-size has-small-font-size"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-element-button" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=auto&tl=ja&u=https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/">日本語に翻訳</a></div>
</div>
<p>Welcome to the progress report for October! If you missed the one for September, you’re in luck, because we always try to include a link to the <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/10/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-september-2023-progress-report/">progress report of the previous month</a> in the introduction.</p>
<h3>Translations</h3>
<p>All the translations of the app are provided by volunteers from the community. This work is mostly independent from software development and design work. So sometimes it’s easy for us to forget that a lot more people regularly spend time working on the app.</p>
<p>Dear translators, thank you for all the work you’re putting into making the app more accessible by translating it to so many languages <img alt="❤" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2764.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<h4>Move to Weblate</h4>
<p>In October we switched to Weblate to manage translations of the app. This has a couple of reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Some of the volunteers providing translations have expressed a strong preference for Weblate. It’s also not uncommon for volunteers to also translate other open source apps. Weblate has become a popular option for that.</li>
<li>Weblate has good tools to allow us to better integrate it into our development process.</li>
<li>Unlike the previous translation service we used, Weblate itself is open source software. And you all know we love open source.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Call for translators </h4>
<p>Currently K-9 Mail ships with support for the following 49 languages:</p>
<p>Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English (GB), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, Gaelic, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Norwegian Bokmål, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh.</p>
<p>There’s an additional 7 languages where partial translations exist, but are currently not included in the app:</p>
<p>Armenian (36% translated), Azerbaijani (6%), Georgian (51%), Hindi (23%), Norwegian Nynorsk (43%), Tamil (16%), Vietnamese (63%).</p>
<p>However, some of the included translations haven’t been updated in a while. And so in addition to the 7 languages above, there’s quite a few languages that could use the help of new translators. Here’s the list of languages where less than 97% of strings have been translated:</p>
<p>Arabic (88%), Belarusian (89%), Breton (74%), Bulgarian (87%), Croatian (75%), Danish (92%), English (GB) (1%), Esperanto (82%), Gaelic (73%), Galician (82%), Greek (89%), Hebrew (49%), Indonesian (79%), Korean (69%), Latvian (89%), Lithuanian (87%), Malayalam (81%), Norwegian Bokmål (93%), Persian (89%), Portuguese (Portugal) (88%), Russian (88%), Serbian (79%), Slovak (71%), Slovenian (90%), Ukrainian (89%), Welsh (86%).</p>
<p>If you want to help out with translations for any of these, please head over to <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/tb-android/">our Weblate project</a>.</p>
<h3>GitHub organization renamed</h3>
<p>On October 31 our GitHub organization was renamed from <em>thundernest</em> to <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/"><em>thunderbird</em></a>. We also used this opportunity to rename the repository from <em>k-9</em> to <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android"><em>thunderbird-android</em></a>.</p>
<p>Old links should redirect to the new location. But if you’re maintaining a website that links to our GitHub organization or repository, please update those links.</p>
<h3>Improved account setup</h3>
<p>The new account setup is still our main focus. In October most of our work went on behind the scenes. The only user-visible changes were fixing a crash when entering an unsupported email address and respecting the app theme and app language settings in the account setup UI.</p>
<p>We also worked on replacing the screens to edit incoming and outgoing server settings. However, that work is still ongoing and not available in beta releases yet.</p>
<h3>Architecture decision records</h3>
<p>We’re trying to get better at documenting decisions we made about the architecture of the app. Wolf started us off by creating the following architecture decision records (ADR):</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/blob/main/docs/architecture/adr/0001-switch-from-java-to-kotlin.md">0001 – Switch from Java to Kotlin</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/blob/main/docs/architecture/adr/0002-ui-wrap-material-components-in-atomic-design-system.md">0002 – UI – Wrap Material Components in Atomic Design System</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/blob/main/docs/architecture/adr/0003-switch-test-assertions-from-truth-to-assertk.md">0003 – Switch Test Assertions from Truth to assertk</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>“Make Better Email” meeting</h3>
<p>At the end of October cketti attended <a href="https://makebetter.email/">Make Better Email</a><em>,</em> a meeting to bring together email client authors, email server authors, and email service providers to talk about how to improve the ecosystem through the better use of open standards.</p>
<p>Some of the topics we talked about:</p>
<ul>
<li>Modern Authentication – What mechanism do we need to be able to support interoperable modern authentication for clients of open protocols, such as IMAP, JMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, and CardDAV.</li>
<li>Scheduled Send – How can this feature be implemented in an interoperable way.</li>
<li>IMAP Extensions – We came up with a recommendation for which existing standards should be targeted by living IMAP code.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the upcoming months this should result in new RFC drafts and a best current practice (BCP) document at the IETF.</p>
<h3>Community contributions</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/fishchimp">fishchimp</a> made a change that hopefully makes it harder to accidentally trigger swipe actions in the message list (see <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7280">#7280</a>).</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/marcelmu">Marcel M.</a> fixed a bug that lead to notifications always being silent on Android Wear devices (see <a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/pull/7284">#7284</a>).</li>
</ul>
<p>Many thanks to both of you! <img alt="❤" class="wp-smiley" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2764.png" style="height: 1em;" /></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://mzla.link/3MIFAKe"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1444" height="630" src="https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2023/11/EOY-FB-Mastodon-Lanscape.jpg" width="1200" /></a></figure>
<h3>Releases</h3>
<p>In October 2023 we published the following stable releases:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.603">K-9 Mail v6.603</a> (2023-10-12)</li>
</ul>
<p>… and the following beta versions:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/releases/tag/6.711">K-9 Mail v6.711 (beta)</a> (2023-10-04)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>If you want to help shape future versions of the app, </strong><a href="https://forum.k9mail.app/t/how-do-i-become-a-beta-tester/68"><strong>become a beta tester</strong></a><strong> and provide feedback on new features while they are still in development.</strong></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/thunderbird-for-android-k-9-mail-october-2023-progress-report/">Thunderbird for Android / K-9 Mail: October 2023 Progress Report</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.thunderbird.net">The Thunderbird Blog</a>.</p>2023-11-29T20:14:34+00:00ckettihacks.mozilla.org: Introducing llamafile
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/introducing-llamafile/
<p><em>A special thanks to Justine Tunney of the Mozilla Internet Ecosystem (MIECO), who co-authored this blog post.</em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today we’re announcing the first release of </span><a href="https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile"><span style="font-weight: 400;">llamafile</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and inviting the open source community to participate in this new project.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">llamafile lets you turn large language model (LLM) weights into executables.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Say you have a set of LLM weights in the form of a 4GB file (in the commonly-used GGUF format). With llamafile you can transform that 4GB file into a binary that runs on six OSes without needing to be installed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This makes it dramatically easier to distribute and run LLMs. It also means that as models and their weights formats continue to evolve over time, llamafile gives you a way to ensure that a given set of weights will remain usable and perform consistently and reproducibly, forever.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We achieved all this by combining two projects that we love:</span><a href="https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">llama.cpp</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (a leading open source LLM chatbot framework) with</span><a href="https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Cosmopolitan Libc</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (an open source project that enables C programs to be compiled and run on a large number of platforms and architectures). It also required solving several interesting and juicy problems along the way, such as adding GPU and dlopen() support to Cosmopolitan; you can read more about it in </span><a href="https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile#readme"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the project’s README</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This first release of llamafile is a product of Mozilla’s innovation group and developed by </span><a href="https://justine.lol"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Justine Tunney</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the creator of Cosmopolitan. Justine has recently been collaborating with Mozilla via </span><a href="https://future.mozilla.org/mieco/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">MIECO</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and through that program Mozilla funded her work on the </span><a href="https://justine.lol/cosmo3/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">3.0 release</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (</span><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38101613"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hacker News discussion</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">) of Cosmopolitan. With llamafile, Justine is excited to be contributing more directly to Mozilla projects, and we’re happy to have her involved.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">llamafile is licensed Apache 2.0, and we encourage contributions. Our changes to llama.cpp itself are licensed MIT (the same license used by llama.cpp itself) so as to facilitate any potential future upstreaming. We’re all big fans of llama.cpp around here; llamafile wouldn’t have been possible without it and Cosmopolitan.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We hope llamafile is useful to you and look </span><a href="https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile"><span style="font-weight: 400;">forward to your feedback</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/introducing-llamafile/">Introducing llamafile</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-11-29T18:46:02+00:00Stephen HoodMozilla Add-ons Blog: Open extensions on Firefox for Android debut December 14 (but you can get a sneak peek today)
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-debut-december-14-but-you-can-get-a-sneak-peek-today/
<p>Starting December 14, 2023, extensions marked as Android compatible on <i>addons.mozilla.org</i> (AMO) will be openly available to Firefox for Android users.</p>
<p>“We’ve been so impressed with developer enthusiasm and preparation,” said Giorgio Natili, Firefox Director of Engineering. “Just a few weeks ago it looked like we might have a couple hundred Android extensions for launch, but now we can safely say AMO will have 400+ new Firefox for Android extensions available on December 14. We couldn’t be more thankful to our developer community for embracing this exciting moment.”</p>
<p>In anticipation of the launch of open extensions on Android, we just added a link to “<i>Explore all Android extensions</i>” on <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">AMO’s Android page</a> to make it easy to discover new content. And just for fun and to offer a taste of what’s to come, we also released a couple dozen new open extensions for Android. You can find them listed beneath the Recommended Extensions collection on that <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">AMO Android page</a>. Try a few out!</p>
<h3><b>Get your Firefox desktop extension ready for Android</b></h3>
<p>There’s still time to <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/developing-extensions-for-firefox-for-android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">make your desktop extension compatible with Firefox for Android</a> if you want to be part of the December 14 launch. Senior Developer Relations Engineer Simeon Vincent recently hosted two webinars to help developers work through common migration hurdles. Here are recorded webinars from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN6AAIQrs_Q" rel="noopener" target="_blank">October</a> (an introduction to mobile extension migration) and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/events/7123393225486159872/about/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">November</a> (setup, testing, debugging).</p>
<p>Simeon also hosts open “office hours” every Monday and Tuesday for anyone interested in <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/community/#office-hours" rel="noopener" target="_blank">signing up</a> to receive 1:1 guidance on Firefox for Android extension development. Office hours run through December, so be sure to tap Simeon’s expertise while time remains.</p>
<h3><b>“Early Add-opter” t-shirts still available!</b></h3>
<p>Are you a developer planning to make your desktop extension work with Firefox for Android by December 14? Do you like cool free t-shirts? Great! Then email us at <b>firefox-android-addon-support [at] mozilla.com</b> with a link to your extension’s AMO listing page and we’ll follow up with t-shirt order details. Better act fast though, we’ve only got 200 tees total and just a few remain.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-9119" height="294" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/files/2023/11/blog_tee-600x294.png" width="600" /></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-debut-december-14-but-you-can-get-a-sneak-peek-today/">Open extensions on Firefox for Android debut December 14 (but you can get a sneak peek today)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons">Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog</a>.</p>2023-11-28T20:33:34+00:00Scott DeVaneyhacks.mozilla.org: Mozilla AI Guide Launch with Summarization Code Example
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/mozilla-ai-guide-launch-with-summarization-code-example/
<p>The Mozilla AI Guide has launched and we welcome you to read through and get acquainted with it. You can access it <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/">here</a></p>
<p>Our vision is for the AI Guide to be the starting point for every new developer to the space and a place to revisit for clarity and inspiration, ensuring that AI innovations enrich everyday life. The AI Guide’s initial focus begins with language models and the aim is to become a collaborative community-driven resource covering other types of models.</p>
<p>To start the first few sections in the Mozilla AI Guide go in-depth on the most asked questions about Large Language Models (LLMs). <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/ai-basics/">AI Basics</a> covers the concepts of AI, ML, LLMs, what these concepts mean and how they are related. This section also breaks down the pros and cons of using an LLM. <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/llms-101/">Language Models 101</a> continues to build on the shared knowledge of AI basics and dives deeper into the next level with language models. It will answer questions such as “What does ‘training’ an ML model mean” or “What is ‘human in the loop’ approach?”</p>
<p>We will jump to the last section on <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/choosing-ml-models/">Choosing ML Models</a> and demonstrate in code below what can be done using open source models to summarize certain text. You can access the Colab Notebook <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/choosing-ml-models/">here</a> or continue reading:</p>
<h3>First Steps with Language Models</h3>
<p>Unlike other guides, this one is designed to help pick the right model for whatever it is you’re trying to do, by:</p>
<ul>
<li>teaching you how to always remain on the bleeding edge of published AI research</li>
<li>broadening your perspective on current open options for any given task</li>
<li>not be tied to a closed-source / closed-data large language model (ex OpenAI, Anthropic)</li>
<li>creating a data-led system for always identifying and using the state-of-the-art (SOTA) model for any particular task.</li>
</ul>
<p>We’re going to hone in on “text summarization” as our first task.</p>
<h3>So… why are we not using one of the popular large language models?</h3>
<p>Great question. Most available LLMs worth their salt can do many tasks, including summarization, but not all of them may be good at what specifically you want them to do. We should figure out how to evaluate whether they actually can or not.</p>
<p>Also, many of the current popular LLMs are not open, are trained on undisclosed data and exhibit biases. Responsible AI use requires careful choices, and we’re here to help you make them.</p>
<p>Finally, most large LLMs require powerful GPU compute to use. While there are many models that you can use as a service, most of them cost money per API call. Unnecessary when some of the more common tasks can be done at good quality with already available open models and off-the-shelf hardware.</p>
<h3>Why do using open models matter?</h3>
<p>Over the last few decades, engineers have been blessed with being able to onboard by starting with open source projects, and eventually shipping open source to production. This default state is now at risk.</p>
<p>Yes, there are many open models available that do a great job. However, most guides don’t discuss how to get started with them using simple steps and instead bias towards existing closed APIs.</p>
<p>Funding is flowing to commercial AI projects, who have larger budgets than open source contributors to market their work, which inevitably leads to engineers starting with closed source projects and shipping expensive closed projects to production.</p>
<h3>Our First Project – Summarization</h3>
<p>We’re going to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Find text to summarize.</li>
<li>Figure out how to summarize them using the current state-of-the-art open source models.</li>
<li>Write some code to do so.</li>
<li>Evaluate quality of results using relevant metrics</li>
</ul>
<p>For simplicity’s sake, let’s grab <strong>Mozilla’s Trustworthy AI Guidelines</strong> in string form</p>
<p>Note that in the real world, you will likely have to use other libraries to extract content for any particular file type.</p>
<pre><code>import textwrap
content = """Mozilla's "Trustworthy AI" Thinking Points:
PRIVACY: How is data collected, stored, and shared? Our personal data powers everything from traffic maps to targeted advertising. Trustworthy AI should enable people to decide how their data is used and what decisions are made with it.
FAIRNESS: We’ve seen time and again how bias shows up in computational models, data, and frameworks behind automated decision making. The values and goals of a system should be power aware and seek to minimize harm. Further, AI systems that depend on human workers should protect people from exploitation and overwork.
TRUST: People should have agency and control over their data and algorithmic outputs, especially considering the high stakes for individuals and societies. For instance, when online recommendation systems push people towards extreme, misleading content, potentially misinforming or radicalizing them.
SAFETY: AI systems can carry high risk for exploitation by bad actors. Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data and personal security. Further, excessive energy consumption and extraction of natural resources for computing and machine learning accelerates the climate crisis.
TRANSPARENCY: Automated decisions can have huge personal impacts, yet the reasons for decisions are often opaque. We need to mandate transparency so that we can fully understand these systems and their potential for harm."""</code></pre>
<p>Great. Now we’re ready to start summarizing.</p>
<h3>A brief pause for context</h3>
<p>The AI space is moving so fast that it requires a tremendous amount of catching up on scientific papers each week to understand the lay of the land and the state of the art.</p>
<p>It’s some effort for an engineer who is brand new to AI to:</p>
<ul>
<li>discover which open models are even out there</li>
<li>which models are appropriate for any particular task</li>
<li>which benchmarks are used to evaluate those models</li>
<li>which models are performing well based on evaluations</li>
<li>which models can actually run on available hardware</li>
</ul>
<p>For the working engineer on a deadline, this is problematic. There’s not much centralized discourse on working with open source AI models. Instead there are fragmented X (formerly Twitter) threads, random private groups and lots of word-of-mouth transfer.</p>
<p>However, once we have a workflow to address all of the above, you will have the means to forever be on the bleeding age of published AI research</p>
<h3>How do I get a list of available open summarization models?</h3>
<p>For now, we recommend <a href="https://huggingface.co/models?pipeline_tag=summarization">Huggingface</a> and their large directory of open models broken down by task. This is a great starting point. Note that larger LLMs are also included in these lists, so we will have to filter.</p>
<p>In this huge list of summarization models, which ones do we choose?</p>
<p>We don’t know what any of these models are trained on. For example, a summarizer trained on news articles vs Reddit posts will perform better on news articles.</p>
<p>What we need is a set of metrics and benchmarks that we can use to do apples-to-apples comparisons of these models.</p>
<h3>How do I evaluate summarization models?</h3>
<p>The steps below can be used to evaluate any available model for any task. It requires hopping between a few sources of data for now, but we will be making this a lot easier moving forward.</p>
<p>Steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Find the most common datasets used to train models for summarization.</li>
<li>Find the most common metrics used to evaluate models for summarization across those datasets.</li>
<li>Do a quick audit on training data provenance, quality and any exhibited biases, to keep in line with Responsible AI usage.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Finding datasets</h3>
<p>The easiest way to do this is using <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/methods">Papers With Code</a>, an excellent resource for finding the latest scientific papers by task that also have code repositories attached.</p>
<p>First, filter Papers With Code’s “Text Summarization” datasets by <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/datasets?q=&v=lst&o=cited&lang=english&mod=texts&task=text-summarization&page=1">most cited text-based English datasets.</a></p>
<p>Let’s pick (as of this writing) the most cited dataset — the <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/dataset/cnn-daily-mail-1">“CNN/DailyMail”</a> dataset. Usually most cited is one marker of popularity.</p>
<p>Now, you don’t need to download this dataset. But we’re going to review the info Papers With Code have provided to learn more about it for the next step. This dataset is also available on <a href="https://huggingface.co/datasets/cnn_dailymail">Huggingface</a>.</p>
<p>You want to check 3 things:</p>
<ul>
<li>license</li>
<li>recent papers</li>
<li>whether the data is traceable and the methods are transparent</li>
</ul>
<p>First, check the license. In this case, it’s MIT licensed, which means it can be used for both commercial and personal projects.</p>
<p>Next, see if the papers using this dataset are recent. You can do this by sorting Papers in descending order. This particular dataset has many papers from 2023 – great!</p>
<p>Finally, let’s check whether the data is from a credible source. In this case, the dataset was generated by IBM in partnership with the University of Montréal. Great.</p>
<p>Now, let’s dig into how we can evaluate models that use this dataset.</p>
<h3>Evaluating models</h3>
<p>Next, we look for measured metrics that are common across datasets for the summarization task. BUT, if you’re not familiar with the literature on summarization, you have no idea what those are.</p>
<p>To find out, pick a “Subtask” that’s close to what you’d like to see. We’d like to summarize the CNN article we pulled down above, so let’s choose <a href="https://paperswithcode.com/sota/abstractive-text-summarization-on-cnn-daily">“Abstractive Text Summarization”.</a></p>
<p>Now we’re in business! This page contains a significant amount of new information.</p>
<p>There are mentions of three new terms: ROUGE-1, ROUGE-2 and ROUGE-L. These are the metrics that are used to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROUGE_(metric)">measure summarization performance</a>.</p>
<p>There is also a list of models and their scores on these three metrics – this is exactly what we’re looking for.</p>
<p>Assuming we’re looking at ROUGE-1 as our metric, we now have the top 3 models that we can evaluate in more detail. All 3 are close to 50, which is a promising ROUGE score (read up on ROUGE).</p>
<h3>Testing out a model</h3>
<p>OK, we have a few candidates, so let’s pick a model that will run on our local machines. Many models get their best performance when running on GPUs, but there are many that also generate summaries fast on CPUs. Let’s pick one of those to start – <strong>Google’s Pegasus.</strong></p>
<pre><code># first we install huggingface's transformers library
%pip install transformers sentencepiece</code></pre>
<p>Then we <a href="https://huggingface.co/google/pegasus-cnn_dailymail">find Pegasus</a> on Huggingface. Note that part of the datasets Pegasus was trained on includes CNN/DailyMail which bodes well for our article summarization. Interestingly, there’s a variant of Pegasus from google that’s only trained on our dataset of choice, we should use that.</p>
<pre><code>from transformers import PegasusForConditionalGeneration, PegasusTokenizer
import torch
# Set the seed, this will help reproduce results. Changing the seed will
# generate new results
from transformers import set_seed
set_seed(248602)
# We're using the version of Pegasus specifically trained for summarization
# using the CNN/DailyMail dataset
model_name = "google/pegasus-cnn_dailymail"
# If you're following along in Colab, switch your runtime to a
# T4 GPU or other CUDA-compliant device for a speedup
device = "cuda" if torch.cuda.is_available() else "cpu"
# Load the tokenizer
tokenizer = PegasusTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_name)
# Load the model
model = PegasusForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained(model_name).to(device)
# Tokenize the entire content
batch = tokenizer(content, padding="longest", return_tensors="pt").to(device)
# Generate the summary as tokens
summarized = model.generate(**batch)
# Decode the tokens back into text
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
# Compare
def compare(original, summarized_text):
print(f"Article text length: {len(original)}\n")
print(textwrap.fill(summarized_text, 100))
print()
print(f"Summarized length: {len(summarized_text)}")
compare(content, summarized_text)</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Trustworthy AI should enable people to decide how their data is used.<n>values and goals of a system
should be power aware and seek to minimize harm.<n>People should have agency and control over their
data and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data and
personal security.
Summarized length: 320</pre>
<p>Alright, we got something! Kind of short though. Let’s see if we can make the summary longer…</p>
<pre><code>
set_seed(860912)
# Generate the summary as tokens, with a max_new_tokens
summarized = model.generate(**batch, max_new_tokens=800)
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
compare(content, summarized_text)
</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Trustworthy AI should enable people to decide how their data is used.<n>values and goals of a system
should be power aware and seek to minimize harm.<n>People should have agency and control over their
data and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data and
personal security.
Summarized length: 320</pre>
<p>Well, that didn’t really work. Let’s try a different approach called <strong>‘sampling’</strong>. This allows the model to pick the next word according to its conditional probability distribution (specifically, the probability that said word follows the word before).</p>
<p>We’ll also be setting the<strong> ‘temperature’</strong>. This variable works to control the levels of randomness and creativity in the generated output.</p>
<pre><code>set_seed(118511)
summarized = model.generate(**batch, do_sample=True, temperature=0.8, top_k=0)
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
compare(content, summarized_text)</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Mozilla's "Trustworthy AI" Thinking Points:.<n>People should have agency and control over their data
and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data.
Summarized length: 193</pre>
<p>Shorter, but the quality is higher. Adjusting the temperature up will likely help.</p>
<pre><code>set_seed(108814)
summarized = model.generate(**batch, do_sample=True, temperature=1.0, top_k=0)
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
compare(content, summarized_text)</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Mozilla's "Trustworthy AI" Thinking Points:.<n>People should have agency and control over their data
and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data and
personal security.<n>We need to mandate transparency so that we can fully understand these systems
and their potential for harm.
Summarized length: 325</pre>
<p>Now let’s play with one other generation approach called <strong>top_k</strong> sampling — instead of considering all possible next words in the vocabulary, the model only considers the top ‘k’ most probable next words.</p>
<p>This technique helps to focus the model on likely continuations and reduces the chances of generating irrelevant or nonsensical text.</p>
<p>It strikes a balance between creativity and coherence by limiting the pool of next-word choices, but not so much that the output becomes deterministic.</p>
<pre><code>set_seed(226012)
summarized = model.generate(**batch, do_sample=True, top_k=50)
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
compare(content, summarized_text)</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Mozilla's "Trustworthy AI" Thinking Points look at ethical issues surrounding automated decision
making.<n>values and goals of a system should be power aware and seek to minimize harm.People
should have agency and control over their data and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to
implement strong measures to protect our data and personal security.
Summarized length: 355</pre>
<p>Finally, let’s try <strong>top_p</strong> sampling — also known as nucleus sampling, is a strategy where the model considers only the smallest set of top words whose cumulative probability exceeds a threshold ‘p’.</p>
<p>Unlike <strong>top_k</strong> which considers a fixed number of words, <strong>top_p</strong> adapts based on the distribution of probabilities for the next word. This makes it more dynamic and flexible. It helps create diverse and sensible text by allowing less probable words to be selected when the most probable ones don’t add up to ‘p’.</p>
<pre><code>set_seed(21420041)
summarized = model.generate(**batch, do_sample=True, top_p=0.9, top_k=50)
summarized_decoded = tokenizer.batch_decode(summarized, skip_special_tokens=True)
summarized_text = summarized_decoded[0]
compare(content, summarized_text)
# saving this for later.
pegasus_summarized_text = summarized_text</code></pre>
<pre>Article text length: 1427
Mozilla's "Trustworthy AI" Thinking Points:.<n>People should have agency and control over their data
and algorithmic outputs.<n>Developers need to implement strong measures to protect our data and
personal security.<n>We need to mandate transparency so that we can fully understand these systems
and their potential for harm.
Summarized length: 325</pre>
<p>To continue with the code example and see a test with another model, and to learn how to <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/choosing-ml-models/#evaluating-ml-model-results">evaluate ML model results</a> (a whole another section), click here to view the Python Notebook and click “Open in Colab” to experiment with your <a href="https://ai-guide.future.mozilla.org/content/choosing-ml-models/">own custom code</a>.</p>
<p>Note this guide will be constantly updated and new sections on Data Retrieval, Image Generation, and Fine Tuning will be coming next.</p>
<h3>Developer Contributions Are Vital</h3>
<p>Shortly after today’s launch of the Mozilla AI Guide, we will be publishing our community contribution guidelines. It will provide guidance on the type of content developers can contribute and how it can be shared. Get ready to share any great open source AI projects, implementations, video and audio models.</p>
<p>Together, we can bring together a cohesive, collaborative and responsible AI community.</p>
<p><em>A special thanks to Kevin Li and Pradeep Elankumaran who pulled this great blog post together.</em></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/11/mozilla-ai-guide-launch-with-summarization-code-example/">Mozilla AI Guide Launch with Summarization Code Example</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-11-16T16:20:15+00:00Melissa ThermidorSeaMonkey: Migrating off archive.mozilla.org
https://blog.seamonkey-project.org/2023/11/14/migrating-off-archive-mozilla-org/
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>This is a heads up to all. The SeaMonkey project needs to stop using archive.mozilla.org by year end.</p>
<p>So, we are migrating our files from archive.mozilla.org to a storage system on Azure. However, I want to note that there are files there that I will not be moving. They will most likely be left as is until Mozilla blows it away (or I do).</p>
<p>The only folders that are being migrated are the “releases” and nightly folder. [I’m currently copying the files from releases to the new storage area, so nightly will need to take a back seat.] The rest will be “decommissioned” as they are relics of a past that we can no longer go back to. Tinderbox is dead. Comm-* builds are no longer feasible/relevant. Candidates are also no longer relevant.</p>
<p>I’m hoping to setup the new storage system as a ‘static’ page so that one can just go to (for example, https://archive.seamonkey-project.org/) and you can see both the nightly and releases directory. At this point in time, I’m working on it. The copying is taking the longest.</p>
<p>As the person who’ve worked on and around archive.mozilla.org, I feel sad to see all those files go poof. I guess it’s a feeling of nostalgia(makes me think of those years working with Callek to get the releases out on Buildbot) rather than actual utility. Once Jan 1 comes around, it will be the end of an era and of course, the beginning of a new one.</p>
<p>Anyway, *if* you are interested in keeping those files, I’d suggest you download them as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
<p>:ewong</p>
<p> </p>2023-11-14T02:40:22+00:00ewongSUMO Blog: What’s up with SUMO – Q3 2023
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/11/02/whats-up-with-sumo-q3-2023/
<p>Hi everybody,</p>
<p>Sarto here! It’s been a great 4 months! The time really flew by. First and foremost I would like to thank the community here at Mozilla for for giving me grace and also showing me how passionate you guys truly are. I’ve worked in a handful of communities in the past but, by far, Mozilla has the most engaged community I’ve come across. The work that you guys put into Mozilla is commendable and valuable. For the community members and contributors that I was able to meet and interact with during my time here, thank you for sharing that passion with me. I’m handing the baton back over to Kiki. Till next time, keep on rocking the helpful web!</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
<h3>Welcome note and shout-outs from Q3</h3>
<ul>
<li>Big thanks to Paul who helped investigate 3 different incidents for Firefox in the last 2 weeks. There has been a huge amount of work going on for the CX team this quarter and you being involved in these incidents to help provide forum examples, follow up with users, and help herd some community folks to investigate has been very helpful.</li>
<li>Thanks to<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/jscher2000"> Jscher2000</a>,<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/dannycolin/"> Danny Colin</a>,<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/plwt/"> Paul</a>,<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/jonzn4SUSE/"> jonzn4SUSE</a>,<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Dan2023/"> Dan</a>,<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/TyDraniu/"> TyDraniu</a>, and<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/zulqarnainjabbar99/"> Zulqarnainjabbar99</a> for your input in the thread about<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/716423?page=1%7C"> UX Pain points</a> leading to users leaving Firefox in the first 30 days.</li>
<li>Thank you to everyone who contributed to the release of Firefox 117 for Desktop, as well as all of the contributors who participated in<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/716499?last=86117"> the release thread</a>.</li>
<li>Shout out to<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/plwt/"> Paul</a> for his work updating the<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/browsing-history-firefox#firefox:mac:fx118"> Browsing history in Firefox – View the websites you have visited</a> article for FireFox v118.</li>
<li>Shout out to<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/markh2/"> Mark Heijl</a> for his amazing job getting dutch article translations (incl. all the pocket ones) to a 100%!. And thank you<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Mad_Maks/"> Tim</a> for bringing this to our attention!</li>
</ul>
<p>If you know anyone that we should feature here, please contact <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/kelimutu">Kiki</a> and we’ll make sure to add them in our next edition.</p>
<h3>Community news</h3>
<ul>
<li>The Mozilla accounts rebrand goes live today (November 1st, 2023)!
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-accounts-transition-mozilla-accounts/">Why we’re renaming ‘Firefox accounts’ to ‘Mozilla accounts</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Review Checker integration into Firefox Desktop V119 is available now
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/review-checker-review-quality">Firefox Review Checker – Ensure review authenticity in your online shopping</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/716579?last=86303">[Call for help] Firefox Review Checker feature in Firefox 119</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Check out <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/content-community-best-practices-bugzilla-tickets">this Bugzilla best practices</a> when contributing to the Knowledge Base Content queue within support.mozilla.org.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Catch up</h3>
<ul>
<li>Watch the monthly community call if you haven’t. Learn more about what’s new in <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-07-19">July</a>, <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-08-16">August</a>, and <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Weekly_Meetings/Agenda_2023-09-20">September</a>! <b>Reminder:</b> <i>Don’t hesitate to join the call in person if you can. We try our best to provide a safe space for everyone to contribute. You’re more than welcome to lurk in the call if you don’t feel comfortable turning on your video or speaking up. If you feel shy to ask questions during the meeting, feel free to add your questions on the contributor forum in advance, or put them in our Matrix channel, so we can answer them during the meeting. First time joining the call? Check out</i><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-participate-sumo-contributor-meetings"><i> this article</i></a><i> to get to know how to join. </i></li>
<li>If you’re an NDA’ed contributor, you can watch the recording of the Customer Experience weekly scrum meeting from <a href="https://mzl.la/SUMO-release-scrum">AirMozilla</a> to catch up with the latest product updates.</li>
<li>Consider subscribe to <a href="https://mzl.la/3NZO8tI">Firefox Daily Digest</a> to get daily updates about Firefox from across different platforms.</li>
<li>Check out <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/sumo-project/projects/1">SUMO Engineering Board</a> to see what the platform team is currently doing and submit a report through <a href="https://mzl.la/47zWgf1">Bugzilla</a> if you want to report a bug/request for improvement.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Community stats</h3>
<h4>KB</h4>
<p><b>KB pageviews (*)</b></p>
<p>* KB pageviews number is a total of KB pageviews for /en-US/ only</p>
<table style="height: 121px;" width="529">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Month</b></td>
<td><b>Page views</b></td>
<td><b>Vs previous month</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jul 2023</td>
<td>6,512,758</td>
<td>3.87%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Aug 2023</td>
<td>7,164,666</td>
<td>10.01%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sep 2023</td>
<td>6,456,716</td>
<td>-9.88%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 KB contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/AliceWyman">AliceWyman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/markh2/">Mark Heijl</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Mozinet">Pierre Mozinet</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/berkd/">Berk D</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/michro/">Michele Rodaro</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>KB Localization</h4>
<p><b>Top 10 locales based on total page views</b></p>
<table style="height: 754px;" width="871">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Locale</b></td>
<td><b>Jul 2023 </b><p></p>
<p><b>pageviews (*)</b></p></td>
<td><b>Aug 2023 pageviews (*)</b></td>
<td><b>Sep 2023 </b><p></p>
<p><b>pageviews (*)</b></p></td>
<td><b>Localization progress (per Oct, 30)(**)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/de/localization">de</a></td>
<td>11.09%</td>
<td>11.41%</td>
<td>11.12%</td>
<td>87%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/zh-CN/localization">zh-CN</a></td>
<td>6.98%</td>
<td>7.03%</td>
<td>6.67%</td>
<td>88%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/fr/localization">fr</a></td>
<td>6.16%</td>
<td>5.95%</td>
<td>7.49%</td>
<td>80%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/es/localization">es</a></td>
<td>5.71%</td>
<td>5.50%</td>
<td>5.84%</td>
<td>23%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/ja/localization">ja</a></td>
<td>4.81%</td>
<td>4.62%</td>
<td>4.84%</td>
<td>35%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/ru/localization">ru</a></td>
<td>3.47%</td>
<td>3.48%</td>
<td>3.55%</td>
<td>84%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/pt-BR/localization">pt-BR</a></td>
<td>3.39%</td>
<td>3.66%</td>
<td>3.39%</td>
<td>43%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/it/localization">It</a></td>
<td>2.35%</td>
<td>1.98%</td>
<td>2.42%</td>
<td>91%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/pl/localization">pl</a></td>
<td>2.06%</td>
<td>2.05%</td>
<td>1.99%</td>
<td>78%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/zh-TW/localization">zh-TW</a></td>
<td>1.91%</td>
<td>0.92%</td>
<td>2.16%</td>
<td>2%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<pre>* Locale pageviews is an overall pageviews from the given locale (KB and other pages)
** Localization progress is the percentage of localized article from all KB articles per locale</pre>
<p><b>Top 5 localization contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/markh2/">Mark Heijl</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/michro/">Michele Rodaro</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/d.spentzos/">Jim Spentzos</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/TyDraniu/">Chris</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Artist">Artist</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Forum Support</h4>
<p><b>Forum stats</b></p>
<table style="height: 201px;" width="866">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Month</b></td>
<td><b>Total questions</b></td>
<td><b>Answer rate within 72 hrs</b></td>
<td><b>Solved rate within 72 hrs</b></td>
<td><b>Forum helpfulness</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jul 2023</td>
<td>2,664</td>
<td>76.28%</td>
<td>11.71%</td>
<td>59.24%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Aug 2023</td>
<td>2,853</td>
<td>79.36%</td>
<td>12.72%</td>
<td>49.59%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sep 2023</td>
<td>2,977</td>
<td>72.93%</td>
<td>11.89%</td>
<td>67.89%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 forum contributors in the last 90 days: </b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/287">Cor-el</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/1185547">Paul</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/sfhowes/">Sfhowes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/davidsk">Davidsk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/@next/">Next</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Social Support</h4>
<table style="height: 288px;" width="853">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Channel</b></td>
<td><b>Total tweets</b></td>
<td><b>Total moderation by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Total reply by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Respond conversion rate</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jul 2023</td>
<td>317</td>
<td>157</td>
<td>83</td>
<td>52.87%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Aug 2023</td>
<td>237</td>
<td>47</td>
<td>33</td>
<td>70.21%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sep 2023</td>
<td>192</td>
<td>47</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>46.81%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b>Top 5 Social Support contributors in the past 3 months: </b></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Dan2023/">Daniel B.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/ysfff/">Théo Cannillo</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Fjoerfoks/">Wim Benes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Ifeoma">Ifeoma</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/petergallwas/">Peter Gallwas</a></li>
</ol>
<h4>Play Store Support*</h4>
<table style="height: 275px;" width="851">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Channel</b></td>
<td><b>Total reviews</b></td>
<td><b>Total conv interacted by contributors</b></td>
<td><b>Total conv replied by contributors</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jul 2023</td>
<td>6,072</td>
<td>191</td>
<td>40</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Aug 2023</td>
<td>6,135</td>
<td>185</td>
<td>55</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sep 2023</td>
<td>6,111</td>
<td>75</td>
<td>23</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<pre>* Firefox for Android only</pre>
<p><b>Top 5 Play Store contributors in the past 3 months: </b></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Fjoerfoks/">Wim Benes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/Mad_Maks/">Tim Maks</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/gelopl/">Damian Szabat</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/hellosct1/">Christophe Villeneuve</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/user/maxcoder/">Selim Şumlu</a></li>
</ol>
<h3>Product updates</h3>
<p>To catch up on product releases update, please watch the recording of the Customer Experience scrum meeting from <a href="https://mzl.la/SUMO-release-scrum">AirMozilla</a>. You can also subscribe to the AirMozilla folder by clickling on the Subscribe button at the top right corner of the page to get notifications each time we add a new recording.</p>
<h3>Useful links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#SUMO:mozilla.org">#SUMO Matrix group</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/sumo/">SUMO Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums">Contributor forums</a></li>
<li>Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/SUMO_Mozilla">@SUMO_mozilla</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FirefoxSupport">@FirefoxSupport</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/">SUMO Blog</a></li>
</ul>2023-11-03T06:48:54+00:00Rizki KelimutuMozilla L10N: L10n Report: November 2023 Edition
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/11/03/l10n-report-november-2023-edition/
<p><i>Please note some of the information provided in this report may be subject to change as we are sometimes sharing information about projects that are still in early stages and are not final yet. </i></p>
<h3>New content and projects</h3>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in Firefox desktop</h4>
<p>On October 24 we shipped Firefox 119 with a brand new locale: <b>Santali (sat)</b>. This brings the overall number of locales supported in Firefox release to 102. Congratulations to <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/lypPh0-3sEZPzht03WCN83Yd6hg/">Prasanta</a> and the other <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/sat/">Santali</a> contributors for this huge accomplishment.</p>
<p>In terms of new content to translate, a couple of new features were responsible for most of the new strings over the last months: a new shopping feature (Review Checker), and a redesigned <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-set-tab-pickup-firefox-view">Firefox View</a> page, which now includes more information to support the user (recent browsing, recently closed tabs, tabs from other devices, etc.).</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/11/shopping_sidebar.jpg"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1620" height="189" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/11/shopping_sidebar-252x189.jpg" width="252" /></a>Check your Pontoon notifications for instructions on how to test your localization for the Review Checker in Nightly.</p>
<p>In the current Nightly (121) we also <a href="https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/pull/17115">migrated the integrated PDF Viewer to Fluent</a>, finally replacing the unmaintained legacy l10n system (webl10n.js) used in this feature.</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in mobile</h4>
<p>We officially launched yesterday the brand update from “Firefox Accounts” to a more general “Mozilla accounts” – a change you have probably noticed in recent string updates. Please make sure to address these strings so you keep products up to date with the rebranding.</p>
<p>You may have also noticed that a few Android strings have landed for add-ons, specifically to call out that we have hundreds of new extensions. If you would like to have this experiment available in your locale, make sure you go into the Firefox for Android project in Pontoon, and choose the Fenix file. Then search for these string IDs:</p>
<ul>
<li>addon_ga_message_title</li>
<li>addon_ga_message_body</li>
<li>Addon_ga_message_button</li>
</ul>
<p>You can find these from the search bar, once you are in the Fenix file in Pontoon.</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in web projects</h4>
<h5>Mozilla Accounts</h5>
<p>In early October Mozilla announced a name change for Firefox accounts, and as of November 1 Firefox accounts is now officially Mozilla accounts. Even before this, starting in September a significant number of new strings and changes related to this name change started making its way to you. Thank you for ensuring that your locales were updated and ready. The majority of locales shipping to production launched with all translations complete and ready for people around the world to use their Mozilla accounts in their own language. This is truly a result of your contributions! Now that these changes are live, please do reach out if you notice anything strange as you go about using your Mozilla account.</p>
<h5>Mozilla.org</h5>
<p>Since the last report, a few changes have landed in this project. In addition to the global change from Firefox account(s) to Mozilla account(s), the team also began to simplify the references to third party brand names. The names are no longer inside a placeholder. This change will make it easier to translate long strings with many brand names, all too common in this project. Only Mozilla brands and product names will be coded in the placeholder. During this transition period, you will see a mixture of both. As we update a page or add a new page, the new approach will be applied.</p>
<p>A few new pages were added too. These are pages with file names ending in “-2023” or “-2”, replacing the older versions which will soon be removed from Pontoon. If you are working on these pages, make sure you are working on the new versions, not the old ones.</p>
<h5>Relay Website</h5>
<p>In the last report, we shared with you the news of migrating a few <a href="https://relay.firefox.com/">relay.firefox.com</a> pages to <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/">mozilla.org</a>. The migration was complete which resulted in opening up Relay specific pages to more locales. However, an internal decision has been made that these pages should remain on the current Relay product site and not move to <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/">mozilla.org</a>.</p>
<p>We regret that the reversal of this decision came soon after the migration. We are having internal discussions around how we can better communicate changes in the future so that we can minimize the impact to our community volunteers.</p>
<p>The Mozilla.org and Relay teams will work closely with the l10n team to migrate the content back to the existing product site. All the work you have done will be stored in Pontoon. The l10n team will make its best effort to preserve the history of each of the translated strings. For the locales that didn’t opt in to the Relay Website project but participated in the localization of the pages on mozilla.org, we encourage you to consider opting in on the Relay project if the community is interested and has the bandwidth.</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in SUMO</h4>
<p>Firefox Review Checker Sprint is happening as we launched Firefox 119. Please check out the <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/Firefox119">sprint wiki</a> to get know more about the detail.</p>
<p>Firefox Account transition to Mozilla account. <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/11/01/mozilla-account-rename-changes-on-the-support-flows/">What you need to know as a SUMO contributor?</a></p>
<p>The content team at SUMO is utilizing Bugzilla to collect content requests from other teams. If you’re contributing to content at SUMO, please check out this <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/content-community-best-practices-bugzilla-tickets">best practices for Bugzilla tickets</a>.</p>
<h4>What’s new or coming up in Pontoon</h4>
<h5>Light Theme</h5>
<p>We are excited to announce that we have incorporated a light theme into Pontoon. The theme selector is available in two places:</p>
<ul>
<li>Settings Page: Directly select the light theme.</li>
<li>User Profile Menu: Click on the profile icon (top right) and choose the light theme.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Newly published localizer facing documentation</h4>
<p>We have added documentation on how to use the theme selector feature to access the light theme in the <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/localizer-documentation/tools/pontoon/users.html#appearance">settings page</a> and <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/localizer-documentation/tools/pontoon/ui.html#main-toolbar">user profile menu</a>.</p>
<h3>Events</h3>
<p>We are hosting an L10n Fireside chat mid-November (date and time TBD). It will be live and recorded <a href="https://mzl.la/fireside-chat-for-localizers">here</a>. We are interested in your questions and topics! Please submit them in this <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSftbpweRII0owvJcgLdrVulwA-CKeqk_jV7J9YeYZGEQhnR2w/viewform?usp=pp_url">form</a>, or reach out directly to delphine at mozilla dot com if you prefer.</p>
<p>Want to showcase an event coming up that your community is participating in? <a href="mailto:l10n-drivers@mozilla.org">Contact us</a> and we’ll include it.</p>
<h3>Friends of the Lion <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2022/10/2-Lions-01-600x553-1.png"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-1585 alignright" height="232" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2022/10/2-Lions-01-600x553-1-252x232.png" width="252" /></a></h3>
<p>We started a series called “Localizer Spotlight” and have published <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/08/31/localizer-spotlight-victor-ibragimov-tajik-locale/">two</a> <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/09/29/localizer-spotlight-meet-reza-persian-locale/">already</a>. Do you know someone who should be featured there? Let us know <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScOr7tvM7ygIQwP0lrPh8XUeMb0GtDIPWJL-mOoK7z8uHbbgA/viewform?usp=sf_link">here</a>!</p>
<p>Also, do someone in your l10n community who’s been doing a great job and should appear in this section? <a href="mailto:l10n-drivers@mozilla.org">Contact us</a> and we’ll make sure they get a shout-out!</p>
<h3>Useful Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">#l10n-community channel on Element (chat.mozilla.org)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/l10n/547">Localization category on Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/mozilla_l10n">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/">L10n blog</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Questions? Want to get involved?</h3>
<p>If you want to get involved, or have any question about l10n, reach out to:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/mZuzEFP7EcmgBBTbvtgJP2LFFTY/">Francesco Lodolo (flod)</a> – Engineering Manager</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/CMLZ_n1lNNSfQScLGE2yBmlS55w/">Bryan</a> – l10n Project Manager</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/3LPn77ppB_IQ9F6ruL5lw2IVrvQ/">Delphine</a> – l10n Project Manager for mobile</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/jIdunhnZ8Edgi9npILuSoFvf5ZY/">Peiying (CocoMo)</a> – l10n Project Manager for mozilla.org, marketing, and legal</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/lY_FTvtnYcVoDP7JYZjMsm6tRno/">Théo Chevalier</a> – l10n Project Manager for Mozilla Foundation</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/dvgiVCmoeidF2xcqSnBHtpzLTFU/">Matjaž (mathjazz)</a> – Pontoon dev</li>
<li><a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/contributors/pmz0uSCe_Mk9Td1cksHLI1y471k/">Eemeli</a> – Pontoon, Fluent dev</li>
</ul>
<p>Did you enjoy reading this report? <a href="mailto:l10n-drivers@mozilla.org">Let us know</a> how we can improve it.</p>2023-11-03T00:12:24+00:00DelphineSUMO Blog: Mozilla account rename – Changes on the support flows
https://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/2023/11/01/mozilla-account-rename-changes-on-the-support-flows/
<p>If you’ve been contributing to the support forum on the Mozilla Support platform, you might’ve been aware of the difficulties of supporting users with Firefox account problems. The lack of safety measures to deal with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_data">PII</a> (Personal Identifiable Information) in the forum, the ambiguity on some security terminologies (recovery codes vs. recovery key) or, ultimately, the lack of infrastructure to support users with account’s recovery issues without having them losing their data.</p>
<p>With the momentum of <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/firefox-accounts-renamed-mozilla-accounts">Firefox account rebrands to Mozilla account</a>, the Customer Experience team has prepared a new flow to support this transition as well as building the foundation for a better support experience for account’s holders in the long run.</p>
<h3>The new support flows</h3>
<p>If you’re contributing to Mozilla Support, here’s what you need to know about the new support flow:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mozilla account specific contact form</li>
</ul>
<p>Users with Mozilla account issues can now submit their questions to the <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/mozilla-account/form">Mozilla account contact form</a> that can be accessed from the Get Help fly-out menu. Questions submitted to Mozilla account contact form will be handled by dedicated support agents who are better equipped to deal with PII as well as have access to the infrastructure to solve a more complex case.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/files/2023/11/Screenshot-2023-10-31-at-16-20-19-Figma.png"><img alt="Screenshot of the new fly-out menu in the Mozilla Support platform" class="size-full wp-image-4088 aligncenter" height="327" src="http://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/files/2023/11/Screenshot-2023-10-31-at-16-20-19-Figma.png" width="1440" /></a></p>
<ul>
<li>Login-less support</li>
</ul>
<p>We also introduced login-less support for account holders who lose access to their account. This type of support can be accessed from the login prompt. Users who submit a question from this contact form will also be handled by dedicated support agents.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/files/2023/11/Screenshot-2023-10-31-at-16-38-30-Figma.png"><img alt="Screenshot of the new login prompt in the Mozilla Support platform" class="wp-image-4089 aligncenter" height="397" src="http://blog.mozilla.org/sumo/files/2023/11/Screenshot-2023-10-31-at-16-38-30-Figma.png" width="430" /></a></p>
<h3>Implication for the Forum & Social Support contributors</h3>
<p>If you’re a forum contributor or you have access to Verint, please help us direct any questions related to Mozilla account to the <a href="https://mzl.la/MxA-support">Mozilla account contact form</a>. We have a forum common response for this called ‘<em><a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/forum-response-mozilla-account-questions">Mozilla account contact form</a></em>‘ and a clipping in Verint called ‘<em>Mozilla account contact form</em>‘ that you can use at your convenience.</p>
<h3>Mozilla account as a product in SUMO</h3>
<p>Technically, we have created a new product for <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/products/mozilla-account">Mozilla account</a> in SUMO, which means that we’ll host future articles related to Mozilla account in this category. However, it won’t be visible as a tile in our product selections page. If you see Firefox account is still mentioned in a KB article, or if you see an article that should be moved to the Mozilla account category, please notify the <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/meet-team">content team</a>. You can also check out <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/editorial-guidelines-mozilla-accounts">this article</a> to learn more about editorial guidelines for Mozilla account in our Knowledge Base.</p>
<h3>Implication for the locale teams</h3>
<p>You should expect to see many translated articles become outdated due to the update that we’re doing with the English KB articles. Please check the <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/revisions?page=1">Recent Revisions page</a> to see the articles that we’ve updated as part of this launch.</p>
<h3>Frequently asked questions</h3>
<p><b>What to do when encountering users with Mozilla account problems?</b></p>
<p>Please direct any questions related to Mozilla account to the <a href="https://mzl.la/MxA-support">Mozilla account contact form</a>, unless it can be solved with <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/products/mozilla-account">KB articles</a>.</p>
<p><b>Does this also include users with Firefox Sync issue?</b></p>
<p>The login-less contact form is intended for users with login issues, while the signed-in contact form is intended for account-related issues. In short, Firefox Sync is out of scope for now.</p>
<p><b>Do we support account recovery now?</b></p>
<p>Account recovery is a complicated process, and we don’t have the infrastructure yet to handle every case. However, that’s part of the scope of this new support infra, and you should direct users with this issue to file a ticket.</p>
<hr />
<p>If you have other questions about this change, please join our discussion in this <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/forums/contributors/716601?last=86377">forum thread</a>!</p>2023-11-02T04:59:09+00:00Rizki KelimutuMozilla Add-ons Blog: Is your extension ready for Firefox for Android? Be part of the launch of a new open mobile ecosystem
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/01/is-your-extension-ready-for-firefox-for-android/
<p>During the release cycle of Firefox 120, we’ll begin to see the emergence of dozens of new, openly available extensions on Firefox for Android on <i>addons.mozilla.org</i> (AMO). We’re taking a steady approach to opening up the mobile extension ecosystem to ensure Firefox for Android maintains strong performance standards while a vast new array of extensions are utilized for the first time in a mobile environment. If testing continues to progress well, we anticipate unveiling a fully open Firefox for Android extension ecosystem sometime in December. Stay tuned for details.</p>
<p>For developers interested in <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/developing-extensions-for-firefox-for-android/#check-for-firefox-for-android-compatibility" rel="noopener" target="_blank">optimizing desktop extensions for Firefox for Android usage</a>, now’s the perfect time to assess your extension and take necessary steps to make your extension part of the coming first wave of openly available extensions on Firefox for Android.</p>
<p>We anticipate strong interest from users excited to explore all the new ways they can customize Firefox for Android. Current trends indicate we’ll have at least 200+ new Firefox for Android extensions on AMO when open availability debuts in December. And while a couple hundred extensions is more variety than you’ll find on any other mobile browser, it is significantly fewer than the nearly 40,000 desktop Firefox extensions on AMO. So the opportunity for heightened discoverability with new users may be intriguing to some developers.</p>
<p>It’s also a great time for developers who are intrigued at the prospect of creating new ways Firefox for Android users will fundamentally experience the mobile web. Are there browsing problems unique to the mobile environment that web extensions can solve? How can we enhance mobile web experiences with extensions? How can extensions empower mobile users? It’s an open invitation to innovation.</p>
<p>For developers keen to learn more about making their desktop extensions compatible on Firefox for Android, here are some timely resources (in addition to <a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/add-ons/android/9393" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Firefox Add-ons Discourse</a> where you can hit us up anytime with questions)…</p>
<h5><b>Webinar: Setup, testing, debugging </b></h5>
<p><i>Time: Wednesday, November 15 at 11am EDT</i></p>
<p>Senior Developer Relations Engineer Simeon Vincent will host his second webinar dedicated to <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/develop/developing-extensions-for-firefox-for-android/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Firefox for Android extension development and desktop migration</a>. The November 15 session will focus on Firefox for Android development setup steps like getting started with Android Studio, creating a virtual device for QA and getting Firefox Nightly readied for remote debugging.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/events/7123393225486159872/about/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Register for the livestream!</a></p>
<p>Check out our first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN6AAIQrs_Q" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Firefox for Android webinar from October</a>.</p>
<h5><b>Open office hours </b></h5>
<p><i>Time: Every Monday, Tuesday</i></p>
<p>Simeon also hosts weekly open “office hours” for anyone interested in <a href="https://extensionworkshop.com/community/#office-hours" rel="noopener" target="_blank">signing up</a> to receive 1:1 guidance on Firefox for Android extension development. These open office hours are only scheduled to run through December, so don’t be shy to tap Simeon’s expertise as you prepare your extension for mobile release.</p>
<h3><b>First 200 Firefox for Android extension developers (to email us) get a free t-shirt!</b></h3>
<p>Sorry to bury the lede, but we’re also giving away this one of a kind “Early Add-opter” t-shirt to the first 200 developers who… 1) make their extension functional on Android; and 2) email us at <b>firefox-android-addon-support [at] mozilla.com</b> with a link to your extension’s AMO listing page. If your extension works as expected on Firefox for Android and you’re one of the first 200 to reach out we’ll be in touch with the t-shirt ordering details.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_9119" style="width: 610px;"><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-9119" height="294" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/files/2023/11/blog_tee-600x294.png" width="600" /><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-9119"><i>Can you imagine yourself wearing this t-shirt, just chilling after you’ve made your desktop extension compatible on Firefox for Android? </i></p></div>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/01/is-your-extension-ready-for-firefox-for-android/">Is your extension ready for Firefox for Android? Be part of the launch of a new open mobile ecosystem</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/addons">Mozilla Add-ons Community Blog</a>.</p>2023-11-02T00:42:06+00:00Scott DeVaneyhacks.mozilla.org: Down and to the Right: Firefox Got Faster for Real Users in 2023
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-firefox-got-faster-for-real-users-in-2023/
<p>One of the biggest challenges for any software is to determine how changes impact user experience in the real world. Whether it’s the processing speed of video editing software or the smoothness of a browsing experience, there’s only so much you can tell from testing in a controlled lab environment. While local experiments can provide plenty of metrics, improvements to those metrics may not translate to a better user experience.</p>
<p>This can be especially challenging with complex client software running third-party code like Firefox, and it’s a big reason why we’ve undertaken the <a href="https://twitter.com/mozhacks/status/1603435347190419456">Speedometer 3 effort</a> alongside other web browsers. Our goal is to build performance tests that simulate real-world user experiences so that browsers have better tools to drive improvements for real users on real webpages. While it’s easy to see that benchmarks have improved in Firefox throughout the year as a result of this work, what we really care about is how much those wins are being felt by our users.</p>
<p>In order to measure the user experience, Firefox collects a wide range of anonymized timing metrics related to page load, responsiveness, startup and other aspects of browser performance. Collecting data while holding ourselves to the highest standards of privacy can be challenging. For example, because we rely on aggregated metrics, we lack the ability to pinpoint data from any particular website. But perhaps even more challenging is analyzing the data once collected and drawing actionable conclusions. In the future we’ll talk more about these challenges and how we’re addressing them, but in this post we’d like to share how some of the metrics that are fundamental to how our users experience the browser have improved throughout the year.</p>
<p>Let’s start with page load. <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/First_contentful_paint">First Contentful Paint</a> (FCP) is a better metric for felt performance than the `onload` event. We’re tracking the time it takes between receiving the first byte from the network to FCP. This tells us how much faster we are giving feedback to the user that the page is successfully loading, so it’s a critical metric for understanding the user experience. While much of this is up to web pages themselves, if the browser improves performance across the board, we expect this number to go down.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_48049" style="width: 510px;"><a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/FCPRUM.png"><img alt="Graph of the median time between response start and first contentful paint, going from ~250 to ~215. Three distinct areas with a more pronounced slope are visible in mid february, late April and the largest in late July." class="size-large wp-image-48049" height="215" src="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/FCPRUM-500x215.png" width="500" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-48049">Image 1 – Median time from Response Start to First Contentful Paint in milliseconds</p></div>
<p>We can see that this time improved from roughly 250ms at the start of the year to 215ms in October. This means that a user receives feedback on page loads almost 15% faster than they did at the start of the year. And it’s important to note that this is all the result of optimization work that didn’t even explicitly target pageload.</p>
<p>In order to understand where this improvement is coming from, let’s look at another piece of timing data: the amount of time that was spent executing JavaScript code during a pageload. Here we are going to look at the 95th percentile, representing the most JS heavy pages and highlighting a big opportunity for us to remove friction for users.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_48050" style="width: 510px;"><a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/JSPRUM.png"><img alt="A graph of the 95th percentile of JS execution time during pageload. It runs from ~1560 in January 2023 to ~1260 by October 2023. In general it's a steady downward slope with a small downward jump in April and a large downward jump during August." class="size-large wp-image-48050" height="215" src="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/JSPRUM-500x215.png" width="500" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-48050">Image 2 – 95th Percentile of JS execution time during pageload in milliseconds</p></div>
<p>This shows the 95th percentile improving from ~1560ms at the beginning of the year, to ~1260ms in October. This represents a considerable improvement of 300ms, or almost 20%, and is likely responsible for a significant portion of the reduced FCP times. This makes sense, since Speedometer 3 work has led to significant optimizations to the <a href="https://spidermonkey.dev/">SpiderMonkey</a> JavaScript engine (a story for another post).</p>
<p>We’d also like to know how responsive pages are after they are loaded. For example, how smooth is the response when typing on the keyboard as I write this blogpost! The primary metric we collect here is the “keypress present latency”; the time between a key being pressed on the keyboard and its result being presented onto the screen. Rendering some text to the screen may sound simple, but there’s a lot going on to make that happen – especially when web pages run main thread JavaScript to respond to the keypress event. Most typing is snappy and primarily limited by hardware (e.g. the refresh rate of the monitor), but it’s extremely disruptive when it’s not. This means it’s important to mitigate the worst cases, so we’ll again look at the 95th percentile.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_48048" style="width: 510px;"><a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/KeypressRUM.png"><img alt="A graph of the 95th percentile of the keypress present latency. Ranging from January 2023 to October 2023. It hovers fairly steady around 65ms, even seemingly going up a bit between March and May. Before dropping down to about 58-59ms over the course of August and September 2023." class="size-large wp-image-48048" height="215" src="https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2023/10/KeypressRUM-500x215.png" width="500" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-48048">Image 3 – 95th Percentile of the keypress present latency</p></div>
<p>Once again we see a measurable improvement. The 95th percentile hovered around 65ms for most of the year and dropped to under 59ms after the Firefox 116 and 117 releases in August. A 10% improvement to the slowest keypresses means users are experiencing more instantaneous feedback and fewer disruptions while typing.</p>
<p>We’ve been motivated by the improvements we’re seeing in our telemetry data, and we’re convinced that our efforts this year are having a positive effect on Firefox users. We have many more optimizations in the pipeline and will share more details about those and our overall progress in future posts.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-firefox-got-faster-for-real-users-in-2023/">Down and to the Right: Firefox Got Faster for Real Users in 2023</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-10-31T16:29:05+00:00Bas Schoutenhacks.mozilla.org: Built for Privacy: Partnering to Deploy Oblivious HTTP and Prio in Firefox
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/built-for-privacy-partnering-to-deploy-oblivious-http-and-prio-in-firefox/
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Protecting user privacy is a </span><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/webvision/full/#privacy"><span style="font-weight: 400;">core element</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of Mozilla’s vision for the web and the internet at large. In pursuit of this vision, we’re pleased to announce new partnerships with </span><a href="https://www.fastly.com/blog/firefox-fastly-take-another-step-toward-security-upgrade"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fastly</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="https://divviup.org/blog/divvi-up-in-firefox/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Divvi Up</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to deploy privacy-preserving technology in Firefox.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mozilla builds a number of tools that help people defend their privacy online, but the need for these tools reflects a world where companies view invasive data collection as necessary for building good products and making money. A zero-sum game between privacy and business interests is not a healthy state of affairs. Therefore, we dedicate considerable effort to developing and advancing new technologies that enable businesses to achieve their goals without compromising peoples’ privacy. This is a focus of our work on </span><a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Standards"><span style="font-weight: 400;">web standards</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, as well as in how we build Firefox itself.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Building an excellent browser while maintaining a high standard for privacy sometimes requires this kind of new technology. For example: we put a lot of effort into keeping Firefox fast. This involves extensive automated testing, but also monitoring how it’s performing for real users. Firefox currently </span><a href="https://dictionary.telemetry.mozilla.org/apps/firefox_desktop/metrics/perf_page_load"><span style="font-weight: 400;">reports</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> generic performance metrics like page-load time but does not associate those metrics with specific sites, because doing so would reveal peoples’ browsing history. These internet-wide averages are somewhat informative but not particularly actionable. Sites are constantly deploying code changes and occasionally those changes can trigger performance bugs in browsers. If we knew that a specific site got much slower overnight, we could likely isolate the cause and fix it. Unfortunately, we lack that visibility today, which hinders our ability to make Firefox great.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is a classic problem in data collection: We want aggregate data, but the naive way to get it involves collecting sensitive information about individual people. The solution is to develop technology that delivers the same insights while keeping information about any individual person verifiably private.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In recent years, Mozilla has worked with others to advance two such technologies — </span><a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ohai-ohttp-10"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Oblivious HTTP</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and the Prio-based </span><a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ppm-dap/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Distributed Aggregation Protocol (DAP)</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> — towards being proper internet standards that are practical to deploy in production. Oblivious HTTP works by routing encrypted data through an intermediary to conceal its source, whereas DAP/Prio splits the data into two shares and sends each share to a different server [1]. Despite their different shapes, both technologies rely on a similar principle: By processing the data jointly across two independent parties, they ensure neither party holds the information required to reveal sensitive information about someone.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We therefore need to partner with another independent and trustworthy organization to deploy each technology in Firefox. Having worked for some time to develop and validate both technologies in staging environments, we’ve now taken the next step to engage Fastly to operate an OHTTP relay and Divvi Up to operate a DAP aggregator. Both Fastly and </span><a href="https://www.abetterinternet.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ISRG</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (the nonprofit behind Divvi Up and Let’s Encrypt) have excellent reputations for acting with integrity, and they have staked those reputations on the faithful operation of these services. So even in a mirror universe where we tried to persuade them to cheat, they have a strong incentive to hold the line.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our objective at Mozilla is to develop viable alternatives to the things that are wrong with the internet today and move the entire industry by demonstrating that it’s possible to do better. In the short term, these technologies will help us keep Firefox competitive while adhering to our longstanding principles around sensitive data. Over the long term, we want to see these kinds of strong privacy guarantees become the norm, and we will continue to work towards such a future.</span></p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">[1] Each approach is best-suited to different scenarios, which is why we’re investing in both. Oblivious HTTP is more flexible and can be used in interactive contexts, whereas DAP/Prio can be used in situations where the payload itself might be identifying.</span></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/built-for-privacy-partnering-to-deploy-oblivious-http-and-prio-in-firefox/">Built for Privacy: Partnering to Deploy Oblivious HTTP and Prio in Firefox</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-10-12T13:02:35+00:00Bobby HolleyMozilla L10N: Localizer Spotlight: Meet Reza (Persian locale)
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/09/29/localizer-spotlight-meet-reza-persian-locale/
<p>Welcome to our second localizer spotlight, presenting this time Reza from our <a href="https://pontoon.mozilla.org/fa/">Persian</a> community.</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/09/signal-2023-09-29-085026.jpeg"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1615" height="252" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/09/signal-2023-09-29-085026-252x252.jpeg" width="252" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Q. What first drew you to want to volunteer with Mozilla’s localization program?</strong></p>
<p>The growing community of Persian users highlighted the need for a browser created by the people for the people. Thus, I began assisting the community in translating Firefox into Persian. Subsequently, we expanded our efforts to include other products like Firefox for phones.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What have been some of the most rewarding or impactful projects you’ve localized for Mozilla?</strong></p>
<p>The entire endeavor with Mozilla was driven by volunteering and a strong motivation to provide safe and open-source tools to the community. Given the substantial Persian (Farsi) population of over 110 million people, ensuring their access to interactive and helpful tools became a significant priority. We also focused on addressing issues related to Mozilla extensions, particularly the text-reader (Readaloud), to assist individuals with visual disabilities.</p>
<p>We discovered that a substantial number of people with visual impairments were utilizing Mozilla’s text-reader because it was one of the few free and open tools that catered to their specific needs. One day, I received an email from a Persian user with visual impairment, in which she highlighted the widespread utility of such tools for her and her friends. This instance made me realize that we needed to broaden our perspective beyond ordinary users, especially concerning localization, and emphasize accessibility as a key aspect of our work.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in translating Mozilla projects? How did you overcome them?</strong></p>
<p>Translating a product is often not sufficient, especially when dealing with Right-To-Left (RTL) languages. It’s imperative to consider usability, accessibility, and how people with diverse language backgrounds perceive the product. Therefore, addressing all the UI/UX challenges and ensuring the product is user-friendly for the end users proved to be quite challenging.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What skills or background do you think helps most for becoming an effective Mozilla translator?</strong></p>
<p>I’m a computer scientist with a passion for open-source software. Naturally, my technical knowledge was sufficient to embark on this journey. However, I found it crucial to put myself in the shoes of end users, understanding how they wish to perceive the product and how we can create a better experience for them.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What advice would you give to someone new wanting to get involved in localizing for Mozilla?</strong></p>
<p>Think about the broader impact that your work has on the community. Translating can be challenging and sometimes even tedious, but we must remember that these small pieces of work drive the community forward and present new opportunities for them.</p>
<p><em>Interested in featuring in these spotlights? Or know someone you think we should interview? Fill out this <a href="https://forms.gle/rgjisuSTWworeZnZ6">form</a>, or reach out directly to delphine at mozilla dot com. Interested in contributing to localization? Head on over <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/introduction/">here</a> for more details!</em></p>
<h3>Useful Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">#l10n-community channel on Element (chat.mozilla.org)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/l10n/547">Localization category on Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/mozilla_l10n">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/">L10n blog</a></li>
</ul>
<p> </p>2023-09-29T16:46:49+00:00DelphineWeb Application Security: Version 2.9 of the Mozilla Root Store Policy
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2023/09/13/version-2-9-of-the-mozilla-root-store-policy/
<p>Online security is constantly evolving, and thus we are excited to announce the publication of MRSP version 2.9, demonstrating that we are committed to keep up with the advancement of the web and further our commitment to a secure and trustworthy internet.</p>
<p>With each update to the <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/"><b>Mozilla Root Store Policy</b></a> (MRSP), we aim to address emerging challenges and enhance the integrity and reliability of our root store. Version 2.9 introduces several noteworthy changes and refinements, and within this blog post we provide an overview of key updates to the MRSP and their implications for the broader online community.</p>
<p><b>Managing the Effective Lifetimes of Root CA Certificates</b></p>
<p>One of the most crucial changes in this version of the MRSP is to limit the time that a root certificate may be in our root store. Often, a root certificate will be issued with a validity period of 25 or more years, but that is too long when one considers the rapid advances in computer processing strength. To address this concern and to make the web PKI more agile, we are implementing a schedule to remove trust bits and/or the root certificates themselves from our root store after they have been in use for more than a specified number of years.</p>
<p>Under the new <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/#74-root-ca-lifecycles">section 7.4 of the MRSP</a>, root certificates that are enabled with the website’s trust bit will have that bit removed when CA key material is 15 years old. Similarly, root certificates with the email trust bit will have a “Distrust for S/MIME After Date” set at 18 years from the CA’s key material generation date. A transition schedule has been established <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Root_CA_Lifecycles#Transition_Schedule">here</a>, which phases this in for CA root certificates created before April 14, 2014. The transition schedule is subject to change if underlying algorithms become more susceptible to cryptanalytic attack or if other circumstances arise that make the schedule obsolete.</p>
<p><b>Compliance with CA/Browser Forum’s Baseline Requirements for S/MIME Certificates</b></p>
<p>The CA/Browser Forum released <a href="https://cabforum.org/smime-br/">Baseline Requirements for S/MIME certificates</a> (S/MIME BRs), with an effective date of September 1, 2023. Therefore, as of September 1, 2023, certificates issued for digitally signing or encrypting email messages must conform to the latest version of the S/MIME BRs, as stated in <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/#23-baseline-requirements-conformance">section 2.3 of the MRSP</a>. Period-of-time audits to confirm compliance with the S/MIME BRs will be required for audit periods ending after October 30, 2023. Transition guidance is provided at the following wiki page: <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Transition_SMIME_BRs">https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Transition_SMIME_BRs</a>.</p>
<p><b> Security Incident and Vulnerability Disclosure</b></p>
<p>To enable swift response and resolution of security concerns impacting CAs, guidance for reporting security incidents and serious vulnerabilities has been added to <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/security-group/certs/policy/#24-incidents">section 2.4 of the MRSP</a>. Additional guidance is provided in the following wiki page: <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Vulnerability_Disclosure">https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Vulnerability_Disclosure</a>.</p>
<p><b> CCADB Compliance Self-Assessment</b></p>
<p>Previously, CAs were required to perform an annual self-assessment of compliance with Mozilla’s policies and the CA/Browser Forum’s <a href="https://cabforum.org/baseline-requirements-documents/">Baseline Requirements for TLS</a>, but the MRSP did not specifically require that the annual self-assessment be submitted. Beginning in January 2024, CA operators with root certificates enabled with the website’s trust bit must perform and submit the <a href="https://www.ccadb.org/cas/self-assessment">CCADB Compliance Self-Assessment</a> annually (within 92 calendar days from the close of their audit period). This will provide transparency into each CA’s ongoing compliance with Mozilla policies and the CA/Browser Forum’s Baseline Requirements for TLS.</p>
<p><b> Elimination of SHA-1</b></p>
<p>With the release of Firefox 52 in 2017, <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2017/02/23/the-end-of-sha-1-on-the-public-web/">Mozilla removed support for SHA-1 in TLS certificates</a>. Version 2.9 of the MRSP takes further steps to eliminate the use of SHA-1, allowing it only for end entity certificates that are completely outside the scope of the MRSP, and for specific, limited circumstances involving duplication of an existing SHA-1 intermediate CA certificate. These efforts align with industry best practices to phase out the usage of SHA-1.</p>
<p><b>Conclusion</b></p>
<p>Several of these changes will require that CAs revise their practices, so we have sent CAs a <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Communications#August_2023_CA_Communication_and_Survey">CA Communication and Survey</a> to alert them about these changes and to inquire about their ability to comply with the new requirements by the <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Root_Store_Policy_Archive">effective dates</a>.</p>
<p>These updates to the MRSP underscore Mozilla’s unwavering commitment to provide our users with a secure and trustworthy experience. We encourage your participation in the <a href="https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/g/dev-security-policy">Mozilla community</a> and the <a href="https://groups.google.com/a/ccadb.org/g/public">CCADB community</a> to contribute to these efforts to provide a secure online experience for our users.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2023/09/13/version-2-9-of-the-mozilla-root-store-policy/">Version 2.9 of the Mozilla Root Store Policy</a> appeared first on <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/security">Mozilla Security Blog</a>.</p>2023-09-13T17:56:32+00:00Ben Wilsonhacks.mozilla.org: Faster Vue.js Execution in Firefox
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/09/faster-vue-js-execution-in-firefox/
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/mozhacks/status/1603435347190419456">Speedometer 3</a> is a cross-industry effort to build a modern browser benchmark rooted in real-world user experiences. Its goal is to focus browser engineering effort towards making the Web more smooth for actual users on actual pages. This is hard to do and most browser benchmarks don’t do it well, but we see it as a unique opportunity to improve responsiveness broadly across the Web.</p>
<p>This requires a deliberate analysis of the ecosystem — starting with real user experiences and identifying the essential technical elements underlying them. We built several new tests from scratch, and also updated some existing tests from Speedometer 2 to use more modern versions of widely-used JavaScript frameworks.</p>
<p>When the Vue.js test was updated from Vue 2 to Vue 3, we <a href="https://github.com/WebKit/Speedometer/pull/114#issuecomment-1479368671">noticed</a> some performance issues in Firefox. The root of the problem was <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Proxy">Proxy</a> object usage that <a href="https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/reactivity-in-depth.html#how-reactivity-works-in-vue">was introduced in Vue 3</a>.</p>
<p>Proxies are hard to optimize because they’re generic by design and can behave in all sorts of surprising ways (e.g., modifying trap functions after initialization, or wrapping a Proxy with another Proxy). They also weren’t used much on the performance-critical path when they were introduced, so we focused primarily on correctness in the original implementation.</p>
<p>Speedometer 3 developed evidence that some Proxies today are well-behaved, critical-path, and widely-used. So we <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1824051">optimized these</a> to execute completely in the JIT — specializing for the shapes of the Proxies encountered at the call-site and avoiding redundant work. This makes reactivity in Vue.js significantly faster, and we also anticipate improvements on other workloads.</p>
<p>This change landed in Firefox 118, so it’s currently on Beta and will ride along to Release by the end of September.</p>
<p>Over the course of the year Firefox has improved <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1824051#c25">by around 40%</a> on the Vue.js benchmark from work like this. More importantly, and as we hoped, we’re observing real user metric improvements across all page loads in Firefox as we optimize Speedometer 3. We’ll share more details about this in a subsequent post.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/09/faster-vue-js-execution-in-firefox/">Faster Vue.js Execution in Firefox</a> appeared first on <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org">Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog</a>.</p>2023-09-05T16:39:32+00:00Brian GrinsteadMozilla L10N: Localizer Spotlight: Victor Ibragimov (Tajik locale)
https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2023/08/31/localizer-spotlight-victor-ibragimov-tajik-locale/
<p>Hello World!</p>
<p>My name is Victor Ibragimov, and I am from Dushanbe, Tajikistan (One of Five Central Asia Countries).</p>
<p>On September 3, 2023, I celebrate my third year as a member of the Mozilla community, starting from September 3, 2020!</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/08/20230628_212238-scaled.jpg"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-1607 size-large" height="338" src="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/files/2023/08/20230628_212238-600x338.jpg" width="600" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Q. What first drew you to want to volunteer with Mozilla’s localization program?</strong></p>
<p>I have been volunteering as a professional translator and coordinator of English to Tajik translations for over 20 years. Throughout my career, I have worked on numerous software localization projects, including Debian OS, Ubuntu OS, Fedora OS, openSuse OS, SailfishOS, KDE, Gnome Desktops, and many other fantastic software and platforms.</p>
<p>Around three years ago, I discovered that all these computer operating systems and desktops used Firefox web browser by default. However, I noticed that Firefox did not have Tajik language support. Determined to address this gap, I reached out to the maintainers of these projects. They informed me that Firefox is a separate project and advised me to contact the Mozilla team directly to initiate the localization of Tajik language.</p>
<p>With my extensive experience in translation and coordination, I was determined to contribute to the completion of a high-quality Tajik translation. This commitment was driven by my desire to enhance the usability of Mozilla products for Tajik-speaking users and to foster inclusion in the global tech community.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What have been some of the most rewarding or impactful projects you’ve localized for Mozilla?</strong></p>
<p>Some of the most rewarding and impactful projects I have localized for Mozilla include the translation of Firefox web browser into Tajik language.</p>
<p>Additionally, I have worked on localizing Mozilla’s mobile projects, such as Firefox for Android and Focus for Android. These projects have allowed Tajik-speaking users to have a seamless browsing experience on their mobile devices and maintain their privacy with the Focus app. This has had a positive impact on the accessibility of technology for Tajik-speaking individuals and has empowered them to fully utilize Mozilla’s mobile products.</p>
<p>Overall, these localization projects have been rewarding and impactful as they have contributed to breaking down language barriers, fostering inclusion, and empowering Tajik-speaking users to access and utilize Mozilla’s products effectively across various platforms.</p>
<p><strong>Q. What advice would you give to someone new wanting to get involved in localizing for Mozilla?</strong></p>
<p>1. Start by familiarizing yourself with the Mozilla community and the localization process. Visit the <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla website</a> and explore the resources and <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/localizer-documentation/">documentation</a> available for translators. Join relevant forums or mailing lists to connect with other translators and learn from their experiences.<br />
2. Choose a project or software that you are passionate about and that aligns with your language expertise. It could be Firefox, Thunderbird, or any other Mozilla project. By working on something you are interested in, you will stay motivated and enjoy the process of localization.<br />
3. Take advantage of the available tools and resources. Mozilla provides various tools and platforms to facilitate the localization process, such as <a href="http://pontoon.mozilla.org/">Pontoon</a> and <a href="https://transvision.mozfr.org/">Transvision</a>. Familiarize yourself with these tools and use them to contribute effectively.<br />
4. Collaborate and communicate with other translators. Localization is a collaborative effort, so it’s important to engage with other translators, ask questions, and seek feedback. Participate in discussions and share your knowledge and experiences with the community.<br />
5. Be proactive and take initiative. Look for opportunities to contribute beyond just translating strings. Offer to review translations, suggest improvements, or help with testing and bug reporting. This will not only enhance your skills but also make you a valuable member of the localization team.<br />
6. Stay updated with the latest developments in your language and the software you are localizing. Attend conferences, workshops, or webinars related to localization or technology to stay informed about new trends and best practices.<br />
7. Seek feedback and continuously improve your translations. Localization is an ongoing process, and there is always room for improvement. Actively seek feedback from users, fellow translators, and project maintainers to refine your translations and ensure they are accurate, clear, and culturally appropriate. Embrace feedback as an opportunity for growth and strive to deliver high-quality localized content.<br />
8. Stay connected with the Mozilla community and stay up to date with changes and updates. Join relevant mailing lists or forums to stay informed about new projects, updates, and announcements. Regularly check the Mozilla website and other official channels for any news or changes that may impact your localization work. By staying connected, you can actively contribute to the community and ensure your translations are up to date with the latest developments.<br />
9. Be patient and persistent. Localization can be challenging at times, especially when dealing with technical terms or complex strings. Don’t get discouraged if you face difficulties initially. Keep practicing, learning, and improving your skills.<br />
10. Lastly, enjoy the process and have fun! Localizing for Mozilla is not just about contributing to a global project, but also about preserving and promoting your language globally. Embrace the opportunity to make a positive impact and connect with your language community.</p>
<p>Remember, whether you are a newcomer or an experienced translator, your contribution to localizing Mozilla projects can have a significant impact. So, take the leap and start making a difference in your language community and beyond.</p>
<p><strong>Q. How has your volunteering impacted users in your language community?</strong></p>
<p>As a Mozilla volunteer, my contributions to Tajik translation have had a significant impact on Mozilla users in the Tajik language community. By ensuring that Firefox web browser is fully localized and accessible in Tajik, I have helped to make it easier for Tajik internet users to navigate and use the browser in their native language. This has not only improved their overall browsing experience but also promoted the importance of using Tajik as a language of technology and digital communication.</p>
<p>Furthermore, by incorporating the new Tajik language reforms into translations, I have played a role in making the Tajik language clearer and more beautiful. This has not only enhanced the user experience for Tajik-speaking Mozilla users but has also contributed to the development and preservation of the language itself.</p>
<p>In addition, my involvement in creating new Internet terminology for the Tajik language has been instrumental in bridging the linguistic gap between technology and the Tajik-speaking community. This has allowed for the development of e-government, e-commerce, and e-education platforms in Tajikistan, as well as empowering Tajik internet users to fully utilize the potential of the internet in their daily lives.</p>
<p>Moreover, the opportunity to create multilingual dictionaries with Tajik language has further enriched the linguistic resources available to Tajik speakers. This has not only facilitated effective communication but has also fostered a sense of pride and ownership over their language.</p>
<p><em>Interested in featuring in these spotlights? Or know someone you think we should interview? Fill out this <a href="https://forms.gle/rgjisuSTWworeZnZ6">form</a>, or reach out directly to delphine at mozilla dot com. Interested in contributing to localization? Head on over <a href="https://mozilla-l10n.github.io/introduction/">here</a> for more details!</em></p>
<h3>Useful Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#l10n-community:mozilla.org">#l10n-community channel on Element (chat.mozilla.org)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/l10n/547">Localization category on Discourse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/mozilla_l10n">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/">L10n blog</a></li>
</ul>2023-08-31T23:17:57+00:00DelphineThe Bugzilla Update: Bugzilla Celebrates 25 Years With Special Announcements
https://bugzillaupdate.wordpress.com/2023/08/26/bugzilla-celebrates-25-years-with-special-announcements/
<h3><strong>Happy 25th Birthday to Bugzilla!</strong></h3>
<p>Today, August 26, marks the 25th anniversary of Bugzilla!</p>
<p>The first two paragraphs lifted from our <a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/about/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bugzilla history</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>When mozilla.org first came online in 1998, one of the first products that was released was Bugzilla, a bug system implemented using freely available open source tools. Bugzilla was originally written in <a href="http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/">TCL</a> by Terry Weissman for use at mozilla.org to replace the in-house system then in use at Netscape. The initial installation of Bugzilla was deployed to the public on a mozilla.org server on <a href="https://www-archive.mozilla.org/news.html#p17" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">April 6, 1998</a>.</p>
<p>After a few months of testing and fixing on a public deployment, Bugzilla was finally released as open source via anonymous CVS and available for others to use on <a href="https://www-archive.mozilla.org/news.html#p44" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">August 26, 1998</a>. At this point. Terry decided to port Bugzilla to <a href="http://www.perl.org">Perl</a>, with the hopes that more people would be able to contribute to it, since Perl seemed to be a more popular language. The completion of the port to Perl was announced on <a href="https://www-archive.mozilla.org/news.html#p51" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">September 15, 1998</a>, and committed to CVS <a href="https://github.com/bugzilla/bugzilla/commit/4727e6c09f88e63f02e6c8f359862d0c0942ed36" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">later that night</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>25 years is a long time in the software world, and it makes us happy that so many people still use Bugzilla to track bug reports and feature requests for their own products. We hope to continue to breath life into Bugzilla and continue to modernize it over the years to come!</p>
<h3><strong>New Legal Entity to Manage the Bugzilla Project</strong></h3>
<p>Back in December I made an <a href="https://bugzillaupdate.wordpress.com/2022/12/13/upcoming-releases-and-more-fun-stuff/">enthusiastic post</a> about getting Bugzilla back in motion after it kind of stalled for a while. And then after a month I kind of stopped posting about it. So what happened?</p>
<p>Well, response to that post was actually pretty enthusiastic in itself. I heard from several people who wanted to donate money to the project to get it going again. Which then led to a new problem: we didn’t actually have a legal way to accept donations at the time. So after asking around a bit, and a few conference calls between myself, my own company’s lawyer, and a couple of Mozilla’s lawyers, it was decided that Bugzilla needed a legal entity to manage it, similar to how Thunderbird has been operating recently. And, that’s where the little bit of time that I’ve had to spend on Bugzilla has gone the last 6 months. And as you can understand, with the legal work going on in the background, there wasn’t much I could actually talk about until all of the pieces were actually in place.</p>
<p>Which now brings us to today, when I’m happy to announce the formation of Zarro Boogs Corporation, which will now be overseeing the Bugzilla Project. This is a taxable non-profit non-charitable corporation – we have filed with the IRS our intent to operate under US Tax Code §501(c)(4) (still pending approval from the IRS) meaning the IRS would require us to spend money raised on project expenses and not make a profit, but money donated to us will not earn you a tax deduction because we aren’t a charity (software development is not considered a charitable cause in the US). Unlike Thunderbird, which is a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, we are an independent entity not owned by or associated with the Mozilla Foundation, although they have licensed the use of the Bugzilla trademark to us.</p>
<p>The name Zarro Boogs Corporation is a shout-out to the phrase returned by Bugzilla when you run a search which returns no results, “Zarro Boogs found.” The buggy spelling of “Zero Bugs” being intentional because it’s generally believed that there’s no such thing as a project with zero bugs in it, only bugs that haven’t yet been reported, thus, saying “Zero Bugs” is, in itself, buggy. There’s a nice write-up of this on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugzilla#Zarro_Boogs">Wikipedia</a>.</p>
<p>If you would like to contribute to the project, we have a donation page set up on <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/bugzilla">GitHub Sponsors</a>. We hope to have additional ways to donate that don’t require a GitHub account in the future.</p>
<h3><strong>Upcoming Releases</strong></h3>
<p>Those releases I talked about back in December are finally happening! Look for these (except for 5.9.1) this coming week! Right now we’re aiming for Wednesday, August 30th. We are aiming for September 15 for 5.9.1 (because it’s the 25th anniversary of the port from Tcl to Perl).</p>
<p><strong>4.4.14</strong> – The 4.4 branch has been on life support for a <strong>LONG</strong> time (it was initially released in <strong>2013!!!</strong>). It supports outdated OSes that are hard to find or install, let alone test for these days, and we’ve been itching to drop it for a long time. But our support policy says that we have to support it for 4 months after the following two major releases. The next major release after 4.4 was 5.0, and there have been no major releases after that, which means that 4 month countdown hasn’t even started yet. I am intending this to be the final release of the 4.4 branch (barring any additional security issues being found in the next 4 months) as the 5.2 release below will start that 4 month countdown to End-of-Life this branch.</p>
<p><strong>5.0.4.1</strong> – Why 5.0.4.1 when there’s a 5.0.6 release? Well, if you paid attention to the change logs, 5.0.5 and 5.0.6 contained a massive schema change, as well as reformatting almost all of the Perl code in the source, both of which are a violation of our support policy for a stable branch (a new-to-the-process release manager pushed the release out not realizing that, and by the time we caught it, it was too late). A lot of people noticed this and never upgraded to 5.0.5 or 5.0.6, since they didn’t contain any security fixes. 5.0.4.1 will give those people additional fixes for 5.0.4 without forcing them to pick up those schema and code reformatting changes. Additional updates to the 5.0 branch from now on will continue from 5.0.4.2 and onward.</p>
<p><strong>5.2</strong> – This will be the next major release, and will start the 4 month countdown for discontinuing the 4.4 branch. 5.2 is forked from the 5.0 branch after 5.0.6, and will contain those schema and code formatting changes from 5.0.5 and 5.0.6 in it. So if you <em><strong>did</strong></em> upgrade to 5.0.6, 5.2 will be equivalent to a point upgrade for you. Those schema changes should have caused a major release to happen anyway, so this is just fixing the numbering problem with that release (i.e. 5.0.5 should have been called 5.2 to begin with). Note that <strong>if you are using the 5.1.x development releases, those did NOT feed into this</strong>, and 5.2 would actually be a downgrade for you.</p>
<p><strong>5.1.3</strong> – The 5.1 branch is basically dead, as we’ve put all of our resources into finishing off the Harmony release (see 5.9.1 below). We’re going to encourage people on 5.1.x to move to Harmony, but you’ll want to be mindful of the release blockers first before you make the jump. There are some features in 5.1.x that were implemented differently in Harmony, and the code to migrate the related data may or may not work yet (if the feature in question is listed on the release blockers and you use it, you’ll want to wait for now). Even though this branch is dead, we’re going to put out a release with the current batch of security fixes so you aren’t left high and dry before Harmony is ready for you.</p>
<p><strong>5.9.1</strong> – Coming September 15! This will be the first official release off the Harmony branch, and will be classified as a <strong>developer preview release</strong>, not for production use. This is what will eventually be Bugzilla 6. The code is mostly good enough to use right now, but there are still showstoppers to be able to fully release it as a production release. There are also a few gotchas when upgrading from older versions of Bugzilla. If you’re interested in helping make Bugzilla 6 happen, that list of showstoppers is <a href="https://github.com/bugzilla/harmony/blob/main/RELEASE_BLOCKERS.md" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">here</a>. We are hoping to have Bugzilla 6 in release candidate stage (or at least in beta) by the end of November. The security content for this branch that goes with the other branch releases will be committed to git at the same time the other releases get them, since anyone who has this already will only have it via git pull.</p>
<h3>Immediate <strong>Help Wanted</strong></h3>
<ol>
<li><strong>Documentation</strong>. Harmony (5.9.1) in particular needs a LOT of documentation help, as what’s there now is pretty specific to trying to produce a testing environment for bugzilla.mozilla.org, rather than a standalone Bugzilla.</li>
<li><strong>Section 508 Compliance Audit</strong>. There are a number of US government agencies who use Bugzilla internally (NASA is a publicly visible example). New US government projects have to comply with the new accessibility guidelines in Section 508 of the Communications Act, so if we want them to be able to upgrade we need to comply (at least in our newer versions). See <a href="https://section508.gov/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://section508.gov/</a>. There is a template for a compliance statement at <a href="https://www.section508.gov/sell/vpat/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://www.section508.gov/sell/vpat/</a>. I would love to get a volunteer (or a company who can sponsor someone?) who could audit the 5.2 and harmony branches for compliance, file bugs for things that are violations, and figure out how much of the VPAT we can actually provide at this point. Even if we’re not compliant yet (I suspect we aren’t) I would love to be able to provide a statement with the 5.2 release saying how compliant we are, and listing what’s left to be fixed to make us compliant. See also <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1785941" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bug 1785941</a>. Some work has been done on this (as you can see in the dependent bugs to that one) but it still needs help.</li>
</ol>
<h3><strong>Ongoing Help Wanted</strong></h3>
<p>You can always find a list of ways to contribute to Bugzilla on our <a href="http://bugzilla.org/contributing/">Contributing page</a>. A few highlights with additional details:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Donate Money</strong>. Now that we have a legal entity capable of paying developers, we need money to pay them with (and also cover our server hosting expenses). You can donate via our <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/bugzilla">GitHub Sponsors</a> page. If you don’t have and can’t create a GitHub account, we hope to have other ways to donate in the future.</li>
<li><strong>Bug Triage!</strong> As you probably noticed from the lack of updates around here in a while, the bug list hasn’t been getting paid much attention to, either. Part of getting this project moving again means re-triaging the existing bug reports. Some of them are really ancient and may not even apply to the current code-base anymore. I’m going to have another blog post coming in the next day or two (for real this time) with information on this topic (specifics for how to help with it), so keep an eye out for that post!</li>
<li><strong>Code!</strong> Once we get the above triage moving, there will be bugs to fix! Bugzilla is an Open Source project, and anyone can contribute! We also have a relatively small user base compared to some of the big projects out there, so the amount of development we’ll be able to fund internally from our donations will still be limited. It will probably make better sense for us to use our internal developers (once we have money to pay some) to review patches and coach external contributors, instead of having them directly producing code.</li>
<li><strong>Paid Developer Time</strong>. If you are a business that makes use of Bugzilla, and has a staff person responsible for maintaining your Bugzilla installation, and that person is willing, please consider officially sponsoring that person to help with upstream Bugzilla development for at least a few hours per week. Most of our lack of development lately has happened because the last few companies that used to do that stopped providing developer time during the economic downturn a few years back (either laid off said person or pulled them away to work on other things), and they haven’t returned. The developers we have currently (until we get money donated as listed above) are all volunteer, and most of them are struggling to find time to work on it.</li>
</ul>
<h3>In Conclusion</h3>
<p>We have a lot of excitement ahead of us with the first developer preview of Bugzilla 6 coming later this week (I was hoping to have that for you all today as well, but we didn’t quite make it), and the new opportunities in store for us with a real business entity to support the project now. Come find us in any of our chat rooms (links are in the footer of <a href="https://bugzilla.org/">our website</a> alongside the social media links) or drop in on our <a href="https://lists.bugzilla.org/listinfo/developers">developers mailing list</a> if you’d like to help.</p>2023-08-26T23:53:03+00:00Dave Miller