No Geode for Linux.. how sad, never mind
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Oct 14, 2008 8:36 PM EDT |
Quoting:Firefox will soon integrate Geode (via the W3C geolocation API specification) into its browser, thereby exposing the user's current location. Meanwhile Linux users will have to forgo this service in that it involves proprietary software. Not a problem, in fact I'm rather happy about it. Sometime I really, really like proprietary. |
| zenarcher Oct 14, 2008 8:45 PM EDT |
I'm with you on this one, tracyanne. I could not agree more. I'd call this a plus for Linux users. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 14, 2008 9:17 PM EDT |
I agree, I have ZERO interest in anyone knowing exactly where I am that I do not choose to tell. Why would I want to have a function like that turned on...oh wait, I didn't... |
| jdixon Oct 14, 2008 9:22 PM EDT |
The only possible use I can think of for such a function would be for use with things like Google Maps, to show you where you are in relation to your desired destination. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 14, 2008 9:24 PM EDT |
Yeah but is it that hard to just type in where you are? |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 14, 2008 10:41 PM EDT |
It's all about advertising ... |
| azerthoth Oct 14, 2008 11:15 PM EDT |
I wonder if that violates rights to privacy, I seem to recall that some states are pretty adamant about not revealing information. |
| rijelkentaurus Oct 14, 2008 11:22 PM EDT |
Long live Iceweasel! (And any other Firefox-based browser compiled from source!) :) Just sayin'...... |
| gus3 Oct 15, 2008 12:11 AM EDT |
What TCP port does this geolocation API use? I'll make sure to block it off. |
| r_a_trip Oct 15, 2008 5:51 AM EDT |
No Geo Location in Firefox on Linux is a good thing. I 'm sick of all those "helpful features" based on location. Google is a big culprit too. I just hate to see Google jump to Dutch, just because I happen to live in The Netherlands. I just type google.com, not google.nl. Even worse, I get Dutch pages high in rank first and most of the time I couldn't care less about those. I run my computing in English, I'd love to see my service providers pick up on that. |
| jdixon Oct 15, 2008 9:32 AM EDT |
> Yeah but is it that hard to just type in where you are? Sometimes you don't know where you are. :( That's when the feature would be most useful. Of course, most of those times you don't have Internet access, so it wouldn't help. |
| DrDubious Oct 15, 2008 12:01 PM EDT |
The concept behind the feature is actually pretty exciting to me, provided of course that it's optional and can easily be turned on or off from site to site. The location information COULD come from gpsd, or hand-typed location, or whatever. The problem here is that Mozilla corporation chose to do it with a proprietary service. What's worse, if I understand correctly what this proprietary glob of code needs to do is get down into your system and ask your wifi cards what Wireless Access Points it sees (and then sends that information to the special Proprietary Company's Database to query where those access points are located, if they're in the proprietary database). Even leaving aside the disturbing idea of requiring closed proprietary service for "open source" browsing, the requirement for low-level access might become a bad trend. Isn't "we can't figure out how to tie the browser to a low-level system function" the same excuse they gave for not having a fully functional release of the command-line-like plugin (Ubiquity) for firefox on Linux (where the complaint seemed to be that they couldn't decide how to get lower-level access to window-handling functions in X11 instead of using normal popup windows for some reason)? Is Mozilla trying to turn Firefox into the next "Internet Explorer" here? |
| techiem2 Oct 15, 2008 12:39 PM EDT |
Let's see...gps + client side application that you configure for various coordinate boxes/wifi networks (if see AP X launch Y website, if in Area X bring up X location map, etc.).
Yeah, you really need an online proprietary service to do that..... |
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