Mozilla proposes changing the default behavior of the Firefox browser on Unix builds so that pressing the middle mouse button no longer pastes text by default.
The functionality will be there and can be enabled. The reasoning:
The author of the revision frames the current behavior as a source of confusion and accidental pastes, especially when users press the middle button without expecting the clipboard contents to be inserted into text fields.
To have it as ab option, great. I believe KDE already has this? Computers should work the way the user wants it, so a middle click should do what the user wants it to do.
It’s very easy for a user to accidentally paste private or sensitive information somewhere dangerous if theyre unaware of this feature.
The FreeDesktop specification refers to this feature as an “easter egg”, and something like this should absolutely not be an easter egg.
This change would mean disabling it by default and adding a settings entry that actually explains it, making sure users are informed before they can accidentally use it.
Then that could be solved by displaying a message the first time GNOME is launched, not by disabling it. This will just break workflows for quite a lot of people.
It will break their workflow for a few seconds before they change the setting back. Or they could read the changes before installing a major update and change it before even doing anything.
Maybe in the future it will be added to the initial setup guide along with stuff like choosing if you want mouse acceleration, but I really dont think its that big a deal.
“read the changes before installing a major update”
As if people have the time to read the changelogs for every single package all the time… 🙄
This is pretty important on a server to avoid disruptions and outages, but people have other things to do.
And once it is no longer on and has become a setting, they can just remove the setting and force people to drop gsettings and then remove it completely.
They could also instead ask people on first launch. Some people enable telemetry, so they will find out how many people prefer to keep it, which I bet will be most.
I don’t understand what the problem here is. But why the option exists? If someone does not care, then why would someone have any say in such an option? You can’t enforce people to care.
The essence of the article:
The functionality will be there and can be enabled. The reasoning:
To have it as ab option, great. I believe KDE already has this? Computers should work the way the user wants it, so a middle click should do what the user wants it to do.
Removing it completely would be insanity
Mozilla are still using Phabricator?! That stopped being maintained in 2021…
deleted by creator
But why? Then the users thinks “huh, weird” and goes on.
I’ve seen that countless times with people that are less technical.
It’s very easy for a user to accidentally paste private or sensitive information somewhere dangerous if theyre unaware of this feature.
The FreeDesktop specification refers to this feature as an “easter egg”, and something like this should absolutely not be an easter egg.
This change would mean disabling it by default and adding a settings entry that actually explains it, making sure users are informed before they can accidentally use it.
Then that could be solved by displaying a message the first time GNOME is launched, not by disabling it. This will just break workflows for quite a lot of people.
It will break their workflow for a few seconds before they change the setting back. Or they could read the changes before installing a major update and change it before even doing anything.
Maybe in the future it will be added to the initial setup guide along with stuff like choosing if you want mouse acceleration, but I really dont think its that big a deal.
“read the changes before installing a major update”
As if people have the time to read the changelogs for every single package all the time… 🙄
This is pretty important on a server to avoid disruptions and outages, but people have other things to do.
And once it is no longer on and has become a setting, they can just remove the setting and force people to drop gsettings and then remove it completely.
They could also instead ask people on first launch. Some people enable telemetry, so they will find out how many people prefer to keep it, which I bet will be most.
I don’t understand what the problem here is. But why the option exists? If someone does not care, then why would someone have any say in such an option? You can’t enforce people to care.