351748 - Remove UI for Gopher proxy settings

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

The current UI for connection settings gives you an option to specify a different proxies for HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Gopher, and SOCKS.

So basically, to make use of the UI, you have to
a) Use manual proxies
b) Use Gopher
c) Use Firefox to use Gopher (I don't know how well Firefox implements it)
d) Use a different proxy for Gopher than you do for HTTP

I don't believe Gopher proxy prefs are useful enough to have a UI. I propose we remove them, while maintaining the backend prefs and the current functionality of "Use this proxy server for all protocols".

Comment 1

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

Attachment: patch v1

Comment 2

[Aaron J. Angel]

So, wait a minute.  Because you don't know how well Firefox supports Gopher, you want to remove UI elements for its configuration?

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> So, wait a minute.  Because you don't know how well Firefox supports Gopher,
> you want to remove UI elements for its configuration?

I'm not sure why you decided that his lack of knowledge about Firefox's Gopher support was the most important point in his initial rationale. Users who match the 4 conditions he lists likely represent a user base very close to 0%, so his conclusion that the UI should be removed absolutely deserves consideration. I'd even go further and say that removing all Gopher support is worth considering, but that's certainly another bug.

Comment 4

[Aaron J. Angel]

The same could be said for SSL and FTP.  But then, most proxies can handle both SSL and FTP.  I doubt most proxies can handle Gopher, which means if an operator decides to proxy Gopher, a separate proxy would be needed, and that may indeed be placed on a separate host.  Duke University does it:  http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/services/proxy.html.  That was incredibly easy to find, too.

Removing a UI element because some people might not use it is a bad reason.  I can't imagine it's difficult to maintain--how often does this stuff change?

Removing Gopher support because this particular implementation of the simplest protocol in the world makes the developers look like amateurs is a much better suggestion.

Comment 5

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> The same could be said for SSL and FTP.
No, most people will use SSL or FTP at some point. Most will never use Gopher.

> Removing a UI element because some people might not use it is a bad reason.
Replace "some" with "the vast majority", and it becomes a very good reason.

Comment 6

[Aaron J. Angel]

Until Firefox stops supporting Gopher altogether, I don't see a valid reason to break or weaken existing support further.

Comment 7

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Until Firefox stops supporting Gopher altogether, I don't see a valid reason to
> break or weaken existing support further.

That's a good point. Removal of this code should probably wait until we remove all Gopher support.

Comment 8

[Cameron Kaiser [:spectre]]

"Until"? Is this going to become a meta for removing all gopher support then? If so, is there a way to add a -999 vote?

The Mozilla code base is about the only browser that still supports gopher in a halfway decent fashion. I'm not sure I like where this one is going.

Comment 9

[steg]

IMHO this bug should be WONTFIXed; this is the first time I ever wanted to cast a negative vote on Bugzilla. Firstly, Gopher support of Firefox is rather good. Let me quote some comments from current gopher sites, written by experimented gophermasters: gopher://quix.us/0/firefox : 
(...) Firefox 2.0.x still works just as 1.5.x did! Hurray for the Open Source movement! Interesting, Microsoft has totally pulled ancient support for Gopher out of Internet Explorer 7. It was only disabled in IE 6, but now it appears to be gone completely.  Another good reason to dump IE.
== The Newest and Best Gopher Client: Mozilla Firefox! == (...)

gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/gopher/wbgopher :
(...) Most of you, alas, will find text to be a stifling environment even for gopher. Fortunately, the Mozilla derivatives have significantly improved their gopher support to the point where they are now THE CLIENT OF CHOICE if you want a graphical system(...) Again, let me stress that with their current support, for most users, Firefox 1.5.0.1 (and up), or Camino 1.0 (and up) for Mac OS X, ARE THE CLIENT(S) OF CHOICE (...)

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Gopher/faq.html#1 :
1 Q:	I just can't see some pages of this section. Why?
A:	You're probably using a browser that doesn't support the gopher protocol. For instance, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera won't work for Gopher sites. Get Mozilla Firefox or SeaMonkey and see the difference (disclaimer: I am the current editor of the Gopher category of the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org), the latter one was written by me and reflects only my personal views).

To put it bluntly, today Firefox and other Mozilla derivatives are praised as very good Gopher clients in the Gopher community. Sure, I'm anything but a code wizard but I don't think maintaining this support is a very difficult work, so I think that Gopher support should really *not* be removed. Moreover I see no reason to remove the UI for the Gopher proxy either: Aaron explained it quite well and I totally agree with him. This little box doesn't bother those who don't use it, and I see no reason to weaken existing support. Hence I think that a WONTFIX would be appropriate for this bug.

Comment 10

[Aaron J. Angel]

Agree w/above.

Comment 11

[Benn Newman]

Agree with above and what is above that too!

For what it is worth, Squid can act as a Gopher proxy;
works rather nicely (IMHO) too.

Comment 12

[Marckus M. van Dijk]

Why remove a working protocol that's still widely used and offering tons of data, and by the way also is indexed into Google?

Don't remove Gopher, I say!

Comment 13

[Arvid Norlander]

Indeed don't remove it. Why be as bad as Internet Explorer?

Comment 14

[Mantas Mikulėnas (grawity)]

$vote = -999;

Please, don't make me use WSGopher again! It even doesn't support scrollwheel! *cry*

Comment 15

[Mantas Mikulėnas (grawity)]

wait, this is the wrong page. (I wanted to post it to #388195)
(In reply to comment #14)
> $vote = -999;
> 
> Please, don't make me use WSGopher again! It even doesn't support scrollwheel!
> *cry*

Comment 16

[Alucard-sama]

You're going to cut out UI configuration simply because you don't know how well Firefox supports Gopher... I've got one word for you: "lolwot?"

Comment 17

[benc]

I'd like to propose that we narrow the scope of this bug to be dependent on the removal of the gopher proxy handler.

Here's some relevant info to comments above:

1- If gopher is re-implemented as described in the depends bug, then gopher needs to be supported as proxable to keep the UI. If the new implementation cannot proxy (and I honestly don't know enough about how they will re-factor it to know if will/won't -or- can/can't be done), then we should remove it from the UI.

2- some proxies do still support gopher URL requests. Sun still sells what was once Netscape/iPlanet Proxy server. It probably still works... if you have to know, I can find out for sure...

3- we shouldn't remove possibly obscure stuff from manual config. The original design of manual config was: here's a list of protocols that you can proxy, if you want. In fact, I'm somewhat concerned that there are protocol handlers that we are missing... so manual might even get LONGER over time... The ease of use factor comes from having the "all protocols" checkbox on by default. There are some problems w/ the current implementation, it isn't perfect, but it does make life simple for the user.

Comment 18

[Joe Drew (not getting mail)]

I removed the UI for gopher proxy settings in bug 388195.