Why is Firestorm not a favorite?

[Illyana Dagger]

I recently wiped my PC for unrelated reasons and had to reinstall Firestorm. Look at this user unfriendly gibberish I am presented with during a new installation. I have been SL for ten years and I have no idea what any of this means,

 

http://i.imgur.com/GSbcDgt.png

[Dresden]

That's just telling you that you should do a clean (re-)install, a link to how to do that and a choice of versions.  How is that "user unfriendly"?

Exactly what about it do you not understand?

...Dres

[Alwin Alcott]

it's not that difficult, a manual for clean install and 3 versions of the viewer....

take the one you need.

simple machine and only SL...first one

simple machine SL ánd/ór Open Sim : ...the second

advanced machine that can handle 64b ... third

[Prokofy Neva]

I refuse to use Firestorm. It's genesis is from the discredited Emerald and Phoenix viewers that "phone home," and offshoots of griefer viewers that enabled exploits in SL which the developers turned a blind eye to.

[ChinRey]

Are we going to have a Viewer War here? Interesting, been a while since the last one.

 

Me? I use five different viewers, including Firestorm and the official one, for different purposes. I like/dislike them all equally and I'm happy I have the opportunity to switch. Right now the SL Viewer is a clear favorite though. That new Delete All button for group notices is more than enough to put it way ahead of the others.

But you're talking about "unfriendly gibberish". You're not looking for the mythical user friendly viewer, are you? If you are... well I'm afraid have some other bad news for you too: Santa Claus doesn't exist either.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

I refuse to use Firestorm. It's genesis is from the discredited Emerald and Phoenix viewers that "phone home," and offshoots of griefer viewers that enabled exploits in SL which the developers turned a blind eye to.

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None of this applies to Firestorm.  The people responsible for the Emerald fiasco are long gone.  Phoenix never phoned home. I have no idea where you get that it's an offshoot of griefer viewers.

If you don't want to use it fine, don't.  But don't spread false information about it.  Firestorm is now one of the most popular and stable viewers available.

[Prokofy Neva]

@Amethyst Jetaime

You're wrong on every single one of these points, and it's interesting how the myths around Emerald/Phoenix/Firestorm persist years later.

Yes, indeed Emerald phoned home -- and Phoenix was under suspicion as well because they were made by the same developers.

Of course griefer viewers were an offshoot of these viewers. That's well-established. Read the history.

Indeed Firestorm is a descendent of Emerald and Phoenix.  You have only to go to the SL wiki to read about "the next generation of the Phoenix Firestorm project". Phoenix was Emerald "rising from the ashes" after being banned as a third-party viewer from SL because of griefing, exploits and a major scandal. Firestorm is the tamer but still related viewer that followed that most certainly is connected.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Downloads

It doesn't matter if Firestorm is one of the most popular and used. There is always an amazingly odd factor here in Second Life that the maker's own viewer is not the one most used -- and should be -- but this odd third-party viewer

Firestorm is a particular problem in my view because it enables people using it to return group-set prims when they were not granted that power in a Second Life group -- a function they could not perform on a regular viewer made by Linden Lab. That's a serious exploit and serious undermining of the rules/technicalities of Second Life, but LL turns a blind eye to that for reasons I can surmise but which are never stated.

I have no idea who you are, what your story is, and why you feel the need to defend Firestorm and misreport the known history. It doesn't matter. Let the buyer beware.

 

 

[Dresden]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

None of this applies to Firestorm.

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Not quite.

 

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

The people responsible for the Emerald fiasco are long gone.

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This is true.

 

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Phoenix never phoned home.

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This is also true.  Though the Emerald Viewer most certainly did.

This blog post explains it all in great detail, if anyone's interested... link.

 

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I have no idea where you get that it's an offshoot of griefer viewers.

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I do.  Cryogenic Blitz, creator of Cryo-life, was indeed one of the members of the Emerald Viewer dev team.  When I had the opportunity to question LordGregGreg about this, he assured me he was entirely certain that Cryo was completely reformed and truly regretted having unleashed Cryo-life upon the general SL public.  Whether or not he was, really doesn't matter anymore.

When Phoenix arose from the ashes of Emerald, they decided the one main thing they'd do differently is that every dev needed to be able to see every bit of code.  Because that way, should one dev try to do something malicious, another would catch them trying to do it.  Plus, I'm sure LL was keeping a very close eye on them.

This is why I, personally, feel quite comfortable using Firestorm.  But I also understand why people such as Prok, might feel suspicious of any third party viewer out there, much less one with such a turbulent history.

...Dres

[Tonya Souther]

At the risk of the old saying about rolling in the mud with pigs...

Prokofy Neva wrote:

Yes, indeed Emerald phoned home

Yes, it did. Among other things. That's why it got banned, and the developers responsible for that permanently banned from TPV development.

-- and Phoenix was under suspicion as well because they were made by the same developers.

Only by ignorant conspiracy theorists who refused to recognize that the developers who added the malware are long gone. Every last line of code that went into Phoneix was and is available for download and examination, even now. Nobody has ever found a single exploit, and lots of people have had more than a little incentive to look. The Phoenix/Firestorm team has operated under a great big microscope from day 1, and we're well aware of the fact. 

Of course griefer viewers were an offshoot of these viewers. That's well-established. Read the history.

And just what are we supposed to do when others take our code and add griefer features to it? We are required by LL to keep the viewer code open source. That means anyone can take it and add anything they want to to it, and we can't stop them.

Indeed Firestorm is a descendent of Emerald and Phoenix.

Philosophically, indeed it is. However, there's not a single line of code in Firestorm that was ported from Emerald, or even Phoenix, without being carefully scrutinized, examined, vetted, and understood - and, more often than not, rewritten anyway. Again, we're working under a microscope, and quite aware fo the fact. We know that there are lots of people who'd love to see us fall. We're not going to give them the satisfaction.

It doesn't matter if Firestorm is one of the most popular and used. There is always an amazingly odd factor here in Second Life that the maker's own viewer is not the one most used -- and should be -- but this odd third-party viewer

This is the inevitable result of one factor: We take great pains to listen to what the user actually wants. Rightly or wrongly, the LL viewer doesn't have that reputation, and that stretches back at least to the time of introduction of Viewer 2. We provide a powerful, feature-rich viewer that gives users what they want but doesn’t force them into things they don’t want. Some of those things I doubt the LL viewer will ever add, like RLV (or an equivalent capability).

Firestorm is a particular problem in my view because it enables people using it to return group-set prims when they were not granted that power in a Second Life group -- a function they could not perform on a regular viewer made by Linden Lab. That's a serious exploit and serious undermining of the rules/technicalities of Second Life, but LL turns a blind eye to that for reasons I can surmise but which are never stated.

Yeah, real serious...so serious that this is the first I've heard of it in my 6+ years on SL. Funny, though...VWR-5491 reports it against the LL viewer (1.23, so we know how long that's been around).

Even so, if this is something the LL viewer does not allow but Firestorm does, then it's truly a bug, and we will fix it. It would help if a simple reproduction would be written up0 so that we can run the test case against Firestorm and the LL viewer, so we can understand what's going on. I have a sim, and can set parcel and region permissions as I need to, as well as group settings, so anything you can describe, I can try.

I have no idea who you are, what your story is, and why you feel the need to defend Firestorm and misreport the known history. It doesn't matter. Let the buyer beware.

I, on the other hand, do know who you are:  someone who's had an irrational dislike of Phoenix, Firestorm and the people associated with them for far longer than the actual facts justify. Let the buyer beware, indeed.

[Whirly Fizzle]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

Firestorm is a particular problem in my view because it enables people using it to return group-set prims when they were not granted that power in a Second Life group -- a function they could not perform on a regular viewer made by Linden Lab. That's a serious exploit and serious undermining of the rules/technicalities of Second Life, but LL turns a blind eye to that for reasons I can surmise but which are never stated.

 

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Would that happen to be that serious expected behaviour exploit on https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-121 ?

[Pamela Galli]

Also, the Firestorm staff provide superb customer service (unpaid) -- their inworld group is the best possible, contacting me privately when something warrants discussion, plus Tonya, Whirly, and others have come to my store to investigate on more than one occasion.

 

And their plans for an effective new resident area are first rate, what LL should have done long ago.

 

[Dresden]

Hey Tonya, I advise both you and Whirly not to bother yourselves with trying to explain reality to Prok... he'll never get it.   Rest assured that there are those of us who know and understand what actually went on.  Prok is, always has been and always will be a fool.  Whatever you might have to say in reply to Prok's ridiculous beliefs, will never change the factual evidence to the contrary.

...Dres

[Perrie Juran]

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Dresden wrote:

Hey Tonya, I advise both you and Whirly not to bother yourselves with trying to explain reality to Prok... he'll never get it.   Rest assured that there are those of us who know and understand what actually went on.  Prok is, always has been and always will be a fool.  Whatever you might have to say in reply to Prok's ridiculous beliefs, will never change the factual evidence to the contrary.

...Dres

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Awwwwwwwwww.........but it's been too long since we last had a good flame war about Viewers.  NOT.  

But we do have to remember Prok's favorite motto:  "Please do not confuse me with the facts."

I really wonder if He/She understands that no Viewer and hence no User can do anything that the Server does not allow.  That is what the concept of "expected behavior" is about.  When it is unexpected then it is a "bug."  Exploits take advantage of "bugs," unexpected behavior.  That is what hackers look for.  Ways to make the system act in unexpected ways. 

 

• SVC-585 which is related to SVC-121 is really classic, especially Soft Linden's reply to Prok.  

Soft Linden added a comment - 09/Jul/08 12:20 PM

Prokofy, this is labeled as a new feature, as everyone at the public triage believed that group shared objects have always been editable by anyone in the group, not just people with the "manipulate" flag set in their role. Again, if you believe this not to be the case, then it's right to reopen the other issue and push it as a bug, not a new feature.

I'm still confused by your posts. The proposal here is to prevent people without the "manipulate" flag set from being able to manipulate group-shared objects. Setting aside whether this is a new behavior or not, it sounds as though it's what you're asking for.

Here are some things that are in your power to do:

• Lay out a simple, compelling argument without accusations against other residents or rhetoric about hippies and communists. This increases the chance people will read through your post, as they won't assume you're trolling or trying to be humorous.

 

Is it any wonder Prok is banned from the JIRA's?

 

[Dresden]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Is it any wonder Prok is banned from the JIRA's?

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 It's a wonder Prok isn't banned from everywhere.

...Dres

[ChinRey]

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Dresden wrote

It's a wonder Prok isn't banned from everywhere.

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I have this crazy idea: how about trying to keep this forum free from personal attacks?

Oh btw, since somebody is bound to ask: "but he/she started it" is not a valid argument here.

[Dresden]

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ChinRey wrote:

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Dresden wrote

It's a wonder Prok isn't banned from everywhere.

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I have this crazy idea: how about trying to keep this forum free from personal attacks?

Oh btw, since somebody is bound to ask: "but he/she started it" is not a valid argument here.

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Chin sweety, I like you very much, but my comment was not a "personal attack", it was simply an observation.

And btw, I always refer to Prok with a male pronoun because that's how he chooses to represent himself in SL and I respect that.  I suggest you do the same before accusing anyone of personally attacking people.

...Dres

[Perrie Juran]

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ChinRey wrote:

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Dresden wrote

It's a wonder Prok isn't banned from everywhere.

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I have this crazy idea: how about trying to keep this forum free from personal attacks?

Oh btw, since somebody is bound to ask: "but he/she started it" is not a valid argument here.

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Well maybe two rights don't make a wrong but Prok came in here and launched a malicious and slanderous personal attack on the Firestorm Team so I responded with the facts.

He/She/It gives crazy cat ladies everywhere a bad name.