It's not using the File System Access API, on Firefox it uses <input type="file"> for file-picking, and the save just downloads it. It's not synchronizing anything with your filesystem.
Firefox unfortunately does not support the File System Access API. You can try by calling the most fundamental function, the one that asks the user to select a file:
window.showOpenFilePicker()
What Firefox supports is a "File System API" which creates something similar to the other old ways of storing data in a browser, like cookies and indexeddb. You cannot use it to edit normal files on your disk.
This is my main gripe with Firefox. They force their users to either store everything in the cloud or go through the arcane "download" workflow where you have to manually save files.
> Firefox unfortunately does not support the File System Access API.
I would not call it unfortunate. Browsers should not have access to the file system, USB ports, etc. Perhaps in "PWA"s, if the user has a way of giving and withdrawing consent.
Why is that true? Some applications require file system access. People would grant the application the permission to access files like any other resource like camera, mic, location.
Because vulnerabilities, coarse access granularity and lazy or ill-informed users. E.g., you now grant cam access per domain. Changing functionality on that domain doesn't revoke permission, so a simple bait and switch is already possible. Now imagine granting access to your file system to some Microsoft domain and finding out that there was a change of heart and some new script has uploaded your files to OneDrive and deleted them from your disk.
Taking that logic of protecting users from themselves to the extreme, a website should not be able to display text either. Because it can use text to ask the user to open their explorer and delete the files manually.
I think the flow of Chrome where the user has to select a file from disk and then acknowledge a prompt that the site will have access to that file until they close the window is fine. But if Mozilla wanted to protect users from themselves even more, they could make it as strong as they like. For example, by requiring to turn the functionality on in about:config.
Not giving the user the choice at all, if they want a cloud only browser or a browser that lets them work with local files is the wrong way.
Iirc the File System Access API should always originate File objects from an input picker so that the user selects the file to be opened and not give more access to apps than users allows?
You can, however, design rings that can have their comparatively cheap batteries replaced, and be transparent about the expected life span of your $500+ ring that requires a subscription and whose warranty specifically excludes the battery (https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025439534-...).
In isolation, yes, that does seem like it would have been the better decision for Claude Code, but it also would have severely diminished the value of their Bun/oven.sh acquisition.
Claude Code isn't the only user of Bun (it's probably not even the only user of it internally at Anthropic), and this way they get to keep the Javascript runtime (and other tooling) that their coding models may one day, if not already, prefer to use when given the opportunity. For those kind of apps, you'll probably also eventually find that--what do you know!--Anthropic also has their own cloud offering (instead of Bun being the one to build one) that specializes in running and managing those applications for you. Even if all they get is a community of developers that choose to use Bun over other options, that gives them power and seats at tables they wouldn't have if they just rewrote Claude Code in Rust.
Even accepting your premise your options are still either:
1) Don't participate (and accept the consequences)
2) Participate (and accept potential disappointment/failure, with the benefit of having tried)
If you view 2) as fruitless unless your desired outcome is likely, you miss the potential value in the pursuit itself: working with like-minded people, building community, developing new skills, taking agency in your own life, and whatever else might come up along the way.
I don't begrudge anyone for choosing 1) (as long as they own their decision and don't force it on others), but 2) still seems like the aspirational choice I'd want to make if I could.
Even granting your numbers, you're measuring the wrong thing. Wilderness acreage and emissions trends are not ecosystem health.
Citing a wilderness figure for developed countries is misleading. Most of it is ecologically vacant--second-growth and tree plantations sans apex predators, large herbivores, intact soil biota, etc. Tree cover is not a functioning ecosystem. Developed countries have exported their ecological destruction: the beef, soy, palm oil, and minerals driving habitat loss in the tropics get consumed in the same places where the domestic "wilderness" figures look great.
The Living Planet Index (actual wild vertebrate populations) is down 73% on average since 1970. North American bird populations are down ~3 billion over the same period. Terrestrial insect biomass shows steep decline in studied regions. None of that shows up in "how much undeveloped land exists" or "how many solar panels got installed."
China's solar buildout is great news for climate, but climate is one driver among several. Habitat fragmentation, pollution, and overfishing don't get solved by the energy transition. You can decarbonize the entire grid and still preside over a mass extinction.
I, too, rely on your web of trust, please don't ever break my heart Jeff!
It makes sense they'd be harder to find, I imagine there are more opportunities to make money by selling your soul than by offering honest review, and people with large investments have large incentives to dilute signal in their favor.
It's sad that so many platforms let it happen, but it makes sense when the users aren't the ones paying the bills. I'm immensely grateful for those that resist though, and if I were a religious person I would nominate them for sainthood or reincarnation or at least a plaque on a nice park bench somewhere.
Do you have any legal experience, evidence, or case history to support your perspective? You assert that the statement "Our findings reveal major technology companies simply ignore globally defined opt-out signals, raising the spectre of industrial-scale non-compliance with California requirements" is untrue -- how do you know? Do you think everything found in the discovery process would agree? Do you think a company with a history of privacy violations would actually go through with a lawsuit where they'd have to definitively prove they don't? What about proving malice, that webXray knew their statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth? What about the risk of filing a suit where California's anti-SLAPP statue would probably apply?
I wish I'd heard about it when it was first published, it is super cool! Especially the timeline, given that it predates things like ts_zip/LLMZip (which is why I figured someone had already worked on something in the area), while being fundamentally the same mechanism. Makes sense why compression ended up being a more compelling use case though.
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