Google Plus Notifications Missing

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Alden
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Joined: 03/04/2011

In Abrowser, as of about a week ago or so, notification box ceasing to be drawn on the "black bar" across the top of Google sites. I tried marking all related packages in Synaptic for complete removal and also deleting .mozilla folder in my homek directory. Any suggestions on what do do next or who I might could ask?

Thanks!

Screenshot -http://i.imgur.com/c09le.png

Alden
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Joined: 03/04/2011

I forgot to mention also, that the notifications do show up in Epiphany.

Alden
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Joined: 03/04/2011

*duped*

lansburyslido
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Joined: 08/29/2011

Maybe the browser user-agent being detected by Google?

I get the same functionality issue with Iceape and Opera.

akirashinigami

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Joined: 02/25/2010

If I understand correctly, you're saying that it used to display properly in Abroswer, but it no longer does. If that's the case, try booting from a Live CD, and running Abrowser from there. That should tell you if the problem is on your end or not.

t3g
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Joined: 05/15/2011

I know that technically Abrowser, IceCat and Iceweasel (Debian) are not 100% unmodified Firefox, but can they at least give the same user agent? At least with Chromium it still reports that the browser is Google Chrome and I have yet to have user agent issues with that.

Trying to portray IceCat or Iceweasel as a "better" alternative to Firefox doesn't really help their cases if many websites still sniff out user agents and they have issues with these offshoot browsers trying to advertise. How about if you were to install IceCat or Iceweasel for your mother and her banking sites get screwed up? She would probably want you to uninstall it and just use normal Firefox.

I installed LibreOffice for a family member instead of Office 2007 and recently they complained about the issues they had with the Calc spreadsheet program and their response was "why didn't you just install Office? You put this weird program that doesn't look at all like Office and is broken. Next time just give me Office."

P.S. The above discussion happened when they wanted Adobe Illustrator and I said to try Inkscape instead since it was free. Their response was "I don't want cheap knockoffs like with that office program. Just give me Illustrator because that is what the industry professionals use and it just works."

akirashinigami

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Trisquel doesn't include standard Firefox because it recommends proprietary software as add-ons. That's all there is to it.

ivaylo
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Joined: 07/26/2010

В 23:06 +0200 на 27.09.2011 (вт), tegskywalker[@nospam] написа:

>
> Trying to portray IceCat or Iceweasel as a "better" alternative to Firefox
> doesn't really help their cases if many websites still sniff out user agents
> and they have issues with these offshoot browsers trying to advertise. How
> about if you were to install IceCat or Iceweasel for your mother and her
> banking sites get screwed up? She would probably want you to uninstall it and
> just use normal Firefox.

IceCat reports itself as "(like Firefox/some.version)", so user-agent
sniffing should be successful. The user-agent could be set from the
"general.useragent.override" setting in about:config. You could do it
like it is done in IceCat, by adding "(like Firefox/some.version)" at
the end.

>
> I installed LibreOffice

[...]

> they complained about the issues

[...]

> their response was "why didn't you just install Office? You put
> this weird program that doesn't look at all like Office and is broken. Next
> time just give me Office"

You probably have done this, but try to explain to them that software
has bugs. It does not matter how it looks, who made it or is it free
software or proprietary. Sooner or later they are fixed.

>
> P.S. The above discussion happened when they wanted Adobe Illustrator and I
> said to try Inkscape instead since it was free. Their response was "I don't
> want cheap knockoffs like with that office program. Just give me Illustrator
> because that is what the industry professionals use and it just works."

The easiest answer is "I don't know how to work with/install this
program", without explanation. This works if you don't want to do it or
know that explaining (again) will not help. I usually tell people that I
can't help them with proprietary software, and they are on their own.
This could lead to frustration and bad relationship. My experience shows
people don't understand free software. Even if they get the idea, they
don't see a problem in using proprietary software as well. They want
what everybody else is locked in to, the so called standard in the
field. And that program is a standard for only one reason - it uses
proprietary file formats or protocols, so the user is locked in. After
all proprietary software using publicly available file formats and
protocols is pretty much doomed, because users can and will switch to
another program at one point. People just want something that works and
don't care. As long as it works. If they have a problem with a program,
for example some restriction, they observe it as a technical limitation,
not as imposed one by the developers. That is mainly, because they are
non-technical (computers in mind only) people.

It's not easy, but try to explain that. Hope it helps.

t3g
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The problem with the school systems (elementary through college) is that people aren't learning how to use word processors or spreadsheet programs in general. They use Microsoft Office with its interface and little quirks and file types. If we were thinking long term in preserving the things we write, saving in the OpenDocument format instead of the binary .doc format is preferred, but the majority of people don't change their default file type in Office and why they are a .doc or .docx depending on the Office version. Supposedly .docx is an XML format like ODT, but there are specification differences between Office 2007 and Office 2010 formats and Microsoft puts in little hooks for their proprietary programs.

In order for me to graduate, I either had to take a class on Microsoft Office or test out of it. Of course I tested out of it and moved on with my life, but for many people, they have to buy an expensive book and take class in how to use Microsoft Office. Maybe they have to because it is the most popular and prepares them for the "real working world" or simply Microsoft has their hooks so far in the educational system.

Same thing goes for any design school where people learn on the Adobe products. Schools have the money to pay for the software licenses and go with what is tried and true and the industry standard. Of course if you go to an art school like the Art Institute, you are paying for those software licenses personally in your $30,000+ a year tuition.

akirashinigami

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Exactly. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem. Schools teach students to use these proprietary programs because they're very popular, and they're popular, in part, because people learn to use them in school.