They say they’re doing a webbased updater so that their software will work with all operating systems… not said is that their online updater only works with chromium based browsers… so…
https://web.8bitdo.com/browser-support
That’s actually a limitation on the Firefox side, they just flat out refuse to implement webusb. Any webapp that works with usb devices does the same thing. I’ve raged at Mozilla about this the last time they asked for my feedback and had no response.
WebUSB is absurd and shouldn’t exist. Web apps should not ever be able to work with USB devices! The core concept is wrong!
A website shouldn’t even be allowed to know if I have a USB port at all, let alone anything else about my hardware. I’m not even convinced it should be allowed to know the viewport size of the browser window! All these APIs just make the attack surface fucking gargantuan and open up infinite opportunities for browser fingerprinting. They should be Considered Harmful and abolished.
It is super helpful for flashing a pixel to GrapheneOS, especially for non technical folk
On the one hand I agree with the sentiment, but how else is a web based update app for a usb device supposed to work?! We can make an argument for fwupd or a custom built app but the webapp is a smaller barrier for a lot of hardware companies.
how else is a web based update app for a usb device supposed to work?!
It’s not! It’s a thing nobody in their right mind should want to do in the first place!
That question is like asking “how else is a shotgun-based dental pick supposed to work?” The things just don’t go together and you shouldn’t try to force them to!
Also, we already had an appropriate technology for this sort of thing (having a cheaply-made app that runs everywhere and doesn’t have to be pretty): it’s called “plain old fuckin’ Java.”
Yea it’s the same requirement that GrapheneOS has for their web installer. Definitely a Firefox issue.
not said is that their online updater only works with chromium based browsers
Currently, it only supports Chromium-based browsers.
Second paragraph, yo.
pft, implying I read it and not just clicked the links…
I refused to install a Chromium based browser until recently, which was needed as a dependency for some software. At least it supports the base Chromium, which is free from all those bullshit of the other browsers its based on. I just recently updated the driver in a virtual machine with Windows 10 and their software installed. So using Chromium would be an improvement here. Still sad I have to use a different browser than Firefox, but Chromium will be just my “firmware-updater” and not my browser at all.
All of these wed based uber-projects are built on Chrome. This is bad. This gives more control to google and strengthens their strangle hold over web technologies.
It’s also bad because why the fuck should a web browser have that much access to the hardware to begin with?!
Also why the fuck is the OS giving the web browser the option of giving it that access to the hardware?
Cause WebUSB still only exists on Chrome, even though Mozilla and Apple had 9 years to catch up: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebUSB_API#browser_compatibility
“to catch up”, while they deliberately choose not to implement this. they don’t just not do it, they outlined why.
their competitor has an advantage and real leverage, I’d say that’s enough reason in economics? I get why it isn’t implemented, but all that means is that chromium has the high ground when it comes to this.
This is exactly why economics, or any discipline, should not be permitted to dictate the function or structure of a system in a domain outside of its area of expertise.
yep in an ideal world, which we live very far from
Maybe some of the other browsers should implement the tech needed to do this kind of thing then? Cause as far as I know, Chrome is the only browser that can give a websites access to USB.
Jesus fucking christ can’t you people ever just let something be good for once
Adding security, compatability, and vendor lock-in issues in exchange for convenience is not a good thing. Remember ActiveX and Silverlight? They forced users into uning IE. I am still finding industrial applications whos only config page is some ancient, IE only, nightmare.
In this case the spec is published, so it wouldn’t be a lock-in or compatibility issue if the other vendors didn’t lock themselves out.
Security, I get, but when I’ve used it to flash esp32s before the user agent pops up a box asking me which device I want to give access to before the website sees anything, so it’s not transparent and it doesn’t give it access to everything on my system.
I use Firefox all the time, but keep a Chromium on my system basically for stuff like this occasionally, and also web calls because Firefox’s implementation of the audio API doesn’t let me change microphones in the webapp, it just exposes one mic, and I’ve had issues with that before, so I join all calls in Chromium.
A downloadable program would be better for if the website were to ever go offline.
Absolutely but at least they’re doing something for us Linux gamers.
Even better is a single downloadable HTML file. Downloadable programs will likely degrade over time, web APIs are highly stable and portable.
I still wish there was a “pledge” API to allow websites to disable functionality they don’t need. For example, this could be a perfect self-contained app that never needs any outside connections.
So for the very kind of people who tend to not use Chrome because they’re privacy aware and actually tend to use Ad-Blockers, and who are very likely to be fine with standalone apps, they don’t make a standalone firmware updater app and instead make a Chrome only firmware updater.
I mean, I get it that in Linux accessing a USB-serial device from userspace can require an extra step (add user to “dialout” group), but it’s hardly something that takes more than 1 paragraph to fully explain and you can do the check for access denied in the app and only prompt the user to do it if that error occurs.
Believe it or not, people use Linux for more than just privacy reasons.
You don’t need exactly Google’s Chrome though.
ungoogled-chromiumworks as well and it doesn’t send a bit to any of Big Tech’s servers.I have it installed and I have already bookmarked 10+ different flashers and updaters I’ve needed so far. And I genuinely think it’s better than 10+ poorly made Electron apps I’d have to install instead.
Though I wouldn’t daily drive a browser that allows websites to screw my USB devices.
I thought it was because Firefox refuses to add webusb? I’ve never seen a web flasher that worked in firefox, always had to use chrome for meshtastic fashing, android web flashers, slimevr firmware updaters, etc.
Web serial works in Firefox now. I’ve been using it with ESPHome.
Very close to the kind of people who wouldn’t buy 8bitdo, hmm…
You could already run the firmware updater with Proton/Wine though? At least I didn’t have an issue with that, but its obviously not helpful to everyone considering the many flavours of linux. Nice that they recognize and are at least trying to address the issue though
Where’s the difference? A program still has to fetch drivers and software from somewhere.
So we can now download software from our browsers, and we no longer need to use specialized downloader app? I must be really out of touch.
They probably have the hardware run in USB-Serial mode (rather than the usual USB-HID mode of controller, keyboards and mice which has no capability to upload any significant data - beyond LED status - to the device) and then just push the firmware into the Serial Device their hardware appears at in that mode.
Chrome supports letting websites remotely access Serial devices on the host PC.
Yes but only in Chromium-based browsers as only those support the direct USB connection to the device.
Asus did this. Hate it, and glad I didn’t buy one. It locks you into their online service. What happens when they decide to stop supporting a controller?
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Fuckin finally, the Android app is garbage.
The windows applet works just fine through Proton.
