Mozilla Eyes Removal Of Theora Support In Firefox

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mozilla Eyes Removal Of Theora Support In Firefox

Following Google's plans for removing Theora codec format support from the Chrome/Chromium browser, Mozilla is also eyeing a similar move for retiring Theora from Firefox...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mozilla-Eyes-Dropping-Theora

[theuserbl]

What a Chrome-competition, which do everytime the same like Chrome.

Seems to be a similar thing like Hotelling's law .

What is, if there are Theora videos on some websites?
Then they can no longer be seen with both browsers.

[Danny3]

That's ok, unlike the shitty response they did when Google removed JPEG-XL!

But it would be nice if they instead, focus and improve the support for AV1 and VP9 to the maximum extent possible.

And when will they finally start implementing HDR support so we can see the videos on Youtube and other sites properly, like we can see them on our TVs?
I still can't believe they invested so much to implement Vr support instead of HDR support, since Vr is much less and harder to use since very few people have Vr headsets, compared to the many HDR capable displays that people have.

[evasb]

It is an understandable decision, but Mozilla always choose the worst timing (right after Chromium).

[schmidtbag]

I don't understand the point of removing it. I'm sure the codebase for it is quite minimal (I have doubts that there's even anything explicitly mentioning Theora in Firefox's code) and if it works, why not just leave it? If it stops working and nobody is there to notice, does it matter?
I'm all for removing old unnecessary crap but not when the existence of the feature is inconsequential.

[V1tol]

IIRC Firefox distributed OGG codec implementation within browser as WASM module quite a long time ago (since v95?). Why not do the same for Theora? This way they will have crossplatform implementation by default secured inside sandbox.

[qlum]

I don't understand the point of removing it. I'm sure the codebase for it is quite minimal (I have doubts that there's even anything explicitly mentioning Theora in Firefox's code) and if it works, why not just leave it? If it stops working and nobody is there to notice, does it matter?
I'm all for removing old unnecessary crap but not when the existence of the feature is inconsequential.

The problem is exploits, it's a hardly maintained code base that is old.
Just look at the recent WebP zero day, similar issues could very well exist with Theora, ready to be found by some malicious actor.
Browser exploits are no joke if they lead to arbitrary code executing.

[elbar]

Imagine *.img that there is world where VLC is under Chrome protocol, but only if Electron apps are forced to use Wayland if available and send angry email to devs otherwise. Patches are welcomed, but try mplayer upgraded without asm shit instead and maybe enjoy native YT with BT remote control from Google store or related shop territories(China not welcome)

BTW if science article have to have references, why YT not which tells me from where I could borrow something into something and not be banned by Google that it is commercial shit and cannot enjoy magnificent Google Ads where I have to have huge audience bigger than some country population in which such YT video is made in to get cheque.

And then some external banned YT something players are made of...

[schmidtbag]

The problem is exploits, it's a hardly maintained code base that is old.
Just look at the recent WebP zero day, similar issues could very well exist with Theora, ready to be found by some malicious actor.
Browser exploits are no joke if they lead to arbitrary code executing.

I contemplated that thought, but I don't think Theora is advanced enough to have such exploits.

[billyswong]

IIRC Firefox distributed OGG codec implementation within browser as WASM module quite a long time ago (since v95?). Why not do the same for Theora? This way they will have crossplatform implementation by default secured inside sandbox.

Wait, OGG is not a codec but a container format. And often the video inside is encoded in Theora.