Facebook Not Displaying Content In Firefox

If you live on Facebook - like I do - and use the Firefox browser, you will soon run into an issue that goes something like this: after browsing around on Facebook for a while, clicking links no longer displays the desired content. The browser may have a 'busy' mouse cursor, but most times, it'll report 'Done' in the status bar.
To make sure I'm not going nutz, I did a few sanity tests:
(1) If I open the same link in a new tab (right-click on link -> open in new tab), all is great - the content displays just fine.
(2) If I close and reopen Firefox, then reenter the link, all is well.
(3) I have seen this on more than one computer - at work, home, on friends' machines, and elsewhere.
(4) It doesn't matter what plugins - or add-ons - you have installed. A bare FF install behaved the same way.
(5) It's a Facebook-only issue. You can immediately use the same tab for other websites just fine.
(6) There are no errors generated - whether they be scripting or browser exceptions.
(7) I haven't seen this issue in IE.
(8) If you clear the active cache (both memory and on disk) for the browser, it clears the problem.

I suspect two things:
(1) AJAX history management, since it tends to happen after a lot of browsing on Facebook. Could it be cache/memory managment in the browser?
(2) Timeouts while switching the various DIVs. I did capture a trace of traffic generated when a link is clicked, and all asynchronous requests are returning successfully, as far as I can see. The next thing would be to hide/unhide divs loaded with content - which doesn't seem to be happening in this issue.
(3) Browser's Javascript engine or DOM engine - something might be amiss. Haven't investigated.

Maybe someone else out there has seen this inconvenience, and know how to fix it - if it totally isn't a Facebook issue. I've tried FF 2.x.x.15 and FF3. Or maybe Facebook will investigate.

Practical Limits of File Sharing

A recent survey of teenagers and college students about file sharing revealed that despite threats of lawsuits from the RIAA, file sharing is thriving. In my opinion, file sharing will never end - not all of it is illegal. And as long as the networks exist, files will always be shared.
Though, there are limits that will curtail the file sharing phenomenon:

(1) You'll need more and more hard disk space to store all the files you download. A full (uncompressed) movie requires 9GB. A regular DVD rip requires 4GB, and many TV downloads are about 350MB large. A music album is about 125MB. With such space requirements, you computer will soon fill up, and that alone will slow down the file downloading habit. This is a weak argument though, as hard drive prices keep coming down sizes increase. Right now, you can buy hard drives at about 70 cents/GB. Small cost.

(2) A lot of file sharing utilities are advertisement-supported, which install malware and ad engines on your computer. Some of these utilities know how to disable antivirus programs and firewalls, and can turn your computer into a zombie. For fear of such a nightmare, people will stay away from file sharing. However, a new breed of no-ad download utilities is thriving. Some even check the authenticity of the files you download.

(3) Internet speeds will always deter whether downloading is worth your time. Presently, you can download a TV show in 30 minutes, and a full album in 11 minutes or so, depending on availability. ISPs can now detect whether you are downloading by monitoring traffic trends on your connection. If you suddenly start using consistently high bandwidth, their software can automatically throttle you down to a trickle.

(4) Software you need to rip DVDs, capture TV shows, and extract albums is getting more and more complex. It takes more than a few tries to get things right. This complexity will keep a lot of people away from file sharing activities. In addition, as ripping and sound/video capture from HDTV and such becomes more popular, there will be fewer software that's available for free. And as encryption schemes get harder, the activity will naturally decrease.

(5) Threats of lawsuits: a lot of people just hate to be tangled up in lawsuits they can necessarily avoid. The RIAA doesn't make sense when they try to charge you $750/song! But it'd be time wasting for you to want to defend yourself - the RIAA is a company of lawyers that pretend to watch out for artists' rights. I don't think that they care when their cases are without merit.

(6) Poorly designed file-sharing software: you don't want it to take over your internet. Some just hog your entire connection and expose to the world more than they should. If you can't surf normally because you are downloading or sharing files, it's a bad experience that'll discourage the activity.

(7) Burden of proof: anyone that sues you for illegally downloading their stuff has to prove that it is indeed their stuff that you downloaded. They have to find it on your computer, statistically show that it is a copy of what they have, and prove the means that you got it. It's not easy to get a warrant to seize someone's computer because you think they stole your source code or software - more proof is needed.

(8) Not all file sharing is illegal: so networks cannot be shut down and technologies absolved. For example, owning DVD-ripping software is legal and so is backing up your DVD movies. Problem is that a lot of people rip rented movies, and that's the vice. The laws being unclear will keep the world of file-sharing alive.

(9) US laws do not apply to other countries. Although most of the content being shared back and forth originates from the US, our laws don't apply to citizens elsewhere. If their governments are lazy about enforcing anti-piracy laws, more loss to US producers.

(10) Availability of files will always be sketchy. Files available for download depend on the season really - most people have the latest shows and music, partly because they have to clean up eventually (see #1 above). It's a rotating cycle that cannot be relied on. In addition, only about 30% of computer users leave their computers on the internet "all the time".

(11) Sharing stingy-ness: because share seeds can be tracked and because seeding files makes your computer a server, most people don;t share after they download files. That's selfish, by the way. Others share for a few minutes a day, which is hardly enough to broadcast your content to even the most popular trackers (talking BitTorrent here).

(12) It's geek activity to file-share and download. Those who think it's that bad an image won't do it. Beyond that, you need a certain levels of technical savvy to know which software, processes and places to go to for these services. About 60% of internet users have no idea about such things, or it's too tedious to be worth it.

Some of the points are limits against organizations such as the RIAA and their cohorts. I don't even know what will happen to file-sharing when non-DRM music begins to outsell copy-protected versions, or when digital TV becomes so popular you can watch it from your computer or even save shows directly to your computer. As we say in the programming world, if it's software, it's hackable. If it runs on my machine, I can rip it. If I can hear or see it, I can record it. And as long as I have friends, I shall share with them.

Free Stuff Better Be Free!

Whatever happened to just giving free things freely without arm-twisting and manipulation? I'm hating website that purport to give free services and products at the expense of your time, personal information, and headache! This is nothing new on the web, but I think websites should be more honest about a simple matter like this.

Case in point: I needed a download of RadView's WebLOAD web application test and performance suite. On their website, they advertise both a free (open source) and a professional ($) version. All over their main website, there's download links for the professional version, but none for the free version - not even on the downloads page. To get to this, you have to browse via product overviews, where you discover that there is another website dedicated to the open-source community version. Cool beans - so I follow the links to get the latest stable version, and it mentions I need to be a member to download. So I register, of course, and then it takes me to SourceForge! Wtf?? You don't need registration to download software from SF.

At that point, you know you just got swung: they collected your information, wasted your time (20 min), and generated some traffic for their websites (page views). Fortunately, I've been here before, so I can waste their resources in "revenge" - I give them bogus email and contact information. Here's what sucks even more - required fields for registration include a phone number and address - like I need them to call about this free thing? Why do they need this? Most people visit this category of website exactly once and may end up re-registering when they return next time. Well, they won't use what I gave them ... it's an airport address, and the phone number is a Hawaii area code with a California city code. Their databases will fill up with unusable information - payback.

See the point? I think if something is free, just provide a link, perhaps with a disclaimer, and let people get it as anonymously as can be. It's almost as if there's mouseprint all over the web that says: if you want free things, be prepared to lose something personal. How free does that sound?
Despite this vent, I'll still review their application with all fairness, including this story. Sorry folks.

Very Inconvenient Yahoo Mail Outage

I hear Yahoo! and other major websites were hit with a DDoS attack over the weekend, resulting in several outages across their web services. It's been 48 hours now since I was last able to access web mail from Yahoo!. Being a premium member, that means I can't get my business mail through POP3/SMTP either. But thank God for alternative [free] mail services - I pity anyone that depended solely on Yahoo! for their mail needs.
Unfortunately, an event like this is all it takes to pull the plug on my accounts there. I know their IT team is frivolously working to resolve the problem, but 2 days is too long for some of us to handle. Worst still, there's no public statement about the problem, sometimes causing users to question their connections or wonder if they are being blocked somewhere. Luckily, IM still works.