Blink tag removed from Firefox

[mcav]

All snark aside, I wonder what the rationale was for doing this. It'd be a shame to load a website in a browser 20 years from now, only to see the site render incorrectly due to no-longer-implemented tags. Next, <center>?

It's tough, obviously, because we can't have cruft build up all over. But this seems like a fairly straightforward case that a browser could shim out in JavaScript by default. Blink is a pretty straightforward piece of internet history. It's not like <applet>, which, while also a piece of history, actually carries legitimate complexity/security risks.

[mcpherrinm]

Gecko was, afaik, the last major browser engine that supported <blink>. Chrome and IE don't, at least. Opera won't, after switching to, ironically enough, the engine called Blink.

So it's not exactly the same as removing <center>: Other browsers already didn't support it.

[pcwalton]

There were parameters threaded throughout random layout functions to record how long things were supposed to blink for. It was a maintenance burden.

[jonknee]

Keep a VM with a vintage browser along for the ride, I have a feeling blink tags won't be the only thing different in 20 years.

[barbs]

I'm sure if it becomes well and truly missed, someone will make an add-on to interpret them properly.

[InclinedPlane]

The <center> tag has been deprecated for 13 years.

[Natsu]

This one might be a bit more important....

"Enable JavaScript" preference checkbox has been removed and user-set values will be reset to the default

[Kequc]

The people that disable javascript either do it by accident and then stop using the browser or are nerdy enough to figure out how to turn off javascript in the configs. Javascript will also be configurable using plugins.

[plorkyeran]

NoScript continues to work fine and is much more functional than globally turning off JS. Anyone who intentionally turned off JS via the Firefox options will probably benefit from being forced to use NoScript instead anyway.

[adregan]

What a fitting farewell. If you check the source, the item is wrapped in the old blink tag.

`<blink>Dropped blink effect from text-decoration: blink; and completely removed <blink> element </blink>`

Start up firefox and give it a nice sendoff.

[pamelafox]

Aww, man. I love using <blink> (in FF) and <marquee> (in Chrome) when giving presentations, they're such crowd pleasers. At least Chrome still has <marquee>, I used it in a talk just 2 days ago. Hope they don't follow FF's lead.

[derefr]

Both of these effects can be recreated quite easily using CSS3 animations, by the way.

[skeletonjelly]

Marquee caused a whole bunch of CSS errors in a website I delivered. Client found out you could run code via onscroll, and the CMS I used (DNN) didn't filter it out. Ugh!

[ncarroll]

I just used <blink> in a blog post last week. For my purpose it served as a visual pointer to the past. I'll be sorry to lose it too.

[chris_wot]

Are you trying to drive your audience to distraction?

[drewying]

Fare well old <blink> friend. My high school memories of webrings would not be the same without you.

[kristopher]

Quite fitting that the <blink> tag originated with the Netscape browser[1] and now is removed in its descendant Firefox.

The idea was first discussed at a bar in Mountain View, CA.

[1] http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag

[smrtinsert]

It was as if millions of geocities sites suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

[markrages]

| Their tags shall blink until the end of days.

from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10

[yawniek]

how about organizing a campaign to hire some protesters in front of mozillas office to bring it back?

( http://www.vice.com/read/its-now-possible-to-hire-fake-prote... )

[chiph]

What's neocities.org going to use now?

[notatoad]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13955163/imitating-a-blin...

[kyledrake]

A lot of tissues to sop up our tears.

[jdjb]

<marquee>?

[Luyt]

I found BLINK and MARQUEE so infuriating irritant that I used to binary patch them out in the browser executable. This was before the era of signed executables.

[morkbot]

Also worth noting: "New feature in toolbox: Network Monitor".

The lack of it was the last thing that was keeping me using Firebug.

[darrelld]

I wonder what abused tags today we will have a moment of silence for 10 years from now?

[krapp]

<table>...</table>

[mcpoulet]

I love the fact that in the release notes page, they used a <blink> tag around the message "Dropped blink effect from text-decoration: blink; and completely removed <blink> element".

[lrem]

Don't worry, we still have the Web 2.1 version:

http://cheese.blartwendo.com/web21-demo.html

;)

[cranklin]

Mozilla didn't want to be responsible for causing seizures

[adamnemecek]

Thanks god for the upcoming support of custom html tags.

[mattwritescode]

Well, geocities will never look the same again.

[sirwitti]

Damn, I seriously thought about posting this :)