Bug#864987: firefox-esr: does not work with ALSA but blind many users use ALSA

Sun Jun 18 12:32:04 UTC 2017

Package: firefox-esr
Version: 52.2.0esr-1~deb9u1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

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It seems that the Firefox 452 does not work with ALSA anymore. The problem i
with that is that lots of blind and other visually impaired users use ALSA
instead of Pulseaudio. Currently if you want to use both Orca screen reader on
desktop and espeakup on console then it is best to use ALSA instead of
Pulseaudio because Pulseaudio causes problems if you want to use both Orca and
espeakup. Firefox is currrently the only modern web browser on Linux which
works with Orca. Now that Mozilla has dropped support for the ALSA there is not
a single browser which is really usable if you are blind and especially if you
use ALSA instead of Pulseaudio.

I know this is not Debians fault, this is fully Mozillas fault.

I hope that Debian would make the Firefox-estr 45 available easily atleast for
now. Firefox esr 45.9  Worked just fine. I am blind myself and I was thinking
of switching from pulseaudio to alsa because I would like to use both Orca and
espeakup. But now when there is firefox esr 52 in Debian Stretch I am not sure
what should I do. I will probably downgrade Firefox esr to 45.9 using the
Debian snapshots repository. I know how to use snapshots but there is lots of
blind users who do not even know snapshots repository exists.

I know that using old browser may causesevere security risks, but obviously
there is not much option...

Firefo esr also 52.20 currently in Debian Stretch also does not really work as
well with Orca screen reader as Firefox ESR 45.9 did. That is another reason
why I am going to downgrade the browser. I will make another bug report about
that.

This bug report really should be forwarded to Mox
zilla too so that they know what they are doing to blind users...

-- Package-specific info:

-- Extensions information
Name: Adblock Plus
Location: /usr/share/xul-ext/adblock-plus
Package: xul-ext-adblock-plus
Status: enabled

Name: Application Update Service Helper
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/aushelper at mozilla.org.xpi
Status: enabled

Name: Default theme
Location: /usr/lib/firefox-esr/browser/extensions/{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}.xpi
Package: firefox-esr
Status: enabled

Name: Multi-process staged rollout
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/e10srollout at mozilla.org.xpi
Status: enabled

Name: Pocket
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/firefox at getpocket.com.xpi
Status: enabled

Name: Web Compat
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/webcompat at mozilla.org.xpi
Status: enabled

-- Plugins information
Name: GNOME Shell Integration
Location: /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libgnome-shell-browser-plugin.so
Package: gnome-shell
Status: enabled

Name: IcedTea-Web Plugin (using IcedTea-Web 1.6.2 (1.6.2-3.1))
Location: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/IcedTeaPlugin.so
Package: icedtea-8-plugin:amd64
Status: enabled

Name: iTunes Application Detector
Location: /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/librhythmbox-itms-detection-plugin.so
Package: rhythmbox-plugins
Status: enabled

-- Addons package information
ii  firefox-esr    52.2.0esr-1~ amd64        Mozilla Firefox web browser - Ext
ii  gnome-shell    3.22.3-3     amd64        graphical shell for the GNOME des
ii  icedtea-8-plug 1.6.2-3.1    amd64        web browser plugin based on OpenJ
ii  rhythmbox-plug 3.4.1-2+b1   amd64        plugins for rhythmbox music playe
ii  xul-ext-adbloc 2.7.3+dfsg-1 all          advertisement blocking extension 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages firefox-esr depends on:
ii  debianutils               4.8.1.1
ii  fontconfig                2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libasound2                1.1.3-5
ii  libatk1.0-0               2.22.0-1
ii  libc6                     2.24-11
ii  libcairo-gobject2         1.14.8-1
ii  libcairo2                 1.14.8-1
ii  libdbus-1-3               1.10.18-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2          0.108-2
ii  libevent-2.0-5            2.0.21-stable-3
ii  libffi6                   3.2.1-6
ii  libfontconfig1            2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libfreetype6              2.6.3-3.2
ii  libgcc1                   1:6.3.0-18
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0        2.36.5-2
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.50.3-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                3.22.11-1
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.24.31-2
ii  libhunspell-1.4-0         1.4.1-2+b2
ii  libjsoncpp1               1.7.4-3
ii  libpango-1.0-0            1.40.5-1
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.16.2-5
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.12-4+b2
ii  libstdc++6                6.3.0-18
ii  libvpx4                   1.6.1-3
ii  libx11-6                  2:1.6.4-3
ii  libx11-xcb1               2:1.6.4-3
ii  libxcb-shm0               1.12-1
ii  libxcb1                   1.12-1
ii  libxcomposite1            1:0.4.4-2
ii  libxdamage1               1:1.1.4-2+b3
ii  libxext6                  2:1.3.3-1+b2
ii  libxfixes3                1:5.0.3-1
ii  libxrender1               1:0.9.10-1
ii  libxt6                    1:1.1.5-1
ii  procps                    2:3.3.12-3
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.8.dfsg-5

firefox-esr recommends no packages.

Versions of packages firefox-esr suggests:
pn  fonts-lmodern          <none>
pn  fonts-stix | otf-stix  <none>
ii  libcanberra0           0.30-3
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2       1.15-1
pn  mozplugger             <none>

-- no debconf information