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Firefox To Get a Nag Screen For Upgrades
ruphus13 writes "Firefox has been pushing version 3.0 very aggressively, and firmly believes that it is a solid product. The Download Day was just one of their ways to drum up user support for the new release. Now, Firefox is going to 'gently nudge' users of Firefox 2.0 to upgrade. Some users may have been waiting for their add-ons to get upgraded, but now Mozilla is planning to apply a little nudge. Sometime within the next week, people using Firefox 2.0.0.16 will see a request to upgrade and though you'll have the option to decline, it's likely Firefox will ask again anyway. Users will most likely be offered a second chance to upgrade after several weeks. (Mozilla will stop supporting version 2 in December.) It will be interesting to see if this speeds up the rate of upgrade by users, as well as upgrades of the add-ons."
Great, now will have more little reminders and popups. Soon everything will be like Vista.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Using software that isn't supported is inherently dangerous. And the fact is, Firefox 3 is gratis so getting the new version is no upgrading treadmill. As long as they are not too annoying(5 minute Windows reboot nag screen) like a screen every 2 weeks, I don't see a problem with this.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I use Adblock Plus. I'm sure I won't see it. No problemo.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Since the release of Firefox 3, my previous 2.x installations have at least twice pulled subsequent 2.x upgrades - Why can't I automatically upgrade to Firefox 3? It's not that much harder to manually upgrade, but the automatic 2.x series upgrades process was so simple.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I hate it when commercial software nags you to upgrade, but having firefox nag you is even worse. Not even trying to RTFA because it's surely slashdotted, I wish the summary would have said why they're so hell-bent on getting users to upgrade.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
... someone finally makes an addon that wholly, completely, disables the StupidBar. Yes, I know about the about:config hacks and the existing addons. This is an issue I keep up with, after all.
And please, don't bother to reply if you're just going to parrot how much you LOVE the "Awesome Bar" and think I should give it an umpteenth chance. Been there, done that, still think it sucks.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I upgraded at home but at work I rolled back because the upgrade didn't work. They need to fix the upgrade so that 100% of the machines that worked on 2.x work on 3.x and then I'll upgrade.
It will be interesting to see if [advertising Firefox 3 to users of Firefox 2] speeds up the rate of upgrade by users, as well as upgrades of the add-ons.
Mozilla Firefox 3 for Windows requires Windows NT 5.0 or later. This currently includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. What will Firefox 2 say to users of nearly decade-old PCs that still run Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition, which cannot run Firefox 3? (Yes, they still exist; one posts regularly to the forum at tetrisconcept.com.) Will it nag them about upgrading to Puppy Linux?
IT department locks all the computers from installing anything. So my work PC's software is running old, buggy, insecure code.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
So is anyone working on a patch to disable the nagging? That's what Open Source is for, isn't it?
it's likely Firefox will ask again anyway. Users will most likely be offered a second chance to upgrade after several weeks
This is how an great project starts swerving down the path to hell. I'm ambivalent about Firefox 3.0; it has nice improvements, along with horrible changes (the ridiculous awesomebar, and various little UI "improvements" that really just are annoying). I've upgraded from 2.0, but I'm no longer as evangelical about Firefox.
Really, "offered a second chance to upgrade..." is just terrible marketing speak, trying to make "we've added unstoppable advertising popups" sound like it's a good thing for the user.
Version 3 breaks UnPlug and FireWhat, among others, I can see lots of people not wanting to give up their favorite addons to upgrade. I for one upgraded but miss Unplug, its annoying to have to reload video on a slow connection when I want to show something funny to the kids that I found while they were napping.
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
Of course I use Firefox 3, but ENOUGH with software pushing "upgrades". Seems like every other day some program or another is nagging me to upgrade or check for updates. Java, Quicktime, Acrobat, whatever.
Fact of the matter is that you don't always need to upgrade software, nor should you always. Take Acrobat for example. All I want it to do is display a PDF. That's IT. Acrobat 6 (which is way the hell smaller and uses less RAM) does the job perfectly fine. I don't NEED Acrobat 9 and it's bloat.
Increasingly software publishers/creators seem to think that because their program is installed that they are entitled to some say in how I use it, and that it can do whatever the hell it wants on my machine. Piss on that. It's disturbing that Mozilla is following this trend.
Also disturbing is that they are apparently adding this "function" to existing Firefox 2.x browsers. How are they doing this? Did they ask for consent? Are they installing something without permission? If Mozilla can do this sort of thing, doesn't that SCREAM spyware/trojan vulnerability?
Corporatism != Free Market
A horrible decision by FF.
In a way pushing it on people reminds me of Microsoft and Vista.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
While I applaud the folks at Mozilla for their hard work--they are forgetting the Golden Principle of Software development: Software exists to solve problems. So, following that idea, if the current version of the browser I'm using (the earlier Firefox) solves my problems, then why do I need to upgrade? As long as their is an opt out from further nagging, I'm fine.
Can I create a nag screen to tell the developers to STFU? :)
Firefox 3 requires too many libraries that I don't have on my Mandrake 10.2 box.
The only entity that can nag at me without me kicking its ass to the curb is my wife.
I've got FF2 tricked out fairly extremely. At least ten of my addons in use didn't work with FF3 (when it was released at least), and some of those never will without someone else rewriting them (i.e. abandoned). There are also various GUI/display modifications that didn't covert to FF3 well/at all either.
Maybe someday I'll find the time to look real hard into how various css hacks were done and try redoing them for FF3...
My biggest bitching point currently is the lack of column bookmarks (My first columns-worth is all folders...). Even Netscape or some other old browser had these.
"Power-user"-friendly upgrades plz.
There's an option to turn it off.
The rest is just fear mongering.
"you can turn it off now, but they may code in another one in a couple months, which you can once again turn off!, OH THE HORROR!"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Oh goody.
Will the Mozilla people come by and upgrade all our Red Hat Enterprise Linux machines from 4 to 5 for us, too? Oh, and my Fedora Core 4 machine?
Here's a hint: don't require the latest operating system for something as universally useful as a WEB BROWSER.
Or at least do an "old and busted GUI" sort of build that doesn't use the bazillion things that come in when you use that blasted pango or cairo library.
And while we're at it, don't destroy my ~/.mozilla/firefox directory. Make a new one if you've got a new format, and import the old stuff. Don't wipe it out.
It's not like I can switch to Opera. Their latest stuff won't run on my Linux machines.
For the fact that they've completely dropped the 'bookmarks.html' way of doing things, in place of places.sqlite - I mean, at least have some backward compatibility. I was using a central bookmarks.html file at a bunch of client sites for global bookmarks on Ubuntu LTSP networks, and now that we've upgraded, it's..just...broken. For such a long-lived feature, I'm surprised that they just completely ripped it out without any kind of (except export/import, which half works, half doesn't) way for legacy implementations to keep going with it. There's no real way to symlink to places.sqlite, I hear, because the file is locked per-instance of FF. Blah. :(
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I believe it is the *right* thing to do, since this will benefit both the majority of its user base and Mozilla itself (they've been able to argue that Firefox users keep their browser updated far more frequently than IE users).
BUT, I don't want to be forced to install anything (even though I would). So the deal is, if it prompts me with an option to disable it and/or there is an option in the preferences to turn disable nag screen, then that's a fair trade to me.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Why can't I just have a barBar? What kind of shoddy coding can't manage to make this option...optional?
Okay...
Then why does FF3 crash *randomly* when I am working on my Drupal website?
Or when I have 50 tabs open?
FireFox 2.x didn't have these issues for me. Literally, they started happening the day after upgrading to FF3. No other system changes were made.
Honestly, I think FF3 hates Vista. I have to use Vista Business at work (using it now, this is Slashdot after all so I have to be at work posting this) and it does it here.
At home I use Debian on my laptop with Iceweasel and Vista x64 ultimate on my desktop with FF3. Before this crashing issue, the only problem I've had is due to the Asus Xonar DX2 drivers (it causes the only blue screens I get).
Mozilla, please look at the bug reports and crash logs! FF3 looks better and really seems better than FF2, except it keeps crashing!
Hopefully it won't bug me, I'm still running the Firebird nightlies and don't want to be bothered!
Firefox has been pushing version 3.0 very aggressively, and firmly believes that it is a solid product.
And indeed it is — more solid, in fact, than FF2, with its nasty memory leaks and race conditions. But I thought "Firefox" was a software, not a person.
Unfortunately, FF3 is missing FF2 features. In particular, FF3 doesn't use a cookies.txt file. This means that it integrates poorly with wget. And this, in turn, is the reason I have not upgraded to FF3 on one of my machines, and may have to turn to IE7 for secure browsing.
I've got my Mac running 3.0, but my two Ubuntu boxes are at 7.10 and as such still running 2.x... will I get nagged even if I can't upgrade without upgrading my whole OS?
(I'm waiting to upgrade Ubuntu because: one machine is a mythtv server, and if I upgrade one I have to upgrade both to get to v0.21 as well as upgrade the Mac... so it's not as simple as "just upgrade Firefox!" unless they put it in the Gutsy repos.)
I mean...Foxfire 3 is still in experimental in a lot of distributions. What a way to annoy users into switching to Epiphany or Konqueuer/Dolphin.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
when I can no longer use Firefox-2.0.0.16 safely to browse the internet I will just use Seamonkey...
unless Firefox-3.x adds the ability to turn off the awesome bar and other kludgy features for dummies in the preferences then maybe I will try it...
so far my impression of Firefox-3.x is about like KDE-4.x (released too early & not ready for prime time)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
My browser crashes anytime I try and print a page on fedora 8. It is an extremely annoying 'feature' that came with the firefox 3.0 upgrade. Until now I decided it was my fault for installing it as soon as it went 'final'. Printing works fine in firefox 2.x, opera and even konqueror. Firefox 3 works fine on OSX, which also uses cups. If they want to start nagging us to upgrade, then I assume its alright to nag them to fix it.
I would love to install FF 3.x on my system, but I'm using Fedora 8 and unfortunately, they decided not to port FF 3.x to it.
A nagging screen will only make me frustrated as it provides no real solution...
AC
... I'm turning off the auto-update feature for the time being. Let's see them nag me then. I'm well enough aware of the new version and I don't need to be nagged; when all my critical extensions have been updated (even if I have to tweak them myself), then and only then will I consider the upgrade.
Now even the open source guys start nagging users with stupid dialogs.
I understand, and sympathize, with a lot of the downsides of doing this but that doesn't necessarily make it bad.
I see a lot of 'abandoned' FF installs out there. Someone called in a tech for something, that tech installed FF and got the user to USE it. However it's not being updated since the user doesn't know how or what to do.
This plan makes it a lot more likely that FF is going to get updated to the latest release and taken alone that is a good thing.
It will be interesting to see if this speeds up the rate of upgrade by users, as well as upgrades of the add-ons.
Or will it make people go away from Firefox? C'mon seriously, I believe the people using Firefox (unlike patrons of IE) are intelligent enough to upgrade to a new version if they want. They'll stick to FF2 by their own personal choice.
I don't need some nagging software to keep telling me to upgrade. That will put FF along with the lines of RealPlayer, Adobe and Java as one of the more annoying softwares out there. It's already getting enough flak as it is for the SSL certificates.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Mozilla Firefox finally going the Microsoft way.
Nag, nag, throw out popups forcing you to use the "latest and greatest" browser. And then finally, the WGA screen telling you what a bad browser you have (Firefox 2) and that you HAVE to get Firefox 3, or else... I better not say it!
slashdot rocks
its nice to see our overlord developers doing "whats best" for us, but let me pose this scenario
im a software vendor required by corporate policy to maintain my code for 10 years for development purposes. i develop a series of plugins for firefox 2, so my customer walgetco can use it to browse their SAP database alongside their website.
i dont have the option to upgrade to FF 3 because walgetco says it must be developed for their already deployed base of 300,000 walgetco terminals running FF2. besides, ff3 wont work with app X which is also included.
do walgetco employees put up with the nagscreen?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Nagware is fine and dandy when upgrade is possible. Despite my best attempts, Firefox 3 doesn't run on my Fedora Core 4 system. Runs OK on every Window's system I can put it on, but good luck running it on a Linux distribution older than two years. Anyone find a solution to this or instructions online? And by the way, I'm happy with Core 4 and would rather stick with Firefox 1.5 than chase the distribution flavor of the month. I get uptimes better than the lifespan of some of these distributions. /end rant mode
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
What about unsupported OSs like OSX 10.3.9? I'm supporting a box running this, so I need to decide between leaving the browser at Safari 1.3.2 (not updated in quite a while), Firefox 2.0.16 (won't be updated after 2008), or purchasing the new OSX for a old machine that can't really take advantage of most of the new features anyway.
:) I'm not a mac guy so I didn't notice this situation until recently.
Any free advice?
.
Just one of the ways to tamp down support for the new release is to incorporate a brain-dead notification screen for self-signed certificates.
Maybe things will balance out. ;)
so, let's see here now. at this point, it looks like my system is sunset, no more upgrades on anything. been nice knowing you, 'zilla, don't write.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
How nice that all the 10.3.9 boxes on my office LAN will now be getting nags for an upgrade they can't install. How Windows-like.
Support an expanded Amtrak!
Firefox 3 isn't ready for release in the first place. We tried it here at work and it is so buggy that we weren't even able to go to sites typed in the address bar.
Either that, or your IT department is full of incompetent and/or lazy amateurs.
I've installed FF3 on about 20 different computers, and never had that problem. My guess is the latter of the two possibilities, then.
I for one work for a governement contractor and we use IE. We are not allowed to do any updates or download anything until it is approved(usually months after it is released). Something like this could get very annoying for people who are restricted.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
ie when it allows just hit cancel. I don't think it will become a nagware.
I'll wait till december when all my addons upgraded.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Seriously, if you start bugging me to do something I don't want to do, well, I hear there are other browsers that are pretty good too.
The "smart" location bar enabled by default was a huge turn off, as was the reversal of the text zooming with the mouse scroll wheel. Of course, there is no easy place to change these settings within the GUI, so it was easier to go back to FF2 than it was to dick around with FF3 and get it the way I like.
Not even mentioning the Add-ons that hadn't quite made the transition to FF3 yet...
crazy dynamite monkey
There are several distros that had Firefox 2 and don't push Firefox 3 as an update. So unless you're browser is set to pull the updates automatically, you're left with Firefox 2 until you manually install it, or upgrade your distro. There are some people that don't update distros right away. They feel that older means more stable. (I contend that newer may mean new bugs, but it also means old bugs are closed. An old package isn't necessarily more stable if there are known, unpatched exploits in it.)
I bet that the Linux community will continue to back port some fixes to Firefox 2, but 2 and 3 are so different, that it won't be easy.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Some people don't upgrade because they don't have the time and then forget about it. Some people don't understand the importance (or know the benefits). And then a select few don't upgrade because they choose not to.
I'm sure for the small number of people who simply don't want to upgrade (or be reminded about it) will we able to disable this warning (via addon, greasemonkey, about:config, etc).
My wife was a great example of someone who knew about the upgrade but didn't bother. When I finally pushed in and did it myself the first thing she noticed was how much better it ran and then the awesome bar.
Quack, quack.
Hmmm...I'm using a Mac and FF3. I don't see anything close to what you're complaining about. Have you tried the actual release version or are you basing your assessment on some old beta? Can you cite a specific, repeatable issue? Or possibly a bug report?
Firefox is open source, so it should be easily possible to deactivate this nagscreen (or at least, download the addon someone else created to disable it).
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
In my experience, Firefox 3 not only has the same memory problems as Firefox 2 (my typical browsing session is at 200MB, and no, it does not eventually optimize the size down), but it also crashes a lot more frequently.
I agree ; the problem about the Windows Update-like systems is not that they automatically propose some updates, it is that your only choice is between "update now" or "update later". If you refuse to install an update, it will keep popping up again and again. As long as you have a third option "No, I really don't want that update, thank you.", I think it's fine.
They should add a nag screen claiming that Firefox requires product activation now. And since this is Internet software, you will have the option of activating Firefox by mail, by fax, or by calling a 1-900 number and waiting on hold for a few hours for the next available customer service associate, who is looking forward to helping you because your call is important to them. For your convenience, there won't be an option to activate through the Internet. Once you activate, you'll receive your software license, HP style, packed in foam, then bubble wrap, then cardboard, then more foam, then packing peanuts, then a larger enclosing box. The software is free. Software activation, however, requires a nominal service charge of $100 plus shipping and handling. Nah, just kidding. People need to upgrade to the newest version, or else they'll start getting viruses when version 2 support ends, and then everyone will be talking about how much Firefox stinks and how you need to use a different browser, like Netscape Navigator 3.0. We don't want that to happen, do we?! Nope.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
There are workarounds to return FF3 to the classic address bar but no way (thus far) to set the type ahead matching to just match URLs and not webpage titles. Its annoying and for some it causes privacy issues (unrelated sites can pop up if one letter in the URL matches the title of any other page you have visited).
Also there are STILL people out there running older versions of Windows that FF2 supports but not FF3 (Windows 9x).
BTW, does anybody know the reason behind the large jump in download size from 2.x to 3.x? Not that I really mind, but I remember the download size being one of the main reasons cited for pulling the Mozilla Suite (which I had been happily using since M7) and going with Firefox instead.
Maybe the open source community is getting a little too upset about all of this. Why aren't the Firefox 1 users chiming in? Products get updated, and the people who are focused on maintaining those products don't want to develop and support for multiple products. Technologies on the internet change, and building support for those new technologies into all of your older products is inefficient.
If getting a reminder that they are no longer using an up-to-date product is the end of the world.. grow up. I had figured the open source community would be chock full of computer security freaks, but arguing that you should be left alone to use your old, outdated product that no longer gets updated, without any notice that this might be a bad idea.. that's just stupid.
Upgrading is a bit annoying for me though. I have Linux on my system (Fedora Core 5, with KDE) but don't know enough about the OS to manually install things (and the dependancies... oh god, the annoying dependancies everything has). A friend helped install the system and get it set up for the most part, and I've just tweaked things here and there. Unfortunately, I also lack the time needed to figure out installing from scratch, installing the dependancies, and the dependancies OF the dependancies, etc, etc.
I've tried searching for an RPM for Firefox 3 (or hell, even 2. I think the default on this thing is 1.8 or something), but have come up empty-handed.
Does anyone have a solution for a not-specifically-proficient-with-Linux person like myself to upgrade Firefox? The system REALLY needs it, since it's starting to get that a lot of pages just don't show up properly any more.
The latest viruses look a lot like Symatic's Antivirus, or Vista's stuff. If you don't watch carefully you can think you are updating your browser but instead are installing a virus.
As a rule I avoid Nag screens, and if I think the nag might be real, (and important) I'll google it, or type in the address myself if I know it. (Never click on the email link).
not happy.
Users running Windows 9x who are connected to the internet already have so much spyware and viruses...
You know, it's funny. I've heard that the kernel has changed enough that most modern viruses in circulation aren't *compatible* with the 95/98/Me family anymore.
Sort of a version of "security by obscurity", this is "security by obsolescence".
Wish I'd known that before I upgraded.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
You could somehow hack Firefox to eliminate the nag screen if it is critical to have Firefox 2 and there is no option to disable it permanently.
After December Mozilla will drop support for Firefox 2, and thus offer no patches from thereon, so you will be able to keep your hacked binaries (and your bugs, ha!) forever.
I hate, hate, hate automatic updates, and the nags are almost as annoying as the updates themselves. It doesn't matter what software it is. Sometimes I have legitimate reasons to stay back a version or two, and, even if I don't, the interruption to nag me about it all the time until I do upgrade is stupid. Have you ever been in the middle of an important presentation, only to discover that some idiot piece of software thinks it is far more important to let you know about an x.0.0.0.1 update right now?
I know that for many users it is useful, and some of them actually want it, so here's a simple suggestion: at the time of installation, ask the user if they want automatic updates installed, and if/how they want to be notified if they are available, and if they want the software to check before phoning home. And if the user turns all of those off, then don't mess with it. Likewise, after installation, every message box that pops up relating to automatic updates must have a switch to forever turn such updates off -- and the software MUST abide by the decision.
I swear, developers of this stuff need to be put on some kind of an "automatic updates ethics" course, because they just don't get it. The worst offender of all is Adobe Reader. It took me ages to figure out how to kill that one off. Adobe Update kept recreating itself even after it was deleted, like it was some kind of software hydra! I finally killed it by write-protecting the relevant directory.
Thank goodness I'm still running Firefox 1.5.x :-)
If they start spamming with messages to upgrade, I will just simply uninstall Firefox and start using Safari or Opera. Firefox is starting to annoy its userbase these days.
I'm aware this isn't Mozilla's fault, but I need version 2 until they have the web developer add-on for version 3.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
If one really believes "...the browser is arguably the most important thing to keep updated on your system..." then it should update automatically, quietly and unobtrusively. The user should never be asked if they want to go out of date.
By the way, I'm not sure why some software never takes this route. When I see scanners and other tools ask me if it is okay to update I wonder what power are they really trying to give me.
Firefox 3's hunger for data really gets on my nerve. I don't want every bit of my browsing history appear for every letter I type in. Firefox 3 can be quite a privacy nightmare, if a guest just wants to check something on the net for 2 seconds.
I don't want a browser forcing me to tell everybody to please use the guest account for 20 seconds of browsing just to have adequate privacy.
I have really learned to like Safari. It's just bare bones: tabs, a search field, a private browsing mode, and ultra fast rendering. Nothing else. Perfect! If Firefox 2 is going to start nagging soon, it's time to let Firefox go completly.
I just cited a specific, repeatable issue. We researched it and found that we are not the only ones. It is an issue of a configuration file that version 3 does not convert correctly. It is the official release, not an old beta. The difference is likely that our user files are not stored locally on the machines. I find it funny that my original post was modded overrated twice. Just because you haven't had issues doesn't mean that they don't exist. I thought it was common knowledge that version 3 was rushed, but apparently there are still fanboys who don't read.
Why isn't this post tagged "oldbar?"
There are still too many annoying UI changes in FF3 that make it so I won't downgrade to it from FF2. I sacrificed one machine to FF3, and after finding out that I really didn't like it, I'm not removing FF2 until I read a Changelog that reverts the most annoying.
lynx
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
1. if you have FF3, downgrade to FF2
2. get nagged but always decline the upgrade
3. mozilla will notice that adding a nag screen does the opposite
4. ?????
5. uh.. profit?
This kind of a product release signals the change in leadership from an engineering perspective to a marketing perspective. If mozilla had stock, it is when one changes from "buy and hold" to "sell on the rumor" strategy. It is the end of good things from that organization, and time to begin looking for an alternative browser to adopt, say around 2010.
that is the big deal.
Look, I'll upgrade when I'm good and well ready. The main advantage that Firefox offers over IE is the ability to extend the functionality through add-ons. That functionality is what makes Firefox useful to me. Until the add-ons I use in FF2 are working with FF3, an upgrade is not in the cards.
And I really don't care if somebody at Mozilla thinks FF3 is a superior product; these are the same people who kept insisting there were no memory leaks in previous versions despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
(sigh) Guess it's back to Konqueror until I can find something else again.... Lovely....
I've read many people have an aversion to FF3 because of the "Uber Bar" auto-completing URls. I find this to be a useful feature, as I don't need to open the browser history. If you don't like the feature, turn off the history you fools.
As for the nag screen, users need to be able to disable it. However, there really is no reason not to upgrade. FF3 is more secure, uses less resources, and is generally more standards compliant than it's predecessor. If you do not like it because of cosmetic reasons, that's fine. But don't start complaining when someone exploits an un-patched security flaw and gives you a nasty virus.
I use Linux at work, and a number of us would love to have Firefox 3 available. Our Sysadmin is not interested in dealing with all the required libraries and other prerequisites to making this happen on all our machines. We're at the mercy of him and the managment that allows him to disregard requests from us users. So what, we'll need to deal with nag screens we are powerless to comply to? That sucks.
Getting updates for my 1000 40G EEE PC from Asus has been a royal pain since day 1 of my purchase. It's a beautiful machine and runs great with Linux, but not Xandros since Asus's update servers have not played nice to even let me get the necessary packages to go to full desktop mode. I honestly doubt I can get a full update to the latest FF3 either so I'm stuck at FF2. :(
I still don't want to switch to Windows though. Vista is a hog and XP on the EEE's causes a lot of disk IO compared to Linux. At least XP chewed away at the disk when I put it on for a short period of time on my 701 EEE.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
I like some of the new features in FF3. Uberbar is ok, and i like how the password saver is now a small pop bar at the top instead of a full on, show stopping popup. I think they turned off session restore by default too.
Good-bye
This is a feature of Safari that... um.. a "friend" of mine likes. Choose > Private Browsing and sites that you visit are not added to the browser's history until you turn Private Browsing off. So you open a tab, switch to PB, do your... um... gift shopping, and then close that tab and your mom/significant other/spouse need never know that you were looking at... tableware.
I'd love to see this in FF
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
A company creates a new product and wants users to upgrade, so there will be a pop-up asking them to upgrade? How the hell is this news-worthy?
Or maybe he's using a setup that causes a bug in Firefox 3 to surface? I had the same problem. Switched back to version 2.
I love FF3 on my Vaio lappy, my Dell desktop, and my Eee, but it's a memory hog on my old HP. I ran it for months, but I had to jump back. It's sad, but I don't know what else to do! Don't abandon me, y'all. I don't wanna be left behind.
... but make sure you are backwards compatabile with plugins.
Do not use nag screens, they do not work, just update the program behind the scenes, I've done security for users before and it's like the guys who make stuff just don't get how 99% of the people operate -- they won't update their shit, unless it interferes with content they want to browse or use.
The majorit of users cannot be counted on to update their stuff, if you have a nag screen it should be to "turn off auto update", and recommended "only for advanced users", then we can see how many dumb people are out there who turn it off.
The thing I've hated about firefox is that whenever a new version comes out I have to wait for all the plugins to be updated, this is total CRAP. They need to do something about the plugin issue, it's why I held onto old versions of firefox for so long. That and not all plugins play nicely together (which sucks).
Turning that feature off is in (you guessed it!) the FAQ!
http://noscript.net/faq#qa2_5
In short, toggle the preference noscript.firstRunRedirection to false.
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
They add a "nudge screen" and I'm demanding a refund. 3.0 suuks.
I mean, an upgrade the *users* can't install. Duh.
Support an expanded Amtrak!
C'mon: OpenSSH
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Firefox 3 has some problems. I hope the Mozilla team is working on fixing these issues. Firefox rocks and I would hate having to use another browser.
Upfuse.com - Social Marketplace - Get 1.5% cash back for selling on Upfuse!
Does anybody know the % market share on a per browser version basis? Something like 15% - FireFox2, 10% - FireFox3, etc. I am just wondering if FF2 or FF3 is more prevalent.
Respect the Constitution
Help->Check for Updates...
"There are no new updates available. Firefox may check periodically for new updates"
So ah like what are they waiting for? Where is my "A new version of Firefox is available" message????
They shouldn't put a nag screen up if their own update tool won't actually update anything.
Have you had the upgrade nag already then?
I had all of the Firefox 3 betas installed and working on my PCs until RC1 was released. Since then, no version of FF3 has worked on my PC.
I've contacted their technical support and apparently I'm not the only one having this problem, but they've been unable to do any kind of regression testing (I'm guessing cause they're lazy) to find out what changed between the versions that broke it.
DO NOT ADD A NAG SCREEN FOR A BROKEN PRODUCT.
Would you like to upgrade Mozilla Firefox? Cancel? Allow?
On Linux, Firefox 3 randomly executes one of the right click menu items when you right click on an image to do a "Save As".
Since I download a lot of images, this makes Firefox 3 utterly useless for me. Until they fix it, fuck 'em, I'm not upgrading.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
FF3 is extremely instable with Flash and on my Mac I've even downgraded to the latest 2.x version. I don't know if FF or flash is to blame, regardless of which it needs to be better.
<scnr>It asked me to upgrade and so i installed Opera.</scnr>
But seriously: I've switch to Opera quite a while ago when i had major issues with firefox 2.x (e.g. very slow upon large input fields as found on wikipedia). While there are still some sites who don't operate well with Opera, i'm very satisfied. It has all the features i need - including user site customization - without the need to install a bunch of addons, it is fast and i really love the new sync feature for bookmarks which allows me to keep my bookmark consistent at three different computers. While it notifies me about new versions, it does not try to force me into upgrade and it allows me to visit ssl webpages with selfsigned, CAcert and other strange certificates (of course it warns, but it does not require me to do multiple steps to allow the page to be shown).
If you are a firefox user and are disturbed by their plans, just give opera a try. You might like it. (No, thats no advertising, i'm just a happy user).
This is already available through the Distrust plugin. http://www.gness.com/distrust/
What about Ubuntu prior to 8.04? In december there will be no more security updates from mozilla, thus security updates from canonical can be applied, but the browser cannot be named "firefox". I suppose they will do a security update for "firefox" that will change its name to "iceweasel"...
Debian knows The Truth. Debian IS The Truth.
lernu.net
Once is enough to offer, after that let people manually choose Check For Updates.
Nagging is for spouses and as, the parent noted, Microsoft products like Clippy and Vista UAC.
Mozilla should securely maintain the 2.x codestream for a decent interval rather than scaremonger into 3.x
3.x does not render our intranet as 2.x does and while our developers are working on a fix, the fact is it severely affects user experience in the interim. 3.x is only out a short time and we should not be expected to cut-over this quickly.
Jeez, you should join the Seinfeld team pimping Vista COZ OMG TEH XP IZ DANGEROUS!!
Ditto for old versions of MacOS X. My wife was an early adopter of MacOS X, but we got tired of paying $130 to Apple for every point upgrade. There's more and more software that won't run on her machines now. I tried installing ff3, and it didn't run.
You know you're probably vulnerable to compromise if you're running pre-Tiger on the Internet, right? Apple doesn't do security updates for OSX.n where n 4.
I wish somebody were keeping a list...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They also dropped support for OSX 10.3, which is not all that old.
Mac users need to expect to pay the upgrade tax every couple years. Yeah, it can be thousands if your software is old. But Mozilla shouldn't have more responsibility than Apple does.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
AHA! Screw you Mozilla! I'm using 1.5!
Wheres your nagscreen now?!
#1: Firefox 3 is now available. Would you like to upgrade? (Yes/Later/STFU and never bother me again!)
If I take option 3 (STFU), there should never be a #2.
Is there a FULL replacement for GBS yet? And no, Foxmarks isn't one. It's good, but not what I want. Weave is Alpha quality and not widely available. I'd really love the GBS code updated for FF3 and to use a server of my choice to save the data. If I had time to learn the code I'd do it myself, but I have far too many projects right now. That's one thing keeping me on FF2, no decent multi-computer syncing.
the firefox folks have definitely taken a page from microsoft's book.. what "made" firefox great was that it didnt tell you / give you / do anything you didnt want. It was a brwoser, it did what it was supposed to, and it did it well. Seems the success has gone to their heads and they are moving away from a browser and buying into all the web 2.0 hype by trying to become an *insert latest internet marketing mumbo jumbo* application. there is innovation and keeping up with the times...and then there is shoving things down your throat without giving you a Choice (hi bill). dammit, the awsome bar is Not awsome.
The one where you can change tabs, load a page, or have a page reflow and it doesn't repaint the screen correctly?
Sometimes you swap tabs, and the new tab's contents don't appear, but you see the last tab. If you scroll down then up, the new contents are drawn over. I would've thought it was the Windows desktop heap thing, but it apparently happens in Linux as well.
Or during a page load, as it reflows the page, it forgets to erase the old page first, so it ends up being a mess with text everywhere as it was redrawn multiple times, graphics overlayed as they shifted around, etc.
I wish I could easily swap between installations to see if firefox fixed this bug. Installing FF3, then testing it, then finding it's not fixed and reinstalling ff2 gets to be a pain in a while.
Other than that, ff3 is nice.
"At this time, Firefox 3 cannot be used when the user profile is stored on an AFP directory (bug 417037)"
This is an old bug and it means that users with network home directories are fscked. Unless this is fixed soon I'm going to be forced to deploy Opera.
Namgge
You don't nag me - ever, you hear? It's none of your fucking business which version i'm using, nor should you phone home on a regular basis. And what "support" from Mozilla? If you can't figure something out you are generally fucked unless you can find a user to help you, what help are they supposed to ever have offered.
Guess its time to go back to microsoft. Unless someone can hack this out of the program.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Just block Mozilla update servers.
Whether it be HOSTS, peerguardian or any other method / firewall.
I certainly will be after this.
Mozilla are turning into another Microsoft, and quite simply, it is becoming annoying.
Screw FF2, screw FF3 even more, 1.5 for lyfe, yo.
I don't need any of your stupid features, i want a bare-bones browser, that is all.
Integrating all the popular features of add-ons is NOT the way to go, fix your damn browsers bugs before adding anything new into it.
How about a working Check for Updates button? All my copies of 2.0.0.16 say that there are no updates available. Perhaps a one-click solution that actually worked correctly rather than a nag screen to piss off users that _don't_ want to upgrade might be a better solution.
If the OS isn't supported they won't see the upgrade option: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418129
No, they are wrong and should stop behaving amorally.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
FF3 was kinda laggy on my Eee 701 so I downgraded to FF2 with no intention of going back. Security holes can't be that bad right?
As a an administrator I am not happy about this. Now all my users are going to be prompted to upgrade, even though they can't.
We need to upgrade Firefox when our network is ready for it (which will be soon). How do they expect organizations to deal with this? Do they not realize that upgrades have dependencies?!
It's only been out for a couple of months. Do they expect site administrators to be at their beck and call?
Obviously they haven't thought this through.
It's still the best browser. I just wish they'd have consideration for anyone other desktop users.
One of the best extensions out there, and it seems largely unknown still (I just discovered it last week)
Works great, just as advertised.
I *thought* FireFox was a decent product, maintained by intelligent people.
The fact that they think it wise to pester people to move on the the "best yet!" version (reference: Microsoft) of their product makes it very clear that there is *ABSOLUTILY NO F*CKING WAY* that I'm going to "upgrade" to a nagware (for *WHATEVER* reason) version.
And I'm sorry, but I won't be recommending FireFox to any of my friends/customers anymore either.
You guys have successfully downgraded yourself to the likes of the people you did not want to be(come). To bad.
Screw you. You don't get to do things to me for my own good. -- Fulcrum Of Evil
I don't want to be forced to install anything -- RudeIota
With that kind of attitude, you can write a browser yourself, then. And if you adore your freedom that much, use another one. Mozilla's job isn't to cater to you or your incredibly narrow ideology of "You don't get to do things to me for my own good."
:) If you really want to make a change, try dissolving government and corporate rule... Don't scold me because I believe (most) people will benefit from an update notification that can be disabled before and/or after the fact.
Someone, somewhere in your life has made your mind up for you on more than one occasion. From the time you are born, you have been told what to do and who you are today is a result of that. Whether you like/accept it or not, you are a product of other people's guidelines. Your whole life is will remain so forever because that's how humanity's societal structure works.
So, to tell me to screw myself because I can empathize with a non-profit organization wanting to push you into updating the software they wrote for your personal use... sounds a little silly.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
They won't.
Compatibility is checked server-side, as someone else already stated - see this and this Bug.
If they want people to upgrade, why don't they push FF3 to FF2 users via the built-in software update function, like they did with the other releases of FF2?
Sent from my iPhone
Too many problems with FF3. Interface less usable.
I'll update my software when I experience a bug that might have been fixed, or see that there's a cool new feature. The developers are so focused on the work that they're doing that they can't imagine anyone not wanting the latest and greatest, but the end user just wants something that does what they need it to do (Apple is the worst for this IMO, I don't need a new iTunes update every 4 days.)
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
The nags can be categorized into three parts
1: A polite reminder
2: Well beyond your threshold of pain
3: Spectacularly fatal
I have nothing compelling to say
What made you think that? The update won't be offered on OSX 10.4. Give people some credit for not being morons, eh?
Hey, I'm as slow as the next guy...(or not), but not upgrading to FF3 seems to be a fairly stupid action unless you know of a particular problem with your plugins that you can't work around.
Vista had and HAS known feature deficits compared to XP -- not to mention incompatibilities with drivers, software, and a 10% speed hit vs. xp2, and (given that xp3 is about 10% faster than xp2, that would make Vista around 1/5th slower than XP. It uses more resources for no functional gain except to control Hi-Definition A/V to allow more creator content control -- like disabling Media-Player based recording systems on broadcaster command (or 'accident' as NBC (as in MSNBC, or MicroSoftNBC) would have us believe). It unlikely that the NBC broadcasting arm of MSNBC would "accidentally" turn on a recording block that only MS-based players honored -- it is likely that that NBC of MSNBC would test MS's digital content recording control. Sounds like it worked. Next test will take a bit longer since people are resisting BluRay -- but certainly, something company will take the jump and offer some compelling content with special content control to only output hi-def on end-to-end encrypted paths (only supported on Vista with a newer generation HDCP encrypted monitor). It might even be on 'optional' content and not the main movie as a market 'test' -- to see what feedback they get -- just like Disney and WB added the "enhanced region encoding" feature designed to break playback on region-free DVD players (which was was easily evaded on better players, but a shot across the bow to consumers hoping to be able to view purchased foreign material on a 'domestic' player. But it will happen -- and it will get worked around -- but the slowness added to all Vista drivers for this harassment will never be eliminated -- it will just be covered up by lower expectations and faster hardware -- eventually...
FF3, on the other hand is faster than FF2, uses less memory, seems to have fixed the memory leakage problems, despite more security hoops needed for developing and using custom extensions -- which is likely a good thing, usually, but could be annoying for those who were used to doing things the easier way. But from a performance and feature viewpoint, FF3 is certainly NOT like Vista -- exactly the opposite -- like Vista SHOULD have been if MS hadn't sold the customers out to Hollywood -- but end users, or customers have never been important for Microsoft. Big Business is where the money is, and there is no government regulation to stop MS from offering whatever features other corporations want to buy on our computers (assuming we stay on the MS treadmill).
With FF3, extensions are the only drag on switching for most people and even there, you can just unpack most of them, and add V3.X compatibility in the contents.rdf file (or whatever its called) or turn off extension-version compatibility checking -- but those workaround won't solve real compatibility problems, but those are thankfully few. This is coming from someone who uses about 60-70 extensions...
I use Selenium for automated testing on FF2. It would be really annoying to find tests that failed because of an upgrade dialog.
This with the certificate mess makes me think less of Firefox as a browser. I don't need a nanny telling me what I should do with programs on MY computer.
I guess my grudge is against software that is designed with such stupidity and lack of comprehensive foresight that is is continually vulnerable to so many new attach vectors. I look at it as a failing in design imagination, to design such a weak system. I know my gripes extend to the underlying protocolls. You simply cannot watch a parade of weaknesses being found in this public software--I'm just damn disappointed with the limitations of the people who took on the challenge of coding Firefox. As a software developer myself, I know that it remains an art form. Software is crystallized thought. There are usually a thousand different ways to soft a particular problem. But the difference between an "okay" solution and a brilliant, elegant solution is orders of magnitude, not degree.
What the fuck is wrong with the devs at Mozilla that they are cutting support for 2.0 and yet they've produced a broken product in 3.0 for a huge portion of Linux users who can't upgrade to pango and libcairo.
This is a really lame situation for free software because it's like a schism where the best financed free software application, Mozilla, is going with Windows "because that's where the market is at" and leaving Linux behind. But this is free software for god's sake.
Of course, Firefox 3 isn't either - *if* you include standards it hasn't got to yet.
As for time horizons - half a year from when? FF3 only went gold on June 17! We get a toolbar from Newsgator which they initially refused to fix a bug until there was an RC rather than a beta. Fortunately they did fix and ship the xpi but that's a small project compared to a CMS!
However, as we've previously seen with the Suite and Thunderbird, Mozilla can do no wrong on Slashdot when it comes to casting loose products which both individuals and businesses depend on. Meanwhile god help Gates and Ballmer if they talk about ending Windows XP support.
Maybe Mozilla QA hasn't been able to find a regression window for your bug because they can't reproduce the bug themselves? You should be able to do it with nightlies from around that time (between Firefox 3 Beta 5 and Firefox 3 RC1?), which are still available.
The shareholder is always right.
This is the Vistafication of Firefox. I'm forced to deal with other products constant whining. "Update now!" "You haven't rebooted in the last 5 mintes!"
How is this different from spam?
I know what's on my machine. I take care to maintain what's on my machine. Leave me the f alone and let me actually use my machine.
Sure would be nice if FireFox end users could cause to pop up on every developer's screen an annoying message to to FIX THE IDIOTIC CERT PROBLEM in v3.
I know, it was supposed to improve security. But though there are scads of legitimate uses for a self-signed cert, that's not the point.
The real point is that I'm the one actually using the browser, and if I want to let someone in the door whether or not their cert came from FF's built-in whitelist, it's MY decision, not that of some policy committee over at Mozilla.
Anyone who prefers FireFox and runs multiple domains from the same IP (i.e., shared or VPS hosting) has lost their ability to securely access their control panel, at least without hassle. (BTW, TB's virtual id extension would work well here, hint, hint)
The worst thing about the bug - actually, not so much of a bug as a behavioral flaw - is that the option is still there to have the self-signed cert permanently added. Unfortunately, FF doesn't want to listen to that little checkmark.
All in all, v3 is a great improvement. Memory footprint is down, speed is up. Unfortunately, the self-signed cert problem will do more to hurt FF than folks not upgrading from v2.