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."

Comments

Actually a good idea

[Daimanta]

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.

Re:Actually a good idea

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

That's not the point. My computer, my software, my choice. Remember "choice"? Mozilla was all about it at one point in time. It seems with greater market share comes all the negatives we've come to expect from other software vendors.

By all means ask the question. But respect my answer.

Re:Actually a good idea

[Daimanta]

Yes, but tech-aware users are very rare and it is a wise idea to help remember ff2 users that their version is about to lose support and it is wise to upgrade. As long as people aren't forced, there is no real problem.

Re:Actually a good idea

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

OK I've changed my position on this a bit. There should be no more than two notices.

#1: Firefox 3 is now available. Would you like to upgrade? (Yes/Later/Go Away)
#2: Firefox 2.x will cease to receive security updates in 1 week. --Brief explanation of risks posed here--. Would you like to update to Firefox 3? (Yes/Later/Go Away)

I guess the change of circumstance in that second situation deserves a second notice. However that should be it. Those two, nothing more.

Re:Actually a good idea

[MC Negro]

That's not the point. My computer, my software, my choice. Remember "choice"? Mozilla was all about it at one point in time. It seems with greater market share comes all the negatives we've come to expect from other software vendors.

By all means ask the question. But respect my answer.

I think you would have a stronger case about "choice" if they were remotely disabling old versions of FireFox. You do have a right to subject yourself to security vulnerabilities, but by no means is the software vendor obligated to design their software in a manner that caters to this behavior.

As it stands, you have plenty of choices -

• You can upgrade to new version for free.
• You can continue to use your preferred version and be nagged every few weeks.
• You can fork your preferred version and remove the nagging bit
• You can stop using the browser.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the strain associated with clicking "No" every few weeks, but I think this is a good solution for keeping FireFox users secure and complying with web standards.

Re:Actually a good idea

[ivantheshifty]

People have what they need right now, and trying to shove a new version at them is disrespectful of their customers.

But consider the large majority of FF2 users who simply don't know FF3 exists; they don't follow tech news, they just need to check their email, check their bank statements, and occasionally look at pictures of kittens. Mozilla's cutting off support in December, making FF2 users vulnerable to new, unpatched exploits and attacks. Sure, the 3% of FF2 users who are power-users and dislike FF3 for technology concerns might feel disrespected, but for our beloved kitten-viewers, Mozilla would be negligent if it didn't make them aware. And the disrespected crowd are knowledgeable enough to turn off the reminder; the regular folks might not ever hear about the December support cutoff through other channels.

So what would you have them do: piss off a few arrogant technophiles, or leave all the kitten-lovers out in the rain to get hacked?

Re:Actually a good idea

[Mistshadow2k4]

I think you would have a stronger case about "choice" if they were remotely disabling old versions of FireFox.

Bullcrap. If they nag you intermittently until you either upgrade or uninstall FF altogether, they're trying hard to not give you a choice. Saying the user still has a choice in those circumstances is like saying you still have a choice of whether or not to surrender your money while a robber's knife is at your throat. Does that seem too melodramatic? The point still stands. They're going to nag you until you do what they want, which is decidedly not freedom of choice for the user.

You do have a right to subject yourself to security vulnerabilities, but by no means is the software vendor obligated to design their software in a manner that caters to this behavior.

Excuse me, but what? That doesn't make sense. How is it asking them to design their software in any way at all to not be nagged? The user in this equation is asking them to not to do something, not to do something.

Re:Actually a good idea

[svank]

I'm curious, would a fifth choice be to uncheck the "Automatically check for updates to Firefox" option in the Advanced part of options menu?

I'll upgrade when...

[medeii]

... 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.

Re:I'll upgrade when...

[smooth wombat]

they pry Fx 2 from cold, dead hard drive.

Add me onto the list of so-not Awesome Bar haters. I know where I've been, I don't need to be told every time I type a url, and I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to turn this crappy "feature"[1] off.

Hell, you can turn off auto-complete (which is what it is) in IE by unchecking a box. Why can't the Fx team do the same?

[1]It appears the Fx team is adopting Microsoft's idea of what a good "feature" is.

Re:I'll upgrade when...

[clone53421]

Some websites just shouldn't be kept in the history, if you ask me... unfortunately, they also can't have a "don't remember these sites" list for obvious reasons. So you're pretty much stuck with cleaning your history by hand, because your head is the only safe place to keep that "don't remember these sites" list.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

IT Locks computers

[Sporkinum]

IT department locks all the computers from installing anything. So my work PC's software is running old, buggy, insecure code.

Re:just like vista

[RemoWilliams84]

All I'm saying, is I don't them to tell me but one time. I'm stubborn and I'll do it when I want.

Re:I hate it!

[Tumbleweed]

I wish the summary would have said why they're so hell-bent on getting users to upgrade.

And people wonder why IE6 is still in such widespread use. *sigh*

marketing speak infected.

[Toonol]

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.

Re:marketing speak infected.

[IamTheRealMike]

The problem is lots of people will just click "no" to get rid of the popup because they're busy or don't understand the question. This has been proven by many usability studies and is why Windows now ships with automatic online update enabled by default, and why it nags you to reboot so hard. If they weren't asked repeatedly, they'd end up running an unsupported and thus insecure browser. That's bad for everyone.

Option to turn it off..

[plasmacutter]

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!"

Not without RHEL 4 support I won't

[greed]

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.

Re:I hate it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because something isn't shiny and new doesn't mean it's useless.

Sometimes it's better to use something you know really well - warts and all - rather than something with as yet undiscovered failure modes.

Granted America is a culture of novelty, but there are other cultures out there that value the tried and true. Don't assume that just because you value novelty that everyone does.

It's not so bad...

[RudeIota]

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.

This may be a good thing.

[Buelldozer]

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.

No FF3 support on OS X 10.3.9 (Panther, that is)

[rtoads]

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.

Linux users

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:just like vista

[EmperorKagato]

I trust NoScript, but I don't want to visit their website after after every update.

Then you don't trust NoScript.

Re:I hate it!

[torstenvl]

Firefox 3 is a much better web browser than firefox 2

If by "better" you mean "buggier," then yes, you are correct.

The number of UI bugs in FFX3 is astounding, at least on OS X.

Go ahead and cmd+click a bookmark. Does it open in a new tab? Nope.

Go ahead and cmd+w on Slashdot. Does it close the tab? Not until after waiting for five seconds while Slashdot tries to figure out if the keypress was for it.

Go ahead and install the Brief extension, and then try cmd+m to minimize. Does it minimize? Nope. Why? Because like websites, extensions can steal core UI keystrokes with impunity.

Firefox 3 has been buggered from the start. It's the worst web browsing software I've used since IE for Mac. Maybe since before. It's an inexcusable mess.

If One Really Believes This...

[EXTomar]

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.

Re:Why not earlier?

[gparent]

IE7 _is_ a security update.

Re:I hate it!

[Tumbleweed]

Just because something isn't shiny and new doesn't mean it's useless.

IE6 is worse than useless - it's *dangerous* to users, and financially damaging to the Web industry as a whole. Taking pride in using buggy software is kinda crazy.

Re:Who sez Win98 isn't secure?

[FreezerJam]

I think running Win98 has become the equivalent of owning a car so old it's now an antique.

There are certainly some ancient rustbuckets out there, shedding parts and stalling at every opportunity. But there are some that are kept clean and well maintained - which is, at this point, actually *more* work than running a newer system.

These aren't blindingly fast, they don't have modern styling, and certain newer addons will never work with them. But they'll still keep up in day-to-day use, and with a little extra smart maintenance, they're pretty reliable.

And - if well kept up, they will be hard to break into while parked.