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

[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.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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.

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.

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'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.