Slashdot Mirror
Firefox: In With the New, Out With the Compatibility
snydeq writes "Mozilla's 'endless parade' of Firefox updates adds no visible benefit to users but breaks common functions, as numerous add-ons, including the popular open source TinyMCE editor, continually suffer compatibility issues, thanks to Firefox's newly adopted auto-update cycle, writes InfoWorld's Galen Gruman. 'Firefox is a Web browser, and by its very nature the Web is a heterogeneous, uncontrolled collection of resources. Expecting every website that uses TinyMCE to update it whenever an incremental rev comes out is silly and unrealistic, and certainly not just because Mozilla decided compatibility in its parade of new Firefox releases was everyone else's problem. The Web must handle such variablility — especially the browsers used to access it.'"
Use the ESR version and don't stress about major version changes until November-ish.
I edit the add-on package (they are easy to download and are just renamed zip files) and change the version number manually and hope that there wasn't some fundamental code change in Firefox that breaks it. Maybe Add-on writers should push it up a few versions and hope it works? I dunno.
There Can Be Only One...
Maybe TinyMCE isn't actually as "platform independent" and "cross-platform" as it claims?
Code to standards (with appropriate polyfills) and ye shall prosper.
flamebait
I stuck with Mozilla starting with V1.0 in July 2002 but about a month ago the bloat and crashes from Firefox 11.0 got too much for me and I gave Chrome a try.
Chrome is faster with no crashes.
I don't know where Firefox went wrong but I'm not going back.
Ponca City, We Love You
Tons of websites, including those with advanced features work perfectly with updated versions of firefox.
So what's wrong with this particular feature? And why is it that FF is getting the blame?
Mod Article.... Flamebait
The real annoyance for me is the version numbering / compatibility scheme. There are add-ins that are still relevant, and still work perfectly, but you have to go through a song and dance to install them every time the version numbers change, the song and dance being unpacking them, editing the version numbers in their metadata, and repacking them, or finding the add-in in your profile from an older version and editing it there.
If they could fix this, that would be much better. Instead of add-ins declaring which versions they are compatible with, it should be possible to compute which APIs they access, and whether their behaviour has changed.
In the case of TinyMCE, I'm not sure what the issue is, unless people are packaging it as an add-in - my only encounters with it are as something embedded in a web page, so it would naturally have to cope with a wide variety of browsers by default.
You mean like Chrome's rapid release cycle?
None of the extensions I use break with 'every' revision. Most I don't even think have needed to be upgraded from 8.0 to the current 13.0a2[Aurora], and it updates Firefox essentially every time I restart Firefox. It makes me think TinyMCE are the one's doing something wrong.
TinyMCE is not an addon - the article seems to be talking about a Firefox bug, but doesn't provide a bug ID.
Addons are now up-issued automatically where possible; I have found fewer addons breaking compared with the sweeping changes made using the old model of major releases.
The article also misses the benefits from regular releases: features and improvements get in front of users more quickly, and changes are incremental, rather than jarringly abrupt. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox_(Rapid_release_development_cycle) for a list of changes since Firefox 4.
There is a little check box in the options somewhere to stop nagging for updates. Trying to keep FF 9 because of addon compatibility.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
If they still put a static "3" or "4" before the actual version number, so the current version was Firefox 4.11 instead of Firefox 11, nobody would bat an eye. Everyone is losing their shit over Firefox releases when they're really just whining over a numbering scheme.
On a few occasions, I have been presented with an updated version of the Add-On a few days after the new Firefox disabled it. But it is increasingly annoying to have functionality I have come to rely upon disabled. It's very difficult to work with tools that keep mutating and supporting the concept of Add-On functionality becomes pointless when everyone has to run like the Red Queen just to stay even.
This is so obvious, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Users see the Firefox version. Plugin developers see the plugin API version. So if FF 10, 11, 12 ,13 all have the same API, then they are automatically compatible. New features added to the browser can be tested for. Removing features causes a API rev.
ffs, just do it and stop with all the noise!
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
at least chrome doesn't brag about it
Be or ben't
You have to find a balance somewhere.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
They're not whining over a numbering scheme, they're whining over a plugin compatibility scheme.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Yes. I hate this rapid-release fad. The downsides far outweigh the upsides for me.
Yeah, it's not like their complaining about plug-ins breaking...oh wait....
a) Chrome have always done it that way.
b) Chrome doesn't fucking break everything every upgrade!
Honestly. Does Firefox still give you a XUL error instead of sensible HTTP error pages if it's upgraded and you haven't restarted it yet?
I'm using Chrome now
The only reason there would be a compatibility problem is if programs/scripts/modules/whatever are using user-agent identification to determine what features are available. This is (and always has been) a very bad practice - You check to see if the functions (or alternatives) are available, rather than checking against UA. That way you don't have to continually update scripts to maintain compatibility with the latest versions. When when browsers start supporting new functions coded in, those functions just work. When deprecated functionality is removed, the check for that particular function fails and the code moves on to another branch.
For example, rather than the following:
function getXMLHTTP() {
if (navigator.appName == 'Microsoft Internet Explorer')
{
var ua = navigator.userAgent;
var re = new RegExp("MSIE ([0-9]{1,}[\.0-9]{0,})");
if (re.exec(ua) != null)
rv = parseFloat( RegExp.$1 );
if (rv try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0"); }
catch (e) {}
try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0"); }
catch (e) {}
try { return new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); }
catch (e) {}
} else
return XMLHTTPRequest;
} else
return XMLHTTPRequest;
}
Which uses nasty browser detection to try and cope with IE 8 and below, you should use:
function getXMLHTTP() {
if (XMLHTTPRequest) return XMLHTTPRequest;
if (ActiveXObject) {
try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0"); }
catch (e) {}
try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0"); }
catch (e) {}
try { return new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); }
catch (e) {}
}
throw new Error("This browser does not support XMLHttpRequest.");
}
Which nicely checks to see both if the newer/proper XMLHTTPRequest Javascript object exists, and if not, tries to use the latest ActiveX object (Necessary for IE 8 and below), while only using the "ActiveXObject" function if it is available. It also means that if MS put out a version of IE that falls back to the ActiveX Object route, this code will still work with it, whereas the first will not. It's a minor example, true, but it's an example nonetheless.
unfortunately, not only plugins, but JS....
Is this something people actually use?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Some pointless comparisons.
Numbers below are rounded off, does not include beta versions (including pre-1.0). Also, my math is probably off.
Internet Explorer - Averages new version every 21 months
First Version: IE1 - August 1995
Current Version: IE9 - March 2011
Firefox - Averages new version every 9 months (every 1.7 months since version 4.0)
First Version: Fx1 - November 2004
Latest Version: Fx11 - March 2012
Chrome - Averages new version every 2.2 months
First Version: Chrome 1 - December 2008
Latest Version - Chrome 18 - March 2012
Opera - Averages new version every 17.5 months
First Version: Opera 2 - April 1996
Latest Version - Opera 11 - December 2010
Safari - Averages new version every 18 months
First Version: Safari 1 - January 2003
Latest Version: Safari 5 - June 2010
Lynx - Averages new version every year or so
First Version: Lynx 1 - sometime in 1992
Current Version: Lynx 2 - sometime in 1993
I threw Lynx (actually currently on 2.8, June 2010) on there because it's proof version numbers mean nothing anymore.
b) Chrome doesn't fucking break everything every upgrade!
I have to agree with this. Despite Chrome's background updates, I haven't woken up and launched it to find half of my plugins are dead. Nor have I had to turn compatibility check off or any of the other coaxing I've needed to do to get my FF plugins working.
I've been told in the past that a large part of the compatibility breaking is due to add-on developers, not Firefox itself (something about writing the add-on to ignore a version incompatibility), but either way, the net result is the same.
Admittedly, I can't speak as to the last couple years or so, because starting at Firefox 4, the combination of Flash, two ATI video cards in crossfire, and Firefox has resulted in regular, yet completely unpredictable BSoD's, and everyone I've ever talked to in support has pointed to a fault with one of the other two parties and said there's nothing they can do. Upgrading to 5 didn't help, and upgrading to 6 didn't help as well. That's when I uninstalled Firefox for good. Chrome has never done that, even with Flash, and even with hardware acceleration turned on.
Now that Chrome has AdBlock Plus and ScriptNO and all of the other plugin equivalents I care about, I no longer pine for Firefox.
I hate this rapid-release fad. The downsides far outweigh the upsides for me.
Solution: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
TinyMCE is an Add-On or Extension?
TinyMCE is an "add-on" in the same sense that Slashdot.org and jQuery.js are.
a) Chrome have always done it that way.
b) Chrome doesn't fucking break everything every upgrade!
While I haven't had issues with Firefox breaking add-ons, Chrome also has another advantage[1]: it installs and runs as a user's account, rather than requiring admin rights to install and update. Updates can occur in the background without annoying the user with UAC popups (or their equivalent).
Firefox installs system-wide and requires admin rights to update. This is somewhat annoying.
[1] Some on Slashdot have complained that this is a disadvantage, particularly on managed systems in a workplace, as users shouldn't be able to install programs without administrator rights. In general, I agree. However, for individual users at home (such as my parents) not requiring admin rights is a huge benefit as it means they get to stay up-to-date and patched (including Chrome's built-in Flash and PDF reader) without being interrupted or bothered.
it is mozilla's fault! Mozilla doesn't provide an API version that the add-ons can test against to see if they will work in the new browser version. previously when FF had a major/minor versioning scheme that sort of, but not entirely, took the place of the API versioning. now with the fast release schedule the add-ons have no way to tell if they are compatible with the new version or if they will fail horribly because mozilla decided to remove something.
that is all the developers want is a method to know if mozilla is making any changes that could break their add-ons. publishing an API version that the add-ons could check against would solve this.
Yeah... I can't exactly certify my software on the latest version of Firefox when we're doing new releases every 5 months on average and Firefox is doing a new release every 5 WEEKS.
Instead, we're certifying on the ESR release version. Sure, our stuff will probably work on the newer releases, but we can't guarantee it.
How is it that this asshat's "stories" continue to reach the front page?
I couldn't give a shit about numbers.
I do, however, give a shit about my add-ons not working right. Sure, the blockbuster stuff like NoScript and AdBlock work just fine on Day 1... but I also use a lot of niche stuff (something /.ers can empathize with).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
BSoD's are the video card driver's fault. Nothing that software does on your system should be able to cause the driver to BSoD. Drop your ATI cards and buy Nvidia and your problems will go away instantly.
The thing is, I don't care. In fact I prefer my browser not to muck about with user-facing stuff all the damn time. I used Firefox again recently for a few minutes and the disappearing/reappearing forward button was both maddening and utterly inexplicable.
b) Chrome doesn't fucking break everything every upgrade!
I have to agree with this. Despite Chrome's background updates, I haven't woken up and launched it to find half of my plugins are dead. Nor have I had to turn compatibility check off or any of the other coaxing I've needed to do to get my FF plugins working.
I've only had this happen once in Chrome, but it was annoying in the fact that I wasn't notified that Adblock no longer worked... ads just starting showing up.
Turns out Adblock needed an additional permission in newer Chrome versions.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
That's why I prefer Opera. All the functionality I like that would require a plugin from Firefox is just built in. Since it's built in, the Opera development team are in charge of maintaining them so they don't break with every release.
Because there is no easy way to distinguish at a glance between major upgrades and minor bug fix releases. Because the only reason Mozilla is doing this is because Chrome is. Because the major.minor version system has worked for decades. Because Mozilla is being an ass about this and telling their users it is better because we tell you it is. Because I have no freaking idea whether 10 compared to 9 is a major upgrade with tons of new features, a minor upgrade with just bug fixes.
That is why people are 'whining' over a numbering scheme!
That's all well and good, but from Firefox versions 2.0 to 3.6 (or 3.7?), it never was a problem. Whatever they changed when they went to version 4 caused a world of problems, and I wasn't the only one (although I admit there are few people with crossfire builds so there aren't many of us).
Either way, ATI blamed Adobe and Firefox, Firefox blamed Adobe and ATI, and Adobe blamed Firefox and ATI, so I was screwed no matter what. It was either stay at Firefox 3.6, dump a video card (yeah, that's a reasonable solution, considering it worked just fine with literally everything else, to include previous versions of Firefox), or switch to Chrome, which has never had this issue, from day one.
Maybe the Firefox crew should ask the Chrome crew how they're able to make theirs work.
Firefox installs system-wide and requires admin rights to update. This is somewhat annoying.
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable.
'Nuff said.
Chrome uses a similar technique to avoid fucking breaking everything to Firefox. Unfortunately, it appears that in this instance it didn't work - apparently the bug has been in the beta releases since November and no-one noticed it when testing them. (I suspect a lot more Chrome users use the beta releases because Chrome can be quite broken if you don't.)
It's JS and html. How can it be dependant on a specific version of Firefox unless it's coded exceptionally poorly? Why doesn't chrome's fast versioning cause problems? This submissions is shit.
I could say the same. I used Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, all the way back. Opera stole me away for a little while, until they went nuts with bloat. Other than that, and Mosaic before Netscape even existed, I've used this browser for decades.
I currently have 3.6.28 installed on all my machines. I 'upgraded' to 4.0, realised they had finally gone full retard, and reverted to the last good version. I am really hoping a good fork will happen and I would switch to it in a heartbeat.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
people bitched that there add-ons were getting disabled for no reason due to version compatibility checking, so they removed it. Now people are bitching that there add-ons are breaking?! How it this mozilla's fault? you got what you wanted! It is the add-on developers responsibility to either enable compatibility checking, or test there add-on before each new version.
besides, why would you even need an add-on like tinymce? If your website requires a Firefox add-on for full functionality then YOUR SITE is broken. Don't blame the add-on, and definitely don't blame the browser when things go wrong. Joomla and wikipedia can do it without problems! do it right or STFU
tinymce isn't an addon. tinymce is a JavaScript library for making a standard HTML textarea look and act like a RichText text box.
Which is why it breaking is a Firefox bug.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
See, this is why I always disable auto-update and use *my* schedule to check and install updates. Otherwise things break when I'm doing something important, messages pop-up at inconvenient times, network bandwidth gets sucked away when I'm doing something else, and so forth. If I'm in the middle of a conference presentation, no, I don't really need to know that the latest Java, Adobe Flash or Reader update is available. If I'm in the classroom, I don't need to know that it's ready to install, especially when I don't actually have the user privileges to install the damn thing on the computer in question (sorry, but it's been bugging me on one computer EVERY LOGIN for the ENTIRE TERM).
I'm not saying that auto-update *must* be evil, but at the very least there needs to be some way to inform these auto-update systems that "I'm busy and any notifications would be especially inconvenient at the moment", or "I'm on limited bandwidth and you shouldn't be trying to download a 50MB update that I may or may not want", or "Yes, that's very interesting but I can't install it", and so forth. The current auto-update mechanisms are DUMB. If those updates also break compatibility it's even more foolish to enable them by default and have them update silently. They should *SAY* during the update process that "This update is known to break compatibility in the following areas: .... Do you still want to install it?" If that situation isn't clear until after the update is out for a while, well, then update the notification once you do know.
After Firefox upgraded itself to version 11, Netflix (watch instantly) just does to the system requirements page. Why is that? (Windows XP SP2 64-bit)
Netflix in Chrome has always gone to the system requirements page. My version of IE8 is 64-bit which Silverlight DOES NOT SUPPORT.
Netflix support is clueless and wants to push me off to Microsoft support.
So you're telling that anyone who knows Chrome v4 will feel right at home with Chrome v18? Awesome!
The thing is, I'm not using Firefox, I'm using Slashdot. Firefox is analogous to the display, keyboard and mouse here: it's a necessary evil that ideally stays in the background as much as possible. Any new and innovative features are more likely to get in the way than be helpful, especially if they happen in the UI.
Or even better analogy: browser UI is like inept political propaganda the author just couldn't stop himself from inserting into an otherwise decent book: it's there and you can't do anything but skim over it hoping to get back to the good parts soon.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
At home, this is what I use. At work, I must use Windows. There, I've actually done something I would have considered impossible before FF started going down its Bad Path: I've gone back to IE for my main browser (I still have to use other browsers in the course of my work, though, including FF, Chrome, etc.)
No, you're using a browser to interact with the Web. Keyboards and displays and mice don't add functionality over time. They also don't get 'fixed' for bugs. Browsers are software, and all software has bugs. The Web you want to use is also evolving, and the software that lets you interact with it must also adapt for you to be able to use those new features. Chome is releasing new versions every six weeks or so, but the functionality for the user is unnoticeable. No new features to make using the web easier, or make backing up your data easier. Browsers should make using the Web more empowering and easier as time goes by; not stagnate. Chrome's interface has been essentially unchanged since it's first version, and it was a pretty bare-bones set of features it first came out with.
There are certainly problems with how Firefox has handled upgrades - from notifications to add-on compatibility issues - the fact is, it's giving more new features for users to USE - at a MUCH faster pace - than any other browser out there.
"Mozilla's 'endless parade' of Firefox updates adds no visible benefit to users but breaks common functions"
...
And the solution is to not update to the latest version
AccountKiller
That's because chrome wasn't doing any hardware acceleration. I don't want Firefox not using a feature just because your video drivers are buggy. The problem is definately in them. I don't care what calls you make to the video driver, it still should not bsod. Ati is just being stupid. Sorry you are stuck with them, but it's not surprising. It's been very well known that the ati drivers are terrible.
Lynx development has slowed down a /lot/ in the last thirteen years. It was at 2.8.2 back in 1999 when I started using it full-time and 2.8.7 came out nearly two years ago, so lately it's averaging a (maintenance, not even a minor release!) release every other year.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
They are, but one certainly still sees people whining about the version scheme itself.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The UAC prompt issue is fixed. In the latest Firefox versions it's no longer needed.
From an add-on developer perspective, Firefox's frantic updates are a pain. I have the same add-on for Firefox and Google Chrome. Most of the code is common. On the Firefox side, I have work-arounds for two bugs in Firefox, and they've been open bug reports in Bugzilla for many months. There's a new bug this week because the last update to the Mozilla add-on SDK broke something in message passing. That's supposedly fixed in the next version of the SDK being released today. Now I have to rebuild, update and test my add-on, then run it through the Mozilla approval bureaucracy again. (Yes, the AMO web site says this happens automatically. That's only true if you let them host the source code.)
Over on Google Chrome, it just works. No workarounds needed. A stable API. No updates needed from my side.
I get far more downloads of the Firefox version, though.
People who don't understand traditional version numbering should not criticize numbering schemes. Traditionally it's major internal changes (i.e. compatibility change), whether user visible or not, that rev major version numbers, everything else goes after some dot or another. Not that many have ever followed it... but of course those making illusory compatibility promises via crappy numbering are fine, as long as they don't rev the major number too much you can pretend it's not your problem and use the number to CYA when combining with your shaky systems. Hey, guess what, Firefox is not your internal IT department and shouldn't keep back useful internal improvements to satisfy your business needs. Fix you processes, be they software testing or web development so that everything doesn't come crashing down when something changes, because version number stability doesn't mean shit won't break.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
after the original iPhone started shipping.
I came late to the party. Why is this a feature that Ubuntu and Firefox brag about?
Can you certify that 3.753.12.5 will not break something that worked in 3.753.12.4? No? Well then. But you can blame Mozilla, that must make your customers feel better when stuff breaks...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Linux or Windows, it's always the same: Firefox (Not Responding)
at least chrome doesn't brag about it
And that makes the problem disappear, right?
HERE is the real crux of the matter! I think people need to stop blaming auto updates and start blaming bad release management.
That's because chrome wasn't doing any hardware acceleration. I don't want Firefox not using a feature just because your video drivers are buggy. The problem is definately in them. I don't care what calls you make to the video driver, it still should not bsod. Ati is just being stupid. Sorry you are stuck with them, but it's not surprising. It's been very well known that the ati drivers are terrible.
And if you ditch those ATI cards, ditch them in my mail box. Nvidia is useless on my OS.... te bastards.
Both Chrome and Firefox use hardware acceleration to render pages using all the horsepower of your video cards. If anyone is to blame out of the three parties you listed, it *IS* ATI. That being said, a blue screen could come from any driver in your system, conflicts between drivers, or from other parts of Windows. Any of those could be the culprit. As for why it happens in Firefox and not Chrome, there are 2 possibilities. For one, Chrome may implement it's acceleration in an entirely different fashion (and probably does). As it turns out, there are many ways to solve a problem especially when talking about OpenGL. The other possibility is that Google found out about the issue (either through direct testing or feedback) and blacklisted your drivers, so that hardware acceleration is not used.
Believe me, you *want* hardware acceleration. If Chrome is not using it because of your bad drivers, you are probably missing out on a better Web.
Also, when most well-informed people make a complaint such as yours, they often mention that they performed one (or several) driver updates to attempt to remedy the problem. You do know that you can upgrade your graphics drivers right? Have you tried this?
You mean the update that users never even know about?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
You can't solve a non-existent problem.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I dont understand how firefox's rapid updates are bad for consumers. Bad for plugin-writers/maintainers sure, but consumers no.
My argument is that consumers get features sooner, so thats good. Otherwise you'd have to wait until the next major release.
The other side to it is that if an update breaks for you, then just dont update. That's the same as waiting for the next major release.
Why do people feel the need to be on the latest version and then complain about it. If it isn't what you want, dont do it...
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
so um, dont upgrade?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I was a loyal FF user until about version 4.0 when all my add-ons broke. The developers must not realize that the add-ons are the reason to use Firefox. Constantly breaking the add-ons removes all incentive to use Firefox at all.
So in the year 2042 when we're on FF version 28 running on programmable viruses with neuronal neutrino-wave links between people's brains I sure hope all the addons get updated automatically .... especially the in-mind popup prevention addons.
And in my experience, CKEditor hasn't broken with rapid Firefox (or Chrome) releases. TinyMCE is almost certainly the problem here (as well as, and in its handling of, Gecko's historically divergent handling of badly specified rich text functionality), and we can't fault Mozilla every time they fail to maintain bugs that badly-written code depends on. It'd be one thing if there wasn't a way to future-proof your code, but there is. Fully none of my code has broken since Firefox went rapid-release, and the same is true in Chrome. And the same is true of all of the browsers which are released at a traditional pace.
I also hate the way the rapid-release story is covered and discussed. Firefox is almost always singled out in press, even though Chrome was the trend-setter (presumably here the issue is that Firefox has better penetration of enterprise). In discussions, people disparage Firefox's rapid-release and recommend Chrome as an alternative! There are certainly problems with the way Firefox handles updates versus Chrome, but they're primarily centered around end-user experience (extensions and the like); and while those are real issues, it is definitely not how the issue is discussed in the press or comments.
Everyone really needs to do some serious thinking about what they want from a browser. All signs point to a (well-executed) rapid-release schedule being the best for everyone involved. Let's get better at talking about the problems in Mozilla's (and Google's) approach, and contrast their successes and failures with the successes and failures of Apple, Microsoft and Opera. All of this could be done better, but ignorance isn't going to get us there.
I might be a little off-topic, but why is rich-text editing not supported natively by the browser? With all these Web 2.0 and app-stuff, wouldn't it make sense to have a decent text editor available by default?
Let it spit out simple HTML fragments and you'll be fine for most apps.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
I still use two PPC Macs regularly, one of which is a PBG4 I've been quite reticent to upgrade to Leopard, the last supported OS X on these machines. Running the Firefox PPC Mac builds of 3.6 has worked for me, but about a month ago I decided to have a look at Camino again, for the first time in years & years.
On this older machine, it's a hell of a lot more stable, & faster too. I've been running it for a month with no lock-ups. It doesn't have NoScript (my primary reason for sticking with FFX) but the flashblock functionality works fine. I had forgotten how nice all of Camino's various OS X integration features are. If it had NoScript I'd replace FFX with it on my newer Intel Mac too.
The article is really well balanced. No offence, but every 6 weeks I am reminded why sticking with FF 3.6 is a good idea, as I see my colleagues scream at FF because of yet another broken thing.
Rapid releases are not a bad idea as long as you do it right (like chrome), if you do it wrong (like FF), it just pisses everybody off.
What the Moz team seams to not understand is that doing rapid release right means that users should not notice. With FF, users are hurt every 6 weeks, the bugs fixed and new features are probably nice, but they are not worth the pain of having something that does not work in a predictable way in the long run.
The good news is that there are alternatives:
- Chrome
- FF ESR (to some extent)
- FF 3.6
But for me, the plain FF with auto-updates, no thank you.
et les Shadoks pompaient...
I use kubuntu and the continuous upgrades of firefox and thunderbird and very annoying!!!
I switched to thunderbird recently following a kmail2 upgrade failure. The thing is that firefox and especially thunderbird are useless without plugins. I have 17 extensions on thunderbird, ranging from standard enigmail and lightning to firetray because the stock tunderbird does not seem to have a system tray icon (duh!).
The latest and greatest firefox broke zotero for a some days. Zotero is the sole reason why I use mostly firefox.
What I do not understand is why every single update in Firefox breaks at least one of my add-ons.
Chrome has no such problem - it updates CONSTANTLY and I have NEVER seen it break an add-on.
I don't know if this is because the Chrome add-on system is just better than Firefox's, or if it is because Chrome goes to an effort to maintain backward compatibility layers - all I know is this is a MAJOR reason I stopped using Firefox.
If Mozilla is not careful they are going to auto-update themselves out of existance... come on guys, you are supposed to be smart people, you can do better than whatever the current status-quo is with the addon system.
My dev team despised the fact that add-ons would break so often that we had to switch from Firefox because no matter how useful the web development tool was we knew it wouldn't work in about a month or so. Firefox should be honest about its business plan and simply remove the add-on functionality. I am one of those people that started using Chrome because of Firefox's constant "updates"
If there is no God then free will is an illusion.
Also, if you visit chrome://gpu/ within Chrome, it will show you what is hardware accelerated and what's not. Just learned that today!
Rule number one. Never auto update, it just screws things up.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"Video workstation" with an Intel chip... what can it be good for? Even Photoshop has been supporting GPGPU for like 3 years, let alone video processing/encoding software.
Coding etudes
as there is no unsolved non-existent problem, its obvious that all non-existent problems are solvable.
just unpack the firefox tar.gz somewhere, run firefox from there and enjoy updates with user-rights. what is the hard part about this?
The main problem is you're not always aware of breakage until after the fact. Especially someone not-very-technical. They might have managed to get addons installed (or maybe their techy friend installed a few things for them) but are still the type that click OK on everything. Next thing they know they've installed a version of FF that breaks all their addons and all they know is "Firefox broke".
I still think Firefox's main problem is trying to change its update policy mid-stream. Chrome's been on the fast track since the beginning, so people are used to it and the plugin system is designed around it. Firefox was built expecting a slow release cycle, and its plugin system was set up that way.
These days, IE9 is a better browser than Firefox. Chrome is better than Firefox. Opera is better than all of them. Why are people still using Firefox?
My argument is that consumers get features sooner, so thats good.
Assuming that the consumers want the new features. It depends on the user, but there are lots for whom new features are problematic. They can introduce costs and uncertainty in the short term, and so have to be planned for. This takes time. If new feature come too frequently, it becomes too expensive or unwieldy to use the software.
The other side to it is that if an update breaks for you, then just dont update.
That's not how rapid release works. FF hasn't completely implemented it yet, but ultimately you will not even know that an update is coming or be asked if you want it. It will just happen in the background. It'll probably remain possible to turn off updating completely, but eventually that will lead to a different problems as more and more plugins and server software assume that your browser is always updated.
Why do people feel the need to be on the latest version and then complain about it. If it isn't what you want, dont do it...
Indeed! However once FF is fully rapid-release, the only reasonable way of not updating is to not use FF.
Why?
I assume most regular consumers have similar or even less add ons and get the same 'it just works' experience.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
You can just as well install Firefox under a user account. That's what I did on RHEL6. The installed rpm is Redhat's stodgy old version, and that's what all other user accounts see, but my own user account runs Firefox 11.
Right, someone to blame is what AC wants. Too bad AC doesn't disclose what POS (well, it might not be, but shifting blame to other vendors instead of making sure shit works is a good indicator) they sell so that I can avoid ever touching it.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
People and corporations that operated fairly well in the good times started to get eaten alive by their own inefficiencies they were too inflexible or proud to shed. Assuming ample potable water and no murder, who will more likely last the longest on the proverbial desert island, the obese person or the skinny one?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Is it a FF bug? Do you know the bug #? According to an earlier poster the problem is only in newer versions of tinyMCE -- maybe they had implemented some not well tested features? Dunno.
The FF team is getting pretty annoying. They don't really seem to give a rats ass about what users want... they are just going to go do their thing and hope someone follows... if you are a market leader that's one thing, but you should still look back over your shoulder once in a while to see if anyone is following...
Firefox's rapid release schedule has not impacted on the compatibility of add-ons to the degree that this statement makes. That's just misinformation. My biggest beef with Firefox is the continual memory leaks and high cpu load when opening a large number of tabs. This issue has **still** not been addressed.
Well, since most of the problem is incompatible APIs, it seems that the firefox team aren't good at supporting the third party developers.
A stable API should solve most of their problems. I'm not sure if they do this already - I use chrome and the rapid release works pretty well there.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.