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Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released
Today Mozilla made Firefox 30 available, a relatively minor release after the massive redesign in version 29. According to the changelog, new features include VP9 video decoding, support for Opus in WebM, and horizontal volume control for HTML5 video and audio. Developers got support for multi-line flexboxes and hang reporting for background threads. There were also a number of security fixes. The Android version of Firefox received better support for native text selection, cutting, and copying, as well as predictive lookup for Awesomebar entries. The availability of Firefox 30 coincides with the launch of Firebug 2.0, which features an updated UI and a new debugging engine called JSD2. Significant new features include JavaScript syntax highlighting and de-minifying, improved code auto-complete, and the capability to hide or show individual Firebug panels.
...with this rapid release schedule. Firefox is trying to update more often than Java nowadays.
For the most part I haven't minded, and for the most part, the changes have been appreciated.
However, version 29 revamped the entire toolbar customization scheme. Which has caused problems. Not only did it force me to move my refresh button (which for many years I kept on the left where it belongs next to the other navigation buttons), but it also eliminated the "addon bar" (which was historically the "status bar" at the bottom). That change broke the interfaces of a couple of add-ons I use.
Also, version 29 broke a web-crawling tool I use frequently. I got that fixed, but I should not have had to.
Why don't they just randomize the user interface every time you start the program? I've spent over a decade getting used to things being in certain places with FF. Each version shuffles things like rearranging the furniture in a blind man's house. I have to put things back where they were so my muscle memory still works. I still go for View/Page Source - it's been that way for many years. Why change it? What does it accomplish to change it?
So, do the people who write this software not use it themselves? Do they not have muscle memory? Do they really re-learn where everything is every new release?
I mean, why? Why rearrange everything and trash the user interface? There's no reason for it. I don't understand. I can't process the idea that they just go in and trash everything for no reason.
I don't understand. I am not sure I want to understand. This is crazy, so should not make sense.
More to the point, if I'm going to be stuck using a browser that looks exactly like Chrome, I may as well use Chrome.
I'm basically using Firefox for historical reasons, ie, I'm lazy and I'm disinclined to change without a real need to do so. But I've been forced to change before, from Mosiac, from Netscape Navigator, from Netscape Communicator, and from Mozilla. What's another change?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Most everyone is aware of the ESR. This is just a bandaid over the real problem. Chrome was designed from the very beginning with a rapid release schedule in mind. Release numbers in Chrome are essentially meaningless. Firefox adopted the same rapid release schedule as Chrome in a project that wasn't designed for it either technically or from a project management or project cultural perspective. Firefox gave addon developers the finger as they constantly broke extensions and themes. They carelessly spent valuable resources trying to make Firefox extensions less reliant on versions numbers, which only more badly broke legacy extensions, and rather than using resources to actually help extension authors, they wasted them on semi-automatic systems to catch non-compliant extensions and disable them. Which left users high and dry when they were forced to upgrade (lest they get left behind on security fixes) and lose functionality. More and more UI changes were forced on users, despite in some cases, clear majority opposition. Mozilla has consistently adopted a "we know best" attitude when it comes to what users want. And it shows, with marketshare stagnant. Google is still a major funder of Mozilla, and it's easy to see they think it money well invested. They make Chrome and then pay Mozilla to implode trying to slavishly copy their success.
Who wants to go to an ESR that is a bandaid on a bad system? You just place yourself in the eye of the storm for a short time.
No project can emulate another project and outcompete it. ESR's are not the answer. I personally have moved to PaleMoon. It too is based on a Firefox ESR, but at least they are committed to sane development and user-based UI decisions.