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Mozilla Launches Test Pilot, A Firefox Add-On For Trying Experimental Features (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Test Pilot, a program for trying out experimental Firefox features. To try the new functionality Mozilla is offering for its browser, you have to download a Firefox add-on from testpilot.firefox.com and enable an experiment. The main caveat is that experiments are currently only available in English (though Mozilla promises to add more languages "later this year"). Test Pilot was first introduced for Firefox 3.5, but the new program has been revamped since then, featuring three main components: Activity Stream, Tab Center and Universal Search. Activity Stream is designed to help you navigate your browsing history faster, surfacing your top sites along with highlights from your browsing history and bookmarks. Tab Center displays open tabs vertically along the side of your screen. Mozilla says Universal Search "combines the Awesome Bar history with the Firefox Search drop down menu to give you the best recommendations so you can spend less time sifting through search results and more time enjoying the web."
You are the sucker!
You became bloated and slow. Everyone is using Chrome now because you wouldn't adapt.
Come out with a Firefox Slim and tote it as the fastest browser.
Pirx
It has been in nightly for years.
If they could *just* concentrate on the multi threading performance issues first, I'd gladly jump back to Firefox, but now it's just unbearably slow, freezing the whole browser when a tab freaks out in 2016, please.
If Mozilla was interested in giving users what they wanted some of the highest voted bugs in Bugzilla wouldn't be almost twenty years old. I think Mozilla thinks they know what users want, and if reality conflicts with their ideas they just ignore reality. In short, there's no point in participating in anything Mozilla does if you suffer from any delusion that it's going to result in an improved browser.
Until now you'd often need to be following an issue in bugzilla to even know that an experimental feature exists, and then need to manually edit about:config to enable it (and inevitably lose track of all experimantal features you've enabled somewhere along the way). An addon to advertise and manage these is obvious in hindsight.
Please, spend time on that. Sandbox Add-Ons too so they cannot cause memory leaks.
Simplify or die.
a) It's an addon, so it won't be there unless you install it.
b) Every time they remove a feature from the main firefox people whine horrendously here too. So which is it? should they listen to the slashdotters who whine horribly when features are removed or should they listen to the slashdotters who whine horribly when features aren't removed?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So whats the rule with FF version?
Id it 'odd numbers are good' (like Windows)
or
'even numbers are good' (like Star Trek movies)
yes
Every time they remove a feature from the main firefox people whine horrendously here too. So which is it?
Sounds like different people with different opinions. And its hard to deny that FireFox isn't suffering from some manner of bloat.
I belong to some Yahoo groups - I have no choice in the matter. With all of the battening down of my system, as soon as I go to Yahoo groups, the window goes dark, and a popup shows up telling me about the wonderful new FireFox/Yahoo experience I can have is I install something. It then scrolls up to hide the close window button, and won't let me move it back down for some number of seconds. Then it attempts to track me.
To me, that is something pretty legitimate to complain about. It is certainly another data point when I choose to continue with FireFox or a different browser.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That Mozilla and Opera are really forced since quite some long time to create something not only for the ordinary computer users.
Hating Vivaldi and Brave, but if they are forcing Mozilla and Opera to get visible again from beyond their Chrome imitation rock, there is at least a bit which is good in both of them.
Ah, more time swallowing and less time smelling and chewing. That never goes badly, does it?
I don't think anybody would cry about losing "hello." I feel like the number of whiners about "pocket" would also be pretty low.
WTF? Is all software created by 12 year olds these days?
The problem is they've removed a lot of useful stuff and added a load of shit.
The two groups you mentioned aren't mutually exclusive. I've complained about them adding crap like pocket while removing a great many options and features.
As for who they should listen to, how about the users? They dropped below 10% of the desktop market share (and their share on mobile is practically zero). To be losing users so fast they're clearly getting things very wrong. Instead of continuing to do whatever they want and piss off everyone, why don't they try listening to people for a change and doing what the users ask?
Don't tell me that you think the Chrome settings page is easier to use than the Firefox one; because if you do I'll have to call you a liar.
-SaNo
The problem is they've removed a lot of useful stuff and added a load of shit.
What is "useful" and what is "a load of shit" depends on who you ask.
Nope, not a liar - at least not this time... I've never actually installed Chrome, and it's been a long time since I last used it. But my memory of its setup is 'what setup?', because it seemed that there wasn't much at all in the way of configurability.
I was using Debian when Firefox's Australis interface came out, so I got a reprieve because in whichever release I was on, Iceweasel was a step or two behind the main Firefox releases. When I did get a taste of Australis, I reverted and held back on upgrading. Eventually I found Pale Moon, so my current daily browser experience is pretty much that of Firefox circa Version 25. It's still not as nice as earlier versions of FF but it's stable and I find it quite useable.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
we want less.... as in standards-compliant, add-on capable, modern browser... a BROWSER.. JUST A FUCKING BROWSER. like firefox used to be, 'pre-chrome-copycat phase'
There will be whiners. There always are. People only come online to whine these days. Firefox shouldn't be doing X, they should doing Y. And they'll make it sound like Firefox killed their dog, and that there are no alternatives, and that Firefox is cloning Chrome. And they probably won't have any idea what Mozilla is actually doing, and will refuse to acknowledge anything remotely positive. It's all negativity all the time. Just sample some of the other quality "informed" and "insightful" copypasta right here on this page for an idea of how it will always be. Even if Mozilla somehow cured cancer tomorrow, the comments would reflect how betrayed people feel that they're cloning Chrome.
from the steaming pile of shit that continuous updates has brought us? Will people with this browser add-on get to alpha test new, even more useless changes than the beta testers (aka, the remaining few users of Firefox).
So when do they fix the memory loss problem?
Firefox hangs onto memory and doesn't release it until you close ALL instances of the browser
Firefox has more blinkenlights, bells, whistles, misfeatures, and extraneous junk
Like what?
Firefox isn't going to be succesful if they try to compete with Chrome on their turf. People who want a browser that "just shows webpages" will use Chrome anyway. On the other hand, after Opera's suicide and Microsoft's identity crisis FF could try to win back some popularity by attracting the power users. And while there might not be that many users of advanced features, it's vital for every browser to attract web developers. Especially when we seem to be heading towards a post-standards web, being the developer's platform of choice means that most webpages will support your browser.
And is it really awesome?