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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."
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.
No thank you. Firefox is losing far more functionality than many are comfortable with. We don't need another fucking Chrome/Chromium clone. There are too many already. I use firefox not because it is the fastest browser, but because it is the most powerful and most flexible. And people like you are driving it into the shit-heap of history.
If we focus on speed and ordinary consumers, then Firefox will never win. After all, it's competition for that market is a pair of massive corporations who control the default experience of a huge chunk of users. If you compared what Google can get for free in advertising to Mozilla's budget, I bet you that what Google would charge for equivalent pushing (Featuring it on the google homepage, suggesting it on most search results, and on every translation) exceeds the amount of money Mozilla has available to it for the entire operations of Mozilla. Edge is much the same. Pre-installed on most new computers. The default browser.
You need to have a feature set which justifies switching. Half a percent more speed isn't that feature. Things like being the most extensible browser, being the only one which doesn't track users for the benefit of massive corporations. Things like being customizable beyond just what color your icons are, and what BG image you use. Those might not get most people, but it will bring in the people who want those things. Most of whom are the techies who will install it on computers for themselves, their family, their company. Who will support open source and the Mozilla foundation. Not people who say "The internet is broken" when IE gets deleted from the desktop.
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.
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.