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Mozilla Kills Its Experimental Firefox Test Pilot Program 3 Years After Launch (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

Mozilla has announced that it is closing Firefox Test Pilot, an experimental program it launched three years ago. Firefox Test Pilot allowed users to try out potential new built-in Firefox features and offer feedback to the browser maker. The company says the program was used by an average of 100,000 daily users. A report adds: It's worth noting here that Test Pilot is separate from the various beta versions of Firefox, which are early iterations designed to fine-tune features intended for the prime-time Firefox. Test Pilot, on the other hand, is more about Mozilla dipping its toes in the water to see whether a new feature is worth pursuing at all in the main version of the app, or even as a standalone product. Ultimately, it allows Firefox developers to take bigger risks with their ideas.

9 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Mozilla kills everything it touches. by xack · · Score: 1

    Eventually it will use Blink. It's only a matter of time. They said they wouldn't change the interface, they said they wouldn't drop XUL, they said they wouldn't add telemetry, they said they wouldn't do anymore "experiments" and they will sell out to their Google masters. And if you're going to say it, Pale Moon already sold out blocking noscript and other blocking tools. The Googlization is an open source wide problem, getting Blinked is the same trend as getting Electroned or SystemD'ed

    1. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      Well surely all the super-smart people here would be able to develop with their own browser that wouldn't have those issues and also be widely adopted because it'd be the best, right?

    2. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by Bradmont · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem is that software doesn't get adopted for being the best, it gets adopted by being well marketed, which is pretty much antithetical to FLOSS software, unless it's sponsored by a massive company, like Google's rendering engine.

    3. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Informative

      And if you're going to say it, Pale Moon already sold out blocking noscript and other blocking tools.

      Huh?

      I'm reading /. with current PaleMoon, with NoScript, right now.

      So, what are you talking about?

    4. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by BlackOverflow · · Score: 1

      That's wierd, because I'm using Palemoon with noscript running right as I type this. I agree with you on everything else, though.

    5. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Uhhh Pale Moon just replaced NoScript with uBlock Origin due to issues with NoScript ABE support (and the guy running NoScript adding sites to the default allow list for extra revenue) and they even added a handy extension that downloads the latest version compatible with PM so you don't need to know which version works with FF and which with PM. Works quite well.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:Mozilla kills everything it touches. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He probably meant the drama around Pale Moon's behavior when installing NoScript.

      Since NoScript "broke too many things", the developers pushed a patch in one of the versions which disabled the extension. Along with that, any attempts to install produced a warning whose message wasn't really helpful. You could re-enable and ignore the warning, but it was a pretty shitty move for the devs to disable an extension.

      They patched it out later due to user feedback (and backlash).

  2. Re:and they dont care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they cared when feedback data showed that most users hated the new "features".

  3. Re:and they dont care by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

    The company says the program was used by an average of 100,000 daily users.

    So the entire remaining Firefox user base was using it? That's a pretty impressive participation rate.