If you find that testing that it is cheaper if you all put some money together to found a small foundation which has the purpose of continuing another development branch, just do so.
So I'm guessing you just repeated the Mozilla Foundations charter, or at least a small portion of it eh?
I imagine if it takes that 50% people *more* to test it, then just use 25% of these people and put them in this foundation to bug fix and security fix old versions.
Yea, or we can just use another browser that does that for us for the same price. You do realize Firefox isn't the only browser... right?
Nobody is stopping you from this (at least no the licenses).
There are lots of people stopping us from doing it, of course, we're stopping ourselves... because rather than doing all that effort because Mozilla can't be bothered to get a clue or put some effort into their products... its far easier to just use something else.
For most businesses, this is nothing more than a 'Why you should continue using IE and not even consider switching to Firefox if you have half a clue'.
As a home user I'm in the same boat, why do I want to do their job so I can use their browser and make them money? If I'm going to have to put a bunch of effort into it, I'll just use IE which is predictable.
If you can tell me why I NEED HTML5, then I'll show some concern. I don't NEED it, hell I don't even WANT it as the only thing it really means... thanks to douches like Mozilla and Google, that I have MORE compatibility issues to worry about. I can do all the HTML5 shit now, it adds no new functionality, but it does add new ways of doing the same thing that won't be supported the same way across browser until AT LEAST 2023, if ever.
But again I ask, please tell me why I NEED these new features. I'm browsing the web right now, and using it on a browser without those new features... seems like if I NEEDED these features, something wouldn't be working right now... but it seems that the web works fine without HTML5.
You need to learn the definition of NEED, and you should probably look up WANT while you're at it, and then go find something that I actually want or need in HTML5 and come back with a reason. Remember, if I can do it now, I don't need a new way to do it.
I don't care about the version numbers, as version systems are entirely arbitrary,
Thats true when you're referring to OSS software. Its pretty much false when referring to everything else.
Major.Minor.Patch.Build.
Build is an internal number.
Patch is for hotfixes and security patches that won't break anything.
Minor is for roll ups or fixes that MAY break something but shouldn't.
Major is for a major noticable change. A UI overhaul or a major restructuring thats certainly going to cause compatibility issues.
This isn't hard to understand, its been that way for 40 years, and the only time it doesn't apply is when OSS is involved.
The only reason you think version numbers are arbitrary is because you play with the younger kids who don't actually know how to play the game, they just mimic what their bigger brothers and sisters do without understanding why. Or in this case, just to follow the other new kid on the block... who also happens to be an infant acting like an idiot (Chrome version numbers).
Some products use the year (Windows 2000), a version number that is not true (Windows 7), or a name that doesn't mean anything (Windows Vista).
Windows 2000 is a name for Windows NT 5. Windows XP is the name for Windows NT 5.1 Windows Vista is the name for Windows 6.0 Windows 7 is the name for Windows 6.1.
Every single one of them has a version number under them that is predictable and understandable, and can be used by software to make intelligent predictions about what its running on.
You can name it one thing... and still keep meaningful version numbers. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.
How sad is it that Microsoft seems to be able to pull it off and Mozilla is unable to do so. Its not like it requires a lot of thought to come up with an idea that has been in the news. Didn't Mozilla even make some retarded comments about Windows 7 having a 6.1 version number as well?
Right, because this problem is unique to Firefox and not common practice in OSS in general. FF is totally unique... and fairies rain down from the sky while blowing bubbles with kittens in them...
Maybe their idea is people should be doin' all their stuff in JS instead of addons and extensions?
Most are already written in JS, the vast majority of the big ones that people love and 'require' are entirely written in JS with no XPCOM native objects themselves.
As for the rest of your post... you're excited that your browser finally caught up to... the way everyone elses browser has been for a while? Awesome. Now next week, when its back to slow as balls again cause they couldn't leave well enough alone, let me know what you think then... in FF 6.
Given the fact that Mozilla users are the recipients of fruits of the hard work of many people and are asked for no compensation of any kind
I'm sorry, what exactly do all the developers the Mozilla Foundation pays getting paid for then? What is the management of the Mozilla Foundation getting paid for then? Where does all that money Google gives them for search referrals go?
Mozilla developers are paid well, so why don't you STFU until you get a clue.
If they'd like to continue getting paid, then they should probably listen to the people who are responsible for their paycheck... the users. Firefox isn't in a monopoly position. There are at least 3 viable alternatives on Windows alone, 4 if you count Safari. All of them offer comparable feature lists. Telling the people who pay your bills they are wrong and don't know what they want is a really stupid business plan.
Why is it that other browsers seem to have little problems maintaining compatibility... yet FF can't do it... partially because they intentionally block old plugins from working on new versions without updating the plugin... by design.
They design the plugin system to automatically disable plugins on new versions... then rapidly release new versions...
Let me give you a hint, a LOT of people who wrote quick plugins have FAR better things to do than keep up with Mozilla's race to catchup with chrome... especially since they can just go to Chrome... which Firefox desperately desires to be and is mimicing more and more often... and make plugins that do continue to function after the browser is updated without a bunch of effort, or Safari, or even IE.
Mozilla is trying to suck start a fully loaded double barrel 12 gauge shotgun... while fingering the trigger. You can figure out where this is going, even if they don't.
I've been doing that since 3.x with no problems, though we've just dropped future support for Firefox due to this BS. Our plugins have claimed 99.* as max version since 3.0 (actually before that but we didn't make them public before 3.0). Maybe you can't upload them to Mozilla with BS version info? Ours are not hosted with Mozilla, so we'd never see that.
No its not, thats a hack and its not a viable option for anything more than some geek running FF at home. Thats fine for you, and thats fine if those are the only people Mozilla wants to use FF. I have a distinct feeling when their paychecks disappear, they'll have a change of heart however.
If you notice its marked as valid till FF7 - which is rather interesting - why don't the add-on designers do the same?
Because its impossible to predict what will break in tomorrows nightly build, let alone what will work 2 to 3 version in advance.
As is typical with most if not all OSS software, there is no plan, no concern for compatibility with existing software, its just 'we'll do what we want to do, don't like it? You have the source! YOU FIX IT!' What you get is a bunch of people that hop on board for a while, but as time goes on, more and more people realize that while it was cool riding the bleeding edge train, you aren't really going anywhere. Meanwhile, all the non-bleeding edge people are getting something done OTHER than spending their time just keeping up with changes to the software.
I would note, that the plugins our company produces claim compatibility to version 99.*, and have since 3.0... because we learned early on Mozilla has their heads up their ass and has no actual plan or direction so theres no point in worrying about compatibility, it may change drastically in a 0.0.1 release, or it may change in no noticeable way in a 4 to 5.x release. Translation: they made their own compatibility checks nothing more than a royal pain in the ass to developers and users while providing absolutely 0 benefit since you can't trust it at all any time.
Doesn't it seem a little fucked up that someone had to create an extension to turn off the checking because it got in the way so much? Does that not let you see the writing on the wall in perfect clarity? Do you need someone from Mozilla to come slap you in the face and scream at you until you get the point?
Actually, setting the max version is a REQUIREMENT according to the documentation.
Which is why we set our max version to 99.*... which of course completely defeats the purpose of having any sort of version checking in the manifest file, and is also against the documentation/Mozilla's wishes.
Which should make it clear that NOBODY put any THOUGHT into WHAT the side effects of such a change would be... they didn't even bother to look INTERNALLY AT THEIR OWN CODEBASE... and their going to tell OTHER companies their wrong?
When the company 'selling' you a product tells you that you're doing it wrong... and they have no reason why other than 'we want to do it this way so we can catch up with chrome!'... well thats an indication of a company you need to not do business with.
Its funny that number of people defending Mozilla's ignorance...
What if this was MS or Apple? You would totally say the EXACT same thing then... WOULDN'T YOU?
You might be the one guy who would, but everyone else defending this would be ranting all day long about how evil MS and Apple are for doing the same thing.
I have better shit to do than keep up with testing against each new flavor of the day from Mozilla. I like to spend my time working on MY products and MY software, not retesting against someone elses interface constantly because they can't manage to write software in a way that it can maintain compatibility.
As of about 30 seconds ago, the decision was made by our company internally to drop support for Firefox until they pull their head out of their ass.
Except that XYZ additive worked just fine... until you took it into the dealer for a minor tuneup... and now, because they intentionally changed the way your engine works which means the additive now is a problem rather than a benefit. The only reason the change happened was because Ford (Google) was doing it too and they want to be like Ford, who is rapidly taking their user base away from them.
The only reason the plugins broke is because they changed the version number. Change one line of text in a text file and they mysteriously work. So mysteriously in fact that someone at Mozilla got the bright idea... well after the fact... to actually bump the version numbers of existing addons and see if they still work. The fact that it was an afterthought should show you that they are unable to manage their product, and that should be the indication of why you want to get away from them.
Excuses are like assholes, every body has one and no one wants to see or hear yours or Mozillas.
When you make a change to your software, and every tech site on the Internet worth its salt that mentions the change has 50% or MORE of their user base calling it a stupid idea... you should probably take the fucking hint. When you think EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD is doing it wrong, chances are... its actually you thats the fuck up.
Still using more memory than every other app (including Xcode and the iOS simulator) combined...
Yea, they're clearly fixing the memory problems... it went from 'holy shit how fucking much memory can you leak with that shitty code' to... 'holy shit your code sucks so bad that you cut it its usage by more than 50% and its STILL bigger than all other apps on my system combined, many apps that actually do something more than the skinning engine that is gecko... including Safari with most of the same pages open.
Firefox regularly has these 'omg we've MADE MASSIVE MEMORY USAGE IMPROVEMENTS@#!@#%@#$^@#$^' and its still worse than everyone else by miles... and it immediately starts ramping back up until the next cycle where everyone points out how shitty they are at wasting ram. Rinse, repeat cycle.
Why is it 'bad'. Security? Which can be patched easy enough.
Why is an old browser bad? What new features does firefox 5 have that I can't live without? For that matter, what new features did 4 or 3 have that I MUST HAVE to browse the web.
Let me answer it for you: None.
Were there new features? Yep. Do I need them? Nope. Do I want them? Nope, can't even come up with a reason most of these new features exist in the first place other than the fact that someone somewhere needed to do something in order to keep their job.
The web really isn't all that fast moving, the technology doesn't really change, just the skin on the websites. I realize you can't tell the difference between the two, but some of us can, and we know your statement is just silly and ignorant.
The web moves far slower than you think it does, you've just been caught up in the 'ohohooh SHINY!@$!@$' race so long you can't tell the difference between a new feature and some crafty javascript.
Some consider MS patches safe and just roll them out, it generally works, we're small enough that its not likely to be a problem for instance. They rarely break things without stating what things they are going to break in advance, for the most part, MS does a massive amount of testing before release. Even though its Microsoft, most people have very little worry about applying MS patches if they read the documentation on the patches.
Many don't follow patch tuesday as in a sane network its not really that needed to keep up. With proper network segmentation and firewalling, the chances of a remote exploit getting into the network are slim, and if it does, it'll be contained to a segment that can be dealt with in a manageable way. So you don't really have to keep up with patch tuesday because your network parameter keeps the bad stuff outside the walls, allowing you more leeway to bunch up several patches and release them to your network after they've ran the gambit of tests.
The last large organization I worked at did 3 month cycles for Windows updates, meaning all installed patches were generally +4 months old, and it wasn't a problem. This however would result in Firefox being removed from PCs, its not worth the headache. They can just use IE and a filtering proxy and not worry about security problems and following some idiotic schedule that Mozilla comes up with.
Every single plugin that doesn't claim it supports firefox 5 in its extension manifest so that FF disables it automatically?
You do realize that not every plugin is on Mozilla's site right? Our company for instance would never publish our plugins on Mozilla's site, it'd be rather stupid to have to deal with support questions from people who don't realize no matter how big and bold you make the text that they have to already have a subscription to our service in order for the plugin to be useful to them.
Then of course there are internal extensions used by companies.
You, like the Mozilla Foundation live in a very short sighted bubble, not reality.
Right up until the release of 6, when Mozilla once again tells us, the users of their products, that we're doing it wrong, and makes Firefox disable any plugin that claims to support a version newer than itself, because we, the consumers of their product don't know if those plugins are really up to date... or whatever stupid idiotic reason they spew out in response to the next uproar people have.
Mozilla doesn't know what APIs a plugin uses until it uses them, plugins are loaded using late linking and dynamic resolution, you can't know in advance without executing it to hit every single possible code path.
The fact that you're even suggesting it means you're missing the point.
The fact that Mozilla is being so utterly retarded and doing this, subjecting there users to known issues every couple of months, intentionally, while telling them they are wrong for wanting it any other way illustrates the problem perfectly.
The problem is not specifically that the plugins are disabled and its annoying, thats only a symptom of the problem.
The problem is that the management and leadership of the Mozilla Foundation don't give a flying fuck about their users and are unable to plan for the future and lead the project to a goal that you would want as and end user. Its like the president and congress saying 'we don't need highways, use off road vehicals and we're going to spend the tax money on our condo in the islands.', and your response being something like 'yea, but we can just use 4x4s to get around, its not really that big of a deal.'
Okay, so thats a bit of an exaggeration, but the instant you heard that from congress and the president you'd know they were barking mad and the first thing the entire country would do is have a revolution which resulted in congress and the president being buried and a freshly paved highway.
But instead, you're fawning over Mozilla and defending them when you should be jumping ship before it sinks.
You can work around this one symptom, but your still going to die a long slow horrible death if you follow Mozilla down the path its taking. Euthanasia is a far better idea here, unless you also happen to be one of those die hard netscape navigator users, in which case, you deserve what you get for again following them down the same path as before when the writing is very cleanly and neatly written on the wall.
You do have 3rd party addons installed, but they were smart enough to lie in there extension manifest and say they supported versions of Firefox before those versions were actually created, basically working around the plugin check built into Firefox so it never thinks your plugins are incompatible regardless of what version you happen to be running. This is what I do for our software, its easiest to do and deals with the fact that the FF devs are morons who cut off their on face to spite their nose.
You didn't notice the updates as Firefox tries to take care of this itself on update. This is the most likely.
You are a liar, which I have no reason to see as the case.
Yes, the Frozen API... which is stable... until the next release where they depreciate the methods you're using because they've replaced them with new methods.
The whole @frozen API is a joke. The only things frozen are so old they've been forgotten. Everything you actually want to use isn't frozen because they can't design software, they just throw it together and see how it works, fucking with it until it works pretty good... then they mark it as frozen.... 7 years later, when they've replaced it with a new API anyway.
I'm forced to maintain a firefox and thunderbird extension I created to integrate with our products, so I know just a little bit about how their API lives its life. I also was the poor sap who had to attempt to embed gecko into our applications for HTML previewing, so I learned far far more about the internals of Gecko than I ever wanted to know.
Their problems are systemic, and it shows in the code. No leadership and developer anarchy will be the Mozilla Foundations downfall, as we're already witnessing.
The next version of firefox released will be version 59.
Now, you've won the retard version war, and you can get back to being sain and useful.
Of course, this article title pretty accurately reflects the ignorance and stupidity that makes up the Mozilla Foundation. Its hard to believe they can be as ignorant and really, just so fucking arrogant... you'd think after their first company failed miserably the idiots would have gotten a clue. Nope, they didn't Mozilla will follow Netscape into the dirty because the people running the company think they know whats better for their consumers than their consumers do.
There may be some company where thats true, but Netscape has never been that company, they are just a bunch of developers with no leadership, everyone does whatever they want and has no concept of a long term plan. Yes, I know they claim to 'have a long term plan' that this versioning change is part of... the problem is, in 2 months, they'll have a whole new long term plan, JetPack2, or some new skinning system thats going to revolutionize browsing by making it even more obnoxious... or something else so retarded I can't possibly come up with the idea myself.
This is an example of why using Firefox is a bad idea, its clear the developers don't actually know what they are doing. While there may be SOME developers with a clue (obviously, since firefox made it to where it is today) but you're taking a big risk with Mozilla than you are with Microsoft. Firefox may be open source, but with all the bitching about various Firefox changes, I've yet to see a fork that matter to anyone, so clearly the open source aspect is irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Reality is what it is. Unless you're delusional like Mozilla.
If you find that testing that it is cheaper if you all put some money together to found a small foundation which has the purpose of continuing another development branch, just do so.
So I'm guessing you just repeated the Mozilla Foundations charter, or at least a small portion of it eh?
I imagine if it takes that 50% people *more* to test it, then just use 25% of these people and put them in this foundation to bug fix and security fix old versions.
Yea, or we can just use another browser that does that for us for the same price. You do realize Firefox isn't the only browser ... right?
Nobody is stopping you from this (at least no the licenses).
There are lots of people stopping us from doing it, of course, we're stopping ourselves ... because rather than doing all that effort because Mozilla can't be bothered to get a clue or put some effort into their products ... its far easier to just use something else.
For most businesses, this is nothing more than a 'Why you should continue using IE and not even consider switching to Firefox if you have half a clue'.
As a home user I'm in the same boat, why do I want to do their job so I can use their browser and make them money? If I'm going to have to put a bunch of effort into it, I'll just use IE which is predictable.
If you can tell me why I NEED HTML5, then I'll show some concern. I don't NEED it, hell I don't even WANT it as the only thing it really means ... thanks to douches like Mozilla and Google, that I have MORE compatibility issues to worry about. I can do all the HTML5 shit now, it adds no new functionality, but it does add new ways of doing the same thing that won't be supported the same way across browser until AT LEAST 2023, if ever.
But again I ask, please tell me why I NEED these new features. I'm browsing the web right now, and using it on a browser without those new features ... seems like if I NEEDED these features, something wouldn't be working right now ... but it seems that the web works fine without HTML5.
You need to learn the definition of NEED, and you should probably look up WANT while you're at it, and then go find something that I actually want or need in HTML5 and come back with a reason. Remember, if I can do it now, I don't need a new way to do it.
I don't care about the version numbers, as version systems are entirely arbitrary,
Thats true when you're referring to OSS software. Its pretty much false when referring to everything else.
Major.Minor.Patch.Build.
Build is an internal number.
Patch is for hotfixes and security patches that won't break anything.
Minor is for roll ups or fixes that MAY break something but shouldn't.
Major is for a major noticable change. A UI overhaul or a major restructuring thats certainly going to cause compatibility issues.
This isn't hard to understand, its been that way for 40 years, and the only time it doesn't apply is when OSS is involved.
The only reason you think version numbers are arbitrary is because you play with the younger kids who don't actually know how to play the game, they just mimic what their bigger brothers and sisters do without understanding why. Or in this case, just to follow the other new kid on the block ... who also happens to be an infant acting like an idiot (Chrome version numbers).
Some products use the year (Windows 2000), a version number that is not true (Windows 7), or a name that doesn't mean anything (Windows Vista).
Windows 2000 is a name for Windows NT 5.
Windows XP is the name for Windows NT 5.1
Windows Vista is the name for Windows 6.0
Windows 7 is the name for Windows 6.1.
Every single one of them has a version number under them that is predictable and understandable, and can be used by software to make intelligent predictions about what its running on.
You can name it one thing ... and still keep meaningful version numbers. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.
How sad is it that Microsoft seems to be able to pull it off and Mozilla is unable to do so. Its not like it requires a lot of thought to come up with an idea that has been in the news. Didn't Mozilla even make some retarded comments about Windows 7 having a 6.1 version number as well?
Right, because this problem is unique to Firefox and not common practice in OSS in general. FF is totally unique ... and fairies rain down from the sky while blowing bubbles with kittens in them ...
Maybe their idea is people should be doin' all their stuff in JS instead of addons and extensions?
Most are already written in JS, the vast majority of the big ones that people love and 'require' are entirely written in JS with no XPCOM native objects themselves.
As for the rest of your post ... you're excited that your browser finally caught up to ... the way everyone elses browser has been for a while? Awesome. Now next week, when its back to slow as balls again cause they couldn't leave well enough alone, let me know what you think then ... in FF 6.
Given the fact that Mozilla users are the recipients of fruits of the hard work of many people and are asked for no compensation of any kind
I'm sorry, what exactly do all the developers the Mozilla Foundation pays getting paid for then? What is the management of the Mozilla Foundation getting paid for then? Where does all that money Google gives them for search referrals go?
Mozilla developers are paid well, so why don't you STFU until you get a clue.
If they'd like to continue getting paid, then they should probably listen to the people who are responsible for their paycheck ... the users. Firefox isn't in a monopoly position. There are at least 3 viable alternatives on Windows alone, 4 if you count Safari. All of them offer comparable feature lists. Telling the people who pay your bills they are wrong and don't know what they want is a really stupid business plan.
And what happens when they don't update them?
Why is it that other browsers seem to have little problems maintaining compatibility ... yet FF can't do it ... partially because they intentionally block old plugins from working on new versions without updating the plugin ... by design.
They design the plugin system to automatically disable plugins on new versions ... then rapidly release new versions ...
Let me give you a hint, a LOT of people who wrote quick plugins have FAR better things to do than keep up with Mozilla's race to catchup with chrome ... especially since they can just go to Chrome ... which Firefox desperately desires to be and is mimicing more and more often ... and make plugins that do continue to function after the browser is updated without a bunch of effort, or Safari, or even IE.
Mozilla is trying to suck start a fully loaded double barrel 12 gauge shotgun ... while fingering the trigger. You can figure out where this is going, even if they don't.
Since when? 5.x?
I've been doing that since 3.x with no problems, though we've just dropped future support for Firefox due to this BS. Our plugins have claimed 99.* as max version since 3.0 (actually before that but we didn't make them public before 3.0). Maybe you can't upload them to Mozilla with BS version info? Ours are not hosted with Mozilla, so we'd never see that.
but for now its a good enough fix.
No its not, thats a hack and its not a viable option for anything more than some geek running FF at home. Thats fine for you, and thats fine if those are the only people Mozilla wants to use FF. I have a distinct feeling when their paychecks disappear, they'll have a change of heart however.
If you notice its marked as valid till FF7 - which is rather interesting - why don't the add-on designers do the same?
Because its impossible to predict what will break in tomorrows nightly build, let alone what will work 2 to 3 version in advance.
As is typical with most if not all OSS software, there is no plan, no concern for compatibility with existing software, its just 'we'll do what we want to do, don't like it? You have the source! YOU FIX IT!' What you get is a bunch of people that hop on board for a while, but as time goes on, more and more people realize that while it was cool riding the bleeding edge train, you aren't really going anywhere. Meanwhile, all the non-bleeding edge people are getting something done OTHER than spending their time just keeping up with changes to the software.
I would note, that the plugins our company produces claim compatibility to version 99.*, and have since 3.0 ... because we learned early on Mozilla has their heads up their ass and has no actual plan or direction so theres no point in worrying about compatibility, it may change drastically in a 0.0.1 release, or it may change in no noticeable way in a 4 to 5.x release. Translation: they made their own compatibility checks nothing more than a royal pain in the ass to developers and users while providing absolutely 0 benefit since you can't trust it at all any time.
Doesn't it seem a little fucked up that someone had to create an extension to turn off the checking because it got in the way so much? Does that not let you see the writing on the wall in perfect clarity? Do you need someone from Mozilla to come slap you in the face and scream at you until you get the point?
set a max version even if it's not needed.
Actually, setting the max version is a REQUIREMENT according to the documentation.
Which is why we set our max version to 99.* ... which of course completely defeats the purpose of having any sort of version checking in the manifest file, and is also against the documentation/Mozilla's wishes.
Which should make it clear that NOBODY put any THOUGHT into WHAT the side effects of such a change would be ... they didn't even bother to look INTERNALLY AT THEIR OWN CODEBASE ... and their going to tell OTHER companies their wrong?
When the company 'selling' you a product tells you that you're doing it wrong ... and they have no reason why other than 'we want to do it this way so we can catch up with chrome!' ... well thats an indication of a company you need to not do business with.
Its funny that number of people defending Mozilla's ignorance ...
What if this was MS or Apple? You would totally say the EXACT same thing then ... WOULDN'T YOU?
You might be the one guy who would, but everyone else defending this would be ranting all day long about how evil MS and Apple are for doing the same thing.
So you think FF5 made your Java VM faster?
You have absolutely no idea what Java is or how it works in a browser, do you?
As a plugin author I'll tell you why.
I have better shit to do than keep up with testing against each new flavor of the day from Mozilla. I like to spend my time working on MY products and MY software, not retesting against someone elses interface constantly because they can't manage to write software in a way that it can maintain compatibility.
As of about 30 seconds ago, the decision was made by our company internally to drop support for Firefox until they pull their head out of their ass.
Except that XYZ additive worked just fine ... until you took it into the dealer for a minor tuneup ... and now, because they intentionally changed the way your engine works which means the additive now is a problem rather than a benefit. The only reason the change happened was because Ford (Google) was doing it too and they want to be like Ford, who is rapidly taking their user base away from them.
The only reason the plugins broke is because they changed the version number. Change one line of text in a text file and they mysteriously work. So mysteriously in fact that someone at Mozilla got the bright idea ... well after the fact ... to actually bump the version numbers of existing addons and see if they still work. The fact that it was an afterthought should show you that they are unable to manage their product, and that should be the indication of why you want to get away from them.
Excuses are like assholes, every body has one and no one wants to see or hear yours or Mozillas.
When you make a change to your software, and every tech site on the Internet worth its salt that mentions the change has 50% or MORE of their user base calling it a stupid idea ... you should probably take the fucking hint. When you think EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD is doing it wrong, chances are ... its actually you thats the fuck up.
Yea, its using far less memory ...
Still using more memory than every other app (including Xcode and the iOS simulator) combined ...
Yea, they're clearly fixing the memory problems ... it went from 'holy shit how fucking much memory can you leak with that shitty code' to ... 'holy shit your code sucks so bad that you cut it its usage by more than 50% and its STILL bigger than all other apps on my system combined, many apps that actually do something more than the skinning engine that is gecko ... including Safari with most of the same pages open.
Firefox regularly has these 'omg we've MADE MASSIVE MEMORY USAGE IMPROVEMENTS@#!@#%@#$^@#$^' and its still worse than everyone else by miles ... and it immediately starts ramping back up until the next cycle where everyone points out how shitty they are at wasting ram. Rinse, repeat cycle.
Citation needed.
Why is it 'bad'. Security? Which can be patched easy enough.
Why is an old browser bad? What new features does firefox 5 have that I can't live without? For that matter, what new features did 4 or 3 have that I MUST HAVE to browse the web.
Let me answer it for you: None.
Were there new features? Yep. Do I need them? Nope. Do I want them? Nope, can't even come up with a reason most of these new features exist in the first place other than the fact that someone somewhere needed to do something in order to keep their job.
The web really isn't all that fast moving, the technology doesn't really change, just the skin on the websites. I realize you can't tell the difference between the two, but some of us can, and we know your statement is just silly and ignorant.
The web moves far slower than you think it does, you've just been caught up in the 'ohohooh SHINY!@$!@$' race so long you can't tell the difference between a new feature and some crafty javascript.
Depends on the organization.
Some consider MS patches safe and just roll them out, it generally works, we're small enough that its not likely to be a problem for instance. They rarely break things without stating what things they are going to break in advance, for the most part, MS does a massive amount of testing before release. Even though its Microsoft, most people have very little worry about applying MS patches if they read the documentation on the patches.
Many don't follow patch tuesday as in a sane network its not really that needed to keep up. With proper network segmentation and firewalling, the chances of a remote exploit getting into the network are slim, and if it does, it'll be contained to a segment that can be dealt with in a manageable way. So you don't really have to keep up with patch tuesday because your network parameter keeps the bad stuff outside the walls, allowing you more leeway to bunch up several patches and release them to your network after they've ran the gambit of tests.
The last large organization I worked at did 3 month cycles for Windows updates, meaning all installed patches were generally +4 months old, and it wasn't a problem. This however would result in Firefox being removed from PCs, its not worth the headache. They can just use IE and a filtering proxy and not worry about security problems and following some idiotic schedule that Mozilla comes up with.
Every single plugin that doesn't claim it supports firefox 5 in its extension manifest so that FF disables it automatically?
You do realize that not every plugin is on Mozilla's site right? Our company for instance would never publish our plugins on Mozilla's site, it'd be rather stupid to have to deal with support questions from people who don't realize no matter how big and bold you make the text that they have to already have a subscription to our service in order for the plugin to be useful to them.
Then of course there are internal extensions used by companies.
You, like the Mozilla Foundation live in a very short sighted bubble, not reality.
Because for the same price there are several other browsers that actually do get supported and maintain sane, normal, expectable release cycles.
OSS is the only place you see version number ignorance for no actual reason.
Its also the only place where the developers continually tell the consumers what they want is wrong.
Right up until the release of 6, when Mozilla once again tells us, the users of their products, that we're doing it wrong, and makes Firefox disable any plugin that claims to support a version newer than itself, because we, the consumers of their product don't know if those plugins are really up to date ... or whatever stupid idiotic reason they spew out in response to the next uproar people have.
Mozilla doesn't know what APIs a plugin uses until it uses them, plugins are loaded using late linking and dynamic resolution, you can't know in advance without executing it to hit every single possible code path.
The fact that you're even suggesting it means you're missing the point.
The fact that Mozilla is being so utterly retarded and doing this, subjecting there users to known issues every couple of months, intentionally, while telling them they are wrong for wanting it any other way illustrates the problem perfectly.
The problem is not specifically that the plugins are disabled and its annoying, thats only a symptom of the problem.
The problem is that the management and leadership of the Mozilla Foundation don't give a flying fuck about their users and are unable to plan for the future and lead the project to a goal that you would want as and end user. Its like the president and congress saying 'we don't need highways, use off road vehicals and we're going to spend the tax money on our condo in the islands.', and your response being something like 'yea, but we can just use 4x4s to get around, its not really that big of a deal.'
Okay, so thats a bit of an exaggeration, but the instant you heard that from congress and the president you'd know they were barking mad and the first thing the entire country would do is have a revolution which resulted in congress and the president being buried and a freshly paved highway.
But instead, you're fawning over Mozilla and defending them when you should be jumping ship before it sinks.
You can work around this one symptom, but your still going to die a long slow horrible death if you follow Mozilla down the path its taking. Euthanasia is a far better idea here, unless you also happen to be one of those die hard netscape navigator users, in which case, you deserve what you get for again following them down the same path as before when the writing is very cleanly and neatly written on the wall.
One of the following must be true:
You don't have any 3rd party addons installed.
You do have 3rd party addons installed, but they were smart enough to lie in there extension manifest and say they supported versions of Firefox before those versions were actually created, basically working around the plugin check built into Firefox so it never thinks your plugins are incompatible regardless of what version you happen to be running. This is what I do for our software, its easiest to do and deals with the fact that the FF devs are morons who cut off their on face to spite their nose.
You didn't notice the updates as Firefox tries to take care of this itself on update. This is the most likely.
You are a liar, which I have no reason to see as the case.
Yes, the Frozen API ... which is stable ... until the next release where they depreciate the methods you're using because they've replaced them with new methods.
The whole @frozen API is a joke. The only things frozen are so old they've been forgotten. Everything you actually want to use isn't frozen because they can't design software, they just throw it together and see how it works, fucking with it until it works pretty good ... then they mark it as frozen .... 7 years later, when they've replaced it with a new API anyway.
I'm forced to maintain a firefox and thunderbird extension I created to integrate with our products, so I know just a little bit about how their API lives its life. I also was the poor sap who had to attempt to embed gecko into our applications for HTML previewing, so I learned far far more about the internals of Gecko than I ever wanted to know.
Their problems are systemic, and it shows in the code. No leadership and developer anarchy will be the Mozilla Foundations downfall, as we're already witnessing.
Sure it will, be honest about what you're doing.
The next version of firefox released will be version 59.
Now, you've won the retard version war, and you can get back to being sain and useful.
Of course, this article title pretty accurately reflects the ignorance and stupidity that makes up the Mozilla Foundation. Its hard to believe they can be as ignorant and really, just so fucking arrogant ... you'd think after their first company failed miserably the idiots would have gotten a clue. Nope, they didn't Mozilla will follow Netscape into the dirty because the people running the company think they know whats better for their consumers than their consumers do.
There may be some company where thats true, but Netscape has never been that company, they are just a bunch of developers with no leadership, everyone does whatever they want and has no concept of a long term plan. Yes, I know they claim to 'have a long term plan' that this versioning change is part of ... the problem is, in 2 months, they'll have a whole new long term plan, JetPack2, or some new skinning system thats going to revolutionize browsing by making it even more obnoxious ... or something else so retarded I can't possibly come up with the idea myself.
This is an example of why using Firefox is a bad idea, its clear the developers don't actually know what they are doing. While there may be SOME developers with a clue (obviously, since firefox made it to where it is today) but you're taking a big risk with Mozilla than you are with Microsoft. Firefox may be open source, but with all the bitching about various Firefox changes, I've yet to see a fork that matter to anyone, so clearly the open source aspect is irrelevant.