firefox Firefox Developer:

[Nick H. Supervisor]

There?s no UI better than one you already know, and no UI worse than one you thought you knew but now have to relearn.

And people wonder why I'm not a fan of Windows 8...

I agree with the article. Since Firefox went for their rapid updates it's become less usable (although I persevere and continue to use it) and more time-consuming than practical. But will Mozilla listen to people and return to their regular update pattern? I hope so, but I also doubt it.

[Sub_Zero_Alchemist]

they should have kept the old release model. it was easier for businesses to mentally adapt and for addon devs as well.

basically when mozilla did this they said **** you to thier userbase.

they felt like they had to copy of chrome in UI and release and look what happens.... people say "firefox is trying to be chrome... might as well use chrome then"

and they did have a fair amount on suckups and lots of the dev leads couldnt get thier heads out of thier asses. tons of people protested a lot of the changes that dug thier grave and they wouldn't listen to us....

They should of,could of but mozilla didn't (I'm glad mozilla went with the faster model). The old release model was just not cutting anymore. That what Firefox ESR is for, businesses or users that dont want to be on the faster release model.

[Lunfai]

Chrome does.. but here's the funny thing.. If you aren't a "power user", you have no idea.. Google doesn't advertise there version, it's just always Chrome.. Not "Download Chrome 20 NOW" or anything..

I don't use FF a loot, I'll admit it.. I've never been a big fan.. In earlier versions it was a good browser imho, but the UI didn't do much for me, and I for one hated the community.. [ If you aren't running FF you were an idiot, regardless of reasons.. ] But as a web developer I've always had it installed, and use it one or more times a week.. [ at least till I went between jobs.. ]

Anyway, it was always prompting for installing updates.. If it wasn't the browser itself, it was an addon.. and that gets annoying, when I fire up a browser, I have **** to do. I don't want to download, and install, and relaunch.. I wanna get my stuff done. Now. That's one of the great things about Chrome, it was always in the background.. install when you close, not when you open..

Now I've been told that FF has a silent update now.. that's great.. but I gotta imagine at least a few people got tired of the constant nagging..

In any case, I'm not gonna move to FF.. I hate the UI, don't like how it needs addons for everything to make it useful, and I have always found it to be the most unstable of all the browsers I use.. apart from the Canary builds of Chrome.. But even FF Stable crashes more for me than Chrome Dev..

Another thing they can take a hint on, it pick a interface, and stick with it. Look at Chrome, from original release till now, the UI has had all but the most minor changes to the browser itself [ settings and such have had more drastic changes.. but not the day to day stuff ].. FF is constantly changing.. not massive changes like IE sometimes does between major releases, but still..

Change for improvement is good, but change for the sake of change isn't.. I always got the impression, most changes were "Look, new version, it's not the same, See!" ..

The rolling eyes were implying that he was being sarcastic hehe.

But chrome did very well with how it's handling updates, I used to love Firefox 1.6 but I really didn't care about what browser I was using as long as it wasn't IE6. Firefox has had a lot of revisions but it's not necessarily a bad thing, firefox will always have being requiring it's main option of using add ons that's not available anywhere else. Chrome is fine for general consumers, just turns out that chromium is a bunch of very good developers that's exceeds the general consumerism.

[remixedcat]

They should of,could of but mozilla didn't (I'm glad mozilla went with the faster model). The old release model was just not cutting anymore. That what Firefox ESR is for, businesses or users that dont want to be on the faster release model.

why do you like the faster model? addons keep getting broken and the version number hack doesn't work with all addons....

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

why do you like the faster model? addons keep getting broken and the version number hack doesn't work with all addons....

From http://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2012/01/27/compatibility-for-firefox-11/ :

Starting with Firefox 10, add-ons will default to compatible.

Which add-ons do you use which are broken by Firefox stable releases (no, bitching about breakage in Beta/Aurora/Nightly does not count)?

Have you contacted the authors of the broken add-ons about it? Usually it's their fault for hardcoding a max version number into the add-on.

Lastly, how many bloody add-ons does the average user really need? I don't get people who install 25 Firefox add-ons, then complain because a) half of them are broken because the add-on programmer neglects to update his software and b) the sheer amount of add-ons slows down the browser.

[remixedcat]

most video downloader addons are broken by updates... and this is even after 10.0.... specially realplayer downloader.... they CONSTANTLY get complaints on thier FB page about this.

and I normally only have 8-10 in Chrome...

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

most video downloader addons are broken by updates... and this is even after 10.0.... specially realplayer downloader.... they CONSTANTLY get complaints on thier FB page about this.

and I normally only have 8-10 in Chrome...

Then tell the add-on programmers to fix their **** instead of blaming Mozilla. Or use better maintained add-ons.

[Kelxin]

Or ... just stop using firefox. /fixed

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Or ... just stop using firefox. /fixed

remixedcat can use Crazy Browser or whatever else tickles her fancy as far as I'm concerned. What irks me is the constant blaming of Mozilla for an issue which isn't really their fault.

[Ryoken]

What irks me is the constant blaming of Mozilla for an issue which isn't really their fault.

Speaking of which, why hasn't Mozilla stopped the killing in Syria ? If Open Source was really so powerful, they should have been able to take down Assad by now..

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Speaking of which, why hasn't Mozilla stopped the killing in Syria ? If Open Source was really so powerful, they should have been able to take down Assad by now..

Now you're just trolling. Where have I claimed Open Source was superior?

All I am saying is: Firefox, while not without its flaws, is still a damn good browser. Yes, the rapid release versions also. And blaming Mozilla for the laziness of some add-on programmers like it is all too common is moronic.

[Ryoken]

It was a joke :p

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

It was a joke :p

As a joke it was a 6/10 on the warwagon scale.

[Growled Member]

I hope he doesn't understand how badly you just dissed him. :p

[ZeroFearX]

I am happy to learn that I am not the only that see it this way.

This is one of the reason I switched to Chrome. The other one was that Flash was crashing every 5 minutes and I had to restart the whole browser every time. (Thanks to flash ads).

[Noir Angel]

You may know better , but toolbars do exist , they come from utorrent , anti viruses and many other softwares. Anyways , let's not turn it to chrome discussion thread :)

I use uTorrent and I've never seen toolbars in Chrome from it.

[mancode20]

I spoke too soon! What did Mozilla do to my beloved Firefox 14? Beta 11 was lightning fast!! I updated to Beta 12, and everything seems kind of sluggish now. Anyone else notice that? I'm using the portable version from PortableApps. I thought it might've been because of an extension, Pocket (Formerly Read It Later) that just updated, but even disabling it doesn't change anything. I'm going to either install the newest Flash that was just released and see if that makes a difference, or just go back to Beta 11. Only problem is, how do I do that? PortableApps only lists Beta 9, so I'd have to update twice, I guess. Does anyone have a link to Beta 11 in Portable Format? Why Mozilla, why? You changed something and messed it up again! It was working great in Beta 11!! I hope they get it fixed for the next Beta or Final Release. The weird thing is, it seems like sometimes it works really fast and smooth, and other times it becomes sluggish. I suspect it's because this version is taxing the CPU more. I can't think of another reason why it would be doing this. Man, it was so perfect and fast in Beta 11!! It must be a change to the way it renders or something. Change it back, Mozilla!!

[theyarecomingforyou]

All I am saying is: Firefox, while not without its flaws, is still a damn good browser. Yes, the rapid release versions also. And blaming Mozilla for the laziness of some add-on programmers like it is all too common is moronic.

The criticism regarding add-ons is valid, as the add-on system itself is flawed. It's one of the reasons I ended up moving to Chrome. With Chrome I've never been prompted to update an add-on, never had one disabled because of a conflict and never had any erratic behaviour resulting from their presence. Whereas Firefox was prompting me to update add-ons almost every time I started the browser, they'd regularly be disabled because of version conflicts and they'd even corrupt the user profile.

So while Firefox is certainly a decent browser, it is certainly due some criticism. I'm sure the situation has improved a lot since I moved away but impressions last. Chrome provides a seamless user experience, even when updating between major versions.

[farmeunit]

It wasn't the updates. Updates are good - it was the slowness and general crappiness of the browser that put me back on IE.

That's why I can't stand to use IE. IE9 is a little better, but I'm always getting prompted to disable plugins, or something it seems with it.

[xankazo]

It's not the updates, it's the inconsistency of the updates. This version Firefox is good, is fast and reliable and bang, the next version they include something that breaks compatibility and makes the whole experience crappy at best.

I switched to Chrome and I really like it. I still miss a few features that Firefox's nailed right, though. Things like:

-centered images view (and no white background)

-opening downloaded files directly

-remembering different downloading folders for different file types

-and others.

[mancode20]

Update: I stand by what I said about Beta 10 and Beta 11 rendering faster than Beta 12, but I think I have solved my Flash crashing problems by going back to version 11.2.202.235. Everyone should stay away from Flash 11.3!! This new protected mode is causing crashes. Yes, even with the newest version (11.3.300.265) that is supposed to fix the crashes. 11.2 seems to be running great so far!! Sorry, Mozilla. I may have been too harsh on you. Way to screw everything up, Adobe!!

[xankazo]

Update: I stand by what I said about Beta 10 and Beta 11 rendering faster than Beta 12, but I think I have solved my Flash crashing problems by going back to version 11.2.202.235. Everyone should stay away from Flash 11.3!! This new protected mode is causing crashes. Yes, even with the newest version (11.3.300.265) that is supposed to fix the crashes. 11.2 seems to be running great so far!! Sorry, Mozilla. I may have been too harsh on you. Way to screw everything up, Adobe!!

Yeah, Flash 11.3 is a nightmare for Firefox. Apart from the crashing, there are some other nuisance, like stealing focus away from Firefox's windows by the Flash process, ever since this sandboxing started.

[mancode20]

Yeah, Flash 11.3 is a nightmare for Firefox. Apart from the crashing, there are some other nuisance, like stealing focus away from Firefox's windows by the Flash process, ever since this sandboxing started.

Yeah, you're telling me! It DOES NOT WORK WELL with Firefox 14 Beta 12 either. It was crashing sites like nba.com and espn.com that have a lot of Flash content. I finally said screw it, and went back to Firefox 14 Beta 10 and Flash 11.2. Things seem to be working great now!

[hagjohn]

Update: I stand by what I said about Beta 10 and Beta 11 rendering faster than Beta 12, but I think I have solved my Flash crashing problems by going back to version 11.2.202.235. Everyone should stay away from Flash 11.3!! This new protected mode is causing crashes. Yes, even with the newest version (11.3.300.265) that is supposed to fix the crashes. 11.2 seems to be running great so far!! Sorry, Mozilla. I may have been too harsh on you. Way to screw everything up, Adobe!!

Didn't Flash 11.3 include some security updates? Moving to a version or 2 earlier, probably isn't the best option (security wise).

[ViperAFK]

I spoke too soon! What did Mozilla do to my beloved Firefox 14? Beta 11 was lightning fast!! I updated to Beta 12, and everything seems kind of sluggish now. Anyone else notice that? I'm using the portable version from PortableApps. I thought it might've been because of an extension, Pocket (Formerly Read It Later) that just updated, but even disabling it doesn't change anything. I'm going to either install the newest Flash that was just released and see if that makes a difference, or just go back to Beta 11. Only problem is, how do I do that? PortableApps only lists Beta 9, so I'd have to update twice, I guess. Does anyone have a link to Beta 11 in Portable Format? Why Mozilla, why? You changed something and messed it up again! It was working great in Beta 11!! I hope they get it fixed for the next Beta or Final Release. The weird thing is, it seems like sometimes it works really fast and smooth, and other times it becomes sluggish. I suspect it's because this version is taxing the CPU more. I can't think of another reason why it would be doing this. Man, it was so perfect and fast in Beta 11!! It must be a change to the way it renders or something. Change it back, Mozilla!!

I've been using beta channel on my laptop (ubuntu), and didn't notice any difference between beta 11 and 12.