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DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updatesDiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updatesPosted Jul 6, 2012 22:15 UTC (Fri) by Kit (guest, #55925)In reply to: DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates by leif81 Parent article: DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates
Yep, I'd say this is by far the biggest issue. And it's not like this caught anyone by surprise, it's been obvious that the reason Chrome can pull off rapid updates is due to its /unobtrusive/ updater. Firefox, even before the rapid release cycles, already had issues with its updates. Firefox for some reason had completely ignored UAC and non-admin accounts on Windows (I guess presuming everyone would disable UAC and run as an admin?), because for the longest Firefox's updater would crap out in that situation. Even now, it still doesn't work if you try to use it from an instance running as an unelevated Standard User (it fails silently as well, even on 13.0!).
The only way Chrome's updater could be topped is if a browser figured out a way to perform them without restarting at all (with a stable inter-process interface and some cleverness I'm sure it could be pulled off, although it may or may not be worth the effort).
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DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 7:31 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
It's not how apparent it the update is. The biggest problem with the FireFox rapid update system is that people use FireFox for the Extensions. It's the one feature that outclasses nearly every other browser and with the rapid releases they do one thing really well, break the extensions.
With the rapid releases the extension creators have to go through and re-certify their extension for every single release. Previously they would have to do it on major versions or on special updates that broke things. Go look at the number of extensions now, the number has dramatically declined because people just don't want to go in and maintain them that frequently when they aren't getting paid.
I don't think anyone I've talked to cares one whit about how "apparent" the update process is, it's that the updates break things (extensions). The extensions are the one thing that keep people on Firefox and they are stupid to ignore that. Maybe you have a point about UAC, but I've never encountered that error personally. To me this rapid update policy just shows how out of touch Mozilla is, and at some point they will pay the piper as almost all their revenue is generated from Firefox and if people stop using it (like they are) Mozilla will be in danger.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 8:32 UTC (Sat) by Fowl (subscriber, #65667) [Link]
Why do I get the impression that people are making judgements based on the state of the project immediately after, before all the process improvements were made.
I've not had any of my >10 extension break in years.
A bad reputation sticks Posted Jul 7, 2012 10:21 UTC (Sat) by jpnp (subscriber, #63341) [Link]
That's kind of what reputation is like. Once you've lost it, its gone.
Mozilla were warned when they switched to this chrome-like release schedule that this would happen, but their focus was on trying to get speed improvements out quickly to avoid being far behind in the benchmarks. Sustaining their existing strong points wasn't a consideration.
My experience is that the ecosystem of extensions has shrunk. Some I used to use were abandoned; now when I search for addons I often find something I could have used, if it hadn't stopped working 5 versions ago. Developers who in the past could successfully maintain an extension with a little effort every year or so, got driven away from the community.
It's true, those still running break less with new versions (firebug seems to update every time I start the browser to keep up). It's happened by selection within the shrinking pool.
A bad reputation sticks Posted Jul 7, 2012 17:06 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
As you said, the big ones that everyone uses have the resources to check and update. Many of these update even more frequently than firefox because of their huge user communities.
But a lot of the small specialty extensions are gone. I wouldn't be surprised if half the extensions that existed back in Firefox 3 days are gone at this point because of lack of maintenance.
Mozilla forgot their strengths, most people I know aren't out reading browser benchmarks, they are using the software for features and UI and that's what they keep breaking/changing.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 19:09 UTC (Sat) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]
Mozilla fixed that; extensions are now assumed compatible by default, rather than requiring an explicit compatibility whitelist.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 7, 2012 19:15 UTC (Sat) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]
Extensions are tested by Mozilla developers themselves. Old extensions that did not keep up to date with the API change or badly written die.
DiCarlo: Everybody hates Firefox updates Posted Jul 8, 2012 12:09 UTC (Sun) by akumria (subscriber, #7773) [Link]
You are right.
Well, you were.
4 releases ago (i.e. Firefox 10), which is 4 * 6 weeks, 24 weeks (i.e. half a year ago) that was changed.
If you haven't, you should retry Firefox. As I believe that particular issue of add-ons being incompatible by default has been addressed.
I don't use Firefox on Windows but, from what I understand, Firefox 13/14 fixes the problem with prompting (UAC). But that is all third hand knowledge to me.
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