151–160 of 205 posts
The worst thing about Firefox updates is that... they didn't work for me. On my Debian box, I had to manually download and install each new version. That, and Firefox crashing several times a day without giving me a clue about what happened, what I could have done to fix the issue and the bug-report process always failing to submit reports, made me think that Firefox's days as a better browser had long passed. I'm a…
Here's what I think Mozilla/Firefox should have done before starting the rapid release cycle: 1. Migrate all extensions to restartless/JetPack. Extensions for Firefox are very powerful but may sometimes break when new versions are released, which then the compatibility check feature is introduced to "solve" this. Before the rapid release cycle, I've already seen some users reluctant to update and would wait for exten…
Electrolysis does nothing to solve this, which is why it was abandoned.
I'm thinking that if Firefox has Chrome-like multi-process architecture, the interface would be more responsive and memory management would be even better.
Memory usage is far worse with multi-process, it's one reason Firefox uses less memory than Chrome.
Here's what I think Mozilla/Firefox should have done before starting the rapid release cycle: 1. Migrate all extensions to restartless/JetPack. Extensions for Firefox are very powerful but may sometimes break when new versions are released, which then the compatibility check feature is introduced to "solve" this. Before the rapid release cycle, I've already seen some users reluctant to update and would wait for exten…
3. Implement Electrolysis ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis ). From my observation, the real problem with Firefox is not the memory usage but its slowness. Electrolysis does nothing to solve this, which is why it was abandoned. I'm thinking that if Firefox has Chrome-like multi-process architecture, the interface would be more responsive and memory management would be even better. Memory usage is far worse with…
The big problem with Firefox updates for me, and this predates the rapid release BS, is that they occur when you launch Firefox, wasting your time precisely when you're in a hurry. If they just waited until you were idle and then updated in the background they'd be hugely better. (Extra points for figuring out if compatible versions of plugins are available yet first, downloading them too, etc.)
Chrome uses courgette, now if it actually became a standalone project that could be used outside of google (you need to jump through their frankly stupid build system) I'm sure it would see adoption.
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> I think the takeaway from this should be slightly different than the one the author found: don't fight users' expectations of what your product is. That's a fair point, but also true is "don't let your product stagnate by keeping it familiar and unchanging". People get bored with similarity and want new shiny things. There is something to be said for too much change, and something to be said for too much sameness.
> That's a fair point, but also true is "don't let your product stagnate by keeping it familiar and unchanging". People get bored with similarity and want new shiny things. I disagree. Users want something new if their current software isn't meeting their needs for whatever reason. But if it is meeting their needs and they know how to use it, then keeping that software the same isn't "stagnation", it's stability. Whe…
What if their need is for something new and shiny?
Have you never heard people say they tried Chrome because it was new and shiny (even the word implies shininess)? Or how about how people want to buy the latest iPad or iPhone, it isn't because the old one isn't "meeting their needs" in some boring sense. They want something new and different.
> Whenever I hear users ask for change it's because there's a feature they wish they had or a bug that's annoying them
That is a very simplistic view of users. Users are human beings - they want conflicting things, both for things to work and be predictable, and for things to be new and interesting.
The right tradeoff is the hard part, not absolute black-and-white principles of "users never want change" or "users always want something new and shiny".
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> The thing is, even the ESR is only supported for about a year before being completely cut off in favour of a new ESR that has only been available for about 6-12 weeks at that point. There are some large businesses out there who run the same software foundation for a decade or more. For software like that, a web browser is not the right platform. Web browsers view a shared space which constantly changes and gets upd…
For software like that, a web browser is not the right platform. Web browsers view a shared space which constantly changes and gets updated with new APIs and deprecated APIs and so forth. You seem to be confusing the Internet with corporate intranets. Browsers installed in these kinds of organisations, and the tools they want to use long-term, tend to be based around the latter. Having stability is far more important…
Since there are open source browsers, you can just save a very old version of them for intranet apps, if you must. But you can't expect a modern browser to still run your old intranet apps, you will need both a legacy browser and a modern one.
The ESR fits somewhere in the middle. It won't run 10 year-old apps, but it will update very slowly so your IT department does not need to constantly verify it (only once a year). Again, for 10-year-old apps, that won't work - you just need to install a 10-year old browser. If you just run it on intranet apps, security isn't a concern so that's fine.
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I quit using Firefox due to absolutely horrific memory management and I never used a single add-on ever. It was extremely frustrating because every time I went to a forum seeking help the first and only thing people would do is blame add-ons. It was so bad that I had to close firefox when I wanted to do anything else. If I played a full screen game it would work great for about half an hour the suddenly it'd chug alo…
Haters-be hate'n. And how exactly does the one process per tab of chrome address memory issues? Chrome is complete garbage for me after 30ish tabs. Talk about unresponsive...
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I quit firefox purely over its tendency to leak my entire RAM and force restarts. I was told at the time, and do believe, that the memory leaking was an addon problem. However... firefox was sold on the idea of addons. When your two main messages are "we're the most convenient browser; just look at all our awesome addons!" and "you can't use the addons, or your computer will implode", you've got a serious problem.
I quit using Firefox due to absolutely horrific memory management and I never used a single add-on ever. It was extremely frustrating because every time I went to a forum seeking help the first and only thing people would do is blame add-ons. It was so bad that I had to close firefox when I wanted to do anything else. If I played a full screen game it would work great for about half an hour the suddenly it'd chug alo…
And then years later they have the "MemShrink project". Which basically was admitting that they were spouting bullshit about it being addons for years.