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Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

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Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#21

Post by ugh »

Kilimanjaro wrote: post #18
Kilimanjaro wrote: post #15

My mother doesn't know what that is or its use. Neither does my brother, sister, neighbor, dog, ipad, etc. So I'd say only geeks know what a feed is. Then let geeks use an extension and don't bother +90% of internet users with that. It is in a sense like developer tools, if you know where they are you can easily activate them and use them, if not, they are out of the way. Good riddance.

Now in the good spirit of a designer in search of a solution to everything and everybody, add an option in preferences to show/hide the feed button. How about that?

The preferences in Firefox are already cluttered. Using about:config seems appropriate.

Edit: Some are claiming that you can still add the button to the toolbar, it’s just off by default. That sounds extremely reasonable and confuses me at the same time because I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#22

Post by jimminy »

51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

FF4 did not remove the Feed icon entirely, it's been removed from the awesome bar, and defaulted to off, but it exists as a positionable toolbar icon, you just have to configure your toolbar, and add the icon whereever you want to regain access to it. My recommendation for the position is the very right end of the awesome bar, for familiarity's sake.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#23

Post by mishmash »

51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

> FF4 is removing the RSS icon and also the bottom status bar

Wait so there's no way to see where links are pointed now?

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#24

Post by DougBTX »

51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

It isn't a new trend, when it came out Firefox was great because it was a cut down Mozilla.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#25

Post by 51Cards »

mishmash wrote: post #23
51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

> FF4 is removing the RSS icon and also the bottom status bar Wait so there's no way to see where links are pointed now?

Yeah, they over-lay it on the URL bar now, doesn't work well IMO. There is however no way to monitor individual requests while a page is loading. I.e. you can't see that your favourite website isn't loading because their Ad provider is down.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#26

Post by rsoto »

51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

I'm using FF4b8 and the status bar is in "off", but you can easily turn it on.

It's not removed entirely, it's just hidden. And that's what I love about Mozilla. Even if they remove it entirely, there will always be an extension to put it back. And that's a thing Google will never let you do with Chrome because they thing they know better about how you use your browser than you.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#27

Post by 51Cards »

rsoto wrote: post #26
51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

I'm using FF4b8 and the status bar is in "off", but you can easily turn it on. It's not removed entirely, it's just hidden. And that's what I love about Mozilla. Even if they remove it entirely, there will always be an extension to put it back. And that's a thing Google will never let you do with Chrome because they thing they know better about how you use your browser than you.

I'll be impressed if you can find a status bar in Beta 8 since it was removed in Beta 7 ;) There is now an Add-ons bar under tool bars that is used to contain plug-ins that used to sit on the status bar. But the new bar doesn't have the actual status label anymore that shows you what the browser is doing.

Status-4-Evar plugin restores the functionality in the way it should have been done from the start. Make the Status bar a full toolbar, and make the Status Label an element you can drag in and out like every other toolbar element. No functionality lost, no plugins required, native code, and lots of choice for the user.

Anyhow, I've digressed enough off the OT.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#28

Post by ugh »

51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

I don’t really understand why removing the bottom status bar is a problem for you. Firefox will still display where hovered links are pointing to. (I would argue that displaying that information in the address bar is a great solution that’s much easier to understand.)

I also don’t understand why you have a problem with turning the RSS button into a toolbar button that’s not on the default toolbar.

And I don’t understand how you go from that to the conclusion that removing features is always a bad idea.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#29

Post by trafficlight »

ugh wrote: post #28
51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

I don’t really understand why removing the bottom status bar is a problem for you. Firefox will still display where hovered links are pointing to. (I would argue that displaying that information in the address bar is a great solution that’s much easier to understand.) I also don’t understand why you have a problem with turning the RSS button into a toolbar button that’s not on the default toolbar. And I don’t underst…

I really like that the status bar has moved to the address bar. The extra screen space is great. I still have Firefox 3 on my laptop and it feels like there is too much in the way now.

I even like that the menu bar has been rolled up into the Firefox button. There is no reason to display those menus all of the time.

Re: Dear Firefox, please keep the RSS icon

#30

Post by davewiner »

DougBTX wrote: post #24
51Cards wrote: post #14

This may be an old school rant but I'm old school so... There has been a bothersome trend in software in general lately to strip things down. It used to mean that a new version of software contained new features on top of those you already had but lately there has been a push to remove things that are viewed as used by only a small percentage of the user base. Sadly many of those things are used by the more 'advanced…

It isn't a new trend, when it came out Firefox was great because it was a cut down Mozilla.

So come out with a new browser that's a stripped down version of Firefox, but leave Firefox where it is (and keep updating it for security fixes).
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