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Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

zdnet.com

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Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#41

Post by Karellen »

ericabiz wrote: post #19
asadotzler wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the Director of the Firefox Desktop product (I wasn't at the time of the move to the new release cadence) and I agree with you 100%. We've been busting our butts for the last couple of months to get our updates ironed out and smooth. We've already shipped some of this in Firefox, including not nagging users to restart, killing the "What's New" tab that would interrupt your start-up, and reducing the number of inc…

I'm really hoping you can get the remaining 3.6.x users to force-upgrade. We still have a couple people using 3.6 on our web app (where some pages won't render properly--we've labeled this 'wontfix' in our system since Firefox 7.0+ renders these pages properly.) Any word on whether there is any way to get them to upgrade? Last I saw, it upgraded them to a newer 3.x version, but then opened a page on your site with a…

Seriously? Heck, 3.6 isn't exactly a slouch when it comes to web standards, particularly compared to IE, Konqueror and some of the "smaller" engines. What features are you using that 3.6 won't render right?

Also, FF4 was released only 8 months ago, and FF3.6 received a security update less than a month ago. "Ancient" my ass.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#42

Post by D_Drake »

I just tried it. Guess what? The interface is still broken.

You look at the page contents constantly, at tab names often, at the bookmarks toolbar sometimes, at the URL occasionally, and you almost never look at the page title. In 3.6 these are arranged in order radiating from the center.

8.0 completely breaks the flow by sticking the address bar below the tabs. WHY. Also, where's my status bar, with all of my plugin status icons that I use constantly?

4.0+ is still broken, so I'm still going to use 3.6. Simple as that.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#43

Post by dextorious »

grannyg00se wrote: post #25
asadotzler wrote: post #7

Firefox 8 is light years ahead of 3.6 in performance and memory usage. It's light-weight and blazing fast. If you've been away for a while, delete your old Firefox profile and re-import your setting. You'll be surprised at how much better Firefox is.

Is that manual cleanup really necessary?

I've actually seen a Firefox developer suggest it on another HN thread, especially vacuuming your FF's sqlite3 database.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#44

Post by gkoberger »

D_Drake wrote: post #42

I just tried it. Guess what? The interface is still broken. You look at the page contents constantly, at tab names often, at the bookmarks toolbar sometimes, at the URL occasionally, and you almost never look at the page title. In 3.6 these are arranged in order radiating from the center. 8.0 completely breaks the flow by sticking the address bar below the tabs. WHY. Also, where's my status bar, with all of my plugin…

There's a difference between "broken" and "not the way I use it / am used to". Mozilla released a video explaining the transition of tabs [1]. Still don't like it? Right click somewhere on the title bar and deselect "Tabs on Top"

As for the status bar, just hit "ctrl+/".

The best thing about Firefox is that if there's something you don't like, there's probably an add-on for it. Try searching for add-ons that do what you need. [2]

1) http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2010/06/24/why-tabs-are-on-t...

2) http://blog.fligtar.com/2011/01/16/how-to-customize-firefox-...

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#45

Post by D_Drake »

daave wrote: post #21
slowpoke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hope unnoticeable updates become the norm for all desktop software. As long as you can turn that off, sure. I don't like software bypassing my package managers. Firefox is so far the sole exception I'm okay with since I'm using the Nightly builds and don't update as often. But for everything else, that would be a nightmare. I like to be in control of my updates, thank you.

It's time to let go and trust the developers of the software you're using to know when updates are stable, or when you really need a critical bug or security fix (if you don't trust them, why are you running their software anyway?). Package managers are a great upgrade from having to manually update individual applications, and are still great for servers or other cases where upgrading can break crucial pieces of inf…

- When you're in a bandwidth-limited situation like browsing over a tethered phone

- When you're using an access point operated by someone you don't trust

- When you want the best performance out of your system but need to have a browser open

- When any spike in latency could have bad consequences

- (possibly) when there's a significant chance of the computer losing power instantly and without warning

Five reasons I don't auto-update anything.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#46

Post by aleksi »

D_Drake wrote: post #42

I just tried it. Guess what? The interface is still broken. You look at the page contents constantly, at tab names often, at the bookmarks toolbar sometimes, at the URL occasionally, and you almost never look at the page title. In 3.6 these are arranged in order radiating from the center. 8.0 completely breaks the flow by sticking the address bar below the tabs. WHY. Also, where's my status bar, with all of my plugin…

Address bar above tabs? Two clicks to change. Show status bar? Two more clicks.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#47

Post by D_Drake »

gkoberger wrote: post #44
D_Drake wrote: post #42

I just tried it. Guess what? The interface is still broken. You look at the page contents constantly, at tab names often, at the bookmarks toolbar sometimes, at the URL occasionally, and you almost never look at the page title. In 3.6 these are arranged in order radiating from the center. 8.0 completely breaks the flow by sticking the address bar below the tabs. WHY. Also, where's my status bar, with all of my plugin…

There's a difference between "broken" and "not the way I use it / am used to". Mozilla released a video explaining the transition of tabs [1]. Still don't like it? Right click somewhere on the title bar and deselect "Tabs on Top" As for the status bar, just hit "ctrl+/". The best thing about Firefox is that if there's something you don't like, there's probably an add-on for it. Try searching for add-ons that do what…

Why would I use 8.0 and spend time and effort turning it back into 3.6, when 3.6 already does everything I want or need it to?

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#48

Post by ck2 »

I made the 3.6 to 7/8 switch only a few months ago.

Here are some extensions I found critical to my sanity to keeping things somewhat familiar:

   Status-4-Evar
and

   Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4+ (v2.0)
Then once you are in FF8 treat yourself to extensions you can only running in FF8+ like Font Information which shows you what fonts are being used on the page in the page info dialog.

Now my FF8 looks a lot like 3.6 but works several times faster.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#49

Post by tete »

What about HTML5? A LOT of HTML5.

Firefox/Gecko has support for tons of HTML5 features that Chrome/Webkit doesn't support (or didn't until recently).

I wish some things would be pushed faster from Aurora into the other branches.

The only thing I dislike about Firefox is that there are a number of CSS1 features that still aren't supported. I just know Opera supports them, so I am not sure about the others. One can't style some form parts. There has been a bug report for this for ages.

Oh and to all web developers out there: Start checking for features, instead of browsers, PLEASE! It's so annoying to always read "Your browser doesn't support XY" when that's not true, because I am using a recent release, beta or the aurora branch of Firefox.

Re: Firefox 3.6 vs 8.0

#50

Post by tete »

ck2 wrote: post #48

I made the 3.6 to 7/8 switch only a few months ago. Here are some extensions I found critical to my sanity to keeping things somewhat familiar: Status-4-Evar and Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4+ (v2.0) Then once you are in FF8 treat yourself to extensions you can only running in FF8+ like Font Information which shows you what fonts are being used on the page in the page info dialog. Now my FF8 looks a lot like 3.6 but…

This has been fixed in Firefox 10 (or 9?). Until then you could use this extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat...

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