Thread: Firefox Quantum - what a bloody PITA!

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Gawd spare me from dickhead developers who release things prematurely, without updating the most popular add-ons, and then beat their chest about what a wonderful cockup they've made! GRRRR!

they gotta release something otherwise they won't get any bonus this year.

My Firefox updated itself and as you say black tabs are useless etc. In my case I was unable to access all of the WWF features until I googled the problem and the solution was to remove all of the addons and then add them one at a time (as if I could remember them all) untill you find which one they won't play with.

B...... inconsiderate b.......s

For the last 50 minutes I've been watching SBS (in Chrome of course), and in full screen, so I haven't seen anything going on in the background. A couple of hours ago I sent a pretty hot reply to Mozilla on their help page (pretty much echoing my first post here.

Suddenly, and again without my knowledge, FF has a colourful tabs window open, asking for money again (as IF!) and the tabs are now white on white, but at least the black text is legible now.

The window can now be resized.

Beats the crap outta me.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Gawd spare me from dickhead developers who release things prematurely, without updating the most popular add-ons, and then beat their chest about what a wonderful cockup they've made! GRRRR!

Considering that the add-ons are 3rd party, don't you think that last bit is a tad over the top?

It's a bit like complaining about bucket seats in modern cars 'cos the comfy old flannelette bench-seat cover from your 1960 Rolls C'nardly won't fit anymore...

Remember, this software is offered for free. Nobody forcing to use any of it. They owe you no favours.

Second, this has been a stupendous upgrade. This isn't some simple point revision.

A great deal of how it all works has been fundamentally changed and has eliminated a VAST number of hackable exploits common to all browsers, virtualized protected spaces and anti-tracking (across domains! yay!!!!).

It is trivial to remove a skin and add it back on. Developers are working like fury to upgrade - plus this wasnt some bolt from the blue, they all had Betas to test with.

That's all very well, but if it's going to be that huge - and change virtually everything - then some advance warning would be mighty useful. People could opt in or out and update when they wish to. The most aggravating thing is the automation of the update with no warning. As I said before, most updates result in little observable change, so auto update makes little to no difference. Having to fool around searching for similar extensions (amongst the 1000s) takes a great deal of time - best done when it suits rather than being forced into it so as to continue.

I mean really - making the tabs black on black with mid grey tiny writing, can't change the window size......c'mon, that's just bloody ridiculously poor testing and observation. Not even trainees make mistakes that fundamentally stoopid.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Remember, this software is offered for free. Nobody forcing to use any of it. They owe you no favours.

That's not necessarily correct (the free bit). Many of the developers have their hand out with every update, and I have given a number of contributions (about half a dozen) over the years to developers of extensions that have been good and reliable and useful, because I think that is fair. They haven't been large (probably USD5.00 or similar, but I'm probably one of the not too many who do. As far as not "forcing me" - well nobody forces me to use software that I have paid for either, so that's a pretty null argument.

Owe me no favours? Well they want me to use it don't they? Why else would they bother writing it?

It's not just a trivial skin change. It's 15 or so extensions, and quite a number of those have custom settings that I have created. Just searching for replacements takes bloody ages, let alone finding out (through use) if it is what I want, and then getting the settings right.

How about you - have you made any contributions or are you a free user?

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

Considering that the add-ons are 3rd party, don't you think that last bit is a tad over the top?

Well no actually. It can't be too hard to co-ordinate this. Tell the 3rd party people what's happening, modify their extensions if possible, and most importantly NOTIFY US BEFOREHAND when it is going to affect virtually everything! They say "this extension won't work" and provide a link to find a replacement. All that does is take you to the top of the 1000s of extensions, like throwing in the deep end. I would have thought that they could have at least just compiled a list of similar extensions to the ones that no longer work.

G'Day Brett, I had a similar fight with the new Firefox automatic update, sent me almost potty..
Long story short, I've closed Firefox, downloaded Firefox V56.0.02, ran it and then reopened Firefox which now works again as it did before.
Mind you I've had to do it twice since last Thursday as Fiirefox did another automatic update this morning but no sweat today just closed it and reinstalled the older version, all good!!
Cheers, Peter

Peter, you should probably go to Tools - Options, and towards the bottom select "Check for updates but let you choose to install them" rather than "Automatic", otherwise you'll have to re-install every time you close Firefox.

The problem with that is that it will no doubt become unstable after a while, and possibly be prone to hacking or whatever.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

How about you - have you made any contributions or are you a free user?

I wrote one of the very first common printer driver systems for Linux (redhat), debugged the early LILO boot loader and contributed to many of the open source drivers for nvidia video cards. On the original firefox (netscape) I contributed to the SSL project for server side encryption and also had a minor input in the adaption of the centre html tag. I also ran the biggest FOSS Mirrors in the world with distro/mirrors of every linux distro, update service and even hosted sourceforge itself.

That last one was a doozy. It pushed out 2+ Terabytes of data daily... though that was a while ago.

I still read over the Linux distro release notes and read the code to keep up, but don't contribute much any more as I'm far more interested in woodwork

Keep in mind that the auto-update cycle will probably move to daily so that exploits can be slammed shut the instant they are found. Its a real battleground in the security area. Those guys really have their hands full dealing with scumbags.

Vote with your feet and change browser? I have done it at least four times.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

That's all very well, but if it's going to be that huge - and change virtually everything - then some advance warning would be mighty useful. People could opt in or out and update when they wish to. The most aggravating thing is the automation of the update with no warning.

Hi Brett

I think you are being a bit too simplistic there.
Given the ever evolving security and hacking issues inherent in all internet browsers, there is probably a good case for disabling any browser that has not been updated within a few days of a security upgrade becoming available. That or at least blocking access to an out of date browser. The obvious place to start would be any system that facilitates on-line transactions.

I don't think it's being simplistic to suggest that Mozilla could have opened a page in the browser to say "massive update ready to load, most of your extensions and add-ons will be disrupted - click here to continue or here to do it later". After all, THEY were the ones with the knowledge, not me (or anyone else).

Doing things like that is part of the art of selling - something too often overlooked by too many people in too many areas. Give people advance warning and they will cope far better than they do with a surprise attack. That's a fundamental platform of selling - and make no mistake - Firefox has to be "sold" - they want us to use it don't they? Money changing hands is not the issue.

The art of selling is not just restricted to goods or services for money. Ask Paul Keating.

Begs the question... Why are you even using Firefox?