Why is Yahoo pestering me to upgrade to Firefox 3.6?

[quiinn7]

Does Firefox pay Yahoo or have some kind of agreement to try and get people using older versions of Firefox to upgrade?

On "My Yahoo" home page I kept getting a javascript pop down notice from the top of the page recommending me to upgrade to Firefox 3.6. It was super annoying. I finally had to disable javascript on that page so I would no longer be bothered.

I hate it when I get the hard sell, especially regarding what browser I use. I like my old version of Firefox, please stop pestering me. I won't ever upgrade until it becomes completely obsolete and I can no longer surf the internet with it, then will move to Seamonkey, the next best thing I have found similar to my old version of Firefox.

[underscoreTom]

If you like using an unsupported and unsecure product, then that's your prerogative.

With that, why aren't you using Firefox 1.5? Mozilla 1.6? Netscape 4?

[monkeyv]

Besides the unsupported and insecure part that was mentioned above, large sites like Yahoo like to have people using the latest and greatest so they can take advantage of all the new tech and abilities that more modern browsers have.

[WaltS48]

Besides the unsupported and insecure part that was mentioned above, large sites like Yahoo like to have people using the latest and greatest so they can take advantage of all the new tech and abilities that more modern browsers have.

I take it that the two of you don't have a My Yahoo homepage.

That annoyance happened to me previously, but it only occurred when I went to check my Yahoo mail account, which I wasn't able to retrieve until I installed Seamonkey because it took up the whole page and was not a pop up or pop under.

I also would like to know what connection Yahoo and Mozilla have that this occurred, and why this is the only LARGE SITE it has happened on.

[malliz]

This is Yahoos fault no one else's.

[RobertJ]

I also would like to know what connection Yahoo and Mozilla have that this occurred, and why this is the only LARGE SITE it has happened on.

None. Each site detects your browser version and does its thing, usually nothing. In some cases they will "tell you" that they support A, B or C and you should use them. What that usually means is that they have tested against those. Others generally, not always, work fine. Also, if you watch any video on some news sites, they may ask you to update to the latest version of Flash; the BBC does this - its not just Yahoo.

In the case of the OP's (using Firefox/2.0.0.20) original question there are many new capabilities in the latest browsers, not just FF. If you use your computer on the Internet, the price is having to stay within one version of the latest. It's also true of OS's (FF will drop support for OSX 10.4 with FF 4 for example).

As one who designs, builds and maintains web sites for non-profits; at some point I just can't afford the time to support old browser versions. With the world moving to HTML 5 and it's new capabilities, this will get worse.

Lastly, ignoring the security issues by not keeping up with the latest browser is a big mistake.

.

[WaltS48]

I also would like to know what connection Yahoo and Mozilla have that this occurred, and why this is the only LARGE SITE it has happened on.

None. Each site detects your browser version and does its thing, usually nothing. In some cases they will "tell you" that they support A, B or C and you should use them. What that usually means is that they have tested against those. Others generally, not always, work fine. Also, if you watch any video on some news sites, they may ask you to update to the latest version of Flash; the BBC does this - its not just Yahoo.

In the case of the OP's (using Firefox/2.0.0.20) original question there are many new capabilities in the latest browsers, not just FF. If you use your computer on the Internet, the price is having to stay within one version of the latest. It's also true of OS's (FF will drop support for OSX 10.4 with FF 4 for example).

As one who designs, builds and maintains web sites for non-profits; at some point I just can't afford the time to support old browser versions. With the world moving to HTML 5 and it's new capabilities, this will get worse.

Lastly, ignoring the security issues by not keeping up with the latest browser is a big mistake.

.

Well, I don't ignore security issues. When the updates are available from the openSUSE Mozilla repository (sometimes appearing late) I install them.

This site only detected my browser when I went to check my mail, and blocked my access to it. Not nice!

I'm excited about HTML 5, and it's capabilities, but based on some of the sites I've seen, it will be a while before the world adopts it.

[RobertJ]

but based on some of the sites I've seen, it will be a while before the world adopts it.

You're correct. Takes a fair amount of resources to redo a web site.

[James]

Does Firefox pay Yahoo or have some kind of agreement to try and get people using older versions of Firefox to upgrade?

I hate it when I get the hard sell, especially regarding what browser I use. I like my old version of Firefox, please stop pestering me. I won't ever upgrade until it becomes completely obsolete and I can no longer surf the internet with it, then will move to Seamonkey, the next best thing I have found similar to my old version of Firefox.

Firefox is the current name of the web browser, not a company or such as that would be Mozilla. Even then this is all Yahoo's doing as they may have made the site to work properly with the current browser releases and not a version that has been outdated for over 1 1/2 years now (as far as security updates goes).

So if you switch to SeaMonkey, I guess it will be a EOL version like SeaMonkey 1.1.9 and not the current 2.0.6

Also nothing on mozillaZine states it is run by or a part of Mozilla http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

[ThePCKid]

This site only detected my browser when I went to check my mail, and blocked my access to it. Not nice!

...and Yahoo! blocked access to some parts of the site when I was using IE7 a long time ago and wanted me to use Firefox 2.0...

[RobertJ]

I'd switch to Gmail but they'd likely park a spy drone over your house.

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[Firefox2.0user]

I to agree with you, I use firefox 2.0 and it works far better than firefox 3.6 i can prove it every time I reinstall firefox 3.6 it crashes and stalls, next problem, saving a page as bookmarks is almost usless in 3.6, it does not create colored bookmark created by the url that created one. You can sort the folders in 2.0 in alphabetical order, yet not in 3.6 I find Internet explorer is the best example of a good working and usable bookmark system. I remember one time when 3.6 would not work well with adoble flash yet 2.0 did work. Because I am use something better they think I should upgrade with presumption that I will get something better