Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some how?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
tmcd
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Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some how?

Post by tmcd »

I like the old Firefox from before this new "revision" (not sure what to call it) .... The Current form and coming changes just do not excite me .... are there any rumors about someone keeping the old but good stuff running? ... As I see it I will loose most of my addons, buttons, familiarity, gain forced automation/updates that does not excite me, etc etc... I expect the new stuff will make my life more complicated, not better, force me to do things I do not want to do, and loose a lot of good stuff that I love.... one of my basic philosophy's of life is "just because you can do something does not mean that you have to do it!"
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DanRaisch
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by DanRaisch »

are there any rumors about someone keeping the old but good stuff running?
If they do it won't be Firefox. You may want to look at the 52 ESR version -- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... tions/all/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... nizations/
Brummelchen
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by Brummelchen »

Nothing remains as it was. if you decided to change firefox look and feel its up on you to preserve this state or to drop it.
mozilla gave users an option to change it it many ways and that time is leaving now.

at least there is nothing you can do to prevent - v52esr will die when v61 arrives, then the upgrade to v59esr will happen (forced) - or you work with a vulnerable and outdated browser. for now firefox 56 and 57 have so many new features concerning modern web technology.
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by morat »

What are you going to do when the developers start removing interfaces?

Removal of nsILocalFile and other interfaces
http://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ ... bQIuLNv_2s
Brummelchen
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by Brummelchen »

firefox <> thunderbird
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Reflective
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by Reflective »

As per this article on Ghacks, the Waterfox developer proposes to continue support for legacy extensions, but it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on the Waterfox subreddit to observe what kind of issues are cropping up before making a firm decision: https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/

Download if you decide to have a go: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/downloads
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therube
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by therube »

Fire 750, bring back 250.
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c627627
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by c627627 »

DanRaisch wrote:
You may want to look at the 52 ESR version -- https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/o ... tions/all/
Yes.
Second school of thought is not to switch away from Firefox just yet.
Firefox ESR is Firefox 52 updated. Since ESR 52 will continue to be updated until mid 2018, that's the time to switch and not before. No need to switch after Fx56 stops being updated and Extensions die. They will work in ESR 52 - the best alternative to Fx57 and above.

All the other alternatives are fishy, let's see what people say about how extensions work on them throughout first half of 2018. Until then why not stay on Firefox ESR version, I can't think of a good reason to leave Firefox yet since so much time is left until second half of 2018 when ESR with working extensions stops being updated.
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MdniteEagl
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by MdniteEagl »

The SeaMonkey lead programmer is noting he will use the FF 52ESR code as the basis for SM going forward. SM supports many, but not all, of the FF legacy extensions. SM will also require some user-agent tweaks to get to certain websites (for example, chase.com if you bank with Chase).
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malliz
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by malliz »

Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some how?
Cutting through all the rhubarb and yet another multi page third party evangelism thread.
The answer is NO
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by Mouse5 »

yeah there is, he could become a Developer an fork firefox himself
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malliz
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by malliz »

Lets get this clear third party builds are usually built by one or two people and more often than not disappear overnight. The massive amount of work it would take to both fork and maintain the old code base and develop it to keep up with web standards is mind numbing. Seamonkey is struggling to keep itself afloat and the Waterfox dev is better at self promotion and has a history of making claims he cannot backup.
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efox99
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by efox99 »

tmcd wrote:I like the old Firefox from before this new "revision" (not sure what to call it) ....
I'm curious, specifically which old Firefox version you want to keep forever? :lol:
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by Frank Lion »

efox99 wrote:
tmcd wrote:I like the old Firefox from before this new "revision" (not sure what to call it) ....
I'm curious, specifically which old Firefox version you want to keep forever? :lol:
As you can see at the bottom of the post, the guy is posting here using Firefox 47. Chances are they meant that.

I'm curious, why specifically did you want to know that?
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Re: Is there any thought to keeping the old FF System some h

Post by frg »

> The SeaMonkey lead programmer is noting he will use the FF 52ESR code as the basis for SM going forward.

I hope it wasn't me you are quoting :) I wouldn't call me a lead programmer just one who does most patches currently. My technical knowledge is still too limited.

We are currently concentrating on the ESR 52 2.49.x branch and will maintain it as long as possible. Bugs in the current 2.55 tree are still being fixed but not a priority. The tree needs to stabilize first.

Keeping up with current changes in the Mozilla code is impossible at the moment. While I like most of the changes and performance improvements I find the removal of interfaces and apis still in wide use stupid and a kick in the face of classic extension developers. No fallback plan in case the whole "Firefox 57 is the greatest browser of all times" blows up. Market share in 6 to 12 months will show how it goes.

No Gecko fork I know has currently any chance of survival in the long term. Not enough contributors. This is my personal opinion.

SeaMonkey for now will continue using the mozilla codebase and we hope to do a 2.56 based on ESR 59 when ready. Probably without web extension support and so it will have to be seen if it is will be of any use. In the long term SeaMonkey will need to port web extension support and adapt or die.

Personally porting web extensions support will be imho hard. The current implementation is a bad mix in frontend and backend code. I think over the long term this will cause support issues for Fx too but we will see...

Again personally if SeaMonkey can no longer be maintained I will switch to Chromium or another chrome based browser. I don't care about Firefox any longer and do not see it as a viable alternative in the long term. Reminds me too much of the late OS/2 campains and every time I read a statement like "The 100% fresh, free-range, ethical browser" I cringe.

As usual ymmv
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