Will Firefox follow Thunderbird to drop zip-builds?
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Will Firefox follow Thunderbird to drop zip-builds?
Will Firefox follow Thunderbird to drop zip-builds for win32? I hope not. That would ba a major mistake.
Some reasons why zipped builds are necessary:
- they are needed to create preconfigured corporate install and deployment packs as described <a href="http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=45884">here</a>
- they are needed for portable versions of FF and TB (e.g. on memory sticks) as offered <a href="http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/">here</a>
- extremely useful for browsing in public hotspots (hotels, cafe's etc) where only IE is installed and users do not have installation rights (just download, unpack and run)
- many users like to keep their windows systems as clear and clean as possible and prefer software that do not need installation (e.g. I use Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC Media Player, all tools from Sysinternals, Xenu, VirtualDub and some 10 other titles in this manner)
- developers and testers
- and hopefully many other reasons to be described by others
Some reasons why zipped builds are necessary:
- they are needed to create preconfigured corporate install and deployment packs as described <a href="http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=45884">here</a>
- they are needed for portable versions of FF and TB (e.g. on memory sticks) as offered <a href="http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/">here</a>
- extremely useful for browsing in public hotspots (hotels, cafe's etc) where only IE is installed and users do not have installation rights (just download, unpack and run)
- many users like to keep their windows systems as clear and clean as possible and prefer software that do not need installation (e.g. I use Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC Media Player, all tools from Sysinternals, Xenu, VirtualDub and some 10 other titles in this manner)
- developers and testers
- and hopefully many other reasons to be described by others
Last edited by jemm on March 23rd, 2005, 1:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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There is now a reason for dropping zip's <a href="http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/chase/archives/2005/03/wondering_why_t.html">here</a>. But still I don't see that dropping is justified - I believe there are more people who benefit from zipped builds than those who had crashes when mixing up installer and zipped installations (I wish this could be somehow measured).
Keeping zipped builds only for nightlies is not a solutions - since most of the uses decribed hereinbefore require a stable realease to be used.
Keeping zipped builds only for nightlies is not a solutions - since most of the uses decribed hereinbefore require a stable realease to be used.
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UltraZelda64 wrote:I prefer the installer, instead of choosing a directory to unzip to, then manually creating shortcuts...
UltraZelda64, with zip builds under win32 you should proceed as follows:
- remove all files of previous version from installation directory
- unpack all files of new version to the same installation directory
- shortcuts should be created only once (with the first installation); as with next installations they will refer to the same directory and executable, then there is no need to change them
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Peter-- It's just for official releases, not nightlys...and even for official releases, people can get the recent nightly zip (or build your own or get a 3rd party build) and you can approximate the same thing.
Second of all, the original author made a point about corporate installs...msi files are much more useful for corporate installation than zip builds ever were.
Second of all, the original author made a point about corporate installs...msi files are much more useful for corporate installation than zip builds ever were.
Chase's Blog:
If you're a Mozilla developer and love the .zip files, rest assured they aren't going away completely. While we won't issue the .zip package with the rest of the major release files, we will still issue these packages in their standard nightly form.
Last edited by ntd on March 23rd, 2005, 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Mini-Geek
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I personally wouldn't really mind if they only released installer files for major releases, I would have a problem with them only releasing nightlies in installers though since I install them in directories not near my good Firefox 1.0.1 installation so that I don't mess it up, I understand that I could tell it to install in a directory somewhere far-off but I prefer being able to get ZIP builds for nightlies, just yesterday I got the ZIP nightly to see the new options window, just for fun
just thought I'd give my two cents to show that not everyone in the Firefox world would hate installer-only major releases
just thought I'd give my two cents to show that not everyone in the Firefox world would hate installer-only major releases
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ok, np than, I don't use milestones anyway ;-)ntd wrote:Peter-- It's just for official releases, not nightlys...and even for official releases, people can get the recent nightly zip (or build your own or get a 3rd party build) and you can approximate the same thing.
nightly build threads 20040225 (FF 0.8.0+) - 20120331 (FF14a)
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ntd wrote:Peter-- It's just for official releases, not nightlys...and even for official releases, people can get the recent nightly zip (or build your own or get a 3rd party build) and you can approximate the same thing.
Compilation of your own builds is maybe ok for huge corporations with well-staffed IT-departments. For a typical small business of 50-500 workers that is well beyond the scope what IT-support staff should and can do.
ntd wrote:Second of all, the original author made a point about corporate installs...msi files are much more useful for corporate installation than zip builds ever were.
The main point in zipped builds is that you can 100% preconfigure them and with one script install remotely to hundreds of PC's without any human interaction and without any Microsoft specific installation tools. Can you do that with msi?
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jemm wrote:The main point in zipped builds is that you can 100% preconfigure them and with one script install remotely to hundreds of PC's without any human interaction and without any Microsoft specific installation tools. Can you do that with msi?
Well you could just install to one PC, then zip up the folder afterwards, profile included if you wish. Nothing's stopping you making your own zip :)