Warning re major upgrades

[jfha]

Like any "average" user of Firefox, I don't use any of the fancy features of the browser, so I was a bit taken aback when the latest iteration erased all my speed dial tiles. I have managed to find an extension which enabled me to restore them (but with a depressing black background that I haven't been able to get rid of). Like most trusting users of Firefox, I just download and install any new upgrade. However, I just wish that Mozilla will in the future let us trusting souls know beforehand when an upgrade will substantially affect the browser - just include in the "upgrade notification" box some warning re what is about to happen to Firefox when the upgrade is installed.

[therube]

See this (now locked) thread, Would be nice if they would ASK.....
Seems the consensus is that not necessary .

(Don't give up the fight!)

[WaltS48]

Like any "average" user of Firefox, I don't use any of the fancy features of the browser, so I was a bit taken aback when the latest iteration erased all my speed dial tiles. I have managed to find an extension which enabled me to restore them (but with a depressing black background that I haven't been able to get rid of). Like most trusting users of Firefox, I just download and install any new upgrade. However, I just wish that Mozilla will in the future let us trusting souls know beforehand when an upgrade will substantially affect the browser - just include in the "upgrade notification" box some warning re what is about to happen to Firefox when the upgrade is installed.

They did let users know beforehand. Those users need to learn where to look.

I take it you don't read any tech news sites.

Here are few.

https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/

https://www.ghacks.net/category/firefox/

https://www.cnet.com/tags/firefox/

https://dolske.wordpress.com/2017/05/ Scroll down to the bottom and start with newsletter #1, then read all 16 of them.

The Photon Newsletters were also posted to https://planet.mozilla.org/

Happy reading!

Edited to add https://mozilla.github.io/firefox-browser-architecture/

[therube]

Mozilla has determined that users are dumb.
That users do not use extensions.
That users will take what they're given, even accepting it - gleefully.

And look where we're at.

Extension signing.
Telemetry out the ying yang.
Less function.
Less extensible.
Though they did give us pockets & who knows what else.

But hey, is it ever FAST (cough).

And with all that, "users" (sheep) are actually supposed to follow all the tech rags, & "know" that major changes are a comin'.


As far as I can tell, Mozilla is following the Microsoft playbook to a T.

[Kevin McFarlane]

A lot of the punters here do keep up with these issues but my guess is that the average punter doesn't. A solution could have been to have given advance notice (for, say, a year) in the browser itself, as part of the six-weekly release notes, warning users of big changes ahead; maybe with a link to the status of WebExtension ports. They could also have linked to Firefox ESR as an interim solution while things settled down.

Opera had the same kind of issue with Opera 15.

But academic now.

[Frank Lion]

They did let users know beforehand. Those users need to learn where to look.

I take it you don't read any tech news sites.

I don't think the historically devious 'It is your fault because you didn't take the trouble to read the small print' defence is either convincing or ethical.

A first run announcement page prior to the introduction of major impacting changes of any software update version is the honest method and takes very little time to implement.

In the case of Firefox, there would have been just 2 such announcements since 2004 - the Australis update in 2014 and this one, Firefox 57 in 2017. Just two, and yet someone has the gall to suggest that users should have been religiously and constantly following dull tech sites for the last 13 years or their lack of fore knowledge is their fault? That is a dishonest and devious suggestion.

[AlbertRoss]

I can't see how an earlier warning would have made much difference at all tbh. I doubt that add-on developers would have had relevant info about the new Firefox environment any earlier than has been the case, and I can't help seeing most of the moaning about the changes as a load of old farts who are too stuck in their ways. Seriously. This stuff always happens when a software gets a major update. It's so predictable it's boring.

Coincidentally I'm currently failing to convince a friend that Windows 10 isn't necessarily to blame for his hardware driver woes. After moving from Win7 he actually expects his specialist hardware to plug and play. Similarly predictable, boring and wrong-headed I reckon.

'Cos s*** happens

[the-edmeister]

A lot of the punters here do keep up with these issues but my guess is that the average punter doesn't. A solution could have been to have given advance notice (for, say, a year) in the browser itself, as part of the six-weekly release notes, warning users of big changes ahead; maybe with a link to the status of WebExtension ports. They could also have linked to Firefox ESR as an interim solution while things settled down.

Opera had the same kind of issue with Opera 15.

But academic now.

And you think that the users who were caught by surprise actually read the Release Notes?
Yeah, about as often as they RTFM or they search for answers in the KB before asking a question here or at SUMO.

IMO, Mozilla should have done as Opera with Opera 15 when they switched to WebKit (in 2013) from Presto.
Break it all at once, rather than as Mozilla has done - bleed it dry one paper cut at a time.

Due to API changes that started around Firefox 31, (and then with Firefox 39 extensions signing, which was continually pushed back to Firefox 48 as the eventual deadline) some of us were losing extensions one at a time for the last 3 1/2 years before Quantum came out. IMO, Mozilla AND users would have been better off with Mozilla building New Firefox on a parallel track and once it was ready (with all the new API's) release it to the public as Firefox 60 (and push back ESR to 60). And then provide the last Gecko version with security updates for a year.

IOW, similar to what Mozilla did with Firefox 3.6 by providing security updates for a year (until Firefox 10 & the first ESR version was released), as Mozilla did after Firefox 4.0 (Gecko 2.0) was released in March 2011.

.

[therube]

IMO, Mozilla AND users would have been better off with Mozilla building New Firefox on a parallel track and once it was ready (with all the new API's) release it to the public as Firefox 60 (and push back ESR to 60). And then provide the last Gecko version with security updates for a year.

Exactly.