Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
max2
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Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by max2 »

Curious what people think in general. Thanks.

If wrong forum please move mods! Thanks.
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the-edmeister
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by the-edmeister »

What parameters are you using for comparison?

As a whole when looking back over the entire history of "Firefox" from when it was called Phoenix, thru the "Firebird" era, and up thru (say) Firefox 4.0; it's hell of a lot faster and has a hell of a lot more standard features, with less need for "add-ons" or extensions. Firefox 4.0 thru Fx 28 was IMO the worst stages of Firefox, a crappy UI and the Rapid Release scheme was handled poorly. Mozilla tried to fix their mistakes with them talking twice as long as projected to get to Firefox 4.0, and with way too many planned features left out just to get it "out the door" over a year later. There solution was a 6 week release cycle when new features were added when they were ready and wouldn't tie up a release due to a feature not being ready to ship. Just didn't work out was planned IMO; would have been better to close up the release stages slowly over a year or a year and a half to allow there long term users to get used to the new Rapid Release scheme.

I am probably one of the few who actually liked Fx 29+ Australis ans started using it a lot faster than I did Firefox 4.0, which took me to Fx 10 use use all the time as I hung in there with last of the Firefox 3.6 releases which Mozilla kept providing security updates for for an extended period of time. Then as the API's for extensions started to change I stuck with Fx 33 / 34 for quite awhile and then the "signing" scheme came about and the "deadline" for enforcing a hard date kept getting pushed I realized that a "first mate" was at the tiller and the Captain of the ship rarely, if at all, ventured onto the bridge; or Firefox had just became a ship with a broken rudder meandering off the best navigation routes between ports of call!

Well without making this tl;dr any further, I will state that I posted this using Firefox 38.7.1 which is what I use most of the day and Firefox 47.0.1 for the rest of the day. That should tell you what I think about Quantum 57+ versions. I have it (Fx 62.0.2) installed and play with it some to see how I can make it livable to use, but my original goal of Fx 60 to 61 have been left in the dust and I am so discouraged that I am spending more time with SeaMonkey and Basilisk than I am with Quantum. Google Chrome isn't in the running, didn't like it 3 years ago when I was very disgruntled with Firefox then (and still); Vivaldi and Opera didn't ring a bell for me so I stuck with older versions Firefox as the lesser evil.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
Brummelchen
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Brummelchen »

we are currently at firefox 62 - why ask now 6 builds later? Quantum arrived 9 month ago...
if you need stats go -> http://gs.statcounter.com

i dont like arguing for or against firefox - everybody is free to use any browser which fits the needs best.
i use firefox 62/63/64/60esr (more or less) and chromium (v71, more or less) - which browser is opened by time, i dont care, both are equal to use here.

nevertheless to mention: i switch from firefox 54 to chromium inbetween to give me time to investigate into quantum (v57) without hurry. i designed chromium like firefox 54 was and i designed quantum like my chromium was after all. win-win for all.
at least i did not care about - it was a browser and its a browser and no swiss army knife. when people decided to pimp up firefox like this
https://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Swi ... B001DZTJRQ
they have to deal with consequences - but people cried rivers which was not helpful ;)
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WaltS48
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by WaltS48 »

In general.

Don't care. I use Nightly builds.
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therube
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by therube »

Quite obvious it has hurt Mozilla - including everything related to Mozilla.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
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JodyThornton
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by JodyThornton »

Brummelchen wrote:we are currently at firefox 62 - why ask now 6 builds later? Quantum arrived 9 month ago...
if you need stats go -> http://gs.statcounter.com
I don't think he meant v57 per se, but Quantum as a product. It's a valid question. After almost a year, usage stats are reportedly worse (depending who you read), but it also depends on Mozilla's goals. If Mozilla wanted to shed itself of the power user base and focus on mobile-friendly users, maybe it succeeded because at least least the fewer users they have are the right users. PC-based power users don't represent the future to a lot of corporations because they represent older, slowly-deprecating tech, right?

I'll stick to my desktop, but I know I'm part of a disappearing breed.
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Richmond Hill, Ontario)
Kevin McFarlane
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Kevin McFarlane »

therube wrote:Quite obvious it has hurt Mozilla - including everything related to Mozilla.
Rust is highly-rated and is doing OK I think.
Kevin McFarlane
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Kevin McFarlane »

max2 wrote:Curious what people think in general. Thanks.
Well, it's not stopped it shedding market share. Having said that everything else is either at about 1% or less or is also losing share to Chrome (unfortunately).

Success for Firefox would be to, say, stay consistently at about 10%, i.e., not drop any further from where it is.
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therube
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by therube »

Rust is highly-rated
I find steel wool works well.

Everything:
Every (Mozilla based) browser, every (Mozilla based) application, every (Mozilla based) extension
Mozilla users, Mozilla developers, non-Mozilla users & developers
Extension users & developers
Technologies that aren't available yet, technologies that haven't been thought of yet

Anything that is not MS, anything that is not Google, are hurt by what Mozilla has become (yet another money-grubber).
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
Brummelchen
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Brummelchen »

I dont judge mozilla on one of its product segment. There is more to explore. If firefox dies there are more solutions, but most them are based on chromium. Hopefully this would push investigations into this code. (Using chromium here)
the magic number is 51 and you are probably part of it :p
Henderson
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Henderson »

I'm still using 52.3.0. I really dislike the Quantum UI that much that I'm considering switching permanently to either Pale Moon or SeaMonkey.
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James
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by James »

Henderson wrote:I'm still using 52.3.0
Firefox 52.3.0 ESR is a old version from August 8, 2017 as the last security and allowed stability update for 52 ESR was 52.9.0 ESR Released on June 26, 2018. However the 52.9.0esr was officially made EOL as of Sept 5th and will no longer get updates for security or stability fixes.

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
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JodyThornton
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by JodyThornton »

@James, what would be your suggestion then if somoene doesn't want Quantum? Luckily for me, I like Quantum, but even then I'm sticking with v60 ESR. It seems already that too much is changing.
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Richmond Hill, Ontario)
Brummelchen
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Brummelchen »

Not James, but waterfox could be. Otherwise only chromium based. Using outdated and vulnerable clients never had fortune.

#typo
Last edited by Brummelchen on October 11th, 2018, 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kevin McFarlane
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Re: Do you think Firefox 57 helped or hurt Firefox?

Post by Kevin McFarlane »

JodyThornton wrote:@James, what would be your suggestion then if somoene doesn't want Quantum? Luckily for me, I like Quantum, but even then I'm sticking with v60 ESR. It seems already that too much is changing.
If you don't want Quantum and also don't trust the likes of Palemoon or Waterfox to keep up with the legacy model and remain secure and up-to-date with other web tech and you want the maximum possible customisability then Vivaldi looks the best bet.
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