7 ms·

I'm still rockin Firefox 33 (released 2014) on one of my PCs. Sad to observe websites which fail and throw errors without any grace including big sites like Net

by exodust 10y ago

I'm still rockin Firefox 33 (released 2014) on one of my PCs. Sad to observe websites which fail and throw errors without any grace including big sites like Netflix and others. Strange errors and broken functionality usually without any mention of my browser being the problem. That's sloppy development. A browser from 2014 isn't "Netscape 3". Signed up to Google Firebase recently. Tried navigating to the console on my PC with Firefox 33, "there was an error completing your request". That's because I was using a browser from 2014. No mention of that in the error. At first I thought the service was down, then I tried a newer browser. Backwards compatibility or at least graceful degradation and error handling is accessibility. Your site either has it or it doesn't.

DominoTree 10y ago
Why are you using such an old browser? Part of the reason sites are built for current browsers is that responsible users should be updating their browsers frequently. With as many ways as you can have your machine compromised by simply browsing to a website that had some malicious advertising code embedded, I can't imagine why anybody would use such an old browser if they weren't absolutely forced to.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  That misses the point. Security is one thing, features are another. Regardless of whether a user should update regularly for security patches, the Internet should support 3-year-old technologies, or gracefully fail otherwise.
- nonbel 10y ago
  For most people it is because the (desired) security updates come bundled with (undesired) UI changes, default search engine changes, increased telemetry, etc. I work with a visually impaired PhD student, and we had to turn off browser updates because of the hell it was causing him (eg why are my search results different all of a sudden? why are pdfs opening differently?). This isn't limited to firefox, google voice recently got a UI update that lowered the information density. Where he used to be able to see who he was talking to now there is a big colored shape surrounded by whitespace, etc. If he didn't limit the updates, probably 25-50% of his time would be spent dealing with interface changes.
  - discreditable 10y ago
    Nurturing inflexibility to change in a user—especially a student—is setting them up for failure in a world of frequent and sudden change.
    - apostacy 10y ago
      Well maybe companies that create this stuff should be more flexible in accommodating the users. It's not our responsibility to work around someone Else's updates. If something works now, why should it be changed because it's more convenient for Google?
    - phanimahesh 10y ago
      Anecdote: I had a friend in college. Visually impaired - tunnel vision and a degrading retina. Takes him a good few seconds to locate things on familiar UI. New UI is hell. I know because I was by his side all through college. Your comment makes it look as if you never worked with someone who suffers due to needless design changes.
      - discreditable 10y ago
        I work in high school education. I've dealt with inflexibility from staff and students alike. When I started we never ran software updates precisely because people didn't like change. I changed that policy and moved to tracking upstream as closely as I can manage. While it was very hard at first, users have adapted and become better at adapting to new changes quickly. Five years later, I do not see nearly as many "this changed and I don't know how to do it anymore"-type questions as I used to. The initial break was quite hard, but I'm very glad I did it.
        vacri 10y ago
        There's a difference between people being just plain stubborn, and people with an actual disability that hampers them.
- apostacy 10y ago
  When was it decided that it was the users responsibility to use the latest version of a web browser (regardless of how inconvenient it is for the user)? Oh right, Google and the cabal that runs the web decided so. Just because something is "old" doesn't mean it is obsolete. This mentality is very wrong, and needs to be opposed. It isn't helping the users, it is helping the platforms. Up until a few years ago, it was the responsibility of the developer to gracefully fall back and support as many users as possible. Now, instead, we design under the assumption that everyone has a computer made within the last 12-18 months, with the latest updates, on a high speed, low latency connection. And that is awful, because it is cutting out users who aren't privileged enough to afford the web. The new "improved" Google Voice is utter trash. It makes my 2011 Macbook grind to a halt. And for what? So that it cosmetically resembles their new phone app. And most tech reporting websites are gushing about how it looks. And what is the justification for all of this garbage? Is the web faster? more reliable? More accessible to people with disabilities? NO.
  - jbicha 10y ago
    It's not the user's responsibility to update their browser. The updates happen automatically unless a user intentionally disables it.
    - exodust 10y ago
      The point they were making is that users are now burdened with the responsibility of ensuring their computers are compatible with the web, rather than the web ensuring their sites are compatible with users.
- apostacy 10y ago
  I use Firefox 29 for most of my profiles. Because I have a very specific workflow with add-ons, that runs circles around any Chrome user. It's also more secure, because of my external sandboxing. I also have my own container mechanism for Firefox that I have been using for years. And this is what the web is all about. It used to be that the web was accessible to people in remote parts of the world, using old hardware, and anyone could write and add to it. Now it's quickly becoming a black box that only wealthy people can access.
  - oatmealsnap 10y ago
    That's quite the hyperbole. The performance gains that come with newer browsers (generally) should allow websites to run on older hardware. Not to mention support for new protocols and compression that lead to smaller assets being sent to all devices.
    - apostacy 10y ago
      I can see how my comment wasn't clear. The fact that disadvantaged people are being driven off the web has nothing to do with the fact that I have a highly customized browser setup. I probably should have made that more clear.
  - DominoTree 10y ago
    It seems as if your paradigm shifts it from "only wealthy people can access" to "only people technically competent enough to set up a sandbox can access"
    - apostacy 10y ago
      No, I wasn't advocating that anyone use my advanced browser setup. I was just illustrating that there are reasons why someone would want to do so. I really shouldn't have to do this. Mozilla should have put more effort into add-on compatibility. Add-ons are the only thing that Firefox has going for it.
webo 10y ago
Curious why are you still using a 3-year old version on your personal computer?
- exodust 10y ago
  Couple of reasons: I test my site builds on older browsers - proper full browser versions and OS environments/hardware. Some of my computers I keep up to date, not all. And I don't particularly respect updates sold as "security" when they often move the furniture around, or remove features, or flog whatever new feature they think we want in our browsers. Web browsers should be more stable, not frantically updating themselves every 5 minutes. Browsers are windows to online content - the online content is what changes and updates all the time. The browser, as viewer of those changing and varied websites, should be relatively static and stable.
nkkollaw 10y ago
I'm glad that major sites don't support older browsers. This way users will have to upgrade, and the web can move forward. One thing is to keep supporting something that costs hundreds of dollars (like an iPhone), but there is very little sense IMHO to spend a lot of effort and—potentially—make everyone's experience worse just because some users won't bother downloading a 50MB free update. A lot of things happen in 3 years in this field! Google was smart in making Chrome updates automatic. I doubt the average user cares the slightest anyway.
- apostacy 10y ago
  Stop using vague language like "moving forward". That is exactly the same justification for "deprecating" America's public transit infrastructure in the 1950s, and replacing it with highways. I don't consider a lot of updates to be upgrades. And the cost associated with updates isn't 50Mb. The cost is losing essential features that I rely on. So, you're saying that I should lose the ability to log into my router, all so you can use the latest template bullshit that will be abandoned in a year. And it's not even that a major feature will be deprecated specifically, it's the threat and uncertainty that the constant update cycle creates. I deeply miss the good old days, when I could trust that my computer would behave as I expected it to. The fact that things have become so damn unreliable is itself taking away from the UX, and more than offsets any improvements. Google has an awful UX, because of how unreliable it is. All the financial websites that I use over the last two years have been ruined in the pursuit of UX. Information density has plummeted. I used to be able to copy and paste data on screen in a predictable manor. The browser responded instantly. Now, it's a messy, slow, and far less readable. I'm thankful that I don't rely on accessible technology. The direction the web has taken recently is horrible. And I'm convinced that this time will be looked back on with disgust. I was a web designer from the late 90s to early 2000s. I vividly remember everyone saying how Flash needed to be pushed on users, and how HTML was obsolete. And that unskippable flash intro pages were cutting edge UX. And playing sounds in the background was a great idea. And that all users were 800x600 resolution. The attitudes have not changed. I think they've actually gotten worse.
  - quadrangle 10y ago
sverige 10y ago
I use the latest version of Lynx as a fallback on my OpenBSD laptop, but I don't expect to be able to watch Netflix on it. It's really good at fetching files from ftp sites that are hosted on http links, though.
- exodust 10y ago
  Sure, but if you browse to Netflix on Lynx, you shouldn't be greeted with a dogs breakfast, you should be treated with respect as any user should, and informed of what you need to operate the site.
cpeterso 10y ago
You might consider switching to the Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) channel. It updates to a new major version every ~10 months (seven Firefox releases) but continues to receive security patches every six weeks in the meantime. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/
- exodust 10y ago
  Disappointing that a modern browser can only be considered secure for 6 weeks.
ieatkittens 10y ago
I can think of many more interesting things other than debugging a three year old evergreen browser. Staring at a blank wall, for example.
elgenie 10y ago
Firefox went to an evergreen browser model and keeps an ESR around for people that don't want to upgrade. But that's at version 45 at the moment. Firefox 33 is a three year old point release intended for eight weeks of operation, so things being broken shouldn't be a surprise. So sites have the choice of feature-sniffing and keeping an updated list of all the rendering bugs in all browsers going back ... what, a decade?; or kicking out people using old non-ESR browsers. They could be more gentle about it, but the choice is fairly obvious.
- exodust 10y ago
  Firefox 33 was an official release. Things being broken should be a surprise in an HTML5 compliant browser. If sites use bleeding edge features with no programmed fallback or error handling apart from "miserable failure", they have a responsibility to at least inform users of their limited browser support rather than pretending to be a website on the internet - which by its nature should be accessible to an official release browser from 2014 without failing miserably.
sorenjan 10y ago
I'm guessing the reason you don't want to upgrade is because the new worse search bar that was included in Firefox 34? You can install a new version of Firefox and use Classic theme restorer[0] to get both the old UI and the new features. At least until Firefox 57 ships in November which will only support web extensions. It will be sorely missed. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...

by exodust 10y ago

DominoTree 10y ago

Why are you using such an old browser? Part of the reason sites are built for current browsers is that responsible users should be updating their browsers frequently. With as many ways as you can have your machine compromised by simply browsing to a website that had some malicious advertising code embedded, I can't imagine why anybody would use such an old browser if they weren't absolutely forced to.

unethical_ban 10y ago
That misses the point. Security is one thing, features are another. Regardless of whether a user should update regularly for security patches, the Internet should support 3-year-old technologies, or gracefully fail otherwise.
nonbel 10y ago
For most people it is because the (desired) security updates come bundled with (undesired) UI changes, default search engine changes, increased telemetry, etc. I work with a visually impaired PhD student, and we had to turn off browser updates because of the hell it was causing him (eg why are my search results different all of a sudden? why are pdfs opening differently?). This isn't limited to firefox, google voice recently got a UI update that lowered the information density. Where he used to be able to see who he was talking to now there is a big colored shape surrounded by whitespace, etc. If he didn't limit the updates, probably 25-50% of his time would be spent dealing with interface changes.
- discreditable 10y ago
  Nurturing inflexibility to change in a user—especially a student—is setting them up for failure in a world of frequent and sudden change.
  - apostacy 10y ago
    Well maybe companies that create this stuff should be more flexible in accommodating the users. It's not our responsibility to work around someone Else's updates. If something works now, why should it be changed because it's more convenient for Google?
  - phanimahesh 10y ago
    Anecdote: I had a friend in college. Visually impaired - tunnel vision and a degrading retina. Takes him a good few seconds to locate things on familiar UI. New UI is hell. I know because I was by his side all through college. Your comment makes it look as if you never worked with someone who suffers due to needless design changes.
    - discreditable 10y ago
      I work in high school education. I've dealt with inflexibility from staff and students alike. When I started we never ran software updates precisely because people didn't like change. I changed that policy and moved to tracking upstream as closely as I can manage. While it was very hard at first, users have adapted and become better at adapting to new changes quickly. Five years later, I do not see nearly as many "this changed and I don't know how to do it anymore"-type questions as I used to. The initial break was quite hard, but I'm very glad I did it.
      - vacri 10y ago
        There's a difference between people being just plain stubborn, and people with an actual disability that hampers them.
apostacy 10y ago
When was it decided that it was the users responsibility to use the latest version of a web browser (regardless of how inconvenient it is for the user)? Oh right, Google and the cabal that runs the web decided so. Just because something is "old" doesn't mean it is obsolete. This mentality is very wrong, and needs to be opposed. It isn't helping the users, it is helping the platforms. Up until a few years ago, it was the responsibility of the developer to gracefully fall back and support as many users as possible. Now, instead, we design under the assumption that everyone has a computer made within the last 12-18 months, with the latest updates, on a high speed, low latency connection. And that is awful, because it is cutting out users who aren't privileged enough to afford the web. The new "improved" Google Voice is utter trash. It makes my 2011 Macbook grind to a halt. And for what? So that it cosmetically resembles their new phone app. And most tech reporting websites are gushing about how it looks. And what is the justification for all of this garbage? Is the web faster? more reliable? More accessible to people with disabilities? NO.
- jbicha 10y ago
  It's not the user's responsibility to update their browser. The updates happen automatically unless a user intentionally disables it.
  - exodust 10y ago
    The point they were making is that users are now burdened with the responsibility of ensuring their computers are compatible with the web, rather than the web ensuring their sites are compatible with users.
apostacy 10y ago
I use Firefox 29 for most of my profiles. Because I have a very specific workflow with add-ons, that runs circles around any Chrome user. It's also more secure, because of my external sandboxing. I also have my own container mechanism for Firefox that I have been using for years. And this is what the web is all about. It used to be that the web was accessible to people in remote parts of the world, using old hardware, and anyone could write and add to it. Now it's quickly becoming a black box that only wealthy people can access.
- oatmealsnap 10y ago
  That's quite the hyperbole. The performance gains that come with newer browsers (generally) should allow websites to run on older hardware. Not to mention support for new protocols and compression that lead to smaller assets being sent to all devices.
  - apostacy 10y ago
    I can see how my comment wasn't clear. The fact that disadvantaged people are being driven off the web has nothing to do with the fact that I have a highly customized browser setup. I probably should have made that more clear.
- DominoTree 10y ago
  It seems as if your paradigm shifts it from "only wealthy people can access" to "only people technically competent enough to set up a sandbox can access"
  - apostacy 10y ago
    No, I wasn't advocating that anyone use my advanced browser setup. I was just illustrating that there are reasons why someone would want to do so. I really shouldn't have to do this. Mozilla should have put more effort into add-on compatibility. Add-ons are the only thing that Firefox has going for it.

webo 10y ago

Curious why are you still using a 3-year old version on your personal computer?

exodust 10y ago
Couple of reasons: I test my site builds on older browsers - proper full browser versions and OS environments/hardware. Some of my computers I keep up to date, not all. And I don't particularly respect updates sold as "security" when they often move the furniture around, or remove features, or flog whatever new feature they think we want in our browsers. Web browsers should be more stable, not frantically updating themselves every 5 minutes. Browsers are windows to online content - the online content is what changes and updates all the time. The browser, as viewer of those changing and varied websites, should be relatively static and stable.

nkkollaw 10y ago

I'm glad that major sites don't support older browsers. This way users will have to upgrade, and the web can move forward. One thing is to keep supporting something that costs hundreds of dollars (like an iPhone), but there is very little sense IMHO to spend a lot of effort and—potentially—make everyone's experience worse just because some users won't bother downloading a 50MB free update. A lot of things happen in 3 years in this field! Google was smart in making Chrome updates automatic. I doubt the average user cares the slightest anyway.

apostacy 10y ago
Stop using vague language like "moving forward". That is exactly the same justification for "deprecating" America's public transit infrastructure in the 1950s, and replacing it with highways. I don't consider a lot of updates to be upgrades. And the cost associated with updates isn't 50Mb. The cost is losing essential features that I rely on. So, you're saying that I should lose the ability to log into my router, all so you can use the latest template bullshit that will be abandoned in a year. And it's not even that a major feature will be deprecated specifically, it's the threat and uncertainty that the constant update cycle creates. I deeply miss the good old days, when I could trust that my computer would behave as I expected it to. The fact that things have become so damn unreliable is itself taking away from the UX, and more than offsets any improvements. Google has an awful UX, because of how unreliable it is. All the financial websites that I use over the last two years have been ruined in the pursuit of UX. Information density has plummeted. I used to be able to copy and paste data on screen in a predictable manor. The browser responded instantly. Now, it's a messy, slow, and far less readable. I'm thankful that I don't rely on accessible technology. The direction the web has taken recently is horrible. And I'm convinced that this time will be looked back on with disgust. I was a web designer from the late 90s to early 2000s. I vividly remember everyone saying how Flash needed to be pushed on users, and how HTML was obsolete. And that unskippable flash intro pages were cutting edge UX. And playing sounds in the background was a great idea. And that all users were 800x600 resolution. The attitudes have not changed. I think they've actually gotten worse.
- quadrangle 10y ago

sverige 10y ago

I use the latest version of Lynx as a fallback on my OpenBSD laptop, but I don't expect to be able to watch Netflix on it. It's really good at fetching files from ftp sites that are hosted on http links, though.

exodust 10y ago
Sure, but if you browse to Netflix on Lynx, you shouldn't be greeted with a dogs breakfast, you should be treated with respect as any user should, and informed of what you need to operate the site.

cpeterso 10y ago

You might consider switching to the Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) channel. It updates to a new major version every ~10 months (seven Firefox releases) but continues to receive security patches every six weeks in the meantime. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

exodust 10y ago
Disappointing that a modern browser can only be considered secure for 6 weeks.

ieatkittens 10y ago

I can think of many more interesting things other than debugging a three year old evergreen browser. Staring at a blank wall, for example.

elgenie 10y ago

Firefox went to an evergreen browser model and keeps an ESR around for people that don't want to upgrade. But that's at version 45 at the moment. Firefox 33 is a three year old point release intended for eight weeks of operation, so things being broken shouldn't be a surprise. So sites have the choice of feature-sniffing and keeping an updated list of all the rendering bugs in all browsers going back ... what, a decade?; or kicking out people using old non-ESR browsers. They could be more gentle about it, but the choice is fairly obvious.

exodust 10y ago
Firefox 33 was an official release. Things being broken should be a surprise in an HTML5 compliant browser. If sites use bleeding edge features with no programmed fallback or error handling apart from "miserable failure", they have a responsibility to at least inform users of their limited browser support rather than pretending to be a website on the internet - which by its nature should be accessible to an official release browser from 2014 without failing miserably.

sorenjan 10y ago

I'm guessing the reason you don't want to upgrade is because the new worse search bar that was included in Firefox 34? You can install a new version of Firefox and use Classic theme restorer[0] to get both the old UI and the new features. At least until Firefox 57 ships in November which will only support web extensions. It will be sorely missed. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...