5 ms·

My browser and extensions did useful things yesterday that they do not do today. Who changed something in the meantime? Obviously I paid nothing for Firefox an

My browser and extensions did useful things yesterday that they do not do today. Who changed something in the meantime? Obviously I paid nothing for Firefox and Mozilla owes me the same nothing in return, but if it wants to keep users and remain significant, breaking arguably its main advantage might not be the best plan.

Paianni 9y ago
Use 52ESR.
Tomte 9y ago
That's not true. Your browser does exactly the same things that it did yesterday. If you chose to update to the new version where you knew exactly what extensions would be running and which wouldn't... well, your fault.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  I didn't choose to update yet, for exactly that reason. The problem remains that now I have to choose between: 56 (without security updates) 57 (without many useful extensions) 52ESR (without functionality and performance updates, and only until mid-2018 anyway) Clearly none of these is as good as what I have had until this point.
  - swinglock 9y ago
    You could try Pale Moon.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  firefox autoupdates without prompting
  - venatiodecorus 9y ago
    i suppose that depends on your OS/update mechanism. mine doesn't. EDIT: although i have it set to auto-update in the settings, maybe i just don't realize this because i never close/restart it heh :D
Yoric 9y ago
If you're interested, I explained above https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 why the switch was necessary. As a Firefox user (and dev) I believe that breaking some extensions today in a clean manner that will let us maintain compatibility in the future is way prefereable than randomly breaking extensions with every single version of Firefox, as this has been happening forever. Plus this break has set us free to actually improve Firefox and make it competitive again, something I believe is in everybody's interest. I realize that it's painful for the users who lost some add-ons upon which they relied, but I believe that given the alternative, this was the best choice possible.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  I was a software guy long before I was a web guy, so I completely understand the desire to clean up internals. Unfortunately, as a user, the bottom line is still that if I update I will receive very little benefit and lose a lot of very useful functionality. It's not just the odd extension for me, it's things I use every day that are the most important reason I've stuck with Firefox. I accept that I'm probably in a minority and that Firefox is going to go with what makes Mozilla money and pays the bills, which in turn probably means what attracts larger user demographics at the expense of the rest of us. Mozilla in turn will have to accept, as I'm sure it does, that it's going to turn off power users and that it's going to prompt legitimate questions over why anyone would go with Firefox, even with these developments. The obvious alternative for most people, Chrome, already had the performance and architectural advantages, but previously lost out on flexibility and privacy concerns, and unfortunately Mozilla just surrendered a significant part of those advantages.
  - Yoric 9y ago
    I can understand your point of view. I believe that better security, performance and privacy is worth the partial (and hopefully mostly momentary) loss of customization, but YMMV.
    - Silhouette 9y ago
kelnos 9y ago
> ... but if it wants to keep users and remain significant, breaking arguably its main advantage might not be the best plan. I fully expect that this move will certainly lose Mozilla a few Firefox users, but on balance it'll be a net win: they were already losing users to performance problems and lack of modern security features. The users the lose due to lost extensions will be tiny compared to the users they won't lose in the future now that Firefox actually feels like a modern browser performance- and security-wise. I expect Mozilla knows a ton more about their users than we do and any guesses about user retention due to this move are pure speculation (including what I wrote above). I trust them to do the right thing here, a trust they've earned over the past (nearly) two decades that I do not place in, say, Google & Chrome.
- Santosh83 9y ago
  > I fully expect that this move will certainly lose Mozilla a few Firefox users, but on balance it'll be a net win I certainly hope so, for the sake of an open web. Hope they can take on the universal pushing and bundling that Google does with Chrome. Anecdotally I can say that none of my acquaintances are even aware of Firefox because Chrome can with their OS and they never saw a need to look beyond it. I hope Mozilla has a clear strategy to advocate and market Firefox, since technical merit alone is not going to out-compete Chrome's entrenched position.

Paianni 9y ago

Use 52ESR.

Tomte 9y ago

That's not true. Your browser does exactly the same things that it did yesterday. If you chose to update to the new version where you knew exactly what extensions would be running and which wouldn't... well, your fault.

Silhouette 9y ago
I didn't choose to update yet, for exactly that reason. The problem remains that now I have to choose between: 56 (without security updates) 57 (without many useful extensions) 52ESR (without functionality and performance updates, and only until mid-2018 anyway) Clearly none of these is as good as what I have had until this point.
- swinglock 9y ago
  You could try Pale Moon.
throwaway2048 9y ago
firefox autoupdates without prompting
- venatiodecorus 9y ago
  i suppose that depends on your OS/update mechanism. mine doesn't. EDIT: although i have it set to auto-update in the settings, maybe i just don't realize this because i never close/restart it heh :D

Yoric 9y ago

If you're interested, I explained above https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696184 why the switch was necessary. As a Firefox user (and dev) I believe that breaking some extensions today in a clean manner that will let us maintain compatibility in the future is way prefereable than randomly breaking extensions with every single version of Firefox, as this has been happening forever. Plus this break has set us free to actually improve Firefox and make it competitive again, something I believe is in everybody's interest. I realize that it's painful for the users who lost some add-ons upon which they relied, but I believe that given the alternative, this was the best choice possible.

Silhouette 9y ago
I was a software guy long before I was a web guy, so I completely understand the desire to clean up internals. Unfortunately, as a user, the bottom line is still that if I update I will receive very little benefit and lose a lot of very useful functionality. It's not just the odd extension for me, it's things I use every day that are the most important reason I've stuck with Firefox. I accept that I'm probably in a minority and that Firefox is going to go with what makes Mozilla money and pays the bills, which in turn probably means what attracts larger user demographics at the expense of the rest of us. Mozilla in turn will have to accept, as I'm sure it does, that it's going to turn off power users and that it's going to prompt legitimate questions over why anyone would go with Firefox, even with these developments. The obvious alternative for most people, Chrome, already had the performance and architectural advantages, but previously lost out on flexibility and privacy concerns, and unfortunately Mozilla just surrendered a significant part of those advantages.
- Yoric 9y ago
  I can understand your point of view. I believe that better security, performance and privacy is worth the partial (and hopefully mostly momentary) loss of customization, but YMMV.
  - Silhouette 9y ago

kelnos 9y ago

> ... but if it wants to keep users and remain significant, breaking arguably its main advantage might not be the best plan. I fully expect that this move will certainly lose Mozilla a few Firefox users, but on balance it'll be a net win: they were already losing users to performance problems and lack of modern security features. The users the lose due to lost extensions will be tiny compared to the users they won't lose in the future now that Firefox actually feels like a modern browser performance- and security-wise. I expect Mozilla knows a ton more about their users than we do and any guesses about user retention due to this move are pure speculation (including what I wrote above). I trust them to do the right thing here, a trust they've earned over the past (nearly) two decades that I do not place in, say, Google & Chrome.

Santosh83 9y ago
> I fully expect that this move will certainly lose Mozilla a few Firefox users, but on balance it'll be a net win I certainly hope so, for the sake of an open web. Hope they can take on the universal pushing and bundling that Google does with Chrome. Anecdotally I can say that none of my acquaintances are even aware of Firefox because Chrome can with their OS and they never saw a need to look beyond it. I hope Mozilla has a clear strategy to advocate and market Firefox, since technical merit alone is not going to out-compete Chrome's entrenched position.