6 ms·

It's funny how things come full circle. Circa 2004, Firefox was the browser that forced Microsoft to reinstate its browser team (which had been disbanded around

by dlevine 15y ago

It's funny how things come full circle. Circa 2004, Firefox was the browser that forced Microsoft to reinstate its browser team (which had been disbanded around 2001 after the release of IE6). It had a revolutionary interface, and did a lot of things right (although it did lack some important features that IE6 had). Firefox was pretty much static after that point, adding important features (such as contenteditable), but not pushing the envelope much in terms of interface. Then Chrome came out. It was rough around the edges, but Google released a new version every few months, and it quickly improved to the point where it was better than everything else. It represented a generational change in user interface paradigms and development cycle time. So now Firefox has been forced to play catch-up to Chrome, much as IE had to play catch-up to Firefox. To be fair, this happened when Firefox abandoned the monolithic development cycle, but the UI changes represent the full acknowledgement of this. I wonder where the next revolutionary browser will come from. My intuition is that it will be on the mobile side...

kibwen 15y ago
This is a bit of a long shot, but Mozilla is actually in the preliminary planning phase of building a highly-parallel browser engine in order to take better advantage of the parallel nature of future hardware, specifically in the mobile space. A presentation on it here: http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/future-tense-7782010 http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/future-tense-7782010 Of course, students of history will remember what happened the last time that Mozilla/Netscape tried rewriting their browser engine: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html Hopefully things will go a bit more smoothly this time. :) And of course this is all just research at this point, none of this might ever see an actual release.
- 0xABADC0DA 15y ago
  My problem with Joel here is that he's taking a good rule, not to rewrite software unnecessarily, and trying to make it universal. Well it's not a universal rule to never scrap code. Sometimes the software is just so bad, so complicated, so wrong for the task that it must be scrapped. Large parts of Navigator, but also other things like OS 9 are examples. The original Mac OS was simply not cut out for an internet age -- like Windows 9x it couldn't be reworked to something current. Even if Mozilla fails to keep their browser relevant, the investment is sure to pay off with a new widely respected system programming language. If you follow the reception of Rust virtually everybody seems impressed with the rationality and practicality of its design choices, explained and backed by solid engineering. Compared to the nearly universally panned golang (series of arbitrary decisions) or even Dart (decisions not backed by metrics), it's hard to imagine that Rust won't have a major impact on the industry -- that alone is worth scrapping the browser engine and rewriting from scratch.
  - Supermighty 15y ago
    Mac OS9 wasn't scrapped. It ran next to OSX for many years and powered apps that hadn't converted to use the Carbon API that allowed OS9 apps to run on OSX.
  - gcp 15y ago
    Even if Mozilla fails to keep their browser relevant, the investment is sure to pay off with a new widely respected system programming language. I thought the mission of Mozilla was to ensure the web stays open. If their only lasting result in the end is to have produced the new standard systems programming language, that's an impressive feat. But they'd also be a complete and utter failure.
dlikhten 15y ago
TBH I rather they do multi-processing first. That is the #1 reason I keep away from firefox. All else is secondary. 99% of the time, some flash crap holds up my browser and all of FF freezes. Yet with Chrome, never happens. That is the #1 feature that trumps everything for me, even though I think FF is superior to chrome in many ways including Firebug.
- gcp 15y ago
  Flash has been in a separate process (plugin-container) for ages.
  - MtrL 15y ago
    Still freezes the browser. Plus they increased the timeout until it's recognised as crashed by about 10 times recently and it's absolutely awful now.
    - dlikhten 15y ago
      It's a separate process for security reasons, and so crashes wont crash the browser. However the whole damn thing is more or less mutexed to hell. The long timeout is there so freaken' farmvile works. But the whole browser freezes.
gcp 15y ago
Firefox was pretty much static after that point, adding important features (such as contenteditable), but not pushing the envelope much in terms of interface. Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. I don't think the Firefox feature announced here will be much different. People like things to stay the way the are used to. Unless there's a huge change and they can see how dropping their old habits all at once is somehow an advantage. Gradually adopting improved versions of the most sensible Chrome features might sound like sound engineering, but due to these dynamics I really wonder if its a survivable strategy in the long run. There were some UX mockups posted a while ago that looked far more ambitious. That's more like it.
- baddox 15y ago
  > Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. It's true, yet I think it still needs to be done, even though I'm often among the complainers. The key is balance: advancing UI without forcing users that are looking for a solid consistent experience to beta test your UI ideas. Ubuntu is an example of a lot of really bold UI decisions, and I think they're too eager to force things on users. Ubuntu is in the tricky situation of making a product for "the hard-core" (Linux geeks) and "the noobs" (non-tech-savvy users wanting a free OS).
- derleth 15y ago
  > Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. And the reason I like Firefox is because there's always a way to go back to the old behavior/UI without losing the benefits of the new underlying system. That is respectful to users, as opposed to the Chrome way where you take it or leave it at a corporation's whim.
rplnt 15y ago
They major UI changes started in version 4 when Firefox completly copied Opera's UI. Just by the way, not saying it's a bad thing.

by dlevine 15y ago

kibwen 15y ago

This is a bit of a long shot, but Mozilla is actually in the preliminary planning phase of building a highly-parallel browser engine in order to take better advantage of the parallel nature of future hardware, specifically in the mobile space. A presentation on it here: http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/future-tense-7782010 http://www.slideshare.net/BrendanEich/future-tense-7782010 Of course, students of history will remember what happened the last time that Mozilla/Netscape tried rewriting their browser engine: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html Hopefully things will go a bit more smoothly this time. :) And of course this is all just research at this point, none of this might ever see an actual release.

0xABADC0DA 15y ago
My problem with Joel here is that he's taking a good rule, not to rewrite software unnecessarily, and trying to make it universal. Well it's not a universal rule to never scrap code. Sometimes the software is just so bad, so complicated, so wrong for the task that it must be scrapped. Large parts of Navigator, but also other things like OS 9 are examples. The original Mac OS was simply not cut out for an internet age -- like Windows 9x it couldn't be reworked to something current. Even if Mozilla fails to keep their browser relevant, the investment is sure to pay off with a new widely respected system programming language. If you follow the reception of Rust virtually everybody seems impressed with the rationality and practicality of its design choices, explained and backed by solid engineering. Compared to the nearly universally panned golang (series of arbitrary decisions) or even Dart (decisions not backed by metrics), it's hard to imagine that Rust won't have a major impact on the industry -- that alone is worth scrapping the browser engine and rewriting from scratch.
- Supermighty 15y ago
  Mac OS9 wasn't scrapped. It ran next to OSX for many years and powered apps that hadn't converted to use the Carbon API that allowed OS9 apps to run on OSX.
- gcp 15y ago
  Even if Mozilla fails to keep their browser relevant, the investment is sure to pay off with a new widely respected system programming language. I thought the mission of Mozilla was to ensure the web stays open. If their only lasting result in the end is to have produced the new standard systems programming language, that's an impressive feat. But they'd also be a complete and utter failure.

dlikhten 15y ago

TBH I rather they do multi-processing first. That is the #1 reason I keep away from firefox. All else is secondary. 99% of the time, some flash crap holds up my browser and all of FF freezes. Yet with Chrome, never happens. That is the #1 feature that trumps everything for me, even though I think FF is superior to chrome in many ways including Firebug.

gcp 15y ago
Flash has been in a separate process (plugin-container) for ages.
- MtrL 15y ago
  Still freezes the browser. Plus they increased the timeout until it's recognised as crashed by about 10 times recently and it's absolutely awful now.
  - dlikhten 15y ago
    It's a separate process for security reasons, and so crashes wont crash the browser. However the whole damn thing is more or less mutexed to hell. The long timeout is there so freaken' farmvile works. But the whole browser freezes.

gcp 15y ago

Firefox was pretty much static after that point, adding important features (such as contenteditable), but not pushing the envelope much in terms of interface. Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. I don't think the Firefox feature announced here will be much different. People like things to stay the way the are used to. Unless there's a huge change and they can see how dropping their old habits all at once is somehow an advantage. Gradually adopting improved versions of the most sensible Chrome features might sound like sound engineering, but due to these dynamics I really wonder if its a survivable strategy in the long run. There were some UX mockups posted a while ago that looked far more ambitious. That's more like it.

baddox 15y ago
> Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. It's true, yet I think it still needs to be done, even though I'm often among the complainers. The key is balance: advancing UI without forcing users that are looking for a solid consistent experience to beta test your UI ideas. Ubuntu is an example of a lot of really bold UI decisions, and I think they're too eager to force things on users. Ubuntu is in the tricky situation of making a product for "the hard-core" (Linux geeks) and "the noobs" (non-tech-savvy users wanting a free OS).
derleth 15y ago
> Pushing the envelope in terms of interface is a really tricky thing to do. Each time you do it, there's a huge user outcry, and it does turn some users away or stops them from upgrading. And the reason I like Firefox is because there's always a way to go back to the old behavior/UI without losing the benefits of the new underlying system. That is respectful to users, as opposed to the Chrome way where you take it or leave it at a corporation's whim.

rplnt 15y ago

They major UI changes started in version 4 when Firefox completly copied Opera's UI. Just by the way, not saying it's a bad thing.