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Firefox randomly broke all my extensions and workflows one day in the pursuit of some obscure technical goal, via forced update that I couldn’t roll back. I ask

Firefox randomly broke all my extensions and workflows one day in the pursuit of some obscure technical goal, via forced update that I couldn’t roll back. I asked about it, and they banned me from their subreddit, so I deleted that stupid browser and never went back

donkeybeer 3y ago
And their constant user hostile redesigns. Suddenly tabs are floating separately from their pages. And now if a page is playing audio you can no longer see its favicon, etc Speaking of mobile firefox where did Save as PDF vanish and why? and so on edit: I have been told in a reply the save pdf feature still exists but has been changed for no reason to a different location in the menu
- jamienicol 3y ago
  you can save as PDF from the "share" menu
  - donkeybeer 3y ago
    Ah I see so it went into the "useless UI shifting" bucket rather than the "deleted features" bin. But I am happy to know it still exists thankfully.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      It's because of the salaried "UX experts". Paying somebody 6 figures to bikeshed the precise size and color of the home button is obviously farcical so they pretend to be more useful by making more dramatic changes, which amount to shuffling things around to make users relearn the software. They're ostensibly supposed to make things better for users, but in reality there's little to do on that front so they make themselves look productive by sabotaging users instead. They can never provide rational justification for any of it. Their "data" arguments are farcical. Have you ever tried to push back against a UX expert's decrees? They can't rationally defend their changes with the data that supposedly informs them so it rapidly devolves into "your opinions on UX are invalid because you're an engineer. I'm an expert so you need to trust me." Salaried "UX experts" are a blight on software development; if their services are ever needed at all, they should be given a short contract with clearly defined goals.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  "The favicon will show a special icon to show you which tab started autoplaying some stupid video" The utter horror. It's so user hostile to make an easy way to see which tab is the source of the annoying sound you are hearing. Oh, and it doesn't hide the favicon unless you have so many tabs open each tab can only fit the favicon. So for probably the vast majority of users who don't spend their days with 300 tabs they never check constantly open, they don't see this. So user hostile
  - donkeybeer 3y ago
    Whats the point of it? The previous design showed both the favicon and the sound playing icon together? The new one does not show the favicon anymore. The old design never felt cramped or tiny or anything like this, so I call bs on this.
  - donkeybeer 3y ago
    SO I checked on a fresh profile with the floating separated tabs and all and there it shows some text underneath the tab saying playing, and the playing icon only when you hover the tab, taking the place of the favicon...which...is an even stranger behavior compared to the older design. It looks like the userchrome work to remove the gap between tab and page had caused the playing icon to show under it, which means i will have to work hard some more to combine both behaviors back to the older style ie no tab gap and both playing icon and favicon visible at same time. Either case I see no justification for this borderline bizarre change.
  - donkeybeer 3y ago
    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1339535 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1339535 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1386107 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1386107 Look what an unholy mess the new change to audio playing status has caused. To summarize, in compact mode you will get the audio playing icon on a tab but it will hide the favicon in that case. In normal mode, and only if you have a small number of tabs, you will find a tiny 'PLAYING' text instead. If you hover over it, you will find the playing icon...which will have hidden the favicon then. UX geniuses with too much time on their hands.
  - 3y ago
daveguy 3y ago
I didn't go to Reddit, but extensions breaking was the reason I left on the desktop. On mobile though... I switched back about a year ago, when I got sick of the ads on chrome. If the choice is between being able to install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger vs not being able to... I'll definitely stick with Firefox on mobile.
kibwen 3y ago
> some obscure technical goal A multi-process architecture is not an obscure technical goal, it's an essential for modern browsing, and something that Chrome had from the outset, and is a large part of the reason that Chrome originally clobbered Firefox in both security and perceived speed.
- kasabali 3y ago
  That's misleading. Multi process support was implemented in Firefox 48. XUL extension purge was in Firefox 57.
mrguyorama 3y ago
Ah, you mean the extension type that chrome NEVER supported? How does switching help here?
herewulf 3y ago
"Sam Adams stopped making the beer I like so I went into a random pub to complain loudly and got thrown out. Now I just drink Bud Light!" Today Mr. Firmwarrior stands in the public square shouting about Firefox some more.
- Firmwarrior 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm done with Firefox. The company is completely rotten and dysfunctional, and getting personally attacked by fanboys when I'm unhappy with something they do isn't going to change my mind. If Chrome actually tries to force some crazy user-hostile breaking change like Manifest V3, we'll probably get enough pushback to see a really polished Chromium fork take off. Worst case, I can use LibreWolf as my daily driver
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  Making beer people like is the only job of a beer company.

donkeybeer 3y ago

And their constant user hostile redesigns. Suddenly tabs are floating separately from their pages. And now if a page is playing audio you can no longer see its favicon, etc Speaking of mobile firefox where did Save as PDF vanish and why? and so on edit: I have been told in a reply the save pdf feature still exists but has been changed for no reason to a different location in the menu

jamienicol 3y ago
you can save as PDF from the "share" menu
- donkeybeer 3y ago
  Ah I see so it went into the "useless UI shifting" bucket rather than the "deleted features" bin. But I am happy to know it still exists thankfully.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    It's because of the salaried "UX experts". Paying somebody 6 figures to bikeshed the precise size and color of the home button is obviously farcical so they pretend to be more useful by making more dramatic changes, which amount to shuffling things around to make users relearn the software. They're ostensibly supposed to make things better for users, but in reality there's little to do on that front so they make themselves look productive by sabotaging users instead. They can never provide rational justification for any of it. Their "data" arguments are farcical. Have you ever tried to push back against a UX expert's decrees? They can't rationally defend their changes with the data that supposedly informs them so it rapidly devolves into "your opinions on UX are invalid because you're an engineer. I'm an expert so you need to trust me." Salaried "UX experts" are a blight on software development; if their services are ever needed at all, they should be given a short contract with clearly defined goals.
mrguyorama 3y ago
"The favicon will show a special icon to show you which tab started autoplaying some stupid video" The utter horror. It's so user hostile to make an easy way to see which tab is the source of the annoying sound you are hearing. Oh, and it doesn't hide the favicon unless you have so many tabs open each tab can only fit the favicon. So for probably the vast majority of users who don't spend their days with 300 tabs they never check constantly open, they don't see this. So user hostile
- donkeybeer 3y ago
  Whats the point of it? The previous design showed both the favicon and the sound playing icon together? The new one does not show the favicon anymore. The old design never felt cramped or tiny or anything like this, so I call bs on this.
- donkeybeer 3y ago
  SO I checked on a fresh profile with the floating separated tabs and all and there it shows some text underneath the tab saying playing, and the playing icon only when you hover the tab, taking the place of the favicon...which...is an even stranger behavior compared to the older design. It looks like the userchrome work to remove the gap between tab and page had caused the playing icon to show under it, which means i will have to work hard some more to combine both behaviors back to the older style ie no tab gap and both playing icon and favicon visible at same time. Either case I see no justification for this borderline bizarre change.
- donkeybeer 3y ago
  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1339535 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1339535 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1386107 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1386107 Look what an unholy mess the new change to audio playing status has caused. To summarize, in compact mode you will get the audio playing icon on a tab but it will hide the favicon in that case. In normal mode, and only if you have a small number of tabs, you will find a tiny 'PLAYING' text instead. If you hover over it, you will find the playing icon...which will have hidden the favicon then. UX geniuses with too much time on their hands.
- 3y ago

daveguy 3y ago

I didn't go to Reddit, but extensions breaking was the reason I left on the desktop. On mobile though... I switched back about a year ago, when I got sick of the ads on chrome. If the choice is between being able to install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger vs not being able to... I'll definitely stick with Firefox on mobile.

kibwen 3y ago

> some obscure technical goal A multi-process architecture is not an obscure technical goal, it's an essential for modern browsing, and something that Chrome had from the outset, and is a large part of the reason that Chrome originally clobbered Firefox in both security and perceived speed.

kasabali 3y ago
That's misleading. Multi process support was implemented in Firefox 48. XUL extension purge was in Firefox 57.

mrguyorama 3y ago

Ah, you mean the extension type that chrome NEVER supported? How does switching help here?

herewulf 3y ago

"Sam Adams stopped making the beer I like so I went into a random pub to complain loudly and got thrown out. Now I just drink Bud Light!" Today Mr. Firmwarrior stands in the public square shouting about Firefox some more.

Firmwarrior 3y ago
Yeah, I'm done with Firefox. The company is completely rotten and dysfunctional, and getting personally attacked by fanboys when I'm unhappy with something they do isn't going to change my mind. If Chrome actually tries to force some crazy user-hostile breaking change like Manifest V3, we'll probably get enough pushback to see a really polished Chromium fork take off. Worst case, I can use LibreWolf as my daily driver
FeepingCreature 3y ago
Making beer people like is the only job of a beer company.