Firefox 13 now available for download Although its official release date is not scheduled until this Tuesday, Firefox 13 is now available on the Mozilla website. Notable among the upgraded features in Firefox 13 are redesigned Home and New Tab pages. The Home page – accessible rather intuitively by entering about:home in the address field – allows easy access to …
"Mozilla... is now releasing updates and six-week cadence. Expect Firefox 14 on July 17, 15 on August 28, and so on."
This is actually one of the reason that I am not updating my FF3 - Mozilla's new versioning system just says "sleazebag trick" to me.
(Another reason, in the same vein, is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678775. Having someone as dishonest as Asa Dotzler involved in a project kind of makes me not want to use the software...)
1) Did you know about the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) that runs on a less frequent release schedule?
2) Are you using the ESR updated version at home instead of the normal release?
Just wondering how many other people are running ESR instead of having quit Firefox for an alternate browser.
"Do you have a URL?"
Sure, here you go; http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html
Just so you know, here's a quote from the FAQ:
"Releases will be maintained for approximately one year, with point releases containing security updates coinciding with regular Firefox releases. The ESR will also have a two cycle (12 week) overlap between the time of a new release and the end-of-life of the previous release to permit testing and certification prior to deploying a new version."
Translation: To us, one year is a long time so the current Expected Stable Release is 10.0.4 and 10.0.x is scheduled to die at 10.0.8 which should overlap the second ESR of the next series which should be 17.0.1.
>>No I didn't know about this! Whats the difference/advantage? How do I find it so I can try it out? Do you have a URL?
If you're deploying it across a corporate network the advantage is that it doesnt update. The disadvantage is you're running old code with its associated problems. It seems to me that alot of the complaining here comes from the "IE 6 is best because it never updates" mindset.
Yet these same people bitched and moaned endlessly about IE 6's security and usability problems.
Grow the fuck up. If you want a browser that never updates, never implements new features, and has security holes the size of the grand canyon, you can always find a way to Kludge IE 6 onto your PC. Chrome updates silently all the time, IE's getting to be the same way, and Opera is, well, Opera. Nothing wrong with it, but it not my cup of tea.
Really, if you want something that doesn't update often, there's always Seamonkey, but its bloated because its an Internet Application Suite, much like the old school Netscape applications were. Some people like that. I personally dont.
But hell, Im a Mozilla Firefox beta tester and Ive been on Firefox 13 since about March (IIRC) so don't take my word for it as obviously I have a bias, but don't knock the new version until you've tried it, I think a great many of you will like the improvements.
Have to agree here. I use Aurora, it updates at least once every two days and somehow life still goes on. I'm afraid I don't get people who say 'I left Firefox for Chrome because Firefox is at version 12 and that's silly' when standard Firefox gets far fewer updates than Chrome and ESB Firefox gets even fewer updates.
Frank, you really missed the point here.
Most of us who are on the ESR chose it because we were getting tired of pointless and annoying changes to the UI and we don't like having to install 200 plugins just to keep the useful features that kept being removed.
Note also that we are most definitely not the same crowd that is hanging on to IE6.
As for seamonkey being 'bloated' relative to firefox, this has not been the case for quite some time now - even just on the install packages, there's only 3 megs difference. Seamonkey works fine on my ancient laptop, whereas firefox makes it grind to a halt.
But swearing at us makes you big and clever, so obviously I must be completely wrong.
This is actually very good information.
Most people are just going to Google for "Firefox Download" and get here:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/
There don't seem to be any links from this page to the ESR download page.
Even if a casual user did stumble upon it, the ESR pages warn in big letters: "Firefox ESR is intended for groups who deploy and maintain the desktop environment in large organizations," which clearly rule out a single user.
I'd argue that the frequent updates aren't a problem for their frequency per se, but because the last several updates have been BFD affairs as far as the end user is concerned, reinforcing a "why even bother" attitude.
That might just have me going and having a look to use as a backup browser. The moz team lost me at 12 when on my Win7 laptop a bare install of FF would crash on start, every time, no plug-ins, no add-ons and java disabled. Same across all users, even a new account, so it wasn't a corrupt profile. Oh well, moved Iron to default but I'd rather use something other than IE as second string.
As you say, that was seen coming by most of us a year back. Still, the Mozilla Developers know better than their users. And they definitely know better than operations specialists, IT management and professional developers. After all, what do we know? ;)
An admittedly unscientific poll of my users some while back seemed to indicate that the prevalence of home Firefox users is going down like the Titanic.
For me its already too late; I bailed out a long time ago. Not towards Chrome but SeaMonkey. Still a Mozilla engine (which isn't bad at all IMO) but without the upgrade madness. However, I have been using MSIE9 more frequent as of late.
But onto ESR... I think its doomed to fail, and I'm not just saying because I'm not a believer. First of all; the ESR project is rather new. From what I can make of it (check the proposal on the Mozilla wiki) the base version is FF10 which was only released approx. 5 months ago. You can also clearly see the reasons behind it:
"The shift to a new release process has been difficult for organizations that deploy Firefox to their users in a managed environment. We've heard 2 primary concerns"
That new release process otoh has happened MUCH longer ago. Around FF5. So it took them 5 releases (which, I guess didn't take that long ;-) ) to finally realize that companies and more serious users actually got fed up with the speedy release dates and that this couldn't be maintained.
Something every regular user (myself included) could have told you up front. Heck, worse: most of us DID on fora such as El Reg. Guess this is the kind of attention we got: /none/.
Concluding from that I think its safe to say that this whole ESR contraption is nothing more than damage control. Too little too late? That I can't say, but I have very little faith in it. Why?
You see; it seems that the main thrive was to present a version ASAP which would be "Firefox" but without the "upgrade madness". Now I wonder: how much preparation went into this project ?
Because there is something Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) has clearly shown us... Maintaining such a project is relatively easy. Not saying its a piece of cake, DON'T get me wrong. But its doable.
But actually maintaining it in such ways where the user can easily upgrade (move) from one LTS version to the next has so far proven to be more than difficult. In fact, in my experience that upgrade has often been plain out impossible. You were better off with backing up your data, wiping your disk clean and re-install.
Sure; Firefox is a browser and not a whole OS, I see that. But I cannot help, considering the context I've pictured above, if it won't eventually fall right into the same trap as Ubuntu LTS has. What guarantees are there that upgrading ESR won't actually give even MORE headaches and issues than a regular browser ? Especially considering that the project is sort off brand new ?
Another aspect which would make me very weary on this... Didn't Mozilla state some months ago that they didn't really care for the Enterprise and wouldn't be targeting it ? In fact, I recall them saying this around FF5 when they started their new upgrade policy. Could it be that when they finally realized that it was actually seriously hurting their market share that they changed their course?
How could you not be skeptical about a long-termed project when the company behind it has already shown to produce very poor results when working out long term strategies ?
I know I'm a critic, but I don't see this working out.
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The worst thing isn't actually all those snooty sites telling you to upgrade and "helpfully" pointing out a link to a download for the wrong platform (certain plugin using sites are guilty of this too), but the simple fact that the only way* to get the required security patches is "upgrades" in the "user experience". As in, that daily tool now requires another round of getting used to, as all the brain-, clicky- and fingermacros are now useless again.
This calls for a split between between the user interface and all the unspeakable crap that lies behind it, the cause for that incessant need to patch, update, and upgrade. Or you could try one of them alternatives, but some if not all pull the exact same crap.
* Barring ESM, as pointed out above, but the difficulty finding it and the big letters "not for individuals" hardly change the point.
It works. End of. I'm not playing their silly version number game whereby no one knows whether its a major or a minor release so until the day I can no longer use the websites I visit then I'm sticking with it. I don't update to a new major version of telnet or ssh every month so I'm not updating my browser. F*ck them.
Tried chrome - needed 2 libraries I didn't have (it must've required about 30 which is a bad sign of bloat and going way beyond whats required IMO) and I'm not downloading yet more cr@p onto my laptop just for a browser when I've already got one.
I've been using the 64-bit nightly builds for a while... since 11.0a1, I think. The unofficial builds stopped around 3.6 or 7. Anyway, the 64-bit version is quite nice, and I get to see some of the functionality ahead of schedule with the nightly builds. It technically doesn't work (isn't supported) for XP x64, but extracting the original installer and running it from there works perfectly, and the updates work the same.
Add-on compatibility is a concern, but I'm still running a LOT of add-ons from my 3.6 days. I got tired of modifying them to work with every release so I just turn compatibility checking off. So far only one out of twenty-some add-ons fails to work.
I'll have to see if the next update takes me from 15.0a1 to 16.0a1, which is usually the way it goes when a major release is done. Anyway, just babbling.
Paris, babbling, too.
Dunno how the hell we got to v13 so quickly, not to mention the plethora of tweaks to the UI that suggest updating means learning new things...sorry, I'll stick with what I know works instead of the "Your version of Firefox is no longer protected against online threats" warning, because I'm damned sure I'm running the likes of NoScript *because* the browser was never really "protected" in the first place.
Everything the author described as supposedly new has been in the Firefox I've been using for quite a while. I'm vaguely confused about the apparent cluelessness, but mostly I think it doesn't matter. Actually, the main point of the article to me is the increasing evidence of the desperation at Firefox as they realize that their economic model is failing.
Here's a clue: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Here's a suggestion: "Don't change it until someone actually wants to pay for the changes."
Random change for the sake of nothing is NOT helping. So in closing, here's a suggestion for an alternative funding model (of reverse auction charity shares):
http://eco-epistemology.blogspot.jp/2009/11/economics-of-small-donors-reverse.html
It's kind of like Kickstarter, but with more focus on project management and software testing (though that particular description was actually tilted more towards Web publishing).
As regards Firefox, I'm still using it as my primary browser, but with less and less enthusiasm and mostly because of inertia and the lack of non-evil options. Microsoft (IE) and Apple (Safari) are already established leaders against freedom, and Google (Chrome) is becoming an increasingly strong challenger for the evil crown. Facebook (dying Opera?) will NOT be a solution, at least not in this universe...
It is on the Beta channel until the official RTM sometime today, for now you'd have to download the beta and then switch channels to the release channel. Nothing new is in the code as of Build ID: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0 ID:20120531155942, which is Firefox 13 Beta's last release.
Check again around 1500 PDT. They usually have them up by then.
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