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Ian Bicking has confirmed that Mozilla has quietly shut down Mozilla Labs.
This development raises some interesting questions about the future of Mozilla and their products:
With Firefox's usage declining, with Firefox on Android seeing limited uptake, with Firefox not being available on iOS, with Thunderbird stagnating, with SeaMonkey remaining as irrelevant as ever, with Firefox OS suffering from poor reviews and little adoption, and now with a reduction in innovation due to the closure of Mozilla Labs, does Mozilla have any hope of remaining relevant as time goes on?
Will Mozilla be able to reignite the spark that originally allowed them to create products like Firefox and Thunderbird that were, at one time, wildly popular and innovative?
Is Mozilla still capable of innovating without Mozilla Labs, or will they slowly fade into irrelevance as the last remaining users of their products move on to other offerings from competitors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:29PM
It is OK if you don't care about Firefox stripping out and hiding formerly easily accessible and useful features of UI.
Many others do. A lot. Especially because it is functionality that was used so frequently.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pnkwarhall on Saturday September 20 2014, @06:56PM
I'm curious and asking for someone to give a couple of serious examples of UI changes that broke their workflow.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @07:48PM
1. The real menu bar that was shown by default. It was well organized and consistent with other applications. Now all we have is the shitty, poorly designed hamburger menu. It's terribly less efficient to use.
2. The real status bar that was shown by default. It used to instantly show useful information, such as where hyperlinks point, without having to wait 5 seconds for the goddamn popup thing at the bottom to finally show up.
3. The ability to easily disable JavaScript from the Preferences dialog, without having to jump through about:config hoops. I like to disable JavaScript because it's a security flaw, and it's generally unnecessary.
4. The real toolbar. Now all we have is a jumble of different sized buttons with inconsistent placement and incomprehensible icons.
5. Moving the URL bar and the icons into each tab. Since they're common elements, shared across tabs, they should obviously be outside the tabs. They're easier to work with that way.
Sorry, you only asked for a couple of examples, but I couldn't help myself and listed 2.5 times that. My apologies!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:11PM
None of those problems exist for me.
The ones that could not be changed with firefox's own preferences were easily changed with the Classic Theme Restorer Add-on.
Although I never saw anything even remotely like a five-second delay on the URL pop-up, it has always been faster than the time it takes my eyeballs to track to the bottom of the window.
All in all it was a one-time minor inconvenience to get things set up pretty much how they had been before. That's an entirely acceptable price for continuing to get the latest version of the software.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @08:15PM
It doesn't matter if these problems don't exist for you. They are problems for the GP, however, which makes them bugs. And bugs aren't fixed with extensions. Bugs are fixed by fixing the actual problem. That means restoring the menbar, the toolbar, the statusbar, the ability to disable JS easily, and putting the tabs below again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @10:47PM
> They are problems for the GP, however, which makes them bugs.
That is a ridiculous leap of logic. By that logic basically everything in life is a bug.
You guys are really making mountains of molehills. If these half-assed whines are the worst of what's wrong with firefox then there isn't anything to worry about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:11PM
I've restored as much of that as I can easily do with extensions but that's hardly the point.
Have you ever tried to help someone with a computer over the phone? This is typically someone that isnt all that technical and doesnt know to change defaults or install extensions. She's probably someones grandma and she's probably running windows. So every other program on her system, except the browser, has as consistent UI that you can explain quickly and get her to see an use. There is a titlebar, it has three widgets on the right, one on the left, the title of the program in between. Below that you have the utility menus, file, edit, view, etc. This is a system simple enough she learned it 10 years ago and has relied on it since. And it still works well for her in other programs. But suddenly the browser is insane and she is lost and cannot find anything or even tell you what program she is in.
Perhaps if there was some great advantage to the chain you could rationally say 'screw granny' and move on but really? What great advantage? You're just making it more confusing for everyone. The more technically advanced users resent you for it, while the less advanced ones are confused by it at best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 20 2014, @09:43PM
It's hilarious to hear the Chrome and Firefox developers claim that their changes have "simplified" the UIs for "average" users, yet like you correctly point out, this just isn't the case. Chrome and Firefox truly are harder to use now, for both non-advanced and advanced users alike.
(Score: 1) by GoodBuddy on Sunday September 21 2014, @05:26AM
I'm using version 32.0 of Firefox and none of what you list is a problem for me.
1. my menu bar seems pretty standard (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, Help) Everything seems to be where you would expect it.
2. You are right, there is no status bar, but the only thing I used a status bar for was to display link URLs. When you hover a link, URLs pop up at the bottom where the status bar was located by default.
3. NoScript plugin. The easiest and most complete javascript control on any browser I've seen so far and the number one reason I use Firefox.
4. My tool bar is seems fine, but I admit, about the only button I use "Home". The icons seem to match what I see on mobile devices. I understand them with no problems.
5. Your complaint is moot. Each tab has the URL bar in the exact same spot, so when you switch tabs it doesn't move, so you get the exact same functionality as if it were shared across tabs. Besides, the URL is not a common element, it is unique to each web page.
TDLR: your complaints about Firefox seem to be trivial or not present in Firefox v32.0.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 21 2014, @12:28PM
The problems are still there. You've just masked them in various ways, using extensions or at some point in the past wasting time and effort to re-enable the display of the menu bar.
Masking bugs like that is basically you applying the bug fixes manually, rather than Mozilla fixing the bugs centrally.
The problems exist, they cause a lot of us a lot of problems, and it just doesn't need to be that way.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:58PM
So...I'm not the guy you're replying to, but "wasting time and effort to re-enable the display of the menu bar"? What? I've been using Firefox since it was Firebird, currently running it on an Arch system where I do full system update once or twice a week (ie, I'm not still on FF 3.5, I'm on 32 or something) and I've got a menu bar and I've never had to do anything to enable it. It's just there, same as it always has been. Did they dump it in Windows to match that Ribbon crap or something?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday September 21 2014, @11:40AM
It broke a couple of extensions I use, and the authors have long since abandoned them. The extension API is not very robust.
The reason people are leaving in droves is that the changes to the UI make them think that since it's just an imitation of Chrome they might as well use the real thing. Most people only use AdBlock which is available for Chrome, or extensions that make the Firefox UI like it used to be, so there is no big loss and a nice performance bump for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:25PM
The reason people are leaving in droves is that the changes to the UI make them think that since it's just an imitation of Chrome they might as well use the real thing.
I just don't understand how the UI is that important to a browser. It's not something that most people interact with on a regular basis, in comparison to the actual page contained in the browser. The back button? The Address bar? Besides those two elements, the majority of my time is spent **on the page** - clicking links, writing in text boxes ;) , scrolling up and down...
I purposefully framed my question in the context of "workflow". One responder, in his list of 3/5 nonsense points, named the removal of the JavaScript enable functionality to about:config. That seems like it could mess up someone's workflow, if they use it regularly... for a couple of days. (And please don't get me started on his complaint that the function buttons/icons were "part of the tab" now...)
While I totally agree with the unnecessaryness of constant major UI changes, **these** are the specific bitches and moans? I spend the majority of my day in the browser, and have adapted by learning to use an extensive list of hotkeys (actually I use Pentadactyl) in order to avoid using the RSI-inducing mouse as much as I can. Yeah, the stupid hamburger menu threw me off for a day or too, and I liked the old FF/"File" menu better. But I know that people are just blowing hot air when people are flipping out over mostly cosmetic, non-functional changes.
In best /. car analogy form, it's like in the 80s when car manufactures took the "fins" off the back of the car, and a bunch of car nerds started whining about what a horrible decision it was because it "really messed with the aerodynamics of my drag racer". I'd agree that there are a collection of problems with Mozilla and Firefox these days -- the UI seems like the absolute very least of them.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday September 21 2014, @01:53PM
For me it was when CookieButton broke. Subsequently it started working again, as long as I override the extension version check. They broke the right-click lasso selection extension I was using for a while as well. It's an API issue; extensions don't ever seem to break for me in Chrome.
The new download display is shitty too, I prefer the old window. I could google how to get it back I suppose, I'm sure there is a way. It just seems like over the years I have spent a lot of time fighting Mozilla, including writing my own extension to change the order tabs open in to facilitate my use of forums and bulk sifting through posts. It worked fine once, until they changed it back around V4 or something.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by pnkwarhall on Sunday September 21 2014, @02:03PM
When I say "bigger problems with Mozilla/FF than UI changes", I'm talking about stuff like constant updates breaking extensions. When you have a browser that seems like it's basically kept afloat by more technical users who have demands for their browser experience that are satisfied by 3rd-party developers (and even spend time building their own tools/hacks), you think the FF team would have more respect for that ecosystem...
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven