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Mozilla seems to be hell-bent on alienating users, as they did it again:
An update to the Android flavor of Firefox left fuming punters thinking a bad experimental build had been pushed to their smartphones. In fact, this was a deliberate software release.
A Reg reader yesterday alerted us to an August 20 version bump that was causing so many problems, our tipster thought it was a beta that had gone seriously awry. "To sum it up, on 20th of August, Firefox 79 was unexpectedly forced on a large batch of Firefox 68 Android users without any warning, way to opt out or roll back," our reader reported. "A lot got broken in the process: the user interface, tabs, navigation, add-ons."
Meanwhile, the Google Play store page for the completely free and open-source Firefox has a rash of one-star reviews echoing similar complaints: after the upgrade, little seemed to work as expected.
Among the complaints are a missing back button, frequent browser crashes, and extensions not working.
Sounds like a buggy release for sure. But:
Unfortunately for our source, and the other Firefox for Android users, this isn't a mistaken release or a broken beta build: it's the new version of Firefox for Android, and it's set to hit the UK today, August 25, and the US on the 27th.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by jimbrooking on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:23AM (10 children)
Chrome for Android.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:51AM
Is there a mod option for "that would be funny if it weren't so sad"?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:53AM (8 children)
Or, we could go with the project from the last person with any sense to have worked managing Mozilla, and install Brave for Android...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:46AM (2 children)
I did.
I really hated having to leave Firefox.
But what can I do?
Companies get big enough to hire the MBA.
And see their followers as useless riffraff.
And become absolutely useless, having value only to investors, who have money to flush down a rathole.
Firefox is not unique. Damn near every organization will do this. Look how many aerospace companies are gone. In my mind, they were, by far, the worst at disintegrating once receiving funding. A flood of MBA would make sure engineering would be kept in the dark, and have their resources rescinded, held hostage for executive ass kisses.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)
Over my career I have noticed a big difference between technology "culture" and product/marketing/sales "culture". A big difference. And, as said above, once a company transitions from technology to product/marketing/sales everything changes. The big question is why? My theory is that leaders expect all teams and employees to behave the same general way - and that they should be able to manage those teams in the same way. Put the same input in and the same output comes out. That just doesn't work. How Product/Marketing/Sales teams work is entirely different from how technology teams work, and the process of managing them has to be different as well. Most leaders don't understand this. Honestly, they don't have to - companies bump along and survive in this broken state for years.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Wednesday August 26 2020, @03:06PM
The difference is that MBAs see all problems as people problems - their solutions typically focus on getting someone to change their mind. That's how they get, as you say, people behaving in thw same general way. But it isn't possible to change the mind of a technical problem, namely how can you quickly render HTML/JS and make access to a plethora of websites (including making some sites' rendering "customized") straightforward.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday August 26 2020, @05:40AM
I'll give Brave a try, because I hate this new FF version.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @09:16AM (2 children)
Nice advertisment you got here. Unfortunately, Brave a) is a chrome clone; b) sucks donkey balls; c) replaces ads with its own ads. Fuck this shit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2020, @04:17PM
'eh, if they're curated ads with a near 0% chance to include malware, it at least would an improvement for the vast majority of users. As I assume the vast majority of users don't even know something like uBlock Origins even exists.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:14AM
Yes, I know. I even give you an informative mod for that.
I am trying out "smart cookie", which is a fork of "lightning" browser.
It seems success causes companies to sow the seeds of their own annihilation by providing funds to support lavish lifestyles of the management classes devoted to marginalizing the not so important class of people who design and build the company's product.
While it is nearly unheard of for an engineer to deliberately withold information from a manager, the converse is quite common within companies that have been awarded generous contracts that can support this level of inefficiency.
The company soon soils their reputation by delivering crap to their customer.
Now, it's just a matter of time before the company folds, and new employers get to choose amongst the flotsam of the failed company. Do they want the engineer who was terminated for being ranked as having a "bad attitude" when he balked against someone trying to use leadership skills to force an issue? Do they want to hire the leader who is above the physical laws that engineers confine themselves to?
How important is it the company's products work?
Answering these questions requires executive organizational skill. That's why they are paid so much.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @07:31PM
I am using Opera myself, comes with VPN and Adblocker standard.
I will say the news sites hate it though.