from the at-least-everyone-is-on-the-same-bandwagon dept.
Firefox 29 marked the release of the UI overhaul codenamed "Australis" and the jury is back with a verdict: the vast majority of feedback on Firefox Input is negative and traffic to the Classic Theme Restorer add-on has aggressively spiked since Firefox 29 came out on April 29. Considering this is a year and a half after the backlash against the new Windows 8 user interface, it seems that even though the "dumbing down" trends in UI design are infuriating users, they continue to happen. Chrome will soon be hiding URLs, OS X has hidden scroll bars by default, iOS 7 flattened everything, and Windows 8 made scroll bars hard to see. If most users hate these changes, why are they so ubiquitous?
Related Stories
Mozilla "Got Outfoxed" by Google – Former VP Accuses Google for Sabotaging Firefox
Former Mozilla VP, Johnathan Nightingale, has called out on Google for what could only be termed as anti-competitive practices. In a Twitter thread on a somewhat unrelated subject, Nightingale said that during his 8 years at Mozilla, Google was the company's biggest partner. "Our revenue share deal on search drove 90% of Mozilla's income," he tweeted.
However, that doesn't mean Google wasn't involved in some underhand practices. "When I started at Mozilla in 2007 there was no Google Chrome and most folks we spoke with inside were Firefox fans," Nightingale wrote. "When chrome launched things got complicated, but not in the way you might expect. They had a competing product now, but they didn't cut ties, break our search deal – nothing like that. In fact, the story we kept hearing was, 'We're on the same side. We want the same things.'"
"I think our friends inside google genuinely believed that. At the individual level, their engineers cared about most of the same things we did. Their product and design folks made many decisions very similarly and we learned from watching each other. But Google as a whole is very different than individual googlers," Nightingale added.
Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. gmail & gdocs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as "incompatible."
All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say "hey what gives?"
And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks."
Previously: After 10 Years with Google, Firefox Switches to Yahoo
Netmarketshare Claims Mozilla Firefox Usage Drops Below Ten Percent
Mozilla CEO Warns Microsoft's Switch to Chromium Will Give More Control of the Web to Google
Is Google Using an "Embrace, Extend..." Strategy?
Google Denies Altering YouTube Code to Break Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Employee Sparks Outrage by Suggesting Firefox Switch Browser Engine to Chromium
Related: Firefox 29 is a Flop; UI Design Trends Only Getting Worse
Mozilla Teases Chromium-Based Firefox, Then Pulls Back
Can the New Firefox Quantum Regain its Web Browser Market Share?
Firefox 64 Will Remove Support for RSS and Atom Feeds
Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @01:12PM
Because users aren't developers/designers. And nobody cares about what lowly peons say about "our" little precious design "innovation."
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Monday May 12 2014, @01:34PM
Because players at the decision table ignore anyone not present [soylentnews.org] and thus any consequence for all third parties.
Luckily coders can still steam roll UI designers when they get to far out of line.
In the feature all UI designers will be punished by being forced to use VT100 terminal through a 9600 bps serial line to a mainframe with VMS and a C-compiler. ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @01:58PM
That's pretty much what I was doing back in college -- when computers were fun, and you weren't separated from the hardware by thousands of layers of abstractions.
Can... can I be "forced" to do that? Please? Just don't make me be a UI designer first.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:57AM
If you're using a VT100 on a VAX, chances are you're using FORTRAN. Those Unix guys were always fiddling with C.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:55AM
FORTRAN seems alright (except for system software and speedy stuff). Very norty UI-designers will be put on 75 bit/s teletype printer terminal. And have a 6502 driven mainframe..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @02:07PM
And because designers want to keep their jobs, they will keep coming up with ideas, even bad ideas, and try to fix what isn't broken.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @02:08PM
More to the point, developers aren't designers. The absolutely worst "designs" out there have had no input from people with taste, which developers display a dearth of. They also figure that because *they* understand the underlying code, everyone else should be forced to approach it as they do. About:config, for instance. They hide this personal disdain with bullshit chatter about "footprint". As if a computer with 16G memory is really impacted by a browser's footprint. Developers are myopically focused on details that don't really matter. I used to do it too when I first started, they just haven't grown out of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @02:17PM
In case you haven't noticed, Firefox is configurable through the Tools->Options menu entry. about:config is for stuff that normal users have no business changing, and can seriously screw up your browser, so it's a good thing it's hidden away like that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @03:18PM
Like the placement of the tabs?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @04:52PM
Like using the orange Firefox menu button instead of the Chrome-style "hamburger menu" perhaps?
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @05:38PM
"stuff that normal users have no business changing"
How pompous.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday May 12 2014, @02:40PM
I would much rather have a retarded interface that I can change via about:config, made by engineers, than a retarded interface made by UI designers that can't be fixed via about:config.
I'd say "developers aren't designers" is in fact a compliment these days.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 12 2014, @03:09PM
Designers aren't developers and can't make code work. They however has this innate ability to make it really hard to use.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday May 12 2014, @05:49PM
"Designers aren't developers and can't make code work. "
They can make coders work though. I'll just move the goalpost over here a little bit. Shouldn't be too much of a fix, should it lads?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday May 12 2014, @02:43PM
"The absolutely worst "designs" out there have had no input from people with taste, which developers display a dearth of."
An excellent analogy can be drawn from the building trades.
If you want a new bathroom sink that actually works, optimized for daily living, you hire a plumber to install a bathroom sink. Plus or minus plumber/dev skill, it'll totally rock and you'll love brushing your teeth and shaving every morning. It'll never, ever, appear in a design magazine or a housing-pr0n TV consumer show.
If you make the mistake of getting a designer involved in your bathroom remodel, you'll end up with something comical from a usability standpoint. There will be a pedestal with no rim full of glass beads which will require daily cleaning to remove hard water stains and mold and beard trimmings, and to keep it slick and clean looking there will be no where within 10 feet to place your shaving cream can or toothpaste tube or a hand towel. It will look just like last weeks design magazine or something you've seen on TV... only for a couple months, by next winter it'll look dated and (accurately) foolish and you'll need to rip it out and start over, to either get the new style/fad, or get something that actually works.
The analogy with software is fairly direct.
(Score: 2) by hatta on Monday May 12 2014, @05:30PM
The problem with Firefox is that they're listening to the designers and not the developers. Firefox is the pretty and useless bathroom you described. There doesn't seem to be a good open source browser for power users. This is a pretty remarkable oversight. How does this actually happen? Firefox is written by developers, don't any of those developers use the browser? Don't they see the ways in which it is terrible?
It's been a while since I tried uzbl. May have to give it another shot.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 13 2014, @05:43AM
SeaMonkey, all the goodness of Gecko including most all extensions and an interface that hasn't changed much in quite a while.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @05:53PM
Not really. Plumber Charlie will put it where the pipes are optimum (for him, optimum being shortest most of the time), not where functionality is. Charlie won't consider traffic, lighting or even space many times. There are bad designers, true. Most devs are in that category as well. A good designer however, will tell the plumber where to put the fixtures and then a good plumber will optimize that design for plumbing efficiency. A good bathroom designer will already know about plumbing requirements.
This analogy to software is fairly direct.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 12 2014, @07:20PM
Truth. But nobody can design a decent interface without user testing and response. It doesn't matter whether you're a designer or a developer, you need the end user testing. That's what Firefox SHOULD have plenty of...but they don't seem to listen to it. Gnome is worse to the point where I've occasionally suspected MS of subsidizing the developers...except that Windows 8 proves that they don't have the ability to realize that that's sabotage.
The only answer that seems to fit is hubris. When Apple first came out the the original Mac GUI they spent a fortune on testing it before ever showing it to the public. They rejected dozens to hundreds of designs that looked good because they didn't work well. Then they came out with the Lisa. They saw what people liked, what they didn't, and what was just too expensive to implement. THEN they came out with the Mac. Now everybody seems to think that anything you throw together that looks spiffy will work well.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @10:04PM
The Mozilla teams really like "heat maps" for UI elements, showing what is used or moved over or whatever the most often, and they like to shuffle things about based on those heat maps. The problem with the heat maps is that the controls are completely independent items; the logic of shuffling things around based on frequency of usage doesn't take into account how the controls are used, only how often.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday May 12 2014, @02:43PM
So I take it you've never actually used Firefox before.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @04:55PM
4GB RAM, paging disabled, only running Firefox and Thunderbird 24/7, minimal background stuff...FF 29 crashes every couple of days due to eating all the physical memory in the system. Think about that: in a couple of days sitting there, Firefox uses over 3GB of RAM.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @06:09PM
The initial discussion which I was addressing in my posts concerned the UI, not bad app design. The footprint consumed by the UI was what I referred to. FF just sitting there and consuming your memory is not at all new and has nothing to do with the UI implemented (It may, but that's a design flaw, not inherent to the UI).
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @05:40PM
I use it all the time. No problems with memory consumption, regardless of the snark.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday May 13 2014, @06:24PM
I still keep hearing about all of these memory issues with Firefox and too am scratching my head. I can only assume it's primarily Windows folks, or perhaps folks that use Flash still, or perhaps folks using problematic extensions. I personally haven't had memory issues with Firefox in well over a year on Debian/Slackware.
(Score: 1) by Jesus_666 on Thursday May 15 2014, @07:39AM
Note, however, that during that time at least thirty tabs have been constantly open, at least five times that have been opened and closed and any number of them can contain non-blocked Flash objects. I'm pretty sure my usage pattern is not one the Mozilla devs are going to optimize for. Still, if you try hard enough you can make Firefox eat a lot of RAM.
Then again I've seen Chromium become a complete dog with fewer open tabs. No browser handles a very long runtime with many open tabs well.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @12:49AM
You're not the first person to make remarks like this, but I personally never see it. Is this an issue specific to the Windows version? Or is this another case of everyone still complaining about something because there was a problem with one specific version six years ago, the same way people still complain about KDE4 based on that one time they tried KDE 4.0 despite being warned it wasn't ready for use yet?
I'm on Debian, FF28, with 19 addons* and 132 tabs, and its memory use is 353MiB (+50MiB shared). Meanwhile Chromium with only two tabs (SN and debian.org) is using 356MB with similar shared mem use. I've never seen FF go over 700-800MB, ever, even with a tab count approaching a thousand, and I've been using Firefox+Debian for years.
So, what's the deal? Do people need to start using a real OS, or stop using crap addons, or is this whole "Firefox uses all my memory" thing just bullshit?
* Mostly UI tweaks like "Movable Firefox Button" and "Tree Style Tab" or functionality ones like https-everywhere, Ubiquity, and "self-destructing cookies". The only ones that would help with memory usage are NoScript and "Click to play per element"
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 13 2014, @05:52AM
Wonder if that includes the memory used by the system libraries, Cairo, Sqlite3 and many other smaller ones such as zlib?
I'm not on Windows or any main stream OS yet with your usage and most everything rolled into xul, I'd be using close to a GB of memory.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:45AM
As far as I know, Cairo/sqlite/etc. usage should be part of the shared mem, so that's accounted for. Due to the occasional extreme tab use, I have Firefox set to only load tabs on activation rather than browser startup (to improve startup times with high tab load), which does have an impact, but primarily at program start. The tab list itself doesn't take much memory so a fresh start is basically the same as having only one tab open, but I can cycle through dozens of tabs, even hundreds in a day, and still don't see the usage get too high.
In fact, I just tested it again by activating ~100 tabs to see the use. When it gets around 750-850MB used it frees some and drops back down to something around 400-700mb depending on what's open. It's being pretty aggressive about it, apparently.
I did notice that memory use goes up drastically with heavy JS, which I keep very strictly blocked with NoScript. Maybe that's the issue, but if so, it's not Firefox-specific, because I see the same thing with other browsers.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:24PM
It's a lot better than it used to be, I think. But having around 8 extensions loaded and 100 tabs (I've been trying to cut back) is really my own fault. With less than a dozen tabs, Firefox is still pretty whippy in my experience. Although I suspect one or two of the sites/addons I use regularly have horrific Javascript running in the background, so maybe that's just me.
I believe the perception problem is that it was a big thing back in 2.0/3.0 days and the developers kept making the speed slightly better without ever actually admitting there was a memory leak. So now I'm not really sure whether to trust that they've since fixed the leak that "didn't exist."
I did come off as rather snarky but I find it hard to believe that the poster has used Firefox as it has demonstrably been absolutely a problem within recent memory. If you have 64 GB of RAM, maybe not, but hey...if we really need 16GB of RAM in a normal desktop machine these days, that's pretty sad. I'm still doing alright on a 2007 machine with 2.
Keep doing what you're doing, I guess...I've seen mem usage get up to 1.5GB a couple times with probably at most 800 tabs. Some sites like Collegehumor seem to never actually release their memory or something.
Heh, yeah I use tree-style tabs, too. Nice.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday May 14 2014, @12:02AM
I'll probably never cut back, tabs are good for sites that you want to go back to later but aren't important enough to bookmark.
Can't say what the addons are doing, and that's probably a common source of problems, but strict NoScript settings and/or going into the Firefox options and checking "Don't load tabs until selected" will help a lot with high-tab-count usage, both with memory and CPU. Helps with start-up time and keeps JS-heavy pages from bogging things down. Better than changing use habits just because of a few crap sites.
As for FF2/3 days, yeah, there were problems then, but that was a long time ago. Even in FF3 it was improving steadily. Nowadays it's more likely to be an addon at fault than Firefox, at least in Linux. Or maybe JS in general, though that seems to go away when the offending tab is closed. JS is a hog in every browser, though.
I'd probably keep using FF even if I had to restart every six hours due to memleaks, though, because of addons. Things like tree-style tab and "it's all text" are worth the inconvenience, and it's the most flexible browser UI-wise, so things like the FF29 update can be worked around. Unlike, say, Chrome, where if they decide to redesign the UI tomorrow you're stuck with it.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 14 2014, @05:19PM
I'm fairly certain that's been enabled by default for awhile now.
Eh, sort of. 4.0 was 2010; 1.0 was 2004. Yay inflated versioning scheme! I think I started using FF around 2.0.0.6, and remember purposely crashing the browser in order to get it to save my tabs :)
You've probably heard already, but check out Pale Moon. The only major thing that cheeses me off if that there seems to be no way to get blank (new) tabs to open adjacent without tree-style, but like we said that won't matter to you. I'm currently using the Linux version.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Monday May 12 2014, @03:12PM
Because you lack the grasp that not all computers has 16 GByte of memory.. doh.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 12 2014, @05:36PM
Tell that to the devs and designers! I have 8GB of RAM in my netbook and I'm still amazed at how much these browsers suck down RAM, it just nuts how much memory gets pissed away, the browser session I'm typing this in has a lousy 5 tabs and I'm using over half a GB? For 5 static tabs? WTH?
As for TFA I'm so sick of fanboys saying "You can change it"...yeah...you can change the thing of Win 8 to but why would I? Why would I want to use your product with a lousy UI I'm gonna have to "fix" when I have choices?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday May 12 2014, @05:55PM
> the browser session I'm typing this in has a lousy 5 tabs and I'm using over half a GB? For 5 static tabs? WTH?
Is that resident or virtual?
Viewed any pages with images recently? Firefox caches the uncompressed bitmaps for speed.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 12 2014, @11:51PM
Using processmon we are looking at 489Mb working set, and again that is with only a single small static image per website,BBC headline pages if you want a frame of reference. And no that isn't with any previous pages, I launched FF clean and loaded 5 pages from the latest headlines just to make sure it wasn't caching slowing things down.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday May 13 2014, @12:33AM
Working set seems to include shared libraries and other memory mapped files.
Private bytes would be closer since that is mostly allocated space and not shared libs, but if those shared libs allocate memory then that goes to private bytes too so badly behaved shared libs can make an app look bad.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:51AM
Private bytes are as follows...388,900k,peak private bytes...425,126k, virtual size...725,640k working set...442,228k,ws private...389,256k ws shareable...53,084k
Again this is just 5 static pages with ABP removing the ads so no flash or GIF animations, yet for 5 basic pages it still uses nearly half a gb on a clean run, WTH Moz?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:13AM
Take a look at FF's cache structure, and remember that each element requires a resource handle. Clear cache, then pay attention to the number of cache objects vs memory leaked. There's a pretty good correlation, in my observation. (I'd hazard that the problem started when they redesigned cache away from the Netscape model, too.)
I exiled cache to a RAMdisk, which reduced the lag and fragmentation, at least.
Speaking of cache, did they ever fix the Stupid where when you save something, instead of saving the cached copy, it re-downloads it? This is great fun when it's a 5mb image and you're on a shit connection.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:41AM
I don't care WHY its doing it, what I care about is a lousy 5 tabs suck a half a fricking GB of RAM! There is a ton of systems that still run great that max out at 2GB of RAM, many of the first gen C2D and Athlon X2 boards were only rated for 2GB of RAM (although you can get lucky, I have an ECS board that will take 2GB sticks for 4GB) and have more than enough power to surf the web...as long as the browser isn't crapping away memory!
What is sad is that other than kmeleon which is soo stripped its hard for normal folks to use there isn't ANY browser that doesn't just suck RAM even on static pages! Webkit? 150Mb+ per page, IE? 189Mb per page...its fricking static content!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 13 2014, @01:28PM
Oh, I feel exactly the same way -- there is NO fucking excuse for taking an amount of RAM hundreds or even thousands of times the size of the page just to display basic HTML. There's little more excuse for using so much to display complex or non-static elements, either. There is NO fucking excuse for displaying static content at a snail's pace, either -- current browsers have some tiny fraction of the speed of Netscape 3 ON THE SAME CONTENT. (Unfortunately, the source code for NS3 is lost.)
But when I look at HOW modern browsers do stuff, even I as a non-coder (but interested bystander) can see all sorts of what Michael Abrash called "bad coding Zen", where the religion of "tiny efficient subroutines" is used to excess: Carrying one brick is faster than carrying a million bricks. So we run the tiny efficient subroutine a million times... forgetting to notice that tho the big subroutine is slower, it's also MUCH faster to just carry a million bricks ONCE than to make a million trips.
Such as the cache management that's just nuts. I've taken the time to go through the cache and look at the files, and there's all sorts of duplication and ... why the FUCK so many folders?? If you ever wonder why your HD thrashes every time the browser does anything, and why fragmentation skyrocketed, there's your answer. Why both rename everything for the cache database (the old NS trick to avoid name collisions) AND sort them into a zillion folders -- each with only ONE file in it! I just cleared cache, but to open only THIS page, it has 989 folders (about 300 of them empty), yet the cache database is still 32mb. Explain to me how this is good and sane design? I can see one folder per tab/window, but per FILE?? AND rename them something databasey when the folders are already given hex-sequence names, WTF?? How is that not duplication of effort? And then there's the bug I mentioned with RE-downloading a file rather than pulling it from cache -- which makes it clear to me that Function A and Function B have never met, despite that they do the exact same damn thing (download and save shit to disk).
That's what twigged me to HOW this is being developed, and why it's so damned slow and RAM-piggy despite that pound for pound, a browser does LESS real work than most other apps.
IE used to be a lot leaner that way, but from what you say, seem since last I paid attention they've taken a leaf from Mozilla's book.
If devs had to run the same ordinary and middle-aged computers as average users (who may keep a machine 5 or 10 years if it still works well enough, as most do) maybe they'd be a little more conscious of being pigs at the RAM trough.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday May 13 2014, @05:01PM
What irks me is it seems to be ONLY the browser that has adopted this pants on head retarded way of doing everything while everything else is sane. I have done video transcoding on a first gen C2D with 1.5GB of RAM and it ran great....as long as I didn't open up a browser,the second I did that? The HDD gets pimpslapped, the CPU is spiking, and I'm quickly hitting swap as the browser starts sucking up RAM like a bum hitting a hotel minibar...WTF?
BTW if you want a mainstream browser that doesn't suck RAM like mad? Tough tit, the big three all suck RAM and beat the HDD. The closest I've found to sane browsers (that isn't stuck with a UI from 1995) is Kmeleon CCF ME [sourceforge.net]. You'll have to toss the default bookmarks as they are in Chinese but its easy enough and is a portable app so it can be slapped on a stick and won't mess with your settings. Ready for how much 5 static pages used in CCF ME? 37MB!!! That's it, that's all! Just goes to show you that with some thought and planning one CAN make a browser with sane RAM usage. If you'd like something more modern (as well as cross platform) there is QTWeb which is QT UI with webkit and only uses 59MB for my 5 tab test. here is the portable version [softpedia.com] if you want to give it a go. QTWeb is the better supported of the two so if you want a good day to day browser it'd probably be the better choice.
As far as IE? Yep its just as bloated as Chromium and FF based now, even steals a lot of the UI, just sucks.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 13 2014, @08:01PM
I haven't looked at KMeleon in a while... used to have it installed on the old box (along with about 30 other browsers, all the way back to Mosaic v0.9)... don't remember any Chinese! Here's current, English..
http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/download.php [sourceforge.net]
and a portable version
http://portableapps.com/node/22966 [portableapps.com]
And yeah, I go for portable when I have a choice, because I have a nasty habit of dragging installed apps from one box to the next without the tedium of reinstalling (didja know that MSOffice, at least up thru Office2k, tolerates this abuse?!!), along with all the other benefits of portable that we both know well.
I seem to recall, tho, that KM was primitive in ways that annoyed me too much for everyday. Same with OffByOne, which is small enough and efficient enough to run on any piece of crap (you can put it on a single floppy!) and leaves no footprint.
BTW be careful with SoftPedia -- I've caught 'em repackaging freeware with adware/possible malware and no choice about installing it. I no longer download anything from there. :(
I've seen the same thing ... yesterday I had to close SeaMonkey because otherwise VLC wouldn't play a relatively-compressed file. Yeah, this is a lowly P4-1.8GHz with 1.3GB RAM, but still... and SM displaying nothing but the mail client and about:blank at that. Ridiculous.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday May 13 2014, @09:41PM
Not worried about Softpedia,my AV blocks anything with adware. And what you linked to is vanilla Kmeleon, CCF ME is a fork that is a LOT more modern and pleasant. QTWeb is also pretty modern,even comes with adblock,at least the version I'm using did. I also tried OffByOne,there is thin and there is anemic,ob1 is the latter.
And a 1.8GHz p4 with 1.3GB of RAM? Damn, not to sound arrogant but I've thrown away nicer systems at the shop because there were too old to move dude! Hell its a shame that S&H would probably be insane as I'd just shoot you a better board and chip off the scrap pile, those P4s really sucked balls. You might want to look at the new AM1 platform, you can grab a piece here and a piece there if money is tight and turn your system into a quad for around $100 and a dual for about $70 and both will bitchslap the P4. I agree you shouldn't NEED a newer chip but the P4 was just a power hog no matter what you did, those ultra long pipes were just stupid.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 13 2014, @10:29PM
Yeah, but will your AV stop adware from installing? I'd rather not have something install that I didn't order, nor can I trust a host that does this... who knows how the main binary has been altered, especially with opensource that they can snag and have their way with and compile, and we'd never know the difference (and my grok is that a hash can be made to match, so that's no guarantee).
Oh, didn't realise CCF MEt was a fork, well here it is:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/k-meleonccfme/ [sourceforge.net]
I don't see a portable version, tho I suppose one could apply the same tweaks as with regular KM to achieve that (found on one or another of the reference pages).
What I've liked best of the halfway-modern browsers was the version of Konqueror that came with Mandrake v7.2 -- it did all the modern stuff (at least for a few years back) but looked and behaved like NS3, very slick-running and didn't eat much. There was an effort to bring it to Windows but last I heard it hadn't really gotten anywhere, plus it was starting to succumb to bloat. :(
Yeah, I'm quite the tech troglodyte, haha. My boxes are built from salvage, and that's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. :( On the plus side, I hate to see working components land in the dump, so I put 'em to use, often til they actually die; on the minus, well, here I am on the well-callused edge of technology! Too bsd you're not handy, I'd raid your trash and be delighted with it! I can still use HDs as small as 60GB too, tho I only really trust the WDs. (Gotta get a new external HD gadget, the old one croaked.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday May 14 2014, @12:37AM
Actually the SECOND I launch anything with adware in it? Comodo IS puts a screeching halt to that shit, kills it dead before it ever even loads. it also sandboxes everything by default so if something was to ever figure out a way around no worries.
And while I'm all for saving older hardware the P4? Its the PC equivalent of a 69 Fury four door, it was a hog when it came out and compared to anything newer its an UBERhog LOL! those AM1s are the absolute dirt cheapest systems currently mad and the quad cores only use 25w of power under full load, so depending on how much juice costs there the AM1 can easily pay for itself! The AM1s use the same chip that is in the Xbone and PS4 so its got good graphics performance, in fact the arch is powerful enough i sold my full size laptop a few years back to buy a Bobcat based netbook and to this day i don't regret it. it still gets nearly 3 hours on a 5 year old battery, does 1080p over HDMI, even plays games like Torchlight II and Portal II, and never gets more than warm, great chip.
yeah its a real shame you aren't close as i toss sub 100GB drives all the time, along with plenty of P4 era boards from both Intel and AMD, cause if it won't take a dual core I just can't move 'em. Hell I have an Athlon XP-M 2400MHz with a GB of RAM and Radeon X1300 I'd be happy to hand over, its probably gonna end up on the rubbish pile because it came in a really sharp black case, i put C2D in the black case and sold it leaving these guts I just can't use.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 14 2014, @02:12AM
That's good to know about Comodo. Only other person I know using it had all sorts of issues with it... seemed to protect well enough but config caused lots of swearing.
Eeeeee, it =hurts= me to see those HDs go in the trash! Well, the WDs anyway. I consider Seagates a fine place to put a swapfile. Don't suppose you go tossing any DDR or DDR2, eh??
The P4-1.8GHz doesn't seem to eat much, and doesn't make much heat, but the P4-3GHz runs hot. But it's not expendable no matter what cuz it has ISA slots, which I need for sound cards for my DOS game habit. :D That's actually why I kinda hoard late P3 boards, AGP vidcards, and ISA Sound Blasters, cuz they'll do the job if this one ever dies.
Aren't you like at the other end of the world from me? I'm in Montana, a long ways from most places.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday May 14 2014, @05:40AM
Deep in the hills of AR friend, about 70 miles north of the state capital, and as far as RAM I used to only toss 256Mb and under but if I keep getting 1GB sticks cheap then the 512MB sticks will be the next to go. As far as DOS games go? Dude those AM1s have full VM support so you can just run the entire shebang in a VM and call it a day! I used to use old boxes for games but with C2Ds and up so cheap there really isn't a point in using ancient hardware when the VMs have cycles to spare. Virtualbox can easily emulate your basic soundcards and I've found a VM is a hell of a lot less buggy.
BTW will that 3GHz P4 board take a Core Solo or Duo? I have a couple of 440 Celerons lying in the parts drawer I can't find a use for or you can pop over to starmicro [starmicroinc.net] and grab a cheapo dualie, they got Pentium Ds for $7 and C2D for $15, cheap way to upgrade an old board. I have bought a ton of chips from them, great guys you can trust.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday May 14 2014, @10:29AM
I know a bloke from Searcy, 'fraid that's as close as I've come to your dumpster!
I'd forgot about StarMicro, but that's where I got an oddball HSF to fit a Dell someone gift me that had overheating issues from Dell's shitty passive cooling. (Added normal HSF, threw out the CPU hood, and running temp dropped 40 degrees!) They were very helpful with it. -- Directron is another I've bought from that has good prices. I've got a couple RAM dealers on eBay that beat them all for price, tho. Last bought from this outfit,
http://www.ebay.com/usr/xtremeram [ebay.com]
and I think it was $21 for a pair of 1GB sticks.
Incidentally for weird odds and ends, you can't beat http://www.cablenbits.com/ [cablenbits.com] -- knew 'em from SoCal swapmeets, great to deal with.
The mobo is this'un:
http://www.ibase.com.tw/mb800.htm [ibase.com.tw]
but the model with AGP and gigabit LAN (I don't see the exact one listed). Socket 478, so there's its limit. And about the only thing I play is DOOM with the Fusion engine, dunno how well that does in a VM (last I heard you can't get full sound) but some of the ginormous maps I run can be slow even on this box (and it's about the slickest-running thing of its class I've seen, they really did well on eliminating lag -- ran rings around the aforementioned and late Dell with the same CPU/chipset).
To be nominally to topic, I wonder what hardware it would take to make FF2x run at the same speed as say, Netscape 3 on a P100... think there's anything on the market that can do it? ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday May 14 2014, @11:00PM
Guess what city is 60 miles north of the state capital? Searcy. And its a damned shame its 478, i haven't had any 478s come through in a few year now its all 775s. As far as games in a VM? I haven't had any troubles, either with the C2D with HD4650 or the 1035t X6 with the HD7750. If you are running large maps with DOOM that should be a RAM issue, not a GPU one as there is hardly any GPU acceleration in that game. And if you want a game to drag like "the good old days" you just need to fire up moSlo, it can put the brakes on just about any system ;-)
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 15 2014, @12:12AM
Hey! Small world, what?? Well if I ever get to that part of the world (which has about a snowball's chance in hell), now I've got two folks to visit. :D
Chop in original DOOM seems to be the game swapping textures and sprites (it'll always happen in the same place on a given map) whereas just being dog-slow is related to map size. IIRC it maxed out at 16mb RAM (more than any map could use) but would run on 4mb, and yeah, then you'd see more swapping. In the modified engines I've used, lag is progressive, which I take to mean it's due to memory fragmentation... restart and it's fixed, at least for a while. I can tell you it ain't usin' no 1GB of RAM, but it can break it up bad enough to get choppy ... something goofy in the reload mechanism vs texture storage, at a guess, cuz if you never reload it usually doesn't happen. And it has an issue with flats seen at a distance and awake-monster count (actually probably parsing how many sounds it needs to track at once, which might be a bug in the 'new' sound engine) that seem to be CPU-related, cuz I'd still see that on the P3 but not on the P4. And nope, the old engines don't know no GPU, any crap display will do. [But you know that's what browsers will 'upgrade' to next, doncha? requiring major GPU just to display text!!]
Well I'll have to try it in a VM when I get a 'new' machine set up -- would make life easier if I didn't have to be paranoid about finding dumpster-fodder to support my habit. :D I've got a couple salvaged boards that are maybe 6-7 years old, quite an upgrade, haha, and we'll see what they'll do when I have room to work again (nowhere to work right now, life got real cramped a couple years go and ain't got better yet.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:29PM
Well if they are 6-7 years old they should support a dual core with VM extensions, especially if they are AMD. With Starmicro (and Amazon, you'd be surprised how cheap you can get used CPUs from there, i picked up some C2Ds at $6 a pop) you should be able to build a VM capable unit for dirt cheap. the VM might solve your DOOM issues since you can just take a snapshot and reload if it starts getting buggy.
BTW when you get your VM up and running you might want to try Win98SE instead of DOS as not only is Win98 better supported by the major VMs but the version of DOS that came with Win98 was IMHO a better DOS than what came before. Just remember with VMs more RAM is better since you are running the VM and the host PC. That said I have 4GB in my C2D VM system and it purrs like a kitten, even with running WinXP with multiple tabs in the VM browser.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 15 2014, @07:14PM
I use DOS7 from Win9x (which one doesn't much matter), and yeah it's real stable and well-mannered. Basically it's DOS6 (which was nearly bug-free) with some minor tweaks. At one point it came with a 'new' mouse driver but that proved busted and they reverted to the Mouse v8.0 that's always well-behaved, from DOS6. The CD driver is the same since 1995 regardless. Ain't broke, so...
Yeah, I'll try to max upward the CPU once I get those 'new' (ha) boxes built. That's always a good upgrade and by the time I get to it, they're sufficiently last-year (or last-decade!) that they don't cost much. Max up the CPU and RAM on an older setup and it's almost new again. :) -- Not long ago I'd have said that I'd never use over a gig and a half of RAM with what I run, except today's browsers make that seem ridiculously cramped. :(
So how exactly have you got your VM set up? I still use WinXP for everyday and have not felt an overwhelming urge for 'progress' as yet (tho I'm not too averse to Win7, but Win8 WTF!) I'd like to have my old Win98 setup handy too, which would be a good use for a VM. And I'm thinkin' a VM used just for the browser might keep it from messing up the rest of the system, what with the galloping RAM suckage we see today... yeah, a person wants lots of RAM for all that. Lots and lots of RAM!!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday May 16 2014, @02:55AM
Ugh, I just can't use XP day to day after 3 years on Win 7, its just too old and shitty. Win 7 is the first OS since Win2K where I could say without hesitation "its well worth the upgrade, its better in every way". better memory management, better file management tools (trust me just try using breadcrumbs plus jumplists and you'll NEVER want to go back!) better resource management, its just a better OS in every way. And I have run it on a Pentium D with 1.5GB of RAM and it ran fine, although I'd recommend an Athlon64 X2 or C2D minimum simply because they are better arches.
As for my VMs? I have the Win9X set up with a single core with 128MB of RAM and a 10GB HDD and the XP box I have set up with a single core and 512MB of RAM and a dynamic hard drive that is currently around 10GB. Both are Virtualbox, I can't remember if the Win98 has the graphics extensions installed, I know the XP does. Lately the DOSBox that comes with GOG games has been so good I haven't had much cause to fire up old Win9x,whereas the XP VM I use as an "Internet condom" for sites that may be "iffy" like video sites and sites for drivers, you'd be surprised how many driver sites have bugs.
Word of advice? if you want an "Internet condom" VM I'd advise you find a copy of WinXP or Win 7 Tiny, really not hard to find on the net and they are practically made for use in VM! XP Tiny uses just 56MB on the desktop and Win 7 Tiny uses around 100MB, by having such a light OS you have more RAM for what YOU want to run...oh and for the bloated as hell messes that pass for browsers these days LOL.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday May 18 2014, @11:19PM
My Win98 setup peaked at around 450mb with all sorts of crap running. Never had a browser eat so much as on XP, tho. I do wonder to what degree it's the OS's waste management... everything eats more on WinXP, and probably more yet on Win7.
Yeah, you mentioned TinyOSs before, so I fetched 'em to try when I get a chance -- goes to show what's really essential on the OS, eh? Any particular issues or stuff missing a person needs to replace?
I messed with DOSbox some, but soon gave up on it... has GOG done their own fixes?
Considering that "upgrade your drivers" is often the mantra offered the confused who likely won't know any better, doesn't surprise me that driver sites are common nasty-vectors... I prolly haven't noticed cuz I tend to run with JS and such off.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 19 2014, @01:13AM
GOG puts out a custom version for each game designed to support that game so its "clicky clicky" simple and since all I used DOS for was games its just easier to grab the GOG version and not have to deal with tweaks. As for the Tiny Windows? Not much to worry about, since it was built by a gamer the Windows 7 defaults to admin (takes less than 2 minutes to switch back to the more sane user) and other than that I really haven't found anything that don't run on 'em. most of the crap they cut out is crap nobody uses like netmeeting and the bazillion language packs.
Finally Win 7 is MUCH better on memory management, you just can't go by the old metric of looking at free RAM. When XP came out the average system was a PII with 128MB of RAM so XP wil bitchslap the swap no matter how much RAM is free, hence it looks like it isn't using much. With Win 7 you really need to look at the size of the cache because THAT is how much free RAM you REALLY have. this is because Win 7 does the much smarter move of using free RAM as a cache for most used programs so when you launch them they are instant. if you are the kind of person who uses a set of programs often? they'l be much quicker on Win 7. Oh and the reason my Win98 and XP are so large is I use them to install games that have SecuROM or Starfucker on them and then just copy the game files along with the crack, that way i don't have that buggy shit in my nice Win 7. if I paid for a game i should get the fricking game, not some buggy kernel hooking shit.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:19AM
388MB is exactly what I see on linux for resident set size. However, when I go to 20 tabs I see 438MB for a marginal cost of 3.4 MB per page. So what it looks like is that firefox is choosing to trade space for speed by pre-initalizing stuff.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday May 13 2014, @06:32PM
A) Your choices are going away. Seamonkey isn't generally kept very updated, and other browsers tend to have other reasons you may not want to use them, which brings me to...
B) UI is a pretty terrible thing to base a choice on if it's configurable when functionality differs. The best example of this is folks still using Windows XP because of how bad the default Win8 UI is, despite it no longer receiving security updates. Granted, they have other options as well, and seem to be particularly inflexible as users.
If Firefox's UI was ever the reason you picked it over the other contenders, I'm already pretty confused. The sole reason it's my go-to and likely will be regardless of what they do to the default UI (unless it gets a UI based fork that doesn't mangle any features) is that it can do extensions that the others simply cannot, or cannot do as well (ScriptNo vs. NoScript seems to be an apt example). The UI is annoying, but as the summary says, it's largely been met by people flooding to an extension for firefox rather than switching to a less functional browser, and that's for a particularly good reason. Function should never be sacrificed to form.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 14 2014, @05:26PM
I'm not sure what I'd do if they Chromeatized Firefox and there were no forks or SeaMonkey available...extensions or a sane UI? Hmmmm...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DarkMorph on Monday May 12 2014, @01:19PM
I'm glad the reception is negative. Maybe there is a chance they will rescind this monstrosity. Otherwise I'm going back to Seamonkey. Again.
I miss the days of FF2.x where it was actually what it was set out to be - the browser only lightweight alternative to Mozilla Suite which is now Seamonkey. I can compile Seamonkey without the extra features like the composer and IRC client, anyway...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Rune of Doom on Monday May 12 2014, @01:50PM
If you liked UI of Firefox, but hate where it's gone, you may want to check out the Pale Moon project: http://www.palemoon.org/ [palemoon.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @02:18PM
Windows only...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @03:30PM
> Pale Moon is an Open Source, Firefox-based web browser available for Microsoft Windows and Linux,
Can't believe somebody modded you up for posting the exact opposite of factual information.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2014, @12:33AM
This post is not a troll [soylentnews.org], it's the truth. Your reply is the exact opposite of factual information; it's total misinformation.
From the Pale Moon FAQ [palemoon.org]:
The 'Contributed Builds' page links to PM4Linux [sourceforge.net], which describes itself as "a third party build; the original project is at www.palemoon.org".
Also, noting that Pale Moon works in Wine is just patronising.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:33PM
Well, "works in Wine" is a bit misleading...I downloaded the latest Pale Moon Windows build, apt-get installed wine, and PM blows out before it even loads the window.
"Just run it in Wine" seems to equate to "just spend the next 3 hours fiddling with settings to get it to start up in Wine...and then pray."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @01:11AM
He got modded up because his statement was, until recently, accurate and people with no interest in Windows-only software aren't likely to frequently check that software's webpage to see if its status changed.
The last time I looked it was still Windows-only, too, though I checked after your correction, and it appears that the third-party Linux builds only started appearing at the end of January of this year, so it's only been available for Linux for a few months. Not surprising that people will assume it's still Windows-only, then.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Monday May 12 2014, @08:46PM
Midori is a slightly lighter-weight Firefox work-alike that doesn't get much attention:
http://www.midori-browser.org/ [midori-browser.org]
It's surprising how much you can miss a few extension, though. Let's see what Firefox's next ESR / LTS release brings.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @02:20PM
I honestly don't understand what the complaining is about with regard to FF29. I have it on my Windows and Linux systems now, and the main change (which my wife ran into) is that the menu is hidden, and you have to press Alt to see it. The other changes are cosmetic and really make little different. The biggest cosmetic change I see is that only the current tab actually looks like a tab, and the others are kinda faded into the background. I don't see the problem with this. Compared to something like GNOME3, this is nothing.
(Score: 2) by Woods on Monday May 12 2014, @02:31PM
The biggest problem for me was the inability to move the address box. They forced it to be below the tabs, which just meant it was taking up way more space than it needed. Thankfully, the Classic Theme Restorer add-on makes it so you CAN move the address box, and anything else, just like I used to be able to.
All the major changes are cosmetic, and almost all of them are awful. I do not know about the GNOME3 that you mentioned, but if you say it is worse, I think I would rather not find out.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Monday May 12 2014, @02:45PM
The main change is that you can no longer disable the latest revision of the new Chrome interface via about:config. Ever since 4 I dreaded this day would eventually come.
Also, they killed the replacement for the status bar (add-on bar). Because what's good killing once is good killing twice, apparently.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday May 12 2014, @05:04PM
I use FireFox daily, updated to 29 when it came out and ... never even noticed the address bar had moved. Of course, I always use Alt-D to get there, and type my URL or search, generally without even looking.
(Score: 1) by bryan on Monday May 12 2014, @07:44PM
Sums up my experience with the new version too. Different looking tabs (uses more screen space, so I'd still prefer the old style) but otherwise no real change.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @01:15AM
If the Tree Style Tab [mozilla.org] extension still works, it's worth trying instead. Having the tabs on the side makes them easier to deal with, and is also a much better use of screen space, especially for widescreen displays.
(Score: 1) by xorsyst on Tuesday May 13 2014, @10:16AM
It does - and it means I barely noticed the change to FF 29.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday May 13 2014, @06:38PM
Jesus, your menu is hidden? No wonder everyone is in a fuss.
Not sure why I got so lucky, but my saved profile settings have my menu exactly where it's supposed to be. Only annoying aspect I got was the extension bar no longer being there at the bottom and instead cramming all 10 of my extensions in next to the address bar, or dropped into a dropdown menu when they don't fit there. Pretty sure you can bring back your menu with Alt -> View -> Toolbars -> check "Menu Bar".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WillR on Monday May 12 2014, @01:30PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @02:08PM
As anybody who attended basic usability courses knows, one of the factors to consider in designing a UI is Familiarity.
Loss of familiarity can be excused when you have to ADD functionality, or reduce overall complexity.
This is not the case for Chrome, Chrome wants an unique user interface, just as commercial software does, so that switching to the competition is harder for the user. Firefox, a no-profit foundation but mainly funded by Google, is unsurprisingly following in the wake of Chrome.
Please, firefox devs, you made an UI which can be customized a lot, so make the new UI a theme and ship BOTH. (the UI's name is chrome, but it was chosen earlier than google's browser).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Monday May 12 2014, @02:16PM
Citation needed. Developers who make statements like this about "most users" have usually not done actual usability studies. If you can't point to market research, user observations, and customer feedback saying who your users are and what they want, then the only idiot is the one making unsubstantiated or anecdotal claims about "most users."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @02:22PM
Many users barely understand what a URL is, and many users type URLs into search bars instead of just navigating directly to them.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday May 12 2014, @03:11PM
So removing URLs / obfuscating the actual address field / etc. helps this problem how?
It was already difficult enough to explain to someone where the actual address bar was (control-L is your friend, of course) but silly changes like this don't help usability. I've already had a couple of support calls related to automatically-installed-update to v29. Grrrrr... So annoying!
It auto-installed the other day on one of my machines here when I closed and re-opened firefox for the first time in a couple weeks and I was dismayed and though to myself, oh crap - this is going to cause some confusion for people and sure, enough it's begun...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @04:03PM
I'm not saying that removing URLs or other things are helpful, I'm just pointing out how ridiculously ignorant most users are. There simply isn't going to be a way of crafting a single UI that works best for smart, savvy users and for people who don't understand the very basics of the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @05:08PM
It's actually quite simple. Make it a flippable switch. Have an "expert mode" that turns on all the fancy stuff, but default to "not expert mode" that is a consistent, minimal interface for newbies and grannies. This makes supporting it easier for the IT guys and the grandchildren, while letting them have the fancy stuff they want too.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @05:58PM
Yes. What annoys me is when they remove previously functioning UI because they buried their switches inside some ini. If you're a "power user" and don't want to see the UI, go into that ini and flip your switch to squelch the UI. Why in hell remove it from the UI?
(Score: 1) by Zinho on Monday May 12 2014, @09:10PM
If they were in touch with their user base they'd call this option "shiboleet" [xkcd.com]. They could even leave it out of the UI, just put a note in the release documentation saying that the -shiboleet switch when launching the program would enable full power-user functionality. Every geek site news site would carry the word to the people who need it.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Monday May 12 2014, @01:51PM
> the vast majority of feedback on Firefox Input is negative
Was the feedback on previous versions any more positive?
> traffic to the Classic Theme Restorer add-on has aggressively spiked since Firefox 29 came out
Is it really surprising that an add-on that only works on FF29 gets a major bump once FF29 is rolled out to tens of millions of users?
I'm not saying everybody is happy with FF29, I'm just saying the evidence presented here of it having a major problem isn't well thought out which is ironic considering that the entire point is that the FF29 release isn't well thought out.
(Score: 1) by starsky51 on Monday May 12 2014, @03:37PM
Also, bear in mind that this 'aggressive spike' in traffic was a change from an average of 20 page views to about 600 page views for a couple of days. I bet the web admin nearly shit his pants!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 12 2014, @03:51PM
Much more fun to look at is:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cla ssicthemerestorer/statistics/?last=30 [mozilla.org]
So a quarter million daily users and quickly growing, growth isn't even leveling off. Adblock Plus admittedly has 18 million users, so its got a ways to go, but its hardly a vote of confidence.
Also you can ram some changes down users throats if they have no choice, like if you make it nearly illegal to buy a computer without your OS, or if every OS install comes with your browser, or you'd have to reinstall the OS, apps, and data to change your GUI (some people actually think that way with linux distros, LOL)
However a new browser is just a click away. Will be interesting to watch graphs like Adblock Plus to see if usage starts declining.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday May 12 2014, @04:20PM
Is there a similar chart for firefox itself?
I went looking for one before I made the first post, but gave up after about 5 minutes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @08:32PM
like if you make it nearly illegal to buy a computer without your OS
Your use of the word "illegal" requires an explanation.
It was never a matter of law that you couldn't buy a box without M$'s OS.
Whitebox builder: I want to make some quantity of my products with Linux|BSD|QNX|BeOS pre-installed.
M$ Salesman: You want to make 99.999 percent of your output non-M$? No problem.
Your volume discount, however, now goes to zero.
You will pay the same price for Windoze licenses as Joe Average does when he walks into BuyMore.
Good luck competing with that millstone around your neck.
Whitebox builder: Oh, well, maybe I'll offer only M$ pre-installed.
M$ Salesman: A wise choice.
.
NB: All dealings with M$ are under NDA.
Whitebox vendors don't even discuss this stuff among themselves for fear of being sued by Redmond.
http://lxer.com/module/db/index.php?dbn=14#conten
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @08:41PM
That should be:
0.001 percent of your output non-M$
or
only 99.999 percent of your output M$
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 12 2014, @08:11PM
Well I haven't gone to the FF forums lately (I now use Pale Moon) but they were getting mostly positive posts...until they did the stupid "hey we'll make version numbers spin like a top like Chrome does!" stupidity. In a way it reminds me of Win 8 and the whole cargo cult usability issue, in that a company sees X is popular but instead of finding out exactly WHY X is popular they just take the most obvious difference and apply it to their own product.
For those like me that didn't care for the switching followed by fiddling to get back what was lost? Pale Moon and IceDragon are both VERY conservative when it comes to UI changes, in fact I can't remember IceDragon ever changing its UI .
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Monday May 12 2014, @01:55PM
Here at SN, my guess is that we're nearly 100% "power users". We want the browser fast, streamlined, and a little ugly (because we know that typically pretty = expensive in terms of speed).
But most users want it "pretty" and don't really care about the speed so much because they're clicking away at farmville or flappy birds while they're waiting for their most recent episode of The Real Housewives of Affluent Community X (only by Bravo) to load up.
What strikes me as sad, though, is that FF has fallen victim to the pretty-fication of browsers. FF has long been about reliability, speed, and consistency (all of which seem to have been forgone for aesthetics recently).
To Chromium or SeaMonkey or a new fork.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @02:16PM
Even if you're using FF, the computer you're using right now is spending most of it's time just sitting there counting cycles until *something* happens. How in hell is the few milliseconds it takes to execute the pretty impacting you? This was a valid argument back in the 80's and 90's. It is no longer a valid argument. I find much of the 'pretty' annoying, but it isn't impacting performance noticeably.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 12 2014, @02:29PM
Slows down / kills the UI and user experience. So some jerks who probably don't even eat their own dogfood want to take away Chrome's URL display. That means every time I need to use it, it'll take me longer. And I'm paid a lot per hour, which proportionally makes it even worse, its a substantial and measurable performance impact to me. And the benefit is, well, nothing really.
What it boils down to is the world doesn't need to be converged on the UI equivalent of fox sitcoms, people magazine, and top 40 music. The lowest common denominator shouldn't be the ultimate goal to aspire to. Why should all browser designers mindlessly try to hyper optimize for noobs, whats in it for them? Even worse the world is running out of noobs. Looking at the examples above, the end result of hyperoptimization for the lowest common denominator tends to be most people being repelled away, even if the lowest of the low really like it. That Jerry Springer show sure is the best possible Jerry Springer show that could exist and the audience for Jerry Springer shows loves it, of course 99% of the population is actively repelled away, but I'm sure the execs will get huge bonuses, so as long as the right people win, its a winner "for us all"
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday May 12 2014, @05:45PM
If the pretty incurs extra keypresses or a requirement of move the hands from the keyboard to the mouse the penalty is _very_ hefty, also in case the pretty causes extra memory to be wasted it can very quickly turn a pleasurable UI into an unusable mess.
And don't get me started on losing space that could be used to show the page.
The problem tends to boil down to that stripped down still normally means "better optimized" in terms of shortcuts and display - speed ins't only the rendering but also the interaction.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Monday May 12 2014, @06:03PM
Are you seriously telling me that popping the about:config, searching for the switch and editing it is less painful than dropping a series of menus and clicking? Using config requires shifting your hands from the mouse to the keyboard and back. I want both available. People here seem to be assuming that I only want the UI. Not so.
(Score: 1) by Aiwendil on Monday May 12 2014, @06:24PM
In terms of UI having to visit the about:confg and then reading every fscking line/option is a very bad designchoice - but after one knows the name of the item one is looking for it is easier to change the config (if it is supported, in New Opera for instance we still don't have a way to turn on showing url's in the mainline).
What you mean with "dropping a series of menus and clicking" I have no clue about, care to use an alternate phrasing?
Using config wouldn't require that for me, unless someone botched something up badly enough that one actually would have to use the mouse to begin with (default for me is doing everything from the keyboard).
If both still is there then the UI should be non-pretty since non-pretty tends to be less intrusive and more muted (however, with good theme-support this can be averted).
Personally I prefer a keyboard-only control with mouse-support as an option (so yes, I want textmenus with underscores for the hotkeys)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:42PM
Ctrl+T (focus gets moved to address bar automatically)
Type about:config
Enter
Tab to the about:config searchbar
Type
Enter
Tabbity Tabbity Tabbity
Enter on the relevant setting
Window pops up with focus to the input field
Edit
Enter
Tab is your friend.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Open4D on Monday May 12 2014, @03:16PM
Agreed. Example 1: I use Windows 7 at work, and I've disabled the "Aero" theme. Example 2: I have no interest in Compiz [wikipedia.org].
And for those things to exist, some people must decide to expend some resources (time/money/disk space/CPU/whatever) on prettiness (or not understand that the decision is being made for them).
This is where I disagree. I'm using FF29 now. All I see is a bare minimum of UI elements, with the actual webpage allowed to take up the vast majority of the screen space. There is nothing on the screen to be pretty!
A change I notice is that the currently active tab seems better distinguished from the other tabs. I would describe this as a minor usability improvement, rather than cosmetic.
I can understand why people don't like having the UI elements shifted around, but it doesn't bother me, personally. I don't even know what those UI elements are, because I use keyboards shortcuts - which seem unaffected. If it wasn't for the 'tab distinguishing' change I mentioned above, I might not even have noticed the upgrade.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @01:30AM
Not sure about Windows/Aero, but I found compositing in Linux to generally improve performance, since it lets your fancy GPU do something useful outside of playing video games. If you don't like the blingy effects, that's understandable, but it's probably better to turn them off without disabling compiz or kwin's compositing.
There are also some useful features available when using compositing that are worth having too, like being able to generate window thumbnails for the taskbar, so there's more to compositing than just showing off that desktop cube.
(Score: 1) by Open4D on Tuesday May 13 2014, @09:51AM
It's not that I don't like blingy effects. They could be kinda cool. It's just that I assign them very little value. If I suspected they were slowing my machine down a bit, I would try turning them off. And even if there was no noticeable improvement in performance, I probably wouldn't bother to turn them back on again.
Interesting. I'll bear that in mind.
And that actually reminds me of some things I read about the Windows 7 Aero situation.b asic-theme-for-better-performance-or-not/ [minecraftforum.net]a sic-theme-frame-lag-of-some-kind [superuser.com]
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1899110-win7-
http://superuser.com/questions/265915/windows-7-b
But despite those claims, I still think my switch from "Aero" to "Classic" (not "Basic") has made things faster.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 13 2014, @11:32PM
Classic being the one that still uses the compositor but doesn't do the blurring behind the windows and whatnot, correct? Not surprising, the blur effects are computationally intensive in the Linux compositors, too. Usually a good thing to turn off while keeping the rest.
---
It's not what I was thinking about when I mentioned the GPU/CPU tradeoff, but one of the kwin devs posted something about it that came up in a search, found here: http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/05/comp ositing-and-lightweight-desktops/ [martin-graesslin.com]
It confirms the "compositing = more gpu", at least, and adds that the primary trade-off is that you use a bit more memory to get that benefit. So, in theory, a machine that's tight on memory might do better without compositing and just dealing with the extra cpu use. My personal experience with it is that my machine's better off with compositing turned on for normal use, though occasionally some games (usually in wine) behave strangely, so I turn it off temporarily for those.
My suggestion for Linux users would be to use kwin as the window manager, regardless of what desktop you use. Compositing or non-compositing management is done in the same binary and can be flipped with a keyboard shortcut, or even automatically via window rules. Slightly off topic, but the window rules settings are one of the best things about kwin, because it lets you work around app-specific brain damage or even force your own preferences in places where a program wants to do its own thing. Like one program I have that tries to hide its tool windows when it loses focus; I hate the behaviour, so I used kwin to change the window type of those windows and they no longer disappear on me.
Anyway, the reason I suggest that is there are some good functional uses for having compositing turned on in addition to a smoother desktop outside of certain games. Being able to turn compositing on and off within the WM means you can benefit from those in regular use without having to worry about losing performance at other times. Plus you can tweak or disable them all individually, so no need to deal with ones you don't like.
Some examples of where compositing is functional instead of just pretty:
* Window management improvements. Things like window thumbnails for the taskbar icons, quickly showing previews of all windows (even covered ones) with a keypress, or being able to zoom out and see (and manage) all your virtual desktops at once.
* Window dimming for user focus. Commonly used to darken a window when it has a dialog up, or to bring attention to root prompts. Compiz and kwin both have an effect that darkens all windows but the active one, too, as tool to avoid distractions.
* Kwin has an interesting effect that, with a keypress, will create a small overlay thumbnail of a window at the corner of your screen. Non-interactive, it lets you watch a window for activity without having to keep it visible.
* Window translucency, usually an example of compositing bling, can be useful, though it's fairly situational, like comparing the contents of two windows by making one translucent and looking for differences. Rolling the mousewheel on the kwin titlebar changes tranlucency on the fly, so it's easy enough to do quickly.
* Some effects are useful for screencasting or other types of presentation. Draw anywhere on the screen with a key press, or have visual notifications of clicks (including "left" "right" "middle")
* Screen magnification is the one I probably use most. Quicker than opening something like kmag and does anti-aliasing so it looks better, too. Also useful for old games that want to run at a low fixed-res like 640x480: run the game windowed at the res it wants and then zoom in with the compositor instead of trying to find a way to resize the window.
Too bad most of that isn't available (or configurable) in Windows, though. It would make the whole thing more compelling for the user instead of just looking like unnecessary bling.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 12 2014, @07:29PM
FWIW, my wife is about the opposite of a power user. She's an artist, and has trouble using the web. She HATES screen redesigns. She remembers what to do based on the position that the button was in the last times she used it. Icon changes flummox her. She doesn't really see the icons as pictures, but rather as patterns of color. I had to tell her that the firefox icon was supposed to represent a fiery fox encircling the world. And she hates the way they keep redesigning it.
N.B.: I don't really like it, to the point where I occasionally think of switching to Konqueror, but it doesn't bother me 1/10th as much as it bothers her.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Monday May 12 2014, @01:55PM
I've been running Firefox on the Beta channel, so I got 29 some time ago. It looked scary until I realized I could right-click on the new menu icon and enable the "Menu Bar". That change made, since I was already using the URL box to search, the main difference is that the tabs look a little different.
Now, Firefox 30 has been rather crashy for me, but I think that has more to do with my add-ons than with the browser itself.
(Score: 1) by bill_mcgonigle on Monday May 12 2014, @03:48PM
Yeah, out of all the changes, I only have two complaints:
1) they made it hard to re-enable the menu bar. 'Hidden' under customize, pop-up menu. Why does Mozilla hate the WIMP paradigm? The damn UI is overly modal as it is - what I'd give for a modeless Firefox.
2) With all my addons' icons now on the top bar, the URL and search boxes shrunk to useless sizes. I _needed_ to install Status-4-Evar to get the bottom bar back, then I used customize to drag all of my add-ons icons down to the bottom. I actually prefer this setup and in retrospect am glad I made this change. I only left the 'tab group' icon on the top, and placed it between the URL and search boxes. I would be happy to see those two boxes merged if they would do semantic detection of the content type and not submit URL's to [search provider] for tracking.
(Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Monday May 12 2014, @06:55PM
Actually, some time ago, I dragged all my add-ons icons from my add-ons bar to the right side of my Menu Bar, and then hid my add-ons bar. I guess that helped ease the transition as well - I didn't even notice that I don't have an add-ons bar anymore until you mentioned it.
For searching from the URL box I created a bookmarks folder, again some time ago, called "Yubnubish". In that folder I add bookmarks by right-clicking search boxes and clicking "Add a keyword for this search..." Thus I search Google with "g [text]", etc. (There used to be an add-on called YubNub that did something similar, hence the name.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Atreidin on Monday May 12 2014, @01:56PM
Among other problems, there are simply too many UI designers on staff, pretty much everywhere. Most of them only need to be employed long enough to get the design down and functional, with enough left on staff for maintenance. Only rehire some for consulting work when a massive overhaul is necessary.
What happens when you have too many of them, sitting around with nothing to do? Well they design UIs, of course. Combine this with a manager trying to make a name for himself by changing something, anything, to make a splash and a name for himself, to come along and push a new UI design. It isn't good enough for the morons who evaluate his performance that everything was OK under his tenure, he needs to make changes, even if they are pointless, otherwise he isn't a "leader". The new UI isn't needed or wanted by anybody you know, but somehow studies and surveys always end up favoring the pointless redesign. Why? Because you can word any survey or study to get whatever answer you want.
tldr:
Problem is caused by: Too many UI designers + bad management trying to get attention + rigged surveys and studies
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 12 2014, @02:20PM
"trying to make a name for himself by changing something, anything, to make a splash and a name for himself"
Seagull management technique, fly in, sh!t all over everything, and fly outta there. Someone else can clean up the mess once the seagull is gone.
Usually open source type culture works against this. Guys who've been using and hacking emacs for thirty years aren't interested in trashing their own daily driver just so some loser can get his name up in lights as the new hero. On the other hand, what we're hearing is what happens to a culture when the suits and telephone sanitizers take over.
(Score: 1, Troll) by starcraftsicko on Monday May 12 2014, @06:06PM
+ management from the board level down that is prepared, even anxious, to cave to the latest trend or the first sign of perceived pressure.
Call me a troll if you want, but you can't reasonably complain about Mozilla's insensitivity to the technically minded portion of its user base while lauding the abrupt dismissal of a technically minded CEO [soylentnews.org] at the same organization.
In his place, Mozilla has appointed a marketing officer [mozilla.org]; it should not surprise us when such management moves to make their product as similar as possible to other popular products.
You... we... have made it clear that we won't tolerate dissent. Not on social issues. Not on politics. Not on UI or UX design.
This post was created with recycled electrons.
(Score: 1) by Phantom Gremlin on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:06AM
It's probably a more general problem: too much money!!!
Mozilla gets tens of millions of dollars a year from Google. Or it it hundreds of millions of dollars? Either way, that too much fucking money.
They could spend most of it on whores and blow and still have plenty left over for useful browser work. It would be really enlightening to know where the money actually goes. But, obviously, too much of it goes to useless UI designers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:27PM
I wholeheartedly agree. Blow and whores would be a significantly better use of money than paying the current breed of UI designers. At least the whores are good at something.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by citizenr on Monday May 12 2014, @02:05PM
Compare new FF, or Chrome, to almost 10 year old Opera that offered FULL UI customisation shipped as a standard feature under right click. You were able to drag and drop EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ELEMENT of the browser UI. Down to single line of pixels, everything was modifiable. On top of that you had skins that changed style, colors and textures.
Today Every browser, even Chrome ski^^^new Opera, treats users like cattle. You will use this UI that we gave you and you will like it!.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @02:26PM
FF29 seems to have the same thing. Click on the menu icon (three horizontal bars, should be near the upper right-hand corner), then click on "Customize".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @05:01PM
Except no, no it doesn't have the same thing. There are so many locked UI elements that it's insane.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Monday May 12 2014, @05:48PM
With new Opera adopting the Blink engine, it's a choice between Chrome and Chrome's UI. And IE.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @02:05PM
My mother uses FireFox - I set her up with it and a few extensions like Ghostery to make browsing safer. Saturday morning, she was just dead in the water. Utterly confused and helpless. Menu - GONE! Bookmarks - GONE! She didn't know what had happened.
I had not been following the FireFox trainwreck closely, and hadn't paid attention to the release-of-the-week. I was taken by surprise. I finally found an extension that put everything back the way it was.
This is the most insane thing I have ever seen, and I saw Windows 8 when it first came out.
Why would any company do this to their users? Why would any company completely ruin its flagship product like this? Is Google trying to get FireFox to commit suicide so we all have to use Chrome and let Google track us?
Have we finally reached the point where no more technological progress is possible, and all anyone can do is destroy what works?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 12 2014, @02:29PM
I can't believe people are comparing FF29 to Windows 8. The bookmarks are still there on FF29: there's two icons immediately to the right of the search bar: one's a star, the other is a box with some horizontal lines in it. The star bookmarks this page, the other one opens the bookmark menu. As for the menu, there's a menu icon (three horizontal bars) at the right edge of this same line, or you can hit Alt to get the old-style menu.
Comparing what is, at best, a very minor UI reorganization, to the monstrosity that is Windows 8 Metro, is just ridiculous and hyperbolic.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 12 2014, @02:53PM
If I wanted a fucking Unibutton I'd be using Chrome or a smartphone! Just leave the damn menu up where it is in 90% of normal programs.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2014, @09:11AM
Hear, hear!
(Score: 2) by efitton on Tuesday May 13 2014, @12:52AM
Your recommendation is for the nontechnical user is to hit the little three horizontal line box thing (because nothing screams menu like three small horizontal lines) or press the alt key. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:06PM
No, my recommendation is for the user to figure out what the icons mean themselves. As I type this, I see precisely 5 icons in that space. That's not very many icons to learn. Learning them is easy: just hover the mouse over each one, and a little box appears saying what the icon does: "Bookmark this page", "Show your bookmarks", "Display the progress of ongoing downloads", "Mozilla Firefox Start Page", and "Show Menu". You think it's too hard for someone to figure out that "Show menu" means to show the menu? Once you've figured these icons out, you should be set. That took me a few seconds to figure out there; you think that's too much for people?
As for the menu icon, it's the same icon that every Android phone uses. Considering Android phones are generally used by people with lower incomes than iPhone users (as well as people who simply don't like/want Apple/iDevices), and have the highest marketshare of mobile phones, this really shouldn't be a problem.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:51PM
Why should be conform to smartphone UIs though, when we have a long-established desktop paradigm already?
*some analogy about applying pet crab care to dogs because more people have pet crabs*
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 12 2014, @02:33PM
"Have we finally reached the point where no more technological progress is possible, and all anyone can do is destroy what works?"
Nothing is ever new in IT, the eternal wheel endlessly repeats.
Look at the appearance and usability of stand along mp3 players over the decade or so immediately prior to itunes dominance. Start out with something simple and easy to use, end up with a steaming unusable pile, some of the ugliest UI I've ever seen, by the immediate pre-itunes era.
Yes, I'm sure it was an amazing technical achievement for that time, and it certainly looked like a designer was involved...
(Score: 2) by emg on Monday May 12 2014, @04:31PM
"Why would any company do this to their users?"
Because their 'users' don't pay for it. I believe you'll find most of Mozilla's money comes from Google, so Mozilla only have to keep Google happy, not the people who actually use Firefox.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:35PM
It's a great example of how a company can come in and essentially buy out Open Source software and essentially kill the competition to their software by throwing however many UI designers at it as it takes. Preferably UI designers who think Steve Jobs was something other than a leaf eating child neglecting hippie with no conception of reality.
No need to violate the GPL or other licenses...if you want to kill competition in the form of Free Software, just make a few donations!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:36AM
Did you mean "UX" designers? Don't call them UI designers. They get ANGRY when you call them UI designers!
They don't design mere user interfaces anymore.
THEY DESIGN EXPERIENCES!!!!!!!!!!!rrrrarrrrrrrrrrrr
(Score: 2) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:32AM
I have the same story as you. My mom called me to complain that "something happened" that made her bookmarks disappear, and that she can't get to her e-mail or anything anymore.
I can't help her until this weekend. Sigh...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meisterister on Monday May 12 2014, @02:08PM
If I wanted Google Chrome, I would have downloaded Google Chrome. I'm going to jump on the SeaMonkey bandwagon and stay there for as long as I can.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @07:33PM
There's a seamonkey bandwagon? Damn! I was used to being the guy with the hip underground browser. Now everyone's going to start using it and it'll lose its cachet :)
But seriously, here's hoping any newfound popularity in seamonkey does not bring over FF UI designers!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday May 12 2014, @07:51PM
I have uninstalled FF after that debacle with their CEO. I am running PaleMoon now, an early fork of FF. It is pretty good, and all add-ons work.
(Score: 1) by meisterister on Monday May 12 2014, @09:12PM
I looked through their page and... is that.... is that the FF3.X UI? You may have just introduced me to my new favorite browser.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:53PM
Did you stop using ReiserFS after the murder trial, too? Kind of ad hominem if that was your only reason.
Agreed on Pale Moon, though.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:53PM
Did you stop using ReiserFS after the murder trial, too?
As it happens, I never used it. The defaults were ext3/ext4 at that time, IIRC. I do not recall even trying it. Stability of ext* FS's was more important for me.
But there is a difference between those cases. Hans Reiser admitted guilt and was punished. Mozilla Inc. admitted no wrongdoing whatsoever, and was not punished, as the CEO quit on his own. The law was not technically broken; but it doesn't mean that Mozilla did the right thing. Lack of repentance + lack of punishment indicates that Mozilla's collective moral norms are not well aligned with my own. The freedom of political activity, including speech and support, shall not be violated, no matter who is speaking. You cannot have free elections and democracy if you can be ostracized for your lawful activity, if you support "the wrong side."
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:59PM
Nobody actually gets fired these days. How voluntary do you think his voluntary departure was?
Other than that, I agree about our need to stop stepping on freedom of speech at every opportunity these days.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by KritonK on Tuesday May 13 2014, @10:11AM
I'm done, too.
I switched to Pale Moon [palemoon.org] late last year, but I'd been keeping Firefox around, loaded with addons to restore the removed functionality. With Firefox 29, just about all of these addons stopped working. For some of these addons, there were beta versions that were supposed to work with Firefox 29, but not always with the best results. As for the classic theme restorer addon, it completely trashed my profile.
Thus, I uninstalled Firefox, replaced %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox with a link to %APPDATA%\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon, so that programs that install their own addons can find my browser, and I've had no reason to look back.
(Score: 1) by Dr Ippy on Monday May 12 2014, @02:29PM
FWIW, when the recent Internet Explorer vulnerability was announced I switched my wife over from MSIE11 to FF29, with a few tweeks. (I.e. set up the way I have it myself.)
She was quite impressed that it imported all her old bookmarks with no fuss. She now prefers FF29, and says it makes it easier to organise her (many!) bookmarks. I haven't had any complaints. :-)
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(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 12 2014, @02:55PM
Firefox 29 is better than IE? [wikipedia.org] How about is FF29 better than FF28? Or even FF3?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Geezer on Monday May 12 2014, @02:37PM
FF is going the way of the upcoming Gmail downdate (my antithesis for update) and That Other Site Beta...crappy re-designs for appearances sake by surplus marketers and designers doing "innovative" and "creative" things just to justify their continued employment. The tactic works fine on MBA managers who...ooh, shiny!!!
(Score: 2) by mrider on Monday May 12 2014, @06:00PM
I guess UI designers have moderation points. That's the only reason I can see for giving the unvarnished truth a "troll" mod. Presumably Firefox will have a single large button in the middle that says "Give Me Stuff", that randomly downloads a web page, and has no user control whatsoever.
What a travesty!
Doctor: "Do you hear voices?"
Me: "Only when my bluetooth is charged."
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 13 2014, @03:21AM
I had the exact same thought. :(
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @03:10PM
These never-ending arguments about application and system interfaces are happening because the old design paradigms are not capable of adapting to a much more fine-grained, complex and personalized user-experience model.
...no one is capable of putting the brakes on the computing industry to redesign the software user interface paradigm from "top to bottom".
Fundamentally, no one is really at fault or a bad guy in this current game; the people creating all this stuff can only work within the frameworks they are given right now. Time money and resources and human beings are under so much pressure, companies have become so monolithic and static
In my opinion, every user interface should be an easily hot-swappable plugin. Users who have tweaked their interfaces within the framework of the chosen plugin should easily be able to export and import the "theme" without a care in the world.
Operating Systems should be redesigned so that the Desktop Environment, Window Manager and overall GUI is just an easily hot-swappable plugin with an easily exportable/importable/re-appliable "theme". The maker of the OS must provide a well designed SDK and API for such a thing to happen. UI Designers working within such a system would no longer have the ability to dictate their "way of seeing and doing" on everybody; their inventions would only be a plugin, they would not be able to embed their creations permanently into the back-end code.
If a UI Designer had a love for the classic Windows95 or Windows2000 interfaces, then he should be able to design the whole visual experience of those operating systems down to the smallest detail and compile it as a hot-swappable plugin.
On an application level, the same thoughts apply. Arguments about Firefox's interface should not need to exist. 'Pale Moon' (the Firefox fork project) should not really need to exist as a complete alternative build of the browser. In a perfectly designed computing world 'Pale Moon' would be nothing more than a plugin for Firefox.
To me, this indicates that Firefox is a design from the past which is being given band-aid solutions and its user interface paradigm is fundamentally broken. You cannot blame the current UI Designers for this debacle; things are what they are in today's hectic ruthless uncaring world. People have families to go home to and bills to pay. Nobody has the stomach to step up to the plate and be the new "Microsoft" or "Mozilla" or the designer version of Linus Torvalds.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Eino on Monday May 12 2014, @04:56PM
You're advocating a highly customisable UI, but UI designers are heading in the opposite direction. Firefox is losing customisation options with each new version. Windows has been heading the same way since Vista and the interface is now heavily locked down.
You say nobody is a bad guy, but I'd say the UI designers who are removing customisation options are bad guys. They're ignoring what the users want and forcing their vision onto everyone. This is particularly annoying because their vision tends to involve dumbing down the interface and making functionality hard to access.
It's often said that you can't please anyone, but in the past Firefox was so customisable that it really could please everyone. However you wanted the UI to look, Firefox could deliver it. That's no longer the case because the UI designers have declared that you will have tabs on the top, you will not be permitted a status bar, your refresh button will be so small it practically won't exist, etc. It's beyond me how you can say the UI issues are nobody's fault when the UI designers are going out of their way to remove functionality and limit user customisation.
It's only thanks to dedicated members of the community that Firefox is even usable, but Mozilla seem hell bent on making life difficult for these people. Many of the UI extensions I use have broken with new Firefox versions, and two currently don't work with Firefox 29. I've had to switch to Pale Moon so I can continue to enjoy a functional UI rather than one designed by morons who think they know best and don't care what users want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @07:23PM
Sounds like UNIX philosophy for a UI: A collection of small items each of which do one thing and do it well. I'm all for this, it's one of the things UNIX certainly got right.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:57PM
Linux DEs are already kind of like this, although you have to close all your active programs so no hot-swapping.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acharax on Monday May 12 2014, @04:28PM
Mozilla knew for close to a year that the majority of their user base will hate australis, their own tests have shown as much. [ghacks.net]
What's on display here is the expected result of putting marketing and buisness types in charge of software development, their marketing spin is actually quite factual when you read it from their perspective. "Streamlining" the browser by removing pesky features, such as the ability to customize the UI, lowers maintenance and development costs, it in turn also lowers the qualifications future development and support staff have to bring to the table; this means things get cheaper, and cheaper is always better, no matter the price.
The modus operandi they use to determine which features to cull is a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy too; they use their telemetry metrics to track usage patterns, they're of course willfully ignoring the fact most techy users will turn stuff like that off the first chance they get, and off the hard to maintain advanced features go!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @07:28PM
Mod parent way up, it's insightful and interesting all rolled into one. Kudos acharax.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday May 12 2014, @08:20PM
for some elaboration on what the parent posted, look to the pidgin development ticketing system FAQ [pidgin.im], which links to some other 10+ year old 'essays' on the thinking behind this stuff (first [pair.com], second [ometer.com], third [actsofvolition.com]).
it basically sums up as
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @04:40PM
For the record, hiding the full URL by default is meant to make phishing more obvious; it's not a whim on making the tabs look more like file folders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 12 2014, @07:39PM
?????
Hiding the URL you are at can only make phishing LESS obvious. I don't know whether I'm missing your sarcasm tags, or whether you're lying, or whether you are accurately reporting an incredibly stupid argument.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by fatuous looser on Monday May 12 2014, @04:50PM
(Score: 1) by jpkunst on Monday May 12 2014, @05:16PM
I don't have any problems with Firefox 29. I like the new UI and the new sync is superior to the previous version. As a counterpoint to all the hate, this seemed like a good moment to donate to Mozilla, so that's what I did yesterday.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @05:45PM
The new UI locks many elements and permanently discards many configurable items that are handy for users that aren't simpleton luser types.
(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Monday May 12 2014, @08:03PM
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I wondered why FF would keep pretending my sync server was broken. Seems it needs to be updated.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by evilviper on Monday May 12 2014, @06:45PM
Because all the examples are situations where market forces don't work like normal. Microsoft's monopoly keeps their huge mistakes from costing them much money. Firefox doesn't sell their product, and their user-share doesn't directly and immediately cost them money, so they will see little if any direct affects on their bottom-line for quite a while.
Meanwhile, look at any of the smaller software firms, and they aren't making stupid changes for no reason... They'd go out of business quickly, if they alienated a chunk of their customers.
The reason it pervades is because Apple won the lottery with iPhone. They made very, very minor UI improvements over the PDA OSes that came before it, and earned many billions of dollars, for being in the right-place, at the right-time (fast 3G networks caused the public to demand smart phones, more than anything else).
So, everybody takes the wrong lesson from Apple's success, and thinks a crippled product that the dumbest of users can't screw-up, will cause a magic surge of demand for their awful product. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though. Besides the high-profile failures like Win8, the dominance of Android over iPhone helps to show that it wasn't the crippled UI that everybody really wanted. Unfortunately, we're still in the time-warp, where projects started long ago haven't all reached the public, yet.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 12 2014, @07:46PM
Also there's lock-in. Windows has lock-in by the many Windows-only applications, Firefox has lock-in by the many browser extensions. Lock-in means users are much more likely to continue using your product even if you make quite bad decisions. As long as the damage you do doesn't outweight the added value of the programs respectively extensions, people won't switch.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 12 2014, @08:03PM
The latest Midori is fairly stable. I am using it now. Works fine.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Tuesday May 13 2014, @12:55AM
Honestly, I just type a rough approximation of what I want into the URL/search box (Chrome for me) and either the page I need appears in the drop down below, or I hit return and Google offers up what I want in the first couple of results.
I have no interest in remembering URLs (aside from the stunningly obvious like amazon.com) and prefer to let my technology do it for me.
That's the same reason that I have largely stopped using bookmarks. It's faster and easier to just start typing and let what I want appear. Usually when I do look at my bookmarks I find stuff from two and three years ago.
Beyond all of that I think that the biggest UI problem is that so many designers don't seem to understand that a UI for a tablet or smartphone has to be different from one used in a keyboard/mouse driven desktop or even laptop.
The things that work well in a touchscreen environment are not the same as what's needed with mouse of keyboard.
(Score: 1) by MostCynical on Tuesday May 13 2014, @01:42AM
I type URLs. i also do a mimimum of "customisation" of my browser.. but that is because i am using appropriate browsers for me (SeaMonkey on my desktop machines and Atomic on my iFad.)
However, I also like being able to move that one element /icon/ notifcation/whatever. If I can't make it do what I want, I find something else.
I think the main issue is that anyone who can make a device do *something* now considers themselves to be a "power user"' or even an "expert", and the devs spend all their time hiding stuff to try to stop those "experts" from breaking things..
I am not a coder, but I can make computers and applications do most of the things I need them to.. Which makes me (and likely most SN people) atypical.
It is sad to know you are blind, but be surrounded by people who aren't even aware they are blind as well..
Modern UI - preventing f*ck ups is more important than usability (also: white space and ads)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2014, @02:10PM
This
I type urls
Of particular annoyance is when those urls are submitted as search terms
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday May 13 2014, @07:46PM
Given that to get to the html5 interfaces on a number of sites, you type "html5.sitename.com", I don't see how I could dream of not typing url's. On the other hand, I also don't save any history, so nothing starts appearing when I start typing. Given how I've seen memory degrade from switching to maintaining a phone book in a cell phone vs. memorizing phone numbers back in school before I had one, I'm not so sure I want to turn up the steam on that process...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2014, @08:37PM
Firefox updates have increasingly acted like malware. The decision several versions ago to remove the Javascript control "for your own good" was precisely that: they disabled a security feature without telling you what they were doing.
The attitude of, if you don’t like it, download an add on to put it back is unacceptable. I shouldn’t need to add one external program after another to defend myself from the developers.
This is the last straw. I shouldn't install what looks like a routine update only to find that favicons have been added to my bookmark toolbar, pushing half of them off the screen. My text only interface has been changed to icons without asking, and no way to get it back to only text. Firefox's answer: "there’s an addon." If software that mucks up your settings without asking is malware, then the Firefox 29 update is malware. This kind of change very simply should not be concealed as a routine update.
It's as if the Firefox developers have taken the side of the websites that want to serve up unwanted garbage, lightboxes, pop-up nuisances, and page view counters, as opposed to the person actually using the browser. I expect the next step is to break ad-blocking, and that this will be explained as something they're doing for your own good as well.
Moved on to Pale Moon.
(Score: 2) by SGT CAPSLOCK on Thursday May 15 2014, @03:16AM
That's too bad. Mozilla is just concerned with... security...
Or maybe ad revenue. I get the two confused sometimes.
Sneaky.