problems with firefox rapid release development
I’m starting to get annoyed with the firefox rapid release development cycle.
I’ve known about it for a few months now, and when I first heard about it, it seemed like a good idea.
But then, as I’ve gone through version 4, then 5, and now v6.0, I’m finding more and more add-ons are breaking…
Back when I evaluated all the major browsers, looking for one that I would adopt as my main browser, the main reason I chose firefox was that it had a large number of add-ons, which allowed me to do things that no other browser (including firefox), could do out of the box.
Now, about half of my plugins are disabled, as they are incompatible, and firefox is becoming increasingly annoying to use… it feels like useful aspects are “falling off”.
The version numbering means that firefox no longer needs to support older version… so more effort can go into future development.
Thats great in theory, and users probably don’t care about having firefox V26.0 in 5 years time, but they do care about usability and stability.
For me, firefox is losing useability, and if it gets any worse, I’ll need to have another look around, and see what I can switch to.
The last time I looked, I remember:
- Chrome didn’t have all the functionality I wanted (and virtually no plugins to add that functionality).
- IE lost a lot of the configurability that I wanted (I think its a lot better now)
- Opera had some compatibility issues.
- Maxthon and various others had a whole range of issues.
I even tried firefox on my android phone for a while, but eventually decided that the speed of the built-in android browser overshadowed any benefit of using firefox sync, and the nicer firefox UI.
If you look around again I think you’ll find not very much has changed…
Chrome has more plugins now but still misses a number of ‘must haves’ (compared to FF), IE9 is still not very configurable and Opera is still far too niche – incompatible with more sites than the others.
I have similar issues and although not ideal, I use 2 browsers
Chrome (for speed and compatability)
and FLASHPEAK SLIMBROWSER (beats the hell out of the others for included features)
Autologon, dl manager and more
SLIM BROWSER v6.00.053 – Free
SlimBrowser is a fast and secure FREE web browser software fully loaded with handy features. It includes popup blocker and automatic form filler; supports site groups; provides one-click access to search engines via quicksearch entries; provides one-click access to personal accounts via autologin entries; supports URL filter and advertisement filter; support URL alias and built-in commands. It brings you convenient and safe browsing.
http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/
Hmmm, I tried slimBrowser, and its nice and simple.
It has some nice features built-in (I particularly like double-clicking on a tab to close it!).
I can’t seem to get the ad blocker to work properly (and I don’t want to spend any time “fixing it”
But its missing some of my must-haves:
– QuickDrag equivalent (highlight some text, drag it an inch, then drop it, and the text will start a search if its not a URL, otherwise it will open a new tab & load the URL)
– A pagerank plugin (ideally also an alexa and compete ranking tool)
– not sure if it supports logmein, LSO blocker, google gears, split windows browsing, etc
I used 2 browser too.But I have a problem in firefox.It getting crashed more often.
I believe 7 is now out.
With the loss of add-ons and jssh I now use FF less often.
I’ll always use it to some degree, so that I can see what others experience.
For personal use I’d really like a time efficient way to just get the browser I want. It’s not a lot like the free things that’re coming out and as time passes it gets further away from them. It would cut out the things that I don’t want, and do the things I do want, and I’d control the coding of the extensions myself (if I wanted to).
I’m guessing that I’m not alone in this. Anybody seen a way to get the browser you really want without enormous waste of time and money?