Vintage Erotica Forums - View Single Post - Firefox - Version 57.0 and later, Your experiences, Issues & Recommendations

therx9x · November 18th, 2017, 09:12 AM

So apparently, Mozilla has completely, and for no obvious reason, (e.g. not security, not particularly archaic, etc), cut out a whole and very common means for add-ons to interface with FF 57 leaving users probably numbering in the 10s of millions, (one addon alone has about 1.5 mil users that who had it this morning that don't have it tonight), just screwed. This isn't a simple fix and there's no sort of legacy interface translator program or patch. The addon developers, many/most of whom make their money elsewhere and occasionally get a few bucks off their addon work, have been fighting with Mozilla for months over this but so far it appears that they have lost. Some of them have told Mozilla to fuck off and some of them are trying to rebuild their stuff with the newer interface that Mozilla has left them as the only reasonable portal.
The Addon crowd has known for some time that this change was coming but, since they don't get paid much for their work, (and obviously don't get a penny from Mozilla), and the fix to changeover to the required interface is seriously non-trivial, AND the old interface module is much more easily meshed with the FF57 code once that it is with most of the hundreds of programs that would have to be rewritten, I'm totally with the coders on this one. They have been somewhere between screaming and begging Mozilla to do the right thing and I guess they were under the misapprehension that reason might prevail in the age of Trump... All the Firefox folks had to do was to actually be as community and developer friendly as they make themselves out to be and just kept a portion of the stuff that they ALREADY HAD FOR YEARS and there wouldn't be a problem.
So... to sum up... Mozilla, probably out of laziness and poor leadership, has decided to bling up the browser and hope that millions of people who've come to count on FF and stuck with them out of loyalty to their mission and/or comfort with the customized browser that each has created using these screwed addons won't care that much and won't get the word that they've also screwed the creators and coders who have worked for mostly peanuts to give FF this marvelous flexibility, who I guess they feel the customer/users will ultimately blame. (Can you tell I got this from coders?). The addon folks are pissed and now I'm pissed.
Mozilla does it again. In trying to staunch the flow of users heading over to Chrome, they've gone with the bling and forgotten the substance and so probably made their problems worse. I hope that people bitch loud and long over this one. Mozilla doesn't make it easy. Under the guise of being a non-profit, they basically hide behind volunteer "staffed" help forums. I did Google "Contact Mozilla via email" and found a chat that I hadn't seen before but they sent me a $5 Groupon or coupon, (I was so disgusted with that that I deleted it too quickly to see what it was...), for a pay to play helpline. Obviously there's nothing they can really do other than absorb the rage of the users who only know that their shit don't work, (how pissed would they be if they knew that Mozilla just punted on them..?), and placate them with some pre-written bullshit. Still, if people just bitch at them non-stop for a bit and take the developer's side and thereaten to go to Chrome, etc., perhaps we'll get more reasonable treatment.
So go bitch loudly and for as long as you can. If it was baseball season, I'd go in to the city early before a game and get off the trolly and and just yell in their lobby until game-time but it's November, so I'm doing my yelling online.

My best to everyone, therx9x

PS You Europeans will no doubt that sometime next year there is a tentative plan for Mozilla to sell browsing info to some outfit in Germany. This is supposed to start with a pilot program including about 1% of their users in Europe and the UK

and build from there. Of course Chrome has done this from the start since they're Google, but that was why we were so taken with Firefox and now they're acting more and more like a for pay enterprise every day. Ain't life grand?

November 18th, 2017, 09:12 AM	#21
therx9x Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2015 Posts: 251 Thanks: 5,108 Thanked 1,678 Times in 237 Posts	I did a bit of research and spoke to some coder buds on this. So apparently, Mozilla has completely, and for no obvious reason, (e.g. not security, not particularly archaic, etc), cut out a whole and very common means for add-ons to interface with FF 57 leaving users probably numbering in the 10s of millions, (one addon alone has about 1.5 mil users that who had it this morning that don't have it tonight), just screwed. This isn't a simple fix and there's no sort of legacy interface translator program or patch. The addon developers, many/most of whom make their money elsewhere and occasionally get a few bucks off their addon work, have been fighting with Mozilla for months over this but so far it appears that they have lost. Some of them have told Mozilla to fuck off and some of them are trying to rebuild their stuff with the newer interface that Mozilla has left them as the only reasonable portal. The Addon crowd has known for some time that this change was coming but, since they don't get paid much for their work, (and obviously don't get a penny from Mozilla), and the fix to changeover to the required interface is seriously non-trivial, AND the old interface module is much more easily meshed with the FF57 code once that it is with most of the hundreds of programs that would have to be rewritten, I'm totally with the coders on this one. They have been somewhere between screaming and begging Mozilla to do the right thing and I guess they were under the misapprehension that reason might prevail in the age of Trump... All the Firefox folks had to do was to actually be as community and developer friendly as they make themselves out to be and just kept a portion of the stuff that they ALREADY HAD FOR YEARS and there wouldn't be a problem. So... to sum up... Mozilla, probably out of laziness and poor leadership, has decided to bling up the browser and hope that millions of people who've come to count on FF and stuck with them out of loyalty to their mission and/or comfort with the customized browser that each has created using these screwed addons won't care that much and won't get the word that they've also screwed the creators and coders who have worked for mostly peanuts to give FF this marvelous flexibility, who I guess they feel the customer/users will ultimately blame. (Can you tell I got this from coders?). The addon folks are pissed and now I'm pissed. Mozilla does it again. In trying to staunch the flow of users heading over to Chrome, they've gone with the bling and forgotten the substance and so probably made their problems worse. I hope that people bitch loud and long over this one. Mozilla doesn't make it easy. Under the guise of being a non-profit, they basically hide behind volunteer "staffed" help forums. I did Google "Contact Mozilla via email" and found a chat that I hadn't seen before but they sent me a $5 Groupon or coupon, (I was so disgusted with that that I deleted it too quickly to see what it was...), for a pay to play helpline. Obviously there's nothing they can really do other than absorb the rage of the users who only know that their shit don't work, (how pissed would they be if they knew that Mozilla just punted on them..?), and placate them with some pre-written bullshit. Still, if people just bitch at them non-stop for a bit and take the developer's side and thereaten to go to Chrome, etc., perhaps we'll get more reasonable treatment. So go bitch loudly and for as long as you can. If it was baseball season, I'd go in to the city early before a game and get off the trolly and and just yell in their lobby until game-time but it's November, so I'm doing my yelling online. My best to everyone, therx9x PS You Europeans will no doubt that sometime next year there is a tentative plan for Mozilla to sell browsing info to some outfit in Germany. This is supposed to start with a pilot program including about 1% of their users in Europe and the UK and build from there. Of course Chrome has done this from the start since they're Google, but that was why we were so taken with Firefox and now they're acting more and more like a for pay enterprise every day. Ain't life grand?