Re: Removing Firefox Version Number

Thank you for the reply!

On 16 Aug., 17:57, Robert Kaiser <[email protected]> wrote:

> > And as for the new features: I have stopped reading the "what's new"
> > with FF 6.0.
>
> I agree that we should get rid of pushing a "what's new" in your face.

Getting rid of the "your browser has updated" page is ok with me,
especially since it also appears for security updates and only rarely
has something useful to tell about the new version.

I was referring to the "What's new" chapter in the release notes. Here
I want to read about new features, of course! It is only that I don't
read them anymore if it happens too often and there is too little to
read about.

I just don't want my browser to change every few weeks, even if it is
for the better. I want to just use it, most of the time.  Also, in
every change there is the risk of regression. Firefox updates have
been very reliable for a long time now, but even if just a few very
old and obscure addons stop working with the new version, this will
break *some* users badly (have a look into the comments for the taboo
addon, for instance...). Not to mention custom-made software i.e. in a
larger company...

So what I want to point out is: every (feature) update is risk and an
effort (adapt to ui changes/new features) for the user. I (a user)
want to take this risk, of course, because FF usually gets better, but
I don't want to take it 10 times a year, and also not in every
situation (Imagine being in a hotel in a foreign country, having not
much time and using a very expensive mobile connection to just look up
the bus to the airport, when FF decides it's time for the next major
feature update. This *will* happen to some users.)

Making one version every year a "long-term" version, so that it gets
security updates for at least one year would work well for me. Most
admins probably would rather like an interval of two or three years.

[slightly OT]
In general, I'm a bit concerned that FF development during the last
half a year seems to radically follow everything that looks like a
trendy change without thinking much about the consequences. There are
some good reasons for short release cycles, but how comes you did the
switch without having even thought about the problems for companies
that don't want to deploy feature updates that often? This usually is
the first thing to come up when short release cycles are considered.
And: Do you really want to speak about Firefox 23 in four years? Do
you really think people acknowledge the same feature set more in a FF
6.0 than they would have done in a (more appropriate) FF 4.2? What are
you going to do when you really have a large change? Ok, this is more
a feeling than real hard facts. But at least the version numbering
change is all about feelings, isn't it? Just wanted to say that for me
it feels like a rather short-sighted cheat, and I'm afraid of short-
sighted people developing something critical like a browser.
[/slightly OT]


> > I'm against hiding the version number from the user because there
> > *are* different versions of FF in the wild
>
> I think we need to fix having multiple versions out in the wild - except
> for the most current supported ones on our channels, which are made

I'm with you in "making it as easy as possible to stay current". I'm
even in favour of silent security updates (if they can be switched off
somewhere). I'm against *forcing* users to update, though -- after
all, it is their computer, not yours! And FF is so widely spread, that
you can't possibly imagine all use cases (think about use in intranets
without connection to the internet, about FF embedded in other
applications, ...). As already said, I would also very much like to
have the option to postpone feature updates.

But no matter what "we" decide, there will always be outdated
versions. Think about company networks. Think about some early
netbooks that used linux versions that don't get updated anymore.
Think about large centralized university installations where the admin
has gone on holiday and didn't come back ;-)

All the effort in making updates easy doesn't make it unnecessary to
get to know the version number I'm using -- or someone else whom I
want to help.

(And have you ever asked yourself *why* people stay on old versions?
Is it because they are forced to stay (i.e. centralised
administration) or because updating is so complicated or because they
just don't like the risk of changes? [I honestly don't know
myself...])


> >   * when I read about a security exploit, I want to know whether I'm
> > affected by it or not (and how long I have been affected)
> >   * when I report a bug, I want to be able to say in what version that
> > has happened
> > [...]
> >   * when I develop web pages (I sometimes do) and a user reports a bug,
> > I want to be able to use the same browser in the same version as he
> > has used, if necessary
>
> Having everyone on *Current* Firefox release/beta or Aurora should fix
> all of those. [...]

Not really. When I actually read a bug report (against web pages or
against FF itself), the "current" release will often have already
changed, so even if this "everybody uses current version" assumption
would work, I would need to know what was "current" when the bug was
filed.

> > Seems,
> > now it's becoming even worse than Chrome :-(
>
> What's worse?

Well, that brings me back to the topic ;-) :
If even the version number is not told to the user anymore, that's
worse than Chrome.