Raging Over Firefox's Rapid Release Schedule? Mozilla Hears You
The cool thing about Firefox's rapid release schedule is you never have to wait very wait very long for whatever potentially awesome features (or big time bug fixes) are included in the next build. That's rad. It also comes at a cost. After a while, it feels like we spend more time going through the update routine -- Click Ok to install, yada yada yada -- and dealing with broken add-ons than we do getting down to the business of surfing the Web. The issue compounded if you work in IT and are responsible for deploying browsers across a large number of machines. It can be frustrating, and Mozilla wants you to know it's working on a solution.
"In the past we have been very careful to make sure people know something is changing with their Web browser before it changes. We did this to make sure people are aware and in control of what’s happening to their environment. Our position was to err on the side of user notification. Today people are telling us — loudly — that the notifications are irritating and that a silent update process is important," Mozilla said in a blog post. "This work is underway. The first set of improvements should appear in the next Firefox release, with more improvements appearing in the next few months. Also, one main reason people are notified of updates is due to incompatible add-ons which will be addressed by the work on add-on compatibility."
The way it works now, and for the foreseeable future, is that there's a new Firefox release every 6 weeks. This keeps the new features and optimizations rolling in at a steady clip, as well as those annoying UAC notifications. Mozilla's working on this. It's also working on add-on compatibility.
"We have historically assumed that add-ons are incompatible until proven to be compatible. This is a very conservative assumption which creates work for all add-on developers and notifications to all add-on users," Mozilla says. "We’ve corrected this for the add-ons hosted by Mozilla. Work is underway to correct this for the remaining add-ons."
Do you like the direction Mozilla is headed, or you do think Firefox is evolving too fast for its own good?
"In the past we have been very careful to make sure people know something is changing with their Web browser before it changes. We did this to make sure people are aware and in control of what’s happening to their environment. Our position was to err on the side of user notification. Today people are telling us — loudly — that the notifications are irritating and that a silent update process is important," Mozilla said in a blog post. "This work is underway. The first set of improvements should appear in the next Firefox release, with more improvements appearing in the next few months. Also, one main reason people are notified of updates is due to incompatible add-ons which will be addressed by the work on add-on compatibility."
The way it works now, and for the foreseeable future, is that there's a new Firefox release every 6 weeks. This keeps the new features and optimizations rolling in at a steady clip, as well as those annoying UAC notifications. Mozilla's working on this. It's also working on add-on compatibility.
"We have historically assumed that add-ons are incompatible until proven to be compatible. This is a very conservative assumption which creates work for all add-on developers and notifications to all add-on users," Mozilla says. "We’ve corrected this for the add-ons hosted by Mozilla. Work is underway to correct this for the remaining add-ons."
Do you like the direction Mozilla is headed, or you do think Firefox is evolving too fast for its own good?
