Firefox and software developers

[John]

Many-many years ago, I learned about inertia. It's a well-known property of matter, but also it describes very well the fact that human beings do not like changing their habits. At least most of them do not.

I am now almost 54 years old. I've been working with computers since I was 28, so I can say that I have some experience on these matters. I have done my share of coding all those years, developing programs on a variety of platforms (computers), using several different programming languages.

One thing that puzzles me all the times, is how software developers ignore user preferences and user habits. What I'll describe below, is something that happens all the times to me, and thankfully, I always manage to find a solution, but still it never ceases to amaze me how little respect developers have for their users.

Here is the subject of my rant.

This morning, I downloaded and installed the latest version if Firefox browser. I can no longer remember when I first started using Firefox, but I do know it was several years ago, when Netscape folded. I've always prefered Firefox to Internet Explorer (or Exploder, as it should be named), due to its tighter security. So you can say, I am used to Firefox.

As soon as I downloaded the new version though, I got hit by a bomb. TABS! Some years before, browser developers decided that instead of having multiple browser windows open, they should allow us to have multiple "tabs" within the same browser window. I have never managed to get used to this feature (or problem?) so the first thing I do when I download a new browser version, is to make sure that tabs are as disabled as possible.

Until Version 3.xx, Firefox allowed you to do this (disable tab browsing) and so does the latest version 4. However, some of their developers thought that some of the menus should be rearranged, just because tabs are so hot. So instead of having "Open link in new window" selection, as the first selection of the context menu, which pops-up when you right-click on a link (something I do a lot) they moved that option to the second position and added a "Open link in a new tab" option in the first!!!! So when I did what I used to do for years (open a link in a new window) I ended up with the link being opened in a new tab. Did I say I hate tabs?

The File menu was also changed in a similar manner, the "New Window" option is now second, while "New Tab" is first!!! WHY????

Mozilla programmers, why do you believe it is a nice thing to change what we are used to, for so many years? Who on earth told you that I want to spend a couple of hours, trying to figure out how I can get back to my usual way of browsing? God I hate these things, I hate having to spend time for nothing. I hate when a program stops working as it used to be.

Hear me developers: inertia is a human beings characteristic too. Don't change the user interface to something you think we like (or we need), even if your marketing department tells you so. Let us decide if we want to change. Let us make that decision. Imagine what would happened if a car manufacturer was to switch the accelerator and break pedals positions? Stop doing this in your programs, we do not need more aggrevation.

P.S.: Thank God there are some intelligent developers out there. After a few Google searches, I found a Firefox add-on, that allows you to customize the menus, in whichever way you like! It's called "Menu Editor" and you can download it from here: http://menueditor.mozdev.org/

Thanks guys! You made my day.

[Spyros]

Wow... while I have automatic updates enabled, I'm writing this through Firefox 3.6.15... I guess I'll have to deal with this as soon as I shut down and start up again.

You don't need to feel... old, John. I'm younger than you, but I have had Google Chrome installed in this PC for a while now. In general, I like it - it's simple, which is usually a good thing. But I don't use it much, because the menu has the tabs option first!!!

Having said that, I like tabs. Perhaps they don't make sense in an Apple, but I like them in WinXP. I occasionally open a dozen browser tabs at a time. Had I been opening separate windows, the windows of other programs in my taskbar would slowly disappear - or not, because Windows eventually groups multiple similar taskbar items, to keep this from happening. Which is useless, because I then have to go around this, to access the firefox windows that I want. Using tabs means that this issue is history.

Still, I couldn't get used to one type of menu in Firefox and another menu in Chrome, but after this change, they will be similar... so the irony is, the change in Firefox 4, will make me, a tabs' fan, use Google Chrome more! :D

Bravo Firefox!

[230therapy]

Sounds like a PEBCAK error in using the menus instead of keyboard shortcuts.

If you insist upon using the menus:
1) Download the source
2) Edit the source so the menu is in the correct order
3) Recompile and install.

It's just not that hard!

[Hawkmoon]

Rant received and understood.

I feel the same way about Microsoft Orifice and the completely new menu system that was introduced in the 2007 (or was it the 2010?) version. People have been using the same menu system/structure for more than 20 years. There are, literally, millions of people in the installed user base who have been doing the same tasks the same way for so long that the menu functions have become automatic motions.

So, naturally, Microsoft tossed ALL that out the window, forcing businesses to invest time (which is money to a business) and money in sending people to classes to re-learn how to do what they've been doing perfectly well for years.

DUMB!

I didn't even like the "upgrade" from Firefox 2.xx to 3.xx. The drop-down history bar in the new version (what does Firefox call it, the "Wonder Bar" or something equally idiotic?) is too cluttered and busy, so I had to find an add-in called "Old Bar" to keep it looking like the old version. The fact that Mozilla's myriad developers didn't offer that option internally is shameful.

[John]

Hawk, I feel your pain! LoRL :p

Sounds like a PEBCAK error in using the menus instead of keyboard shortcuts.

What's ... PEBCAK??

If you insist upon using the menus:


Keyboard shortcuts? You mean there are more than Cmd-C, Cmd-X and Cmd-V?

Sorry man, I hate keyboard shortcuts, you can only remember so many.


1) Download the source
2) Edit the source so the menu is in the correct order
3) Recompile and install.

No need to. The menu structure is NOT internal to the code, it's somewhere external, I do not know where, and I do not care, after I found Menu Edit. It does it for me.

[hgr]

Hi John,

Coincidentally, I work for Mozilla.

We have somewhere around 400,000,000 users across 86 languages. We use very extensive analytics to find out how people use their browser, and a fantastic user experience team who try to improve the front end of Firefox to make it easier for people to use. We absolutely do not ignore user preferences or the way people operate — and we have a huge pile of statistics and Test Pilot studies to back that up. Nothing is changed for the sake of things.

Sometimes the data points to keeping things the same, and sometimes it means changing things… especially because there are parts of Firefox that date back 15+ years, and simply no longer make sense to people. New users and experienced users have different needs, and we need to balance those.

For every John who gets tripped up by a change in menu order, there's a user who doesn't discover a useful feature because it's not front-and-center for them to find.

As you discovered, Firefox's customizability and support for extensions is a great way to reach a middle ground by allowing you to change parts of the browser.

I'll look and see if there's an open bug to hide the Open in New Tab menu option when tabbed browsing is disabled. If not, I'll file one.

You might be interested to know that you can Ctrl-click (on Windows) or Cmd-click (on Mac) on a link to open it in a new window or tab, depending on your preferences, and Ctrl/Cmd-N will open a new window from anywhere in Firefox. You should never need to reach for the menu to perform that action.

Do let me know if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to help!


"PEBKAC", by the way, means "problem exists between keyboard and chair". It's a derogatory/joking term for "user error".

[Hawkmoon]

Nothing is changed for the sake of things.
I'm sure you believe this, but we end users do not.

New users and experienced users have different needs, and we need to balance those.
So naturally, it makes sense to abandon the installed user base in favor of the new users, who could just as easily learn the existing menu/command structure as learn a new and different one.

I'm sure that must make sense to you or you wouldn't do it, but it makes zero sense in the real world.

For every John who gets tripped up by a change in menu order, there's a user who doesn't discover a useful feature because it's not front-and-center for them to find.
Why should people who already know how to use a program (any program) be forced to enter a new learning curve in order to accomodate some new user who doesn't accidentally "discover" some new feature he/she doesn't need and will never use?

[hgr]

I'm sure you believe this, but we end users do not.

I think you can only speak for yourself in that regard. We went through twelve beta releases, two release candidates, and a huge amount of feedback from an enormous community prior to releasing Firefox 4. That feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

We don't do anything without measuring. For example, here are some results from studies done last year:

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010/03/15/menu-item-usage-study-part-i/

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010/07/01/firefox-main-window-study-a-heatmap-visualization/

You can see from that first link that New Tab in the main menu gets clicked about 30 times as often as New Window. New Window is at number 21 in the list — it's used less often than Quit!

In every change there will be people who are unhappy. We try to keep that number as small as possible, and we make an educated decision to trade off the cost of a change versus the potential benefit.

Taking tabs as an example: the majority of people use tabs. Should we make life harder for, say, three hundred and ninety five million people, just to avoid making five million people possibly adjust to new ways of doing things?

Even my 65-year-old mother uses tabs!


So naturally, it makes sense to abandon the installed user base in favor of the new users, who could just as easily learn the existing menu/command structure as learn a new and different one.

You might be surprised at the enormous amount of effort we go to to avoid disrupting or breaking things for our users. We love our users, and we do our best to make them happy. We are, after all, a non-profit: we exist only to make the web better.


Why should people who already know how to use a program (any program) be forced to enter a new learning curve in order to accomodate some new user who doesn't accidentally "discover" some new feature he/she doesn't need and will never use?

Because:

* The new learning curve is short
* Millions upon millions of people's lives will benefit in some small way by the change
* Far fewer people than you think are disrupted by having to adapt to a change in this way, and statistics and user studies back up that decision
* Sometimes making a change is necessary to allow for future growth.

After all, tabbed browsing was new once upon a time… and now it's the way almost everyone browses the web. Most people adapted quickly. Some people are left behind, and we do our best to help bring those people along, or support them in the old way of doing things, but we can't keep putting the ignition on the front of the car just because that's where the hand crank used to be.

Change is a part of life. You might find it uncomfortable, but — just like a thumbs-forward grip, or red-dot sights — it might be worth your while to give it a try.

[John]

"PEBKAC", by the way, means "problem exists between keyboard and chair". It's a derogatory/joking term for "user error".

Ahhhhhh......

As for the rest of your comments, I believe that Hawkmoon said it exactly as I would have. Caring for those 400,000,000 existing users is more important (or at least it should be more important) than the new users who will have to learn FF environment from scratch.

May I humbly suggest to your developers that they add an option "Disable Tabs Completely", for those old-timers who hate tabs? If that option is selected in the Preferences, then the Open in a New Tab and the File/New Tab options should completely disappear from the user interface, along every other reference to tabs.

Two more points:

- Whatever happened to the "Stop" (X) and "Reload" buttons in the Navigation toolbar? I've managed to find the Reload button, but the Stop button, while I move it to the left of the address space, it doesn't appear. I assume it will appear only while a page is loading? Again, another case of altering the user interface, again, not to an improved layout.

- The No-Script menu button is now moved to the navigation bar, at the top. Again, I have to ask, why? It was fine where it was before, why was it moved??

I have also noticed that there are some serious bugs in FF4. Here are some that I've noticed:

- While typing my answer in the Quick Reply box at the bottom of this page, for some strange reason, a part of the pictures shown in the left column (the M1911.ORG logo at the top and then the Rock Island Armory banner) are copied and appear in the Quick Reply box. They do not appear permanently, but they flash on and off, a small part of the image. It some times appears when the line fills up and text moves down to the next line, some times if you press Enter at the last line, and some times when you move the cursor key to the last line. I tried to capture it, doing a screen capture.

http://forum.m1911.org/images/temp/Screen.jpg

Look in the Quick Reply box, in the above image, and you will see that on the last line, there is a part of the RIA banner shown. Some times that same small part of the images, appear higher up in the text I've already typed, but I haven't manage to figure out when this happens. The image part, flashes three times and then vanishes.

- I noticed another problem, when I right-click to open the "Back-Forward-Reload-Stop-etc" menu. The first time you do that in a page, the menu appears for a very brief instant bigger (as if it contains more options) and larger in size. It stays on for a few milliseconds and then it is replaced by the standard menu. I noticed that problem first in another site (http://applemania.gr/showthread.php?1314-%CE%A0%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%BE%CF%84%CE%B5-%CE%BC%CE%B5-%CF%84%CE%BF-iPad-%CF%87%CF%89%CF%81%CE%AF%CF%82..iPad%21%21) but then I see it happening in this one too. Both of these sites (ours and the other one) are using vBulletin software, but neither of these two bugs occured with the previous versions, in either site. So it has to be something in the new version that causes these.

hgr, don't misunderstand me. I appreciate you jumping in here to help us out with FF4. As far as I am concerned, it was my favorite browser when I was using Windoze and it is still my favorite one, for security reasons and because (you guessed it) I am too old a dog to learn new tricks (like Chrome or even Safari). But if you guys are going to keep changing things in the user interface, I seriously doubt I'll be downloading any newer versions.

By the way, is there any place from where I can download the last 3.xx version? I'd rather use that, until you guys have iron out the infancy bugs from FF4.

Again, thanks for your jumping in here.

[John]

Apparently we have cross-posted.

Let me tell you something I learned from close to 30 years of experience in systems development. It's always bad to change the user interface. Some years ago, I had translated a huge package called Wang Office (an office automation package, with email, calendar, address book, word processing etc, all in one integrated environment) from English to Greek. That was a requirement from a high-rank Government official, in order for them to buy the package for the office of the Prime Minister. Me and my team were working on the object code, there were no sources to work with, no external messages, no resource files etc to play with. We did all changes in the object code.

We were working more than 18 hours a day and we finished the translation in less than a month, which got us the job and a nice bonus for me and my team. After we installed the package and did the training and everything, we took a well-deserved two-weeks vacation.

When we got back, we checked the statistics in the log files. We noticed that people were using every other part of the program, except one. According to the mother company, that should have been the one users used more, in every installation of the software around the world. In our installation, it hasn't even been accessed once. The users have been trained on its functionality, the program was running fine, but nobody used it. So as the project manager I took it upon myself to find out why.

After talking with the customer personnel, I was astonished to hear their reason. In the English version of the program, the menu selection for that program was a four-letter word, which described perfectly the function of that program. Let's say for example "Calc", for calculator. The Greek word for Calc though is much larger than four letters, so we had to invent an abbreviation. It was apparent that the 4-letter abbreviation we selected didn't exactly conveyed the message to the end users, who haven't even tried that menu option once, in two weeks.

So yes, I understand that a software has to evolve, and it has to grow and have more features. Do add features, but let the users select if they want to use them. And whatever you do, use your existing customers as a guide, not what market research tell you, not what the marketing says. Old-timers have enough time on the software to tell you what they love or hate. New-comers can't do that.

As for tabs etc, I do not know if it was the browser industry who started this issue, or if it was a users request, what I do know is that you should give your users the option to select if they want tabs or not. Apparently, it is a feature that deserves its own submenu in the program's preference. If it is so important, to have four or five different options there, well, give us the option to disable it if we so want. And since FF is so customizable, come up with a tool that allows us to customize our toolbars etc, exactly as we want them. It shouldn't cost you much.

[hgr]

May I humbly suggest to your developers that they add an option "Disable Tabs Completely", for those old-timers who hate tabs? If that option is selected in the Preferences, then the Open in a New Tab and the File/New Tab options should completely disappear from the user interface, along every other reference to tabs.

You can suggest it (file a bug in Bugzilla), but I doubt it would get anywhere in core Firefox. Features like that have to be tested, localized, and maintained, and they interact with add-ons. It's simply a bad tradeoff of enormous maintenance burden versus tiny user benefit.

That doesn't mean it can't be done in an extension, though:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/remove-new-tab-button/
http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_tabkiller.html.en


- Whatever happened to the "Stop" (X) and "Reload" buttons in the Navigation toolbar? I've managed to find the Reload button, but the Stop button, while I move it to the left of the address space, it doesn't appear. I assume it will appear only while a page is loading? Again, another case of altering the user interface, again, not to an improved layout.


By default, a combined stop/reload button is embedded into the location bar. If you customize the Navigation Toolbar (context menu > Customize), you can drag individual Stop and Reload buttons anywhere you like. This is how I have mine set up.


- The No-Script menu button is now moved to the navigation bar, at the top. Again, I have to ask, why? It was fine where it was before, why was it moved??


Simplification and consolidation. For every user who complains about things moving around, there's another who complains about too many toolbars (especially on machines with small screens) and too much clutter!

At least for Adblock Plus, if you right-click on the icon and look in Options you can check "Show in Status Bar" and uncheck "Show in Toolbar". Then choose View > Toolbars > Add-on Bar, and you should see the little icon in the bottom bar. I think No-Script works the same.


- While typing my answer in the Quick Reply box at the bottom of this page, for some strange reason, a part of the pictures shown in the left column (the M1911.ORG logo at the top and then the Rock Island Armory banner) are copied and appear in the Quick Reply box.


I see that too. I'll file a bug. It's very likely a platform-specific graphics issue.



- I noticed another problem, when I right-click to open the "Back-Forward-Reload-Stop-etc" menu. The first time you do that in a page, the menu appears for a very brief instant bigger (as if it contains more options) and larger in size. It stays on for a few milliseconds and then it is replaced by the standard menu.


I don't see that. It's possible that you have an add-on installed that adds or removes items from the context menu; it's modifying the menu as it's being displayed, and so the menu is changing size.



hgr, don't misunderstand me. I appreciate you jumping in here to help us out with FF4. As far as I am concerned, it was my favorite browser when I was using Windoze and it is still my favorite one, for security reasons and because (you guessed it) I am too old a dog to learn new tricks (like Chrome or even Safari). But if you guys are going to keep changing things in the user interface, I seriously doubt I'll be downloading any newer versions.


Then I'm afraid you're likely to be disappointed with all operating systems and browsers; Firefox is, if anything, one of the more stable interfaces around. (Consider Chrome with its tabs on top, or full-screen browsing in the next version of Mac OS.)

Change is an inevitable part of computers, otherwise you'd still be using this!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Mosaic_Netscape_0.9_on_Windows_XP.png

:D


By the way, is there any place from where I can download the last 3.xx version? I'd rather use that, until you guys have iron out the infancy bugs from FF4.

Again, thanks for your jumping in here.

Happy to help.

You can always get older versions here:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html

but I should point out that Firefox 4 is already much, much more stable (crashes less often!) than 3.6 (even ignoring the improvements in speed and features). Eventually 3.6 will stop getting security fixes, but that shouldn't be for many months.

[Spyros]

We don't do anything without measuring. For example, here are some results from studies done last year:

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010/03/15/menu-item-usage-study-part-i/

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2010/07/01/firefox-main-window-study-a-heatmap-visualization/

You can see from that first link that New Tab in the main menu gets clicked about 30 times as often as New Window. New Window is at number 21 in the list — it's used less often than Quit!

In every change there will be people who are unhappy. We try to keep that number as small as possible, and we make an educated decision to trade off the cost of a change versus the potential benefit.[my emphasis]

OK I have to admit that the evidence here is quite compelling - assuming the research was done based on a really large sample of users, as I am not familiar with the size/composition of the 'firefox community' that the article refers to. If this sample includes several hundred thousand people, the majority of whom are not developers, testers, or anything to do with evolving a program that they're happy to use as-is, then this is fine by me.

But I have a question: does clicking on item No2 in a pull-down menu really take more time than clicking on item No1?

You see, soon after posting earlier in this thread, I got version 4.0 and have been using it for a few hours. Again, I like tabs. I was actually very enthusiastic about them from day 1. As a moderator in this forum, I often go to 'new posts' near the top of this page, and open a couple of dozen new tabs in quick succession. Since 'Open in new Tab' is now the first option when I right-click on a link, opening new tabs should have become easier - it hasn't. Yes, I'm sure moving my mouse a little less further will become a natural habit in a day or two, if that... but so what? I occasionally opened a new window instead of a new tab before, and I'm guessing that it won't change. So as a 32 year-old frequent Firefox user, who (like most users) likes tabs, I have felt no gain from the switch, and I have a minor irritation to deal with for a short period of time.

Meanwhile, the minority of people like John, have to work their way around the problem. John knows his way around computers much better than most people his age (you have no idea how many times I rewrote this sentence! :D), so he's already found a way that works for him. Most others will have to re-adapt, somehow.

So in a nutshell, I'm arguing that the benefits of this change for the majority, are not vital enough to counter the disadvantages for the minority. That's assuming that I understand what the majority wants and how they work, which, I accept, is a very 'bold' assumption, so value my opinion as you see fit.


Incidentally, I wholeheartedly agree with Hawk's opinion on MS Office. Hawk, it's 2007 where the change occurred, and after trying to live with it for over two years (I hung-on this long, believing I might get used to it), I gave up and re-installed Office 2003. I needed an add-on to let me read .docx and .xlsx files, but that's freely available. To be fair to Mozilla, I don't think that this change in Firefox is in anything like the same league as the multi-page menu of MS Office... one is mildly annoying swap, the other is a glorious example of idiocy, which renders an otherwise great product un-usable and nearly made me switch to OpenOffice...

[hercster]

I feel the pain! About 15 years ago I retired from a lifetime career with a major corporation with the intent of becoming a consultant as I was somewhat of a subject matter expert in my field. I hated retirement for lots of reasons that many career people never think about. The worst part was the mind numbing lack of intellectual stimulation, responsibility and decision making. I was a stranger in a strange land and suddenly had a boss who had been in my home for 35 years doing things her way. My opinions were usually dismissed as irrelevant. Be forewarned people, you go from being an executive to being a "nothing" in 24 hours and it hurts like heck.

As a spoiled "executive" with a large staff and a secretary who made my coffee and sharpened my pencils, I also quickly learned that I didn't know how to do most things and running a PC was one of them. The complexities of personal computing appealed to be and I became competent quickly; so much so that I decided I could teach "Mature" people like me which was a huge and largely untapped market 15 years ago. So I put a modest ad in the local paper and my "business" exploded. I evolved into a small but very busy computer-services company and even started building machines particularly at the high end or for special applications like musicians. I also found a large amount of business with one-person companies like real estate agents, translators and accountants.

I started with W95, transitioned to W98 and then to XP where I stayed when the infamous Vista appeared. I managed to keep most of my clients on XP and had special arrangements with companies like Dell who would configure machines with XP at my request. For others I bought and installed OEM copies of XP. Being totally self taught, I had learned all sorts of trickery with XP and software of the same vintage. Although I didn't like it, many of my clients used Outlook Express which I could backup, restore and transition to new machines easily by saving ".dbx" files. Suddenly OLEX was out and in came Windows Mail and nightmares replaced simple maneuvers.

So for various reasons I sold the business and retired again to become a full- time RVer and Gun noobie. My timing was lucky. I'm running W7 on both my machine and that of my most difficult and demanding client. I'm still somewhat crippled but it doesn't matter much anymore. To all my forum friends, I hope you reach the same state as me where most things don't matter very much anymore :-)

[230therapy]

No need to. The menu structure is NOT internal to the code, it's somewhere external, I do not know where, and I do not care, after I found Menu Edit. It does it for me.

Excellent! Easy fixes!

[Hawkmoon]

By default, a combined stop/reload button is embedded into the location bar. If you customize the Navigation Toolbar (context menu > Customize), you can drag individual Stop and Reload buttons anywhere you like. This is how I have mine set up.
Well, here's a perfectly good example of not practicing "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I'm using Firefox version 3.6.15. In my tool bar, I have an icon (and label) for "Reload," and a separate icon (and label) for "Stop." I didn't customize it to get it that way. IIRC I had to tirn on labels with the icons, but the separate stop and reload icons was the default. As it should be. Why did you change it to a combined stop/reload button? How many users, exactly (or even approximately), asked that you take two perfectly functional and self-explanatory buttons and combine them into one?

[Robstafarian]

Why did you change it to a combined stop/reload button?
I am by no means attempting to answer on behalf of the Mozilla Foundation, but the logic of this was immediately obvious to me. The “Stop” button can do nothing, at all, when a page isn't loading. It wastes space. As netbooks, laptops, and tablets have become almost the majority of the computer market, wasted space has become a liability.

Then again, I've used Linux for more than nine years and move easily among it and Windows, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris...so my results sure as heck aren't typical. I am also a niche of a niche of a niche, since I prefer LaTeX and/or vim to every word processor I've ever used.

[John]

Somehow, I believe that Mozilla has gone the wrong way with this release. But from what hgr is telling us, I am a minority (I do not use tabs, my computer has a huge monitor 24", with a larger than average analysis etc). So I guess I have to live with the requirements imposed by people using netbooks, even though none of the contemporary Apple computers have such small resolutions.

And Spyro, yes, scrolling down one line when you right-click on a link, to open it in a new window, is a huge change for someone who has been using that gesture for more than 10 years (or so). Same thing when I want to open a new browser window. For me, that's a huge thing, as if Apple all of a sudden decides to change Cmd-C and no longer do a copy, when you press it (or Microsoft to change Ctrl-C).

And while as a software developer, I understand the importance of adding features, in all my life, I've always tried to implement changes, without changing the way existing things were done.

Coming to bugs:

As hgr said, you can customize the Location Toolbar to include a Reload and a Stop button. I did that, and I moved the Reload button, next to the Back/Forward button, and the Stop button next to it and before the No-Script button. In that configuration, the Stop button disappears, when you save the Toolbar. If you place the Stop button after (to the right of) the Back/Forward buttons and the Reload button after it and before the No-Script button, then the Stop button stays in place and doesn't disappear. Clearly a bug, no matter which way you look at it.

Regarding the right-click menu behavior I mentioned before, I am not using anything that changes that menu. Except if Menu Edit is causing it.

I am by no means attempting to answer on behalf of the Mozilla Foundation, but the logic of this was immediately obvious to me. The “Stop” button can do nothing, at all, when a page isn't loading. It wastes space. As netbooks, laptops, and tablets have become almost the majority of the computer market, wasted space has become a liability.


But, but, but ......

This is not a version for a tablet. It's not even a version for a netbook. It's a version for Mac. Even my 2-years-old MacBook has a monitor analysis of 1280x800. Not exactly handicapped on the resolution department, more than enough to accomodate the buttons we are talking about. Never had any issues using FF3 on it. I can undestand such estate-saving measures in a tablet version, or a netbook one (call me Windowzzz) but on a Mac, it doesn't make sense. Since when is the least-common denominator a deciding factor in software analysis? Of course, when you try to keep code changes to a minimum, it makes sense, cost-wise, but..... it also leaves a lot to be desired.

[Hawkmoon]

Marketing people manage to use "market research" to justify (rationalize) all sorts of dumb changes. Akin to John's and Spyros' gripe about shifting things on the menu bar and my gripe about combining stop and reload, I am reminded of WordPerfect (back when it was the king of the word processors). WP began as a DOS program with an incredible array of two-key keystroke commands for basic tasks. I no longer remember what they were, but let's say "Print" was Shift+F7.

The key commands were the same, version after version, and hundreds of thousands of users (more likely millions of users) had been using them for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years. So WP came out with a new version, and suddenly "Print" used a different key combination -- let's say Shift+F8. And the "Print" command was also moved, either up or down, one line in the drop-down menu for those who accessed printing that way.

I wrote to complain. And the answer I got was essentially the same as the one provided above: "We did it in response to customer requests."

Frankly, that's nonsense. Millions of customers did NOT ask WP to remap the keystroke combination for printing. Customers might have asked for a new feature to be added, but I'm 100 percent certain the customers asking for the new widget did not write to WordPerfect and request that the Shift=F7 command they'd been using for the past 15 years be reassigned to some other function, and a different keystroke combination assigned to "Print."

And I rather doubt that 400,000 users of Firefox actually requested "Hey, how's about exchanging the positions of 'Open new Window' and 'Open new Tab' on the menu bar, that would be really helpful." In reality, what I suspect happened is somebody looked and said "Hey, looks like more people are opening a new tab than are opening a new window, maybe we should switch where those items are on the menu."

And some other person, or a committee, said, "Yeah, that's a great idea. It'll only confuse a few hundred thousand people, go for it!"

http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/banghead.gif http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/banghead.gif

[John]

I am afraid you have a slight mistake in your message buddy. FF has 400,000,000 users, not 400,000. LoRL

Apart from that, I think you are absolutely correct.

[Hawkmoon]

400 thousand, 400 million -- who's counting?

Dumb is dumb. The point is that change for the sake of improvement can be justified. Change for the sake of change is dumb. This was an example of change for the sake of change. It represents NO improvement of any kind, while representing a significant irritation factor for the installed user base. I don't see how anyone can honestly justify that sort of nonsense.

If that logic is followed to a "logical" conclusion, then since "Quit" is used far more than "Open new Window," it would seem that "Quit" should be moved up beneath "Open new Tab" and "Open new Window" should drop to the bottom of the menu list, where "Quit" used to be.

[John]

Well, Quit is something seldom used for sure. The reason? I always close all open windows by clicking on the red button, on the top left corner of the window (the equivalent of clicking on the red X on the right side of Windows windows). The only time I select Quit, is when I want to completely close Firefox, which I seldom do. Mail and Firefox (and some other programs) are always running on my computer.

[Robstafarian]

This is not a version for a tablet. It's not even a version for a netbook. It's a version for Mac. Even my 2-years-old MacBook has a monitor analysis of 1280x800. Not exactly handicapped on the resolution department, more than enough to accomodate the buttons we are talking about. Never had any issues using FF3 on it. I can undestand such estate-saving measures in a tablet version, or a netbook one (call me Windowzzz) but on a Mac, it doesn't make sense. Since when is the least-common denominator a deciding factor in software analysis?
It is possible that this change was made to 4.0 so that the common code base would be a suitable trunk for later tablet and netbook specific changes, and that 4.1 will be much more flexible so as to support desktop users' normal habits.

By the way, when your say “monitor analysis” you mean “monitor resolution.” This is not to insult your English skills, but just a friendly comment.

[John]

My English can't be insulted, don't worry about that. Yes, I mean monitor resolution, the "analysis" is a term used in the Greek language for the correct term, sometimes my mind sticks in the "Greek mode", blame those internal switches which don't work well, after some 54 years.

I just discover another thing missing from FF4. Do you guys see the loading progress bar anywhere? You know, the bar that was filling up as the page was downloading? I can't see it any more.

[John]

OK, I had enough!

As we speak, I am downloading good, old Firefox 3.6.16 and I am going to reinstall it as soon as possible. Firefox 4 has hang on me more times during the past 3-4 weeks, than all other releases of Firefox together, all these years I am using Firefox. Never before have I seen the colorful spinning ball so often on my Mac, as I have since the day I downloaded and installed FF4.

If Mozilla doesn't fix FF4, I'll stay with 3.6.16 and then switch to Safari. Life is too short to experiment with buggy software. I do not like being a beta-tester, unless I've been told I am.

[wjkuleck]

Ah, change. It's a marvelous thing.

As someone who started with TRS-DOS in '81, I've grown accustomed to change; it just doesn't bother me much any more. 'Bout the only change that truly inconvenienced me was the shift from Fortran II to Fortran 4. Had to rewrite a bunch of code :).

Reminds me of that cartoon caption: "As soon as I find out where it's at, somebody moves it."

What bugs me more than change, is search boxes which don't clear the word "search" when you click in them, or bulleted links that won't work unless you click on the teeny bullet symbol, or credit card expiry dialog boxes that start with 2001 (it's 2011, right?)...well, you get the idea.

In all these analyses by developers, I wonder if any do a statistical distribution of function usage. Reminds me of the time a prospect asked, "Can you port this to a DEC PDP?" My answer, "Is that important to you?"

"Well, no," she replied. On to the next topic; saved us all a lot of grief explaining how we would have done it.

At least Shift-F7 brings up the thesarus in Word again.

Best regards,

Walt

[Hawkmoon]

At least Shift-F7 brings up the thesarus in Word again.

Yes -- What Microsoft calls a Thesaurus. What comes up is so brain-dead it isn't even a passable substitute for a dictionary of synonyms -- which is what most books calling themselves thesauri really are, and that's a far cry short of being a real thesaurus.

For example, I just opened a document in Word. The cursor happened to be in the word "mentioned" when I hit Shift+F7. What do you suppose the "thesaurus" came up with?

"Mention"

How VERY helpful!

[wjkuleck]

Yes -- What Microsoft calls a Thesaurus. What comes up is so brain-dead it isn't even a passable substitute for a dictionary of synonyms -- which is what most books calling themselves thesauri really are, and that's a far cry short of being a real thesaurus.

For example, I just opened a document in Word. The cursor happened to be in the word "mentioned" when I hit Shift+F7. What do you suppose the "thesaurus" came up with?

"Mention"

How VERY helpful!
Ah, well...you then "search" on mention. I suppose I'm too used to paper thesari, wherein you don't get verbs with tenses, only the verb. You then supply the tense to the synonym.

It may be lame, but for a writer who is searching for that just-right word, it's a help. Could it be better? Sure.

Best regards,

Walt

[Spyros]

Firefox 4 has hang on me more times during the past 3-4 weeks, than all other releases of Firefox together, all these years I am using Firefox.That's weird. It must be an Apple thing - I've used Firefox 4 now in two machines, one in Win XP, the other Win 7, and found no issues. It got me longer to get used to the swap in the menus than I expected, however...

On a somewhat related topic, would it be heresy to say that I've started to like Windows 7? It seems to start-up MUCH faster than XP, and it doesn't just look like it started: it gets to the desktop screen AND I can actually do things there, rather than wait another 1-2 minutes for all my antiviral software to initialize. And yes, I run the same anti-virus/spyware in both machines.

I suppose that it is still several times slower than anything with a half-eaten Apple logo on it, but I can live with it! :D Shut-down is pretty fast, too.

As a matter of course, I've always configured an PC I use to a Windows 2000 appearence. That's easy with XP, but less so in 7... I can get rid of the silly semi-opaque window frames, but the Start Menu structure remains... odd, to me. Still, it's the first new (ish) version of Windows that I seem to like.

[Hawkmoon]

There are freeware "skins" you can download to make Win7 look like XP. I agree with you, to an extent. My wife's notebook is running Vista, and with half (or one third) as much RAM my Acer Aspire One netbook with Windoze 7 was considerably faster and more user-friendly than the Vista machine.

[Spyros]

I'm running Windows 7 on a netbook, too, a neat little Asus machine I bought in NYC in January. I have XP on an older PC, but it was just about the fastest laptop on the market when I bought it, 3 years ago (it has an Intel T8300 Dual Core processor with 2GB of RAM, for those who know about these things), so I think it's still easily fast enough to compare favorably against a current, single-core processor Netbook.

Vista was/is notorious for being slow and troublesome. I think Microsoft broke a record by replacing it as fast as it did with Win7.

Thanks for the tip about 'skins'. The name implies only an appearance change, which the system can do, too, but I'm looking for a more 'material' change, specifically to do with the 'Start Menu' structure. As it is, it throws all installed software in one, long list. I like to keep my desktop uncluttered, with as few shortcuts as possible, so I rely on the start menu to launch applications... of course all frequently-used applications are right there when I press the button, but I like having a more user-friendly look on all the forgotten stuff I will undoubtedly have acquired, a couple of years later. On the other hand, maybe a never-ending list will work better as a reminder for this purpose.

[Hawkmoon]

Can you edit the Start menu manually, by going into Windows Explorer and creating subfolders under "START"?

[Spyros]

I don't know, I'll have to check later. I'm now on my XP computer (after a 2-week absence from it, and Internet access in general). As I recall, there's a button in the Start Menu, named 'All Programs', with everything in it, in alphabetical order. I didn't try creating sub-folders in it directly, nor did I think of exploring the structure of the system folders - you know, the ones that come with a warning against exploring, at least in XP. :D

I have a lot more exploring to do, it seems. I will have to do so this week anyway, because the older machine needs some... hardware-related service.

[John]

That's weird. It must be an Apple thing - I've used Firefox 4 now in two machines, one in Win XP, the other Win 7, and found no issues. It got me longer to get used to the swap in the menus than I expected, however...

Download and install the add-on "Menu Editor", it will allow you to switch the menus to the way they used to be in 3.xx.

On a somewhat related topic, would it be heresy to say that I've started to like Windows 7? It seems to start-up MUCH faster than XP, and it doesn't just look like it started: it gets to the desktop screen AND I can actually do things there, rather than wait another 1-2 minutes for all my antiviral software to initialize. And yes, I run the same anti-virus/spyware in both machines.

LoRL, what a coincidence! Yesterday, the twins received their Easter presents, two HP netbooks, they've been bugging us for them for months. They came with Windows 7 Starter Edition. I am not very familiar with the various editions that MS has been offering for the 7, but believe me, I hated it from the moment the machines powered up.

Kids are kids, and of course, Alex wanted a picture of his favorire Dodge Challenger on the background. Guess what? Starter edition doesn't allow you to set your own background. Google to the rescue, and I downloaded a small program, which is supposed to let you change your wallpaper. Yes, it did change it, only when I tried to power down the netbook, it didn't power down. It just stayed there saying something like "Terminating" or whatever, for hours. I had to revert the PC to a safe point to restore it to a steady condition.

Just to prove you how much I trust MS technology, I spend some hours the past couple of days, before the netbooks arrived, to create a separate, dedicated WiFi network in the house, which has no access to the rest of the network we use. In that way, even if the kids MS-powered netbooks get some virus or whatever, they won't be able to spread it to the rest of our systems in here.

Oh how I love to do work, just to keep MS under control!!!!!!!

Re. Firefox, I am back to 3.xx and I am VERY happy about it. Of course, on the netbooks, I installed FF4, too tired to mess around with the previous releases on these, and imagine my surprise (that was the first installation of 4 on Windoze), when I saw that when it opened up, there was no menu up at the top, you know "File Edit View etc". I guess it makes sense on a netbook where screen space is at a premium, so I left it that way. But for sure, those nice guys at Mozilla are trying hard to make us (old dogs) learn new tricks.

P.S.: Now that the twins have got their netbooks, I can re-claim my tower back to have Linux installed on it. Another server will be added to our net!!!!! Heheh, that's good, more toys to play with.

[Spyros]

Download and install the add-on "Menu Editor", it will allow you to switch the menus to the way they used to be in 3.xx.No need, it took a while but I'm used to the new layout now.

Of course, on the netbooks, I installed FF4, too tired to mess around with the previous releases on these, and imagine my surprise (that was the first installation of 4 on Windoze), when I saw that when it opened up, there was no menu up at the top, you know "File Edit View etc". I guess it makes sense on a netbook where screen space is at a premium, so I left it that way. But for sure, those nice guys at Mozilla are trying hard to make us (old dogs) learn new tricks.This was the way it looked on my netbook. Right-clicking anywhere at the top of the screen and checking the 'Menu Bar' option restores order... except that the Tabs (yay! I'm back on topic :D) are above the Menu bar, for some reason, until you un-check the 'Tabs on Top' option in the same menu! I don't recall if I had to do the same on the XP installation.

As for Windows 7, I think I have the 'Home' version, which certainly can change backgrounds! I'm led to believe that this version also has some useful features, to do with 'ad-hoc' home networks, but I need to find another Win7 machine to explore these.

For a laptop that will be used extensively, I still favor 'home-brand' computers. Some of them have a bad reputation, which means you need to do your homework when shopping, but the upside is that you can order them with the features AND the operating system that you prefer, not whatever some Marketing 'expert' decided is best for you. Back when I got my ungainly 17"screen laptop, the 'default' OS was (the then brand new) Vista. A half-hour later (I never left the shop) it had a factory XP installation. Plus if something ever goes wrong, you can take it to where you bought it from, and speak face-to-face with the person that will actually fix the thing.

And yes, they're a little cheaper, too. Or a lot cheaper, if you compare them with Macs!

[John]

After the above discussion took place, I had gone back to Firefox 3.6 (or whatever was the previous version) and was quite happy with my Internet browsing. Today, I remembered that Firefox had released a new version (version 4.0.1) so I thought I would check it out and see what has been changed, compared to the first FF4 release.

So I downloaded the new version and installed it.

Thank God, the Menu Editor settings I had done in FF4, are still there, so I do not have to break my nerves with tabs etc. However, the problem with the small image showing in the Quick Reply box, when you type text in it, is still occuring, which means that FF hasn't managed to find a solution to this problem. I can live with that, but it's still an issue.

I am still investigating how to do some more things that bother me, if it doesn't hang up as often as the previous version, I might learn to live with it. Not thanks to Firefox, though. Thanks are due to the individual developers who come up with those clever add-ons.

[patjo33]

..Some years ago, I had translated a huge package called Wang Office (an office automation package, with email, calendar, address book, word processing etc, all in one integrated environment)
Wang Office... ahhh ... the good old days. OS2. Data General. RPG. Pascal. HP1000. Disk Packs. Now I be a 62 year old SAP programmer figuring out why AP "work flow" don't. Sigh...

My pet peeve... highly used Web Sites who constantly change the location of key links. For some reason our company seems to think change is good. Finding our HR benefits link is like playing hide and seek. I only use it occasionally but it is never in the same place twice. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh.

So... time to go login and see who broke what. (I do like telecommuting though.)

[Spyros]

I have to say, I like the 'trick' that FF4 does, in windows like the Quick Reply box. I don't know how it shows up in Apple, but in Windblows it allows me to resize the window as I like - and I often do!

[John]

Wang Office... ahhh ... the good old days.

Wang Office!!! Yes, if there is one piece of software I hate, that must be it.

I have to say, I like the 'trick' that FF4 does, in windows like the Quick Reply box. I don't know how it shows up in Apple, but in Windblows it allows me to resize the window as I like - and I often do!

Yes, it does it in Mac OS too. I just noticed it today, when I was editing some firewall rules in my router configuration. I was sure I hadn't seen that before, but you know me, I never trust myself. Now that you mentioned it, I noticed it in the Quick Reply box, and I believe it appears in all input boxes. Nice touch.

Well, as usually, I was wrong. It doesn't appear in every input box! I am not sure when it appears, it shows in the QR box, and it shows in the Quick Edit box, but it doesn't show when you go to Post Reply or to the New Thread pages. Interesting!!!!!!

Oh and I just got my first ... jam. FF4 hanged up on me again. So, first hanging with FF4.0.1.

[Spyros]

It does appear in the Post Reply page, as I type this, and I can resize this window. It also affects some surrounding frames, but I'd have to take a few screenshots to show you how!

No hung ups for me so far, with 4.0.1 or 4.0 before it... I guess they need a few more Mac testers!

[John]

For those interested, Firefox 5 is available for download. I am not sure if it is still a beta version or the final one, but from a very short experimentation I did this morning, it seems that at least one problem I noticed with FF4 have been resolved.

More precisely, the small image that appeared in the Quick Reply box, when I was typing a message, and which was part of the banner shown at the left side of the page, is not there any more. So that was taken care of.

Also, the "Back-Forward etc" menu issue, seems to be resolved, at least the time it takes to load it the first time, is much shorter than it used to be, enough to be totally unobtrusive.

I need to spend some more time with this version, to make sure it doesn't hang up as often as FF4 did. If that's solved too, I'll stick with it, if not I know my way, the FF 3.6.17 installation file is always in my computer, ready to be used to downgrade.

[Robstafarian]

As far as I know, Firefox 5 is finished as this is the first release in Mozilla's new accelerated release cycle. I upgraded to this new version in my Windows installation, and everything seems subtly better.

[Spyros]

I downloaded (12.9MB at 56kbps... that was fun) and installed it - thanks for the heads-up John.

I never had any hang-ups with 4 or 4.0.1 that I could attribute to the browser, so I can't make any useful comparisons...

[John]

Spyro, you were using the Windoze version, I assume. This didn't have any issues, I tried it on the kids HP netbooks. But the Mac version 4, believe me, it was a real trouble.

And when I say hang-up, in Mac's usual way, it was just FF hanging (the colored spinball going on for eternity), not the whole computer.

I had one hang-up with FF5 this morning, but it was probably due to a pop-up window I hadn't noticed (it was hidden behind other windows), so I am not counting it against FF5. So far, so good I would say.

[Spyros]

Dang, there MUST be something wrong with the coffee I had this morning. I could have sworn I just read a statement by El Comandante, saying that Windows are more stable than Mac's OS!... :D

I think I'll re-install FF4, just so that I can say I'm using the superior platform for it! :eb:

[John]

Your coffee had something bad in it for sure. I said that a Mac doesn't hang up (contrary to every Windowz system I've ever tried). It was FF that was hanging, not the whole computer!

I think you are spending too much time in the sun over there. I know the pool can be an attraction, especially with young ladies playing around, but isn't Evi around to control you???

[wjkuleck]

Your coffee had something bad in it for sure. I said that a Mac doesn't hang up (contrary to every Windowz system I've ever tried). It was FF that was hanging, not the whole computer!

I think you are spending too much time in the sun over there. I know the pool can be an attraction, especially with young ladies playing around, but isn't Evi around to control you???
You've never seen "Hardware Error 11"?

Perhaps the new generation of Macs with 21st century OSs and Intel processors are more "bullet proof" than the ones I had to struggle with in th e'80's and '90's as an ad hoc IT manager. In the day, at least I could open the hood and fix Windows. With the Mac, "not so much." What did that error mean? Nobody knew, much less Apple. Their solution was to get out the straightened paper clip and reboot ;).

Very best regards,

Walt

[John]

If I am not mistaken, the Mac hanged on me once in the past three years I am using it. And that was when I tried to install an application, I no longer remember which one. Never again.

New Macs are in reality Unix systems, they do not crash.

[Spyros]

Your coffee had something bad in it for sure. I said that a Mac doesn't hang up (contrary to every Windowz system I've ever tried). It was FF that was hanging, not the whole computer!Actually, at no point has Firefox ever given me the Windblows' trademark blue screen... when it had problems (before FF4), it just shut down (FF) and it generally recovered its tabs fine, too.

I was of course kidding, I know better than to try to make you switch back to Microsoft!

[Spyros]

So, FF5 was launched barely two months back, and now we're up to FF6?

I know someone mentioned an accelerated release cycle, but isn't this a bit much??

Also, I just noticed that Thunderbird seems to be following a similar pattern.

[Hawkmoon]

Version 3.xx.yy of both Firefox and Thunderbird seem to be working just fine for me. I don't need no steenkin' "accelerated release schedule." That just smacks of becoming too much like Microsoft -- rush out a buggy release, and then rather than issue fixes, package all the fixes into one lump and call it a new release.

[John]

Something tells me that Firefox quick release schedule is not unrelated to ... security holes they discover, as the time passes. I can't believe that they are renewing the entire code, just to make it faster, every two months.

After all, a browser is a browser. What more are they adding?

Oh how I miss Netscape!!!!!

[hgr]

Nope, security releases come out as "point releases" — 4.0.1, for example, or 3.6.19. Those are urgent. Firefox major releases are like a train: they ship on time with whatever's on board.

There are literally thousands of people working on Firefox (including me!), making dozens or hundreds of improvements, big and small, every day. The only thing different with the accelerated release schedule is that you'll see a smaller set of improvements every couple of months, rather than a huge world-changing pile of improvements every year. That's good for users, and it's good for the web.

Think of it as "Firefox update 6", rather than "Firefox 6.0", and you'll be closer to the truth.

And these are nice updates, too: Firefox 6 starts faster, has a bunch of improvements for developers, helps keep your plugins up to date, and supports a bunch more web technologies.

Firefox 7 will use 30–40% less memory than Firefox 5. That's pretty awesome!

Look at it another way: do you know what version of your bank's webpage you're using? Or the BBC/CNN/? Probably not, because they quietly roll out improvements as they arrive. It just gets better over time.

Regarding "rush out a buggy release" — quite the contrary, having a stable and rapid release cycle helps us ship a fully baked product. There's no rushing at all, because anything that isn't ready for release just catches the next train and arrives 8 weeks later. With a big annual release, people rush to get what they've been working on for 6 months out the door.

The code that just shipped in Firefox 6 has been hammered on by tens of thousands of people for four months. It's been in the beta channel since Firefox 5 launched in June, and it's been in the "Aurora" channel for two months before that. I'm currently running what will be Firefox 8, so that I will find any problems months before you might.

[John]

Hey good to hear from you again. And thanks for the clarifications.

[texagun]

I'm with John, Hawkmoon, and others who have experienced frustration and disappointment with the latest versions of Firefox. I count myself as an experienced computer user, having used them since the early days of the TRS 80. I have been using Firefox since it's inception. Whenever I am notified that there is a new version out, I download it and try to use it. Recently I was prompted to download Version 6.0, and after fighting with it for several days, I hated it. Didn't like the looks of it or the lack of options. Along with many others I dislike tabs intensely, seeing no logical use for them instead of windows. The latest versions of Firefox almost force you to use tabs. I have 3 computers that are in use and the past week I have compared Versions 3.0.11, 3.6.20, 5.0.1, and 6.0. I do NOT like the latest releases. I have settled on version 3.6.20 after downloading Menu Editor 1.2.7. This allows me to minimize any use of tabs and many of the other "upgrades" which just contribute to more complexity and "clicks." Someone said they miss Netscape. I do too. I think the geeks (that's a friendly term for the experts that design these things, and for whom, I have the greatest respect) purposely "upgrade" and build a more complex device for the benefit of other geeks, not for the everyday user who has to learn a new system every 2 weeks when a new version comes out. Right now I am very satisfied with 3.6.20 on all 3 computers until something better comes along. I do not like the forced use of tabs in the new versions or the lack of an option to disable them. Why would it be so hard to add an option to eliminate the use of tabs? Seems to me you would have many more happy users if the newer versions had that option.

[tonka]

My girlfriend has finally banished Firefox from our computer. After downloading 6.0, we got a blue-screen every other day; she ran a diagnostic on it and it found over 400 registry errors. She's pretty handy with tech stuff, but has made an appointment with our favorite "geek" to install something else. The Devil Box is currently using Internet Explorer, and I'm typing this missive on my iBook.

[John]

You have heard the anecdote about the camel, right?

What is a camel? A horse designed by a committee.

I think this holds for the software industry today.

Like you, I dislike tabs, or to be more precise, I hate them. I usually visit more than one site at the same time, and I want each one of them to show in a different window, it makes my browsing so much easier and there is no way I'll forget to check one. I know that with the tabs you do the same thing essentially, but I'd rather be looking for a big large window than a small tab. But I can understand that some people like tabs, so even though I don't agree with them, I can live with that.

What I can't live with, is that software developers don't give us users an easy option for that. I am using two Macs here and the kids have to Windoze computers. In order to make my life easier, I want each of them set up in the same way. So when I set up FF, I need to remember that I also need to download NoScript, Menu Editor, Xmarks etc. etc. etc. and then I have to set those plug-ins up, as I have them in my main iMac. Not easy, not intuitive, counter-productive. Why can't FF developers give us a way to copy all our settings from one computer to another?

One more thing. While previous Mac versions of FF6 were pretty shaky, the last one seems to be quite stable, except from the fact that some times, it shows the spinning color ball in all windows, if a site is slow to respond or not responding. In other words the whole FF freezes until that site comes back with an answer.

And just to prove that I am not complaining only about FF, the latest Mac OS, Lion, is a pain. Not only Apple wants us to change how we've been using our mice all those years (scrolling in Lion is by default opposite to what we are used to. At least this is an option you can set to change that), but they also change the way the computer works. For example, when the computer goes to sleep (the energy saving mode), it shuts down everything. For years, I had my computer go into sleep mode, with my Mail client (Apple's email client) open, collecting my emails. When I moved my mouse in the morning, all my emails were in my Inbox, ready for me to start answering. With the new version, when the computer goes to sleep, ethernet is no longer working. In other words, Mail can't get my emails, I have to wait for them to get fetched when I wake the computer up in the morning. Not only that, but also there is a bug in the way their bluetooth works and some times the mouse is not recognized after the computer goes to sleep. So the computer doesn't wake up if you move your mouse.

You can wake the bloody thing up with the keyboard (another bluetooth device, which doesn't seem to be affected by the bug), but then you can't do anything because the mouse is still dead. I ended up disablling the power saving mode, to avoid the awaking problems. And when I did it, Apple was kind enough to inform me that my computer would consume more energy in that way. Yeah, sure, thanks for letting me know.

[Spyros]

Re - Registry errors in Windblows:

I use a nifty little utility tool, called CCleaner. Its main function (for me) is to clear the temporary memory folders of internet browsers from unwanted material - GoogleEarth, in particular, can fill up your PC with GBs of data you will probably not use again (GoogleMaps, too). The program allows you to choose what and what NOT to delete - you can set it up not to delete any cookies, for example, or you can set it to delete everything from, say, FF but nothing (or some specific things) from Google Chrome, or whatever.

But another great function it has, is scanning your registry for errors - and clearing said errors. If you add and remove programs occasionally, you 'd be surprised how much clutter the registry is lumbered with. Automatically updating a program on your PC often involves removing the old version first. If the installer isn't configured properly, a lot of registry entries will wind up orphaned.

CCleaner also has a program removal facility that works a lot better than Windblows' own utility. And, it's all free!