Firefox 23 final will be released on August 6

They are not removing them "in the name of simplicity". They are removing them to lighten the load and focus more on speed and security. Firefox remains exponentially more complex and customizable than Chrome, which from the beginning was sold by Google as "simple".

 

And that is not true.

The constant growing Developer Tools and Social API and stuff like that creates much more load as some simple customization Options.

I give you the recommendation and visit Mozillazine to learn the real business of australis and Mozilla's so called "cutting Features because of Speed improvements". After that you see things with Different Eyes!

 

@Victek123 I don't know how removing options relating to javascript will improve security. Now we have to search about:config everytime to disable javascript or install some addon to do just that. It seems firefox is following windows 8 in terms of removing useful features

 

As i said.

There is only ONE big goal, and that is to compete with Google chrome.

Even Chrome allows Javascript Options IN the Browser's normal Options, and even allows to acitvate DPI settings in about:flags.

Even Chrome does that. Firefox does not, or no more.

They try to beat Chrome in being more simplistic and minimalistic. This is a long time goal of Mozilla, since Chrome started to rip down their marketshare

 

I don't see anywhere that Mozilla said it removed javascript options to improve security. They only said:

"Firefox hasn't changed much in the past few years, mostly because of the amount of work and time it takes to keep track of all the little features we support. We just recently decided that some things need to go in order to advance."

Read the whole quote:

http://infinite-josiah.blogspot.co....rbird-team-and.html?showComment=1376751830230

 

Just compare also Chrome and Firefox with Australis:

Firefox Australis:
No add-on Bar
No Side Bar Buttons
No Tabs at Bottom
No Keyword.Url
No small Icons
No Custom Toolbars anymore

Sounds known, right? Because It is what Google Chrome is missing.

Even Opera, which have changed to Blink Engine adds Customization back! For example vertical Tabs!

It all depends WHAT you have in the Browser. The reason why Firefox is so slow is partly because of the adding of truly bloated Features, Opera and Chrome did not do that.

The reason why Opera for example removed Customizations after they decided to drop Presto was the incompatibility with these days flexible Webstandards and not because Customizations made it crawl, otherwise they would add them not back.

So, to say Customizations are making a browser slow, is simply not true

And at least i refuse to use a Mozilla Firefox which uses a more restricted "Chrome customization scheme" - Others like that for sure, but true Power or Advanced Users will not like "Mozilla Chrome" at all

Either you like Customizations, or you do find them useless. Hell, even Windows does not get slow only because you can have different folder views!

It is all only a matter of like or dislike! But no matter of speedloss!

 

Setting javascript options may be important to you but that is not something that the great majority of users care about or even know about. Mozilla has yet to remove anything that I consider important and some things that it has removed can be easily restored with extensions.

 

Is Mozilla currently running short of funds? Their language seems to give such perception especially in case of Thunderbird. As a user we have limited options other than switching to another browser. Hope firefox development continues in future.

 

Not all should be put into add-ons! Simple ground customizatin functions should stay in the Browser without being ripped out. Again, i recommend to take a look at Opera.

Only Chrome and soon Firefox have no basic customization options in the Browser anymore.

Again, only because some people like "Chrome like restrictions" people should have the choice, and in such small things this choice should be IN the browser and not adding add-ons where you are not sure how long they are developed or if they work also in the next Browser Version!

 

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. What "truly bloated features" are you referring to? I find Firefox's speed acceptable given the extensions I install. Anyone who finds FF too slow should have a look at the extensions they are using.

 

Well.. Bloated... i wrote a bit complicated

What i wanted to say, that if you argue about increase of speed trough elimination of Features, it would be more logically that if you put the Developer Tools, Social API, the stuff where you be able to "phone" over the Browser into add-ons you would get MORE speed as if you eliminate the Add-on bar, custom toolbars or Tabs at bottom.

The mentioned above Features have much more code lines to be maintained as compared with that basic Customization stuff!

Btw. back to add-ons: You can not be sure that future Versions of Firefox are breaking them, they are developed a long time and more like that! Putting all Customization Features in add-ons is a valuable threat in my opinion. Just take a look how many people complain that suddenly add-ons are dead, that Mozilla changes stuff which makes it not possible anymore that add-ons work at all - we already had that case many many times!

And i am not really interested to see one day i am not being able to have any kind of faked small icons, or restored added toolbars anymore. Add-Ons should be used for external stuff, like Youtube Downloaders, or stuff which has absolutely nothing to do inside the ground program.

But putting Basic Customizations/Basic Options with which you are able to change the way you have some objects in the browser.. Putting stuff like that in the hands of add-on devs is in my opinion Insanity

I know the word collateral Damage, and sometimes something like that happens in our world... But This damage here should not be necessary at all!

 

Based on this quote it's not clear to me that Mozilla see the elimination of features as the way to make the browser faster. They only said that supporting what they consider "little features" has been slowing down development.

http://infinite-josiah.blogspot.co....rbird-team-and.html?showComment=1376751830230

 

Maintaining such little Features is less time consuming as you may think.

I guess if you ask the Guys at Palemoon or Cyberfox, or other Single Dev Projects like Webkit Browsers Midori or Qupzilla that question, they would find something like that amusing

It would make sense if Mozilla would be a one person Developer, but seriously, they are doing so many other stuff at the same time too, Firefox OS, the new Servo Engine...

You should not dig too many money or time graves at all.

Sure, every feature takes a bit of time, but with Australis it is more a design decision.

One Browser, different systems - should look everywhere the same and feel the same! No matter if on the Mobile Phone, tablet, Mac, PC

so a matter is also that Mozilla kills not only features just because of time, Competing with Chrome for a more simplistic layout to win users back - also a part is that some features do not make sense on other Devices.

And to create this one Design for everything - they are also cutting features back.

So.. time is only a small part of the truth! And again, maintaining that small customization Features are irrelevant. This code is not changing, you can carry it from one Version into the next.

But Australis changes the Whole Design/Code structure and that is a big part of the problem!

Anyway, luckily there are alternatives around, so people like me can switch to them instead of using Firefox. It is only a matter of likes and dislikes

And one thing for sure, without Mozilla projects like Palemoon or Cyberfox would never be possible. So i hope Mozilla is not running against a wall with all of this and support for us Fork Users more Future Code Material Nothing more to say to that topic

 

I'm not a programmer and so I have no idea how much time maintaining "little features" takes. Comparing the development of Firefox to releases of Palemoon and Cyberfox seems "apples to oranges". Those developers take the code that Mozilla releases for their customs versions. They don't have to do the development that Mozilla does. Are you a programmer and/or have you actually talked with any of these developers about what is involved in developing and maintaining these browsers?

 

You are invited to visit Palemoon Board and ask the Developer himself about "the massive amount of time small basic customization features" do cost.

Yeah, i talked with Midori Developers and since i use Palemoon now because i dislike "Mozillla Chrome" i also talked to the Palemoon Dev.

In his opinion this "massive amount of time and money necessary" argument for removing that customizations is also just something because Mozilla wants to be more close to it's competitor partly and not so much about real time and money consumation.

Anyway, as i said, i think the Palemoon Dev could explain that much better as i

 

yeah whats happened is in recent years dev's have started adding phone home reports in their apps. which tells them what features get used.

since most users are newbies the result is devs start thinking they should just serve them as market share to them is king.

what they dont realise is that the power users are the ones who supported them at the start and early days and of course "word of mouth" is how they grown.

So firefox is dead soon, it becomes a chrome clone. IE ironically will eventually become the most advanced mainstream browser as its the least dumbed down in recent versions.

Whether or not a new browser will be born I dont know, seems unlikely, the hope seems to lie with palemoon and cyberfox forks.

I agree as well that the maintenance thing is an excuse and its about design, trying to cater for mobile systems etc.

 

Of course.

Its probably more dev time and cost to remove these features and implement the GUI changes than to keep existing features.

 

who wants it to change?

 

so who here actually bothered to switch to ESR? or you all just accepting the gui regressions in ff25?

I made a new install for ff24 ESR, has my profile on it, and same settings from about:config. Yet it seems to use about 40% more ram and is laggier than the normal ff24. Same plugins/extensions. It feels as if they perhaps dont optimise the ESR release so much.

 

I don't expect the changes will be well received at work, so I will offer the ESR to all users that want it, and expect the majority will.

 

i don't mind the new GUI, it looks like Thunderbird.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/...-of-firefox-25-in-october-heres-a-quick-peek/

 

"Actually, we’d probably side with the latter since the menu is being moved from the left to the right, and it will be apparently accessed via a button that looks nearly identical to Google Chrome’s hot dog icon." ~ op cit

Nearly identical? ROTFL

It doesn't look so bad. I think I could live with it.

 

I don't think I can. Once it becomes Chrome, Chrome does Chrome better. If they are going to look and function the same, I'll move to the one with better security. I expect these upcoming updates to break o lot of extensions, my only reason for using Firefox to begin with.

 

Yes, I think that the extension availability will be a deciding factor for me too. No doubt many of the extension developers are adapting for the new GUI format. I hope so anyway, I suppose we shall see. I always have SeaMonkey to fall back on, I have been reliably informed that the Australis changes won't interfere too much with SM. There will be some changes to its download manager but the SeaMonkey Council are striving to keep it as traditionally SeaMonkey as they can. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Opera 15, although it needs work still, so Fx 25 may not be the disaster many are predicting (fingers crossed).

 

i'll keep using Firefox until NoScript no longer works on it. lol