Mozilla wants more people to use the latest Firefox betas

... so that they can catch embarrassing events before the release of the "final":
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/32416b740794d262#

 

them and many others rushing out betas would benefit

 

Maybe they could just test the RC a bit more before they rush to release?

 

They? They?

 

Mozilla?

they pronoun 1 the people, animals or things already spoken about, being indicated, or known from the context. 2 people in general. 3 people in authority. 4 colloq he or she • Anyone can help if they want.
ETYMOLOGY: 12c: from Norse their. ~ Chamber's Dictionary

 

IMO, Mozilla is going nuts! I really like FF but they are doing ALL they can to bury it. All this rushing about with an accelerated, rigid release schedule is absolutely destined to cause problems/bugs (be they minor or major), not fix them.

Hey Mozilla! How about a sane release schedule and you'll find all the bugs you can in a reasonable amount of time. (Stop trying to copy Chrome. I use it some and it ain't perfect.) There's room for any good browser to survive if you make it good!

 

Testing the RC "a bit more" is all very well but catching things earlier would be better. For that, there's a need for more testers so that more permutations of add-ons, sites visited, hardware, etc can be assessed.

They need our help. There are volunteers who test the nightly, Aurora, and beta versions. I would think it's a bit obvious that the more testers at each level, the less the chance of a regression making it through.

I wonder just how many of the people who criticize have opted in for allowing telemetry?

 

Yes, I couldn't agree more.

 

Yes, & before the rapid release philosophy this was achieved far more.

That's a fair point, but before the rapid 'let's all turn Firefox into a clone of Chrome' craziness (I mean; what's with the bookmarks being on the extreme right of the GUI Chrome style?) started, Mozilla were actually really on the ball with this.

Yes, & the testers do a great job. Either way, Mozilla get millions from Google to have its search engine on Firefox. Couldn't they find some spondoolies or petty cash in all of that to pay a few full time qualified testers? Just a thought.

I've even tested some of the betas. I regularly run SeaMonkey betas & use the add-on Compatibility Tester to report extensions that will/won't run. I also report anything I find that may qualify as a bug on MozillaZine. There are some people on there, like Phil Chee, who are grateful for any info/feedback, even from rank amateurs like me, & are also very helpful in reciprocation. Unfortunately, most of the mods on MozillaZine appear to have been abducted by extraterrestrials at some point in their lives & given the anal probe or a lobotomy or something.

So you aren't going to get much sense out of them.

I only wish I could help Mozilla/The SeaMonkey Project more, I am limited by my small amount of knowledge of computing & lack of experience. I like to think that the egregiously small contribution I make to the SeaMonkey Project or anything I report to Mozilla makes a real difference. I really do.

I also honestly believe that the problems Mozilla are having with Firefox are due to premature releases due to the fact that they feel like they are in some sort of competition with Chrome. Chrome, apart from the fact that it does break the occasional page, is remarkably stable & reliable though. If you have to rely on something, it is better it is reliable in service than brilliantly futuristic. I understand that Mozilla feel a bit bad about being pushed out of the number one spot, but IMHO they will not disappear any time soon & will always have a huge fanbase. Firefox & SeaMonkey seriously rock, & the Gecko rendering engine rules. I don't believe they will disappear for a long time. (Oh crap! I've morphed into a fanboy LOL)

A friend of mine used to own a Jensen Interceptor. It was a beautiful sports car; a marriage of revolutionary British engineering, suspension & coachwork with the sheer power & reliability of an American Chrysler Hemi V8 engine. Surely a marriage made in automotive heaven?

Just wasn't too reliable overall was it?

 

No matter what happens, I get the feeling they're not going to back down on that. So to that extent, talking about that is pointless. I feel that the "premature releases" are cathartic for now but should be less traumatic as fewer add-ons in each cycle break stuff. Here's hoping for the best!

 

I dunno, public opinion is more powerful than many people realise.

Well, we can but hope. 'Cathartic' isn't an adjective I would have considered. I can think of a few Anglo-Saxon verbs though!

 

"Mozilla wants more people to use the latest Firefox betas"

Haha, and what software company doesn't want more people to use their own betas?

BTW, Mozilla isn't making beta testers' life easy, at least not in the *Portable* land.

Source.

 

This thread is about Firefox, isn't it?

And the suggestion about using Sandboxie since portableapps.com won't be doing Fx betas anymore seems to be a good one.

I use the beta full-time on Ubuntu. They seem to have got their act together and I get the beta tweaked for Ubuntu within a couple of days of its release. I like to wait for that version rather than have the beta direct from Mozilla because the tweaks make Firefox mesh better with Ubuntu.

 

They could simply extend their releases by a week or something.

I rarely use Chrome stable. Canary + Beta/Dev is it.

I always automatically send crash reports for Canary. Sometimes for beta.

 

ot posts removed

 

The biggest mistake Mozilla made was trying to match the release of a browser created by a company with infinitely more resources. This reminds me of the IE blog post where they had an entire warehouse full of PC's just to test IE performance, something Mozilla could never pull off.

But I have 0 issues with using beta products and I use beta versions of Firefox when portableapps puts them up, they generally seem quite stable to me.

 

I think you misinterpreted something: PortableApps.com will continue doing FX betas - just not right after a new beta build is released by Mozilla. As John T. Haller said here: "Betas are only done time-permitting." As for the Sandboxie suggestion: no, thanks. It's not (easily) possible to carry Sandboxie and an usable Firefox (be it a stable build or a beta build) in a pendrive.

 

I quit using FF when they went to RR
and now use PaleMoon
seems like the better deal till Firefox
gets their head on straight if they ever do

 

Even Pale Moon is at version 9.2. They're catching up.

 

Did you know they decided to skip FF10?

-http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=420&sid=b2819b125c6de9c164bd50563728774a-

 

One point in favor of more beta testers was brought up over at the Avast forums, in connection with the final release of Avast 7 which as you may have heard has all kinds of bugs.

The poster felt, rightly or wrongly, that beta testers are a relatively small group, and tend to use higher-end systems relative to the general user population. So lower-end systems, like my admittedly antique one, tend to miss out on the testing, resulting in unexpected problems with these systems when the product is final-released.