Firefox To Get a Nag Screen For Upgrades 565
ruphus13 writes "Firefox has been pushing version 3.0 very aggressively, and firmly believes that it is a solid product. The Download Day was just one of their ways to drum up user support for the new release. Now, Firefox is going to 'gently nudge' users of Firefox 2.0 to upgrade. Some users may have been waiting for their add-ons to get upgraded, but now Mozilla is planning to apply a little nudge. Sometime within the next week, people using Firefox 2.0.0.16 will see a request to upgrade and though you'll have the option to decline, it's likely Firefox will ask again anyway. Users will most likely be offered a second chance to upgrade after several weeks. (Mozilla will stop supporting version 2 in December.) It will be interesting to see if this speeds up the rate of upgrade by users, as well as upgrades of the add-ons."
Why not earlier? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the release of Firefox 3, my previous 2.x installations have at least twice pulled subsequent 2.x upgrades - Why can't I automatically upgrade to Firefox 3? It's not that much harder to manually upgrade, but the automatic 2.x series upgrades process was so simple.
Firefox 3 doesn't run on Windows 9x (Score:5, Interesting)
It will be interesting to see if [advertising Firefox 3 to users of Firefox 2] speeds up the rate of upgrade by users, as well as upgrades of the add-ons.
Mozilla Firefox 3 for Windows requires Windows NT 5.0 or later. This currently includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. What will Firefox 2 say to users of nearly decade-old PCs that still run Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition, which cannot run Firefox 3? (Yes, they still exist; one posts regularly to the forum at tetrisconcept.com.) Will it nag them about upgrading to Puppy Linux?
Re:I'll upgrade when... (Score:2, Interesting)
Your loss. People said the same thing about tabbed browsing when it was introduced.
I 3 FF3, except... (Score:3, Interesting)
For the fact that they've completely dropped the 'bookmarks.html' way of doing things, in place of places.sqlite - I mean, at least have some backward compatibility. I was using a central bookmarks.html file at a bunch of client sites for global bookmarks on Ubuntu LTSP networks, and now that we've upgraded, it's..just...broken. For such a long-lived feature, I'm surprised that they just completely ripped it out without any kind of (except export/import, which half works, half doesn't) way for legacy implementations to keep going with it. There's no real way to symlink to places.sqlite, I hear, because the file is locked per-instance of FF. Blah. :(
Re:marketing speak infected. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was ambivalent too, until I used the history.
I'm running OSX with XP on parallels for some mandatory windows apps. Since my web browsing is primarily done on OSX, I figured I'd try FF3 on XP to try it out.
Within a couple of days, I had wanted to find a couple sites I had visited a few days earlier in each browser. In FF3, the interface is excellent, allowing you to search in many ways and organizing the presentation in a very user-friendly manner. In FF2, the history is literally just a list and a search box.
I'm not sure if the OS has anything to do with the difference, but I find that history feature to be a killer function. (Still to lazy to upgrade on OSX, though)
- RG>
Upgrade not possible (Score:3, Interesting)
Nagware is fine and dandy when upgrade is possible. Despite my best attempts, Firefox 3 doesn't run on my Fedora Core 4 system. Runs OK on every Window's system I can put it on, but good luck running it on a Linux distribution older than two years. Anyone find a solution to this or instructions online? And by the way, I'm happy with Core 4 and would rather stick with Firefox 1.5 than chase the distribution flavor of the month. I get uptimes better than the lifespan of some of these distributions. /end rant mode
Options for unsupported OSX? (Score:5, Interesting)
Any free advice?
Re:just like vista (Score:5, Interesting)
why are they stopping the V2 security updates half a year after v3 was released?
Because they have finite resources and want to concentrate on keeping v3 fully secured.
The beauty is, since FF is open source, this potentially opens up a market for some third party to continue patching FF2 where Mozilla left off (if in fact there is any sizeable contingent of users who just cannot bear to upgrade). That's much less likely to happen with a closed-source browser simply because of the code being proprietary.
Re:Actually a good idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, don't upgrade your browsers....stick with IE4. Get all the script error message pop ups. It'll be fun.
Mozilla has a good reason to get people to upgrade. All the yahoos who continue to use the old version that get smoozed with security attacks that won't be patched on the old browser will start to tarnish the name of Firefox.
When I worked at a small ISP I had people calling in that were using IE 4 when 6 SP2 came out. That is ridiculous. At least for IE that is a huge security issue and one that helps the bot army grow more than that poor schmuck clicks on a link to a malicious site.
The same will eventually go for older versions of firefox if the team lets it get that way.
I'm by no means stating that 3 is sound in the security area as I've read along with everyone else the security issues it has and will have in the future. But that happens with most software these days. The benefits of the software outweigh the cons. It comes down to people hating change and hate being told to change. No one likes being told to do something against their will, but you know what...Mozilla created Firefox and can determine when support will end. You the user choose to put the software on your machine.
I would say don't whine when the devs make a decision you don't agree with, but that would be an ignorant statement because its completely fine to have differing opinion on the matter, just don't think that its going to matter in the grand scheme of things ;)
Re:Firefox 3 doesn't run on Windows 9x (Score:1, Interesting)
Users running Windows 9x who are connected to the internet already have so much spyware and viruses that running an unsupported version of Firefox won't be much of a problem in comparision.
Spyware is a PEBCAK thing. Most viruses are easy to avoid. People that have the conditions you state ('spyware and viruses') tend to throw away new computers not stick with a decade old machine. If they have lasted this long avoiding the problems you so obviously could not (why else would you need FF3 to "help" you?), then a few more years won't likely hurt them. The attack vectors won't change but the frequency of attackers targeting them will decrease.
Once FF2 uses repeated and/or unstoppable nags, it is no better than spyware. Actually it is worse.
Re:I'll upgrade when... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some websites just shouldn't be kept in the history, if you ask me... unfortunately, they also can't have a "don't remember these sites" list for obvious reasons.
I agree with the first part, but don't see the problem in the second part. A list of HASH DIGESTS of "don't remember these sites" should be perfectly fine. You command it to not remember "www.hotgrits.com" and the system hashes that into 1DE4A5D7BE9EF6F3E2ED1FA1C0E, and throws it into a garbage heap of other touchy hash digests. If the hash is already in there, then don't remember the URL for typeahead. For plausible deniability, the browser should have a random handful of hashes in there to begin with. Letting your mom or daughter see a bunch of hashes should not give them any concern.
Re:just like vista (Score:5, Interesting)
To make that risk worse, when any Firefox add-on gets updated, the browser opens that add-on's project page. For example, after updating NoScript, FF will show you a page like this [noscript.net] so you can see the "release notes" for the latest version of the add-on. What a *perfect* place to insert a browser exploit, where everyone is forced to go.
So now you depend not only on the security of FF code, the add-on code, but the add-on's external *website* as well.
Anyone know what they were thinking, and how to turn off this feature? I trust NoScript, but I don't want to visit their website after after every update.
At a minimum, viewing the add-on's website after an update should be a *default-off* option for every Firefox add-on.
Re:I don't like this (Score:3, Interesting)
The Firefox approach leads to an annoying, "I know you wanted to browse the web right now, indicated by your clicking the FF icon, but I'm going to spend 3 minutes doing things unrelated to your browsing the web. Thank you." effect. It's like it normally has a 10-second start-up time, then every week or so it has a 3-minute start-up time. Extremely annoying.
It should either silently install upgrades after you close the browser, or wait until I manually do it. But when I click the FF icon, I want to *browse the web*, not stare at progress bars.
Re:Actually a good idea (Score:1, Interesting)
"...it is a wise idea to help remember ff2 users that their version is about to lose support and it is wise to upgrade."
Once. And if they decline, it should stop.
"As long as people aren't forced, there is no real problem."
No. If the computer continues to nag the user, regardless of their explicit decision not to download an upgrade, then that's bad software design. It's a bug not to comply with what the user chooses. It's like clicking on "Cancel", and the computer does "Allow" anyway. Or, in this case, it forever nags you on a regular basis about whether "Cancel" was really what you wanted, and reminds you that "Allow" would be a so much better choice.
At that point all you would need is Clippy to deliver the message, and you would find people tossing the computer out the window in frustration.
I ... don't ... want ... to ... upgrade! How hard is that for software to understand and comply with? Why does it have to keep on asking as if the software knows better?
The big deal is the change in leadership (Score:1, Interesting)
This kind of a product release signals the change in leadership from an engineering perspective to a marketing perspective. If mozilla had stock, it is when one changes from "buy and hold" to "sell on the rumor" strategy. It is the end of good things from that organization, and time to begin looking for an alternative browser to adopt, say around 2010.
that is the big deal.
Re:I hate it! (Score:4, Interesting)
All these responses to my original post which stands modded at -1 troll, look guys it's NOT a fucking troll; I use and love Firefox. I want to know what's better about the new one! Not ONE of all these responses did a single damned person say why it will help ME to upgrade!
Yours came the closest. "Firefox 3 is a much better web browser than firefox 2"
What's better about it? What improvements does it bring? One guy said it was crap, unless it's better I don't want to upgrade.
Move to non-informed auto update... (Score:3, Interesting)
... but make sure you are backwards compatabile with plugins.
Do not use nag screens, they do not work, just update the program behind the scenes, I've done security for users before and it's like the guys who make stuff just don't get how 99% of the people operate -- they won't update their shit, unless it interferes with content they want to browse or use.
The majorit of users cannot be counted on to update their stuff, if you have a nag screen it should be to "turn off auto update", and recommended "only for advanced users", then we can see how many dumb people are out there who turn it off.
The thing I've hated about firefox is that whenever a new version comes out I have to wait for all the plugins to be updated, this is total CRAP. They need to do something about the plugin issue, it's why I held onto old versions of firefox for so long. That and not all plugins play nicely together (which sucks).
Fix it first: Firefox stopped working after 3 RC1 (Score:3, Interesting)
I had all of the Firefox 3 betas installed and working on my PCs until RC1 was released. Since then, no version of FF3 has worked on my PC.
I've contacted their technical support and apparently I'm not the only one having this problem, but they've been unable to do any kind of regression testing (I'm guessing cause they're lazy) to find out what changed between the versions that broke it.
DO NOT ADD A NAG SCREEN FOR A BROKEN PRODUCT.
Re:Actually a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Without nagging, you then have a repeat of tons of people continuing to use grossly insecure software long after they should be as a result of their ignorance. Mozilla may be about choice, but it's not about every single choice possible unless you plan to recode and recompile. They give you choice based on their decision about how their fork is going to be developed. If you don't like it, change it. That's your choice.
The only people who really complain about this are a very small percentage of users whose opinions, frankly, don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. The vast majority of users benefit, as well as the rest of the users on the internet who don't use Firefox. The small minority of complainers can go sit in a corner and complain to themselves for all anyone else should care about them.
Re:nag screen (Score:3, Interesting)
Change your user agent [cosmicat.com].
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Hey Mozilla - fuck off !/2.0.0.16 (Firefox 2.0.0.16)