Mozilla to remove Firefox version numbers
extremetech.com
extremetech.com
But removing them means royally screwing bug-hunting. You can't ask them what channel they're on - what if they disabled automatic updates? What if their employer did? You can't ask them what version they are on in two steps (Firefox/Help => About), you'll have to send them... where? Some deep internal about:something page that looks like merely viewing it will destroy your computer, and requires you to type something abnormal? And just try getting people to type something correctly, or explain to them what an "address bar" is. Menus are known and relatively easy to traverse - they're just reading text.
Not only that, but it'll make looking for information about bugs harder too, because people will refer to channels more often, which rapidly becomes out-of-date information with no way to know which version it applied to.
You want to remove version numbers from the notifications about updates? Great! Big numbers aren't awesome for encouraging people to do things. But don't hide the version.
So clearly! your point about it being too confusing is wrong... =P
Mundane users make this mistake. Don't rely on a large percentage to get this right.
Now, I'm quite happy to admit that most users won't think to look there first, but Firefox is breaking from convention here, and surprising the user is rarely a good thing.
If it's somebody else's webapp, you still tell the user to check the about box to make sure it's the latest version of Firefox.
For you as a web author and supporter, this process makes sure that you only have to test with one version of Firefox any more: The latest (minus the few percent of <= 3.6 installs still around before the fast release cycle went into effect)
Thats fine if your communication is only via your website. Consider if you have to send an email bulletin and explain this. Or write it up in a technical support answer.
"If it's somebody else's webapp, you still tell the user to check the about box to make sure it's the latest version of Firefox."
Sometimes there are problems in the latest version.
The people who visit your page with the problematic version of Firefox will get to see the message. The others don't need to know.
> Sometimes there are problems in the latest version.
as you only have to deal with one version of Firefox, work around the problem in your web app code.
Obviously, this is not true when you're providing a web application as a service to a large corporation with big IT departments, business analysts, armies of project managers and complex contracts with all sorts of requirements.
Ah, of course, wish I'd thought of that.
And what do you tell them in the interim, while the problem is being debugged, fixed, tested and rolled out?
I guess now its just "doesnt work in Firefox" not "doesnt work in Firefox 7, keep using 6 for now".
Now Firefox is moving in the same direction and this behavior suddenly gets to be a problem.
Firefox releases new major releases every six weeks, but there is a period of 12 weeks for it to move from alpha to final. That should be enough time to debug, fix, test and roll out.
And if you are targeting corporate installations, you will probably disable Firefox auto-updating itself, but again, it's irrelevant to ask "which version of Firefox are you running?" as the answer will always be: "the latest possible" which is the latest stable in non-managed cases and the latest deployed in managed cases.
Hence I think removing the version number from the about box is no big deal and will help against all these "omg! They are crazy to release so many major versions in so little time" posts we are seeing all over the place.
On the bright side, removing version numbers may help push ignorant web devs away from version-based browser sniffing toward the more palatable/usable/progress-friendly functionality-based sniffing.
Using the date for the version number gets rid of any connotations associated with versioning (a .1 release being smaller than a whole number release, or that Firefox 7 is less advanced than Chrome 15 because its version number is half of Chrome's) while still allowing users to identify what version they're running.
A chronological version number gives an indication of currency.
Hiding the version number doesn't seem helpful.
Since Firefox has "Aurora" and "Beta" channels on a regular graduation schedule (Trunk->Aurora, Aurora->Beta, Beta->Final), the only question is "When is unmerged feature X going to be placed in trunk?", and the answer to that is usually "when we expect it to work well enough".
What will be interesting here is when there are MAJOR changes that take more than six weeks of testing to stabilize. Will the cycle just stall temporarily and go immediately back to six weeks on the next cycle?
There's a bug report (OK, so the report was submitted by Asa Dotzler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Dotzler)) but that doesn't make it a planned feature quite yet - does it? It appears that it's still under discussion.
Software versions seem like one of the most visible technical aspects of the software these days, and they matter very little to the average user. I think versions become largely irrelevant to _most_ people once their software reaches a point where they are constantly running the latest version.
That all said, what is the harm in having that version number appear in the about window as well as the notification about the latest update. It seems like an odd change for Mozilla to ruffle feathers with.
I think Chrome's fast growth can in part be attributed to by the constant stream of news like 'Chrome 1,2,3,... released' which helped Google to build recognition.
Chrome had an advantage - it took a bite out of the large firefox market, which was already prepped for 'trying new browsers'. While the constant 'Chrome Y released!' helped, Chrome would probably have risen nearly as fast without it.
The next step is to automate the update installation and process restart after the update is downloaded. The next step after that may be to automate the page refresh to view an updated render.
One of the primary reasons I declared Chrome my browser of choice (this was among other reasons, mind you) was that just around Firefox 3 there came a time when I had to update it seemed almost daily. To keep my foot out of my mouth, I checked to see if maybe there were settings on my system that were coming undone upon shutdown and boot, negative. I grew quite annoyed that every time I launched I had to go through an update process again.
This is a change I personally am in favor of, and can only assume is the case for other non-power users of the browser. Thankfully though they're making that information available still through the about:support page for people who find that information relevant.
I think the version numbering needs to stay in the About window, but it should be less emphasized. Today, their whole roadmap is about "Firefox 6! Firefox 7!" and so on. They wave each major version number around like some sort of banner when lately very few (if any) major features/improvements are observed between major versions.
I think they need to just swallow their pride and bogart the Chrome model: version number is in "about" if you need it -- other than that, it stays out of the way while the browser autoupdates itself.
Chrome users only know what version they're on if they go and look at "about" but features are added all the time. You can't even find the chrome version number on their website--at least, I couldn't.
Linux changed to version 3.0 for no discernible reason. Emacs jumped from version 1 to version 13; versions 2 through 12 just didn't exist at all. Did it matter? No. It's just a number.
This simplifies any solution and troubleshooting, it either works in the current version, or Firefox will update - if it's connected to the internet. Which means eventually, Firefox is always up to date and there will no old versions and therefore no issues.
What ever happened to using MINOR version numbers?
Shouldn't Firefox 5 actually be 4.5 and Firefox 6 actually 4.6 ?
What are the huge major changes?
Your attitude towards version numbers is exactly what this change seeks to eliminate.
By making version number a simple integer, you lose the information whenever there were some major changes or not.
Version numbers are useful. They allow you to communicate a lot about the risk/reward involved in an upgrade without having to read the release notes.
When presented with 2.3.12 -> 2.3.45 it's a pretty easy call to accept 33 patch releases without much investigation.
2.3.12 -> 3.0.1 Whoa, we should stage this and make sure we aren't going to screw ourselves on compat issues.
The target audience isn't Joe user, it's professional courtesy to your peers in the field. You're welcome to add (or not) some kind of marketing "version" beyond that, but really, it's valuable.
But the idea isn't too bad.
I read a post the other week about a corporate user that was giving grief that they had only just finished testing firefox 4 for corporate roll out and firefox 5 had been released.
To corporate users, this situation is a nightmare. There is no clear definition of a major update
I prefer the old release schedule of major.minor releases. I like the rapid development it now has but I just don't like this rapid release version numbering.
On a side note, since Firefox changed the way they were doing everything, I switched to Chrome and so did everyone in my office. None us swayed each others decisions, we all felt the same about Firefox. They have lost scope of what is important, releasing stable versions of software. Firefox 4 was dreadful, 5 was a little better. I feel like there is no effort in making the release stable, it's just "let's sort it in the next one". I feel like they are always going to be chasing their tales.
Before anyone comments, I know Chrome has the same release schedule but I feel they are doing it a lot slicker than Mozilla is right now. Firefox changed the world for me back in 2004 and now they have lost the edge.
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No, you're right ... the problem with Firefox is that they changed the way the were doing it mid way (which is odd) while Chrome has been doing it like that from te jump
I think the two browsers are pretty closely matched. There is no need to have a "version" measuring contest.
Additionally, separation allows Awesome Bar to work better since it doesn't have to clutter the results with search suggestions.
However, if you like that functionality, there are multiple extensions that provide it. I've used Omnibar in the past.