The Australis mega-thread

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11ryanc

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by 11ryanc » 2014-12-02, 19:50

TheRealShane wrote:I've had Firefox ESR as a rarely-used back-up browser for a few months. I just opened it to update the add-ons and got the notification of a security update - to FF31. So now ESR is Australis.

Oh well. Have to look for a new back-up browser. In Windows, anyway. I think, actually, loathe as I am to say it, I think that is likely to be Internet Explorer: if you hate them all, might as well use the one that's already there! Likewise in Mint KDE, I'll stick with Konqueror.

At least, as I understand it, Pale Moon is independent of the FF ESR codebase.

Shane
Firefox 24 ESR is still usable, but looking ahead to the future it won't be forever. I'd say at least a year or 2 at the least, but even then security holes build up. IE as an alternative? I have to disagree. Updates have to be done within Windows Update, no extension compatibility, OS picky with versions. Don't hate IE, in fact IE 11 is very snappy. But certainly not a viable option, at least for my needs. In all honesty I would just use plain old Firefox as a backup before IE. It's terrible considering where FF is coming from, but generally speaking it's not all that bad as a whole compared to other competing browsers. I mean it's still more customizable than Explorer, though that's not saying much. I use SeaMonkey as my backup browser, along with SRWare Iron. SM is installed with a combination of Seafox, which tweaks it like Firefox 3. Iron is essentially just Chrome, but without the privacy concerns from Google. Sometimes I do need Chrome at times to test stuff that's very HTML5 comprehensive.

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2014-12-02, 22:07

@TheRealShane

Ever since Firefox 24 ESR was discontinued by Mozilla, in Windows 7 I now use Internet Explorer as my backup to Pale Moon and in linux Mint, I use linux SeaMonkey as the backup browser.

I want nothing to do with all those minimalistic looking Chrome wannabe browsers which now includes the Australis Firefox 31 ESE versions.
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11ryanc

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by 11ryanc » 2014-12-02, 22:32

Night Wing wrote:@TheRealShane

Ever since Firefox 24 ESR was discontinued by Mozilla, in Windows 7 I now use Internet Explorer as my backup to Pale Moon and in linux Mint, I use linux SeaMonkey as the backup browser.

I want nothing to do with all those minimalistic looking Chrome wannabe browsers which now includes the Australis Firefox 31 ESE versions.
But isn't Internet Explorer, too a minimalistic approach? It's not as rounded in design, but as far as minimally setup browser shells go, IE safely stays in the list. In that case, I would much rather just use a Gecko based browser. IE7 & 8 however, I must admit that I found their GUI's very well thought out. In fact I find Internet Explorer 7's theming to be one of the slickest browser themes for Windows.

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2014-12-03, 13:08

@11ryanc

You'll have to remember I use Internet Explorer in Windows 7 as a backup browser and no longer use Firefox. Why? Simple. IE still has rectangular tabs. Firefox does not. I like rectangular tabs. In order to get rectangular tabs in Firefox, I have to use an add-on. IE has a status bar. Firefox does not. I "need" a status bar. In order to get a status bar in Firefox, again an add-on is needed.

I'm the type of person who doesn't use a lot of add-ons. Why? Because add-on authors can abandon their add-on thereby leaving me high and dry which means I have to go find another add-on. NoSquint is an example since the last time I checked, it's maximum version number is 27 for Firefox. I only use 3 add-ons in Pale Moon.

Again, IE is a "backup browser" just in case something goes wrong with Pale Moon and I only had one problem with Pale Moon during the last 3 years. I used the internal updater "one time" and Pale Moon wouldn't open. I had to download the Pale Moon external installer using IE and got Pale Moon to run by using "Adminstrator". Since I got burned by Pale Moon's internal updater, I've never used it again.
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sIDcORK

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by sIDcORK » 2014-12-03, 13:42

NoSquint is an example since the last time I checked, it's maximum version number is 27 for Firefox.
You should check again, NoSquint 2.1.9 works with all versions of Firefox from 20 up https://urandom.ca/nosquint/

I can not agree with your attitude to add-ons, use them with abandon, they make life easier. If by chance one should stop working (I've yet to have that happen) there's bound to be another along to replace it.

Not using them because they might stop working is like not using your car because they might stop making tyres for it.

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2014-12-03, 14:55

sIDcORK wrote:
NoSquint is an example since the last time I checked, it's maximum version number is 27 for Firefox.
You should check again, NoSquint 2.1.9 works with all versions of Firefox from 20 up https://urandom.ca/nosquint/
On the Mozilla addon's site, NoSquint's maximum version is still 27 which you can see at the link below. Once on the page, scroll on down till you come to NoSquint.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... all&page=4

So, I'm not going to download Australis Firefox 33.0 or Australis Firefox 31 ESR just to see if NoSquint works in 33 or 31 ESR based on the link you provided since I don't trust that link's download. I might get NoSquint and maybe some other unwanted hidden bundled software which I will regret.
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sIDcORK

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by sIDcORK » 2014-12-03, 15:53

You could've looked here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/

I use NoSquint which is why I commented and it works in Firefox 33 quite happily, apart from no status bar icon

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Trippynet » 2014-12-03, 17:04

sIDcORK wrote:I can not agree with your attitude to add-ons, use them with abandon, they make life easier. If by chance one should stop working (I've yet to have that happen) there's bound to be another along to replace it.

Not using them because they might stop working is like not using your car because they might stop making tyres for it.
It's a tricky one. I do use add-ons, but not too many of them. My problem with Firefox is when they keep removing basic, core functionality of the browser and force me to rely upon an ever increasing pile of addons to fix things.

It used to be possible to set tab widths very small in Firefox, then they removed it and I needed to find an over-complicated addon to fix it.
They removed the status bar, so you need another addon if you want that back.
Tabs-on-bottom used to be an option. Now, it's only possible with an addon.
etc.
etc.

Firefox used to be small, fast, simple and yet powerful if you delved under the hood. I could get it to look and work great with only a few basic addons for more powerful features.

Now, it's an ugly, restricted mess. Addons introduce complexity, untidiness (when they change extra things you don't want changing), more stuff to update, more code fragments that can be abandoned, more compatibility issues when a FF update breaks an addon you rely on, more conflicts between them (CTR and custom-tab-width didn't play nice with each other once Australis originally came out). It annoys me when I have to keep working harder and harder to force my browser to look and work like it's supposed to.

That's why I like PaleMoon. It's fast, flexible and sensible and I only need 7 addons to add extra bits of functionality to it that I need. I used to need a lot more with Firefox before it received the boot.

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2014-12-03, 18:05

sIDcORK wrote:You could've looked here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/

I use NoSquint which is why I commented and it works in Firefox 33 quite happily, apart from no status bar icon
I did look there and that link is where I go to get NoSquint which I use in Pale Moon. But, the fact remains NoSquint's maximum version is still stuck at 27. I know of a few people where NoSquint works in Firefox while others have said it hasn't in Firefox. This discrepancy by those might be related to other Firefox add-ons they use in Firefox, but that is a guess on my part. Since I'm no fan of Australis Firefox, when Mozilla discontinued the non Australis Firefox 24 ESR versions, it no longer gave me a reason to use Firefox as a backup browser anymore. Basically Mozilla said, "We're staying with Australis so take it or leave it." So, I left it. Simple as that.

I was also one of those who disliked Firefox changing to a new version number every 6 weeks. I always had to read the Release Notes to find out what the Firefox "so called" developers........took out customization wise within the browser. With Australis, some of the Firefox developers made comments saying with Australis, they could "delete this and delete that within the browser" while happily saying, "this also makes our jobs easier". That's the wrong type of comment for users like me to read because this is how a company loses users and Mozilla Firefox has.

In Windows, does Internet Explorer change every 6 weeks? The answer is, "no" and I like that since I don't have to worry about anything with IE. Mozilla's top management went with the Australis UI look and since May 29th of 2014, Firefox is losing desktop market share at an accelerated rate and I believe there is a correlation between Australis along with the less and less customization within the Firefox browser because of Australis and the rapid desktop market share decline.
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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Sajadi » 2014-12-03, 18:15

Australis is for sure a reason why the market share is shrinking - but i believe also that the Brendan Eich incident plays a big part in that. Both topics have spread quite far and more and more people are dropping Firefox because of that 2 topics. We have then the search engine switch to Yahoo, the new screwed up search bar and now where as it seems Mozilla plans to bring a Webkit version of Firefox (because Apple enforces this limitation to competitors) to IOS - their development forces get divided again, things could also make a big U-turn downwards. :coffee:

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2014-12-03, 20:54

There is another "hypothetical" reason Australis might turn off people in Firefox OS for mobile. Millions of people love their smartphones and good smartphones are not cheap.

Would a person buy an expensive smartphone powered by Firefox OS (and Australis) and set it up to their liking only to have Mozilla change something every 6 weeks and then the person finds out it no longer functions the way he liked it when he first set it up?

I don't own a smartphone, but based on what Mozilla does with their Firefox desktop browser every 6 weeks, I wouldn't buy a smartphone powered by Firefox OS (and Australis) even if I was in the market to buy a smartphone.
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11ryanc

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by 11ryanc » 2014-12-10, 23:05

Moonchild wrote:Also, for the people really "into" Australis -- did you know that "Pale Moon Australis" is very much an option if you want it?

For example, a quick test setup I did:
The attachment palemoon-australis.png is no longer available
With some additional tweaking (e.g. removing the appmenu and replacing it with a "hamburger" access button on the nav toolbar) you can have it polished, and more functional than Firefox's actual thing ;P
Off-topic:
Hmm, Australis is owned by Mozilla. We must use an alternate branding. New Zealis, perhaps? :lol:
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New Zealis.png

NorrinRadd

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by NorrinRadd » 2014-12-11, 07:16

On a whim, I Googled. Perhaps the "Australis" thing for Firefox is a play on the "Auroris" Pokemon, which is apparently some sort of ice critter?

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Moonchild » 2014-12-11, 14:12

Or maybe it's a play on Australopithecus? They are heading the same direction, at least ;)
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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2015-01-02, 00:57

Well, Firefox's desktop market share for December 2014 keeps nose diving. It's now down to (11.91%). Ever since the Australis UI was released on May 29th, 2014 for version 29, starting with the month of June, Firefox has been dropping market share at a very fast pace which can be seen in the link below.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-m ... pcustomb=0
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11ryanc

Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by 11ryanc » 2015-01-02, 02:41

Night Wing wrote:Well, Firefox's desktop market share for December 2014 keeps nose diving. It's now down to (11.91%). Ever since the Australis UI was released on May 29th, 2014 for version 29, starting with the month of June, Firefox has been dropping market share at a very fast pace which can be seen in the link below.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-m ... pcustomb=0
No surprise there. To whom is gaining that marketshare though?

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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2015-01-02, 03:48

Firefox has mainly been losing market share to Chrome.
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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-01-02, 15:35

Night Wing wrote:Firefox has mainly been losing market share to Chrome.
"Why use a cheap Chrome knock-off when you might just as well use Chrome/Chromium in that case?"

Seriously, that is the question Mozilla should have asked before trying to copy it.
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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Night Wing » 2015-01-02, 17:00

Looking at Firefox's November market share at 13.26% and now December's market share at 11.91%, that is a steep 1.35% decline.

Something may have happened in November that drove many Firefox users away from Firefox. The only thing I know about concerning Firefox and November, Mozilla made Yahoo the default search in Firefox's search box, but that shouldn't have had that much of an impact as long as there were other choices Firefox users could choose other than Yahoo.
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Re: The Australis mega-thread

Unread post by Sajadi » 2015-01-03, 02:47

Night Wing wrote:Looking at Firefox's November market share at 13.26% and now December's market share at 11.91%, that is a steep 1.35% decline.

Something may have happened in November that drove many Firefox users away from Firefox.
Well, Just take a look at https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/ - you can find a lot of postings that users are pissed off that it is "so hard to change search engines now" - Falls in the same category of the many postings with pop-ups in the browser and aggressive advertisements - which is delivered quite often thanks to malware ;)

The amount of people who just want a stable browser without Mozilla screwing things up or blaming them for screwing things up (in the case of malware infestation of some users systems) is rather high, one thing turns bad, they leave. Also you can find a lot of postings of users there who are pissed off by Mozilla redesigning the search function or people angered by Mozilla's aggressive begging for donations. All that reasons have for sure caused Firefox new shrink in market share numbers. Also, people still spread the Brendan Eich story, this has for sure also some kind of influence of falling numbers.

This, in combination with Australis and some more incidents like ads in the new tab-page and the recent Gamergate trouble does Mozilla for sure no favor :thumbdown:

Where other teams need quite a long time to anger users that much, Mozilla only needs one year to make that happen! "Congratulations" Mozilla! :mrgreen:

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