Moziila is getting ridiculous

[marty60]

Just want to say that I'm glad to have found this project. I still like and use Firefox but between Australis and removing basic options the developers are getting ridiculous. Regarding the bug #851698 thread Robert Longson asked about disabling Page Styles?? What absolute nonsense. These are basic functions that have been in browsers since the 1990s and all of a sudden people are idiots who don't know how to handle them?

Hopefully some sanity prevails at Pale Moon because as stated I do like the current Firefox browser but your project allows us to keep the best of both worlds. I look forward to the 22 PM build as Mozilla Firefox does have some inner improvements over the current versions.

[dudewithit]

i think that this is inevitable.
Firefox is not the pet project of a few geeks anymore. It has a HUGE user base. And it has hired numerous full time developers to work on the browser. Add to that the running expense of maintaining so many offices, meetings etc. etc. etc.

More than anything, majority of this user base needs as less controls as possible, in order not to fuck up their browser.

[marty60]

Although it's true Firefox has grown enormously in comparison to its original user base a counter argument is that Internet Explorer has always had hundreds of millions of users and basic options like turning javascript or images on and off are still available through Internet Options. Granted we can install addons for now to still do those things but they're insulting its base by treating everyone like children.

Removing Page Styles? It is a simple function from the 1990s that allows users to view badly formatted websites when necessary so even thinking about disabling that is beyond asinine.

What's really happened is that Mozilla has hired some Google Chrome developers who have brought their dumbed down philosophy with them. Alex Limi comes to mind.

[lyceus]

The start of this project was optimize the browser, first removing support for ancient processors like Pentimun III and others that just are kept for some special reason. Later to remove things that we don't use as example ActiveX (for start if we need that we can use MISE always, no?) and then when the UI gone mad, to keep an UI that is fully customizable and is usefully for actual users. People found it and pass the program almost mouth to mouth and the rest you know it.

Chrome and Firefox had gone to the tablet arena where they want to just show the page in a small internet walled garden (few plug-ins works actually on tablets or phones). You can shop, see some news, play and buy-buy-buy! So they can control what we consume, remember that these devices are for consume content, NOT for create content. So basically Mozilla try to serve to two masters and doesn't work well for any of them.

[dudewithit]

" and doesn't work well for any of them"

Firefox is a major force in the desktop market.
And believe it or not, smartphones/tablets are teh devices of teh future. Making a strong foothold in this space is of extreme importance. Fennec already has OMTC.

[Moonchild]

smartphones/tablets are teh devices of teh future

No, they are "teh" devices of today, and the more people are using them, the more people realize that they are inherently very limited devices.
They have their use in the market they are designed for. Smartphones in the PDA market, tablets in the portable networking market. Neither of those will serve for e.g. office work, design, gaming, and other tasks that require better input capabilities or non-casual use of resources and/or screen.

The problem is that the "holy grail" right now seems to be to create an "app" that runs on as many different "devices" as possible. Trying to squeeze it all in one package. Problem? You will never be able to specialize or optimize for any one of them, and you are stuck with the lowest common denominator. It also requires very broad and unfocused attention to keep all platforms maintained in a single package, instead of decoupling and making specialized applications for each broad market segment. Mozilla would be better off making specialized packages with separate source trees for different devices. e.g. making a Firefox Mobile with a touch-friendly interface, including gestures, etc., and a Firefox Desktop focused on input devices commonly found with laptops and stationary PCs, like mice, trackballs, dedicated keyboards, etc.

[lyceus]

Firefox is a major force in the desktop market.

Get you facts, Chrome is leader even if I dislike it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Usage share of desktop browsers for February 2013

Code: Select all

Source 	        Chrome 	MSIE 	  Firefox   Safari   Opera	Other
StatCounter    	37.09% 	29.82% 	21.34% 	8.60% 	1.22% 	1.93%
Wikimedia      	41.91% 	23.37% 	18.71% 	3.04% 	3.36% 	9.62%
W3Counter      	29.30% 	26.60% 	19.70% 	15.40%   2.40% 	6.60%
NetApplications   16.27% 	55.82% 	20.12% 	5.42% 	1.82% 	0.54%
Clicky        	 33.10% 	34.57% 	21.40% 	9.51% 	1.21% 	0.20%

And believe it or not, smartphones/tablets are teh devices of teh future. Making a strong foothold in this space is of extreme importance. Fennec already has OMTC.

Back in 2004 the leader was Palm Treo/Centro, then a small company made the Blackberry and in 2008 it was the mighty smartphone; then the iPhone did enter. Today Palm is gone, Blackberry is almost gone and iPhone start to lose force with the pressure of Android. Yes iPhone is for moneybags and is "kool", but more and more people buy Android now.

You don't count that most apps are broken, I had an Android tablet and I couldn't made even a doodle without cough 49.99 in half-ass baked app. No office work as the demo apps only edit small docs, bad browsing since there are no plug-ins for block ads. The screens have the reaction of a dead fish and do precise tasks are impossible. On the Android phone, apps steal your contacts lists, turn on internet/wifi/camera for snoop, Google can remove apps at will even if you brought them. Are you sure that iPhone is better? My brother has one and he moved to Android hoping to not find the same troubles for just see the same mess.

No, Android and iOS are not the future. The future will be something that is now in development and can fix all this mess.

[dudewithit]

The problem is that the "holy grail" right now seems to be to create an "app" that runs on as many different "devices" as possible. Trying to squeeze it all in one package. Problem? You will never be able to specialize or optimize for any one of them, and you are stuck with the lowest common denominator
It also requires very broad and unfocused attention to keep all platforms maintained in a single package, instead of decoupling and making specialized applications for each broad market segment. Mozilla would be better off making specialized packages with separate source trees for different devices. e.g. making a Firefox Mobile with a touch-friendly interface, including gestures, etc., and a Firefox Desktop focused on input devices commonly found with laptops and stationary PCs, like mice, trackballs, dedicated keyboards, etc.

Not sure what you are saying here. Same Tree does not mean same code for each product.

" Mozilla would be better off making specialized packages with separate source trees for different devices"

Mozilla would be better served by writing each piece of code in Assembly, and hand optimize it.........

[dudewithit]

Get you facts, Chrome is leader even if I dislike it.

Never said Mozilla are Leaders. But Third (or second, by other sources) in any market means you are a major force.

[dudewithit]

BTW, as i scan the forums, i find that most Mozilla related topics are negative. most of the discussion is focussed on the UX decisions.
Nobody is interested in the perf improvement that is continously being done. Nobody talks about JS engine changes, the async storage, better threading, move to WebIDL ,OMTC, and lots and lots and lots of other improvements. There are some Nightly users here. Dont they ever check the patches that have been added ? Does nobody here check Bugzilla, and see what perf improvements are being done ? Nobody here reads the blogs of Mozilla Developers ? I heard no word here of the merging of the Baseline branch with the m-c .

Is the PM forum becoming a community of Naysayers , pessimists and nagging old wives ?

[Tallpaultn]

@ dudewithit--lmbo!! I agree. Mozilla Firefox is an excellent browser & works well including version 21.0b1 regardless of what pessimists, naysayers, etc. may say and/or think. Sometimes the truth hurts.

[Ryrynz]

Is the PM forum becoming a community of Naysayers , pessimists and nagging old wives ?

I don't think Pale Moon particularly targets people "into" Mozilla development, most of these people will be using Nightly and will post on the Mozilla forum.
You seem to track new commits more than most, you won't find any truly technical stuff here, just your older generation, I like it stable, fast and easy crowd that don't care much for constant updates and don't tinker much with their browser at all. In some ways I consider it your older relatives Firefox (I have my Mum and Brother using it)

I do find the development of PM interesting enough that I follow the forum and make the occasional post. Overall I like what's being done, I just wish things could be physically removed and altered in such a way Pale Moon really was it's own beast.. but that would require more developers. Anyway it's the visual stuff that's going to matter to PM's users not so much the under the hood changes as a result of it's gathered audience, if you want better discussion of those subjects you mentioned then I'd hit the Mozilla forum, although there seemed to be a few tossers on there.

[Night Wing]

I like it stable, fast and easy crowd that don't care much for constant updates and don't tinker much with their browser at all. In some ways I consider it your older relatives Firefox (I have my Mum and Brother using it)

I do find the development of PM interesting enough that I follow the forum and make the occasional post. Anyway it's the visual stuff that's going to matter to PM's users not so much the under the hood changes as a result of it's gathered audience

The above comments are my sentiments too. And I have the least amout of computer knowledge of anyone on the Pale Moon site.

[marty60]

BTW, as i scan the forums, i find that most Mozilla related topics are negative. most of the discussion is focussed on the UX decisions.
Nobody is interested in the perf improvement that is continously being done. Nobody talks about JS engine changes, the async storage, better threading, move to WebIDL ,OMTC, and lots and lots and lots of other improvements. There are some Nightly users here. Dont they ever check the patches that have been added ? Does nobody here check Bugzilla, and see what perf improvements are being done ? Nobody here reads the blogs of Mozilla Developers ? I heard no word here of the merging of the Baseline branch with the m-c .

Is the PM forum becoming a community of Naysayers , pessimists and nagging old wives ?

Can't speak for others but in my previous posts I do recognize the inner improvements, and that includes the JS engine changes etc. But many of us prefer the UI as it is with all of our properly functioning themes and full customization mode. That's the point of Pale Moon for me, if we can keep some or even most of the UI as is but still get those performance increases then it's the best of both worlds since for the Firefox developers the illogical Australis appears full steam ahead..

[Moonchild]

Not sure what you are saying here. Same Tree does not mean same code for each product.

For someone who claims to be "in the know" and "diligently following bleeding edge development", you seem to have surprisingly little knowledge of the parts of the tree that have been and are shaped to be cross-platform for android,linux,mac,windows and b2g. Most code in the Mozilla tree is shared with all platforms and architectures. From a development economics point of view this is desired, of course, since it reduces maintenance cost. But it does mean that you cannot specialize more than specific modules (e.g. DirectX vs GTK vs carbon/cocoa is obviously split because it's required, but things like parsers are not).

" Mozilla would be better off making specialized packages with separate source trees for different devices"
Mozilla would be better served by writing each piece of code in Assembly, and hand optimize it.........

Actually, that's not true, either. Quite often compilers for higher-level programming languages create better code than what a human could do. When was the last time you manually unrolled a loop or passed optimized floating point registers to the CPU? Assembly is best used where coding at the machine level for a critical path or function is more efficient (i.e.: when a known assembly function gets a task done that would require much more elaborate coding in a higher-level language). And this is in fact already done in the Mozilla tree.

Does nobody here check Bugzilla, and see what perf improvements are being done ?

What would be the point? Checking and re-iterating discussion of what is landed on nightly, which is 18 weeks away from release and which sees plenty of things tried and backed out because it's not feasible or "a good idea but doesn't work" etc.? That's best left for the Mozilla forums. Pale Moon development is different. Pale Moon takes established, existing release-grade code and builds from there. Whatever perf improvements make it into said release code are inherently going to be part of Pale Moon, as and when it is in the release channel (at which point discussing the feature is kind of moot as it's been finalized and tested/verified). Pale Moon is optimized, but has never aimed to be at the bleeding edge of things, and never will. Sure, it means that some perf improvements will take longer to appear in Pale Moon, but I'm sure I speak for most if not all people here that having a sane UI and stability takes precedence over getting the latest toys first.

[dudewithit]

Not sure what you are saying here. Same Tree does not mean same code for each product.

For someone who claims to be "in the know" and "diligently following bleeding edge development", you seem to have surprisingly little knowledge of the parts of the tree that have been and are shaped to be cross-platform for android,linux,mac,windows and b2g. Most code in the Mozilla tree is shared with all platforms and architectures. From a development economics point of view this is desired, of course, since it reduces maintenance cost. But it does mean that you cannot specialize more than specific modules (e.g. DirectX vs GTK vs carbon/cocoa is obviously split because it's required, but things like parsers are not).

of course that would be better. But mozilla does not have the finances to do so, basically get the necessary IT infra and hire more developers (or complete dev teams) to make a new parser or such for each individual platform. You have to make do with what you have.
Mozilla is not google. Expecting them to be as widely spread as google is foolishness and unrealistic expectations. For someone who claims to work in the software/IT industry, you seem to have a poor understanding of the developer time needed to create separate code bases from scratch for a new platform.

" Mozilla would be better off making specialized packages with separate source trees for different devices"
Mozilla would be better served by writing each piece of code in Assembly, and hand optimize it.........

Actually, that's not true, either. Quite often compilers for higher-level programming languages create better code than what a human could do. When was the last time you manually unrolled a loop or passed optimized floating point registers to the CPU? Assembly is best used where coding at the machine level for a critical path or function is more efficient (i.e.: when a known assembly function gets a task done that would require much more elaborate coding in a higher-level language). And this is in fact already done in the Mozilla tree.

This "ASM" comment was a sarcastic reply to your "different codes for each platform" comment.
A compiler produces a better code than human in a given time. Given enough time and number of devs, (which moz does not have) human will always produce better code . Hence the irony.

Does nobody here check Bugzilla, and see what perf improvements are being done ?

What would be the point?...... the latest toys first.

My only observation is that nobody says that speeds have increased. People only say that the UX sucks.


EDIT : In case you want to discuss this further, please make a new thread.

[Moonchild]

But mozilla does not have the finances to do so

That is up for debate.

[dudewithit]

bug #855370

Notice that the keyword is "ux-minimalism " . That is very fucked up.

[Moonchild]

bug #855370

Notice that the keyword is "ux-minimalism " . That is very fucked up.

No, the increasing problem on bugzilla is:

Restrict Comments: true

As a friend of mine said just today (and I'm paraphrasing here): "When an organization, whether is is governmental, company, institutional or otherwise gets the kind of attitude that they believe they can dictate what other people want, and don't keep an open dialogue with them, they are doomed to failure and decline. You see this plenty of times in history, but people apparently don't learn and keep making this mistake over and over and over again."

In other words: this top-down decisionmaking by a (very) small group of people at mozilla dictating what millions of users want, and continuing to remove choices and cutting short any dialogue started where people express things they don't want to hear, is the exact thing that will see their market share and number of users drop.
A lot of things are being changed in the coming versions in the user interface, including the removal of a bunch of user choices, to make the UI "ready for Australis". If my knowledge of the UI code serves me well, then you can make a Chrome-alike an Australis-alike "full theme" on top of the existing UI code, with some proper, clever design work and proper CSS3 coding. Going about it the way it's done is not just changing the theme, but changing the way the UI works and forcing a lot of things into a set template that goes right against the configurability of what has always been the core of Firefox. You can call this "progress" if you want. I don't.

[Bigpapi]

Get you facts, Chrome is leader even if I dislike it.

Never said Mozilla are Leaders. But Third (or second, by other sources) in any market means you are a major force.

+1

keyword at search engine " how mozilla make money" revealed it

so true