Comment Feed for A few annoying things about Firefox (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

turrican — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:23:17 GMT

So why not switch a while and try the water on the other side? I did it for two weeks and I am not looking back. Just a thought, don't shoot!

Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

Rowan — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:44:47 GMT

Clicking on URLs often ends up downloading the webpages to my disk instead of bringing me to the page. I have 33 copies of Coffeehouse.htm in my Downloads folder, and only as little as that because I've deleted some already.

Strange, never heard of that one. You can check if anyone else has though.

Textboxes auto-complete when I don't want them to

I hate this too, it occurs when you click on the textfield and then move the mouse downwards, thus making the previous autocomplete entry selected. When you press return it submits the selected entry. I try to move the mouse up, or not at all, after clicking.

Even though there's a dialog for automatic installing for plug-ins, it always makes me do a manual install.

What exactly do you mean? I can go to Tools > Options > Add-ons > Select an add-on and then add it to Firefox unhindered. No problems when using the add-ons website either.

Re: Re: Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

vesuvius — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:28:24 GMT

I think one principal change along with the "nice problem" that XP has demonstrated, is that there is no throwaway society when it comes to software anymore. Windows and Office are relatively stable (and Linux as well) and suit most people’s needs. There was a real tangible reason to upgrade from windows 3.1 (with the 40 floppies) to Windows 95, then 98, NT and Finally XP. There was an exponential increase in operating system development, from Networking in NT to the Internet and broadband.

I just don't see people as prepared to upgrade to a new computer, the way you would from Windows 98 to XP. It is also silly to discuss this among developers who are highly skilled, because practically everyone I know wants me to fix their computer. Installing IE 8 on some peoples machines will actually cause me problems, because they would say "you touched my PC and nothing no longer works on it", so automatic upgrades are for those that find computers easy. At this precise moment in time, a significant amount of people over 30 years old are computationally "semi-literate" and very "software habitual" i.e. they like things as they are, and don't like change. If there is change, it must be gradual, with a lot of support (somehting I have very little time for sadly)

That is the key problem Microsoft has. As an example look at the simply stunning Lawson Mango application. For a typical business, that would involve tens of thousands in training costs - forget the application, just getting staff to a competant level of usage, also factor in new staff. It is that much of a departure from a File-Edit-Tools type application, which is sad, because I'd do anything to work in that type of application environment.

Re: Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

JChung2006 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:54:48 GMT

IE 8 is outstanding compared to IE 7 -- amazing performance! -- and light years ahead of IE 6 -- performance again as well as standards compatibility. However, it still needs to do just a bit more to catch up with Firefox, Safari, and Opera with regards to standards compliance.

IE 8 is a legitimate player once again though, Despite the naysayers, who, to be blunt, have history (browser wars and the abandonment of IE 6) on their side, I have high hopes that IE 9 will achieve CSS 3 and HTML 5 compliance. That is, once those standards get finalized. Get 'er done, W3C!

There's one nagging question that bothers me. How aggressively will Microsoft encourage users to upgrade from previous versions? If they're wishy-washy about doing that, then IE 8, as great a technical feat as it might be, will be all for naught as users will continue to use whatever browser they're running. Microsoft likes to focus on their competitors, but, as Vista and its ongoing battle against stalwart XP demonstrated, perhaps we need to focus more on convincing people that IE8 is better than IE7 and IE6. The biggest blocker to Vista adoption isn't Mac OS X or Linux; it's XP. IE8's most significant competition isn't Firefox; it's IE 6 and IE 7.

Admittedly, it's a nice problem most companies would love to have -- "oh no, I can't get people to upgrade to the latest version of my software, because they like using the old version." It's still a problem though since supporting multiple versions of software is not cheap or easy and hampers the adoption of new platforms. After all, you cannot run IE 6 or 7 on Windows 7 so you better make sure people want to run IE 8 or else they won't upgrade.

Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

vesuvius — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:05:29 GMT

For the first time in several years I have uninstalled Firfox and am using IE8 beta 2. It is that good. Yes, they have stolen quite a few Firefox ideas but there is no doubt in my mind that it is a superior browser.

Re: A few annoying things about Firefox

Mark Wisecarver — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:45:55 GMT

I know you can disable the way it auto selects URLs but that bugs me bigtime when you try to back up a page.