Posted on

Everybody hates Firefox updates (3)

“After years of aspiring to improve software usability, I’ve come to the extremely humbling realization athat the single best thing most companies could do to improve usability is to stop changing the UI so often! Let it remain stable long enough for us to learn it and get good at it. There’s no UI better than one you already know, and no UI worse than one you thought you knew but now have to relearn.”

Evil Brain Jono’s Natural Log

Just go and read the damn thing. In fact, if you’re developer, print it, frame it and stick it on your office room.

Posted on

Everybody hates Firefox updates (2)

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the fundamental disconnect between the developers and the users. I think it comes down to: Software developers have a perverse habit of thinking of updates/new releases as a good thing.

It’s hard to convince a software developer otherwise: their salary depends on outputting a constant stream of updates, so of course they think updates are good.I used to believe it. Only after I heard from dozens of different users that the rapid release process had ruined Firefox did I finally get it through my thick skull: releasing an update is practically an act of aggression against your users. The developer perspective is ‘You guys are going to love this new update we’ve been working on!’ The user perspective is ‘Oh god here comes another update, is there any way I can postpone the agony for a few more days?'”

Evil Brain Jono’s Natural Log

I’m reading this post and thinking that is just too good to not quote. ((Can i copy an entire post or would that be too rude?))

Also related with this previous post.

Posted on

Everybody hates Firefox updates

“I’ve heard this story a lot in the last year.

I used to be proud to say I worked (or had worked) for Mozilla, but a careful listener might detect a certain sheepish quality that has crept into my voice lately when I name-check my former employer. And this is why. Even on the opposite side of the world, it’s always the same story: ‘I used to love Firefox’, but ‘I switched to Chrome because my extensions stopped working’ or ‘I switched to chrome because Firefox kept asking me to restart’.

I’ve had this conversation with dozens of people across three continents. Not one person has had anything good to say about the rapid release process. Nearly 100% of my highly unscientific survey volunteered the information — unasked, unprompted — that the rapid release process had ruined Firefox for them.”

Evil Brain Jono’s Natural Log

+1!

I still have to understand what’s these “features” that were supposed to get to the users faster. Hey Mozilla, Firefox’s features are the Extensions!!! I keep upgrading firefox, breaking compatibility, disabling extensions and i haven’t found a single “new feature” to talk about.

Posted on

There goes the Friendship

I guess finally Chrome did what everyone was scared off in the beginning and finally split up the friendly relationship between Google and Mozilla Firefox. At least that is what i understand from this image.

Screen shot 2011 08 30 at 12 28 41

I was trying to setup an Adwords campaign for this site, using a free coupon i got. When inserting the keywords i wanted the add to appear next to, apparently Firefox is an “Unacceptable Business Practices”.

Is there any other meaning for the word Firefox that i am unaware of?

Posted on

Firefox Keychain Integration

Just found out that you can use your keychain passwords with Firefox through this Firefox extension.

It is a bit nagging in the beginning regarding keychain access authorizations but it will probably slow down in the future, after you’ve authorized access to most of the common sites/passwords.

Also, i would recommend some caution with importing Firefox passwords in to keychain, as it is asked the first time you start Firefox after extension is installed. If Firefox is your standard browser and has been for the last months, go for it. If not, i’m not sure if you won’t replace valid passwords for older ones. I personally haven’t tried to to do it so can’ help you there.

On the upside though, when the password/site is not present in keychain, it looks in the Firefox password database “beneath” keychain, so no problem there.

As a side note, been trying out Firefox 7 beta. Just for a couple of hours but it does seem that Firefox may become a competitor again. i’m just going to keep a watchfull eye on that memory consumption after a couple of days without shutting it down.

Posted on

PDF plugin for Firefox 6 and above

If you’re a Mac user and you have Firefox you can’t see a PDF inside of it. Once you click on a pdf link Firefox will download and open it on Preview. There’s currently not a obvious extension on Firefox repositories to fix this. That is, until now. Just found out how to do it.

I’m not sure if you can see a pdf file on any browser if you have Acrobat Reader but if you do, just uninstall it. Preview can do more, faster and safer than that useless crap and Acrobat Reader it’s just a plain security problem waiting to happen. It really should have no place inside your computer.

But back to the Firefox problem. I’ve discovered this plugin which solves the problem. In fact you can use it for as a default for any browser and any user on your mac, however i don’t recommend it. First because i like the pdf preview plugin in Safari, as you can use trackpad gestures to zoom in and out, and all that. Second, because is a bit slower than the “standard” preview plugin. And third, because, although i have no reason to suspect anything, i’m always paranoid so i tend to give the least possible privilege/usage to anything i’m not entirely sure of.To be accurate i’ve encountered random forum references and news site coverage of this plugin, so i do believe it to be safe. But i like to play it slowly..

So, download the plugin and you’ll open the usual standard dmg file. Inside that dmg is a package installer. Now, you can just go ahead and install that but this will mean that it will be installed as the default pdf viewer not just for you but for all the users on your machine. Not sure why is that by default but i strongly disagree with it.

So right-click on it and select “Show Package Contents”. It will spring-open a new finder window with its Contents folder. From there navigate to “Packages/pdfBrowserPlugin.pkg”. Now don’t just click on it or it will install itself as default as we’ve discussed. Again, right-click it and select “Show Package Contents”. Copy the entire Contents folder to the Desktop or other temporary location. Open that local copy and just double-click the file “Archive.pax.gz”. Now you should see on that folder a file named “PDF Browser Plugin.plugin”.

Now you have two options. You can just put it in your “~/Library/Internet Plug-ins” folder, which is inside your Home folder,  and it you will be the default pdf viewer on any browser for your user. But like i said, i prefer not to.

Or, you can just set it up for Firefox. To do this, navigate to  “~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/SomeWeirdString.default” which is located inside your Home folder as previously. Now, on there just create a new folder called “plugins”. Copy the plugin file from the desktop to there and restart Firefox. You should now be able to see any pdf inside of Firefox.

The pdf viewer plugin is paid for commercial usage but free for any “domestic” our academic usage, so just select one of those options, regarding your status and it shouldn’t trouble you anymore.

If you’re on Lion and you can’t see your Library folder, check these tips. I strongly recommend making it permanently visible by:

“Launch Terminal from within your own account, type chflags nohidden ~/Library, and press Return.“

Updated at 26/Aug/2011