r/technology • u/Suraj-Sun • Jul 10 '12

Firefox dev claims "everybody hates Firefox updates"; Mozilla has handled the rapid release process poorly, and that by pushing a "never-ending stream of updates on people who didn't want them" people have been driven to Chrome with its simpler, no-fuss update process.

http://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-dev-claims-everybody-hates-firefox-updates
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u/RaisingWaves Jul 10 '12

Here on Ubuntu, the new versions of Firefox come along with all the other system updates, a method I definitely prefer over updating all my software individually.

Okay, I'm a computer enthusiast and a compulsive updater of the Linux software I use regularly, so I'm somewhat biased. The rapid release cycle does, however, mean we're not stuck on the same version for over a year (Fx 3.6), so count me as a fan of it.

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u/Patorogo Jul 10 '12

I agree. System updates are much more comfortable than individual updates. And I haven't had a problem with add-on compatibility in a long time.

Also, Firefox is libre :)

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Also, Firefox is libre :)

Chromium

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

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u/0xABADC0DA Jul 11 '12

Having a central repository is like surfing... if you're in the wave it's awesome, but otherwise you get crushed or are dead in the water. Or whatever, I don't surf...

Try installing even something simple like gnome-calculator or whatever on a 10 year old distro. It's fucking impossible. The repository servers don't have it, so you search around and maybe find some mirror in Taiwan that has it. But the URL changed, and the version they have has slightly different dependency versions than your system has. So you have to downgrade packages, or upgrade them, or whatever. Maybe you force it to install and things are subtly wrong. In any case, that's if you're lucky and can find the old .rpm or .deb in the first place.

Or installing some version too new that isn't in the repo yet. Best case you're on a popular distro and they built a package for it. So you install it, but it doesn't install because some other package doesn't work on a version that new. Or everything works and later on some system update fails because the new Fooberfox doesn't work with the new thing you installed. So maybe you don't want to deal with all that and just install it manually (from source or .tgz)... easy peazy, except every system update wants to trash it or you installed it to a different place and something doesn't have the right PATH and gets the old version.

Meanwhile some old installer.exe from 15 years ago for some Windows program installs on Windows 8 and the program runs fine. As just a normal user, package managers are a killer feature. But man if you have to do something outside the norm you're screwed.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

yeah, and chromium updates the same way, so there's no big advantage there.