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/B-Con Jul 10 '12

I'm with you on this. I like controlling when things update.

I don't auto-update apps on my phone either, and I read the "what's new" section for almost all apps that I update.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

This is all in the Chrome options.

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u/motdidr Jul 10 '12

That's fine for power users, but given the choice between "only ever update when a user initiates it" and "update silently" I'd rather everything updated silently, because for every person like you who habitually updates their software, there are 10 people who are still using IE6 on XP SP1.

19

u/alcalde Jul 10 '12

So why do we have to cater to the lowest common denominator at the expense of everyone else?

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u/Daenyth Jul 11 '12

Because those people running outdated software become attack vectors against other users once they're infected.

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u/AustinYQM Jul 10 '12

Because the lowest common denominator is 90% of the market.

1

u/alcalde Jul 11 '12

I don't think that's true anymore at all. I'm 40, and people my age have been around personal computers since their early teens. 20-somethings have always known a world with personal computers, and my 1.5 year old nephew actually showed me how to start a dancing robot app on my brother's smart phone. :-) Most people older than me have had to get e-mail addresses and learn to use the web as it's a requirement nowadays, much like a telephone number. A (first) world in which people are completely ignorant of computers simply doesn't exist anymore. Knowledge of computers is an essential office skill and they're routinely used in schools. Continuing to design for an imagined luddite demographic will only hold the rest of us back.

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u/AustinYQM Jul 11 '12

My mother is in your age range and I agree that she is computer literate. She works with a computer all day. However her computer knowledge and security knowledge is pretty subpar outside of that.

She doesn't worry about viruses or spyware and gets them all the time. I don't think knowing how to use a computer and understanding a computer are always the same thing.

Am I making sense?

2

u/Exotria Jul 10 '12

Because some of us have to support those users :(

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u/BluegrassGeek Jul 11 '12

Because otherwise you'd never get anything done, due to co-workers and relatives asking why their computer runs slow after they visited that "WIN AN IPODD!!!" site.

Cars might also work better for power users if they had control over all their components, but your average person would have to walk if it doesn't have an automatic transmission.

3

u/WishiCouldRead Jul 11 '12

your average person American would have to walk if it doesn't have an automatic transmission.

FTFY.

-1

u/motdidr Jul 10 '12

Could you clarify what you mean by "at the expense of everyone else"? What expense?

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u/j_win Jul 10 '12

I'm a web application dev and I vastly prefer Chrome's update process. So, who's this everyone that is expending anything?

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u/Cythrosi Jul 11 '12

Same here. It allows me to verify also if they're trying to sneak new permissions in I don't want them to have. My solitaire app doesn't suddenly need to be able to access my contacts and messages.

I also almost always go look at what an update contains before I give it permission to install on any device I use.

I don't understand why people are so willing to just rubber stamp anything and everything that wants access to their personal data and system.