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But first...
May. 24th, 2014 12:41 amI have so much to post about, but after driving 8.2% of the way around the Earth (3268km) and spending 3 weeks with no more than a few hours of sleep at a time while working in a hazardous environment and a constant crisis mode, I think I will wait until I'm more coherent.
What I want to talk about today is the latest insanity from Firefox. I downloaded an update and they completely fuxxored its user interface. They have basically cloned the look-and-feel of Chrome (if I'd wanted to use Chrome, I'd download fucking Chrome, I hate that stupid menu icon at the top that we're supposed to use for everything with that program), moved all the icons that were at the bottom and which made total sense there (status bar at the bottom... it's one of the things I really liked about Firefox) to the top, redid their tabs interface so you can't tell the difference between where one starts and the next one ends ... or the title bar, they blend right into the window's title bar. And then in their support section, when people started to bitch, they informed us that they are shocked that we don't love it because it was designed to make the web experience for us so much better and was extensively tested by users before being deployed. So, Firefox developers are telling us that we're obviously idiots or at least uncultured sods if we can't see how brilliant the user interface they inflicted on us without warning is. They also instruct us to learn how to love it (see Dr. Strangelove for another thing we are supposed to learn to love).
The good news is, they have add-ons we can use to set the user interface back to the old way (apparently if you install four add-ons, it works about the same way too). Ummm, if you want me to be a happy user, allow me to switch back and forth between to the two and allow me to decide whether or not the new interface is the best thing ever or not. Telling me I'm supposed to like something like this smacks of Windows_8-ism and its ilk.
Not. Impressed.
Heading to bed... have slept probably 12 hours in 3 days... will try and write some positive stuff this weekend. Until then, here's a little teaser (it makes me smile):
(and yes, I was standing flat on the floor; and no, I'm not notably tall)
Edit: I just submitted the following via the Firefox feedback page (please submit your own feedback, whether you agree or disagree with me: for Firefox to have any chance, if there is any at this point even, they need to hear from users of all opinions):
I just "updated" to version 29 and when it restarted, it stabbed me in the face. I detest the Chrome user interface (especially the stupid menu button in the corner that is now glaring at me from my Firefox window) and that is one of the reasons why I used Firefox (the other main reason was that some of my core add-ons like Zotero only worked in Firefox, but just about everything supports Chrome now as well). As a start, my status bar should be at the bottom of my window, and I want information there. There is hardly any way to tell where one tab starts and the next ends, and it blends perfectly into the title bar of the window making the whole thing a busy mess that is confusing to navigate. I have tried to use the new interface, but everything still takes me longer to do with the new layout than it did with the old. If it had come as an option, I would not have been angry, but it didn't and I am afraid I am. The discussions I read in the Mozilla forums when I went looking for how to "fix" the user interface did nothing to decrease my upset since I am now apparently an uncultured idiot who should know that the new interface is something I should be thrilled about. With all the hullabaloo recently regarding the Mozilla Foundation, things were looking bad for Firefox's future... I was hopeful that things would not continue on that path. This decision by the Firefox team and the responses I have seen are straight out of the Microsoft Windows 8 playbook. I expected better from Firefox. I am quite disappointed in what has just happened and I can't help but think that I have just witnessed the final passing of an age in Internet history.
What I want to talk about today is the latest insanity from Firefox. I downloaded an update and they completely fuxxored its user interface. They have basically cloned the look-and-feel of Chrome (if I'd wanted to use Chrome, I'd download fucking Chrome, I hate that stupid menu icon at the top that we're supposed to use for everything with that program), moved all the icons that were at the bottom and which made total sense there (status bar at the bottom... it's one of the things I really liked about Firefox) to the top, redid their tabs interface so you can't tell the difference between where one starts and the next one ends ... or the title bar, they blend right into the window's title bar. And then in their support section, when people started to bitch, they informed us that they are shocked that we don't love it because it was designed to make the web experience for us so much better and was extensively tested by users before being deployed. So, Firefox developers are telling us that we're obviously idiots or at least uncultured sods if we can't see how brilliant the user interface they inflicted on us without warning is. They also instruct us to learn how to love it (see Dr. Strangelove for another thing we are supposed to learn to love).
The good news is, they have add-ons we can use to set the user interface back to the old way (apparently if you install four add-ons, it works about the same way too). Ummm, if you want me to be a happy user, allow me to switch back and forth between to the two and allow me to decide whether or not the new interface is the best thing ever or not. Telling me I'm supposed to like something like this smacks of Windows_8-ism and its ilk.
Not. Impressed.
Heading to bed... have slept probably 12 hours in 3 days... will try and write some positive stuff this weekend. Until then, here's a little teaser (it makes me smile):
(and yes, I was standing flat on the floor; and no, I'm not notably tall)
Edit: I just submitted the following via the Firefox feedback page (please submit your own feedback, whether you agree or disagree with me: for Firefox to have any chance, if there is any at this point even, they need to hear from users of all opinions):
I just "updated" to version 29 and when it restarted, it stabbed me in the face. I detest the Chrome user interface (especially the stupid menu button in the corner that is now glaring at me from my Firefox window) and that is one of the reasons why I used Firefox (the other main reason was that some of my core add-ons like Zotero only worked in Firefox, but just about everything supports Chrome now as well). As a start, my status bar should be at the bottom of my window, and I want information there. There is hardly any way to tell where one tab starts and the next ends, and it blends perfectly into the title bar of the window making the whole thing a busy mess that is confusing to navigate. I have tried to use the new interface, but everything still takes me longer to do with the new layout than it did with the old. If it had come as an option, I would not have been angry, but it didn't and I am afraid I am. The discussions I read in the Mozilla forums when I went looking for how to "fix" the user interface did nothing to decrease my upset since I am now apparently an uncultured idiot who should know that the new interface is something I should be thrilled about. With all the hullabaloo recently regarding the Mozilla Foundation, things were looking bad for Firefox's future... I was hopeful that things would not continue on that path. This decision by the Firefox team and the responses I have seen are straight out of the Microsoft Windows 8 playbook. I expected better from Firefox. I am quite disappointed in what has just happened and I can't help but think that I have just witnessed the final passing of an age in Internet history.
