Improving Firefox update rate
While writing the previous post I couldn't help questioning myself why do some users stay in the past branch (about 10% of ML's visitors) and why do so many users are not using the latest versions of their respective branches (5% – 8%). Could this numbers be improved? I am sure they can.
Regarding the first question, company policies may explain it in part but in the past, Mozilla Links' readers provided some other explanations:
- Firefox 1.5.0.x users are not advised of a new major update, however this will change when 1.5.0.12 is released next week, as it will offer to upgrade to 2.0.0.4.
- Extensions compatibility, which at this time is already not an issue as most of them are already compatible. Furthermore, the newest extensions may not be compatible with older versions so by now extension compatibility should be a driver now.
- If it's not broken, don't fix it.
I wonder how could we address each of these ideas. Here are some thoughts on each possible cause:
- Firefox and Mozilla oriented web sites and blogs should advertise prominently about the availability of Firefox 2. When Firefox 2 was released I added one of the Firefox 2 banners available at Spread Firefox and kept it up for about 2 months, now I realize it was too short. So I'll put it back and see how the Firefox 2/1.5 ratio improves. I know however that the scheduled major update (1.5.x to 2.0.x) will have a deeper impact on its own.
- I will ask people at Mozilla Add-ons if they could provide some statistics or even better a web feed that reveals the percentage of Add-ons compatible with each version. This numbers would help push people to the newer version.
- It may be actually broken. Firefox 2 adds some very nice improvements: spell checking, anti-phishing, tab overflow, search engines management, support for feed readers and very long etcetera, that should be more heavily promoted. I'm thinking about more informative banners that quickly present the new features and not just announce the latest version.
What other stuff is holding users back and what can we do to take them forward?
Comments
Kent
One thing that disrupts updates is that updates don’t work for Windows XP limited users.
ffextensionguru
A couple reasons I have heard on my blog as to wh y people don’t want to go to Fx 2 was the new “close tab buttons” as well as the fact SSL2 is not supported. I address some of these and other Fx2 issues in my Fx 2.0 Tweaks Guide
Frank Moorman
I am using Firefox 2, but I usually fall into the third category. If it ain’t broken…
First, most people that use Firefox are of a technical nature. I do not think that anti-phishing is a big thing for them. I am generally wise enough to realize that my bank isn’t going to ask for my password out of the blue or be at the am3r1can3xpr355.com URL.
I still open most links in new windows(but I do use tabs to open multiple links on the same site) and I still find news feeds with web methods instead of RSS. (Yes, I’m 37 and old-fashioned.)
The fact is, some people prefer lean and mean to the kitchen sink approach. After a product has been around for a while people tend to add more things and feature bloat occurs. I remember Firefox was started as a lean alternative to the feature bloat of the Mozilla suite. I am happy that the extensions allow people to pick and choose what the do or don’t want to install, but how come some extensions are now being incorporated into Firefox? Tabs used to be an extension, so was anti-phishing, I’m not positive but I thought RSS was as well. Yes, I see benefits to them but does everyone need and desire them?
Yes it is easier to install and enable them by default for a new user, but everything gets added at a price… longer download time, greater startup time, larger memory footprint, and more CPU usage. Why I am a developer and I usually have more CPU and memory than I need, it adds up when I am running multiple programs at once.
I am sure that some people will label me as a luddite, can you honestly say that you use every new feature of Firefox 2?
wg
Linux distributions don’t generally provide major updates to programs like Firefox. You have to upgrade to the new version of the distribution to get the latest version of Firefox or manually install Firefox yourself.
Some people like me would prefer to wait until I upgrade my Linux distribution to get the latest version of Firefox, so right now I’m still using Firefox 1.5.x which is what came with Ubuntu 6.06. I won’t be using Firefox 2.0 until I upgrade to Ubuntu 7.04 (which will hopefully be within the next month.)
John Jay
firefox update is still broken as of 2.0.0.4. It only works correctly for users who follow the old win95 model — who run as Administrator all the time.
firefox update has been broken for regular (“limited”) users for a long time, and in fact, it got broken even worse in firefox 2.0.0.4, which likes to keep downloading over and over the update, and trying and failing to apply it over and over for regular users.
It is rather a nightmare to deal with firefox on more than one windows machine, unless you work in the old Win95 model.
I keep hoping someday they’ll fix firefox to work with modern windows operating systems (such as NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista).
guanxi
I support Firefox inside businesses, and the simple issue is, the benefits of updating are often not justified by the costs (testing, deploying, configuring, integrating, training, supporting).
Browsing is not something that makes these particular businesses much money. Add to that, Firefox really isn’t geared toward business IT — it doesn’t (easily) support basic IT functions, like Active Directory integration. Thus, the cost of updating is even greater.
Home users have less overhead, however, but perhaps the benefits are not sufficient, or not obvious, to them.
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