I’m one of those people who chose to use Firefox specifically because they aren’t Chrome or Explorer (now Edge). That choice carried over to mobile browsers. Suddenly there’s a new update and everything is different. Why is that so bad?
I never had problems with Mozilla until recently, and I thought they could do no wrong. Then I found out that a lot of websites aren’t formatted properly for it, so things I used to be able to do a long time ago but have had problems with recently, no longer function properly (like printing a PDF of something I’d like to read later). Now this browser update, and I’m thinking why am I doing this to myself again?
According to one response I saw to complaints, the add-ons weren’t very compatible with Android. Another reason offered for the changes was speed and streamlining. The end result is wholesale change in appearance, loss of functions, and tons of complaints.
A common complaint with the tech world is that products are released before they’re complete, relying on updates to fix those issues later. With the current forced update, many functions have been removed – to be updated later. Some of the add-ons have been removed -to be returned later. Looking at the complaints and many are similar – “why was this removed? I relied on it.” The standard response to this “Thanks for trying our new browser go to the forums for help” just causes annoyance. Some of those changes seemed related to accessibility which is also bad.
Some of the things that affected my directly
Layout suddenly changed. Before you could switch easily by scrolling side to side to select top sites, bookmarks, or history. Bookmark folders were stored neatly at the top and easily accessible. Now folders are alphabetical mixed in with bookmarks, causing lots of scrolling and searching. Top sites are gone, but collections are new… but duplicate bookmark folders, and have to be set up. Tabs used to open horizontally and now are vertical, which is very awkward. I now have to close all my tabs to be able to type in a new URL, because there only seems to be the option to do a Google search.
The type was way smaller, and I had to resize things, which also caused weird bunching of the display, and affecting visibility. That’s pretty egregious for usability.
I relied on my top sites to navigate, especially now that I don’t have time to use my computer often – sometimes only once or twice a week, when gaming. I had to take all my spare time yesterday trying to get a basic setup to duplicate what I had before.
In Canada data isn’t free. And I don’t have cloud storage. And everyone seems to want to have an app for their particular service (Seriously who has the room? especially with bloatware). So being able to increase storage space on my phone by accessing websites instead of using apps is critical.
So far I’ve been noticing a very jumpy screen – where I think things have loaded, and I’m trying to click on something or write, and at the last minute the screen jumps and I’m wasting a ton of time. Sure, that used to happen before, because I don’t have the boniest of fingers, but this is far out of line with past experiences. I can only assume it’s the browser.
To me, this just looks like Chrome, which I hate, and I suspect to address the issues with Android, Mozilla just changed to a Chromium base (or else just copied features and ditched their distinctions to copy a competing product, which happens never, and is a really good idea always). And if I have to wait an unknown amount of time for things to be fully usable, and interacting is the same, why not switch to Chrome now?
If you’re making huge changes, don’t launch before you have all the features people are used to enabled. Give users a chance to find out about changes in advance, and not say info is available but actually keep it hidden in a locked filing cabinet in the disused lavatory of a basement, guarded by a tiger. Or however Douglas Adams wrote it initially.
fmalexander 