Mozilla Firefox, Disconnected Installer
When looking at the front page of my Mozilla Firefox web browser today I notice a curious thing:
Teach your old fox new tricks by upgrading to Firefox 3.5 today.
With a nice link to downloading Firefox, the only problem with that is that when I clicked on this download for Firefox 3.5 it downloaded a tar ball. My first response what “what the hell” and my second “A common user is not going to have a bloody clue what to do with that”.
There are a couple of things that are on my wishlist for Mozilla Firefox in Ubuntu, getting it so that upgrade links from mozilla themselves are not tar balls is a new one for the list:
- Not using the gnome or kde keyrings for password management.
- Not using XDG directories (freedesktop.org) for cache or configs.
- Not using a user wide cookies system.
- Not using the apt packager for plugin management.
- Hiding user data (bookmarks, tags, history) in a config directory.
- New! Advertising new version of Firefox and expecting “Linux” users to download tar balls
- From Comments Profile-Guided-Optimization, so Firefox is faster
- From Comments 64bit TraceMonkey and more time spent on 64bit FDO release.
Purely my own thoughts though, your thoughts are welcome.
Tags: firefox, internet, Ubuntu, web
For once I have to say you’re barking up the wrong tree. It would be far harder to support each desktop interface then just dump things in one folder.
I agree with you on some points, for example XDG directories and using gnome or kde keyrings, but I think that a user-wide cookies system is a really horrible idea, and I don’t think apt is all that well suited to managing plugins for applications (though I think it would be nice something like that were more realistic).
I totally agree with you on the main point of this post though, it would be wonderful to have .deb downloads from Mozilla (or even apturls or something perhaps?)
No, no, no – it is terrible to see Mozilla growing into a massive, independent beast of an operating system lurking both on and under my desktop. I want a browser application, not a browser operating system within my operating system. Mozilla should behave nice and use the existing operating system package manager, not replicate, undermine and security breach what is there.
All true, but there’s also lots of other technical stuff that need addressing: Making Linux x86_64 a tier-1 platform, 64-bit TraceMonkey, and fixing the Profile-Guided-Optimization version of Firefox rather than the non-optimized one. Without this, Firefox for Windows in Wine is way faster than native Firefox.
Support for input methods
I agree with Matt that it probably wouldn’t be too much to ask for them to make .deb packages available, as Ubuntu/Debian based distros are quite prolific these days. As small as Opera is, they still offer distro specific packages so I really see no reason why an organization as large as Mozilla would find it so difficult. Perhaps you could ask Luis Villa (former GNOME dev and all around nice guy, soon to be starting a new position with Mozilla) to drop a bug in the appropriate ear?
Ubuntuzilla is always an option, albeit a bit of an ugly one IMO. As it stands at the moment, I’ve simply chosen to fix the branding on my existing FF 3.5 install that Ubuntu offers in the Jaunty repos to make it the default and get rid of the annoying “Shiretoko” label and ID that come with it.
yeah. you can’t expect the developers of every single app to make packages for all the distros out there. on the other hand, letting volunteers make packages and publishing them on the site would probably not be as burdensome.
i too am not sure about user-wide cookies, especially considering i have separate firefox profiles that i have specifically engineered to serve different purposes and wouldn’t like to have them mixed up (like my regular browsing profile and banking profile).
Is Mozilla responsible for understanding which versions of Firefox your distributor makes available?
Assuming Mozilla’s website could figure out that you were using Ubuntu and could figure out which version of Ubuntu you were using… exactly which firefox 3.5 binary would it point you to? An unofficial PPA which is meant primarily for testing? Is that really in Mozilla’s best interest or in the best interest of the user? I’m not sure it is.
-jef
Then perhaps detect that its “Linux” and not advertise a new version at our users?
Is it in Ubuntu’s best interest to have users directed to download updates to core software through one of the most difficult and user unfriendly methods?
Better that they should just not offer the download at all.
It’s Mozilla’s website not Ubuntu’s, I really don’t think its Mozilla’s job to worry about what is in the best interests of Ubuntu.
I can turn the question around. If Mozilla as a project would like every single user to upgrade to 3.5.3… why is Ubuntu not making 3.5.3 available as an update already through standard update mechanisms?
What you are seeing here is a difference of opinion in the importance of updating to 3.5.3. Your distribution’s management does not agree with the upstream’s perspective on the importance of upgrading. It’s your decision as to which party to listen to.
-jef
I have to agree. There are a lot of distro’s out there (even prominent ones). Gearing to one distro would be unfortunate, plus there would be no easy way to do it without re-writing a good amount of code (both on mozilla’s and the distro’s end). It’s a good point though, alot of new users would be thrown off by getting the source code. A note to, “See your specific package distribution…”
“Not using the gnome or kde keyrings for password management.”
I believe this is a compile-time option. I remember it when using Ubuntu but since using Gentoo and Arch, I don’t see it anymore. Personally, I’m no a big fan of a grand-unified password system. It adds unnecessary overhead and usually the implementations are clunky and just gets in the way.