OT: Firefox and Opera

[Bill]

I just made the mistake of allowing Firefox to update to the latest version today, and they seem to have broken it. Things like the refresh button seems to have been permanently docked, reduced in size and put in the address bar, which really hurts the way I have come to work. There appear to be other changes as well, and many complaints out there.

At the same time, I have been cancelling out the update suggestion for the Opera 12.16 browser as I am not sure whether it might update me to the new Opera, the Chrome clone. Does anyone here know what it will update me to?

I'm downloading Firefox 28 as I type, but should I try Safari, or is there a decent browser that is simple, secure and better?

[Andy Burns]

They do seem determined to make drive away as many users as possible by constant "improvements" that people seem to feel compelled to reverse.

[polygonum]

Funny that, I am on 29.0.1.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Bill escribió:

It's been "Chromified".

The Reg ran an article on it - after reading the article and seeing the screenshot I immediately configured Firefox to not auto-update (Tools/Advanced/Update/Never).

I'm sure there are, or will be, add-ons to revert Firefox 29 to the 'classic' style.

[Jabba]

polygonum scribbled...

BBC media is still borked in the update.

[tony sayer]

Yep, that looks better:)...

[John Rumm]

If you download the Classic Theme Restorer add on for Firefox, it allows you to selectively make elements of it work like older versions.

[Jabba]

Bill scribbled...

Customise - Reload button, put it where you want it.

[Bill]

In message , Jabba writes

When I went to Customise in FF29, I saw no reload button.

Now that I've loaded the "ClassicThemeRestorer", I've got one and can install it at the LHS of the relevant bar. Not quite where I want it and the address bar thing itself is still locked in with the back and disappearing forward buttons. But it is at least usable now.

I have FF28 downloaded and ready to install with updates switched off. I'll probably revert to that.

I've also downloaded Safari, but not tried it yet. Might try Pale Moon as well.

The greatest tragedy is Opera. The current Chromified version is still dire in spite of updates and I understand that their userbase has declined. I will have to see if I can disable the update nag on the last good version 12 and keep that going.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dunno. I am on 29.. I THINK this is what 'themes' can alter. where the buttons are and what they do..

[PeterC]

Opera ceased to exist after 12.6, so don't let it do it! My Opera is the standalone version of 12.15 and is the result of about 7 - 8 years of tweaking - no way is that being 'updated'!

Pale Moon, as mentioned down-thread, is a sensible version of Firefox. With a few extensions it can behave remarkably like Opera, albeit a tad sluggish by comparison. I use it as an alternative for 'awkward' sites and when my Opera won't work because it's so tightly tied down.

It seems that Jon von Techzner (SP?) might develop a new equivalent of the propera opera.

[David]

The update is for version 12.17 which is a security update. See

[Brian Gaff]

Yes and bugs grow and are not fixed. For example, the issue of it going into full screen mode when it feels like it then needing repeated F11s to get it back, or randomly starting behind other running apps for no apparent reason, Not to mention sending multiple info to screenreaders so the cancel button gets spoken more than onece. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

They are making than classic mistake of taking more attention of a few elite users requests, than the silent majority of users. Its hard to define what they can do to overcome this though, as when folk are happy they say nothing! Brian

[Judith]

I have found it terribly slow - and sometimes (many) the loading of a page times out with an error running a script.

It is that bad. I am going to remove and put the previous version back on.

[polygonum]

I use a site which very often results in script timeouts on other devices - so I know it is not exactly a "good" site. Do not seem to have any problems in 29.0.1.

[Andy Burns]

I don't mind the "curvy" australis look (I already have it on firefox for android and thunderbird) but I do object to the theme combining and moving my icons round and not letting me put them back as I prefer, but with the classic theme restorer and status-4-evar I can get it how I like.

Other than the looks, I've not noticed any actual *problems* with sites while using v29.

[Capitol]

My solution is to use an obsolete browser and never update it. Haven't found any problems so far. Seamonkey 2.0.2. Works for XP sp2 as well as Ubuntu 10.4

[Bob Henson]

Its dreadful - but it can be partially repaired with the Classic Theme Restorer extension. It's sad that all the browsers are slavishly following the dictates of fashion , rather than useability - I've used Firefox since its inception and probably am going to either lock down on this current ESR version (24.5.0) for good, or change browsers. I've tried the CTR extension on Linux and it might be worth a go on Windows too - but it's such a lot of hassle. I've already ditched Thunderbird so I thought I'd try Seamonkey - which doesn't change every couple of seconds - however the mail section of latest version in badly broken in several regards so that one is out.

The latest one is weird - I tried it yesterday. it works, but there are so many thing that are odd about it that I couldn't live with it for long.

Oddly enough, the best bet is now Internet Explorer 11, especially if you are running Windows 64bit. It isn't as flexible as Firefox used to be, but it is faster and works with Roboform (it has to for me, or I won't entertain it). The interface is hardly ever changed (just security updates), and it does seem to be rock solid. If you are unfortunate enough to have to run Windows 8, it's still fine, so long as you ignore the stupid Metro version and use the full Internet Explorer 11 desktop version.

[Bill]

That's good and I'll give it a go.

It's a bit odd that the Google result for Opera 12 still gives Opera

12.16, and if you click the button for earlier versions on their site pushing version 21, you get offered a beta version of a mobile product. Looking at the "If it doesn't start click here" option, it seems to suggest that this might be a "marine" version, whatever that might be.