Firefox quality is going downhill. Mozilla must be hiring aspiring Microsoft programmers.
Firefox’s quality isn’t going downhill, their security is getting tighter.
Do you know that web security is far and away the biggest threat to your average user? Browser exploits happen on a 0-day basis, meaning as soon as they’re discovered “in the wild,” there’s someone somewhere writing a bot or malware to exploit it. This is a big reason why most major corporations employ what’s known as a DMZ on their network to keep “wild” web servers out of the internal environment.
When you work as a systems admin, the biggest threat isn’t from the outside, it’s from within. Users who browse the web on insecure and outdated browsers on the corporate network are responsible for more virus outbreaks in the world than any single home user. Firefox is often termed as “buggy,” because they use a separate kernel from Windows. When Firefox starts up, you are literally starting an operating system on your machine with its own configuration, settings, cookie cache, certificate store, and script environment. The reason people see FF as “going downhill” is not due to a lack of quality but an increase in security.
What you deem “functional” in a browser like Opera, Safari, IE, and even Chrome, is actually walking a grey line on security. Firefox assumes you want to be safe. There are ways to turn off those safeguards if you wish. I personally prefer safety over usability.
Firefox’s Rapid Release is rapidly killing what used to be a good browser.
From around v12 Firefox has fought Adobe. If it wasn’t the Flash player, it was Acrobat (for PDF files). On my Desktop I am at v15 because later editions of FF or Adobe create additional problems.
I just installed a new HD in my laptop and the latest versions do seem to be working — Flash and FF23portable. I haven’t tried the PDF yet, but I did install Foxit.
I have found that the PortableApps ‘portable’ version of FF seems to have fewer conflicts with external programs.
I cringe every time I see a ‘update or upgrade is available’. They tend to create as many problems as they fix.