@Schmolle:
"IMHO, people who aren’t able to make a selection or an informed decision about whether or not to tick a box in a selection of Add-Ons that are deemed worthy of default inclusion are not going to appreciate the better browsing experience they might possibly be able to have."
This would be one of the stupidest comments ever to be prefaced by IMHO, if not for the incredible nonsense generation abilities of webusers.
Just because you’re nervous about downloading unknown quantities from the web or don’t feel confident about making these decisions, doesn’t mean that you won’t appreciate a URL spellcheck.
In fact, the reverse applies. The kind of people who don’t use the web much are exactly the kind of people who misspell URL’s. I follow the “My Grandad” principle on this thing.
FEATURE CREEP, FEATURE CREEP, FEATURE CREEP.
Different people want different features. I use over 30 extensions, and I feel I couldn’t possibly do without a single one of them, yet I don’t use even a third of the top 5/10/20/whatever extensions.
You’d demand folding in the top 5 extensions every release? You’d bash anybody else who did that. Firefox would quickly be as bloated as Microsoft Word. It would be picked on every time anyone wrote a blog about feature creep.
Firefox must either:
- require users install extensions to get all the features the want
- bloat like crazy
This is a trade off. You can’t have it both ways.
@Bob:
"Your earlier post “Why does software spoil?” provides a good reason why some popular functionality shouldn’t automatically be rolled into the browser. I agree with Antoine: it should be possible to download Firefox with package of useful addons already included - give it a name like “Firefox Plus” and users will tend towards it by default - and, for users who are more sure of what they want in their browser, provide a vanilla Firefox as well."
I’d agree, but with one reservation. I’d make the Add-On filled the default, and offer a specialist version: “Firefox Core”.
After all, the whole point of this post is that the mass-market don’t go hunting for non-defaults, even with names like “Plus”, “Ultimate” and “SuperDeDoopery”.
The other problem with the extensions model is that if something fails to work, then you are told immediately to remove all extensions and see if that fixes it. Of course there is logic to that (ruling things out), but it is seriously unhelpful; if we aren’t “meant” to have them, stop advertising them as a feature. A way to script browser testing for combinations of installed extensions would help, so one could avoid all that tedious mucking about in extension space to work out which bit is wrong. Something like Watir or FireWatir is how I’d imagine this, with a capability to swap in and out existing extensions. But I’m unfamiliar with FF internals/API so couldn’t begin to write this. So unless someone reading this can do it in their sleep, the LazyWeb won’t step in to solve this.
"Firefox must either:
- require users install extensions to get all the features the want
- bloat like crazy"
We’re talking about a small number of extensions that are commonly used, and which should be removable.
But if you go overkill on avoiding Feature Creep, soon you end up with a product that’s missing several core features. Say so long to your audience.
What you are saying is true but don’t forget that Firefox is actually implementing this stuff.
Such as restore session functionality added after MixTab Plus extension. Which makes sense.
Other thing is that I don’t want Firefox to ship with Forecast or Furl extensions (which are listed in top 20 but adding these kind of stuff will end up with a bloated default browser)
It’s like saying let’s ship Windows with all popular applications in it. But there are cases and where you need to ship it with a video player such as Windows Media Player but you don’t need to support Quicktime movies.
Another thing is extensions like AdBlock that you don’t want to ship with default Firefox or you don’t want to ship Firefox with with fasterfox extensions or settings either.
I’m not worried about bloat. My new machine is between 4-8 times more powerful than my old one, them being about 4 years apart. I can afford a few more features! The problem for me is that by the time I get the feature set I want, it seems Firefox is slower and buggier than it would be if the most popular features were baked in, leaving extensions for the truly esoteric functions. Have you tried to construct a piece of software with, say, ten designers who don’t talk to each other?
In effect, my Firefox installation feels more “bloated” than Opera, while delivering a similar feature set. To be fair, Firefox in this case has a few features I use that Opera doesn’t. That’s why I use Firefox and why I’m still for extensions, just not for what many consider basic functionality.
I totally agree with Jeff that leaving features out means the vast majority of users or potential users will never benefit from them. And for them, SW will have stalled in the past.
I do think there’s a third way though: Firefox Core and Firefox Plus (or whatever), but where the popular and palatable (ie. maybe not adblock) are integrated properly, not by packaging extensions.
The people that complains here are power users; 99% of the people I installed Firefox have never EVER installed an extension. They don’t even know what it is.
Firefox misses lots of “basic” functionality. I am with Jeff in this one. I would blindly add extensions, but there are some “basic” stuff that ought to be included. For now, I shall remain in Safari’s land 
Jeff, you got a problem with Scandinavians? They kill your cat? They hurt your feelings? The ate your lunch?
Once again. A post on web browsers. A comparison between two browsers. A note on usablity of browsers. A commentary on the discoverability and efficiency of defaults in a web browser.
And you can’t find it in your heart to spell an O and a P with an E next to an R right beside A?
I vehemently disagree; as others have said, you’d just be bloating the software. Now having firefox come installed by default with those extensions that can be unloaded would be fine, but putting it in the core functionality would be bloat, and users would be complaining about the browser’s speed again. I think the firefox team has done a good job of finding the realistic medium of features everyone should actually expect from their software.
Yay for another crap browser article from Jeff Atwood who lacks all ability to include Opera into his quest to let the world know of features that were most likely, were, are going to be, stolen from Opera.
I did a search for Opera and found nothing thus this article fails enough for me to not bother reading the first paragraph.
While I agree that FireFox should be imitating some of the cleverer features from Opera and Safari, and that the expansions are useful- most of the popular expansions offered are large apps in-and-of themselves.
The Mozilla Team tried the all-in-one-package system of building a browser- you can still download SeaMonkey if you’re interested. It comes with a built-in e-mail client, IRC client, and kitchen sink.
I’ve worked with FireFox set-ups that contain a lot of extensions, and I gradually settled on the one that I just can’t live without: FireBug. For people who don’t do web development, it’s completely useless and cluttery.
Most of the FireFox extensions on top-ten lists are asinine card-games, music-player additions, built-ins for soon-to-be-defunct social networking sites, ways to download things more, and other such cruft.
When it comes down to it, the problems you’ve listed may be fixed by extensions, but certainly not by the ‘most popular’ extensions. The ‘big boys’ are just too heavyweight and silly to include in a major browser release.
why would adblock take away your google ads revenue? you only get paid if somebody clicks. nobody’s clicking, and nobody wants to see the bloody ads - that’s why adblock is so hot.
Don’t forget the issue of extension compatibility. I don’t bother installing Firefox extensions because they might break in the next update, requiring me to update that extension as well - but that extension might not be compatible until someone fixed it, which - if it’s not the original author - may introduce subtle new bugs to the extension.
Long story short: i’m done with Firefox because Opera provides me the best out-of-the-box experience. For two reasons: mouse gestures, and the (default!) setting to save all open tabs. In Firefox and IE i’m merely asked if i really want to close all those tabs, but there’s no default no-questions-asked option (i could find) that opens the tabs the next time. I think Firefox does this only if you click a checkbox each time you close, but it’s not enabled by default and this nagging close dialog i couldn’t get rid of.
So, there you go, extensions and all …
Let the Flame Wars begin…
Star Wars Song
To quote a good friend of mine “bad defaults are bad design (period)”.
It would be nice to see Firefox packaged with the most clever and reliable extensions… it would certainly save the Firefox guys the effort of implementing these things themselves, whilst providing a mechanism to rapidly expand the functionality of Firefox “out of the box” for very little cost.
Jeff, great post. I think several commenters here completely miss your point, though.
I’ve actually avoided putting ad block, etc. on my parent’s and sister’s versions of Firefox. I know that they’ll both end up on a site that doesn’t display correctly and have have no idea what to do - they may not even realize it’s something they can fix by calling me.
So even if it was included in the next version, it would probably have to be off by default and the same people wouldn’t be able to use it anyway.
Ironically I used Opera for months before I realized it had built in wild card ad blocking and that scripting could be enabled on a per-site basis. I sometimes wonder what else I could be missing because it was hidden away in some non-obvious place.
I guess I’m a FF power user. I have 10 different “must have” extensions installed. But of the “9 items Firefox should steal from Safari”, none of them (other than faster HTML rendering obviously) interest me in the slightest.
You say is that only power users install extensions. But the features you listed would only be of interest to power users. Do you think your grandma cares about detachable tabs and resizable text areas? Call her and ask. I bet she’ll say different.
Grandma probably does like spell check though, including that in FF 2.0 was brilliant.
Extensions are written by numerous third parties. The only way to insure the browser itself keeps its integrity is to make any extension separate and allow the user to install them and live with any consequences.