Extension writers can specify in their extensions what versions of fx they are targeting, they can give the minimum version required and the maximum version support so say min version 0.9 to max version 1.5 in which case the extension will work with fx versions (0.9 to 1.5). Now the extension writers can be optimistic and say maxVersion as 1.5+ meaning any fx with version 1.5 or above. In which case the extensions would not get disabled when upgrade to 1.6 and on. ..

Firefox doesnt do any kind of compatibility checks besides looking at these numbers given by the extension itself. So the onus is on the extension writers to give appropriate version targets.

I’m an Opera lover like you! I’m a Web developer, so I keep FF around for testing.

About the website http://nostromo.no.funpic.org, I actually opened it up in Firefox and it showed me the same page.

I’m guessing that the page is only there to try to collect Google Adsense revenues. Oh well, such is life.

[TjL adds: if that’s the case, then how fortuitous that Opera9 will have ad-blocking built in. Of course there have always been ways of getting this done (see this for example) but now it’s officially supported in Opera9 which is currently in beta.

And don’t any of those FF folks complain about “Oh it doesn’t count, it’s in beta” because FF lived in beta for ages.

Oh, and yeah, this will be built-in, so yet again, Opera users will have a feature that they want without worrying that it will break when they upgrade. Firefox users risk their browser becoming “useless” (that’s their word for it, not mine! See above!) if an upgrade breaks their beloved ad-blocking extension.

Lastly, if you try to visit “http://nostromo.no.funpic.org” which is the website our anonymous Firefox fanboy put in, it will tell you that you have to use Firefox. It claims that Opera, even Opera when set to ID as Opera, is Internet Explorer. Great. So now we have “This site designed for Firefox” instead of “This site designed for Netscape”? Brilliant. This is what they’ve come up with? Meanwhile Opera is still working to Open The Web. In their zealotry to block IE users, they have blocked me too. Why do I have to download/use a browser that I don’t want to use? Why not just let me in and let me SEE that the site is broken if I use IE? Too subtle, I guess. sigh

Oh, and they don’t even give you a direct download link for Firefox. It goes through Google’s AdSense program. Nice indeed.]

((TjL adds: Good news, content blocking is available and much easier in Opera 9. You can get preview 2 now from http://snapshot.opera.com))

Which is one reason I’m trying out Opera now. I really like the email so far.

I’ll just reiterate what I said before. Before 1.0 I believe they (Firefox developers) had pretty much the freedom to do whatever they wanted.

After 1.0, I believe users have the right to expect that things that work in 1.0 will work at least until 2.0.

A “Beta” of 1.5 does not lead me to expect that 1.0 things would break, only that there are some new features that might not work 100% yet. A beta of 2.0 (codenamed “Deer Park”) does exist, and I would expect that things might not work there, yet. However, in mature software, going from 1.0 to 2.0 should not break everything. It seems (and I could be wrong) like Firefox development still has the sense of “We can always throw this out and start over” quality for it.

With some exceptions, software written for Windows 95 or 98 will still work with Windows XP. Most software written for Mac OS X 10.1 still works with 10.4. These are signs of maturity of design.

Firefox hasn’t gotten there yet. That’s only a minor criticism, but it is true. It’s also not to say there is not innovation or creativity, etc in the Firefox camp. There is. However, a huge part of Firefox’s appeal is the extensions, and it’s a part of Firefox that they ought to treat very carefully. Releasing a public beta, knowing that it will break extensions, is a bad idea. This should have been solved in a nightly build before a public beta.

I checked again and 3 of the 4 extensions have been updated. I don’t know when that happened, but it took well over a week, maybe two. If Firefox was my daily browser, that would be a long time to be without functions I had come to depend on.

I offered him this slightly tongue-in-cheek response ( I hope you don’t mind ;-):

“Re … Tim, I can see why he got irritated, but he did spit the dummy a bit and one of his correspondents did point out that Mozilla made it clear that FF 1.5 is a beta. Tim is usually quite reasonable/irenic, and nowhere near as vitriolic as the FireFox CEO … (who is an added albeit tiny reason I am not a regular FF user).

“Part of the problem is the difference in philosophy between the Opera and FF communities ..

If you liken them to cars, FF will put a beta car onto the open road which is an all-road vehicle which will perform very nicely (but the there will be some small security updates/recalls). HOWEVER…the brakes - designed by a community of designers - are from the previous model, and they are a plug-in. They should work nicely, but they may not - and hey, this is a beta - you have been warned… ;-). The new Opera car is not an all wheel drive and will work very nicely on main roads, but some back roads will break it as they are designed for cars with better clearance and sumpguards (eg FF), as well as cars with clearance and leaky sumps (IE6) (and no locks on the doors).

“However the brakes in the new Opera car are standard, not a plug-in and they have had a fair bit of testing on the test track. There could be some security updates (eg to the brake pads)…but not as many or as big (eg calipers and rotors) as some of the beta 4WDs out there… ;-)”

Of course, as Opera is my preferred browser, I am slightly biased… ;-)

Keep up the good work, Tim!!

Steve L

The point remains: reliance on extensions for browser functionality means that with every upgrade comes a risk that things will stop working. That’s an unacceptable situation for me. Others will no doubt feel differently.

I’ll be waiting for full releases in the future.