Firefox Rapid Releases Leave Add-Ons, and Users, in the Dust

Mozilla is considering an optional new and slower Firefox release schedule for large businesses that can't keep up with the pace of rapid releases. All well and good, because as the release of Firefox 7 shows, Mozilla's determined quick march might not be good business.

Oh, there's improved memory management and improvements on hardware acceleration use, all of which should spell for a faster browsing experience. But add-on compatibility has been a complete hash. And that means Mozilla is causing serious damage to the ecosystem of supporting developers that has helped make it popular.

We all get along
Mozilla says there's no compatibility problem for the mass of existing add-ons that worked with version 6:

We've automatically bumped thousands of add-ons for each Aurora version and emailed developers with the results of our compatibility scanning. When Firefox 6 launched, 97% of add-ons compatible with Firefox 5 were still compatible with 6. And we're on track to launch Firefox 7 tomorrow with 99% compatibility from 6.

I guess, except my own experience suggests otherwise. Here's the add-on incompatibility warning I got (click to enlarge):

And there were no compatible updates available. The real kicker? They don't work because Firefox assumes that older plug-ins are incompatible. For all anyone knows, they might still work.

Apparently there are many people finding compatibility problems, because Mozilla had to address it in that blog post:

Our compatibility plan has two notable shortcomings: it doesn't work for add-ons with binary components and it doesn't work for add-ons not hosted on AMO. The vast majority of add-ons don't contain binary components, which must be recompiled with every version of Firefox in order to continue working. And while we know a lot about add-ons that are hosted on AMO, we didn't know much about the other add-ons in Firefox's ecosystem.

Actually, there's an entirely different shortcoming: a lack of plan to work smoothly with business partners to give users the seamless experience they would like.

Enterprises have a good reason to want to slow updates and extend their lifetime. They need to plan what they're doing and have the software they use remain compatible. Guess what? Other users have the same needs. Find a way to make the customers happy. Or they might do as I did and move backwards to Firefox 6 -- and remember that they have other browsers on their systems.

Related:

• Upgrade This! Software Egos Run Amok, Forcing the Rest of Us to Play Catchup
• Google Dumps H.264 Video From Chrome, Just to Rattle Microsoft and Apple
• Microsoft Tries to Slow Down Google: Releases a Firefox Video Plug-In

Erik Sherman

Erik Sherman is a widely published writer and editor who also does select ghosting and corporate work. The views expressed in this column belong to Sherman and do not represent the views of CBS Interactive. Follow him on Twitter at @ErikSherman or on Facebook.

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