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why is it broken

  • 8 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by FredMcD

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This is going to sound like a rant, but it is a genuine issue. I posted this on the "MozillaZine" forums and their response was "This isn't officially associated with Mozilla". Well, why does your support site direct me to there then? Anyway, that isn't my primary question/concern. Recent updates have made Firefox quite literally incompatible with everything. You have removed support for Java (and javascript?). Pages that used to render correctly now look like total garbage because the browser is incapable of displaying them. I can open any page in Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Edge and the only browser that is incapable of displaying the page I am trying is Firefox. For example, my job (I work for IBM) used to have us use Firefox almost exclusively. Now, it is use everything but Firefox because nothing renders correctly, add-ons don't work, pages constantly fail to load, nothing works ever. In Windows I rely more now on IE or Edge (depending on 7 or 10) and in Linux I use Chrome. Everything I had previously used and worked perfectly in Firefox, not even two or three updates ago, now totally and absolutely fails. We have to use a web based VPN connection for specific circumstances. With the "Updated" firefox the add-on that the VPN appliance is attempting to install totally fails in Firefox. When we connect to the VPN using literally any other browser it works without any issue whatsoever. Obviously there is something seriously wrong with Firefox. Apparently your company has decided to go the route of "Make it completely incompatible with EVERYTHING". You are loosing people who used to religiously use Firefox and they (me being one of them) are finding that the alternatives are superior in every possible way. So, congratulations on pushing yet another long time user away and into your competitors products!

This is going to sound like a rant, but it is a genuine issue. I posted this on the "MozillaZine" forums and their response was "This isn't officially associated with Mozilla". Well, why does your support site direct me to there then? Anyway, that isn't my primary question/concern. Recent updates have made Firefox quite literally incompatible with everything. You have removed support for Java (and javascript?). Pages that used to render correctly now look like total garbage because the browser is incapable of displaying them. I can open any page in Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Edge and the only browser that is incapable of displaying the page I am trying is Firefox. For example, my job (I work for IBM) used to have us use Firefox almost exclusively. Now, it is use everything but Firefox because nothing renders correctly, add-ons don't work, pages constantly fail to load, nothing works ever. In Windows I rely more now on IE or Edge (depending on 7 or 10) and in Linux I use Chrome. Everything I had previously used and worked perfectly in Firefox, not even two or three updates ago, now totally and absolutely fails. We have to use a web based VPN connection for specific circumstances. With the "Updated" firefox the add-on that the VPN appliance is attempting to install totally fails in Firefox. When we connect to the VPN using literally any other browser it works without any issue whatsoever. Obviously there is something seriously wrong with Firefox. Apparently your company has decided to go the route of "Make it completely incompatible with EVERYTHING". You are loosing people who used to religiously use Firefox and they (me being one of them) are finding that the alternatives are superior in every possible way. So, congratulations on pushing yet another long time user away and into your competitors products!

All Replies (8)

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You may find this hard to believe, but millions of people are using Firefox every day without encountering severe problems. You may have special requirements that Firefox does not meet, or you may have a system configuration that creates compatibility issues, or you may use sites that reveal bugs in Firefox. It happens.

This is a support forum. You didn't mention any specific pages or brands of software/hardware, so it's hard to tell whether you want our help. If you want to continue using Firefox, we can try to help you work through the issues. But if not, let the support volunteers know that you don't really want to use Firefox any more and we'll just let this sit.

Java and VPN Add-on Problem

Both issues could be this: The regular release of Firefox 52-53 only allows one plugin, which is Flash. The Extended Support Release (ESR) of Firefox 52 will still run Java, Silverlight, and proprietary plugins. ESR was expressly developed to meet the needs of large organizations that wanted Firefox to change much more slowly, but you don't need an IT department directive to switch if you like.

More information on this change and ESR: Why do Java, Silverlight, Adobe Acrobat and other plugins no longer work?

Windows Users: When you get to the ESR installer list, you'll notice at least two different downloads for Windows:

  • Windows installer is the standard version for Windows that runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista through 10 (and 32-bit XP), the best choice for most users
  • Windows 64-bit installer ONLY runs the Flash and Silverlight plugins, so that is not what you're looking for. (If someone reading this only needs Silverlight and is considering switching to 64-bit, there may be some extra file cleanup to do on your system. See: How to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit Firefox)
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So, I just want to understand this... ridiculousness. The only supported plugin is flash (the most insecure and worst plugin ever thought of, which probably should be banned from use for all of eternity) and you don't support real useful plugins written in Java or JavaScript where the "security" is 100% dependent on the programmer who wrote the application and have 0% to do with the actual language.

You actually expect people to believe that the developers at Mozilla are somehow infallible and are capable of writing replacements for add-ons that are 100% guaranteed to be free of any and all flaws that may leave them open to exploitation? That's hilarious. What language are they writing the add-ons in? Java or JavaScript?

Also your "article" about why you stopped using anything but flash is fairly inaccurate. For example, Java and JavaScript work perfectly fine in Chrome, which the article states has already stopped supporting Java and JavaScript among other things that also work perfectly fine that according to Mozilla have been officially dropped by said browsers. Edge is just Internet Explorer repackaged and still fails in every way that IE did, so it is a horrible comparison for anyone to use. The only purpose of Edge (or IE) is to just download another browser. Hell, Opera would be a better choice at this point.

So, just to be perfectly clear, Mozilla is going to stick it's head in the sand and refuse to even consider the fact that they have ruined a perfectly good browser because I am not giving a list of sites it is failing in? The list of sites is about as big as the internet... try to make use of a site that has portions of it written in Java or JavaScript... then you will have an example of a site that fails to work with Firefox. I would show you IBM's internal web pages but those are inaccessible from the public internet and worked perfectly fine in versions of Firefox prior to this horrible mess that has been created. They don't even render correctly and default to "no style" because Firefox can't interpret the language that was used for the styling. I wouldn't be surprised if you're going to say that later versions will stop recognizing css and html 5 since "Mozilla can do it better".

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You know what, I completely forgot but try going to Cisco.com, that crashes about 50% of the time when trying to open it with Firefox (within RHEL 6.8). It either crashes or can take hours to load (that isn't an exaggeration).

Modified by Polorboy

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Polorboy said

try going to Cisco.com, that crashes about 50% of the time when trying to open it with Firefox (within RHEL 6.8). It either crashes or can take hours to load (that isn't an exaggeration).

I had no problem with the link.

In the address bar, type about:crashes<enter>. Note: If any reports do not have BP- in front of the numbers/letters, click it to submit them.

The crash report is several pages of data. We need the report numbers to see the whole report.

Using your mouse, mark the most recent 7 - 10 crash reports, and copy them. Press the Reply button. Now go to the reply box and paste them in.

aboutcrashesFx29

For more help on crash reports, see; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-crashes-asking-support

Modified by FredMcD

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Despite the similar names, JavaScript is not based on and does not require the Java plugin. All browsers handle JavaScript internally without a plugin. Firefox is not going to stop supporting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript because they are the foundation of the open web.

Mozilla is trying to stop supporting proprietary and closed technologies in Firefox, but Flash and Digital Rights Management continue to be necessary for a lot of sites so those can't be removed right now. Java has a vendor-supported replacement, called Java Web Start. Oracle's been promoting it for a couple of years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start

Polorboy said

You actually expect people to believe that the developers at Mozilla are somehow infallible and are capable of writing replacements for add-ons that are 100% guaranteed to be free of any and all flaws that may leave them open to exploitation?

I'm sure I didn't say that, and I can't imagine anyone who knows anything about Mozilla said that.

Polorboy said

You know what, I completely forgot but try going to Cisco.com, that crashes about 50% of the time when trying to open it with Firefox (within RHEL 6.8). It either crashes or can take hours to load (that isn't an exaggeration).

It's a bit slow, almost 18 seconds. (Screenshot attached.) Does it run poorly for you on Windows 10 as well, or just on Red Hat?

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jscher2000 said

Java has a vendor-supported replacement, called Java Web Start. Oracle's been promoting it for a couple of years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start

I was reading the article. What is the download site/address?

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FredMcD said

jscher2000 said
Java has a vendor-supported replacement, called Java Web Start. Oracle's been promoting it for a couple of years now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start

I was reading the article. What is the download site/address?

Java Web Start was included in the Java installer you probably already have on your system. Here's a test page: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/webstart/examplesIndex.html (screenshot attached of what you should see)

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Thank you.