I use Firefox as my browser, and the latest version (108.0.1 (64-bit) for MacOS) has managed to screw up the windows list system. (I use windows for individual web pages when hooked up to my large monitor, but tabs when I’m using my MacBook Pro by itself.) Firefox has managed to screw up two different things with this release:
- For just about every version back to the dawn of time, Firefox lists windows in the order you open them. For the way I work, I usually have Gmail as my first opened window, my Books Wanted List in the second, and Bookfinder in the third, then a whole bunch of other windows, depending on what I’m working on. Well, now Firefox lists them alphabetically. Worse still, I see no way to change this behavior in preferences.
- Before, when you accessed the window list, it was the same no matter which Firefox window you opened it from, and it showed all your windows. Now, Firefox only shows you the windows that were open when you opened this window. That means older windows will only bring up a much smaller windows list that excludes the windows opened subsequently. And honestly, I’m not 100% it works that way for every window, as there seem to be exceptions. So they only way to see a list of all your open browser windows is to find the most recently opened window. Which is no longer listed at the bottom of the list. (You can also get a list of all open Firefox windows in the Firefox Task Manager, which I always have open,as its useful for tracking down memory hog windows.)
Maybe some people asked for the ability to alphabetize windows in the list, but I doubt anyone wanted that as an unchangeable default, and I’m pretty sure no one asked for the inconsistent listing.
If anyone know how to revert this behavior to the previous default settings, let me know…
Tags: Firefox, Internet, Media Watch, technology
Dangit, I just switched to FF.
ta they are might consider Brave Browser. It has strengths related to privacy and related issues. It is the brainchild of Brendan Eich, the cancelled co-founder of Mozilla, rendered an unperson by the organization he fathered after supporting California’s Proposition Eight. It is based on Chromium, but with all the trackers stripped out. “It breaks the internet!”
It does not have the richness of all the plugins and add-ons Firefox has, but all those add-ons want your data! Some lie about what data they are peeking at and how they sell it.
Another minus of Brave is that it can make internet-based e-commerce just not work. “Gee, how could security break e-commerce?” Doh.
Somehow the first few words of my comment got floogled up. It was meant to be “You might consider Brave Browser”! Not illiterate when I last checked.
I didn’t particularly like the previous method of ordering windows in the Window menu, but this alphabetical ordering is worse.
1) The position of a window in the list depends on the title of the tab you have selected, so to find it, you have to know which tab you last selected.
2) The position of the window in the list changes when you update a window or tab and the new content changes the title.
This is consistent tech company behavior. A common element is that there is zero customer service / user feedback mechanism by which to react.
Companies cut customer service – often setting up forums on which users can talk to each other about their problems and “solve” them that way” because they think it’s cheaper. In the short term, it is. However leaving support to the power users means that the usability profile of the software starts fitting the very particular perspective of the power users and not the much more numerous regular users, and thus starts alienating and excluding the regular users, who can’t get the software to do what they want without a lot of head-scratching and frustration. Cutting support also means that the feedback channel directly to the company of what is wrong with the software is gone, so the company is no longer receiving that information and cannot act on it.
And “just post on the forums” never, ever works as a means of getting information to the company. What gets measured gets done. No software engineer is ever getting told by his manager to set time aside to read the forums and collate complaints; there is ALWAYS better stuff – stuff with more visible short-term payoff – to do with paid hours. Posting on forums goes into a black hole.
This adds up to the company steadily veering off course, progressively making its own software worse and worse, and being completely unaware that it is doing so – because it has made it impossible for its user base to get any information about the increasing issues with the software back to anybody who has the authority to make any changes.
There’s an inertia factor. People stick around well past the point where they are seriously irritated. But when they leave, they leave for good. When the company sees its user numbers suddenly dropping inexplicably, it is usually far past the point where anything could have been done to change course.
There’s a simple rule, that used to be known in retail, I don’t know if it still is: for every person who complains, ten more just quietly walk out without saying anything and never come back.
Except FireFox isn’t actually run by a company these days, it’s open source.
So, I guess I won’t update my FF just yet. They’ve been nagging me, but I like to hear from other people first.
I’ve been sticking with unupdated FF for quite a while now, because the oh-so-awesome updates keep breaking functionality I *use*. (Yes, Mozilla, I actually do use “right click to save image”, not just open in a new tab and needing to not only use a 3rd-party addon *and* have to edit files to even get that to work.)
Currently running 87.0. :P
[…] cruise lines to pay $400 million in damages for trafficking in stolen property in Cuba BattleSwarm: Firefox Bungles Windows List In Update, also, Dave Barry’s 2022 Year In Review Behind The Black: Sunspot update: The most sunspots since […]