[jasonkester]

Part of Firefox's slowness is intentional on their part. They (as of last time I opened it) still refuse to silently auto-update the browser, and instead insist on telling you about it and making you watch.

So my experience opening Firefox always involves it saying "wait. Before we get to what you wanted to do, I'm going to spend a minute downloading a new version. OK, now I'm going to install it. Almost there. Now here are a bunch of browser tabs full of information about the things we changed. If you still want to do what you wanted to do after reading those, you can open a new tab. Because we filled the starting one with a message saying we updated Firefox, in case you hadn't noticed."

That means I never use Firefox unless I absolutely need to, to test that a new responsive layout works on them or after implementing a semi-cutting edge bit of the html spec. Which, of course means that they're guaranteed to have updated the thing at least once since I used it last, which means I get the whole two-minute sit and spin to load again.

Try the same usage pattern in chrome, and what happens is that Chrome loads up in zero point seven seconds and lets you get on with your life. It may then start updating in the background but you as the end user never need to hear about it.

It's nutty that Firefox still does this, 15 years after everybody else got it right.

[ludston]

Nice story, but Firefox about:preferences has an option like, "Use a background service to install updates".

I never checked it, so I guess it is on by default.

[acqq]

> about:preferences has an option like, "Use a background service to install updates".

But even if it's checked, it seems the Firefox managers/decision makers still think that it improves the users awareness on the Firefox brand that they spend your time on these (quoted from jasonkester's post):

"wait. Before we get to what you wanted to do, I'm going to spend a minute downloading a new version. OK, now I'm going to install it. Almost there. Now here are a bunch of browser tabs full of information about the things we changed. If you still want to do what you wanted to do after reading those, you can open a new tab. Because we filled the starting one with a message saying we updated Firefox, in case you hadn't noticed."

vs.:

"what happens is that Chrome loads up in zero point seven seconds and lets you get on with your life. It may then start updating in the background but you as the end user never need to hear about it."

Note: Nevertheless I personally avoid Chrome as much as I can because I really believe Google has too much power. Monocultures, political power and all that. For me is Chrome in the position IE was before, even if currently a lot of web developers prefer it.

[dblohm7]

Good news: Full background update functionality is in the works.

(I work on the team that owns install/update at Mozilla, though I don’t work on it myself.)

[user17843]

Will that also help with the 10% or so users that are not on up-to-date versions?

It looks like the user base is still a bit fractionated.

[dblohm7]

Hopefully it prevents more users from getting caught up in that. As for the existing ones, that's an ongoing problem that people have been working on.

[kkarakk]

meanwhile chrome already has it and it "just works". do you guys understand that most people aren't developers who can reconcile with the phrase "it's in the works and is coming"

firefox team on avg seems to me to focus on random things the average user doesn't care about. firefox sync doesn't "just work" so chrome sync is better. firefox doesn't play youtube videos as smoothly as chrome does(i don't care that you need to implement some stuff to get youtube to work smoother, youtube working smoothly is a primary feature for most people - you lose users)

i simply don't understand why the focus is the way it is at firefox. your focus is on the open web while the focus at chrome seems to be acquiring and keeping users happy. then firefox team complain about how chrome has the lions share of the market and is killing the open web...

[acqq]

All valid questions, and as far as I understand it, it’s Mozilla managers who prioritise things that sound good to managers (like the famous Looking Glass background) vs. simply persisting on removing technical issues that are definitely visible to users (like being much less battery friendly).

I criticise because I care and actually use Firefox, and expect it to be better.