Let'due south talk about the latest release of Firefox again.

When concluding nosotros spoke about the open source browser, things were looking fast, but shaky on 1 item certain sight (cough, cough, Facebook.) Predictably so, I was contacted past numerous Firefox developers about the event, with the hopes to resolve the outcome. Turns out, I owe the developers of Firefox a bit of an apology, as the issue wasn't square on the shoulders of Firefox itself.

At least not on the Linux platform. My experience with Firefox on Windows 10 (which was a brand new install and a brand new profile) was still a bit lagging. After my updated feel with Firefox 54 on Linux, I am now inclined to believe the outcome with Windows 10 was due to underpowered hardware. Still, the automobile in question did meet the minimum requirements for Firefox 54:

  • Pentium 4 or newer processor that supports SSE2
  • 512MB of RAM
  • 200MB of difficult bulldoze space

After spending a flake more than time with Firefox on Windows ten, I would take to conclude the outcome is the hardware and not the browser (as Firefox runs almost as well as Chrome or Edge). Either fashion, Windows x isn't my daily commuter, then I'chiliad going to focus on the Linux side of things.

It should come as no surprise that the issue was very apace resolved. Much to my surprise, the trouble at hand was a combination of a corrupt profile and an extension that no longer seemed to want to function properly. The extension in question was the User-Agent Switcher, which was causing the latest Firefox user-agent to nowadays the browser as an out-of-appointment version. As to the cleaved profile? This was a profile I'd been using for years, never to any ill upshot. But, chance be had, something in the soup decided to sour and made for a rather nasty experience with Facebook. To get around that issue, I had to create a new contour (more on that in a bit) and then, everything changed. I had an instance of Firefox that was smoothen as buttah, fast as a cheetah, and every bit stable as Stonehenge. Point in fact, I've never worked with a version of Firefox this practiced — and I've been using Firefox for a very, very long time.

Why are fixes necessary?

Before I continue singing the praises of Firefox 54, let'south talk about the fixes that had to handled, and why this shouldn't be necessary. First and foremost, I am tech-savvy plenty to troubleshoot these problems. Afterwards xx years of using the Linux operating system, I'm accustomed to tweaking, configuring, tinkering, and troubleshooting. Only the boilerplate user (especially the boilerplate Facebook user) is not. In fact, quite the opposite applies. And I firmly believe that every company that produces software needs to take that cross section of users strongly into account. These are users that:

  • Desire their software to "just work"
  • Do not take the skills to troubleshoot
  • Use a blank minimum of features in well-nigh software
  • Will plough back to their old software if the new software fails in any mode
  • More often than not fear change
  • About often do not know where to plough when at that place's a trouble

It's one thing when a developer reaches out to someone with the technical prowess to troubleshoot an outcome. Take those same troubleshooting steps to the average user and the process shifts to a session troubleshooting the troubleshooting. On top of that, terminate users shouldn't have to troubleshoot a new installation or an upgrade of something as critical as a browser. That idea doesn't only land square on the shoulders of the Firefox developers, only all developers.

I've been experiencing this more often than I prefer lately. Most recently, I've discovered the OpenShot video editor, a piece of software I use regularly, to take reached a betoken that information technology only barely meets my needs (and, in some instances, is unusable). Although I might take the ability to troubleshoot that result, I don't necessarily take the fourth dimension; and then, I turn to another solution. One that just works.

Unfortunately, this happens quite a bit in the world of open source–and information technology's something that needs to change. Many developers presume their users are typical for the Linux community, in that they are non only accustomed to troubleshooting, but enjoy the challenge. If Linux is to seriously gain any ground on the desktop, that focus needs to change. Developers, across the lath, need to shift to an "average user first" perspective; otherwise, they run the hazard of losing said users.

Does that mean they need to start "dumbing down" their software? Non at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I would posit that developers need to "smarten up" their software, such that it is better capable of dealing with problems similar to what I faced.

Enough with the soap-boxing and grandstanding. What most that fix?

The contour director

To some, uttering those two words sends a dread chill upward the spine. Over the years, I have had to assist so many users get beyond a broken Firefox profile. On the plus side, at least there's a tool, congenital into the software, that can handle the problem.

To run the Firefox profile manager on the Linux platform, you demand to start Firefox with the command:

firefox -p

When the contour manager opens (Figure A), click on Create Contour and then, when prompted, give the new contour a name and (optionally) choose the folder to store the new contour. Click Finish and Firefox volition start upwards with the new contour.

Figure A

Believe it or not, this will go a very long way to solving any issues Firefox may be having. The one caveat to this is that you're starting your browser from scratch. All of your bookmarks, saved passwords, extensions, everything, is gone. However, along with those customizations, the issues preventing Firefox from working properly will vanish every bit well. In my case, the corrupt profile and the incompatible extension were no longer in play

And that brings me to at present and my revised summation of Firefox 54. I can sum it up in a single word:

Wow.

It's non much of a give-and-take (just three letters in fact), merely it perfectly describes my experience with the upshot-gratuitous iteration of Firefox 54. This is, past far, the fastest and nigh reliable release of Firefox I've ever used. In fact (every bit I stated in the previous commodity), it's faster than Chrome–an impressive feat. Firefox hasn't been my default browser for quite some time. That was partially due to my using a Chromebook as my daily mobile driver. Equally that is going to soon change, I can at present happily return to Firefox equally my browser of pick. Firefox's comeback of functioning and reliability on an almost exponential level makes for a no-brainer of a switch.

If you've been away from Firefox for some fourth dimension, I would invite you to render to the open source browser, effective immediately. I would recommend you lot start the browser from scratch (also as configure multi-process support, as explained in my previous article on Firefox 54) and enjoy an unrivaled speed and reliability.

Hats off and crow eaten

To the developers of Firefox, my hat is off to you and the helping of crow on my plate. If the latest release is any indication as to the trajectory of the flagship open source browser, Firefox is destined to return to the greatness it once enjoyed.