AwesomeBar and Me - Why I've left Firefox.

I upgraded to Firefox 3 back when it was in beta. Then, I uninstalled and went back to Firefox 2. I tried it again a few weeks later. Then, I uninstalled and went back to Firefox 2.

This was quite a while ago, but I will explain how I felt at the time:

Something was lacking in Firefox 3 that made me uncomfortable, and unable to be productive. Namely, the address bar, which had been replaced with something called the AwesomeBar. My main beef with the AwesomeBar actually isn't its ugly look, or the fact that it retrieves bookmark results, but rather, the fact that it requires visual interaction to be used effectively. The address bar was reliable. I knew what it would do when I typed. Its algorithm was something that could be fully comprehended in my head. I knew if I had cleared my history before starting, and had gone to calendar.google.com once, then visited ubuntu.com and apple.com and microsoft.com that I could simply press Alt+D "c" down enter to go back to calendar.google.com. Furthermore, it was the same knowledge I used to operate the old Start->Run dialog back in Windows, and the same knowledge I use to operate every autocomplete field in every website and every dialog box in both Windows and Linux.

With the AwesomeBar, my absolute and complete knowledge of the data being searched was taken away. Sure, I know which types of things it searches, but I don't know what data was present (in page Titles, for example) The extra steps are that I would have to press Alt+D, type, then look at the results and determine if there was an error, if so, I would have to arrow to the desired result before pressing enter. The developers of Firefox knew this, that's why they redesigned the widget visually to try to create enough visual distinction so that it could be scanned quickly. The problem is, I don't want to visually scan it at all. That isn't something I have ever been accustomed to doing and it slows me down and takes my focus away from the page I was browsing.

Since that time, I have continued to use "good old" Firefox 2. However, for whatever reason, my Firefox 2 installation began to become unstable. It would freeze up requiring restarts quite often, usually when I click on a javascript-based link. I finally got irritated, and decided that maybe it would be time to update or switch.

First, I tried Crossover Chromium. It is goofy because of its dependence on wine. I will give it another chance when it has been ported natively to Linux.

I searched through the Firefox add-ons/extensions to see what has been created, and found both "oldbar" and "Old Location Bar" - I had tried oldbar before, so I decided to go with "Old Location Bar," bit the bullet, upgraded to Firefox 3, and installed the extension. I didn't read carefully enough, and I presumed Old Location Bar would do what I wanted, as people were praising it for being better than oldbar. I was disappointed with Old Location Bar. It still didn't solve my problem at all.

Firefox 2 is freezing up. Firefox 3 is not efficient. I decided to go "old school" and switch to Opera.

I installed Opera 9.27 from the Hardy repository. Just a little ugly feeling in the menus, but the toolbars are not too bad. I can live with this. Alt+D doesn't work! Dang. So, I did this:

Tools -> Preferences -> Shortcuts -> Keyboard setup - Opera Standard -> Edit.

The one under "Browser Window" that says "Focus address field | Focus message list" I clicked, and changed to "d alt", clicked OK, and clicked OK again. Alt+D ... works!

Now I did some experiments with the address bar. It works!

I realize I'm not using the latest release of Opera. I may try upgrading and see if it still works. But, as long as it does what I need, maybe this older release is fine.

As I save this post, regrettably, I will change my default browser to Opera and uninstall Firefox 3. It isn't because I wanted to. It's because I was forced out. If I knew how to fork the Firefox code and reinstall the genuine old Address Bar, I would rather do that.

Firefox 3

After using FF3 for a while, it's time to give a review.

Smart Location Bar, AKA the Awesome Bar

It's not really fair starting with the worst feature in the new Firefox, but I'm not the one who named it the awesome bar, so I don't feel too bad.

This is the only new feature that actually HINDERS my use of the internet. I have a few different early extensions installed to try and revert it back to usefulness, but alas, it's still broken. Instead of the old, type what you want to get what you want, now the procedure is much more arcane. Firefox tries to guess which sites you would like to visit by looking in your history, favorites and so on. If I am typing in the address bar, I am usually typing an address, rather than fumbling around trying to find a site I have been to. If I wanted to open one of my favorites, I would ... use my favorites! If I'm looking for a site I visited last week, I would search through my history.

I'll use a visit to Firefox.com as an example of the new process. in FF2 if I wanted to go to firefox.com, I would type firef in the address bar, and by that time, I would be able to pick firefox.com off of the drop down list by pushing the down arrow once or twice and then pushing enter.

Now, however, when I type in firefox, I get every website that has firefox anywhere in it's address, title or even a keyword I added to one of my favorites. I have to either, type the entire address out, or search though a lengthy list in order to reach my destination.

I am just waiting for the perfect extension that will fix my complaints.

Tagging!

I was very excited about adding tagging to firefox, but it was fairly poorly implemented, so .... more waiting for the bugs to be worked out.

I have a complex bookmark sorting system involving 200 folders, sub folders and sub-sub folders. Firefox doesn't give you a way to know what tags you have already used. In huge multi-user systems, letting each user tag items and then reaping the combined efforts of the masses is a great idea. But, the individual needs a concrete way (or ways!) to stay consistent and organized. After all, that's the point of having bookmarks in the first place - finding them again.

There were quite a few bugs involving duplicate tags, blank tags and so on. There is no way to tag a bookmark when you add it through the menu, nor can you add tags when you right click a bookmark in the bookmark menu.

That said, I can happily ignore the tags until they fix them, unlike the awesomebar, which broke a feature I use(ed) regularly.

Themes

I don't care all that much for the default XP or linux themes, and winstripe, the theme I was using on FF2 (since I didn't like its default theme either) isn't going to be updated to FF3.

I've been using Qute, but it's a bit too bubbly and soft for me.

Memory Leaks

Nope, still leaky. It might even be worse now. A few minutes ago, FF3 was using 300,000 K .. after a restart, it's using 137,000. I believe that FF2 only used about 40,000 while running.

Anything good about it?

Yes! There are a few nice things about the new version. Animated PNGs! I haven't tried any out yet, but as a web developer, this is a step in the right direction.

FF3 seems more stable than 2, less crashes and firefoxen running after you close them.

Most extensions are being ported over to FF3, so I won't have to leave much behind.

Over all, I am disappointed in all of the new features, but only one of them has made my life difficult so far. I feel that the Firefox team was rushed, or they are getting to large, or something and inefficiency has crept in. Either way, FF3 was released before it was really ready for all of the fans. So, I guess I'll be waiting for 3.1

Ubuntu Hardy Heron is Unstable

I've been running Hardy now for quite a while, and I've come to the conclusion that it isn't stable. I will probably be downgrading to Gutsy very soon, however much I dislike the idea of doing so. To me, downgrading doesn't feel like I'm being part of the solution, but rather that I'm just bypassing the problem.

Here are the things I've been having problems with so far in Hardy. And, for the record, I've tried all of these things with compiz disabled as well, with no improvement:

1. On occasion (sometimes as frequently as once an hour), gnome-terminal will open with a blank (frozen, not invisible) window, there will be a grey bar where the menus should be, and I have to terminate the process. I've tried waiting it just stays there blank. Once this happens, nautilus, gedit, and even some of the file-related dialog boxes, and possibly the pop-down calendar from the gnome panel all crash in the same way, creating a blank box, and in the case of anything associated with the gnome panel, freezing the panel entirely. Restarting GDM doesn't help. I've tried everything. There seems to be nothing logged showing that there was any problem. Rebooting is the only solution.
2. Firefox 3. Not only is it annoying (due to AwesomeBar), but it feels less polished than Firefox 2. My Firefox 2 did crash every once in a while. I finally decided to reinstall Firefox 2, and give it a try. Firefox 3 unfortunately did things to the configuration which makes Firefox 2 suck as well, since it tries to run off of the same settings. I deleted the extensions.rdf file and start FF2 and everything seems almost OK. But, if I ever run FF3 again, it ruins FF2 (removes all extensions, mostly.) This means I cannot ease into FF3 while still using FF2 for my day to day work. I will thus be uninstalling FF3.
3. Random lock-ups. I haven't had this problem as much as some people have been reporting, but I have had some unusual lock-ups. One of them involved my screen suddenly appearing scrunched left-to-right and streched up-and-down with big black bars on either side and everything completely frozen (including the mouse pointer) requiring a hard reset.
4. Thunderbird is barely usable. I use Thunderbird with an IMAP account. Previously, it has worked like a charm, but now all of a sudden, it routinely crashes without an explanation. It seems to crash in two different ways. The first way will be, while checking my inbox, new messages will appear, but the program is still catching up (not usable yet), and all of a sudden the entire program will just disappear. Messages, and the main window, poof, they're gone. No word as to why. This happens about 1 in 5 times that I open Thunderbird. The other one happens about 3 out of 5 times that I open thunderbird, and it involves clicking on my Inbox and the program immediately going comatose. When compiz is on, the window dims to a dark gray to show me that the program isn't responding, and no matter how long I wait, it never wakes back up. I have to kill the process (or click the X and force quit it) in order to try again. Yes, that adds up to 4 out of 5 tries that Thunderbird doesn't work. Every once in a while I am lucky and it will work, in which case it is usually stable for the entire session until I close it.

I'm a web developer. Browsing the web, using SSH through a terminal, and checking my email are nearly all that I do on my computer, and Hardy Heron isn't ready for ANY of those tasks. Gutsy Gibbon worked perfectly with all of them. I will probably be moving back to gutsy, but I'm afraid of what a downgrade might involve as far as my user configuration files are concerned. I guess I will be making backups before downgrading.