Mozilla infographic highlights multiple achievements in 2012

Shawn Knight

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Mozilla is prepared to ring in the New Year by celebrating a number of achievements accomplished in 2012. And what better way to highlight those milestones in this day and age than with a well-designed infographic which is precisely what they organization recently published.

Vice president of Firefox engineering Johnathan Nightengale said in a recent blog post that he was most fond of the fact that the organization surpassed 3 billion Firefox add-on downloads and Mozilla’s release of a revamped Firefox for Android that earned best-in-app honors.

But those two accomplishments seemingly pale in comparison to the fact that Mozilla got back on the right path with regards to their desktop browser. They switched to a rapid release schedule for Firefox which ultimately backfired. As a result, many users got what Mozilla described as “update fatigue.” Nightengale said the Firefox of today is significantly better than the Firefox of a year ago in virtually every way.

It’s always good to head into a new year on a strong note. The executive said he is confident the company can continue to build on the momentum they have at this time but challenges are to be expected.

Nightengale’s comments aside, Mozilla had several notable achievements in 2012. Most recently, they integrated Facebook Messenger into Firefox 17. In other areas, Firefox is now available in 89 different languages and is 50 percent faster while using four times less memory than before.  Be sure to check out the full infographic below for a complete rundown of Mozilla’s 2012 achievements.

mozilla infographic year in review

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"But those two accomplishments seemingly pale in comparison to the fact that Mozilla got back on the right path with regards to their desktop browser. They switched to a rapid release schedule for Firefox which ultimately backfired. As a result, many users got what Mozilla described as ?update fatigue.? Nightengale said the Firefox of today is significantly better than the Firefox of a year ago in virtually every way."

And their still ON that rapid release schedule, so where's the silver lining? Mozilla has driven away many of their best extension developers by focusing almost exclusively on Android and Windows 8. On other platforms, esp. 64-bit Windows Vista/7, Firefox has turned to crap - its went steadily downhill since v12. But jamming FB into a browser has to be the height of stupidity and hubris. Its bad enough that FF helps Google spy on its users (unless they use Ghostery or a similar add-on) - now we'll have FB watching our every move as well? Opera is looking better by the day, and that's saying something.
 
Oh, and let's not forget that after all those updates:

* FF Sync still has no cloud option. Xmarks humiliates it in every way.
* Contrary to all of Mozilla's claims, average memory usage has steadily <b>increased</b>, not decreased, in ANY scenario on ANY platform. You can't keep adding stuff and use LESS memory if, as Moz claims, they've patched all of the major memory leaks.
* Turning FF into Chrome has simply accelerated desktop user migration <I>to</I> Chrome. Every stat, poll or piece of circumstantial data bears this out.
* Each new release runs slower on 64-bit Windows than the last. Some Linux users report the same.
* User response to FB integration has been overwhelmingly negative. Those complaints, just like those of devs whose apps are being broken with every new version, are ignored.

FF user share will be less than 5% on Windows within two years. Around that time (if not before) I fully expect Mozilla to stop development on the desktop version in favor of the Metro app. By the time they accept that Metro has been rejected by the market it will be too late.
 
focusing almost exclusively on Android and Windows 8
They didn't even start to seriously work on Win8 builds. True, FF does work on it, but it hasn't been fitted for it yet, neither the UI, nor the support for new features, and it will not be for a long time.
Android only, eh? I guess Hueyfix, Incremental Garbage Collection, IonMonkey, DLBI and other stuff did not land on the desktop browser, right? And SuperSnappy, OMT Compilation, OMT Composition, OMT Image Decoding, Global GC will not be present either?
now we'll have FB watching our every move as well
The purpose of Social API is to f*cking limit FB's (and other social sites') tracking activities, guess you did not look after this either.

Contrary to all of Mozilla's claims, average memory usage has steadily increased, not decreased, in ANY scenario on ANY platform. You can't keep adding stuff and use LESS memory if, as Moz claims, they've patched all of the major memory leaks.
Several benchmarks prove that FF is usually good with memory, and a bunch of guys using several hundred tabs at the same time. Anyway, if you are aware of existing, serious memory leaks, then report it. I am sure Nicolas Nethercore will want to hear about those.

Turning FF into Chrome has simply accelerated desktop user migration to Chrome. Every stat, poll or piece of circumstantial data bears this out.
I agree you on this one. FF UX and UI teams need to be kicked in the nuts. Thank God, FF is still more customizable than Chrome. And Australis implementation is slow as f*ck.

Each new release runs slower on 64-bit Windows than the last. Some Linux users report the same.
Every browser gets slower over time. This is not an FF-only thing.
Steps to reproduce:
1, Install browser X.
2, Use it with the same profile for 2 years. Try not to take good care of it.
3, Complain about bugs, hangs and speed problems, and switch browsers.
 
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