firefox-3 should not be the default

[seph]

Binary package hint: firefox

I just installed hardy, and all in all it went pretty well. However, when I went to launch firefox, I discovered that it had been replaced with firefox-3. This broke half of my plugins, which was annoying. So I installed firefox-2, and relaunched it. Frustratingly, my plugins stayed disabled, and won't re-enable for me. I'm not sure how to get them working, I'm probably going to have to remove and reinstall my plugins. Which is a huge hassle, and a not a great user experience. Way below what ubuntu usually provides.

Further more, FF3 *is* still beta, and thus does not seem ready for LTS. Bug 191764 is related, and strikes me as somewhat arrogant here.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

When ever you update firefox from one version to another your plugins wont work with newer version. this is not a bug but a feature, if they kept your ff2 plugins running in ff3 you might not beable to run it. As for running them both as you did (maybe not purposly) will give issues with your profile(addons ect..) there is nothing we can do about this for Hardy We had thought about this most of the devel cycle about keeping ff2 as default and found we cant because ff2 will be EOS before Hardy EOS and we dont want to introduce major bugs in mid support cycle so we took the best of 2 evils. Im gonna assume you didnt get the plugins from Ubuntu so as for uninstalling them and such is not a bug. Please look for Ubuntu plugins this time as they will be updated and supported by Ubuntu. Closing this bug due to us not really being able to fix anything because they are not security bugs. You can set firefox-2.0 as default if you please.

[seph (seph)]

Your description of what should happen does not match with my
experience. Let me try to rephrase.

I know that running multiple FF against the same profile at the same
time is bad. That is not what anything like what I've done.

On the previous ubuntu release, I mostly ran FF2 from ubuntu, and
occasionally tested things with FF3. Generally using the same profile
Here's what usually happened:

  1. launch FF3

  2. FF3 checks plugins for compatibility and updates

  3. FF3 says "Oh, we're not compatible with A, B, and C, I've disabled
      them"

  4. I do my work in FF3, quit, then launch FF2.

  5. I have all my usual plugins, including A, B and C.

Here's what happened after I upgraded to Hardy:

  1. I launch FF3.

  2. FF3 checks plugins for compatibility and updates

  3. FF3 says "Oh, we're not compatible with A, B, and C, I've disabled
      them"

  4a. I discovery that to get FF2, I need the firefox-2 package, so I
      install it.

  4b. I quite FF3, and launch FF2.

  5. Plugins A, B, and C are in a weird state. They disabled, but I
      can't click enable. (it does nothing)

While I'm sympathetic to the plight of wanting to release ubuntu, while
FF is not yet stable. However, I think shipping a beta that's
incompatible with some of the most popular plugins is shoddy. It's
putting your immediate convenience above that of your users. While
that's fine for some things, the only reason I recommend ubuntu to
people is because that doesn't happen.

I also feel pretty offended by your "It's a feature!" assertion and
closuring of my bug. And the arrogance of shipping betas is reminiscent
of the gcc 2.96 debacle.

seph

[Griffin3 (glenn-griffin3)]

I second this suggestion. This one is already done, but I'm guessing you will find a lot of experienced users 'downgrading' their installation to FF2 ... and a bunch of new users just complaining, wondering what is broken, and blaming Ubuntu.

Installing beta software in a LTS edition was the wrong decision.

Glenn