... some of your favorite plug-ins are now disabled.
I've just finished receiving a spate of email from readers along the lines of, "I just installed the new update to Firefox and I just found out that [fill in the blank] doesn't work anymore. I know exactly what you mean. You've spent the time to tune Firefox into a productivity machine. Wisestamp is handline your tricked our signature for your web-based emails, sharethis owns your ability to pass along cool sites and articles to friends and delicious has a catalog of about five years worth of bookmarks. --And they're gone. All gone.
Well, not really. Welcome to the world of being an early adoptor.
Call me jaded, but I've been in the business long enough to know what that a new software release is always going to be a Traumatic Event. In these day of Web 2.0, even more so. First, I neve use a ".0" release, these are the software releases numbered 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc. The likelihood of a company announcing a clean, bug free .0 version is exactly that 0%. At least wait for the .1 relase.
Then, there's the issue of the new Web 2.0 interdependencies. At last count, according to Mozilla, the company that publishes Firefox, there are more than 5,000 add-ons for the product. And at last count, I'm using 27 extensions and only two different themes. Some of these extensions are from companies that are actually in business and others are published as a labor a love by individuals. (Let's give a special tip of the hat to Ms. Gina Trapani who publishes the series of "Better gMail," "Better gReader," etc. extensions that make so much for productive for me.)
Here's the point, some of these people and companies publishing extensions and themes are going to be really on top of their game and the extension still won't be compatible with the brand, spankin' new release of Firefox for a couple of days, couple of weeks, or, sad to say, ever. You have two choices: One, upgrade right now and bit the bullet when you find out that your favorite extension is now out-of-date. Two, mark your calendar for two weeks after the new release and save that date for your upgrade. The odds are much better that the extensions have been re-coded to be compatible for the new release. And, (thank you very much, Firefox) your extensions will automagically up-date when you install the new release.
Just in case some of you might be reading this and haven't made the switch to Firefox and are asking yourself, "Why on earth would I want to add that complication into my life? I'll just sit tight on iE (or Chrome or Opera)? You make a good argument but once you've experienced the power and flexibility and ability to customize your browser experience with Firefox, I just don't know how you could ever be satisfied with anything else. True, Chrome runs like a scalded dog and Opera has some good cross platform benefits, but...
I just Firefox on three different platforms (Ubuntu, Mac and ... you know, the OS from Seattle). My bookmarks, passwords, history and auto-fills are completely synched across half-a-dozen different machines thanks to xMarks (formerly Foxmarks). My browsers are tricked out so that the menus and interface is completely minimized (to maximize my screen acreage for demonstration purposes), and I love having access to my Amazon S3 disk through my S3Fox extension. Oh, and my to-do list is also incorporated through the Toodledo plug-in. I could go on but I won't bore you with increasingly arcane and geeky references.
And I like the idea that Firefox is supported by such a large community of people who have invested so much time and energy into the platform. --It's something I look for when selecting software or a platform: How big is the community? I don't ming a lot of other people doing some of my thinking and research for me.
So, hang in there. Don't be such an eager beaver. Whoa up and let the rest of the community catch up with you so you'll have a softlanding when you do finally upgrade.
