John,
Thank you so much for the FFP2.0.0.15 update.
I, like many I think, do not feel that FF3 is ready for prime time portable use 
Because of this FFP3 is even less so
This of course is not your fault.
I think a lot of the posts indicate that it is just too slow for flash drives unless we turn off about every new feature.
In my testing it really does not really seem to add any features that are that great anyway,
unless you count the new 54MB MALWARE protection, but as we have seen this is problematic for flash drives and modems.
In addition many AddOns/extentions and PlugIns are not yet ready for FF3,
or worse, just being released, which means they need to go through their public "gamma testing" to find bugs.
I know that I will not install any AddOn unless it's been out for at least a month.
But, it is the use of AddOns that is one of the things that make FF so great in the first place.
It seems to be that the updates to FF2 will be security related and not affect the portable version much and should be easy to update
[NOTE: I understand that I may be COMPLETELY WRONG about this]
If you do decide to not give it the full 6 months may I suggest some tutorials for using the self update,
How to use FF self update if you're Only using FFP on a Flash.
How to use FF self update if you're Only using FFP on a Harddrive.
How to use FF self update if you're using FFP AND a Local Install of FF.
Thanks again for the latest update
and your time and attention, as always,
Tim
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I am currently trying to find the fastest drive I have cause even on my Corsair Voyager FF3 was getting really slow.
Maybe I am gonna migrate back to FF2 and hope things get better.
So I "truly and utterly" second this "petition".
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Some clarifications and responses:
As to Add-Ons, every popular add-on has been updated and was updated before the Firefox 3 final release... there was a very long beta and RC process in place for this and any add-ons that aren't updated by now probably will probably not be supported in the long run and may never be updated to Firefox 3. This same issue cropped up with the Firefox 2 update from 1.5 and many less-popular add-ons were simply left behind.
As for the time to update, it will still take 1-2 hours per release of my time for each Firefox 2 release for the 6 languages we support. That's two hours I could be spending on something forward-looking that will affect future use and viability of PortableApps.com like the Platform and our business prospects instead of maintaining a legacy software release.
In terms of usability, for new users that download Firefox 2, they will be immediately confronted with a prompt to upgrade to Firefox 3 on launch. The FFP 2.0 launcher does not fully handle FF 3.0. So, it won't be of much use to new users.
In terms of updating, it looks like the FF 2.0 update will never be portable-friendly, so we'd like to get users off of FF2 as soon as possible.
As to performance, I'm working with contacts in Mozilla regarding a few options. We may also offer the opportunity to disable the anti-phishing database on launch. Or we could find a way to tweak how often FF3 saves to disk in a later release.
Overall, I want to get away from FF2 as soon as possible for all the above reasons. We won't rush from it and will continue to maintain the FFP2 release for at least a short time, especially for folks with performance issues.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Excuse my French, but at the moment FF3 is a pain in the ass. It's unusable on slow flash drives. And when you disable all performance hogs there is less functionality than in FF2. After the summer I'll have to support some dozen computer beginners with PA on their flash drives (as I'm teaching them) and I'm quite sure it will fail with an application like FF3 not ready for prime time. FF2 is fine for this purpose.
IIRC when releasing FF2 Mozilla didn't force the 1.x users to upgrade until the end of the time they supported the 1.x line. I really hope Mozilla and PortableApps.com will do the same now. So John please don't drop the 2.x updates until the end of the time Mozilla supports it (i.e. end of this year). The 2.x updates are important regarding security. I hope FF3 will be ripe then for portable use.
The 1.5 to 2.0 transition was much more gradual on Mozilla's side. After 2.0 came out, it took a while before Mozilla pushed 2.0 down the auto-update pipe to 1.5 users. That will not be the case with 3.0. There has been discussion that 3.0 will be pushed down the auto-update pipe to 2.0 users with the 3.0.1 release which will be out in another week or so.
As for Firefox Portable, we stopped supporting 1.5 a few months after 2.0 was released. 3 more point releases. 2.0 was released October 24, 2006. Our last 1.5 release was 1.5.0.10 which came out February 23, 2007. Mozilla made two more point releases with 1.5.0.12 being the final on May 30, 2007.
Remember, I'm not proposing dropping support for 2.0 now. I'm just saying it's inevitable. And we probably won't support it for as long as Mozilla does. I'd guess that chances are that Mozilla will support the 2.0 line for less time than they supported the 1.5 line after 2.0 came out.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That's one extension I can't live without.
You can download a build of it here:
http://tmp.garyr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7031
Tabs Mix Plus isn't anywhere near as popular or necessary as it used to be. All the big features (session saver, undo close tab, reload all, links in new tab vs window, switch to new tab, close other, etc) are part of Firefox core. There are some people that will want to lock or rename tabs and similar things, but not as many as had wanted TMP for the session saver and other features.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Everyone is so intense about looking forward these days, that they often forget about the past. One of reasons why the PortableApps platform is great today is because of its system requirements, ranging from Win95 to the present. Not every PC in the world runs the latest OS and the ability to plug into any computer, anywhere, with your platform, together with its excellent suite of applications, is what separates you from the rest.
However, because everything in life has a certain finality to it, your support for FF2 should end when Mozilla pulls the plug. The same can be said about any other application. I agree with Tim Clark on this particular one.
You have to balance the past with the future. And we can't jeopardize our future by continuing to support the past when push comes to shove and we need to figure out what's more important. We're not dealing with unlimited resources here. We're dealing with specific resources on a specific timeline.
None of the other software we maintain continues to support older branches once a newer branch is released. Nor should they. It's a new version. It's open source. It's free. Upgrade already.
I know this is a unique situation here as we're dealing with the end of Windows 95/98/Me support. But we're dealing with it on multiple fronts in terms of the end. FileZilla dropped it already. So did Sunbird. And Pidgin. And GIMP. AbiWord decided last month to drop it. Thunderbird 3 will next year. OpenOffice.org 3 will soon. So, we're essentially at the point where everything is circling the drain on Windows 9x. Personally, I think the death knell will come with the end of Firefox support for it.
That said, we'll be maintaining support for Windows 9x as long as we can on multiple fronts. We have lots of users in 2nd and 3rd world countries and plenty of users with less income or who like to continue to use older technology. And we like ensure that you can use as much of our platform as you can everywhere you can. Actually, I may have just convinced myself to keep doing it
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Like you, I truly believe that FF2 is what's keeping Win9x alive. I have an old Compaq, running Win98SE, that I use as a backup, whenever my main PC (WinXP) hiccups, and I won't go online without Firefox! When Firefox's support ends, I guess will be time to recycle it, unless... I keep it to play MechCommander2.
Didn't mean to rattle you. As always, many thanks for all you do (and the PortableApps community too!) to help others around the world have access, even with old technology.
Doing a minimal install of Windows 2000 will often work on these older PCs. Sometimes you need to scrape up some RAM for them (ebay, craigslist and freecycle are handy for that).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
You know, you just gave a splendid idea there! I'm maxed out RAM wise at 384 MB (can you believe it?) but if I recall, the Win2000 recommended minimum was 64 MB and with a factory installed Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra 32 MB graphics card, that's more than doable. Wow, I'm glad that I put my 2 cents in; the old Compaq will roam for a few more years!! John, thanks for the tip!
Sure thing. I know of a few PCs that have been kept much more useful by using Windows 2000 to replace Windows 9x. If you need a copy with a license, you can snag one on Ebay and similar sites for 20 bucks or less. It's an 8 year old operating system now, but it works with nearly all current software and security issues will be patched through July 13, 2010.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I am running Windows 2000 on a 400Mhz processor and using 32Mb of RAM, made this last afternoon on a very old laptop that ran Windows 98. Still haven't installed any patches (no net connection on this laptop, it has no Ethernet port!), but it is running faster than Windows 98 SE did! (but I kept w9x on another partition)
I recommend everybody that has an old pc to update to w2k if they have at least 32Mb of memory and a barely good processor.
Blue is everything.
I have no problem running MechCommander2 on Vista. You shouldn't have any problem with it on XP. What you should keep it for are all the classics made for 95 and 98 that don't work on XP and Vista (Mechwarrior 2, Duke Nukem, etc.). Oh, how I'd love play MW2 again...
Vintage!
Bahamut, I do run MC2 on WinXP also but the Compaq is mine alone; the family shares the other one. I know is off-topic (sorry John!) but head over here: Wolfman's MC2 Missions for a stand alone version of wolfman-MC2x. This guy is currently maintaining the game and creating new campaigns for it!
I understand time being an issue with you, and the need for you to remain concentrated on FF3, but could another Dev. here take over FF2 for those us computer illiterate? I couldn't begin to understand how to apply updates from the source to my Portable versions. Thanks.