Ex-Firefox Dev Claims "Everybody Hates Firefox Updates"

 

As of the most recent round of updates, Mozilla has already moved to updating in the background.  So I'm somewhat inclined to agree with the Mozilla rep that "Jono's (the ex-dev's) analysis is interesting, but outdated."  However, as the ex-dev points out, "People who got fed up and ditched Firefox are going to be hard to win back."  Google definitely beat them to the punch as far as automatic updates operating in the background is concerned.  However, a lot of the Firefox improvements, to their credit, have been really good improvements.  On the other hand, the ex-dev raises a valid concern about breaking extensions fairly quickly with new updates being released at a pretty rapid pace.  Background or not, that will probably still be a concern going forward.

 

I'm not really bothered by the rapid release cycle myself.  I use Firefox on a few computers and Chrome on a few others.  Troubleshooting a recent issue in Opera actually got me starting to use that browser on one box on a regular basis as well.  (Thanks to Pegas and TripleHelix for that ;))  I think Firefox has been improving a lot lately.  However, looking at browser statistics, it's interesting to note the pattern over the last few years between Firefox and Chrome.  Rapid release began in April 2011.  Functionally, I like both browsers pretty equally, and improvements to any program are welcome.

 

I'm curious what everyone else thinks.  Did the rapid release cycle not being automated in the background turn you off of Firefox, or were you not bothered by it?