As for AdBlock, I’m actually using the latest Ad Block Plus.

I’m going to take strong issue with the way you echo Asa’s use of the term “regular users.” I find it Orwellean. It’s used to divide people into two camps, in this case it becomes “regular users” and anyone who has a problem or questions the direction Firefox has taken.

Sarcasm doesn’t play well in writing, so it’s hard for me to separate the sarcasm directed at Dave from Asa’s other points. Asa could have said something like:

Dave, we’ve had disagreements in the past, and I expect we’ll continue to have them in the future, but that is no reason to call me a “creep.”

As you know, software can’t always be all things to all people. When we started the Firefox project, Internet Explorer was the dominant browser, and no obvious contenders existed. Mozilla, which Firefox grew out of, was encrusted with features and options that appealed to its developers, but got in the way of everyone else. We took a hard line on features, focusing on things we though would provide the greatest value to the greatest number of users. This allowed us to simplify the user experience, and the code base.

One feature we elevated was the importance of security. Security problems are obvious, but as you noted, security improvements are often invisible.

Often, our other features aren’t obvious either, they just make things easier, like the Awesome Bar, or help unlock more of the potential of the web, like web protocol handlers.

I think you’d be particularly interested in the Web Protocol handlers, Dave, because they provide a client side mechanism for tying together web applications. Links that ordinarily would have opened in a desktop application can now open in another web app.

We may not be able to give you everything you want, but I think the things we do focus on benefit you as much as people who have more mundane needs.

I’d use Chrome if there was a Mac version out. I may give Opera another try, though in the past, I wasn’t happy with its compatibility. Safari, at least, is free and supported on the Mac, so that’s my next step for now.

JohnB, you sound like a bootlicker. My guess is that Asa would get off on your groveling, why don’t you go over there. My point in asking what Mozilla has done for me lately is that the “Awesome bar” (what a self-congratulatory name), etc, isn’t so awesome when they aren’t delivering on earlier promises.

Mark, it’s hard to follow the “he said, she said,” of who said what to who first between Dave and Asa. Even if Dave called Asa a creep, Asa looks like a jerk for the nature and magnitude of his response. I personally have no problem, in the abstract, with Dave editing stuff after publishing it, but there is a clear pattern of him posting things in the heat of the moment, then editing them out, leaving anyone who responds to his earlier statements looking like they fired first. Whoever started it, Asa’s post suggests contempt not just for Dave and anyone else he decides is a “scenester” but pretty much anyone who questions the priorities of Firefox. Freedom fighters are great, but there comes a time when you are no longer a guerilla. George Washington understood that. People like Robert Mugabe, Lennin, Castro, etc do not. Asa’s post makes me think he’s more like the latter than the former. I’m glad its just a web browser.

From the two extensions you mention SessionManager would be the prime suspect. I hope you didn’t install it on your wife’s computer as well? As JohnB mentioned above, it is unnecessary – this feature is built into Firefox and works reliably (select “Show my tabs and windows from last time” for “When Firefox starts” option for bonus points). Of course, if by “Adblock” you mean the outdated and unmaintained Adblock 0.5.3.43 then this one might be the problem as well (disclaimer: I am the author of Adblock Plus).

Fact is, Mozilla has done an incredible amount of performance work before Firefox 3 release and quite a bit more after that (yes, most people noticed). They put much thought into security, ranging from new internal mechanisms and rearchitecturing that make exploitable vulnerabilities less likely via high-level protection mechanisms such as malware protection to rethinking user interfaces to make sure users don’t make the wrong security choice (e.g. on SSL errors). Mozilla is far from being done pushing open standards on the web – HTML5 being one of the big keywords here. And there is far more going on.

Yes, most features aren’t immediately visible after an upgrade. And that’s a good thing – most people wouldn’t like being bombarded with new features. Instead, things “just work”, better than they did before, often in rather subtle ways. For example, the reason why you don’t understand the importance of web handlers – you are not a “regular user”, you already had a mail client installed before clicking a mailto link in the browser. For you, nothing changed. My wife however doesn’t even know what a mail client is and I think she isn’t alone with that. So when she clicks a mailto link in Firefox 3 she will get to choose between Yahoo, Gmail and maybe a few other (local) mail providers. For most people that’s infinitely more helpful than “Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address”.

Finally, please re-read Asa’s post and this time try to recognize where he is being serious and what is just a sarcastic reaction to Dave Winer calling him a “creep”.

So stop your bitching and whining (like FireFox boy) and just get some alternate browsers.