Is it fair that other companies can install unrequested plugins to Firefox?  It is happening right now, and there is not a lot we can do about it.  Asa Dotzler brought this topic up in one of his most recent blog posts and I do think it is an interesting debate.  The three big tech giants out there find it ok to add things to Firefox without asking me first.  Google does it.  Microsoft does it.  Even Apple does it. 

Here is meat and potatoes of the complaint from Asa’s post:

Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I’m installing their software packages. When I installed iTunes, in order to manage my music collection and sync to my iPod, why did Apple think it was OK to add the iTunes Application Detector plug-in to my Firefox web browser without asking me? Why did Microsoft think it was OK to sneak their Windows Live Photo Gallery or Office Live Plug-in for Firefox into my browser (presumably) when I installed Microsoft Office? What makes Google think it’s reasonable behavior for them to slip a Google Update plug-in into Firefox when I installed Google Earth or Google Chrome (not sure which one caused this) without asking me first?

I have to agree with him, I do not think this is an ok behavior at all.  When installing any type of software to Firefox or to my computer in general – companies should be open and honest when doing so.  Make sure people know what they are getting and well, they shouldn’t be evil.  When you stop and think about it, Apple, Microsoft and Google all have their own browsers now too. 

What is to stop them from doing something bad with their Firefox plugins to make themselves look better?

Did you know that Opera already has a Tab Candy-like feature? No? Neither did the anybody else apparently.

Who would have guessed, the Opera browser has yet again jumped on the, “but we did that first!” claims against Firefox.  For those who might have not followed the history between the two browsers – Firefox gained a lot of free press, for having tabs in its browser.  Of course, Opera had done this before – and they made a big stink about the fact that they did it first. Now Opera is at it again, this time saying that they had Tab Candy before Tab Candy was cool. Here is what Haavard Moen from Opera had to say…

There has been a lot of focus on grouping of tabs in browsers lately as a new and wonderful way to manage tabs, but did you know that you have actually been able to group tabs in Opera for many years already?

You can check out more about the debate over at The Register and Haavard’s Opera blog.  My thoughts on the issue are simple.  Opera needs to pay less attention to saying, “hey, we did it first!” and maybe a little more attention to saying, “hey, we did it best”. Right now first doesn’t mean a whole lot, because people will always head towards the better execution of any idea.

So leave your thoughts in the comments.  Is the home button still relevant in your day to day browsing, or have you ditched it?

As somebody who usually writes in order to help the masses in one way or another, no matter if it is to inform or entertain, it really bugs me when I see people complain about something, but then do nothing to fix the thing they are complaining about.  Recently on TechCrunch I saw a feature about Firefox 3.5 crashing for one of the writers.  I though, hey – maybe they’ll have some interesting information on how to get around or troubleshoot the issue; maybe I should check it out. 

Let us check out this post together shall we?

Ever since the new Firefox 3.5 came out about a month ago, I’ve been using it as my main browser. Generally I am very happy with it.

Hey, that is cool.  I have been too!  I can “relate” with that.

But there is one persistent bug that might push me to another browser: it keeps crashing on me.

Oh, really? Hate to hear that, wonder what is causing the crashing?

This usually happens when I have too many tabs open (like 15 or 20, which is not unusual for me towards the end of the day). The whole thing will just freeze and I’ll have to force the browser to quit.

Well, that is odd.  I usually run the same thing or more during my day and have yet to have that problem.  Then again, I am only running a handful of extensions too.  So maybe that is where the problem is?

Without basic stability, none of the other great features or add-ons really matter much.

Yeah, that is true – but, did you try to fix your problem?

I realize that Firefox 3.5 is a just came out of beta, and to be fair, it has become slightly more stable over the past month (it was crashing every day in the beginning, now it is just every few days).

So, you didn’t do anything to fix it?

I’ve been patiently waiting for the crashing to stop as Mozilla releases patches and updates.

Did you try to fix it?

I’m on a developer build, so maybe I’m just asking for crashes.

You are just waiting for somebody to do it for you magically?  Well, maybe your not the only one – go ahead and give me a few quotes from somebody else. Go ahead, the floor is all yours.

But plenty of other people are complaining as well.

Wait a minute, did you just quote Twitter? Ok, so there are 2 and a half pages of people saying Firefox 3.5 crashes.  Also worth noting that there are 15 pages people who say they love pirates.  Oh and you can’t forget the page and a half of people who think toast is god.

Now, before you paint me as some Firefox loving wing nut, I can admit Firefox might have some flaws, and some people might be having problems with it.  However, when you have a megaphone the size of TechCrunch try to at least help people who might be in your same shoes rather than trying to paint a perfectly fine browser as an unstable mess. 

Security Zone Policy Errors – This seems to be more of a problem than most people realize.  From this one blog post, I see people coming in every day having issues with it.  So, should Firefox be relying on Windows security settings for downloading applications and other potentially unsafe files from the Internet?

Descriptions for Bookmarks – Have you ever right-clicked a bookmark, Went down to properties and typed in a description about a page you had saved?  No, I haven’t either – so this might be another Firefox feature ready for the junk yard.  Name, Location, and Keyword is good enough for me.

Now it is your turn, what Firefox feature could you live without?

Firefox Facts Bonus!  This morning I installed Intense Debate for FirefoxFacts.com.  I am really excited to see how much better this makes the commenting system here on the web site.  No registration in necessary, but if you do – there are some cool extra features you will get, such as reputation points, comment voting, and tons of other cool things.  (Learn More!)