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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

One bug is a "fiasco"? How about the 15 years the web has been set back by supporting broken browsers like IE6? Oh, well at least it starts up quickly...

The real issue here is how hard it is to be a consumer of open source software on Windows. On Debian, if I wanted to fix this, I would just "apt-get source" the relevant package, make the change, and have Debian build me a new package with the fix. On Windows, this is apparently not possible, as there is no package management system to install the compiler and source code for you, and the apps check themselves to make sure that you don't modify them.

(I also like how the virus / spyware situation is so out of hand on Windows that you can't even recompile libraries without your own computer assuming you are hacking yourself. Nice.)

Why do people still use Windows?

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Way to completely miss the point-Windows is NOT stopping him from doing anything-Firefox is. The problem lies within the NSS (security stack) inside of Firefox. NSS is integral to Firefox but is not in the main source-it is a separate project. Firefox checks the binaries when it launches to verify that NSS is a Mozilla signed build. So to build Firefox to fix the problem, you must: Download Firefox source and NSS source Make the fix in the NSS source Edit the Firefox source to remove the Mozilla signed binaries check Build everything and hope it works There are MANY perfectly true complaints about Windows and the Windows software development world-but this is problem is all Firefox.

My grandma hacks debian and changes source code all the time. I don't get why people use Windows either.

This guy is not your grandma. His blog claims he is a "most valuable professional", so executing a Makefile should not be too difficult for him.

I have different expectations for professional programmers than I have for 80-year-old non-programmers.

This guy happens to be a damn good software engineer. He shouldn't have to recompile Firefox to use it. His choice in typography and blog design sucks ass though.

> This guy happens to be a damn good software engineer.

I'd have to agree with that point. I think he pretty much single-handedly wrote LLBLGen Pro, an ORM solution for C# or VB.NET. My company uses it and I personally think it's really quite nice.

He's very good, by reading some of his technical articles, he is very smartand well read. English not his first language obviously.

Funny, my reaction to your statement is, why would anyone use Linux? (as a desktop operating system...)

I'm a pretty good programmer. If I had to change the source on a program to use it, I wouldn't. I have better things to do with my brain cycles, and that's all there is to it.

I think the author addresses that point. You can't fix that bug yourself because the code needs to be signed by Mozilla (security layer).

Well, you have to compile the whole thing, not just replace one library. If you are writing the software, you can remove the signature check, obviously.

When one of the selling point of the update is speed, and you slap a 30 seconds startup penalty for no good reason at all, yeah, its a fiasco.

I was wondering what was taking so damn long to start FF3.5 - on a SSD. I cant imagine ppl on a HD.

It's a bug. Bugs happen. You encounter one, fix it, and then it isn't a bug anymore.

Have you ever written a computer program before?

Some bugs are worse than others - and some bugs are more avoidable than others. This one falls under the category of "who was asleep at the wheel?".

Really? Outsmarting the OS's built-in PRNG by scanning the HDD of all things?

Firefox 3.5 was in beta for months. Why didn't you fix it then?

Oh yeah, it's somebody else's problem. There you go.

It's interesting how no one noticed this during the beta.

Everyone thought it was someone else's problem.

15 years? From 2001 all the way back to 1986.

What browser were you using in 2001 that was better than IE6? Netscape 6?

maybe not a fiasco but a serious bug. Im using IE8 at the moment till a fix appears - it's just faster.

Speed isn't everything. For the love of all web developers everywhere, pick any browser (Safari, Chrome, Opera, or Firefox) and dump IE. We would greatly appreciate it.

I'm not sure when you last used IE but IE8 is as good as the others listed. Their marketing department can suck my ass though.

Im a web developer (sorta).

IE8 is a perfectly good browser :) Ditch Opera PLEASE, they are a pain in the...

(im only kidding Opera is good too)

I just let it start up when I log-in. By the time Outlook and the anti-virus (and, presumably, all the malware that was not caught by either my anti-virus or my IT staff), Firefox will be there too.

In the meantime, I walked the floor, said "good morning" to my co-workers and got a nice warm cup of coffee from the espresso machine.

Could I use Linux, I would have to start working only a couple seconds after my computer was turned on. Think of it as a quality of life issue ;-)

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