What's the future of Firefox?
I take care of 5 systems for this household. Two Windoze 10, one Vista, and two Ubuntu 14.04.
We currently use SeaMonkey, but Sync (ESSENTIAL to us) hasn't worked for literally years, and other things are dragging, including requests for help and info.
My real questions are: 1) Is sync currently working well? 2) Is there anything in the crystal ball that might hamper or destroy sync in ANY foreseeable future? 3) Four of the five systems are 64 bit, one is 32 bit. The Ubuntu systems are one each 32 and 64 bit.
- A) I presume 64 and 32 bit installations get along together, and have transparent user interfaces as to bitness. Is this true?
- B) Are there both 64 bit and 32 bit Ubuntu installations?
- C) Besides bitness, what are the differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions?
4) I guess all the synced items will transfer to FireFox from SeaMonkey?
5) What other problems might I encounter with FireFox that I don't see in SeaMonkey?
6) Is FireFox planned to be supported indefinitely?
Thanks!
Formatting ~m
Modified by Moses
Chosen solution
Hi Roger,
I'll do my best to answer your questions.
1) Is sync currently working well?
You can check the status of Mozilla's Cloud Service by visiting https://status.services.mozilla.com/. As of this message, Firefox Sync is operating normally.
2) Is there anything in the crystal ball that might hamper or destroy sync in ANY foreseeable future?
I haven't heard of any news recently that would indicate Sync would be shut down. Sync is still actively maintained by Mozilla.
3) Four of the five systems are 64 bit, one is 32 bit. The Ubuntu systems are one each 32 and 64 bit. A) I presume 64 and 32 bit installations get along together, and have transparent user interfaces as to bitness. Is this true?
Yes, 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Firefox have the same user interfaces on Windows and the same goes for Ubuntu.
B) Are there both 64 bit and 32 bit Ubuntu installations?
I'm afraid I don't understand this question. Could you clarify? If you are asking if there are both 32 and 64 bit versions of Firefox available for Linux, then the answer is yes.
C) Besides bitness, what are the differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions?
For me, I don't see a huge difference. But your mileage may vary. One difference I notice though is if you use Firefox in a very heavy way with 100s of tabs and you notice high memory issues. The 64 bit version is able to use more memory (over 4GB) past the 32 bit limitation of 4GB.
4) I guess all the synced items will transfer to FireFox from SeaMonkey?
No. If you have set up two accounts (one in Seamonkey and one in Firefox) in Sync, then the individual bookmarks in Firefox & Seamonkey will stay in their own individual servers. Firefox & Seamonkey use different sync servers.
6) Is FireFox planned to be supported indefinitely?
Mozilla plans to release Firefox well into the version 50+. There are no plans to stop developing Firefox as it is Mozilla's flagship product.
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Chosen Solution
Hi Roger,
I'll do my best to answer your questions.
1) Is sync currently working well?
You can check the status of Mozilla's Cloud Service by visiting https://status.services.mozilla.com/. As of this message, Firefox Sync is operating normally.
2) Is there anything in the crystal ball that might hamper or destroy sync in ANY foreseeable future?
I haven't heard of any news recently that would indicate Sync would be shut down. Sync is still actively maintained by Mozilla.
3) Four of the five systems are 64 bit, one is 32 bit. The Ubuntu systems are one each 32 and 64 bit. A) I presume 64 and 32 bit installations get along together, and have transparent user interfaces as to bitness. Is this true?
Yes, 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Firefox have the same user interfaces on Windows and the same goes for Ubuntu.
B) Are there both 64 bit and 32 bit Ubuntu installations?
I'm afraid I don't understand this question. Could you clarify? If you are asking if there are both 32 and 64 bit versions of Firefox available for Linux, then the answer is yes.
C) Besides bitness, what are the differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions?
For me, I don't see a huge difference. But your mileage may vary. One difference I notice though is if you use Firefox in a very heavy way with 100s of tabs and you notice high memory issues. The 64 bit version is able to use more memory (over 4GB) past the 32 bit limitation of 4GB.
4) I guess all the synced items will transfer to FireFox from SeaMonkey?
No. If you have set up two accounts (one in Seamonkey and one in Firefox) in Sync, then the individual bookmarks in Firefox & Seamonkey will stay in their own individual servers. Firefox & Seamonkey use different sync servers.
6) Is FireFox planned to be supported indefinitely?
Mozilla plans to release Firefox well into the version 50+. There are no plans to stop developing Firefox as it is Mozilla's flagship product.
Modified by Moses