Firefox remove version number
Mozilla, reported on its bug track board, is looking at removing the version number shown in 'About window'.
The feedback on the board provides a useful commentary why people want 'version number' to remain
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Another evidence issue to consider if you quote version numbers in your reports.
Seems like there will still be an internal number that you can get from the aboutsupport URL.
It is just proposed that the number will be hidden from the about window. But as there are very few supporters of the idea, it might not happen, or get reversed.
IMHO it is a dumb idea.
What a daft proposed change!
The update procedure for Firefox automatically starts to update when 'About Firefox' dialogue box is opened anyway. There is no written statement that is immediately seen upon opening the dialogue box about Firefox searches for updates every eg 20-mins. So if a non-technical user opens this dialogue box and Firefox starts to search and then downloads a newer version or update the user sees the current version at that time eg 5.0. The download is then received. Without doing anything the user then decides to close Firefox altogether. The next time the or a user opens Firefox it updates with the new download whether that user wants that to happen or not. The user can then go to that dialogue box see Firefox on version 6.0.
aboutsupport doesn't inform the user of the previous version of Firefox that was being used, nor a date when a change took place.
A cursory investigation into the 'Open Containing Folder' really doesn't assist the non-technical user.
So apart from the value that About Firefox provides to a user indicating the current version number, it may not be entirely helpful if Firefox gets updated by another user which is not informed to any other user of changes that have occurred (if you get my drift).
Maybe this might be a reason for the suggested change? Daft, dumb and dumber may equally apply to the suggested change.
Obviously of no use to a non-technical user, but in the user's application data folder (on my XP machine that's "[user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox" ) there's an XML file called "updates.xml" which lists all previous updates to the Firefox installation.
It gives the date of each update (useful!), the version number, a status message (mostly just saying that it was successful) and helpfully a url to that version's release notes!
This is list is perhaps nothing new to many of you but I thought I would add a list of the Firefox 'about' URLs for anyone who may not be familiar with them.
about
aboutabout
aboutaddons
aboutbuildconfig
aboutcache
aboutconfig
aboutcrashes
aboutcredits
abouthome
aboutlicense
aboutlogo
aboutmemory
aboutmozilla
aboutpermissions
aboutplugins
aboutprivatebrowsing
aboutrights
aboutrobots
aboutsessionrestore
aboutsupport
aboutsync-log
aboutsync-log.1
aboutsync-tabs
