> "have you reported a bug so that there's any hope whatsoever of someone fixing it?"
The average user probably wouldn't wanna bother with the process of reporting (and I sure don't either):
1. find the place to report it (so googling "report bug Firefox", going to a Mozilla help page that goes to Bugzilla)
2. make an account
2.1 enter an email
2.2 verify the email
2.3 come up with a password that fits the requirements
3. read the bug writing guidelines
4. actually reporting the bug
4.1 selecting Firefox
4.2 describing the bug
4.3 find out if its already reported or not
4.4 selecting version, writing a summary, steps to reproduce, actual results, expected results.
4.5 potentially needing to provide additional information that might not be easy for a user to get (e.g. stack trace, output of about:memory, profiling)
versus just... not using Firefox, it's just not easy enough in my opinion, I know on crashes, you get a popup where you can just write a short summary and it'll automatically send some of the information to Mozilla though.
And then there is the issue of project maintainers actually accepting a proper and well-built bug report.
I can’t remember which one it was, but years back I found a bug in some open-source project. Made a bug report with all the information, steps to reproduce (full workflow, with expected and actual results), screenshots, the works. Essentially the GOLDEN STANDARD for a bug report. Everything they could possibly be needed to investigate it.
My report was closed with the comment, “did not provide the location in the code where the bug occurred”.
Like, WTF?? That’s not a part of a bug report, THAT’S YOUR JOB!!
I ended up just uninstalling the software, as that bug interfered with what I was doing and there were other options out there.
The average user probably wouldn't wanna bother with the process of reporting (and I sure don't either):
1. find the place to report it (so googling "report bug Firefox", going to a Mozilla help page that goes to Bugzilla)
2. make an account
2.1 enter an email
2.2 verify the email
2.3 come up with a password that fits the requirements
3. read the bug writing guidelines
4. actually reporting the bug
4.1 selecting Firefox
4.2 describing the bug
4.3 find out if its already reported or not
4.4 selecting version, writing a summary, steps to reproduce, actual results, expected results.
4.5 potentially needing to provide additional information that might not be easy for a user to get (e.g. stack trace, output of about:memory, profiling)
versus just... not using Firefox, it's just not easy enough in my opinion, I know on crashes, you get a popup where you can just write a short summary and it'll automatically send some of the information to Mozilla though.