Yes. That was a change Mozilla made, a year or two ago. Prior to that change, new features were released less frequently.
The strange thing is to see people saying “Firefox changed too much; I’m going to switch to Chrome”. But the reason Mozilla made the policy change was because Chrome was already changing features more frequently and firefox was being criticized for falling behind.
Just updated Firefox to 24.5 on Evergreen. I see it’s now Firefox ESR, from the Evergreen repo, which I assume has all necessary security patches applied.
Those not liking the latest developments should consider using it. 
Yes. And there was another one, that warned you when you were leaving an encrypted page for an unencrypted page. Not everybody liked that, but some of us used that all the time so we knew we were accidently going where we didn’t want to.
And, another, that warned when a so-called encrypted page was mixed with un-encrypted content.
There is an interesting incident about the latter function.
I no longer recall what year it was, sometime back around 2005 or so, it alerted me to a problem with the online access to Telus Corporation’s client accounts. Telus is one of the largest national telecommunications companies in Canada.
When I explored the problem, then alerted Telus about it, they had to take all client accounts across the nation offline for two or three days until they isolated and patched the problem.
The same thing can happen with online bank access (and has, a couple times).
So, yes, it is an important function. But, I haven’t discovered any of these problems since the function was removed. >:)
So has this all changed yet again then? :\
Not as as obvious as an explicit warning, and ‘after the event’, it’s all combined in the URL bar… (location bar, or whatever that’s now called). How do I tell if my connection to a website is secure? | Firefox Help
And, another, that warned when a so-called encrypted page was mixed with un-encrypted content.
I was under the impression that mixed content blocking was the default since v23 of FF. Mixed Content Blocking Enabled in Firefox 23! | Tanvi Vyas
I find that less useful than the old warnings.
For example, on the current page, I see a gray warning triangle. That mozilla page mentions an orange warning triangle, but not a gray one. Maybe it is supposed to be orange, but that color doesn’t show up well on this display. And that’s part of the problem with the the colored icon way of giving information.
On 2014-05-10 19:46, consused wrote:
> Just updated Firefox to 24.5 on Evergreen. I see it’s now Firefox ESR,
> from the Evergreen repo, which I assume has all necessary security
> patches applied.
Yes, Evergreen intentionally uses FF ESR.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On 2014-05-10 19:26, nrickert wrote:
> The strange thing is to see people saying “Firefox changed too much; I’m
> going to switch to Chrome”. But the reason Mozilla made the policy
> change was because Chrome was already changing features more frequently
> and firefox was being criticized for falling behind.
I don’t find it strange at all.
Some people want fast change and new features, others want no change,
stable features. If you cater only for one group, you get grumbles from
the other.
The solution is to provide a version “on the edge”, and another
“stable”, the ESR, at the same time, so that each group chooses.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
I wonder what the ESR release will be when 13.1 becomes Evergreen wrt to maintenance. I’m assuming they will need ESR >=29, or maintain to whatever is the “current” Firefox.
tannington wrote:
>
> I like software that’s functional, does the task required. The ability
> to change the look and feel of the UI is also quite high on my list of
> priorities. I’ve possibly been using Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape, whatever,
> for too long. Trouble is, I’m definitely a look and feel Luddite, due
> to my age I expect ;)…
>
> I was not looking forward to the Australis interface. – It was with
> great trepidation that I clicked “Accept” when the upgrade came through.
> Having first ensured a complete backup of ~/.mozilla was safely
> squirrelled away; starting Firefox I fully expected to find a few
> extensions not compatible; and, visually, rather a mess. I’d been
> following the thread over on “Mozillazine” for the “Classic Theme
> Restorer” quite closely, anticipating this would be the first “new”
> extension to be installed.
>
> So, what actually happened? – Much to my surprise :O…
>
> Firefox started, spat it’s dummy out because of only one extension
> (Movable Firefox Button), then looked almost the same as it previously
> had done. Quite amazing, I’d retained my existing prefs.js,
> userChrome.css and localstore.rdf files. Apart from a couple of minor
> things in userChrome it was happy with those. Then spent some minutes
> rearranging a few icons and I was almost a happy bunny! I use the
> “Vertical Tab Style” extension, which must take most of the credit for
> the look and feel remaining almost unchanged.
>
> I’ve subsequently installed the “Classic Toolbar Buttons” extension,
> (safely ignore the warning “not available for your platform”) which has
> restored some sanity to the icons in terms of image and colour.
> Deleted localstore.rdf and allowed it to be rebuilt, was it worth it(?),
> it went from ~90k to 6.7k. I like to tell myself there was a marginal
> performance improvement, :\ (there wasn’t).
>
> Just thought I’d share. – So any other Luddites out there who’re
> hanging back, go on, give it a go. 
>
>
I think all of those who don’t like UI to change every now and then
should shift to SeaMonkey.SeaMonkey has old-school looks and has gecko
under the hood (the same thing that firefox runs on) and almost all the
security features from Fx flow into SeaMonkey as they run on same
platform. Also SeaMonkey is actively maintained in “OBS”
–
GNOME 3.10.2
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.11.6-4-desktop
On 2014-05-11 12:46, consused wrote:
>> Yes, Evergreen intentionally uses FF ESR.
> I wonder what the ESR release will be when 13.1 becomes Evergreen wrt to
> maintenance. I’m assuming they will need ESR >=29, or maintain to
> whatever is the “current” Firefox.
I guess they may wait till the next ESR is released, then switch to it.
Going back a few numbers to the current ESR may break existing profiles.
Someone with 11.4 evergreen can examine the /var/log/history file to
find what updates were done to FF. Or have a look at the versions in the
EG repo…
Wait… I still have that file here, this laptop was on 11.4 evergreen.
This was the history:
> 2012-10-21 03:46:20|install|MozillaFirefox|16.0.1-41.1|x86_64||repo-update|
> 2012-11-05 18:23:14|install|MozillaFirefox|16.0.2-45.1|x86_64||repo-update|
> 2012-11-28 14:42:48|install|MozillaFirefox|17.0-49.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2012-12-12 02:18:33|install|MozillaFirefox|17.0.1-53.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-01-19 12:31:34|install|MozillaFirefox|18.0-57.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-02-25 22:46:24|install|MozillaFirefox|19.0-61.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-03-13 00:22:52|install|MozillaFirefox|19.0.2-65.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-04-05 23:00:47|install|MozillaFirefox|20.0-69.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-06-01 16:26:20|install|MozillaFirefox|21.0-75.2|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-07-12 19:27:31|install|MozillaFirefox|22.0-79.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-08-25 20:57:05|install|MozillaFirefox|23.0-83.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-10-01 22:24:30|install|MozillaFirefox|24.0-87.3|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2013-11-13 02:11:09|install|MozillaFirefox|24.1.0-91.1|x86_64||EVG_update|
> 2014-01-05 20:35:35|install|MozillaFirefox|25.0-1.1|x86_64||openSUSE-13.1-1.10|
> 2014-01-06 17:06:40|install|MozillaFirefox|26.0-4.2|x86_64||repo-update|
I don’t know which are the ESR :-? Maybe they started later than when I
upgraded to 13.1.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
I doubt it. Back up the profile first, though, just to be certain.
However, I share the same profile between the ESR in Windows, the ESR in openSUSE, and the latest FF also on openSUSE, as well as the latest FF on another Linux distro. The only thing I have seen so far is that when you switch to the different profile, it acts like it is a new install (“Welcome to Firefox” or so on) and scans your add-ons for compatibility. If you have a lot of add-ons, you might have one or two that get disabled on the earlier version, but they will be re-enabled when you return to the newer version.
But, I always keep extra profile backups around, just in case. They also come in handy when some annoying “enhancement” (I use the word quite loosely, here!) pops in, usually in Windows snuck in unrequested as part of some other desired application you want.
Restore profile, gone again.
Well my experience of FF29 is that it is truly awful. Why don’t they call it what it is, Firefox Chrome and be done with it.
It wiped out 1/2 of my addons, and tabs on top, please. Just no.
This Australis UI, what’s that all about? About as much use as the godawful persona rubbish they brought out.
I have reverted to 28, and locked it. I have been using FF since 1 but now, sorry no more, they had something good but
they have killed it for me so I’ll be looking for a new browser or hope that someone cleverer than I can fork FF and turn
it back to what it should be.
Of course, I still have it on my Evergreen and will check when I get there later.
On 2014-05-13 09:06, Dwarfer99 wrote:
> they have killed it for me so I’ll be looking for a new browser or hope
> that someone cleverer than I can fork FF and turn
> it back to what it should be.
Try FF ESR, or Seamonkey instead.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
I don’t know either, but my /var/log/history confirms:
2012-11-02 14:38:08|install|MozillaFirefox|16.0.2-45.1|x86_64||Updates_for_openSUSE_11.4
...
2012-11-25 13:06:52|install|MozillaFirefox|17.0-49.1|x86_64||Evergreen
...
It then went 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.0, 24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.4
...
2014-05-10 17:05:24|install|MozillaFirefox|24.5.0-111.1|x86_64||Evergreen
Perhaps 24.1 was the first ESR, but it’s a guess?
Not so much a guess since ESR 24.1 could relate to Firefox 25, then ESR 24.5 would compare with Firefox 29, which it did wrt timing and hopefully security fixes.
As I said, I use the ESR. But, eventually, the ESR (currently version 24.5 as of the date of this post) will be bumped up to that level, as well.
That is when I will have to decide whether I continue with Firefox or switch.
Umm, perhaps in Evergreen?
But I have been running it a lot earlier version than that.
It is in the openSUSE Mozilla repositories.
Of course!
The whole idea of ESR was so large corporations or entities could continue to run the same version across all their machines without having to run around upgrading each and every one every few days, yet still get all the security fixes at the same time as the bleeding edge.
ESR stands for Extended Service Release, of course.
Yes in Evergreen, since it may give a clue as to what might happen wrt Firefox when 13.1 goes to Evergreen for extended maintenance. If it also goes ESR, would it then be to an ESR version that had acquired the new UI? I would hope so.