Cyberfox and its future direction

[Petrovic]

Quote

Hello, Everyone

When cyberfox started way back in late 2012 there was no foresight as to what it would become today as back then it was a small project for a personal
few to overcome short comings of Firefox, It was released publicly and oddly grew rather steadily beyond what i had imagined for the project. Eventually
getting its own dedicated website and support system the Cyberfox project really started to take off and with it the amount of time and dedication the
project needed to keep going in the direction it was heading. Cost also increased as the project grew and a shared resource system with sourceforge
for open source applications saved so much in terms of CDN costs.

We well, i never wanted money and was not money driven by this project, never receiving any form of money from the project out of principle that
monetizing off of others hard work who contributed to the browsers code didn't feel right in any way. So cyberfox has being funded out of my personal
pocket this whole time, the website 8pecxstudios.com and cyberfox.8pecxstudios.com has a few ad's that were never forced and hardly noticed, these
ad's were added to help generate a small income to combat growing server cost, these ad's were ever very ineffective though helped even with the little
they made. Recently with the deployment of the new internal update system traffic during updates has dropped off by about 80% to the website zeroing
out the ad's generation. This really is not an issue at all as its shown we have made updating much easier for the users which is worth far more.

Over the years the Cyberfox project has grown immensely and its thanks to all the amazing support of our users and has been an amazing couple of 
years this however has demanded far more of my time causing me to drop allot of projects and passions id like to pursue, the time factor this project 
has demanded has also take a toll lifestyle wise as have the changes made by Mozilla requiring more and more time to maintain so its come to a point 
where i recently had to assess the direction of this project and the direction i wish to head for the future. This has being no easy choice and the last 
few months allot of thinking about the direction of this project has taken place.

This project has been amazing no one could ask for a better project or community sadly as much as i love this project my heart is no longer fully in it, 
dreams of pursuing game development were pushed aside and lifestyle steadily declined ultimately slowly coming to this point where changes and 
choices have to be made ones that will affect this project and the future of what i have spent all these years building.

What does this mean, whats going to happen to cyberfox. Well Cyberfox 52.0 lands with some large changes dropping support for Windows Vista and 
switches over to the Firefox 52.0 ESR branch, this means cyberfox will only receive security updates for the next 12 months and no longer be on the 
rapid release schedule, this reduces the browsers maintenance level greatly why is this important, this allows for lifestyle changes and a chance to 
pursue the other directions that were put on hold for the Cyberfox project, how do these changes affect cyberfox well unless certain lifestyle changes 
are made being able to work on the project would become very limited causing a quick end to the project. These other avenues that are being pursued 
are in another development direction and that direction is making paid or applications that generate a revenue source. Sadly funds for the Cyberfox 
project are extremely strained and with my current stance on making any form of money from the browser project being as they are, the remainder 
of the projects funding will end quickly with the coming changes needed to sustain the project at its rapid growth rate. Very large support 
requirement with large amounts everyday in handling user support VIA emails and forums while email support still being the largest requiring 
average 3-6hrs per day 7 days a week most of which if checked the FAQ or read release notes or searched for the answer would drop this by 
half instantly sadly.

Your probably thinking if you need money for the project why not change your stances the quick answer is no, this will never happen in addition to this 
with lifestyle and wanting to continue the project and direction before Cyberfox was born. Even with funding other factors are at play that need to be 
addressed first. This project has grown far beyond anything i could have imagined and its been a very hard choice to make but one that sadly was 
needed. So in short for the next 12 months cyberfox will be on the ESR time line getting security updates at the end of which will likely be the EOL 
(End of life) now that is a long time and factors may change lifestyle wise that will allow the project to continue after the 12 months but at this stage
its (EOL) at the end of the ESR Cycle, now this does not stop anyone from taking the cyberfox source code and re branding it as sadly can't use
our name or trademarks and a 3rd party can take over where we left off.

We thank you greatly for all your support this is a sad choice but one that couldn't be avoided. This has been a very hard choice to make but lifestyle and
future direction changes needed to be made most importantly are the lifestyle changes. Cyberfox is still going to be as great as ever for the ESR cycle.

What does this mean as a Cyberfox user, this means in 12 months you will likely have to find another browser but there still remains an uncertainty that
the browser could continue past this point with a new lease of life but at this stage consider it 12 months to EOL (End of life). Sorry for such a long post
but i felt you all deserved a good explanation about whats happening for the browsers future and its current direction.

 

https://8pecxstudios.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1756

[software182]

RIP CyberFox

[tao]

[No suprise:] Impermanence, (Anicca or Anitya) -- the cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death through which every living thing (material or mental) must pass -- without exception. 

 

 

[pc71520]

 

1 hour ago, Petrovic said:

In 12 months, you will likely have to find another browser

Cyberfox 

 

 

[meohmy]

I like Cyberfox but forewarned is forearmed so have switched back to Waterfox just in case no one decides to maintain it.

[pc71520]

http://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/07/cyberfox-proclaims-death-of-web-browser/