I use Firefox for about 90% of my overall browser usage experience and periodically discover bugs or strangeness in work, also from time to time I have suggestions for improvement.
So I think that it's useful for Firefox community to know about potential or actual problems. Is there such resource to create quick reports (I'm at work, for example, and haven't enough time for advanced conversations)? What is the easiest way to report bugs and suggest some new ideas? May be there is some addon for this purpose?
Thanks in advance.
Good question! Depending on the problem you are seeing, there are different strategies for efficiently reporting the issue. Efficiency in this case means the reduction of the time that passes from your report to actually get somebody to take a look at it (and then decide what's next).
Here's a set of ways you can use to get in touch with the community (disclaimer: I'm part of it):
- Bugzilla: it's the one stop place for reporting bugs for Firefox. I know it's a bit cryptic at first, and there are plans to improve the bug reporting workflow. There's a comprehensive article on MDN that explains how to write a good bug report that's actually helpful. Don't get mislead by the word "bug": Bugzilla is also used to track the development workflow and discuss enhancements.
- webcompat.com: if you're having problems with a particular website that doesn't get rendered properly, you could still write a bug report in Bugzilla. However, the webcompat website (still supported by Mozilla) is more suited for this kind of things. It also features a downloadable Firefox addon to speed up filing website compatibility issues.
- Github: some components (Testpilot, ...) live on Github rather than in the central Mozilla repository. If you're experiencing issues with them, you could file an issue on the github page for the specific project.
irc.mozilla.org: (discontinued) this chat server allows to get in touch in real-time with the Mozilla community. There are several channels you can hang out in, even using a web-based IRC client. People are usually very willing to help. This is not the best place to report problems, but still a good place to raise awareness about your bug if it doesn't get triaged (i.e. assigned a priority and discussed) within a week or so.- chat.mozilla.org: as of May 2020, this replaced IRC and is the new recommended mechanism for synchronous communications. See the related wiki.
I know that's a lot of info, but it's easier than you think! If you feel like you don't know where to file bugs, just go to Bugzilla. Please do not hesitate to ask if you need more help and.. cheers for willing to report bugs!
Updated May 2020: Added Matrix and marked IRC as discontinued.