16 ms·

Firefox 50.0

384 points by conductor 10y ago

digi_owl 10y ago
> View a page in Reader Mode by using Ctrl+Alt+R (command+alt+r on Mac) Took them bloody long enough. Now if only i was not stuck on ESR because GTK3...
- aban 10y ago
  If you want to avoid GTK3 and you're on Arch, there's a firefox-gtk2 [0] AUR package that compiles Firefox against GTK2 only. [0]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-gtk2 https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-gtk2
  - dbl9 10y ago
    My local cairo-gtk2 build of Firefox 49 reliably crashes anytime you try to use the GTK file dialog. Does it work for you (arch or gentoo)?
    - greendragon 10y ago
      After almost a decade of building Firefox from source I finally bit the bullet to switch to a precompiled binary last month. It's fixed all the issues that have started to crop up but leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
      - dbl9 10y ago
        I had been using their binaries due to security updates and having to build at inopportune times for an hour or three (depending on machine), but like I wrote in a sibling comment, enabling the cairo-gtk2 backend resulted in crashes when trying to select a file with the gtk file dialog. So I bit the bullet and am struggling with the drawing regressions of GTK3.
    - aban 10y ago
      That's interesting. I've been happily using firefox-gtk2 and it's been working quite reliably. Not only I haven't had any issues with it so far, it even looks better than Arch's official package (that's built with gtk3). The issues have been present with gtk >= 3.20, and they should be fixed with release 50 and 51: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1266914 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1266914 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1264079 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1264079
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > Now if only i was not stuck on ESR because GTK3... What's the issue with GTK3?
  - dbl9 10y ago
    GTK3 itself has various regressions and is slower than GTK2 despite the architectural refactoring lending itself to a snappier experience. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771708 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771708 Firefox GTK3 has regressions too, for instance the bookmark manager not remembering where you were last which works with Firefox ESR (GTK2). https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267863 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267863 Also GTK3's file dialog is subjectively a huge regression, but others may prefer it, just like Apple's finder changed over time. I still haven't figured out how dconf and gconf work with GTK3, not using GNOME3 as a desktop. There are more issues with GTK3 but these are the most visible for those of us who don't use GTK3 regularly as part of GNOME3 and have been forced to use it via Firefox. The way I read the GTK3 bugreport it seems like the devs don't test GTK3 outside GNOME3 and hence do not consider it a priority. That one dev has been stressing that a compositor is needed and multiple answers by the reporter that they're using a compositor seem to be missed during reading on the other side. It's a weird exchange. I'm with the reporter. If GTK3 is not supposed to or not tested outside GNOME3, then this should be communicated so that everyone can make an informed decision to use something else or revive the Firefox Qt toolkit code.
    - jhoechtl 10y ago
      Serious comment:why bother with gtk anyhow and move to Qt?
      - dbl9 10y ago
        I love GTK2, but I can do without GTK3, seeing we're at 3.22 and it's still not as stable or regression free as GTK2. I'd be the first to build and use a Firefox where the Qt port was updated and made to work but GTK is the GUI toolkit used by Firefox outside Android, macOS and Windows. That said, GTK2 was and still is very good at what it does. It just works but doesn't support Wayland. I cannot move to Wayland anyway until xterm or rxvt-unicode are ported since XWayland integration is still imperfect. Like they wrote in the bug report, while GTK2 doesn't have a Wayland backend, GTK3's backend isn't really production quality either with dialogs sometimes opting to zoom out rather than scale out or general stability issues. If you try to start Firefox under Wayland by telling GDK to use Wayland, it just crashes on startup.
- tetromino_ 10y ago
  If you have a hard requirement to use a thoroughly obsolete GUI toolkit, you can for now fairly easily compile your own copy of Firefox for GTK2; it takes around 30-40 minutes on a laptop with a Core i5. (On Gentoo, there is a USE flag for it.)
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    If it is that bloody simple, why can't Mozilla be bothered to provide an official download?!
    - kbenson 10y ago
      Possibly for the same reason they don't ship Tk compiled versions. Why should they target every GUI toolkit and complicate their build process which they then have to deal with supporting? If it's that easy, you can probably find some third party that compiles and offers it. I'm not sure why you think Firefox needs to do it themselves.
      - greendragon 10y ago
        I think the third party situation is unlikely, unless they're shipping a fork like IceWeasel or stripping out all branding information. At the end of the compilation process in Gentoo it helpfully tells you (if you enabled the Firefox Branding) that you cannot legally redistribute a branded version of Firefox.
      - dbl9 10y ago
        For the same reason they haven't made 64-bit the default on Windows and provide two versions. There are many users for whom only one variant works reliably. If upstream, like in the case of cairo-gtk3, decides GTK2 is not supported anymore, it's a matter of chance whether your cairo-gtk2 build of Firefox works at all. For instance, for me 49.0.2 gtk2 local build on Arch crashes anytime I try to use the file dialog, while of course the file dialog of both GTK2 and GTK3 doesn't crash in other gtk apps on the same machine. Somebody requested this and the reality has been ignored so far: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1268234 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1268234
- alphapapa 10y ago
  It's fairly simple to build Firefox with Gtk2. There are some instructions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5b0vtd/howto_build_firefox_49_with_gtk2_in_debianubuntu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5b0vtd/howto_build_f...
silverwind 10y ago
Also to note: Firefox can now upload directories. Granted, it's done by mimicking Webkit APIs, but that has the advantage that existing sites work without changes.
- Nadya 10y ago
  I was confused by what this meant - so perhaps some others are too. This is what a few minutes of research got me: Uploading individual files in a directory = was possible Uploading an entire directory (eg: a folder to a cloud storage service) = was not possible Personally my workflow means I've uploaded the contents of a directory to a directory I make myself, so I've never encountered the problem. Am I missing something or was that right? Example of error: http://superuser.com/questions/909112/does-firefox-support-folder-upload http://superuser.com/questions/909112/does-firefox-support-f...
  - pitaj 10y ago
    You can't upload subdirectories, so it quickly becomes painful to upload an entire directory of files if it has multiple folders within.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      Outside of my personal use cases but I can definitely see how many, if not even most, people would need that at some point. :) Thanks for the response!
      - nicky0 10y ago
        Another reason is on macOS where many file formats are actually directory based. (Called 'packages', they are actually structured directories with a metadata bit set.) For example the RTFD format. This is a rich text document with embedded images. It is actually implemented as a folder containing a RTF file and the images. In the Mac GUI however it appears to be a regular file. Attempting to upload it on the web would fail without the ability to upload directories. This may well explain why WebKit (being from Apple) was the first to implement this. I bet they needed it for their iCloud web app versions of Pages, Keynote etc.
severine 10y ago
So can I sync the reading list and use it later offline, both on desktop or mobile? I've looked for the reading list in about:about but I can't seem to find it.
hprotagonist 10y ago
Breaks NoScript on launch day. That was an unpleasant surprise this morning...
- meZee 10y ago
  Any reason you prefer NoScript to uBlock Origin's script blocker? Just curious...
  - nine_k 10y ago
    ...or uMatrix with its fine-grained control.
  - a1a 10y ago
    I don't think they are comparable. I run both. NoScript is a security suite – besides blocking java, webgl, flash, silverlight, javascript, etc – it has additional defenses against XSS, ABE, clickjacking etc. uBlock was to my knowledge never developed to securely stop scripts and deter drive-by attacks etc. It should be used for adblocking, not for security.
    - basilm 10y ago
      I switched to google chrome (Version 54.0.2840.98 (64-bit) today and was sad when I couldn't find Noscript on chrome extensions store. But then I found uMatrix (by the author of ublock origin). I think uMatrix is almost close to Noscript security suite (no xss, abe, clickjack protection though). But I still have firefox (this latest update) running side. I wish firefox would hardcode ublock origin + noscript into its core. So users can have all the privacy and safety by default. Most people in my town don't even understand what plugins are. But I try to install these two plugins for anyone who asks me for help. I also educate them by talking about these security techniques.
  - noisem4ker 10y ago
    The fact that NoScript supports script surrogates might be a reason. That means less websites will break when not enabling scripts that are expected but not really necessary. http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/noscript-script-surrogates-explained/ http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/noscript-script-surrogates-... >When you visit a site in Firefox that loads the Google Analytics script on page load, NoScript intercepts that request and replaces it automatically with the replacement instructions (which basically tell the site that the Analytics script was loaded fine but does nothing in regards to user recording).
kardos 10y ago
The bottom of the page says "Congrats! You’re using the latest version of Firefox.", but Firefox's About Firefox box says 49.0.2...
- chucksmash 10y ago
  Are you browsing with Firefox for Android? If you click the "Android" tab, it still links to the 49.0.2 release notes.
  - kardos 10y ago
    Ah, they've updated the page, now it's a "Download" button.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
arkitaip 10y ago
Not much for users but devs can expect lots of changes https://developer.mozilla.org/sv-SE/Firefox/Releases/50#Changes_for_Web_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/sv-SE/Firefox/Releases/50#Chan...
spacehacker 10y ago
Obligatory "does it break Tree Style Tabs?" comment.
- audessuscest 10y ago
  I'm using nightly version 53 and Tree Style Tabs works fine
  - baby 10y ago
    Using nightly here and it's kind of buggy. New tabs don't appear unless I click on them, and the very first tab is overflowing on my bookmark bar
- kylek 10y ago
  You might want to check out Test Pilot and the Tab Center addon : https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center Unfortunately it is very slow compared to Tree Style Tabs if you have a considerable amount of tabs open (even using extensions like auto-unload, it is very very slow). Hope it gets fixed because I would _love_ a built-in vertical tab feature.
  - glandium 10y ago
    I have hundreds of tabs open, and use Tab Center, and I haven't experienced it being slow. However, past a number of tabs (enough to fill the "tab bar" vertically), it doesn't show thumbnails, maybe that's the difference?
    - ovibos 10y ago
      On my machine (Intel Celeron, 8g RAM) it's noticeably slower than TST even with only 50 or so tabs
    - tousif1988 10y ago
      I used to have those kinds of hundreds of tabs in multiple windows until I found Onetab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ Still using Tree style tabs for their sub tabs feature which helps keeping things organised for me.
conductor 10y ago
Regarding the new Referrer-Policy header introduction, what happens when my network.http.sendRefererHeader is 0, network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer is false and some website sets a Referrer-Policy: "unsafe-url" header? Which setting has the priority?
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  The logic is basically like so: 1) Is the site requesting a "no-referrer" policy? Then send no referer. 2) Is network.http.sendRefererHeader set to a value that would prevent sending of referrer in this situation (e.g. 0 in all situations)? Then send no referrer. 3) All the other logic (but generally aiming to follow the most restrictive directive we have). The "network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer" still exists in 50, but is gone in 52; see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308725 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308725
  - conductor 10y ago
    Thanks for clarifying, that's logical of course (user preferences should have priority).
bnmillar 10y ago
>"Added a built-in Emoji set for operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux)" Jesus Christ why, just why. I'm so done with Mozilla. Please tell me there is an alternative to this nightmare that is freedom respecting (so nothing related to Google).
- sctb 10y ago
  > Jesus Christ why, just why. I'm so done with Mozilla. I'm afraid "just why" is not enough. Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - superkuh 10y ago
    I imagine he actually meant that Firefox/Chrome/etc are prioritizing a different demographic of users now than they used to. Both are becoming more of an OS in which you run web "apps" rather than just a browser to display and read webpages. Web apps need a consistent base set of features that may not exist on all OS platforms. By providing it internally they signal who and what the browsers are designed for. Other people might consider these features bloat. To answer his legitimate question: try Pale Moon. It's a browser that respects your freedom and does not include bloat.
    - uabstraction 10y ago
      Qutebrowser is also worth checking out. I haven't really given it a full blown test drive yet, but it's certainly less bloated than Firefox and Chrome, and has Vim-like keybindings.
      - elkos 10y ago
        I've vim keybindings on my Firefox through a plug-in... I almost forget I have a mouse
        10y ago
Aardwolf 10y ago
"Set a preference to have Ctrl+Tab cycle through tabs in recently used order " Finally something that is an actually improved UI feature! Not some "removed status bar and instead hover its info over text you want to read sometimes" or "moved refresh button to different place than before just to annoy you" or similar thing :)
- dbl9 10y ago
  I'm glad you like it. This is one of those personal UX preferences that has you either one or the other camp. Am I right to assume you liked this from your past Opera use?
  - Aardwolf 10y ago
    Actually I like it from IDE's and text editors :) As well as the alt+tab desktop behaviour
  - Washuu 10y ago
    I was excited to sudden see this surprise in the patch notes, now I am the opposite here thinking, "How did they mess up such a simple feature?" The preview bar that pop ups is slow to work and actively delays changing tabs.(If it even attempts to switches tabs.) Additionally, I do not need the preview portion. FLST: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fww-flst/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fww-flst/ It just works. Tab switching is instant, no unnecessary preview, and it has never messed up remembering tab order.
    - dbl9 10y ago
      I'm with you and cannot stand the way Opera does it but it also has a quick tab switching mode. I haven't encountered a single switch-with-preview implementation that didn't leave me with forced slowdown and delay of the action I was about to do. I also configure Firefox to not close the window when it's the last tab, which is hard-to-impossible to emulate in Chrome but is the default in Opera and Vivaldi.
- ht85 10y ago
vdnkh 10y ago
Any firefox devs here? You guys broke your own VTT polyfill with this update: https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/issues/354 https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/issues/354 Only reason I'm mentioning it here is that it looks like the repo is dead.
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  I'm making some inquiries. It looks like the old code just ended up setting "position" to 0 when an object was assigned, while the new code (correctly per spec) throws. The real bug is assigning an object to a non-object-valued property...
  - vdnkh 10y ago
    Here it is: https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/pull/355 https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/pull/355
    - bzbarsky 10y ago
      Thank you!
  - vdnkh 10y ago
    Excellent, thanks a lot! If I find a fix I'll PR it
dbl9 10y ago
Did something change in font rendering with Freetype on Linux? While 49.0.2 with FreeType 2.7 looked the best (subjectively) I've seen any font rendering (including Windows 10 and OS X Snow Leopard (been a while)), something off with 50.0's rendering. I haven't enabled any custom render options, just your typical archlinux freetype 2.7 desktop. Time to get ESR and compare with that but would be great to hear back from others with a similar environment.
- foepys 10y ago
  Freetype 2.7 introduced a new rendering engine. I cannot link anything at the moment but the Arch Forums have pretty detailed help.
  - dbl9 10y ago
    I love 2.7's rendering engine and 49.0.2 looked great, but 50.0 looks washed out. Tried ESR 45.5.0 and it looks great again. I'm confused as to what may have happened from 49 to 50 that caused this.
    - dbl9 10y ago
      Built 50.0 with cairo-gtk2 backend using it right now but something different with the font rendering in 50.0. For instance there's a weird washed-out effect of the text in this very same text control I'm writing the comment in which comes and goes with the amount of text changing/wrapping etc.
      - Figs 10y ago
        Can you post a screenshot?
        dbl9 10y ago
        Sorry I can't because it's something that happens and doesn't stay. If you run Firefox 50 on Arch Linux, you will see what I mean.
anonymousab 10y ago
I was hoping that the new tab spinner problems would be addressed in 50. Oh well.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
criddell 10y ago
I wanted to try reader mode, so I went to a random Atlantic article (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/better-off-before-obamacare/507650/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/better-of...) and hit ctrl-alt-r. The graph related to the story was dropped. Would that be a bug, or is that how reader mode is supposed to work? I don't have the equivalent Evernote plug-in anymore (I'm trying to get away from Evernote), so I have nothing to compare it to.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  You can report a bug in Firefox Reader Mode here. Identifying the "important" content on a page is a hard problem. :) FWIW, Safari's Reader Mode doesn't include the article's graphs or pictures either. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Toolkit&component=Reader%20Mode https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Toolkit&c...
  - criddell 10y ago
    I just wasn't sure if the image being removed is by design. I found another article where it leaves the author photo but removes the main article photo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-camerons-wizardry-and-britains-uncertain-future/2015/05/10/cee108aa-f5d4-11e4-84a6-6d7c67c50db0_story.html?hpid=z2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-camerons-wizar...) so I believe it is a bug. BTW, I think this bug covers the issue (it's where I got the WP link from): https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/219 https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/219 Edit: Actually, this is a better bug report: https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/299 https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/299
  - shostack 10y ago
    I've noticed this behavior with things like Pocket as well. Is there any evidence you've found of any publishers intentionally trying to load assets in a way that would break with this because it is stripping some ad impressions?
    - criddell 10y ago
acqq 10y ago
Still relatively slow startup, even on my quite powerful computer (i7, SSD, 8GB RAM, the second start, everything already cached in RAM, no add-ons or extensions but the defaults, no sessions restored, open to empty tab) I have at least a whole second during which I don't see that the program is starting. At least visibly better than the 49.
- TheDong 10y ago
  Firefox's reproducible automated testing begs to differ https://arewefastyet.com/ https://arewefastyet.com/
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    None of the tests there are startup time.
- flukus 10y ago
  Of all the things to optimize, especially on the "modern" web, I doubt startup time is anywhere near the top.
  - acqq 10y ago
    May be, but this one is what matters to me, and I report it.
adolfoabegg 10y ago
- Added Guarani (gn) locale :) Thank you
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Tereiko porãke! Rojhayhû. ;)
chris_wot 10y ago
What are people's opinions of it's developer tools features compared to Chrome? in particular, how does it compare in terms of running a HTTP trace?
bearcobra 10y ago
If they could just add a decent profile management option, I would switch back from Chrome. Keeping my work and personal accounts separated is the only thing keeping me using that battery killer
- ovibos 10y ago
  What's wrong with `firefox -P`?
  - drdaeman 10y ago
    Compared to Chrome profiles, it's much less usable in regard to launcher icons and window management. There are workarounds (system-specific), but none I saw worked as nice as Chrome's implementation. Container tabs are (IMHO) better than Chrome profiles, because they don't require one to have a separate window just to open a single site.
  - Max_Mustermann 10y ago
    You can also run several profiles in parallel with the no-remote flag.
  - odbol_ 10y ago
    You mean compared to just right clicking the top right corner in Chrome? A lot.
- asutherland 10y ago
  If you're willing to try Firefox Nightly, check out the containers experiment: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... While everything still happens within a single profile, sites in different containers get different storage (cookies, localStorage, IndexedDB, etc.) and cannot see each other.
  - bearcobra 10y ago
    That looks way more powerful than what Chrome is doing. I'll give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion
CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2016-89/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2016-8... PSA: Please update immediately. One of these is critical.
heinrich5991 10y ago
>Added download protection for a large number of executable file types on Windows, Mac and Linux It seems archives (such as .bz2, .gz) are treated as executable files. What is the reason for that? https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/054d4856cea6/toolkit/components/downloads/ApplicationReputation.cpp#l424 https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/054d4856cea6/too...
- jimminy 10y ago
  My best guess would be that there is still some risk with these archive types since the browser-client has built in automatic decompression for them.
aidanhs 10y ago
"CVE-2016-5292: URL parsing causes crash" made me curious, given the talk I've heard about rust-url being integrated into Firefox. For anyone else interested, it appears that the patch is still being reviewed - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1151899 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1151899 (though I don't know if rust-url would have actually prevented the issue).
baby 10y ago
Still no tabs on the left.
- kibwen 10y ago
  https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center
  - elkos 10y ago
    And works like a charm
  - flukus 10y ago
    Thanks. The tab handling is the only reason I still use chrome.
    - baby 10y ago
      Chrome has tab on the side now?
      - flukus 10y ago
        No, but I like the way it handles tabs much better than firefox and last time I looked into it, it was pretty cumbersome to customize firefox this way. Plus it has to be done on every machine. This extension is even better IMO. And so far I'm enjoying having better tab handling and a much faster browser.
        baby 10y ago
        I don't understand how can one browse internet with tab not on the side :|
  - baby 10y ago
    Wow, I'm so happy right now. It doesn't seem to handle parents/children though. (nesting tabs)
doytch 10y ago
JS source maps support is a big one for devs. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/50#Changes_for_Web_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/50#Chan...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
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mwexler 10y ago
Don't see too many programs going to version 50 these days. Kudos to the team that keeps improving it.
- username223 10y ago
  With an aggressively "encouraged" monthly version treadmill, it's less impressive than it might look. If Linux used the same type of software force-feeding, it would be well past version 200 by now.
  - TD-Linux 10y ago
    Er... Linux does use a similar time-based release schedule now, and the minor number has been reset a couple of times to keep it from "getting too high".
- pryelluw 10y ago
  A version 2.0 is a feat these days. Reaching 50.0 is amazing.
rxlim 10y ago
I started using Mozilla Firefox 1.04 many years ago. Everytime a new update was released I was so excited to install it, as the browser became better and better with each update. I remember when Firefox 2.0 was released and I could not wait for it to be available in the Debian package repository, because it was such a big improvement. Now I absolutely HATE when a update is released, because either functionality is removed, appearance is changed or even more bloat has been added. Firefox itself has become the problem it tried to solve.
- broodbucket 10y ago
  What in this release would you class as functionality removal, appearance changes or added bloat?
  - rxlim 10y ago
    This is in the the bloat category: Added a built-in Emoji set for operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux)
    - cpeterso 10y ago
      Do you prefer that web pages using Emoji not render as expected for people on Linux and Windows XP/Vista/7/8?
    - broodbucket 10y ago
      Do you think that's a useless feature though? Seeing squares all over the internet isn't exactly a good experience, finding the right font sets to fix your emoji problem can be tricky on Linux too EDIT: just got the update and it a) fixed some emojis I somehow didn't have, namely "thinking face", which is of course critically important and b) made the rest look a lot livelier.
      - flukus 10y ago
        I'll take squares over emojis any day.
pmoriarty 10y ago
I'm in the process of switching to Pale Moon because Firefox is making changes that will break Pentadactyl.
- eriknstr 10y ago
  Are the Pale Moon guys able to keep up with the ever evolving web standards? Do complex websites work as expected in Pale Moon?
- Manishearth 10y ago
  Are you sure that this is the case? There's a lot of misinformation out there about Firefox's extension changes. I don't know about Pentadactyl, but Firefox should continue to support APIs providing equivalent functionality for most plugins. They will have to transition, but they won't be irreparably broken.
thewhitetulip 10y ago
I find that Firefox has a considerable lag on Macbook 2012 compared to Safari. I wish that would change because I love firefox and don't want to use Safari but Safari is just nimble
- beedogs 10y ago
  I had to stop using Firefox, because the 64-bit version apparently exists only to consume all of the memory on my PCs, not just some of it, like the 32-bit builds would. I'm using Iron Browser now, which has its own issues, but which at least handles a hefty amount of tabs and some essential extensions without destroying system performance.
  - thewhitetulip 10y ago
    I use firefox on android and sadly, I have to use firefox on desktop too because of bookmark/history sync, despite the fact that it is slow.
michalstanko 10y ago
It's great that Firefox finally has this option and I'm surprised that so many people dislike it; it's the single most important feature why Opera is my default browser. I guess the reason why it's confusing to people is that Firefox (just like Sublime) doesn't have that little popup displaying a list of tabs while switching, it would make all the difference in the user experience, and make things clear.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

384 points by conductor 10y ago

> View a page in Reader Mode by using Ctrl+Alt+R (command+alt+r on Mac) Took them bloody long enough. Now if only i was not stuck on ESR because GTK3...

aban 10y ago
If you want to avoid GTK3 and you're on Arch, there's a firefox-gtk2 [0] AUR package that compiles Firefox against GTK2 only. [0]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-gtk2 https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firefox-gtk2
- dbl9 10y ago
  My local cairo-gtk2 build of Firefox 49 reliably crashes anytime you try to use the GTK file dialog. Does it work for you (arch or gentoo)?
  - greendragon 10y ago
    After almost a decade of building Firefox from source I finally bit the bullet to switch to a precompiled binary last month. It's fixed all the issues that have started to crop up but leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
    - dbl9 10y ago
      I had been using their binaries due to security updates and having to build at inopportune times for an hour or three (depending on machine), but like I wrote in a sibling comment, enabling the cairo-gtk2 backend resulted in crashes when trying to select a file with the gtk file dialog. So I bit the bullet and am struggling with the drawing regressions of GTK3.
  - aban 10y ago
    That's interesting. I've been happily using firefox-gtk2 and it's been working quite reliably. Not only I haven't had any issues with it so far, it even looks better than Arch's official package (that's built with gtk3). The issues have been present with gtk >= 3.20, and they should be fixed with release 50 and 51: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1266914 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1266914 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1264079 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1264079
JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Now if only i was not stuck on ESR because GTK3... What's the issue with GTK3?
- dbl9 10y ago
  GTK3 itself has various regressions and is slower than GTK2 despite the architectural refactoring lending itself to a snappier experience. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771708 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771708 Firefox GTK3 has regressions too, for instance the bookmark manager not remembering where you were last which works with Firefox ESR (GTK2). https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267863 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267863 Also GTK3's file dialog is subjectively a huge regression, but others may prefer it, just like Apple's finder changed over time. I still haven't figured out how dconf and gconf work with GTK3, not using GNOME3 as a desktop. There are more issues with GTK3 but these are the most visible for those of us who don't use GTK3 regularly as part of GNOME3 and have been forced to use it via Firefox. The way I read the GTK3 bugreport it seems like the devs don't test GTK3 outside GNOME3 and hence do not consider it a priority. That one dev has been stressing that a compositor is needed and multiple answers by the reporter that they're using a compositor seem to be missed during reading on the other side. It's a weird exchange. I'm with the reporter. If GTK3 is not supposed to or not tested outside GNOME3, then this should be communicated so that everyone can make an informed decision to use something else or revive the Firefox Qt toolkit code.
  - jhoechtl 10y ago
    Serious comment:why bother with gtk anyhow and move to Qt?
    - dbl9 10y ago
      I love GTK2, but I can do without GTK3, seeing we're at 3.22 and it's still not as stable or regression free as GTK2. I'd be the first to build and use a Firefox where the Qt port was updated and made to work but GTK is the GUI toolkit used by Firefox outside Android, macOS and Windows. That said, GTK2 was and still is very good at what it does. It just works but doesn't support Wayland. I cannot move to Wayland anyway until xterm or rxvt-unicode are ported since XWayland integration is still imperfect. Like they wrote in the bug report, while GTK2 doesn't have a Wayland backend, GTK3's backend isn't really production quality either with dialogs sometimes opting to zoom out rather than scale out or general stability issues. If you try to start Firefox under Wayland by telling GDK to use Wayland, it just crashes on startup.
tetromino_ 10y ago
If you have a hard requirement to use a thoroughly obsolete GUI toolkit, you can for now fairly easily compile your own copy of Firefox for GTK2; it takes around 30-40 minutes on a laptop with a Core i5. (On Gentoo, there is a USE flag for it.)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  If it is that bloody simple, why can't Mozilla be bothered to provide an official download?!
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Possibly for the same reason they don't ship Tk compiled versions. Why should they target every GUI toolkit and complicate their build process which they then have to deal with supporting? If it's that easy, you can probably find some third party that compiles and offers it. I'm not sure why you think Firefox needs to do it themselves.
    - greendragon 10y ago
      I think the third party situation is unlikely, unless they're shipping a fork like IceWeasel or stripping out all branding information. At the end of the compilation process in Gentoo it helpfully tells you (if you enabled the Firefox Branding) that you cannot legally redistribute a branded version of Firefox.
    - dbl9 10y ago
      For the same reason they haven't made 64-bit the default on Windows and provide two versions. There are many users for whom only one variant works reliably. If upstream, like in the case of cairo-gtk3, decides GTK2 is not supported anymore, it's a matter of chance whether your cairo-gtk2 build of Firefox works at all. For instance, for me 49.0.2 gtk2 local build on Arch crashes anytime I try to use the file dialog, while of course the file dialog of both GTK2 and GTK3 doesn't crash in other gtk apps on the same machine. Somebody requested this and the reality has been ignored so far: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1268234 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1268234
alphapapa 10y ago
It's fairly simple to build Firefox with Gtk2. There are some instructions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5b0vtd/howto_build_firefox_49_with_gtk2_in_debianubuntu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/5b0vtd/howto_build_f...

silverwind 10y ago

Also to note: Firefox can now upload directories. Granted, it's done by mimicking Webkit APIs, but that has the advantage that existing sites work without changes.

Nadya 10y ago
I was confused by what this meant - so perhaps some others are too. This is what a few minutes of research got me: Uploading individual files in a directory = was possible Uploading an entire directory (eg: a folder to a cloud storage service) = was not possible Personally my workflow means I've uploaded the contents of a directory to a directory I make myself, so I've never encountered the problem. Am I missing something or was that right? Example of error: http://superuser.com/questions/909112/does-firefox-support-folder-upload http://superuser.com/questions/909112/does-firefox-support-f...
- pitaj 10y ago
  You can't upload subdirectories, so it quickly becomes painful to upload an entire directory of files if it has multiple folders within.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    Outside of my personal use cases but I can definitely see how many, if not even most, people would need that at some point. :) Thanks for the response!
    - nicky0 10y ago
      Another reason is on macOS where many file formats are actually directory based. (Called 'packages', they are actually structured directories with a metadata bit set.) For example the RTFD format. This is a rich text document with embedded images. It is actually implemented as a folder containing a RTF file and the images. In the Mac GUI however it appears to be a regular file. Attempting to upload it on the web would fail without the ability to upload directories. This may well explain why WebKit (being from Apple) was the first to implement this. I bet they needed it for their iCloud web app versions of Pages, Keynote etc.

severine 10y ago

So can I sync the reading list and use it later offline, both on desktop or mobile? I've looked for the reading list in about:about but I can't seem to find it.

hprotagonist 10y ago

Breaks NoScript on launch day. That was an unpleasant surprise this morning...

meZee 10y ago
Any reason you prefer NoScript to uBlock Origin's script blocker? Just curious...
- nine_k 10y ago
  ...or uMatrix with its fine-grained control.
- a1a 10y ago
  I don't think they are comparable. I run both. NoScript is a security suite – besides blocking java, webgl, flash, silverlight, javascript, etc – it has additional defenses against XSS, ABE, clickjacking etc. uBlock was to my knowledge never developed to securely stop scripts and deter drive-by attacks etc. It should be used for adblocking, not for security.
  - basilm 10y ago
    I switched to google chrome (Version 54.0.2840.98 (64-bit) today and was sad when I couldn't find Noscript on chrome extensions store. But then I found uMatrix (by the author of ublock origin). I think uMatrix is almost close to Noscript security suite (no xss, abe, clickjack protection though). But I still have firefox (this latest update) running side. I wish firefox would hardcode ublock origin + noscript into its core. So users can have all the privacy and safety by default. Most people in my town don't even understand what plugins are. But I try to install these two plugins for anyone who asks me for help. I also educate them by talking about these security techniques.
- noisem4ker 10y ago
  The fact that NoScript supports script surrogates might be a reason. That means less websites will break when not enabling scripts that are expected but not really necessary. http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/noscript-script-surrogates-explained/ http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/noscript-script-surrogates-... >When you visit a site in Firefox that loads the Google Analytics script on page load, NoScript intercepts that request and replaces it automatically with the replacement instructions (which basically tell the site that the Analytics script was loaded fine but does nothing in regards to user recording).

kardos 10y ago

The bottom of the page says "Congrats! You’re using the latest version of Firefox.", but Firefox's About Firefox box says 49.0.2...

chucksmash 10y ago
Are you browsing with Firefox for Android? If you click the "Android" tab, it still links to the 49.0.2 release notes.
- kardos 10y ago
  Ah, they've updated the page, now it's a "Download" button.
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arkitaip 10y ago

Not much for users but devs can expect lots of changes https://developer.mozilla.org/sv-SE/Firefox/Releases/50#Changes_for_Web_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/sv-SE/Firefox/Releases/50#Chan...

spacehacker 10y ago

Obligatory "does it break Tree Style Tabs?" comment.

audessuscest 10y ago
I'm using nightly version 53 and Tree Style Tabs works fine
- baby 10y ago
  Using nightly here and it's kind of buggy. New tabs don't appear unless I click on them, and the very first tab is overflowing on my bookmark bar
kylek 10y ago
You might want to check out Test Pilot and the Tab Center addon : https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center Unfortunately it is very slow compared to Tree Style Tabs if you have a considerable amount of tabs open (even using extensions like auto-unload, it is very very slow). Hope it gets fixed because I would _love_ a built-in vertical tab feature.
- glandium 10y ago
  I have hundreds of tabs open, and use Tab Center, and I haven't experienced it being slow. However, past a number of tabs (enough to fill the "tab bar" vertically), it doesn't show thumbnails, maybe that's the difference?
  - ovibos 10y ago
    On my machine (Intel Celeron, 8g RAM) it's noticeably slower than TST even with only 50 or so tabs
  - tousif1988 10y ago
    I used to have those kinds of hundreds of tabs in multiple windows until I found Onetab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ Still using Tree style tabs for their sub tabs feature which helps keeping things organised for me.

conductor 10y ago

Regarding the new Referrer-Policy header introduction, what happens when my network.http.sendRefererHeader is 0, network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer is false and some website sets a Referrer-Policy: "unsafe-url" header? Which setting has the priority?

bzbarsky 10y ago
The logic is basically like so: 1) Is the site requesting a "no-referrer" policy? Then send no referer. 2) Is network.http.sendRefererHeader set to a value that would prevent sending of referrer in this situation (e.g. 0 in all situations)? Then send no referrer. 3) All the other logic (but generally aiming to follow the most restrictive directive we have). The "network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer" still exists in 50, but is gone in 52; see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308725 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308725
- conductor 10y ago
  Thanks for clarifying, that's logical of course (user preferences should have priority).

bnmillar 10y ago

>"Added a built-in Emoji set for operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux)" Jesus Christ why, just why. I'm so done with Mozilla. Please tell me there is an alternative to this nightmare that is freedom respecting (so nothing related to Google).

sctb 10y ago
> Jesus Christ why, just why. I'm so done with Mozilla. I'm afraid "just why" is not enough. Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- superkuh 10y ago
  I imagine he actually meant that Firefox/Chrome/etc are prioritizing a different demographic of users now than they used to. Both are becoming more of an OS in which you run web "apps" rather than just a browser to display and read webpages. Web apps need a consistent base set of features that may not exist on all OS platforms. By providing it internally they signal who and what the browsers are designed for. Other people might consider these features bloat. To answer his legitimate question: try Pale Moon. It's a browser that respects your freedom and does not include bloat.
  - uabstraction 10y ago
    Qutebrowser is also worth checking out. I haven't really given it a full blown test drive yet, but it's certainly less bloated than Firefox and Chrome, and has Vim-like keybindings.
    - elkos 10y ago
      I've vim keybindings on my Firefox through a plug-in... I almost forget I have a mouse
      - 10y ago

Aardwolf 10y ago

"Set a preference to have Ctrl+Tab cycle through tabs in recently used order " Finally something that is an actually improved UI feature! Not some "removed status bar and instead hover its info over text you want to read sometimes" or "moved refresh button to different place than before just to annoy you" or similar thing :)

dbl9 10y ago
I'm glad you like it. This is one of those personal UX preferences that has you either one or the other camp. Am I right to assume you liked this from your past Opera use?
- Aardwolf 10y ago
  Actually I like it from IDE's and text editors :) As well as the alt+tab desktop behaviour
- Washuu 10y ago
  I was excited to sudden see this surprise in the patch notes, now I am the opposite here thinking, "How did they mess up such a simple feature?" The preview bar that pop ups is slow to work and actively delays changing tabs.(If it even attempts to switches tabs.) Additionally, I do not need the preview portion. FLST: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fww-flst/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fww-flst/ It just works. Tab switching is instant, no unnecessary preview, and it has never messed up remembering tab order.
  - dbl9 10y ago
    I'm with you and cannot stand the way Opera does it but it also has a quick tab switching mode. I haven't encountered a single switch-with-preview implementation that didn't leave me with forced slowdown and delay of the action I was about to do. I also configure Firefox to not close the window when it's the last tab, which is hard-to-impossible to emulate in Chrome but is the default in Opera and Vivaldi.
ht85 10y ago

vdnkh 10y ago

Any firefox devs here? You guys broke your own VTT polyfill with this update: https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/issues/354 https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/issues/354 Only reason I'm mentioning it here is that it looks like the repo is dead.

bzbarsky 10y ago
I'm making some inquiries. It looks like the old code just ended up setting "position" to 0 when an object was assigned, while the new code (correctly per spec) throws. The real bug is assigning an object to a non-object-valued property...
- vdnkh 10y ago
  Here it is: https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/pull/355 https://github.com/mozilla/vtt.js/pull/355
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    Thank you!
- vdnkh 10y ago
  Excellent, thanks a lot! If I find a fix I'll PR it

dbl9 10y ago

Did something change in font rendering with Freetype on Linux? While 49.0.2 with FreeType 2.7 looked the best (subjectively) I've seen any font rendering (including Windows 10 and OS X Snow Leopard (been a while)), something off with 50.0's rendering. I haven't enabled any custom render options, just your typical archlinux freetype 2.7 desktop. Time to get ESR and compare with that but would be great to hear back from others with a similar environment.

foepys 10y ago
Freetype 2.7 introduced a new rendering engine. I cannot link anything at the moment but the Arch Forums have pretty detailed help.
- dbl9 10y ago
  I love 2.7's rendering engine and 49.0.2 looked great, but 50.0 looks washed out. Tried ESR 45.5.0 and it looks great again. I'm confused as to what may have happened from 49 to 50 that caused this.
  - dbl9 10y ago
    Built 50.0 with cairo-gtk2 backend using it right now but something different with the font rendering in 50.0. For instance there's a weird washed-out effect of the text in this very same text control I'm writing the comment in which comes and goes with the amount of text changing/wrapping etc.
    - Figs 10y ago
      Can you post a screenshot?
      - dbl9 10y ago
        Sorry I can't because it's something that happens and doesn't stay. If you run Firefox 50 on Arch Linux, you will see what I mean.

anonymousab 10y ago

I was hoping that the new tab spinner problems would be addressed in 50. Oh well.

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criddell 10y ago

I wanted to try reader mode, so I went to a random Atlantic article (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/better-off-before-obamacare/507650/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/better-of...) and hit ctrl-alt-r. The graph related to the story was dropped. Would that be a bug, or is that how reader mode is supposed to work? I don't have the equivalent Evernote plug-in anymore (I'm trying to get away from Evernote), so I have nothing to compare it to.

cpeterso 10y ago
You can report a bug in Firefox Reader Mode here. Identifying the "important" content on a page is a hard problem. :) FWIW, Safari's Reader Mode doesn't include the article's graphs or pictures either. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Toolkit&component=Reader%20Mode https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Toolkit&c...
- criddell 10y ago
  I just wasn't sure if the image being removed is by design. I found another article where it leaves the author photo but removes the main article photo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-camerons-wizardry-and-britains-uncertain-future/2015/05/10/cee108aa-f5d4-11e4-84a6-6d7c67c50db0_story.html?hpid=z2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-camerons-wizar...) so I believe it is a bug. BTW, I think this bug covers the issue (it's where I got the WP link from): https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/219 https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/219 Edit: Actually, this is a better bug report: https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/299 https://github.com/mozilla/readability/issues/299
- shostack 10y ago
  I've noticed this behavior with things like Pocket as well. Is there any evidence you've found of any publishers intentionally trying to load assets in a way that would break with this because it is stripping some ad impressions?
  - criddell 10y ago

acqq 10y ago

Still relatively slow startup, even on my quite powerful computer (i7, SSD, 8GB RAM, the second start, everything already cached in RAM, no add-ons or extensions but the defaults, no sessions restored, open to empty tab) I have at least a whole second during which I don't see that the program is starting. At least visibly better than the 49.

TheDong 10y ago
Firefox's reproducible automated testing begs to differ https://arewefastyet.com/ https://arewefastyet.com/
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  None of the tests there are startup time.
flukus 10y ago
Of all the things to optimize, especially on the "modern" web, I doubt startup time is anywhere near the top.
- acqq 10y ago
  May be, but this one is what matters to me, and I report it.

adolfoabegg 10y ago

- Added Guarani (gn) locale :) Thank you

DonHopkins 10y ago
Tereiko porãke! Rojhayhû. ;)

chris_wot 10y ago

What are people's opinions of it's developer tools features compared to Chrome? in particular, how does it compare in terms of running a HTTP trace?

bearcobra 10y ago

If they could just add a decent profile management option, I would switch back from Chrome. Keeping my work and personal accounts separated is the only thing keeping me using that battery killer

ovibos 10y ago
What's wrong with `firefox -P`?
- drdaeman 10y ago
  Compared to Chrome profiles, it's much less usable in regard to launcher icons and window management. There are workarounds (system-specific), but none I saw worked as nice as Chrome's implementation. Container tabs are (IMHO) better than Chrome profiles, because they don't require one to have a separate window just to open a single site.
- Max_Mustermann 10y ago
  You can also run several profiles in parallel with the no-remote flag.
- odbol_ 10y ago
  You mean compared to just right clicking the top right corner in Chrome? A lot.
asutherland 10y ago
If you're willing to try Firefox Nightly, check out the containers experiment: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec... While everything still happens within a single profile, sites in different containers get different storage (cookies, localStorage, IndexedDB, etc.) and cannot see each other.
- bearcobra 10y ago
  That looks way more powerful than what Chrome is doing. I'll give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion

CiPHPerCoder 10y ago

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2016-89/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2016-8... PSA: Please update immediately. One of these is critical.

heinrich5991 10y ago

>Added download protection for a large number of executable file types on Windows, Mac and Linux It seems archives (such as .bz2, .gz) are treated as executable files. What is the reason for that? https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/054d4856cea6/toolkit/components/downloads/ApplicationReputation.cpp#l424 https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/054d4856cea6/too...

jimminy 10y ago
My best guess would be that there is still some risk with these archive types since the browser-client has built in automatic decompression for them.

aidanhs 10y ago

"CVE-2016-5292: URL parsing causes crash" made me curious, given the talk I've heard about rust-url being integrated into Firefox. For anyone else interested, it appears that the patch is still being reviewed - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1151899 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1151899 (though I don't know if rust-url would have actually prevented the issue).

baby 10y ago

Still no tabs on the left.

kibwen 10y ago
https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/tab-center
- elkos 10y ago
  And works like a charm
- flukus 10y ago
  Thanks. The tab handling is the only reason I still use chrome.
  - baby 10y ago
    Chrome has tab on the side now?
    - flukus 10y ago
      No, but I like the way it handles tabs much better than firefox and last time I looked into it, it was pretty cumbersome to customize firefox this way. Plus it has to be done on every machine. This extension is even better IMO. And so far I'm enjoying having better tab handling and a much faster browser.
      - baby 10y ago
        I don't understand how can one browse internet with tab not on the side :|
- baby 10y ago
  Wow, I'm so happy right now. It doesn't seem to handle parents/children though. (nesting tabs)

doytch 10y ago

JS source maps support is a big one for devs. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/50#Changes_for_Web_developers https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/50#Chan...

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mwexler 10y ago

Don't see too many programs going to version 50 these days. Kudos to the team that keeps improving it.

username223 10y ago
With an aggressively "encouraged" monthly version treadmill, it's less impressive than it might look. If Linux used the same type of software force-feeding, it would be well past version 200 by now.
- TD-Linux 10y ago
  Er... Linux does use a similar time-based release schedule now, and the minor number has been reset a couple of times to keep it from "getting too high".
pryelluw 10y ago
A version 2.0 is a feat these days. Reaching 50.0 is amazing.

rxlim 10y ago

I started using Mozilla Firefox 1.04 many years ago. Everytime a new update was released I was so excited to install it, as the browser became better and better with each update. I remember when Firefox 2.0 was released and I could not wait for it to be available in the Debian package repository, because it was such a big improvement. Now I absolutely HATE when a update is released, because either functionality is removed, appearance is changed or even more bloat has been added. Firefox itself has become the problem it tried to solve.

broodbucket 10y ago
What in this release would you class as functionality removal, appearance changes or added bloat?
- rxlim 10y ago
  This is in the the bloat category: Added a built-in Emoji set for operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux)
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    Do you prefer that web pages using Emoji not render as expected for people on Linux and Windows XP/Vista/7/8?
  - broodbucket 10y ago
    Do you think that's a useless feature though? Seeing squares all over the internet isn't exactly a good experience, finding the right font sets to fix your emoji problem can be tricky on Linux too EDIT: just got the update and it a) fixed some emojis I somehow didn't have, namely "thinking face", which is of course critically important and b) made the rest look a lot livelier.
    - flukus 10y ago
      I'll take squares over emojis any day.

pmoriarty 10y ago

I'm in the process of switching to Pale Moon because Firefox is making changes that will break Pentadactyl.

eriknstr 10y ago
Are the Pale Moon guys able to keep up with the ever evolving web standards? Do complex websites work as expected in Pale Moon?
Manishearth 10y ago
Are you sure that this is the case? There's a lot of misinformation out there about Firefox's extension changes. I don't know about Pentadactyl, but Firefox should continue to support APIs providing equivalent functionality for most plugins. They will have to transition, but they won't be irreparably broken.

thewhitetulip 10y ago

I find that Firefox has a considerable lag on Macbook 2012 compared to Safari. I wish that would change because I love firefox and don't want to use Safari but Safari is just nimble

beedogs 10y ago
I had to stop using Firefox, because the 64-bit version apparently exists only to consume all of the memory on my PCs, not just some of it, like the 32-bit builds would. I'm using Iron Browser now, which has its own issues, but which at least handles a hefty amount of tabs and some essential extensions without destroying system performance.
- thewhitetulip 10y ago
  I use firefox on android and sadly, I have to use firefox on desktop too because of bookmark/history sync, despite the fact that it is slow.

michalstanko 10y ago

It's great that Firefox finally has this option and I'm surprised that so many people dislike it; it's the single most important feature why Opera is my default browser. I guess the reason why it's confusing to people is that Firefox (just like Sublime) doesn't have that little popup displaying a list of tabs while switching, it would make all the difference in the user experience, and make things clear.

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