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Firefox 53: Quantum Compositor, Compact Themes, CSS Masks
- frik 9y agoAs much as I like Firefox. It is now on a cross road. For debugging development purposes I am keeping a version now for older dev plugins that never got a proper replacement, and aren't compatible with the newer API and newer will be (because the API is so much less powerful, good for noobs / bad for power user). And I can't wait until Servo gets more stable and feature complete. I am thinking about a Vivaldi browser like HTML5 based UI based on Servo web engine, instead of blink - that would be the ideal next-gen Firefox reboot! (Firefox/Firebird/forgotthename was initially a leaner fork of the "bloated" MozillaSuite, in the meantime Firefox got so much more bloated than the still maintained MozillaSuite (now called SeaMonkey, based on recent gecko engine)).
- interfixus 9y agoMy Pale Moon (Linux) clocks in at around 200Mb less than latest Firefox. It's faster, too. And runs the addons I want it to run. Not going back.
- hsivonen 9y agoHow well is Pale Moon patching disclosed Firefox vulnerabilities?
- interfixus 9y agoProbably not as well as a whole, large, dedicated corporation-like setup a la Mozilla. On the other hand, it's not moving absurdly fast and breaking things as a matter of policy like recent Firefox is. With sensible browsing habits and a very conservative use of js, I'm confident enough, day to day.
- BuuQu9hu 9y agoI expect very well. The devs are VERY security focused if you spend time reading their changelogs.
- hackuser 9y ago> I can't wait until Servo gets more stable and feature complete Parts of Servo are being migrated to Firefox. IIRC, Quantum Compositor, mentioned in the blog post, is one of them - you can start using it today! http://jensimmons.com/post/jan-4-2017/replacing-jet-engine-while-still-flying http://jensimmons.com/post/jan-4-2017/replacing-jet-engine-w...
- mccr8 9y agoQuantum Compositor is just a separate process for GPU stuff. It isn't ported from Servo.
- hackuser 9y agoIt's the same name as the Servo porting project. I could see that creating the separate process is a first step and involves no Servo code as of yet, but how do you know either way?
- dblohm7 9y agomccr8 is a Mozilla engineer.
- BuuQu9hu 9y agoIt's literally ported from Servo. > The goal of the Quantum Render project is to take the WebRender compositor in Servo and embed it in Firefox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/Quantum_Render https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/Quantum_Render
- dblohm7 9y agoThat's Quantum Render, not Quantum Compositor.
- hackuser 9y agoThe meaning of "Quantum" is a bit confusing. I thought it was only Servo ports, but after I read your post I looked around and found this. I guess it's any improvement to Gecko? "Quantum has a number of components, including several adopted from the Servo project." https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/a-quantum-leap-for-the-web-a3b7174b3c12 https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/a-quantum-leap-for-the-web-a...
- kyriakos 9y agoFlow root. How did that take so long to become available?
- progx 9y agoThank god that we get masks on the internet in 2017 and must not wait 10 years more ;) Many bloated png can now retire.
- callahad 9y agoFirefox and Chrome shipped it today: http://caniuse.com/#feat=flow-root http://caniuse.com/#feat=flow-root ...and now begins the indeterminate wait for Edge and Safari :)
- givemefive 9y agoCookie containers are a feature that I really like a lot. The problem is the UX for them is terrible. There are no keybinds and they only show up in one place in the interface. I wanted to add keybinds but I found this very difficult.
- milescrabill 9y agoRelevant discussion here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245262 and here: https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/119 https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot-containers/issues/119.
- dstaley 9y agoWhenever a new Firefox release drops, my favorite thing to do is to see if this (now ten-year-old) bug [0] is finally fixed. Spoiler: it isn't. This bug (and many others similar to it) are one of the main reasons I dislike using Firefox. It just feels out of place on macOS. I'm fine with non-native UI elements as long as they're not elements as fundamental as the select dropdown and the right-click menu. Edit: Turns out this bug has been fixed, but only if you have Electrolysis [1] enabled [2]. [0] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402625 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402625 [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402625#c32 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=402625#c32
- Dylan16807 9y agoYour standard of quality is whether a web page looks like it's not a web page?
- kuschku 9y agoThe standard of quality is if you can build applications that behave as if they were native with a browser. Considering stuff like Electron and co, that's not an unusual request.
- Dylan16807 9y agoDo people actually make web pages that try to look native to the OS they're loaded on? That is a lot of effort to reimplement GUI toolkits and I can't think of anything I've seen that does it. I'd say the real way to look native in firefox involves XUL, even if it is getting removed.
- kuschku 9y agoWell, considering the web is replacing native toolkits more and more, there better be, eh? Either you can build something looking native in the web languages, or Electron and co habe failed already.
- mrspeaker 9y agoI love the compact themes - it always unreasonably annoyed me how much vertical space the browser chrome "wastes"!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- quadrige 9y agoI love it too, excellent feature!
- nvr219 9y agoI switched to Chrome in 2016 because I needed to easily switch between multiple profiles. With Firefox I have to launch with a command line switch. :(
- milescrabill 9y agoYou should check out Container tabs in Firefox: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec.... It's like per-tab profiles, no need for multiple copies of the browser, etc. Totally changed the way I deal with sites I need multiple accounts for (like AWS). You can use Containers in Nightly or via the Containers Testpilot experiment here: https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/. disclaimer: I work for Mozilla
- reitanqild 9y agoI love it although now that I have a Mozilla employee here I should mention that: - it seems to be missing features when running with Tab Tree - the ux of Mozilla vertical tabs experiment is weird and IMO bad. And I rarely complain about UX. The problem is: the tab bar goes up on the side of the awesomebar and slides it back and forth as the tab panel expands and goes back. I have reported this but so far nobody seems to care. Another small thing: I more or less love Firefox in general <3
- Manishearth 9y ago> and slides it back and forth as the tab panel expands and goes back. There's a "pin" button there that keeps it open. I know, this doesn't fix your problem, but I and everyone I've seen using it uses the pin button, and IMO it's a much better experience :) I've noticed that on most high-end laptops websites have way too much blank space on the side margins so pinning a useful tab bar in that space works fine.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- TekMol 9y agoStill no hardware accelerated video for Linux :( Everytime Firefox releases something I am reminded of this: https://xkcd.com/619/ https://xkcd.com/619/
- s_kilk 9y agoI wonder if this is why battery and heat are so bad with Firefox on my Ubuntu 16.04 box? I've switched away to chromium because of the sheer difference in battery drain. (And no, it's not a plugin that's causing the problem)
- zlynx 9y agoAre you letting random advertising Javascript run? I don't. Noscript disables most of that. My experience is that Chrome uses more battery than my Firefox, by a lot. Of course, Chrome is what I use when I just want a site to work, not have to wonder if I turned on enough Javascript.
- Jerry2 9y agoIf you watch a lot of Youtube, force the video to MP4 so your graphics card can decode it in hardware. Youtube defaults to VP9 but gfx cards rarely support that codec. Google's wasting a lot of battery life by pushing VP9 onto everyone.
- mrec 9y agoI'm not at all convinced about making the general user choose between 32- and 64-bit versions at installation, given that even techies disagree on the relative merits [1]. (Sometimes with themselves [2].) If the system only supports one or the other, the installer should be able to work that out. If it supports both, the installer should at least give some hints as to what the tradeoffs are. [1] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ricom/2015/12/29/revisiting-64-bit-ness-in-visual-studio-and-elsewhere/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ricom/2015/12/29/revisiting... [2] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ricom/2016/01/04/64-bit-visual-studio-the-pro-64-argument/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ricom/2016/01/04/64-bit-vis...
- callahad 9y agoThe bitness choice (and that entire screenshotted dialog) is only present if you select "Advanced Options" in the bottom left of the installer's first screen, it's not something that we force every user through.
- mrec 9y agoAh, OK, that makes more sense. Thanks. What's the default if you don't select "Advanced Options", btw?
- callahad 9y agoWe're still defaulting to 32-bit on systems where both are supported, but we hope to default to 64-bit around Firefox 55. We had to delay this due to issues with Flash, sandboxing, and Farmville 2: https://bugzil.la/1317995 https://bugzil.la/1317995 The tracking bug for making 64-bit the default is https://bugzil.la/1340936 https://bugzil.la/1340936
- jbicha 9y agoSo I can blame Farmville for Firefox not being 64-bit by default on Windows? :)
- fiatjaf 9y agoThe storage.sync API allows add-ons to save user preferences to Firefox Sync, where it can be shared and synchronized between devices. Now all Chrome Extensions automatically work on Firefox.
- pmezard 9y agoThat's fairly nice now Firefox extensions stopped working in Firefox.
- rhelmer 9y agoLegacy Firefox extensions still work in this release, it is 57 that will be WebExtension-only.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- erikdesjardins 9y agoNot entirely, there are still some APIs that are unimplemented in Firefox[1]. But yes, adding storage.sync will help a lot. [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Br...
- pkrumins 9y agoAnd, as always, I just added Firefox 53 to Browserling. You can try this new version at this URL without installing or updating it: https://www.browserling.com/firefox/53/news.ycombinator.com https://www.browserling.com/firefox/53/news.ycombinator.com I've a bunch of VMs available for free testing. If there are too many people wanting to try it, then you'll have to wait in a queue for a few minutes.
- symlinkk 9y agojust fyi you can access the filesystem with file:/// URLs, and I was able to run arbitrary programs.
- pkrumins 9y agoYup. That's a feature. Run any app on any platform in your browser. That's where I'm taking Browserling. We've a bunch of users already running all kinds of software in their browsers so rather than restricting VMs, I'm opening them up. These are throw away VMs anyway, once the session is up, VM is gone.
- stuaxo 9y agoAh, back in the day I had Netscape setup to launch exes in DOSEmu.
- noja 9y agoYou can use old unpatched versions of Firefox...
- Manishearth 9y agoThis site is really cool! I work on browsers and often need to test things in IE (to see how behavior of a web feature differs across browsers) and hate booting up VMs :)
- pkrumins 9y agoThank you!
- kreetx 9y agoHa, what unexpected Rickroll! :D
- callahad 9y agoOh no! That actually should've worked as described (not auto-playing until you switch tabs), but it looks like auto-play suppression is in 54, not 53. Sorry :( https://bugzil.la/1308154 https://bugzil.la/1308154
- shmerl 9y agoWhen is it coming to Linux? And is it going to use Vulkan eventually?
- brymaster 9y agoMedia playback on new tabs is blocked until the tab is visible ^^ That feature was in the Beta release notes but didn't seem to make it into 53 release...disappointing because it appears to work great in Beta/Developer Edition. Can anyone from Mozilla explain why it was scrapped?
- callahad 9y agoThe main bug is at https://bugzil.la/1308154 https://bugzil.la/1308154. Looks like it's scheduled for Firefox 54 and was accidentally included in the 53 relnotes.
- Zekio 9y agoBest feature for me is the themes from developer edition, so now I can finally stop using the the developer edition just for the themes