17 ms·

Firefox 54: E10S-Multi, WebExtension APIs, CSS Clip-Path

335 points by petercooper 9y ago

Lev1a 9y ago
So when is it actually the stable release? The updater inside FF says 53.0.3 is the most recent version and all the DL links point to that version as well. Edit (11 minutes after writing original comment): now it provides the update through the "in-app" updater.
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  They use staged roll-outs for new releases, so it could take several days to show up
  - insertnickname 9y ago
    How is that responsible when v54 fixed several security problems? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-15/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-1...
    - norswap 9y ago
      Maybe because there's always the potential that a new version may contain an even bigger bombshell?
    - bitJericho 9y ago
      Because a problematic upgrade could harm or brick every user it rolls out to.
      - insertnickname 9y ago
        But is that a greater risk than millions running a known-vulnerable browser?
        bitJericho 9y ago
        Not a single one of those shows a vulnerability. Every one says the bug "could be" exploitable. All software has potential vulnerabilities. The trick is to roll out completely before they become actually vulnerable. That doesn't mean you have to roll out dangerously quickly.
        lizzard 9y ago
        There are times when we update users as fast as possible, but that's fairly rare and happens only when there's an exploit disclosed in public (or one definitely being used). So in addition to the security ratings used by Mozilla (defined here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security_Severity_Ratings https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security_Severity_Ratings) there are also "incidents" that result in a very fast release to all users (i.e. "chemspill").
    - mccr8 9y ago
      Patches for many of these issues have been public already for a few weeks, so waiting another day or two won't cause much additional harm. The CVEs do not contain test cases.
      - insertnickname 9y ago
        That's a great point I hadn't considered.
    - lizzard 9y ago
      We have to weigh the potential risks against the potential benefits of a quick rollout and try to come to a balanced decision. If we see a problem from feedback from early installs, then we have a chance to quickly patch it and re-release, sometimes within one day. Staged rollout is fairly standard in the industry. (Speaking as a Firefox release manager)
      - cesarb 9y ago
        Indeed, a botched rollout can lead to users disabling automated updates (see: Microsoft's GWX). Even if all you care about is security, you have to balance the risk of not patching quickly enough with the risk of the user disabling your ability to patch in the future.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
JupiterMoon 9y ago
The overhaul of responsive design mode is quite nice - and the dev tools seem a little more performant.
JosephLark 9y ago
Does this include the pausing of videos opened in a background tab until the tab is first focused? I recall that it was held back from the expected FF 53 release and expected in 54, but I'm not seeing anything about it. Edit: Just tested, and it seems like this is not included yet again. Will it come out in FF 55, in... 6 weeks? Edit 2: Not sure if this would reach anyone who can fix it, but heads up that both links about the multiprocess firefox point to the Mozilla blog, not to medium as stated in the second link. Is it supposed to be this page linked to from the blog post? [0] [0] https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilocks-browser-and-why-firefox-may-be-just-right-for-you-1f520506aa35 https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilock... Edit 3: Plenty of people seem to be suggesting this is available already. I think that has been the case for awhile now, but not by default. It was something that was mistakenly specifically called out in the release notes for 53. I thought it was a much large discussion thread, but this is the comment I was recalling [1] with a reply linking to the bug report [2] which claims it was added to the FF54 release notes 3 months ago, but has seen action since including discussion in another bug just two days ago. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14151468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14151468 [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308154 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308154
- throwanem 9y ago
  I don't know if it is surfaced in about:preferences, but I know the functionality exists in Firefox 53 at least, since that's what I'm using now (32-bit 53.0.3, Windows). In about:config, look for media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    They really need to work on usability for the regular end user if they want to succeed. So many useful settings are buried deep down in about:config. The auto play settings should be super accessible.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      I agree. On the other hand, at least it doesn't take installing an extension, the way it apparently does in Chrome and Opera. (Safari, too? Webkit seems the common thread here.) Failing to surface it to the user is an odd decision, but perhaps still preferable to what's apparently the typical alternative.
romanovcode 9y ago
> Today's release is the first to run Firefox using multiple operating system processes for web page content, making Firefox faster and more stable than ever. So it's finally not slow and laggy? I hope someday it can be as snappy as Chrome so I can ditch google forever.
- throwanem 9y ago
  The functionality has been available on an opt-in basis for a while now, and I can confirm that it massively improves Firefox's performance and responsiveness. Whether it's "as snappy as Chrome" is a separate question; I've never found that browser as responsive as seems to be the general experience, so I can't really speak to the comparison, but I certainly can say that Firefox itself is much more comfortable to use with e10s enabled.
  - danudey 9y ago
    I've found Chrome as buggy and unreliable as it's been fast and responsive. I actually switched to Firefox on my Windows PC because Chrome just stopped rendering properly (not just rendering HTML, the entire window was broken). I also have to turn off users' hardware acceleration at the office so that their 'my tabs go blank!' bugs stop happening.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      I get a lot of weird graphical glitches with Chrome on Windows 7, too - something about the way it draws its windows doesn't always play well with DWM, so they'll leave bits of themselves behind when dragged, or flicker weirdly when dragged across display boundaries, or otherwise uniquely misbehave. Even on machines where the display hardware sucks enough to make graphical oddities relatively common, Chrome stands out in the frequency with which they occur.
      - darinf 9y ago
        You might confirm that your video driver is up-to-date.
silverwind 9y ago
A nice tidbid for CSS developers: <input> elements of types checkbox and radio with -moz-appearance: none; set on them are now non-replaced elements, for compatibility with other browsers This means that checkboxes and radio buttons can finally be styled like regular HTML elements. Goodbye label hacks.
- callahad 9y ago
  Edit: I believe my comment here was incorrect. Apparently we only rolled back support for `appearance` and `-webkit-appearance` (and a few associated changes), but `-moz-appearance` does still work as described above. Original comment follows: I'm so sorry. This was rolled back during 54 Beta due to regressions on other websites: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1368457 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1368457 Where did you see this mentioned, so I can go and correct those release notes?
  - extra88 9y ago
    It's in the Firefox 54 for developers [0], references bug #605985 [1] [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/54#CSS https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/54#CSS [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605985 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605985
    - callahad 9y ago
      Huh, maybe only the unprefixed version was rolled back. This is why I don't do frontend work. ...let me go ask my colleagues about this...
morsch 9y ago
On a related note, offline pages on Firefox Android finally work again! At least in the Beta release; https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1358946 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1358946
- grigory 9y ago
  We also finally turned on "offline cache" support in Firefox For Android (for 50+ releases) - if you have a page in your cache, and you're attempting to load that page while offline, it should "just work". See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1232867 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1232867
justinmayer 9y ago
In case you're wondering how this release affects legacy (non-WebExtension) add-ons, and what the roadmap looks like until Firefox 57 fully disables legacy add-ons: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firefox-57-compatibility-milestones/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firef...
- throwanem 9y ago
  For a more detailed, albeit less well organized, view of functionality yet to be added to the WebExtensions API, there's also the relevant Bugzilla whiteboard [1]. The tl;dr: is that, compared to the XUL API, WebExtensions provide a very limited set of functionality, such that many existing XUL add-ons can't easily be reimplemented in or ported to the new API. On the other hand, it's early days yet, and there appears to be a reasonable amount of interest and developer support devoted to extending the new API so that it offers capabilities comparable to the old. I'd imagine it'll probably be next year this time, more or less, before the dust has largely settled. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=status_whiteboard&o1=substring&query_format=advanced&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&v1=%5Bdesign-decision-approved%5D&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Android&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Compatibility&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Developer%20tools&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Experiments&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Frontend&component=WebExtensions%3A%20General&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Request%20Handling&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Untriaged&product=Toolkit&list_id=13631066 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=status_whiteboar...
  - yborg 9y ago
    It baffles me that they would force-disable legacy extensions without having supplied feature parity in the API. There are major extensions like Self-Destructing Cookies that are one of the reasons that I still use FF that don't have WebEx equivalents. Without these Firefox is Chrome with inferior performance. Is there a config switch for enabling legacy extensions in 57+?
    - throwanem 9y ago
throwanem 9y ago
Not a duplicate exactly, but there's already discussion of the subject underway at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547675 .
- kibwen 9y ago
  Looks like those comments have been folded into this thread.
berryg 9y ago
This page causes Firefox Nightly to spike in CPU and Energy Impact. I notice it earlier with pages with animated gifs on it. So, I installed some extension to not autoplay animated gifs. Something on this page causes the CPU to spike.
tmaly 9y ago
I am excited about the custom device option for responsive design mode. I use the responsive design mode quite often. the CSS clip path is another feature stoked about.
snakeanus 9y ago
How does Electrolysis perform when compared with firefox with a single process when using many (500+) tabs? Do tabs that have not been loaded yet (such as when using the click-to-load feature for tabs saved from previous seasons) use their own process?
- callahad 9y ago
  Here's a whole article on the new process model: https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilocks-browser-and-why-firefox-may-be-just-right-for-you-1f520506aa35 https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilock... The overhead is minimal since we're not doing process-per-tab: we cap the number of processes to 4 by default. So if you have 500 tabs, loaded or otherwise, you're not going to have 500 processes. I believe we spin up the processes on demand, so if you have 499 unloaded tabs and 1 loaded tab, you should only have one content process, but I'd have to source dive to confirm that.
  - deprave 9y ago
    Please DO process-per-tab. I have a lot of memory. I want you to use it. If it's not enough, I will buy more memory or a stronger device. But please, whatever you do, don't make security or stability trade offs for me. The M:N threading model has never worked out. We know 1:1 works. Please do that. Please, please, please use a process-per-tab.
    - krzyk 9y ago
      Why? You can change the number of processes to e.g. 1000 and you will basically get one process per tab until you reach 1000 tabs, and if you do, you will need really a large amount of memory. one process per tab is specifically why I quit using chrome, it wasn't working even for small amount of tabs (100) it ate RAM like crazy. Mozillas approach is better, user can control how many processes are created - users have control.
      - deprave 9y ago
moosingin3space 9y ago
I'm curious -- if this is basically a scheduler for tabs onto system processes (which it seems to be), what's the impact on input latency? I've read in multiple places that Chrome's input latency is worse than it could be because of multiprocess, so I'm really interested to see some input latency benchmarks. Additionally, how are tabs sharing the same process isolated from one another? Chrome uses Linux namespaces for each of its processes, and this keeps tabs separated by a sandbox that requires a kernel exploit to break out of, how does Firefox's sandboxing work within a process?
- callahad 9y ago
  I'm not familiar enough with our in-process isolation to summarize it, but https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox is an good trailhead for the process-level sandboxing in Firefox.
luhn 9y ago
I attempted to switch to Firefox earlier this year, as part of a personal exodus from Google. I ended up switching back to Chrome because I couldn't tolerate the poor performance. I'm giving it another shot now that Electrolysis is there. I've only been using it for half an hour now, but my initial experience has been promising.
- starik36 9y ago
  I've switched to Firefox full time (unless using F12 tools) - Electrolysis helped a lot. It has gotten very much faster and snappier, while Chrome feels laggy, particularly when closing or switching tabs. I've tried disabling all extensions, but it didn't help.
  - namanspace 9y ago
    I've been using e10s for quite a while now. Yes, its great that they have reduced memory consumption by a huge margin. Unfortunately, I still feel page load times, scrolling, overall snappi-ness of chrome (I use ungoogled chromium) or overall browsing experience are way better than Firefox.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    What about Chrome's dev tools do you find preferable? I tend to find myself hampered by lack of functionality like easy replay of network requests, and don't spend a lot of time in Chrome's toolset for such reasons - I'd be interested to hear a different perspective.
    - starik36 9y ago
      At least for my case, I found that Firefox debugger would sometime hang for a bit. It was slowing me down. I'll definitely give it a shot on my next JavaScript heavy project.
      - throwanem 9y ago
        I had the same trouble with complex applications in Firefox 45, but haven't encountered it since then - 51 and since have been much more performant in general, and that goes for devtools as well. (I suspect it may have something to do with https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Release_Criteria/Jank#GC_pauses https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Release_Criteria/Jank#... - but that's just a guess.)
Callmenorm 9y ago
I recently switched back and Firefox has been much more responsive. It feels great all the time now. I was using Brave for a while, but suddenly performance took a hard dive.
soganess 9y ago
Mozilla needs to stop chasing Google in this never ending quest to turn Firefox, quite literally, into the winning combination that is Chrome. Just because Chrome is a winning formulation, doesn't mean it is the only one. My armchair example is themes... both chrome and ff now look like alien invaders of corporate identity on my desktop. While that makes sense for Google, it hurts Mozilla's image with the community of hackers/tinkers that love Firefox for features just like that one; features that quietly say, "its your browser, you likely know best". Especially because themes worked reasonably well for so long(at least from the users perspective, I'm told the implementation was fragile). Maybe its time to go all in on the hacker community and make Firefox, a "Linux first" browser. The PC market shrinking, no one is arguing that. Trying to squabble over pieces of an ever shrinking pie is not a recipe for success. This is especially true for Mozilla. All its competition can simply forget about their browser products and still be profitable. A failed Firefox likely means Mozilla disappearing for the digital landscape. I propose that the Linux/Hacker community is the logical conclusion of PC itself and, by proxy, the PC browser market. Long after everyone has gone tablet or whatever, the last hold out of the PC market will be the Linux diehards, why not cater to them from the get go? You are going to be catering to them when all is said and done. As a tangent, a great starting "performance feature", which is what all this e10s stuff is getting at, would be vaapi support for hardware accelerated video on linux. You can't really call your browser fast when it chokes the CPU on any 4k video. The the only browser to currently support it on linux... sigh... chromium.
- toyg 9y ago
  > make Firefox, a "Linux first" browser. I don't know, in many ways that's exactly what the original Mozilla was, to little success. When the project steered to Phoenix / Firebird / Firefox and focused on Windows, things improved pretty dramatically. I didn't like the "betrayal" of the suite at the time, but it can't be argued that project velocity got so much better afterwards. "Linux first" would be a step back both technically and commercially (after all, FF pretty much own that entire niche already, there is no growth to be found there).
- remir 9y ago
  Let's go further; I believe Firefox should compete against ChromeOS. The web is the ultimate platform, Mozilla should know that, but now it's more and more Google's platform. The reality is that Chromebooks and Chromeboxes are great computers for the masses. They're safe, secure, always up to date, no virus. They're great for the elderly, schools, public libraries, etc. You can buy a 85$ Chromebit dongle you plug into an HDMI port in your TV and you can browse the web on your big screen, watch Netflix, etc. Where is Mozilla? Nowhere.
toyg 9y ago
Looking at the Addon Manager, it's pretty grim. About half of the extensions I need are not compatible with multiprocess. That includes stuff like img2tab, it's all text, live http headers, rest client, tabtrekker, pinboard... I guess the migration will take a while.
- yaantc 9y ago
  You may want to check the detailed reports using the "Add-on Compatibility Reporter" extension. I found that the default indication is very conservative, and I used several extensions that were initially marked as not compatible, but actually worked well. So for the incompatible ones, particularly if they're rather niche (= not many people tried them with electrolysis), you may want to force multi-process and try them. And don't forget to make a report using the Reporter add-on, whether it went well or not ;)
  - toyg 9y ago
    Thanks for the suggestions - I've now done them and it all looks ok with multiprocess forced.
    - ionised 9y ago
      I have four addons that are apparently incompatible. How do you force multiprocess without disabling these addons?
      - toyg 9y ago
        Go to about:config and add the weirdly-named boolean "browser.tabs.remote.force-enable", set to true. Restart FF. Addons won't be disabled, but they might not work properly. If you see misbehaving extensions, install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension, then report by either: * going to the Addons/Extensions screen and clicking "Report Issue" near the misbehaving extension * clicking on the green puzzle piece now in your main toolbar, clicking on the X near the extension name, and then hitting the Submit button at the bottom. The latter will also send a report saying the other extensions are actually good, so I would do it only after making sure you've somewhat tested all of them. (All this was learnt today by insistent experimentation; the Addon Compat Reporter could do with some extra documentation or hints on what to do.)
pkrumins 9y ago
As always, I just added Firefox 54 to Browserling. You can try this new version at this URL without installing or updating it: https://www.browserling.com/firefox/54/news.ycombinator.com https://www.browserling.com/firefox/54/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.
- vfaronov 9y ago
  https://www.browserling.com/#pricing https://www.browserling.com/#pricing says “Internet Explorer 9 only”, “Windows Vista only” — must be out of date?
  - pkrumins 9y ago
    That's what free users get. They better upgrade to developer plans and unlock all IEs and all platforms.
    - Accacin 9y ago
      I'm guessing that you can't test local sites with this tool? If so that'd be really cool!
      - pkrumins 9y ago
        You can! https://www.browserling.com/local-testing https://www.browserling.com/local-testing
    - ptman 9y ago
      Any plans now that Vista and IE9 are no longer supported? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/22882/windows-vista-end-of-support https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/22882/windows-vista...
      - pkrumins 9y ago
        Yup, I'll be changing the default platform for free plans. I'm already working on that. Free users will be able to use IE11. Like this: https://www.browserling.com/ie/11/news.ycombinator.com https://www.browserling.com/ie/11/news.ycombinator.com
m_st 9y ago
Great work, but unfortunately I had to restart 3 times as the partial update failed and the full update had to be applied. I'm sure this could be done automatically without asking the user to restart 2 more times, right?
hollander 9y ago
The lag seems gone! :-) This is very promising!
JohnTHaller 9y ago
As always, Firefox Portable has been updated to 54.0: https://portableapps.com/news/2017-06-14--firefox-portable-54.0-released https://portableapps.com/news/2017-06-14--firefox-portable-5... Firefox Portable is a portable package for Windows, so you can run Firefox without altering any local browser installs or leaving personal details behind. It's a fantastic way to run multiple versions side by side with independent profiles for testing both websites and extensions. All versions of Firefox are available including the latest Developer Edition, Beta version, Extended Support Release, and Nightly releases. All packages are open source under the GPL and totally free. And you can test alongside portable packages of Opera, Iron, Maxthon, and SeaMonkey as well as the three main channels of Google Chrome (Stable, Beta, Dev).
inDigiNeous 9y ago
Love it, after an day of use, feels snappier, more responsive definitely on my "old" 2010 mpb. Also love the new compact theme, feels really slick with these improvements. Had to give up Chrome on this machine because it kept crashing my machine, and go back to Firefox, but I'm happy of the improvements they are constantly making. Though managed to crash my browser by runnign a heavy javascript application in one tab already. But that would lock up the previous one also.

335 points by petercooper 9y ago

So when is it actually the stable release? The updater inside FF says 53.0.3 is the most recent version and all the DL links point to that version as well. Edit (11 minutes after writing original comment): now it provides the update through the "in-app" updater.

metalliqaz 9y ago
They use staged roll-outs for new releases, so it could take several days to show up
- insertnickname 9y ago
  How is that responsible when v54 fixed several security problems? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-15/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-1...
  - norswap 9y ago
    Maybe because there's always the potential that a new version may contain an even bigger bombshell?
  - bitJericho 9y ago
    Because a problematic upgrade could harm or brick every user it rolls out to.
    - insertnickname 9y ago
      But is that a greater risk than millions running a known-vulnerable browser?
      - bitJericho 9y ago
        Not a single one of those shows a vulnerability. Every one says the bug "could be" exploitable. All software has potential vulnerabilities. The trick is to roll out completely before they become actually vulnerable. That doesn't mean you have to roll out dangerously quickly.
      - lizzard 9y ago
        There are times when we update users as fast as possible, but that's fairly rare and happens only when there's an exploit disclosed in public (or one definitely being used). So in addition to the security ratings used by Mozilla (defined here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security_Severity_Ratings https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security_Severity_Ratings) there are also "incidents" that result in a very fast release to all users (i.e. "chemspill").
  - mccr8 9y ago
    Patches for many of these issues have been public already for a few weeks, so waiting another day or two won't cause much additional harm. The CVEs do not contain test cases.
    - insertnickname 9y ago
      That's a great point I hadn't considered.
  - lizzard 9y ago
    We have to weigh the potential risks against the potential benefits of a quick rollout and try to come to a balanced decision. If we see a problem from feedback from early installs, then we have a chance to quickly patch it and re-release, sometimes within one day. Staged rollout is fairly standard in the industry. (Speaking as a Firefox release manager)
    - cesarb 9y ago
      Indeed, a botched rollout can lead to users disabling automated updates (see: Microsoft's GWX). Even if all you care about is security, you have to balance the risk of not patching quickly enough with the risk of the user disabling your ability to patch in the future.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

JupiterMoon 9y ago

The overhaul of responsive design mode is quite nice - and the dev tools seem a little more performant.

JosephLark 9y ago

Does this include the pausing of videos opened in a background tab until the tab is first focused? I recall that it was held back from the expected FF 53 release and expected in 54, but I'm not seeing anything about it. Edit: Just tested, and it seems like this is not included yet again. Will it come out in FF 55, in... 6 weeks? Edit 2: Not sure if this would reach anyone who can fix it, but heads up that both links about the multiprocess firefox point to the Mozilla blog, not to medium as stated in the second link. Is it supposed to be this page linked to from the blog post? [0] [0] https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilocks-browser-and-why-firefox-may-be-just-right-for-you-1f520506aa35 https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilock... Edit 3: Plenty of people seem to be suggesting this is available already. I think that has been the case for awhile now, but not by default. It was something that was mistakenly specifically called out in the release notes for 53. I thought it was a much large discussion thread, but this is the comment I was recalling [1] with a reply linking to the bug report [2] which claims it was added to the FF54 release notes 3 months ago, but has seen action since including discussion in another bug just two days ago. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14151468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14151468 [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308154 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1308154

throwanem 9y ago
I don't know if it is surfaced in about:preferences, but I know the functionality exists in Firefox 53 at least, since that's what I'm using now (32-bit 53.0.3, Windows). In about:config, look for media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  They really need to work on usability for the regular end user if they want to succeed. So many useful settings are buried deep down in about:config. The auto play settings should be super accessible.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I agree. On the other hand, at least it doesn't take installing an extension, the way it apparently does in Chrome and Opera. (Safari, too? Webkit seems the common thread here.) Failing to surface it to the user is an odd decision, but perhaps still preferable to what's apparently the typical alternative.

romanovcode 9y ago

> Today's release is the first to run Firefox using multiple operating system processes for web page content, making Firefox faster and more stable than ever. So it's finally not slow and laggy? I hope someday it can be as snappy as Chrome so I can ditch google forever.

throwanem 9y ago
The functionality has been available on an opt-in basis for a while now, and I can confirm that it massively improves Firefox's performance and responsiveness. Whether it's "as snappy as Chrome" is a separate question; I've never found that browser as responsive as seems to be the general experience, so I can't really speak to the comparison, but I certainly can say that Firefox itself is much more comfortable to use with e10s enabled.
- danudey 9y ago
  I've found Chrome as buggy and unreliable as it's been fast and responsive. I actually switched to Firefox on my Windows PC because Chrome just stopped rendering properly (not just rendering HTML, the entire window was broken). I also have to turn off users' hardware acceleration at the office so that their 'my tabs go blank!' bugs stop happening.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I get a lot of weird graphical glitches with Chrome on Windows 7, too - something about the way it draws its windows doesn't always play well with DWM, so they'll leave bits of themselves behind when dragged, or flicker weirdly when dragged across display boundaries, or otherwise uniquely misbehave. Even on machines where the display hardware sucks enough to make graphical oddities relatively common, Chrome stands out in the frequency with which they occur.
    - darinf 9y ago
      You might confirm that your video driver is up-to-date.

silverwind 9y ago

A nice tidbid for CSS developers: <input> elements of types checkbox and radio with -moz-appearance: none; set on them are now non-replaced elements, for compatibility with other browsers This means that checkboxes and radio buttons can finally be styled like regular HTML elements. Goodbye label hacks.

callahad 9y ago
Edit: I believe my comment here was incorrect. Apparently we only rolled back support for `appearance` and `-webkit-appearance` (and a few associated changes), but `-moz-appearance` does still work as described above. Original comment follows: I'm so sorry. This was rolled back during 54 Beta due to regressions on other websites: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1368457 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1368457 Where did you see this mentioned, so I can go and correct those release notes?
- extra88 9y ago
  It's in the Firefox 54 for developers [0], references bug #605985 [1] [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/54#CSS https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/54#CSS [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605985 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=605985
  - callahad 9y ago
    Huh, maybe only the unprefixed version was rolled back. This is why I don't do frontend work. ...let me go ask my colleagues about this...

morsch 9y ago

On a related note, offline pages on Firefox Android finally work again! At least in the Beta release; https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1358946 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1358946

grigory 9y ago
We also finally turned on "offline cache" support in Firefox For Android (for 50+ releases) - if you have a page in your cache, and you're attempting to load that page while offline, it should "just work". See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1232867 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1232867

justinmayer 9y ago

In case you're wondering how this release affects legacy (non-WebExtension) add-ons, and what the roadmap looks like until Firefox 57 fully disables legacy add-ons: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firefox-57-compatibility-milestones/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firef...

throwanem 9y ago
For a more detailed, albeit less well organized, view of functionality yet to be added to the WebExtensions API, there's also the relevant Bugzilla whiteboard [1]. The tl;dr: is that, compared to the XUL API, WebExtensions provide a very limited set of functionality, such that many existing XUL add-ons can't easily be reimplemented in or ported to the new API. On the other hand, it's early days yet, and there appears to be a reasonable amount of interest and developer support devoted to extending the new API so that it offers capabilities comparable to the old. I'd imagine it'll probably be next year this time, more or less, before the dust has largely settled. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=status_whiteboard&o1=substring&query_format=advanced&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&v1=%5Bdesign-decision-approved%5D&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Android&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Compatibility&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Developer%20tools&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Experiments&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Frontend&component=WebExtensions%3A%20General&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Request%20Handling&component=WebExtensions%3A%20Untriaged&product=Toolkit&list_id=13631066 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=status_whiteboar...
- yborg 9y ago
  It baffles me that they would force-disable legacy extensions without having supplied feature parity in the API. There are major extensions like Self-Destructing Cookies that are one of the reasons that I still use FF that don't have WebEx equivalents. Without these Firefox is Chrome with inferior performance. Is there a config switch for enabling legacy extensions in 57+?
  - throwanem 9y ago

throwanem 9y ago

Not a duplicate exactly, but there's already discussion of the subject underway at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14547675 .

kibwen 9y ago
Looks like those comments have been folded into this thread.

berryg 9y ago

This page causes Firefox Nightly to spike in CPU and Energy Impact. I notice it earlier with pages with animated gifs on it. So, I installed some extension to not autoplay animated gifs. Something on this page causes the CPU to spike.

tmaly 9y ago

I am excited about the custom device option for responsive design mode. I use the responsive design mode quite often. the CSS clip path is another feature stoked about.

snakeanus 9y ago

How does Electrolysis perform when compared with firefox with a single process when using many (500+) tabs? Do tabs that have not been loaded yet (such as when using the click-to-load feature for tabs saved from previous seasons) use their own process?

callahad 9y ago
Here's a whole article on the new process model: https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilocks-browser-and-why-firefox-may-be-just-right-for-you-1f520506aa35 https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/the-search-for-the-goldilock... The overhead is minimal since we're not doing process-per-tab: we cap the number of processes to 4 by default. So if you have 500 tabs, loaded or otherwise, you're not going to have 500 processes. I believe we spin up the processes on demand, so if you have 499 unloaded tabs and 1 loaded tab, you should only have one content process, but I'd have to source dive to confirm that.
- deprave 9y ago
  Please DO process-per-tab. I have a lot of memory. I want you to use it. If it's not enough, I will buy more memory or a stronger device. But please, whatever you do, don't make security or stability trade offs for me. The M:N threading model has never worked out. We know 1:1 works. Please do that. Please, please, please use a process-per-tab.
  - krzyk 9y ago
    Why? You can change the number of processes to e.g. 1000 and you will basically get one process per tab until you reach 1000 tabs, and if you do, you will need really a large amount of memory. one process per tab is specifically why I quit using chrome, it wasn't working even for small amount of tabs (100) it ate RAM like crazy. Mozillas approach is better, user can control how many processes are created - users have control.
    - deprave 9y ago

moosingin3space 9y ago

I'm curious -- if this is basically a scheduler for tabs onto system processes (which it seems to be), what's the impact on input latency? I've read in multiple places that Chrome's input latency is worse than it could be because of multiprocess, so I'm really interested to see some input latency benchmarks. Additionally, how are tabs sharing the same process isolated from one another? Chrome uses Linux namespaces for each of its processes, and this keeps tabs separated by a sandbox that requires a kernel exploit to break out of, how does Firefox's sandboxing work within a process?

callahad 9y ago
I'm not familiar enough with our in-process isolation to summarize it, but https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox is an good trailhead for the process-level sandboxing in Firefox.

luhn 9y ago

I attempted to switch to Firefox earlier this year, as part of a personal exodus from Google. I ended up switching back to Chrome because I couldn't tolerate the poor performance. I'm giving it another shot now that Electrolysis is there. I've only been using it for half an hour now, but my initial experience has been promising.

starik36 9y ago
I've switched to Firefox full time (unless using F12 tools) - Electrolysis helped a lot. It has gotten very much faster and snappier, while Chrome feels laggy, particularly when closing or switching tabs. I've tried disabling all extensions, but it didn't help.
- namanspace 9y ago
  I've been using e10s for quite a while now. Yes, its great that they have reduced memory consumption by a huge margin. Unfortunately, I still feel page load times, scrolling, overall snappi-ness of chrome (I use ungoogled chromium) or overall browsing experience are way better than Firefox.
- throwanem 9y ago
  What about Chrome's dev tools do you find preferable? I tend to find myself hampered by lack of functionality like easy replay of network requests, and don't spend a lot of time in Chrome's toolset for such reasons - I'd be interested to hear a different perspective.
  - starik36 9y ago
    At least for my case, I found that Firefox debugger would sometime hang for a bit. It was slowing me down. I'll definitely give it a shot on my next JavaScript heavy project.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      I had the same trouble with complex applications in Firefox 45, but haven't encountered it since then - 51 and since have been much more performant in general, and that goes for devtools as well. (I suspect it may have something to do with https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Release_Criteria/Jank#GC_pauses https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Release_Criteria/Jank#... - but that's just a guess.)

Callmenorm 9y ago

I recently switched back and Firefox has been much more responsive. It feels great all the time now. I was using Brave for a while, but suddenly performance took a hard dive.

soganess 9y ago

Mozilla needs to stop chasing Google in this never ending quest to turn Firefox, quite literally, into the winning combination that is Chrome. Just because Chrome is a winning formulation, doesn't mean it is the only one. My armchair example is themes... both chrome and ff now look like alien invaders of corporate identity on my desktop. While that makes sense for Google, it hurts Mozilla's image with the community of hackers/tinkers that love Firefox for features just like that one; features that quietly say, "its your browser, you likely know best". Especially because themes worked reasonably well for so long(at least from the users perspective, I'm told the implementation was fragile). Maybe its time to go all in on the hacker community and make Firefox, a "Linux first" browser. The PC market shrinking, no one is arguing that. Trying to squabble over pieces of an ever shrinking pie is not a recipe for success. This is especially true for Mozilla. All its competition can simply forget about their browser products and still be profitable. A failed Firefox likely means Mozilla disappearing for the digital landscape. I propose that the Linux/Hacker community is the logical conclusion of PC itself and, by proxy, the PC browser market. Long after everyone has gone tablet or whatever, the last hold out of the PC market will be the Linux diehards, why not cater to them from the get go? You are going to be catering to them when all is said and done. As a tangent, a great starting "performance feature", which is what all this e10s stuff is getting at, would be vaapi support for hardware accelerated video on linux. You can't really call your browser fast when it chokes the CPU on any 4k video. The the only browser to currently support it on linux... sigh... chromium.

toyg 9y ago
> make Firefox, a "Linux first" browser. I don't know, in many ways that's exactly what the original Mozilla was, to little success. When the project steered to Phoenix / Firebird / Firefox and focused on Windows, things improved pretty dramatically. I didn't like the "betrayal" of the suite at the time, but it can't be argued that project velocity got so much better afterwards. "Linux first" would be a step back both technically and commercially (after all, FF pretty much own that entire niche already, there is no growth to be found there).
remir 9y ago
Let's go further; I believe Firefox should compete against ChromeOS. The web is the ultimate platform, Mozilla should know that, but now it's more and more Google's platform. The reality is that Chromebooks and Chromeboxes are great computers for the masses. They're safe, secure, always up to date, no virus. They're great for the elderly, schools, public libraries, etc. You can buy a 85$ Chromebit dongle you plug into an HDMI port in your TV and you can browse the web on your big screen, watch Netflix, etc. Where is Mozilla? Nowhere.

toyg 9y ago

Looking at the Addon Manager, it's pretty grim. About half of the extensions I need are not compatible with multiprocess. That includes stuff like img2tab, it's all text, live http headers, rest client, tabtrekker, pinboard... I guess the migration will take a while.

yaantc 9y ago
You may want to check the detailed reports using the "Add-on Compatibility Reporter" extension. I found that the default indication is very conservative, and I used several extensions that were initially marked as not compatible, but actually worked well. So for the incompatible ones, particularly if they're rather niche (= not many people tried them with electrolysis), you may want to force multi-process and try them. And don't forget to make a report using the Reporter add-on, whether it went well or not ;)
- toyg 9y ago
  Thanks for the suggestions - I've now done them and it all looks ok with multiprocess forced.
  - ionised 9y ago
    I have four addons that are apparently incompatible. How do you force multiprocess without disabling these addons?
    - toyg 9y ago
      Go to about:config and add the weirdly-named boolean "browser.tabs.remote.force-enable", set to true. Restart FF. Addons won't be disabled, but they might not work properly. If you see misbehaving extensions, install the Add-on Compatibility Reporter extension, then report by either: * going to the Addons/Extensions screen and clicking "Report Issue" near the misbehaving extension * clicking on the green puzzle piece now in your main toolbar, clicking on the X near the extension name, and then hitting the Submit button at the bottom. The latter will also send a report saying the other extensions are actually good, so I would do it only after making sure you've somewhat tested all of them. (All this was learnt today by insistent experimentation; the Addon Compat Reporter could do with some extra documentation or hints on what to do.)

pkrumins 9y ago

As always, I just added Firefox 54 to Browserling. You can try this new version at this URL without installing or updating it: https://www.browserling.com/firefox/54/news.ycombinator.com https://www.browserling.com/firefox/54/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.

vfaronov 9y ago
https://www.browserling.com/#pricing https://www.browserling.com/#pricing says “Internet Explorer 9 only”, “Windows Vista only” — must be out of date?
- pkrumins 9y ago
  That's what free users get. They better upgrade to developer plans and unlock all IEs and all platforms.
  - Accacin 9y ago
    I'm guessing that you can't test local sites with this tool? If so that'd be really cool!
    - pkrumins 9y ago
      You can! https://www.browserling.com/local-testing https://www.browserling.com/local-testing
  - ptman 9y ago
    Any plans now that Vista and IE9 are no longer supported? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/22882/windows-vista-end-of-support https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/22882/windows-vista...
    - pkrumins 9y ago
      Yup, I'll be changing the default platform for free plans. I'm already working on that. Free users will be able to use IE11. Like this: https://www.browserling.com/ie/11/news.ycombinator.com https://www.browserling.com/ie/11/news.ycombinator.com

m_st 9y ago

Great work, but unfortunately I had to restart 3 times as the partial update failed and the full update had to be applied. I'm sure this could be done automatically without asking the user to restart 2 more times, right?

hollander 9y ago

The lag seems gone! :-) This is very promising!

JohnTHaller 9y ago

As always, Firefox Portable has been updated to 54.0: https://portableapps.com/news/2017-06-14--firefox-portable-54.0-released https://portableapps.com/news/2017-06-14--firefox-portable-5... Firefox Portable is a portable package for Windows, so you can run Firefox without altering any local browser installs or leaving personal details behind. It's a fantastic way to run multiple versions side by side with independent profiles for testing both websites and extensions. All versions of Firefox are available including the latest Developer Edition, Beta version, Extended Support Release, and Nightly releases. All packages are open source under the GPL and totally free. And you can test alongside portable packages of Opera, Iron, Maxthon, and SeaMonkey as well as the three main channels of Google Chrome (Stable, Beta, Dev).

inDigiNeous 9y ago

Love it, after an day of use, feels snappier, more responsive definitely on my "old" 2010 mpb. Also love the new compact theme, feels really slick with these improvements. Had to give up Chrome on this machine because it kept crashing my machine, and go back to Firefox, but I'm happy of the improvements they are constantly making. Though managed to crash my browser by runnign a heavy javascript application in one tab already. But that would lock up the previous one also.