28 ms·

Firefox 61.0 Released

484 points by l2dy 8y ago

l2dy 8y ago
Also https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-solstice/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-sols....
jbernardo95 8y ago
When is Firefox bringing smooth pinch to zoom to macOS ?
- lintroller 8y ago
  Are there a substantial number of macOS users using touchscreens? EDIT: I don't know how I forgot about pinch to zoom via the trackpad. While my original question did start me down an interesting rabbit hole of touchscreen MacOS, I 100% agree that a lack of smooth pinch to zoom via the trackpad detracts from the overall user experience.
  - msh 8y ago
    You Can pinch to zoom using the mousepad om MacBooks.
    - bwat49 8y ago
      on windows laptops with precision touchpad too
  - madjam002 8y ago
    You pinch to zoom on the trackpad, there’s no touchscreen
  - AlexandrB 8y ago
    I think he's referring to pinch-to-zoom using the trackpad since there are no Mac computers with touchscreens at all.
  - tapoxi 8y ago
    No macOS machines ship with touchscreens, but trackpad gestures are used heavily throughout macOS. I find pinch zooming on the Mac to feel pretty natural.
- yoasif_ 8y ago
  Watch https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990
- dilap 8y ago
  that and lack of bounce-scroll make firefox feel very clunky on mac, sadly
- driverdan 8y ago
  What is your use case? Do you have poor vision? What's wrong with Cmd+?
- rcarmo 8y ago
  This is currently _the_ reason I don't use Firefox on macOS for anything other than testing. Oddly, it works on Windows reasonably well. Edit: forgot to mention I had to tweak something to enable it on Win 10. Edit 2: Why the downvotes?
  - jbernardo95 8y ago
    Same here.
- mi_lk 8y ago
  Last time I asked it seems that this is not a top priority for Firefox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803281
- deno 8y ago
  This feature is essential for mobile screens, and this is not meant to dismiss your concern, but what do you need pinch-to-zoom for on desktop? Everything is already huge and readable on desktop.
  - mort96 8y ago
    macOS doesn't only run on desktops; there are people using it all the way down to the 12" MacBook.
    - deno 8y ago
      Sure, I’ve got a 12.3″ netbook (running Linux), and I don’t see any point in a variable zoom there either. Though I suppose it is 4:3 and hidpi. Still, even at 768p you get a bespoke layout for your device, since this is literally the most common resolution still (seriously). The pinch-to-zoom on mobile is only useful for the very specific case of viewing unoptimized content (mostly desktop sites) in a comparatively smaller viewport. It’s not even useful on mobile if the website is optimized (sometimes for worse, but still). It’s a nice to have, but hardly essential. But people are saying it prevents them from switching, so I am curious why.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      I've always used Ctrl+/- as the ancients did. Does Cmd+ not work?
      - deno 8y ago
        It’s a different type of zoom.
- andrewaylett 8y ago
  I installed https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-zoom/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-z..., it works well.
ktosobcy 8y ago
Great release. I had issues with previous releases (58-60) on MBP, where quite a lot of pages would cause high CPU usage and in turn overheating of the machine but after this upgrade the problem (at least it seems so) went away. And it also feels snappier. And now the dark theme also applies to address bar and hamburger menu which is nice bonus.
- woumn 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, were these high CPU usages on pages with any sort of video playing (culprits for me were Twitch or any live stream)? I was also having these issues, and I want to use Firefox, but the performance in the past was just too difficult.
  - txcwpalpha 8y ago
    I had the same issues and avoided FF 57+ because of it. I just tried FF 61 and my results were mixed. Twitch and Youtube still made my CPU temps spike a little bit. It seems worse than Chrome but better than FF 57. Google Maps, unfortunately, still made my CPU temp spike 30C+ as soon as I opened it. I use Maps a lot, so this is still a deal breaker for me.
    - woumn 8y ago
      Yea, most of my browser time spent during free time is strictly on Twitch/Youtube/Netflix. Until these see improvements, then I won't make the switch.
      - Royalaid 8y ago
        I am also in this camp and want to say that twitch especially is just horrible for performance
        woumn 8y ago
        Which is so surprising to me because it's using the HTML5 video player and toggling around with hardware acceleration does nothing to fix the issue. Perhaps it's the integrated chat + any of the add ones that Twitch has written for the videos?
woumn 8y ago
I always get so excited for new Firefox releases. Then I read the patch notes and never see that they've fixed performance for MacOS. I've tried everything I can find online, but Firefox just performs so terribly on my Macbook Pro. In the meantime, I use Opera (with little to no complaints).
- rhencke 8y ago
  What issues do you hit? I've been running on two MacBook Pros (one mid-2012, one mid-2015) and never had any issues. Everything's smooth as butter.
  - driverdan 8y ago
    I also have performance issues. High CPU usage with minimal tabs. I regularly see 20% of a core with around 10 tabs open.
  - tapoxi 8y ago
    I think the last time I ran into this issue it was a bug involving DPI scaling. If you're not running at the "default" scale, you'll have performance problems.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  I've used 6 different Macs over the past decade and none of them have ever had this issue. I'm not saying that you're wrong about your experience, but that it's not like it affects 100% of Firefox's quite large Mac userbase.
- mythmon_ 8y ago
  It may not be in the release notes, but this release has some performance improvements specifically on OSX.
- matt2000 8y ago
  I'm having the same experience: high CPU usage, slow typing response and big battery usage. Will see if 61.0 helps at all.
lostmsu 8y ago
Can I now have my tab groups back?
- yoasif_ 8y ago
  Try one of the alternatives? https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/firefox/collections/cris_70/favorites/ https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/firefox/collections/cris_70...
  - epage 8y ago
    Unfortunately, none of these document how they store tabs. For example, I've been using Tab Session Manager and it will randomly lose information. I'd love it if these were backed by bookmarks or something so I get sync, etc.
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  That's exactly what the new tab hiding API present in Firefox 61 lets you implement properly.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  Yes! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view... Made possible by: > More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs
taf2 8y ago
was eager to try but "upgrade failed" - will try full download later
hd4 8y ago
Anyone else think the really significant change is going to be when Webrender finally enters the stable channel? It's already stable for me on nightly and is what makes the single largest difference to my experience, everything is so much smoother (instantaneous) and uses less resources. The reason I even switched away to Chrome from Firefox to start with was performance, I came back when FF's performance started eclipsing Chrome's again.
- dingaling 8y ago
  Webrender won't run on older intehrated GPUs which don't support the required OpenGL level ( 2.2? something like that ). For example it won't run on amy of our four home laptops. I can't imagine them enabling it by default until that user base is next to zero. I suppose they might prompt the user to flick a switch if supported but they'll still have to support Gecko for some time.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    Wow how old are those laptops?
  - hd4 8y ago
    Those must be seriously old, because it runs fine for me on a 2010 laptop (on it's last legs) with a Nvidia GPU, it actually runs better than my other newer laptop which doesn't have a discrete GPU. Both have an Opengl version newer than 3.0 so that probably is the limiting factor.
- dgllghr 8y ago
  If it is stable for you in nightly, it might work for you in 61. Just enable gfx.webrender.enabled in about:config
  - hd4 8y ago
    think the new option is actually gfx.webrender.all set to true, at least in nightly. edit: just tested http://output.jsbin.com/surane/quiet http://output.jsbin.com/surane/quiet in 61, doesn't seem to be enabled, going to try 62. Pretty sure they would have announced if it had been in 61, it's a huge addition, and it's probably coming in 62 when it's stable. edit2: neither is it enabled in 62 (beta), also tried with the gfx.webrender.enabled option set to true just in case.
axelfontaine 8y ago
GMail now finally works with Yubikeys! Switching from Chrome is now finally possible.
- drewg123 8y ago
  This is awesome news. As a BSD user, the U2F stuff crashes chromium. I've been waiting forever for FF to work with U2F. How about Duo secured sites?
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    ive used earlier releases if Firefox on Android even with Duo with no problems already.
  - floatboth 8y ago
    Which BSD? :) I ported u2f-hid-rs (the library Firefox uses) to FreeBSD, it's been in the www/firefox port for a while and now accepted into mozilla-central I think. The Chromium FreeBSD port also has had U2F support for a while.
    - drewg123 8y ago
      FreeBSD. I'll have to try it the next time I update
  - confounded 8y ago
    I may have got this wrong, but IIRC, Duo use a Chrome-specific implementation; it’s on Duo to use the standard. I remember reading that it’s in their roadmap, but it didn’t sound like it was coming soon.
- andrewaylett 8y ago
  Although -- because it's a workaround for Google's implementation -- it only works for verifying keys, not registering them in the first place. If you add a key in Chrome(ium) then you can use it in Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1436078#c4 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1436078#c4
dark_ph0enix 8y ago
Still seems like there's no first party support for container sync.
- mtgx 8y ago
  It's definitely a frustrating experience to have to re-assign all of your containers if you happen to reinstall the browser. This should be easily supported by Firefox Sync.
  - dark_ph0enix 8y ago
    Or if you happen to run Firefox between multiple devices. It's been a pain maintaining a couple of instances' synced when it comes to containers (again, such a shame). There's an open issue [1], but no resolution yet as it seems. [1] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/339 https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/3...
- bambamboom 8y ago
  Sorry about the bad news but sync dev is completely dead. Mozilla is scared of touching that code base. So don't expect any improvements or additions there .
  - ianbicking 8y ago
    Though this was true for many years, there is now a team dedicated to sync development. (But there's a big backlog for them to work through!)
    - bambamboom 8y ago
      I extrapolated my last year's info (which was true for about 6 years by then)
    - bambamboom 8y ago
      Page shot is fantastic btw. No nonsense clipping in Linux (I use onenote on Windows and would love if shots could be exported outside as easily as they are created)
anarcat 8y ago
My favorite improvements are: * On-by-default support for the latest draft of the TLS 1.3 specification * Convenient access to more search engines: You can now add search engines to the address bar “Search with” tool from the page action menu when on a webpage that provides an OpenSearch plugin
- williamstein 8y ago
  My least favorite thing is "on by default TLS 1.3", since their implementation of TLS 1.3 seems to be badly broken: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1453204 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1453204
  - pas 8y ago
    WTF. Do they not care? It's the same clownshow which went on for years with the "Flash and other plugins can hook all keys" bug.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > Convenient access to more search engines When I read that I was hoping they'd let me add a search engine to the existing "Select Text -> Right Click -> Search Google for '[Selected]'." All I want is to be able to highlight page text and search YouTube, Amazon, or Google for it. Right now I use an extension called "Swift Selection Search" but I'd prefer not to need it, the search engines are already part of the browser, I just need them on the context menu.
  - Ajedi32 8y ago
    Personally, I was hoping for a Chrome-style "start typing name of website then hit tab to search that site". That's one of the biggest features I miss whenever I use Firefox.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
glintik 8y ago
Mozilla, when will you fix scrollbar width issue? I’ll say you 1000 times “thank you” when it happens.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  What is the issue?
  - glintik 8y ago
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260 9 years old
    - abrowne 8y ago
      Personally I'd say 1000 no thanks if they implemented that. The scrollbars are part of the application chrome, not content. I should choose how to style them, through my OS, not a website I visit.
      - glintik 8y ago
        Anyway, you can apply own user CSS styles in Chrome.
        abrowne 8y ago
        Yes, and I assume Firefox would let you turn it off, in about:config at least. So I'm fine with it being implemented ;-)
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      It's actually 17y old, that bug or a dupe of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790. Why do you want it - if you really need it then you can have a skin so the user can alter the user chrome to match a specific website. Personally I consider it one of IE5s many horrors that websites were given control over the users UI. (IIRC you could turn it off at least?)
option_greek 8y ago
I'm curious what everyone has done to their FF interface with plugins and extensions. Here is mine: https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV Feel free to post yours as a comment below :)
- johnpowell 8y ago
  I haven't added any extensions to modify the appearance. But I did tweak userChrome.css slightly. https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m
bambamboom 8y ago
I cannot upgrade until I have a proper vimperator replacement :(
- rudedogg 8y ago
  Try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/. I've used it for close to a year and it's decent. It has some issues like all the other Vim plugins, but it works well enough.
- earenndil 8y ago
  QuteBrowser?
- sirn 8y ago
  You can try either Tridactyl[1] or Vim-Vixen[2]. They come pretty close to the Vimperator experience (although with WebExtension limitations). I'd recommend Tridactyl with native extension though (install the extension and type :installnative), as they've done a really great job re-implementing Vimperator features using a wrapper Python script (e.g. support for .tridactylrc, modifying UI[3], open with external editors, etc.) [1]: https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl (use the beta) [2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ [3]: https://imgur.com/7vQANhV https://imgur.com/7vQANhV here's `guiset gui none` with buffer list open
  - dri_ft 8y ago
    Thanks for the tip-offs! I too have been stranded without a decent vimperator replacement for a while. Currently using Saka-Keys but not in love with it, so I'll experiment with these.
marcrosoft 8y ago
I would switch to Firefox if I could figure out how to disable smooth scroll. It's enabled by default and requires 3 rotations of the scroll wheel to move an inch down the page.
- lgierth 8y ago
  Right there in Preferences > Browsing
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- clircle 8y ago
  Preferences > Advanced > Uncheck Use Smooth scrolling works for me on Linux. Do you have this option.
- sammoth 8y ago
  Open about:config and search for 'wheel'. There are ~50 options for tweaking scrolling, including one to disable smooth scroll and ones to tweak the scroll distance.
- cpburns2009 8y ago
  There's two ways: 1. At least in FF 60, go to the menu button, then "Preferences". Scroll down to the "Browsing" section and uncheck "Use smooth scrolling". 2. Go to the "about:config" URL. Search for "general.smoothScroll". Double click the row to toggle the value to "false".
- GranPC 8y ago
  It's in preferences, under Browsing.
- marcrosoft 8y ago
  Thanks everyone! Setting `general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel` to false and increasing `mousewheel.min_line_scroll_amount` x 4 did the trick. I'll be switching to Firefox for now.
vanderZwan 8y ago
> A more consistent user experience: Improvements for dark theme support across the entire Firefox user interface I know it's a bit petty to focus on this one, but I hope it includes a proper dark new tab. Currently the blinding white flash when I open a new one is painful on the eyes at night.
- sydd 8y ago
  How do you make websites dark? 99% of the sites I use are white: maps, HN, Reddit (OK, this has a dark theme in beta), Stack Overflow,...
  - noisem4ker 8y ago
    Addon: Dark Background and Light Text https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-background-light-text/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...
  - auscompgeek 8y ago
    Stylus and userstyles.org.
- yoasif_ 8y ago
  It does, switch to the Dark theme and try it out.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    It still flashes a white screen at you when it's loading a tab that had been unloaded (this happens when you have a restored session and you click on a restored tab for the first time.)
- Sgt_Apone 8y ago
  Can confirm. If you have the dark theme applied, it applies to the new tab if you have it set as Firefox Home.
  - 8y ago
lucb1e 8y ago
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs About damn time. It doesn't seem to be implemented yet, though, as [1] still notes that it's not possible to hide the tab bar. Checking my list, I think decent mouse gestures (that work on all pages and without having to have a page fully loaded) is the last big item remaining. I suppose I'll finally upgrade from Firefox 55 to 61 then, once this is implemented (or I'll implement it myself next month, when I have more time) and only have to say goodbye to gestures... took only about 9 months for them to get APIs implemented after breaking the vast majority without alternatives! [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-re... Edit: Never mind, that's not actually what this means. It's about hiding individual tabs from the tab bar, not sure to what end... Firefox 55 it is.
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  Hiding the tab bar is easy with userChrome.css - https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-Tweaks#hide-the-horizontal-tab-strip-15 https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-Twe...
  - lucb1e 8y ago
    Ah, I didn't know about that. Thanks! Looks like we should again start installing add-ons like we used to install the famous old toolbars, from executables/binaries which can modify things outside of the browser.
- Crespyl 8y ago
  Hiding individual tabs is necessary for one of my own core workflow addons that broke with the recent changes: panorama/tab-groups. With tab-hiding in, the "Panorama View" extension successfully replicates all the features I wanted from the old version of the addon. Mouse-gestures/addons-in-system-page is still the last big gripe for me too, but even with the current limitations, the situation works well enough for me 80% of the time.
hliyan 8y ago
Did anyone else discover the "Good News" voice in Firefox's reader mode text-to-voice? It reads the current page to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance"!
- yoasif_ 8y ago
  Pretty sure that is just macOS. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112
  - hliyan 8y ago
    Ah, thanks for the tip.
fwdpropaganda 8y ago
How come I always find out about Firefox updates from HN faster than actually getting the updates? Honest question.
- ectospheno 8y ago
  I don't know the specifics for Firefox in particular, but update checks are classically staggered over at least a full day if not longer. You don't want every user of your product to hit your download servers at the same time.
  - mythmon_ 8y ago
    I don't think that load on the download servers is an issue now. CDNs do a great job of distribution the load. The concern is more that some bugs (especially GPU related) only show up "in the wild". A slow rollout limits the damage if there is a show-stopping bug in the release.
- dewey 8y ago
  Posts on HN don't need to be rolled out slowly to spread out the load a bit and your browser doesn't check updates every few seconds if there's only one expected every few weeks.
- arwineap 8y ago
  Whereas HN submissions can submit directly after a package release, maintainers still have a lot of work to do.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Mozilla throttles auto-updates for the first week or so to watch for surprise regressions. Firefox Beta and Nightly users are not representative of Release channel users, who often have slower hardware, less RAM, and crashy anti virus software. You can bypass the throttling by opening the About Firefox dialog to force an update check.
  - fwdpropaganda 8y ago
nixpulvis 8y ago
I'm still hoping to see an update that brings `performance.now()` back into spec. Seems the other browsers figured it out.
- mintplant 8y ago
  No, the other browsers just don't care as much about preventing side channel attacks.
  - nixpulvis 8y ago
    Is that actually the case? I've read a few things that seem to imply they've fixed the timing attcks without breaking the spec, but this was all heresay and unsubstantiated claims.
TekMol 8y ago
Can Firefox meanwhile play video via hardware acceleration on Linux or does it still use the CPU?
- jackewiehose 8y ago
  Not sure if this is related but my firefox/linux experience with video is also bad: - tearing all the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing) - Netflix doesn't support HD on linux - Amazon doesn't support HD on linux (for movies. But shows seem to be 1080p)
  - bwat49 8y ago
    Enabling OpenGL compositing with layers.acceleration.force-enabled true should take care of the tearing. Has the potential to cause issues depending on graphics driver though
  - bscphil 8y ago
    > - Netflix doesn't support HD on linux True that they don't support it, not true that it doesn't work, thanks to the wonderful people who take the time to fix other people's bugs. https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox
- bwat49 8y ago
  The linux version of firefox still doesn't even have opengl compositing by default, so I wouldn't hold your breath for hardware decoding any time soon. There is a bounty for the issue here: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/55506502-add-va-api-hardware-decoding-support-on-linux https://www.bountysource.com/issues/55506502-add-va-api-hard... It seems like the only hope we have for hardware decoding in a major browser on linux any time soon is if this chromium patch ever gets landed: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/532294 https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/53... But they are taking their sweet, sweet time.
Beldur 8y ago
FireFox 61 Release Notes for Developers: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/61 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/61
- arendtio 8y ago
  > The "Forget" button,... now clears service workers and their caches. Hooray :-) Decent Dev-Tools for service workers are essential for a good PWA developer experience.
Annatar 8y ago
Nope, since Mozilla doesn’t support illumos-based operating systems, I‘m boycotting Firefox.
dbg31415 8y ago
CPU usage seems lower. Especially on streaming videos. Am I seeing things or is that intended? Nice though, my MBP fans don't spin nearly as much when surfing today.
Vinnl 8y ago
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs This should theoretically make it possible to restore the Panorama Tab Group functionality that I, among others, loved. Haven't tried 61 yet because it hasn't hit Ubuntu yet, but this extension should do the trick: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view...
ddtaylor 8y ago
Does anyone know how long it will take to hit the standard Kubuntu or Debian repositories?
- ufo 8y ago
  Debian Stable (stretch) is stuck with Firefox ESR. IIRC it was due to issues with Rust packaging. Firefox 61 should be available in Debian Sid and Ubuntu pretty soon though.
  - vbernat 8y ago
    Debian is using Firefox ESR as a compromise to stability since it is not possible to keep older versions while fixing security bugs. Rust is an issue also for Firefox ESR too (when upgrading from 52 to 60).
    - ufo 8y ago
      Yes, Debian uses ESR by default but usually you could easily install the latest version from backports. In the current cycle this is exceptionally not possible, due to rust packaging issues. https://mozilla.debian.net/ https://mozilla.debian.net/
      - steveklabnik 8y ago
        What are those issues? This is the first time I’m hearing of this. If there’s something we can do please let me know!
        glandium 8y ago
        Simply that there's no rustc package in Debian stable at the moment. Hopefully, we'll have one for ESR60, but that won't solve the problem for newer releases of Firefox that will require a newer version.
        8y ago
WalterGR 8y ago
Is Tree Style Tab as good as it was before all the Quantum changes? The last time I tried it in a recent Firefox, I had to modify the user chrome by hand, the extension was incredibly slow even on modern hardware, and there wasn’t feature parity with previous versions. I ended up going with Firefox 52ESR.
- JackCh 8y ago
  Disable animation effects to improve TST performance.
- MarkyC4 8y ago
  I use tab center redux. Worth noting it doesn't do trees (just a long vertical list if tabs).
- buovjaga 8y ago
  The only remaining quirk with TST I have noticed is that sometimes on launch, tab groups open expanded even though I had them collapsed. Then I have to first collapse any child groups before it agrees to collapse the whole thing. piroor is putting in a ton of work, see: https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master edit: oh, I've just ignored the tab strip at the top, so no comments on the tab hiding :)
  - WalterGR 8y ago
    Wow that is a lot of Github commits. The last release is about a month ago... Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code? Looking at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Your_first_WebExtension#Installing https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Yo... it seems like it might be possible, but you'd have to manually 'install' the extension every time you start Firefox...
    - buovjaga 8y ago
      > Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code? Nah, I have just soldiered on with all the quirks in releases so far :)
overcast 8y ago
I wish Firefox would have a "great suspender" feature. Memory just gets chewed up with a zillion tabs open. They should time out and free up memory. My only option now is just to close, and reopen after a day.
- darkmuck 8y ago
  There are addons that function similarly, such as https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unload-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unload-tab/
- greglindahl 8y ago
  One issue that affects folks with a zillion tabs is that some extensions add a lot of memory usage to every tab. AdBlock Plus is one offender; uBlock Origin is much lighter weight.
  - overcast 8y ago
    Yeh I'm pretty lightweight on extensions, I use only a couple, and uBlock over Adblock. It's just that sites chew through memory over time, and I'm not going to diagnose each one. Firefox already has the feature built in, when you restart the browser, those tabs don't spin up until you access them. They just need to use that functionality on a timer.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      In that case, there are some extensions that sleep tabs, and you can use about:memory to figure out which ones are the leakers. Maybe the Firefox crew could figure out how to build this in, it's definitely a case where Chrome's policy means that websites might not fix their leaks because they don't cause problems in Chrome.
- debacle 8y ago
  It seems especially prevalent on certain sites. If I leave a gamepedia wiki page open overnight, in the AM firefox will be using 3 gigs of RAM.
debacle 8y ago
Do we have on by default privacy sandboxing yet?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mnm1 8y ago
I wish they would add a setting for minimum zoom or remember my zoom levels after clearing caches. As it is, it does neither and the many add-ons that claim to do either don't work properly. It's fine to remove or not add functionality that's well supported by add-ons but this isn't by any add-on I've tried. The other major thing is the cpu usage while playing videos is simply unacceptable. A 2013 rmbp can't play one video these days? It can in Chrome without issues like skipping so this is just shit work by the ff team. Other than that I'm impressed by the browser. Dev tools are far superior to chrome especially the console. But after six months or so with ff, I've switched back to chromium. At least with chromium I know exactly which videos will play and which won't (drm). With ff, it depends on how ff feels that day. That is simply unacceptable for such a major browser.
nightski 8y ago
I'd love to switch to FF. But does anyone know why the JavaScript debugger is so painfully slow? It makes debugging certain problems super frustrating as compared to Chrome. Is it doing more than Chrome is? Any chance this might be resolved one day?
kim0 8y ago
Is there a way to use Chromecast with Firefox yet? Sigh Google
wooque 8y ago
Still no VA-API support aka hardware accelerated video on Linux. Chromium has working patch, it's not upstreamed yet (in progress), but there are unofficial community packages for Ubuntu and Arch. So if you are using Linux, especially on laptop, Chromium is the only choice.
- polski-g 8y ago
  What about Google Chrome on linux?
  - wooque 8y ago
    Google Chrome is official release from Google and thus still does not include patch as it's not upstreamed yet
brightball 8y ago
There are only 2 things keeping me from using Firefox as my primary browser at this point. 1. After the switch to Quantum, the part of the Lastpass extension that lets me copy my password from the drop down went away. It's a pain to have to open the vault every time I want to do that and it works fine in Chrome. I don't know what happened there, but it's enough of a pain that it keeps me out of Firefox. 2. Google Meet. I don't know if there's an easy way to open Google Meet links in Chrome automatically, but we use it for work and the IE6 style browser requirement is a problem. Those 2 friction points are the only thing standing between me and a permanent change. EDIT: Apparently the Lastpass thing is the only bit holding me back now.
- andreyv 8y ago
  You can select "Edit entry" in LastPass menu and copy the password from the popup window.
- driverdan 8y ago
  If you edit the LastPass record you can copy the password. It shows it though so make sure no one is watching.
- judah 8y ago
  LastPass: I missed the "copy password" thing too, until I discovered it's still there. If you're on Windows, install the LastPass binary for Windows (I think running the LastPass Windows Universal installer[0] will do the trick). Once installed, it actually enables the "copy password" menu in Firefox. I'm using it right now with Firefox 61. [0}: https://lastpass.com/misc_download2.php https://lastpass.com/misc_download2.php
  - brightball 8y ago
    When I use the universal installer on Linux, I get a weird glitch in Firefox where the extension just vanishes after I type in my email address. Haven't tried it on 61 yet though.
- DavideNL 8y ago
  What has kept me away from Firefox for the past 4 years is the terrible "pinch-to-zoom"... such a basic feature :/
andrepd 8y ago
Eh. Still using v56, since two crucial extensions are still unported to WebEx. These are indispensable to my workflow; I cannot even think of browsing the web without them.
- eridius 8y ago
  What extensions? If you list them here, maybe someone will have suggestions for alternatives.
  - ars 8y ago
    Tab groups.
    - eridius 8y ago
      I never used them myself, but I know I've seen recommendations for a few different extensions that provide similar (though not identical) functionality.
      - ars 8y ago
        They would need to be backward compatible, because redoing all the tab groups I have setup is not something I want to do. Although I suspect I may be forced to.....
- the_grue 8y ago
  Same here :/
- ars 8y ago
  Same here, except I'm on 52-ESR.
- orf 8y ago
  Is 56 not horribly vulnerable to many, many security issues? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-24/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-2...
hyperrail 8y ago
This is interesting to me: Access to FTP subresources inside http(s) pages has been blocked I thought immediately: what about FTPS (FTP over SSL or TLS)? So I checked, and apparently Mozilla has had a 17 year old feature request for FTPS support! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 This request was only definitively rejected a few days ago with note of “vague plans” to remove FTP support entirely from Firefox, but no more info than that.
amorousf00p 8y ago
Got to say -- the latest releases have been a return to the dark ages of firefox. Constant crashes, tab reloads that crash the browser, distorted graphics, high cpu usage, etc... I'd use almost anything else at this point.
- wazoox 8y ago
  Didn't see anything like this. There were some graphical glitches in the early Quantum releases, that disappeared with version 60 entirely.
- childintime 8y ago
  Never seen such things on stable.
- jamdav16 8y ago
  I think you're on your own in regards to these issues. Been 100% stable across my two Mac's and Surface Pro. Its a fantastic web browser.
- kup0 8y ago
  v60 on my iMac had random tab freezes all the time on "heavier" sites. Sometimes I'd switch to Facebook's tab and the page would just be white with a loading icon in the center, then maybe 1-2 minutes later it would become responsive again. This happened with multiple sites, too.
aorth 8y ago
Great release. I feel like momentum has slowed down since the massive version 57 "Quantum" debut, but I haven't had any problems with Firefox on macOS or Linux since then. Keep it up, Mozilla!
childintime 8y ago
Another pet pieve: try closing the window with the regular session _before_ the window with the private tabs... your session is lost like it was 1999. As occurs when Windows benevolently dictates a restart.

484 points by l2dy 8y ago

l2dy 8y ago

Also https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-solstice/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-sols....

jbernardo95 8y ago

When is Firefox bringing smooth pinch to zoom to macOS ?

lintroller 8y ago
Are there a substantial number of macOS users using touchscreens? EDIT: I don't know how I forgot about pinch to zoom via the trackpad. While my original question did start me down an interesting rabbit hole of touchscreen MacOS, I 100% agree that a lack of smooth pinch to zoom via the trackpad detracts from the overall user experience.
- msh 8y ago
  You Can pinch to zoom using the mousepad om MacBooks.
  - bwat49 8y ago
    on windows laptops with precision touchpad too
- madjam002 8y ago
  You pinch to zoom on the trackpad, there’s no touchscreen
- AlexandrB 8y ago
  I think he's referring to pinch-to-zoom using the trackpad since there are no Mac computers with touchscreens at all.
- tapoxi 8y ago
  No macOS machines ship with touchscreens, but trackpad gestures are used heavily throughout macOS. I find pinch zooming on the Mac to feel pretty natural.
yoasif_ 8y ago
Watch https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990
dilap 8y ago
that and lack of bounce-scroll make firefox feel very clunky on mac, sadly
driverdan 8y ago
What is your use case? Do you have poor vision? What's wrong with Cmd+?
rcarmo 8y ago
This is currently _the_ reason I don't use Firefox on macOS for anything other than testing. Oddly, it works on Windows reasonably well. Edit: forgot to mention I had to tweak something to enable it on Win 10. Edit 2: Why the downvotes?
- jbernardo95 8y ago
  Same here.
mi_lk 8y ago
Last time I asked it seems that this is not a top priority for Firefox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15803281
deno 8y ago
This feature is essential for mobile screens, and this is not meant to dismiss your concern, but what do you need pinch-to-zoom for on desktop? Everything is already huge and readable on desktop.
- mort96 8y ago
  macOS doesn't only run on desktops; there are people using it all the way down to the 12" MacBook.
  - deno 8y ago
    Sure, I’ve got a 12.3″ netbook (running Linux), and I don’t see any point in a variable zoom there either. Though I suppose it is 4:3 and hidpi. Still, even at 768p you get a bespoke layout for your device, since this is literally the most common resolution still (seriously). The pinch-to-zoom on mobile is only useful for the very specific case of viewing unoptimized content (mostly desktop sites) in a comparatively smaller viewport. It’s not even useful on mobile if the website is optimized (sometimes for worse, but still). It’s a nice to have, but hardly essential. But people are saying it prevents them from switching, so I am curious why.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    I've always used Ctrl+/- as the ancients did. Does Cmd+ not work?
    - deno 8y ago
      It’s a different type of zoom.
andrewaylett 8y ago
I installed https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-zoom/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-z..., it works well.

ktosobcy 8y ago

Great release. I had issues with previous releases (58-60) on MBP, where quite a lot of pages would cause high CPU usage and in turn overheating of the machine but after this upgrade the problem (at least it seems so) went away. And it also feels snappier. And now the dark theme also applies to address bar and hamburger menu which is nice bonus.

woumn 8y ago
Out of curiosity, were these high CPU usages on pages with any sort of video playing (culprits for me were Twitch or any live stream)? I was also having these issues, and I want to use Firefox, but the performance in the past was just too difficult.
- txcwpalpha 8y ago
  I had the same issues and avoided FF 57+ because of it. I just tried FF 61 and my results were mixed. Twitch and Youtube still made my CPU temps spike a little bit. It seems worse than Chrome but better than FF 57. Google Maps, unfortunately, still made my CPU temp spike 30C+ as soon as I opened it. I use Maps a lot, so this is still a deal breaker for me.
  - woumn 8y ago
    Yea, most of my browser time spent during free time is strictly on Twitch/Youtube/Netflix. Until these see improvements, then I won't make the switch.
    - Royalaid 8y ago
      I am also in this camp and want to say that twitch especially is just horrible for performance
      - woumn 8y ago
        Which is so surprising to me because it's using the HTML5 video player and toggling around with hardware acceleration does nothing to fix the issue. Perhaps it's the integrated chat + any of the add ones that Twitch has written for the videos?

woumn 8y ago

I always get so excited for new Firefox releases. Then I read the patch notes and never see that they've fixed performance for MacOS. I've tried everything I can find online, but Firefox just performs so terribly on my Macbook Pro. In the meantime, I use Opera (with little to no complaints).

rhencke 8y ago
What issues do you hit? I've been running on two MacBook Pros (one mid-2012, one mid-2015) and never had any issues. Everything's smooth as butter.
- driverdan 8y ago
  I also have performance issues. High CPU usage with minimal tabs. I regularly see 20% of a core with around 10 tabs open.
- tapoxi 8y ago
  I think the last time I ran into this issue it was a bug involving DPI scaling. If you're not running at the "default" scale, you'll have performance problems.
greglindahl 8y ago
I've used 6 different Macs over the past decade and none of them have ever had this issue. I'm not saying that you're wrong about your experience, but that it's not like it affects 100% of Firefox's quite large Mac userbase.
mythmon_ 8y ago
It may not be in the release notes, but this release has some performance improvements specifically on OSX.
matt2000 8y ago
I'm having the same experience: high CPU usage, slow typing response and big battery usage. Will see if 61.0 helps at all.

lostmsu 8y ago

Can I now have my tab groups back?

yoasif_ 8y ago
Try one of the alternatives? https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/firefox/collections/cris_70/favorites/ https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/firefox/collections/cris_70...
- epage 8y ago
  Unfortunately, none of these document how they store tabs. For example, I've been using Tab Session Manager and it will randomly lose information. I'd love it if these were backed by bookmarks or something so I get sync, etc.
seba_dos1 8y ago
That's exactly what the new tab hiding API present in Firefox 61 lets you implement properly.
Vinnl 8y ago
Yes! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view... Made possible by: > More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs

taf2 8y ago

was eager to try but "upgrade failed" - will try full download later

hd4 8y ago

Anyone else think the really significant change is going to be when Webrender finally enters the stable channel? It's already stable for me on nightly and is what makes the single largest difference to my experience, everything is so much smoother (instantaneous) and uses less resources. The reason I even switched away to Chrome from Firefox to start with was performance, I came back when FF's performance started eclipsing Chrome's again.

dingaling 8y ago
Webrender won't run on older intehrated GPUs which don't support the required OpenGL level ( 2.2? something like that ). For example it won't run on amy of our four home laptops. I can't imagine them enabling it by default until that user base is next to zero. I suppose they might prompt the user to flick a switch if supported but they'll still have to support Gecko for some time.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Wow how old are those laptops?
- hd4 8y ago
  Those must be seriously old, because it runs fine for me on a 2010 laptop (on it's last legs) with a Nvidia GPU, it actually runs better than my other newer laptop which doesn't have a discrete GPU. Both have an Opengl version newer than 3.0 so that probably is the limiting factor.
dgllghr 8y ago
If it is stable for you in nightly, it might work for you in 61. Just enable gfx.webrender.enabled in about:config
- hd4 8y ago
  think the new option is actually gfx.webrender.all set to true, at least in nightly. edit: just tested http://output.jsbin.com/surane/quiet http://output.jsbin.com/surane/quiet in 61, doesn't seem to be enabled, going to try 62. Pretty sure they would have announced if it had been in 61, it's a huge addition, and it's probably coming in 62 when it's stable. edit2: neither is it enabled in 62 (beta), also tried with the gfx.webrender.enabled option set to true just in case.

axelfontaine 8y ago

GMail now finally works with Yubikeys! Switching from Chrome is now finally possible.

drewg123 8y ago
This is awesome news. As a BSD user, the U2F stuff crashes chromium. I've been waiting forever for FF to work with U2F. How about Duo secured sites?
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  ive used earlier releases if Firefox on Android even with Duo with no problems already.
- floatboth 8y ago
  Which BSD? :) I ported u2f-hid-rs (the library Firefox uses) to FreeBSD, it's been in the www/firefox port for a while and now accepted into mozilla-central I think. The Chromium FreeBSD port also has had U2F support for a while.
  - drewg123 8y ago
    FreeBSD. I'll have to try it the next time I update
- confounded 8y ago
  I may have got this wrong, but IIRC, Duo use a Chrome-specific implementation; it’s on Duo to use the standard. I remember reading that it’s in their roadmap, but it didn’t sound like it was coming soon.
andrewaylett 8y ago
Although -- because it's a workaround for Google's implementation -- it only works for verifying keys, not registering them in the first place. If you add a key in Chrome(ium) then you can use it in Firefox: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1436078#c4 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1436078#c4

dark_ph0enix 8y ago

Still seems like there's no first party support for container sync.

mtgx 8y ago
It's definitely a frustrating experience to have to re-assign all of your containers if you happen to reinstall the browser. This should be easily supported by Firefox Sync.
- dark_ph0enix 8y ago
  Or if you happen to run Firefox between multiple devices. It's been a pain maintaining a couple of instances' synced when it comes to containers (again, such a shame). There's an open issue [1], but no resolution yet as it seems. [1] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/339 https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers/issues/3...
bambamboom 8y ago
Sorry about the bad news but sync dev is completely dead. Mozilla is scared of touching that code base. So don't expect any improvements or additions there .
- ianbicking 8y ago
  Though this was true for many years, there is now a team dedicated to sync development. (But there's a big backlog for them to work through!)
  - bambamboom 8y ago
    I extrapolated my last year's info (which was true for about 6 years by then)
  - bambamboom 8y ago
    Page shot is fantastic btw. No nonsense clipping in Linux (I use onenote on Windows and would love if shots could be exported outside as easily as they are created)

anarcat 8y ago

My favorite improvements are: * On-by-default support for the latest draft of the TLS 1.3 specification * Convenient access to more search engines: You can now add search engines to the address bar “Search with” tool from the page action menu when on a webpage that provides an OpenSearch plugin

williamstein 8y ago
My least favorite thing is "on by default TLS 1.3", since their implementation of TLS 1.3 seems to be badly broken: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1453204 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1453204
- pas 8y ago
  WTF. Do they not care? It's the same clownshow which went on for years with the "Flash and other plugins can hook all keys" bug.
Someone1234 8y ago
> Convenient access to more search engines When I read that I was hoping they'd let me add a search engine to the existing "Select Text -> Right Click -> Search Google for '[Selected]'." All I want is to be able to highlight page text and search YouTube, Amazon, or Google for it. Right now I use an extension called "Swift Selection Search" but I'd prefer not to need it, the search engines are already part of the browser, I just need them on the context menu.
- Ajedi32 8y ago
  Personally, I was hoping for a Chrome-style "start typing name of website then hit tab to search that site". That's one of the biggest features I miss whenever I use Firefox.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

glintik 8y ago

Mozilla, when will you fix scrollbar width issue? I’ll say you 1000 times “thank you” when it happens.

robin_reala 8y ago
What is the issue?
- glintik 8y ago
  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260 9 years old
  - abrowne 8y ago
    Personally I'd say 1000 no thanks if they implemented that. The scrollbars are part of the application chrome, not content. I should choose how to style them, through my OS, not a website I visit.
    - glintik 8y ago
      Anyway, you can apply own user CSS styles in Chrome.
      - abrowne 8y ago
        Yes, and I assume Firefox would let you turn it off, in about:config at least. So I'm fine with it being implemented ;-)
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It's actually 17y old, that bug or a dupe of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790. Why do you want it - if you really need it then you can have a skin so the user can alter the user chrome to match a specific website. Personally I consider it one of IE5s many horrors that websites were given control over the users UI. (IIRC you could turn it off at least?)

option_greek 8y ago

I'm curious what everyone has done to their FF interface with plugins and extensions. Here is mine: https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV Feel free to post yours as a comment below :)

johnpowell 8y ago
I haven't added any extensions to modify the appearance. But I did tweak userChrome.css slightly. https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m

bambamboom 8y ago

I cannot upgrade until I have a proper vimperator replacement :(

rudedogg 8y ago
Try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/. I've used it for close to a year and it's decent. It has some issues like all the other Vim plugins, but it works well enough.
earenndil 8y ago
QuteBrowser?
sirn 8y ago
You can try either Tridactyl[1] or Vim-Vixen[2]. They come pretty close to the Vimperator experience (although with WebExtension limitations). I'd recommend Tridactyl with native extension though (install the extension and type :installnative), as they've done a really great job re-implementing Vimperator features using a wrapper Python script (e.g. support for .tridactylrc, modifying UI[3], open with external editors, etc.) [1]: https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl (use the beta) [2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ [3]: https://imgur.com/7vQANhV https://imgur.com/7vQANhV here's `guiset gui none` with buffer list open
- dri_ft 8y ago
  Thanks for the tip-offs! I too have been stranded without a decent vimperator replacement for a while. Currently using Saka-Keys but not in love with it, so I'll experiment with these.

marcrosoft 8y ago

I would switch to Firefox if I could figure out how to disable smooth scroll. It's enabled by default and requires 3 rotations of the scroll wheel to move an inch down the page.

lgierth 8y ago
Right there in Preferences > Browsing
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
clircle 8y ago
Preferences > Advanced > Uncheck Use Smooth scrolling works for me on Linux. Do you have this option.
sammoth 8y ago
Open about:config and search for 'wheel'. There are ~50 options for tweaking scrolling, including one to disable smooth scroll and ones to tweak the scroll distance.
cpburns2009 8y ago
There's two ways: 1. At least in FF 60, go to the menu button, then "Preferences". Scroll down to the "Browsing" section and uncheck "Use smooth scrolling". 2. Go to the "about:config" URL. Search for "general.smoothScroll". Double click the row to toggle the value to "false".
GranPC 8y ago
It's in preferences, under Browsing.
marcrosoft 8y ago
Thanks everyone! Setting `general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel` to false and increasing `mousewheel.min_line_scroll_amount` x 4 did the trick. I'll be switching to Firefox for now.

vanderZwan 8y ago

> A more consistent user experience: Improvements for dark theme support across the entire Firefox user interface I know it's a bit petty to focus on this one, but I hope it includes a proper dark new tab. Currently the blinding white flash when I open a new one is painful on the eyes at night.

sydd 8y ago
How do you make websites dark? 99% of the sites I use are white: maps, HN, Reddit (OK, this has a dark theme in beta), Stack Overflow,...
- noisem4ker 8y ago
  Addon: Dark Background and Light Text https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-background-light-text/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...
- auscompgeek 8y ago
  Stylus and userstyles.org.
yoasif_ 8y ago
It does, switch to the Dark theme and try it out.
- JackCh 8y ago
  It still flashes a white screen at you when it's loading a tab that had been unloaded (this happens when you have a restored session and you click on a restored tab for the first time.)
Sgt_Apone 8y ago
Can confirm. If you have the dark theme applied, it applies to the new tab if you have it set as Firefox Home.
- 8y ago

lucb1e 8y ago

> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs About damn time. It doesn't seem to be implemented yet, though, as [1] still notes that it's not possible to hide the tab bar. Checking my list, I think decent mouse gestures (that work on all pages and without having to have a page fully loaded) is the last big item remaining. I suppose I'll finally upgrade from Firefox 55 to 61 then, once this is implemented (or I'll implement it myself next month, when I have more time) and only have to say goodbye to gestures... took only about 9 months for them to get APIs implemented after breaking the vast majority without alternatives! [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-re... Edit: Never mind, that's not actually what this means. It's about hiding individual tabs from the tab bar, not sure to what end... Firefox 55 it is.

seba_dos1 8y ago
Hiding the tab bar is easy with userChrome.css - https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-Tweaks#hide-the-horizontal-tab-strip-15 https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-Twe...
- lucb1e 8y ago
  Ah, I didn't know about that. Thanks! Looks like we should again start installing add-ons like we used to install the famous old toolbars, from executables/binaries which can modify things outside of the browser.
Crespyl 8y ago
Hiding individual tabs is necessary for one of my own core workflow addons that broke with the recent changes: panorama/tab-groups. With tab-hiding in, the "Panorama View" extension successfully replicates all the features I wanted from the old version of the addon. Mouse-gestures/addons-in-system-page is still the last big gripe for me too, but even with the current limitations, the situation works well enough for me 80% of the time.

hliyan 8y ago

Did anyone else discover the "Good News" voice in Firefox's reader mode text-to-voice? It reads the current page to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance"!

yoasif_ 8y ago
Pretty sure that is just macOS. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112
- hliyan 8y ago
  Ah, thanks for the tip.

fwdpropaganda 8y ago

How come I always find out about Firefox updates from HN faster than actually getting the updates? Honest question.

ectospheno 8y ago
I don't know the specifics for Firefox in particular, but update checks are classically staggered over at least a full day if not longer. You don't want every user of your product to hit your download servers at the same time.
- mythmon_ 8y ago
  I don't think that load on the download servers is an issue now. CDNs do a great job of distribution the load. The concern is more that some bugs (especially GPU related) only show up "in the wild". A slow rollout limits the damage if there is a show-stopping bug in the release.
dewey 8y ago
Posts on HN don't need to be rolled out slowly to spread out the load a bit and your browser doesn't check updates every few seconds if there's only one expected every few weeks.
arwineap 8y ago
Whereas HN submissions can submit directly after a package release, maintainers still have a lot of work to do.
cpeterso 8y ago
Mozilla throttles auto-updates for the first week or so to watch for surprise regressions. Firefox Beta and Nightly users are not representative of Release channel users, who often have slower hardware, less RAM, and crashy anti virus software. You can bypass the throttling by opening the About Firefox dialog to force an update check.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago

nixpulvis 8y ago

I'm still hoping to see an update that brings `performance.now()` back into spec. Seems the other browsers figured it out.

mintplant 8y ago
No, the other browsers just don't care as much about preventing side channel attacks.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  Is that actually the case? I've read a few things that seem to imply they've fixed the timing attcks without breaking the spec, but this was all heresay and unsubstantiated claims.

TekMol 8y ago

Can Firefox meanwhile play video via hardware acceleration on Linux or does it still use the CPU?

jackewiehose 8y ago
Not sure if this is related but my firefox/linux experience with video is also bad: - tearing all the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing) - Netflix doesn't support HD on linux - Amazon doesn't support HD on linux (for movies. But shows seem to be 1080p)
- bwat49 8y ago
  Enabling OpenGL compositing with layers.acceleration.force-enabled true should take care of the tearing. Has the potential to cause issues depending on graphics driver though
- bscphil 8y ago
  > - Netflix doesn't support HD on linux True that they don't support it, not true that it doesn't work, thanks to the wonderful people who take the time to fix other people's bugs. https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox
bwat49 8y ago
The linux version of firefox still doesn't even have opengl compositing by default, so I wouldn't hold your breath for hardware decoding any time soon. There is a bounty for the issue here: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/55506502-add-va-api-hardware-decoding-support-on-linux https://www.bountysource.com/issues/55506502-add-va-api-hard... It seems like the only hope we have for hardware decoding in a major browser on linux any time soon is if this chromium patch ever gets landed: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/532294 https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/53... But they are taking their sweet, sweet time.

Beldur 8y ago

FireFox 61 Release Notes for Developers: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/61 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/61

arendtio 8y ago
> The "Forget" button,... now clears service workers and their caches. Hooray :-) Decent Dev-Tools for service workers are essential for a good PWA developer experience.

Annatar 8y ago

Nope, since Mozilla doesn’t support illumos-based operating systems, I‘m boycotting Firefox.

dbg31415 8y ago

CPU usage seems lower. Especially on streaming videos. Am I seeing things or is that intended? Nice though, my MBP fans don't spin nearly as much when surfing today.

Vinnl 8y ago

> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs This should theoretically make it possible to restore the Panorama Tab Group functionality that I, among others, loved. Haven't tried 61 yet because it hasn't hit Ubuntu yet, but this extension should do the trick: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view...

ddtaylor 8y ago

Does anyone know how long it will take to hit the standard Kubuntu or Debian repositories?

ufo 8y ago
Debian Stable (stretch) is stuck with Firefox ESR. IIRC it was due to issues with Rust packaging. Firefox 61 should be available in Debian Sid and Ubuntu pretty soon though.
- vbernat 8y ago
  Debian is using Firefox ESR as a compromise to stability since it is not possible to keep older versions while fixing security bugs. Rust is an issue also for Firefox ESR too (when upgrading from 52 to 60).
  - ufo 8y ago
    Yes, Debian uses ESR by default but usually you could easily install the latest version from backports. In the current cycle this is exceptionally not possible, due to rust packaging issues. https://mozilla.debian.net/ https://mozilla.debian.net/
    - steveklabnik 8y ago
      What are those issues? This is the first time I’m hearing of this. If there’s something we can do please let me know!
      - glandium 8y ago
        Simply that there's no rustc package in Debian stable at the moment. Hopefully, we'll have one for ESR60, but that won't solve the problem for newer releases of Firefox that will require a newer version.
        8y ago

WalterGR 8y ago

Is Tree Style Tab as good as it was before all the Quantum changes? The last time I tried it in a recent Firefox, I had to modify the user chrome by hand, the extension was incredibly slow even on modern hardware, and there wasn’t feature parity with previous versions. I ended up going with Firefox 52ESR.

JackCh 8y ago
Disable animation effects to improve TST performance.
MarkyC4 8y ago
I use tab center redux. Worth noting it doesn't do trees (just a long vertical list if tabs).
buovjaga 8y ago
The only remaining quirk with TST I have noticed is that sometimes on launch, tab groups open expanded even though I had them collapsed. Then I have to first collapse any child groups before it agrees to collapse the whole thing. piroor is putting in a ton of work, see: https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master edit: oh, I've just ignored the tab strip at the top, so no comments on the tab hiding :)
- WalterGR 8y ago
  Wow that is a lot of Github commits. The last release is about a month ago... Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code? Looking at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Your_first_WebExtension#Installing https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Yo... it seems like it might be possible, but you'd have to manually 'install' the extension every time you start Firefox...
  - buovjaga 8y ago
    > Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code? Nah, I have just soldiered on with all the quirks in releases so far :)

overcast 8y ago

I wish Firefox would have a "great suspender" feature. Memory just gets chewed up with a zillion tabs open. They should time out and free up memory. My only option now is just to close, and reopen after a day.

darkmuck 8y ago
There are addons that function similarly, such as https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unload-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unload-tab/
greglindahl 8y ago
One issue that affects folks with a zillion tabs is that some extensions add a lot of memory usage to every tab. AdBlock Plus is one offender; uBlock Origin is much lighter weight.
- overcast 8y ago
  Yeh I'm pretty lightweight on extensions, I use only a couple, and uBlock over Adblock. It's just that sites chew through memory over time, and I'm not going to diagnose each one. Firefox already has the feature built in, when you restart the browser, those tabs don't spin up until you access them. They just need to use that functionality on a timer.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    In that case, there are some extensions that sleep tabs, and you can use about:memory to figure out which ones are the leakers. Maybe the Firefox crew could figure out how to build this in, it's definitely a case where Chrome's policy means that websites might not fix their leaks because they don't cause problems in Chrome.
debacle 8y ago
It seems especially prevalent on certain sites. If I leave a gamepedia wiki page open overnight, in the AM firefox will be using 3 gigs of RAM.

debacle 8y ago

Do we have on by default privacy sandboxing yet?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mnm1 8y ago

I wish they would add a setting for minimum zoom or remember my zoom levels after clearing caches. As it is, it does neither and the many add-ons that claim to do either don't work properly. It's fine to remove or not add functionality that's well supported by add-ons but this isn't by any add-on I've tried. The other major thing is the cpu usage while playing videos is simply unacceptable. A 2013 rmbp can't play one video these days? It can in Chrome without issues like skipping so this is just shit work by the ff team. Other than that I'm impressed by the browser. Dev tools are far superior to chrome especially the console. But after six months or so with ff, I've switched back to chromium. At least with chromium I know exactly which videos will play and which won't (drm). With ff, it depends on how ff feels that day. That is simply unacceptable for such a major browser.

nightski 8y ago

I'd love to switch to FF. But does anyone know why the JavaScript debugger is so painfully slow? It makes debugging certain problems super frustrating as compared to Chrome. Is it doing more than Chrome is? Any chance this might be resolved one day?

kim0 8y ago

Is there a way to use Chromecast with Firefox yet? Sigh Google

wooque 8y ago

Still no VA-API support aka hardware accelerated video on Linux. Chromium has working patch, it's not upstreamed yet (in progress), but there are unofficial community packages for Ubuntu and Arch. So if you are using Linux, especially on laptop, Chromium is the only choice.

polski-g 8y ago
What about Google Chrome on linux?
- wooque 8y ago
  Google Chrome is official release from Google and thus still does not include patch as it's not upstreamed yet

brightball 8y ago

There are only 2 things keeping me from using Firefox as my primary browser at this point. 1. After the switch to Quantum, the part of the Lastpass extension that lets me copy my password from the drop down went away. It's a pain to have to open the vault every time I want to do that and it works fine in Chrome. I don't know what happened there, but it's enough of a pain that it keeps me out of Firefox. 2. Google Meet. I don't know if there's an easy way to open Google Meet links in Chrome automatically, but we use it for work and the IE6 style browser requirement is a problem. Those 2 friction points are the only thing standing between me and a permanent change. EDIT: Apparently the Lastpass thing is the only bit holding me back now.

andreyv 8y ago
You can select "Edit entry" in LastPass menu and copy the password from the popup window.
driverdan 8y ago
If you edit the LastPass record you can copy the password. It shows it though so make sure no one is watching.
judah 8y ago
LastPass: I missed the "copy password" thing too, until I discovered it's still there. If you're on Windows, install the LastPass binary for Windows (I think running the LastPass Windows Universal installer[0] will do the trick). Once installed, it actually enables the "copy password" menu in Firefox. I'm using it right now with Firefox 61. [0}: https://lastpass.com/misc_download2.php https://lastpass.com/misc_download2.php
- brightball 8y ago
  When I use the universal installer on Linux, I get a weird glitch in Firefox where the extension just vanishes after I type in my email address. Haven't tried it on 61 yet though.
DavideNL 8y ago
What has kept me away from Firefox for the past 4 years is the terrible "pinch-to-zoom"... such a basic feature :/

andrepd 8y ago

Eh. Still using v56, since two crucial extensions are still unported to WebEx. These are indispensable to my workflow; I cannot even think of browsing the web without them.

eridius 8y ago
What extensions? If you list them here, maybe someone will have suggestions for alternatives.
- ars 8y ago
  Tab groups.
  - eridius 8y ago
    I never used them myself, but I know I've seen recommendations for a few different extensions that provide similar (though not identical) functionality.
    - ars 8y ago
      They would need to be backward compatible, because redoing all the tab groups I have setup is not something I want to do. Although I suspect I may be forced to.....
the_grue 8y ago
Same here :/
ars 8y ago
Same here, except I'm on 52-ESR.
orf 8y ago
Is 56 not horribly vulnerable to many, many security issues? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-24/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2017-2...

hyperrail 8y ago

This is interesting to me: Access to FTP subresources inside http(s) pages has been blocked I thought immediately: what about FTPS (FTP over SSL or TLS)? So I checked, and apparently Mozilla has had a 17 year old feature request for FTPS support! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464 This request was only definitively rejected a few days ago with note of “vague plans” to remove FTP support entirely from Firefox, but no more info than that.

amorousf00p 8y ago

Got to say -- the latest releases have been a return to the dark ages of firefox. Constant crashes, tab reloads that crash the browser, distorted graphics, high cpu usage, etc... I'd use almost anything else at this point.

wazoox 8y ago
Didn't see anything like this. There were some graphical glitches in the early Quantum releases, that disappeared with version 60 entirely.
childintime 8y ago
Never seen such things on stable.
jamdav16 8y ago
I think you're on your own in regards to these issues. Been 100% stable across my two Mac's and Surface Pro. Its a fantastic web browser.
kup0 8y ago
v60 on my iMac had random tab freezes all the time on "heavier" sites. Sometimes I'd switch to Facebook's tab and the page would just be white with a loading icon in the center, then maybe 1-2 minutes later it would become responsive again. This happened with multiple sites, too.

aorth 8y ago

Great release. I feel like momentum has slowed down since the massive version 57 "Quantum" debut, but I haven't had any problems with Firefox on macOS or Linux since then. Keep it up, Mozilla!

childintime 8y ago

Another pet pieve: try closing the window with the regular session _before_ the window with the private tabs... your session is lost like it was 1999. As occurs when Windows benevolently dictates a restart.