22 ms·

Firefox 68.0

478 points by Spydar007 7y ago

ceezuns 7y ago
"Dark mode in reader view expands so that windows are also dark on the controls, sidebars and toolbars." Thank god.
- basch 7y ago
  the blank white page is killer. inbetween page loads a bright flash of white.
  - capitol_ 7y ago
    This can be fixed with some user css. /* Put the content below into your <firefox profile>/chrome/userChrome.css */ .browserContainer { background-color: #000000 !important; }
    - dorgo 7y ago
      Nice one! I had to create the folder "chrome" and the file userChrome.css and restart firefox. How to find the profile-folder: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-...
  - jumbopapa 7y ago
    I use Shadowfox [1] and it corrects this issue. Adds a dark theme to many other components on Firefox too. [1] - https://overdodactyl.github.io/ShadowFox/ https://overdodactyl.github.io/ShadowFox/
  - 0815test 7y ago
    We should go back to system color (usually medium grey) as the default background for webpages. Not sure why more recent browsers have replaced it w/ white, this makes for pretty poor usability/accessibility.
- kpcyrd 7y ago
  Is there an about:config setting to force this, for example for i3 users?
- matthew-wegner 7y ago
  Similarly, I wish the app itself enabled Dark Mode on Mojave. File save/etc dialogs are awfully white in a darker environment. (More broadly, I wish Apple would allow things like file dialogs to force to dark mode. I know you can set NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance to NO, but it tends to mess up a bunch of other random stuff too)
giancarlostoro 7y ago
> WebRender will roll out to Windows 10 users with AMD graphics cards. This sounds awesome: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/graphics-team-ships-webrender-mvp/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/graphics-team-sh... > WebRender is a major rewrite of the Firefox rendering architecture using the same kind of GPU-based acceleration techniques used by games. I really hope it gets pushed to other Operating Systems as well in the future. Edit: Here's the link to their hacks mozilla blog post about WebRender Interestingly this piece of tech is from Servo: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-fps-how-webrender-gets-rid-of-jank/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-f...
- qplex 7y ago
  It's for Linux also. From the article: "We currently have WebRender enabled in Nightly for: * Recent Intel and AMD GPUs on Windows 10 desktops * Linux users on Intel integrated GPUs with Mesa 18.2 or newer with screens smaller than 4K"
  - Narishma 7y ago
    That's nightly though.
- gjm11 7y ago
  > Windows 10 users with AMD graphics cards It may be worth noting that WebRender was already deployed to Win10/Nvidia users in Firefox 67.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Ah I didn't know this, that makes more sense, I guess they wanted to isolate such a release by GPU to resolve immediate issues per release.
  - Santosh83 7y ago
    Will it also eventually roll out for those with Intel Integrated Graphics?
mooreds 7y ago
I love Firefox. First thing I install on any new computer. Super happy they keep pushing the web forward. Not a fan of the chromium quasi monopoly (not that the folks behind it are bad, just that any monoculture is problematic). Thanks for pushing the web forward!
- option_greek 7y ago
  The whole chromium project gives out the 'death star' vibe for me. I'm sure the engineers who are working on it are good people but the end result seem lead to destruction of open web as we know it by the Gempire.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - palisade 7y ago
    You can actually grab non-google Chromium. This site keeps track of the latest stable and nightly builds and how to download them directly: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ https://chromium.woolyss.com/ You won't receive automatic updates, or be able to login to your google chrome account, etc. The theme is slightly different in color but it works exactly like normal Chrome. Chromium is the open source project that Chrome is based on, originally it was a web browser built by the KDE team for Linux. I disagree that Chromium is evil. Personally, I use Firefox because I like it better. Though, on Android I use Brave which is based on Chromium and has ad blocking, privacy, and anti-fingerprinting built-in. Just a really quick easy way to get all of that in a simple no fuss package.
    - takeda 7y ago
      What Chromium implements is still controlled by Google. For example the recent controversy about restricting API for ad blockers will affect Chromium as well.
    - 0815test 7y ago
      If the "non-google" part is important to you, you'll probably want Ungoogled-Chromium or Iridium.
whatshisface 7y ago
>Local files can no longer access other files in the same directory. What impact will this have on web development without a web server? It sounds like you won't be able to load CSS or JS.
- kabwj 7y ago
  You’re supposed to use Heroku for HTML development.
  - Allower 7y ago
    dafuk?
- benologist 7y ago
  You can use software like https://serveo.net https://serveo.net to assign a temporary domain to access your local files through a web server.
  - llao 7y ago
    That's not necessary, if you run a local web server then this does not affect you. file:// is for access directly through the filesystem.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - smileybarry 7y ago
    Currently blocked by Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, probably because the temporary (sub)domains were used as malware domains at some point. Either way, exposing local files to an internet proxy just to open them in a browser is overkill. Lots of script runtimes come with their own lightweight HTTP servers nowadays. For example, I use Python's with "py -m http.server".
- vermilingua 7y ago
  Worse comes to worst it’ll be a toggleable flag, but it is still annoying.
dessant 7y ago
The Recommended Extensions program will go live on July 11. Extension updates are reviewed by Mozilla employees before they are published. Two of my extensions are also participating, reviewers took special care in how user data is handled and how accurate the privacy policy is. Overall the program seems to be a positive development that will give us a curated list of safe browser extensions to use.
- prawnsalad 7y ago
  I hope their extension review process has improved over the past 2 years. I used to have an extension live after it being reviewed, sent them an update a few weeks later, and they took down the old version without warning because the original reviewer didn't do something correctly (from what I can remember). I then had to wait a week before they could review the update and put it back live again by which point, a large portion of the userbase had disappeared and all our marketing efforts gone to waste for an entire week. Never again would I deal with Mozillas reviewing processes.
zubspace 7y ago
1) Regarding WebRender: Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop, but aren't they working on Servo? It seems, WebRender is a Gecko thing. I'm confused. 2) I'm also confused about the state of Gecko Embedding. As far as I know many are jumping to Chromium instead of Gecko. What's the plan there? Is Chromium better/easier to embed? Will I be able to embed Servo at some point?
- pygy_ 7y ago
  For 1) WebRender was developed for Servo and is being ported to Firefox as part of the Quantum effort (Firefox Rustification).
  - klibertp 7y ago
    Is it being rewritten in non-Rust during the porting? Or is it left in Rust, with build system taking care to compile and link it properly?
    - tangent128 7y ago
      It's being left in Rust, yes. Firefox already contains Rust components, such as Stylo.
- EwanToo 7y ago
  WebRender is a Servo thing https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-fps-how-webrender-gets-rid-of-jank/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-f...
- lucideer 7y ago
  Servo is an experimental browser project to explore ideas/techniques: it's never been intended to be a replacement for/embedded into Firefox. What was planned and is happening is that a lot of the exploratory work happening on Servo is being integrated into Firefox in parallel. WebRender is one example of this work: it's (effectively) a Servo component that is now in Firefox. Another example of the above is Stylo/QuantumCSS, Servo's CSS component. This post on Stylo/QuantumCSS gives a good early insight into the overall project to bring these components to Firefox https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine-quantum-css-aka-stylo/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-en... > many are jumping to Chromium instead of Gecko. What's the plan there? Is Chromium better/easier to embed? Will I be able to embed Servo at some point? - Chromium is much easier to embed than Gecko - Servo can be embedded now (and uses the same/a similar system to Chromium), but as mentioned above, Servo as a whole isn't stable. - Making Gecko/Firefox easy to embed would be great, but at this stage I think this is largely a matter of focus, resources, priorities. - On a related note, there is the GeckoView[0] which is a project to build an easily-embeddable Firefox for Android [0] https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview
jdlyga 7y ago
I've been running Firefox full time on all my computers for a few months now. It's been really good. I've tried to switch away from Chrome in the past, but I've always had to come back due to performance issues or incompatibility with something. But it's basically 95% on par with Chrome now (missing a few things like syncing search engines, etc)
- rustyminnow 7y ago
  What is "syncing search engines"?
  - iggldiggl 7y ago
    Meaning the search engines that appear at the bottom of the URL bar (respectively the separate search bar in case) and of course also the default search engine that is used when you load something that isn't an URL in the URL bar.
geokon 7y ago
"Cryptomining and fingerprinting protections are added to strict content blocking settings in Privacy & Security preferences." my first reaction is it's really sad to see this. looks like something Google blackmailed them into adding. maybe Im missing some aspect to this.. but why is mining crypto bad but showing ads is not? I rather mine coins/ether/whatever for the website owners than see more ads moving away from the web being funded by advertisement to a web funded by distributed computing is what a lot of people have been looking forward to, no?
- derefr 7y ago
  Crypto-mining scripts are mostly silent; if your computer doesn’t have a loud fan to spin up, you’re hardly able to even tell one is running other than on its eventual impact on battery life. As such, they’re a favoured tool of script-kiddies who deface websites. They take over a site, and then drop a crypto-miner onto the site to make themselves money, otherwise leaving everything intact. Sometimes even the site owner doesn’t notice anything has changed for quite a while. Meanwhile, an unaffiliated third party is now making money off of their website on the backs of their users.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    The whole adtech industry is built around arbitrary javascript execution for tracking purposes, so we've also seen crypto mining scripts served through ad networks. For example: ads on YouTube mining Monero https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e... This is being used by anybody who can sneak a javaascipt into your page or an iFrame that you embed, which has become too easy to do. When it comes down to it, IMO, site owners are responsible for what ads and scripts they allow to be served via their page, but I think I'm in the minority on that opinion. Ad networks (the more reputable ones anyway) are playing a cat and mouse game of allowing a Turing complete js environment and trying to prevent its use for doing particular pieces of math. I'm glad Firefox is joining in as well, but I'd be happier if we didn't have this problem to begin with.
  - geokon 7y ago
octosphere 7y ago
> Improved extension security and discovery: > New reporting feature in about:addons allows you to report security and performance issues with extensions and themes. > Redesigned extensions dashboard in about:addons provides easy access to information about your extensions, including data and settings access required by each extension. Find high quality, secure extensions via the Recommended Extensions program in about:addons, which now displays user count and ratings for each extension. > "Recommended” badges for these extensions also appear on AMO. More extensions will be added over time. I welcome the new changes to the extension ecosystem. For too long extensions were unsupervised and malicious code was allowed to run (remember the Stylish fiasco[0] where your browsing history was siphoned off?). App stores and extension ecosystems need to be policed with a lot more rigour and code needs to be inspected so that the extension does what it says in the description and nothing more. No ulterior motives. No 'monetizing' of user data, and no surreptitious phoning home to a command and control server with your browsing history. [0] https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/04/major-stylish-add-on-changes-in-regards-to-privacy/ https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/04/major-stylish-add-on-chang...
- ChrisSD 7y ago
  Mozilla do actually do a lot of manual code review, especially for new addons. That was one issue with the big extension migration; it was taking forever for new style addons to be approved.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Does the new system really stop those shenanigans though? I see notifications for what major areas an addon requires. I don't get notifications if an addon tries to reach out to the internet. Has anyone seen such a notification?
agumonkey 7y ago
Not sure if placebo but firefox nightly 70 is a looot more snappier than 69. Now I regret chrome almost not at all. Thanks for the hard work to all involved.
- dblohm7 7y ago
  That's placebo -- Nightly is built from our trunk. The only thing that changes between Nightly 69 and Nightly 70 is a version bump.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    no it's not something is definitely different somewhere, maybe a different config/default or reset, everything is snappier and my cpu is reaching 95+ degC while it never reached 80 before 70. Or maybe it's a different rendering library / os / gpu driver interaction.
    - DiabloD3 7y ago
      Maybe you crossed into having webrender enabled for your system?
Endy 7y ago
I'll be downvoted to Hell for this, but I don't care. With each subsequent release of Firefox, I'm consistently happy that I've moved to Pale Moon. The nonsense they're adding and the problems that Mozilla has to "fix" seem more often than not to be brought on themselves with the rapid-release and the move away from being Firefox to being "almost Chrome". The move to multi-process (which has introduced memory leaks), the move to WebExtensions (which nuked add-ons that worked reliably since FF2.0), and the general roadmap make me almost want to stop using a web browser.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  This reads far better without the first sentence.
  - Endy 7y ago
    Perhaps so, but I was absolutely correct on the response.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      See comment guidelines: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- silversconfused 7y ago
  Mozilla has been pushing anti-features like their survival depends on it. I too have moved to forks. I use icecat and waterfox now. Tired of being abused because they assume too much. Just be a stupid browser and stop being the internet police. You're not making the web better, you're just driving your long time users (we hackers) away, and news flash, no one is there to replace them! Normal users use default tools.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
I switched from Chrome after Google moved to disable ad blockers. Do we see any evidence of a broader trend towards Firefox? Or should we be happy in our little corner.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's no release at all of Firefox 69 upon the Android platform, that's the time when Mozilla I think will deceptively try to drop support for extensions/addons on android. Bug to have Add-ons pages declare Fenix extensions as unsupported. "version <= 68.0.98 is legacy Fennec version >= 68.0.99 is Fenix (or some other GeckoView-powered browser)" https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548428 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548428 "Or do nothing because Fennec 68 and Fenix 68 will overlap for only 6–8 weeks with a preview audience." https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/7963 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/7963 Firefox 69 releases 2019-09-03 at the end of Quarter 3. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar Extensions support are in the "Reserved Backlog" category. Also locked to prevent any more comments about it. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574 Extensions support is not in Q3 backlog https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/projects/19 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/projects/19
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Wait what? Extensions are the biggest reason I'm using Firefox on my mobile and the only way I got people to switch to it. How can they just be removing them for any period of time?
  - melinoe 7y ago
    Yeah, no kidding. Seems pretty significant, like pretty much a non-negotiable reason to switch to another browser if there is one with extension support.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
dictum 7y ago
I can't use `--ProfileManager` or launch a new instance with a named profile (`-P 'ProfileName'`). Instead of opening a new window with the requested profile, it opens a new window of the same profile that's already running. Launching from about:profiles works. Is anyone else running into this?
- callahad 7y ago
  Try adding `--new-instance` or `--no-remote` to your invocation.
callahad 7y ago
We also have some developer-focused release notes at https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/firefox-68-bigints-contrast-checks-and-the-quantumbar/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/firefox-68-bigints-contras... But more than anything... BigInt! Finally! JavaScript has real integers on Chrome and Firefox now! (The TC39 proposal is at Stage 3: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-bigint https://github.com/tc39/proposal-bigint)
jancsika 7y ago
Here's something from the SVG 2.0 wish list I'd be interested in[1]: > Presentation attributes on any SVG namespaced element Is Firefox going to support this? It's already supported in Chromium and makes it nice to use the web animations api (e.g., myRect.animate) on svg elements. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/SVG_2_support_in_Mozilla https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/SVG_2_suppo...
starik36 7y ago
I have a generic Intel card on a laptop and forced WebRender to be on via config and wow - it really feel very snappy. Congrats, Firefox team! Fantastic results.
anildigital 7y ago
I don’t see Firefox for iOS support to increase or decrease font size support yet. Safari for iOS 13 has it.
mswift42 7y ago
There are two things keeping me using Chrome. 1) Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. 2) I've enabled Emacs Input in Gnome. When I enter something in the address bar, both Firefox and Chrome show suggestions for websites below. In Chrome I can type Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p to navigate between the suggestions, because it respects my keyboard schema. In Firefox this opens new browser windows :( and I've found absolutely no way to change this behaviour.
- catacombs 7y ago
  Are you using Emacs as a window manager?
  - mswift42 7y ago
    No, I'm using gnome-shell which uses mutter as wm. But using gnome tweaks you can enable Emacs Input, which if you are used to emacs key bindings, is really handy navigating in gnome-terminal or, as mentioned web browser address bars.
- patrickmcnamara 7y ago
  >Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. This is also the reason I use Chromium. I'd switch to Firefox as soon as it supports VA-API on GNU/Linux.
  - whycombagator 7y ago
    Interesting, multiple streaming platforms did not work on Chromium for me. So I'd have to switch to FF to view them. I now use FF full time
    - patrickmcnamara 7y ago
      Chromium doesn't include the proprietary Widevine DRM. You can patch it in though, which is what I do.
pard68 7y ago
Wish there was a log in Firefox to determine how/why uBlock Origin keeps getting uninstalled across all my machines which are synced with my Firefox account.
- dblohm7 7y ago
  Sync does have a log. Maybe that would help? https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/File_a_desktop_bug https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/File_a_desktop_b...
garysahota93 7y ago
From a privacy perspective: which do you guys think is better? Firefox or Brave? I'm thinking it's finally time to give up Chrome.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I am having problems installing on macOS Catalina bets. Same as installing Chrome.
- dblohm7 7y ago
  There are known issues with Catalina at the moment. After all, as you yourself said, that OS is still in Beta.
silversconfused 7y ago
I was absolutely mozilla's target audience when firefox was introduced. Now they remove control and capabilities from us, and I keep getting told here on HN I'm not their target audience, and should accept that they are making this for "most users" who need extension signing, auto updates, sandboxing, and in general NERFING THE POWER from me. Who the hell are they building for if not techies? Who do they think is going to evangelize for them if not techies? Mozilla: fix it.
w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
Look like there is a concerted effort between Mozilla and google to remove efficient adblocker (mainly ublock) from their browser. How to resist that sweet money coming from ads networks ?
reeves23423 7y ago
Not exaggerating. IE is a one time downloade'r for firefox
Fnoord 7y ago
If I add a certificate on Android (for example for WPA2-Enterprise), do I need to disable security.certerrors.mitm.auto_enable_enterprise_roots if I don't want those with access to the private key to be able to MITM me?
- lucb1e 7y ago
  You might want to ask that on superuser or the security stackexchange site.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Thanks. I don't have accounts there, nor do I plan to have.
    - lucb1e 7y ago
      You don't need to, actually. It's one of the few unwalled gardens left on the Internet :). You can ask questions, post answers, and even propose edits to other people's posts without having an account. Edit: to clarify, I would have answered your question if I knew. I don't, but I think those sites give good answers.
vsevo1od 7y ago
Ро

Firefox 68.0

478 points by Spydar007 7y ago

ceezuns 7y ago

"Dark mode in reader view expands so that windows are also dark on the controls, sidebars and toolbars." Thank god.

basch 7y ago
the blank white page is killer. inbetween page loads a bright flash of white.
- capitol_ 7y ago
  This can be fixed with some user css. /* Put the content below into your <firefox profile>/chrome/userChrome.css */ .browserContainer { background-color: #000000 !important; }
  - dorgo 7y ago
    Nice one! I had to create the folder "chrome" and the file userChrome.css and restart firefox. How to find the profile-folder: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-...
- jumbopapa 7y ago
  I use Shadowfox [1] and it corrects this issue. Adds a dark theme to many other components on Firefox too. [1] - https://overdodactyl.github.io/ShadowFox/ https://overdodactyl.github.io/ShadowFox/
- 0815test 7y ago
  We should go back to system color (usually medium grey) as the default background for webpages. Not sure why more recent browsers have replaced it w/ white, this makes for pretty poor usability/accessibility.
kpcyrd 7y ago
Is there an about:config setting to force this, for example for i3 users?
matthew-wegner 7y ago
Similarly, I wish the app itself enabled Dark Mode on Mojave. File save/etc dialogs are awfully white in a darker environment. (More broadly, I wish Apple would allow things like file dialogs to force to dark mode. I know you can set NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance to NO, but it tends to mess up a bunch of other random stuff too)

giancarlostoro 7y ago

> WebRender will roll out to Windows 10 users with AMD graphics cards. This sounds awesome: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/graphics-team-ships-webrender-mvp/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/graphics-team-sh... > WebRender is a major rewrite of the Firefox rendering architecture using the same kind of GPU-based acceleration techniques used by games. I really hope it gets pushed to other Operating Systems as well in the future. Edit: Here's the link to their hacks mozilla blog post about WebRender Interestingly this piece of tech is from Servo: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-fps-how-webrender-gets-rid-of-jank/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-f...

qplex 7y ago
It's for Linux also. From the article: "We currently have WebRender enabled in Nightly for: * Recent Intel and AMD GPUs on Windows 10 desktops * Linux users on Intel integrated GPUs with Mesa 18.2 or newer with screens smaller than 4K"
- Narishma 7y ago
  That's nightly though.
gjm11 7y ago
> Windows 10 users with AMD graphics cards It may be worth noting that WebRender was already deployed to Win10/Nvidia users in Firefox 67.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Ah I didn't know this, that makes more sense, I guess they wanted to isolate such a release by GPU to resolve immediate issues per release.
- Santosh83 7y ago
  Will it also eventually roll out for those with Intel Integrated Graphics?

mooreds 7y ago

I love Firefox. First thing I install on any new computer. Super happy they keep pushing the web forward. Not a fan of the chromium quasi monopoly (not that the folks behind it are bad, just that any monoculture is problematic). Thanks for pushing the web forward!

option_greek 7y ago
The whole chromium project gives out the 'death star' vibe for me. I'm sure the engineers who are working on it are good people but the end result seem lead to destruction of open web as we know it by the Gempire.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- palisade 7y ago
  You can actually grab non-google Chromium. This site keeps track of the latest stable and nightly builds and how to download them directly: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ https://chromium.woolyss.com/ You won't receive automatic updates, or be able to login to your google chrome account, etc. The theme is slightly different in color but it works exactly like normal Chrome. Chromium is the open source project that Chrome is based on, originally it was a web browser built by the KDE team for Linux. I disagree that Chromium is evil. Personally, I use Firefox because I like it better. Though, on Android I use Brave which is based on Chromium and has ad blocking, privacy, and anti-fingerprinting built-in. Just a really quick easy way to get all of that in a simple no fuss package.
  - takeda 7y ago
    What Chromium implements is still controlled by Google. For example the recent controversy about restricting API for ad blockers will affect Chromium as well.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    If the "non-google" part is important to you, you'll probably want Ungoogled-Chromium or Iridium.

whatshisface 7y ago

>Local files can no longer access other files in the same directory. What impact will this have on web development without a web server? It sounds like you won't be able to load CSS or JS.

kabwj 7y ago
You’re supposed to use Heroku for HTML development.
- Allower 7y ago
  dafuk?
benologist 7y ago
You can use software like https://serveo.net https://serveo.net to assign a temporary domain to access your local files through a web server.
- llao 7y ago
  That's not necessary, if you run a local web server then this does not affect you. file:// is for access directly through the filesystem.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- smileybarry 7y ago
  Currently blocked by Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, probably because the temporary (sub)domains were used as malware domains at some point. Either way, exposing local files to an internet proxy just to open them in a browser is overkill. Lots of script runtimes come with their own lightweight HTTP servers nowadays. For example, I use Python's with "py -m http.server".
vermilingua 7y ago
Worse comes to worst it’ll be a toggleable flag, but it is still annoying.

dessant 7y ago

The Recommended Extensions program will go live on July 11. Extension updates are reviewed by Mozilla employees before they are published. Two of my extensions are also participating, reviewers took special care in how user data is handled and how accurate the privacy policy is. Overall the program seems to be a positive development that will give us a curated list of safe browser extensions to use.

prawnsalad 7y ago
I hope their extension review process has improved over the past 2 years. I used to have an extension live after it being reviewed, sent them an update a few weeks later, and they took down the old version without warning because the original reviewer didn't do something correctly (from what I can remember). I then had to wait a week before they could review the update and put it back live again by which point, a large portion of the userbase had disappeared and all our marketing efforts gone to waste for an entire week. Never again would I deal with Mozillas reviewing processes.

zubspace 7y ago

1) Regarding WebRender: Maybe I'm a bit out of the loop, but aren't they working on Servo? It seems, WebRender is a Gecko thing. I'm confused. 2) I'm also confused about the state of Gecko Embedding. As far as I know many are jumping to Chromium instead of Gecko. What's the plan there? Is Chromium better/easier to embed? Will I be able to embed Servo at some point?

pygy_ 7y ago
For 1) WebRender was developed for Servo and is being ported to Firefox as part of the Quantum effort (Firefox Rustification).
- klibertp 7y ago
  Is it being rewritten in non-Rust during the porting? Or is it left in Rust, with build system taking care to compile and link it properly?
  - tangent128 7y ago
    It's being left in Rust, yes. Firefox already contains Rust components, such as Stylo.
EwanToo 7y ago
WebRender is a Servo thing https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-fps-how-webrender-gets-rid-of-jank/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-whole-web-at-maximum-f...
lucideer 7y ago
Servo is an experimental browser project to explore ideas/techniques: it's never been intended to be a replacement for/embedded into Firefox. What was planned and is happening is that a lot of the exploratory work happening on Servo is being integrated into Firefox in parallel. WebRender is one example of this work: it's (effectively) a Servo component that is now in Firefox. Another example of the above is Stylo/QuantumCSS, Servo's CSS component. This post on Stylo/QuantumCSS gives a good early insight into the overall project to bring these components to Firefox https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine-quantum-css-aka-stylo/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-en... > many are jumping to Chromium instead of Gecko. What's the plan there? Is Chromium better/easier to embed? Will I be able to embed Servo at some point? - Chromium is much easier to embed than Gecko - Servo can be embedded now (and uses the same/a similar system to Chromium), but as mentioned above, Servo as a whole isn't stable. - Making Gecko/Firefox easy to embed would be great, but at this stage I think this is largely a matter of focus, resources, priorities. - On a related note, there is the GeckoView[0] which is a project to build an easily-embeddable Firefox for Android [0] https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview https://github.com/mozilla/geckoview

jdlyga 7y ago

I've been running Firefox full time on all my computers for a few months now. It's been really good. I've tried to switch away from Chrome in the past, but I've always had to come back due to performance issues or incompatibility with something. But it's basically 95% on par with Chrome now (missing a few things like syncing search engines, etc)

rustyminnow 7y ago
What is "syncing search engines"?
- iggldiggl 7y ago
  Meaning the search engines that appear at the bottom of the URL bar (respectively the separate search bar in case) and of course also the default search engine that is used when you load something that isn't an URL in the URL bar.

geokon 7y ago

"Cryptomining and fingerprinting protections are added to strict content blocking settings in Privacy & Security preferences." my first reaction is it's really sad to see this. looks like something Google blackmailed them into adding. maybe Im missing some aspect to this.. but why is mining crypto bad but showing ads is not? I rather mine coins/ether/whatever for the website owners than see more ads moving away from the web being funded by advertisement to a web funded by distributed computing is what a lot of people have been looking forward to, no?

derefr 7y ago
Crypto-mining scripts are mostly silent; if your computer doesn’t have a loud fan to spin up, you’re hardly able to even tell one is running other than on its eventual impact on battery life. As such, they’re a favoured tool of script-kiddies who deface websites. They take over a site, and then drop a crypto-miner onto the site to make themselves money, otherwise leaving everything intact. Sometimes even the site owner doesn’t notice anything has changed for quite a while. Meanwhile, an unaffiliated third party is now making money off of their website on the backs of their users.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  The whole adtech industry is built around arbitrary javascript execution for tracking purposes, so we've also seen crypto mining scripts served through ad networks. For example: ads on YouTube mining Monero https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-even-youtube-serves-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/now-e... This is being used by anybody who can sneak a javaascipt into your page or an iFrame that you embed, which has become too easy to do. When it comes down to it, IMO, site owners are responsible for what ads and scripts they allow to be served via their page, but I think I'm in the minority on that opinion. Ad networks (the more reputable ones anyway) are playing a cat and mouse game of allowing a Turing complete js environment and trying to prevent its use for doing particular pieces of math. I'm glad Firefox is joining in as well, but I'd be happier if we didn't have this problem to begin with.
- geokon 7y ago

octosphere 7y ago

> Improved extension security and discovery: > New reporting feature in about:addons allows you to report security and performance issues with extensions and themes. > Redesigned extensions dashboard in about:addons provides easy access to information about your extensions, including data and settings access required by each extension. Find high quality, secure extensions via the Recommended Extensions program in about:addons, which now displays user count and ratings for each extension. > "Recommended” badges for these extensions also appear on AMO. More extensions will be added over time. I welcome the new changes to the extension ecosystem. For too long extensions were unsupervised and malicious code was allowed to run (remember the Stylish fiasco[0] where your browsing history was siphoned off?). App stores and extension ecosystems need to be policed with a lot more rigour and code needs to be inspected so that the extension does what it says in the description and nothing more. No ulterior motives. No 'monetizing' of user data, and no surreptitious phoning home to a command and control server with your browsing history. [0] https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/04/major-stylish-add-on-changes-in-regards-to-privacy/ https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/04/major-stylish-add-on-chang...

ChrisSD 7y ago
Mozilla do actually do a lot of manual code review, especially for new addons. That was one issue with the big extension migration; it was taking forever for new style addons to be approved.
LinuxBender 7y ago
Does the new system really stop those shenanigans though? I see notifications for what major areas an addon requires. I don't get notifications if an addon tries to reach out to the internet. Has anyone seen such a notification?

agumonkey 7y ago

Not sure if placebo but firefox nightly 70 is a looot more snappier than 69. Now I regret chrome almost not at all. Thanks for the hard work to all involved.

dblohm7 7y ago
That's placebo -- Nightly is built from our trunk. The only thing that changes between Nightly 69 and Nightly 70 is a version bump.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  no it's not something is definitely different somewhere, maybe a different config/default or reset, everything is snappier and my cpu is reaching 95+ degC while it never reached 80 before 70. Or maybe it's a different rendering library / os / gpu driver interaction.
  - DiabloD3 7y ago
    Maybe you crossed into having webrender enabled for your system?

Endy 7y ago

I'll be downvoted to Hell for this, but I don't care. With each subsequent release of Firefox, I'm consistently happy that I've moved to Pale Moon. The nonsense they're adding and the problems that Mozilla has to "fix" seem more often than not to be brought on themselves with the rapid-release and the move away from being Firefox to being "almost Chrome". The move to multi-process (which has introduced memory leaks), the move to WebExtensions (which nuked add-ons that worked reliably since FF2.0), and the general roadmap make me almost want to stop using a web browser.

dredmorbius 7y ago
This reads far better without the first sentence.
- Endy 7y ago
  Perhaps so, but I was absolutely correct on the response.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    See comment guidelines: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
silversconfused 7y ago
Mozilla has been pushing anti-features like their survival depends on it. I too have moved to forks. I use icecat and waterfox now. Tired of being abused because they assume too much. Just be a stupid browser and stop being the internet police. You're not making the web better, you're just driving your long time users (we hackers) away, and news flash, no one is there to replace them! Normal users use default tools.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

I switched from Chrome after Google moved to disable ad blockers. Do we see any evidence of a broader trend towards Firefox? Or should we be happy in our little corner.

kevin_b_er 7y ago

This marks the last Android release with extensions/add-on support. There will not be a 69 release of this edition of Firefox for Android ("Fennec"). The new remake of the mobile browser ("Fenix") does not have extensions support and it is on an indefinite and easily ignorable backlog. It is explicitly not being worked on this quarter. At the end of this quarter is the scheduled release of Firefox 69. Unless there's no release at all of Firefox 69 upon the Android platform, that's the time when Mozilla I think will deceptively try to drop support for extensions/addons on android. Bug to have Add-ons pages declare Fenix extensions as unsupported. "version <= 68.0.98 is legacy Fennec version >= 68.0.99 is Fenix (or some other GeckoView-powered browser)" https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548428 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548428 "Or do nothing because Fennec 68 and Fenix 68 will overlap for only 6–8 weeks with a preview audience." https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/7963 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/7963 Firefox 69 releases 2019-09-03 at the end of Quarter 3. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar Extensions support are in the "Reserved Backlog" category. Also locked to prevent any more comments about it. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/574 Extensions support is not in Q3 backlog https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/projects/19 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/projects/19

StavrosK 7y ago
Wait what? Extensions are the biggest reason I'm using Firefox on my mobile and the only way I got people to switch to it. How can they just be removing them for any period of time?
- melinoe 7y ago
  Yeah, no kidding. Seems pretty significant, like pretty much a non-negotiable reason to switch to another browser if there is one with extension support.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

dictum 7y ago

I can't use `--ProfileManager` or launch a new instance with a named profile (`-P 'ProfileName'`). Instead of opening a new window with the requested profile, it opens a new window of the same profile that's already running. Launching from about:profiles works. Is anyone else running into this?

callahad 7y ago
Try adding `--new-instance` or `--no-remote` to your invocation.

callahad 7y ago

We also have some developer-focused release notes at https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/firefox-68-bigints-contrast-checks-and-the-quantumbar/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/firefox-68-bigints-contras... But more than anything... BigInt! Finally! JavaScript has real integers on Chrome and Firefox now! (The TC39 proposal is at Stage 3: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-bigint https://github.com/tc39/proposal-bigint)

jancsika 7y ago

Here's something from the SVG 2.0 wish list I'd be interested in[1]: > Presentation attributes on any SVG namespaced element Is Firefox going to support this? It's already supported in Chromium and makes it nice to use the web animations api (e.g., myRect.animate) on svg elements. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/SVG_2_support_in_Mozilla https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/SVG_2_suppo...

starik36 7y ago

I have a generic Intel card on a laptop and forced WebRender to be on via config and wow - it really feel very snappy. Congrats, Firefox team! Fantastic results.

anildigital 7y ago

I don’t see Firefox for iOS support to increase or decrease font size support yet. Safari for iOS 13 has it.

mswift42 7y ago

There are two things keeping me using Chrome. 1) Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. 2) I've enabled Emacs Input in Gnome. When I enter something in the address bar, both Firefox and Chrome show suggestions for websites below. In Chrome I can type Ctrl+n / Ctrl+p to navigate between the suggestions, because it respects my keyboard schema. In Firefox this opens new browser windows :( and I've found absolutely no way to change this behaviour.

catacombs 7y ago
Are you using Emacs as a window manager?
- mswift42 7y ago
  No, I'm using gnome-shell which uses mutter as wm. But using gnome tweaks you can enable Emacs Input, which if you are used to emacs key bindings, is really handy navigating in gnome-terminal or, as mentioned web browser address bars.
patrickmcnamara 7y ago
>Videostreams are way smoother using Chrome, at least on Linux. This is also the reason I use Chromium. I'd switch to Firefox as soon as it supports VA-API on GNU/Linux.
- whycombagator 7y ago
  Interesting, multiple streaming platforms did not work on Chromium for me. So I'd have to switch to FF to view them. I now use FF full time
  - patrickmcnamara 7y ago
    Chromium doesn't include the proprietary Widevine DRM. You can patch it in though, which is what I do.

pard68 7y ago

Wish there was a log in Firefox to determine how/why uBlock Origin keeps getting uninstalled across all my machines which are synced with my Firefox account.

dblohm7 7y ago
Sync does have a log. Maybe that would help? https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/File_a_desktop_bug https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/File_a_desktop_b...

garysahota93 7y ago

From a privacy perspective: which do you guys think is better? Firefox or Brave? I'm thinking it's finally time to give up Chrome.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

I am having problems installing on macOS Catalina bets. Same as installing Chrome.

dblohm7 7y ago
There are known issues with Catalina at the moment. After all, as you yourself said, that OS is still in Beta.

silversconfused 7y ago

I was absolutely mozilla's target audience when firefox was introduced. Now they remove control and capabilities from us, and I keep getting told here on HN I'm not their target audience, and should accept that they are making this for "most users" who need extension signing, auto updates, sandboxing, and in general NERFING THE POWER from me. Who the hell are they building for if not techies? Who do they think is going to evangelize for them if not techies? Mozilla: fix it.

w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago

Look like there is a concerted effort between Mozilla and google to remove efficient adblocker (mainly ublock) from their browser. How to resist that sweet money coming from ads networks ?

reeves23423 7y ago

Not exaggerating. IE is a one time downloade'r for firefox

Fnoord 7y ago

If I add a certificate on Android (for example for WPA2-Enterprise), do I need to disable security.certerrors.mitm.auto_enable_enterprise_roots if I don't want those with access to the private key to be able to MITM me?

lucb1e 7y ago
You might want to ask that on superuser or the security stackexchange site.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Thanks. I don't have accounts there, nor do I plan to have.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    You don't need to, actually. It's one of the few unwalled gardens left on the Internet :). You can ask questions, post answers, and even propose edits to other people's posts without having an account. Edit: to clarify, I would have answered your question if I knew. I don't, but I think those sites give good answers.

vsevo1od 7y ago

Ро