4 ms·

Can anyone explain exactly what's different about this? Are all these features not in normal Firefox? Is this like a beta of normal firefox, set of extensions,

Can anyone explain exactly what's different about this? Are all these features not in normal Firefox? Is this like a beta of normal firefox, set of extensions, or a significant fork?

pjmlp 7y ago
They are not, apparently the reasoning was not to make Firefox bigger with needless features not requires by non-techie users. At least this is how I recall it, please anyone correct me if I am mistaken.
- fimdomeio 7y ago
  It's a beta with special features for developers. right now dev edition for me is 70.0b1 regular is firefox 68.0.2 It also has the new logo and I suppose there's new stuff on the dev tools. "What's new" page is broken so not absolutely sure.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Definitely a few developer friendly plugins like one that parses and renders JSON responses in a new tab instead of showing unformatted plain-text.
  - jonathaneunice 7y ago
    Seems very much a beta for developers. Some cool dev features promised, but didn't always work as demoed. Font parameter manipulation for example. UI's there and pretty...it just doesn't affect the look/styling of fonts rendered on a real site like it does their demo site. Also, a number of UI controls slow to respond (e.g. cursors for dragging, clicking, etc.) β β β so very β
ptx 7y ago
I think it's mainly a difference in configuration. The developer version, IIRC, allows you to install extensions on your own machine without seeking approval from Mozilla, but on the other hand it apparently subjects you to additional telemetry: > Firefox Developer Edition automatically sends feedback to Mozilla ... In addition to the data collection described in this Privacy Notice, these versions by default may send certain types of web activity and crash data to Mozilla and in some cases to our partners.
- gigatexal 7y ago
  When was the last time devs took time out of their day to create detailed bug reports with crash logs and context? Telemetry done right is just a way to surface bugs properly.
  - mcny 7y ago
    I use nightly as my main browser because I want Mozilla to see my bugs. And I want Mozilla to not do telemetry in production. No such luck.
- bovine3dom 7y ago
  If you just want to be able to install unsigned extensions with neither the extra bugs from running a beta nor the telemetry, you can use the far less advertised "unbranded builds" of Firefox [1] instead. [1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Builds https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Bu...
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Don't the unbranded builds also lack automatic updating?
    - bovine3dom 7y ago
      It's possible. Last I heard was that the unbranded builds were too eager to update [1] so it could well have been disabled totally. The Mozilla wiki doesn't mention anything about updating being disabled which to me implies it is not. If you find out for certain, please let me know! I don't personally use the builds as Mozilla has not yet blocked signing of our extensions and `web-ext run` serves me well for development. Automated signing is not brilliantly documented but works well enough [2-3] to ensure that our builds are tested by real users before we release a stable version. [1]: https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637 https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637 [2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df815e9cd8c27bf7a56b0527bbd/scripts/sign#L5 https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df8... [3]: https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild.sh https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild....
input_sh 7y ago
Special features: kind of like an IDE on top of Firefox, meant to be used by web developers. Comes with its own config profile, so you can fuck around and not break stuff in stable/beta that you are supposed to have concurrently installed. Kind of like beta: all of the new APIs and features related to web development are there three months before they hit stable.
- shawnz 7y ago
  The retail edition of Firefox already includes dev tools.
  - input_sh 7y ago
    ...and Firefox Developer comes with dev tool features that have not yet reached Firefox Stable.
    - ihuman 7y ago
      Which ones are not in the stable version yet?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sciurus 7y ago
It is based on the beta release channel and has some configuration tweaks. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Developer_Edition https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Dev...

Can anyone explain exactly what's different about this? Are all these features not in normal Firefox? Is this like a beta of normal firefox, set of extensions, or a significant fork?

pjmlp 7y ago

They are not, apparently the reasoning was not to make Firefox bigger with needless features not requires by non-techie users. At least this is how I recall it, please anyone correct me if I am mistaken.

fimdomeio 7y ago
It's a beta with special features for developers. right now dev edition for me is 70.0b1 regular is firefox 68.0.2 It also has the new logo and I suppose there's new stuff on the dev tools. "What's new" page is broken so not absolutely sure.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Definitely a few developer friendly plugins like one that parses and renders JSON responses in a new tab instead of showing unformatted plain-text.
- jonathaneunice 7y ago
  Seems very much a beta for developers. Some cool dev features promised, but didn't always work as demoed. Font parameter manipulation for example. UI's there and pretty...it just doesn't affect the look/styling of fonts rendered on a real site like it does their demo site. Also, a number of UI controls slow to respond (e.g. cursors for dragging, clicking, etc.) β β β so very β

ptx 7y ago

I think it's mainly a difference in configuration. The developer version, IIRC, allows you to install extensions on your own machine without seeking approval from Mozilla, but on the other hand it apparently subjects you to additional telemetry: > Firefox Developer Edition automatically sends feedback to Mozilla ... In addition to the data collection described in this Privacy Notice, these versions by default may send certain types of web activity and crash data to Mozilla and in some cases to our partners.

gigatexal 7y ago
When was the last time devs took time out of their day to create detailed bug reports with crash logs and context? Telemetry done right is just a way to surface bugs properly.
- mcny 7y ago
  I use nightly as my main browser because I want Mozilla to see my bugs. And I want Mozilla to not do telemetry in production. No such luck.
bovine3dom 7y ago
If you just want to be able to install unsigned extensions with neither the extra bugs from running a beta nor the telemetry, you can use the far less advertised "unbranded builds" of Firefox [1] instead. [1]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Builds https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Bu...
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Don't the unbranded builds also lack automatic updating?
  - bovine3dom 7y ago
    It's possible. Last I heard was that the unbranded builds were too eager to update [1] so it could well have been disabled totally. The Mozilla wiki doesn't mention anything about updating being disabled which to me implies it is not. If you find out for certain, please let me know! I don't personally use the builds as Mozilla has not yet blocked signing of our extensions and `web-ext run` serves me well for development. Automated signing is not brilliantly documented but works well enough [2-3] to ensure that our builds are tested by real users before we release a stable version. [1]: https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637 https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637 [2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df815e9cd8c27bf7a56b0527bbd/scripts/sign#L5 https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df8... [3]: https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild.sh https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild....

input_sh 7y ago

Special features: kind of like an IDE on top of Firefox, meant to be used by web developers. Comes with its own config profile, so you can fuck around and not break stuff in stable/beta that you are supposed to have concurrently installed. Kind of like beta: all of the new APIs and features related to web development are there three months before they hit stable.

shawnz 7y ago
The retail edition of Firefox already includes dev tools.
- input_sh 7y ago
  ...and Firefox Developer comes with dev tool features that have not yet reached Firefox Stable.
  - ihuman 7y ago
    Which ones are not in the stable version yet?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sciurus 7y ago

It is based on the beta release channel and has some configuration tweaks. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Developer_Edition https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Dev...