20 ms·

Firefox 76

422 points by kalimatas 6y ago

CameronNemo 6y ago
>Firefox now supports Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing like VR and gaming on the web; and is being adopted by some of your favorite software programs. > With this change, you can now join Zoom calls on Firefox without the need for any additional downloads.
- m_eiman 6y ago
  Does anyone know if this is something that will benefit Jitsi too?
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    As an outsider that has done some reading, I believe the biggest thing it still needs is simulcast support, and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210175 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210175 tracks that for H.264 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=simulcast https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=simulcast is barebones, 1210175 is more interesting). That should be part of the https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1607238 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1607238 match-WebRTC-spec-updates work. Short story seems to be “nothing is happening at this time”.
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    Indications are "likely yes", given this issue on Jitsi Meet's tracker with lots of Firefox 76 discussion and bug links in it: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/4758 https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/4758
  - padenot 6y ago
    Jitsi doesn't use AudioWorklet as of now (and doesn't need to). We're continuing the work so that jitsi works well in Firefox, there are a few things remaining, but less so than a few weeks back (I'm more on the audio side, and those issues are mostly signaling or networking related).
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Cool! I wonder if this also does anything to fix audio in Slack calls and Microsoft Teams? Once I spoof the useragent, I mean. :)
- nathancahill 6y ago
  I wonder if it'll fix the fans going nuts on google.com/<whatever> video calls.
  - padenot 6y ago
    It's unlikely that AudioWorklet will fix a video call issue (zoom is alone in using it, because it doesn't use regular WebRTC facilities), but we're aware of performance issues, and they are being addressed. In particular the graphics layer is being rewritten (the WebRender project), and exciting new developments are coming these days (in particular usage of the OS compositor to composite some bits of the page, that saves lots of watts). This is particularly important for video calls, because often you're playing back multiple videos at once, so any inefficiency when compositing video is made worse. Other things that are coming is to implement new ways to signal temporal or spatial scalability (telling other peers that videos flowing should be lower/higher fps, lower/higher resolution), this will also help.
- Scaevus 6y ago
  On my Windows setup running on Bootcamp, the previous versions of Firefox had trouble accessing the microphone for many of the video call providers while Edge and Chrome are working fine. I guess it's time to boot it up and check.
narag 6y ago
Anybody using Firefox password manager that can comment on it? Is it considered safe enough? Are the passwords stored remotely if you have multi-device profiles? Edit: I asked because I see that some of the updats are related.
- nunodonato 6y ago
  I've been using it since it was introduced. I no longer think about my passwords. Everytime I register in a new website, I just right-click -> generate secure password, it auto-fills and saves it. One password for every website. Yes, they are stored remotely with Firefox Sync. I just love this browser more and more
  - chungy 6y ago
    Sadly it doesn't really support customizing the generation. There have been plenty of sites I've found where the auto-generated password doesn't match requirements of the service.
    - sfink 6y ago
      It's worked for me to just manually edit the autogenerated password to add in the BS required.
  - ufo 6y ago
    Can you use it as a password manager for things that are not websites as well? And is there a way to associate additional data together with the passwords, such as answers to security questions? Those were the two main things that made me use a separate password manager app in the first place.
    - cerberusss 6y ago
      No to both of these. There are only three fields, and they must all be filled in: URL, username, password. But suppose your bank is HSBC, you could, make up something like "securityquestion://www.hsbc.com", "mom's name", "Jane Doe".
nunodonato 6y ago
> Firefox displays critical alerts in the Lockwise password manager when a website is breached; >If one of your accounts is involved in a website breach and you've used the same password on other websites, you will now be prompted to update your password. A key icon identifies which accounts use that vulnerable password. this is great! thanks :)
- rasengan 6y ago
  How exactly does this work?
  - metalliqaz 6y ago
    They check against a database similar to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/
    - dblohm7 6y ago
      They check against the HIBP database itself.
Someone1234 6y ago
In the security bug fixes: >>> CVE-2020-12387: Use-after-free during worker shutdown >>> Impact: critical >>> A race condition when running shutdown code for Web Worker led to a use-after-free vulnerability. This resulted in a potentially exploitable crash. And: >>> CVE-2020-12388: Sandbox escape with improperly guarded Access Tokens >>> Impact: critical >>> The Firefox content processes did not sufficiently lockdown access control which could result in a sandbox escape. [On Windows] So a sandbox escape and a way to be in a position to need a sandbox escape.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > CVE-2020-12388: Sandbox escape with improperly guarded Access Tokens Perhaps it's the same as the Chromium one reported here recently? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945630
influx 6y ago
Firefox made a huge mistake following in Chrome's trail with the version numbering scheme. I just don't care about Firefox 76, is it a big change? Is there some new feature I would want to try? Who knows, I'm sure Firefox 77 will be out soon though!
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I prefer date-based version numbers so that I can easily tell how out of date something is - assuming it's updated frequently enough. But either way, I don't think this is a particularly important issue.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  I want to figure out who to talk to on both Firefox and Chrome sides to beg that they adopt a scheme like YYYY.MM.minor for their version numbering. I believe that would be superior for basically everyone—web developers, users, &c. (In the case of Firefox, it works especially well since they’re releasing approximately monthly now. I could imagine people on Chrome puzzling over why some month numbers got skipped—not that people actually look at those numbers often.)
  - joaomsa 6y ago
    Might affect (dumb) uses that rely on the current increasing version number scheme in user agent strings and package/deployment scripts.
    - chrismorgan 6y ago
      User agent strings are progressively being frozen, so that shouldn’t affect anything.
    - clairity 6y ago
      if you strip out the periods, it’s still an increasing numbering scheme, assuming there’s fewer than 10 minor releases in a month, which seems highly likely.
  - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> The shadow around the address bar field is reduced in width when a new tab is opened; I mean, at least they're trying, I guess. Still seems to me like lipstick on a pig. I'm still trying to figure out what UX problem the expanding bar was intended to address.
- losvedir 6y ago
  Oh, that's intentional? I had no idea what was going on and am just now realizing I haven't had a weird bug or something this whole time. edit: just remembered because it happened again. I'm not sure if it's related but I often find now that when I type "n" the bar doesn't autocomplete "ews.ycombinator.com" with the rest of the text highlighted anymore. It still goes there if I hit enter, though.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    It looks broken, doesn't it?! It's because the spacing doesn't match anything else in the UI. Graphic design usually follows a grid system. I'm just so perplexed by the whole thing.
  - choward 6y ago
    I noticed this after upgrading my OS and thought something horrible had happened. Turned out to be true but it was intentional by Mozilla. If it's not broke, break it I guess.
- iknowstuff 6y ago
  I like it!
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Seconded. I prefer it to the old design. But we seem to be the minority.
    - prophesi 6y ago
      It's just the HN effect; complain about the most minute details. Firefox simply wanted it to be more obvious that the address bar is in focus the moment you open a new tab.
xpressvideoz 6y ago
> Audio playback is currently not working when running the 32-bit Windows version of Firefox from a network drive. This is a very intriguing bug. How could it be affected by running on a network drive?
- cpearce 6y ago
  Smells like a sandboxing issue to me.
pmlnr 6y ago
I've literally just installed 75...
jhymn 6y ago
Whenever I start up Firefox it tells me to wait a few moments while it updates. The browser obviously doesn't care about me. It has its own agenda. This is why I won't use it.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  ...how often do you start up Firefox? I don't think I've ever seen this. I generally loath automatic updates, but IMO web browsers are the one place they make sense. If you need something a bit slower, consider switching to Firefox ESR!
  - jhymn 6y ago
    I don't use Firefox often because of the constant updating that prevents me from using it right away. Chrome and Brave don't seem to do that, at least not in the same obvious way that Firefox does.
    - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
      No, they just update. Leaving you dead in the water when stuff goes wrong.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Ironically though, I wonder if not using Firefox much is the cause of that annoyance. In other words, Firefox usually waits for an opportune time to update, but if it's been closed for a long time, it likely decides that it's too out of date, and updating asap is critical for security. I'll reiterate my recommendation for ESR, it's Firefox but for people who want less frequent updates. :)
      - rebelwebmaster 6y ago
        Firefox ESR updates on the same frequency as the mainline release, they're just more limited in scope (i.e. mostly just security & stability fixes).
leeoniya 6y ago
i just want to say, Firefox is seriously fast now, while Chrome continues to get slower [1]. my 10M datapoint uPlot benchmark runs in half the time, for both pure js (fake data gen) and canvas workloads (chart rendering). check out the console in [2]. however, i'm still waiting for the performance assessment in devtools to improve so i can get an easy summary as i can in Chrome. also, better default form input styling would be nice. it's so...Windows 98....but i'm on Windows 10. :\ [1] https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark/issues/683#issuecomment-616080615 https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark/issues/68... [2] https://leeoniya.github.io/uPlot/bench/uPlot-10M.html https://leeoniya.github.io/uPlot/bench/uPlot-10M.html
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > also, better default form input styling would be nice. it's so...Windows 98....but i'm on Windows 10. :\ Google and Microsoft seem to agree with you, but I totally don't get it! If the website doesn't specify a style, my browser should fall back to a design that matches my OS, not whatever the browser developer thought was pretty! And if Windows is coming back and telling the browser to use Windows 98 styled buttons, Microsoft should fix Windows!
  - dstaley 6y ago
    > The underlying problem is Windows suggesting Windows 98 styled buttons I'm almost positive that Firefox doesn't use OS-native controls; they've specifically styled their controls to look the way they do, so yes, this is a Firefox problem, not a Windows problem.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Really? The reason I assumed otherwise is that, the buttons on Mac look like Mac buttons to me. And furthermore, the buttons on my Mavericks Mac (pre Apple's flat redesign) look different than the ones on my High Sierra Mac.
      - 6y ago
thomasedwards 6y ago
I really want to use Firefox, but they’re just stuck with so many issues, then suddenly out of nowhere they make the address bar massive. My personal annoyance, on macOS: Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in background - Chrome, opens in tab in background - Firefox, opens in tab in background Shift+Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in foreground - Chrome, opens in tab in foreground - Firefox, opens in tab in foreground Cmd+Click a bookmark: - Safari, opens in tab in background - Chrome, opens in tab in background - Firefox, opens in tab in foreground Shift+Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in foreground - Chrome, opens in tab in foreground - Firefox, opens in tab in background For some reason it’s different for the bookmarks. I opened an issue https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1597910 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1597910, because really there is no actual reason to make them different, but it was closed on the basis that it might disturb the muscle memory of some users. But changing the entire menu bar is completely fine?
antisocial 6y ago
I just switched to Safari - to be able to set time limits to websites on my mac, as I am consuming too much news these days. This is not possible with Firefox as far as I know.
- garrettr_ 6y ago
  There are numerous Firefox add-ons that provide this feature, e.g. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng.... IMHO, the main benefit of using Safari/Screen Time for this is that it automatically syncs the same limits across all of your iCloud-connected devices, which is great. I know Firefox has a Sync feature but I'm not sure if any of the add-ons leverage it to provide a similar seamless cross-device experience.
- kibwen 6y ago
  Extensions fill this role for Firefox. I have used LeechBlock previously and can recommend it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...
graphqldemo 6y ago
Address bar had been screwed in the version 75. I hope it has been fixed in this one.
chimen 6y ago
There are 2 things I miss from switching to FF: Right click on a picture -> search google for image Right click -> Translate page Everything else seems smooth enough.
- ConsiderCrying 6y ago
  I sorely miss the ability to make my homepage a layout of the sites I visit daily. On Chrome I had this grid of most frequented sites that I set up myself, fine-tuned so I could launch Chrome and immediately open up any mail, read the news, check some of the blogs I read, etc. On Firefox, I've been using bookmarks but that's not as effective.
  - asadotzler 6y ago
    I could be missing something but in case I'm not. You can enable Top Sites and customize them to your liking by removing ones you don't want and pinning the ones you do.
    - ConsiderCrying 6y ago
      Ohh, that's what I was missing. Thank you, this is a huge quality of life improvement.
  - mintplant 6y ago
    Customize the New Tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-new-tab-page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-new-tab-page
  - jops 6y ago
    Same sort of issue for me, but I use the Chrome bookmarks toolbar - only shown on new tab. It's the main thing I miss on FF.
- mintplant 6y ago
  Search By Image: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/search_by_image/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/search_by_ima... Translate Now: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/translate-now/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/translate-now...
amartya916 6y ago
Thank you to the Firefox team, this seems like a really nice release. I am very happy about the "If you don’t have a master password set up for Firefox, Windows and macOS now requires a login to your operating system account before showing your saved passwords." change. It might seem like a small change, but it's one of those friction points (another password to remember!) that will lead to (hopefully) more people using the built-in password autofill. Thank you again! Anyone with a security background or someone who has thought through this more: what are the implications of making the OS level authentication the default, and then only ask to make a master pwd if there are no OS level login pwds? Is one or the other more secure?
- aquova 6y ago
  This is a great feature. I always added passwords to the browser auto-fill without thinking, and was shocked to find out that these are viewable to anyone without any password by default.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Does it use the OS credentials to encrypt the passwords? Otherwise one could still read them in clear text with another program. Edit: punctuation
- joveian 6y ago
  Personally, I don't like operating systems that train users to enter login credentials while using the system as this increases the chance of someone capturing those credentials via spoofing. I used to think Firefox trying to protect the entered passwords made some sense, but I've been convinced it isn't really such a good idea. Better would be a full profile being protected (with all files encrypted), or just rely on an OS level lock screen for inactivity lockout. I'm not sure if the current system actually prevents recovering the passwords. Do they require this authorization even to use a show password option on a website or the equivalent effect via bookmarklet-style javascript? I suspect they don't and it doesn't try to protect from intentional theft only casual viewing of passwords. This might still be valuable for some people, but it would be more valuable to fully protect the profile. I worry that people will think they are more protected than they actually are and that this effect will be increased by the use of system login credentials. Also, IMO the list of sites that you have passwords for should be treated as just as sensitive as the passwords themselves. I think as is you can often see the sites with accounts, visit them, and have the current password autofilled into the old password field of the change password dialog. The "generate password" option is great, even though personally I would make it 21 characters rather than 15 (there might be an option for that?). IMO, no one should ever choose a password.
bsdubernerd 6y ago
Can I abuse an Audio Worklet to get around timeout throttling? What's stopping me to do so?
sj4nz 6y ago
So far my only gripe for picture-in-picture is no closed captioning from sites like YouTube. Otherwise, fantastic as has been usual for Firefox.
imagetic 6y ago
I have been loving Firefox for the last year. The only shortcoming for me is that video playback and animation playback (svg/js) is highly CPU intensive in comparison to Safari/Chrome. I basically open Chrome to watch any videos.
dustinmoris 6y ago
I love Firefox and use it as my primary browser for years but few things which annoy me: - Sending tabs between devices does not work. It sometimes arrives 12 hours!!! later - Google Cloud Console has some UI issues on Firefox - Twitter input field behaves extremely strangely when you enter an emoji and try to edit text afterwards - I don’t understand why some html elements have a different appearance and default css attributes on Firefox mobile vs desktop
- dblohm7 6y ago
  That sounds like a bug worth filing!
- bberrry 6y ago
  Been using Pushbullet for years to send tabs between devices.
- maps7 6y ago
  Sending tabs works fine for me
  - afiori 6y ago
    which systems do you use? I generally see more delay from android to linux than from linux to android for example.
- anthony_doan 6y ago
  - Sending tabs between devices does not work. It sometimes arrives 12 hours!!! later It doesn't work on my window 10 instantly but it works for osx and ios. The work around for my window10 machine, for me at least, is to click the hamburger and click on my account name, then click sync now.
jbverschoor 6y ago
Scrolling is still choppy compared to safari and even chrome
trashburger 6y ago
Is the simulcast feature added in yet? I want to ditch Chromium that I only ever use for Jitsi already.
shmerl 6y ago
Looking forward to WebRender starting using Vulkan instead of OpenGL on Linux.
stuzenz 6y ago
Hearing good things about firefox performance vs. chrome in this thread, I thought I would have a look at firefox use of rust - I found this informative page which provides a lot of rationale for where rust has been used: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation Here is a cut of what was introduced in Firefox 76 (copy&paste) Integrate fluent-rs, a localization system: bug 1560038 (shipped in Firefox 76) Why Rust? Performance and memory wins are substantial over previous JS implementation. It brings zero-copy parsing, and memory savvy resolving of localization strings. It also paves the way for migrating the rest of the Fluent APIs away from JS which is required for Fission.
sandworm101 6y ago
Lol. On first glance I read "Fallout 76".
psandersen 6y ago
I wish there were more options to control tab priority and UI latency in firefox. I have a respectable (2x8 core xeon, 164gb ram) workstation running linux and I have many tabs/windows open with various references spread across virtual desktops optimised for tasks (work project 1, 2, education, personal project,... etc). I've experimented with various extensions that pause tabs and currently use tab wrangler to auto-close tabs but it still gets slower to respond with ~50 tabs open across all windows. Sometimes I check the firefox & system task managers to see some basic reference tab (i.e. blog post) taking most of the CPU... It would be great to be able to aggressively throttle inactive tabs or even pause them completely so only ram is used. Some options around this use case would be much appreciated. Responsiveness under (almost) all conditions is much more important than raw benchmark throughput. Near instant tab resuming would be a huge help towards this goal as well.
ChrisRR 6y ago
And yet they still haven't added the feature to globally zoom, instead of per website. This is the only thing that keeps me using chrome
- kasabali 6y ago
  It exists since the very first Firefox version (and probably even before) After Firefox 3 (which introduced site specific zoom feature) you can set the below config option for old behavior http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.zoom.siteSpecific http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.zoom.siteSpecific
  - ChrisRR 6y ago
    I've tried that in the past but it never seems to take effect. I don't know if there's some other config overruling it Edit: That doesn't look like the config I'm thinking of. That appears to change to zoom for the current active tab, rather than per site. The config I'm thinking of changes zoom for every site
georgianar 6y ago
This kind Man brought my Lover back In less than 3 days, i saw wonders, my Lover came back to me and my life got back just like a completed puzzle… am so happy.. thanks to Robinsonbucler@ { gmail }. com for saving my life. Mr Robinson is the best I’ve ever met! Thanks, thanks thanks____________

422 points by kalimatas 6y ago

>Firefox now supports Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing like VR and gaming on the web; and is being adopted by some of your favorite software programs. > With this change, you can now join Zoom calls on Firefox without the need for any additional downloads.

m_eiman 6y ago
Does anyone know if this is something that will benefit Jitsi too?
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  As an outsider that has done some reading, I believe the biggest thing it still needs is simulcast support, and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210175 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210175 tracks that for H.264 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=simulcast https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=simulcast is barebones, 1210175 is more interesting). That should be part of the https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1607238 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1607238 match-WebRTC-spec-updates work. Short story seems to be “nothing is happening at this time”.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  Indications are "likely yes", given this issue on Jitsi Meet's tracker with lots of Firefox 76 discussion and bug links in it: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/4758 https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/issues/4758
- padenot 6y ago
  Jitsi doesn't use AudioWorklet as of now (and doesn't need to). We're continuing the work so that jitsi works well in Firefox, there are a few things remaining, but less so than a few weeks back (I'm more on the audio side, and those issues are mostly signaling or networking related).
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Cool! I wonder if this also does anything to fix audio in Slack calls and Microsoft Teams? Once I spoof the useragent, I mean. :)
nathancahill 6y ago
I wonder if it'll fix the fans going nuts on google.com/<whatever> video calls.
- padenot 6y ago
  It's unlikely that AudioWorklet will fix a video call issue (zoom is alone in using it, because it doesn't use regular WebRTC facilities), but we're aware of performance issues, and they are being addressed. In particular the graphics layer is being rewritten (the WebRender project), and exciting new developments are coming these days (in particular usage of the OS compositor to composite some bits of the page, that saves lots of watts). This is particularly important for video calls, because often you're playing back multiple videos at once, so any inefficiency when compositing video is made worse. Other things that are coming is to implement new ways to signal temporal or spatial scalability (telling other peers that videos flowing should be lower/higher fps, lower/higher resolution), this will also help.
Scaevus 6y ago
On my Windows setup running on Bootcamp, the previous versions of Firefox had trouble accessing the microphone for many of the video call providers while Edge and Chrome are working fine. I guess it's time to boot it up and check.

narag 6y ago

Anybody using Firefox password manager that can comment on it? Is it considered safe enough? Are the passwords stored remotely if you have multi-device profiles? Edit: I asked because I see that some of the updats are related.

nunodonato 6y ago
I've been using it since it was introduced. I no longer think about my passwords. Everytime I register in a new website, I just right-click -> generate secure password, it auto-fills and saves it. One password for every website. Yes, they are stored remotely with Firefox Sync. I just love this browser more and more
- chungy 6y ago
  Sadly it doesn't really support customizing the generation. There have been plenty of sites I've found where the auto-generated password doesn't match requirements of the service.
  - sfink 6y ago
    It's worked for me to just manually edit the autogenerated password to add in the BS required.
- ufo 6y ago
  Can you use it as a password manager for things that are not websites as well? And is there a way to associate additional data together with the passwords, such as answers to security questions? Those were the two main things that made me use a separate password manager app in the first place.
  - cerberusss 6y ago
    No to both of these. There are only three fields, and they must all be filled in: URL, username, password. But suppose your bank is HSBC, you could, make up something like "securityquestion://www.hsbc.com", "mom's name", "Jane Doe".

nunodonato 6y ago

> Firefox displays critical alerts in the Lockwise password manager when a website is breached; >If one of your accounts is involved in a website breach and you've used the same password on other websites, you will now be prompted to update your password. A key icon identifies which accounts use that vulnerable password. this is great! thanks :)

rasengan 6y ago
How exactly does this work?
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  They check against a database similar to https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    They check against the HIBP database itself.

Someone1234 6y ago

In the security bug fixes: >>> CVE-2020-12387: Use-after-free during worker shutdown >>> Impact: critical >>> A race condition when running shutdown code for Web Worker led to a use-after-free vulnerability. This resulted in a potentially exploitable crash. And: >>> CVE-2020-12388: Sandbox escape with improperly guarded Access Tokens >>> Impact: critical >>> The Firefox content processes did not sufficiently lockdown access control which could result in a sandbox escape. [On Windows] So a sandbox escape and a way to be in a position to need a sandbox escape.

cesarb 6y ago
> CVE-2020-12388: Sandbox escape with improperly guarded Access Tokens Perhaps it's the same as the Chromium one reported here recently? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22945630

influx 6y ago

Firefox made a huge mistake following in Chrome's trail with the version numbering scheme. I just don't care about Firefox 76, is it a big change? Is there some new feature I would want to try? Who knows, I'm sure Firefox 77 will be out soon though!

koheripbal 6y ago
I prefer date-based version numbers so that I can easily tell how out of date something is - assuming it's updated frequently enough. But either way, I don't think this is a particularly important issue.
chrismorgan 6y ago
I want to figure out who to talk to on both Firefox and Chrome sides to beg that they adopt a scheme like YYYY.MM.minor for their version numbering. I believe that would be superior for basically everyone—web developers, users, &c. (In the case of Firefox, it works especially well since they’re releasing approximately monthly now. I could imagine people on Chrome puzzling over why some month numbers got skipped—not that people actually look at those numbers often.)
- joaomsa 6y ago
  Might affect (dumb) uses that rely on the current increasing version number scheme in user agent strings and package/deployment scripts.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    User agent strings are progressively being frozen, so that shouldn’t affect anything.
  - clairity 6y ago
    if you strip out the periods, it’s still an increasing numbering scheme, assuming there’s fewer than 10 minor releases in a month, which seems highly likely.
- 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> The shadow around the address bar field is reduced in width when a new tab is opened; I mean, at least they're trying, I guess. Still seems to me like lipstick on a pig. I'm still trying to figure out what UX problem the expanding bar was intended to address.

losvedir 6y ago
Oh, that's intentional? I had no idea what was going on and am just now realizing I haven't had a weird bug or something this whole time. edit: just remembered because it happened again. I'm not sure if it's related but I often find now that when I type "n" the bar doesn't autocomplete "ews.ycombinator.com" with the rest of the text highlighted anymore. It still goes there if I hit enter, though.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  It looks broken, doesn't it?! It's because the spacing doesn't match anything else in the UI. Graphic design usually follows a grid system. I'm just so perplexed by the whole thing.
- choward 6y ago
  I noticed this after upgrading my OS and thought something horrible had happened. Turned out to be true but it was intentional by Mozilla. If it's not broke, break it I guess.
iknowstuff 6y ago
I like it!
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Seconded. I prefer it to the old design. But we seem to be the minority.
  - prophesi 6y ago
    It's just the HN effect; complain about the most minute details. Firefox simply wanted it to be more obvious that the address bar is in focus the moment you open a new tab.

xpressvideoz 6y ago

> Audio playback is currently not working when running the 32-bit Windows version of Firefox from a network drive. This is a very intriguing bug. How could it be affected by running on a network drive?

cpearce 6y ago
Smells like a sandboxing issue to me.

pmlnr 6y ago

I've literally just installed 75...

jhymn 6y ago

Whenever I start up Firefox it tells me to wait a few moments while it updates. The browser obviously doesn't care about me. It has its own agenda. This is why I won't use it.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
...how often do you start up Firefox? I don't think I've ever seen this. I generally loath automatic updates, but IMO web browsers are the one place they make sense. If you need something a bit slower, consider switching to Firefox ESR!
- jhymn 6y ago
  I don't use Firefox often because of the constant updating that prevents me from using it right away. Chrome and Brave don't seem to do that, at least not in the same obvious way that Firefox does.
  - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
    No, they just update. Leaving you dead in the water when stuff goes wrong.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Ironically though, I wonder if not using Firefox much is the cause of that annoyance. In other words, Firefox usually waits for an opportune time to update, but if it's been closed for a long time, it likely decides that it's too out of date, and updating asap is critical for security. I'll reiterate my recommendation for ESR, it's Firefox but for people who want less frequent updates. :)
    - rebelwebmaster 6y ago
      Firefox ESR updates on the same frequency as the mainline release, they're just more limited in scope (i.e. mostly just security & stability fixes).

leeoniya 6y ago

i just want to say, Firefox is seriously fast now, while Chrome continues to get slower [1]. my 10M datapoint uPlot benchmark runs in half the time, for both pure js (fake data gen) and canvas workloads (chart rendering). check out the console in [2]. however, i'm still waiting for the performance assessment in devtools to improve so i can get an easy summary as i can in Chrome. also, better default form input styling would be nice. it's so...Windows 98....but i'm on Windows 10. :\ [1] https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark/issues/683#issuecomment-616080615 https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark/issues/68... [2] https://leeoniya.github.io/uPlot/bench/uPlot-10M.html https://leeoniya.github.io/uPlot/bench/uPlot-10M.html

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> also, better default form input styling would be nice. it's so...Windows 98....but i'm on Windows 10. :\ Google and Microsoft seem to agree with you, but I totally don't get it! If the website doesn't specify a style, my browser should fall back to a design that matches my OS, not whatever the browser developer thought was pretty! And if Windows is coming back and telling the browser to use Windows 98 styled buttons, Microsoft should fix Windows!
- dstaley 6y ago
  > The underlying problem is Windows suggesting Windows 98 styled buttons I'm almost positive that Firefox doesn't use OS-native controls; they've specifically styled their controls to look the way they do, so yes, this is a Firefox problem, not a Windows problem.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Really? The reason I assumed otherwise is that, the buttons on Mac look like Mac buttons to me. And furthermore, the buttons on my Mavericks Mac (pre Apple's flat redesign) look different than the ones on my High Sierra Mac.
    - 6y ago

thomasedwards 6y ago

I really want to use Firefox, but they’re just stuck with so many issues, then suddenly out of nowhere they make the address bar massive. My personal annoyance, on macOS: Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in background - Chrome, opens in tab in background - Firefox, opens in tab in background Shift+Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in foreground - Chrome, opens in tab in foreground - Firefox, opens in tab in foreground Cmd+Click a bookmark: - Safari, opens in tab in background - Chrome, opens in tab in background - Firefox, opens in tab in foreground Shift+Cmd+Click a link: - Safari, opens in tab in foreground - Chrome, opens in tab in foreground - Firefox, opens in tab in background For some reason it’s different for the bookmarks. I opened an issue https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1597910 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1597910, because really there is no actual reason to make them different, but it was closed on the basis that it might disturb the muscle memory of some users. But changing the entire menu bar is completely fine?

antisocial 6y ago

I just switched to Safari - to be able to set time limits to websites on my mac, as I am consuming too much news these days. This is not possible with Firefox as far as I know.

garrettr_ 6y ago
There are numerous Firefox add-ons that provide this feature, e.g. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng.... IMHO, the main benefit of using Safari/Screen Time for this is that it automatically syncs the same limits across all of your iCloud-connected devices, which is great. I know Firefox has a Sync feature but I'm not sure if any of the add-ons leverage it to provide a similar seamless cross-device experience.
kibwen 6y ago
Extensions fill this role for Firefox. I have used LeechBlock previously and can recommend it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...

graphqldemo 6y ago

Address bar had been screwed in the version 75. I hope it has been fixed in this one.

chimen 6y ago

There are 2 things I miss from switching to FF: Right click on a picture -> search google for image Right click -> Translate page Everything else seems smooth enough.

ConsiderCrying 6y ago
I sorely miss the ability to make my homepage a layout of the sites I visit daily. On Chrome I had this grid of most frequented sites that I set up myself, fine-tuned so I could launch Chrome and immediately open up any mail, read the news, check some of the blogs I read, etc. On Firefox, I've been using bookmarks but that's not as effective.
- asadotzler 6y ago
  I could be missing something but in case I'm not. You can enable Top Sites and customize them to your liking by removing ones you don't want and pinning the ones you do.
  - ConsiderCrying 6y ago
    Ohh, that's what I was missing. Thank you, this is a huge quality of life improvement.
- mintplant 6y ago
  Customize the New Tab page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-new-tab-page https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-new-tab-page
- jops 6y ago
  Same sort of issue for me, but I use the Chrome bookmarks toolbar - only shown on new tab. It's the main thing I miss on FF.
mintplant 6y ago
Search By Image: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/search_by_image/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/search_by_ima... Translate Now: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/translate-now/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/translate-now...

amartya916 6y ago

Thank you to the Firefox team, this seems like a really nice release. I am very happy about the "If you don’t have a master password set up for Firefox, Windows and macOS now requires a login to your operating system account before showing your saved passwords." change. It might seem like a small change, but it's one of those friction points (another password to remember!) that will lead to (hopefully) more people using the built-in password autofill. Thank you again! Anyone with a security background or someone who has thought through this more: what are the implications of making the OS level authentication the default, and then only ask to make a master pwd if there are no OS level login pwds? Is one or the other more secure?

aquova 6y ago
This is a great feature. I always added passwords to the browser auto-fill without thinking, and was shocked to find out that these are viewable to anyone without any password by default.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Does it use the OS credentials to encrypt the passwords? Otherwise one could still read them in clear text with another program. Edit: punctuation
joveian 6y ago
Personally, I don't like operating systems that train users to enter login credentials while using the system as this increases the chance of someone capturing those credentials via spoofing. I used to think Firefox trying to protect the entered passwords made some sense, but I've been convinced it isn't really such a good idea. Better would be a full profile being protected (with all files encrypted), or just rely on an OS level lock screen for inactivity lockout. I'm not sure if the current system actually prevents recovering the passwords. Do they require this authorization even to use a show password option on a website or the equivalent effect via bookmarklet-style javascript? I suspect they don't and it doesn't try to protect from intentional theft only casual viewing of passwords. This might still be valuable for some people, but it would be more valuable to fully protect the profile. I worry that people will think they are more protected than they actually are and that this effect will be increased by the use of system login credentials. Also, IMO the list of sites that you have passwords for should be treated as just as sensitive as the passwords themselves. I think as is you can often see the sites with accounts, visit them, and have the current password autofilled into the old password field of the change password dialog. The "generate password" option is great, even though personally I would make it 21 characters rather than 15 (there might be an option for that?). IMO, no one should ever choose a password.

bsdubernerd 6y ago

Can I abuse an Audio Worklet to get around timeout throttling? What's stopping me to do so?

sj4nz 6y ago

So far my only gripe for picture-in-picture is no closed captioning from sites like YouTube. Otherwise, fantastic as has been usual for Firefox.

imagetic 6y ago

I have been loving Firefox for the last year. The only shortcoming for me is that video playback and animation playback (svg/js) is highly CPU intensive in comparison to Safari/Chrome. I basically open Chrome to watch any videos.

dustinmoris 6y ago

I love Firefox and use it as my primary browser for years but few things which annoy me: - Sending tabs between devices does not work. It sometimes arrives 12 hours!!! later - Google Cloud Console has some UI issues on Firefox - Twitter input field behaves extremely strangely when you enter an emoji and try to edit text afterwards - I don’t understand why some html elements have a different appearance and default css attributes on Firefox mobile vs desktop

dblohm7 6y ago
That sounds like a bug worth filing!
bberrry 6y ago
Been using Pushbullet for years to send tabs between devices.
maps7 6y ago
Sending tabs works fine for me
- afiori 6y ago
  which systems do you use? I generally see more delay from android to linux than from linux to android for example.
anthony_doan 6y ago
- Sending tabs between devices does not work. It sometimes arrives 12 hours!!! later It doesn't work on my window 10 instantly but it works for osx and ios. The work around for my window10 machine, for me at least, is to click the hamburger and click on my account name, then click sync now.

jbverschoor 6y ago

Scrolling is still choppy compared to safari and even chrome

trashburger 6y ago

Is the simulcast feature added in yet? I want to ditch Chromium that I only ever use for Jitsi already.

shmerl 6y ago

Looking forward to WebRender starting using Vulkan instead of OpenGL on Linux.

stuzenz 6y ago

Hearing good things about firefox performance vs. chrome in this thread, I thought I would have a look at firefox use of rust - I found this informative page which provides a lot of rationale for where rust has been used: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation https://wiki.mozilla.org/Oxidation Here is a cut of what was introduced in Firefox 76 (copy&paste) Integrate fluent-rs, a localization system: bug 1560038 (shipped in Firefox 76) Why Rust? Performance and memory wins are substantial over previous JS implementation. It brings zero-copy parsing, and memory savvy resolving of localization strings. It also paves the way for migrating the rest of the Fluent APIs away from JS which is required for Fission.

sandworm101 6y ago

Lol. On first glance I read "Fallout 76".

psandersen 6y ago

I wish there were more options to control tab priority and UI latency in firefox. I have a respectable (2x8 core xeon, 164gb ram) workstation running linux and I have many tabs/windows open with various references spread across virtual desktops optimised for tasks (work project 1, 2, education, personal project,... etc). I've experimented with various extensions that pause tabs and currently use tab wrangler to auto-close tabs but it still gets slower to respond with ~50 tabs open across all windows. Sometimes I check the firefox & system task managers to see some basic reference tab (i.e. blog post) taking most of the CPU... It would be great to be able to aggressively throttle inactive tabs or even pause them completely so only ram is used. Some options around this use case would be much appreciated. Responsiveness under (almost) all conditions is much more important than raw benchmark throughput. Near instant tab resuming would be a huge help towards this goal as well.

ChrisRR 6y ago

And yet they still haven't added the feature to globally zoom, instead of per website. This is the only thing that keeps me using chrome

kasabali 6y ago
It exists since the very first Firefox version (and probably even before) After Firefox 3 (which introduced site specific zoom feature) you can set the below config option for old behavior http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.zoom.siteSpecific http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.zoom.siteSpecific
- ChrisRR 6y ago
  I've tried that in the past but it never seems to take effect. I don't know if there's some other config overruling it Edit: That doesn't look like the config I'm thinking of. That appears to change to zoom for the current active tab, rather than per site. The config I'm thinking of changes zoom for every site

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