15 ms·

Firefox 82

348 points by agurk 6y ago

HashingtheCode 6y ago
Hey Mozilla, stop being Gggles Btch and accepting their 250million grant every year Also stop with the privacy lies...you are not a privacy browser Disable the telelmetry by default Disable Google search by default Disable trackers in your Android Firefox app
battingmarten 6y ago
Updated Firefox and the first thing I'm greeted with is an advert for their VPN. Not too happy about that.
- jsiepkes 6y ago
  Would you pay a small fee, say 20 Euro, a year for a Firefox version which guarantees no-ads or pocket? If enough people feel like that they might consider it. Meanwhile something has got to pay for the bills. I don't think advertising for their own VPN service is too bad.
  - LarvaFX 6y ago
    I would have but since they fired the devtools and mdn team, it's only a matter of time until firefox becomes totally irrelevant.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Can't have a dev team using up wages when that money could go on bonuses to an already hugely overpaid executive now can we!
  - leeoniya 6y ago
    > Would you pay a small fee, say 20 Euro, a year for a Firefox version which guarantees no-ads or pocket? i would have, even $50. but not after they've laid off most of their servo engineers to focus the company on more idiotic moneygrabs. there was never a way to pay for firefox. only some black hole foundation contrib that probably went to their many failed, poorly-conceived initiatives.
    - ChrisSD 6y ago
      Those "money grabs", by definition, make more money than they consume.
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        Money grabs by definition never fail? No, money grabs aspire to make money but may not succeed at it.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    I'd honestly happily pay for an FF license (or support license or something) if it was guaranteed the money was going directly to FF development instead of other Mozilla initiatives.
  - detritus 6y ago
    I'd happily pay at least £5 a month for Firefox, if I could. If I were richer, I'd pay more, and I totally understand the millions of people who don't want to pay a penny. From having read lots of posts over the years - here and elsewhere - I get the sense it would at least be worth their while opening up some kind of donate/subscription function, for people who feel they want to help.
- detritus 6y ago
  Why? It's 'their' product and fits within Mozilla's ambitions for the product, namely making the user central to the online privacy debate. If I paid for Firefox, I'd perhaps be a little irked, but given I've never given Firefox a penny, I'm happy for them to try and get me to spend money on their things (even though as a Euro, I can't yet - I think the VPN's US only?). If anyone from Firefox is reading this - please hurry up and allow me to pay for your product. I'd dearly like to! - ed: typos
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Why? Because people want to use their browser to browse. They don't want to be advertised to while they're trying to work or otherwise get on with their hectic lives. They also don't want to hear about silly TV shows while they're browsing. All things Mozilla needs to learn.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      But a VPN is arguably an help for a better browsing, so it's in line with what the user wants already.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > But a VPN is arguably an help for a better browsing, so it's in line with what the user wants already. Lol and Coca-Cola is delicious and refreshing so it's arguably in line to put it on the side of a bus when it goes past people who are thirsty. I don't want your product shoved in my face, no matter how awesome you think I should find it.
    - detritus 6y ago
      Ok, I've updated to see for myself. The 'advert' is in the start up page we see upon every update. It's as much of an imposition upon my browser experience as a welcome page in any application, and because my hand is already hovering over Ctrl+W, it's gone before I even got a chance to care. I just don't get the irritation here. My web browser is my single-most used application and I've never paid Firefox a bean for it. If they want to promote an extension to their service that they presumably feel is relevant to a percentage of their userbase, then they should go for it - even if the likes of you or I don't really care for it. The Mr. Robot promotion was a screw up, no denying it.
- protomyth 6y ago
  I would be fine with the notice if it supported the machine that I am on. Come on Mozilla, you know what OS I'm running, don't advertise "coming soon" to me.
- sp332 6y ago
  It's not a great default, but you can disable these by clicking the gear icon in the top-right of the new tab page and turning off "Snippets".
- rplnt 6y ago
  After Google used browsers to gain monopoly and cutting off their income, there's only so many monetization strategies you can do to stay somewhat competitive with an advertising company providing browser for free while simultaneously trying to block you from using any other browser.
  - spinningslate 6y ago
    Won't argue that Mozilla/Firefox has been comprehensively out-manouvered by Google/Chrome. I'm still puzzled why Moz haven't tried a paid-for Firefox option. They've gone to the bother of creating entire new paid-for products - with all the budget and product/market fit uncertainty that involves. Surely a paid-for FF option would have been a less expensive experiment? Perhaps the terms of the Google "donation" prevent/constrain that. I wouldn't be surprised if so. Which does lead to an interesting - if probably fanciful - scenario from the anti-trust investigation announced today... ...charactertise the browser as a "utility" and require G to (a) transfer it into Mozilla's stewardship and (b) force them to license from there. (I know: unrealistic, unworkable, lots of other "just no"s. But a fun idea nonetheless).
    - modo_mario 6y ago
      >Won't argue that Mozilla/Firefox has been comprehensively out-manouvered by Google/Chrome. And sometimes without being at fault really. I remember a key moment when firefox was bleeding users was when google decided that H264 would be the standard after switching for a while and mozilla having to run after it trying to get implementations going and then still having a laggy af experience on youtube and the like because the implementation google went with was proprietary. >I'm still puzzled why Moz haven't tried a paid-for Firefox option. and what functionality would the paid version of firefox have? Chances are it would cause an outrage and user-loss due to cries that functionality would be premium only tbh. It would also probably make not much of a dent in the budget.
      - spinningslate 6y ago
        > and what functionality would the paid version of firefox have? Maybe it's what it _doesn't_ have. No ads for Pocket/VPN/whatever. Maybe it comes with DDG as the default search engine. Or maybe it's pre-configured with a set of tested privacy-focused extensions. Pro-privacy advocates might be in the minority, but it's a growing and generally vociferous minority. Mozilla's VPN offering suggests they see privacy as a market. FF is still by far their most popular offering; so I'm simply wondering why there's been no effort I'm aware of to explore the intersection of FF, privacy and revenue. Recognising Google would most likey challenge that.
- jacobsenscott 6y ago
  Just wait until you go to google and see an advert for chrome!
  - battingmarten 6y ago
    Might be waiting a while. I tend not to go to Google.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  God could grant some of you immortality and you'd complain about not being able to instantly transport anywhere. Firefox is a decent product that you get for FREE, the output of all these groups' work is free and reproducible, but you don't like a once-in-six-weeks underwriting message when a new version comes out.
  - doc_gunthrop 6y ago
    If someone is so perturbed by something so trivial, it speaks more about the person than the product. The FF team could probably do away with that page and the user will still find something to complain about.
metalliqaz 6y ago
For Windows users, Firefox now uses DirectComposition for hardware decoded video, which will improve CPU and GPU usage during video playback, improving battery life. neato. Websites that use flexbox-based layouts load 20% faster than before. I haven't noticed this yet but it sounds promising. The rest of it doesn't really interest me. Picture in picture is a great feature but I don't use it because I just throw videos on a different screen to keep working.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  Does that mean any website with a flexbox will be 20% faster? Or that any paint time on a flexbox element will be 20% faster?
  - metalliqaz 6y ago
    i suspect its the later
- keeganjw 6y ago
  I'm hoping this update helps with Firefox's performance watching Twitch streams. Twitch kinda chugs no matter what browser I use but it's noticeably worse with Firefox. From the googling I've done, I'm not alone in this. I considered switching back to Chrome but didn't feel like moving all my stuff over, so hopefully now I won't have to.
  - worble 6y ago
    The extension Alternate Player for TwitchTV[0] I've found is pretty good performance wise. It adds an extra second or two of latency I've noticed when watching the same thing as friends, but otherwise it's pretty great. 0:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/twitch_5/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/twitch_5/?utm...
- BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
  The CPU and GPU usage during video playback is pretty big for me, I noticed that Firefox could get pretty intense on resource usage when playing longer videos. Not sure how much impact it will have on battery life but fingers crossed.
psychometry 6y ago
Several times over the past five years I've tried to switch from Chrome to Firefox and found it to be too slow once all add-ons were included. For a few months I've been using Firefox full-time and I'm finally switched for good. I encourage others to give it a shot.
- data_ders 6y ago
  Same! Containers and Pop-Out video are the killer features too IMHO
  - MrOxiMoron 6y ago
    yeah, as long are containers aren't synced and available on android it's not really an option for me, it's nice I can isolate certain sites, but if it doesn't work everywhere it's a bit pointless for me.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      So having containers and pop out video available nowhere is preferable to them being available on desktop but not mobile?
    - sp332 6y ago
      Progress on Containers is visible here: https://github.com/orgs/mozilla-mobile/projects/51#card-44872316 https://github.com/orgs/mozilla-mobile/projects/51#card-4487...
  - __soter__ 6y ago
    I just used the pop-out video feature for the first time, after thinking it was going to be useless. It is really awesome and the ability to put the video anywhere, not just in the browser, was one of the first things in a while that made me say wow to a new feature in a web browser.
    - subliminalpanda 6y ago
SloopJon 6y ago
> Restoring a session is 17% quicker, meaning you can more quickly pick up where you left off I actually wouldn't mind if they throttled this a bit. I keep a tab or two (dozen) open to Hacker News posts I haven't gotten around to reading yet. I dread restarting the browser, as several tabs inevitably end up displaying the "Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly" page.
- tux1968 6y ago
  Not sure why you're seeing that, a tab shouldn't be reloaded until you click on it the first time in the reloaded session, just retested here to confirm that is the case.
  - MaurizioPz 6y ago
    not OP, but probably the tabs are pinned, that causes them to load at startup
- liminal 6y ago
  I've found the Auto Tab Discard extension to be really helpful. It generally lowers the impact of having lots of tabs open and on startup only the visible tabs load.
lfmunoz4 6y ago
Mozilla has been in the browser business way before Chrome yet it seems like an inferior product. Perhaps not anymore, but my question is: What contributes to a company coming in and building a better product than a market leader? I don't think the engineers are more talented. Maybe management is more competent, or the vision is better?
txutxu 6y ago
> MediaSession API has been enabled by default which allows web authors to provide custom behaviors for standard media playback interactions, giving them more options than ever. /me checks what is this... then, from the draft (https://w3c.github.io/mediasession/#security-privacy-considerations https://w3c.github.io/mediasession/#security-privacy-conside...): > The API introduced in this specification has very low impact with regards to security and privacy. Ok... my concept of privacy, may not be the same as your concept of privacy...
- Spivak 6y ago
  But it look like it has zero impact on privacy. Like I don’t get it. This is a website being able to tell the browser, “hey I’m playing $Song” so it can show out-of-page media control buttons like you get on your lock screen. Where’s the issue?
- elcomet 6y ago
  How does this have an impact on privacy ? It only allows a website to send you additional information about some media, which you can display or not. It's not sending anything back to the server.
  - tephra 6y ago
    I haven't looked into it much but could it be another point in a browser fingerprint?
    - gruez 6y ago
      how? it looks like all you can do is send some information to the browser, and register some callbacks (if the user presses those keys). I guess you can fingerprint for the existence of the feature, but that's already 100% correlated with the user-agent, so it's a non-issue in my opinion.
bb101 6y ago
I happily switched to Firefox Quantum when it first came out, but have periodically switched back to Chrome because Chrome feels faster and snappier. Not sure why that might be the case. I'm using the latest MacOS X with the same set of extensions/add-ons in both browsers.
- hajile 6y ago
  Best viewed in chrome isn't pasted on most sites, but might as well be.
  - rplnt 6y ago
    Sadly, it is. The IE7 era, perpetrated by Google.
  - nr2x 6y ago
    When I saw a dev I mentored put that on a site I realized I had failed in my attempts to fully explain the dark days of the browser wars. Chrome truly is IEv2.
  - jrimbault 6y ago
    OVH client interface goes into a login loop on anything other than Chrome. There are a few sites like this which are the only reason I have Chrome installed.
    - nix0n 6y ago
      I've been able to solve that on a few sites by turning off the "enhanced tracking protection" next to the address bar (haven't tried OVH specifically).
      - jrimbault 6y ago
        For OVH I tried a lot of things, disabling extensions (one by one, and all of them), using a blank (firefox) profile, the usual cache/cookie invalidation, disabling various privacy protection enhancements (one by one and all of them), etc. Chrome worked. For other sites yes, often just cache/cookie invalidation is enough.
HashingtheCode 6y ago
LibreWolf is how Firefox should be......private https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/
blub 6y ago
Interestingly, this release fixes an undefined behavior bug in Rust code. "CVE-2020-15254: Undefined behavior in bounded channel of crossbeam rust crate" marked as high.
- coliveira 6y ago
  So now we see undefined behavior rearing its head on Rust too... I wonder how long until it gets to where C++ is.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    "Undefined behavior" isn't something that language designers put in because they're dumb, it's a necessary consequence of having many compiler implementations and supported platforms. Once an alternative Rust compiler comes onto the scene, the language will necessarily fragment too.
    - est31 6y ago
      Another large reason for undefined behaviour is to allow for optimizations. The optimizer of a particular compiler version is well defined by the compiler's source code and binary. But in order to be able to ever change the optimizer, you need to have undefined behaviour in the language specification.
      - ensiferum 6y ago
        Undefined behaviours are the accidental outcome when a program fails to be well formed. Nobody who writes compilers goes out there thinking that undefined behavior is the key that let's them optimize code to run faster.
        est31 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior#Benefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior#Benefits > Documenting an operation as undefined behavior allows compilers to assume that this operation will never happen in a conforming program. This gives the compiler more information about the code and this information can lead to more optimization opportunities.
godelmachine 6y ago
>>DevTools now shows server side events in the Network panel. This allows a server to send new data to a web page at any time allowing developers to see events they previously couldn't and help with lower-level troubleshooting. Would someone please shed more light on this? I work on BMC’s Remedy ecosystem and server side logging something that needs to be turned on separately. Does FF 82 help me capture it just like that or I need to do some configuration changes on the server? Pardon my simplistic question.
- acemarke 6y ago
  That looks to be a typo in the release notes. "Server sent events" is a specific server-> client HTTP communication mechanism. The Network DevTools already showed standard AJAX requests, and support for showing messages sent over websockets was recently added. This adds support for another mechanism that was not previously displayed: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events/Using_server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent...
  - tgv 6y ago
    That's good news. That was one of the things for which I had to switch to Chrome.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dmos62 6y ago
  I too was interested by this. If you follow the links it's all documented: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events/Using_server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent... > Traditionally, a web page has to send a request to the server to receive new data; that is, the page requests data from the server. With server-sent events, it's possible for a server to send new data to a web page at any time, by pushing messages to the web page. These incoming messages can be treated as Events + data inside the web page. Push-based server->client messaging. Exciting stuff.
robertlagrant 6y ago
"DevTools now shows server side events in the Network panel" Someone nontechnical wrote these notes - it's Server Sent Events.
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  Or someone just made a typo - thinking "sent" but typing "side" is not too far-fetched (I do these kind of typos all the time when I'm distracted).
- tumetab1 6y ago
  Thanks :D That was confusing me how the browser was seeing server events.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  I have seen developers make this exact error quite a few times over the years.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    Hopefully they're not paid to write articles, then.
    - chrismorgan 6y ago
      Pretty sure one of the places I’ve seen it crop up was an article on hacks.mozilla.org. I just took a look at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22server-side%20events%22&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22server-side%20events%22&sor..., it’s mostly (though certainly not entirely) people making this error.
The_rationalist 6y ago
Websites that use flexbox-based layouts load 20% faster than before; Where is the evidence? The TP6 benchmarcks?
nr2x 6y ago
Still no tap or pinch to zoom on Mac, I really want to use FF, but the lack of basic feature parity to Safari/Google on usability issue is astounding. I don't care about picture-in-picture, I just want basic trackpad support.
- pehtis 6y ago
  It has been available for some time now, just not enabled by default. Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox.
  - nr2x 6y ago
    I have, it's not equivalent to Safari or Chrome, the tap-to-zoom feature is essentially non-functional.
  - nr2x 6y ago
    Also, for a behavior that is standard at the OS-level I shouldn't have to literally flip variables after a scare-warning "touch this and break stuff".
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - cpeterso 6y ago
    allow_zooming is on track to ship in Firefox 83 (November 17): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1671235 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1671235
    - nr2x 6y ago
      Is this two finger tap to zoom or pinch? Not clear to me.
      - cpeterso 6y ago
        Pinch to zoom gesture on macOS and Windows. (I don't know if it will ship on Linux at the same time. Linux always has unique graphics issues that take longer to fix.)
SubiculumCode 6y ago
The only problem I have with Firefox is due sites optimizing for the Chrome monopoly,and I refuse to let the monopoly force me to give up on internet freedom.
ProAm 6y ago
Is the address bar still gross and giant?
- Dahoon 6y ago
  No, it is nice and big.
- seabrookmx 6y ago
  It's definitely still configurable.
  - ProAm 6y ago
    Where do you go to configure this? For awhile it was in about:preferences but then they moved it to the userPref.css file. Is it back in normal config? I would upgrade if I can keep my old address bar
    - seabrookmx 6y ago
      Hamburger Menu -> Customize -> Density -> Compact
- tgv 6y ago
  I'm happy to report that the text doesn't change size upon selection anymore. I think that some time ago they hit "peak address bar", but now that text size change has gone, it's perfectly usable again.
ugurnot 6y ago
Is there anyone who gets 'Your browser is out of date' type of notification on slack in Firefox, windows 10. I can open slack app on linux with Firefox, but for Windows, slack insists that Firefox is out of date and I should use another browser instead.
confounded 6y ago
Anyone on macOS having trouble with “Find in page” not finding text recently?
shuri 6y ago
Happy Firefox user. I love the multi-account containers and the picture-in-picture. That, and you aren't "logged-in" at the browser level.
- moallabbad 6y ago
  Then I think you'll also love the Container Default Pages extension [0]. I lets you assign a default website for each container. So for example if you have a container just for YouTube, you can set YouTube to open automatically when you open a new tab in that container. It's very convenient. Disclosure: I created it. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-default-pages/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-def...
  - jmholla 6y ago
    The extension already supports that, albeit in a semi-convoluted way: you have to visit the site to set a default container for it. If yours let's you edit it by hand, that is a pretty big quality of life improvement.
    - moallabbad 6y ago
      I think what you're referring to is the "Always Open This Site in .." option. That one assigns a website to automatically open in container. This on the other hand, assign a container to a default page. It's similar to how you have home page for your whole browser, but now for each container.
      - jmholla 6y ago
        Ah. I understand. Thanks for clarifying.
tambourine_man 6y ago
Nothing beats Safari on the Mac, but I’m rooting for Firefox for diversity and innovation on the devtools.
- cmdshiftf4 6y ago
  Anecdotally I find Safari > Chrome > Firefox on my 2015 MBP. I've been using Firefox, despite its comparatively poor performance, for years now mainly to try to support some competition to Chrome. Admittedly I'm on my way to switching to something else though. The Mozilla Foundation is a bloated, politically preachy catastrophe which clearly does not prioritize Firefox highly anymore and so it feels like the whole thing is, in essence, on borrowed time at this point.
- thiht 6y ago
  > Nothing beats Safari on the Mac As a Safari user on a MacBook Pro, I disagree. Safari sucks ass. I use it only because it offers the best battery longevity, but that's it. The devtools are horrendous, the text selection is extremely bad (example: https://i.imgur.com/qC7amU1.png https://i.imgur.com/qC7amU1.png), extension support is awful (I only use AdGuard and LastPass and both are bad, I needed to install apps just to use them, and they frequently don't autostart). It's also the only remaining browser that sometimes has plain wrong rendering of elements.
  - engineerhead 6y ago
    Sort of true. Switched to Bitwarden from Lastpass because of poor support for Safari by Lastpass.
    - thiht 6y ago
      I'd have phrased it as poor support for LastPass (and every extension) by Safari.
- isoskeles 6y ago
  What's the extension/addon/plugin situation? The last time I tried, I was annoyed with it and moved back to Firefox.
thrusong 6y ago
I'm sort of, but not really, surprised so many smart techie people are so adamant about using Chrome when we're well on our way to Blink being the new IE6.
- anuila 6y ago
  I don’t think people complained that IE6 was the only option. People complained because it was buggy and didn’t follow standards so that, compounded with monopoly, meant that apps only worked in IE6. Sounds like the current Firefox situation only because 1. Google deliberately ignores Firefox support and 2. Firefox does not support some standard APIs that even Safari supports. The former is only Google’s bad politics while the latter is just Firefox playing catch up. Neither attributable to the monopoly. Even if I don’t use Chrome, it’s currently the best browser by far from a user’s standpoint. This was not the case for IE6.
  - postalrat 6y ago
    What browser was better than IE6? From what I remember none. It's kinda like chrome all over. IE6 was faster than other browsers and supported the APIs site developers were using. From the user's standpoint it was the best browser by far.
    - anuila 6y ago
      IE7 came out with tabs in late 2006 while Firefox had it at least since 2002. Imagine having no tabs in a browser. IE6’ advantage was the ActiveX features, which were not documented nor a standard, unlike Chrome’s features.
  - cogman10 6y ago
    Let's not forget that a BIG IE6 issue was that people used IE6 for YEARS. It was tied to the OS. A big feature of how chrome, firefox, and edge work today is that everyone updates to the latest version usually within days of their releases. IE6 was still in use when IE7, IE8, and IE9 had been deployed for years with better rendering, CSS, and javascript support. Primarily because a lot of websites and internal applications had stupid things like "activex" plugins required for proper usage. To say that chrome is the new IE6 really misses out on how horrible the internet was during the heyday of IE6. It's fairly hard to come up with a website that works well in Chrome and not so well in Firefox. Unless you are pulling out brand new CSS or JS features, you are very likely to get relatively consistent rendering between the two.
ekvintroj 6y ago
I'm getting "Secure connection failed" errors from a bunch of different sites
- cpeterso 6y ago
  Which sites? Does the connection page show have a more detailed certificate error message? Does the site work in Chrome?
Dahoon 6y ago
As always on Mozilla topic posts the comments boil down to a few interesting ones and a lot of people telling others that they don't mind Chrome vacuuming up their data as long as it is faster than Firefox. It has become so bad the old joke could be rewritten to "How do you know someone is using Chrome? They will tell you!"
beezle 6y ago
Long long time FF/Navigator user at this point mostly by inertia. The biggest issue I have (forever) is FF is a memory pig that eventually becomes sluggish. Though I do have a lot of tabs in four windows, I've set prefs so it only loads tabs when I click on them. So in reality I have a lot fewer tabs "active" on any given day. Yet I regulary see memory use grow from an initial 600MB to 4 or 5GB. FF seems not to properly release memory back, in particular after new tabs with video are closed. I might live with it were it not for the eventual slowdowns.
- bartvk 6y ago
  This is definitely not normal. Have you checked about:memory
- MayeulC 6y ago
  You might be "relieved" to learn that Google Chrome/Chromium is almost universally considered heavier on RAM. This might partly be due to the "one tab, one process" architecture. Of course, if you are experiencing a memory leak in Firefox, that's another story... But I can usually trace that to a memory leak in some heavy javascript "application" I have open.
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    Oh yes, Chromium is simply not capable of supporting tab-intensive workflows that Firefox handles without issues. It becomes completely useless after just a few dozen open tabs, from both UX and performance perspectives.
  - iggldiggl 6y ago
    > This might partly be due to the "one tab, one process" architecture. With site isolation/"Fission" it looks like this isn't going to get any better in Firefox, either, as they'll have to move to "one domain/origin, one process", which could be even worse in terms of memory overhead due to the number of separate processes required.
- mccr8 6y ago
  We fix memory leaks when people report them and we can reproduce them. Usually it is due to some combination of particular addons and particular websites, but of course the obscurity of any particular leak doesn't help you if you are hitting it regularly.
wintermutestwin 6y ago
> Restoring a session is 17% quicker, meaning you can more quickly pick up where you left off This is awesome as I need to use the Total Suspender add-on to keep obnoxious web apps (like anything Google) from cranking up my CPU utilization when I am not looking at them. I am seeing a noticeable improvement.
jameslk 6y ago
As Chrome slowly takes over all remaining browser market share and more websites are becoming Chrome-only, one feature I wish Firefox had was a way to open a "Chromium tab," which would just be a tab that contains a frame of a Chromium instance so I can use these Chrome-only websites in Firefox without having to open Chrome.
- btown 6y ago
  You could use something like https://add0n.com/external-application-button.html https://add0n.com/external-application-button.html that opens the page in an independent instance of Chromium.
- wtfishackernews 6y ago
  Many pages "only support chrome" but work perfectly fine if you switch your user agent to appear like you're using chrome https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/
ZeroCool2u 6y ago
Huh, this update broke my FF installation on my Windows work computer. First time ever. Had to completely uninstall and reinstall v81.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mnd999 6y ago
Webrender is broken for me in 82 - I get a blank bar across the top of every page.
lta 6y ago
I've switched back to firefox as my main browser recently and I'm pretty damn happy about it. I'm even more now that I see those perf improvements <3

348 points by agurk 6y ago

Hey Mozilla, stop being Gggles Btch and accepting their 250million grant every year Also stop with the privacy lies...you are not a privacy browser Disable the telelmetry by default Disable Google search by default Disable trackers in your Android Firefox app

battingmarten 6y ago

Updated Firefox and the first thing I'm greeted with is an advert for their VPN. Not too happy about that.

jsiepkes 6y ago
Would you pay a small fee, say 20 Euro, a year for a Firefox version which guarantees no-ads or pocket? If enough people feel like that they might consider it. Meanwhile something has got to pay for the bills. I don't think advertising for their own VPN service is too bad.
- LarvaFX 6y ago
  I would have but since they fired the devtools and mdn team, it's only a matter of time until firefox becomes totally irrelevant.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Can't have a dev team using up wages when that money could go on bonuses to an already hugely overpaid executive now can we!
- leeoniya 6y ago
  > Would you pay a small fee, say 20 Euro, a year for a Firefox version which guarantees no-ads or pocket? i would have, even $50. but not after they've laid off most of their servo engineers to focus the company on more idiotic moneygrabs. there was never a way to pay for firefox. only some black hole foundation contrib that probably went to their many failed, poorly-conceived initiatives.
  - ChrisSD 6y ago
    Those "money grabs", by definition, make more money than they consume.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Money grabs by definition never fail? No, money grabs aspire to make money but may not succeed at it.
- parliament32 6y ago
  I'd honestly happily pay for an FF license (or support license or something) if it was guaranteed the money was going directly to FF development instead of other Mozilla initiatives.
- detritus 6y ago
  I'd happily pay at least £5 a month for Firefox, if I could. If I were richer, I'd pay more, and I totally understand the millions of people who don't want to pay a penny. From having read lots of posts over the years - here and elsewhere - I get the sense it would at least be worth their while opening up some kind of donate/subscription function, for people who feel they want to help.
detritus 6y ago
Why? It's 'their' product and fits within Mozilla's ambitions for the product, namely making the user central to the online privacy debate. If I paid for Firefox, I'd perhaps be a little irked, but given I've never given Firefox a penny, I'm happy for them to try and get me to spend money on their things (even though as a Euro, I can't yet - I think the VPN's US only?). If anyone from Firefox is reading this - please hurry up and allow me to pay for your product. I'd dearly like to! - ed: typos
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Why? Because people want to use their browser to browse. They don't want to be advertised to while they're trying to work or otherwise get on with their hectic lives. They also don't want to hear about silly TV shows while they're browsing. All things Mozilla needs to learn.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    But a VPN is arguably an help for a better browsing, so it's in line with what the user wants already.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > But a VPN is arguably an help for a better browsing, so it's in line with what the user wants already. Lol and Coca-Cola is delicious and refreshing so it's arguably in line to put it on the side of a bus when it goes past people who are thirsty. I don't want your product shoved in my face, no matter how awesome you think I should find it.
  - detritus 6y ago
    Ok, I've updated to see for myself. The 'advert' is in the start up page we see upon every update. It's as much of an imposition upon my browser experience as a welcome page in any application, and because my hand is already hovering over Ctrl+W, it's gone before I even got a chance to care. I just don't get the irritation here. My web browser is my single-most used application and I've never paid Firefox a bean for it. If they want to promote an extension to their service that they presumably feel is relevant to a percentage of their userbase, then they should go for it - even if the likes of you or I don't really care for it. The Mr. Robot promotion was a screw up, no denying it.
protomyth 6y ago
I would be fine with the notice if it supported the machine that I am on. Come on Mozilla, you know what OS I'm running, don't advertise "coming soon" to me.
sp332 6y ago
It's not a great default, but you can disable these by clicking the gear icon in the top-right of the new tab page and turning off "Snippets".
rplnt 6y ago
After Google used browsers to gain monopoly and cutting off their income, there's only so many monetization strategies you can do to stay somewhat competitive with an advertising company providing browser for free while simultaneously trying to block you from using any other browser.
- spinningslate 6y ago
  Won't argue that Mozilla/Firefox has been comprehensively out-manouvered by Google/Chrome. I'm still puzzled why Moz haven't tried a paid-for Firefox option. They've gone to the bother of creating entire new paid-for products - with all the budget and product/market fit uncertainty that involves. Surely a paid-for FF option would have been a less expensive experiment? Perhaps the terms of the Google "donation" prevent/constrain that. I wouldn't be surprised if so. Which does lead to an interesting - if probably fanciful - scenario from the anti-trust investigation announced today... ...charactertise the browser as a "utility" and require G to (a) transfer it into Mozilla's stewardship and (b) force them to license from there. (I know: unrealistic, unworkable, lots of other "just no"s. But a fun idea nonetheless).
  - modo_mario 6y ago
    >Won't argue that Mozilla/Firefox has been comprehensively out-manouvered by Google/Chrome. And sometimes without being at fault really. I remember a key moment when firefox was bleeding users was when google decided that H264 would be the standard after switching for a while and mozilla having to run after it trying to get implementations going and then still having a laggy af experience on youtube and the like because the implementation google went with was proprietary. >I'm still puzzled why Moz haven't tried a paid-for Firefox option. and what functionality would the paid version of firefox have? Chances are it would cause an outrage and user-loss due to cries that functionality would be premium only tbh. It would also probably make not much of a dent in the budget.
    - spinningslate 6y ago
      > and what functionality would the paid version of firefox have? Maybe it's what it _doesn't_ have. No ads for Pocket/VPN/whatever. Maybe it comes with DDG as the default search engine. Or maybe it's pre-configured with a set of tested privacy-focused extensions. Pro-privacy advocates might be in the minority, but it's a growing and generally vociferous minority. Mozilla's VPN offering suggests they see privacy as a market. FF is still by far their most popular offering; so I'm simply wondering why there's been no effort I'm aware of to explore the intersection of FF, privacy and revenue. Recognising Google would most likey challenge that.
jacobsenscott 6y ago
Just wait until you go to google and see an advert for chrome!
- battingmarten 6y ago
  Might be waiting a while. I tend not to go to Google.
unethical_ban 6y ago
God could grant some of you immortality and you'd complain about not being able to instantly transport anywhere. Firefox is a decent product that you get for FREE, the output of all these groups' work is free and reproducible, but you don't like a once-in-six-weeks underwriting message when a new version comes out.
- doc_gunthrop 6y ago
  If someone is so perturbed by something so trivial, it speaks more about the person than the product. The FF team could probably do away with that page and the user will still find something to complain about.

metalliqaz 6y ago

For Windows users, Firefox now uses DirectComposition for hardware decoded video, which will improve CPU and GPU usage during video playback, improving battery life. neato. Websites that use flexbox-based layouts load 20% faster than before. I haven't noticed this yet but it sounds promising. The rest of it doesn't really interest me. Picture in picture is a great feature but I don't use it because I just throw videos on a different screen to keep working.

dubcanada 6y ago
Does that mean any website with a flexbox will be 20% faster? Or that any paint time on a flexbox element will be 20% faster?
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  i suspect its the later
keeganjw 6y ago
I'm hoping this update helps with Firefox's performance watching Twitch streams. Twitch kinda chugs no matter what browser I use but it's noticeably worse with Firefox. From the googling I've done, I'm not alone in this. I considered switching back to Chrome but didn't feel like moving all my stuff over, so hopefully now I won't have to.
- worble 6y ago
  The extension Alternate Player for TwitchTV[0] I've found is pretty good performance wise. It adds an extra second or two of latency I've noticed when watching the same thing as friends, but otherwise it's pretty great. 0:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/twitch_5/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/twitch_5/?utm...
BelleOfTheBall 6y ago
The CPU and GPU usage during video playback is pretty big for me, I noticed that Firefox could get pretty intense on resource usage when playing longer videos. Not sure how much impact it will have on battery life but fingers crossed.

psychometry 6y ago

Several times over the past five years I've tried to switch from Chrome to Firefox and found it to be too slow once all add-ons were included. For a few months I've been using Firefox full-time and I'm finally switched for good. I encourage others to give it a shot.

data_ders 6y ago
Same! Containers and Pop-Out video are the killer features too IMHO
- MrOxiMoron 6y ago
  yeah, as long are containers aren't synced and available on android it's not really an option for me, it's nice I can isolate certain sites, but if it doesn't work everywhere it's a bit pointless for me.
  - SECProto 6y ago
    So having containers and pop out video available nowhere is preferable to them being available on desktop but not mobile?
  - sp332 6y ago
    Progress on Containers is visible here: https://github.com/orgs/mozilla-mobile/projects/51#card-44872316 https://github.com/orgs/mozilla-mobile/projects/51#card-4487...
- __soter__ 6y ago
  I just used the pop-out video feature for the first time, after thinking it was going to be useless. It is really awesome and the ability to put the video anywhere, not just in the browser, was one of the first things in a while that made me say wow to a new feature in a web browser.
  - subliminalpanda 6y ago

SloopJon 6y ago

> Restoring a session is 17% quicker, meaning you can more quickly pick up where you left off I actually wouldn't mind if they throttled this a bit. I keep a tab or two (dozen) open to Hacker News posts I haven't gotten around to reading yet. I dread restarting the browser, as several tabs inevitably end up displaying the "Sorry, we're not able to serve your requests this quickly" page.

tux1968 6y ago
Not sure why you're seeing that, a tab shouldn't be reloaded until you click on it the first time in the reloaded session, just retested here to confirm that is the case.
- MaurizioPz 6y ago
  not OP, but probably the tabs are pinned, that causes them to load at startup
liminal 6y ago
I've found the Auto Tab Discard extension to be really helpful. It generally lowers the impact of having lots of tabs open and on startup only the visible tabs load.

lfmunoz4 6y ago

Mozilla has been in the browser business way before Chrome yet it seems like an inferior product. Perhaps not anymore, but my question is: What contributes to a company coming in and building a better product than a market leader? I don't think the engineers are more talented. Maybe management is more competent, or the vision is better?

txutxu 6y ago

> MediaSession API has been enabled by default which allows web authors to provide custom behaviors for standard media playback interactions, giving them more options than ever. /me checks what is this... then, from the draft (https://w3c.github.io/mediasession/#security-privacy-considerations https://w3c.github.io/mediasession/#security-privacy-conside...): > The API introduced in this specification has very low impact with regards to security and privacy. Ok... my concept of privacy, may not be the same as your concept of privacy...

Spivak 6y ago
But it look like it has zero impact on privacy. Like I don’t get it. This is a website being able to tell the browser, “hey I’m playing $Song” so it can show out-of-page media control buttons like you get on your lock screen. Where’s the issue?
elcomet 6y ago
How does this have an impact on privacy ? It only allows a website to send you additional information about some media, which you can display or not. It's not sending anything back to the server.
- tephra 6y ago
  I haven't looked into it much but could it be another point in a browser fingerprint?
  - gruez 6y ago
    how? it looks like all you can do is send some information to the browser, and register some callbacks (if the user presses those keys). I guess you can fingerprint for the existence of the feature, but that's already 100% correlated with the user-agent, so it's a non-issue in my opinion.

bb101 6y ago

I happily switched to Firefox Quantum when it first came out, but have periodically switched back to Chrome because Chrome feels faster and snappier. Not sure why that might be the case. I'm using the latest MacOS X with the same set of extensions/add-ons in both browsers.

hajile 6y ago
Best viewed in chrome isn't pasted on most sites, but might as well be.
- rplnt 6y ago
  Sadly, it is. The IE7 era, perpetrated by Google.
- nr2x 6y ago
  When I saw a dev I mentored put that on a site I realized I had failed in my attempts to fully explain the dark days of the browser wars. Chrome truly is IEv2.
- jrimbault 6y ago
  OVH client interface goes into a login loop on anything other than Chrome. There are a few sites like this which are the only reason I have Chrome installed.
  - nix0n 6y ago
    I've been able to solve that on a few sites by turning off the "enhanced tracking protection" next to the address bar (haven't tried OVH specifically).
    - jrimbault 6y ago
      For OVH I tried a lot of things, disabling extensions (one by one, and all of them), using a blank (firefox) profile, the usual cache/cookie invalidation, disabling various privacy protection enhancements (one by one and all of them), etc. Chrome worked. For other sites yes, often just cache/cookie invalidation is enough.

HashingtheCode 6y ago

LibreWolf is how Firefox should be......private https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/ https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

blub 6y ago

Interestingly, this release fixes an undefined behavior bug in Rust code. "CVE-2020-15254: Undefined behavior in bounded channel of crossbeam rust crate" marked as high.

coliveira 6y ago
So now we see undefined behavior rearing its head on Rust too... I wonder how long until it gets to where C++ is.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  "Undefined behavior" isn't something that language designers put in because they're dumb, it's a necessary consequence of having many compiler implementations and supported platforms. Once an alternative Rust compiler comes onto the scene, the language will necessarily fragment too.
  - est31 6y ago
    Another large reason for undefined behaviour is to allow for optimizations. The optimizer of a particular compiler version is well defined by the compiler's source code and binary. But in order to be able to ever change the optimizer, you need to have undefined behaviour in the language specification.
    - ensiferum 6y ago
      Undefined behaviours are the accidental outcome when a program fails to be well formed. Nobody who writes compilers goes out there thinking that undefined behavior is the key that let's them optimize code to run faster.
      - est31 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior#Benefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior#Benefits > Documenting an operation as undefined behavior allows compilers to assume that this operation will never happen in a conforming program. This gives the compiler more information about the code and this information can lead to more optimization opportunities.

godelmachine 6y ago

>>DevTools now shows server side events in the Network panel. This allows a server to send new data to a web page at any time allowing developers to see events they previously couldn't and help with lower-level troubleshooting. Would someone please shed more light on this? I work on BMC’s Remedy ecosystem and server side logging something that needs to be turned on separately. Does FF 82 help me capture it just like that or I need to do some configuration changes on the server? Pardon my simplistic question.

acemarke 6y ago
That looks to be a typo in the release notes. "Server sent events" is a specific server-> client HTTP communication mechanism. The Network DevTools already showed standard AJAX requests, and support for showing messages sent over websockets was recently added. This adds support for another mechanism that was not previously displayed: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events/Using_server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent...
- tgv 6y ago
  That's good news. That was one of the things for which I had to switch to Chrome.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dmos62 6y ago
I too was interested by this. If you follow the links it's all documented: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events/Using_server-sent_events https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent... > Traditionally, a web page has to send a request to the server to receive new data; that is, the page requests data from the server. With server-sent events, it's possible for a server to send new data to a web page at any time, by pushing messages to the web page. These incoming messages can be treated as Events + data inside the web page. Push-based server->client messaging. Exciting stuff.

robertlagrant 6y ago

"DevTools now shows server side events in the Network panel" Someone nontechnical wrote these notes - it's Server Sent Events.

TonyTrapp 6y ago
Or someone just made a typo - thinking "sent" but typing "side" is not too far-fetched (I do these kind of typos all the time when I'm distracted).
tumetab1 6y ago
Thanks :D That was confusing me how the browser was seeing server events.
chrismorgan 6y ago
I have seen developers make this exact error quite a few times over the years.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  Hopefully they're not paid to write articles, then.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    Pretty sure one of the places I’ve seen it crop up was an article on hacks.mozilla.org. I just took a look at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22server-side%20events%22&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22server-side%20events%22&sor..., it’s mostly (though certainly not entirely) people making this error.

The_rationalist 6y ago

Websites that use flexbox-based layouts load 20% faster than before; Where is the evidence? The TP6 benchmarcks?

nr2x 6y ago

Still no tap or pinch to zoom on Mac, I really want to use FF, but the lack of basic feature parity to Safari/Google on usability issue is astounding. I don't care about picture-in-picture, I just want basic trackpad support.

pehtis 6y ago
It has been available for some time now, just not enabled by default. Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox.
- nr2x 6y ago
  I have, it's not equivalent to Safari or Chrome, the tap-to-zoom feature is essentially non-functional.
- nr2x 6y ago
  Also, for a behavior that is standard at the OS-level I shouldn't have to literally flip variables after a scare-warning "touch this and break stuff".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- cpeterso 6y ago
  allow_zooming is on track to ship in Firefox 83 (November 17): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1671235 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1671235
  - nr2x 6y ago
    Is this two finger tap to zoom or pinch? Not clear to me.
    - cpeterso 6y ago
      Pinch to zoom gesture on macOS and Windows. (I don't know if it will ship on Linux at the same time. Linux always has unique graphics issues that take longer to fix.)

SubiculumCode 6y ago

The only problem I have with Firefox is due sites optimizing for the Chrome monopoly,and I refuse to let the monopoly force me to give up on internet freedom.

ProAm 6y ago

Is the address bar still gross and giant?

Dahoon 6y ago
No, it is nice and big.
seabrookmx 6y ago
It's definitely still configurable.
- ProAm 6y ago
  Where do you go to configure this? For awhile it was in about:preferences but then they moved it to the userPref.css file. Is it back in normal config? I would upgrade if I can keep my old address bar
  - seabrookmx 6y ago
    Hamburger Menu -> Customize -> Density -> Compact
tgv 6y ago
I'm happy to report that the text doesn't change size upon selection anymore. I think that some time ago they hit "peak address bar", but now that text size change has gone, it's perfectly usable again.

ugurnot 6y ago

Is there anyone who gets 'Your browser is out of date' type of notification on slack in Firefox, windows 10. I can open slack app on linux with Firefox, but for Windows, slack insists that Firefox is out of date and I should use another browser instead.

confounded 6y ago

Anyone on macOS having trouble with “Find in page” not finding text recently?

shuri 6y ago

Happy Firefox user. I love the multi-account containers and the picture-in-picture. That, and you aren't "logged-in" at the browser level.

moallabbad 6y ago
Then I think you'll also love the Container Default Pages extension [0]. I lets you assign a default website for each container. So for example if you have a container just for YouTube, you can set YouTube to open automatically when you open a new tab in that container. It's very convenient. Disclosure: I created it. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-default-pages/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-def...
- jmholla 6y ago
  The extension already supports that, albeit in a semi-convoluted way: you have to visit the site to set a default container for it. If yours let's you edit it by hand, that is a pretty big quality of life improvement.
  - moallabbad 6y ago
    I think what you're referring to is the "Always Open This Site in .." option. That one assigns a website to automatically open in container. This on the other hand, assign a container to a default page. It's similar to how you have home page for your whole browser, but now for each container.
    - jmholla 6y ago
      Ah. I understand. Thanks for clarifying.

tambourine_man 6y ago

Nothing beats Safari on the Mac, but I’m rooting for Firefox for diversity and innovation on the devtools.

cmdshiftf4 6y ago
Anecdotally I find Safari > Chrome > Firefox on my 2015 MBP. I've been using Firefox, despite its comparatively poor performance, for years now mainly to try to support some competition to Chrome. Admittedly I'm on my way to switching to something else though. The Mozilla Foundation is a bloated, politically preachy catastrophe which clearly does not prioritize Firefox highly anymore and so it feels like the whole thing is, in essence, on borrowed time at this point.
thiht 6y ago
> Nothing beats Safari on the Mac As a Safari user on a MacBook Pro, I disagree. Safari sucks ass. I use it only because it offers the best battery longevity, but that's it. The devtools are horrendous, the text selection is extremely bad (example: https://i.imgur.com/qC7amU1.png https://i.imgur.com/qC7amU1.png), extension support is awful (I only use AdGuard and LastPass and both are bad, I needed to install apps just to use them, and they frequently don't autostart). It's also the only remaining browser that sometimes has plain wrong rendering of elements.
- engineerhead 6y ago
  Sort of true. Switched to Bitwarden from Lastpass because of poor support for Safari by Lastpass.
  - thiht 6y ago
    I'd have phrased it as poor support for LastPass (and every extension) by Safari.
isoskeles 6y ago
What's the extension/addon/plugin situation? The last time I tried, I was annoyed with it and moved back to Firefox.

thrusong 6y ago

I'm sort of, but not really, surprised so many smart techie people are so adamant about using Chrome when we're well on our way to Blink being the new IE6.

anuila 6y ago
I don’t think people complained that IE6 was the only option. People complained because it was buggy and didn’t follow standards so that, compounded with monopoly, meant that apps only worked in IE6. Sounds like the current Firefox situation only because 1. Google deliberately ignores Firefox support and 2. Firefox does not support some standard APIs that even Safari supports. The former is only Google’s bad politics while the latter is just Firefox playing catch up. Neither attributable to the monopoly. Even if I don’t use Chrome, it’s currently the best browser by far from a user’s standpoint. This was not the case for IE6.
- postalrat 6y ago
  What browser was better than IE6? From what I remember none. It's kinda like chrome all over. IE6 was faster than other browsers and supported the APIs site developers were using. From the user's standpoint it was the best browser by far.
  - anuila 6y ago
    IE7 came out with tabs in late 2006 while Firefox had it at least since 2002. Imagine having no tabs in a browser. IE6’ advantage was the ActiveX features, which were not documented nor a standard, unlike Chrome’s features.
- cogman10 6y ago
  Let's not forget that a BIG IE6 issue was that people used IE6 for YEARS. It was tied to the OS. A big feature of how chrome, firefox, and edge work today is that everyone updates to the latest version usually within days of their releases. IE6 was still in use when IE7, IE8, and IE9 had been deployed for years with better rendering, CSS, and javascript support. Primarily because a lot of websites and internal applications had stupid things like "activex" plugins required for proper usage. To say that chrome is the new IE6 really misses out on how horrible the internet was during the heyday of IE6. It's fairly hard to come up with a website that works well in Chrome and not so well in Firefox. Unless you are pulling out brand new CSS or JS features, you are very likely to get relatively consistent rendering between the two.

ekvintroj 6y ago

I'm getting "Secure connection failed" errors from a bunch of different sites

cpeterso 6y ago
Which sites? Does the connection page show have a more detailed certificate error message? Does the site work in Chrome?

Dahoon 6y ago

As always on Mozilla topic posts the comments boil down to a few interesting ones and a lot of people telling others that they don't mind Chrome vacuuming up their data as long as it is faster than Firefox. It has become so bad the old joke could be rewritten to "How do you know someone is using Chrome? They will tell you!"

beezle 6y ago

Long long time FF/Navigator user at this point mostly by inertia. The biggest issue I have (forever) is FF is a memory pig that eventually becomes sluggish. Though I do have a lot of tabs in four windows, I've set prefs so it only loads tabs when I click on them. So in reality I have a lot fewer tabs "active" on any given day. Yet I regulary see memory use grow from an initial 600MB to 4 or 5GB. FF seems not to properly release memory back, in particular after new tabs with video are closed. I might live with it were it not for the eventual slowdowns.

bartvk 6y ago
This is definitely not normal. Have you checked about:memory
MayeulC 6y ago
You might be "relieved" to learn that Google Chrome/Chromium is almost universally considered heavier on RAM. This might partly be due to the "one tab, one process" architecture. Of course, if you are experiencing a memory leak in Firefox, that's another story... But I can usually trace that to a memory leak in some heavy javascript "application" I have open.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  Oh yes, Chromium is simply not capable of supporting tab-intensive workflows that Firefox handles without issues. It becomes completely useless after just a few dozen open tabs, from both UX and performance perspectives.
- iggldiggl 6y ago
  > This might partly be due to the "one tab, one process" architecture. With site isolation/"Fission" it looks like this isn't going to get any better in Firefox, either, as they'll have to move to "one domain/origin, one process", which could be even worse in terms of memory overhead due to the number of separate processes required.
mccr8 6y ago
We fix memory leaks when people report them and we can reproduce them. Usually it is due to some combination of particular addons and particular websites, but of course the obscurity of any particular leak doesn't help you if you are hitting it regularly.

wintermutestwin 6y ago

> Restoring a session is 17% quicker, meaning you can more quickly pick up where you left off This is awesome as I need to use the Total Suspender add-on to keep obnoxious web apps (like anything Google) from cranking up my CPU utilization when I am not looking at them. I am seeing a noticeable improvement.

jameslk 6y ago

As Chrome slowly takes over all remaining browser market share and more websites are becoming Chrome-only, one feature I wish Firefox had was a way to open a "Chromium tab," which would just be a tab that contains a frame of a Chromium instance so I can use these Chrome-only websites in Firefox without having to open Chrome.

btown 6y ago
You could use something like https://add0n.com/external-application-button.html https://add0n.com/external-application-button.html that opens the page in an independent instance of Chromium.
wtfishackernews 6y ago
Many pages "only support chrome" but work perfectly fine if you switch your user agent to appear like you're using chrome https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/

ZeroCool2u 6y ago

Huh, this update broke my FF installation on my Windows work computer. First time ever. Had to completely uninstall and reinstall v81.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mnd999 6y ago

Webrender is broken for me in 82 - I get a blank bar across the top of every page.

lta 6y ago

I've switched back to firefox as my main browser recently and I'm pretty damn happy about it. I'm even more now that I see those perf improvements <3