25 ms·

Firefox 94

358 points by NiekvdMaas 5y ago

JohnTHaller 5y ago
As always, it's available in portable format for folks who'd like to try it out on Windows without installing: https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
mawise 5y ago
I'm still waiting for Touch ID support on Macs https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482
- arianvanp 5y ago
  The lack of any work whatsoever on Webauthn is infuriating. Nobody seems to be actively working on implementing the spec at all.
  - yoavm 5y ago
    WebAuthn with a YubiKey, using Firefox on Linux, works perfectly for me.
    - arianvanp 5y ago
      They only implement ctap1/u2f . CTAP2/FIDO2 part is completely unimplemented. And that's why e.g. TouchID doesn't work. Or newer devices that don't support the old u2f standard. CTAP2 gives fancy features like enforcing a pin (which Firefox doesn't implement) or fingerprint (which Firefox doesn't implement).
- JshWright 5y ago
  Yep, this is enough friction that it keeps me from using Firefox as my daily-driver on MacOS.
dartharva 5y ago
Colorways feel great! Still no improvement in font anti-aliasing on Windows though
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dusted 5y ago
It's nice to see that there's supposed to be some performance improvements. I still miss support for FTP though. And playback of flac files with id3 headers.
sebiw 5y ago
> With 94, you’ll find a selection of six fun seasonal Colorways (available for a limited time only). For a limited time only? What the heck? Feels like Starbucks. Otherwise great release of course.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nisegami 5y ago
  Gotta keep the designers on the payroll somehow
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  "Colorways"? Like what everyone else calls "themes"? Yeah, you don't actually need to make up your own word for that. That, plus the fact that this is the lead bullet point for their new release makes me think "way too many marketers, not enough engineers".
  - detritus 5y ago
    'Colourways' is a fairly standard term to describe different colour options on various different product types. Mozilla haven't made this up for themselves. 'Theme', to me, suggests ye olde browser customisation wherein you could have animated gifs of Homer Simpson barking D'OH as your 'Home' button, &c. I'm assuming that's not the case here?
    - 542458 5y ago
      Yeah, these are “colorways” in the manufacturing sense - they don’t change layout, patterns, etc, only swap out what colors are present. I’ve tried them out, they’re nice. You pick a (curated) colour, and choose nether you want a dark/light/mixed theme based on it. It’s not the most complex feature ever, but it’s well done.
    - account42 5y ago
      It's a completely nonstandard term to descripe color schemes for UI themes. That the word is used in an unrelated industry is irrelevant.
lemoncookiechip 5y ago
> On Windows, there will now be fewer interruptions because Firefox won’t prompt you for updates. Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. I rather they didn't. EDIT: Ah good, they have an option in the General Settings to disable the background updater.
- m_eiman 5y ago
  Why hasn't Microsoft created a system service for this? It's just inefficient to have each and every installed app run a service… I suppose they take care of it for Windows Store apps, but I don't see why they couldn't make a service for other apps too. Same on the Mac, of course.
  - ape4 5y ago
    There should be something like /etc/cron.daily in windows. The jobs run sequentially so don't overload bandwidth and other resource (hopefully).
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      Windows Task Scheduler It's still a nasty old MMC snap-in in Windows 11 from its legacy as an old, classic NT component for advanced admins only. Maybe one day it will get a bit more love and UI polish. (Though it's not like cron has ever had a good UI.)
  - GeckoEidechse 5y ago
    Windows Store?
  - ZetaZero 5y ago
    Microsoft's solution would be terrible for 3rd party vendors.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Yep... just standardize a data format for updates (eg. json with the newest stable and beta version numbers and links directly to the upgrade exe), and each app would just add the json url to the service, and the service would check all the updatable software periodically and just primpt the user to update.
blueflow 5y ago
I'm not enthusiastic these days. Which aspect of the UI will they change this time? Is there an about:config hack to get it back? And how long is that gonna work? I think i'll have to ship a userchrome.css with my dotfiles soon.
- account42 5y ago
  What makes you think they won't remove userChrome.css support too? It already is disabled by default.
  - blueflow 5y ago
    I just pray because i haven't found a alternative to firefox yet that is suitable for me.
enlightens 5y ago
> With this release, power users can use about:unloads to release system resources by manually unloading tabs without closing them. That should be nice, I'm looking forward to poking around in there.
- GrayShade 5y ago
  I fully recommend the Auto Tab Discard add-on for more controlled tab unloading. It's especially useful if you're a tab hoarder like me.
hoseja 5y ago
>On Windows, there will now be fewer interruptions because Firefox won’t prompt you for updates. Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. How considerate of them, I felt I didn't have enough auto-updating background agents yet.
- nikbackm 5y ago
  They've had the MozillaMaintenance service for several years on Windows already, what has changed now?
  - testplzignore 5y ago
    Based on my reading of https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenance-service https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenanc..., the current behavior is that Firefox checks for updates only when the app is open, and then only briefly starts the MozillaMaintenance service to avoid the UAC dialog. The MozillaMaintenance service isn't what is responsible for checking for updates. It's not clear to me if MozillaMaintenance is the service that will be checking for updates, or if there is a new service.
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    I don't know about this version but at least one could uninstall the maintenance service. It was the first thing I'd nuke before allowing my PC to reconnect to the internet, the second was to nuke every talk-home-Mozilla link that about:config would allow to either be changed or deleted. This worked, as updates wouldn't even work when clicking 'updates' in the menu. Mozilla has a damned hide to automate updates, not to mention gathering data about users' habits without telling them what's been gathered, and also not allowing users to turn off that collection if they wished. (BTW, we know the depth of this surveillance just by looking at Mozilla's comments on v94's webpage. There's no way Mozilla would know that data unless Firefox's surveillance of its users had been all-pervasive.) By going the way of the rest of the industry, Mozilla is shooting itself in the foot. People who've used Firefox in the past have done so because they want an alterative - not more of the same. I expect Mozilla will go defunct soon, it's now been on its self-destruct path for too long for it to be rescued.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
marcodiego 5y ago
Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular browser. Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.
- FriedrichN 5y ago
  Yes. It's also shrinking to be almost the only reason I run Firefox. I absolutely loathe the constant tinkering with UI and settings, they just can't seem to leave stuff alone. The ghacks user.js does get rid of a lot of nuisances, but I also know some people also want to get rid of the user.js config option.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    I wonder if any of them read HN or feedback from the feedback page or anything?
    - commoner 5y ago
      The "Submit feedback" menu entry now links to their ideas@mozilla platform, launched several months ago: https://mozilla.crowdicity.com https://mozilla.crowdicity.com They seem to be reading and considering some of the suggestions, though none have been implemented yet. - Most popular idea (819 votes): Compact Interface Option - https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/719764 https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/719764 - Most critical idea (in my opinion): Expand support for extensions for the stable android version - https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/723675 https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/723675
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      I can't help but think the designers do not care. I'm guessing the UI/UX folks at Mozilla think only a loud minority of users are protesting the incessant redesigns. They probably look towards what Apple and Google do and believe they have to follow trends or be left behind. They also probably want to be seen as bold and innovative - so damn the metaphorical torpedoes, full speed ahead! Edit: The kind of feedback they're willing to accept is probably only barely impactful. Suggest going back to the old tab bar? Sorry, but you'll learn to love it and we aren't changing it. Suggest a slightly different shade of gray for the edge of the rounded tab bar? They might just take the suggestion. That kind of thing.
ProAm 5y ago
I wish they'd just give me an ability to delete address bar suggestions/favorites like in the old days. One of their worst old bugs if you upgraded from a previous release.
- hoseja 5y ago
  Is this distinct from keyboard-navigating to it and pressing Shift+Del?
  - ProAm 5y ago
    Yeah doesn't work. That's the bug
    - ct0 5y ago
      click and hold the suggestion with the mouse, and tap Shift + Delete.
      - ProAm 5y ago
        Still does not delete.
    - BMorearty 5y ago
      I just tried it. It worked. Are we doing different things? 1. Clicked in the URL bar. 2. Started typing something. 3. Arrow-keyed down to one of the entries under “Firefox suggest.” 4. Tapped Shift+Del. The entry was gone and didn’t come back next time I typed the same thing in the URL bar.
      - ProAm 5y ago
        its a bug for people who have upgraded in the past (Im not sure how many upgrades I have gone through but its been years worth). The issue is not with URLs when you start to type (those I can shift+del) but rather when you have a new tab (or empty URL bar) and you click into the address bar, it prepopulates with a list of URLs from somewhere, probably an internal db. It is these suggestions that I cannot shift+del on. FWIW my Settings > Privacy > Address bar settings Browsing History selected & Shortcuts selected. The remainder are unselected.
SwiftyBug 5y ago
> Firefox no longer warns you by default when you exit the browser or close a window using a menu, button, or three-key command. Why would anyone want this? On macOS it is infuriantingly easy to press CMD + Q by accident. Why would you not want to confirm that you actually want to close ALL your tabs?
- garblegarble 5y ago
  It still asks for confirmation on Command+Q - and provides a way to disable that behaviour if you're not prone to that typo
- gnomewascool 5y ago
  CMD + Q is a two-key command, so presumably the warning will still be present.
  - sirodoht 5y ago
    I frequently press cmd+W to close the current tab. Unfortunately pressing one key to the left by mistake has happened too many times.
    - dawnerd 5y ago
      The Chrome solution to require you to hold quit down or press again is the ideal solution. Prevents accidental closures while also allowing pretty fast quits.
    - pohl 5y ago
      Typing in Dvorak really saves me here (the 'w' is down where the comma key is.)
  - Anthony-G 5y ago
    Correct. According to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab... > The only instance in which a close modal is on by default is for two-key quit shortcuts on macOS and Linux. The risk of accidental closure is higher in this context since the quit shortcut (⌘+Q) is adjacent to the switch-application shortcut (⌘+Tab). Also: > you will still have full control over the quit/close modal behavior. All warnings can be managed within Firefox Settings. I’m happy with this change. I regularly use Ctrl-Shift-W and Ctrl-Shift-Q – and never inadvertently – so I don’t need a confirmation prompt. I was – and still am – delighted when Firefox introduced the confirmation prompt for Ctrl-Q (which is too easy to hit instead of of Ctrl-W).
dopu 5y ago
> We’re rolling out the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension with Mozilla VPN integration. This lets you use a different server location for each container. This is really cool. I wonder how difficult it would be to allow users to wire this up to arbitrary user-specified VPNs e.g. through WireGuard.
- orastor 5y ago
  there already is an extension for specifying different proxies per containers: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-proxy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...
gameswithgo 5y ago
It has made me really sad that I have had to quite using Firefox, as I've enjoyed the technical improvements they have been making, but the new ads in the address bar thing is just non negotiable, I will not be a part of that.
- fckthisguy 5y ago
  The what now?!
- jatone 5y ago
  thats news to me.... you sure some extension you installed isn't adding them?
  - junon 5y ago
    No it's a real thing. https://uk.pcmag.com/browsers/136146/firefox-now-shows-ads-in-address-bar-heres-how-to-turn-them-off https://uk.pcmag.com/browsers/136146/firefox-now-shows-ads-i...
  - Maxious 5y ago
    > Firefox Suggest sends Mozilla search terms and information about engagement with Firefox Suggest, some of which may be shared with partners to provide and improve the suggested content. https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/09/15/data-and-firefox-suggest/ https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/09/15/data-and-firefox-su... > To deliver smarter contextual suggestions, Firefox will need to send Mozilla new data, specifically, what you type into the search bar, city-level location data to know what’s nearby and relevant, as well as whether you click on a suggestion and which suggestion you click on. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-suggest/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
    - jjulius 5y ago
      For anybody who needs clarification, this is opt-in only at the moment. From the second link: > As always, we believe people should be in control of their web experience, so Firefox Suggest will be a customizable feature. > We’ll begin offering smarter contextual suggestions to a percentage of people in the U.S. as an opt-in experience.
lemoncookiechip 5y ago
It seems the update messed with some (randomly) of my settings (homepage, default search engine...). You might want to check yours just in case.
Someone1234 5y ago
> Firefox no longer warns you by default when you exit the browser or close a window using a menu, button, or three-key command. This should cut back on unwelcome notifications which is always nice--however, if you prefer a bit of notice, you’ll still have full control over the quit/close modal behavior. All warnings can be managed within Firefox Settings. I'm going to re-enable that. I appreciate choice, but just because I use three-key commands, doesn't mean I'm infallible. That dialog has saved me several times from having the wrong window in focus and accidentally trying to kill the whole browser. One could argue the only controversial decision here was changing existing user's settings without post-update warning. Since in the previous version this warning was always "on" and now it is "off" after update, and you aren't notified of this unless you're in the demographic that reads Firefox release notes. In general though still appreciate more choice/control. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab...
nullspace 5y ago
I am typing this from Firefox, which I switched back to right after Quantum. I don't want to give an impression that I'm a shill, but I'm getting more and more intrigued by Brave every day. I think they made the right call by focusing on crypto, their search indexing technique is very unique (and it works!), as is their BAT attention token. They are _trying_ to doing something different, Firefox is not. What I instead get from Firefox for trying to support their monetization, is seductive-looking spammy ads on their New Tab page that come back even after I dismiss them. Brave ads vs Firefox ads would be a tough comparison - the former is more annoying and intrusive, but I definitely think I prefer them. And long term, I think I would bet on Brave _over_ Firefox, unless something changes.
- freeqaz 5y ago
  I donate every month instead of dealing with the ads. $20 per month is a lot more money than they'd get by me looking at ads, and I can afford to pay that towards something that makes a big difference for the long-term health of the web!
  - sharps1 5y ago
    Donations go to the foundation, not moz corp which builds Firefox. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ EDIT: At this point either pocket or their vpn seem to be the only way to get money to the corporation, even then may not be a lot.
  - pmurt7 5y ago
    Just remember that Mozilla gets over 90% of its revenue from Google. https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html In 2018 Mitchell Baker (Mozilla CEO) received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to." By 2020 her salary had risen to over $3 million, while in the same year the Mozilla Corporation had to lay off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.
Throwthrowbob 5y ago
Heads up, you may lose your tabs when you update. It seems normal tab restoring procedures apply, but if you collect many like me, it means an initial shock of reloading all of them. "I lost my tabs after the update — What can I do? You may notice that after updating Firefox to version 94, the tabs from your previous session were closed. To learn how to restore a previous session, visit How do I restore my tabs from last time? Alternatively, following the prompts in the Open previous tabs? one-time notification that will appear after the update will also allow you to restore the tabs from your previous session. " https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab...
- rsync 5y ago
  It would be so, so easy to guard against this if they would just give people: about:tabs ... which would be a plain text listing of all the URLs of all the tabs you have open. You could just copy and paste it to a file or whatever. Instead, we need to dig several directories deep into /Library (or whatever, depending on OS) and then use JSON tools to export ... I've already lost most people. Go search for "how can I export tabs" or "how can I save tab urls" and you'll see thousands of people trying (usually in vain) to achieve this very, very simple thing. Here is our $500 bounty for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28129829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28129829 ... and no, I don't want to install an extension. This should be built into the browser.
  - rdslw 5y ago
    but but but, you have "SIX FUN SEASONAL COLORWAYS" !!
  - Anthony-G 5y ago
    I know you don’t want to install an extension but for the benefit of others, my solution was to install the Copy as Markdown extension¹ which provides all tabs in current window as a list of Markdown links. It suits me because I often like to take notes and save them as Markdown – as well as providing a backup list of open tabs (one list per window). ¹ https://github.com/yorkxin/copy-as-markdown https://github.com/yorkxin/copy-as-markdown
pagade 5y ago
Waiting for tab groups and/or multi line tabs (current add-ons suck).
- BMorearty 5y ago
  Agreed, tab groups are the main thing I miss after switching from Chrome recently. Hoping they come soon.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. I hope that can be disabled. If I kill Firefox, I want it to be completely dead. I deplore background "download agents". > Plus, closing devtools now reclaims more memory than ever before. Perhaps reducing devtools memory usage might have been more useful; more than once it has brought my machine to a standstill, and forced me to reboot.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  You close Firefox? Gods, just might as well restart the computer while you're at it.
evilpie 5y ago
Congrats to the team on shipping site isolation. This required a lot of work on very fundamental parts like frame/page loading.
- cpeterso 5y ago
  To clarify, Fission site isolation is not enabled by default in Firefox 94. Since this is a huge change, it's being slowly rolled out to all Firefox 94 users over the next four weeks to watch for bugs. It's already been enabled for 60% of Firefox Nightly users and 40% of Firefox Beta users for a few release cycles.
sergiomattei 5y ago
My God, this thread turned into a cesspool of whining, bitching and utter negativity to what seems like a great update. How about we praise the positives as well? They listed a slew of performance improvements and a battery usage improvement on macOS. Firefox team: keep it up.
- toastercat 5y ago
  [flagged]
- jitl 5y ago
  I agree. It's an outstanding achievement that Firefox remains competitive with Chrome - and even exceeds it - given the disparity of resources between Mozilla and Google. The Firefox community also tends to be more responsive on their bugtracker than the Chrome/Chromium team. (seriously, great work y'all) (also, they've even caught up to Chrome in version numbers! joke)
  - peakaboo 5y ago
    I think Firefox is a much better browser than Chrome. I mean once you tried container tabs with a different session and cookie store for each tab... It's just amazing. Also no Google in my browser is a huge plus.
  - calvinmorrison 5y ago
    I'm fairly certain Google just pays Mozilla money to avoid any claims about being a monopoly browser.
    - dangoor 5y ago
      My understanding (with the caveat that I worked for Mozilla a decade ago) is that Google pays Mozilla and Apple money for browser search placement because it directly makes them money in ad revenue. Someone put the numbers into a spreadsheet and said "yeah, it works."
- 542458 5y ago
vezycash 5y ago
Does Firefox now allow users to whitelist/blacklist extensions on per domain basis?
BMorearty 5y ago
I recently switched from Chrome back to Firefox after the news about Google forcing people to stay logged-in to Chrome for tracking purposes. I’ve switched in the past but always ended up switching back for one reason or another. This time I’ve actually been very happy with it and don’t think I’ll switch back soon. Better in Firefox: * Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently-used order. Just like Cmd+Tab. This feature is wonderful and is easier to access than Chrome’s Shift+Cmd+A. * In Firefox the two-finger swipe forward/back works much better. Three-finger swipe works well in both. * Built-in reader mode that’s instantaneous and works well. In Chrome you need an add-on. Better in Chrome: * Has tab groups. There doesn’t seem to be a tab group add-on for Firefox that works like Chrome’s tab groups. * Google Docs dictation works. But I never use that. * Printing lets you scale up past the page size (useful for printing my AYSO team’s lineup).
- poidos 5y ago
  I'm not familiar with Chrome's tab groups, but I use tree style tabs [0] on Firefox which allows physical grouping of tabs, albeit after a significant layout change. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
  - BMorearty 5y ago
    Thanks, I looked at that one but I’m not looking for something that takes up more space, either horizontally or vertically. I like how Chrome’s tab groups just collapse your tabs along the top tab bar.
    - mavroprovato 5y ago
      Maybe then this is more to your liking? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-tab-... (I too don't know how Chrome tab groups work)
      - BMorearty 5y ago
Archelaos 5y ago
I am wondering what it would take to seriously fork Firefox (like the MySQL/MariaDB fork), if there is so much discontent with Firefox in the HN community?
- aembleton 5y ago
  There is Waterfox and Palemoon forks. I think there are some very vocal complainers on HN, but most of us who use Firefox are probably happy enough with it.
- matsemann 5y ago
  There are complainers and there are doers. Seldom both. Put all the HN complainers in a room, and they would spend the next year arguing about their browser's new name, not ever doing any actual work on it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
filereaper 5y ago
It wasn't mentioned in the release notes but for Linux users EGL is enabled by default now. I've been manually turning this feature on so this is a welcome improvement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047339
- wartijn_ 5y ago
  They've mentioned it without saying directly that that's what they've done. > And on Linux, we’ve improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for many users. It links to a page with some more info[0]. Exiting stuff. [0] https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-linux-graphics-stack-from-glx-to-egl/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-li...
  - filereaper 5y ago
    Thanks for this! I found another article by Martin Stransky who worked on this feature and gives more technical details: https://mastransky.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/firefox-94-comes-with-egl-on-x11/ https://mastransky.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/firefox-94-comes...
dt2m 5y ago
My daily driver is a 2014 MacBook Pro and I just recently switched to Firefox from Safari. It's so much faster it's not even a fair comparison – I feel like I've gotten a whole new computer. Even compared to Chrome it loads pages so much faster on old hardware. Props to Mozilla!!!
- Suchos 5y ago
  Safari was also buggy for me for some of our service web pages like Ambari - for some reason Safari took 1 core to 100% and internet stopped working everywhere. Only solution was to kill the process. With Firefox, everything seems to be working perfectly (albeit Youtube loads slower). I also find the redesign delightful and visually appealing.
- heresaPizza 5y ago
  I have a 2015 Pro and even if Safari uses less battery, I feel the same thing about Firefox. It is fast and smooth and has less bugs than Safari. However the thing that made my laptop feel cool again is the overwhelming amount of extensions available. There are so many of them and they really improved the ux. Safari has way less and most of them are commercial projects by big techs that collect datas or paid extensions by indie devs that I still can’t 100% trust because they’re closed source. Most of the extensions you find with the search bar on firefox is open source.
- extra88 5y ago
  For such a dramatic page-loading difference, I wonder if your Mac is using a not very good DNS that Firefox is avoiding because it defaults to DNS over HTTPS.
  - dt2m 5y ago
    Good point, but I just checked and DoH has been disabled this whole time. The difference isn't that dramatic, but shaving off around 100ms on every page load really adds up in the end.
weetniet 5y ago
Firefox may not be perfect, but I'm glad they exist and are making continuous improvements.
losvedir 5y ago
So, uh, how do I undo my colorways selection? On opening after the new update it gave me a little panel to choose from, and I picked one, but I don't like it now... but I can't see anything in the settings to revert, or to try a different one? I don't see anything about it in the "Colors" section of the Settings, and searching at the top for "colorways" doesn't return anything. edit: Found it! In the settings on the bottom left you can choose "Extension & Themes", and then you click "Themes" in the new sidebar, and scroll down a bit.
- Y-bar 5y ago
  Glad you found it. If anyone else goes looking it is a bitr down on the about:addons settings page.
mlindner 5y ago
I wish they would fix multitouch on Mac, it's been bad for ages and it acts like you're on a phone rather than a computer.
TheArcane 5y ago
> And on Linux, we’ve improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for many users. All right! > Users of the proprietary Nvidia driver will need to wait a little bit longer as the currently released drivers lack an important extension. [1] Oh no :( [1]: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-linux-graphics-stack-from-glx-to-egl/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-li...
- Narann 5y ago
  The bug tracker link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1731172 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1731172
_odey 5y ago
Quick question (and a bit of an aside): let's say I'm interested in a specific feature being implemented (profile switcher like in chrome, built in feature as in [1], not an add-on as in [2]). How do I go about getting more attention to potentially have this prioritized? Making an account in their bug tracker and spamming the threads sounds annoying, I'd personally get upset if someone did that to my repos or issue trackers so I don't want to do it to others. Also I'm not capable of contributing that feature myself so I'm kind of stuck. Still, version after version of Firefox gets released and posted here, highlighting new things that get developed, and I see no progress there and the more time goes by it gets frustrating. I am using the profile functionality right now, it does work, and does what it's supposed to, just wish it was exposed to me via the same UX as in chrome and from the basic, default install, without needing extra add-ons or config. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542189 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542189 [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switcher/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...
- sfink 5y ago
  (I work for Mozilla. Speaking unofficially.) I don't have a good answer to that question. I guess the straightforward answer would be to make an account on the bug tracker and vote (it's under Details), but my impression is that votes usually don't carry much weight. Oh, and for the reasons you gave, please don't post bug comments in support, unless you really do have additional information or perspective to contribute. (And "there's one more person who wants this, and I suspect many more" is not additional information.) I know Mozilla has had various iterations of tools for collecting input, all of them ending up abandoned eventually. The current iteration is https://ideas.mozilla.org https://ideas.mozilla.org -- which, given that it's a fairly recent introduction, might actually be paid attention to. At least for a while. (Yeah, I'm cynical.) A more effective but higher effort and noisier mechanism would be https://chat.mozilla.org https://chat.mozilla.org where you could try to dig up the right channel and discuss it directly with people, but that seems like it's probably not appropriate for your example. I'd really like a better mechanism for this. I think it's one of our bigger gaps, personally. As to your specific request, it seems like right now the current answer to that need is about:profiles for full-on profiles, and container tabs for the lighter-weight, integrated within a single session mechanism. It may be that the latter has sucked energy out of improving the multiple profile support? (Multiple profiles have been supported forever and are unlikely to go away, but I agree that they're not getting much UX love.) But I'm not involved in that area, nor do I know how Chrome's profile switcher works other than that people seem to like it. I'm happy with container tabs, myself, but I recognize that they fulfill a slightly different need.
prima-facie 5y ago
Does this release actually enable Fission (process separation) by default? [1] I see it's still turned off in about:config [1]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-si...
- prima-facie 5y ago
  To answer my own question: it doesn't, at least not on my system. I can see the Firefox child process count maxing at around 10 processes with the default fission.autostart set to false: > ps aux | grep "firefox.*childID" | wc -l > 10 Also the about:processes page shows some processes containing 'Shared tabs'. As soon as I flip fission.autostart to true it creates proper separate processes for each tab with the above ps aux command increasing the count as I open up tabs.
- cpeterso 5y ago
  Fission site isolation is not enabled by default in Firefox 94. Since this is a huge change, it's being slowly rolled out to all Firefox 94 users over the next four weeks to watch for bugs. It's already been enabled for 60% of Firefox Nightly users and 40% of Firefox Beta users for a few release cycles.
  - Aaronn 5y ago
    It would be nice if the release notes could be updated to say that. Right now it says > To better protect all Firefox users against side-channel attacks such as Spectre, we’ve introduced Site Isolation. We’ve got your back...errr...side!
    - cpeterso 5y ago
      I'll ask to update the release note.

358 points by NiekvdMaas 5y ago

As always, it's available in portable format for folks who'd like to try it out on Windows without installing: https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

mawise 5y ago

I'm still waiting for Touch ID support on Macs https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482

arianvanp 5y ago
The lack of any work whatsoever on Webauthn is infuriating. Nobody seems to be actively working on implementing the spec at all.
- yoavm 5y ago
  WebAuthn with a YubiKey, using Firefox on Linux, works perfectly for me.
  - arianvanp 5y ago
    They only implement ctap1/u2f . CTAP2/FIDO2 part is completely unimplemented. And that's why e.g. TouchID doesn't work. Or newer devices that don't support the old u2f standard. CTAP2 gives fancy features like enforcing a pin (which Firefox doesn't implement) or fingerprint (which Firefox doesn't implement).
JshWright 5y ago
Yep, this is enough friction that it keeps me from using Firefox as my daily-driver on MacOS.

dartharva 5y ago

Colorways feel great! Still no improvement in font anti-aliasing on Windows though

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dusted 5y ago

It's nice to see that there's supposed to be some performance improvements. I still miss support for FTP though. And playback of flac files with id3 headers.

sebiw 5y ago

> With 94, you’ll find a selection of six fun seasonal Colorways (available for a limited time only). For a limited time only? What the heck? Feels like Starbucks. Otherwise great release of course.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nisegami 5y ago
Gotta keep the designers on the payroll somehow
Turing_Machine 5y ago
"Colorways"? Like what everyone else calls "themes"? Yeah, you don't actually need to make up your own word for that. That, plus the fact that this is the lead bullet point for their new release makes me think "way too many marketers, not enough engineers".
- detritus 5y ago
  'Colourways' is a fairly standard term to describe different colour options on various different product types. Mozilla haven't made this up for themselves. 'Theme', to me, suggests ye olde browser customisation wherein you could have animated gifs of Homer Simpson barking D'OH as your 'Home' button, &c. I'm assuming that's not the case here?
  - 542458 5y ago
    Yeah, these are “colorways” in the manufacturing sense - they don’t change layout, patterns, etc, only swap out what colors are present. I’ve tried them out, they’re nice. You pick a (curated) colour, and choose nether you want a dark/light/mixed theme based on it. It’s not the most complex feature ever, but it’s well done.
  - account42 5y ago
    It's a completely nonstandard term to descripe color schemes for UI themes. That the word is used in an unrelated industry is irrelevant.

lemoncookiechip 5y ago

> On Windows, there will now be fewer interruptions because Firefox won’t prompt you for updates. Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. I rather they didn't. EDIT: Ah good, they have an option in the General Settings to disable the background updater.

m_eiman 5y ago
Why hasn't Microsoft created a system service for this? It's just inefficient to have each and every installed app run a service… I suppose they take care of it for Windows Store apps, but I don't see why they couldn't make a service for other apps too. Same on the Mac, of course.
- ape4 5y ago
  There should be something like /etc/cron.daily in windows. The jobs run sequentially so don't overload bandwidth and other resource (hopefully).
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    Windows Task Scheduler It's still a nasty old MMC snap-in in Windows 11 from its legacy as an old, classic NT component for advanced admins only. Maybe one day it will get a bit more love and UI polish. (Though it's not like cron has ever had a good UI.)
- GeckoEidechse 5y ago
  Windows Store?
- ZetaZero 5y ago
  Microsoft's solution would be terrible for 3rd party vendors.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yep... just standardize a data format for updates (eg. json with the newest stable and beta version numbers and links directly to the upgrade exe), and each app would just add the json url to the service, and the service would check all the updatable software periodically and just primpt the user to update.

blueflow 5y ago

I'm not enthusiastic these days. Which aspect of the UI will they change this time? Is there an about:config hack to get it back? And how long is that gonna work? I think i'll have to ship a userchrome.css with my dotfiles soon.

account42 5y ago
What makes you think they won't remove userChrome.css support too? It already is disabled by default.
- blueflow 5y ago
  I just pray because i haven't found a alternative to firefox yet that is suitable for me.

enlightens 5y ago

> With this release, power users can use about:unloads to release system resources by manually unloading tabs without closing them. That should be nice, I'm looking forward to poking around in there.

GrayShade 5y ago
I fully recommend the Auto Tab Discard add-on for more controlled tab unloading. It's especially useful if you're a tab hoarder like me.

hoseja 5y ago

>On Windows, there will now be fewer interruptions because Firefox won’t prompt you for updates. Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. How considerate of them, I felt I didn't have enough auto-updating background agents yet.

nikbackm 5y ago
They've had the MozillaMaintenance service for several years on Windows already, what has changed now?
- testplzignore 5y ago
  Based on my reading of https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenance-service https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-mozilla-maintenanc..., the current behavior is that Firefox checks for updates only when the app is open, and then only briefly starts the MozillaMaintenance service to avoid the UAC dialog. The MozillaMaintenance service isn't what is responsible for checking for updates. It's not clear to me if MozillaMaintenance is the service that will be checking for updates, or if there is a new service.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  I don't know about this version but at least one could uninstall the maintenance service. It was the first thing I'd nuke before allowing my PC to reconnect to the internet, the second was to nuke every talk-home-Mozilla link that about:config would allow to either be changed or deleted. This worked, as updates wouldn't even work when clicking 'updates' in the menu. Mozilla has a damned hide to automate updates, not to mention gathering data about users' habits without telling them what's been gathered, and also not allowing users to turn off that collection if they wished. (BTW, we know the depth of this surveillance just by looking at Mozilla's comments on v94's webpage. There's no way Mozilla would know that data unless Firefox's surveillance of its users had been all-pervasive.) By going the way of the rest of the industry, Mozilla is shooting itself in the foot. People who've used Firefox in the past have done so because they want an alterative - not more of the same. I expect Mozilla will go defunct soon, it's now been on its self-destruct path for too long for it to be rescued.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

marcodiego 5y ago

Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular browser. Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.

FriedrichN 5y ago
Yes. It's also shrinking to be almost the only reason I run Firefox. I absolutely loathe the constant tinkering with UI and settings, they just can't seem to leave stuff alone. The ghacks user.js does get rid of a lot of nuisances, but I also know some people also want to get rid of the user.js config option.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  I wonder if any of them read HN or feedback from the feedback page or anything?
  - commoner 5y ago
    The "Submit feedback" menu entry now links to their ideas@mozilla platform, launched several months ago: https://mozilla.crowdicity.com https://mozilla.crowdicity.com They seem to be reading and considering some of the suggestions, though none have been implemented yet. - Most popular idea (819 votes): Compact Interface Option - https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/719764 https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/719764 - Most critical idea (in my opinion): Expand support for extensions for the stable android version - https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/723675 https://mozilla.crowdicity.com/post/723675
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    I can't help but think the designers do not care. I'm guessing the UI/UX folks at Mozilla think only a loud minority of users are protesting the incessant redesigns. They probably look towards what Apple and Google do and believe they have to follow trends or be left behind. They also probably want to be seen as bold and innovative - so damn the metaphorical torpedoes, full speed ahead! Edit: The kind of feedback they're willing to accept is probably only barely impactful. Suggest going back to the old tab bar? Sorry, but you'll learn to love it and we aren't changing it. Suggest a slightly different shade of gray for the edge of the rounded tab bar? They might just take the suggestion. That kind of thing.

ProAm 5y ago

I wish they'd just give me an ability to delete address bar suggestions/favorites like in the old days. One of their worst old bugs if you upgraded from a previous release.

hoseja 5y ago
Is this distinct from keyboard-navigating to it and pressing Shift+Del?
- ProAm 5y ago
  Yeah doesn't work. That's the bug
  - ct0 5y ago
    click and hold the suggestion with the mouse, and tap Shift + Delete.
    - ProAm 5y ago
      Still does not delete.
  - BMorearty 5y ago
    I just tried it. It worked. Are we doing different things? 1. Clicked in the URL bar. 2. Started typing something. 3. Arrow-keyed down to one of the entries under “Firefox suggest.” 4. Tapped Shift+Del. The entry was gone and didn’t come back next time I typed the same thing in the URL bar.
    - ProAm 5y ago
      its a bug for people who have upgraded in the past (Im not sure how many upgrades I have gone through but its been years worth). The issue is not with URLs when you start to type (those I can shift+del) but rather when you have a new tab (or empty URL bar) and you click into the address bar, it prepopulates with a list of URLs from somewhere, probably an internal db. It is these suggestions that I cannot shift+del on. FWIW my Settings > Privacy > Address bar settings Browsing History selected & Shortcuts selected. The remainder are unselected.

SwiftyBug 5y ago

> Firefox no longer warns you by default when you exit the browser or close a window using a menu, button, or three-key command. Why would anyone want this? On macOS it is infuriantingly easy to press CMD + Q by accident. Why would you not want to confirm that you actually want to close ALL your tabs?

garblegarble 5y ago
It still asks for confirmation on Command+Q - and provides a way to disable that behaviour if you're not prone to that typo
gnomewascool 5y ago
CMD + Q is a two-key command, so presumably the warning will still be present.
- sirodoht 5y ago
  I frequently press cmd+W to close the current tab. Unfortunately pressing one key to the left by mistake has happened too many times.
  - dawnerd 5y ago
    The Chrome solution to require you to hold quit down or press again is the ideal solution. Prevents accidental closures while also allowing pretty fast quits.
  - pohl 5y ago
    Typing in Dvorak really saves me here (the 'w' is down where the comma key is.)
- Anthony-G 5y ago
  Correct. According to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab... > The only instance in which a close modal is on by default is for two-key quit shortcuts on macOS and Linux. The risk of accidental closure is higher in this context since the quit shortcut (⌘+Q) is adjacent to the switch-application shortcut (⌘+Tab). Also: > you will still have full control over the quit/close modal behavior. All warnings can be managed within Firefox Settings. I’m happy with this change. I regularly use Ctrl-Shift-W and Ctrl-Shift-Q – and never inadvertently – so I don’t need a confirmation prompt. I was – and still am – delighted when Firefox introduced the confirmation prompt for Ctrl-Q (which is too easy to hit instead of of Ctrl-W).

dopu 5y ago

> We’re rolling out the Firefox Multi-Account Containers extension with Mozilla VPN integration. This lets you use a different server location for each container. This is really cool. I wonder how difficult it would be to allow users to wire this up to arbitrary user-specified VPNs e.g. through WireGuard.

orastor 5y ago
there already is an extension for specifying different proxies per containers: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-proxy/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...

gameswithgo 5y ago

It has made me really sad that I have had to quite using Firefox, as I've enjoyed the technical improvements they have been making, but the new ads in the address bar thing is just non negotiable, I will not be a part of that.

fckthisguy 5y ago
The what now?!
jatone 5y ago
thats news to me.... you sure some extension you installed isn't adding them?
- junon 5y ago
  No it's a real thing. https://uk.pcmag.com/browsers/136146/firefox-now-shows-ads-in-address-bar-heres-how-to-turn-them-off https://uk.pcmag.com/browsers/136146/firefox-now-shows-ads-i...
- Maxious 5y ago
  > Firefox Suggest sends Mozilla search terms and information about engagement with Firefox Suggest, some of which may be shared with partners to provide and improve the suggested content. https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/09/15/data-and-firefox-suggest/ https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2021/09/15/data-and-firefox-su... > To deliver smarter contextual suggestions, Firefox will need to send Mozilla new data, specifically, what you type into the search bar, city-level location data to know what’s nearby and relevant, as well as whether you click on a suggestion and which suggestion you click on. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-suggest/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi...
  - jjulius 5y ago
    For anybody who needs clarification, this is opt-in only at the moment. From the second link: > As always, we believe people should be in control of their web experience, so Firefox Suggest will be a customizable feature. > We’ll begin offering smarter contextual suggestions to a percentage of people in the U.S. as an opt-in experience.

lemoncookiechip 5y ago

It seems the update messed with some (randomly) of my settings (homepage, default search engine...). You might want to check yours just in case.

Someone1234 5y ago

> Firefox no longer warns you by default when you exit the browser or close a window using a menu, button, or three-key command. This should cut back on unwelcome notifications which is always nice--however, if you prefer a bit of notice, you’ll still have full control over the quit/close modal behavior. All warnings can be managed within Firefox Settings. I'm going to re-enable that. I appreciate choice, but just because I use three-key commands, doesn't mean I'm infallible. That dialog has saved me several times from having the wrong window in focus and accidentally trying to kill the whole browser. One could argue the only controversial decision here was changing existing user's settings without post-update warning. Since in the previous version this warning was always "on" and now it is "off" after update, and you aren't notified of this unless you're in the demographic that reads Firefox release notes. In general though still appreciate more choice/control. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab...

nullspace 5y ago

I am typing this from Firefox, which I switched back to right after Quantum. I don't want to give an impression that I'm a shill, but I'm getting more and more intrigued by Brave every day. I think they made the right call by focusing on crypto, their search indexing technique is very unique (and it works!), as is their BAT attention token. They are _trying_ to doing something different, Firefox is not. What I instead get from Firefox for trying to support their monetization, is seductive-looking spammy ads on their New Tab page that come back even after I dismiss them. Brave ads vs Firefox ads would be a tough comparison - the former is more annoying and intrusive, but I definitely think I prefer them. And long term, I think I would bet on Brave _over_ Firefox, unless something changes.

freeqaz 5y ago
I donate every month instead of dealing with the ads. $20 per month is a lot more money than they'd get by me looking at ads, and I can afford to pay that towards something that makes a big difference for the long-term health of the web!
- sharps1 5y ago
  Donations go to the foundation, not moz corp which builds Firefox. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/ EDIT: At this point either pocket or their vpn seem to be the only way to get money to the corporation, even then may not be a lot.
- pmurt7 5y ago
  Just remember that Mozilla gets over 90% of its revenue from Google. https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html In 2018 Mitchell Baker (Mozilla CEO) received a total of $2,458,350 in compensation from Mozilla, which represents a 400% payrise since 2008. On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to." By 2020 her salary had risen to over $3 million, while in the same year the Mozilla Corporation had to lay off approximately 250 employees due to shrinking revenues. Baker blamed this on the Coronavirus pandemic.

Throwthrowbob 5y ago

Heads up, you may lose your tabs when you update. It seems normal tab restoring procedures apply, but if you collect many like me, it means an initial shock of reloading all of them. "I lost my tabs after the update — What can I do? You may notice that after updating Firefox to version 94, the tabs from your previous session were closed. To learn how to restore a previous session, visit How do I restore my tabs from last time? Alternatively, following the prompts in the Open previous tabs? one-time notification that will appear after the update will also allow you to restore the tabs from your previous session. " https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab-warnings-firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-configure-close-tab...

rsync 5y ago
It would be so, so easy to guard against this if they would just give people: about:tabs ... which would be a plain text listing of all the URLs of all the tabs you have open. You could just copy and paste it to a file or whatever. Instead, we need to dig several directories deep into /Library (or whatever, depending on OS) and then use JSON tools to export ... I've already lost most people. Go search for "how can I export tabs" or "how can I save tab urls" and you'll see thousands of people trying (usually in vain) to achieve this very, very simple thing. Here is our $500 bounty for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28129829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28129829 ... and no, I don't want to install an extension. This should be built into the browser.
- rdslw 5y ago
  but but but, you have "SIX FUN SEASONAL COLORWAYS" !!
- Anthony-G 5y ago
  I know you don’t want to install an extension but for the benefit of others, my solution was to install the Copy as Markdown extension¹ which provides all tabs in current window as a list of Markdown links. It suits me because I often like to take notes and save them as Markdown – as well as providing a backup list of open tabs (one list per window). ¹ https://github.com/yorkxin/copy-as-markdown https://github.com/yorkxin/copy-as-markdown

pagade 5y ago

Waiting for tab groups and/or multi line tabs (current add-ons suck).

BMorearty 5y ago
Agreed, tab groups are the main thing I miss after switching from Chrome recently. Hoping they come soon.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> Instead, a background agent will download and install updates even if Firefox is closed. I hope that can be disabled. If I kill Firefox, I want it to be completely dead. I deplore background "download agents". > Plus, closing devtools now reclaims more memory than ever before. Perhaps reducing devtools memory usage might have been more useful; more than once it has brought my machine to a standstill, and forced me to reboot.

artificialLimbs 5y ago
You close Firefox? Gods, just might as well restart the computer while you're at it.

evilpie 5y ago

Congrats to the team on shipping site isolation. This required a lot of work on very fundamental parts like frame/page loading.

cpeterso 5y ago
To clarify, Fission site isolation is not enabled by default in Firefox 94. Since this is a huge change, it's being slowly rolled out to all Firefox 94 users over the next four weeks to watch for bugs. It's already been enabled for 60% of Firefox Nightly users and 40% of Firefox Beta users for a few release cycles.

sergiomattei 5y ago

My God, this thread turned into a cesspool of whining, bitching and utter negativity to what seems like a great update. How about we praise the positives as well? They listed a slew of performance improvements and a battery usage improvement on macOS. Firefox team: keep it up.

toastercat 5y ago
[flagged]
jitl 5y ago
I agree. It's an outstanding achievement that Firefox remains competitive with Chrome - and even exceeds it - given the disparity of resources between Mozilla and Google. The Firefox community also tends to be more responsive on their bugtracker than the Chrome/Chromium team. (seriously, great work y'all) (also, they've even caught up to Chrome in version numbers! joke)
- peakaboo 5y ago
  I think Firefox is a much better browser than Chrome. I mean once you tried container tabs with a different session and cookie store for each tab... It's just amazing. Also no Google in my browser is a huge plus.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  I'm fairly certain Google just pays Mozilla money to avoid any claims about being a monopoly browser.
  - dangoor 5y ago
    My understanding (with the caveat that I worked for Mozilla a decade ago) is that Google pays Mozilla and Apple money for browser search placement because it directly makes them money in ad revenue. Someone put the numbers into a spreadsheet and said "yeah, it works."
542458 5y ago

vezycash 5y ago

Does Firefox now allow users to whitelist/blacklist extensions on per domain basis?

BMorearty 5y ago

I recently switched from Chrome back to Firefox after the news about Google forcing people to stay logged-in to Chrome for tracking purposes. I’ve switched in the past but always ended up switching back for one reason or another. This time I’ve actually been very happy with it and don’t think I’ll switch back soon. Better in Firefox: * Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently-used order. Just like Cmd+Tab. This feature is wonderful and is easier to access than Chrome’s Shift+Cmd+A. * In Firefox the two-finger swipe forward/back works much better. Three-finger swipe works well in both. * Built-in reader mode that’s instantaneous and works well. In Chrome you need an add-on. Better in Chrome: * Has tab groups. There doesn’t seem to be a tab group add-on for Firefox that works like Chrome’s tab groups. * Google Docs dictation works. But I never use that. * Printing lets you scale up past the page size (useful for printing my AYSO team’s lineup).

poidos 5y ago
I'm not familiar with Chrome's tab groups, but I use tree style tabs [0] on Firefox which allows physical grouping of tabs, albeit after a significant layout change. [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
- BMorearty 5y ago
  Thanks, I looked at that one but I’m not looking for something that takes up more space, either horizontally or vertically. I like how Chrome’s tab groups just collapse your tabs along the top tab bar.
  - mavroprovato 5y ago
    Maybe then this is more to your liking? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-tab-... (I too don't know how Chrome tab groups work)
    - BMorearty 5y ago

Archelaos 5y ago

I am wondering what it would take to seriously fork Firefox (like the MySQL/MariaDB fork), if there is so much discontent with Firefox in the HN community?

aembleton 5y ago
There is Waterfox and Palemoon forks. I think there are some very vocal complainers on HN, but most of us who use Firefox are probably happy enough with it.
matsemann 5y ago
There are complainers and there are doers. Seldom both. Put all the HN complainers in a room, and they would spend the next year arguing about their browser's new name, not ever doing any actual work on it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

filereaper 5y ago

It wasn't mentioned in the release notes but for Linux users EGL is enabled by default now. I've been manually turning this feature on so this is a welcome improvement. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29047339

wartijn_ 5y ago
They've mentioned it without saying directly that that's what they've done. > And on Linux, we’ve improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for many users. It links to a page with some more info[0]. Exiting stuff. [0] https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-linux-graphics-stack-from-glx-to-egl/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-li...
- filereaper 5y ago
  Thanks for this! I found another article by Martin Stransky who worked on this feature and gives more technical details: https://mastransky.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/firefox-94-comes-with-egl-on-x11/ https://mastransky.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/firefox-94-comes...

dt2m 5y ago

My daily driver is a 2014 MacBook Pro and I just recently switched to Firefox from Safari. It's so much faster it's not even a fair comparison – I feel like I've gotten a whole new computer. Even compared to Chrome it loads pages so much faster on old hardware. Props to Mozilla!!!

Suchos 5y ago
Safari was also buggy for me for some of our service web pages like Ambari - for some reason Safari took 1 core to 100% and internet stopped working everywhere. Only solution was to kill the process. With Firefox, everything seems to be working perfectly (albeit Youtube loads slower). I also find the redesign delightful and visually appealing.
heresaPizza 5y ago
I have a 2015 Pro and even if Safari uses less battery, I feel the same thing about Firefox. It is fast and smooth and has less bugs than Safari. However the thing that made my laptop feel cool again is the overwhelming amount of extensions available. There are so many of them and they really improved the ux. Safari has way less and most of them are commercial projects by big techs that collect datas or paid extensions by indie devs that I still can’t 100% trust because they’re closed source. Most of the extensions you find with the search bar on firefox is open source.
extra88 5y ago
For such a dramatic page-loading difference, I wonder if your Mac is using a not very good DNS that Firefox is avoiding because it defaults to DNS over HTTPS.
- dt2m 5y ago
  Good point, but I just checked and DoH has been disabled this whole time. The difference isn't that dramatic, but shaving off around 100ms on every page load really adds up in the end.

weetniet 5y ago

Firefox may not be perfect, but I'm glad they exist and are making continuous improvements.

losvedir 5y ago

So, uh, how do I undo my colorways selection? On opening after the new update it gave me a little panel to choose from, and I picked one, but I don't like it now... but I can't see anything in the settings to revert, or to try a different one? I don't see anything about it in the "Colors" section of the Settings, and searching at the top for "colorways" doesn't return anything. edit: Found it! In the settings on the bottom left you can choose "Extension & Themes", and then you click "Themes" in the new sidebar, and scroll down a bit.

Y-bar 5y ago
Glad you found it. If anyone else goes looking it is a bitr down on the about:addons settings page.

mlindner 5y ago

I wish they would fix multitouch on Mac, it's been bad for ages and it acts like you're on a phone rather than a computer.

TheArcane 5y ago

> And on Linux, we’ve improved WebGL performance and reduced power consumption for many users. All right! > Users of the proprietary Nvidia driver will need to wait a little bit longer as the currently released drivers lack an important extension. [1] Oh no :( [1]: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-linux-graphics-stack-from-glx-to-egl/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-li...

Narann 5y ago
The bug tracker link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1731172 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1731172

_odey 5y ago

Quick question (and a bit of an aside): let's say I'm interested in a specific feature being implemented (profile switcher like in chrome, built in feature as in [1], not an add-on as in [2]). How do I go about getting more attention to potentially have this prioritized? Making an account in their bug tracker and spamming the threads sounds annoying, I'd personally get upset if someone did that to my repos or issue trackers so I don't want to do it to others. Also I'm not capable of contributing that feature myself so I'm kind of stuck. Still, version after version of Firefox gets released and posted here, highlighting new things that get developed, and I see no progress there and the more time goes by it gets frustrating. I am using the profile functionality right now, it does work, and does what it's supposed to, just wish it was exposed to me via the same UX as in chrome and from the basic, default install, without needing extra add-ons or config. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542189 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1542189 [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switcher/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...

sfink 5y ago
(I work for Mozilla. Speaking unofficially.) I don't have a good answer to that question. I guess the straightforward answer would be to make an account on the bug tracker and vote (it's under Details), but my impression is that votes usually don't carry much weight. Oh, and for the reasons you gave, please don't post bug comments in support, unless you really do have additional information or perspective to contribute. (And "there's one more person who wants this, and I suspect many more" is not additional information.) I know Mozilla has had various iterations of tools for collecting input, all of them ending up abandoned eventually. The current iteration is https://ideas.mozilla.org https://ideas.mozilla.org -- which, given that it's a fairly recent introduction, might actually be paid attention to. At least for a while. (Yeah, I'm cynical.) A more effective but higher effort and noisier mechanism would be https://chat.mozilla.org https://chat.mozilla.org where you could try to dig up the right channel and discuss it directly with people, but that seems like it's probably not appropriate for your example. I'd really like a better mechanism for this. I think it's one of our bigger gaps, personally. As to your specific request, it seems like right now the current answer to that need is about:profiles for full-on profiles, and container tabs for the lighter-weight, integrated within a single session mechanism. It may be that the latter has sucked energy out of improving the multiple profile support? (Multiple profiles have been supported forever and are unlikely to go away, but I agree that they're not getting much UX love.) But I'm not involved in that area, nor do I know how Chrome's profile switcher works other than that people seem to like it. I'm happy with container tabs, myself, but I recognize that they fulfill a slightly different need.

prima-facie 5y ago

Does this release actually enable Fission (process separation) by default? [1] I see it's still turned off in about:config [1]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-site-isolation-security-architecture/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/05/introducing-firefox-new-si...

prima-facie 5y ago
To answer my own question: it doesn't, at least not on my system. I can see the Firefox child process count maxing at around 10 processes with the default fission.autostart set to false: > ps aux | grep "firefox.*childID" | wc -l > 10 Also the about:processes page shows some processes containing 'Shared tabs'. As soon as I flip fission.autostart to true it creates proper separate processes for each tab with the above ps aux command increasing the count as I open up tabs.
cpeterso 5y ago
Fission site isolation is not enabled by default in Firefox 94. Since this is a huge change, it's being slowly rolled out to all Firefox 94 users over the next four weeks to watch for bugs. It's already been enabled for 60% of Firefox Nightly users and 40% of Firefox Beta users for a few release cycles.
- Aaronn 5y ago
  It would be nice if the release notes could be updated to say that. Right now it says > To better protect all Firefox users against side-channel attacks such as Spectre, we’ve introduced Site Isolation. We’ve got your back...errr...side!
  - cpeterso 5y ago
    I'll ask to update the release note.