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Firefox 13 Released - Homepage + Speed Improvements
- superxor 14y agoObligatory: Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/ Complete list of changes: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/buglist.html http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/bugli... This gotta get me some karma!
- mbrubeck 14y agoThis is the first release with SPDY enabled by default. Once most Firefox users have updated, about half of all web traffic will be from SPDY-enabled browsers.
- sp332 14y agoHere's a tiny restartless addon that shows if the page you're on is using SPDY: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/spdy-indicator/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/spdy-indicato...
- thomasnext 14y agoCitation needed! What about users of old versions of Chrome, for example?
- jevinskie 14y agoAren't Chrome users almost always using the latest version because of the auto-update by default?
- Erunno 14y agoApparently not. There's an ever growing tail of users who get stuck with an outdated version [1]. It's not as bad as Firefox yet but surprising nonetheless given how much effort Google put into Chrome's update system. [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/may-browser-usage-firefox-users-still-avoiding-updates/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/may-br...
- SquareWheel 14y agoWow, those charts are fantastic.
- alanh 14y agoI have personally experienced and seen Chrome get “stuck” and kind of just fail to update itself until a manual re-download of the installer is performed. It does usually work, but sometimes just stops. For example, I recently saw a bug report from someone who thought they were on the most recent version of Chrome — 10. (It’s currently at 19 or so.)
- mbrubeck 14y agoChrome has had SPDY enabled for at least a year now -- since around Chrome 10, I think? And according to Statcounter measurements for this month to date [1], 28.75% of all page views currently come from Chrome 19. From the same Statcounter numbers, 17.27% of all page views are from Firefox 12. So that's over 46% of page views this month using the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox. And another few percent are just one or two versions behind. So a couple of months from now, 50% of page views measured by Statcounter should come from SPDY-enabled browsers, especially if IE marketshare keeps shrinking rapidly. [1] http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201206-201206-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-201206...
- qeorge 14y agoNote: if you're upgrading Firefox and you didn't have SPDY enabled already you'll have to enable it manually. (about:config, network.http.spdy.enabled = true)
- mbrubeck 14y agoThis isn't true. If you had the pref set to the default value before, it should change to the new default value when you upgrade. [Note: I am a Firefox developer.]
- 0xABADC0DA 14y agoScore one for mediocrity. Microsoft's Speed + Mobility version of Spdy has some good improvements, but I guess Google will just declare their version to be the standard. Also Spdy only had 23% faster page load times than non-pipelined HTTP (in other words, enabling networking.http.pipelining is just as good).
- mbrubeck 14y agoSPDY is not something that Google just implemented and froze as a standard. Mozilla and others are still working on the SPDY spec in the IETF, and we're happy to see improvements. Mike Belshe continues to work on evolving the SPDY protocol even though he no longer works for Google. The latest development builds of Chrome and Firefox have just been updated to SPDY draft3.
- 0xABADC0DA 14y agoSo speaking for Google, if IETF results in changes from Speed + Mobility then Google will commit to implement it? From what I can see the Spdy draft 3 doesn't include any improvements from Speed + Mobility so I don't see the relvance of your post. It's a shame because Speed + Mobility has real improvements (yes Microsoft does things right sometimes).
- Erunno 14y agoSPDY is in a better position to dictate the development of HTTP 2.0 as there are already two independent implementation in the wild, unlike S+M which so far only exists as a concept paper AFAIK.
- kristofferR 14y agoThat's a shame, since S+M has the potential to become the true next-gen HTTP, an improvement for everyone, while SPDY only is useful for "the elite" websites who has purchased a SSL certificate. Most small websites with no need for SSL, unless they're hosted on a service like Tumblr or Webly, will be stuck on HTTP 1.1 "forever". It sucks that independently hosted "real" websites will have a technological disadvantage to websites hosted on third-party services unless they're willing to shell out a not insignificant amount of money ($15+ USD per year per site).
- pbhjpbhj 14y agohttp://dev.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper http://dev.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper Lots of detail about SPDY for those like me who didn't know.
- illumen 14y agoDiscussion on "Why new firefox 13 'load tabs on demand' is bad UX.", some solutions to the problem, plus comments from a chrome developer on why they moved away from this behaviour can be found here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069535 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069535
- daeken 14y agoWhile I think this is a good submission (and upvoted it, despite being a Mozillite), it's in bad form to post comments on one submission to drive clicks to one of your own, even if it's related to the high-level topic, unless it's a continuation of a dialogue that's going on in a thread.
- ars 14y agoBTW despite what the article says this is not from firefox 13 - I've had it at least since 12, and probably even earlier.
- mbrubeck 14y agoThe option was disabled by default in Firefox 12 and earlier; it is enabled by default starting with Firefox 13.
- terhechte 14y agoThe one reason why I moved back to Firefox (mostly) after years of Safari and Chrome was the "load tabs on demand" feature. I love it.
- ck2 14y agoAlso, FF 14b6 out tomorrow (I think). 14 works great, no problems with any of the dozens of extensions I use.
- rdsubhas 14y agoOpera introduced Speed Dial in 2007. I can't believe that its getting published as a major feature today. On a side note, I find the Chrome New Tab page much cooler. We can drag and drop favorite sites at the bottom of the new tab page (where it shows "Most Visited" and "Apps") and it creates our own customized group. Edit: Fixed typo
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- idleloops 14y agoWell I don't quite follow this behaviour. But thanks, I hadn't clicked there before.
- rdsubhas 14y agoYes it is quite undocumented, this is the best I could find: http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chrome/lqlO-zYGki4/zTTYiy0cgEcJ http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chrome/lqlO-zYGki4/zTT...
- ditoa 14y agoUpgraded last night. Using it today it feels slightly lighter to use, it is noticeably faster in general and has some nice UI polish that has been needed for a while. Still my browser of choice. The new tab page got disabled right away though, don't like it in other browsers and don't like it in Fx. Thank god for about:config :)
- jyap 14y agoYeah, I don't like the New Tab page either. For those reading, you can disable the interface entirely (click the grid button in the top right corner).
- ohgodthecat 14y agoYou don't have to go into about:config to disable it all you have to do is click the little 9 boxes in the upper right of the newtab page.
- mmuro 14y agoBeing able to lock the pseudo class on the inspector is pretty freaking great (though not quite as intuitive to figure out how just yet). Also, a very happy change is that the panels remember what you want to have open. Next on the list should be further integrating the console.
- pacomerh 14y agoChrome is faster, has great extensions, why would I use Firefox?.
- riffraff 14y agothe awesome bar is still better than the omnibar IMHO, but that's the only thing I can think of. Some extensions may still be better in firefox land too. But, I too left firefox behind, mostly because of lack of OSX keychain integration, and I have very little hope that mozilla is going to fix an issue 11 years old anytime soon[0] [0] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400
- azakai 14y ago> Chrome is faster, has great extensions, why would I use Firefox?. Firefox is more open, has new JS language features before anyone else, why would I use Chrome? :P
- jonathansizz 14y agoI find the current Firefox to be equal to Chrome in terms of speed, it uses less memory than Chrome, it has much better extensions (including adblock, noscript and vimperator, which are all nicer than their Chrome equivalents), the UI itself is also more configurable (e.g. toolbars, add-on bar; also, we can't even have a bookmarks sidebar in Chrome! In general, if I don't like some aspect of Firefox I can change it, whereas this is not always the case with Chrome), and I like to keep my data to myself as far as possible. For me, the best thing about Chrome is that it's arrival on the browser scene motivated Mozilla to redouble their efforts, especially in terms of performance and stability, and this has borne fruits with recent iterations of Firefox.
- super_mario 14y agoPentadactyl, Firebug are mostly the reasons I use Firefox. Also I like my privacy.
- pacomerh 14y agoChrome dev tools are equal as powerful, and regarding the other comment about speed. I have tried the new firefox and chrome still flows better. The reasons posted here are not sufficient, sounds like the firefox users are just loyal.
- gaving 14y agoinstalled on osx; launched; still no lion scrollbars or full screen support honestly mozilla?
- mbrubeck 14y agoLion full-screen (http://bugzil.la/639705 http://bugzil.la/639705) is coming in Firefox 14, which will be released six weeks from today (https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar). You can use it now on the Aurora channel (https://mozilla.org/firefox/aurora/ https://mozilla.org/firefox/aurora/) and in a few days it'll also be on the Beta channel (https://mozilla.org/firefox/beta/ https://mozilla.org/firefox/beta/). Lion-style scrollbars (http://bugzil.la/636564 http://bugzil.la/636564) are still in progress. You can test them on the UX branch: https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/mozillas-ux-nightly-build-of-firefox/ https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/mozillas-ux-nightly...
- tomflack 14y agoI don't get Mozilla. The first OSX Lion developer preview came out in March of 2011. This kind of (very) slow adoption of platform improvements is the worst way to win users, and by extension power, to fulfil their mission of a free and open web. I honestly can't think of an excuse for not supporting Lion specifics this late in the game.
- TwoBit 14y agoOSX support requires OSX contributors. So don't ask Mozilla what the excuse is, ask your fellow OSX programmers.
- tomflack 14y agoMozilla take in millions a year from Google. If nobody is contributing to a major platform - pay someone to. I don't even own a mac, but simply can't understand how Mozilla are failing so badly at it.
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- gouranga 14y agoIf you don't like the homepage/new tab thing (I don't), as there appears to be no options pane thing to disable it, do this: 1. visit about:config 2. Search for browser.newtabpage.enabled 3. Set to false
- tedsuo 14y agoI noticed they added a "Most Visited Pages" display when you open a new tab, much like Safari's "Top Sites", and like with Safari it's turned on by default. I wonder how many people accidentally have their porn habit outed the first time they or a family-member/coworker opens the new version? Surprise!! :D
- nhebb 14y agoReminder: If you're like me and don't use FF anymore for anything but testing, this is a good time to open it up and apply the update. This will save you the frustration of having the update applied the next time you're in the middle of working.
- fyolnish 14y agoThey still haven't merged the tabs into the titlebar on os x..
- Erunno 14y agoFWIW if you switch Firefox to small icon mode, hide the addon bar (previously status bar) and the bookmark bar, then Firefox only has a few vertical pixel less than Chrome for the content area. That's how I use my Firefox at least.
- yuhong 14y agoThis release finally ends support for Win2000 due to the move to VC2010, BTW.
- mjcohenw 14y agoI use Firefox on a 2011 MacBook Pro/Lion and I find that memory usage constantly increases, even when very little is going on (starts at about 200MB, soon reached 500MB). Because of this, I have switched to Chrome, whose memory stays about 200MB. My fingers have gotten used to doing command-option-shift-click which opens a new tab AND switches to it.
- TwoBit 14y agoUnless you have a leaking plugin, Firefox is likely doing that for performance. You have a lot more than 500MB RAM, right? Why not take advantage of it?