15 ms·

Firefox 27 Released

328 points by joshmoz 13y ago

valarauca1 13y ago
The second bullet is important, having up to date TLS is a big deal in today's security/spy conscience world. Its possible to currently get (if you monkey around in about:config), but default settings are powerful since the average user won't bother. And I mean average-user type average user, not average hackernews reader/poster.
- pixl97 13y ago
  It is good, now all the latest major browsers support TLS1.2 with forward secrecy. It is unfortunate that IE doesn't put FS suits first though. For you Windows server operators out there, I suggest IISCrypto to order your cipher selection (this works on desktop versions of Windows too). https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/ https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/
- erichurkman 13y ago
  How's My SSL? [1] now reports "Your SSL client is Probably Okay." for Firefox 27. Awesome! [1] https://www.howsmyssl.com/ https://www.howsmyssl.com/
  - joveian 13y ago
    An error occurred during a connection to www.howsmyssl.com. Peer attempted old style (potentially vulnerable) handshake. I don't think I would trust their judgement about how my SSL is doing. I am happy about this Firefox release; it is not just that you had to be an advanced user to get TLS 1.2 previously but that doing so would break over half the web. Now it is possible to use TLS 1.2 where available and not use it when not available.
    - gaius 13y ago
      Maybe that was it probing you?
  - hnwhatevz 13y ago
    Fedora 20 (firefox 26), "Your SSL client is Bad." :(
    - skion 13y ago
      I just fixed that by setting: security.tls.version.max = 3 security.tls.version.min = 1 security.ssl3.rsa_fips_des_ede3_sha = false in about:config, after which it also said "Probably good" for FF26.
- takeda 13y ago
  Except how many people trust absolutely every single CA in the huge list that browser comes with. It only takes one of them (or even a single intermediate CA that is listed by them) to sign a malicious key and the whole system is compromised. And it already happened few times (ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiNotar#Issuance_of_fraudulent_certificates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiNotar#Issuance_of_fraudulen...). Imagine what US government agency can do.
pjmlp 13y ago
Windows support appears to be a bit broken it seems.
- josteink 13y ago
  Yeah. Multiple known issues is listed, which is unfortunate despite having known workarounds. Most users will never get around to finding them and trying them out.
- asadotzler 13y ago
  Can you say more about that?
- theandrewbailey 13y ago
  The known issues have been known for a long time. I've been using Firefox on Windows since ever, and these are super rare edge cases.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  As reply to my own comment. No issue so far on my Windows PC.
arunc 13y ago
Awesome, my nightly got updated to 30! FF FTW!
- Haywain 13y ago
  Semi-related: I've been using the Nightly and have come to really enjoy Australis over the current UX/UI scheme in the other builds. To that end, I'm excited for Aurora to get boosted up to 29 and, hopefully, get Australis along with it.
arunc 13y ago
Awesome, my nightly got updated to 30! FF FTW!
bloodorange 13y ago
2013 was such a good hear for Mozilla that I now looked at this release and was thinking - "blah! just another FF release". I then realised what had happened. They have developed so much momentum and such a good track record that I have taken their best product's release for granted...
- terabytest 13y ago
  Is that sarcasm?
  - LukeShu 13y ago
    I don't think so. It's easy now to look at the headline and think "Oh, just another Firefox release, it happens what? once a month?". That's a good thing. Users are upgrading, the process is smooth; Mozilla's having a relatively easy time iterating. Remember when Firefox 3, 4, and 5 came out? Each time, it was a big deal. Many complained and groaned. The upgrade process was problematic for many users. Some users would still have problems upgrading for many releases after that. It's been a great year if they can push out numerous high-quality releases, and have the process be so smooth that when users hear of a new version, they think "meh".
    - nfoz 13y ago
      I would much rather a long-term-stable product with fewer security vulnerabilities that didn't need frequent updates.
      - orbitur 13y ago
        To have that, we would need to be disconnected from the internet.
      - nirvdrum 13y ago
        Check out the Firefox ESR builds. They're supported for 1 year. Not super long-term, but better than 6 weeks: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/
izietto 13y ago
> Added support for SPDY 3.1 protocol Just in time to use it with nginx 1.5.10 :P
JanneVee 13y ago
The glsl shader editor isn't announced in the release notes. It is supposed to be included in FF 27. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders-with-firefox-developer-tools/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders...
- Jare 13y ago
  It is, just disabled by default in the console settings.
- pheelicks 13y ago
  The GLSL editor is really great, with just one thing making it a pain to use. Namely, the split between the vertex and fragment shader is always vertical (apart from when the tools are really thin overall). Does anyone know how I can force it to use a horizontal split? While I'm whining, is it possible to show the console at the same time as viewing the source for files? The fact that I have to switch between the console and source tabs in FF is pretty much the only reason I use Chrome for debugging.
  - padenot 13y ago
    At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console regardless of the panel you're currently using (à la Chromium, basically). I'm not sure in which release this landed, though. For the vertical split thing, opening a bug is the easiest way to get the feature in [1]. [1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Developer%20Tools%3A%20WebGL%20Shader%20Editor https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&c... (this is a URL with the right bugzilla component. just log in, fill the blanks and submit)
    - bgrins 13y ago
      > At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console regardless of the panel you're currently using This split console feature landed in 28 (so it is moving up to Beta now): https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty-print-minified-js-and-more-firefox-developer-tools-episode-28/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty-print...
ahoge 13y ago
Looks much better now: https://www.howsmyssl.com/ https://www.howsmyssl.com/
Aardwolf 13y ago
The only feature marked as new is "something with SocialAPI"... bleh
- Yuioup 13y ago
  It sounds like an enabler for spam. Can anybody shed any light on this?
  - kbrosnan 13y ago
    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API This link provides some details on how Firefox will deal with bad actors. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Criteria https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Criteria
dudus 13y ago
Major browser updates used to be fun. Nowadays they just merge security updates and bump the numbers. Most won't even notice and just complain about the mandatory restart.
- Finster 13y ago
  I guess you didn't read the change log, then. TLS on by default and all:unset support seem like kinda big deals to me.
- veeti 13y ago
  Just wait until Australis.
  - lurkinggrue 13y ago
    (Shudders)
swannodette 13y ago
I see no one has mentioned Firefox 27 is the first major browser to have ES6 generators enabled by default - http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-csp/ http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-c.... Callback hell begone!
- AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
  I realised yesterday that "yield" in Python (and I guess javascript) is kind of a baby continuation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation). It can be used to create coroutines and turn async code into sync (looking) code. Really powerful. Anyone interested should learn what continuations are (in Scheme).
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    There is some debate about continuations and generators : http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/02/25/on-generators http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/02/25/on-generators http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4690 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4690
  - dmunoz 13y ago
    A good resource for this is the control operations chapter [0] in Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation [1]. It start off with some motivation, then covers generators and continuations, with mention of threads and coroutines. The base motivation and most code is for an interpreter implementation, but it isn't impossible to follow if you're not familiar with such material. [0] http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/Control_Operations.html http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/Control_Operatio... [1] http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/index.html http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/index.html
  - lhorie 13y ago
    I never got the point of generators until I saw Koa.js I always thought generators were merely a way of making convoluted iterators, but when I realized that you can put your application logic inside a generator, in my head, it immediately turned it into a "how did I ever code without this before" kind of feature. I just hope other browsers (especially IE) follow suit in implementing this feature
mda 13y ago
One disturbing thing about Mozilla security is that most of the "Critical" flaws[1] in their list would be marked as "High" on Chrome because of Chrome's superior security model. [1]https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firef...
- mccr8 13y ago
  That is very unfortunate, but there is ongoing work on making Firefox multiprocess and sandboxed. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox
- ris 13y ago
  I think you put too much faith in the fables that surround what the chrome security model does and does not do. In short, no, they wouldn't.
  - mda 13y ago
    Really? Care to give an example?
    - ris 13y ago
      I don't really want to have to go into process security from scratch, but I have previously commented on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368 "Sandboxing" and "process separation" are not magic smoke.
      - mda 13y ago
        Oh sure, they are not magic smoke indeed. Still, how do you explain that Use after free bugs are marked Critical in Firefox but High on Chrome? Seems like Chrome is doing a little bit better in security department. https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firef... http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%20updates http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%...
nly 13y ago
What are the market share stats like on FF versions these days? Presumably the auto-update feature means the vast majority are using the latest FF within a few weeks?
- iambateman 13y ago
  Yes, legacy Firefox versions drop 95% almost immediately: http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01 http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01 (that is taken from a PR5 hospital site, should be pretty indicative of the general market.)
- riquito 13y ago
  Here some nice recent graphs http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/windows-8-growth-falters-again-mobile-chrome-continues-to-pick-up-steam/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/window...
iagooar 13y ago
Some time ago I was a Firefox user. Then Chrome came out and I first started using it for free-time browsing, while still developing on Firefox. Later, I decided to fully migrate to Chrome. I've decided to change it again, so I'm going to give Firefox a try during this month. For now, it looks really nice, performance seems to be quite good and the feeling of getting at least a small part of my digital life away from Google feels nice as well. Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Firefox' developer tools. I'd be really happy if Firefox convinced me to stay, as I really love what Mozilla is doing for the web community.
- rubiquity 13y ago
  I think you'll be quite impressed with Firefox's developer tools again. I've been more and more unhappy with Chrome's tools, mostly the subtle changes of not having filters and things so readily available anymore. The Firefox tools are quite slick though. I don't even use Firebug anymore.
  - skrowl 13y ago
    If you install both, you can use both side by side. F12 for firebug, Ctrl Shift K for built in.
  - cbaleanu 13y ago
    So glad I am not the only one noticing the filter change. That additional click to display the filtering options that Chrome introduced really made me start using FF more and more for work. I think this dumbing-down approach Google is doing with all their apps and websites will only alienate more and more professionals out of using their platform.
    - paulirish 13y ago
      (Chrome DevTools team here). We cleaned up the filtering as it was totally inconsistent across all panels. So now it introduces one more click, but felt like generally that extra click was OK. I think we can still improve the UX, however. Which panels do you most use filters on (and for what?) Console, Network?
blinkingled 13y ago
I am using FF on Android (both phone and tablet) with sync and great addons like adblock/self destructing cookies/lastpass and am mostly a happy camper. Mozilla has resolved most of the performance issues barring one - compared to Chrome or stock browser the time it takes for FF to go from link tapped to page loading started is a bit annoyingly high. Many times after tapping a link it just sits there doing nothing or showing the spinner in the URL bar for quite some time. Not sure if it's the addons but I recall having similar issue on a fresh install. If anyone from Mozilla reading this has any pointers, please let me know. Edit: Also the one other thing that frequently bugs me is FF not honoring the Android intent system. YouTube and Play Store links when opened in FF give me no option of opening them in their respective apps - it goes straight to the URL. I guess I'll file a bug for this issue.
- codereflection 13y ago
  Me too, the time it takes to initially load a link is really long compared to Chrome, even on a quad core mobile device. I hope they resolve this soon.
  - nikbackm 13y ago
    Hmm, might that be due to Chrome pre-fetching the page?
    - codereflection 13y ago
      I don't think so. It happens all the time. Even when I just have about:blank open, and go to something like ddg.gg or google.com, it's like the browser hangs for a couple of seconds, then it loads the page really quick. It's that initial hang that is really aggravating.
- fpgeek 13y ago
  Firefox is both better and worse than other browsers in dealing with intents. On the worse side, unlike some other browsers Firefox doesn't raise intents for redirected URLs, missing some opportunities to match appropriate apps. I believe the underlying issue is that too many redirect situations are ambiguous (especially if you might not be the default browser). I mostly deal with this with an external wrapper (Browser Auto Selector, Unshorten or the like), but it's still a weakness. On the other side, the Firefox intnet feature that I love is that when you long-press/right-click/etc on a URL that matches some non-browser apps, you get the option of opening it in those apps (for YouTube, the Play Store, Twitter, etc.). I haven't seen any other browser with that option (though, to be fair, I spend most of my time in Firefox). It would be extra-wonderful if there were a reliable way to hit the YouTube link from an embedded video, but even without that, it's very handy.
kyrra 13y ago
One interesting this is that all JS_ exports in their libraries have been removed. This kills support for things like GWT DevMode [0] among other plugins. This is good for security, bad for GWT. [0] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/QSEjbhhHB4g https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/Q...
- cromwellian 13y ago
  Yes, we knew this was long in coming. Chrome is yanking similar support in NPAPI as well. That's why 2 years ago we started working on SuperDevMode. This happened a little quicker than we had planned, but some upcoming changes to the GWT compiler will make it an incremental compiler more like JavaC, and in SuperDevMode, compile/refresh should be much much quicker when that lands. On the IDE side, IntelliJ 13.0.2 can attach a debugger to Chrome and provide an in-IDE java debugging experience using source maps. Similar work is ongoing from James Nelson for the Eclipse plugin. Firefox recently added support for column number support in stack traces, so eventually, Java IDE debugging using sourcemaps attached to Firefox JS debugger should be feasible. In the mean time, GWT developers who use Firefox will need to stick to Firefox ESRs.
joshmoz 13y ago
Release notes include a link to a list of new contributors and their contributions. Never noticed that before. https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new-contributors/ https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new... Looked up some past numbers: Firefox 24: 43 new contributors, 32 volunteers Firefox 25: 51 new contributors, 39 volunteers Firefox 26: 43 new contributors, 27 volunteers Firefox 27: 41 new contributors, 35 volunteers I think Mozilla considers its employees and the employees of known major contributing companies to not be volunteers.
itry 13y ago
Im on FF 24 and there seems to be no button to update it. I thought FF nowadays updates itself automatically?
- ianbicking 13y ago
  It does, but if you want to update immediately go to About, there's a button there to update.
  - itry 13y ago
    No, there is no button. Maybe because its "Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint"? Did they fork Firefox and disabled updates?
    - theandrewbailey 13y ago
      You might want to check for updated packages. Or upgrade your Mint install; if so, this might help: https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150 https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150
    - mpyne 13y ago
      If you install via a package manager on Linux then generally you can only update the browser through the package manager. On my Gentoo box that's how I have to upgrade chromium and firefox.
    - zobzu 13y ago
      generally distros do that yes. because they ship updates through their own package manager (in this case apt) instead if you get firefox directly from mozilla you'll have mozilla autoupdates. in general, both are fine..
veganarchocap 13y ago
What?! Last time I used it (which felt about a year ago...) was version 3.5.3.
- roryokane 13y ago
  In case you didn’t hear, starting with version 5 (released June 2011) Firefox changed to a different, must faster release schedule. They release a new major version every six weeks or so, but there are fewer changes in each major version than there were in early versions. They changed the schedule to get new features out to users faster. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Rapid_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Rapid_relea...
- km3k 13y ago
  Time flies, doesn't it? 3.5.3 was from September 2009. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/
  - veganarchocap 13y ago
    Oh my! Now I feel old. Thanks!
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  3.5.4 was released a bit over 4 years ago. 3.6 was released 3 years and 11 months ago. You may need to get your perception of time checked. ;)
jbrooksuk 13y ago
Chrome has recently started to be more of a burden for us. We use the Application Shortcuts on our sales teams Windows PCs, which has broken over the last couple of updates: * Scrollbars have now changed, there are no up and down arrows. This has really confused our elder staff. * Application shortcuts have started hanging and throwing the "Jim" screen, but the same web pages work fine usually. * Java is awful to get installed and unfortunately we need that. These have made me want to try Firefox even more, and seeing Generators has made me switch to the nightly build to see what else is up and coming! Nice work Mozilla!
- ahoge 13y ago
  I recommend to use a site-specific browser (SSB) for internal stuff. This way you get a fixed platform which can be updated as needed. For the internet, you can continue to use an auto-updating browser. Take a look at XULRunner and the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). If you want to see CEF in action, try Brackets: http://brackets.io/ http://brackets.io/
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Fwiw I've been finding Firefox (Ubuntu 12.04 default repo version) to be more stable than Chrome when I'm abusing tabs (like 50-100 tabs open, yes I'm pathological). Under such circumstances with Chrome my computer will occasionally freeze and I have no recourse but to REISUB it. Under similar circumstances with FF, things slow down and responsiveness gets worse, but no system freezes have occured yet. There are some things I use Chrome for, like its JS profiling tools, but every time it freezes and forces a restart I go back to FF. Been staying with the latter more and more lately.
  - nnethercote 13y ago
    I've heard countless times that Chrome becomes flaky once you get to about 50 or 60 tabs. In contrast, I know several Firefox users who regularly have open several hundred tabs, and one guy who sometimes exceeds a thousand. (Yes, a thousand.) (And if you're about to respond with "why would anybody need that many tabs?", please don't. It's a tired topic; just accept that there are many different and valid ways to use a web browser, and yours is just one of them.)
snarkyturtle 13y ago
Anybody know when Firefox 28 will be released? That's the one I'm excited for since it'll finally fix a bug with Firefox and flex-wrap: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901 Edit: Looks like it'll release in March: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28 Worth noting for designers since it'll implement background-blend-mode too: https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  Every 6 weeks, no?
- bzbarsky 13y ago
  https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch_dates https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch... says March 18, 2014. It's generally pretty accurate.
songgao 13y ago
Did they fix the memory leak problem on OS X?
fafner 13y ago
In related news: HTTPSeverywhere is now available for Firefox on Android. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-safer-with-https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-...
piyush_soni 13y ago
The deobfuscation feature in debugger is a bliss! I was waiting for it.
cpncrunch 13y ago
Nice that canvas dashed lines are now working, but there are still a lot of html5 features that either aren't implemented or are buggy: audio recording with getUserMedia sometimes turns off after a few seconds, drag+drop images from another website isn't implemented (only file upload from your own computer supported), no screen sharing. I've had to put a "try chrome if you have problems" message at the top of our app, as chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all of the html5 features that we use.
- azakai 13y ago
  > chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all html5 features. Well, no. No browser fully supports all HTML5 features. It's all a work in progress. I guess your app happens to use features present in chrome, but other browsers lead in other areas. Off the top of my head, firefox had webrtc binary datachannels (important for multiplayer games) earlier. And a comment above mentions ES6 generators as well.
  - cpncrunch 13y ago
    Basically Chrome supports all of the HTML5 features that we use (audio/video, drag+drop, screen sharing), whereas firefox doesn't. Perhaps there are features that firefox supports that chrome doesn't, but I haven't come across any.
    - kbrosnan 13y ago
      Drag and drop has been supported since Firefox 3.5. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_Drop https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_D... Screen sharing via get user media was added in this release Fx27, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832 Audio/Video support has been in Firefox since Firefox 3.5 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Using_HTML5_audio_and_video https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Usin...
      - 13y ago
t0mislav 13y ago
Is it possible to map cmd+1 for next and previous tab and cmd+2 for next tab? Tried everything, with no luck. :/
- jakub_g 13y ago
  There's keyconfig extension (it's not available on addons.mozilla.org) that could help you. http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994 http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994
  - t0mislav 13y ago
    Thanks!
- ndesaulniers 13y ago
  I'm not sure about remapping hotkeys. In OSX, command+shift+] is next tab and command+shift+[ is previous tab.
- nnethercote 13y ago
  Ctrl-tab and ctrl-shift-tab are the built-in ways to do that, if that's any help.
- sfwjigw02 13y ago
  maby try firegestures? allow you to map tab to mouse button
bjitty 13y ago
I'm glad prettify source in the dev tools is finally in the build (It's been in beta for a while). It'll be a huge help working with JavaScript.
ksec 13y ago
Sigh. Apart from Firefox based and Blink Based ( Chrome / Opera ) Browser. Are there any other alternative on Windows?
Cowicide 13y ago
According to the release notes Flash is fixed. But after updating, I still can't get Flash to work with Firefox on my Android 4.4.2 Nexus 7. Flash works fine with Dolphin though. Bummer.

328 points by joshmoz 13y ago

The second bullet is important, having up to date TLS is a big deal in today's security/spy conscience world. Its possible to currently get (if you monkey around in about:config), but default settings are powerful since the average user won't bother. And I mean average-user type average user, not average hackernews reader/poster.

pixl97 13y ago
It is good, now all the latest major browsers support TLS1.2 with forward secrecy. It is unfortunate that IE doesn't put FS suits first though. For you Windows server operators out there, I suggest IISCrypto to order your cipher selection (this works on desktop versions of Windows too). https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/ https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/
erichurkman 13y ago
How's My SSL? [1] now reports "Your SSL client is Probably Okay." for Firefox 27. Awesome! [1] https://www.howsmyssl.com/ https://www.howsmyssl.com/
- joveian 13y ago
  An error occurred during a connection to www.howsmyssl.com. Peer attempted old style (potentially vulnerable) handshake. I don't think I would trust their judgement about how my SSL is doing. I am happy about this Firefox release; it is not just that you had to be an advanced user to get TLS 1.2 previously but that doing so would break over half the web. Now it is possible to use TLS 1.2 where available and not use it when not available.
  - gaius 13y ago
    Maybe that was it probing you?
- hnwhatevz 13y ago
  Fedora 20 (firefox 26), "Your SSL client is Bad." :(
  - skion 13y ago
    I just fixed that by setting: security.tls.version.max = 3 security.tls.version.min = 1 security.ssl3.rsa_fips_des_ede3_sha = false in about:config, after which it also said "Probably good" for FF26.
takeda 13y ago
Except how many people trust absolutely every single CA in the huge list that browser comes with. It only takes one of them (or even a single intermediate CA that is listed by them) to sign a malicious key and the whole system is compromised. And it already happened few times (ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiNotar#Issuance_of_fraudulent_certificates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiNotar#Issuance_of_fraudulen...). Imagine what US government agency can do.

pjmlp 13y ago

Windows support appears to be a bit broken it seems.

josteink 13y ago
Yeah. Multiple known issues is listed, which is unfortunate despite having known workarounds. Most users will never get around to finding them and trying them out.
asadotzler 13y ago
Can you say more about that?
theandrewbailey 13y ago
The known issues have been known for a long time. I've been using Firefox on Windows since ever, and these are super rare edge cases.
pjmlp 13y ago
As reply to my own comment. No issue so far on my Windows PC.

arunc 13y ago

Awesome, my nightly got updated to 30! FF FTW!

Haywain 13y ago
Semi-related: I've been using the Nightly and have come to really enjoy Australis over the current UX/UI scheme in the other builds. To that end, I'm excited for Aurora to get boosted up to 29 and, hopefully, get Australis along with it.

arunc 13y ago

Awesome, my nightly got updated to 30! FF FTW!

bloodorange 13y ago

2013 was such a good hear for Mozilla that I now looked at this release and was thinking - "blah! just another FF release". I then realised what had happened. They have developed so much momentum and such a good track record that I have taken their best product's release for granted...

terabytest 13y ago
Is that sarcasm?
- LukeShu 13y ago
  I don't think so. It's easy now to look at the headline and think "Oh, just another Firefox release, it happens what? once a month?". That's a good thing. Users are upgrading, the process is smooth; Mozilla's having a relatively easy time iterating. Remember when Firefox 3, 4, and 5 came out? Each time, it was a big deal. Many complained and groaned. The upgrade process was problematic for many users. Some users would still have problems upgrading for many releases after that. It's been a great year if they can push out numerous high-quality releases, and have the process be so smooth that when users hear of a new version, they think "meh".
  - nfoz 13y ago
    I would much rather a long-term-stable product with fewer security vulnerabilities that didn't need frequent updates.
    - orbitur 13y ago
      To have that, we would need to be disconnected from the internet.
    - nirvdrum 13y ago
      Check out the Firefox ESR builds. They're supported for 1 year. Not super long-term, but better than 6 weeks: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all/

izietto 13y ago

> Added support for SPDY 3.1 protocol Just in time to use it with nginx 1.5.10 :P

JanneVee 13y ago

The glsl shader editor isn't announced in the release notes. It is supposed to be included in FF 27. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders-with-firefox-developer-tools/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders...

Jare 13y ago
It is, just disabled by default in the console settings.
pheelicks 13y ago
The GLSL editor is really great, with just one thing making it a pain to use. Namely, the split between the vertex and fragment shader is always vertical (apart from when the tools are really thin overall). Does anyone know how I can force it to use a horizontal split? While I'm whining, is it possible to show the console at the same time as viewing the source for files? The fact that I have to switch between the console and source tabs in FF is pretty much the only reason I use Chrome for debugging.
- padenot 13y ago
  At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console regardless of the panel you're currently using (à la Chromium, basically). I'm not sure in which release this landed, though. For the vertical split thing, opening a bug is the easiest way to get the feature in [1]. [1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&component=Developer%20Tools%3A%20WebGL%20Shader%20Editor https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&c... (this is a URL with the right bugzilla component. just log in, fill the blanks and submit)
  - bgrins 13y ago
    > At least in current Nightly, you can hit the Esc. key, to pop up the console regardless of the panel you're currently using This split console feature landed in 28 (so it is moving up to Beta now): https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty-print-minified-js-and-more-firefox-developer-tools-episode-28/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/12/split-console-pretty-print...

ahoge 13y ago

Looks much better now: https://www.howsmyssl.com/ https://www.howsmyssl.com/

Aardwolf 13y ago

The only feature marked as new is "something with SocialAPI"... bleh

Yuioup 13y ago
It sounds like an enabler for spam. Can anybody shed any light on this?
- kbrosnan 13y ago
  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API This link provides some details on how Firefox will deal with bad actors. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Criteria https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Social_API/Criteria

dudus 13y ago

Major browser updates used to be fun. Nowadays they just merge security updates and bump the numbers. Most won't even notice and just complain about the mandatory restart.

Finster 13y ago
I guess you didn't read the change log, then. TLS on by default and all:unset support seem like kinda big deals to me.
veeti 13y ago
Just wait until Australis.
- lurkinggrue 13y ago
  (Shudders)

swannodette 13y ago

I see no one has mentioned Firefox 27 is the first major browser to have ES6 generators enabled by default - http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-csp/ http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-c.... Callback hell begone!

AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
I realised yesterday that "yield" in Python (and I guess javascript) is kind of a baby continuation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation). It can be used to create coroutines and turn async code into sync (looking) code. Really powerful. Anyone interested should learn what continuations are (in Scheme).
- agumonkey 13y ago
  There is some debate about continuations and generators : http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/02/25/on-generators http://wingolog.org/archives/2013/02/25/on-generators http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4690 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4690
- dmunoz 13y ago
  A good resource for this is the control operations chapter [0] in Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation [1]. It start off with some motivation, then covers generators and continuations, with mention of threads and coroutines. The base motivation and most code is for an interpreter implementation, but it isn't impossible to follow if you're not familiar with such material. [0] http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/Control_Operations.html http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/Control_Operatio... [1] http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/index.html http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/book/index.html
- lhorie 13y ago
  I never got the point of generators until I saw Koa.js I always thought generators were merely a way of making convoluted iterators, but when I realized that you can put your application logic inside a generator, in my head, it immediately turned it into a "how did I ever code without this before" kind of feature. I just hope other browsers (especially IE) follow suit in implementing this feature

mda 13y ago

One disturbing thing about Mozilla security is that most of the "Critical" flaws[1] in their list would be marked as "High" on Chrome because of Chrome's superior security model. [1]https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firef...

mccr8 13y ago
That is very unfortunate, but there is ongoing work on making Firefox multiprocess and sandboxed. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox
ris 13y ago
I think you put too much faith in the fables that surround what the chrome security model does and does not do. In short, no, they wouldn't.
- mda 13y ago
  Really? Care to give an example?
  - ris 13y ago
    I don't really want to have to go into process security from scratch, but I have previously commented on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811368 "Sandboxing" and "process separation" are not magic smoke.
    - mda 13y ago
      Oh sure, they are not magic smoke indeed. Still, how do you explain that Use after free bugs are marked Critical in Firefox but High on Chrome? Seems like Chrome is doing a little bit better in security department. https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firef... http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%20updates http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.ch/search/label/Stable%...

nly 13y ago

What are the market share stats like on FF versions these days? Presumably the auto-update feature means the vast majority are using the latest FF within a few weeks?

iambateman 13y ago
Yes, legacy Firefox versions drop 95% almost immediately: http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01 http://cl.ly/image/1E433h1I1S01 (that is taken from a PR5 hospital site, should be pretty indicative of the general market.)
riquito 13y ago
Here some nice recent graphs http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/windows-8-growth-falters-again-mobile-chrome-continues-to-pick-up-steam/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/window...

iagooar 13y ago

Some time ago I was a Firefox user. Then Chrome came out and I first started using it for free-time browsing, while still developing on Firefox. Later, I decided to fully migrate to Chrome. I've decided to change it again, so I'm going to give Firefox a try during this month. For now, it looks really nice, performance seems to be quite good and the feeling of getting at least a small part of my digital life away from Google feels nice as well. Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Firefox' developer tools. I'd be really happy if Firefox convinced me to stay, as I really love what Mozilla is doing for the web community.

rubiquity 13y ago
I think you'll be quite impressed with Firefox's developer tools again. I've been more and more unhappy with Chrome's tools, mostly the subtle changes of not having filters and things so readily available anymore. The Firefox tools are quite slick though. I don't even use Firebug anymore.
- skrowl 13y ago
  If you install both, you can use both side by side. F12 for firebug, Ctrl Shift K for built in.
- cbaleanu 13y ago
  So glad I am not the only one noticing the filter change. That additional click to display the filtering options that Chrome introduced really made me start using FF more and more for work. I think this dumbing-down approach Google is doing with all their apps and websites will only alienate more and more professionals out of using their platform.
  - paulirish 13y ago
    (Chrome DevTools team here). We cleaned up the filtering as it was totally inconsistent across all panels. So now it introduces one more click, but felt like generally that extra click was OK. I think we can still improve the UX, however. Which panels do you most use filters on (and for what?) Console, Network?

blinkingled 13y ago

I am using FF on Android (both phone and tablet) with sync and great addons like adblock/self destructing cookies/lastpass and am mostly a happy camper. Mozilla has resolved most of the performance issues barring one - compared to Chrome or stock browser the time it takes for FF to go from link tapped to page loading started is a bit annoyingly high. Many times after tapping a link it just sits there doing nothing or showing the spinner in the URL bar for quite some time. Not sure if it's the addons but I recall having similar issue on a fresh install. If anyone from Mozilla reading this has any pointers, please let me know. Edit: Also the one other thing that frequently bugs me is FF not honoring the Android intent system. YouTube and Play Store links when opened in FF give me no option of opening them in their respective apps - it goes straight to the URL. I guess I'll file a bug for this issue.

codereflection 13y ago
Me too, the time it takes to initially load a link is really long compared to Chrome, even on a quad core mobile device. I hope they resolve this soon.
- nikbackm 13y ago
  Hmm, might that be due to Chrome pre-fetching the page?
  - codereflection 13y ago
    I don't think so. It happens all the time. Even when I just have about:blank open, and go to something like ddg.gg or google.com, it's like the browser hangs for a couple of seconds, then it loads the page really quick. It's that initial hang that is really aggravating.
fpgeek 13y ago
Firefox is both better and worse than other browsers in dealing with intents. On the worse side, unlike some other browsers Firefox doesn't raise intents for redirected URLs, missing some opportunities to match appropriate apps. I believe the underlying issue is that too many redirect situations are ambiguous (especially if you might not be the default browser). I mostly deal with this with an external wrapper (Browser Auto Selector, Unshorten or the like), but it's still a weakness. On the other side, the Firefox intnet feature that I love is that when you long-press/right-click/etc on a URL that matches some non-browser apps, you get the option of opening it in those apps (for YouTube, the Play Store, Twitter, etc.). I haven't seen any other browser with that option (though, to be fair, I spend most of my time in Firefox). It would be extra-wonderful if there were a reliable way to hit the YouTube link from an embedded video, but even without that, it's very handy.

kyrra 13y ago

One interesting this is that all JS_ exports in their libraries have been removed. This kills support for things like GWT DevMode [0] among other plugins. This is good for security, bad for GWT. [0] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/QSEjbhhHB4g https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/Q...

cromwellian 13y ago
Yes, we knew this was long in coming. Chrome is yanking similar support in NPAPI as well. That's why 2 years ago we started working on SuperDevMode. This happened a little quicker than we had planned, but some upcoming changes to the GWT compiler will make it an incremental compiler more like JavaC, and in SuperDevMode, compile/refresh should be much much quicker when that lands. On the IDE side, IntelliJ 13.0.2 can attach a debugger to Chrome and provide an in-IDE java debugging experience using source maps. Similar work is ongoing from James Nelson for the Eclipse plugin. Firefox recently added support for column number support in stack traces, so eventually, Java IDE debugging using sourcemaps attached to Firefox JS debugger should be feasible. In the mean time, GWT developers who use Firefox will need to stick to Firefox ESRs.

joshmoz 13y ago

Release notes include a link to a list of new contributors and their contributions. Never noticed that before. https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new-contributors/ https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new... Looked up some past numbers: Firefox 24: 43 new contributors, 32 volunteers Firefox 25: 51 new contributors, 39 volunteers Firefox 26: 43 new contributors, 27 volunteers Firefox 27: 41 new contributors, 35 volunteers I think Mozilla considers its employees and the employees of known major contributing companies to not be volunteers.

itry 13y ago

Im on FF 24 and there seems to be no button to update it. I thought FF nowadays updates itself automatically?

ianbicking 13y ago
It does, but if you want to update immediately go to About, there's a button there to update.
- itry 13y ago
  No, there is no button. Maybe because its "Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint"? Did they fork Firefox and disabled updates?
  - theandrewbailey 13y ago
    You might want to check for updated packages. Or upgrade your Mint install; if so, this might help: https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150 https://gist.github.com/hgomez/7074150
  - mpyne 13y ago
    If you install via a package manager on Linux then generally you can only update the browser through the package manager. On my Gentoo box that's how I have to upgrade chromium and firefox.
  - zobzu 13y ago
    generally distros do that yes. because they ship updates through their own package manager (in this case apt) instead if you get firefox directly from mozilla you'll have mozilla autoupdates. in general, both are fine..

veganarchocap 13y ago

What?! Last time I used it (which felt about a year ago...) was version 3.5.3.

roryokane 13y ago
In case you didn’t hear, starting with version 5 (released June 2011) Firefox changed to a different, must faster release schedule. They release a new major version every six weeks or so, but there are fewer changes in each major version than there were in early versions. They changed the schedule to get new features out to users faster. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Rapid_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Rapid_relea...
km3k 13y ago
Time flies, doesn't it? 3.5.3 was from September 2009. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/3.5.3/releasenotes/
- veganarchocap 13y ago
  Oh my! Now I feel old. Thanks!
bzbarsky 13y ago
3.5.4 was released a bit over 4 years ago. 3.6 was released 3 years and 11 months ago. You may need to get your perception of time checked. ;)

jbrooksuk 13y ago

Chrome has recently started to be more of a burden for us. We use the Application Shortcuts on our sales teams Windows PCs, which has broken over the last couple of updates: * Scrollbars have now changed, there are no up and down arrows. This has really confused our elder staff. * Application shortcuts have started hanging and throwing the "Jim" screen, but the same web pages work fine usually. * Java is awful to get installed and unfortunately we need that. These have made me want to try Firefox even more, and seeing Generators has made me switch to the nightly build to see what else is up and coming! Nice work Mozilla!

ahoge 13y ago
I recommend to use a site-specific browser (SSB) for internal stuff. This way you get a fixed platform which can be updated as needed. For the internet, you can continue to use an auto-updating browser. Take a look at XULRunner and the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). If you want to see CEF in action, try Brackets: http://brackets.io/ http://brackets.io/
SkyMarshal 13y ago
Fwiw I've been finding Firefox (Ubuntu 12.04 default repo version) to be more stable than Chrome when I'm abusing tabs (like 50-100 tabs open, yes I'm pathological). Under such circumstances with Chrome my computer will occasionally freeze and I have no recourse but to REISUB it. Under similar circumstances with FF, things slow down and responsiveness gets worse, but no system freezes have occured yet. There are some things I use Chrome for, like its JS profiling tools, but every time it freezes and forces a restart I go back to FF. Been staying with the latter more and more lately.
- nnethercote 13y ago
  I've heard countless times that Chrome becomes flaky once you get to about 50 or 60 tabs. In contrast, I know several Firefox users who regularly have open several hundred tabs, and one guy who sometimes exceeds a thousand. (Yes, a thousand.) (And if you're about to respond with "why would anybody need that many tabs?", please don't. It's a tired topic; just accept that there are many different and valid ways to use a web browser, and yours is just one of them.)

snarkyturtle 13y ago

Anybody know when Firefox 28 will be released? That's the one I'm excited for since it'll finally fix a bug with Firefox and flex-wrap: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901 Edit: Looks like it'll release in March: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28 Worth noting for designers since it'll implement background-blend-mode too: https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a

mixmastamyk 13y ago
Every 6 weeks, no?
bzbarsky 13y ago
https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch_dates https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch... says March 18, 2014. It's generally pretty accurate.

songgao 13y ago

Did they fix the memory leak problem on OS X?

fafner 13y ago

In related news: HTTPSeverywhere is now available for Firefox on Android. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-safer-with-https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-...

piyush_soni 13y ago

The deobfuscation feature in debugger is a bliss! I was waiting for it.

cpncrunch 13y ago

Nice that canvas dashed lines are now working, but there are still a lot of html5 features that either aren't implemented or are buggy: audio recording with getUserMedia sometimes turns off after a few seconds, drag+drop images from another website isn't implemented (only file upload from your own computer supported), no screen sharing. I've had to put a "try chrome if you have problems" message at the top of our app, as chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all of the html5 features that we use.

azakai 13y ago
> chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all html5 features. Well, no. No browser fully supports all HTML5 features. It's all a work in progress. I guess your app happens to use features present in chrome, but other browsers lead in other areas. Off the top of my head, firefox had webrtc binary datachannels (important for multiplayer games) earlier. And a comment above mentions ES6 generators as well.
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  Basically Chrome supports all of the HTML5 features that we use (audio/video, drag+drop, screen sharing), whereas firefox doesn't. Perhaps there are features that firefox supports that chrome doesn't, but I haven't come across any.
  - kbrosnan 13y ago
    Drag and drop has been supported since Firefox 3.5. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_Drop https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DragDrop/Drag_and_D... Screen sharing via get user media was added in this release Fx27, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742832 Audio/Video support has been in Firefox since Firefox 3.5 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Using_HTML5_audio_and_video https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Usin...
    - 13y ago

t0mislav 13y ago

Is it possible to map cmd+1 for next and previous tab and cmd+2 for next tab? Tried everything, with no luck. :/

jakub_g 13y ago
There's keyconfig extension (it's not available on addons.mozilla.org) that could help you. http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi http://mozilla.dorando.at/keyconfig.xpi http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994 http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=72994
- t0mislav 13y ago
  Thanks!
ndesaulniers 13y ago
I'm not sure about remapping hotkeys. In OSX, command+shift+] is next tab and command+shift+[ is previous tab.
nnethercote 13y ago
Ctrl-tab and ctrl-shift-tab are the built-in ways to do that, if that's any help.
sfwjigw02 13y ago
maby try firegestures? allow you to map tab to mouse button

bjitty 13y ago

I'm glad prettify source in the dev tools is finally in the build (It's been in beta for a while). It'll be a huge help working with JavaScript.

ksec 13y ago

Sigh. Apart from Firefox based and Blink Based ( Chrome / Opera ) Browser. Are there any other alternative on Windows?

Cowicide 13y ago

According to the release notes Flash is fixed. But after updating, I still can't get Flash to work with Firefox on my Android 4.4.2 Nexus 7. Flash works fine with Dolphin though. Bummer.