Firefox 13 Released, Debuts Brand New Tab Page and Homepage

MrSeb writes "Mozilla has officially released Firefox 13. Unlike Firefox 12 (or 11, or 10, or indeed many of the recent Firefox versions), Firefox 13 is an important release with a handful of much-needed features that are long overdue. There's a new New Tab Page launcher, with your favorite and most-used websites, and a new default home page with one-click access to Bookmarks, Settings, Add-ons, etc. SPDY is on by default, too, which should help ameliorate the perceived speed difference between Chrome and Firefox. Finally, the developer tools (Page Inspector, Style Inspector, etc.) have been tweaked and updated!"

Comments

The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[hobarrera]

I've seen this news all over the web since yesterday, however, the "new tab" page as it is, isn't a Chrome feature, it actually comes from Opera, which had it way before Chrome existed.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera doesn't count, the only reason anybody used Opera was to say the used Opera, then turn their nose up and storm off in a huff. Everybody who knew better used a real browser like Netscape Communicator.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Speed Dial is nothing like this. Chrome, Safari, and now Firefox show your most frequented websites/pages, Opera's new tab page is just a bookmark grid.

Why do Opera fanboys feel the need to convince everyone that Opera invented the web?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

"isn't a Chrome feature"

Funny, my Chrome has it. And I don't see anywhere saying it was ONLY in Chrome, or was in Chrome first, so , you're wrong that "it isn't a feature" and apparently complaining about something that wasn't said.

Huh?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[eternaldoctorwho]

The last time I checked, Opera was free...

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Baloroth]

Why do Opera fanboys feel the need to convince everyone that Opera invented the web?

Because they did, more or less. Tabs, mobile browsing, CSS support, built-in adblocking (which no other major browser even has, as far as I know), speed... yeah, Opera pretty much pioneered everything important about modern web browsers, and they deserve a lot of credit for that.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[hobarrera]

They didn't invent tabs, and FF has adblock. It may not be built-in, but it still works pretty much the same, and more flexible.
Remember FF makes profit out of ads (indirectly), so a built-in ad blocker is a bit of a suicide.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Seriously. Who pays for a web browser?

A couple things have changed while you were in your apparent coma: nearly 3,000 people were killed and World Trade Centers 1, 2, 3 and 7 were destroyed in a terrorist attack on the United States 10.5 years ago and desktop Opera has been free for roughly 12 years now.

Welcome back.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Tyler Eaves]

It wasn't during the time period that they were actually innovating.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Tyler Eaves
--edited address out--

Order receipt from BMT Micro, Inc.
Order ID: 2275341
Order Number: 2004-1224-1543-51-678

Qty Product Description Price Shipping Subtotal
  1 3100023 Opera 7 for Desktop 39.00 0.00 41.73

Sales tax: USD 2.73
Total bill: USD 41.73

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[interkin3tic]

Hey now, some of us liked PBR before it was cool with hipsters!

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera was so indy, it was not caring about Opera before everyone else didn't care about Opera.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[fafaforza]

No, it isn't a bookmark grid. It is a list of sites you most frequently visit, albeit set manually.

I don't think I would want one that changes dynamically based on the past 3 days of my surfing. When I open Opera, I hit Ctrl+3, Ctrl+5, Ctrl+6, Crtl+2 and have the pages I want to see at the outset. I remember what spot each page is and can open it in a new tab blindfolded.

As is, Firefox's version is a bit gimmicky, trying to one-up Speed Dial in order not to make it seem like a feature copy.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

So, that payment was completely voluntary, as using an ad supported Opera for free became an option in 2000. It went free with no ads in 2005. For the record, Speed Dial, the innovative feature in question, was released in 2007. Nice troll though.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Trepidity]

I think a large number of Slashdotters used it in the late 90s, when it wasn't free at all. I know I used it as my main browser 1998-99, but haven't used it since then. Perhaps everyone in this thread is an old curmudgeon.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Tyler Eaves]

Yea, I was a bit miffed with that. I bought it to get rid of the ads, and like 2 weeks later they made it free.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[similar_name]

According to Wikipedia a browser called InternetWorks had tabs in 1994.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[kvothe]

Um, point of information: Why not use firefox's app tab feature to set those 4 pages to open automatically? Or set them as a group home page, to roughly the same effect? If the reason is that you just don't want to use firefox, that's fine, just please be more open about it.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[wiedzmin]

Chrome, Safari, and now Firefox show your most frequented websites/pages

Yes, and I f@#$%ing hate that. I don't want Google show up on my freaking start page when the address bar is the freaking Google search field. Speed Dial all the way! Those dial tabs are a must have too.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[amicusNYCL]

Why do Opera fanboys feel the need to convince everyone that Opera invented the web?

We really only do that when someone makes a factually incorrect statement that attributes some "new" feature as being invented by a recent browser, when J.S. von Tetzchner and his friends were deciding how to actually implement it over a decade ago.

When Al Gore claimed to be responsible for the internet, were you content with letting people believe that or did you feel the need to point out that people like Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee exist?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>In fact, a commit was made to Mozilla a few months before Opera 5 was released that added tab support.

So you're saying Opera 5 was first.

Huh, I think I finally understand why there is such contention between you and everyone else. It's because we're not all speaking the same language. The words look alike, but they apparently mean different things. So you think you're saying one thing, but everyone else perceives it as something else, and then you can't understand where all the rage comes from.

But don't fret, I'm here to help! Y'see, "before" means "first" in this context. And if "first" means something different in your language, here are some examples to try and help you to better understand.

January 1st comes before January 2nd.

January comes before February.

The letter A comes before the letter B in the alphabet.

Of course, not knowing which other words differ in meaning between us, I may have just made matters worse.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[ksandom]

A release and a commit are not the same thing. A very small portion of any user base use a nightly build of any given product. Hope that helps clear up the confusion ;)

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[MisterSquid]

We really only do that when someone makes a factually incorrect statement [. . .]

When Al Gore claimed to be responsible for the internet, were you content with letting people believe that or did you feel the need to point out that people like Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee exist?

Your assertion about Gore seems to be one of those pesky "factually incorrect statements". You're welcome:

Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Heh. No. They used Opera because it had a ton of features that Netscape didn't have and Mozilla hadn't ripped off yet.

Opera earned the elitist attitude us fanboys have for it.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Darinbob]

Heresy! Chrome has always been the only browser with new and useful features. Please report to building 27 for reeducation and booster shots.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[shutdown -p now]

Opera wasn't the first browser with tabs (not even the first with an MDI)

Opera was indeed not the first browser with tabs - that was NetCaptor, IIRC - but they supported MDI since the very first release in 1996, and I'm not aware of any other MDI browser back then.

they didn't invent css

GP is confusing Opera the company with a specific person. CSS1 was derived from the earlier language called CHSS developed by Hakon Lie, the CTO of Opera, and Lie was also one of the several key people who produced the first standard.

konqueror had built in content blocking before opera

I suspect that Opera's filter.ini is older still (not sure which version it appeared in), and predates Konqueror as such. On the other hand, there was no way to interactively add entries to it until Opera 9 or thereabouts - they were certainly pretty late there.

Opera had been lagging behind others in terms of speed until very recently since Chrome woke everyone up.

Opera is still lagging on page rendering and JS speeds, but historically, they have had the fastest UI until very recently - pretty much until Chrome. Back in the day of IE and Netscape, and later Mozilla and Firefox, Opera was literally light years ahead in terms of how fast new tabs opened, pages scrolled etc.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[amicusNYCL]

I specifically chose to avoid using the word "invent", and used "responsible for" instead, which is closer to his actual statement:

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet."

To someone who doesn't know better, who asks you "did Al Gore invent the internet", you can either say "yes" and talk about his legislation that helped foster that technology, or you can say "no" and talk about people like Tim and Vint. To people like us, the contributions of Tim and Vint are more widely-recognized as the contributions which directly led to the internet existing today. They created the technological foundation, Gore helped with the legislative issues. They're both responsible in their own ways, and no single person can claim to have "invented" or "created" the entire internet as we know it. But in the statement above, it does sound like Al is trying to take majority credit.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[bill_mcgonigle]

CSS1 was derived from the earlier language called CHSS developed by Hakon Lie, the CTO of Opera, and Lie was also one of the several key people who produced the first standard.

Burn the witch! Oops, did I say that out loud?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Dan541]

Supported by ads.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Dan541]

Why do Opera fanboys feel the need to convince everyone that Opera invented the web?

My guess, desperation (to be something).

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[drinkypoo]

Personally, I certainly agree with one thing of that post: "shitty acting", which is the key phrase of the whole thing.

It is also true that materials needed to disprove (or prove, whatever) the theory of the tower being pre-wired were spirited away and destroyed before anyone could so much as whimper about an investigation. If one of your prior business associates crashed his SUV into your mansion and it fell in on itself completely and then you fed the support beams into a log chipper before the insurance company got there they'd be some suspicious motherfuckers. We The People are the insurance company underwriting this debacle, and yet we are not demanding answers. Why does an insurance company have higher standards than we do?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[drinkypoo]

To someone who doesn't know better, who asks you "did Al Gore invent the internet", you can either say "yes" and talk about his legislation that helped foster that technology, or you can say "no" and talk about people like Tim and Vint. To people like us, the contributions of Tim and Vint are more widely-recognized as the contributions which directly led to the internet existing today. They created the technological foundation, Gore helped with the legislative issues. They're both responsible in their own ways, and no single person can claim to have "invented" or "created" the entire internet as we know it. But in the statement above, it does sound like Al is trying to take majority credit.

It's funny that you should bring up Al Gore and The Internet and Vint Cerf, because...

``Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role.
He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the
initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have
argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover,
there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's
initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving
Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and
promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it
is timely to offer our perspective.''

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[datavirtue]

Opera is a great browser. I somehow picked up some malware under XP through javascript recently on Opera. Surprised, as this should not have been able to happen. I use Opera as my my safe browser for privacy with Javascript disabled now. I can't stand working on a machine without at least three browsers.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Johann Lau]

actually, that would be Opera 4...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(GUI)

[..]in 1994, BookLink Technologies featured tabbed windows in its InternetWorks browser. That same year, a text editor called UltraEdit also appeared with a modern multi-row tabbed interface. The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997. These were followed by a number of others like IBrowse in 1999, and Opera in 2000 (with the release of version 4 - although a MDI interface was supported before then)[..]

Opera was the first one that made it usable in a decent and fast browser, period... condolences to those who used other browsers during that time, but please get out of our hair about it. You will never get the lost time and productivity back, and we *did* try to help. Thank you.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[ciderbrew]

I want to mod you up at +10. I love that opening paragraph and will use it as my own.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Ginger Unicorn]

it's the same guy replying to himself.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[V for Vendetta]

To people like us, the contributions of Tim and Vint are more widely-recognized as the contributions which directly led to the internet existing today.

I'd say let Vint and Bob and others speak for themselves about how they think about this matter.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Well, that's not exactly true either. There were free beta versions that had no expiration date. I used one that fit on a floppy because it was faster than ie 3 or netscape 3. However, its javascript support was pretty terrible during that time. I did have to use other browsers to use websites that required JS.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[nobodie]

I used Netscape before Opera, then both together, then mostly Opera, then I went to China where it is blocked. so Firefox, now my son was using opera but now chrome. Browsers, who cares besides people who need to define themselves by browser?

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Browsers, who cares besides people who need to define themselves by browser?

If you know a lot about a topic you'll be irritated by somebody who makes ignorant claims about it. That's why the comments section on this particular site is so popular.

Re:The new-tab page isn't a chrome invention

[fafaforza]

Because one of those tabs is a sports site and sometimes I do not want to see race results. And I like to retain control. You know, that part of usability that lets you control the software you use for it to work the way you want it to.

I don't use Firefox because when I got fed up with it years ago, Opera seemed to be set up in a way that made sense to me. Many of the recent changes seem like copy of what Opera has had. Things like going back to the last tab you viewed when closing a tab, instead of the next to last tab, as was the case previously. Or being able to paste multi-line text into an input window (google maps, for example) without the text being broken and/or missing the second line, the way Firefox used to do when you pasted a multi line address into google maps. The menu in FF is also taking ques from Opera, with the menu-less look, etc. I use Opera because it makes sense for me.

I'm also curious as to where I was less than open about the browser I use. Or, for that matter, when I made _any_ comment on the browser I use.

NOOOO

[ColdWetDog]

Now it looks like Safari.

Last week it looked like Chrome.

I'm going back to Internet Explorer. Or maybe Mosaic.

Either that or I'm going to wait another week for Firefox 16 which will likely imitate Facebook.

Re:NOOOO

[Samantha Wright]

If it helps, I use Firefox 15 (Nightly), and its UI hasn't changed much since FF13, except for the inclusion of a new pop-up list download manager. I don't know of anything else that this resembles, but I find it really efficient; much better than trying to make do with clumsy "clear and close" extensions for the classic FF download manager, which itself hadn't changed since the dawn of the Firefox project.

Re:NOOOO

[b0bby]

Just installed it, and I can't see any difference from 12. I have it set pretty minimal, just tabs at the top, no menu bar or skins. I haven't seen a reason to switch yet, either to IE or Chrome...

Re:NOOOO

[Zephyn]

Now it looks like Safari.

Last week it looked like Chrome.

I'm going back to Internet Explorer. Or maybe Mosaic.

Either that or I'm going to wait another week for Firefox 16 which will likely imitate Facebook.

23 will imitate Lynx

Re:NOOOO

[ArundelCastle]

Either that or I'm going to wait another week for Firefox 16 which will likely imitate Facebook.

Oh, you mean Firebook?
(Ray Bradbury is not amused.)

Re:NOOOO

[cpu6502]

>>>Either that or I'm going to wait another week for Firefox 16

If you're still using the LTS version, then you are still on Firefox 10 and won't have to worry about upgrading until Firefox 17 (about one year of constancy).

Re:NOOOO

[al.caughey]

I use Firefox mainly during the day

Re:NOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

IE mostly comes at night...

Mostly.

Re:NOOOO

[Samantha Wright]

Pfft. Sunlight is for weirdos.

Re:NOOOO

[rubycodez]

that's why I like w3m, same look and feel for years, without the cruft.

Re:NOOOO

[ColdWetDog]

Slashdot needs a sarcasm tab so very badly.

Re:NOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I stay inside surfing the internet during the day.

To stay away from the weirdos.

Re:NOOOO

[an unsound mind]

A week for three major versions?

Geez, what a slow development cycle - Firefox can easily do a major version per weekday - or a few, assuming there's a persistent bug that needs ironing out.

Re:NOOOO

[NotBorg]

Samsung needs to make round tablets!

That would be awesome! I could finally pay Tron in real life!

Re:NOOOO

[gmhowell]

IE mostly comes at night...

Mostly.

Take off, nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to get rid of IE6.

Re:NOOOO

[Samantha Wright]

I looked it up—yes, it's exactly like that. A little progress bar with a time estimate for all downloads even appears on the button when at least one file transfer is in progress.

Re:NOOOO

[randomsearch]

The difference between Firefox during the daytime or during the night?

About 3 major versions, on average.

RS

Re:Go Firefox!

[hobarrera]

You could use Chromium, the FLOSS browser on which Chrome is based (and Chromium doesn't include flash or other crap most /. users won't want).

Yes, but...

[Daetrin]

"There's a new New Tab Page launcher, with your favorite and most-used websites, and a new default home page with one-click access to Bookmarks, Settings, Add-ons, etc."

Okay, that's great, but what are the much-needed features that they added?

Re:Yes, but...

[Daetrin]

Okay, now that i've actually tried it.... dear gods what is that thing? In Chrome the new tab page has smallish pictures of your most recently/commonly visited sites, with borders between them and titles underneath each one. I just opened up a new tab in FF and practically burned my eyes out.

There are no borders between the pictures, it's just a three by three grid of screenshots mashed together. Two of the images are of www.google.com (why two? I dunno) but it only shows the top left corner of the page. For all the other sites it shows the whole page, and then repeats the first third of the page along the right side. And then on top of the messed up images, in very small letters that still somehow manage to clash, is the name of the page/site. When you mouse over one of the images two small grey boxes appear at the upper left and upper right corners. The boxes are blank, but if you mouse over them you see that one is to "pin" the site, and the other is to remove it.

Maybe one of my plug-ins is breaking stuff (even though i told NoScript to allow "about:newtab") but there's just something messed up if what is supposedly a fundamental part of the browser itself is broken that easily. And if that's actually how it's supposed to look... they really need to fire whoever they have in charge of UI over there.

In short, i don't think the page launcher in Chrome is necessary (i'll use it sometimes just because it's there, especially since there are only a couple sites i visit with Chrome anyways, but i never felt the lack in FireFox) however at least that one doesn't hurt to look at.

Re:Yes, but...

[rubycodez]

hope that can be disabled, unlike chrome, lest some sensitive person (ie. client) see a less than non-controversial web page

Re:Yes, but...

[steelfood]

They actually are talking in doublespeak. "We added much-needed features, fixed some bugs, and improved memory performance" roughly translates to: "We added some fluff, removed some core functionality, and made it slower."

Re:Yes, but...

[bill_mcgonigle]

Okay, that's great, but what are the much-needed features that they added?

Oh, you mean that now the UI runs in its own thread? Or that it uses a forking model rather than the current cluster-futex?

nm, that was abandoned, marked 'too hard to ship in six weeks'.

Re:Yes, but...

[humanrev]

Agree with the AC. This is what I get too on Windows 7. There's a possibility that the page launcher looks dodgy in other operating systems or that an extension is interfering. But hey, it's human nature to bash rather than understand why something is not working like you'd expect it to, and geeks aren't immune from

Re:Yes, but...

[Culture20]

So it's a preemptive awesomebar, spewing unrelated crap even before you start typing a URL.

Laugh

[koan]

I'll wait until tomorrow and get FF14

Re:Laugh

[Skapare]

Sorry, it's been delayed. You'll have to wait until the end of the week.

Re:Laugh

[Yvan256]

It's already available.

Re:Laugh

[green1]

End of the week? but FF27 was due by then! how dare they push back those major releases!

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[zill]

That would break every website that uses CDN or have multiple domains. That's probably half of the web right there. Not even wikipedia will load under those draconian rules.

Re:I Finally Gave Up

[0123456]

I liked the way that Firefox 12 would open a new page at precisely the point you don't want it to open at (typically, it seems, displaying the first button on the page) rather than the top. I was about to give up on it until I managed to find the about:config option to turn off retardo-mode.

Have they fixed that, or is adding a new home page more important than actually being useful for web browsing?

Version 4.9

[Skapare]

In the normal scheme, its really just 4.9.

***YAWN***

Re:Version 4.9

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of scheme, the fucking number doesn't matter. What does matter is the quality of releases. Firefox's release quality has improved significantly and that's what matters. Even if the quality had gotten worse the number still wouldn't matter.

Make your trolling more interesting by finding some actual bugs to bitch about.

Who modded that insightful? Seriously, I'd rather see legitimate problems modded up.

Re:Version 4.9

[Skapare]

Major changes happen every couple years. It's only been 14 months since version 4 came out. They may have made major changes ONCE in that time. Do tell me which it is and convince me it is worth a major. If it is the very latest release, then sure, call it version 5. But what we have up to date just a hurried attempt to catch up to crazy release numbers by another famous browser. Firefox has gotten to be a joke now days.

BTW, haven't you learned, yet, to not use the .0 of any release? Wait until there is at least a .1

Re:Version 4.9

[Skapare]

In the past 15 months since 4.0 came out there are now 9 releases. That's a release every 1.66 months on average. No way more than 1 or 2 of them can be major. Sure, there might be a LOT of changes. But you get that with BIG projects. 2 months to develop a major change? Hah! If they did have major changes in parallel with other changes, they should not all be dribbling out every 1.66 months. Collect them, run them through testing, and come out with a serious major release every year. What they are doing now is totally insane and quite clearly an effort to just drive up version numbers.

Re:Version 4.9

[Skapare]

How about a STABLE release? When will that happen? This browser is just getting to be ridiculous. I'm waiting for STABILITY before I upgrade. I'm still on a 15 month old version ... you figure it out. I'll upgrade by the end of the year. But if Firefox doesn't show some stability by then, I'll be going with Opera.

Re:Version 4.9

[Tarlus]

TL;DR

I do not think that means what you think it means.

Oh, and whoosh.

Re:Version 4.9

[bill_mcgonigle]

You want the 'corporate' LTS release. Err, Extended Support Release (ESR).

Okay...

[Ignacio]

But have they fixed the memory issues yet?

Re:Okay...

[edxwelch]

They were fixed in Firefox 7: http://www.gadgetvenue.com/firefox-7-to-use-up-to-50-percent-less-memory-08114900/

Re:Okay...

[krupicka]

Firefox 12 still has a memory leak in it. Nothing like getting back from the weekend to see Firefox has a 1.5 GB RAM footprint and making my system crawl to a halt. Always amusing to turn on the task manager and just watch the memory getting sucked up in real time.

Re:Okay...

[nmb3000]

They were fixed in Firefox 7: http://www.gadgetvenue.com/firefox-7-to-use-up-to-50-percent-less-memory-08114900/

If by fixed you mean browser usability was sacrificed in order to make the apparent memory usage drop, then yes. My biggest complaint with these memory "improvements" is in regard to image handling:

- Images are now decode-on-draw meaning they display slower and background tab images are not decoded. Browsing an image gallery or some other image-heavy site is now obscenely painful in Firefox.

- Decoded images on background tabs only live for 10-20 seconds and then are discarded at which point they must be re-decoded when the tab is activated. Long-lived tabs like Gmail now flicker every time you switch back to them as images are re-decoded.

These are just the two that come to mind right away. Luckily they can be fixed by tweaking some about:config settings (image.mem.decodeondraw and image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms). Unfortunately many cannot be fixed so easily.

I'm really tired of the Firefox devs choosing (usually wrong) user complaints over good design and usability practices.

Re:Okay...

[magic maverick]

I'm running Firefox 12 (Ubuntu build). I don't shutdown my computer very often at all, I hibernate. I close my browser only slightly more often. My current session of Firefox has been running (including time in hibernation) for at least five days. I regularly open tens of tabs (like 50 or more) at a time. I often leave some of these open forever (until I restart the browser, after weeks).

Firefox never uses more than 500MB of RAM, and is currently using less than 250MB with 25 tabs open. Ooh, it went down, below 200MB. I can't remember a Firefox memory bug, ever.

I do have some extensions though, NoScript (though a number of websites, including Slashdot, are whitelisted), RequestPolicy, Cookie Monster, Brief (feed reader) and Status-4-Evar are the notable ones. I also don't have Flash installed (and Gnash rarely runs, 'cause of NoScript).

Maybe you should switch off MS Windows?

Anecdote power!

Re:Okay...

[Ignacio]

"We now suck less" is rarely something to be proud of. It's a means, but hardly an end. Let me know when it stops storing what seems to be my entire browsing history since I first starting browsing, back in the 90s.

Re:Okay...

[arose]

Shifting the goalposts on the other hand is a fine activity any gentleman should be proud of engaging in.

Re:Okay...

[UnknownSoldier]

> Maybe you should switch off MS Windows?

I get the same problem running FF on OSX -- leaving it running for weeks on end basically watching youtube and it will suck up to 3.5 GB of RAM. Every version of FF I tried (i.e. all of them) _still_ leaks memory. I believe it is because of the Flash plugin, but haven't been able to pin down a repeatable test case.

When you use "about:memory", have all tabs closed, and the memory is still pegged at 1.5 GB, it tells me the developers don't understand the problem.

I keep hoping they will fix it one of these days.

Re:Okay...

[jlebar]

My biggest complaint with these memory "improvements" is in regard to image handling:

I agree we haven't done a good job tweaking image discarding parameters. We have a plan to fix it, but it's been stuck on some stupid stuff for a long time. I hope we'll get resolved for FF16.

In the meantime, you can make Firefox much less eager to throw away images. Open about:config and set
image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms to some large value (e.g. 120 000, for 120s), and also bump up image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb (to e.g. 256 000, for 250mb).

Re:Okay...

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

For reference, I use Safari on OSX for little more than watching youtube videos and light web browsing (this site, XKCD, Anandtech, etc) and the memory usage blows up over time. I've found through Activity Monitor that's it's really the flash plugin. It appears that it never gives back the RAM it takes until I close Safari (or force quit the plugin, but then I have no Flash until I reboot Safari).

That, combined with the fact that I have occasional stutters playing back an HD Flash video with a 2.8GHz C2D and 3GB of RAM makes me unsurprised that Apple hates Adobe and all things Flash.

Re:Okay...

[nmb3000]

I'm glad to have caught your eye with my comment! I've seen your name come up (well, I'm assuming it's you based on you Slashdot user) on several of the Bugzilla threads I found looking for answers to these issues. Since you seem to be familiar with it, I have a quick question regard image handling, if you're willing.

You mention image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms. I've already set that one pretty high (1 hour (which really means, 30-90 minutes, right?)), but was wondering if it applies to closed tabs as well as background tabs. If it does, then that might be something to consider changing. I'd suggest that closed tabs can have their images discarded pretty quickly, but background tabs should keep them longer (honestly, I'd prefer to have a setting that prevents background tab images from ever being discarded).

Can you describe just briefly what image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb and image.mem.max_bytes_for_sync_decode control? I haven't had much luck finding documentation for these options, but have seen several people (yourself included) suggest modifying their values. Deciding how to adjust them is much easier if I had an idea of what they are doing.

One last thing -- I've seen mention that Firefox has a (possibly soft) cap set on the total number of bytes that decoded images can consume. Is that true, and/or related to image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb?

I really appreciate you letting me bend your ear over this issue. While I don't love many of the recent changes to Firefox, the way images are decoded and discarded has been one of the biggest annoyances by far and was the first problem I noticed when I finally went from 3.6 to 10. It's nice to see someone is working to improve the situation :)

Re:Okay...

[Waccoon]

Ah... so that's why newer versions of Firefox will completely freeze for 30 seconds when navigating between pages at DeviantArt, while older versions will freeze for only a second or two. Of course, Chromium and Opera barely freeze at all.

This is on top of the regular freezes every 10 seconds which have plagued FF for, oh, about 6 years now.

I'm sure it's just a bad plug-in, though.

Re:Okay...

[nmb3000]

This is on top of the regular freezes every 10 seconds which have plagued FF for, oh, about 6 years now.

I used to see the 10 second UI hang as well, probably because that's the interval at which Firefox saves session data (to restore in case of a crash). I'm not sure how bad it still is on newer versions, but I resolved it on 3.6 by installing Session Manager (to replace the built-in session state handling) and changing the session save interval from 10 seconds to 20 (in SM's options). As a bonus, Session Manager is really nice for saving and loading tab and window sessions for later use.

You might still see the UI freeze up during session saving if writing to your hard disk is being slow for some reason, though. It's one of those things I didn't understand why it wasn't done on a background thread.

Re:Okay...

[magic maverick]

Ah, so the problem is Flash. Perhaps Flash + Firefox. I don't have a problem because I don't use Adobe Flash. Ever. (I use Gnash if I want to watch something, but it rarely works properly. I live.)

Perhaps Firefox could handle shitty plugins in a better way. But you can't blame Firefox for a Flash memory leak.

Re:Okay...

[Waccoon]

Yeah, I did hear about that and modified "browser.sessionstore.interval" to 5 minutes. Unfortunately, the pauses were still there, so I have a feeling that Firefox just calls a "general cleanup" function every 10 seconds, and Session Store was only a part of the problem. This was in Firefox 3.6, though. Newer versions of Firefox don't allow you to customize the session interval anymore, and after 15 minutes of browsing, the pauses become unbearable.

The length of the pauses is directly proportional to how much memory Firefox is using, and since I browse a lot of image-heavy web sites, memory usage goes up tremendously in a short time. I'm guessing the memory manager and garbage collector are just broken. My impression is that Mozilla is tweaking a number of things, but they aren't fixing the core. Every time I update, performance just gets worse.

I'll give Session Manager a try, but I have a feeling that I'll be going back to my old setup before I updated to Firefox 10. I used to use 3.6 for surfing, and the latest version for web development and testing.

It feels really stupid to limp along like this like an abused wife, but I never got into Opera, and I despise the design of Chromium. It's sad to see that Firefox has become the new IE, but success does tend to do that. It'll be Chrome's turn any day now.

Re:Okay...

[jlebar]

I've seen your name come up (well, I'm assuming it's you based on you Slashdot user)

Yep, same guy. You have me to thank for most of these changes. :)

You mention image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms. I've already set that one pretty high (1 hour (which really means, 30-90 minutes, right?))

I think it ends up being 1-2hr.

but was wondering if it applies to closed tabs as well as background tabs

As of this bug being resolved, it does not.

Can you describe just briefly what image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb and image.mem.max_bytes_for_sync_decode control?

max_decoded_image_kb is the soft cap on number of bytes that decoded images can consume. We'll try to discard decoded images so we get under this value, with the unfortunate proviso that we'll never discard images on the current tab.

max_bytes_for_sync_decode affects our behavior when decoding previously discarded images. If the image's *compressed* size is less than this value, we'll decode it synchronously. Otherwise we'll decode async. From a practical standpoint, tab switches are blocked until all sync decodes complete, so if you set this too high, you'll observe slow tab switching. If you set this value too low some images may "flicker" into view when you switch tabs.

Fast tab switching is a key goal for us right now, so our plan is to set max_bytes_for_sync_decoded much lower in the near future. (It too is blocked on some stupid things.)

I haven't had much luck finding documentation for these options

Yeah, these prefs are intended to be internal knobs for us to tweak. You're welcome to modify them yourself, but if you notice that Firefox is acting up six months from now, it might be worth resetting them to their default values.

Re:Okay...

[UnknownSoldier]

> Perhaps Firefox could handle shitty plugins in a better way. But you can't blame Firefox for a Flash memory leak.

When I close all tabs ALL memory used by the plugins should be released (once the next GC has run), so it is BOTH a FF and Flash problem.

FF needs redirect the plugin's ::new() to use its own version, so that it can properly track plugin memory usage. And catch plugin leaks.

So yeah it is a FF problem.

Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned off

[dstyle5]

after I updated to 13. Sorry, I'm not using a tablet or smartphone Firefox guys. Please design it for the platform I'm using.

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[kesuki]

"So, if I go to slashdot.org, I want my browser to only fetch things from slashdot.org. Not scorecardresearch, not doubleclick, not gstatic, not google, not facebook, etc"

you want noscript then.

Smooth Scrolling

[Luthair]

is terrible and they turned it on by default? I immediately noticed that scrolling was sluggish and at first I mistook that for a performance problem...

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[hobarrera]

Smooth scrolling makes it extremely hard (impossible actually) to read as you scroll. It's the sort of eye-candy which REDUCES functionality, I don't really understand why anyone would want it (honestly: how often do you scroll and don't want to read as you scroll down. AT ALL.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[Billly Gates]

I love smooth scrolling and to me I go crazy when I see the flickering of images and pictures when I hit up and down. For disclosure I have an ATI 5750 graphics card so maybe it rocks on my computer but sucks if you use an intel GMA 915 or something similiar.

My Andriod phone is smooth when I scroll up and down and it makes it feel more modern than a desktop browser for these reasons. Go to about:config and turn on GFX and hardware acceleration. Together it will make everything look better.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[Luthair]

I've tried it on various PC's over the years (currently a 5770) and it always slows down scrolling significantly.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[Galaga88]

Exact same situation here. Maybe it works well on something that's not a no frills work PC, but definitely not on this one.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[fnj]

"Flickering" - what are you talking about?

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[shutdown -p now]

honestly: how often do you scroll and don't want to read as you scroll down.

Normally, I scroll, and then I read the content that was scrolled into view. I definitely don't read it while scrolling. To that extent, smooth vs non-smooth doesn't really make any functional difference, except that the former (if it's actually smooth, and not like it is in, say, IE) looks nicer.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[Billly Gates]

Open up Chrome/Firefox and IE 9 side by side? Go to Google Images or slashdot.org and hit the up and down arrow?

Notice IE 9 is smooth as butter and the others flicker in comparison? This is because of hardware acceleration and fast scrolll. The latest firefox and Crhome might be equally smooth by default now, but I always put on hardware acceleration and smooth scroll for these reasons and I have an ok 3d card.

For awhile IE 9 was the only one that was that smooth and felt more like an IPAD than a desktop browser.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[humanrev]

It's simple than that for me. I don't like smooth scrolling because it feels LAGGY. It's the same reason why I don't like mouse smoothing in games and disable vertical sync in (most) games - input lag royally pisses me off, and the reaction of pressing/clicking/rolling down and having a brief delay between when you performed the action and when it actually finishes on the screen, makes smooth scrolling too annoying for me to use.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[AmiMoJo]

I find it hard to read while I scroll without smooth scrolling. Perhaps you have your scroll increments set to some really small amount, but my per-wheel-notch amount it 12 lines, pretty fast. Smooth scrolling helps keep my place in the text.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[Sigg3.net]

Only when you're drunk, bruvva. only when you're drunk.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[fnj]

All I can say is no browser I have ever used "flickers", and I have "use hardware acceleration" checked in at least a couple of them. None of them have smooth scroll, which I detest.

Re:Smooth Scrolling

[hobarrera]

No, there's no visual lag, it works flawlessly (nvidia 8800 on this pc, btw), it's just that my eyes can't focus on text that's moving at high speeds, while they can get a glimpse at the non-smooth text. At least enough to read a couple of words, or the big titles.

Maybe some people can, maybe it's my eyesight, but I definitely can't. I do admit smooth scrolling does look "Prettier" though!

About time...

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Its about time that FireFox 13 gets the features of Chrome 21. Also congrats to Microsoft for finally hitting double digits with IE 10.

Any browser not in double digit version numbers is not trying hard enough, I am talking to you Safari 5, pfft!

Re:About time...

[cpu6502]

Awww. I'm using Mozilla Seamonkey 2.1..... (whimpers)

Weekly posting on FF release

[houghi]

Seriously? Is each and every new version being posted on /.?
Perhaps every 10 versions would be interesting. Every one? Not so much.

Re:Too late

[vlm]

Switched to Chrome about 2 weeks ago because FF was just too bloody slow. Now I have no desire to switch back.

There's a speed difference? I switched about the same time and didn't notice any difference at all. It must be pretty small or only weird corner cases.

I will say that "chrome to phone" sounded like the most exciting development in computing for the year 2012, installed it, tested it, and haven't used it once since. Oh well.

Addon installation is much smoother, I never realized how annoying restarting the browser was until I didn't have to anymore. Like moving from windows to linux.

The start page web apps page was the greatest disappointment. Basically you use the app store to install a bookmark with a big icon. Thats about all it does. Boo.

I found it amusing that if you want something like "adblock plus" and "flashblock" from firefox on chrome, you install "adblock plus" and "flashblock" on chrome. Yeah, it is the same name. Firebug lite is sooo close to firebug on firefox.

I'm still looking for a way to improve the UI and move the tabs below the address bar. I certainly switch tabs a lot more often than I do address bar stuff. There must be some extension that'll fix that.

Re:Just leave me out of it

[Thavilden]

The OS already has a perfectly fine task-switching mechanism.

Let me guess, a GIMP developer?

Re:Just leave me out of it

[Anonymous Coward]

Tab Groups though are a bit more organized than most OS features.
Have you tried it? (ctrl-shift-e in firefox)

FUCK

[paramour]

Fuck Mozilla's fucking releases every fucking other fucking week. Want me to pay attention to a new release? then don't bombard me with requests to update, or call versions barely worth an increment to the patch level a fucking release. Buy a clue and stop ruining what was a pretty decent browser. As ColdWetDog already joked, only for real, you're actually making IE look good again. The level of fuckitude necessary to reach that level of fuckedupness is almost unfuckingbeliveable.

Re:FUCK

[rubycodez]

fuckin hear hear!

now they're just fucking copying fucking Chrome features. the fucks

Re:FUCK

[markjhood2003]

You may want to check out the Extended Support Release (Firefox ESR). It's up to 10.0.5 now with the latest security and stability fixes.

Re:Just leave me out of it

[JDG1980]

Let me guess, a GIMP developer?

Hell no. GIMP is one application, so it should have one taskbar entry per instance - not three or four. A web browser is also one application, so it too should have one taskbar entry per instance - not one entry for 30+ separate instances. My position on this is consistent.

Short version: slower version of Chrome

[WillAffleckUW]

So, in other words, it's like Chrome, but slower?

When they started breaking forms on various sites web pages, we started switching.

Can't please everyone

[ubergeek65536]

Speed dial is one of the first things I disabled when I tried Opera. Now I need to get rid of it in Firefox too.

Re:Can't please everyone

[caspy7]

At least you can.

FF is getting good again

[Billly Gates]

Kudos to Mozilla!

I am still not using it, but I opened FF 12 up and was shocked it used so little memory compared to IE 9 and Chrome. It was smooth, fast, and less buggy than in previous versions.

Before I switch I need to know if the following are fixed
1. Sandbox support
2. Mozilla update breaks permanently after Windows Restore

I fear webmasters will be dealing with Firefox 12, 13, and other obsolete versions many many years from now as anyone who has done a Windows Restore Point will have Mozilla update disabled and wont even know it. Security it scares the crap out of me to run flash unsandoxed with full control over my own computer. I know IE gets bashed a lot here, but Firefox is the weaklink in security for the past year or two as both other browsers are sandboxed and Chrome even has an additional sanbox for flash with its pepper API.

Fix those 2 things I and I may use Firefox again.

Re:FF is getting good again

[Barefoot Monkey]

And "CSS :hover regression when an element's class name is set by Javascript". That's not catastrophic, but it's still quite a bad regression. The update breakage is quite major though - as you point out it would be terrible to become stuck with another legacy browser.

Keywords!

[cyberchondriac]

The one thing I hope they included was the ability to assign a keyword to a bookmark when you make it. I love the keyword feature, but you have to create the bookmark first, then go hunt it down, open it's properties, and then assign the keyword. There used to be an extension for that but it hasn't been compatible in like, forever.

Re:Keywords!

[mixmasta]

There's a much easier way... I didn't find it myself until about a year ago (after many years).

Anyway, so right click in a search box, such as at the top of slashdot ^^. Pick the menu item "Add a keyword for this search." Type "s" or similar in the keyword field and now you can search slashdot with only, "s beowulf cluster"

Re:Keywords!

[cyberchondriac]

That's pretty cool, thanks! What if I just wanted to go to the home page though -no search.. just the "s"?

Re:Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned o

[d3ac0n]

How did you turn it off? I've been digging around the options for awhile now and can't find it. Is it in the about:browser settings?

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[cerberusss]

Or Ghostery

Questioning

[fluffythedestroyer]

On their site (Mozilla Dev Center), one of the reasoning which is #3 states :"qualified by QA as being of sufficient quality to release to hundreds of millions of people". I don't think they include wanting feature in their list of quality when QA people test it. If so, we would see way less firefox release and more testing. I would vote for the latter.

Re:Go Firefox!

[uigrad_2000]

Finding the download page for the latest binary can be tricky, although it's much easier now than it used to be. Here's a link for the lazy.

For the extremely lazy, here's how to install, assuming that you're using linux, and it went into your Downloads folder:

unzip ~/Downloads/chrome-linux.zip
sudo mv ~/Downloads/chrome-linux /usr/lib64/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/chrome-linux/chrome-wrapper /usr/bin/chromium

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Billly Gates]

If you are fine with 40+ security vulnerabilities with it!

Remember Firefox is the only modern browser with no sanboxing still either. Seriously even IE 9 is better than 3.6 as it is old. There is ESR extended support for corporations which is based off of FF 10 and is much slimmer and gets regular security updates. I left Firefox after 4 and use Chrome and IE 9, but I have to say FF 12 is very slim, and very light even compred to FF 3.6.

Happily using 10 ESR

[caseih]

And in the meantime I'm quite happily using the ESR version of Firefox with no plans to ever use the fly-by-night version. That said, version 10ESR is quite a bit slower than 3.6, the last ESR. Progress for you.

Re:Happily using 10 ESR

[Billly Gates]

It is hell of alot faster to me than FF 3.6.

How much ram do you have? I have 8 gigs and maybe that is the difference. FF 12 uses less ram than Chrome and IE 9 when I have 30 tabs open. I still use Chrome for other reasons but for me at least it seems Firefox is improving.

Re:Happily using 10 ESR

[fnj]

How about when you have 316 tabs open? I's using 3.9 GB plus another 0.6 for plugin-container for me.

CSS3 background-position

[partsbs]

From the most interesting to developers: according to the CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders module now it is possible to specify an exact space of background-position not only from the left top corner.
For example:
background-position: right 20px bottom 15px;
Such record is already supported by Opera browsers, since version 10.5, and Internet Explorer 9. On turn browsers on the basis of Webkit.

Re:Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned o

[d3ac0n]

Nevermind, I figured it out. You just click the little grid image in the upper right hand side.

No option to turn back on "new tab opens to home page." Lame. Stuck with "about:newtab" on every new tab I open. So annoying!

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[magic maverick]

That'd be RequestPolicy actually. NoScript doesn't stop images from external domains being loaded (the 'traditional' way of tracking across the web).

Re:Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned o

[d3ac0n]

Aaaand i just figured out how to disable that.

In about:config, just type in "newtab" and search

You will get 3 choices.
First one is the URL for new tabs. Set it to what you want (I use about:blank)

Set the other two settings to false and the fancy schmancy crappy new tab is gone.

Re:Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned o

[CrackerJackz]

address bar -> about:config

find the: browser.newtabpage.enabled setting and set it to false

It will grant you the nice clean, fast white page for new tabs.

Why there's not a checkbox somewhere for it ... I have no idea.

Nice, but they broke live bookmarks. :(

[dskoll]

Live bookmarks no longer show favicons for bookmarked sites, and "Open All in Tabs" no longer seems to work.

/me is sad...

How to disable the newtab page

[Golden_Rider]

First thing I did was to look for an option to disable the "Newtab page" (the feature that Firefox shows you your most used websites including little pictures of them whenever you open a new tab). Seems the Firefox devs decided that this is such an important function that there is no option to disable it in the settings dialogue, or at least I could not find one. But you can disable it via about:config and then setting "browser.newtabpage.enabled" to "false". Guess that is handy if you do NOT want your boss/colleagues to find out about your "hotponysex" fetish whenever you want to open a harmless Intranet page while somebody standing next to you.

Re:How to disable the newtab page

[ftobin]

There's a button you can hit on the top-right of new tab pages that toggles the setting you found.

Re:How to disable the newtab page

[Anonymous Coward]

Open a new tab, and in the upper right corner click on the checkerboard looking icon to hide or show the tab page. Not real intuitive, but you don't need to mess with about:config.

Re:How to disable the newtab page

[Golden_Rider]

Open a new tab, and in the upper right corner click on the checkerboard looking icon to hide or show the tab page. Not real intuitive, but you don't need to mess with about:config.

Ah, good to know that there's a button for it. But... it's a setting, so why isn't there an option in, like, the "settings" dialogue? That's where I supposed most people would look, not on the tab itself, when all other global settings are in the dialogue window.

Re:How to disable the newtab page

[Teckla]

The Tab Mix Plus add-on also lets you display an empty page, when a new tab is opened.

Re:How to disable the newtab page

[Inda]

Bravo man. Bravo.

I always joke with people "just click the Go button". It's always a button for 99% of people.

Conentrate on the browser part

[gorgano]

I love Firefox and use it every day, but I'm getting a little tired and confused with some of the features they keep putting into the core. I've always thought one of the great things about Firefox is the extensions; and while other browsers offer similar 'add-on' concepts, Firefox just seems to do it better. Why aren't they concentrating on just making a seriously good browser engine and then leaving the extra stuff to the extension developers. Or, if it's something important, get with the extension developers and help them out, offer a 'Firefox suggested extension package' that downloads and enables extensions by default. That way, all the 'normal' users get the cool goodies, and the rest of us can turn them off or uninstall them all together if it's not something we need.

For instance, the new development centric stuff they have in FF13 is nice. But it doesn't hold a candle to the development tools that have been in IE9 and Chrome for some time. I use Firebug for all my web debugging needs in FF and it works wonderfully. Get with those guys and improve their already awesome extension. Don't try to re-invent every cool extension and add it to the core. Not everyone needs it, not everyone wants it. Just build the fastest, most standards compliant browser out there that offers an amazing extension engine and you'll have a winning browser.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[cyber-vandal]

The dev tools in IE9? Are you mad? They are terrible, and not only terrible but unfixable as well. I'm hoping IE10 fixes some of the obvious stupids, like having to refresh a web page before you can debug some Javascript, or perhaps not having to hit the refresh button all the time because the dev tools have lost track of the DOM. Try just working with IE dev tools and nothing else like I have to and you'll soon be longing for Firebug.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[anss123]

I prefer IE8's dev tools for the syntax highlighting (I assume IE9 is samey or better). Also, they are far more stable than Safari's dev tools (does not take much to crash safari with the dev tools active, even valid Javascript can do it). IE8 slows down to a crawl on larger javascript files (like JQuery) though, so avoid stepping into them.

Opera could be the best, except on my comp it's a fight to get that browser to not refresh from cache. In the latest version Ctrl+F5 is suppose to work, but doesn't for me.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[shutdown -p now]

I wonder what you think about Page Inspector in VS. Though, given that its main feature is the ability to map any element to the code that generated it, it makes most sense for ASP.NET MVC apps... but it would be interesting to see the same concept implemented for other web frameworks.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[anss123]

Looks like it could be cool, even on smaller web pages it can be a headache to find what code generated some ui element. But I don't do anything with asp.net as of yet.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[jlebar]

Why aren't they concentrating on just making a seriously good browser engine and then leaving the extra stuff to the extension developers

Believe it or not, 90% or more of our engineering effort goes into "the browser part" (that is, Gecko, our rendering engine, and SpiderMonkey, our JS engine). Have a look through the list of bugs fixed in FF13 to see what I mean.

It's just that these back-end improvements are not things most people can understand -- I work on Gecko and I don't understand most of the changes that go into it -- so PR and the press instead focus on highly visible UI stuff.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[cyber-vandal]

Chrome dev tools and Firebug have syntax highlighting. The only useful thing in IE9 dev tools is the Javascript formatter. Everything else is a ripoff from a version of Firebug in 2010.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[anss123]

Strange, my firebug does not have syntax highlighting on Javascript. Chrome dev tools are pretty much the same as Safari's, from what little I've tried them. I do most of my debugging in Safari, except when I know Safari will crash or in those few cases where IE8 is more helpful at tracking down the problem.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[cyber-vandal]

Looking at the Chrome dev tools the var keyword, if statements, strings, function statements, comments and indexes are in different colours. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean. You're right that Firebug doesn't have highlighting, maybe I was looking at the FF dev tools, but you can install FireRainbow which adds it.

Re:Conentrate on the browser part

[anss123]

Oh, Safari/Chrome has syntax highlighting. I'm not saying IE8's dev tools are the best, just that I prefer them as they have the features I need and never have those odd issues than needs a browser restart to clear up. (Not that I've tried Chrome much, I just assume their pretty much the same as Safari there)

I'll have to look into FireRainbow. I don't debug in Firefox all that often, but there are occasions where a problem only crops up in Firefox. Not that long ago, for instance, the latest Firefox performed like a dog on the website, had to step through a good bit a code before I found the issue. A library I use used feature detection, and the latest Firefox implemented a feature that library now started using... tanking performance.

Why no speed-dial on new windows?

[Mandrel]

I'm surprised that unlike Chrome the Firefox site launcher grid doesn't come up on new windows, only on new tabs. I'm most likely to use it in a new browsing context in a new window, rather than in a new tab which I mainly open for links within a site, or pages with a related use (e.g. documentation).

Re:Why no speed-dial on new windows?

[DeeEff]

Set your home page to "about:newtab".

There. Everything solved.

Re:Why no speed-dial on new windows?

[Mandrel]

Set your home page to "about:newtab".

That worked. Thanks!

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[arose]

No he doesn't. Stop misrepresenting Noscript as some silver bullet. The right tool is RequestPolicy.

Wonder what will break?

[LVSlushdat]

Wonder how many of my addins are gonna magically break on THIS update? I used to LOVE FF, now I just use FF because Chrome doesn't have a lot of the addins I like, and IE... well.. WE ALL know why we don't use IE...

Re:Too late

[Malc]

I switched to Chrome a few months ago. There are a few annoyances that I've got used to. I don't regret the switch at all... now I can tell which page is using excessive CPU and draining my laptop battery. Now I can tell which page is using excessive memory. Now I can close the offending page without having to quit the whole bloody browser. You failed long ago Mozilla.

Re:Too late

[green1]

Funny, I tried chrome and gave up because of speed issues... went back to firefox.

Now to be fair, with just on or two tabs open they both seem pretty equal and I can't tell which is faster. But once you start opening a lot of tabs (and I often open a lot of tabs) the sandboxing that chrome does per tab seems to really eat in to the resources available on the computer.

Honestly I'm not picky, I'll use whatever browser works, I'm happy to try chrome again if they've improved the handling of large numbers of tabs.

Re:Still nothing on the memory issue?

[green1]

you can disable it. just set a different home page.

Re:Just leave me out of it

[green1]

Not exactly consistent. what qualifies as an "instance"? Gimp believes that each image you load, and each toolbox should each be their own instance. Firefox believes that web browsing in general is an "instance". they are opposite ends of a spectrum to be sure, but it's hard to say where along that continuum the right balance is. Personally I love tabs. They keep my browser under control.
For example if I'm building a web page I may have 15-20 browser tabs open with various different references/image sources/etc in them, and a separate editor window open to edit the new page. with individual windows the editor window gets lost in the sea of other windows and alt-tab functionality is barely useful. with tabs they are all contained so I can have only 3 or 4 applications open, but each application can have sub categories within it.

I see it no different from advocating that your hard drive should have no more than one layer of directories. it would be a mess, but with subdirectories you can find things quite easily.

Re:I Finally Gave Up

[GumphMaster]

FF12 never did anything like that here so, yes, I guess they fixed that proactively ;) What option?

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

So, like, when you go to en.wikipedia.org, it won't load any images hosted on commons.wikimedia.org? Sounds really awesome!

touchpad scrolling with PDF in background

[xded]

I know the parent is funny, but a long (since about FF 3.6) awaited regression fix included in 13 that nobody will mention is that I can now finally scroll webpages again with my Synaptics touchpad while a PDF is in the background. No matter if you were using the Adobe or any other PDF-viewing plugin, but any FF version in what felt like an eternity would scroll the PDF (no matter if in bg of fg) instead of the tab you actually wanted to scroll. And IE has the same bug, which may actually be considered a Synaptics bug, but good luck receiving a fix from them (Chrome doesn't, but anyway I'm plugin-locked into FF).

Re:touchpad scrolling with PDF in background

[Ken D]

Is this a generic fix? There are miscellaneous FF navigation controls that stop working when one of the (background) tabs is open to certain plugins (PDF is one, YouTube/Flash is another)

Re:Too late

[mark_osmd]

I tend to get a feeling that a lot of people with the 'firefox is slow' issue are using default features in FF that I always turn off: turn off -> block reported attack sites feature turn off -> block web forgeries sites turn off -> smooth scroll The first two use sqlite and I bet they have a performance hit, the third I think has a video speed hit I turned those off and am pretty happy with the performance, also I don't go completely crazy and install dozens of plugins, I only use noscript, better privacy, adblock, https everywhere, ghostery and flash block

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[rgbrenner]

who modded this troll? Firefox does NOT have sandboxing (chrome and ie do). Adobe had to write their own sandbox for their plugin for firefox. 3.6 DOES have unfixed vulnerabilities. 3.6 IS no longer supported. and IE9 is better because it is still supported.

TROLL != I DISAGREE

B.F.D.

[sdnoob]

The Home Page now includes icons at the bottom of the page to give you easy access to bookmarks, history, settings, add-ons, downloads and sync preferences with one-click shortcuts. When you open a new tab, youâ(TM)ll see thumbnails of your most recently and frequently visited sites.

if firefox (default layout) wasn't dumbed down to chrome's level, some of these would still be 'one click' away.. so i'm sorry.. but i'm simply not impressed with those 'new' features that simply copy chrome.

most visited, bookmarks, bookmarks toolbar links (one click shortcuts), downloads, history and sync.. all one clickable either via default bookmarks toolbar (which is hidden by default now.. many firefox users don't even know it exists) or the 'bookmark toolbar items' toolbar item... or by adding a toolbar button somewhere (firefox's flexibility and customization capabilities are the reason i use it -- ie, chrome and opera can't compare)...

and as far as new tabs and start pages go... i prefer blank pages for those. those changes better be configurable.

Re:Too late

[Luckyo]

Consider upgrading that pentium 3 machine.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

Of course, sane plugin choices make 3.6 vulnerabilities go away, but hey, parent may actually be one of the endangered species that use firefox because of the browser itself and not plug-ins.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

I'd be fine with 4000 vulnerabilities because with plug-ins I use, it might as well be zero. And if I'm extra paranoid, there's always sandboxie.

On the other hand, I'm not fine with shitty interface choices in ESR or add-on breakages in normal version.

Re:Too late memory

[rullywowr]

Absolutely! I wonder if the minimum RAM requirement for this version is only 4GB per session? Mozilla loves memory like a fat kid loves cake.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Billly Gates]

If you have a Yahoo email account go to some shady porn sites.?

Notice your email account is now sending out spams? The Yahoo plugin stores your cookie in plain text and iwth an invisible iframe can mimick the Yahoo login. I have seen this with customers first hand as well as my Dad and this only happens in Firefox.

I hated Sandboxie and the little pop up mixed with pop ups from NoScript. Chrome makes my life much easier but that is my own preference. Firefox is greatly improved and I will use it again if it has sand boxing and no add on breakage. It is getting there. But I do banking online and will not risk my system with something liek FF 3.6. The 40 vulnerabilities are documented. No one should be using FF 3.6 anymore. It is a bad browser compared to past versions.

Re:Go Firefox!

[I(rispee_I(reme]

I tried Chromium. There is a problem: I've become addicted to tree-style tabs, courtesy of the Firefox extension.

Chromium/Chrome had this feature natively for a long time, until the developers disabled it in a sneaky-Pete maneuver that pissed off a bunch of people.

The obvious response, to write a Chromium extension for Tree-Style Tabs, is not an option. The Chromium plugin API does not expose the functionality necessary to do so.

Webkit (Chromium/Chrome's layout engine) seems to be a little faster than Gecko (Firefox's equivalent), but I would prefer to use a browser that gives the user (ME!) control over it, even at the cost of some rendering speed.

The time I would gain in rendering efficiency would probably be lost trying to scan this, as opposed to this.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[rgbrenner]

Plugins make vulnerabilities go away? I think I've heard everything now.

Which plugin makes the Firefox buffer overflows go away? The drag-and-drop XSS vulnerability? The out-of-bound memory access? The "code installation by holding down enter"? Unsafe library loading? Using memory after calling free in the html parser? libpng buffer overflow?

Please, please tell me how a plugin fixes any of those. Because this is obviously revolutionary security technology that everyone should know about.

Either that, or you really don't know what you're talking about and haven't seen the list of vulnerabilities in 3.6.

http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox36.html

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The only feature that I want that is long overdue is a setting wherein the browser will make HTTP GETs only to the original domain. So, if I go to slashdot.org, I want my browser to only fetch things from slashdot.org. Not scorecardresearch, not doubleclick, not gstatic, not google, not facebook, etc etc etc.

You want RequestPolicy - it does exactly what you want and lets you whitelist on a per-site basis. So, for example, you could let google pages also pull in stuff from gstatic.com but no other websites could pull in stuff from gstatic.com.

RequestPolicy is more powerful than adblock/noscript/ghostery because of the per-site control - all of those others don't care about what site the request is coming from, only the one it is going to. At best they let you whitelist the requests from an entire site, RequestPolicy is much more fine-grained. Those other add-ons are important too, they just have different strengths.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

No and no. First of all, it takes a dumbass to visit shady porn sites. It's pretty obvious that they will try to fuck with you in more ways then what meets the eye. Second there's noscript blocking most of it, alongside ghostery and adblock. Finally even up to date browsers have zero day flaws. If you fuck around with people that you know to have STDs, you'll catch something even with a condom eventually, because of breakage or because some fluids will eventually touch your glans when you take it off in a bad way. Same here, if you fish for trouble, it will eventually find you no matter how much you prepare yourself for it.
On the other hand if you use smart browsing practices, you could use a much older firefox and still be safer then your dad with the latest and shittiest firefox.

Finally I do my banking online too. If my computer was completely hijacked, I could still do my online banking on it reasonably safely. Because sane banking uses one time PINs with SMS confirmations for any large transfers. Yes, I'm aware that US is a good decade behind most of the Europe on the issue, but that's not my problem.

Extensions?

[alexo]

So what extensions are needed to make it work like users actually want it to work?

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

Be educated then: shit doesn't happen if elements on the page designed to trigger any of the vulnerabilities do not load/render because an add-on blocks them.

As a result, you don't need to "have those fixed or be hacked". You merely need to block elements that would try to "use those unfixed issues".

P.S. And as noted above, if you're really so paranoid, just run FF in sandboxie. Who cares if the sandboxed browser gets owned if you just purge the sandbox every once in a while and make a new one when you do something that is actually doing anything sensitive.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

Last try for apparently total idiots or just pretentious shills (which is probably the reason for posting as AC): Block material sourced from sources that are potentially malicious using add-ons. Trust sources that are not. If paranoid, run in sandbox and do not care about the issue anyway.

Mozilla can go fork itself

[epp_b]

No, seriously. We really need to have two separate versions of Firefox. The current one which gets a new version every other day can be for morons who see "ZOMG BIGGAR NUMBAR MUZT BEE BETTAR!!!!!" (seriously, there are *tech writers* who think that Chrome is better because it has a higher version number. These idiots should be hanged with a power cable)

Then they can go back to about version 3.something for non-idiots who want a powerful, unbloated web browser that doesn't have stupid HTML-esque UI elements (ie. the add-ons manager) for things that should be native OS UI and doesn't constantly peg the CPU at 70-some percent, causing the cooling fan to constantly run. They can also continue to subversion it property, so it should actually be in the low 4's at this point.

You know what used to make Firefox great? It wasn't Chrome.

Re:Mozilla can go fork itself

[SeaFox]

No, seriously. We really need to have two separate versions of Firefox. The current one which gets a new version every other day can be for morons who see "ZOMG BIGGAR NUMBAR MUZT BEE BETTAR!!!!!" (seriously, there are *tech writers* who think that Chrome is better because it has a higher version number. These idiots should be hanged with a power cable)

There is the Firefox Extended Support Release versions. The current one is based on Firefox 10.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[Luckyo]

In other words you use shady sites and/or are paranoid. Go with sandbox and safely ignore all current and future threats by simply purging your sandbox every session.

Re:Just leave me out of it

[shutdown -p now]

You sound like you'd really love surf and tabbed.

How about bugs?

[Misagon]

Before I switch, I would like to know, is it now possible to open a bookmark menu while a page is loading ... or is that still broken?

Re:And Not One Fuck Was Given....

[Tarlus]

I just fear FF 3.6 becoming the new IE 6...

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[Tarlus]

Eh, Wikimedia is concerningly infested with porn anyway. Apparently.

FFF

[PJ6]

Note the extra F.

And in other exiting news...

[terjeber]

Mrs Johnson's cat got caught up in a tree again.

Re:I'm 10 Versions Behind Using Firefox 3.6.28

[UnknownSoldier]

> Hey Firefox devs, maybe you should ask all the people who reject upgrading why they refuse to upgrade.

This a thousand times over!

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[stretch0611]

After seeing the other comments, what you most likely want is a combination of noscript and ghostery.

IMHO, NoScript is the best way to browse the web today. It stops lots of video and over the top bloated javascript. For the most sites, some of their internal (same site) javascript is not too bad and these can be easily whitelisted. Allowing just the main domain to be whitelisted allows over 95% of sites to work normally with a bare minimum of tracking/analytics bs.

Ghostery is your backup... It gets regular update lists and blocks all the tracking, analytics, and web bugs (single pixel transparent gifs) Ghostery specifically is designed to block these and will block what noscript won't. (mostly the tracking images, but also the scripts if you don't have noscript.)

That being said this is an article about browsers and firefox... There is a version of both of this tools for other browsers. However, in chrome (and even chromium) Ghostery is not always able to stop Google Analytics. NoScript is only for Firefox (the last time I looked anyway) but you can find Replacements like NOTScript for Chrome. However not script is not as wasy to use or as reliable as NoScript and I am guessing it is the internal Chrome code that is hampering NOTScript.

It's not a perceived difference

[gelfling]

It's a real difference. An honest to god actual measurable performance difference.

Re:One Man's Feature is Another Man's Bloat

[geminidomino]

What IS ghostery up to?

scrolling

[perryizgr8]

does it scroll properly yet? smooth and non-jerky? if yes, i might go back. otherwise, meh.

Re:Tab launcher garbage was first thing I turned o

[Waccoon]

Because GUIs are for suckas!

I knew this about:config nonsense was going to get out of control when they removed the GUI to configure the scroll wheel settings.

Re:Too late

[AmiMoJo]

Chrome is faster because to pre-loads and pre-renders web pages as you type into the address bar or view a Google search results page. It also seems to lag less with a lot of tabs open because they each get their own process where as Firefox uses a single thread for them all. Firefox tries to "schedule" tabs internally but it doesn't work as well.

Yeah, well...

[Corson]

It also comes with a f* "Mozilla Maintenance Service" which installs without requesting user permisson and which I promptly uninstalled. If this new service is a requirement for FF to run and update then it's good-bye FF for me.

Re:And Not One Fuck Was Given....

[shiftless]

^ Basically, this.

Sorry the thin skinned moderators got you too.

Re:And Not One Fuck Was Given....

[shiftless]

Yeah? We'll see whose opinion history sides with...prick.

Re:Go Firefox!

[hobarrera]

Most linux distributions packages Chromium, so apt-get/yum/zypper/pkg_add/pacman should do the trick.
Not sure about macports, or windows though.