Firefox 19 Launches With Built-In PDF Viewer

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla on Tuesday officially launched Firefox 19 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The improvements include a built-in PDF viewer on the desktop and theme support as well as lower CPU requirements on Google's mobile platform. You can see the official changelogs here: desktop and Android."

Comments

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there'll be lots of delicious holes to exploit.

Re:Wow!

[ColdWetDog]

Well they are giving everyone a leg up by including a PDF view. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Re:Wow!

[cristiroma]

From my knowledge it already had PDF built-in, for print preview. Or am I wrong?

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Producing a PDF is a lot different than rendering one.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mozilla PDF viewer is written in javascript, so it *should* be completely sandboxed.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox is pretty much the last browser to finally get PDF viewing support.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

And run faster than a raped ape

Re:Wow!

[AliasMarlowe]

Firefox is pretty much the last browser to finally get PDF viewing support.

Although they appear to have got it right (based on my Android phone). Unlike Chromium and Google Chrome on Ubuntu/Xubuntu, where you have to fiddle with the /etc/mozpluggerrc file to get it to work right (and avoid the broken reference to Acrobat Reader).

Here's a hint. In /etc/mozpluggerrc, add the lines:

### This line should go close to the start, near where the current Acrobat Reader macro is defined define(EVINCE, [repeat swallow(evince) fill needs_xembed: evince "$file"])

### this group should go in the Documents section, possibly replacing the defective existing group for PDF application/pdf:pdf:PDF file application/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file text/pdf:pdf:PDF file text/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file EVINCE()

Re:Wow!

[AliasMarlowe]

Damn /. formatting. Need some <br> tags in there.

### This line should go close to the start, near where
### the current Acrobat Reader macro is defined
define(EVINCE, [repeat swallow(evince) fill needs_xembed: evince "$file"])

### this group should go in the Documents section, possibly
### replacing the defective existing group for PDF
application/pdf:pdf:PDF file
application/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file
text/pdf:pdf:PDF file
text/x-pdf:pdf:PDF file
EVINCE()

Re:Wow!

[Joce640k]

Well they are giving everyone a leg up by including a PDF view. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Are they giving everyone a leg up by breaking all the add-ons?

Again.

Re:Wow!

[theguyfromsaturn]

Definitely faster than PDF plugin. I've been using the pdf.js plugin since it first appeared. I'd never go back to the plugin.

Re:Wow!

[TheRealMindChild]

Not in Windows

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Idiot.

Re:Wow!

[number11]

Are they giving everyone a leg up by breaking all the add-ons?

Didn't break any of the 24 I have installed. YMMV, of course.

Re:Wow!

[R.Mo_Robert]

Well they are giving everyone a leg up by including a PDF view. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Well, it's rendered as HTML5 with some help from JavaScript. Speaking of JavaScript, however, my quick testing suggests that PDFs with JS code are not well supported; they show a yellow bar at the top suggesting you open with another reader.

This, coupled with the fact that it's written using rendering tools Mozilla has already had, suggests that it should be about as secure as their browser in general. More if you exclude Flash and Java.

Re:Wow!

[TheRaven64]

Most PDF renderers are written in C. This has the advantage that it's (usually) fast, but parsing a PDF requires a lot of offset calculations inside a file and so malformed documents can cause issues. A number of other vulnerabilities have been related to the sandboxing policies for the JavaScript in the PDFs not being quite as tight as they should have been. The FireFox PDF viewer is written in JavaScript and so should be run with the same isolation as other JavaScript. The good news is, this means that it shouldn't be possible for a malicious PDF to do anything that a malicious web page couldn't. And it has been two weeks since the last arbitrary code execution vulnerability in FireFox was fixed (CVE-2013-0746)...

Re:Wow!

[serviscope_minor]

Most PDF renderers are written in C.

On Linux, the Xpdf and the derived rendering library used by everything else (poppler) is written in C++. Xpdf is quite old so it probably doesn't make much use of modern (i.e. safer) C++, though it it likely significantly safer than C. The trouble is that PDF also understands all sorts of crazy image formats which are decoded by large, complex external C libraries with their own vulnerabilities.

Re:Wow!

[fatphil]

The last time I used a MS Windows machine, I'm sure I opened a PDF in IE. I seem to remember that being a newish feature at the time, but, given my history with OSes, that was still about 10 years ago.

Being a decade behind your competitor is pretty tragic in the IT world.

Re:Wow!

[furbyhater]

Addon-breakage hasn't been a major problem for many months...

Still not

[AmiMoJo]

fast enough for me to get first post. Switching to Chrome.

Re:Still not

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you enjoy getting scroogled.

Re:Still not

[AmiMoJo]

To all who modded me troll: WHOOOOOSH!

Actually I am in the process of moving to Chrome though. I have a highly customized Firefox profile and it took me a long time to get used to Chrome. I did it by using it full time at work and then on my laptop. Particularly on the laptop Firefox really chuggs. More than that though Chrome's UI just seems to make getting stuff done that much faster, especially the omnibox which works better than Firefox's Awesome Bar for me.

Chrome has some issues, like the lack of a good bookmarks menu (mouse wheel scrolling seems to be broken). I miss Firefox's tab groups too. Tab Outliner for Chrome is okay but not in the same league as tab groups.

Re:Still not

[Anonymous Coward]

Only at Christmas time.

Re:Still not

[Anonymous Coward]

IE10 is even faster than those two. I'm not joking. Although not an option if you run UNIX.

Re:Still not

[tehcyder]

IE10 is even faster than those two. I'm not joking. Although not an option if you run UNIX.

Couldn't you run it in Windows in a VM?

Re:Still not

[Anonymous Coward]

To all who modded me troll: WHOOOOOSH!

And the same to all those morons like AmiMoJo that still think a "first post" is clever and refreshing.

What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be impressed if they included a Save As or Print To PDF File option like Google Chrome browser does.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[cristiroma]

Guess what? I have Firefox 18 and already has that. Go to File ... > Print ... > PDF > Save as PDF (also, Save as PostScript). Maybe only on Mac?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I would be impressed if they included a Save As or Print To PDF File option like Google Chrome browser does.

I'd be impressed if they included a Save As PDF option that wouldn't botch the PDF file. (The last time I did that with Chrome, there were strange fonts in the file and the top and bottom portions of each page were cropped. But perhaps they've fixed that one already...)

Re:What about Save As PDF

[lindi]

At least in Debian the "print to file" option has offered PDF support for ages.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[MrYingster]

That's a Mac thing. Any program that uses Apple's built-in printer dialog can do it. So handy!

Re:What about Save As PDF

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I would be impressed if they included a Save As or Print To PDF File option like Google Chrome browser does.

Oops, I forgot one thing: Anyway, if you convert web pages into PDF with any frequency, you might be better of with using Prince XML - better quality and more control over the process, including slipping in your own style sheet. There's one really nice for Wikipedia, for example.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[tepples]

But is it worth $495 per seat, as the web site appears to imply?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Junta]

It also happens in Linux. Don't have Windows handy at the moment, but I'd be surprised if Firefox on OSX and Linux has it but Windows did not.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[JackieBrown]

Windows does not have it (at least not XP.) Linux does, as you said. I use that feature more than I actually print.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Hatta]

That's what CUPS-PDF is for. Any application that can print, can print to PDF with CUPS.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Darth Snowshoe]

It would be handy, if you actually wanted to produce pdf. Given that Adobe's pdf tools are what most people use, and that those are absolutely the largest vector for malware IN THE WORLD, I don't want any more pdf around.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be handy, if you actually wanted to produce pdf. Given that Adobe's pdf tools are what most people use, and that those are absolutely the largest vector for malware IN THE WORLD, I don't want any more pdf around.

PDFs containing only text and images is as safe a format as anything else.
Start inserting javascipt, flash, 3d and the kitchen sink in and all goes to hell.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Mister_Stoopid]

Printing is an operating system function. Just install cutePDF, then everything that can print can print to PDF.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[lindi]

CUPS-PDF is a hack. It requires the print server to be able to write files to your home directory.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[somarilnos]

While it requires a little bit of work, you can do that with a third party program.

CutePDF is a program that will allow you to install it as a printer, so you can select it from the list of printers from any printer dropdown menu in Windows. The program then converts the output to a PDF file. Dreadfully useful.

For non-Windows users, as many have mentioned in this thread, there's functionality already out there.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[cbhacking]

XP is a 12-year-old OS. Why are you comparing it to modern OSes?

That said, I don't believe Win7 has the support you're referring to either. I know some MS software, such as Office, has supported exporting as PDF for some years now (and 2013 even supports importing PDFs for editing) but I don't know of OS-wide support.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[h4rr4r]

That is based on the OS having a print to pdf driver.

So linux and OSX yes, windows requires a driver to be installed.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is a server in Linux. You know that whole GUI display thing, it's called the X server for a reason. That sound daemon? server.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[h4rr4r]

How is that any different than the print server writing out to the printer?

Everything is a file.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you comparing it to modern OSes?

Funnily enough, I've been asking that very same question about Windows XP for the last 12 years.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Barefoot Monkey]

It's free for non-commercial purposes. If you make money from converting web pages to PDF then it might just be worth that price - particularly if you need to automate PDF rendering.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

PDFCreator is an easy way to add pdf printing to windows.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[hairyfeet]

And the simple fact is its butt simple to give Windows the same functionality so ANY application that can print can give you a PDF. Simply go to Ninite and check the box for either PDFCreator or CutePDF, your choice, then run it. Tada! Now any Windows application that can print can print as PDF.

And building in a PDF reader is just dumb, either you have to cripple the hell out of it so many docs made with Adobe Reader won't format correctly or you open a big ass hole in the security thanks to how all the extra crap Adobe added to the PDF format in later years is easily pwned.

Everybody else can cheer if they want but I have a feeling the hackers are cheering just as loudly. PDF was a good idea once upon a time but to sell new versions of Acrobat Adobe just kept adding more and more shit that frankly never should have been in a portable DOCUMENT format and now its a major security risk. Does anybody know if its easily removed or at the very least disabled?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[NatasRevol]

What else do you expect it to do?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[MightyYar]

But most people don't run a print server for each user account. As a result, the print server user account needs to have write permission in other user's directories. It's not a big deal... just create a ~/CUPS_PDF folder and give it +w or use your favorite method to give CUPS write permission. But it is kind of hacky.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologizing for Microsoft again?

Quel surprise!

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

First. I think MS software generally sucks.
If I recall correctly MS were going to add a save to PDF, or print to PDF I think for Vista, and Adobe threatened to sue them over it.
So in this one case it is not Microsofts fault.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[devent]

Windows 7 does not have, too.
They have export to XPS, with a very user unfriendly dialog.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[number11]

Windows does not have it (at least not XP.) Linux does, as you said. I use that feature more than I actually print.

Since the pdf995 printer driver prints to file quite nicely, I don't remember if XP does it natively. But I don't have any reason to care.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[number11]

It would be handy, if you actually wanted to produce pdf. Given that Adobe's pdf tools are what most people use, and that those are absolutely the largest vector for malware IN THE WORLD, I don't want any more pdf around.

Why is anyone using Adobe Reader anymore? There are several very nice alternatives, including Foxit, PDF-Xchange, Sumatra, Slim and others. I haven't used Adobe on any of my computers for years.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[betterprimate]

Better and free: You can generate PDFs by installing qtwebkit http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/QtWebKit.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[sapgau]

+1
I've been using PDFCreator for years now.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[armanox]

Well, I could save as PDF in Linux 10 years ago...

Re:What about Save As PDF

[xiando]

Print To PDF File option

File, Print, Print To File, select PDF or PostScript. Firefox (on Linux) has had this feature since long before it was named Firefox.

>2013
>Not using GNU/Linux
shiggyshiggy

Re:What about Save As PDF

[shutdown -p now]

Vista+ doesn't have printing to PDF, but it does have printing to XPS. Which is more limited, but if you just want to "print" it for further viewing by yourself, it does the job.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[whoever57]

CUPS-PDF is a hack. It requires the print server to be able to write files to your home directory.

Nope. That's a configuration option. You can set the output directory to be anywhere you want.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[MightyYar]

I guess I'd expect it to work like most unix client-server arrangements. You'd have a client, running as the current user, request the job from the print server. It would process the results and handle the writing of the resulting PDF to the directory of the current user's choice. Instead you have the server writing the file, which is... not usual. This was done because it was easier to hack the existing print infrastructure than to add a new PDF output facility. A reasonable decision, but definitely a hack.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox 18.0.2 on Vista has "Save Page as PDF" under the File Menu.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[dbug78]

That's what PDFCreator is for. Just beware the bundled toolbar.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

But how will I watch the Flash videos embedded in PDFs?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[tyrione]

That's a Mac thing. Any program that uses Apple's built-in printer dialog can do it. So handy!

It's not Apple's Built-in printer dialog that makes Save As PDF possible. It's the fact that Apple's Display Engine is Display PDF as a replacement to Display Postscript after Adobe wouldn't drop the $10/OS license attributed to NeXTSTEP/Openstep when we merged with Apple. So Grafanino, Barnes and others rewrote the damn thing in Display PDF. They extended services to it via the Preview application and other APIs for 3rd parties to leverage, including the slowly evolving Printer Dialogue UI.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[pspahn]

I'm not sure why this is Chrome's fault. Aren't you supposed to include fonts when saving a PDF? Isn't that the person's fault who created the PDF?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[bemymonkey]

I think Microsoft included the virtual XPS printer instead... works fine, but the lack of compatibility makes it pretty much useless...

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be handled by a printer driver, so that all applications benefit from it. It's really backwards to implement print to pdf on a per application basis.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't fill forms propely. Which almost every goverment organization uses here in EU at least, unless you wanna walk to the office and get those papers filled and stamped oldschool way :-) (Let it be taxes, drivers license, applying for study supports, any hospital/health related things, goverment anything).

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several very nice alternatives, including Foxit,

Some time ago I downloaded FoxIt thinking it would be a good replacement, hopefully lacking some of the "lets connect to the internet whenever I want" and "lets run embedded scripts whenever a PDF is opened" functionality Adobes current product has.

I was quite disappointed when the first thing that happened was that it attempted, unasked, to connect to the internet for updates. I ditched it that very second.

Now if you can suggest one/a few that do not have any network/internet-related functionality and/or embedded scripting functionality but only show the static contents of the PDF I'm trying to view I would be obliged.

But I do not think those exist anymore ...

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

right, on my Win7 laptop I don't have the "Save As....PDF" option FF 18.0.2, but the workaround to 'print' to a pdf file is still there.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Bazzargh]

Windows doesn't have it because Adobe didn't want MS to do it.

This is why MS made XPS

Stuart Parmenter wrote an extension for firefox after it started using Cairo (FF3) which would let you print pdf - since with Cairo that came pretty much free. It never made it into the default UI (as you say - it's not needed on Linux and Mac) and since the rendering architecture moved again to azure&skia I guess rendering to pdf wasn't free any more, and the extension no longer works.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[cyber-vandal]

Office 2010 has it: http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word-help/save-as-pdf-HA010354239.aspx#BM11

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Inda]

FoxIt was blocked by Mozilla some time ago. That, accompanied by some helpful bod on here showning me a list of exploits for it, made me uninstall it.

I like the JS rendering of PDFs in FF. Why not use a script to parse the PDF? Security model seems better too - only concentrate on JS exploits, which should be done on browser development anyway.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[tehcyder]

It is simple to install one of the many free pdf readers/printers on Windows and print/save to pdf from any program. Most places where I've worked have done this, rather than buy Adobe Acrobat just to convert Word documents into pdf.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply go to Ninite [ninite.com] and check the box for either PDFCreator or CutePDF, your choice, then run it.

The point is that Windows is the only OS that you have to do this with. All other OSes have this "out of the box." The point is that (luckily for you because you're a Windows repair guy) Windows lacks features other OSes come standard with.

And building in a PDF reader is just dumb, either you have to cripple the hell out of it so many docs made with Adobe Reader won't format correctly or you open a big ass hole in the security thanks to how all the extra crap Adobe added to the PDF format in later years is easily pwned.

That's the whole point of building an alternate PDF reader -- you build it "crippled" so all it does is display and print PDFs; the entire purpose of PDF in the first place was a platform-agnostic way of sending a file to someone so that it prints on his printer and OS exactly as it does on yours. All the other crap is just what you say: something so Adobe can get more money.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Better and free

Free, yes, but *not* better. There are *books* being published with Prince. It uses TeX algorithms for justification and hyphenation, it can actually do multiple column layout that doesn't make you vomit, it supports footnotes, high quality SVG inclusions, CSS3, CSS extensions for enhancing print output (custom hyphenations for words, separate flows for headers and footers, setting various PDF properties, CMYK colors) etc. The newest version actually supports running Javascript before rendering the page, so as with TeX, you can do any amount of processing before you start rendering the whole thing, so you can, i.e., write in/generate semantic HTML5 and then mutilate in any way imaginable, generate a TOC in whatever form you like, cross references and what not.

So, no, not better. I'd *love* to have a FLOSS alternative to Prince, but there isn't any right now.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've really used any of those alternatives, you'd know the answer: Adobe Reader is actually easier to use, install, and much more polished than the alternatives.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

The signatures were what always tripped up the alternatives for me. For just regular PDF viewing, Foxit and the like are great, but when I tried to use them for no-kidding digital signatures from a PKI card, they failed. Too bad too. Just the thought of installing Adobe makes me want to puke. As always, YMMV.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[number11]

If you've really used any of those alternatives, you'd know the answer: Adobe Reader is actually easier to use, install, and much more polished than the alternatives.

Actually, I've been using PDF-Xchange Viewer for several years and I think it's equal or superior to Adobe Reader on all counts. Plus, no known security holes, and has OCR built in. Biggest problem with it is nobody knows about it or where to find it, because websites say "You need Adobe Reader, click here to get it".

Re:What about Save As PDF

[hairyfeet]

And whose fault is that? Microsoft was limited by anti-trust and wouldn't be allowed to add what today many would consider common sense features, for example MSFT had to deal with numerous lawsuits just to be allowed to have the EXTREMELY limited Windows defender.

While MSFT has made incredibly DUMB moves the past few years you can't really compare what they did under the antitrust restrictions with what Apple and Google were able to do without. Frankly considering how Apple has been able to alter the course of web development Apple could use a little antitrust themselves but even though I think they are abusing their position I would never ever advocate for ANY company to be as badly hamstrung as MSFT was under antitrust, they should be broken up long before it gets to that point.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be impressed if they included a Save As or Print To PDF File option like Google Chrome browser does.

I have Installed the latest version of FireFox i.e version 19.
Also tried to view the pdf. Its awesome. Looking forward for newer version of FireFox

Re:What about Save As PDF

[betterprimate]

Thanks for the info. I only remember taking a look at Prince when they first started.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[cthulhu11]

Did your copy come with a trojan like the one I installed on a VM did?

Re:What about Save As PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, as a hacker, I rejoice in having yet another viewer to add to the list of software I have to support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software is just too short. I mean if it were any shorter I'd be totally bored out of my mind. Adobe by it self is just too easy. Trying to get my hack to work on all those different viewers... well that's a real challenge. Monoculture in software is the number one enemy to hackers because it leads to boredom.

(Or it could be that hairyfeet is wrong again.)

Re:What about Save As PDF

[sapgau]

Oh... I hope not. I only made sure NOT to install (deselect) the associated crapware that comes in the installation file.
I have different versions installed on different machines, what would the version with the trojan be?
Also, I made sure I downloaded it from sourceforge.

Re:What about Save As PDF

[cthulhu11]

Don't remember where I got it, but it came with some "babylon toolbar" thing that was a nightmare to remove.

Not new, and do not want

[Animats]

New? That went in a few Firefox versions back, I think at Firefox 16. I turned it off, since I use Sumatra PDF (which is dumb, but safe).

Re:Not new, and do not want

[drinkypoo]

PDF.js became available a few versions back, but didn't come with by default, you had to install it. At least, I did.

Re:Not new, and do not want

[async5]

New? That went in a few Firefox versions back, I think at Firefox 16. I turned it off, since I use Sumatra PDF (which is dumb, but safe).

How do you know it's safe? From http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search-results?query=Sumatra&search_type=all&cves=on ?

Re:Not new, and do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be a fucking moron to not realize that Adobe PDF sees a million times the volume of 0 days that SumatraPDF does. All of the ones you linked are fixed already.

Re:Not new, and do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

And your point is?

Re:Not new, and do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the adults figure it out if you can't.

Re:Not new, and do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

It's rather obvious that you are not one of said adults. Perhaps not the point you wanted to make, but nevertheless the point you did make.

Re:Not new, and do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, there's nothing to explain. Read the sentences and figure it out. If your brain is so deficient that you need people on the internet break down to you how 4 Sumatra PDF exploits over 4 years doesn't make the product less safe than Adobe PDF which has seen way more than that in much less time, there's no hope for you.

It's rather obvious that I'm one of the adults and that you're the child shitting your pants because you can't comprehend the first sentence of a two sentences comment.

Mosaic FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad I'm posting this with Mosaic.
No worries about updates breaking my plugins every few weeks.

Re:Mosaic FTW

[tehcyder]

Glad I'm posting this with Mosaic. No worries about updates breaking my plugins every few weeks.

It's customary to say "Lynx" when you're making a post like that.

Blogspam!

[roboticbebop]

TFA links to blogspam, below is the actual release note list from Mozilla

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/19.0/releasenotes/

Come on, guys.

In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

Are they serious? A built in PDF reader, and this is only the start of things. Meanwhile there are Mozilla bugs that are over half a decade old.

This constant bloat of software, where a program eventually gets filled with so many features that it might as well be Ann entire OS, is one of the most dangerous diseases in the tech world. The irony is that Firefox was originally a lightweight answer to the entire Mozilla suite, because it had grown too bloated.

Every platform out there already has a PDF reader. My operating system has a PDF renderer built in. It works great. Why jam another one in the browser? They're just increasing the attack surface, and if a vulnerability in the PDF format were to crop up now I have to worry about getting patches for yet another thing here.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Version 20? That's so 45 minutes ago. All the cool kids are already on version 25. This version has a built- in version of The Gimp written in JS.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[ZorinLynx]

The PDF reader in Firefox is actually implemented in JavaScript. It's quite an achievement!

It doesn't bloat the software much; it's just a .js file that gets loaded when needed. I personally think this is the RIGHT way to do it; external binary plugins are much more susceptible to security problems than simply using the already existing JavaScript engine, which has been time tested to be secure.

Worry not, Firefox is in good hands.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome has one. Chrome is beating Firefox's butt at adoption, so Mozilla just does what the Chrome team does without examining why.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

"where a program eventually gets filled with so many features that it might as well be Ann entire OS" - See Chrome OS

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Desler]

which has been time tested to be secure.

Please tell me you're being sarcastic...

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is that Firefox was originally a lightweight answer to the entire Mozilla suite, because it had grown too bloated.

Except that it hadn't, that was just Firefag propoganda.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me your being sarcastic about him being sarcastic. You can still have your ActiveX plugins in IE if you want. I think a js solution simplifies Firefox and means it should be improved as the JavaScript implementation is improved.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Hatta]

external binary plugins are much more susceptible to security problems

Who said anything about "external binary plugins"? Use the system PDF viewer. Obviously you trust the system you're using, so why not trust the system PDF viewer?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Firefox JS engine has a lot more eyeballs looking at it than the random-ass 3rd party PDF viewers slashdot users advocate.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Desler]

I'm not being sarcastic. Every version of Firefox fixes multiple critical and high priority bugs in the Javascript engine that allows arbitrary code execution. That he thinks this will be immune from exploits is hilariously naive.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Desler]

And yet every version still has multiple arbitrary code execution exploit vectors fixed.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[hedwards]

And how many are there in those other PDF viewers? That's sort of the point, just because one software package is fixing vulnerabilities with that frequency, does not mean that the alternatives are more secure. It just means that there are more vulnerabilities being patched in the first case than in the second case.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[TeknoHog]

They should really make a small, light version of Firefox that only does web browsing, and does it well. They could call it "Phoenix", for example.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's actually decreasing the attack surface.

With Chrome or Firefox + Acrobat, the attack surface is your Javascript engine + your PDF plugin.

With Firefox pdf.js, the attack surface is the Javascript engine. Smaller! (If they can own you via PDF.js, they could already have owned you via a web page.)

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think this is the RIGHT way to do it; external binary plugins are much more susceptible to security problems than simply using the already existing JavaScript engine

Even more secure and faster too would be to code it in in kernel-level LUA script. What is more secure and well-tested than the kernel? Used every day by every user means the most number of eyeballs. Putting script in the kernel means scripting will finally be safe. It only makes sense to put a scripted PDF interpreter in the LUA kernel code as well.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

How many of you stupid fucks still do not realize that Firefox's release cycle is the same as Chrome's? And that they have an enterprise version with slightly longer time between updates so that if you don't want the new features, you can have the security fixes?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

Which is better than the multiple security vulnerabilities that have yet to be encountered in the no name, piece of shit PDF viewers that no one wants to use.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Lew Perin]

In version 25, Emacs will have built-in Firefox! So there!!

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you must be joking. The "system PDF viewer" is practically the definition of binary software that is rarely updated in response to new exploits. Even Apple's system Java is often months out of date. In contrast, Firefox usually patches zero-day exploits within a couple days. Using a system binary to render web content is an invitation to get owned.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

This constant bloat of software, where a program eventually gets filled with so many features that it might as well be emacs

FTFY

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't realized that we make these posts because we know it pisses off the Firefag fanbois like yourself.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some people do not want to install Adobe's Reader. Since every piece of software has security flaws (people who say "OMG! Why don't they get past these exploits?!?!?" are clueless and have never written commercial grade code) and that's one *less* piece of software to maintain. As with Flash, the exploits with Adobe's Reader over the years are numerous. I stopped installing it long ago instead opting to use Google Docs for PDF viewing. But at least I now have the functionality built-in with my preferred browser. Yeah I use Chrome to a much lesser degree, but for a variety of reasons I still prefer Firefox.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

When concerning security, YOUR sarcasm filter should be tuned down a couple of notches. I'd much rather trust a sandboxed .js than an unknown binary on the same system.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Hatta]

That's why you apt-get upgrade (or equivalent) frequently. If your OS vendor can't be bothered to patch their packages in a timely fashion, get a different OS.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

In version 25, Emacs will have built-in Firefox! So there!!

Already done in 2010.

http://aloiroberto.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/how-to-integrate-firefox-and-emacs/

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

Great, a Javascript PDF reader. Somebody has finally devised a way to make Javascript suck more resources than it currently does with Google's APIs, Yahoo's APIs, and so forth all running all the time on almost every web page.

God Damn Javascript to Hell!

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

They should really make a small and light version of the Mozilla Suite that only does web browsing, and does it well. They could call it "Firefox", for example.

Don't you get the irony of Phoenix? It's a small and light version of Firefox which was a small and light version of Mozilla. It's turtles all the way down man.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

It's not so much as a "release cycle" as it is a "oh we got a compile that is somewhat stable, here you go you ignorant hapless uninformed beta testers."

Plus there's no reason for you to be such a cock-sucker. Did somebody take a shit in your corn flakes this morning? Mommy didn't let you have one more puddin pop?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

external binary plugins are much more susceptible to security problems than simply using the already existing JavaScript engine, which has been time tested to be secure.

How does noscript affect this? Am I going to have enable javascript for every site that has a PDF that I want to view?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

While writing a PDF reader in Javascript is impressive (albeit inefficient), why must it be integrated into the browser? Is there some reason an uninstallable extension would not be better?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[maztuhblastah]

Don't you get the irony of Phoenix? It's a small and light version of Firefox which was a small and light version of Mozilla. It's turtles all the way down man.

Uh... I think he does. Firefox used to be called Firebird. You know why? Because hey had to change the original name: Phoenix.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they serious? A built in PDF reader, and this is only the start of things

Adobe has announced it will be generating a PDF of the entire Internet every week and emailing it to anyone that wants a copy.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

No it doesn't. It has a handful of paid FF devs looking at it, and some folks in the Russian Mafia, and some more folks at the Chinese Cyber-assault brigade.

Just because the source is there, it doesn't follow that people are ACTUALLY looking at it. Sure, billions of people COULD look at the code, but in reality they probably aren't. And beyond this, without knowing the particulars of the entire Firefox code as a whole, how can they figure out if there are memory leaks and security problems anyway?

The "many eyes" thing is a good idea that falls down under any kind of scrutiny.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[tlhIngan]

How many of you stupid fucks still do not realize that Firefox's release cycle is the same as Chrome's? And that they have an enterprise version with slightly longer time between updates so that if you don't want the new features, you can have the security fixes?

The problem with Firefox's releases is they keep screwing with the UI. Little things here and there - like day I suddenly found muscle memory broken because the awesomebar stopped autocompleting full URLs and only did domains? (It's fine for the most part, but if you have URLs that are fairly deep... or say to get directly to a forum...).

If Mozilla updated firefox like chrome - where they don't mess with UI things at all (or default them to "off" for upgrade installs so it behaves exactly the same as it did pre-update) then a lot less people would care. But they don't. I don't care what version Chrome is at because it works the same today as it did yesterday. But every new update to Firefox brings trepidatoin in the form "what did they screw with now? And can I disable it?"

Ars Technica periodically runs browser wars charts that show how each version of a browser is adopted. Consistently while a large number of people update, a significant number of people don't, much more than Chrome.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[MightyYar]

It's the same thing PDF Viewer does... maybe the same project? I don't follow such things. It works well, but I've always been annoyed that Firefox doesn't just dish stuff off to the built-in Mac PDF renderer - which is resident all the time and is necessarily snappy.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

You're missing the point. With people now relying on two PDF readers instead of one, the attack surface has doubled, and the amount of patches needed to address any single given vulnerability has doubled as well.

Additionally, this means that the limited manpower at the Mozilla Foundation is now spread even more thinly, and the chances that any given bug in Mozilla are fixed with alacrity are decreased.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just increasing the attack surface, and if a vulnerability in the PDF format were to crop up now I have to worry about getting patches for yet another thing here.

Umm.. Adobe is by far the most popular PDF reader. Adobe is known as the company that makes Microsoft look security conscious. If you know and use words like "attack surface", you should also know that Adobe has had many security vulnerabilities over the years with PDF Reader. Having Mozilla implement it is far less likely to have security problems than the clowns over at Adobe.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

Apple's Preview is excellent. It renders PDF files better than Adobe's own product, and doesn't implement a lot of the shit like Flash that makes Acrobat so insecure. Evince and Okular are also top-notch.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

Apple is no longer providing "system Java" and recommends that you get all your Java directly from Oracle. They have for over a year now too.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[tftp]

How does noscript affect this?

Positively. I have no desire to use a half-baked JS implementation if I have FoxReader (on Windows) that runs natively. Even Chrome's built-in reader often is not sufficient, and it even asks if you want to see the document in a "real" PDF reader. There is no reason to bother with crippled implementations if good ones are available for the same affordable price of $0.

Am I going to have enable javascript for every site that has a PDF that I want to view?

Not required. What you want to do is specify in settings how you want the PDF to be handled. If you select "Preview in Mozilla" then you need the JS code. If you select a different viewer then you don't need JS.

This gimmick is handy if all you have is the browser. But if you do any amount of serious work on the computer you will install better tools.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Asa is that you?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

No, most of them are actually dead serious. And if it makes you mad I don't know what to say.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Darinbob]

Chrome has a stupid release cycle too. But it's always had a stupid release cycle, the problem with Firefox is that it went from a nice stable development style to the bleeding edge Chrome style without even an apology.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

Agree with that, but most posts like these just comment about the version number and nothing else. A lot of them are quite serious about it too.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that browser vendors react to exploits in web time. Mozilla and Google especially have a track record of being much faster than all OS vendors.

The argument is about browser security. When you're telling 95% of people to "get a different OS" to secure their browser, you've lost the argument.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

It's not so much as a "release cycle" as it is a "oh we got a compile that is somewhat stable, here you go you ignorant hapless uninformed beta testers."

I've quite honestly have had no bugs worth mentioning since about FF4, so I'm sorry I can't change your sentiment on that. I hope you file bug reports though, however long it takes for them to be fixed.

Plus there's no reason for you to be such a cock-sucker. Did somebody take a shit in your corn flakes this morning? Mommy didn't let you have one more puddin pop?

It gets tiring, obviously I don't get literally angry at this. I'm sorry if mommy still feeds you but that's not my case.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Darinbob]

Hmm, it used to be that PDF was secure, since it was render only and no way would anyone be stupid enough to have a PDF engine that could actually munge with your computer. But it happened. Now is this to repeat with JavaScript, which used to be for "light" web work to do some fancy tricks and is now being greatly expanded in order to enable the HTML5 new world order? Yes there will be massive security holes with this approach too.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[devent]

Are you fricking kidding me? Why is anything implemented in JavaScript an achievement now? So it's implemented in JavaScript, who cares.

I can't wait that the Mozilla developer offer a JavaScript API to modify the PDF, to offer some "dynamic" content in it.
Now they open the attack vector that had Adope PDF Reader for ages.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Darinbob]

Studies have shown that most computers use less than the full 100% of CPU capacity. This change should help remedy that immense waste of resources.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

I'm not sure how your backwards-assed OS deals with PDFs, but mine (OS X) has that functionality built in to the windowing system, and available as a library for applications to call. In fact, the whole screen is rendered as a PDF anyway.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

People already have Preview, Evince, Okular, or Foxit on their systems. Some poor souls use Acrobat but only those people who don't have a clue anyway.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[bill_mcgonigle]

How does noscript affect this? Am I going to have enable javascript for every site that has a PDF that I want to view?

no, just once for the javascript file.

I've been using it on the previous release (it had to be enabled). It's generally as useful as Google's PDF preview used to be. But fortunately there's a one-click "show me in my system PDF viewer" button at the top for anything with fonts or images that need alignment. So far, I haven't turned it off.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many are there in those other PDF viewers?

For the record, the last exploitable PDF bug on Macosx PDF viewer was in 2010 (http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/24/apple_releases_mac_os_x_security_update_to_patch_pdf_exploit. Granted, it may be because it doesn't support javascript or flash, and is rarely touched, but I would say one update every several years is much nicer than one every week for your javascript engine (yes, Safari suffers from those).

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[jfdavis668]

Oh yeah! Good ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite frankly, as many as I choose. I use an extremely obscure pdf viewer*, which uses such a pathetic "engine" that it can't even display images. I would wager its security against Mozilla's any day, simply because Mozilla must conform to [closer to] the entirety of the standard and implement much more than the viewer I use, which has decided it only cares about displaying text. So I don't have to worry about exploits in the SVG rendering code, because there isn't any.

*since you must know, it's a simple wrapper around pdf2html and elinks.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

What do you mean "you've" had no bugs "worth mentioning" since FF4? That's a pretty weasel word filled sentence there.

Firefox has had bugs worth mentioning since the beginning, and remote exploits are fairly common. Some bugs are more than 5 years old - critical bugs even! Take a look at their cutesy Bugzilla bug tracker if you don't believe me.

You don't have to waste energy and tire yourself out doing things like white-knighting Firefox anyway, so go down for a nap, have a puddin pop, and get happy!

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The attack surface for the Javascript engine should be the same with or without PDF.js. It's not doing anything special.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

We know you're full of shit when you use a buzzword like "web time." Also, Mozilla and Google both have years-old outstanding critical bugs.

Their market-droids may have conned you into thinking that the rapid release cycle is because they react with synergizing bullet-time and the power of cloud computing, but you fell for a bunch of shit. Release schedules are only this rapid because the users are acting as alpha-testing guinea pigs.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[stephanruby]

Every platform out there already has a PDF reader. My operating system has a PDF renderer built in. It works great.

Which one? The PDF reader provided by Adobe?

That one is bloated with so many features, it's become a security risk for most users even thought most of them will never even need those features in the first place.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[NoMaster]

That's a solved problem - simply install FF18 on OS X. Playing YouTube videos will then result in 130%+ CPU usage, either using Flash (which itself takes up to 30%+) or HTML5.

Result? Stuttering / looping videos and an unresponsive machine. And yes, that's with a clean install, new profile, no plugins / addons / themes, 32 or 64 bit, etc. Dropped back to FF17esr, & everything is fine.

Somebody should fork FF into a stripped-down browser that runs fast, with the ability to customise it through extensions. They could call it "Phoenix" or something...

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[NoMaster]

It works well, but I've always been annoyed that Firefox doesn't just dish stuff off to the built-in Mac PDF renderer - which is resident all the time and is necessarily snappy.

There used to be a plugin to integrate Preview into FF & render PDFs in the browser.

Unfortunately FF4 in 64-bit mode broke it, and FF18 seems to have killed it completely. Pdf.js is clunky, slow, broken on many PDFs, and the cross-site restrictions of js mean it's useless on many academic journal sites. The other recommended alternative, Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin, is a piece of shit.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[CODiNE]

The idea is by making their reader in Javascript instead of passing a PDF onto a native reader they can hopefully block exploits via Javascript security.

It makes sense, especially if it prevents people from getting hacked via Adobe software. Sounds paradoxical but they intend to decrease the attack surface with this.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Nimey]

Heh, yeah. FF19's installer is much larger than the entire old Mozilla suite that it replaced, and is just as large as the current version of Seamonkey.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Emacs? Phluese!!!! It will also be include its own kernal and will run under a dedicated virtual machine (which will be sand boxed). Also, after v.20 version numbers will no longer be bumped a full version with each release, it will be bumped 10. The version after 20 will there fore be 30. It turned out that people would feel more comfortable with even 10 releases.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[hedwards]

I'm not missing the point, I'm pointing out that the metric is bullshit and completely meaningless.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[doom]

Damn, you got me excited there for a moment. Built-in emacs would make these damn TEXTAREA fields bearable... (using emacsclient with the "It's All Text" plug-in is workable, but a little clunky).

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[doom]

The problem with Firefox's releases is they keep screwing with the UI.

And do you know where your "Bookmark All Tabs" has gone today?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[rastos1]

The PDF reader in Firefox is actually implemented in JavaScript. It's quite an achievement!

It doesn't bloat the software much; it's just a .js file that gets loaded when needed.

We are here not for achievements. We are here to stick to the KISS principle. Implementing the PDF reader in Prolog or COBOL would be an achievement too. It does not mean it's a good thing. Remember: just because it can be done, it is not necessarily useful to do it. If you want to prove you hacker skillz, great, go and do it on your own pet project. Or an addon. Not on a project with the scale of FireFox.

Btw, I never complained about FF consuming too much memory - until I started frequenting one site with a discussion forum with lot's of clever JavaScript (no, it's not /.). Now leaving the page open over the weekend means that on Monday the browser grows from usual ~300-400MB to 1GB of RAM. Just because something is written in JS does not mean that it does not lead to memory leaks.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

you have that wrong. the next version of emacs will have firefox built-in.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the right way to do it, is let me download it as a file and open in an external application when and if I want it.
So now, after years of having to disable acrobat addons everywhere I have also to disable this crap :(

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it's a paradigm that is rarely needed.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

A system PDF viewer is something you get on a Mac.

On Windows, you need to download one, and for most people that's going to be the security hole named Adobe Reader.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Needed", as in "if you can do the same manually, it's not really needed, even if the manual process takes 20 minutes"?

Or needed as in you don't use it, and f'**k everybody else?

(I do use it, and I do remember not being able to find it last time they moved it).

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you meant "no bug fixes worth mentioning"... At least that's my view, I don't remember a single bug fixed since 4.0 or so. Which matches their version numbering pretty well, if they were still fixing bugs, we would have had 18.36 before 19.0.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[fatphil]

Can't you stick JavaScript in PDF files?

So, does the javascript PDF interpreter interpret the JavaScript in the PDF files, possibly in a sandbox, or does it simply eval() it?

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bringing features faster is not stupid, it's adapting to the realities of the web.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

Firefox has had bugs worth mentioning since the beginning, and remote exploits are fairly common. Some bugs are more than 5 years old - critical bugs even! Take a look at their cutesy Bugzilla bug tracker if you don't believe me.

No need to act like a complete idiot.

What I mean is that I haven't had Firefox crashes, profile corruption, bookmarks being lost, badly rendered pages, etc. You know, bugs. I had problems occasionally before, I haven't had them since FF4. When I get a bug, I file a bug report. It's not hard. I haven't had to do it for the past 14 versions, so that makes it hard to agree with someone who thinks the product is unusable and bug filled.

I'm not saying there are no bugs in Firefox because that's nonsense. I'm surprised even someone like you could think that.

so go down for a nap, have a puddin pop, and get happy!

Why not do that yourself, you're getting riled up for no reason. Go fat yourself up and sleep over it.

You're really taking this way too seriously if you think anyone is white knighting here.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

That's been at the same place since Firefox 4, right-click one of your active tabs.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[doom]

That's been at the same place since Firefox 4, right-click one of your active tabs.

Yes, thanks, I did eventually find it over there, it also used to be under the Bookmarks menu tab, and it's been there for just about as long, until some bozo decided there was something Bad And Wrong about being able to access it without grabbing the mouse. (I haven't bothered to inquire about the reasons for this, I generally find that reading up on Design Philosophy is not good for my blood pressure.)

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're bothered about using the mouse, use Ctrl-Shift-D. They changed this 13 versions ago, should've been enough time for you to find either the new location or the shortcut if it annoys you this much.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[doom]

Oh no doubt. C+S+D is Intuitively obvious. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg, of course, since the keyboard hint doesn't appear in the Bookmarks menu pad once the command is gone, and my muscle memory had me doing Alt B's to try to find it.

And yes, gratutious UI changes annoy the shit out of me, particularly in a project that's decided to nag you if you don't upgrade every month. But I am indeed capable of solving this problem, I think the answer is iceweasel on Debian where they get the difference between security fixes and UI changes.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

It's pretty clear that you are white knighting Firefox, though.

And despite your claim that you have not directly experienced Firefox bugs, proves nothing. One wonders why you even originally said it!

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

It cannot possibly be "obvious" that I'm white knighting Firefox because I'm not.

Do you suffer from severe memory loss? I mentioned it because you were talking about stability issues. I shared my experience because it was in stark contrast with yours, basing on the beta tester statement.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

Who said anything about my experience? You're trying to make this about you and me. I didn't involve either one of us individually. I suggest you look at the Bugzilla and then decide if your experience is relevant. Perhaps you should try to assuage the people who file and confirm bugs that are sometimes fatal to their browser that it's no big deal, because you haven't had a problem!

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

Obviously the bug reports in Bugzilla are real, nobody tried saying otherwise. You're making up points that I never even brought up so you can agree with yourself about them.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[RocketRabbit]

I said there were serious bugs in Firefox. You claimed that you've never had a problem. I said that the bugzilla shows that people are having problems.

You have tried to narrow the scope of my statement to your own experience. That's fine, but as I wondered above, what's your point? Frankly I've never had many issues with Firefox either, except for extreme memory hogging type behavior, but this doesn't mean there aren't serious bugs.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[gparent]

I see why you're confused. You took my post out of context at the very beginning. My first reply wasn't to you, it was to the AC seemed to be bitching about version numbers. If I had wanted to talk about Firefox bugs, I would've quoted you.

Re:In version 20 Firefox will have built-in Emacs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the age of a bug report really make it more important? How about you cite the specific bug reports that are actually pissing you off for some other reason than "they are old." It's a fucking cop out used in place of actually having something to bitch about. You might as well bitch about version numbers.

Still exists?

[DogDude]

I honestly didn't know that Firefox still existed. We banned it from our company after waiting years for various memory leaks to be fixed. I thought that most people had done the same a long time ago. We're very happy with Chrome, and don't see a reason to bother with Firefox again. Is there any real reason to use Firefox any more?

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me: Six Add-ons for Firefox I love and mostly Tree Style Tab. Last time I checked there was something similar for Chrome, but not the same, alas. I use CopyURL+ a lot as well, but maybe something similar is available for Chrome as well. As soon there is Tree Style Tab for Chrome (and no horizontal tabs at all) I most likely switch. The past month or so Firefox has become quite instable in my experience (random crashes when I click in a side bar, or accidentally press a few keys). And the upgrade before this one on Ubuntu kept crashing; I had to move my profile dir out of the way and reboot the computer and then move stuff back. The crashing stopped but it ate quite some time.

Re:Still exists?

[epyT-R]

1. it's got adblockplus
2. it's the only browser left that isn't directly targeted at marketing interests over my privacy (you worry about holes, but then trust google??)
3. a useful library of plugins. sure other browsers have this now, but not like firefox.

does that excuse the performance issues? hell no.

Re:Still exists?

[realmolo]

Firefox uses less memory than Chrome these days.

Plus, Firefox is just as fast as Chrome, typically.

And, finally and most importantly, Firefox has a zillion useful extensions. Like NoScript and Adblock.

Chrome is fine, but I don't like how it handles tabs (I use TabMixPlus on Firefox), and I *really* hate how hard it makes it to access bookmarks. Yes, you can solve the bookmark issue with extensions, but none of them are *quite* right.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

My company dumped Lin-sux for a similar reason (well, it being slow and insecure too). Open sores software generally SUCKS ASS compared to its closed source counterpart in basically every field. We are now a Windows and OS X shop and MUCH better off for it. At this point anyone who still uses open sores to run any aspect of their business is an idiot.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox extension API allows changes far beyond what can be done in Chrome, and extension programmers do take advantage of it.

Also for me personally, Chrome has an unpleasant 'feature' that collects search engines you've used. It's not wiped during history cleaning, can't be turned off and developers say they won't implement an option to turn it off because it would bloat the interface. Apparently all the search engines query URLs I don't want and haven't put there are not considered bloat already.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pet store banned firefox for eating excessive memory and has replaced it with the biggest memory hog known to man?

Re:Still exists?

[afidel]

Ha, we just implemented it because the IE DOM is too retarded to handle a couple tens (or was it hundreds?) of thousands of objects that are in the BI reports created by OBIEE 11g, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari handle it just fine but of those only FF with the Frontmotion extensions can be centrally managed to the degree we need.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome:

1. has ABP + integrated Flash + already had PDF
2. can have the privacy invasions disabled with two clicks
3. what important plugins are you missing from Chrome?

Does this make it better than Firefox? Hell no, but it's something you might consider.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. it's got adblockplus

So does Opera.

2. it's the only browser left that isn't directly targeted at marketing interests over my privacy (you worry about holes, but then trust google??)

So does Opera. In fact Opera gives much more control than Firefox over the info that is leaked on the web.

3. a useful library of plugins. sure other browsers have this now, but not like firefox.

does that excuse the performance issues? hell no.

So does Opera. Opera is fast, multiplatform and has more features than IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari combined.
But its only crime is that it is closed source so the FOSS zealots don't use it, and prefer to use Chrome. What a travesty.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the wind up there on your high horse?

"My browser X is the best browser evaaaar!!!1!" That is how you sound. Glad you have a browser you like. The rest of us care, why?

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shawn, is that you?

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, finally and most importantly, Firefox has a zillion useful extensions. Like NoScript and Adblock.

Noscript and Adblock are not a zillion extensions.
They are but 2 extensions. As for the rest, most Firefox extensions are half baked, crash prone plugins.

Re:Still exists?

[h4rr4r]

3. Vimperator or similar
None of the chrome plugins offer anything nearly as good. I want the URL bar gone and I want full modality.

Re:Still exists?

[kthreadd]

Chrome is built on good technology, but since it is proprietary closed source I prefer Firefox.

Re:Still exists?

[Obfuscant]

Chrome is fine,

Chrome is a virus that attaches itself to various other useful programs and hopes that you don't notice the "install Chrome, too" box is checked by default when you are doing something like updating java. It makes itself your default web software without asking. And then when you try to uninstall it, you are left with cruft that breaks how Firefox behaves, like getting an obscure error text about some missing or undefined variable in line X of something displayed instead of a simple 404 failure report.

It managed to weasel its way onto a laptop I administer because apparently it attached itself to something useful that I allowed a user to install. I fired it up to see how it did at browsing the web and the first thing it did was demand that I log into the google cloud using a gmail account. That's before I even tried to load any web pages with it. Why do I need to HAVE a cloud account just to use a web browser, much less be forced to log into it before I am allowed to go anywhere?

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera's dead, Jim.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

"And, finally and most importantly, Firefox has a zillion useful extensions. Like NoScript"

Whenever someone mentions NoScript they should also mention RequestPolicy. Try RequestPolicy for yourself and see it block all the stuff that NoScript is letting through.

Re:Still exists?

[QRDeNameland]

3. what important plugins are you missing from Chrome?

For me, the big one is NoScript. There appear to be similar plugins for Chrome, but none seem to widely used or well rated by users.

FWIW, I use both Firefox and Chrome regularly, but for anything other than websites I trust, it's Firefox because of NoScript.

Re:Still exists?

[QRDeNameland]

Noscript and Adblock are not a zillion extensions.

What, did you think he meant a literal zillion?

Re:Still exists?

[AmiMoJo]

I'm surprised more people here don't use Chromium. None of the privacy issues that Chrome has, no Flash plug-in by default, open source and super fast.

Re:Still exists?

[AmiMoJo]

Firefox uses less memory than Chrome these days.

That's not a good thing. For example Firefox doesn't decode images until they are displayed to reduce memory consumption. The result is that it judders as you scroll and switching tabs introduces a noticeable delay.

My laptop has 4GB of RAM. My desktop has 16GB RAM. Even the graphics card has 3GB. I bought lots of RAM because I want performance, not pointless memory saving that slows me down. Memory benchmarks are not a good way to evaluate a browser.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is fine,

Chrome is a virus that attaches itself to various other useful programs and hopes that you don't notice the "install Chrome, too" box is checked by default when you are doing something like updating java. It makes itself your default web software without asking. And then when you try to uninstall it, you are left with cruft that breaks how Firefox behaves, like getting an obscure error text about some missing or undefined variable in line X of something displayed instead of a simple 404 failure report.

It managed to weasel its way onto a laptop I administer because apparently it attached itself to something useful that I allowed a user to install. I fired it up to see how it did at browsing the web and the first thing it did was demand that I log into the google cloud using a gmail account. That's before I even tried to load any web pages with it. Why do I need to HAVE a cloud account just to use a web browser, much less be forced to log into it before I am allowed to go anywhere?

No, it's okay. Don't get up from your rocking chair. We'll show ourselves off your lawn.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need bookmarks, you can search Google! Make sure to click a few ads while you're there!

Re:Still exists?

[LocalH]

Who pissed in your Corn Flakes?

Re:Still exists?

[DuranDuran]

Chrome is built on good technology, but since it is proprietary closed source I prefer Firefox.

Firefox is open source, but since it is as unstable as a three wheeled Pinto, I prefer Chrome.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can put the tabs AT THE BLOODY BOTTOM of the window.

Re:Still exists?

[Darinbob]

Big problem with Chrome is all the new Google features that require Chrome. Google wants vendor lock in and Chrome is their tool to do so. Granted, Mozilla is acting very much like corporate vendors as well these days, so maybe it doesn't make any difference. I just want a browser that pays attention to the customer, and prefers listening to customers needs instead of telling customers what they need, and neither Chrome nor Firefox fit this model.

Re:Still exists?

[Guppy06]

3. a useful library of plugins.

On the desktop. Android, not so much.

Re:Still exists?

[Darinbob]

I am dreading the day that my mother calls me up and asks me what this chrome thing is that changed her mozilla.

Re:Still exists?

[rsborg]

1. it's got adblockplus
2. it's the only browser left that isn't directly targeted at marketing interests over my privacy (you worry about holes, but then trust google??)
3. a useful library of plugins. sure other browsers have this now, but not like firefox.

does that excuse the performance issues? hell no.

Performance? Try loading even a 15MB XML file with moderate hierarchy to be rendered in Chrome (on either Win or OSX). Damn thing keeps falling down on large-ish files (I don't have extensions other than 1password). Firefox and IE handle them well (but I would never use IE to browse anything but our intranet).

Chrome is great, but I use it despite the performance.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera's dead, Jim.

Nope, Opera's having a heart transplant because web developers are fucking idiots never learning the lesson until it is too late.

Re:Still exists?

[x_t0ken_407]

Chrome is built on good technology, but since it is proprietary closed source I prefer Firefox.

Use chromium? I don't think I've ever actually used Chrome itself. Chromium is the open source version with the "phone home" crap stripped out.

Re:Still exists?

[x_t0ken_407]

Exactly. In fact I'm surprised people DO use Chrome when there's a perfectly suitable, upstream, open source version of it to be had.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are not using Chromium since there is no H.264/MP3 codec and PDF viewer.

Re:Still exists?

[bjwest]

Biggest annoyance keeping me from using Chrome more is the lack of a clear address bar plug-in. Linux has this wonderful feature of being able to highlight something then middle clicking to past it. Takes a couple of clicks away from a cut-n-paste action and is real easy to do while surfing around. Without a way to clear the address bar, this is useless. I've been using Linux for over 15 years, don't remember when it was introduced but I've become so accustomed to it, I really can't do without it.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome is a virus that attaches itself to various other useful programs and hopes that you don't notice the "install Chrome, too" box is checked by default when you are doing something like updating java. It makes itself your default web software without asking. And then when you try to uninstall it, you are left with cruft that breaks how Firefox behaves, like getting an obscure error text about some missing or undefined variable in line X of something displayed instead of a simple 404 failure report.

It managed to weasel its way onto a laptop I administer because apparently it attached itself to something useful that I allowed a user to install. I fired it up to see how it did at browsing the web and the first thing it did was demand that I log into the google cloud using a gmail account. That's before I even tried to load any web pages with it. Why do I need to HAVE a cloud account just to use a web browser, much less be forced to log into it before I am allowed to go anywhere?

If you are too incompetent to read what installers say and uncheck the "Install Chrome" and/or "Make Chrome My Default Browser" options, then you are simply an incompetent user. I'm not saying that I like Chrome doing this (I've literally never seen it with Chrome, but do see it all the time with things like McAfee), but it's not hard to READ options and uncheck things. I do it all the time, never have I had something install software I didn't ask for. It's that simple.

Additionally, you don't HAVE to have a cloud account. It's an option, which if you (once again) READ. There is a link in the middle of the freaking start page which says "Skip Google Sign In For Now". It will never ask again until you login manually through the preferences.

All in all, your problem is simply your own laziness. Just look at the screen and read the words, and your problems will go away...

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope that does not mean the same thing as it usually means:

0-day bug exploited in the wild;
after 1 days mainline firefox gets a fix
after 2 days esr fix is there too
after 1 month frontmotion has that fix
after 4 months your organization starts testing it
after 6 months it gets forgotten because of company reorganization
after 2 years an unrelated frontmotion ff upgrade gets installed.

Meanwhile the goal of keeping it vulnerable 100% of time as an excuse for plausible deniability for whatever the higher-ups do is achieved.

Re:Still exists?

[RocketRabbit]

Firefox gets a big chink of money by sending your traffic to Google. They're in on the marketing thing.

In this sense, Safari is no worse than Firefox.

Re:Still exists?

[renoX]

> Performance? Try loading even a 15MB XML file with moderate hierarchy to be rendered in Chrome

Probably because very few users care about this "use case".
For all the other "normal" use case, Chrome feels much faster than Firefox (but use also more memory now).

Re:Still exists?

[serviscope_minor]

I've been using Linux for over 15 years, don't remember when it was introduced but I've become so accustomed to it, I really can't do without it.

It was never introduced to linux, at least not in the way you're thinking. It's been a feature of X11 since very early on. Multiple clipboards (selections in X11 parlence) have always been a feature of X11 (i.e. since 1987--I don't know if earlier versions of X had such a feature). The convention of having one short lived and one longer lived clipboard (PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD) was codified in the ICCCM. Version 1.0 came out in 1988, and while I can't find this version, I believe that the copy/paste protocol was codified in that version.

Therefore Linux supported this as soon as X11 implemented as XFree86 (as it was then--or was it still X386 at that stage?) was ported to Linux.

TL;DR, it predates Linux by probably 4 years or so, but the relevant software was ported early on.

Re:Still exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Is there any real reason to use Firefox any more?

Noscript.

Thanks for playing.

Re:Still exists?

[gottabeme]

Meanwhile, some of us run other programs at the same time as the browser, and when the browser starts using gigs of memory and filling up swap, it's not a good thing. It's almost unbelievable how much more memory Chrome uses than Firefox--just run htop and look at all the chrome processes using tens and hundreds of megs. It adds up quickly, and that's not even counting JS memory leaks. Firefox uses less memory, and Mozilla is making a concerted and public effort to reduce memory usage (e.g. areweslimyet).

And I haven't even mentioned Pentadactyl yet...

Re:Still exists?

[gottabeme]

BTW, you can disable the delayed image decoding quite simply in about:config.

Does not exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no 19th Firefox.

Still no TLS1.1 / TLS 1.2 support.

[Aethedor]

I want to be able to download my PDF's securely!!

Re:Still no TLS1.1 / TLS 1.2 support.

[Lennie]

The technical bits of 1.1 are availaible in the NSS-library (the library created by Netscape at the time I believe and now developed by the people who develop Firefox).

The technical bits for 1.2 exists too, but I don't know if they still need more core, I believe they are under review.

The Firefox parts are almost there:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=733647&hide_resolved=1

The problem is really with all the webservers which still don't properly work with it.

Which forces a new TCP-connection with 1.0 (which means adding the 1.1 or 1.2 is probably useless if an active attacker can mess with your traffic and force fallback to an older protocol).

Still no way to get to the recovery key.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to setup sync->pair a device->don't have it with me and you'll get a login box and a text that states: "You can get a copy of your Recovery Key by going to Sync Options on your other device, and selecting "My Recovery Key" under "Manage Account".". These are LIES. That option menu does not exist on the android version.

But hey, I'm glad someone implemented a fucking PDF viewer, I'm sure that'll come in handy when I manage to get my bookmarks OUT OF THIS FUCKING DEVICE.

PS. The official solution is to install the 'copy-profile' add-on, dump profile to (in the case of the nexus 7) the simulated sdcard, then use the android development kit to back up that memory, then use a tool to mount up the sqlite database and....

Re:Still no way to get to the recovery key.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you already have the "FUCKING DEVICE" with you, why do you need the recovery key to sync?

Now all they need to add

[Anonymous Coward]

is built-in Java!

Re:Now all they need to add

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla is working on something callled "asm.js". So soon it will theoretically possible to port the JVM to Javascript.

Re:Now all they need to add

[lister king of smeg]

thats eeevil.

Page Numbers

[Brucelet]

Can it jump to page and display page numbers, or does it mimic Chrome in ignoring this frustratingly obvious functionality?

Re:Page Numbers

[oji-sama]

Yes, it displays page numbers and supports jumping. Also includes buttons for moving a page up or down (left and right keys work as shortcuts)

Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[tepples]

We banned it from our company after waiting years for various memory leaks to be fixed.

That was fixed. The Firefox memory heap is now divided into "compartments", and Firefox 15 changed memory management to be more aggressive at purging compartments associated with closed pages.

Re:Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[Anonymous Coward]

That was fixed. The Firefox memory heap is now divided into "compartments"

So why does firefox.exe on my computer regularly swell to 900 megabytes or more?

Re:Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Without further qualification about your usage habit and the computer's environment, nobody can saying anything definitively.

Re:Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[RocketRabbit]

*ONE* memory leak was kind of fixed. There are others, and Firefox is the fattest browser on the market at this time.

Re:Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[Ginger Unicorn]

After some cursory googling around, I can only find benchmarks showing firefox using significantly less ram than other browsers. A couple of examples.

Re:Zombie compartments, four versions ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't pull things out of your ass, they fixed dozens of memory leaks: https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/category/memshrink/

I hate PDF readers, embedding suckssssss

[AbRASiON]

Just let me damn well download the files, never open in a tab and render it.
Yes I know you can set this option but I use 3 damned PC's - and FF updates regularly (or dies and I need to do a clean profile) I'm sick of adjusting things to make things work properly.

Like the ridiculous copy and paste http:/// bug - they strip it from the URL (breaking bloody standards) and I copy and paste it elsewhere. 95% of the time it auto-adds the http:/// as it should, however 5% of the time it doesn't and it's frustrating (because it should never be removed in the damned first place!)

Re:I hate PDF readers, embedding suckssssss

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy AbRASiON,

hiding the protocol display is controlled by a pref. you can disable the darned "feature" by setting ...
browser.urlbar.trimURLs ... to FALSE.

take care,
lee

Re:I hate PDF readers, embedding suckssssss

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's a waste of time to repeat what a million others have said already but what the hell...

We don't want to SET ANY DAMN PREFS.

We want software that behaves in as simple a manner as possible after installation. If we want advanced features, then we can go change the friggin prefs.

NO OPT-OUT, OPT-IN ALWAYS.

Re:I hate PDF readers, embedding suckssssss

[AbRASiON]

Indeed it is, I know it can be disabled.
It should NOT be disabled by default, as it's stupid and frustrating and broken to boot.

Thanks.

How does it compare to acrobat?

[mark-t]

I use Acrobat for Linux because it's the only pdf reader I've ever seen that actually works correctly with pdf layers, which is very nice when used with map PDF's, because you can choose which features you want to see on the map.

Re:How does it compare to acrobat?

[kthreadd]

It is supported and will be patched if there are any vulnerabilities discovered. Adobe Acrobat for Linux was discontinued some time ago and no longer receives patches, and should therefore no longer be used.

Re:How does it compare to acrobat?

[mark-t]

Actually, no....

I just tried Firefox 19 with one of the many pdfs that I have that use layers. I even picked a very simple one. It did not render it correctly *AT ALL*.

Acrobat still remains the only workable option... unsupported or not.

Re:How does it compare to acrobat?

[kthreadd]

Well, then you have to use Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X because Acrobat for Linux is simply a no-option anymore. It's basically one big security risk that will never be fixed.

Re:How does it compare to acrobat?

[mark-t]

Well, it's not a "no option"... it's just not a preferred option. Acrobat 9 still has a native 32-bit Linux release. Its the 32-bit aspect that I don't care for, more than the security risks (practically all of which wouldn't even be applicable to me anyways, since most of the pdf attack vectors only affect windows, and the kinds of documents that I would need a pdf reader with layers for anyways typically wouldn't have such malware bundled into it, because I know where they originate from, and I do not download them from an unauthorized source.

My point remains. It would be nice if somebody one of the many other pdf readers for Linux did support pdf layers... a feature that has been part of the PDF spec for about 10 years now.

Can I disable it, and use my own?

[runeghost]

Or is the Firefox dev team still sure that they know better than I do, so that shouldn't be an option?

Re:Can I disable it, and use my own?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is the Firefox dev team still sure that they know better than I do, so that shouldn't be an option?

Yes, you can switch from the built-in PDF viewer to any other PDF viewer. Options -> Applications -> pdf ...

Re:Can I disable it, and use my own?

[egr]

Or is the Firefox dev team still sure that they know better than I do, so that shouldn't be an option?

Since when did Firefox team ever removed possibility to disable something? As far as I know, Firefox is one of the most flexible browsers out there.

You mean like Adobe Reader?

[SIGBUS]

Is any PDF plugin secure? Certainly there have been a hell of a lot of exploits targeted at Adobe Reader over the years...

RequestPolicy

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever someone mentions NoScript they should also mention RequestPolicy. Try RequestPolicy for yourself and see it block all the stuff that NoScript is letting through.

Regarding NoScript, I just wanted to add that RequestPolicy is to be used in addition to NoScript.

Lean and mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure am glad they got rid of that horrible bleatware that was Netscape in order to make Firefox the simplest browser possible! Can you imagine if they had just kept piling on feature after redundant feature forever?

Built-in PDF Safer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does PDF.js run in as untrusted javascript, or is it trusted?

If untrusted, then this is a huge win for security, as the javascript sandbox offers an additional layer of protection against PDF viewer flaws.

Great, more bloat

[xiando]

My 800 MHz ARM Android phone can't even run Firefox because of it's resource requirements (I'm glad there's Dolphin) and it's getting bigger and slower, not faster and learner, on my desktop. I'd rather see JavaScript speeds improvements and fat cutting. There's plenty of good external programs for opening PDF files already (okular, evince, etc), the browser does not need to open PDF files itself any more than it needs to open OpenDocument spreadsheets.

Re:Great, more bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly Firefox is the best damn browser I've used on my tablet (Android 2.2). Gave more than 10 browsers a try before I settled on Firefox. Dolphin in particular likes to reformat image placement which breaks the layout on any website that doesn't use a very strict style sheet. Pretty much none of the other browsers could handle normal browsing in "desktop" views, they choked hard on websites like youtube that I had a lot of forced power downs.

The main thing that makes Firefox so much better on tablet. You can use the same add-ons you can use on PC. Which enables things like flashblock, adblock, noscript, and requestpolicy to cut out the heavy unnecessary parts of the internet.

Re:Great, more bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very probably not the hardware requirements, as in "performance requirement", but the CPU family (official FF requires ARMv7 but there's an experimental version for ARMv6 that used to work wonderfully in a low-end LG phone).

Re:Great, more bloat

[egr]

I've had an opposite experience to yours. Dolphin and inbuilt Android browser both are freaking out on javascript heavy pages, like the google's own pages are nowadays, while Firefox just works. No random crashes, hang-ups, and the page doesn't jump around like a crackhead, when filling out forms.

Re:Great, more bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

My 800 MHz ARM Android phone can't even run Firefox because of it's resource requirements [...]

From the Firefox 19 Mobile release notes:

Change: Lowered minimum CPU requirement to 600MHz

Re:Great, more bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

It works well enough on my cheapo no-name Chinese phone with a 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM. Maybe it isn't as fast as some other Android browsers (UC Browser is the other browser I use), but it does work better so I use it more often than not.

They also have recently overhauled the Javascript engine and the new supposedly faster engine when into Firefox 18, I say supposedly faster because I haven't benchmarked it, or even done informal tests to see if it is, but it at least doesn't seem slower. you can't expect them to make significant speed improvements in every version, especially not with a 6 week release cycle.

People Print?

[threeboy]

I want a "Save as PDF to Skydrive*" function. * replace Skydrive with Google Drive, DropBox, Box.net, etc, etc, any other cloud service you want.

And how many vulns didthey reintroduce?

[Anonymous Coward]

PDF seems to be extrememly difficult to get right - just look at all the existing PDF viewers out there and all the holes thy have. I wonder how many vulns were reintroduced, with his new reinvention of the wheel.

I'm surprised more people here don't use Chromium

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you turn off Autoscroll?

When you can answer that question I might try it again

How many "With Built-In PDF Viewer" headlines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could somebody dig up all the slashdot posting headlines about firefox readers "With Built-In PDF Viewer" for me? I think there have been at least eight of them, with none to date actually having that stuff enabled by default.

You want an apology?

[Gordo_1]

They should apologize to you for what, pray tell? For updating their *free* web browser more often than you'd like?

Rather than ranting, why don't you go here if the update schedule is keeping you up at night:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.htm

Its quite amusing.....

[tanveer1979]

That people are commenting on firefox 19.
Since this is slashdot, I kind of expected everybody to be on firefox 20+ (Aurora channel) or atleast the Beta channel.
However, this does not appear to be the case.
Since I have always been on Aurora channel, let me tell you, this PDF viewer does not impact performance at all.
As for print to PDF, on windows you need cutepdf writer sort of software.
Linux you can print to file(PDF) no issues. Or if you want, you can print to ps.
That said, Firefox 20+ is significantly faster than 19. I don't know what they did in 20, but when Aurora went over to 20+, the speed was like at par with chrome.
I have stopped using chrome now, and use it very rarely.
BTW I am on
20.0a2 (2013-01-18)

Re:Its quite amusing.....

[tehcyder]

That people are commenting on firefox 19.

Since this is slashdot, I kind of expected everybody to be on firefox 20+ (Aurora channel) or atleast the Beta channel.

Why? It's a fucking web browser, not a fantastic new game. Not everybody regards updating software as their main pleasure in life.

Big mama

[Anonymous Coward]

Eek, even fatter than before. What exactly are those people thinking, messing with software that aren't their business... and what next? A word processor? A flight simulator?

If that's not the final move that pushes the few remaining fans to adopt Chrome, I don't know what is. I don't want this always-updating, always-bigger and resource-eating mess of a plumbing that Firefox has become.

Re:Big mama

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome has a pdf reader built-in...

random freezing

[SkunkPussy]

That's great but does firefox still randomly freeze if you have more than a few tabs?

WTF ?

[TractorBarry]

So Firefox, the browser that was supposed to "take back the web" and offer a slimmed down, secure, fast browsing experience is now going to further bloat itself up by incoporating the known security nightmare of PDF.

Mozilla = Plot well and truly lost.

Already on 21, no emacs :(

[ryzvonusef]

21.0a1 (2013-02-19)

Meh, liked nano anyway.

On topic: I don't mind features, but I hate it when the clash with other features or they create unnecessary bloat and I can't shut them down. Case in point: I love Opera, and it's my daily browser, but I can't help but feel it slow down on 10+ tabs, there is a certain noticeable drag, and I can't pin it down!

(Separate note, nightly broke flashbroke a few daily updates ago, pisses me to no end, wonder what happened)

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess it would matter to me if I used Firefox but it is way to bloated anymore. I like quick loads (so long as they load pages correctly) so Chrome it is for me. I mention Chrome and Firefox (and Windows 8) because why is it everybody thinks they need to build in a pdf viewer now? I actually like the Adobe reader product... so I end up blasting settings away until I can get it to come back. Otherwise I end up with whatever bugs or featureless issues the dummy reader has. This has become the "look at what I can do!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyvbFMGmImg

PDF Viewer

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have a SEARCH function. How stupid is that? Get rid of this garbage. It sucks.

It's not just browsers either.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed debian on a pentium era computer (since I needed dialup access and only had one external modem. Was the latest working system I had with an ISA port for an internal modem card.)

Long story short, it took forever to install, even the text console is sluggish now (debian defaults to framebuffer mode regardless of the hardware it's running on.), it required 500-1 gigabyte of disk space just to install prerequisites for ppp/minicom/wvdial, and it balked at having less than 72 megs of ram for the installer (Thankfully it didn't crash as a result.)

Additionally though, whether due to the i486 legacy kernel, or just glitches in the ppp daemon, it occasionally and randomly throws kernel errors and stack traces upon either modem disconnect or ppp disconnect, falling into an unreadable stack trace loop.

I would just blame it on linux, but I tried netbsd prior to it, and it has basically all of the same limitations now. Default to framebuffer regardless of the graphics in use, slow on 'legacy' hardware, no support for i486, etc.

It seems almost like all the old-guard developers have hung up their hats, because previously the level of feature creep endemic in the current generation of open source software would've never been tolerated, and would've mostly likely resulted in an epithet against microsoft regarding bloat (Of which linux is rapidly approaching the level of the current generation of microsoft products.)

I dropped NoScript in Firefox for

[Anonymous Coward]

User-defined Content Security Policy

Slooooow

[DirePickle]

In the /. story where this was announced, I complained about how terrible a browser-based javascript-written pdf-viewer would be. And lo and behold! It is slow as hell. Ugh, painful.