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Firefox 24 Arrives: WebRTC Support and NFC Sharing On Android
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 24 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Improvements include a new option to mass close tabs 'to the right,' as well as WebRTC support and NFC sharing on Android. Firefox 24 has now been released over on Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. Compared to Firefox 23, this isn’t a big release for the desktop. Mac users will notice a new scrollbar style on OS X 10.7 and users of the browsers social features will appreciate the ability to tear-off chat windows by just dragging (full release notes: desktop, mobile)."
It can make my first post faster?
What features did they now remove in the name of dumbing down the user interface for mentally challenged user group? Address bar? Right mouse button context menu? Bookmarks?
I just upgraded to 24, and I see the same cookie controls it always had.
I think blocking cookies is turned off by default in the new version, but that's not the same as "hiding controls". If you upgrade, your settings should be the same as before. Mine are.
So my Chromecast will work now?
sweet.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
security patches are not in the xx product naming cycle.
honestly though I have no fucking idea how many major versions there are between 3.6 and 24.
oh and to get bitch and moan karma you must log in. even if you're posting bitchings and whatever you can still easily maintain a steady excellent karma rating as long as you every so often post something someone agrees with or finds interesting..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I think peer sharing via the browser is a wonderful idea. I've been waiting for something like this for a long time.
Can't you morons just display the scrollbar in the normal default style the OS is giving you? That's what I hate about Firefox, it looks like an ugly Windows program on every OS.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Pale Moon is a Firefox variant that largely keeps a traditional browser layout and has the latest security patches. It works with the few plugins I use, including NoScript.
Whether you run Fx 3.6 or Fx 36, PrefBar is your friend. Single-click radio buttons to turn on/off Javashit, images, cookies, etc.
That said... WebRTC: "Capture camera or microphone streams directly from Firefox Android using only JavaScript (a feature we know developers have been wanting for a while!)" And NFC speaks for itself in terms of the possibilities for exploits.
Yeah, web developers may want that, but I sure as fuck don't. Is anyone maintaining a complete list of "all the shit that's been added since 3.x that needs to be turned off in about:config or needs an extension like Status4Evar to turn back on?"
Because that list just got a little bit bigger today.
I just restarted Firefox, because after using 2 gigabytes on my 16-gigabyte system it started flashing black when switching windows in a way that predicts an imminent crash.
Would you please switch to 64-bit already? It's the year 2013, no one who uses the newest Firefox has a 32-bit system anymore, and it's not possible in practice to fix crashes due to running out of memory in C/C++.
Also, has the issue with switching to another window when a page using Flash is opened been fixed? I doubt that.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Ahh, the Firefox user equivalent to the IE user still using IE 6. We (the web dev community, in general) are going to leave you behind, so don't complain if things don't work right.
If you hold down on the thumbnails the option to pin the site is there so that it always shows when opening firefox. Simply pin down 6 sites you don't mind displaying at startup. Also, there is an addon called clean quit that can be set to clear out history, cookies and such when you choose it as an option to exit the browser.
"But privacy!" The last time I checked the spec, WebRTC required the user to click to activate the camera.
"But I don't see any compelling use for connecting my device's camera to a web site." Without WebRTC, how do you expect to be able to scan a barcode in order to submit a product's UPC or EAN to the product search web site that you are using? Without WebRTC, how would you make a video chat site without having to write a separate application for each PC operating system or mobile or set-top platform and get it approved by each platform's gatekeeper?
Looked thru it a bit, and found that cookie control shows up when you select: Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Use custom setting for history.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Oooh, web monkeys scare me. :)
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Perhaps system-level controls have more overhead than application-drawn controls. Consider the "system resources" in Windows 3.1 and Windows 9x. All applications shared a single 65536 byte GDI heap and a single 65536 byte USER heap. Each system-level control, such as a window or a scrollbar, used up space in the GDI heap. One advantage of NetCaptor's tabbed browsing in the Windows 9x days was the ability to keep more pages open without taking up a whole window's worth of GDI heap space. Fortunately, this shared heap wasn't present in 32-bit applications for Windows NT, and once Windows XP displaced Windows 9x, there wasn't much of a problem anymore. I don't think OS X has precisely this concept of "system resources", but it may still impose overhead for each scrollbar, or it may impose overhead when CSS changes a particular box between scrollable and not scrollable.
Linux x86_64, Linux, Netscape, Mozilla/5.0 X11; Linux x86_64; rv:26.0 Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0 ..
Firefox Nightly 26.0a1 (64-bit)
Oooh, web monkeys scare me. :)
It's not a threat, I'm just saying that the industry can't keep supporting Model Ts on the Information Superhighway. Things will start to break (if they aren't already). I think Firefox 18 is probably the oldest version of FF I'd use at this point, if I were a general user.
Well, I'm on OS X here, and all the controls are in the same place they always were, and they've always worked fine for me.
If you're on Windows, YMMV. I seldom use Windows anymore.
no one who uses the newest Firefox has a 32-bit system anymore
"No one" is strong language. Netbooks tended to be 32-bit because (due to Windows license pricing) they shipped with less than 4 GB of RAM. Though netbooks are discontinued, some are still in operation, and several tablet PCs have similar specs. Besides:
a page using Flash
Do you expect to be able to use a 32-bit Flash Player inside a 64-bit browser? Furthermore, I limit Firefox's memory footprint on my machine by using Flashblock to control sites' access to Flash Player.
3.6 has a status bar, and a real status bar at that. As opposed to the always-present extension bar add-on, I see status messages in the status bar and not above it intruding into page space.
I also have a real back and forward button, as well as an arrow I can click if I want to see my backwards or forwards history. I don't need to hold anything down if all I want is to go back three pages, or go forward to the most recent one from five pages back.
I regularly using 17 and 23 in different environments. The only thing I like about the newer versons is that the URL is under the tabs and not above it (but for some reason, search is also under the tabs even though it is not tab-specific).
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This is different from the browser history how?
If you want your browsing to stay private, use "Private Browsing". It's right in the name!
Son, Google Play Services runs as root. If they want your Firefox browsing history, they can get it easily.
I think he's more miffed by the fact that they have no 'disable history' or 'automatically clear history when firefox closes' options on the mobile version, as they do on the desktop version. Thus your 'Top Sites' page is spammed with all your incidental browsing history, unless you remember to manually clear your history each time you close the mobile browser...
That being said, he should really take a look at Clean Quit. It adds a quick-exit option to your popup toolbar on FF mobile, and (the most important part) it automatically clears whichever privacy settings you select if you exit via that button. That way, your 'Top Sites' page is only populated by your bookmarked sites, not by every little address search, imdb query or wikipedia article you happened to have browsed over the last few days...seems to work pretty well so far :)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I'm just saying that the industry can't keep supporting Model Ts on the Information Superhighway.
I understand and generally agree with your comment, but new and/or trendy doesn't always mean "better", even if the Firefox developers want it to and/or think it does.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I'm just saying that the industry can't keep supporting Model Ts on the Information Superhighway.
I understand and generally agree with your comment, but new and/or trendy doesn't always mean "better", even if the Firefox developers want it to and/or think it does.
"New and/or trendy"? Implementing support for updated web standards is not the same as being 'trendy', and that's what the concern here is. Ignore the trendy nonsense as you will, but you really WANT support for web standards.
In fairness, Firefox version numbers have become meaningless to many of us over the last few years unless you pay really close attention.
I'm apparently running 9.0.1, but when I tell it to apply it's update it just restarts and doesn't actually do anything and leaves me with the exact same "Apply update" button in the help > about.
So I have no idea of what version I'm running in relation to anything else, don't seem to get updates when I tell it to, and have no trust in a piece of software which auto-updates itself quietly behind the scenes and do not want that.
So if the goal was to make something less confusing and easier to use and keep track of ... from my perspective, that's not working well at all.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In fairness, Firefox version numbers have become meaningless to many of us over the last few years unless you pay really close attention.
I'm apparently running 9.0.1, but when I tell it to apply it's update it just restarts and doesn't actually do anything and leaves me with the exact same "Apply update" button in the help > about.
So I have no idea of what version I'm running in relation to anything else, don't seem to get updates when I tell it to, and have no trust in a piece of software which auto-updates itself quietly behind the scenes and do not want that.
So if the goal was to make something less confusing and easier to use and keep track of ... from my perspective, that's not working well at all.
You're never, ever, going to get me to fight on the side of Firefox on that kind of thing. :)
My only concern is people deliberately not keeping up with the times; it harms everyone. IE 6 held those of us in the industry back for FAR too long; we're just now beginning to catch up in being able to implement modern web standards. We just dropped IE 7 support at work a month ago. *sigh*
Feel free to use Chrome if you want.
"I'm on Windows... I paid less for things to work fine for me. *shrugs* But hey, if cost is less important to you, you keep rocking that."
Actually, since I'm a developer, I have justification for getting the upper-end hardware anyway, and if you're going to do that, the cost differential between Mac and PC is actually pretty small. Review after review after review have been saying the same thing for years: "For the same level of hardware, Macs are only slightly more expensive."
But there's quite a bit more to it: Mac gives you native access to the *nix command line, and it is easier to run Windows in a VM on OS X than it is to run OS X on a VM in Windows.
So from my point of view, it is the most flexible option, too.
LOL, but now I still need to figure out how the hell to upgrade from 9.0.1, which seems to be proving quite annoying. The built in mechanism seems useless.
Well, at this precise moment I'm running Firefox, Chrome and Safari all at the same time -- which is pretty much my standard configuration as I use them for different web presences and because Safari has incompetently implemented 3rd party cookie blocking. As in, there isn't actually any 3rd party cookie blocking in Safari.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Looks like several more important bugfixes.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
LOL, but now I still need to figure out how the hell to upgrade from 9.0.1, which seems to be proving quite annoying. The built in mechanism seems useless.
It's most likely a corrupted profile. I heard they were working on a profile cleaner feature, but I don't know if it ever got released or not. I'd backup your Firefox with MozBackup, then run the standalone installer and hope it fixes it. If not, reinstall the old version and restore via MozBackup.
"I won't be downloading any new versions of Firefox--nor will I enable automatic updates--until they fix the danged memory leaks that have been present since they began their whirlwind upgrade cycle with FF 4.0. Chrome is a handy replacement for what used to be a reliable friend--Firefox."
Oh man, as someone that hung onto 3.62 forever I can feel your pain, but Chrome? That thing is so creepy I couldnt keep it installed for a week.
I have found that the Firefox ESR with a LOT of customisation, including downloading extensions to fix some of the breakage, is the best option out there for me. Firefox "17" with bugfixes but no feature additions seems reasonably stable and has no noticeable memory leaks for me. If they are happening on the order of hours the best solution may be the fast restart extension.
Still eagerly awaiting a sane fork of firefox. I would be happy to pitch in some but I am far from capable of coding or funding it without lots of others onboard.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
And somehow we geeks expect people like our parents and non-technical people to be able to navigate this kind of thing.
I maintain mission-critical enterprise software, and that sounds like a pain in the ass to me. Your average user is going to have no frigging idea what any of that means and give up and go back to IE.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But what about the flagrant memory usage? Before posting this I closed all windows and noted that Firefox was eating 1015 MB of RAM (and 36 threads, hopefully idle) to just sit there and do NOT ONE GOD DAMNED THING AT ALL.
Signature intentionally left blank.
I remember back in the day FF was a small footprint, fast browser, then it got bloated taking up huge amounts of memory, rendering slowly , and coming out with a ridiculous release cycle that killed any corporate backing it had. I cant think of any of my clients that use FF. Sorry but FF is going to have some major performance improvements to win the masses back.
And somehow we geeks expect people like our parents and non-technical people to be able to navigate this kind of thing.
I maintain mission-critical enterprise software, and that sounds like a pain in the ass to me. Your average user is going to have no frigging idea what any of that means and give up and go back to IE.
Yup.
Thank you for some solace and good ideas, friend. Yes, Chrome is creepy too. I will explore your suggestions. Thank you and wishing you up mods!
Generally it's for 'almost' the same hardware this is proven. I have found when doing my purchases that I could get sufficiently better hardware for the same price though, which is probably where people find this to be the case.
I have repeatedly over the years found this to the case.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"I have repeatedly over the years found this to the case."
I think I'll keep going with the respected industry reviewers.
But also, as I stated earlier, hardware is not the only issue. In many ways OS X is simply a superior OS. Now, if only they would adopt a modern filesystem...
Besides, I can't help but notice that Chrome is somehow managing to keep working with 100+ open tabs day after day
That's because Chrome runs each tab in a separate process. It's far less likely for a single tab to top 1 GB than it is for all tabs put together to top 1 GB, reducing the need for a 64-bit binary. Firefox is working toward this model; search Bugzilla for "electrolysis" to find related bugs.
in a freaking phone.
I've noticed that if I have more than about three tabs open in Chrome or Firefox for Android, switching to another tab may cause the page to reload if it's been kicked out of memory. This "forgetting" interferes with the offline use case of opening a bunch of pages in tabs, going offline, and reading each page, and it interferes with pages that have forms on them.
I won't be downloading any new versions of Firefox--nor will I enable automatic updates--until they fix the danged memory leaks that have been present since they began their whirlwind upgrade cycle with FF 4.0.
What memory leaks? If you've found new ones, have you reported them? Significant progress has been made in Firefox's memory usage in the last three years. Do you read the memshrink progress reports? If you don't, maybe you should.
Chrome is a handy replacement for what used to be a reliable friend--Firefox.
Surely you realise that Chrome uses more memory than Firefox. Look at a comparison of browser memory usage with a single tab open and multiple tabs open. If you're happy with Chrome's memory usage, you'll be happy with any browser's memory usage.
This link should help you out. Just download the latest version and install it over the top of your current version. It will upgrade your current install.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/#desktop
Yes, I have had a currently open bug with FF21.0--that got worse with 22.0. I have been fully co-operative and helpful for months as they work to resolve it. I uploaded memory dumps of before and after. In the after state it was taking 2GB of RAM after TWO minutes. And I and the other watchers of the bug I opened at Mozilla will dispute your contention that Chrome uses more memory. Simply not true! Chrome with its process-per-tab manages memory much better than FF does. As I said, this bug has been validated by DEVs at Mozilla and they have admitted my use case exposes a valid problem that they themselves have been able to replicate. Next troll?
You see the cookie options if you choose "Custom" for the "History" settings. The default of "Remember History" enables cookies and hides the option to separately disable them.
3.6 has a status bar, and a real status bar at that. As opposed to the always-present extension bar add-on, I see status messages in the status bar and not above it intruding into page space.
I also have a real back and forward button, as well as an arrow I can click if I want to see my backwards or forwards history. I don't need to hold anything down if all I want is to go back three pages, or go forward to the most recent one from five pages back.
I regularly using 17 and 23 in different environments. The only thing I like about the newer versons is that the URL is under the tabs and not above it (but for some reason, search is also under the tabs even though it is not tab-specific).
Right click on the back/forward button shows history. It looks like a timeline, and It will tell you how many pages are in front of you, and how many are behind. I like it. As for status bar, I used to be like you, bothered that the pop up is blocking the page content. But then I realized when I see the pop-up, I don't really want to see the content, and when I move away the mouse, the pop up is gone
Yes, I have had a currently open bug with FF21.0--that got worse with 22.0.
Where's the bug? Link to it.
And I and the other watchers of the bug I opened at Mozilla will dispute your contention that Chrome uses more memory. Simply not true!
Did you not look at the memory usage charts from Tom's Hardware? Chrome uses more memory than other browsers. This has been my consistent experience as well as Tom's Hardware's as well as most everyone's. Look at another memory usage chart from Tom's. They use Chrome's memory usage tool to measure it. Even Google disagrees with you.
Here is the bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=896016
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=896016
Whether Chrome temporarily uses more RAM is not the point. I have never seen Chrome get into a runaway 2-3GB memory leak like so frequently happens to FF https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=896016
NFC is kinda pointless until the iPhone supports it. There isn't a single large company that'll move until then. I can't tell you the let down it was when the iPhone 5 didn't have it. As near as I can tell the problem is iPhone users have lots of money and they spend it, so they're a required demographic for any major push forward.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"What are these "many" ways? Are they only superior in your opinion, or only in your particular use cases? Because I almost never people able to give me specifics on why OSX is superior to other OSes unless it's just a specific piece of software or some feature that only a few people would ever care about. If that's the case, Windows and Linux are just as "superior", not to mention other operating systems nobody ever tries because the mainstream OSes are so damn "superior.""
Are you arguing with me just for the sake of arguing with me?
As far as YOU are concerned, it is my opinion, about my own use-case. I don't feel like going into further detail at this time.
It's very distressing to see Mozilla has added "social media" and chat code into Firefox. We're right back to Netscape Communicator again. Firefox was created to get away from all that bloat. There's no reason for a web browser to have a chat and social media clients grafted onto it. Speaking of bloat, I'm using Firefox 23 right now on OS X; I have one tab open and it's gobbled up half a gig of RAM. Half a gig.
I think it's past time we nuke the thing from orbit and start over.
Did they fix Vine video playback without us resorting to hacking around in about:config or downgrading our systems to XP? Apparently it worked in v21 and earlier but then they changed something in how they interpreted the media tag or something. Vine's play in all other browsers just fine.
Whatever floats your boat.
And in other ways, it's inferior, take for example their POSIX support. Despite having UNIX certification, it doesn't follow the specification as it should because the testing performed to get the certification didn't try everything. One example of this is that OS X requires you to fork() and exec() when it cannot guarantee you that the libraries you are using are async-signal-safe. It cannot guarantee your code can be forked even in a signal handler at any time and this is what the POSIX standard demands. So when you try to port an application that does is trying to fork() without exec() and attempt to use it, which is permitted in POSIX standards, OS X cannot guarantee that the libraries in use are 'async-signal-safe', and so it crashes the thread.
There is a reason why MacPorts, Darwin ports etc. have so many unstable applications.
Here is the funny bit, even Windows' POSIX support is more compliant and "just works" than OS X.
In case you're wondering: Apple took my defect reports and did nothing. The open group gave me a response that OS X had already passed certification (so much for UNIX 03 Conformance Requirements).
I could also ramble on about OS X's POSIX threads, OpenGL support and graphic drivers, the C++ std libraries etc. but I think I have made my point that OS X has some fairly large glaring holes and really shouldn't be considered superior when it can't get the general basics right.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Snicker...yeah right. if you want to claim you like the design? fine, you want to claim that you like OSX enough to pay the hardware tax? Sure, why not. But you can go to Tigerdirect and get nicer hardware for less money so please don't try to sell us the "its a good value" BS, mmmkay? Not to mention that unlike you we actually have CHOICE, we can mix and match and get a machine designed around what WE need, not what Cupertino wants to push. Oh and as a final note I built TWO hexacores AND a quad for less than a single Apple tower, its much nicer to have the kids on their own gaming PCs than having them use mine.
As for TFA...anybody tried the Android version yet? How bad is it as far as storage and RAM goes? I tried Firefox a few weeks ago on my phone and found it to feel bloated and sluggish, worse than the built in Android browser and WAY worse than the Dolphin browser i'm using. With Android I'm constantly trying new apps so the thinner and lighter the better, so any hard numbers would be appreciated.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
How is it that any site is able to make an application manifest a memory leak?
If you have any experience as a software developer, you know applications should be bullet proof. They should not have a vulnerability sitting around, waiting for some site to hit the correct use case to manifest it. A bug is a bug and the particular site that causes that pre-existing bug to manifest itself is not relevant. There should be no use case that causes Firefox--a browser used by billions of people world wide--to throw a memory leak this bad.
Furthermore, if you went to Mozilla's site, you will see that I have only the best documented example of this bug. There are many other co-reporters of the same problem.
But in my long experience as a developer, whenever the author of some code starts to blame the victim, I know they have a bug that they do not want to acknowledge or fix. This is a memory leak and nothing at all can change that other than finding and fixing the bug. Do you think they would have accepted this as a bug--and taken the memory-usage maps of before and after memory consumption--unless it was a legitimate bug? No. This is real and the memory maps prove it.
howdy y'all,
i'm running ff23.0.1 and it's using 1/4 gig right now. i've been online for several hours, visited /., 9gag, reddit, mozillazine, bbc, etc. ... and still never more than an occasional blip up to a 1/2 gig. this is also a pretty tweaked profile with 50 [yes, really! [*grin*]] extensions.
folks who are seeing huge chunks of ram being used by firefox "while not doing anything" are seeing a _very_ different experience from mine. i always think of doing tech support ... "no! i didn't install anything new!" ... when i read things like those posts.
take care,
lee
A 2 year old "text inflation" bug (not really a bug, more like a horribly flawed feature) renders the Android version totally unusable for me. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=707195
Not in the slightest. The blame is given to the application that is consuming the memory. That would be the browser in this case or the application running on an OS in your second example.
This bug has manifested itself in both Windows and OS X, in my case. (And the code base is shared mostly for both so that rules out it being an OS problem.
To answer your essential question--yes--without question an application should be written to be bulletproof. There should be no use case possible that causes your application to eat up unlimited memory. That is a defect, pure and simple.
I defy you to make your argument in any boardroom across the United States. I can see you making a presentation to a board of executives, explaining how your application did this or that horrid thing because--it was the web page's fault. Do you know what they call engineers who make that argument? Unemployed.
As you can see from the bug report that I personally participated in creating, including providing before and after memory dumps, it's clear I am invested in getting this Firefox memory leak fixed. It is plaguing users across the globe. Read the complaints on Mozilla's forum.
As for your comment that I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill--Firefox has been documented to consume 3GB of RAM in about 10 minutes. Other users who had left it open and idle over night have seen the same result.
Finally, I am expressing my point of view forcefully because you are trying to poo-poo my concern. This is a serious show-stopping defect in the application Firefox and it needs to get fixed unless Firefox wants to die a slow painful death.
"Don't flatly say something's superior if you don't want to quantify it when you're challenged for your lack of insight."
And don't try to blame me for your rude manner of asking the question.
I repeat: as far as YOU are concerned (see that emphasis on YOU?), it is my opinion, about my use-case.
Maybe, if one day you learn to ask questions politely instead if insinuating some kind of misfeasance by the other party at ever turn, they might deign to actually answer you.
Until then, you don't deserve an answer.
I am not the only person suffering with this bug.
And it only makes sense for the owners of programs to fix them.
Finally, son, this is slashdot. If you can't handle the heat, run off to Reddit.
How amusing to have an Anonymous Coward telling me, a person who has used his real name for every single post, that I'm hiding behind Slashdot. Furthermore, on request I immediately posted the actual bug report I filed with Mozilla, thereby giving a second confirmation of my identity.
So, Anonymous Coward, I'm not sure what part of your hypocrisy I should focus on: that you are too scared to give your real name, that you challenged someone who was obviously speaking of a real issue that I have proven was a real issue, or that you can't deliver an intellectual argument without resorting to whimpering. I will leave it as an exercise for you to decide which of those factors are the best description of your opinions and unwillingness to come out of the shadows. But I do know that I will never cut any slack to you, an Anonymous Coward. Thank you for a laugh.