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Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the 30-is-over-the-hill dept.

Today Mozilla made Firefox 30 available, a relatively minor release after the massive redesign in version 29. According to the changelog, new features include VP9 video decoding, support for Opus in WebM, and horizontal volume control for HTML5 video and audio. Developers got support for multi-line flexboxes and hang reporting for background threads. There were also a number of security fixes. The Android version of Firefox received better support for native text selection, cutting, and copying, as well as predictive lookup for Awesomebar entries. The availability of Firefox 30 coincides with the launch of Firebug 2.0, which features an updated UI and a new debugging engine called JSD2. Significant new features include JavaScript syntax highlighting and de-minifying, improved code auto-complete, and the capability to hide or show individual Firebug panels.

16 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Please, please just stop... by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...with this rapid release schedule. Firefox is trying to update more often than Java nowadays.

    Run an unstable branch like everyone else, and run a testing/beta branch to become the next stable. It will make life a lot easier.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Please, please just stop... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...with this rapid release schedule. Firefox is trying to update more often than Java nowadays.

      For the most part I haven't minded, and for the most part, the changes have been appreciated.

      However, version 29 revamped the entire toolbar customization scheme. Which has caused problems. Not only did it force me to move my refresh button (which for many years I kept on the left where it belongs next to the other navigation buttons), but it also eliminated the "addon bar" (which was historically the "status bar" at the bottom). That change broke the interfaces of a couple of add-ons I use.

      Also, version 29 broke a web-crawling tool I use frequently. I got that fixed, but I should not have had to.

    2. Re:Please, please just stop... by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you don't like it, switch to the ESR channel.
      It's still based on Firefox 24, the next one wont be till FF 31. It's kept up to date in terms of security fixes for 9 mainstream releases.
      https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/...

    3. Re:Please, please just stop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They can call it whatever they want, it is still branches and FF copying Chrome in every aspect is not what is going to keep FF alive.

      First they copied Chrome's retarded versioning, now with FF 29, the default UI looks EXACTLY like Chrome.

      Firefox is run by a pack of retards. They need to clean house, starting with that epic dumbfuck Asa Dotzler.

    4. Re:Please, please just stop... by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More to the point, if I'm going to be stuck using a browser that looks exactly like Chrome, I may as well use Chrome.

      I'm basically using Firefox for historical reasons, ie, I'm lazy and I'm disinclined to change without a real need to do so. But I've been forced to change before, from Mosiac, from Netscape Navigator, from Netscape Communicator, and from Mozilla. What's another change?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Please, please just stop... by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most everyone is aware of the ESR. This is just a bandaid over the real problem. Chrome was designed from the very beginning with a rapid release schedule in mind. Release numbers in Chrome are essentially meaningless. Firefox adopted the same rapid release schedule as Chrome in a project that wasn't designed for it either technically or from a project management or project cultural perspective. Firefox gave addon developers the finger as they constantly broke extensions and themes. They carelessly spent valuable resources trying to make Firefox extensions less reliant on versions numbers, which only more badly broke legacy extensions, and rather than using resources to actually help extension authors, they wasted them on semi-automatic systems to catch non-compliant extensions and disable them. Which left users high and dry when they were forced to upgrade (lest they get left behind on security fixes) and lose functionality. More and more UI changes were forced on users, despite in some cases, clear majority opposition. Mozilla has consistently adopted a "we know best" attitude when it comes to what users want. And it shows, with marketshare stagnant. Google is still a major funder of Mozilla, and it's easy to see they think it money well invested. They make Chrome and then pay Mozilla to implode trying to slavishly copy their success.

      Who wants to go to an ESR that is a bandaid on a bad system? You just place yourself in the eye of the storm for a short time.

      No project can emulate another project and outcompete it. ESR's are not the answer. I personally have moved to PaleMoon. It too is based on a Firefox ESR, but at least they are committed to sane development and user-based UI decisions.

    6. Re:Please, please just stop... by JMJimmy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They always copy the interface of the most popular competition - that's how they got started remember? They want the interface to feel familiar when someone switches. It's what's under the surface which is different:

      http://www.diffen.com/differen... (slightly out of date)

      http://www.ghacks.net/2014/01/... - excellent analysis imo

      Most importantly Firefox is MPL vs Google ToS. That alone is worth it for me.

  2. Does it have that bullshit Firefox 29 theme? by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If yes then I'm still not using it. Palemoon all the way.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  3. And the layout? by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does it still require Classic Theme Restorer?

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  4. I wonder what version we'd actually be at... by TWX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...if they used sane version numbers?

    Probably something like 12.0.1...

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  5. Re:To infinity and beyond! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    -- For immediate release --

    Firefox version creates puzzle for physicists

    Firefox's rapid release schedule attained a new height yesterday when two consecutive Firefox versions were released 4*10^-44 seconds apart, less than the Planck time of 5*10^-44 seconds. "This should be physically impossible", said a prominent physicist, "this delay is too short for anything to happen, even at the subatomic level." Some skeptics speculated that the Firefox versions could have been designed in parallel and merely released 4*10^-44 seconds apart, but careful analysis of logs show that this is not the case and that a full development cycle occurred between the two releases. "We have a mystery on our hands", concluded the physicist.

  6. User interface randomization feature? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why don't they just randomize the user interface every time you start the program? I've spent over a decade getting used to things being in certain places with FF. Each version shuffles things like rearranging the furniture in a blind man's house. I have to put things back where they were so my muscle memory still works. I still go for View/Page Source - it's been that way for many years. Why change it? What does it accomplish to change it?

    So, do the people who write this software not use it themselves? Do they not have muscle memory? Do they really re-learn where everything is every new release?

    I mean, why? Why rearrange everything and trash the user interface? There's no reason for it. I don't understand. I can't process the idea that they just go in and trash everything for no reason.

    I don't understand. I am not sure I want to understand. This is crazy, so should not make sense.

  7. It's just the hipsters fucking stuff up again. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Most UI designers these days are hipsters. They don't give a flying fuck about usability. All they care about is making a UI that's trendy. It's totally cool if it's trendy but isn't actually usable. Usability is irrelevant to them.

    Firefox is just one victim among many. They've fucked up Chrome from the very beginning. They've fucked up GNOME 3. They've fucked up Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. They've fucked up iOS 7. They're in the process of fucking up OS X 10.10. They've been fucking up web design for a great many years now.

    Hipsters are a disease that infects software projects. Once you understand that, then what has happened to the UIs of these formerly-great software projects makes perfect sense. It's much like the plagues that ravaged Europe centuries ago. A small hipster infection can spiral out of control and can destroy even the most robust and usable of software systems.

  8. Re:Anybody please! by Barefoot+Monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Classic Theme Restorergives you the option to put the tabs below the URL bar. I recommend it, even if you like Australis, because of all the nice customisation options it gives.

  9. Re:Did they restore "delay image loading"? by BZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do you mean the "Load images automatically" setting?

    The preference for that seems to still be in about:config. It's called "permissions.default.image" and the values are documented as: // 1-Accept, 2-Deny, 3-dontAcceptForeign

  10. Pale Moon: Firefox with adult supervision! by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pale Moon Windows version
    Pale Moon Linux version

    Pale Moon has a 64-bit version. The 64-bit Pale Moon uses the Firefox add-ons; there are no problems except with some unusual add-ons.