Firefox 31 Released

An anonymous reader writes Mozilla has released version 31 of its Firefox web browser for desktops and Android devices. According to the release notes, major new features include malware blocking for file downloads, automatic handling of PDF and OGG files if no other software is available to do so, and a new certificate verification library. Smaller features include a search field on the new tab page, better support for parental controls, and partial implementation of the OpenType MATH table. Firefox 31 is also loaded with new features for developers. Mozilla also took the opportunity to note the launch of a new game, Dungeon Defenders Eternity, which will run at near-native speeds on the web using asm.js, WebGL, and Web Audio. "We're pleased to see more developers using asm.js to distribute and now monetize their plug-in free games on the Web as it strengthens support for Mozilla's vision of a high performance, plugin-free Web."

Comments

Updating NOW!

[Urquhardt]

Now... Now Now...

Re:Updating NOW!

[wwphx]

I just hope it is more reliable than 29 or 30. I had terrible problems with it spontaneously crashing unless I ran my browser in safe mode. And I don't have much in the way of plug-ins to blame it on.

Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

No disabling Canvas tracking and they even included
navigator.sendBeacon by default so "analytics" is easier to send using onunload handlers. thanks Mozilla , i cant tell you how many users asked for that feature

Mozilla : comitted to your privacy*

*not applicable in your area

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[mythosaz]

Some background - since I was unaware:
http://www.ghacks.net/2014/07/...

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the same thing that you could already do a number of ways, but had to be synchronous. You have to completely remove onunload and onbeforeunload to prevent such things.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[roca]

sendBeacon was already possible with JS using XHR, just in a slower and more user-unfriendly manner. And unlike XHR, you can disable sendBeacon without breaking the Web, so it's actually better for privacy.

However, if you want to completely prevent any sendBeacon-like activity, you need to just disable JS on that page.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[DaRanged]

*omitted your privacy FTFY ;-)

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[roca]

Preventing canvas tracking isn't simply a matter of fixing a bug. A solution would require something like "don't use the GPU" or "don't use platform font rasterization", either of which are completely unacceptable for most users due to degradation of performance or visual quality.

If you've got a simple fix to canvas tracking, let the world know what it is, OK?

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they at least put the "disable javascript" back in the menu? It's now in the config behind a warning to scare people, asshats.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let scripts read back the canvas content. That's what the TOR browser does (actually it asks the user when a script tries to read the canvas.)

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh cry me a river. So they gave analytics teams an easier way to send info, so they don't have to rely on really iffy hacks that often cause all sorts of stability and performance issues? And you're worried about that despite it being easier to detect AND disable this feature, so companies doing analytics in relatively good faith are easier to block?

Also, if you had a good solution to Canvas tracking then why didn't you tell them? I'm sure they would have happily implemented it by now. But nope, far easier to be a passive-aggressive little snot who contributes nothing to society but snark. Christ, you dopey shits are incapable of contributing anything worthwhile aren't you?

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[lowlymarine]

Why does that seem unreasonable to you? The average user shouldn't be blanket disabling Javascript, as doing so will break 99.9% of the internet (including this commenting system).

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, everybody should be disabling JavaScript. JavaScript is a disease upon the web, it's a disease upon privacy, it's a disease upon reducing power consumption, it's a disease upon good programming languages, and it's a disease upon computing in general. Just because Slashdot has fucked up and used JavaScript where it totally isn't needed doesn't mean that JavaScript is somehow acceptable.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor users are likely to understand these concerns. Average users are not. And pestering them when a site tries to use a canvas to edit an image they can then save, well, it a pain in the ass. Most users will just click an option blindly anyway, and if it's the one that "breaks" the site they'll just use another browser. What works for us doesn't work for everyone, and we're not the ones who NEED to be protected properly - we already know how.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Read again what I wrote: Don't let scripts read back the canvas content.

Note that web browsers have previously removed features to protect privacy. For example, the ability to use arbitrary styles with the :visited selector was removed to prevent web sites from partially reconstructing browsing history.

Another feature that needs to be removed is access to all locally installed fonts except for a minimal set of default fonts. With web fonts this is hardly a limitation, but access to local fonts enables a very effective fingerprinting technique.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[jopsen]

No disabling Canvas tracking and they even included Go to about:config and set "webgl.disabled" to true.

It's not perfect... But from what I can understand this will atleast mitigate the issue: http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~hovav/...

Either way, this does indeed seems like a very hard problem. And disabling canvas might not be enough. See the article from before.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Eythian]

You can stick with gopher, but the rest of the world has moved on.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[complete loony]

One of the original demo's I saw for the canvas was green screening performed in javascript. For another quick use case, a game might use pixel colours to detect collisions instead of tracking objects manually.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[epyT-R]

Argumentum ad populum.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does that seem unreasonable to you? The average user shouldn't be blanket disabling Javascript, as doing so will break 99.9% of the internet (including this commenting system).

5% would be a little more accurate.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Gadget_Guy]

The average user shouldn't be blanket disabling Javascript, as doing so will break 99.9% of the internet (including this commenting system).

That last part is not true. This reply was made with Javascript disabled. Just go into the options and switch to "Classic Discussion System (D1)". The only part that requires scripting is if you want to look at the individual mods by clicking on the message score. The rest (including performing moderations) work fine.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Eythian]

No it's not.

It's pointing out that it's stupid because as time goes on, less and less of the web is going to work if you have javascript turned off because such a minority does that that they're mostly ignored.

Like gopher users.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[gnupun]

Read again what I wrote: Don't let scripts read back the canvas content.

Isn't reading the canvas important to doing image manipulation operations? So disabling that might cause some problems... in the future. But for now, you're right, we need a check box in preferences to "prevent scripts from reading Canvas contents," or just hard code the disabling.

Another feature that needs to be removed is access to all locally installed fonts except for a minimal set of default fonts. With web fonts this is hardly a limitation, but access to local fonts enables a very effective fingerprinting technique.

Not a good idea. What if the user selected this non-web font or javascript selected this non-web font because it looks good for this page?

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[grahamm]

Allowing the browser to access to locally installed fonts (for rendering text) should not be a problem. What should be disabled is the ability for the browser to inform the web server about the installed fonts, as well as other characteristics of the system.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a fundamental interface problem here. Of course there are applications for any additional capabilities offered by the browser. Remember how the browser was going to be the new "OS"? Browser makers were even planning to replace the actual OS with a thin shim to have all resources for the browser. Video editing in the browser? Why not. Email, text processing and groupware in the browser have become common. Gaming as well. PDF readers (outside the browser) are going the way of the Dodo. People access their pictures and their videos in the cloud.

Looks like we're actually getting the browser as the OS. What's not to like? Here's what's wrong with that: In that world, remote code execution is the norm. Any attacker can run arbitrary code on your "OS". Sure, the scripts cannot break out of the browser (humor me). But they don't have to. There is nothing outside the browser. Everything the user cares about is inside the browser. The security model of a web browser is so complicated that nobody gets it right, least of all the application developers. Cross-site leaks are everywhere. One might be tempted to call ActiveX honest in comparison: At least then nobody pretended that ActiveX controls could be limited effectively. With Javascript, remote code execution is the norm. Every capability that was once shielded from web scripts is one by one being moved into the browser, put in reach of the scripts. It's a fundamental interface problem.

The people at Mozilla have decided that that's the way it's going to be. The user is going to be spied upon, tracked and marketed to anyway, so let's make it efficient and streamlined: There are features in Mozilla Firefox now with the sole purpose of reducing lag when navigating from a page with an "analytics" package to some other page. The aim isn't to stop the tracking. How could it be? The aim is to make tracking so painless that users don't feel the need to complain about it to the browser maker.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Blaskowicz]

What if someone just wants to browse "web 1.0" sites (like wikipedia) on a low spec machine. Maybe that's too rare of a use case but it would be nice to have a javascript-less browser with everything else working. Maybe a separate firefox instance which will at least not crash when you're just using it for reading text mainly.

But I've never really tried javascript-less Firefox. I use dillo, which is nice for some things (but currently browsing slashdot on it sucks, I think). Despite being javascript-less I use it to log-in to wifi! (the somewhat secured semi-public hotsposts that leech of ISP customers).
Dillo starts in well under a second, doesn't crash and can get you internet access (if you have acess to a "web 1.0" compatible "wifi login" page) which can then be used for OS/packages security updates and then for launching firefox.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately that is inseparable. Unlike Flash, Javascript (the API provided by the browser to scripts, to be precise) doesn't even have a direct way of enumerating installed fonts. The way an attacker can still get the information is by rendering text in any number of fonts, measuring the resulting dimensions of the text node and comparing them to a database of font metrics. In much the same way, preventing scripts from reading the computed style of a hyperlink would not have been sufficient to prevent partial reconstruction of the browsing history: An attacker would simply have used a style which changes the dimensions of the element depending on the URL being in the history or not. Then the position or dimensions of other elements could have been used to deduce whether the :visited selector applied or not. That's why nowadays you can only use a very limited selection of styles in combination with the :visited selector, in addition to not being able to read the computed style of hyperlinks.

The problem is indeed quite difficult: How would you design an API for potentially malicious code? That's what web browsers are these days: An environment in which to run hostile code. To me it looks like browser makers haven't fully decided whose side they're on, the users or the web authors. Ever since HTML5 became a thing, lots of new capabilities for web authors have been made available, but hardly anything to protect the users. Note that web browsers are beginning to use a "trusted author" like scheme for downloaded applications, similar to the security model of ActiveX, but don't even try to prevent malicious code from running inside the browser.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So they gave analytics teams an easier way to send info, so they don't have to rely on really iffy hacks that often cause all sorts of stability and performance issues?

You mean like cookies? Why are cookies not the appropriate solution to a standardized way to track users if they choose to allow themselves to be tracked.

if you had a good solution to Canvas tracking then why didn't you tell them?

Sure. Disable readback from the Canvas. Done.

If FireFox took a stand against stupid bullshit that costs more than it benefits, they could kill it. They're big enough to do so.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla is currently funded by advertisers, doing so would kill their funding.

Google is a majoy problem these days, in many ways they are far more dangerous to the internet then Internet Explorer ever was.

Re:Spyware companies will love it

[marxmarv]

If FireFox took a stand against stupid bullshit that costs more than it benefits, they could kill it. They're big enough to do so.

Raise your hand if you really thought firing Brendan Eich was about LGBT rights and not corporate control over the window to the web...

Maybe better to just start calling them Netscape again.

We are wise to this

[fnj]

All right. What features did they remove, hide, or obscure? What part of the established GUI did they fuck with?

Re:We are wise to this

[tepples]

If the "malware blocking" is anything like the analogous feature in Internet Explorer (called "SmartScreen"), then it's going to be harder for end users to download and install a newly compiled executable release of an application developed and self-published by an individual, even if that program is distributed under a free software license. IE repeatedly warns users that if an executable is "not commonly downloaded" by other IE users participating in SmartScreen, it should be deleted on sight, especially if the developer hasn't paid protection money to a member of the Authenticode CA cartel.

Re:We are wise to this

[Lennie]

It isn't they just improved how they check malware databases. I don't think anything else changed.

Re:We are wise to this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, still using 28 here after 29 pissed me off. 'Bout time I looked into PaleMoon.

Re:We are wise to this

[Anonymous Coward]

100% agree. Ths is why I use Firefox 17 ESR.

Re: We are wise to this

[afgam28]

Once you've figured out what you're pissed off about, don't forget to go to Mozilla and demand your money back.

Re: We are wise to this

[gnupun]

Releasing something for free does not excuse them from satisfying user needs.

Re:We are wise to this

[MrL0G1C]

FFS, my 40+ bookmark urlicons and folders just disappeared, the bookmark bar is still there, it is blank now. 1-click access to sites gone and some indeterminate amount of time pissing about trying to get them back.

Because hey, who doesn't want to click-type-type-type-type-click-wait-click to visit their favourite sites.

no thanks

[xeno]

I'll install it when that godawful Australis interface is rolled back or replaced with something less eye-bleedingly bad. (And no, the craptastic classic plug-in is not a long-term solution.) For now, I'm holding at v28 (on Linux Mint or Ubuntu: "sudo apt-mark hold firefox"), and pondering what to do re security updates in the long run.

Firefox has gone down the ugly-UI-shuffle-for-the-hell-of-it route, Chrome sends an astounding amount of telemetry back to the hive-mind, and IE's performance is still a total joke even if I can see past the OS implications and numbingly-bad design. Are niche browsers all we have left?

Re:no thanks

[xeno]

...and I'm not alone. According to Moz's own dev feedback tools, the Australis phelgm-globber of an interface has been trending at 80%-dislike from day one after introduction..

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/11/less-than-20-per-cent-of-users-like-firefoxs-new-australis-ui/
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/999831
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/05/12/133214

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromium or any number of chromium based browsers, Chrome isn't the only option.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Seamonkey.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the tip, I'm done with Firefox.

Seamonkey here I come!

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

'k. Have fun. I'll enjoy the new interface that I like in the mean time.

Re:no thanks

[Luckyo]

Pale Moon on windows.

Seamonkey sorta kinda on linux, unless you want to build Pale Moon yourself for it.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll enjoy the new interface that I like in the mean time.

If that were true, you'd be using Chrome. Admit it, you just like forcing your views on others.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

My gripe about the new Firefox is not the Australis interface per se, but it's an example of the core problem: Firefox removes features without giving you a choice or a way to re-enable them without plugins. For example:

Separate Stop/Reload buttons. I get shivers of terror when I think back on the days of slow dial-up when a page would seem to hang when it was almost loaded, so I would go to hit the Stop button, only to realize in horror that it changed to Reload an instant before I pressed it, and the page would start loading again from scratch. I don't want buttons to change functionality due to forces outside my control. But hey, at least it saves a few pixels. (More on that later)

The Find bar. Without a plugin, it can no longer be made persistent across tabs. Whose genius idea was it to not only change the default behavior, but to make the previous default behavior impossible? Did it ever occur to them that I might want to look up the same thing on more than one tab?

Then there are the defaults they changed that don't require a plugin, but you do have to go into about:config to fix them. Separate download folders for different sites? It took me 3 weeks to figure out why after downloading several files I couldn't find them. They were in the default Windows Download folder, which I never use. Then it took me another 3 weeks to figure out why it kept jumping back to that folder, seemingly at random. Finally I figured out that it "helpfully" separated the downloads by site, which is a horrible way of doing it. And not only do you have to go to about:config to fix it, but the entry to fix it isn't even there! You have to add it yourself!

Since I'm on a roll, I might as well bitch about my other issues with Firefox. How about their schizophrenic design philosophy?

They remove the menu bar because it's using up too much screen real estate. (Ignoring the fact that the menu bar is a GREAT place to put toolbar buttons so you don't need an extra toolbar) All right, I disagree with their philosophy of trying to save every pixel they can for the page itself, but at least I can understand that it's a legitimate philosophy. Then they go and make the Back/Forward buttons gigantic so that they waste pixels that could be used on the page. Not to mention the wasted space from the rounded tabs, which means you can fit fewer tabs on screen at once. They should at least be consistent. If they're willing to waste space, why not "waste" it on stuff that's functional, like the menu bar?

In short, the designers are (willfully?) ignorant of the fact that not everyone uses their web browser exactly the same way they do. They could avoid all the gripes by all the users if they did one thing: Any time they change the interface, add an easy-to-find checkbox under the options to restore the old functionality. It shouldn't require looking through about:config (and especially searching the internet for the correct item to add), or worse, a plugin, to change things back to the way they were. EVER.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched to Pale Moon, and I am very pleased. I used Firefox and its Mozilla predecessors since about v. 0.92, and I was horrified and traumatized by FF v. 29. PM is the browser Firefox should have been. The following is taken from the Pale Moon home page.

Pale Moon is an Open Source, Firefox-based web browser available for Microsoft Windows and Linux, focusing on efficiency and ease of use. ...
Pale Moon offers you a browsing experience in a browser completely built from its own source with carefully selected features and optimizations to maximize the browser's speed, stability and user experience, while maintaining compatibility with thousands of Firefox extensions many have come to love and rely on. ... ... contrary to what Mozilla has done with their redesign of the user interface, Pale Moon will continue to provide a familiar set of controls and visual feedback similar to previous versions, including grouped navigation buttons of a decent size, a bookmarks toolbar that is enabled by default, tabs next to page content by default (easily switchable) and not in the least a functional status bar and more freedom in customization, to name a few things.

I switched to Pale Moon right after FF v. 29 came out. I was able to copy my FF user profile into the Pale Moon user profile directory and it ran without any particular problems. I have not used FF since then.

Four Stars and two thumbs up for Pale Moon.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

xombrero

Re:no thanks

[Lennie]

"Separate download folders for different sites"

I've never seen that behavior, is that Windows specific ?

___

When you say plugin, I think mean extension.

___

While I may agree or not with you or the designers, but they've changed so much an 'easy-to-find checkbox under the options to restore the old functionality' seems infeasible.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I also hate the new interface. If I liked that I'd use chrome instead.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Wipe the froth off of your chin fanboi.

Re:no thanks

[bigfinger76]

Why not just get the Linux version of Pale Moon? I did just that yesterday when my bookmarks toolbar disappeared, and so far I really like it.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

You're coming off as the entitled dipshit who is stomping his feet around like a spoiled little child. All his post did was point out that 80% dislike the UI changes, which was a constructive post, your post however comes off exactly as that which you're accusing him as being.

Re:no thanks

[roca]

> In short, the designers are (willfully?) ignorant of the fact that
> not everyone uses their web browser exactly the same way
> they do.

Aren't you make that mistake yourself? I know our designers collect a lot of data on what many users actually use. More data than individual Slashdot commenters have collected, I expect.

> Any time they change the interface, add an easy-to-find
> checkbox under the options to restore the old functionality.

That leads to an explosion of difficult-to-understand checkboxes in the UI, and an unmaintainable mess under the hood.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still on v.14... I have not bothered with a number of updates, and when I tried it (at around v.20) it was just too awful. My v.14 does pretty much all I need to do. Gosh! Why is this "news"? They have a new version pretty much every other day! Sigh...

Re:no thanks

[yuhong]

I dug this out: https://mail.mozilla.org/piper...

Re:no thanks

[Etcetera]

Firefox has gone down the ugly-UI-shuffle-for-the-hell-of-it route, Chrome sends an astounding amount of telemetry back to the hive-mind, and IE's performance is still a total joke even if I can see past the OS implications and numbingly-bad design. Are niche browsers all we have left?

It's rather ironic that seamless integration with the OS is much less of a privacy issue than seamless integration with remote servers nowadays....

Re:no thanks

[jenningsthecat]

I'll install it when that godawful Australis interface is rolled back or replaced with something less eye-bleedingly bad

If enough of us move to Pale Moon, (it's all I've used since shortly after Australis first shat all over my computer screen), then perhaps Mozilla will get the hint that we love Firefox, but hate what it's become. And if they don't get the hint, well, then we're supporting a viable alternative for the time when Mozilla gets eaten by the shark it just jumped.

BTW, although the Linux version of Pale Moon is 'unofficial' and maintained by somebody outside the organization, I've had no trouble running it under Debian Jessie with all of my usual addons.

Re:no thanks

[geminidomino]

I've been using it on windows since about 22 or 24 I think, and I didn't even know there WAS a Linux version of Palemoon! Thanks!

Re:no thanks

[jenningsthecat]

> In short, the designers are (willfully?) ignorant of the fact that > not everyone uses their web browser exactly the same way > they do.

Aren't you make that mistake yourself?

No, he's not making the same mistake. He's perfectly willing to let others use the new design and features - he just wants a way to keep the old behaviour, and so do I.

> Any time they change the interface, add an easy-to-find > checkbox under the options to restore the old functionality.

That leads to an explosion of difficult-to-understand checkboxes in the UI, and an unmaintainable mess under the hood.

I'm not very well qualified to comment on the 'unmaintainable mess', but it smells fishy to me. If Pale Moon can keep the old behaviour while incorporating the new security enhancements, surely Mozilla can keep the old UI and the new one without compromising maintainability. Especially since addon designers have been doing pretty much that for your users for 25 or more releases. And as for the 'difficult to understand check boxes', scratch them. Just give us a well documented set of 'about:config' entries that are already present and prefixed with something like "old behaviour" so can go to one block of entries, change them all, and be done. Heck, you could boil it down to ONE entry called 'browser.pre_australis_mode'.

I'm pretty sure that won't happen though, not because it's too much work, but because Mozilla is hell bent on me-tooing their way into the future with all the other browser makers whose attitude is 'screw the users'. So in the meantime I'm using Pale Moon. Yes, I see the apparent hypocrisy in that decision. I hope Mozilla sees the hypocrisy of bringing private corporation attitudes to their ostensibly FOSS organization.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Separate download folders for different sites"
>
> I've never seen that behavior, is that Windows specific ?

It's bullshit. He must have had an add-on that did that. In fact I know someone who was complaining that the add-on he specifically had for that stopped working back around firefox 21 or so because the obsolete API calls it relied on were finally disabled.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

"Separate download folders for different sites"

I've never seen that behavior, is that Windows specific ?

Huh, did not know this was a special feature or anything. When I download something, Firefox seems to remember the download folder for that site. E.g. when I download a new account statement from my bank, Firefox always offers the folder I downloaded the last statement to, no matter what else I downloaded to some other folder in the month in between. Tried it again right now - I go to gamefaqs.com, download some game walkthrough, it goes to the folder I last downloaded a game walkthrough to. Then I go to my bank website, and it offers me the bank folder. So yes, Firefox does remember download folders. But it probably depends on the download history and does not work if you delete that.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm putting my hopes in Netsurf. It doesn't really support Javascript yet, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Also it's written in C, not C++ which is a big plus in my eyes.

Re:no thanks

[Blaskowicz]

80% of the people who went to the like/dislike menu item and got past the follow up screen disliked Firefox.

Re:no thanks

[Richard_at_work]

Welcome to the party, except you are many years behind the 'crowd' - a lot of people (but fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things) abandoned Firefox over the "Awesome Bar" debacle, where you couldn't even go back to the old functionality at all (yeah yeah, loads of people posted "fixes" which did nothing more than change the skin, while doing nothing to revert the underlying behaviour), so the current situation is nothing new.

The way the Awesome Bar was dumped on us pushed Firefox way down on my list of browsers to use, and even today I only fire it up to check website functionality when I'm developing.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

sadly palemoon is ages behind main firefox and performs awful in benchmarks. I use Cyberfox which allows you to remove Australis and still is the latest version under the hood.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not froth.

Re:no thanks

[Luckyo]

Apparently they actually started making it for Linux? Until very recently, Pale Moon has been windows only, and only some months ago that unofficial Linux builds started coming out from third parties.

This suggests that Firefox dug itself into a hole so deep that there was enough demand for Pale Moon on Linux to make guys who build the browser specifically optimized for Windows to make a Linux version as well. Wow. Well done Mozilla.

Re:no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony here is that you're the one telling people that only an idiot would like this UI, that designers are all basically braindead morons, that user stats are meaningless, etc all to build up a narrative that you can't possibly be wrong - all without any substantive information. Then you go on to accuse anyone who doesn't agree with you of being an idiot, shill, or whatever you want to say to discredit them, all the while telling them they're the ones forcing their views down other's throats.

Hating Australis is fine. Being a complete asshole about it? Nope. Especially when you haven't done a damn thing to help anyone, just act like a 13 year old on XBLA who just got teabagged for the first time.

Re:no thanks

[bigfinger76]

Oh yeah, FF sucked badly on Linux as well, my friend.

This is precisely the reason why having many choices is a good thing. I read a lot of comments here disparaging the fact that there are too many forks of various softwares. I'm finding myself relying more and more on these types of releases (Mint!) versus the "main" ones".

Re:no thanks

[Agripa]

I am not sure if it is the same thing but I have been using the craptastic Classic Theme Restorer which also fixed some other UI problems.

Re:no thanks

[Lennie]

Yes, I always delete my download history, so yes maybe that is how Firefox does it.

Malware blocking for file downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

The "malware blocking for file downloads" is a severe invasion of privacy. It works by sending the URL of nearly every downloaded file to Google.

When a binary file is downloaded, the user-agent extracts several pieces of metadata about the file, including:

        The target URL from which the file was downloaded, its referrer URL and any URLs in the redirect chain.
        The SHA-256 hash of the contents of the file.
        Any certificate verification information obtained through the Windows Authenticode APIs.
        The length of the file in bytes.
        The suggested filename for the download.

...

  Remote lookup (present in FF 32)

The user-agent stuffs all file metadata into a ClientDownloadRequest protocol buffer and sends it to the remote service.

This remote service is https://sb-ssl.google.com/safe...

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this can be disabled. I definitely do not want every file I download being sent to Google. Has there been any new change in FF in the past few years that hasn't needed to be disabled!? It's like everything they do is crazier than the last thing. A few random examples: You have to install an extension to get the flaming status bar back, one of the most basic features of a browser (seeing the URL before you click on it). You have to install an extension to get rid of the horrific FF29 user interface disaster. And now this. Is this a plot to destroy FF, the only browser that you can customize with extensions like AdBlockPlus and NoScript?

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it can be disabled. You have to use the "about:config" page, which means that disabling it is considered a completely unsupported operation. There is no checkbox in the main GUI to disable it.

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[antdude]

Can it be disabled at least?

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it can be disabled. You have to use the "about:config" page, which means that disabling it is considered a completely unsupported operation. There is no checkbox in the main GUI to disable it!

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[Lennie]

How to turn off this feature

Do any one of the following:

        Turn off browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled in about:config or in the Preferences > Security > "Block reported attack sites." This disables all Safebrowsing malware protection, including the warning interstitial that appears when the user navigates to a malware site.
        Replace browser.safebrowsing.appRepURL in about:config with an empty string. This disables application reputation checks but leaves other Safebrowsing malware protection intact.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Secur...

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[antdude]

Thanks. :)

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[drinkypoo]

It can be disabled, but can you trust that they won't "accidentally" turn it back on with an update? If you must use Chrome, use Chromium instead. The only practical difference besides that it doesn't spy on you for Google is that you need to install a Flash player (if desired) manually.

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[tgv]

You would almost think that there was a relation between Google paying Mozilla large amounts of money and Google's desire to get as much information from users as they possibly can.

Re:Malware blocking for file downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally there is the "user.js" file to set options every time Firefox is restarted... But they sure have renamed and removed important options in the past, so it cannot be entirely trusted. Extensions you have to use to (re)introduce important features can also mess with the options after the restart, in some cases...

Redundant search bar on newTab is redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

After the update, the newTab page proudly displays 3 search bars - center screen, awesomebar and the search bar. No new easily found option in about:config to turn off...

Re:Redundant search bar on newTab is redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

After the update, the newTab page proudly displays 3 search bars - center screen, awesomebar and the search bar. No new easily found option in about:config to turn off...

Click the little symbol (the 9 little squares) in the upper right hand corner of the new tab, it completely disables the new tab page and you get a blank page instead. Yes, it also disables the rest of the new tab page and not only the search bars, but who needs that anyway, I do not want anybody else standing next to me when I open a new tab to see what my most used websites are :-)

Misfeatures

[Arker]

"Malware blocking" = yet another bad signature/reputation based scanner. If I wanted one, I would have one installed - and Firefox versions without this misfeature would still use it to scan, so in what universe was this worth doing?

If you really want to do something about malware, disable javascript by default.

"Automatic handling of pdf and ogg files" - I have a pdf reader already. I dont need another one, and I dont need one 'integrated' in my browser, period.

"loaded with new features for developers." Pretty sure that means for advertisers.

Re:Misfeatures

[roca]

> "Automatic handling of pdf and ogg files" - I have a pdf reader
> already. I dont need another one, and I dont need one
> 'integrated' in my browser, period.

From the release notes: "audio/video .ogg and .pdf files handled by Firefox *if no application specified*" (emphasis added).

> "loaded with new features for developers." Pretty sure that
> means for advertisers.

You just made that up.

Re:Misfeatures

[wonkey_monkey]

If you really want to do something about malware, disable javascript by default.

What if you want to do something about malware, but don't want the hassle of re-enabling javascript when you actually want it to work (because, contrary to popular belief, it can actually be employed usefully)? What if you're too lazy to install another piece of software, or just don't want to install another piece of software? What if, god forbid, someone has different an idea on what to do about malware to you?

"Automatic handling of pdf and ogg files" - I have a pdf reader already. I dont need another one

Well, good news! Because as you carefully omitted to quote, "...if no other software is available to do so." So it'll be just like you don't have another PDF reader.

TL:DR; this isn't how I use computers, therefore this isn't how anyone should use computers

Re:Misfeatures

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just trying out xombrero, seems pretty good.
https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero

Re:Misfeatures

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of misfeatures, your entire post is in tt.

Re:Misfeatures

[geminidomino]

From the release notes: "audio/video .ogg and .pdf files handled by Firefox *if no application specified*" (emphasis added).

Does the bloat in the browser go away the moment I install Sumatra?

Re:Misfeatures

[Blaskowicz]

The pdf javascript reader wastes kilobytes on your / or C:\ partition, that's all.
But it is handy to have it for some people. I even like sometimes just to have a black and white pdf in a tab, it's not even crashing the browser like in the old days of using acrobat reader plugin. Then a click on the download button will open it in my pdf reader of choice if I need/want it.
Chromium gets it worse : it thinks I want to open it in xpdf. I like having xpdf around (and will install it as the only reader on a lightweight junk box with lxde) but please.

Re:Misfeatures

[Arker]

"The pdf javascript reader wastes kilobytes on your / or C:\ partition, that's all."

It also adds more lines of code that need to be carefully analyzed, audited, and constantly re-audited for exploitable bugs to the codebase.

Web browsers are the main point of vulnerability, they have an absolutely horrible track record for anything related to security. There are several relatively good .pdf programs that are actively maintained and whose security track records are not nearly so tarnished as Mozilla's. Some are Free Software as well. So I am seriously having a very hard time imagining a scenario where this has any reason to exist. And I am usually the one that's all in favor of having 15 slightly different choices for every role.

What version would be this

[Flavianoep]

Is anyone keeping track of Firefox versions as they would be numbered the traditional way ([major].[minor].[release])? Those simple numbers they are using nowadays are meaningless to me.

Thanks.

A n00b

Re:What version would be this

[Anonymous Coward]

31.0.0

Re:What version would be this

[Anonymous Coward]

> Is anyone keeping track of Firefox versions as they would be numbered the traditional way ([major].[minor].[release])?

No. Those numbers were just as arbitrary as these numbers.
There was never any consistent standard for the thresholds of each field in the old numbering system.
At least with the new versioning system the numbers are consistently date based - every six weeks, give-or-take a couple of days.

Re:What version would be this

[khellendros1984]

The version I'm running is numbered 29.0.1, which makes some sense (major.minor.patch). Do you mean "Is anyone keeping track of which versions break the API (maj), extend the API backward-compatibly (min), and fix bugs (pat)"? I don't think anyone is, in those terms.

Re:What version would be this

[Arker]

They deliberately make this difficult to calculate, but by my reckoning the current version should probably be Firefox 7.6.

Re:What version would be this

[armanox]

They always were generally meaningless. Just like the Linux kernel versions. Just think about how much changed from Linux 2.0 to 2.6.39.

On Firefox - how long did we stay on FF 3.x? Does anyone really care what the version number says? Mozilla tends to make changes that can break backwards compatibility for plugins every other release, so why shouldn't they increment the major number?

Re:What version would be this

[kthreadd]

That version is horribly out of date. You should update now unless you're using distro supported version of Firefox where the patches have been backported.

Re:What version would be this

[khellendros1984]

It's an IT-managed machine. Not my call.

I would like (just) a web browser please

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance we can just have a web browser which just does normal browsing, doesn't take hundreds of MB to run, and starts in under a couple of seconds ?

A really nice feature would be a standard (non-artsy) user interface with everything needed out in full view of the user.

Such a browser would allow one to add additional modules (we could call them extensions) so it could be configured as required.

I believe that in the old days such a browser existed.

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[Anonymous Coward]

http://breach.cc/

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[ultranova]

Any chance we can just have a web browser which just does normal browsing, doesn't take hundreds of MB to run, and starts in under a couple of seconds ?

Next you'll be asking it to not leak memory like a sieve.

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[Anonymous Coward]

http://breach.cc/

PaleMoon.

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[BZ]

I suggest you take that browser from the old days, run it on today's web sites, and see how many hundreds of MB it takes. Assuming it loads them at all.

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[Anonymous Coward]

You should use Links or Lynx. Both are lightning fast - maybe a little too light on features, but they work.

Re:I would like (just) a web browser please

[Blaskowicz]

Feels like the good old days when I ran Internet Explorer 5. Though the "extensions" were automatically installed and consisted of a porn page that opens up in a new window, or software attempting to dial out to an abroad phone number.

File explore / browser integration was even pretty good, I could recycle some unused file manager window. Or do my file stuff, then go on the web, or on an FTP server. Worst machine I used on it had only 40MB of RAM and it was still good.
Obviously, I had to let it go.

Support for Vorbis OGG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla can play OGG files now? Do people upload OGG voice or music clips onto the internet? Just asking because I don't think I have ever seen an OGG file on a website before.

Re:Support for Vorbis OGG?

[Luckyo]

Wikimedia.

You know where else I could've read about this?

[Dimwit]

And also seen if there were any other interesting projects out there, and check on the latest versions of other free software that I use?

Freecode.

Re:You know where else I could've read about this?

[vux984]

Erm...

"Effective 2014-06-18 Freecode is no longer being updated (content may be stale)"

Or were you making a joke that just whooshed by me?

When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[WaffleMonster]

It's 2014 and we are all still transmitting passwords in clear text web forms over SSL.

Re:When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Chromium include this?

Re:When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[Lennie]

No major browser supports this today.

Re:When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is wrong with transmitting clear text passwords over SSL?

Re:When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[jonwil]

No support for DANE (certificate information stored in DNS and secured with DNSSEC) either. And the bug on the issue just says "we have no plans to support this" rather than "patches please"

Re:When will firefox support TLS-SRP?

[marxmarv]

Because JavaScript Cryptography Considered Harmful. Which, of course, depends on whether CAs, and the authorities that govern them, are part of your threat model.

Trash

[whodunit]

As I watch Firefox download the update, I contemplate how useless it is. With a fresh install, no add-ons enabled and javascript/flash/etc. all updated and working properly, Firefox still crashes more than Malaysian airliners. If Chrome's devs could pull their heads out of their asses just long enough to implement a tab bar that wasn't a total pile of shit, I'd be using Chrome right now. As for the Android version, it is quantitative worse than the Android default browser. Chrome has it beat hands-down for mobile. Farewell, Firefox. We hardly knew ye.

Re:Trash

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing keeping me from Chrome is this nice addon. https://code.google.com/p/tabgroupsmanager/ SIGH

Re:Trash

[rnturn]

I would welcome with open arms and tears of joy a Firefox release that could survive a day -- heck, even half a day -- without crashing. It's such a joy to come back from grabbing a cub of coffee or lunch to find that I have to restart effin' Firefox and reload all my tabs again.

Re:Trash

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to be platform dependent. Firefox on a Mac is a disaster and crashes all the time. On my Linux machines, it works without issues.

Re:Trash

[Jahta]

I would welcome with open arms and tears of joy a Firefox release that could survive a day -- heck, even half a day -- without crashing. It's such a joy to come back from grabbing a cub of coffee or lunch to find that I have to restart effin' Firefox and reload all my tabs again.

Have you considered that maybe it's you, not Firefox? Have you got flaky plugins installed? Or flaky extensions? Some extensions have been known not to play nice with others.

I use Firefox heavily every day (always on the latest release) and I haven't had it crash in literally years. Nor have I found it a memory hog. As I type this I have 10 different sites open and Firefox is using ~400 meg.

Re:Trash

[Blaskowicz]

On my linux machine it always end up crashing, but sometimes I can see a whole day without a crash. I can sometimes see it coming : web page somewhat freezing up, hard disk grinding and then bam it's bombed.
Now I should do some tab clean up again.. after a crash, I can't load all my tabs (too many of them) so I reload some tabs but open new ones to do stuff, instead of hunting for and reusing older tabs. And I don't really know how to open the "clean up tabs" window without crashing the browser first. I'd like if there was at least a command switch for Firefox to open that on start up.

Re:Trash

[whodunit]

Have you got flaky plugins installed?

Everyone does. It's called Java.

Better support for Web Components, nope not yet :/

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been really nice to get that Shadow DOM and HTML Imports natively without using slower polyfills.

Those that sounded gobbledygook, should check where web is heading with Web Components development. This is major shift how web apps are being built in future.

As tt's not simple to put it just few words so that it would cover issue adequately, it's better to catch up and watch Google IO videos from Polymer project site.

Memory hog on Linux

[DF5JT]

Thank you for turning my notebook into a feels-like-a-286 machine by now.

With 10 tabs open it hogs almost 2GB of RAM. Used to be a fraction of it and I haven't noticed any functional improvements between now and then.

Basically it now renders an obsolete machine (T60p) into an obsolete piece of hardware without the need to do so.

Congratulations.

Re:Memory hog on Linux

[ArcadeMan]

But is it really Firefox's fault? I mean, while I also think that Firefox is a memory hog compared to others, at least on OS X, something did change over the years: the weight of web pages.

It used to be that most website would only require a few dozen kilobytes, or a few hundreds at the most. But these days, people who think they understand responsive design take the easy way out and just send 4 megapixel images and let the browsers resize them as needed.

Re:Memory hog on Linux

[ichthus]

What kind of tabs do you have open? 2GIGS?! 9 Tabs for me, and I'm at 285 megs:

This page
This one
This one
Dealnews
This one
This one
And, a couple of intranet pages.

Re:Memory hog on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an addon that "suspends" all unused tabs after a configurable timeout, its called "Suspend Tab".

There is another one called "Flashblock", which blocks all flash from running until you do it manually.

Re:Memory hog on Linux

[armanox]

Newsflash: Your Thinkpad with a Core Duo is obsolete. You're on the same ground as my 2006 MBP (MacBook Pro 1,1) - 32-bit and forgotten.

Some test cases for your Vorbis player

[tepples]

Well you have now. Often I've made musical recordings as proofs of concept for posts to web forums related to Dance Dance Revolution and classic NES games. And when these aren't in tracker format, they're in .ogg format. Here are some test cases:

• 10.2.2.: original piano ambient composition
• Onderheynah: original rhythmic noise composition
• Dam Dam Baby Baram, Lodeamari Bombacy, Messimizer, Overplayed, and Zodinubis: mash-ups of similar-sounding songs from video games
• Balloon Fever and Birdo's Theme: remixes of NES games' music
• Butterfly and Maxx Unlimited: covers of DDR songs using hardware limits of the NES
• Gymnopedie 1: beginning of a cover of an Erik Satie piece in the musical style of a Kirby game

AC above

[rssrss]

I forgot to sign in before posting. I apologize.

We need a new browser

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just about had it with Firefox. For quite a while every new version included new features that resulted in one thing only: Me looking for a way to turn off whatever privacy invasion resulted from them. A freshly installed Firefox leaks information like a sieve. I would have to invest hours just to create a profile which is close to acceptable for browsing without the most egregious ad displays, tracking and annoyances. The makers of Firefox have become too focused on serving web authors, who are mostly also ad hosts. A browser should serve the user. It's software which runs on the user's computer. The web author has the server to play with.

Re:We need a new browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. It has been one fuck up after another with Firefox lately. Each time Firefox updates, I feel like Mozilla has once again spread their collective asscheeks right over my face, and shit upon my eyes and down my nostrils and my throat. As much as I hate using Google software, I think I'm going to switch to Chromium. Although it and Firefox have the same shitty UI these days, at least Chromium isn't a slow hunk of lard like Firefox is.

Re:We need a new browser

[sd4f]

I certainly think so. It's a real pity that mozilla is just becoming a dud social justice warrior organisation now. I guess the people who work for them all aspire to work for google, which is probably why their trying to do an orange version of google chrome...

Since the UI changes, and getting rather annoyed with FF29 (or was it 30) which would constantly block stuff or ask for permission (like vista) to enable things, I just moved to opera. Not sure if it's good on the security and privacy side, but at least the UI, for the most part is lightweight. Needs a few improvements. I'd stick with FF28, but not very keen on running unpatched versions, and it was having many issues anyway with stability, so I guess it's better to just move along.

Re:We need a new browser

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have to invest hours just to create a profile which is close to acceptable for browsing without the most egregious ad displays, tracking and annoyances.

Why hours? NoScript only takes minutes to install.
Does Chromium have something like that yet? I wouldn't use it because Javascript was either all on or all off last time I tried Chromium

Re:We need a new browser

[Blaskowicz]

Chromium is good if you have 8GB of RAM just to browse the web, and you like that featureless unchangeable UI with 10% the features and options of Firefox's one.. Plus I tried a flashblock extension on it and it sucked.

Re:We need a new browser

[chrish]

Switched to Pale Moon when Firefox when full-Google Chrome in the UI; it's like Firefox classic, compiled for 64-bit systems.

Only been slightly annoying at work, due to Cisco's WebEx not having a 64-bit plugin, a fact that I can't seem to remember before trying to join an online meeting... every. damn. time.

Oh, and annoying when Firefox Sync upgraded their back-end in ways that blocked Pale Moon from working. Installed Xmarks (hey, I use LastPass anyway, why not) and forgot all about Sync thanks to being able to sync my bookmarks properly between Firefox, Pale Moon, Chrome and Safari (IE too, if I ever used that for anything other than my company's broken internal sites).

Re:We need a new browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need a flashblock extension when click-to-play has been built in for ages?

Re:We need a new browser

[Anonymous Coward]

God, just switch to Chromium already. If this is all you're going to do to help then it would be good to have you bitching about Chrome instead of Firefox. Maybe then Google will fix some of its own bugs, and you'll finally learn some perspective. So many crybabies who can only find fault with the free offerings out there, yet won't lift a finger to help.

Re:We need a new browser

[Blaskowicz]

I wasn't finding it in the options lol. Found out there's a "search" in the options and found it that way.
The non-standard UI widgets where tricking me. I didn't think a featureless long rectangle button would open a subpage.

I use Flashblock

[tepples]

Same here. I've routinely had ten tabs of Cracked.com, which is fairly heavy as far as I can tell, fit in half a GB. But then I use Flashblock to keep SWFs from starting automatically on most sites, and I have a few Facebook hostnames blocked in my /etc/hosts.

With leadership like this, who needs enemies?

[Hello Kitty]

As Stephen Elop to Nokia, so Google to Mozilla. We should have known. Actually, we knew and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do about it.

Re:With leadership like this, who needs enemies?

[marxmarv]

Because the Holy Bourgeois Aesthetic demands we only allow people with Strong, Stout Hearts to rule over us.

I think the Eich coup was about where I gave up on "social justice", as the game is presently played, being any more than a fashion accessory for the upper middle class.

almost-4 year old bug report addressed!

[Tumbleweed]

My bug has finally been fixed - if you've always wanted to vertically center text in a select box, you're now good to go. Seriously, filed it in November of 2010, as as I can recall.

Re:almost-4 year old bug report addressed!

[Anonymous Coward]

No time to look up sources, I see.
Yes, you filed that on 9 November 2010.

Definitely posting as AC, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say it, IE11 is a damn fine browser.

Firefox is dying a slow demise

[Anonymous Coward]

I find nothing about Firefox interesting anymore. At one time I could say Firefox and Mozilla were on target to make a open source browser that truly was better
then anything from Microsoft or Apple. But then came Google Chrome and it brought what most want in a browser. That is speed, and it has slowly gained popularity so much so that one has to wonder when Google will simply pull the plug on Mozilla by way of ad revenue and proceed to let Mozilla and Firefox become just another Netscape redux. Firefox has become what Safari has become, irrelevant because they both do things that basically piss off many of its users.
I sit here typing on my Macbook Air with Chrome and have not entertained using Safari for anything. Its not that Safari is bad, after all it uses WebKit just like Chrome does. But its the little things that mess you up. Like changes of key buttons, or features, or to burry them in sub menu's. Gee, that's supposed to be better?
I am not all about Google, I hate some of their privacy policies. But for a browser, they do pretty well with it. Mozilla is totally involved in change for nothing more then a whim.

Re:Firefox is dying a slow demise

[Ash-Fox]

At one time I could say Firefox and Mozilla were on target to make a open source...

I sit here typing on my Macbook Air ...

Found your problem.

GUI

[ccanucs]

Did they go back to the better pre-Astralwhatever GUI yet? That's the major concern I have - the new one made it unsuable since I keep multiple tabs open in multiple rows. The new interface made it way to big and none of the add-ons made it look like it used to. Until they fix that it's a non-starter to upgrade for me.

Re:GUI

[ccanucs]

s/to big/too big/

Re:GUI

[cjellibebi]

I am using Tab Mix Plus to arrange the tabs in multiple rows, and I can get multiple rows on FF 30. I am also using Classic Theme Restorer to get the tabs back to the way they were before.

Re:GUI

[hackertourist]

The one thing Classic Theme restorer can't do is set the tab size to small values. I use the Custom Tab Width extension with a minimum tab width of 20 px; Australis' stupid tab redesign ensures that widths below ~50px are unusable.

FINALLY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear it supports webp with the new 4:4:4 chroma subsampling.

Plugin free

[Draugo]

Or as I like to call it "plugin is the web browser". That's one of the things that really annoys me about hate for flash and love for javascript. People don't seem to understand that what you are actually doing is just changing the language and instead of letting one environment to execute the content you depend on another environment to execute it instead. And that other environment is basically just as random, finicky, and instead of one player implementation you now have multiple implementers who don't seem to be able to agree about anything.

User stats are daft. Mozilla is being led by fools

[bussdriver]

Mozilla asks for user data and people who do not opt-into that are not contributing data. Me being one of the many who do not-- I suspect intermediate and advanced users comprise the majority of this group. This means their data of people not using things like menu bars because they getting metrics from the most daft users of firefox.

Good designers will use metrics only as a factor not as a mindless system to think for you. Simplistic metrics are a whole issue in themselves along with improper use of statistics (on metrics) which is a common problem as well. Menu bars are never used heavily but they are extremely useful - of all times, in 2014 when phones have more screen space than a desktop did in the 90s we suddenly become obsessed with screen space??

Great designers also will accommodate advanced users and the large base of existing users by not arbitrarily pissing them off. Necessary changes can be done more gradually along with instructions on how to change the feature. (like making sure the user knows how to get to menus when you killed them... and to not foobar the pop-up menu version of the menubar... proper grouping and hierarchy make large things easier.) Also the current situation of "don't make me think" is likely a fad in the design world; I hope that users want to use their brains effectively in the future; otherwise, Edward Tufte etc. are irrelevant as we devolve.

If Mozilla wants to REALLY be a community they will let users choose and try something democratic, such as opt-in or opt-out of a major interface change. Since opt-in would never gain a majority of the users on these recent changes; the designers would naturally push for an opt-out policy but at least they could measure their failure by making opt-out easy to do (like force the user to use it for a few months before presenting the option.) At least then users at all skill levels feel empowered and PART OF SOMETHING (mozilla could even use the opportunity to leverage altruism and promote an organization image unlike the top-down corporate browsers.)

FURTHERMORE, it doesn't matter how many more daft users you have over the advanced users. Your software is not default like IE was. Users install Firefox because of people like slashdot readers. I have brought mozilla 100s of users and I can take them away, some already left for Chrome anyhow... but many do what their nerd or IT staff tells them to do (or whomever sets the default.)

And again...

[B2382F29]

Another release, another time when their own FTP server is the LAST place to get the release.

Last time it took around a week until the Android version (30) was available here, where previously that was the first place to find it.

What's next, changelog on twitter only?

Re:And again...

[B2382F29]

Yeah, appeared while I was complaining. You win this round, Mozilla!

I will not stop saying this, I won't,...

[AbRASiON]

1STABILITY
2PERFORMANCE
3FEATURES
4USER INTERFACE FUCKING FIDDLING

Christ lord almighty, this program has gone to the shitter and it's killing me, PLEASE focus in that damned order.

First I thought it was me or my machine, because I'm an extremely heavy tab user, but I'm seeing it on my other machines too. Yes, I run a heck of a lot of tabs in some sessions (probably over 100 right now) however Firefox has run over 100 tabs for me for the best part of 8+ years.
When I'm researching I have 8 tabs open, it's what I do. I middle click the link to open in the background (tab mix plus â(TM)¥) and then I read the current tab, switch instantly to the next one, no back buttons and clicking the next link, I've already clicked it, it's waiting for me.

I just want the damn thing to be stable, I want them to STOP fiddling with the UI, I want them to STOP adding features. I've got 8gb of RAM use it (properly!) if you need it - but maintain stability and performance.
I'm almost using Chrome at the moment and I can't stand Chromes, Apple style "our way or the highway" on stupid changes.
FF with Tabs Menu, Xmarks, Tab Mix Plus, Lastpass is a joy to use when it's being reliable but god help me this is killing me.

Re:I will not stop saying this, I won't,...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Why update the browser at all then?

Firerfox development suite.

[MrL0G1C]

Why? 99.99% of users will not use the development parts of Firefox which will no doubt bloat it up massively, introduce vulnerabilities and slow the browser down.

If you want to create some kind of web development suit then fine, do that, but don't stick it in Firefox FFS.

Pale Moon equivalent for Mac?

[damnbunni]

Pale Moon looks like what I really want in a browser, but there's no Mac version.

Does anyone know of a similar project for Macs?

We need a new browser

[CauseBy]

I have TOR browser installed but I don't use it very often. If privacy is your fetish, it'll get you most of the way to your goal.

Jaws 19

[Anonymous Coward]

http://static1.media-match.com/uploads/site_5/blog/2012/12/bttf-jaws-2.png

Re:Firefox Update Changes

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is where Slashdot ends up: the only comment to mention CSS variables is a spam comment.

If you're wondering what CSS variables are good for, see data: URIs of the book cover thumbnail images for pages without serverside scripting.

RFC 1925 compliant browser

[marxmarv]

3.6: "It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving the problem to a different part of the overall network architecture) than it is to solve it."

Better idea:

[marxmarv]

encourage everyone to hack the pages their browser shows to make them their own. Stop being consumers.

no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon to take over the internet: surf.suckless.org