Slashdot Mirror
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."
Now... Now Now...
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
All right. What features did they remove, hide, or obscure? What part of the established GUI did they fuck with?
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?
I think not...(*poof*)
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...
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...
"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.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Thanks.
A n00b
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
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.
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.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
It's 2014 and we are all still transmitting passwords in clear text web forms over SSL.
Wikimedia.
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.
I forgot to sign in before posting. I apologize.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
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.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
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?
Move Sig. For great justice.
Found your problem.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
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.
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.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Have you got flaky plugins installed?
Everyone does. It's called Java.
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."
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
encourage everyone to hack the pages their browser shows to make them their own. Stop being consumers.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.