Firefox 32 Arrives With New HTTP Cache, Public Key Pinning Support

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 32 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Additions include a new HTTP cache for improved performance, public key pinning support, and easy language switching on Android. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. Changelogs are here: desktop and mobile.

Comments

Start your day the clean-shaven way

[smittyoneeach]

Firefox, bagel and lox
Breakfast of champions handy
And aftershave that makes men brave
When over Macho Grande
Burma Shave

Re:Start your day the clean-shaven way

[sconeu]

I'll never be over Macho Grande.

First impressions

[whereiswaldo]

Just installed the latest Firefox and did a bit of random surfing. First impression: noticeably faster than before, probably even on par with Chrome.

Re:First impressions

[thatkid_2002]

It's been as fast a Chrome for years. It's only Google fanbois on Slashdot who really say otherwise... Though I get the impression that maybe it is slightly different under Windows so maybe that's why some think it's slow. Most of the badness was quickly eliminated after FF4, and the UI changes are really just a storm in a teacup (they haven't changed the way I use FF at all).

Re:First impressions

[Lord Crc]

While Firefox is fast when it's fast, unlike Chrome a single tab can bog down your entire browsing session since it's only using a single process.

The same single process also runs out of memory if there's a crappy javascript on a page, and closing the offending tab does not help. For example FinalBuilder build overview page leaks about 2GB per day on my machine, taking Firefox with it if I don't remember to restart it before then. Quite tedious.

I strongly dislike Chrome for other reasons and have stuck with Firefox for ages, but they really should put more effort into their Electrolysis project if they don't want to be left in the dust. Heck I'm finding myself using IE11 for a lot of stuff these days.

Re:And still leaking memory like a fucking sieve

[mspohr]

Autoupdated this am.
Seems to work fine.
Memory use seems about the same. (I have 10 tabs open now... lots of "complex/rich" sites... 536 MB)

Re:True enough

[The Grim Reefer]

I prefer FF over other browsers. But it's mainly because it's what I'm used to and the tree style tabs. I'm sure you can get the same for Chrome. But I haven't gotten around to checking.

FF became pretty unstable a few versions ago, though I don't recall which. It seemed to be a memory leak or something. It got up to around 2.5 GB of RAM and then became unresponsive and would eventually crash. My system has 16 GB of RAM, and was never near 100%. The next release took a little longer to reach this point, and the one after that was even longer. I think the version before 32 only crashed once on me. And 32 is open right now as I post this using 2.1 GB of RAM. Granted, I have 13 FF windows open with 5 to 24 tabs open in each.

Still having misery with Firefox.

[AbRASiON]

I post in EVERY Slashdot firefox article, whining for the same thing.
LESS focus on UI / features, MORE focus on stability / performance.
I've been using FireFox since the name it had before FireFox (I've forgotten it) - I think I used it since version 1 or god knows what.

For about the last 12 months, maybe 18, Firefox has become completely unstable for "extreme" browsers like me. I run anywhere from 30 to 150 tabs open at a time. I'd say a nice average would be around 60 tabs. When I'm researching something (often multiple things) I like to google what I'm reading, middle click open in the background the first 5 results. Then when on a forum, I'll middle click open 5 more results and so on. I like having those tabs queued up in the background for me to read.
You might think "well there's the cause of your stability problem!!" except this never used to happen. 18 months ago you could hit 200 tabs without FF crashing. Now, I'm scared to open more than 60. This is across multiple machines too.

I've even tried switching to WaterFox, no dice - I'm still able to crash FF regularly and I run very few addons either.
It's good to see the http cache changes, so they are working on performance but stability should be the #1 focus.
Oddly enough, I get exactly the same symptoms in Firefox for Android as I do Windows for fucks sake. If I hit enough tabs (about 8 on my Galaxy S3) - FF for Android shits the bed, presumably because it's out of ram and can't page well or something. Worst part is FF for Android doesn't remember my open tabs either. Miserable.

They've fiddled and fucked with the UI, replicating Chrome as much as they can (ugh!) for years, now can they stop? If I wanted ugly goddamn chrome I'd install it.
PLEASE fix the stability, PLEASE make it faster. I don't care how much ram it uses, I just want a modern experience with my browser.

Re:Still having misery with Firefox.

[kylemonger]

They are fixing your issues, if only incidentally. A number of the latest security fixes have been related to bad code continuing to use objects that were freed, which causes crashes in the best case and enables remote code execution in the worst. As they continue to find and fix these bugs, crash probability is bound to decrease on average

Re:Still having misery with Firefox.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have that man tabs open at the same time, you don't need a better browser. You need to learn to focus.

Re:Still having misery with Firefox.

[bill_mcgonigle]

"extreme" browsers like me. I run anywhere from 30 to 150 tabs open at a time. I'd say a nice average would be around 60 tabs

It's not Firefox and that's not extreme. I was just doing some Javascript profiling this weekend on slow performance with 1630 tabs (Tree Style Tabs, of course), with the winners for CPU eaters being HTTPS Everywhere 4.0's SSLObservatory and SessionRestore.

As much as I appreciate the EFF's efforts, I wound up disabling 4.0. Maybe 4.0.1 will be back with a vengeance.

Anyway, Firefox wasn't crashing, it was slow. Probably one of your in-profile databases got corrupted at some point ('restore from backup' is the most likely "fix"). I'm on Fedora 20, running stock Firefox.

Re:Still having misery with Firefox.

[Luckyo]

I'm pretty sure that of people running away from the browser, almost none are running away because they can't have a stable firefox with 150 tabs open. That's an extreme case if I ever saw one.

And quite a few of us that left firefox because we like having a firefox instead of chromefox have simply migrated to pale moon.

Re:Still having misery with Firefox.

[Ash-Fox]

IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER IF YOU AREN'T EXPERIENCING THESE PROBLEMS!

It does, because it means theres a reproducibility issue going on here. There is something more than just having 150 tabs open.

Why do you freaks always insist on denying that very real problems exist just because you haven't personally experienced them?

Show me where I denied you were having it.

Do you know how bad it makes you and all Mozilla supporters look?

I know I didn't deny it, I just pointed out my own anecdotal experience wasn't consistent with yours.

These aren't isolated problems that people are reporting, either.

With such a large population, you should have determined the reproduction criteria because 150 tabs alone doesn't seem to be just the trigger?

The reports are numerous, widespread, yet still quite consistent.

Great, you have a large sample of people, care to actually find some reproduction information?

Firefox is slow. Firefox suffers from memory leaks.

I'm not experiencing this; can you provide reproduction information?

Firefox has a shitty UI these days.

I personally don't find the Firefox UI bad or good, it's a subjective topic and the current UI doesn't really pose any blockers or issues for my uses.

ALL OF THOSE COMPLAINTS ARE LEGITIMATE, AND ALL ARE FACTUAL!

Great, show me the facts that give the reproduction information.

The more you shitbags deny that these problems exist, the faster users run away from Firefox.

I don't really care? I'm not that passionate about Firefox. I just find people who complain and do nothing about it annoying. Sometimes I am genuinely curious about issues too, but not enough to hold your hand.

The fact that cockmongers like you feel the need to belittle

I wasn't belittling in my previous post.

The fact you care so much and don't do much effort to fix it yourself doesn't mean much to the outsider.

I do admit, I end up imaging the majority of people whom complain about any software having issues I don't experience for years on end and are unable to provide sufficient reproduction information have malware infested PCs, install addons to the software that are slow (ie: adblock+, skype toolbar) etc.

Version Number

[Anonymous Coward]

Since these updates became more about upping the version number than adding anything really useful and substantive, they should seize this golden opportunity to call it Firefox 100000. Then as the updates roll on from here ...Firefox 100001, Firefox 100010, Firefox 100011, etc.

Re:Version Number

[tlhIngan]

Did they fix the right-click menus randomly stopping working? Because that's the about only thing I really care about in Firefox as it stands.

That's probably a side effect of the "Javascript always on" thing Mozilla did a few versions ago. When they got rid of the "Enable Javascript" checkbox, they also got rid of the options like "Allow scripts to take right-click" and other options.

What's likely happening is your website is blocking right-clicks on purpose (usually as a "protection" measure so you can't right-click and activate extensions like Nuke Anything or Save As).

Of course, the default setting of the checkbox was to disallow websites from hijacking right-click. But since it's gone, so is the setting, so websites are free to hijack right-click.

You need to either use NoScript to block the offending Javascript, or hold down shift when you right-click, which bypasses the right-click hijack and shows the Firefox right-click menu and all the extensions.

Haha, sad pi

[viperidaenz]

Firefox mobile: Android 2.2 and ARMv6 processor chipset no longer supported

Re:True enough

[Anonymous Coward]

firefox would have crashed long before i was able to open up that many windows with that many tabs.

after a few hundred pageviews using no more than a few tabs at a time firefox gets close to 2 gigs memory used and stays there.. ui gets sluggish (even more than usual now since the omg-it-looks-like-chrome version), pages start stuttering on scrolling and taking longer to load up in the first place, and acknowledgement of mouseclicks can be delayed so much that what firefox 'clicks' on isn't even what *I* clicked the button on.... this on 8gb quad core win7x64.... and even when running only bare minimum addons like abp and noscript.

and yet i stick with firefox because a) its not google, b) it's not microsoft, and c) adblock and noscript are unequaled still in every other browser

Re:True enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The next time it gets that bad, open about:memory and see what stands out as eating the RAM. There have been issues with AntiVirus software, old crufty features like "ask me about every cookie", the YouTubeCenter addon gobbles up RAM (developer version doesn't), and video drivers with shared RAM being problematic. Adobe has also stopped caring about Flash on Firefox, so that's becoming a real turd in the punchbowl lately. But if you try to dig deeper and help Mozilla find out what the problem is, I'm sure they'll help find out what the cause is. They did for me, so if you're not a total asshat about it, they'll probably help you out too. They do care, they just need someone to help them find the actual problem.

Re:And still leaking memory like a fucking sieve

[thegarbz]

You're right. There's zero excuse for you blaming your problems on Firefox. Since you complained about other people not posting images here you go:

7 tabs open.
1 tab running a video
16 plugins installed
7 extensions running (10 installed).

350MB of RAM used. Go fix your browser instead of bitching about it on Slashdot.

http://s28.postimg.org/3zhxwhuzx/firefox.jpg