Firefox 34 Arrives With Video Chat, Yahoo Search As Default
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 34 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Major additions to the browser include a built-in video chat feature, a revamped search bar, and tab mirroring from Android to Chromecast. This release also makes Yahoo Search the default in North America, in place of Google. Full changelogs: desktop and Android."
Everyone wants that! Good shout!
Just what I wanted for xmas time, more bloat.
Is this the first US-only feature in Firefox?
video chat ? Where I send someone a web link? That's goofy.
And it doesn't work with Safari or Internet Explorer ... so most people won't even be able to click on the link, and it doensn't work with iOS devices... because no firefox and doesn't work with safari... so... useless? Why is this a core feature?
This should be an addon... that almost nobody uses instead of a feature that almost nobody uses.
At least as an addon, any security issues inherent to a feature that lets the browser turn on your camera and microphone aren't part of the browser.
I love firefox.. I really do, and the alternatives are all far more awful, so I don't see myself switching, but I just don't see the point of this at all.
I'm sorry i thought firefox was a browser not a fucking chat program.
Please mozilla, make two versions: One for your every day person who wants their browser to do everything and another for those of us us who simply want a browser with toggleable javascript, addons, html5 and THAT'S IT!
I swear the addons i use are the only thing keeping me with firefox.
Firefox lost me at least 10 versions ago, or whatever.
So sometime last week then?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
"Pale Moon" is one possible alternative fork. Anybody want to recommend others?
Table-ized A.I.
The last version I want is V28. After that, their password sync system was changed in ways I no longer trust. NoScript, AdBlockPlus, Ghostery help keep me safe, and browsing fast; and there's no Google spyware. So it's still the best option.
John
What convinces you that Chrome is spyware?
Firefox 32 happily connects to DD-WRT's self-signed 512-bit cert.
Firefox 33 blocks DD-WRT's SSL cert, claiming "Secure Connection Failed" (Error code: sec_error_invalid_key), with no option to override.
Firefox 34 just lies and claims "The connection was interrupted". Like the fuck it was. It works *right now* in the other browser in my virtual machine, from the same PC. Even after restarting firefox, and even after restarting the machine.
Assholes got feedback that users need to access our HTTPS-encrypted DD-WRT, so they changed the message and claimed it was reset. This sounds like a case of "Let's just play the 'What problem? I don't have that problem on my machine. Oh, your connection was reset? That must be a problem with the device.' game"
i swear google or microsoft are paying someone to fuck it up on purpose
http://www.seamonkey-project.o...
I've even disabled 3/4 of my addons.
Rather than re-type my posts for internet karma, I'm just going to paste them at this point
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
and here
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
I gather, based on the fact I (and many) have whined about this for years now, I'd say they probably don't read slashdot.
They already do:
Chatzilla.
This should've been rolled into that, with only a limited set of hooks in the core for stuff that it would need at the xul level (namely network access features, and audio/video encoding), and had a new section of configuration options added to the preferences menu to make it easy to disable completely, and ideally ask/warn when a script requests possession of it.
Not the OP but what convinced me is that when you delete something out of your history Chrome still presents it on the startup screen and the url bar as if it was never deleted...so either each of those has some redundant history database that they aren't telling you about or deleting your browsing history is like deleting email in gmail, you can't see it anymore but google can...
Make that STILL out.
When the naval-gazing derpfest at FF rolled out that hideous chrome-knockoff "Australis" interface revamp in v29, I used the debian equivalent of the middle finger: sudo apt-mark hold firefox
to stem the tide of f**ck-the-user UI design, common features hidden behind weird hamburger buttons, and unreadably huge defaults.
WOW. MUCH HUGE. SO WHITESPACE IS THE NEW CAPSLOCK.
That gave a me a little time to explore options. With a little work, I can make Seamonkey usable, but I do lament the loss of an easy choice that IU can recommend to less geeky friends. IE is a lost cause even on my work machines and msft doesn't remotely give a shit about user feedback. Chrome's entire skeletal structure is made from IE spyware toolbars working together as a virtualized/rootkit OS. And Firefox's UI team has gone full "Grinch paradigm" [To quote the original: "Here's our new, wonderful product. Isn't it wonderful? Don't you just love it? What do you mean it doesn't do something essential that you've been able to do for years and you don't like it? You ingrate! You're GOING to like our new product! We're not going to fix it just because you and 100,000 whiny little dweebs claim to need those missing functions!" ]
Screw this. I'm gonna donate a little more money to the upstarts, because Firefox is lost.
I think not...(*poof*)
I don't want to come across as a luddite but seriously stop with the bloat already. Firegerbil seems to have sacrificed efficiency to engage in an execrable arms race with Google. Please break this out into an add-on where it can die a lonely death and concentrate on improving the engine and other core optimisations.
Chromium. It is Chrome, but missing all the Google spyware. Add on the extensions: Adblock Plus (most viruses come in through ads, also they're annoying), Disconnect (not ghostery - they help advertisers), HTTPS Everywhere (can't be too careful), ScriptSafe (NoScript in spirit on Chrome). Grab the 32-bit (the 64-bit seems unstable) version from woolyss, just keep in mind these are dev builds so expect bugs from time to time, and expect to have to go back to an older version sometimes so keep around your older installers: http://chromium.woolyss.com/
So you use Opera now?
Learn to love Alaska
Every single keystroke and mouse click is sent to Google. This includes while using the "private" modes.
... and that browser was Chrome when they implemented WebRTC back in 2012....
Yes, that's right, Yahoo! search is the best and fastest vector for getting infections STILL, even with AV solutions installed. Malware via ads, the WORSST ad network on the net for this crap.
I am done with you Mozilla. You are fucking idiots. I knew it when you put the fucking refresh button on the OPPOSITE end of the address bar from the rest of the navigation buttons, and now the world knows it. I hope you enjoy the you self-induced slide into uselessness.
I fucking hate you too Chrome but i will be switching to you until you do this same stupid shit.
No kidding. There's not much left after those, unless you want to warp back to the times of a simpler WWW.
Here we go again.... WTF is "video chat" a core feature instead of an addon? It really doesn't even have anything to do with web browsing. And I can't imagine the code is small, either. Ug.
If it doesn't have ZRTP encryption, then I won't use it.
Feh...memory pig.
Pray tell, what is a hamburger button?
thanks for the post. I didn't know that version 34 is out. I'll download the Windows Version after I arrive home.
It certainly looks as if there's an unwarranted amount of arm waving, trying to counter the UI fiasco that is Firefox.
Real UI: User interface. File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, Help. See, it's discoverable, and I can tell you that the option you want is under Tools>Options>TellUXPeopleToGoFuckThemselves.
Hamburger Button: Nobody gets paid to do UI anymore. It's about UX. Mobile first. Because that's where I hope my next paid job is coming from, even though I'm currently just fucking up a desktop app in order to get some commits in muh Github repo that I use as a resume. Anyways. it looks like â (or at least it would, if Slashdot did Unicode) - three horizontal lines, vaguely suggestive of a bun, a burger, and another bun, or three vertical dots, or whatever the fucking UX fad is this week. And under it is a bunch of tiles with pictures instead of words, because nobody can be arsed to localize anything. You click on the, uh, hamburger menu, you then click - no, not the third picture from the left, they reorder themselves depending on what you used last week - you want the one that looks like a bird, but not the bird that represents the Twitter app. And then the one with the thing that might look like a shovel. It's actually supposed to be spatula to be suggestive of flipping. And then you uninstall the fucking app because that's still the only effective way of flipping the bird to the UX designer.
Hello.
I just upgraded Firefox v33.1.1 to v34.0 on my office's Mac mini with its updated Mac OS X 10.9.5. However, I am confused if this is v34.0.5 or not in its About screen. About screen says v34.0. Both https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/... and https://download.mozilla.org/?... say v34.0.5. How do I know if my installed one is b5?
Thank you in advance.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I think he's referring to that ice cream sandwich (That's what I call it) icon that is the settings...the three horizontal lines thing that the UX retards have replaced the wrench or gear icon with.
-- Fuck Beta
It's that button with three horizontal lines.
The last version I want is 3.6. Now get off my lawn!
delete something out of your history
consider using porn^h^h^h^h incognito mode rather than editing history
Lynx?
Learn to love Alaska
Well that explains... Something. To me, that icon with three horizontal lines looks like it's supposed to be for paragraph layout or something, so I've never touched it. I had zero clue that's where the settings had gone to, I thought it was some kind of inline HTML formatter.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
RIP firefox
RIP in pieces firefox
Oh. I call that thing the right click button cause it causes the context menu to pop up like a mouse does. But I'm old and evidently just don't know what good UI design is.
I'm sending Mozilla a message and using IE 11 for a month. I hope they have a heart attack when they see the stats. Anyone with me?
xombrero? I don't know anymore really.
On my absolute shit Athlon X2 4850e, I can run Camfrog and fill BOTH 1080p screens with cameras, and have them all run like glass (assuming the users have proper lighting for framerate or adjust their cams to a set framerate.)
I tried WebRTC, and couldn't get more than ten without slowing my machine to a crawl.
WebRTC is absolute SHIT compared to a decade+ old video chat technology. What a waste of code.
I've also noticed that on IE, trying to use the Bing search engine gets me redirected to Charter taking my search result and passing it to Yahoo. Something smells fairly illegal about that, and with Yahoo also being attached to FireFox, I thik it's time I totally uninstalled FireFox and go with Chrome, not like the UI is really any different, now, and as a plus, I don't have to download and install Flash.
Plus I am seeing more than 50% of my web site-s hits coming from Chrome, so I know which way this tide is turning.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If you and all the other "whiners" had donated enough to Mozilla before they got onto Google's teat, perhaps you wouldn't be crying about it now. But do go ahead and fund another browser, please. At least you've learned your lesson.
Why is there no chromecast support on the desktop release?
I think it's actually called the waffle button (because it looks like a stack of waffles seen edge-on).
Comodo IceDragon [...] Comodo Secure Chromium and Dragon
One feature of Comodo Dragon creates a perverse incentive not to encrypt personal web sites. When Comodo Dragon sees a domain-validated TLS certificate, it displays this interstitial designed to scare users away from using any HTTPS site not operated by "a legitimate business". This makes users feel safer using clear HTTP than using HTTPS on a site operated by an individual, which runs against the effort of HTTPS Everywhere to bring the benefits of encryption even to personal sites. Does Comodo IceDragon do the same?
I may be "old school" but I still really like Konqueror or Rekonq. Simple, no bloat. What about Midori?
I did. They didn't give a shit. And lest you think me a whiner, I also contributed work and donated a bunch of money to the Mint project (among many others), and whaddya know, they listen to both technical and nontechnical contributors... and produce a polished product with great flexibility across a wider audience. So don't tell me it can't be done; it's just that the FF team decided their first principles were "oo shiny" and "I know best" instead of "do the needful things" and "listen."
I think not...(*poof*)
Firefox was just becoming s decent browser again and I was getting to trust its private browsing feature more than google and ie, but if my private browser is calling home to check to see if anyone wants to video chat, it makes you wonder how private or secure it is.
Phoenix is a BIOS company (or at least was during the Firewhatever name controversy). Why would a company that makes a browser designed to run in BIOS go with Gecko instead of something lighter?
What convinces you that Chrome is spyware?
Google.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Mom?
Is that you?
.
I think not...(*poof*)
It looks like it is related to the search engine for upgraders and new installations as shown in http://www.dslreports.com/foru... thread. :/
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Is it too much to ask that when updating an existing installation, it leaves all the current settings alone ?
OK now I set the default search back to Google, what else do I have to do.
BTW I don't have (or want) a webcam connected to my PC
That's 3.6.28
I've been impressed by Safari 8 with Yosemite. I'm so eager to drop the bullshit that Firefox has become, but without proper RSS support I just can't do it. Yes, they did bring back a kind of RSS, but it just dumps all the subscriptions into an unsorted window (and no I don't want a separate reader app).
It'll start with users on Windows that are using better browsers (Firefox and Chrome as well as variants) as well as some of the 8% of the world that runs Mac who've grown beyond the often-outdated Safari (since it's OS tied and you have to upgrade your whole OS to update it). And it'll start on the majority of smartphone users that use Android. So that means most users can either use this now or upgrade to a better browser that can use this now. It'll come to the #2 mobile OS later once Apple adds it in to Safari but then it'll work for every browser on iOS since every browser on iOS is actually just Safari with a pretty UI on top.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
The gear icon is still there, and in fact you still need to use it for some settings. Some are under the gear, some are under the "hamburger button", some are in the hidden-by-default menu bar at the top.
the Fx team decided
FIFY. I see that you're so involved that you used the wrong abbreviation.
"and there's no Google spyware" ... so, you're saying you want internet ads to be eternally horrible? That Google, as their profit motive, should not be invested in showing you the ads you are most likely interested in?
I mean, if that's the case, you can always install do not track and google analytics optout on Chrome... then you can be sure that Google isn't tracking you.
That is, unless you're just paranoid.
Chromium. It is Chrome, but missing all the Google spyware.
You mean... the built in Flash player? Google doesn't have spyware unless you opt in, and it anonymizes your data before you send it by your computer randomly lying to them.
Google has enough data that the lies don't affect the actual statistics, but don't allow anyone to trust any of the individualized data...
Also, Google has tons of really smart academics working on "how can we extract individuals out of randomized aggregate data?" then following up with "how can we prevent this."
I don't think they thought this thing through. If i type few letters, i only get the suggestions for the default engine and the others are searched with the few letters i typed.
Seriously, this should've been noticed while they tested this. I don't understand what was so wrong about the way it was. What exactly does this new way bring to the table? It was a one click search before, all i had to do was to select the search engine and then type the search, now it's just the other way around and it does not work correctly, because of that.
Built-in chat in a browser that dumped MNG support because 60k was too much extra size for the distribution? What a fucking joke. Also, Mozilla Team, you want to know why people aren't updating Firefox even with critical security issues? Because you cram all the other shit changes down our throats with the security update. We don't want that other crap so badly we're willing to live with the security risk. Long live blackholing Mozilla update servers at the network's edge router.
So you use Opera now?
In my case yes. Although the 12.xx version not the new googleish copy that eviscerated all the good features Opera had.
So as long as 12.xx continues to receive security updates I'll continue to use it. When it dies, I'll migrate very sadly to Seamonkey. Which is a decent browser but leagues behind the perfection of Opera 12.xx.
Fuck you, Firefox! Sincerely, everyone.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
Remember when Firefox was that lean browser that was a viable alternative to the bloated Mozzilla ?
What's next ?
I've always found it interesting that for a split second on Google Drive, on a brand new PC that never connected to the internet, you will see your deleted folders and deleted files pop up before dissapearing again. They might want to fix that in case anybody gets the mistaken impression that their files aren't actually gone
Konqueror is still pretty decent. These days it generally uses WebKit (which was built from Konqueror's KHTML engine originally). I like its interface and generally high utility.
Aside from being in the package repose for pretty much all desktop Linux and BSD variants, it's also available for Windows. Haven't checked for Mac, but it's probably available there too.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Proof?
Try Fifth.
Unfortunately, this upgrade broke one of my favorite plugins: Tree Style Tab. A previous upgrade caused the whole tree to be expanded when restoring the tabs at Firefox startup, and now since FF 34 new tabs are no longer opened as a child of the current tab :-(
I am not really here right now.
Schmidt? Is that you?
I once installed zonealarm, the free firewall software, on a machine that wasn't mine. Many firewall warnings started popping up from chrome... I don't remember the details, but chrome was sending a lot of data back home and it was very hard to stop it from doing that. Translation: they spy hard and are very sneaky and difficult to disable the spying.
Mozilla are throttling the chat feature.
To enable, go to about:config, and set loop.throttled to false. Otherwise there is a one in ten chance of having the feature. Currently I think the servers are struggling. It's a new feature and as such needs to bed in whilst capacity is judged.
HTH.
Why UNIX?
What the last GOOD version of firefox was?
I've put off updating for awhile. And now all the latest stuff i see about it. I don't want to use the newest...
zza
What about supporting new and useful technologies instead than wasting your time (and google's money http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/21/mozillas-reliance-google-increasing-90-2012-revenue-came-one-source/) in useless bloatware?
Things like supporting the new FIDO alliance security keys (https://fidoalliance.org) to make the web safer for everyone, or stop boycotting good technologies such as Dart which makes development faster, easier and clearer than Javas*it?
When will we have these things? In 10 years? Quite frankly I just dropped Firefox months ago in favor of Chrome and I see it happening everywhere, everyone i know is doing it, it is just a matter of time before they become irrelevant. Unless I see real improvements I won't go back.
Just wanted to report my own anecdotal observation that after updating Firefox to 34, my default search engine remained set as "Google" and did not require me to change the setting.
I assume only users installing Firefox for the first time will get the "Yahoo" search setting.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You mean your browser was trying to access the internet?? Oh, the horror!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Your comment needs to be at +6. My work computer still runs Opera 12. If Opera ever open sources 12, that will be a very happy day!
Opera 12 is still the best.
There are five tiers:
This works with no interstitial in all browsers.
This shows the "unknown issuer" interstitial in most major browsers and the "struck-out https" in Chrome.
This shows "This website does not supply ownership information" and "Organization: <Not part of certificate>" in Firefox's Page Info > Security and shows the "legitimate business" interstitial in Comodo Dragon.
This shows the business's trading name in in Firefox's Page Info > Security and skips the interstitial in Comodo Dragon.
This shows the business's trading name and address and triggers the green address bar.
You appear to have confused tier 2 (self-signed) with tier 3 (CA-signed, domain-validated). A certificate that triggers the "legitimate business" warning is not a self-signed certificate. It is a certificate issued by a certificate authority trusted by the browser. For example, Starfield is a CA known to several browsers. A certificate for "slashdot.org" with no organization issued by Starfield would trigger "legitimate business" interstitial, but a certificate for "slashdot.org" with organization "Dice Holdings" issued by the same CA would skip it. Self-signed certificates are a completely separate issue.
Custom Servers for 1.5 still not available and mozilla announced to discontinue sync 1.1 soon. So does this release still support it?
Now, if an attacker tries to substitute their *own* self-signed cert, your browser should object, or at least won't show the site as truly secured. For applications (including a few browsers) that support certificate pinning, this can also be used with self-signed certs in a trust-on-first-use basis (take a look at, for example, HTTP Public Key Pinning [ietf.org]).
This behavior is called "trust on first use", "pinning", "key continuity management", and "what SSH does". But if your first connection to a given host is through the system of an an active (man in the middle) attacker, such as when you first register on a site or you first use a new device, you've given up your info to the attacker.
Uhhhh...you think its BETTER to allow users to not know its a self signed cert from Joe Blow?
Where did I say "self-signed"? Like Richard_at_work, you are confusing self-signed certificates with CA-signed, domain-validated certificates. (I explained the difference in this reply.) Chrome and Firefox already block the former; Dragon alone blocks the latter.
its so that the user isn't lulled into a false sense of security just because his "Bank Of Amerrica" site has a lock on it.
There are two ways this can proceed:
Which of these attacks are you envisioning? Most browsers already warn about the first. Comodo Dragon also warns about the second but in the process warns about every legit personal blog, forum, or wiki that uses TLS.
WHITESPACE IS THE NEW CAPSLOCK
That's just beautiful. I might have to steal that for a new .sig at some point :)
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Yahoo has a search engine? Only Ya-hoos use Yah-oo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
So they leave out features everyone considers critical for a good browsing experiencie such as ad blocking, click to play plugins and videos. These feartures are so dear that there are plenty of 3rd parties providing them. Instead, they bundle a video chat app that i did not even consider having in the browser.
Has mozila resigned to becoming a gmail front end? The interface changes, the chat and the neglect of thunderbird seems to point in that direction.
Ghostery help advertisers, in what way? Genuinely curious as I use it.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Yandex.Browser is what I use. It is Chromium based, but has some features from Opera. If you go to the Extensions tab you already find a good Adblocker which you just need to activate and you can configure it to block plugins (like Flash). You can then activate Flash selectively (either on a one-off basis or permanently for a domain).
Actually, I've never gotten the whole "Chrome is the greatest browser ever" thing. I think it's probably a "more of what I'm used to", but the Firefox plug-in ecosystem has always appealed to me, as it does everything I want, the way I want.
And my "Internet ads" are all equally un-horrible - adblock sees to that.
My privacy boils down to two simple choices: I can guess which providers and trackers might honestly respect my opt-out wishes and not track every step I take (and I also have to guess what that means regarding their anonymised statistics gathering); or I can simply never send any of them any of my data, and know for sure.
John
Otter Browser (http://otter-browser.org/) is a pretty good re-implementation of classic Opera if you want that. It also uses WebKit (via QtWebKit), although to me that's a minus, because having a variety of rendering engines means that the IE6 situation can never happen again.