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."

Comments

Just what I wanted for xmas time, more bloat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what I wanted for xmas time, more bloat.
 

Re:Just what I wanted for xmas time, more bloat.

[UPi]

This is the way the world is going right now. HTML5 and JavaScript have become the new, universal runtime that everyone is trying to use to build their applications. It is extremely compelling too: you don't need to worry about deployment, supporting older versions, operating systems, etc. This, however, requires browsers to do a lot more than they did before. Sound and video input is just the tip of it. There's also the canvas, WebGL, WebSocket, tons of new CSS features.

Firefox can either choose to keep up with new features or lose 90% of its share to Chrome. I'm actually happy they going forward because part of HTML5's appeal is that it is multi-vendor and is not solely controlled by a corporation like Google or Apple. Yes, it is "bloat", as in, lots of new features that you personally might not be using today. But someday you, or your friend will come across a site that uses one of these new features and if the site says "Sorry, you are using a backwards browser, please try Chrome instead", we both know what will happen. (You of course will scoff and close the site, but 10 other people will switch for every lean browser snob out there.)

Point is, browsers are evolving. Deal with it.

video chat

[vux984]

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.

Re:video chat

[NotInHere]

I agree. As much as I'm a fan of WebRTC and despise the walled gardens of facebook, whatsapp, google hangouts and friends, I don't think firefox should add this to their browser. Rather they should publish their own chat program, either as separate addon or as separate program. As a browser, firefox should be a platform that enables higher-level programs to bring services to its users.

Re:video chat

[pavon]

This is based on WebRTC which is a W3C draft that both Safari and Internet Explorer have committed to implement. There has to be a first browser to implement any proposed standard.

Re:video chat

[sexconker]

This is based on WebRTC which is a W3C draft that both Safari and Internet Explorer have committed to implement. There has to be a first browser to implement any proposed standard.

Not all proposed standards should be implemented.
This one shouldn't, nor should the DRM one, etc.

Re:Video chat??

[reub2000]

Firefox was supposed to be just a browser. Has Mozilla forgotten why Firefox was created in the first place?

512-bit self-signed certs (e.g. DD-WRT)

[Anonymous Coward]

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"

Re:512-bit self-signed certs (e.g. DD-WRT)

[Jahta]

Not only that, but they fucking maintain their own DB of certs instead of relying on the OS. So I can install and trust a cert on my machine (or everyone's machine by policy) but Firefox won't fucking play by the rules. You have to find and use an obscure tool just to manage certs for Firefox. No thanks, assholes.

IMO Firefox are doing this right. Having known good copies of the major root certs bundled with the browser is a strong defense against MITM attacks. I've worked in more than one organisation that was doing MITM on their staff's SSL sessions (unknown to the staff) by silently pushing "trusted" DIY certs to the workstations by policy. Chrome and IE swallowed this without complaint. Only Firefox complained that I didn't in fact have a secure session with, for example, google.com.

Re:Video chat??

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, Firefox (previously Firebird (previously Phoenix)) was a spin-off from the Mozilla suite which contained, among other things, a chat platform and other sundry cruft. The Phoenix (then Firebird (then Firefox)) people got fed up with the bloat and decided to make a fast and lean browser.

Come full circle, Firefox has. Now it's about time to fork a decent, lean browser off of Firefox...

capcha: mosaics -- maybe that's a sign of where the future lies

Unwanted video on top of Australis mess? I'm out.

[xeno]

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.

Re:Yahoo Search?

[lister king of smeg]

Speaking of what everyone wants, hoo-ray for the built-in video chat! They finally relented, after years of users clamoring for this necessary feature, to bundle it into their flagship product *even though* it meant they would have to postpone fixing some of the regressions that have come up recently.

Thanks Firefox. Thirefox.

A lot.

This (web video chat) is something that really should have been put in Thunderbird not Firefox, but unfortunately the powers that be at Mozilla seems to have decided that it should join SeaMonkey in being their neglected redhead step child, while they continue to throw shit into Firefox (which was meant to be the striped down powerful simple browser), or try to compete outside of their core competency focusing on projects like FirefoxOS, or Mozilla Marketplace, all the while trying to ape chromes interface.

Re:Kiss my hairy Pale Moon, Mozilla!

[hairyfeet]

Comodo IceDragon, Kmeleon, Waterfox, Seamonkey, and that is if you want to stick with the gecko engine. If you don't care which engine you use there is Chromium, SWIron, Comodo Secure Chromium and Dragon, Opera, Safari,OffByOne, Chrome, I'm sure there are others I'm missing.

That is why i just don't understand those that rage because a browser goes to poo...we have options folks! Its not like the old days where you had Internet Exploiter and Nutscrape and if you didn't fit into one of those 2 molds? Fuck off, no soup for you! Today we are just swimming in choices, we can all have a browser that works OUR way so if you don't like the trainwreck that FF is becoming? Tell them so then move to and support one of the alternatives!

Re:Video chat??

[TheRaven64]

Even initial versions were actually more heavyweight and leaked more memory than mozilla suite

That's not quite what I remember. Phoenix (then Firebird, then Firefox) and Thunderbird (or whatever it was called back then) between them used more memory than the Mozilla suite, but Firefox was lighter than using the Mozilla suite and just the browser. The big appeal of separating the two was that the browser was a buggy piece of crap and every time it crashed it took out everything else sharing the XUL runtime, including the mail client (which then had to spend time recovering corrupted databases on next launch). With Firefox, only the browser crashed and restarted quite quickly. Given that the browser crashed at least once an hour back then, it was a bit advantage. No one cared about memory leaks, because the browser didn't stay up long enough for them to become apparent. It was only after they fixed the stability issues that people started noticing.