Slashdot Mirror
Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 40 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include official Windows 10 support, added protection against unwanted software downloads, and new navigational gestures on Android. Firefox 40 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. Changelogs are here: desktop and Android.
because Chrome version is 44. This is 10% better.
After using windows 10 edge i felt that without ad blocker was useless in this ad ridden web, so which are the options?, a slow and bloated firefox, or the alphabet privacy nightmare and memory hog Chrome.
I installed the latest Opera and was surprised, is fast, based in chromium so is very compatible and has the gestures and usual goodies of every opera install, it is even a universal app in windows 10, so it looks great too.
For me Opera is my alternative browser for years to come
OMG, When Firefox one came out we used to to view webpages. 40 major revisions plus numerous increments we can still view the same webpagf but with a much larger footprint. Have we really gained anything worth while over 40 major revisions.
So as part of the safe browsing it looks like all of the URLs you are going to and anything you download is being sent over to Google. I wonder what they are going to do with them?
Just installed it and I'm quite surprised, it looks just like Firefox 39 (and 38, and 37, and... whatever version where they intro'd that stupid Chrome-clone theme with curved tabs and whatnot). So whatever pointless shit they've added this time, it's not visible in the UI.
(Having said that, I'm running Classic Theme Restorer and a bunch of other addons to undo all the crap they've stuck in there, so maybe it's shielding me from whatever they've screwed up this time).
"New: Improved scrolling, graphics, and video playback performance with off main thread compositing (GNU/Linux only)."
I did the upgrade to 10 (finally!), and now Firefox doesn't come back from sleep properly anymore. It gets weird visual glitches that look like refresh issues, and none of the tab gadgets are visible (or clickable). I pretty much have to kill it and restart it every time I wake my PC. Hopefully the "supported" version won't do that.
We’ve made thoughtful tweaks to the interface to give Firefox a streamlined feel. You’ll also notice bigger, bolder design elements as well as more space for viewing the Web.
Translation: We tried to hide more buttons and functionality from users with Firefox 40, but in the end people complained about the lack of a field to enter addresses into and the removal of the back button. Users, tsk, tsk... Rest assured that in the future we will continue to add more useful buttons and features like Pocket and voice chat.
Regards,
The Firefox "UX" Team
In all seriousness the "new look" for Windows 10 doesn't look all that different from FF 38 that I've been using for months in the Tech Preview. I can't wait to try and find what other menus, options and functionality they have "designed" out of FF 40.
"Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection"
That seems like a contradiction, given what I've read about Windows 10.
Yep. There are still 3,215 bugs over 5 years old that aren't fixed and 40 bugs with over 50 votes that aren't fixed, but "hey guys, we're new and improved with a look more closely resembling the browser that's kicking our ass." Also, every release more and more people turn off automatic updating because they get sick of having some new "feature" sprung on them that reduces their privacy or makes Firefox less usable.
Don't allow any downloading from any link that is flagged as an "AD" on google.
99% of the time I have to clean someone's computer it's because, "I searched for XXX and installed it from the first link from a google search."
Google sponsored links from a search needs to have dark red borders around them with "WARNING DO NOT CLICK ON THIS"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Via Softmedia
Are you nuts? The heading above the button says "Make Firefox your default in three easy steps", but you need the button itself, right below that heading, to say the exact same thing?!!? This is your complaint? You expect every button in an application to have text on the button itself fully describing what it does? Jesus.
True. Classic Theme Restorer + Classic Toolbar Buttons and Firefox looks as it should look...
They load by default and I don't know how to disable them. Another undesirable "feature" creeping in. Why am I not surprised that with every new update, I find myself thinking what they will have screwed up this time?
Still using Firefox, still prefer it over Google's spyware that has become a nasty resource hog. Just my two cents!
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
"The first of these changes .. consists of extending the monitoring of malicious file downloads to the Mac and Linux versions of Firefox."
How do you get to execute malware under Linux from a Firefox download?
I realize Mozilla can be bothered to do their own final quality checking until someone else finds it in the field, but I don't want to be part of the experiment. People say the XP model is better for everyone, but all it says to me is you want to be more like Microsoft. Welcome to Planet Beta Test
Expanded Malware Protection? Windows 10 Support? Does not compute - unless it means it doesn't run on Windows 10 now?
You expect every button in an application to have text on the button itself fully describing what it does?
Yes. Most people only read what is on the button itself, if even that. Expecting them to have read the entire page to know what it is that they will be doing (it's not even mentioned in the page title) is too much.
No, I think it's just you... you must have a huge problem when using any GUI interface these days--"OK or Cancel? OK to what?? Cancel what??? I have no idea what it's talking about!"
I also remember when Firefox was toted as the light and speedy version of Mozilla.
I remember when I could run Firefox on a USB stick with less than 100MB memory usage! And 200MB with the flash plugin!
They've always had customization, addons, extensions, and everything else. As time went on however, in handling all those APIs, it slows down. Then, some of the addon authors slow it down even more. Maybe it's because they use Javascript for everything?
I know this is a totally vague question, but it went from slim to bloated fast.
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
It took Firefox forever to get to 4. Now we are at 40. How soon until 400?
I would change Opera to 'least worst'.
Firefox is still far more insecure than Chrome due to lack of a sandbox feature and multiprocess. Instead of spending so much time on pocket they needed to get the sandbox done. They should have had the sandbox in 3 years and are only dragging their feet on it being forced to keep up with Chrome on this matter.Still a very insecure browser. Total negligence. Whats ironic is they would mainly need to plugin into infrastructure that was already implemented for Chrome on Linux, as it was Chrome that pushed implementation of a process sandbox on Linux.
Sounds good enough to me! Hope it comes in red.
This is modded insightful??? For any non-degenerate case, the buttons OK and Cancel will be placed on a dialog that provides the context of what they are about, so their meaning can still be inferred from the whole interface they are connected with. If you are really interested in the scientific basis of how all this works, search for any literature in the intersections of "semantics" and "human-computer interaction" - there's much more to it than the average developer knows about.
BTW, in most cases the recommended text for buttons in dialogs is to summarize the effect they will have if pressed (like "Save" or "Delete all files" or "Stop the autodestruction sequence"), not merely "OK".
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Linux user here, eagerly awaiting the breaking of the UI, extensions, and suchlike by this update, having experienced this numerous times with Firefox the last couple of years.
Editing configs? Pffffft--I don't know how many times I've had to unzip extensions or themes, edit the files inside, and then zip them up again so they'd keep working.
These are not Windows issues, they're issues affecting users and developers on all platforms, caused by Mozilla's years-long policy of bait-and-switch.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.