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Firefox 43 Arrives With 64-bit Version For Windows, Android Tab Audio Indicators (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 43 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include a 64-bit version for Windows (finally!), a new strict blocklist for the browser's tracking protection feature, and tab audio indicators on Android. "There is, however, a bit of a caveat. Firefox 64-bit for Windows has limited support for plugins. Certain sites that require plugins and work in Firefox 32-bit might not work in this 64-bit version. But Mozilla doesn’t see this as a big problem, and says it is by design. After all, the company plans to drop support for NPAPI plugins in Firefox by the end of the year (though it will keep Flash around). Mozilla has just over two weeks to deliver on that promise." Here are the changelogs: desktop and Android.
To me, the most important feature of Firefox is the add-ons. I like Session Manager, for example.
... provides a user-friendly interface to advanced preferences that would otherwise require manual editing of parameters, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming to do."
Question about Firefox: Microsoft's Process Explorer shows that Firefox uses the CPU while no Firefox windows are in the foreground. Why? Firefox's CPU use is especially intense when many windows and tabs are open. Also Process Explorer shows that often Firefox continually adds memory to its "Private Bytes" and "Working Set", even when there is no Again, why?
Someone above mentioned Pale Moon. Pale Moon has a 64-bit edition.
Joke:
Instead of browser.pocket.enabled = false in Firefox, try:
browser.adult.supervision.enabled = true in Pale Moon. (Not a real Pale Moon choice, of course.)
Pale Moon has tools for backup and migration. Adblock Latitude blocks ads. There are other Pale Moon ad-ons, and usually Firefox add-ons work perfectly.
"Pale Moon Commander
Which about:config preferences do I have to mess with to disable all the unwanted "features" in this version?
browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete to false will remove the worthless "Search For..." entry from the autocomplete dropdown when typing in the URL bar.
I just moved to the 64-bit FF and it's lightning fast and my entire big list of extensions still work perfectly. I'm really impressed. My only gripe is that the about:config hack to restore the old drop-down search engine list isn't working yet. The string is still there though, so I assume it will come back to life eventually.
NoScript is an extension, not a plugin. Those are two completely different kinds of addons. Mozilla's quite particular about that distinction.
Extensions are the things we all know and love, like uBlock, NoScript, GreaseMonkey etc. Plugins are things like Flash, the Java web plugin for running applets, Google Update, Silverlight, and so on. For the most part we really don't need plugins.