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Firefox 51 Arrives With HTTP Warning, WebGL 2 and FLAC Support (venturebeat.com)
Reader Krystalo writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 51 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new version includes a new warning for websites which collect passwords but don't use HTTPS, WebGL 2 support for better 3D graphics, and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) playback. Mozilla doesn't break out the exact numbers for Firefox, though the company does say "half a billion people around the world" use the browser. In other words, it's a major platform that web developers target -- even in a world increasingly dominated by mobile apps.
It is ©Snappier! FP
you still my choice on all desktops and smartphones
Looks like FF is finally catching up with chromium on usability (fit for use by humans != UX)
Been using Firefox since the first beta release. Will always be my favorite.
How do they figure that?
Firefox's share of the market is only about 5% to 6%, on all platforms (desktop and mobile).
Assuming Mozilla's number is true, we'll say that 5% equals 500,000,000 users.
So somehow they're saying that there are 10 billion people in the world? That's really weird, since there are only about 7.4 billion people on Earth, and a lot of them don't have any sort of a computing device, never mind Internet access.
Sure, some people might use more than one browser. But even then, we'd be talking about each and every person with Internet access using 3+ different browsers on a frequent basis! I don't buy it.
They should reveal more information about exactly how they're coming up with that number.
Why? Who is Mozilla to assume that every damn website is important enough to require encryption? I mean Slashdot didn't support HTTPS for a good 18 years and we all survived. God forbid the NSA could pose as thegarbz on Slashdot, oh noes!
Yet? I'll give it a chance when it's at least as sandboxed as chrome.
..and some numbskull still managed to convert a unicode apostrophe/single-quote into "itâ(TM)s"
You win all the innernets.
Although the world has largely switched to Chrome, the remaining use for Firefox is as the one browser that is still willing to support Java applets. Lots of people who work in IT have a VM or a jumpbox whose only purpose is to run Java applets inside of Firefox (for example, to do maintenance on some piece of equipment with a Java-applet-based configuration tool -- I'm talking to you, EMC) -- and *never* *run* *updates* because changing the browser or java version even slightly will break the whole thing.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
In other words, itâ(TM)s a major platform that web developers target -- even in a world increasingly dominated by mobile apps.
I'm not sure I understand this comment. I use Firefox as my main browser on both of my mobile platforms (phone and tablet). It probably just beats Twitter as my #1 app used on those devices. Why would someone imply they are some incompatible with each other?
...it's a major platform that web developers target...
I dunno about that. I am finding more and more websites where Firefox does not render the page properly. I retry Firefox in safe mode, and there still are problems rendering the page. So I switch to (gasp!) IE, and the page renders fine.
.
In my experience, it appears that web developers are beginning to abandon Firefox compatibility, probably because of its very low marketshare.
Still no HTTPS for ./ RSS feed.
The main difference that users will see is several improvements to password saving and, if the notes are to be believed, an improvement in e10s performance - in particular, faster tab switching. I personally hope they sorted out that thing where after you switch tabs the browser still thinks you're on the previous tab, which I started seeing immediately after activating e10s in the past. I also hope they fix whatever they did to the (formerly) "dark" devtools theme.
Web developers usually get several new features to play with in each version - this time it's mainly WebGL 2 support, which is pretty cool but not directly useful for most sites. Still, a significant upgrade and very much appreciated.
Lots of new APIs and improvements for extension developers. Looks useful.
Aside from that, a bunch of bugfixes.
This has been the case ever since Apple flooded the market with their shitty CSS prefixed garbage. Then, they didn't remove those bits once they were standardized, so everyone has had to implement both the standards AND that crap. Including Edge and Firefox, who are the ones doing the actual work to figure out how those under-documented junk piles work, and "standardize" them. Add to that the fact that almost nobody uses anything but Safari or Chrome on mobiles (whatever comes preinstalled), and you have a situation where the market is dominated with this half-baked junk, and nobody cares. Even if Firefox had retained its market share on desktops, they would have had the same problem.
I think its the Rust code. Firefox has been quite unstable the last few months, with tabs crashing and pages failing to render images.
...Even if Firefox had retained its market share on desktops, they would have had the same problem....
I disagree, but I'm not going to argue the hypothetical.
No, not xkcd. PaleMoon.
https://www.palemoon.org/
A useful fork from FF that didn't take the advertising/bloatware path. Persuaded me.
The only drawback is that sysadmins have a message on their web sites "Looks like you are using an out of date version of your browser. Update now to Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Edge for a safer web experience!".
As if.
Adding Rust code won't make anything less stable than it was before, so it must be something else.
Is there any way to tell which extensions are blocking multiprocess? My about:support page says multiprocess is disabled because of extensions, but it doesn't say which ones. It seems like they should publish this information, perhaps in a field on AMO. A Google only turns up results for developer testing or small lists, it says nothing about a complete list of incompatible extensions.
I don't know if anyone at Mozilla reads Slashdot any longer, but I think this would be a worthwhile documentation project that would help users demand extension authors make their software compatible, thus aiding the roll-out.
In my experience, it appears that web developers are beginning to abandon Firefox compatibility, probably because of its very low marketshare.
There are multiple reasons, and low marketshare is one of them. But the other big reason is something you mentioned in your post:
So I switch to (gasp!) IE, and the page renders fine.
Firefox users tend to be willing to use multiple browsers.
What this means is that when you consider the relatively low chance of a webpage working in Chrome but not in Firefox, the fact that Firefox users are willing to just use a different browser, and the fact that there simply aren't that many Firefox users: it's simply not worth the time to test in Firefox. So we don't.
Doesn't mean I'm not willing to try and fix things in Firefox if someone points out an issue, but it does mean that I'm not going to do any testing in Firefox. It's just not worth the effort when the chances are I won't find anything.
And that's where that second bit really comes in to bite Firefox: because Firefox users will tend to just use another browser rather than report sites being broken, things very well could be broken in Firefox and I'd never know it.
I don't need a bunch of annoying security messages that either tell me something I already know, or that tell me something I have already decided to ignore. What, I think, _everybody_ wants from a browser is: - decent memory management (I don't care if I page takes 2ms more to load, especially if the price is to have a browser taking 2gb of RAM and making my system unusable) - minimalist interface - fast startup time - fast page load Extra points if it also has: - add-on support - sound and videos on page load disabled by default - address autocomplete That's it. Really. It's a fucking browser. It's sole purpose is to render web-pages. I don't need another operating system. If I wanted that, I'd install a VM or emacs.
I don't need a bunch of annoying security messages that either tell me something I already know, or that tell me something I have already decided to ignore. What, I think _everybody_ wants from a browser is:
- decent memory management (I don't care if I page takes 2ms more to load, especially if the price is to have a browser taking 2gb of RAM and making my system unusable)
- minimalist interface
- fast startup time
- fast page load
Extra points if it also has:
- add-on support
- sound and videos on page load disabled by default
- address autocomplete That's it. Really. It's a fucking browser. It's sole purpose is to render web-pages. I don't need another operating system. If I wanted that, I'd install a VM or emacs.
Mozilla today launched Firefox 51 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android
And the on-line world responded with a huge, jaw-cracking yawn.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
They haven't actually used the Rust code in the stable release yet. What you're likely seeing is their new multi-process system conflicting with old settings or addons that don't co-exist well with it.
I switched to Chrome a few years ago when Firefox changed their interface to look like Chrome's. I tried Waterfox and Palemoon but they are still based on older Mozilla code and run just as slow.
Adding a browser vendor prefix is the proper way to add features that are not yet standardized. The fact that they're not removing support for those prefixes is so old websites won't stop working on the newest versions of browsers.
The only thing you can be annoyed about when a browser adds someone else's prefixes to their own, i.e. Firefox should not be adding -webkit prefixes anymore than Apple adding -edge prefixes.
#DeleteFacebook
Firefox was just getting too heavy for me. I'm on Linux, (Mint 18 XFCE) and it was taking 30-45 seconds to become responsive after launching. It would just sit there. Even if I launched it from the command line with a url, it refused to do anything for that time period was up. CPU and memory were not taxed or even being used by FF. I have an older processor, but plenty to handle a damn web browser. (Intel Core2 Quad Core, 8GB of RAM) Unless I open a ton of tabs and GIMP, I barely ever get past 4GB used. I have used FF almost exclusively since at least 1999. I went to Chromium for about a year a while ago, but came back to FF.
After a few months of putting up with its freezing issue, and hoping updates would fix it, I just had to quit using it. If I left it open, I would notice that the CPU would spike for several seconds on occasion, and hang out around 20% for a while. While no page was loaded. I could only put up with it for so long.
I have a few other browsers installed... Don't really like Chrome or Chromium. I like certain specific things about FF that other browsers don't have, at least not in the way I like them. Then I found Pale Moon , and it seems to fit the bill. There are still a few things I would like to be able to customize better, but so far it's the winner in my book. That may change, I don't know. But FF seems to just keep pushing me away.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Even numbered versions or odd numbered versions that are good for FireFox
I know one thing you can count on is that a new version will change the UI just to be annoying
oh, and break all the add-ons
One of these days I 'll switdh to just using SeaMonky
Who is Mozilla to assume that every damn website is important enough to require encryption?
Answer: password re-use.
Yes, that obscure website that you use to get movie reviews and choose which session you're going to watch in which theatre isn't that much important.
Except that most of the dumb users will have used the exact same password in other much more critical places :
- their bank account
- their gmail account, which serves as the e-mail fall back for all the "password lost" on nearly any other website
So by stealing "a" password on some obscure website, an attacker could completely steal the online indentity of a user just because the user was stupid enough to reuse passwords.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Well bigger news for me is that "classic theme restorer" and firegestures now both work in multiprocess mode. This with u-block origin are my main three. The main problem I have and one I think many users attribute to just "speed" is the jerkiness of the scrollbars when a page is still loading. This is improved for smaller pages and short loads for obvious reasons but seems amplified and even more jerky on large pages.
The funny thing is that if you'd have just reset your profile in Firefox and settled for the same relatively limited experience Pale Moon offers you, then you would probably have better performance then even Pale Moon offers. Firefox is often only truly slow because of all the customizations and unexpectedly heavy addons people toss at it, and when you switch to another browser you end up losing a lot of those things in the process. It's only later on that you realize that Pale Moon suffers the same problems, and you're left worried about whether they'll be able to keep it going or whether it will collapse as it cannot adopt the very necessary improvements that Firefox is making right now, because the core of Pale Moon is too obsolete.
the very necessary improvements that Firefox is making
Like disabling unblessed extensions, adding closed-source code that claims to be only for DRM, adding Pocket and other "social" spyware?
Or the single Firefox change I loathe and detest more than any other--removing the option to ask whether or not to allow cookies for a site.
Did they really roll out Firefox 51 for Android?
F-Droid, Google Play, and their own direct download link all seem to still have 50.1.0. Clicking the "check for updates" on the "About Firefox" screen says "no updates available".
Enjoying your $4 to $10/mo subscription to each site you visit, even momentarily, in an ad-free world?
If a particular browser publisher ought to implement only its own prefixes, then how ought the public to encourage ignorant (I.e. the majority of) web developers to make sites that work in browsers other than -webkit-?
...relatively limited experience Pale Moon offers you, then you would probably have better performance then even Pale Moon offers. Firefox is often only truly slow because of all the customizations and unexpectedly heavy addons people toss at it
You are contradicting yourself. Those customizations and extensions are there to restore features that were removed from Firefox. Pale Moon was forked from the version before the "turn everything into extensions" frenzy, and thus the "relatively limited experience" has all those features built in.
The funny thing is that if you'd have just reset your profile in Firefox and settled for the same relatively limited experience Pale Moon offers you, then you would probably have better performance then even Pale Moon offers. Firefox is often only truly slow because of all the customizations and unexpectedly heavy addons people toss at it, and when you switch to another browser you end up losing a lot of those things in the process. It's only later on that you realize that Pale Moon suffers the same problems, and you're left worried about whether they'll be able to keep it going or whether it will collapse as it cannot adopt the very necessary improvements that Firefox is making right now, because the core of Pale Moon is too obsolete.
I use Adblocker Plus and a Gestures addon. That's it. No customizations. I even tested it out with a new profile, thinking maybe it was my browsing history or something that was causing it. I search my browsing history a lot when trying remember something I had looked at in the past. I have a lot of bookmarks, many of them old and I haven't cleaned them out. But I imported all of those into PaleMoon.
So while I appreciate the idea, that isn't what was slowing down my Firefox. It was just Firefox.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
but will they keep providing bug fixes for all the older Firefoxes?
Don't use the stable release, have FF Developer (Aurora) and FF Nightly. After the rust code was implemented (its gotten better) many larger sized images on pages would just plain fail to render at all.
While that should be true. The rust code is not interfacing properly with the non-rust code - or timing issues or something... I've never had tabs crash like they have over the last 6+ weeks -- and I've been running FF Aurora (or Nightly) with hundreds of tabs since 2012 when Opera fucked off.