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'See the Future Firefox Right Now' (cnet.com)
"Mozilla is prepping a new version of Firefox in an effort to rally in the race for browser supremacy," writes CNET's Matt Elliott, who decided to test drive a new nightly build of Firefox 57 which "promises fast speeds and a new look." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Firefox 57 has added a screenshot button in the top-right corner... It highlights different elements on a page as you mouse over them, or you can just click-and-drag the old-school way to take a screenshot of a portion of a page. Screenshots are saved within Firefox. Click the scissors button and then click the little My Shots window to open a new tab of all of your saved screenshots. From here you can download them or share them... The bookmark and Pocket buttons have been moved from the right of the URL bar to inside it, but the Page Actions button is new. Click it and you'll get a small menu to Copy URL, Email Link and Send to Device. The Page Actions menu also has bookmark and Pocket buttons, which seems redundant at first but then I realized you can remove those items from the URL bar by right-clicking them. You can't remove the new, triple-dot Page Actions button...
As with any prerelease software, Firefox Nightly 57 is meant for developers and will likely exhibit strange and unstable behavior from time to time. Also, there is no guarantee that the final release will look like what you see in the current version of Nightly. For example, I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block. It's part of the design of the current Nightly build but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets dropped between now and November since most web users have grown accustomed to entering their search queries right in the URL bar. Just as you can with the current version of Firefox, however, you can customize which elements are displayed at the top of Firefox Nightly 57, including the search box.
As with any prerelease software, Firefox Nightly 57 is meant for developers and will likely exhibit strange and unstable behavior from time to time. Also, there is no guarantee that the final release will look like what you see in the current version of Nightly. For example, I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block. It's part of the design of the current Nightly build but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets dropped between now and November since most web users have grown accustomed to entering their search queries right in the URL bar. Just as you can with the current version of Firefox, however, you can customize which elements are displayed at the top of Firefox Nightly 57, including the search box.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look too bright.
Hopefully I'm not the only one, but I kind of lost faith in 'modern' browsers when they started hiding the menu and status bar by default.
Car analogy: Our engineers have found we can make the windscreen 30% larger if we remove the dashboard and AC controls, brilliant!
It's hard to get excited when numbers get too high too fast. No one cares for the next suckfest of features.
Firefox's last gasp to stay relevant is a screenshot button? Who the hell is paid money to come up with these ideas? Asking a magic 8 ball makes more sense.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
OK, few comments on the new "features":
1. Copy URL. Copying URLs is already trivial, either from the URL bar or by right-clicking on a link. Do we really need another way?
2. Email link. How does that differ from copy and paste into an email?
3. Bookmarks... really? So, like the bookmarks menu, only better hidden behind a heiroglyph?
4. Screenshots... I mean, really really? Because snipping tools and the old print screen button weren't enough?
5. A "triple-dot Page Actions button". Let me guess: more things that already exist in menus, now conveniently hidden behind heiroglyphs in a non-standard location?
6. "I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block" it comes, it goes, it comes back again.
I would comment on pocket, but I'm to demotivated to bother googling what it does. Is this what progress is meant to feel like?
So why should I use this over Chrome? It sure looks the same to me.
As for tabs in the title bar, how does one even move the window now? There's almost no real estate left to even click on.
So, Mozilla has put out nightly builds of Firefox over a decade - how is this news?
Mozilla: something that loads pages quickly, uses minimal system resources, is HTML5 compatible with no incomprehensible options and go with that.
Who cares about screen shots? There are OS functions for providing this.
After just looking at the screen shot in TFA I would say that you should get rid of 10+ icons (I count 17 of them on there) and you might have something.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
you can just click-and-drag the old-school way to take a screenshot of a portion of a page
I have had a "print screen" key on my keyboard for decades. It has worked fine for decades. I do not need this functionality inside my browser.
I have been able to and and paste URLs for decades. Even into a mailer. I do not need this built into the browser.
How about, instead of wasting time on things like that, you instead work on preserving the current extension architecture, instead of making a clone of the one in Chrome, which is something everyone is asking for so they can continue to run the extensions they can run today? Some of which are not available under other browsers? Some of which are essential for a shred of web based privacy anymore?
Screenshots... I mean, really really? Because snipping tools and the old print screen button weren't enough?
What set of instructions to start a snipping tool works on all supported Windows versions (including versions after the deprecation of MSPaint), all supported OS X/macOS versions, and all major X11/Linux distributions? Unlike the snipping tool that may or may not have been included with your operating system, one in Firefox would work on all major desktop operating systems.
I had Firefox mobile + desktop installed last year, tried it for a few months and really liked it - However, their open tab sync service was down far more often than not. That single glaring problem drove me back to Chrome. I used the most recent Opera for a while as well, but Chrome still wins due the enormous ecosystem of very, very powerful extensions.
What's the word? Has Firefox fixed its tab sync problems between mobile and desktop?
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
I already have been seeing future Firefox for years. It's called Chrome.
Mystery meat navigation the likes of which Firefox and everybody else seems to be using these days is the surest way to scare users away. What on earth was wrong with normal menus and toolbars? Every time I have to check something in Firefox these days I have to think about how to find the options screen or any other feature which used to be easy to find. Firefox is also slow, but if it had a normal UI I'd probably use it because I prefer Firebug when debugging javascript. Now I just use Chrome because it's so fast and its interface isn't quite as bad.
I don't give a fuck what you have.
You're working with a nazi and making the world worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyeGNb44meM
So really fuck off and die already. I don't want to be on your side.
Sounds like QNX
I have had a "print screen" key on my keyboard for decades.
Many laptops don't. Nor do desktop Macs. Macs instead use Command+Shift+3, which doesn't work on non-Mac computers.
It has worked fine for decades.
When was the last time the key actually did what it said, namely send a copy of the image on the display to paper?
Out of the box, Print Screen on Xubuntu opens a screenshot tool, but Print Screen on Debian Xfce does nothing. Instead, the user must manually associate xfce4-screenshooter with the Print key in Settings > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts.
Do these work (and how well)?:
uBlock Origin
Classic Theme Restorer
Tab Mix Plus
Self Destructing Cookies
Flash Control
Stop Youtube AutoPlay Next
Greasemonkey
Session Manager
Status-4-Evar
Is this really a thing? What is the point. They are free and do their job poorly at best. But you get what you pay for. In reality they are portals to steal your identity and sell it to the highest bidder.
If they fuck up the UI more than already, break my add-ons, or otherwise degrade my experience, what cross-platform alternatives do I have with good mods?
I don't need to know how to take a screenshot on OSX to be able to take a screenshot on my OS of choice (hint, it's exactly the same way as you do it for everything else!)
Someone else taking a screenshot of a web application to send to you may not be running your "OS of choice". This means you need to learn how to take a screenshot on someone else's OS of choice in order to explain to someone else over the phone or over text how to take a screenshot of a web application.
Firefox 57 has added a screenshot button in the top-right corner...
Just to let the Firefox dev know, there's also a Print Screen button on the keyboard. It's not that hard to find. Just look at the top row with all the function keys under the words like PrtScn, Print, Prt Scr, Prt Scrn or Print Screen.
It's also very easy to use, just click on the button and then release it. You can then paste your screen shoot on to any supported media and your screen shoot will be there in prefect condition. Just click on the button, it's that easy. You should really try it. /s
The latest web browser market share stats show that Firefox is in a terrible position right now. The desktop versions of Firefox only have about 5% of the market. Firefox for Android has only 0.04% (yes, that's way less than even just 1%!) of the market.
Chrome is over 50% of the market. Safari is at about 12%. UC Browser for Android is at about 9%. IE/Edge are at about 6%. So even in a best-case scenario, Firefox is now the 5th place browser.
With the Opera family of browsers and Samsung Internet at about 4% each, Firefox could soon find itself as the 7th place browser if it keeps losing users.
Firefox 57 is shaping up to be a disastrous release, due to the planned switch to only supporting WebExtensions extensions. This could very well cause breakage of a lot of existing extensions, some of which there are no WebExtensions-compatible equivalents of. This will likely cause many users to ditch Firefox in favor of some other browser. Some might use Pale Moon, while others will probably move to Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera, Brave or some other browser based on Blink or WebKit. So the possibility of Firefox losing a few more percentage points of market share in the near future is, I am afraid, very real.
In any sort of a real company, anything close to this kind of market share loss would result in panic and action. Heads would have rolled long ago. The existing staff would have been shaken up, if not completely removed and replaced. At the very least, a significant and in-depth inquiry would have been performed to figure out exactly what was going on to cause the drop in market share.
Yet I don't think we've seen any of this. It's like Mozilla is perfectly fine with Firefox's dropping market share. This is particularly strange, as Firefox is really the only product of theirs that people use. So many of their other projects have essentially been left to rot (Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Bugzilla), or were soundly rejected by potential users right off the bat (Persona, Firefox OS, Pocket, Firefox for Android), or have been spinning their wheels endlessly accomplishing very little (Servo, Rust). It's even stranger when we realize that Firefox is likely their only source of income. So keeping Firefox's share of the market up should be their biggest concern.
I don't know what the hell is going on at Mozilla, but it's almost as if they have no idea that they're becoming irrelevant at a very rapid pace. Or if they are aware, it's like they're not taking any sort of action to prevent Firefox from losing the rest of its users. In many ways it's like the opposite is happening; they're making changes that will only serve to annoy and drive away the few users who do continue to use Firefox.
It's almost surreal. Given how low Firefox's market share is getting, Mozilla should be in a state of total panic right now.
Captain: "Thiiis is the captain speaking. The crew has told me that several of you have been making quite a commotion, and I've got to say, folks, that it's really such a shame that grown people can act like that. Just to allay your concerns, the crew will be handing out questionnaires where you can write your concerns, and not just shout like mad people."
Captain: "...Alright, we've reviewed your complaints, and I'm pleased to announce, that we will be playing your in-flight movie featuring Pauly Shore, a man I just love to see in a comedy role, and think should allay any of your concerns. We'll be landing in Antarctica in seven hours."
Captain: "Yes, YES, your tickets WERE to go to Wisconsin - and that a reasonable concern, but we had another place we wanted to go, and I hardly think it's in your business to tell me how to run my airplane. Now, you can all calm down, with a lovely movie featuring Yahoo Serious."
Captain: "In an unforseen set of events, we seem to be running short on fuel. I'm going to have to ask that anyone on board who would like us to reach our destination please consider donating to us on paypal or by credit card. And please, no smart asses asking us to change destination - we already discussed this, and agreed on the importance of reaching cool, wonderful Antarctica."
Captain: "I've been told that Antarctica was the location we STARTED FROM, and that it wasn't actually necessary to circle the entire planet to return to there. Also, that donations don't create fuel. Well, listen people, that's thinking inside the BOX - and we need innovative thinking to get us where we need to go. And I'm honestly not finding these aggressive suggestions helpful."
Captain: "I've been told that we've never actually taken off - well see, that's what I'm talking about... why are you people taking me? I BARRED that door for a reason!"
Ryan Fenton
Worae than the chrome like extensions, is the ads in the new tab page. Yes, you can disable the pocket recommended pages bullshit, but it's still going to piss people off. Just wait.
Chrome will have partial ad block and they will let Google ads through (most of the ads).... Firefox should fix that and block all ads by default.
Isn't the "future Firefox" the one that kills browser extensions for web extensions? We'll have to see how useful it can be then.
That honestly looks like a solution in search of a problem. If they don't know how to take a screenshot, they probably don't know/care what browser they're using, and the chances they're running Firefox at this point is extremely low.
The article says this, with added emphasis:
Does anyone have any more details about this Pocket nonsense?
Like where do these recommended sites come from? Are these recommendations based on sites that I have visited and bookmarked in some way, or are they recommendations of sites I haven't visited but that Pocket somehow thinks I might want to visit?
If these are sites I've never visited before on my own, how the fuck isn't this a form of advertising?
Or worse, how can I be sure it isn't a form of propaganda, with Mozilla trying to subject me to leftist ideology?
This reminds me a lot of their "Sponsored Tiles" debacle some time ago, where they essentially embedded advertisements into the browser itself.
They are more concerned about social justice and diversity. In fact, this is the end result of diversity for diversity's sake. Anyone of merit abandoned ship or was fired. All that's left are social studies majors, intersectional feminists, and Affirmative Action hires who were given 150 points free to their SAT scores.
Fuck Firefox. Let it burn.
Seems like they might be coming back from trying to be a Chrome-alike, and that's a good thing. Is that a return of the on-toolbar refresh button, grouped with the previously-and-once-again static navigation buttons? Did they really listen to complaints/suggestions from the sorts of people that drove their adoption via word-of-mouth in the first place?
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Every handy feature has the potential to add users. taking things away has the potential to lose users. customisation ability is huge with power users. why not add a minimal notepad, file manager, FTP manager, and ability to save and load bookmarks without being locked into the cloud?
Screenshots are saved within Firefox. Click the scissors button and then click the little My Shots window to open a new tab of all of your saved screenshots. From here you can download them or share them...
Is it saved within firefox, or do you have to "download them" from some spy-cloud?
Fuck Firefox. Let it burn.
The twins of Mammon quarrelled. Their warring plunged the world into a new darkness, and the beast abhorred the darkness. So it began to move swiftly, and grew more powerful, and went forth and multiplied. And the beasts brought fire and light to the darkness. -- from The Book of Mozilla, 15:1
Is this the same Firefox that can't even get its version 55 update out on time?
A new look? Seriously? I want the OLD look. Not the current "new look" with everything rigid, Chromified, and hidden, and not some new look that, no doubt, is just more of the same. Oh, and I still don't want tabs on top, damnit. How about CHOICE?
And I don't want or need a "screenshot" function in a browser. I already have the feature elsewhere... that works anywhere... and does more. Don't we all? More non-browser boat/code/bugs/memory/resources is not what I want! Perhaps make a nice official *ADD-ON* for those who want it.
Firefox is still the only major multiplatform, open-source, community-driven browser (sorry, Chromium doesn't quite muster). For that, I am grateful. But stop worrying about trying to look and behave like Chrome! Put your efforts in stability, speed, and performance... and throw in a side of REMOVING non-browser features and adding back more user control and options for the UI and THAT will keep your user base. No matter what browser people are using, Firefox is still VERY important for EVERYONE to prevent a dangerous browser monoculture.
If you ARE Chrome, then why should people keep using Firefox?
If you ARE Chrome, then why should people leave Chrome?
If you ARE Chrome, then why does browser diversity matter anymore?
Seamonkey is and always will be the superior browser...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Firefox 57 which "promises ... a new look." ... added a screenshot button ... Pocket button in the URL bar ... new New Tab page.
Great. New (or simple more) things to disable.
Also, I read elsewhere that the "screenshot" feature uses Firefox cloud storage - usage terms and conditions to which you'll have to agree.
Dear Firefox Team, How about concentrate on making a great (or even, at this point, good) *browser* - not kitchen sink.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I switched to palemoon years ago. Firefox is only good if the site won't work. Just like in the old days when you'd use Firefox except for ie only sites.
So all the time I spent yanking the stupid, useless fucking thing off the toolbar are for naught. They're going to embed it into the URL bar now where I can't rid myself of the waste of screen real estate.
I honestly wish I had the time to go out to California and cunt-punt every last one of them...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They should have had a Record screen button. Now that would be interesting.
I think TFA says it's removable.
It's hard to get excited when numbers get too high too fast.
Mozilla knew how ridiculous it would look; here's proof:
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
Sill won't use it. Now looking at ditching Chrome because of the recent Google BS.
I liked the old look. So I run Seamonkey.
I doubt panicing would help much, but what about fixing support for HTML5 date fields?
OTOH, if they hide the navigation, then that's the last straw for me.
Item 1 in "Websites that suck" is "DON'T HIDE THE NAVIGATION". - or it was on 1997. It still ought to be
If you can't navigate, it kind of defeats the whole point of the web!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
The latest web browser market share stats show that Firefox is in a terrible position right now.
And that's why I use Firefox.
In the old days you just ignored IE only sites.
-- Cheers!
For a browser vendor, they should all aim at around this number.
Sure, more users, more revenue, right?
Rather bragging rights, which aint all bad considering, but it also becomes an attractive attack vector.
Also some leeway when it comes to try new things. You don't upset half the world if you'd try something new and terrible.. And as long as you listen to those 10-20% and fix it in the next release.
If you develop for everyone you just have to lower yourself to the least common denominator. To prevent public outcry.
The 10% minority is usually so loyal they'll forgive and forget if you suck once in a while...
It is actually why I DON'T use firefox anymore. firefox is starting to only get "if we have time we will test it on firefox" from web developers as it just doesn't matter anymore. personally I need my browser to at least matter enough for people to bother testing their shit on it.
I have been using Firefox since the Netscape days but I'm quickly losing patience with it these last months. It was getting slower and slower, and they kept promising that it would be faster. The last version would be really fast, they said. I have it on my Macs, and on both of them it often just hangs for tens of seconds during loading a page. It's getting unusable so I am now thinking about switching to another browser, after more than 20 years. If version 57 turns out to be as bad as it sounds here, FF will be sent out the door.
Which brings me to my question: what is a good cross-platform alternative to FF? I need it to be able to synchronize bookmarks. And it has to be able to run Flash. I need that for my work, unfortunately.
-- Cheers!
Lol, guess you gotta upload to download.
Sorry, folks.
Firefox is one of the browsers close to my heart (do you trust a browser made by Google? Microsoft? Apple? I don't. I very much don't).
But this kind of thing ("saved whithin Firefox") is what makes it truly difficult for me to love Firefox. From day to day it resembles more a silo, an OS whithin the OS, making it ever more difficult to integrate with other things, making it ever more unhackable, silently boiling us frogs into less and less freedom.
It's always little things. Making it difficult to disable Javascript. Making it awkward to disable cookies. Pocket. You name it.
Still, if a browser had to "win", I hope it be Firefox. But I feel dirty now.
tru dat. killing off extensions is stupid. I will switch to ESR. Then when it drops extensions I will find something else.
That sentence (right from the promo text) marks the new depths Mozilla is exploring.
i don't wanna see the "new" firefox, dammit. i like the OLD one just fine. quick fucking up my browser.
mozilla needs to give up this chromification of firefox and return to its roots. a slim, fast, stripped-down barebones browser that is infinitely extendable via addons.
webextensions will kill firefox. you have to wonder if there's a big payday in this from google for mozilla executives and project 'leaders'.
As I write this I have two separate addons installed (currently disabled) that I've had for several years, both of which support taking screenshots of the browser, with slightly different features that made them better in particular circumstances.
(They are Abduction and FireShot if anyone is interested. It's possible I disabled them because they don't support multiprocess but I can't remember; they work fine for screenshots though.)
I don't know how the one they're talking about works but I suspect it's not going to be as feature complete as these. I find it hard to believe this is a hugely requested feature but who knows.
Incidentally, my latest Firefox problem is a simple version upgrade issue. I got the notice that v55 was available. As I usually do I dismissed it - I wait a day or two before upgrades unless there's major security implications.
When I went back to try to upgrade, the update dialog told me there's no update available. Searching for this reveals a zillion people having this problem going back over a decade so it's almost pointless trying to find what is causing it.
I asked them on Twitter & was impressed that I got a reply immediately - turns out there was a significant bug in v55 for users with an apostrophe in their (Windows) profile path. They sent me this pastebin as evidence.
During this time the website still says v55 is the latest version. I couldn't find public notice about this issue. I spent an hour or two trying to diagnose & figure it out so I find it annoying that they didn't make some other obvious public statement that v55 had been "pulled" from the updater while they fixed this bug.
Read about the Context Graph, where they explain all that:
Apparently it will work as a recommender system (like those in Amazon, YouTube or any other site with a See also... section), creating connections from the current site to places that others people have used together. IIRC their recent Activity Stream experiment in Test Pilot had a Terms of Service and Privacy policy explaining their data collection practices.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Link to the Context Graph
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
When mozilla switched from ff sync to mozilla accounts, the possibility to run my own sync server vanished over night, with no replacement (2..3 years later) in sight.
Clearly a move with privacy in mind *cough*
And now several built in things i never need, but that suck up ram and performance on older machines.
Firefox became so popular because nerds like me liked it for its speed and easy on resources, spreading the word. I WONT spread the word for this bloated mess.
1300 results on google, sure is a real grassroots movement.
I've moved on to Brave and I'm not turning back.
Just right-click it and select "remove from address bar". There, saved you a trip to California.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
It's almost surreal. Given how low Firefox's market share is getting, Mozilla should be in a state of total panic right now.
I heard an advertisement for a Mozilla podcast. Maybe they're flexing into that?
If not, maybe they decided that their mission statement is complete and are just shuttering the windows and closing down completely. If so, it's probably unique in the annals of the business world.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
something that loads pages quickly, uses minimal system resources, is HTML5 compatible
Fast, cheap, good. Pick any two.
If you want pages to load quickly, you need to trade off memory for cache, off-screen tile rendering, Javascript JIT compilation etc.
If you want to use minimal system resources, you need to trade off speed having to re-load and re-decode stuff when you switch tabs or scroll down the screen or when HTML5/Javascript runs. And of course, add-on performance.
If you want HTML5 compatible, you need to support a very complex layout engine and rendering system, with animation and video support, so trade off against minimal system resource usage and page loading speed.
It's 2017. We really should have got past this idea that we need lots of free RAM all the time. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. I'd much rather it gets used for cache than sits idle, and of course if there is memory pressure in the system it will be the first thing to get purged.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Item 1 in "Websites that suck" is "DON'T HIDE THE NAVIGATION". - or it was on 1997. It still ought to be
If you can't navigate, it kind of defeats the whole point of the web!
I seem to navigate the web fine. Firefox users can't navigate the web? How do the other browsers do it?
It's not hard to see exactly how this feature came about. On social media screenshots are everywhere. Screenshots of other posts, of videos, of web pages. Often the text is illegible because it's been through 97 JPEG compression cycles. So the focus group and telemetry says that people like screenshots.
Of course, people are dumb, so unless you put an icon there, make it glow, add a giant arrow pointing to it, and when they upgrade force-open a page with a screenshot of the fantastic new screenshot button, they won't know it is there. It's gotta be "discoverable", which in human-speak translates to "rammed up your arse sideways until you google how to disable it".
Maybe they should take a leaf from Google's book here. Google rarely makes any major changes to the UI or adds any new features to it. Most of the development is behind the scenes, making the internals faster and deprecating crap like Flash.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And yet their ancestor is Netscape Navigator.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look too bright.
All too true when the only thing Firefox will deliver in the future are features Chrome delivered in the past.
Ugh Firefox doesn't support X! I'm going to switch to Chrome (which also doesn't support X)
Going back to basics and shoving all this unnecessary crap back on the garbage pile where it came from?
* Menus - Everything is under a single menu system organized properly. No crazy icons that look like a part of the trimmings instead of ACTUAL icons on an ICON BAR.
* Extras - Move things like Pocket and such to plugins and KISS the browser so it's not overloaded with crap like that.
* Stop chasing Google - Seriously! It's what is making you lose users!
I switched to this browser years ago to get away from crappy IE designs. Now I feel history is about to repeat itself since Fire Fox is trying to be the new IE (Chrome)
I dunno. I'm pretty fat. I could use the exercise.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Firefox is open source, so fork the code.
You all seem to know the one true way to build a browser that everyone would want to use.
How about they fix the slow creep to 2.5GB memory usage which eventually causes the slowdown to near lockup, the fix is to to restart. It'd be nice to go more than a week without having to restart.
Someone else taking a screenshot of a web application to send to you may not be running your "Browser of choice" either. So having screenshot capability in firefox doesn't solve this. Tell people to take a screenshot. If they don't know how, ask what os they have and google it for them.
Why does starting firefox become slower and slower despite Mozilla's claims? I don't buy Mozilla's marketing nonsense. If you want a fast browser try palemoon.
It's almost surreal. Given how low Firefox's market share is getting, Mozilla should be in a state of total panic right now.
Why? Their retirements are taken care of, thanks to Google. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that Google had essentially directed Mozilla to fly Firefox into the ground to eliminate privacy on the Web.
Why didn't you mention the name of this programming language that they've created? I'm sure you do know that its name is Rust. But I'm sure you also realize that if you had given its name, you would have been rightfully modded down.
Slashdot isn't Hacker News, or Reddit, or Stack Overflow. We aren't naive. We see through the Rust hype. We know it's nothing special. We know it gives no advantages over modern C++, and actually has a lot of drawbacks.
Shit, Rust has only one implementation! C++ has two mature, independent open source implementations, several other less-mature open source implementations, and multiple independent commercial implementations. We can't take Rust seriously until there is more than one implementation.
It's also trivial to avoid memory leaks when using modern C++. Efficient, safe, well-tested, open source smart pointer implementations have been readily available for many years now. If the Firefox devs can't figure out how to use them, then switching to a totally new language they've crapped out themselves sure as hell won't help them! Rust makes C++ look simple and comprehensible.
You also didn't mention the name of their new rendering engine. As I'm sure you're aware, its name is Servo.
I encourage people to try Servo. It can be downloaded from here. Try the nightly. Their latest and greatest. And witness for yourself how terrible it is. If your experience is anything like mine, and I'm pretty sure it will be, you'll quickly be greeted with terribly broken page layouts, assuming Servo doesn't crash out first!
Despite being described as "modern" on the Servo home page, I can generally get a better browsing experience from IE 3, which is probably about 20 years old now.
Firefox's future is looking bleak enough as it is. If Rust and Servo are supposed to help Firefox, then I think we might as well start writing its obituary.
Failing market share aside, Mozilla is the ONLY major browser developer that doesn't have a profit motive to fuck us all over. Once they're gone, it's profit motivated browsers, top to bottom.
Chromium-derived browsers are cute and all, but let's not kid ourselves that they are at Google's mercy when it comes to technical decision-making.
You know, AVG once tried to be all things to all people. They got the boot. I'm thinking about permanently ditching Avast because of the same mentality. If a new installment of Firefox looks like a freaking circus then I'm likely to say, "F&%k it! Install Chrome." I don't want "shiny new UI". I already/still have users who don't know how to use the tools they have. The classic Xerox PARC "File, Edit, Print" paradigm actually allows them to get work done. And I don't give a crap about screenshot-ing. I have tools for that when I need it. I DO care that Mozilla doesn't give me a F&%king Microsoft Office 2007 RIBBON so that no one knows where to find anything anymore. Yet another example of Microsoft polluting the shallow end of the gene pool by re-arranging userland bits and bobs without actually fixing core, kernel, or stability issues just so they can say that it's a new version. And they've been doing that shit since before XP. So now we're all taught that this is how you can tell that a program or app has been updated, by changes in the UI. And Mozilla is foolish for believing it's a good way to go. Give it your best shot. I'm already thinking about making Chrome the default at home, in the office, and in the data center. Screw with my plugins any more and it'll be a no-brainer.
What does taking a screenshot have to do with rendering Web pages?
Among other things, screenshots of HTML documents are a means of helping a website operator or web browser developer troubleshoot HTML documents that your machine misrenders. Right now, Mozilla's document about creating screenshots of rendering problems has to explain it five times, once for each operating system supported by either Firefox (X11/Linux, macOS, Windows, Android) or Safari-reskinned-as-Firefox (iOS).
As a user, I think it's a useful feature. YOU may disagree, but don't speak for others. I don't know how to take a screenshot, because I really don't care to learn. I look it up every time. I really don't want to screenshot my whole desktop either, just the web app I am using. This would be really useful to me. I think your "probably" comment is not actually that probable.
Something something security. Because if you let people who design extensions do anything, then the extensions can do bad things, and just telling people they shouldn't install bad extensions isn't good enough for the 5% that already aren't switching because they like they're extensions, so they're going to do their best to alienate that 5% by breaking all of their extensions.
And I'm not supposed to care that they're breaking all the extensions (again) because chrome already has great extensions, which sounds an awful lot like an ad for chrome, and much less like a reason to stick with firefox.
I installed a version of Firefox 57 to play with, I don't see offhand what I'm supposed to do for a substitue for "It's All Text"-- I know there's supposed to be one, but addons.mozilla.org doesn't direct me to it.
(The beginning of the end for mozilla was Faarborg, and his tabs-on-top nonsense-- "First they hate it, then they love it": he was willing to do something to users that they hated, and they put him in charge?)
I particularly like trying to talk about this shit on the reddit group for firefox, where the rah-rahs mod down anyone who dares say a discouraging word: this does not make me feel better about the Mozilla Community.
(Yes, I do use Pale Moon, thanks for asking. The question is whether I'm going to switch from a Pale Moon/Firefox person to a Pale Moon/Chrome person.)
If you want HTML5 compatible, you need to support a very complex layout engine and rendering system, with animation and video support, so trade off against minimal system resource usage and page loading speed.
Yep. This is one of the major reasons why I don't care about HTML5 compatibility.
until the next update where you have to remove it AGAIN.
Now THAT'S a feature they should have:
Remembering setting from one version to the next.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Shift-CMD-4
You're welcome.
Yea, I don't get it either. They've had at least a dozen stories here each with 100's of comments with viable concerns and even listing out what's needed. yet they continue to go in the wrong direction.
Stable, Secure, light and fast, and user is in control with add-ons for extended features. That's what the vast majority of people are screaming for.
I mean, how stupid can Mozilla be, when they devise a UI to screen capture when there is already a button on the keyboard. Which them trying to force the minimization of the title/menu bar ,and they go and add that?
They have done a lot, while I still occationally have FF crash, it's beeen the tabs, not the whole browser and simply reloading the tab means back in business. (I'm one of those with 100's of tabs)
Now as far as what everyone seams to be wanting:
Pocket... Remove or have it as a default add-on that can be completely removed.
Give the user more control over their web experience
Always the ability to view source or download(Including any image or video)
More control over scripts, cookies, and their use.(those are the most used extensions for a reason) especially 3rd party and untrusted.
Locking down the finger printing and tracking exploits. Like WebRTC, Screen/Window sizes, fonts, etc.
All your "new look" stuff has been crap. It's a chase down chrome and beat it, when your users don't want that.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I think they are shitting their pants, and that's the problem.
Most of the changes Firefox has implemented over the past few years have that feel of panic about them.
Yep. The old becomes new again.
A few years back, there started to be more and more sites that require a specific browser to function correctly (Chrome, usually). I've taken to ignoring them. I also ignore sites that require Javascript in order to function.
Fortunately, the majority of these sorts of sites are of minimal value (to me) to begin with.
...the ability to do screenshots because there's never been a way to do that before. I can't tell ya how many times I've wanted to share what my browser window looks like with the rest of the internet. (Must be a feature intended for Windows users.) How about a feature that doesn't let one page's bit of crappy Javascript cause the entire browser to fall over?
Screenshots? Seriously?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
fuck 'web applications'.. there, solved that for you.
I understand why they're changing it, and I don't have a problem with that.
My problem is the loss of functionality. I don't see how changing the API necessarily means that the browser has to become less capable.
focus groups are only really good at determining the LCD user. They do not tell the whole story. Despite what marketers will tell you, there is reason to have advanced functionality for people who aren't knuckle draggers (who often end up having to help the latter).
"First they hate it, then they love it":
he was willing to do something to users that they hated, and they
put him in charge?
This sentiment is something I frequently hear from UX people, and read in UX blogs and publications.
The UX community seens to have collectively decided that users are the enemy, and it shows in their results.
If these are sites I've never visited before on my own, how the fuck isn't this a form of advertising?
It is. TAANSTAAFL.
I recently switched from Chrome to Firefox because of one thing: Firefox has a setting that stops autoplay videos.
https://www.ghacks.net/2015/06...
I agree with most of your comment, particularly about how lack of classic extension support in v57 will be a huge problem for Firefox.
The worst thing about it is that at Mozilla they think they're going to win back a lot of users. Read this article to see what they think.
I think they're just delusional.
It's true that 57 will have some nice technical improvements but that won't likely attract many users back. Of the people who use Chrome or IE or Edge how many do because they're faster than Firefox? How many because it came with their OS (IE, Edge)/it was bundled with something else or publicited around all of Google's websites? (Chrome). Most of them, I'd guess.
How many non-geeks will even know or care that there's an improved version of Firefox? Not many I guess.
And one of the biggest reasons to use Firefox: Its unique extensions, will weaken significantly after 57 because many of them will stop working. And the reasons many won't be migrated to the new API is not only because of the huge work of rewriting them but because many aren't just possible with the new API.
They do have very good technical reasons for replacing the old API (too tied to the browser's internals, not compatible with multiprocess, etc) but when you have Fx's marketshare you just can't afford to do that.
I like what Firefox represents (a browser not controlled by a huge company, more independent) but their future looks very bad.
I'd mod you up but I've already commented.
Google has lots of reasons to want to control the web (and spy users) and thus Chrome was born. Also, they'd rather you use Android apps than websites
Microsoft also wants you to use their platform (Metro/Win32 Windows Store apps) rather than websites.
Apple likewise with iOS and OS X.
Mozilla are the only ones that they'd rather you use websites than their closed platforms.
Yea, I don't get it either. They've had at least a dozen stories here each with 100's of comments with viable concerns and even listing out what's needed. yet they continue to go in the wrong direction.
If I had to guess, they're floundering and putting too much faith in telemetry. It seems to be a thing when companies get in trouble.
The last example that comes to mind is the short-lived Evolve resurrection; the game needed serious changes to attract new users and retain old ones, but it was obvious the game would die before things like a better matchmaking system or more comprehensive tutorials/guides could be done. So in trying to find smaller fixes that were doable on a smaller timescale, they started making gameplay balance tweaks based on telemetry. Whether they ultimately would have been vindicated, it didn't matter; most of the changes didn't feel great, and the devs seemed to put more faith in the telemetry than player feedback. So the game died, again.
yawn...
fuck 'web applications'
If the choice is between developing a web application and a Windows application, good luck running the Windows application on anything but Windows.
If the choice is between developing a web application and a Mac application, good luck running the Mac application on anything but a Mac.
If the choice is between developing a web application and an X11/Linux application, good luck running the X11/Linux application on anything but X11/Linux or FreeBSD.
I started using Firefox because of the superiority of the now-defunct Firebug. With Firebug, no one else came close in terms of being able to reverse-engineer a piece of failing Javascript or looking at the DOM. The other browsers have finally caught up but it took them many years to do so.
I still use Firefox because I can save all 50+ tabs I keep open between launches. Yes, I'm one of "those people" that Firefox tried to cater to with the now-defunct Tab Groups feature back when I had almost 200 tabs open on browser launch. I thought I had a lot of open tabs until I ran into some people who keep 500+ tabs open because bookmarks aren't good enough! I disable all the crap that comes with default Firefox and enable the OS dropdown menu. Those are things I haven't tried to figure out how to do in Chrome and Edge but I suspect most people's ire with Firefox is related to hiding the menu to be like Chrome.
Even though other browsers have made significant strides, Firefox is still an excellent web development environment for the most part. The browser struggles with reverse-engineering WebSocket, sometimes has difficulty showing transport data on the Network tab (my latest pet peeve), and occasionally with picking elements on the page. I'll fire up Chrome or even Edge to pick up the slack. However, Chrome's very annoying caching habits drive me up a wall - "no, I changed that Javascript file 5 minutes ago...what do you mean you still have it cached?! RAWRGH!!!" Firefox doesn't cache files as aggressively, which is quite useful for web development purposes.
If it will take a "screenshot" of the entire web page, including the portions which are currently scrolled off, then at least it has additional functionality not available elsewhere.
The performance enhancement would be great. If they made us choose between extension and performance for a while, that is OK. The screen-shot tool can be nice. There are different keys cross different operation systems. On mac, everything I have to google bfore taking a screen-shot. The thing I really hated was the look! It is essentially copy of chrome. Firefox through years has a slick and beautiful UI. Small back and forward buttons. Tiny reload button at the end of url. Everything really nice, this is one of their biggest advantages over chrome. I hope it is not too late to send them the message that their users do not like this at all.
I moved off of Firefox last year and went to Safari. I got tired of all of the changes and how the developers are seeming to use this as their own little project to try out their wish list instead of what the users are asking for. We don't want all of the UI and other changes or else there wouldn't be all of the plug-ins to make it turn back. Now they are getting rid of the plug-ins to get their way.
I only keep around a copy of Firefox because there's a few (and sadly growing) number of sites that are coding for Chrome only and Safari is having problems. I've even had a couple of sites come back and say just to use Chrome because that's what they build their site for when I told them of the issue. Having one dominant browser is not good.
As a dev: if I make it work in Firefox, it will likely work in all other browsers; if I make it work in Chrome, it might work in other browsers; and if I make it work in IE, it could work in other browsers. Lesson: using Firefox for dev reduces effort and widens your potential audience.
Leela: "Is all the work done by children?" Alien: "No, not the whipping."
There *is* an alternative: only perusing the Web for necessities. With fewer people browsing, ad money dries up. If enough people do it, the entire Web collapses into the corporate dumpster fire it's been steadily falling into for the past decade.
HTTP(S) considered harmful.
Only reason I still use firefox is the 'awesome bar'. Years later and I still see no other browser that makes it so easy to search my own history.
But every release gets worse, and I'm sure there are offshoots that do the same thing, and eventually I will be forced to switch.
Caption: believe
I guess I will never get there. I was going with FF until 56 since 57 will break 2 outa 3 of my add ons, but 55 blocks the running of local flash files, which I need.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
I've been using the Nightly FF for years... There was some issues when they first implemented separate browser processes per tab but generally it's been far better than a Microsoft program or OS. And bug tracking is open and fully exposes the developers and those using the software to a true sense of equality of information. The only down side currently is changes to the plugin structure which will take some time for plugin developers to catch up.
Perhaps not great for you mother but a good opportunity to participate in development and test for the rest of us.