Firefox Quantum Arrives With Faster Browser Engine, Major Visual Overhaul (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 57, branded Firefox Quantum, for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The new version, which Mozilla calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004," brings massive performance improvements and a visual redesign. The Quantum name signals Firefox 57 is a huge release that incorporates the company's next-generation browser engine (Project Quantum). The goal is to make Firefox the fastest and smoothest browser for PCs and mobile devices -- the company has previously promised that users can expect "some big jumps in capability and performance" through the end of the year. Indeed, three of the four past releases (Firefox 53, Firefox 54, and Firefox 55) included Quantum improvements. But those were just the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, Firefox now exclusively supports extensions built using the WebExtension API, and unsupported legacy extensions will no longer work, the company said.

Comments

Extensions, though :-(

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Finally tally: about 2/3 of my regularly used extensions don't work with 57 and don't currently seem to have a similar replacement available.

Sadly, a performance boost just isn't work losing that much functionality for me. :-(

Re:Extensions, though :-(

[theweatherelectric]

It disabled NoScript.

NoScript for Firefox 57 will be released today. Don't worry, be happy.

Re:Extensions, though :-(

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Hopefully now that the mainline has dropped support for legacy extensions this will motivate a few more devs to update, otherwise they are loosing most of their install base.

Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of the extension developers have instead pulled their extensions entirely, updated the description to say something like "Sorry, doesn't work with 57, thanks for the support until now", or more worryingly updated the description to say something like "Sorry, this can't work with 57 because the WebExtensions infrastructure can't do it".

Of course, that's just my own anecdotal experience. I've talked to plenty of people who seem to have no problem with most or all of the extensions they use, so maybe I've just been (very) unlucky in the particular extensions I have found useful until now.

Re:Firefox 57 shows a big disadvantage of plug-ins

[Eravnrekaree]

the old extensions mechanism was insecure. Extensions could access all of the browser internals, plus the filesystem. No sandboxing, No security, No nothing.

The old extension API was great if security is of no concern for you.

I would never trust any of the extensions of the old API because of this, so removing the old API is not a downside if one is concerned about security.

For people who are concerned about security, removing the old API is a good thing. It will force a refactoring of the extension code into much more secure code and will smoke out a lot of insecure code, and make the extension systems much safer.

The idea of adding additional functionality through extensions was dubious at best via the old API, especially if third parties are adding the features rather than the Firefox developers, especially since it was becoming very hard to security review the extensions that were coming from third parties due to the high numbers.

Re:Who cares about the features?

[PGaries]

Indeed. Having an extension system in which malicious extensions can hide that they're installed while monitoring everything you do on the Web was a pretty big security hole. That's why I'm glad Mozilla transitioned to the new system despite the loss of functionality.