Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the browser-updates dept.

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.

26 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Weird Gaps? by Luthair · · Score: 5, Informative

    Anyone else seeing large gaps to the left of the address bar and to the right of the search bar?

    Also, the new tabs look a lot uglier...

    1. Re:Weird Gaps? by pr0nbot · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you right click the gap and click Customize, it seems these gaps are "flexible space" and can be removed.

    2. Re: Weird Gaps? by brickhouse98 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The gaps can be taken out. Click the double arrows >> and click customize toolbar. Then just drag and drop to the middle to remove them.

    3. Re: Weird Gaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Jesus, what is wrong with you people? Yes, there are a couple of UI quirks (like the gaps), but this is _the best_ UI that FF has had in *years*. Australis is finally gone, and this default UI is actually sane. Tabs are threaded, something folks around here have been pleading for for _years_. Can't you give a little bit of credit where it's due?

      And it is true that this browser is fast. Perceptibly so. For five years, FF has not been able to keep pace with Chrome for those of us who develop on the web. Now, it might actually be a viable workhorse. I haven't looked into the new dev tools in depth, but if they've improved as much as the UI and the speed, then I might finally be able to switch back.

      If you are a geek, you should be rooting for Firefox. Without it, the web will be dominated by an advertising agency and a convicted monopolist. Give it the benefit of the doubt and try not to be a total douche.

    4. Re: Weird Gaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes. Why? Because FF is the only major browser that respects your freedom and your privacy.

      This is the same reason to root for Linux on the Desktop even if it's not as usable as Win10. Because we don't want to use closed source spyware for the rest of our lives.

    5. Re: Weird Gaps? by Lothsahn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm totally rooting for FireFox. I just saw the notification, downloaded it, and yes, the gaps were the first thing I noticed.

      Gee whiz, give us a few days to drive it to comment on performance. Generally restarting a program improves its performance. But the out of box experience (gaps and tabs) was not pleasant. I've fixed the gaps based on brickhouse98's comment (thanks!), but the tab coloring SUCKS.

      In 2 hours of usage, it seems much faster than the previous version, even though I had multi-threading enabled in the previous version. I like it a lot, and I agree that for Privacy, having FF around is key for us.

      I'm rooting for FF, but I give honest reviews and speak truth. Ignoring problems with your own team is a primary cause of much of the world's trouble, especially in politics. I refuse to play THAT game.

      --
      -=Lothsahn=-
    6. Re: Weird Gaps? by theweatherelectric · · Score: 5, Informative

      but the tab coloring SUCKS

      You can pick a different theme in the Customize settings. Firefox ships with three themes (Default, Light, and Dark). I use the Light theme.

    7. Re: Weird Gaps? by MrL0G1C · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except it no longer respects your freedom to customize the UI and it was always a bit bad at respecting your privacy (stun servers, browser fingerprinting).

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    8. Re: Weird Gaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can also right click on the gap and "remove from toolbar".

  2. It's quantized so it's not continuous anymore by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Quantum is the smallest possible increment. Always remember that when someone tells you it's a quantum leap in performance.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:It's quantized so it's not continuous anymore by arth1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Quantum is the smallest possible increment. Always remember that when someone tells you it's a quantum leap in performance.

      True and false. The astonishing property of a quantum leap isn't the distance, but that it goes from one state to another without anything in-between.
      That's obviously not what happens with Firefox, though. There wasn't a single commit without any betas, even though it feels like it...

    2. Re:It's quantized so it's not continuous anymore by jfdavis668 · · Score: 5, Informative

      A Quantum is a single unit. A leap is an action. So a quantum leap is an action taken by a quantum, and has no limit on distance, just probability.

    3. Re:It's quantized so it's not continuous anymore by HumanWiki · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Quantum is the smallest possible increment. Always remember that when someone tells you it's a quantum leap in performance.

      I'm more afraid this Quantum Leap will consist of reliving the past mistakes and horrors made by other people.

      Mozilla is just trying to set right what once went wrong.. And hoping that their next version, will be the one home.

  3. Extensions, though :-( by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. :-(

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    1. Re:Extensions, though :-( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What performance boost? It disabled NoScript.

    2. Re:Extensions, though :-( by theweatherelectric · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It disabled NoScript.

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

    3. Re:Extensions, though :-( by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    4. Re:Extensions, though :-( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you were using recent version before upgrade, then no.

    5. Re:Extensions, though :-( by Merk42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And... and... and... WTF WERE THEY THINKING??? Make it so addon authors need to update things and/or re-create is bad enough, but then remove the underlying functionality? That's insane! It shouldn't be LESS CAPABLE.

      It's almost as if to address the performance issues that people have been bitching about would require a major architecture change, but no that's not it, they, like any company, specifically asked YOU what would piss you off and did that instead.

  4. Who cares about the features? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When it loses the whole POINT of the program? The add-ons are what made Firefox worth using as a primary browser. With the switch to the new version, they made all previous plugins incompatible, and most of the add-ons that I'd prefer to use won't be ported over, mostly out of disgust/disinterest by the developers, or simply that the tools are no longer available to accomplish the task anymore.

    This is somewhat akin to a new version of Steam coming out, that disables all Steam games until a new version of each game comes out requiring XBox One controller-only controls. They decided keyboard/mouse was potentially insecure. Sure - some users will celebrate this, but it kind of defeats the point of the platform at large. Eventually, it might get good again - but you're throwing away too much now to be worth that.

    1. Re:Who cares about the features? by PGaries · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  5. Significant loss of functionality by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The speed of Firefox was not a big issue for me. It was usually "fast enough." Sometimes speed wars focus development efforts towards the wrong area. The big thing I do notice about Firefox 57 is the large loss of functionality that I used every time I browsed. Only two out of my nine plug-ins work with Firefox 57. I have not seen any viable replacements for the seven that do not work.

    .
    I've reverted to Firefox 56.0.2. Unless the plug-in situation changes for the better, Firefox 56 will be the end of my use of Firefox.

  6. Firefox 57 shows a big disadvantage of plug-ins by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Simply put, plug-ins are not a part of the Firefox development effort. The Mozilla folk have always eschewed adding functionality because the wanted functionality can be added via plug-ins. Yet, those same Mozilla folk all but ignore the loss of functionality of those plug-ins when they release a "two-times faster" Firefox.

    .
    The headline for this release should not be that it is two times faster, but that a very significant amount of functionality has been lost.

    1. Re:Firefox 57 shows a big disadvantage of plug-ins by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  7. Firefox tracking protection by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't a Firefox 57 feature, but for all FireFox users I recommend Options - Tracking Protection - Change Block List - Disconnect.me strict protection. The strict protection is arguably bettern than an ad blocker, since it leaves unintrusive ads that support a site but blocks the garbage ones. I don't mind if a site is financed with ads, because server time isn't free.

    On Slashdot, the ads at the top that tried to stick themselves over the article, that intermittently tried to inject malware and redirect you to other pages, and that showed me whatever I last looked at on Amazon -- those are gone. Instead, I just see the "Slashdot Top Deals" on the right side and bottom. Those aren't so bad, and if they pay the bills then great.

    Until I selected this option, I was browsing in private windows 75% of the time. Now I can go back to normal browsing, which is a slight convenience. If enough people do this, maybe the ad companies will start to figure out that injecting malware is less profitable than an unobtrusive ad.

  8. Still waiting on the Slashdot Browser by Merk42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    C'mon people. Everyone here seems to know what would make the most perfect flawless browser. Why has no one here done it?