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Slashdot Asks: Have You Switched To Firefox 57?
Yesterday, Mozilla launched Firefox 57 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. It brings massive performance improvements as it incorporates the company's next-generation browser engine called Project Quantum; it also features a visual redesign and support for extensions built using the WebExtension API. Have you used Firefox's new browser? Does it offer enough to make you switch from your tried-and-true browser of choice? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Debian: ESR here
Not until I can block everything that leaks out, like I do with NoScript today. I don't know when that might be, but if it isn't soon, I'll have to switch to Pale Moon.
Privacy and script blocking are far more important to me than speed or stability.
John
Yes on systems I don't use that much and No on my primary system. I'm waiting for NoScript to finish its WebAssembly port. On the other systems I'm experimenting with uBlock Origin and uMatrix. (I may end up running all three with NoScript and "Allow Scripts Globally" enabled to just take advantage of its ABE, ClearClick and XSS protections, etc... letting uMatrix and uBO do the rest.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
uBlock Origin, Duck Duck Go Plus, Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, No Coin, Decentraleyes, Smart Referer, Link Cleaner. NoScript coming back Very Soon Now(TM). What else do you need?
I don't like that they moved the refresh button to the left of the URL. I preferred it on the right.
The Refresh button is now outside the URL bar and you can move it via the Customize screen like some of the other UI buttons.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Exactly.
Further:
DownThemAll
PasslFox - the big showstopper for me
NoScript - "but it will be out later today!" only works for so long
Custom Tab Width
(there are others, but those amount to what has already been mentioned)
Until I can avoid productivity loss due to "yet another UI redesign syndrome" that Mozilla seems completely focused on imposing every other release, I will stay on FF 56.02
...
Alternatives:
Waterfox portable.
Pale Moon 64-bits
Pale Moon 32-bits
Pale Moon Portable
Ghostery does not install in Pale Moon, so I use the Disconnect extension. Disconnect's interface is not as well-designed.
Seems to me I read that the person who wrote Classic Theme Restorer probably won't rewrite the extension because it requires some kind of access to the Firefox code (UI code?) he can't make use of.
No Classic Theme Restorer no Firefox 57 for me. Also Colorful Tabs, Six or Not and Calomel SSL Vlidation are very useful, but not sure they work or not.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
give in and switch to the path of least resistance
Which is.. to keep using Firefox? Firefox's WebExtensions API offers more than Chrome's does (see the browser comparison tables). The claims that Firefox is a "Chrome clone" are silly.
uBlock Origin works better in Firefox 57 than possible in Chrome (gorhill is the developer of uBlock Origin). Firefox's webRequest API was extended for NoScript's use (and it will use it when it gets released in a couple of days).
The Luddites had very good reasons to hate the industrialization that threatened their culture, economy, and way of life. Their opponents were brutal and made inferior textiles with a high human cost. The Luddite rebellion failed, and the horrible treatment of textile workers has continued pretty much unabated to this very day. It's a silly thing to trot out when "progress" has more steps back than forward.
Firefox 57 fixed problems I didn't have and took away things I've used for years. 56 worked well on everything from my i7 gaming rig to my ancient Pentium laptop that shipped with vista and 2 gigs of ram. I kind of wonder if this "57 is fast" stuff is a bunch of benchmark fluff, but it could be I'm just insensitive to browser latency. Stability, now that has been a very real problem in the past. Stability was also flawless on all my machines in 56.
If 57 is delightful for you, cool. Me, I lost extensions that've been part of my daily life, I gained nothing, and I think that's a perfectly damn fine reason to be annoyed with it. Not to mention all the extension developers who got shafted. Feh, Luddite indeed.
In Firefox's favor though, Fakespot on Chrome costs 2 dollars a month for a glorified link opener. What the frak?
Below someone complained about the placement of the reload button.
What button do you use on the UI that doesn't have a keyboard shortcut to do the same thing faster?
I took everything out of the toolbar, turned on menus and now you can get to anything from the keyboard.
Even so, all he have to is just open customize mode and drag the reload button to wherever he wants it to be, which is what I actually did, because I like it to be on the right side of the address bar
First World Problem. Took a few seconds so had to have been pre-downloaded. Differences are not worth the energy to worry about. Meh? Don't care.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Me: "Oh...and get used to DRM. It's baked in and you may not refuse it."
Go to the settings in Firefox -> General and scroll down to "Digital Rights Management Content" section. Uncheck the "Play DRM-controlled content" box and voila! DRM refused.
How's about Tab Mix Plus? Which will probably *never* be ready, maybe a far less useful version at best.
GreaseMonkey is so radically changed a lot of scripts are likely to break, and authors may have long disappeared or otherwise won't re-write.
Another user mentioned CTR. Entirely disallowed.
DownThemAll lost a lot of functionality.
And we've just covered major addons. What about the hundreds, even thousands, of smaller ones? Yeah, maybe a lot of them could technically be rewritten, if the developer is still around, and is willing to rewrite it, which would often entail having to work with the Firefox devs to get new functionality added in (assuming it's even allowed functionality, a lot won't be). Since that's such a high burden, let's face it, a lot of those smaller addons are dead and never coming back.
Personally I really like Download Manager Tweak for example, but the feature of it I use will not be allowed in WebExtensions, and the author isn't interested in rewriting one with far less functionality.
Not to mention a lot of users who have upgraded have said quite a large number of advanced configuration options have been removed, because part of Chromification is the inexorable march towards stomping on user choice and dumbing things down, which Firefox has already been doing for some time now.
Bottom line is 57 destroys a lot of plugins and plugin functionality that are gone forever. Given that plugin ability is the primary reason a large part of the userbase is still sticking with FF, there's just no way the benefits are worth this loss. Mozilla thinks being more like Chrome with its hostility towards power users will gain them more users than they'll lose, but what incentive is there for someone to switch away from Chrome to an imitator? My money is still on this ultimately being proven a disastrous decision, because I've seen far more existing users who plan to stick to 56 or the ESR as long as possible then dump FF than users that want 57, and can't fathom a reason to expect any kind of new user influx.
Mark Davis, before you make an asinine claim about Firefox like:
you should read Firefox's privacy policy!
That way you'd see that it contains stuff like (emphasis added):
and
and
So don't give us this bullshit about Firefox not containing "Googleisms and Google tracking". Firefox very clearly does use at least two Google services, and using these services involves sending data to Google. And this "Google advertising ID" is clearly an example of a "Googleism" that has found its way into Firefox.
Anyone who claims that Firefox cares about its users' privacy is full of bullshit.
Given how Firefox uses services provided by Google, I don't consider it any better than Chrome. In fact, it may be worse, because clearly some people like you have been fooled into wrongly thinking that Firefox is free from "Googleisms and Google tracking".