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Firefox Quantum Is 'Better, Faster, Smarter than Chrome', Says Wired (wired.com)
Wired's senior staff writer David Pierce says Firefox Quantum "feels like a bunch of power users got together and built a browser that fixed all the little things that annoyed them about other browsers."
The new Firefox actually manages to evolve the entire browser experience, recognizing the multi-device, ultra-mobile lives we all lead and building a browser that plays along. It's a browser built with privacy in mind, automatically stopping invisible trackers and making your history available to you and no one else. It's better than Chrome, faster than Chrome, smarter than Chrome. It's my new go-to browser.
The speed thing is real, by the way. Mozilla did a lot of engineering work to allow its browser to take advantage of all the multi-core processing power on modern devices, and it shows... I routinely find myself with 30 or 40 tabs open while I'm researching a story, and at that point Chrome effectively drags my computer into quicksand. So far, I haven't been able to slow Firefox Quantum down at all, no matter how many tabs I use... [But] it's the little things, the things you do with and around the web pages themselves, that make Firefox really work. For instance: If you're looking at a page on your phone and want to load that same page on your laptop, you just tap "Send to Device," pick your laptop, and it opens and loads in the background as if it had always been there. You can save pages to a reading list, or to the great read-it-later service Pocket (which Mozilla owns), both with a single tap...
Mozilla has a huge library of add-ons, and if you use the Foxified extension, you can even run Chrome extensions in Firefox. Best I can tell, there's nothing you can do in Chrome that you can't in Firefox. And Firefox does them all faster.
I've noticed that when you open a new tab in Chrome's mobile version, it forces you to also see news headlines that Google picked out for you. But how about Slashdot's readers? Chrome, Firefox -- or undecided?
The speed thing is real, by the way. Mozilla did a lot of engineering work to allow its browser to take advantage of all the multi-core processing power on modern devices, and it shows... I routinely find myself with 30 or 40 tabs open while I'm researching a story, and at that point Chrome effectively drags my computer into quicksand. So far, I haven't been able to slow Firefox Quantum down at all, no matter how many tabs I use... [But] it's the little things, the things you do with and around the web pages themselves, that make Firefox really work. For instance: If you're looking at a page on your phone and want to load that same page on your laptop, you just tap "Send to Device," pick your laptop, and it opens and loads in the background as if it had always been there. You can save pages to a reading list, or to the great read-it-later service Pocket (which Mozilla owns), both with a single tap...
Mozilla has a huge library of add-ons, and if you use the Foxified extension, you can even run Chrome extensions in Firefox. Best I can tell, there's nothing you can do in Chrome that you can't in Firefox. And Firefox does them all faster.
I've noticed that when you open a new tab in Chrome's mobile version, it forces you to also see news headlines that Google picked out for you. But how about Slashdot's readers? Chrome, Firefox -- or undecided?
Yes Firefox has improved an amazing amount with the Quantum update. Yes- I moved off of Chrome.
But seriously... it's not like the messiah has returned. The hype surrounding this is unbelievable...
My experience is that Quantum is acceptably fast. Not impressively fast. It's only impressively fast when compared to previous versions of Firefox.
Why did I switch? Because Chrome causes problems with my audio subsystem which gets heavy use. I'd like to use my browser while the computer is routing audio streams. Chrome made that impossible (and was the only program which caused that kind of problem).
After 16 months of trying to solve the problem Firefox eeked out Chrome simply because it was no longer a "dog".
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
It's a nice improvement and it seems to be a success with users — except the ones that obsessively collect plugins and extensions — but no, it doesn't beat Chrome. Chrome's PDF handling is still better. Applications that involve panning around maps (google maps, zillow, etc.) work better in Chrome. And Firefox has a long way to go to match Chrome Developer Tools.
Never really thought much of Wired. Between the click bait and the left wing group think I'd say I've had it right all along.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I wonder how much they got paid.
So, all this "it's blazing fast" hype is a barebones Firefox with no extensions. The *whole idea* of Firefox is that you add extensions to it to make it usable. Without them, Firefox is weak and useless. So, once you've installed the necessary 10-15 extensions that make the browser worth using, how's that performance then?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Great performance on the desktop and the newer addons work well Agree the article is a proper representation of the new firefox missing a great image magnifier, but it is coming soon
I looked at the code and behavior, and Google Maps deliberately uses massive amounts of requests in Firefox but much fewer requests in Chrome. Even though the exact same thing would have worked in Firefix too. Which leaves only deliberate behavior as an option.
Not surprising, coming from Data Kraken "do more evil" Google.
The whole idea of Firefox is *PRIVACY*. Chrome has access to the Google 'Advertiser ID', which in turn is linked to Google play, and google accounts, your credit card, name, address, phone number, linked to the location service (i.e. GPS track), the Wifi near you (i.e. who you are with) and if Google Assistant is onboard then recordings of everything you every said to it, and every website you ever visited that has a Google advert, Google metrics, Google content service, Google Tag Service etc etc etc etc. i.e. every website you ever visited.
So, anyone who's understands what Google is actually doing, switches to DuckDuckGo and Firefox to reduce the amount of data we voluntarily hand over to Google.
Firefox's main selling point is privacy.
Quantum completely broke noscript
NoScript is available for Firefox Quantum. Read the developer's blog to get the latest NoScript status.
Personally I use uBlock Origin and I've also set Firefox's built-in tracking protection to "always".
Do you have evidence this is a "paid ad", or did you just make that claim up?
The reload button is in the "customize" window. It's three clicks (and a drag) to put it wherever you want.
Gone are pretty much all the extensions that separated Firefox from Chrome.
The developers of NoScript and uBlock Origin say Firefox's WebExtensions API is the best of any browser. The API isn't standing still. New features are getting added. Firefox's implementation of WebExtensions does more than Chrome's does.
I love the new Firefox. It IS fast.
and Google sucks for privacy, openness, and choice.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
The new Firefox actually manages to evolve the entire browser experience, recognizing the multi-device, ultra-mobile lives we all lead and building a browser that plays along.
I've read this sentence about 50 times and I still don't know what would possess someone to write something like this. What is the point of writing this? If these things are true and manifestly evident, there's no need to write this at all. If these things aren't true, what's the end game for this idea? To make these things true? Who would buy into this idea that hasn't already?
This smacks of "hey fellow kids, I'm cool too" type rhetoric. I don't agree that these are good/true things regardless, so you should not attempt to speak for "we all." You can piss off with your mobile bullshit and leave my desktop alone.
OTOH, I switched to Pale Moon long ago and regret nothing. The UI changes in Firefox were unacceptable and there's no user-based reason to continuously change the UI. The newer privacy features in Firefox are very nice and I'm sure they'll land in Pale Moon since it's a fork. But removing configuration/functionality outright, moving more configuration out of the UI and into about:config, and changing the UI every 10 versions make it untenable. I don't want Chrome, I hate Chrome too. I don't care about rapid releases or whatever other fad is going on. I care about quality software that does what I want and has a minimum in terms of barriers to doing so. Despite being run ultimately by one guy, Pale Moon is surprisingly effective at this.
I don't have bad experiences on any of those sites.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
This may be frustrating, but this is really just a temporary problem. The new extension platform will eventually increase the number of maintained extensions by easing development, increase security.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
It's about time that Palemoon get their own Slashdot stories
So submit some. Personally, I'd like to see a current, comprehensive benchmark comparison between latest release Pale Moon versus Water Fox versus Firefox versus Chrome versus Edge versus Brave. I'd also like to see charts on the percentage of user share browsers like Pale Moon have (might be difficult or impossible if they don't have their own user agent string).
NoScript is available for Firefox Quantum. Read the developer's blog to get the latest NoScript status.
Half works for me. Works fine on the desktop. Noscript Anywhere no longer works on my phone. NoScript half runs, displays the UI and so on... but doesn't actually block scripts.
Hoping they fix that because trying to browse the web without noscript is miserable. there's flashing, moving shit EVERYWHERE.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I looked at the code and behavior, and Google Maps deliberately uses massive amounts of requests in Firefox but much fewer requests in Chrome. Even though the exact same thing would have worked in Firefix too. Which leaves only deliberate behavior as an option.
Not surprising, coming from Data Kraken "do more evil" Google.
"Google Maps aren't done until FireFox won't run", then? :D
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
But since Quantum uses Rust, it has better memory GC than the old FF written in C++, right?
I haven't ever used Rust, but apparently it allows manual memory management, unlikely a big proportion of modern programming languages. The memory allocation in C (whose features can be fully enjoyed in C++) is completely manual and, consequently, the given programmer is the only one to blame for any problem on this front. GC is a feature of managed memory (apparently, also present in Rust) and implies pretty much the opposite to the aforementioned manual memory management. So, you can certainly use C/C++ to build the most efficiently-memory-managed piece of software ever; not sure what you can do with Rust and its manual+GC memory management.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Tell that to those who are expecting us to get work done *this* month.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If they want me to use this browser they need to allow other options for sign in, such as Google and/or Facebook and/or Twitter. There is no way I am making another account just for Firefox. I am in fact rapidly getting to the point where I refuse to make accounts with any new sites... Offer me an OpenID login or I walk.
Not at all the same thing.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I have noticed significant performance improvements in Firefox 57, so I'm happy about that. I have noticed a HUGE improvement when running Firefox 57 on my tablet. Prior versions would barely even load, much less function on my tablet. But 57 loads quickly and is then usable. Good job, Mozilla!
The only thing that was keeping me from completely ditching Chrome in favor of Firefox 57 was the unavailability of NoScript. But today, when checking on the progress of NoScript in Firefox 56, I was notified that I needed a newer version of Firefox in order to download NoScript. Yay! It was the last extension I use that hadn't been ported yet.
I am now happily on Firefox 57 on my main computer, and will be upgrading all of them ASAP.
This may be frustrating, but this is really just a temporary problem. The new extension platform will eventually increase the number of maintained extensions by easing development.
No.
No.
No.
A few days ago, I found out that the developer of one of my favorite must-have extensions has given up and called it quits because it's impossible to create a version of his extension that works with the new Firefox. There are some things that you simply can't do.
The extensions that HAVE been ported to the new system don't look or work the same, mainly because there are some things that you just can not do.
Mozilla can make all the excuses they want, but for Power Users, this is a major fuck up.
Adblock finally works on my phone, but the tabs.... They're so sharp...
Also there are only 75 extensions or so.
No. As of right now there are 7,040 add-ons available for Firefox Quantum. You can check this stuff for yourself.
Forcing Linux users to install PulseAudio is an absolute no-go for me.
Audio playback (haven't tested recording) works just fine without PulseAudio. Using FF 57 on ArchLinux.
Nevermind that Maps has to make those requests because it needs to see if the browser actually has the functionality it's asking for but is already baked into Chrome.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
That was part of the title of TFA.
Too bad 2018 is a month and change away.
By then FFox will be the browser for 2017, and some other will be the browser built for 2018 (and beyond)
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Speed? No idea actually, don't visit sites that need 'speedy' rendering I guess.
But the memory footprint is huge. Right now I have two FF browser instances open with task manager showing 5 FF processes running with their cumulative memory footprint being 800MB and I've had two occurrences of FF using just over 5GB of memory (according to task manager in Win10) which slowed my entire machine to a crawl. Interestingly the page involved in both those occurrences was slashdot! Meanwhile the same layout in Chrome has 11 processes running with a cumulative memory footprint of ~480MB. Not sure what exactly that all means, but pretty sure there's a memory challenge in FF.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Google Chrome might have some proprietary APIs used by Google Maps that improve its functioning ; that wouldn't be surprising, and these would only be used by Google products. APIs that obviously Firefox cannot have.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Hard to believe a +5 for an AC saying "Which leaves only deliberate behavior as an option"
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I didn't like the new Firefox v57 (extensions problem) so I just re-installed Ubuntu 16.04 from my DVD and am refusing all offered browser updates. So it's Firefox v47.0 for me! It's probably very out of date security-wise but at least I don't have to struggle with this "best Firefox ever" s**t.
> I wish I knew a way to assign and send browser audio streams explicitly to one audio device output, say a set of headphones while keeping any other audio output attached to the primary playback device (speakers).
On Linux there are many ways to do that. This page lists three (plus another one just for Flash):
http://jackaudio.org/faq/routi...
Although the title of the page says Flash, three of the four methods are for the browser.
In Linux you can use patch bays to go crazy with arbitrarily complex connections between audio sources, effects, and outputs:
https://qjackctl.sourceforge.i...
"recognizing the multi-device, ultra-mobile lives we all lead"? Speak for yourself. I do 99.9% of my web browsing from my desktop PC, and so do a lot of people, even if it's not trendy. How about making some software for untrendy stationary people?
This space intentionally left blank
That's a 32-bit, 1GB, Windows 7 based mini-laptop that I use when I travel. Previous versions of Firefox ran so slowly that I was about to replace the laptop by something more capable (think '20s delay when switching tabs'), but Firefox 57 runs well enough on it that this won't be necessary.
Oh, and why I like that laptop: unlike a tablet, it has a large enough disk that I can make backups of my photos during the trip. And it's light, small, and so cheap that it isn't worth stealing, so I don't feel worried leaving it in the hotel.
Firefox Quantum Is 'Better, Faster, Smarter, and Much Less Functional than Chrome' now that most plug-ins do not work.
Quantum completely broke noscript
NoScript is available for Firefox Quantum. Read the developer's blog to get the latest NoScript status.
Works fine on the desktop.
I'll ignore the UI and defaults changes for the moment - even though I dislike them, they're not the main issue for me with the Quantum version of NoScript. Under my desktop setup, NoScript for Quantum is horribly broken. Even with NoScript as the only enabled extension, page rendering goes haywire as soon as any tab is loaded or reloaded. Areas of bitmaps from other tabs are overlaid onto the current tabs content area, which then flickers madly as this behavior is repeated for each attempt to render page content. When the page load is finished, the content area is an incomprehensible mishmash of portions of other tabs content, and - if I was lucky - partial content of the page which was actually requested. Hitting reload at this point just results in more of the same. The only way out is to disable NoScript and restart the browser, but to do that I have to kill FF by PID since there isn't yet a Restart extension that works under Quantum.
Tell that to those who are expecting us to get work done *this* month.
Why not just not upgrade (there's ESR branch) until the situation gets better? Or hell, use Chrome as you likely already do.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I'll ignore the UI and defaults changes for the moment - even though I dislike them
I hated it at first, but I've been getting used to it. It's much more compact, and the "custom" setting is much, much easier than before. You can for example allow fonts, but block scripts and so on.
Even with NoScript as the only enabled extension, page rendering goes haywire as soon as any tab is loaded or reloaded. Areas of bitmaps from other tabs are overlaid onto the current tabs content area, which then flickers madly as this behavior is repeated for each attempt to render page content.
Yikes! All I can say is "works for me" (tm). Try creating a new fresh profile and testing noscript. It works fine for me. You might have wound up with something shagged in your config.
but to do that I have to kill FF by PID since there isn't yet a Restart extension that works under Quantum
shift+F2 to bring up the firefox command line, then type restart
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How well does "Send Tab to Device" work in these three scenarios?
Mobile web browsers other than Firefox Someone might prefer Chrome for Android over Firefox for Android or Safari for iOS over Firefox for iOS. The combination of a QR-generating extension and a QR-scanning mobileapplication routes the URL to the default browser of the mobile device, which is Safari on iOS and (usually) Chrome on Android. I don't own an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad on which to test this myself, but an article published 9 months ago states that Firefox for iOS didn't support receiving tabs through Send Tab to Device. Offline LAN Firefox and a mobile browser can be used to view documents served from an HTTP server on a local area network that is disconnected from the Internet. Because the combination of a QR-generating extension and a QR-scanning mobile application does not need to connect to the Internet, it can work even when Mozlila's server cannot be reached. Privacy-paranoid user As I understand it, Send Tab to Device in Firefox requires the user to create and log in to a Firefox Sync account. Doing so requires sending the user's email address to Mozilla. In addition, each URL is sent to Mozilla. The combination of a QR-generating extension and a QR-scanning mobile application sends no PII to Mozilla.So to avoid QR, you must 1. have an Android device, 2. install and use Firefox for Android, 3. be connected to the Internet, and 4. use Firefox Sync.
Pressing f5 IS hard
It is when on a laptop that has the F keys bound to brightness, volume, and the like unless Fn is held down.
FTFY.
I've learned that there are three major classes of extensions.
First, those that improve security and privacy. These break nothing, other that badly or obnoxiously coded websites (which in the majority of cases are easily replaced by a different website, less badly or obnoxiously coded).
Second, minor tweaks to the UX. These also break nothing, other than totalitarian design fantasies of desktop + tablet supreme codebase unification. My most important UX tweak is the addition of a right click menu that enhances cut and paste behaviours (Make Link) by auto-formatting URLs in a variety of online formats along with various page metadata elements. I use it 100 times a day.
Third, major and intrusive tweaks to the UX. Into this category falls most of the tab bar tweaks. These extensions did consistently break, or become deprecated, or change their behaviour to cope with shifting ground under their feet.
Apparently you should curate your reading more carefully, because you've mainlined a biased sample. You've also fallen for the squeaky wheel fallacy, because this power user—who does know the difference between one type of extension and another—has never complained about technical developments to make Firefox more stable, and never abandoned FF in the first place.
I have complained about Mozilla's degenerating principles and priorities. Just on the communications front alone, they've treated their extension developers like shit. And why is that? Because Mozilla's decisions have been less and less technical, and more and more political.
I don't even know what values Mozilla truly holds anymore. I do know that it's not Chrome, and that Chrome is already too big for its britches, so I use Chrome as little as possible, because I value autonomy and self determination.
Self determination. You should try it some day. Sure beats posting as an AC fuckwad.
Firefox Quantum has a big parental control problem, which the previous versions did not have. I think that Firefox Quantum does not help me to protect my children! Thoses are essentials parental control features which don't find anywhere in firefox Quantum (57 and +) -Disable Private Browsing menu option and keyboard shortcut. (Password protected). -Disable deletion of browsing history. (Password protected). -Disable the "disabling" or removal of any installed add-ons (WebExtensions). (Password protected). ALL of the extension that helped me to activate those features are Not compatible with Firefox Quantum : -Disable Private Browsing Plus by RichieB2B. -Public Fox by publicfox. Firefox please help us protect our children! Those Feature should be included natively in Firefox ! I don't want my kids to be able to disable my Parental Control Add-ons like: -Enforce Safe Search / Adult Content Filter -ProCon Latte Content Filter by Hunter Paolini (Another problem! This one is Not compatible with Firefox Quantum!) I feel that Firefox Quantum does not care about the safety of our children. Please help us! Please let our children live their childhood! Please sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/https... Thanks!
Has anyone else noticed odd bugs with the latest version of Firefox built on Quantum on OS X?
I've been trying for over three hours now to upload a photo to facebook on my mobile with ff 57. Used to work, now it doesn't
I looked at the code and behavior,
And then put zero effort into understanding it and therefore you're at a loss as to why it works the way you see it working and therefore blame it on some evil conspiracy.
Tell that to those who are expecting us to get work done *this* month.
Oh you were using something for critical work and not on the ESR branch? That's kind of silly of you.
Remember back when Google had Chrome to Phone!? You could simply send ANY web page from desktop to mobile with just a simple click. Also, it was great for phone numbers, too. You could just highlight a phone number, say "Chrome to Phone", and you phone would start calling it. Then Google axed that feature, like they always seem to do, and now it is an "exciting new and great feature in Firefox" all these years later.
Excuse me? "Already baked into Chrome"? The web works on open, clearly defined standards. If Chrome is doing something that's not a standard, then it's the problem not the other browsers.
Chrome quickly became the newest version of Internet Explorer with all the "standards" Google is deciding to make up and change without any consensus from anyone outside Mountain View.
And I make that comparison without regret, because Google is using the same creative dissonance Microsoft did to try to force Internet Explorer's dominance back in the day, but everyone using Chrome probably doesn't remember that, either too young, too ignorant or too gullible.
Shouldn't it make those tests when it starts up, then remember the results?
I switched from Chrome to Firefox on my Android tablet. I can use Ghostery, which makes web browsing tolerable again.
Everybody knows that. When Firefox was the worst browser, I was still using because it had the best anti ad support, still does, even if existing support from NoScript for Quantum is pile of steaming shit (as usual, GUI changed)
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I don't really care about most of the new features. More speed is always nice.
But I can't live with multiple GB any time I leave a tab open more than an hour or two. It bogs down the whole computer until it takes forever to manually kill Firefox. And audio now comes and goes and crackles constantly.
Chrome isn't perfect either, but Quantum is unusable. Does it really work for anyone else?
Everybody knows that.
I'm not sure that they do. The level of ignorance about web browsers on Slashdot is really disappointing. A web browser is the most commonly used application and yet on a site dedicated to "news for nerds" there's so much ignorance, so many myths, and even flat-out dumb conspiracy theories about browsers.
For some reason, video stops playing and I have to restart it at least once a day.
Fuck that noise. Educate and enlighten your children, teach them responsible habits and how to deal with unpleasant things on the internet. Don't just use heavy-handed blocking tools, because shit will slip through the cracks (or the kids will quickly learn to bypass the blocks).
Eat the rich.
So with my new xubuntu I got firefox quantum.
All my memory hassles and CPU hogs went away. cool.
The lack of tab mix plus is a real bummer.
But still it's useable
Until firefox decided system wide not to play any sound. It may be pulseaudio which hates firefox quantum? vlc works fine. As does chrome. So well... as I need sound, I'm now on Chrome. :-)
Which is also shit, as I'm missing a good password manager.
So I install Kepass2. With mono. So it's a kind of windows port.
Looks like it also ported the crashes as my desktop freezed up shortly after
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Chrome and Firefox can go and fuck each other.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Yes, but you still lose out on stuff that modified the browser itself and not some set of CSS. I still do not see anything that will allow Download Statusbar or Classic Theme restorer to work.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Have switched, back to FireFox. Had been using both FireFox and Chrome for different reasons. Now FireFox seems to fill both slots.
the multi-device, ultra-mobile lives we all lead
Hey, Pierce: you are not everyone. Not everyone is you. Don't tell us what "we all" do.
What a jackass.
Don't get me wrong: I'm happy he likes FQ. I'm happy it looks like it might be serious competition for Chrome (which I've never liked, even without accounting for Google's addiction to spying on users). But, Christ, is it really so hard for the current generation of journalists to distinguish their subjective experience from objective fact, and learn that people are different?
or the kids will quickly learn to bypass the blocks
Well, that would be constructive, anyway. So parental controls aren't completely worthless.
wonder how much it costs to buy a "story" in wired.
If it costs you very much, you're doing it wrong. Ryan Holiday lays out the process nicely in Trust Me, I'm Lying. Pretty much anyone should be able to get pretty much anything onto a major media site with a little work and little or no money.
There probably never was a Golden Age of journalism (remember the Maine?), but this sure ain't it. The economics do not favor substantial, researched reporting.
but won't do things yourself.
Pale Moon isn't available for my platform so it fails all benchmarks by default. When will you be providing benchmarks?
Classic Theme restorer
Just go ahead and use userChrome.css to apply a different theme.
Am I alone in seeing my tabs consume 100-600mb per tab (when Chrome uses 30-200mb/tab)? I start to see slowness when I get around 30 tabs open. I recognize that's a lot, but I also see slowness in videos regardless of how many tabs I open (glitching, freezing). This is with uBlock Origin running and nothing else.
From your own link WebExtensions can not modify browsers appearance in Firefox 57+ Makes it worthless. I can change HEX codes in a CSS file myself if I wanted.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.