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Firefox 62 Arrives With Variable Fonts, Automatic Dark Theme on macOS, and Better Scrolling on Android (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today released Firefox 62 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." Version 62 brings variable fonts, automatic dark theme on macOS, and better scrolling on Android. Firefox 62 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. The latest iOS version is available on Apple's App Store.
Variable fonts are like TTF or OTF fonts where you can package all of the different styles in one font to load.
Previously this was not possible and required packaging each font into separate files. For example, if you wanted the bold/italic variants of a font, you would need to load them all separately.
This is actually a noteworthy performance improvement for web designers if they start utilizing it. I'm not certain if other browsers even support this yet.
But... I still find myself opening Chrome pretty often for various reasons.
Yeah, me too, but all those reasons end in google.com, or they are the result of some noobs using it as an interface for something that shouldn't use it as an interface, like for programming drones or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Variable fonts is improved functionality. It's a Web Standard that Firefox now supports. You know, the whole point of web browser?
Mostly various websites. Particularly government websites (I use their websites constantly.) I really don't know why. For example, the city of Dallas Procurement website doesn't work at all in Firefox. Neither does the Texas Water Development Boards website. I have to use Chrome or IE.
No, and they still haven't. What they call variable fonts is just a packaging hack -- more than one typeface in the same file.
What I expected was the implementation of an algorithm that will stretch the letters instead of "justifying" (filling up with spaces). That was done in western typography since Gutenberg.
Something like kashida in Arabic, but less dramatic. I know that this kind of microtypography was supported in LaTeX since at least a decade. Is stuff like this supported in CSS? Will it ever be?
Variable fonts is improved functionality. It's a Web Standard that Firefox now supports. You know, the whole point of web browser?
Now if they would just remove all the useless garbage that *IS NOT* the point of a web browser.
Fonts have ceased to be a bottle neck about a twenty years ago.
Mozilla needs more work on rendering performance. Rendering SVGs is slower than on Internet Explorer 11 in many cases, and in general about four times slower than on Chrome. In one extreme test case it is even about ten times slower than Chrome ( https://testdrive-archive.azur... ), but luckily that is not a typical example.
The problem with fixing this is that it is really hard work and this kind of work is not really valued. And that is where Open Source does not work too well. Why should people work their ass off if work is not really recognized? At Google engineers are at least paid well, so it's much easier to find people who are willing to do the hard work. Just look at the team size for Google's Slimming Paint project: https://www.chromium.org/blink...
Yeah, sorry, but variable fonts won't win you too many users I suspect.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
I'm going to post a stupid question and then go read what it is, so here it goes:
Haven't browsers had variable fonts since the introduction of CSS?
This is something different:
Variable fonts are an extension to the OpenType specification, which allows a single font file to store a continuous range of design variants.
Just upgraded - now, new tabs focus in the URL bar. THANKS! I had been opening Chrome for just that reason--now I can use Firefox without annoyance.
What the heck! We have an important update, we recommend you update as soon as possible. BAM! All extensions except two gone, it has some blueish theme and many things look ... strange. Screw you Mozilla.
I suggest Waterfox.
There is both a PC and Android variant.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Firefox 52 has been EOLed now, anyone using XUL or Windows XP have to look elsewhere. It’s the end of an era, back in 2002 Mozilla released Firefox when it was Phoenix as a minimalist browser using XUL and therefore use nimble extentions. Now the XUL fox is dead and being devoured by basilisks under a pale moon.
Regardless of how much I dislike Google and other big Internet corporations, and how much would I like to have better alternative to Chromium, I read a mailing list post by a guy I trust with software-related stuff - Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD fame - saying "Firefox is YEARS behind (Chromium), unless they change their strategy" in terms of security:
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-m...
I sincerely hope they will change the strategy. Until then it's Chromium for me.
From my original comment
Mozilla didn't want to encourage this style of "helping to make a standard". But yeah, pretty much the W3 has become more and more irrelevant for the web.
Now on to what you said...
Mozilla has just finished copying them
We're starting to get into the territory of the question that was asked way back in the 90s, "Who gets to make a standard on the web?" I don't think there's been any satisfactory answer to that question. Microsoft felt that the folks writing the web browsers back in the day were the ones who should have the most say in what "is" and what "isn't" a web standard. Mozilla, post Netscape, mostly wanted to stick strictly to W3 published standards. Google came aboard and pretty much was "Yeah! Open Standards!!". Fast forward to around 2016 and Google isn't so hip on waiting on W3 to standardize something. Firefox is starting to see the writing on the wall that standards don't mean much of anything, if no one is willing to follow them.
So that's where we are with Firefox. Mozilla is content to stick to W3 spec verbatim. Also smaller browser players see standards as good things. But of course, major players don't really want to have to wait on W3 to having meetings, have a vote, have a period for comment, etc just so that they can get their new shiny out the door.
So yeah, if Mozilla seemed a bit hesitant about implementation, it's because this isn't a standard and supporting it means supporting a non-standard web. I'm not sitting here trying to pass judgement, but it is for sure something to think about for a second. Do we want web browser makers to dictate the web standard or do we want a standards body to dictate it? There's not a right or wrong, it's just a different set of pros and cons. However, I feel that we're heading right back whence we came and we'll soon have sites that only work correctly because they use "Google HTML" and if you want a browser to actually work, you'll need one that is as close as possible to being compliant with "Google" spec. Much like how it once was with the "IE" web.
So yeah, what might have looked like a "let's copy Google" move, this was more in lines of Mozilla saying, "Hey Goolge! The W3 says nothing about this new type of fontworks you're doing! You are breaking the Internet with putting out non-standard HTML. *looks around industry* Oh I guess no one really cares. I guess we'll hold out. *waits a year, gets a few bugzilla reports demanding feature* Well I guess we'll have to cave on this one."