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Firefox 66 Arrives With Autoplaying Blocked by Default, Smoother Scrolling, and Better Search (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release includes autoplaying content (audio and video) blocked by default, smoother scrolling, better search, revamped security warnings, WebAuthn support for Windows Hello, and improved extensions. The company says its main goal with this release is to reduce irritating experiences such as auto-playing videos, pop-ups, and page jumps. Firefox 66 for desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.
Chrome = Google = collect as much of your personal data and habits as possible and sell to the highest bidder ... no thanks
Firefox works perfectly fine. People will always find reasons to complain, but I find reasons to not let Google into every aspect of my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)
Honestly curious: in what ways do you find Chrome's user experience to be better than Opera's? I just recently switched to Opera after finally getting annoyed at all of the privacy invasiveness of Chrome, and I found that it's indistinguishable from Chrome in the vast majority of cases once I installed Install Chrome Extensions and added all of my important Chrome extensions back that I had been missing.
"chrome just has such a better user experience", Totally disagree. Firefox is simply faster and more reliable. At least under Windows 10. I've not tested on every platform but I use both on Android and various Windows versions XP to 10 (yes, I still have XP machines which simply can't handle 7).
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3213031/best-web-browsers.html
I'd like to know this too. I find Firefox, Chrome and Opera to all have similar user experiences. UI-wise, I can't think of anything on Chrome that makes it head-and-shoulders better than the other two.
The only true browser feature I want is to terminate all of the friggin' popup layers that harass for your email. In what way are these better/less intrusive than popup windows? No! I don't want to be on your mailing list.
Chrome and Firefox devs: Please damn this blight to hell. It's on almost every site I visit and it's such a pain in the ass. Especially if you can't use to close them.
Yeah, what the fuck. If only there was a way to turn off smooth scrolling, for the whiny little bitches such as yourself...
I'm not the OP but I like how minimal the basic Chrome install is. Opera has a crypto wallet, currency converter, RSS reader and an ad blocker that I would probably not use (prefer uBlock Origin).
Privacy wise, Chrome is pretty robust and Opera is Chinese-owned now, so I don't think that argument really works.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I've tried to go back to Firefox from chrome several times. For me it seems to consume a lot of cpu resources comparatively. On my PC (Ubuntu) the cpu fan runs at full whine. On my MacBook (OSX), the battery life is terrible with Firefox open, even when it is doing nothing. I saw no compelling features that make me want to put up with that.
For one thing its not owned by a private Chinese equity firm with unknown motives.
How long has it been since you actually tried Firefox?
This was very true several years ago, but it is total BS in 2019. I have them both installed and they are almost identical, I can use both efficiently. I'm not sure what user experience you're talking about that is so much better.
and google doesn't? give me a break. they are the largest lobbyist in the world.
I've been using Firefox ever since it was Netscape 3 or so, and I still am convinced it's the best browser on the planet. I'm a bit worried about all the extra bits they keep developing that are not necessary in a browser or that exist from other companies already, like notes and a password manager. I'd rather see them spend time on Thunderbird.
-- Cheers!
While that's true and is a great reason to not use Opera, it doesn't speak to the user experience differences that the OP says turned them off from Opera, which is what I was curious about.
No Classic Theme Restorer. Or Download Statusbar. Or a status bar that will let me run things from it.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
Chrome and privacy do not belong in the same sentence.
Its a Google product. Their whole business model requires a lack of it.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
[...] and an ad blocker that I would probably not use (prefer uBlock Origin).
Just a quick note on this: Opera's ad blocker can be disabled in its settings, and I too prefer to use either uMatrix or uBlock Origin. I'm actually using both in Opera right now (the Chrome versions, since they're generally more up to date than the ones published in Opera's extension library). I use uMatrix to block everything by default, then use custom rules in uBlock Origin to hide a handful of individual page elements that I don't care to see.
I would believe you if there was a single shred of evidence that it was true.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I held onto that older late-aughts version of Opera for years because I do a lot of multi-thread research and parallel browsing, and the Opera mouse gestures made browsing practically RSI-proof. Was sad when Opera suddenly turned into yet another Chromium clone. Immediately lost interest in it.
Chrome is a smooth user experience because it makes the interface simple.
Opera had a smooth user experience because it made users powerful.
I miss being powerful. (And not having to chase the damn mouse pointer all over a large/multiscreen display to tediously click on actual buttons and icons.)
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
I saw "autoplaying content (audio and video) blocked by default" in the summary and jumped into the usual test suite. All still played. To learn why, I read the featured article and found this:
This means autoplaying video in floating ads will continue to drain your computer's battery and your monthly Internet cap.
In firefox (and now with my preferred browser, pale moon), there is a "feature" I use all the time that is not in Chrome.
When you create a bookmark in FF there are properties associated with it, e.g. Description. You don't have that in Chrome.
I use the description to house my userid and password hints for the many sites I have that I need to log into. I never put the full info in it, so it is reasonably secure. I gave up on password managers years ago, and this system has served me very well. Bookmarks can be easily backed up and restored with descriptions fully in tact. Password gets updated, I just update the hint in the description.
It doesn't sound like much, but I once tried to switch to Chrome and it was immediately something that I missed - and there was no equivalent feature.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The problem stems from stupid designers that require animated backgrounds
(Why? Whyyy?!!!!?!?!?)
Using silent videos is still the most efficient way to do these. .GIF animated image) instead of stopping the animation.
If you disable silent videos, the websites will usually try to fall-back to some *other* less-efficient animated format (e.g.:
If designer didn't insist on such backgrounds, Firefox could still block all videos.
Instead, we have to rely on this conditional block to avoid even *more* damage to your monthly internet cap.
But at least, uBlock can take care of the advertisements (be it autoplaying videos or not) and at least on Firefox, that works even in the mobile version (unlike Chrome where only the desktop version gets uBlock)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Hell, Firefox came about because of a need to stick it to Microsoft in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Don't be a tool.
I think you'll actually find it was Mozilla that pre-dated Internet Explorer.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
I really don't care about new features. I want to switch back to Firefox, but I just can't do it until they fix the spinning wheel of death issue.
Popisms.com - Connecting pop culture
I keep hearing this from people ad nauseum but I’ve been using Firefox since Phoenix and there are exactly zero add-ones I use that are “broken”. What exactly is “broken” for you?
"... some websites ... make Firefox run at 100% cpu."
I see that problem, also. It seems that, after many years, that would have been fixed.
Also, why does Firefox consume CPU power and add to memory usage when you are viewing something else?
In Windows, you can view the CPU and memory usage using the free Process Explorer.
Mark Russinovich may be the best programmer Microsoft ever hired. My experience is that most Microsoft programmers leave obvious defects in what they write. Do Microsoft programmers do that so that there will always be more work for them to do?
Pale Moon tries to convince you not to use the NoScript add-on, and sometimes deletes NoScript.
Pale Moon also doesn't allow the use of the Ghostery add-on. It is necessary to use the Disconnect add-on, which has both a free and paid version, and has a much-less-useful user interface.
Responding a second time, but your comment actually reminded me that I had meant to check out Vivaldi but had settled on Opera the last time I switched browsers, before ever giving Vivaldi a try. I'm trying Vivaldi out now, and my first impression is "Wow!". I've had a few hiccups, but it has several features baked into it that I typically have to install extensions to do, plus it runs Chrome extensions natively (including one that didn't work in Opera for me).
I've only been using it a few hours so far, but already I think I have a new favorite browser. Thanks for the push over the edge!
omfg so much THIS. first thing I do when setting up a new install of any browser is to go and disable smooth scrolling.
Now if only firefox would give us an option to disable ctrl+q (without an addon), that would actually be useful! (who the hell makes ctrl+q close the entire program with no confirmation, then puts useful hot keys like ctrl+a, ctrl+w right by the deadly one!?!)
Only in firefox can you tweak a setting to prevent the backspace key from navigating to the previous page.
I just tried hitting Backspace in both Chrome on Windows and Vivaldi on Mac, and neither of them navigated to the previous page. I don't have any third-party extensions or plugins installed to change that behavior, though one of the first things I do in a new browser is disable hotkeys I don't intend to use, so it's possible I removed that hotkey because it's not something I would want to use either. Are there specific circumstances where they navigate to the previous page on Backspace? Because while I know it used to be a behavior I'd see in some browsers, it's not something that I've seen recently.
I actually decided to give Vivaldi a try after making that comment above (I glanced at Brave too, but figured I'd start with Vivaldi). So far, I'm very impressed with Vivaldi, and though I'm only a few hours into it, I think I may have a new favorite browser.
Video here still autoplays:
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal....
This is a technological game of whack-a-mole. Every browser improvement is countered by some new trick. I'll stick with the auto-mute FF extension.
Other than the plugin I listed by name you mean?
Thanks! I'm using an old version of Firefox because I need the add-ons.
Soon I will try to find add-ons I need that work with the newest version. Hours of work.
I have been using a firefox plugin called "Hide Fixed Elements". It works for some, but not all. Puts a simple toggle button on your toolbar.
What, Firebug? It didn't break, they integrated it with the FF dev tools. So now it's built in...
I had mine set to upgrade automatically. It did so to ver 66, and now no video will play on any website, at all, even if I want them to. If I click on them, they show a loading icon, then disappear.
The only plugin I have is noscript, but even with that disabled, no videos work at all (and I had lots of sites cleared in NoScript before, to where the videos would play)...
Ummm... how do I revert back to version 65?
Everything working again. I was gettin kinda jittery without my cat videos and rule #34 children's cartoons.
It was a nice idea, but NoScript does the job pretty well already quite frankly.
I use Waterfox, which is basically Firefox without all the Mozilla crapification of the last few years. Tried Pale Moon but it was always a long way behind Firefox in terms of bugfixes, I rediscovered years-old bugs in it, while Waterfox seems to be Firefox as it should be.
If that's true... then Firefox's chances of getting me back are slim to none. Keep on truckin' Pale Moon!!!!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Why not then allow the user to block GIFs past the initial frame? One could just download one frame and stop.
Because GIFs are just step 1 on the scale of horrendously ineficient way to get a stupid animated background.
If web designer notice GIF don't work, they'll find alternatives:
Much further down, you find horrors like a bunch of discrete frames that get loaded and animated without javascript, relying entirely on CSS.
And if you start blocking CSS, half of the web (all these "modern design with panes" type of pages that attempt to do flashy things while you scrool) will become broken and unusable.
Allowing mute video is the simple solution.
For the rest, let WebExtension authors try to cook up a solution that works enough and is verstile enough to not break the web.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Oh! Challenge accepted.
Chatzilla
Disable Ctrl-Q Shortcut (No working Linux replacement)
Paragrasp
Tab Groups (Abandoned twice)
Tab Mix Plus
Task Manager (It sucked, but it was better than the current built in one.)
Self-destructing cookies (There are replacements, the one I use doesn't seem to work as nice)
Some cookie manager I used to use to to view the cookies for the current page from page info. I haven't found a replacement. It was indispensable when I had a page being served by some jetty server when I have too many large cookies for the domain. I can only search by domain now or view everything. Well, or I can open the web debugger and dig through the request. In any case, the easy answer is gone and the available option suck and aren't something I could suggest to a coworker having similar trouble.
There were better google tracking link blockers
Super stop worked better
I'm certain there are others I'm forgetting.
You can't disable it on Linux. The addons haven't worked on Linux since they crippled addons.