Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released 270
Today Mozilla made Firefox 30 available, a relatively minor release after the massive redesign in version 29. According to the changelog, new features include VP9 video decoding, support for Opus in WebM, and horizontal volume control for HTML5 video and audio. Developers got support for multi-line flexboxes and hang reporting for background threads. There were also a number of security fixes. The Android version of Firefox received better support for native text selection, cutting, and copying, as well as predictive lookup for Awesomebar entries. The availability of Firefox 30 coincides with the launch of Firebug 2.0, which features an updated UI and a new debugging engine called JSD2. Significant new features include JavaScript syntax highlighting and de-minifying, improved code auto-complete, and the capability to hide or show individual Firebug panels.
Please, please just stop... (Score:4, Insightful)
Run an unstable branch like everyone else, and run a testing/beta branch to become the next stable. It will make life a lot easier.
Does it have that bullshit Firefox 29 theme? (Score:5, Insightful)
If yes then I'm still not using it. Palemoon all the way.
And the layout? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it still require Classic Theme Restorer?
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:5, Insightful)
...with this rapid release schedule. Firefox is trying to update more often than Java nowadays.
For the most part I haven't minded, and for the most part, the changes have been appreciated.
However, version 29 revamped the entire toolbar customization scheme. Which has caused problems. Not only did it force me to move my refresh button (which for many years I kept on the left where it belongs next to the other navigation buttons), but it also eliminated the "addon bar" (which was historically the "status bar" at the bottom). That change broke the interfaces of a couple of add-ons I use.
Also, version 29 broke a web-crawling tool I use frequently. I got that fixed, but I should not have had to.
Re:does sync work yet? (Score:2, Insightful)
They have a brand new sync as of 28. I don't like it because the new sync protocol theoretically lets them get access to your sync'd data. They promise not to, but I wish they'd just make it easy to host your own personal sync server and be done with it. It is theoretically possible but it is far from easy.
User interface randomization feature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they just randomize the user interface every time you start the program? I've spent over a decade getting used to things being in certain places with FF. Each version shuffles things like rearranging the furniture in a blind man's house. I have to put things back where they were so my muscle memory still works. I still go for View/Page Source - it's been that way for many years. Why change it? What does it accomplish to change it?
So, do the people who write this software not use it themselves? Do they not have muscle memory? Do they really re-learn where everything is every new release?
I mean, why? Why rearrange everything and trash the user interface? There's no reason for it. I don't understand. I can't process the idea that they just go in and trash everything for no reason.
I don't understand. I am not sure I want to understand. This is crazy, so should not make sense.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:4, Insightful)
They can call it whatever they want, it is still branches and FF copying Chrome in every aspect is not what is going to keep FF alive.
First they copied Chrome's retarded versioning, now with FF 29, the default UI looks EXACTLY like Chrome.
Firefox is run by a pack of retards. They need to clean house, starting with that epic dumbfuck Asa Dotzler.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm basically using Firefox for historical reasons, ie, I'm lazy and I'm disinclined to change without a real need to do so. But I've been forced to change before, from Mosiac, from Netscape Navigator, from Netscape Communicator, and from Mozilla. What's another change?
Re:LOL, everybody hates Firefox's UI now! (Score:2, Insightful)
The Firefox UI designers have created something that's universally hated! It's not just a little bit of hate from a few people here and there. It's total, unmitigated, unrelenting hatred for the Firefox 29 UI!
Yeah, thats the new business strategy of Mozilla corporation. Instead of relying on google money, they try to create universal pure hatred. Have you noticed the jumping bookmark star on the start page? This serves them as hatred collector. The code animating the star creates a websocket connection to mozilla headquarters, on which the hatred is transmitted into a black box in their basement with the label "hatred". When the box is full, they sell the hatred on the international hatred market. In recent years prices rose. Hatred has become a certain place to invest your money into. It doesn't foul, you get a good interest, and even if the prices fall, you can apply the hatred to anyone you want to be hated. Its extremely powerful. Its used by everyone. You won't find any despote, fortune 500 person, or politician that haven't used channeled hatred to fulfill their goals. Taken by weight, hatred is far more expensive than $500 bank notes.
This step by Mozilla is considered by insiders to be a huge innovation in the hatred mining business. Experts speak of a new era in the global hatred market.
Even if you have moral objections against mozilla selling the hatred of its users, you should consider that their move makes them less reliant on google. As you have already pointed out, the hatred they get is pure. They will get a good price for your hatred.
If you want to support mozilla, you should encourage your friends to hate the new UI even more and more totally than now. To ensure all hatred gets collected, your friends should watch the blue star as it jumps around. Mozilla is currently refining the hatred collector, but right now this step is neccessary. I've heard rumors that they want to merge the hatred collector with the new EME DRM plugin. This way your hatred gets channelled while you watch netflix videos. But I doubt that netflix will like this hatred piracy, as, by international law, the hatred is their property.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:2, Insightful)
They just copied the things that work, you know like faster handling of javascript, and not taking up half the screen with useless toolbars. They took what worked and put their own spin on it, and it looks very different from chrome. It would be a fine browser if they could squash a few bugs.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most everyone is aware of the ESR. This is just a bandaid over the real problem. Chrome was designed from the very beginning with a rapid release schedule in mind. Release numbers in Chrome are essentially meaningless. Firefox adopted the same rapid release schedule as Chrome in a project that wasn't designed for it either technically or from a project management or project cultural perspective. Firefox gave addon developers the finger as they constantly broke extensions and themes. They carelessly spent valuable resources trying to make Firefox extensions less reliant on versions numbers, which only more badly broke legacy extensions, and rather than using resources to actually help extension authors, they wasted them on semi-automatic systems to catch non-compliant extensions and disable them. Which left users high and dry when they were forced to upgrade (lest they get left behind on security fixes) and lose functionality. More and more UI changes were forced on users, despite in some cases, clear majority opposition. Mozilla has consistently adopted a "we know best" attitude when it comes to what users want. And it shows, with marketshare stagnant. Google is still a major funder of Mozilla, and it's easy to see they think it money well invested. They make Chrome and then pay Mozilla to implode trying to slavishly copy their success.
Who wants to go to an ESR that is a bandaid on a bad system? You just place yourself in the eye of the storm for a short time.
No project can emulate another project and outcompete it. ESR's are not the answer. I personally have moved to PaleMoon. It too is based on a Firefox ESR, but at least they are committed to sane development and user-based UI decisions.
Re:ENOUGH WITH THE CHROME BULLSHIT! PLEASE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox's share is plummeting
While I am not quite as vehement about it as you, I agree to some extent. Firefox has been trying to Chrome-ify its interface, and it sucks. It needs to go back to its roots.
And goddamn Google for harming it. Firefox is our last best hope for a non-intrusive, "independent" browser. Firefox needs to start looking -- HARD -- for better outside funding.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:0, Insightful)
With Chrome blocking local extensions because they were "dangerous" without any way to undo it, I switched from Chrome to Firefox.
I'd just say to stick with Firefox.
Total bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
The "useless" toolbars are useful to people who understand toolbars. The pointless changes to the firefox UI are a big "fuck you" all the sane users.
Go use chrome if you want chrome. Some of us don't use chrome because the chrome UI sucks.
Did they fix the memory-hogging bug? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:5, Insightful)
They always copy the interface of the most popular competition - that's how they got started remember? They want the interface to feel familiar when someone switches. It's what's under the surface which is different:
http://www.diffen.com/differen... [diffen.com] (slightly out of date)
http://www.ghacks.net/2014/01/... [ghacks.net] - excellent analysis imo
Most importantly Firefox is MPL vs Google ToS. That alone is worth it for me.
Re:Please, please just stop... (Score:2, Insightful)
The marketshare argument falls flat on its face when you actually break the numbers down and realize that they're not really losing users any faster than every other desktop browser is. The problem is that they they're effectively blocked from competing on iOS, and nobody using a Droid cares to install another browser (it's not like Chrome or Dolphin or Opera are doing particularly well compared to Firefox.. people just use whatever comes with their phone/tablet).
If Firefox's "fans" were really fans they would understand this, and stop doing their best to make Firefox look bad by conjuring up these tirades that paint it in the most doomed and negative light, and make it seem far worse than it actually is. Who will want to use a browser that the loyal fans seem to hate? Hell, when Mozilla tries to stay relevant by making their own OS, all the "fans" do is bitch and whine that they're not pumping all of their time and money into the truly doomed desktop versions.
In an environment like this, there was hardly anything Mozilla could have done to avoid the fate you're all whining about. The fans didn't do anything to stop it, Mozilla certainly can't hope to compete with three of the biggest and most well-funded tech companies on earth, and every time they try to the "fans" bitch and moan about it. And the saddest part? Almost none of the "fans" truly really give a shit. They just bluster and threaten Mozilla with switching to Chrome, because why actually do something about it? Far easier to pretend Mozilla mattered and they're the ones to blame for everything.
You're all a bunch of selfish pricks trying desperately to pretend you aren't because "hey, I used Firefox for years". Like that was ever enough to keep Mozilla relevant. Cry me a river. Pointing fingers at Mozilla now that it's come to this is beyond rich. I'm playing the world's tiniest violin for you guys. Maybe you'll give a shit about the next tool that brightens your life up, but I sincerely doubt it. You'll just move on and finally stop acting like you could have done any better.