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Firefox 33 Arrives With OpenH264 Support 114

Posted by Soulskill from the onward-and-upward dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 33 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Additions include OpenH264 support as well as the ability to send video content from webpages to a second screen. Firefox 33 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. Full changelogs are available here: desktop and Android."
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Firefox 33 Arrives With OpenH264 Support More

Firefox 33 Arrives With OpenH264 Support

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  • ... and Firefox continues to lose track of its origins and continues to add to the bloat, while hemorrhaging market share....

    • Re:More bloat, less marketshare (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @02:02PM (#48142499)

      Actually, since it traces back to Netscape, its becoming one with its origins.

    • I haven't looked into it in detail, but Firefox still feels less bloated than Chrome. I'm using 31.1.1 ESR.

      Javascript rendering seems faster on Firefox than Chrome also.

      • ...Firefox still feels less bloated than Chrome...

        I was comparing to the time before the recent development fiascos (new UI, etc.). Firefox just seems to be getting larger and larger and larger.

        .
        It appears the Firefox developers are looking to please themselves, and not the users, because the Firefox marketshare is dropping in spite of all the additional bloat being added.

        • Sour grapes much? (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          It not catering to your whims precisely doesn't make it bloated, not make Mozilla not care about their users. It's fine to be upset that it isn't fondling your balls just right, but stop reaching for such petty and obviously incorrect excuses to hate Firefox for that.

          Its marketshare dropping has nothing to do with the UI, since usage rose after the release that introduced the revamped UI. The marketshare is dropping not because of fewer users. Actually their userbase has grown, just not as quickly as Chrome

          • It not catering to your whims precisely doesn't make it bloated...

            I never said that is was bloated because it does not cater to my whims.

            ... not make Mozilla not care about their users not make Mozilla not care about their users...

            Nor did I say that it not catering to my whims means that Mozilla does not care about its users.

    • Re:More bloat, less marketshare (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @03:09PM (#48143121) Homepage Journal
      Chrome gains market share the same way IE had. It is default on the fafillion android devices out there, even if that device can't handle it.

      Breaking everything out into a plugin because the system only allows SO much and native code is rarely an option due to the plethora of exotic hardware firefox runs on. Do you want to decode advanced compressed video or decrypt cpu intensive encryption in a lowest-common-demoninator interpreted language on an ARM device with 256 MB of ram that runs like a 486? I don't.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        My 486 didn't have that much RAM. And I can tell you todays mobile devices are much more capable than it. Last year I brought back a Pentium III from the dead, installed free software and none of the browsers were able to render medium to complex pages due to the javascript. But my HTC android from three years ago could. Seriously, the devices you carry around have some serious horsepower, don't belittle them because of their size.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It would be nice, if the Mozilla provided a official 64bit Windows build. Quite likely it would get more positive impressions than their "improved search experience" (whatever that means) or "qubic bezier curves editor". If they could also try to make the browser windows' Javascripts to run in parallel, so the whole browser would not get frozen and unresponsive when a single advertisement script decides to loop forever. Please, please make one release where there would not be a single new or removed feature

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It would be nice, if the Mozilla provided a official 64bit Windows build.

        Done. [ghacks.net]
        If they could also try to make the browser windows' Javascripts to run in parallel, so the whole browser would not get frozen and unresponsive when a single advertisement script decides to loop forever.

        and done. [mozilla.org] You're welcome.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        It's scheduled for Firefox 37, to be released at the end of March next year.

  • Caveat, baseline and high profiles only? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Note: Firefox currently uses OpenH264 only for WebRTC and not for the <video> tag, because OpenH264 does not yet support the high profile format frequently used for streaming video. We will reconsider this once support has been added.

  • Firefox finally supports H.264 playback. No need to support WebM anymore.

    • Note: Firefox currently uses OpenH264 only for WebRTC and not for the tag, because OpenH264 does not yet support the high profile format frequently used for streaming video. We will reconsider this once support has been added.

      Don't we need to not use the high profile format to support older devices anyway?

    • Finally (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Nope, the amount of misinformation on this is mindblowing. The patents covering this still exist and there's no guarantee that MPEG LA won't begin charging for streams in the future. What's more, You're supposed to be paying for the patents to encode and decode the format, they've just made the streaming gratis.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        and there's no guarantee that MPEG LA won't begin charging for streams in the future

        Sure there is.

        http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MP... [mpegla.com]

        Where the title is:

        MPEG LA’s AVC License Will Not Charge Royalties for Internet Video that is Free to End Users through Life of License

    • Finally (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @02:30PM (#48142765)

      At least for as long as Cisco is willing to pay maximum royalties to MPEGLA, and as long as you are willing to pay royalties to MPEGLA, and you bought properly licensed h.264 encoders, and you made sure not to shoot commercial video on consumer grade cameras (which don't come with commercial MPEGLA licenses), etc...

      The weakest link is Cisco - MPEGLA is most certainly going to look towards raising that h.264 cap in the coming years, and the only reason why Firefox can support h.264 is because it's Cisco's binaries. I'm assuming you remembered to get your MPEGLA royalties in order, or at the very least you are distributing non-commercial video and are hoping that MPEGLA continues their moratorium on royalties for non-commercial internet video.

      Or you can just use WebM, and not pay anyone. But then you don't play on IE or Safari, because Apple and Microsoft have been ardently against royalty-free video formats for various reasons. (Microsoft because they think MPEGLA is indestructible; Apple because they don't want to put hardware WebM decoders on their phones)

  • Just upgraded, lost cookies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by trawg ( 308495 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @02:23PM (#48142709) Homepage

    Just upgraded then with that grim sense of foreboding that I now get with Firefox upgrades ("what's going to stop working this time? how is the UI I've been using for many years changed now?")

    I lost all my cookies - upon reload after the upgrade, I noticed I was logged out of a bunch of websites (including anything using Google Accounts and Slashdot). YMMV.

    • Re:Just upgraded, lost cookies (Score:4, Interesting)

      by narcc ( 412956 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @02:42PM (#48142881) Journal

      YMMV

      My certainly did. It restarted and reloaded my tabs, including this one, without a hitch.

      that grim sense of foreboding that I now get with Firefox upgrades ("what's going to stop working this time? how is the UI I've been using for many years changed now?")

      Just curious, what has been breaking for you? What UI features have changed in some significant way since Australis? I only ask because I switched back to Firefox from Chrome when Australis hit and have seen nothing but positive improvements with each release.

      • Re:Just upgraded, lost cookies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by trawg ( 308495 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @03:47PM (#48143517) Homepage

        Just curious, what has been breaking for you? What UI features have changed in some significant way since Australis?

        SINCE Australis? Nothing major. In a recent version they changed the right click context menu to include icons for reload/back/forward, which irritated me - change for the sake of change. (Also the keyboard shortcut for Private Browsing no longer works - might be a plugin? Not sure.)

        Things like that seem little but when you've been using Firefox for years - which I have, every day, for work - little changes like that mean the platform loses a lot of stability, which is one of the things that is most important when you're trying to get things done.

        I'm not at all opposed to new features. I don't even care about feature bloat that much. But they should be opt-in. And at the very least, you should be able to opt-out without having to install some third party plugin. Having a new UI/UX forced on me just feels ... rude.

        Australis prompted me to install Classic Theme Restorer [mozilla.org] so I could restore the browser to the way I'd been using it for /years/. (Here's my +5 post about why I disliked Australis [slashdot.org].) Enough has been written about Australis so I won't whine about that any more.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          SINCE Australis? Nothing major. In a recent version they changed the right click context menu to include icons for reload/back/forward, which irritated me - change for the sake of change. (Also the keyboard shortcut for Private Browsing no longer works - might be a plugin? Not sure.)

          Things like that seem little but when you've been using Firefox for years - which I have, every day, for work - little changes like that mean the platform loses a lot of stability, which is one of the things that is most importa

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by narcc ( 412956 )

            Thanks. Having returned to FireFox after years of Chrome, I'm not likely to notice, or be irritated, by those kinds of changes.

      • Re:Just upgraded, lost cookies (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @04:53PM (#48144119)

        I just like applications to go along with the UI guidelines set by the OS. Chrome breaks that, and so does the new Firefox UI.

        Simple things:
        1 - Menu items visible right under the title bar
        2 - A title bar that can be double-clicked to maximize or restore the screen
        3 - Minimize/Maximize/Restore buttons where the OS says they should be. (Chrome hard-codes them to the right side of the top of the window.)
        4 - If you allow customization of the top of the screen, as Firefox does, why can't I hide the Open Menu widget when I'm showing the menu items otherwise?

        • At least for #2, you can fix that in Firefox by setting browser.tabs.drawInTitlebar to false in about:config.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by caseih ( 160668 )

          MS Windows is still the dominant platform, and it doesn't seem to have any guidelines or standard widgets anymore. Every app seems to use s different set of widgets and owner-drawn window decorations are a plague in certain spaces like anti-malware and anti-virus. MS themselves started this trend by using a different set of widgets with every release of MS Office. I just laugh when people talk about Linux apps being all different and not fitting into together. Windows is at least as bad these days, if no

    • After the Australis debacle I decided to move my Windows machines to Pale Moon. The change has been surprisingly painless, I could pretty much copy my Firefox profile wholesale without a hitch. All of the extensions work too and the interface is such a relief.
      Now to find something similar for my Mac...

    • I upgraded v2.26.1 to v2.29 over a month ago, and my history got corrupted and I had to export and import bookmarks.html aftere reinstalling v2.26.1 (still on it). Also, v2.29 had sorting problems with its addressbooks. Thunderbird has the same problems from what I read. There are many QA issues lately with Mozilla products. :(

  • After what the Firefox board did to the creator of Javascript (Brendan Eich), I think everyone should simply ignore Firefox and let them die as a warning to all other companies unable to tolerate diversity of thought.

    Never forget.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      I just hope Pale Moon starts keeping more current. Recent IEs are pretty good, but naturally Windows-only. I'm trying to live a Google-free life, so Chrome is out.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Is that the same Brendan Eich who posted in his personal blog, that "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader."? Yeah that's why I am waiting for when your explaination that the reputation of the CEO never affects how the community or the public views a company ....nope CEO reputation affecting company reputation never happens (Gates, Jobs, Musk)

      Oh and yes that the Firefox board forced the overall community to attack him soon after the board chose him as CEO -- because the board tota

      • Is that the same Brendan Eich who posted in his personal blog, that "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader."?

        Yes, because the board were entirely against him. Even LGBT workers at Mozilla supported him, but the board would not - he resigned "voluntarily", because he had no support from the people who cared only about the witch hunt, not Mozilla.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jopsen ( 885607 )

      After what the Firefox board....

      Where to start, where to start... First off there is no firefox board. Mozilla Corporation has a board, as does Mozilla Foundation.
      Having followed this, rather closely, I can assure you that Brendan made the decision to resign, the message was delivered by internal email.
      Later in an internal meeting the board explained that they had strongly recommended and hoped that Brendan would ride out the storm.

      Any allegations that the board force Brendan to resign is pure fiction. Sure, I can promise you that th

  • Epic Privacy Browser is the way to go.

    https://www.epicbrowser.com/ [epicbrowser.com]

  • Yet another FF release.

    Yawn.

    Meantime, Netscape Navigator is 20 years old today.

  • Two Browsers, Two Goals. (Score:3)

    by enter to exit ( 1049190 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @05:18PM (#48144325)
    Chrome is a good competitor to Firefox, it might be winning on various fronts at the moment but it's still a browser owned and controlled by a corporation with only profits in mind. Google made chrome to make it easier for them to track you and push their services on you.

    Every time I've used Chrome, it's constantly nagged me to sign in to Google services, asks to change what mailto: does and in recent versions (on Windows) they've included a notification icon that ties in with Google Now. I feel Chrome gets a free pass on a lot of this stuff because it's considered fast. A lot of that perception is in UI responsiveness as the millisecond rendering differences are practically indistinguishable. Firefox should really consider moving away from XUL.

    Firefox is a run by Mozilla (an NFP) who can only justify it's existence by making a good browser. Firefox needs to improve on a few fronts, but it's still a browser for the people. The only incentive they have is survival (which mean people using Firefox). The Mozilla Foundation has clearly become overly bureaucratic and focused on the survival of it's own bureaucracy to the detriment of their software. It needs a good shakedown. There are too many people looking for things to do - go to mozilla.org and check out the half-dead list of projects and 1000+ employees.

    • I feel Chrome gets a free pass on a lot of this stuff because it's considered fast.

      I don't think Chrome is getting any free pass. The endless bitchfest on here is just as bad for Chrome as it is for Firefox. The thing about Chrome is that some of the things that people are most vocal about are also some of the features that other people care.

      I use Chrome for the dead simple and automatic syncing between all accounts, my desktop and my phone, and the information I voluntarily give Google helps make my day easier. I search for the local Mitre10 store on my desktop at work, when I get to the

      • I also use Chrome and other Google services, for the same reasons. I'm selling a bit of privacy to buy a gigantic helping of convenience. It is very likely that that particular bit of privacy was imaginary anyway.

        Oh no, someone is going to use my search requests and subsequent clicks for statistical purposes, when will the madness end? Google doesn't give a shit about anyone individually, they want broad statistics so their ads can hit the largest possible interest groups.

  • Kudos to Mozilla for fixing a really [mozilla.org], really [mozilla.org], really [mozilla.org] annoying [mozilla.org] bug [mozilla.org].

  • Why all the hate? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pandronic ( 1275276 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2014 @04:04AM (#48147609)

    Every time there's a new Firefox release, I sit back and watch a very vocal group spewing the same old tired rants and lies:

    1. Firefox is released too often. Why would you want to wait a year or more between releases as it was the case in the 3.x days? It's better to have features released as they are ready and improved upon and not wait years to release them at once and have most of them not work properly. Why does it matter if it's Firefox 33, or firefox 4.33 or Firefox 2014-10?
    2. The UI is a copy of Chrome's. There are not many ways you could do a minimalist browser interface. If you don't know shit about design, don't talk about design. Shit, probably these people think that design is some useless, time wasting activity that hipsters do and then jerk off to it. Why would you want to see more of the UI when you could see more of the content. Also there are multiple ways to customize Firefox and make it look as bad or as complicated you wish. You can even make it look like your grandma's browser for 1999.
    3. Firefox uses a lot of memory and has memory leaks. Firefox is the most frugal browser when it comes to memory and doesn't have more memory leaks than other browsers. It fact it's the best browser to use if you use lots of tabs. Sure, maybe you can find a corner case or some extension that sucks memory, but I bet you can find that in any browser or application of the same complexity. I have Firefox installed on a lot of 512mb,1gb,2gb and 4gb machines and it works just fine.
    4. Firefox is unstable. It might be unstable if you use shitty extensions. Just stop using shitty extensions that crash your browser. You wouldn't use apps that crash your OS, would you?
    5. Firefox is going extinct. No it is not, even by a long shot. It still has 500mil users. People are still using it because it's a good product, not because it's pushed down their throat by every means possible as is the case with Chrome or was the case with Internet Explorer back in the 90s. (Not saying Chrome is a bad browser, just that the difference in market share is because of marketing not because of quality).
    6. Firefox is breaking addons with every upgrade. This probably hasn't happened in years and years and even if it did it's understandable and forgivable when an addon hasn't been updated in years and uses antiquated APIs that are incompatible with the speed and security we've come to expect from modern browsers. I'm not running DOS apps on the latest version of Windows, why would you want to run old, slow and unsecure addons?

    Besides that let me tell you some of the positive things that none of you assholes mention, because you like to talk out of your ass without even using the damn browser - it has the best looking and most intuitive developer tools out of any browser, a fast and feature complete Android browser with extensions, the best extensions out there out of any desktop browser, they offer an awesome email client and let's not forget that Mozilla is one of the best and most trustworthy organizations out there.

  • Can Firefox (and Chrome!) add a descent support for HiDPI screen please?! On my laptop (Linux, QHD 3200x1800), those browsers are almost unusable. Yeah I know about the "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx" configuration in Firefox but it's not perfect. Stop adding new features and back to basic : display web pages correctly on today monitors. Please! Thanks :)

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