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Mozilla Releases Firefox 50 (softpedia.com) 127

Posted by msmash from the firefox-club dept.
Mozilla has begun seeding the binary and source packages of the final release of Firefox 50 web browser on all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux and macOS. From a report on Softpedia: We have to admit that we expected to see some major features and improvements, but that hasn't happened. The biggest new feature of the Firefox 50.0 release appears to be emoji for everyone. That's right, the web browser now ships with built-in emoji for GNU/Linux distributions, as well as other operating systems that don't include native emoji fonts by default, such as Windows 8.0 and previous versions. Also new, Firefox 50.0 now shows lock icon strikethrough for web pages that offer insecure password fields. Another interesting change that landed in the Mozilla Firefox 50.0 web browser is the ability to cycle through tabs in recently used order using the Ctrl+Tab keyboard shortcut. Moreover, it's now possible to search for whole words only using the "Find in page" feature. Last but not the least, printing was improved as well by using the Reader Mode, which now uses the accel-(opt/alt)-r keyboard shortcut, the Guarana (gn) locale is now supported, the rendering of dotted and dashed borders with rounded corners (border-radius) has been fixed as well.
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Mozilla Releases Firefox 50

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  • Sorry to be Negative, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @03:48PM (#53291595)
    ... if the best we can say about Firefox, the "lean, lightweight browser without the bloat" that brought it into existence, is that version 50 has "emojis for everyone", then I think we've completely lost the plot.

    So sorry, FF developers; you have a great platform [it's my browser of choice] but we're losing our way here...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      I agree that's not the feature I'd have led with or even care about, but there were lots of other things mentioned in the summary (nevermind the release notes) that are worthwhile.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Only in the neckbeard-filled land of slashdot could a post about how facilitating communication with today's citizens is "bloat".

      Hate them or love them, emoji is here to stay, and if a browser doesn't support it they're no better than IE with its insulting version of CSS support.

    • That's a very fair criticism, but I think they've taking the right approach (not necessarily on gimmicky features) but by generally accepting that to many people the browser might as well be the operating system (see Chromebook for proof of that). It'd be nice if there was a lean-n-light variant in addition to the kitchen sink, but if they only have time to make one of those, I'd say they chose correctly for what people use browsers for these days. Now if only it was free software so some people could mak

    • There's no reason to use Firefox anymore. What advantage does it possibly have?

      Seamonkey is hardly any fatter and has an email client and web page composer, and a few other goodies (its page source viewer can't be beat), and I use Chrome to read pdf's and play flash vids to avoid Adobe's even worse bloat.

      • Re:Sorry to be Negative, but... (Score:4, Funny)

        by MSG ( 12810 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @05:56PM (#53292497)

        What advantage does it possibly have?

        As I replied to another comment: it uses less memory than other browsers, it syncs my bookmarks and other data between desktop and mobile, and I can use ad-blockers and other extensions on the mobile version. Those are significant advantages that make Firefox the best browser, IMO.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          As I replied to another comment: it uses less memory than other browsers

          That's not my experience. One of my users ran Firefox from his shared account, and forgot to close it before going on vacation. It had a single tab open, but eventually gobbled up quite a few gigabytes - a quarter of the server's memory, at which point I got alerted thanks to cgroup soft limits being exceeded.
          Even java allows a -Mxm1024m, but Firefox is boundless in its greed.

          Until the Seamonkey guys threw in the towel and went for the new Mozilla base, it was funny how Seamonkey which retained mail/news/

        • it uses less memory than other browsers

          I can show you Firefox using arbitrarily large amounts of memory with only a single tab open to about:blank. On any version (starting before 3, even), any desktop OS. I can't reproduce that trick in any other browser.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MSG ( 12810 )

            Yes? I'm all ears.

            I don't see that behavior when I open Firefox on my systems. Unless you define its initial memory set as arbitrary and large, which could be considered technically correct, but in that case, every browser does that trick.

            I'm not the only one. Benchmarks that compare memory use typically note that Firefox uses less. You're the odd man out, making claims counter to everyone else's experience.

            • Open one tab to about:blank. Open a number of other tabs, and browse some heavy sites in those. Close those other tabs, leaving only the one open to about:blank. Check your memory usage.

    • Re:Sorry to be Negative, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MSG ( 12810 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @05:54PM (#53292481)

      Firefox regularly introduces real, tangible improvements. Bagging the whole thing because this one release (made on their regular schedule) isn't ground-breaking is just a little disingenuous.

    • Even worse, the UI still sucks and the memory leaks that burden FF since v1 are still there. FF now looks like Chrome, smells like Chrome, but does not perform like Chrome....might as well use Chrome. FF's problem is the egotistic dev leadership at Mozilla. One can only hope that funding runs out at some point and they either are forced back to reality or just disappear from the digital world.
  • "emojis for everyone"

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @04:06PM (#53291691)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Cause I don't see that stupid eggplant often enough already.

  • Sorry old timer but it's time to take you out back and put a bullet in your head. Silicon Valley has no use for people over 30. Now let's all write a new browser in javascript and css!

    "You don't go out and kick a mad dog. If you have a mad dog with rabies, you take a gun and shoot him." -- Pat Robertson, TV Evangelist, about Muammar Kadhafy

  • Can Firefox now print a table without cutting off everything that won't fit on a single page?
  • Why doesn't Firefox just release more security updates and make the browser more like Pale Moon?
  • Non-tech persons call it Foxfire. Why? That and Linsky network gear. What psychological madness is occurring here? I try not to be that kind of nerd, but man it gets me every time I hear that and I wish I knew what their eyes were seeing.
  • Seems to have broken some of the Extensions I'm using.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Electrolysis is being phased in this release so it might be that. Check whether multiprocess is enabled (though if you have extensions not marked as compatible it should be disabled).

    • Sadly I think this will be another nail in the coffin. People are saying, oh, that's just Electrolysis, but maybe not, because Mozilla is only releasing that to a few % of users per release, and besides, the developers should all convert their add-ons to WebExtensions, blah blah. Look, I don't know or care what any of that shit is. What I know is I upgraded the browser from 47 to 50, and instead of things getting better, things quit working. Developers who have volunteered many man-hours creating Firefox ex

      • In v48, addon signing was REQUIRED, with no about:config workaround like in previous versions.

        I'm still sitting on v47 until I find a way to run unsigned (read: old/unsupported but still working) addons. The authors aren't going to resurrect something they made three years ago just to get it approved. They got some donations already and moved on.

      • I wish I was allowed to mod you up. You just provided a beautiful description of why I changed to Pale Moon. I got sick and tired of having some idiot pop up every few weeks to jack around with a GUI I was thoroughly familiar with, and break extensions I relied on.

  • I'm curious (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 )

    Does anybody even use Firefox anymore?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by pjtp ( 533932 )

      Maybe they're hoping to win back market share with emoji support...

    • Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MSG ( 12810 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2016 @05:52PM (#53292459)

      Yes, because it uses less memory than other browsers, it syncs my bookmarks and other data between desktop and mobile, and I can use ad-blockers and other extensions on the mobile version.

      As far as I know, that's not true of any other browser.

      • I switched over to Pale Moon, and I have found that it uses less resources than Firefox. And it's a lot faster on my older machine.

        • Yes, because it uses less memory than other browsers, it syncs my bookmarks and other data between desktop and mobile, and I can use ad-blockers and other extensions on the mobile version.

          As far as I know, that's not true of any other browser.

          I switched over to Pale Moon, and I have found that it uses less resources than Firefox. And it's a lot faster on my older machine.

          And how well does it work on mobile?

          • I honestly don't know. I've got an iPhone (got an incredible deal, not my first choice), and can't use it. My buddy with a rooted Android has a version running on his rooted Android phone and absolutely loves it. I'm pretty sure they don't do a special version for mobiles, so he's essentially running a full browser on a very good capable phone.

        • Indeed. I've been using PaleMoon for about a year and it blows away Firefox by a wide margin. I love it.

          It appears a lot of that is due to how the browser is configured, rather than the vintage of the code or rendering engine. Even really old versions of Firefox are slower and more bloated and the latest releases of PaleMoon, and PaleMoon has none of the frequent pausing issues caused by memory management, which have plagued Firefox since version 2.0 -- way before Australis made its debut.

          I wouldn't be a

          • My oldest computer would be a great test lab for them. It's pretty slow anyway, has only 2G of DDR2 RAM and still runs XP Pro. It runs Firefox 44.0.2 with Classic Theme Restorer. The memory management is absolutely horrible...constant long pauses. Pale Moon is fast and smooth.

            I rarely use this computer anymore, but it still works, so I let it visit the occasional website. I keep the OS patched through that well-known registry hack, so I still get security updates for XP.

            And yes, my security (software an

      • No one cares about memory use as long as there's no memory leak or lack of garbage collection that ultimately causes the system to chug.
        Most browsers sync bookmarks between devices. Some browsers even sync sessions between devices so on one device I can call up all that tabs that are currently open on another.
        Most non-MS browsers support adblocking extensions, even many Android ones.

        I stayed with them for a while but I finally threw in the towel at version 45. I don't know why I didn't do it much sooner. Bu

    • I use it. I like it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by short ( 66530 )
      I have tried to switch to Chromium as Firefox is sometimes slow. But Fedora does not package any Chromium extensions and I found no way how to review + install locally the extensions. Later I was told how to do that but that's just too work. A simple configuration items in Firefox (such as GIF animations) need extensions in Chrome. For Firefox some extensions are packaged in Fedora and other extensions I could easily review from a local .xpi file. Maybe some other distro does package the Chromium extension

  • What's with the negativity? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I swear you people are the most negative, whiny people on the internet. Emojis are pretty standard now. Firefox has not been a slim browser for some time now, and that's okay. These guys do a lot of good work; Firefox is a great browser. Show some support. Say something positive. I'm personally excited, as electrolysis is slowly being phased in which is awesome!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by doom ( 14564 )
      Something positive: it sounds like they haven't broken every single extension (yet), and I feel good about switching to PaleMoon if they do.

    • When they actually do some good work and start listening to users, when it actually returns to being a good browser, THEN we can talk about support and negativity.

      Until then the entire Mozilla team can type this bad boy into their new emoji powered crapfest U+1F595

  • Amazing. Here is to 50 more years.

  • No Imojis, no tablet UI menu, no transition animations, no persistent suggestion/help balloons, and (gasp) the hipsterist(TM) thing of all: An about:config that actually permits you to make persistent actionable changes to the way the browser works. We could call this.... Modding, or... personalisation? I know, it's progressive. I'm just thinking outside of the app store for a moment.

  • Firefox 50 also displays a closed captioning (CC) button in the HTML5 video player, if the video has an accompanying WebVTT file with "captions" tracks:

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... [mozilla.org]

    This has been missing for quite a while and will help make more videos accessible across all browsers.

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