'See the Future Firefox Right Now' (cnet.com) 293
"Mozilla is prepping a new version of Firefox in an effort to rally in the race for browser supremacy," writes CNET's Matt Elliott, who decided to test drive a new nightly build of Firefox 57 which "promises fast speeds and a new look." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Firefox 57 has added a screenshot button in the top-right corner... It highlights different elements on a page as you mouse over them, or you can just click-and-drag the old-school way to take a screenshot of a portion of a page. Screenshots are saved within Firefox. Click the scissors button and then click the little My Shots window to open a new tab of all of your saved screenshots. From here you can download them or share them... The bookmark and Pocket buttons have been moved from the right of the URL bar to inside it, but the Page Actions button is new. Click it and you'll get a small menu to Copy URL, Email Link and Send to Device. The Page Actions menu also has bookmark and Pocket buttons, which seems redundant at first but then I realized you can remove those items from the URL bar by right-clicking them. You can't remove the new, triple-dot Page Actions button...
As with any prerelease software, Firefox Nightly 57 is meant for developers and will likely exhibit strange and unstable behavior from time to time. Also, there is no guarantee that the final release will look like what you see in the current version of Nightly. For example, I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block. It's part of the design of the current Nightly build but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets dropped between now and November since most web users have grown accustomed to entering their search queries right in the URL bar. Just as you can with the current version of Firefox, however, you can customize which elements are displayed at the top of Firefox Nightly 57, including the search box.
As with any prerelease software, Firefox Nightly 57 is meant for developers and will likely exhibit strange and unstable behavior from time to time. Also, there is no guarantee that the final release will look like what you see in the current version of Nightly. For example, I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block. It's part of the design of the current Nightly build but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets dropped between now and November since most web users have grown accustomed to entering their search queries right in the URL bar. Just as you can with the current version of Firefox, however, you can customize which elements are displayed at the top of Firefox Nightly 57, including the search box.
We can already see the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it doesn't look too bright.
Re:We can already see the future (Score:5, Informative)
And they have killed off a bunch of useful plugins by changing the API as well, so now I have transited to Pale Moon [palemoon.org]. Even though some plugins aren't supported there most of the essential are - or there are replacements.
And in Pale Moon you still have the ability to block third-party cookies without having to resort to a plugin.
Re:We can already see the future (Score:4, Insightful)
The web is changing faster than ever. Do we hate Firefox for changing to the new technology or hate them for being OLD and sticking with the OLD technology?
They "killed off a bunch of useful plugins" or are they switching to the new standards instead of being left behind by Safari, Opera, and Chrome? Are those plugin developers even still actively developing their code? A new plugin should run on Chrome and Firefox with this new system. That seems to be an advantage that developers will like.
Firefox has to stick with the new standards in security and multiprocessing threads. Or do you not want security and performance?
Re:We can already see the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Are those plugin developers even still actively developing their code?
Why should they have to? their code works just fine and is free of bugs.
A new plugin should run on Chrome and Firefox with this new system.
So what you're saying is that there's zero reason to use firefox anymore.
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The web is changing faster than ever. Do we hate Firefox for changing to the new technology or hate them for being OLD and sticking with the OLD technology?
They "killed off a bunch of useful plugins" or are they switching to the new standards instead of being left behind by Safari, Opera, and Chrome? Are those plugin developers even still actively developing their code? A new plugin should run on Chrome and Firefox with this new system. That seems to be an advantage that developers will like.
Firefox has to stick with the new standards in security and multiprocessing threads. Or do you not want security and performance?
Pale Moon does all that but doesn't jack up the UI every update, that is one of the main reasons why it exists and people keep migrating it to instead of sticking with Firefox.
Firefox is obsessed with being Chrome but doesn't realize that people who want Chrome already went to Chrome years ago.
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They "killed off a bunch of useful plugins" or are they switching to the new standards instead of being left behind by Safari, Opera, and Chrome?
The power of plugins on Firefox is not what is holding it back. The persistence of Mozilla.org in focusing on new irrelevant "features" instead of improving performance, standards compliance, and fixing bugs is what is killing Firefox. They lost what little they had of giving the customer what the customer wanted, and now let pet projects, egos, and politics drive their roadmap with predictable results. Firefox 57 will seal it's fate as an irrelevant browser.
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So... you switched to a leaner, lighter browser that... has more built-in functionality? That's what everyone else is calling bloat, my friend.
Re:We can already see the future (Score:4, Informative)
Firefox had it but dumped it some years ago and the resolution was to use plugins to do the same job.
Re:We can already see the future (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
Apparently yes, thanks to the cooperative threads in tabs. You would know it if you had RTFA.
It also will be safer. In case you missed it, they've created a new systems programming language from scratch only to be able to do what they couldn't do with C++, i.e. developing a new rendering engine with no memory leaks.
Captcha: blinding
He didn't dare use the name "Rust" around here! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why didn't you mention the name of this programming language that they've created? I'm sure you do know that its name is Rust. But I'm sure you also realize that if you had given its name, you would have been rightfully modded down.
Slashdot isn't Hacker News, or Reddit, or Stack Overflow. We aren't naive. We s
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It's quite straightforward to code in c++ without memory leaks. You just have to use the correct subset of C++, enforce a simple discipline, and write libraries that use your own leak-proof memory allocation. We did this nearly 20 years ago, and without incurring any performance penalty.
Re:We can already see the future (Score:4, Informative)
Will it be faster?
Yes. A lot faster. A lot lot faster. Subjectively, the 57 nightlies feel even more responsive than Opera, which has been my primary browser for several years. I have been using the FF 57 nightlies for little over a week and I love it. Firefox has always been sluggish as hell compared to Chrome and especially Opera, including the last stable Firefox version 54. Firefox 57 beats them both. Let the next phase of the browser performance rally begin.
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My first thought: Will it be faster? Will it be lighter? No?
Or yes. Yes is the other possibility.
Hopefully (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully I'm not the only one, but I kind of lost faith in 'modern' browsers when they started hiding the menu and status bar by default.
Car analogy: Our engineers have found we can make the windscreen 30% larger if we remove the dashboard and AC controls, brilliant!
Re: Hopefully (Score:2)
You mean like the Tesla Model 3?
Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pants? (Score:5, Interesting)
The latest web browser market share stats [caniuse.com] show that Firefox is in a terrible position right now. The desktop versions of Firefox only have about 5% of the market. Firefox for Android has only 0.04% (yes, that's way less than even just 1%!) of the market.
Chrome is over 50% of the market. Safari is at about 12%. UC Browser for Android is at about 9%. IE/Edge are at about 6%. So even in a best-case scenario, Firefox is now the 5th place browser.
With the Opera family of browsers and Samsung Internet at about 4% each, Firefox could soon find itself as the 7th place browser if it keeps losing users.
Firefox 57 is shaping up to be a disastrous release, due to the planned switch to only supporting WebExtensions extensions. This could very well cause breakage of a lot of existing extensions, some of which there are no WebExtensions-compatible equivalents of. This will likely cause many users to ditch Firefox in favor of some other browser. Some might use Pale Moon, while others will probably move to Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera, Brave or some other browser based on Blink or WebKit. So the possibility of Firefox losing a few more percentage points of market share in the near future is, I am afraid, very real.
In any sort of a real company, anything close to this kind of market share loss would result in panic and action. Heads would have rolled long ago. The existing staff would have been shaken up, if not completely removed and replaced. At the very least, a significant and in-depth inquiry would have been performed to figure out exactly what was going on to cause the drop in market share.
Yet I don't think we've seen any of this. It's like Mozilla is perfectly fine with Firefox's dropping market share. This is particularly strange, as Firefox is really the only product of theirs that people use. So many of their other projects have essentially been left to rot (Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Bugzilla), or were soundly rejected by potential users right off the bat (Persona, Firefox OS, Pocket, Firefox for Android), or have been spinning their wheels endlessly accomplishing very little (Servo, Rust). It's even stranger when we realize that Firefox is likely their only source of income. So keeping Firefox's share of the market up should be their biggest concern.
I don't know what the hell is going on at Mozilla, but it's almost as if they have no idea that they're becoming irrelevant at a very rapid pace. Or if they are aware, it's like they're not taking any sort of action to prevent Firefox from losing the rest of its users. In many ways it's like the opposite is happening; they're making changes that will only serve to annoy and drive away the few users who do continue to use Firefox.
It's almost surreal. Given how low Firefox's market share is getting, Mozilla should be in a state of total panic right now.
Re: Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pant (Score:2, Insightful)
They are more concerned about social justice and diversity. In fact, this is the end result of diversity for diversity's sake. Anyone of merit abandoned ship or was fired. All that's left are social studies majors, intersectional feminists, and Affirmative Action hires who were given 150 points free to their SAT scores.
Fuck Firefox. Let it burn.
Re: Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pant (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck Firefox. Let it burn.
The twins of Mammon quarrelled. Their warring plunged the world into a new darkness, and the beast abhorred the darkness. So it began to move swiftly, and grew more powerful, and went forth and multiplied. And the beasts brought fire and light to the darkness. -- from The Book of Mozilla, 15:1
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I doubt panicing would help much, but what about fixing support for HTML5 date fields?
OTOH, if they hide the navigation, then that's the last straw for me.
Item 1 in "Websites that suck" is "DON'T HIDE THE NAVIGATION". - or it was on 1997. It still ought to be
If you can't navigate, it kind of defeats the whole point of the web!
Re:Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pants (Score:5, Interesting)
The latest web browser market share stats [caniuse.com] show that Firefox is in a terrible position right now.
And that's why I use Firefox.
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Re:Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pants (Score:4, Insightful)
Failing market share aside, Mozilla is the ONLY major browser developer that doesn't have a profit motive to fuck us all over. Once they're gone, it's profit motivated browsers, top to bottom.
Chromium-derived browsers are cute and all, but let's not kid ourselves that they are at Google's mercy when it comes to technical decision-making.
Re:Why isn't Mozilla shitting its collective pants (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has lots of reasons to want to control the web (and spy users) and thus Chrome was born. Also, they'd rather you use Android apps than websites
Microsoft also wants you to use their platform (Metro/Win32 Windows Store apps) rather than websites.
Apple likewise with iOS and OS X.
Mozilla are the only ones that they'd rather you use websites than their closed platforms.
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It's almost surreal. Given how low Firefox's market share is getting, Mozilla should be in a state of total panic right now.
I heard an advertisement for a Mozilla podcast. Maybe they're flexing into that?
If not, maybe they decided that their mission statement is complete and are just shuttering the windows and closing down completely. If so, it's probably unique in the annals of the business world.
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In the old days you just ignored IE only sites.
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Hopefully I'm not the only one, but I kind of lost faith in 'modern' browsers when they started hiding the menu and status bar by default.
"Losing faith" is a bit strong since you can put them back (in FF, anyway), but I agree that a browser is much more usable with the menu and status bar displayed.
In terms of user interface, though, the loss of the title bar of the window cuts deeper. The fact that Mozilla is saying that there's no way to replicate the functionality of things like the Classic Theme Restorer is a showstopper for me.
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Car analogy: Our engineers have found we can make the windscreen 30% larger if we remove the dashboard and AC controls, brilliant!
It's a logical next step. What's the point of a dashboard. You don't need most of what is displayed on it in order to drive a car. Nearly all indicators are required at the start of the trip. The rest could be reduced to audible alarms or eliminated with trip planning. The only important indicator is the speed and that could be put on a HUD in the newer larger windscreen.
The AC, likewise. Last time I touched AC controls was before I bought a car with climate control. Quite an important thing when the human
Re:Hopefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike you, I prefer to know wtf is going on with the car. Being stuck on the side of the road with nothing but an idiot light telling me to call the dealer does not help. This is especially true when an oil pressure gauge could've told me something was wrong before catastrophic failure. Being corralled into using roadside assistance services for preventable problems is ridiculous too.
Auto climate control is a pain if I just want a small amount of the coldest air possible during the summer. Other times, the fan is either too fast, too slow, or just too loud when I start the car because it's trying to rapidly adjust temp. As a result, half the time it's in manual mode because I've turned the fan down.
Most of these touchscreen interfaces are terribly programmed (eg activesync) and are more trouble than they're worth. The settings I want are buried in sub menus which are 'conveniently' disabled for 'safety' while the car is moving. Just give me a damned knob and it wouldn't be a problem. Another thing is light pollution. The dimmer is never dim enough for night driving and the panels themselves leak light like sieves. AmoLED might help, but they're too cheap to use that.
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Read about the Context Graph, where they explain all that:
Apparently it will work as a recommender system (like those in Amazon, YouTube or any other sit
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Link to the Context Graph [medium.com]
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What purpose was there to seeing the status bar at times it had nothing to display?
None, of course. But when you need to know the status of something, it's awfully nice.
And how often did you use the menus that it impacts you to have to click the menu button first to see them?
I use the menus constantly.
Versioning thing must have bit them in the Ass (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to get excited when numbers get too high too fast. No one cares for the next suckfest of features.
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Amen! Mod this AC up.
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It's not the version numbering that has me dreading the update -- it's the direction of the updates that came before, along with the loss of functionality that Mozilla is saying comes with it.
They Knew (Score:2)
It's hard to get excited when numbers get too high too fast.
Mozilla knew how ridiculous it would look; here's proof:
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Haha really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Firefox's last gasp to stay relevant is a screenshot button? Who the hell is paid money to come up with these ideas? Asking a magic 8 ball makes more sense.
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Haha really, adding features? Who the hell is paid money to add features? Being a cynical douche decrying everything reflexively makes more sense.
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There's nothing wrong with nice new features, but when you're adding unnecessary ones while ignoring what is really needed (like doing something about Firefox's memory hogging), that's a bit different.
Re:Haha really? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I already have a screenshot button on my keyboard. What the fuck are they smoking? How about being faster and leaner than Chrome? Nah fuck that lets add a video chat client and more social media sharing buttons.
More Important than a Screenshot Button (Score:5, Interesting)
uBlock Origin
Classic Theme Restorer
Tab Mix Plus
Self Destructing Cookies
Flash Control
Stop Youtube AutoPlay Next
Greasemonkey
Session Manager
Status-4-Evar
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uBlock Origin: apparently a version is in the works, but it isn't on the Mozilla site yet.
Classic Theme Restorer: no, and apparently not possible in the new API.
The rest I don't know, and despite the release of FF57 being near, Mozilla has not yet managed to mark its add-ons pages with information like "is this add-on even going to work two months from now?" Funny, if it were my business I would have provided that information at least a year ago...
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The Dev version of uBlock works fine on the nightly. The release is right on the addon site. Scroll to the bottom of the uBlock Origin page (thats not compatible), and you'll see the dev release there.
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Based on Chrome (and thus Chromium/Vivaldi) compatibility:
uBlock Origin - Yes
Greasemonkey - Yes
Flash Control - Chrome blocks Flash by default anyway
Stop Youtube AutoPlay Next - Use Greasemonkey
Self Destructing Cookies - Chrome has this functionality and equivalent add-ons
These I don't know about:
Classic Theme Restorer
Tab Mix Plus
Session Manager
Status-4-Evar
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Woo... zzzz (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, few comments on the new "features":
1. Copy URL. Copying URLs is already trivial, either from the URL bar or by right-clicking on a link. Do we really need another way?
2. Email link. How does that differ from copy and paste into an email?
3. Bookmarks... really? So, like the bookmarks menu, only better hidden behind a heiroglyph?
4. Screenshots... I mean, really really? Because snipping tools and the old print screen button weren't enough?
5. A "triple-dot Page Actions button". Let me guess: more things that already exist in menus, now conveniently hidden behind heiroglyphs in a non-standard location?
6. "I have read reports that the search box next to Firefox's URL bar may be on the chopping block" it comes, it goes, it comes back again.
I would comment on pocket, but I'm to demotivated to bother googling what it does. Is this what progress is meant to feel like?
Each OS has a different snipping tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Screenshots... I mean, really really? Because snipping tools and the old print screen button weren't enough?
What set of instructions to start a snipping tool works on all supported Windows versions (including versions after the deprecation of MSPaint), all supported OS X/macOS versions, and all major X11/Linux distributions? Unlike the snipping tool that may or may not have been included with your operating system, one in Firefox would work on all major desktop operating systems.
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Screenshots... I mean, really really? Because snipping tools and the old print screen button weren't enough?
What set of instructions to start a snipping tool works on all supported Windows versions (including versions after the deprecation of MSPaint), all supported OS X/macOS versions, and all major X11/Linux distributions?
Who cares? I don't need to know how to take a screenshot on OSX to be able to take a screenshot on my OS of choice (hint, it's exactly the same way as you do it for everything else!)
Unlike the snipping tool that may or may not have been included with your operating system, one in Firefox would work on all major desktop operating systems.
No, it will only work on desktops running Firefox.
Explain to someone else how to take a screenshot (Score:2)
I don't need to know how to take a screenshot on OSX to be able to take a screenshot on my OS of choice (hint, it's exactly the same way as you do it for everything else!)
Someone else taking a screenshot of a web application to send to you may not be running your "OS of choice". This means you need to learn how to take a screenshot on someone else's OS of choice in order to explain to someone else over the phone or over text how to take a screenshot of a web application.
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That honestly looks like a solution in search of a problem. If they don't know how to take a screenshot, they probably don't know/care what browser they're using, and the chances they're running Firefox at this point is extremely low.
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It's not hard to see exactly how this feature came about. On social media screenshots are everywhere. Screenshots of other posts, of videos, of web pages. Often the text is illegible because it's been through 97 JPEG compression cycles. So the focus group and telemetry says that people like screenshots.
Of course, people are dumb, so unless you put an icon there, make it glow, add a giant arrow pointing to it, and when they upgrade force-open a page with a screenshot of the fantastic new screenshot button, t
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Indeed, starting up a web browser in order to take a screen shot is counterintuitive and ridiculous.
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What OS doesn't come with a screenshot tool?
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Mac OS.
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"What set of instructions to start a snipping tool works on all supported Windows versions (including versions after the deprecation of MSPaint), all supported OS X/macOS versions, and all major X11/Linux distributions?"
Mac - CMD-SHIFT-3
Windows (all versions) PRT SCR(N) for a basic full screenshot of everything currently visible. Newer versions have additional bits, my fave being ALT-PRT SCR, which copies everything out of my currently-selected window.
Linux/X11/UNIX - XWD does the trick.
They all have their
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What set of instructions to start a snipping tool works on all supported Windows versions (including versions after the deprecation of MSPaint)
Windows key + "sni" + return. It is universal across any Windows version that isn't a massive security problem and shouldn't be in active use.
Regardless of how well this works, it is better and far more consistent than relying on apps to reinvent every frigging wheel.
all supported OS X/macOS versions, and all major X11/Linux distributions?
Who cares? No seriously who does? There has never been a cross OS requirement for any end user functionality. It sure as hell won't be improved by a rarely used browser failing in a very busy market place.
one in Firefox would work on all major desktop operating systems
You're assuming a lot about how it will
So... it's Chrome then? (Score:4, Interesting)
So why should I use this over Chrome? It sure looks the same to me.
As for tabs in the title bar, how does one even move the window now? There's almost no real estate left to even click on.
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Versions of Firefox that put tabs in the title bar leave space between the tabs and the minimize, maximize, and close buttons.
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Did you see the screenshot? There's very little room at all for clicking.
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Re:So... it's Chrome then? (Score:5, Informative)
making it impossible to have extensions more powerful than Chrome.
Maybe you should read what the maintainer of uBlock Origin thinks [mozilla.org] of the difference between Chrome and Firefox when it comes to extensions. To quote him: "It baffles me that some people think Firefox is becoming a 'Chrome clone', it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement."
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Yes there are still some technical, under-the-hood things that Firefox is not cloning Chrome in doing. But I don't understand at all why Firefox is a clone of Chrome in all other ways.
I also don't understand the appeal of current UI trends, including the tablet-ification of desktop apps. I understand why I might want tabs integrated into the title bar on a tablet, but not on desktop. Will be interesting to see what happens when all the hipsters currently designing user interfaces find themselves 20 years o
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So why should I use this over Chrome? It sure looks the same to me.
Because Chrome never stops calling home?
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Neither does Firefox these days.
Re:So... it's Chrome then? (Score:5, Informative)
So why should I use this over Chrome? It sure looks the same to me.
Because Chrome is a way for Google to learn more about you and make money with that data.
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Speed, Minimal RAM, Reliable & HTML5 Compatibl (Score:3)
Mozilla: something that loads pages quickly, uses minimal system resources, is HTML5 compatible with no incomprehensible options and go with that.
Who cares about screen shots? There are OS functions for providing this.
After just looking at the screen shot in TFA I would say that you should get rid of 10+ icons (I count 17 of them on there) and you might have something.
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something that loads pages quickly, uses minimal system resources, is HTML5 compatible
Fast, cheap, good. Pick any two.
If you want pages to load quickly, you need to trade off memory for cache, off-screen tile rendering, Javascript JIT compilation etc.
If you want to use minimal system resources, you need to trade off speed having to re-load and re-decode stuff when you switch tabs or scroll down the screen or when HTML5/Javascript runs. And of course, add-on performance.
If you want HTML5 compatible, you need to support a very complex layout engine and rendering system, with animation and vide
Did They Fix Sync Problem? (Score:3)
I had Firefox mobile + desktop installed last year, tried it for a few months and really liked it - However, their open tab sync service was down far more often than not. That single glaring problem drove me back to Chrome. I used the most recent Opera for a while as well, but Chrome still wins due the enormous ecosystem of very, very powerful extensions.
What's the word? Has Firefox fixed its tab sync problems between mobile and desktop?
Quantum and photon (Score:3)
screenshot button (Score:2)
Firefox 57 has added a screenshot button in the top-right corner...
Just to let the Firefox dev know, there's also a Print Screen button on the keyboard. It's not that hard to find. Just look at the top row with all the function keys under the words like PrtScn, Print, Prt Scr, Prt Scrn or Print Screen.
It's also very easy to use, just click on the button and then release it. You can then paste your screen shoot on to any supported media and your screen shoot will be there in prefect condition. Just click on the button, it's that easy. You should really try it. /s
Re:screenshot button (Score:4, Informative)
The Print Screen key only works great if your screen shows everything you want to capture. If it goes off screen you need to use the developer full page screen shot command or use this new feature in 57. Just tried this feature and I'm not so keen on using it because it uploads the result to screenshots.firefox.com.
Re: (Score:2)
it uploads the result to screenshots.firefox.com.
It does??? Why in the world would they require that? That's a dealbreaker. I hope the screen shot button is removable, at least.
You're going the wrong way! (Score:5, Funny)
Captain: "Thiiis is the captain speaking. The crew has told me that several of you have been making quite a commotion, and I've got to say, folks, that it's really such a shame that grown people can act like that. Just to allay your concerns, the crew will be handing out questionnaires where you can write your concerns, and not just shout like mad people."
Captain: "...Alright, we've reviewed your complaints, and I'm pleased to announce, that we will be playing your in-flight movie featuring Pauly Shore, a man I just love to see in a comedy role, and think should allay any of your concerns. We'll be landing in Antarctica in seven hours."
Captain: "Yes, YES, your tickets WERE to go to Wisconsin - and that a reasonable concern, but we had another place we wanted to go, and I hardly think it's in your business to tell me how to run my airplane. Now, you can all calm down, with a lovely movie featuring Yahoo Serious."
Captain: "In an unforseen set of events, we seem to be running short on fuel. I'm going to have to ask that anyone on board who would like us to reach our destination please consider donating to us on paypal or by credit card. And please, no smart asses asking us to change destination - we already discussed this, and agreed on the importance of reaching cool, wonderful Antarctica."
Captain: "I've been told that Antarctica was the location we STARTED FROM, and that it wasn't actually necessary to circle the entire planet to return to there. Also, that donations don't create fuel. Well, listen people, that's thinking inside the BOX - and we need innovative thinking to get us where we need to go. And I'm honestly not finding these aggressive suggestions helpful."
Captain: "I've been told that we've never actually taken off - well see, that's what I'm talking about... why are you people taking me? I BARRED that door for a reason!"
Ryan Fenton
Less chromey (Score:2)
New "look"??? (Score:3)
A new look? Seriously? I want the OLD look. Not the current "new look" with everything rigid, Chromified, and hidden, and not some new look that, no doubt, is just more of the same. Oh, and I still don't want tabs on top, damnit. How about CHOICE?
And I don't want or need a "screenshot" function in a browser. I already have the feature elsewhere... that works anywhere... and does more. Don't we all? More non-browser boat/code/bugs/memory/resources is not what I want! Perhaps make a nice official *ADD-ON* for those who want it.
Firefox is still the only major multiplatform, open-source, community-driven browser (sorry, Chromium doesn't quite muster). For that, I am grateful. But stop worrying about trying to look and behave like Chrome! Put your efforts in stability, speed, and performance... and throw in a side of REMOVING non-browser features and adding back more user control and options for the UI and THAT will keep your user base. No matter what browser people are using, Firefox is still VERY important for EVERYONE to prevent a dangerous browser monoculture.
If you ARE Chrome, then why should people keep using Firefox?
If you ARE Chrome, then why should people leave Chrome?
If you ARE Chrome, then why does browser diversity matter anymore?
God damn it. (Score:3)
Firefox 57 which "promises ... a new look." ... added a screenshot button ... Pocket button in the URL bar ... new New Tab page.
Great. New (or simple more) things to disable.
Also, I read elsewhere that the "screenshot" feature uses Firefox cloud storage - usage terms and conditions to which you'll have to agree.
Dear Firefox Team, How about concentrate on making a great (or even, at this point, good) *browser* - not kitchen sink.
Another 'New Look' (Score:3, Informative)
I liked the old look. So I run Seamonkey.
Cross-platform alternative to FF (Score:2)
I have been using Firefox since the Netscape days but I'm quickly losing patience with it these last months. It was getting slower and slower, and they kept promising that it would be faster. The last version would be really fast, they said. I have it on my Macs, and on both of them it often just hangs for tens of seconds during loading a page. It's getting unusable so I am now thinking about switching to another browser, after more than 20 years. If version 57 turns out to be as bad as it sounds here, FF w
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I went to Pale Moon. I used to like Firefox because of the add-ons. When they started the stream of constant updates, each one seemingly intended to make it more and more like Chrome, I lost patience.
Like many, many others, I've gone and I won't be back.
Screenshots available by addons already - zzz (Score:2)
As I write this I have two separate addons installed (currently disabled) that I've had for several years, both of which support taking screenshots of the browser, with slightly different features that made them better in particular circumstances.
(They are Abduction and FireShot if anyone is interested. It's possible I disabled them because they don't support multiprocess but I can't remember; they work fine for screenshots though.)
I don't know how the one they're talking about works but I suspect it's not
Slashdot Browser (Score:2)
You all seem to know the one true way to build a browser that everyone would want to use.
Fix the damn slowdown! (Score:2)
How about they fix the slow creep to 2.5GB memory usage which eventually causes the slowdown to near lockup, the fix is to to restart. It'd be nice to go more than a week without having to restart.
Print Screen? Like on paper? (Score:2)
I have had a "print screen" key on my keyboard for decades.
Many laptops don't. Nor do desktop Macs. Macs instead use Command+Shift+3, which doesn't work on non-Mac computers.
It has worked fine for decades.
When was the last time the key actually did what it said, namely send a copy of the image on the display to paper?
Out of the box, Print Screen on Xubuntu opens a screenshot tool, but Print Screen on Debian Xfce does nothing. Instead, the user must manually associate xfce4-screenshooter with the Print key in Settings > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts.
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>"Out of the box, Print Screen on Xubuntu opens a screenshot tool, but Print Screen on Debian Xfce does nothing. Instead, the user must manually associate xfce4-screenshooter with the Print key in Settings > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts."
So it is up to the BROWSER to standardize how desktops and operating systems handle screenshots? Why not mouse preferences, file browsing, window decorations, and mixer settings next? The browser is not the OS (as much as Google wants it to be).
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A lot of users don't know what works on their own computer because they've never sat down to learn the operating system's screenshot feature.
Then they are also running Chrome, Edge, or Safari.
So your tech support now begins "ok I need you to install firefox... yada yada yada... now click the screen capture button"
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If you didn't know how to bring up the menu bar with F10 (which I didn't, but I did know about Alt, of course) then how would you do that from the hamburger menu at the top-right? Looking at it now I have no idea how I would achieve the equivalent of: View -> Toolbars -> Menu Bar.
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I was mostly just venting my spleen at all this new UX fashion victimhood crap. I do press Alt-F or whatever when necessary but it annoys me having to do it.
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I think TFA says it's removable.
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I dunno. I'm pretty fat. I could use the exercise.
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No it is not. FF is the only main stream browser apart from Safari that doesn't send your browsing data to its maker to sell it for money. So if you care about your privacy you should use FF. Then again, most people, including myself, use FF to browse to Google or FB or you name it, so that point has become moot over the years.
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FF is the only main stream browser apart from Safari that doesn't send your browsing data to its maker to sell it for money.
I agree that Firefox being independent FOSS is a big plus, but just how bad are Chrome and IE/Edge really? I've never seen a serious analysis showing that Chrome is sending a worrying amount of personal data to Google.
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No it is not. FF is the only main stream browser apart from Safari that doesn't send your browsing data to its maker to sell it for money.
Oh, you still believe that? Just a few weeks ago, people noticed that Firefox was using Google Analytics in the built in extension browser, where blockers can't stop it. "Trust us" they said, but the problem is, that's what people did. Trusted Mozilla, not Google.
That trust is now broken. And as the saying go, breaking trust takes seconds, building it takes years.
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It's not hidden. It's in the settings menu. You're right about Chrome though. I think I will go there too. FF is just getting too bad.
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If that's their vision of the future, they can fucking keep it for themselves.
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Taking a break from crapping on Firefox to actually answer a question.
Sometimes your local AV will hold things up until it scans the browser cache (and other temporary file spaces). Try trimming that and seeing if it has an impact on startup times.