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Firefox 61 Arrives With Better Search, Tab Warming, and Accessibility Tools Inspector (venturebeat.com) 287

Posted by msmash from the it's-here dept.
On Tuesday, Mozilla released Firefox 61, the newest version of its web browser for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android platforms. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." VentureBeat: Version 61 brings TLS 1.3, the ability to add custom search engines to the location bar, tab warming, retained display lists, WebExtension tab management, and the Accessibility Tools Inspector. Mozilla doesn't break out the exact numbers for Firefox, though the company does say "half a billion people around the world" use the browser. In other words, it's a major platform that web developers have to consider.
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Firefox 61 Arrives With Better Search, Tab Warming, and Accessibility Tools Inspector More

Firefox 61 Arrives With Better Search, Tab Warming, and Accessibility Tools Inspector

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  • Tab warming? (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @11:53AM (#56848384) Homepage Journal
    I am guessing this means "preloading tabs"? Ugh. Just stop already.

    • For me, when I open a page, in a new tab or the same one, I open it because I intend to look at the page. I *want* my browser to get a page ready to view when I open it.

      Where I may not want it loaded right away is when I re-open my browser and have many tabs open from an earlier session. That's a niche where a well thought-out new UI feature would be good, though - pages I intend to use this week, but not right now. Bookmarks feel more permanent than that use case; I use bookmarks for things I plan to retur

  • Anyone else love pegging? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @11:54AM (#56848388)

    My personal test case will be with the UniFi 5.7/5.8 Controller web interface page. I've found consistently under the last few versions of Firefox that, while it's fine for at least an hour, if I leave it up constantly for ease of monitoring then after a day or two the Firefox process inevitably ends up pegging an entire core. There is no video whatsoever or any particularly fancy graphical usage, and while they may be doing something odd internally (I haven't had time to really dig into it) I'm not sure Firefox should end up in that state there over time. It's relatively easily repeatable though (will take a day but requires no interaction on my part) so I look forward to testing it. Although if it does resolve the problem I'll be mildly bummed whatever fix it was didn't make it into ESR, but so it goes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      It's probably some Java Script going rogue.
      Install the JavaScript toggle and see if this still occurs with JS off.
      YEs it might disable the whole page...

    • You can get a Ubiquiti WAP to stay up for an hour? Kudos!

  • AWESOMEBAR (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    the ability to add custom search engines to the location bar

    Tut tut tut... I believe you mean the AWESOMEBAR.

  • that is what *I* want to know...

  • Last version of 52ESR (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @12:08PM (#56848480)
    Anyone who needs 52ESR will be out of luck soon as its the last patch cycle. Those with Windows XP, XUL and NPAPI requirements are affected. Also Chrome is discontinuing Marvericks support, which also throws perfectly working Macs into the trash. Don’t give me the “it’s old” spiel, Mavericks is less than 5 years old.

    • If Apple doesn't want to support those Macs anymore, why should anyone else?

    • throws perfectly working Macs into the trash

      Hey, I have a Tiger machine that runs TenFourFox just fine* on PPC G5. But anyway, install Debian on the Mac, don't trash it. Apple is very clear that you get only so long on their software and then you're expected to be back at the Apple Store - it's not reasonable to expect Mozilla to support software that even Apple has abandoned.

      * 40% CPU with just one simple lowendmac.com page open even with UBO running ... just in case you thought Firefox didn't have any m

    • > Don’t give me the “it’s old” spiel, Mavericks is less than 5 years old.

      It's not so much that it's old, but it no longer receives security updates.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wolfrider ( 856 )

      > Chrome is discontinuing Marvericks support, which also throws perfectly working Macs into the trash

      --That's a bit harsh. You can still run Mav without Chrome (Firefox still works), and dual-boot Linux. I'm running a 2008 iMac Aluminum with El Capitan 10.11 right now -- you want them to keep supporting stuff more than 10 years? Volunteer to fork the code.

  • "... the company does say "half a billion people around the world" use the browser. In other words, it's a major platform that web developers have to consider...."

    Web developers will more than likely consider browsers that have significant (i.e., > 15-20%) market share, not one that is hyped up by its developers.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If 15% is your cutoff, only Chrome will count: http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share [statcounter.com]

    • Exactly. Firefox fans might like to think that "it's a major platform that web developers have to consider." Sadly, my analytics disagree. For example, I just checked a leisure-related B2C site I run. Mobile is dominant in this market, so the main Android and iOS browsers rank highest as you'd expect. Of the desktop browsers, Chrome is biggest with nearly half the market share, and most of the rest is split between Safari and IE+Edge between them. Firefox comes just above the 1% mark looking at all traffic.

      • ...I'm sorry to see things going this way,...

        That's my sentiment as well. Firefox's downfall started when the developers started to ignore what Firefox users wanted, and killed off a lot of functionality that Firefox once had, while bloating it with un-asked-for bloat.

  • Firebug? (Score:3)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @12:12PM (#56848524)
    C'mon, how about some better Dev tools please?

    • Re:Firebug? (Score:5, Informative)

      by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @03:08PM (#56849656)

      Former Firebug user here: No, the Firebug replacement doesn't have the community extensions that made Firebug better, but I've found that the built-in Firefox replacement has come around to where it's solid enough as a replacement. And it's definitely not as buggy as Firebug was at times.

      The tradeoff of a few extra add-ons for the speed and better stability is a fair tradeoff, IMO.

  • If my years in the Canadian Army taught me anything, it's that tab warming leads to tab fires.

    Think of the poor tabs, you filthy Americans!

  • Can I turn that shit off? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @12:27PM (#56848622)

    I like my browser meek and docile, not aggressively second-guessing me and doing all sorts of crap "just in case". It already does too much!

    How about a way to stop all javascript when the tab isn't active? Or a way to block javascript by domain, instead of having to rely on an adblocker? Opera has had that last one for ages.

    • All of Opera advantages has been disrupted by its stupid news feature which seems to be nearly impossible to disable.

      • Silly (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Use trve Norwegian Vivaldi, instead of shady Chinese Opera.

    • How about a way to stop all javascript when the tab isn't active?

      To what end? Revert the usefulness of the browser back to the early naughties? You do realise that the browser is now a core OS component right, and your tabs are actively running applications right?

      If you don't like multi-tasking, install DOS.

  • Just watch it from the web server log for what FireFox actually sends when you send a JQuery post request that goes past the 5 minute mark... you cannot see this from the networking tab in your browser, but wireshark will also grab it for you. So.. not suitable for all web use

  • In other words, it's a major platform that web developers have to consider.

    Hear that folks? The article says Firefox isn't a 3rd-class netizen anymore. Party's over: No more testing on just Chrome!

  • 5.27% market share (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @12:55PM (#56848850)

    Ever since Nov, 2017 when they broke the extensions, their market share has gone down each month. They are currently at only 5.27% [statcounter.com]. They are irrelevant.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      IMO a good deal of what killed them is shaving off percentages of users with every release because they don't seem to care about them. They ignored the corporate user. The power user. The addon user. Each on their own only a slice of their marketshare but adds up to a significant drop overall. I use a Firefox derivative (Waterfox) on the desktop and Firefox on the phone and I wish them well, but they need to stop whoever is making these stupid decisions and quick.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        SJWs, just saying. Remember when the CEO was ousted? That was "Game Over", you've just been watching a losing battle ever since.

  • Go to ESR 60.1 (Score:2, Informative)

    by williamyf ( 227051 )

    Dear all:
    Tired of google changing the browser, moving the interface around and breaking things Every 6 Weeks?
    Tired of microsoft changing the browser, moving the interface around and breaking things Every 6 Weeks?
    Tired of using safari and not having support of big boy tools, like iLO, IPIMI and the web consoles of Orocle and SAP?

    Welcome to the wonderful world of Firefox ESR.

    Current ESR (60) will be supported for about a year, with no new features or UI changes, only security patches and bug fixes. It has t

    • Tired of google changing the browser, moving the interface around and breaking things Every 6 Weeks?

      *me looks at the Google browser*. "Seems like everything is where it was last year. No I'm not tired at all, but thanks for asking." /marketing fail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wolfrider ( 856 )

      > Welcome to the wonderful world of Firefox ESR

      --No thanks. I'll keep using Palemoon on Linux (NewMoon on Mac OSX), kthxbai

  • Does the upgrade give you an advantage in agar.io? If not then skip it.

  • From TFA:

    Firefox 61 for desktop brings an improved search experience by letting you more easily add custom search engines to the location bar. Mozilla offered a helpful example: “Imagine searching an actor’s name; now with Firefox you can automatically search through IMDB in the location bar.”

    Sorry, the Location Bar (thank you for not perpetuating the "Awesome Bar" myth) is for URLs not searching. Stop trying to "improve" my "search experience" within the fucking browser. Browsers are for browsing, search engines are for searching.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kekx ( 2828765 )
      Hm, again just speaking for me, not anybody else, but i love the ability to use shorthands (g for google, m for maps, w for wikipedia, etc + a ton of work related ones) for different search engines in the URL bar. Is there anything that speaks against this type of dual usage of the URL bar? I cannot come up with something off the top of my head.

      • duckduckgo.com has a nice shorthand for single-site searches. !w for wikipedia.. uh, I can't remember any others.
        https://duckduckgo.com/bang [duckduckgo.com]
        You could set it as default search in URL bar and use the 11.4K bang abbreviations... though for some sites bang autocomplete might better be used in the search box instead.
        And they have the best site abbreviation as well: https://ddg.gg/ [ddg.gg]

  • Why whould anyone want this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @01:31PM (#56849128)

    From TFA:

    There’s also a small update to extensions built using the WebExtension API. WebExtensions can now hide tabs and manage the behavior of the browser when a tab is opened or closed.

    And how do I disable it? Seriously, why would we want the browser to do stuff like this? Just what I need, more seemingly random things happening that I can't see and/or presumably control ...

    • Re:Why whould anyone want this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by CrashNBrn ( 1143981 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @01:48PM (#56849246)

      For extensions like, Tab Mix Plus, Tree Tabs, Tree Style Tab, etc. If you don't install extensions that manage tabs then don't worry about it.

      • For extensions like, Tab Mix Plus, Tree Tabs, Tree Style Tab, etc. If you don't install extensions that manage tabs then don't worry about it.

        Thanks for the info. Seems like a potentially dangerous idea though...

      • "If you don't install extensions that manage tabs then don't worry about it."

        It's reasonable to assume that extension that explicitly states that it will try to manage your tabs will try to manage your tabs. How do you know that an extension that is claiming that it isn't trying to manage tabs won't try to manage your tabs?

        Now, a snarky response might be that it a user doesn't trust an extension then the user shouldn't be installing it, but that a) just pushes the problem up the stack to "How does a user

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bjdevil66 ( 583941 )

      If Firefox could collect more data on its end users (or ideally - from a UX research point of view - everything you do, like I'm sure Chrome does its best to do), the developers would have a much better view of what people want.

      Instead, the Firefox devs have to deal with us grouchy, "Don't track me!!", users. As a result, they have to make their best guesses based on their relatively meager datasets... Hell - Maybe that's why the Firefox UI is so much more like Chrome than it used to be: they had to get the

  • "the ability to add custom search engines..." (Score:3)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2018 @01:38PM (#56849178)

    the ability to add custom search engines to the location bar

    I've been doing that for years now. Did Mozilla forget about their own feature [johnbokma.com], one of the features that keeps me on Firefox, I might add?

  • Slow SVG rendering? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why is Firefox so slow to render and pan/zoom an SVG image? We have a custom SVG base map and Firefox is significantly slower than all other browsers. So much so that it's unusable and I can no longer recommend the browser to my users. *sigh*

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