Firefox 62 Arrives With Variable Fonts, Automatic Dark Theme on macOS, and Better Scrolling on Android (venturebeat.com) 114
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today released Firefox 62 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." Version 62 brings variable fonts, automatic dark theme on macOS, and better scrolling on Android. Firefox 62 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. The latest iOS version is available on Apple's App Store.
Re:New bells and widgets! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Variable fonts is improved functionality. It's a Web Standard that Firefox now supports. You know, the whole point of web browser?
Now if they would just remove all the useless garbage that *IS NOT* the point of a web browser.
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It's a Web Standard that Firefox now supports
Incorrect. Variable size OpenType isn't a standard at all. It's an extension to OpenType, which is a standard, that was developed by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google. Variable size OpenType allows a font file to give enough instructions on glyph construction, that the browsers can construct font sizes and styles that are not specified in the font file on the fly. Typically, when you specify a font size that isn't in your font cache, the web browser will use the largest font size and then scale upward
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It's an extension to OpenType, which is a standard, that was developed by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google.
Just in case that wasn't clear. OpenType fonts are a standard file format. OpenType fonts are loosely based off Apple's TrueType font format. However, the variable size extension to OpenType is not a standard.
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It's an extension to OpenType, which is a standard, that was developed by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Google.
The "Google" bit is the important part. Chrome added support for this about a year ago, and following it's monkey see, monkey do policy of "innovation" for Chromefox, Mozilla has just finished copying them.
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From my original comment
Mozilla didn't want to encourage this style of "helping to make a standard". But yeah, pretty much the W3 has become more and more irrelevant for the web.
Now on to what you said...
Mozilla has just finished copying them
We're starting to get into the territory of the question that was asked way back in the 90s, "Who gets to make a standard on the web?" I don't think there's been any satisfactory answer to that question. Microsoft felt that the folks writing the web browsers back in the day were the ones who should have the most say in what "is" and what "isn't" a web standard. Mozilla, post Netscape, mostly wanted to stick strictly to W3 published standards. Google came
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Well said, my friend.
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Just noticed integrated tracking protection - kind of nice [mozilla.org]
Nice! Focus correct with new tabs. (Score:3)
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Yep, default theme now lets you see where the active tab is. It's amazing.
They had to break something though: The little button to add a new tab is now invisible until you mouse over it. [facepalm.gif]
How people are supposed to know where the invisible thing is so that they can move the mouse over it? Only the Firefox designers know the answer to that one.
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I don't use it on my phone.
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The little button to add a new tab is now invisible until you mouse over it.
I don't see that behavior on macOS or Windows 10 with Firefox 62 or 63 beta using any of the default themes. The "+" button is always visible. Which OS and theme are you using?
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Keep in mind that the built-in tracking protection uses Disconnect's filters. You can achieve the same thing via adding the Disconnect filters to uBlock Origin. The reason I'm mentioning this is because the Disconnect list breaks things like the Twitter embeds that some people like and there isn't an easy way to disable the filter for a single page, unlike with uBlock Origin. "Why did Twitter embeds break?" is actually an extremely common issue people end up having.
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Any reason to upgrade, too? (Score:1)
Or just bling and bullshit?
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There is both a PC and Android variant.
Variable fonts? (Score:2)
I'm going to post a stupid question and then go read what it is, so here it goes:
Haven't browsers had variable fonts since the introduction of CSS?
Re: Variable fonts? (Score:5, Informative)
Variable fonts are like TTF or OTF fonts where you can package all of the different styles in one font to load.
Previously this was not possible and required packaging each font into separate files. For example, if you wanted the bold/italic variants of a font, you would need to load them all separately.
This is actually a noteworthy performance improvement for web designers if they start utilizing it. I'm not certain if other browsers even support this yet.
Performance improvement my butt (Score:3)
Mozilla needs more work on rendering performance. Rendering SVGs is slower than on Internet Explorer 11 in many cases, and in general about four times slower than on Chrome. In one extreme test case it is even about ten times slower than Chrome ( https://testdrive-archive.azur... [azurewebsites.net] ), but luckily that is not a typical example.
The problem with fixing this is that it is really hard work and this kind of work is not really valued. And that is whe
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Chrome and Safari already support Variable Fonts.
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So it basically makes the font downloads larger?
Seriously, I'm getting sick of these web apps with 2MB of fonts that aren't even used.
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No, and they still haven't. What they call variable fonts [mozilla.org] is just a packaging hack -- more than one typeface in the same file.
What I expected was the implementation of an algorithm that will stretch the letters instead of "justifying" (filling up with spaces). That was done in western typography since Gutenberg.
Something like kashida [wikipedia.org] in Arabic, but less dramatic. I know that this kind of microtypography was supported in LaTeX since at least a
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Here is an example:
E n g l i s h / L a t i n
Do you get it now?
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You're flat-out wrong about this. CSS Variable Fonts is *not* about packaging multiple typefaces in the same file. There is a single typeface in the file, with one or more continuously variable "axes" (e.g. "weight" or "width", but you can define other axes like "serif-ness") to control the shape of the glyphs. You should have read the page you linked to.
Horizontally stretching glyphs to justify lines sounds like a good feature but it would have to be a CSS feature in its own right, because the browser woul
Re:Variable fonts? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to post a stupid question and then go read what it is, so here it goes:
Haven't browsers had variable fonts since the introduction of CSS?
This is something different:
Variable fonts are an extension to the OpenType specification, which allows a single font file to store a continuous range of design variants.
Re: I want to like Firefox...but... (Score:3)
Mostly various websites. Particularly government websites (I use their websites constantly.) I really don't know why. For example, the city of Dallas Procurement website doesn't work at all in Firefox. Neither does the Texas Water Development Boards website. I have to use Chrome or IE.
Really, Dallas May, for various reasons. (Score:2)
But... I still find myself opening Chrome pretty often for various reasons.
Mostly various websites ... I really don't know why.
I don't know why, but your charming name Dallas May makes me cut you slack for such slack comments.
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Chrome has a more Metroid-morph-ball-looking logo.
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Discordapp.com, a web-based text and voice chat platform, allows uploading server-specific emojis in Chrome. It used to allow uploading them in Firefox as well until the settings UI redesign in May 2017. Since then, clicking the "Upload Emoji" button has done nothing: no change in the window, no message in the developer console. When this bug was reported on Reddit [reddit.com], on Twitter [twitter.com], and on Discord's feedback forum [discordapp.com]. The official response out of Discordapp.com's developers for the past 16 months has been that if i
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But... I still find myself opening Chrome pretty often for various reasons.
Yeah, me too, but all those reasons end in google.com, or they are the result of some noobs using it as an interface for something that shouldn't use it as an interface, like for programming drones or something.
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some noobs using [the web] as an interface for something that shouldn't use it as an interface
What's better?
A. Using the web as an interface for something
B. Using a Windows 10 license in a virtual machine as an interface for something
C. Another binary portability mechanism that your reply explains
D. Not having access to something at all if your device happens to run GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, or macOS
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What's better?
A cross-platform application. Use Tcl/Tk if you have to, or even python. That's cross-platform. But don't use a web browser to do a simple job. That's unnecessary bloat. Having to load Chrome on a netbook just to twiddle some settings on a drone is dumb.
Annual fee for web app can be smaller (Score:2)
A cross-platform application. Use Tcl/Tk if you have to, or even python. That's cross-platform.
Which would require tech support to walk users through installing Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter. A developer can assume that one of the big four web browsers is already installed, unlike Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter. Nor would Apple's App Store Review Guidelines allow publishing a generic Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter interpreter for purposes other than learning to program. The developer would have to buy an iOS Developer Program subscription and an Xcode license [apple.com] separately and package the interpreter with
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Which would require tech support to walk users through installing Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter.
Or you can just bundle them.
Nor would Apple's App Store Review Guidelines allow publishing a generic Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter interpreter for purposes other than learning to program.
Yes, it's well-known that the Macintosh platform is not suitable for general computing.
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Which would require tech support to walk users through installing Tcl/Tk or Python with Tkinter.
Or you can just bundle them.
As I understand it, the developer then has to build, test, and offer five bundles of interpreter and application, one for each operating system. In addition, Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper default to recommending that the user delete an executable rather than running it, unless the developer has paid the annual Danegeld to the Authenticode EV CA racket (in the case of Windows) or Apple's in-house CA (in the case of macOS). Is this true, and if so, how is it not a burden on smaller developers? What
Agreed. Firefox is getting pretty hard to use (Score:1)
I really want to like Firefox. I do. I use it as my primary browser right now.
But... I still find myself opening Chrome pretty often for various reasons.
I like to start my computer and go start the coffee, to come back to a system with all my pages reloaded.
Firefox (of the time) absolutely doesn't want to reload pages if it can help it. It would rather wait until the user clicks on a tab and then make them wait for the page load, and/or thinks that yesterday's cache of Slashdot, or the weather report, or Google news is what you really wanted.
This can be fixed, but only after a couple of hours of searching and trying out the various combinations of three obs
Another Firefox peeve (Score:2)
Open about:config in the Firefox location bar
Type browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash in the filter box, or search for it manually iny
Double click
browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash
It should change from
browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash default boolean true
to
browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash user_set boolean false
And this is another peeve I have about Firefox.
"resume_from_crash" set to TRUE means don't resume ask the user, while
"resume_from_crash" set to FALSE means resume from crash immediately.
It's like you have to leave your command of English at the door and just "do what the devs say to do".
(BTW: Thanks for the tip, I just changed it, and I'll see if it works. Would have saved me a zillion hours of work if I could have found it on the net at the time.)
AAAH It Updated my ESR to 60 (Quantum)!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
What the heck! We have an important update, we recommend you update as soon as possible. BAM! All extensions except two gone, it has some blueish theme and many things look ... strange. Screw you Mozilla.
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Waterfox or Pale Moon are the real ESR releases.
Also the end of the line for XUL and Windows XP (Score:3)
"Years Behind Chromium" (Score:2)
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-m... [marc.info]
I sincerely hope they will change the strategy. Until then it's Chromium for me.
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De Raadt is wrong about this. Today, on Linux, Firefox content processes run in an extremely confined sandbox. For example they have no access to any file system or network resources. It sounds like they've had trouble porting Firefox's sandboxing approach to use OpenBSD pledge() sandboxing, but that is probably more about the limitations of pledge() than Firefox's sandboxing approach.
Then he says "I think firefox is still only 2 process classes" but I can think of at least 4.
Chromium is ahead of Firefox in
Cool. (Score:2)
Does it put back automatic text reflow on Android, so you don't have to scroll all over the place when you zoom?
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I just tried your software for Linux, it does nothing that cannot be done with a few shell scripts. If you went through the trouble GUI make the most of the interface, provide documentation and make it intuitive. Perhaps the most common use case could be turned into a wizard and the documentation should be rewritten in clear non preachy-ranty prose.