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Firefox 65 Arrives With Content Blocking Controls, and Support for WebP and AV1 (venturebeat.com) 132

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Firefox 65, the latest version of Mozilla's web browser, is now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android platforms. The release brings simplified Content Blocking controls for Enhanced Tracking Protection, support for WebP image support with the Windows client getting an additional feature: support for AV1 format. From a report: Across all platforms, Firefox can now handle Google's WebP image format. WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression and promises the same image quality as existing formats at smaller file sizes. Firefox 65 for desktop brings redesigned controls for the Content Blocking section to let users choose their desired level of privacy protection. You can access it by either clicking on the small "i" icon in the address bar and clicking on the gear on the right side under Content Blocking or by going to Preferences, Privacy & Security, and then Content Blocking.

Next, Firefox now supports AV1, the royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media. AV1 improves compression efficiency by more than 30 percent over the codec VP9, which it is meant to succeed. Lastly, Firefox's new Task Manager page (just navigate to about:performance or find it under "Other" in the main menu) is complete. Introduced in Firefox 64, Task Manager now reports memory usage for tabs and add-ons.
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Firefox 65 Arrives With Content Blocking Controls, and Support for WebP and AV1 More

Firefox 65 Arrives With Content Blocking Controls, and Support for WebP and AV1

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  • Content Blocking, Lets just keep NoScript (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:00AM (#58039978)
    Not sure how I feel about this. I tend to resist Firefox updates because I don't want the new crap! The problem is, I would like security updates! Wish we could get security updates separated from features I never asked for and don't really give a rats ass about.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

    • Re:Content Blocking, Lets just keep NoScript (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:11AM (#58040018)

      Sure, it's called the ESR version.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's just a 6 month deferral of crap. They will foist it upon you eventually. Better, but still annoying.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        the esr version still gets the same shit that the mainstream release gets. it's a delay of the inevitable, not an alternative.

        don't like the chromified firefox? switch to, and contribute to, pale moon or waterfox.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Its a big deal, that i am actively reviewing PaleMoon, as an alternative to Firefox. its such a stalwart of open source --- but its really become a symbol of what is wrong with so much big tech. change interface, shift thigns around every release for nor eason, add useless features, remove usful, CLOUDIFY.

          bleh.

          Sync, did sound intresting, but they needed to provide USERS the 'package' to host the sync.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        A problem with the ESR version is the whiplash that happens when one ESR's lifetime is up and the next takes over. Sometimes frequent small changes are easier to adjust to than less-frequent large changes.

    • NoScript, uMatrix, uBlock (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      In that order. NoScript handles a variety of things that uMatrix doesn't, but uMatrix does a much better job showing you an overview of the currently demanded subsites and permissions to determine what you should whitelist to get a page working right. Between the three of them you ALMOST have a private and secure browser. Add in HTTPS Anywhere, Greasemonkey and some others and you can get almost any minor features you need without being held at ransom by the shitty javascript on most websites, or accidental

    • Yes, it misses the point of Firefox. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:34AM (#58040200)

      The original point of Phoenix over Mozilla(/Seamonkey) was that of a microkernel: 1. Include only what is absolutely necessary, and 2. make extending it as easy as possible.

      But the idea was communicated badly. Very badly. (Although not knowingly.)

      It was never meant to be used in its bare state, but adapted to your needs.
      (Ok, it was never perfectly minimalist.)

      But users installed it, and never got told that extending/adapting it is a necessary step to obtain a full browser. Nor were they interested in the hassle.
      (A few good presets for add-on collections, chosen at installation, would have fixed that, but add-on collections did not even exist back then.)

      So to compensate, more and more features crept into Firefox itself.
      Even during Firefox 2.x times, jokes about adding a kitchen sink existed. (See: about:kitchensink [about])

      Then, add-ons started to become so malicious, that some people started demanding a better add-on framework.

      Which, sadly, culminated in copying Chrome's utterly crippled joke of extensibility interface.

      And now many things have to go into the main browser, because they are starting to become impossible via add-ons.
      Especially with the current anxiety-based obsessive-compulsive minimalism fad, where new versions often announce the removal of essential (e.g. add-on API) features. (Yes, at this point, it starts becoming a contradicting cognitive dissonance.)

      IMHO, it's long time, to break apart the conept of a browser. Into a clean hypertext viewer, a virtual machine, a networking service, and for everything possible, falling back to already existing OS functionality, instead of indulging in the inner-platform effect.
      Then add-ons merely become small tools and services again, distributed like any other program package that follows the Unix philosophy.

      • Re:Yes, it misses the point of Firefox. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:41AM (#58040246) Homepage Journal

        (A few good presets for add-on collections, chosen at installation, would have fixed that, but add-on collections did not even exist back then.)

        Or they could have just packaged the addons with the browser install... bundling instead of bungling.

        • Not everyone is the same though. (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yes, but I suspect barely any add-ons would qualify as being so universal, that it makes sense to download them straight away though.

          I imagine a window on the first start, where you just click on 1. your preferred profile(s) [like "normal user", " developer", "high privacy needs"], and then see a list (not a gallery!) of the most popular and recommended add-ons, with the fitting ones already checked, to 2. optionally enable/disable individual ones, before proceeding to using the browser.

          From what I can tell

        • Yeah, but when you adopt a no-compulsory-nonsense approach, how can you trumpet how many new users you have for $FEATURE when the users who get the upgrade jammed down their throat don't have $FEATURE turned on by default?

          Next you'll be suggesting that software shouldn't nag you on every launch that there's a new version available, and that you really should upgrade because reasons!

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        for everything possible, falling back to already existing OS functionality

        On which OS? Firefox is officially ported to four different operating systems: Windows, X11/Linux, macOS, and Android. Would you prefer not being able to use a particular extension because it happens to have been made for an operating system other than the one you use? Let's say for example that you use a Mac, and a particular extension is made for Firefox for Windows. Would you prefer to have to buy a Parallels license and a Windows license to use a particular extension? Or to have to buy a Windows license

        • And the alternative nowadays is not to use an extension at all because it doesn't work anymore since Firefox 57. This is why I don't use Firefox anymore.

          • If you switch to Palemoon [palemoon.org] you can still use all the old FF XUL/Chrome-based addons!
          • Sadly, we can rarely stand still in the software world. Every extension I've ever used works fine with the new framework, though. What extensions do you want to use that still aren't updated and have no alternatives?

            • What extensions do you want to use that still aren't updated and have no alternatives?

              Keybinder [github.com] does not work with Firefox 57 or later, and the feature that it relied on (XUL keymaps) has no counterpart in WebExtensions because of bug 1325692 [mozilla.org].

            • Transliterator. I want to be able to type in Russian but since I am not a native speaker and cannot be arsed to learn the Russian keyboard layout, I have to use this.

        • Good point. I'd say *Use POSIX dammit* ;) (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You're right.
          I guess I wrote it that way, because in my head I thought about my own killer OS that would make everything else obsolete, unless you are "clueless". ;)

          "Until then" ... don't all of those you listed support POSIX?
          Or what are those browsers built on? And why is that not a set of OS APIs?

          I think since I said that everything but a plain hypertext viewer and (HTTP&co) networking should be part of a VM (a proper one), defining a standard interface for programmatic VM integration, that any arbitr

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            don't all of those you listed support POSIX?

            FIrst, Windows does not without WSL. Second, POSIX does not specify a graphics API, and neither Windows nor macOS nor Android includes an X server by default. Third, POSIX does not specify audio.

            everything but a plain hypertext viewer and (HTTP&co) networking should be part of a VM (a proper one)

            In the interest of avoiding the "no true Scotsman" problem, what makes a VM "proper" to you?

      • Re:Yes, it misses the point of Firefox. (Score:5, Informative)

        by MinaInerz ( 25726 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:59AM (#58040334) Homepage

        Firefox's WebExtension API is a considerable superset of what Chrome provides, and offers much of the power of what old extensions could but without the risks.

        Previous add-ons could essentially do anything they wanted to your computer and the spaghetti code required to support them made it difficult to speed up the Gecko engine and lower the resources that it used.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          It was fast enough. Noone asked for more speed except for marketers and other sleazy ad pushers, which with the addions were a non-issue

      • IMHO, it's long time, to break apart the conept of a browser. Into [parts] ... instead of indulging in the inner-platform effect.

        I see -- so you're calling for the release of a BRAND NEW browser to handle this problem. I christen this new browser: SystemB [xkcd.com]

        If only we _could_ break Chromium, et all into pieces, but they're too tightly wound together. Hence the new version. :-(

      • The push to split firefox into multiple processes forced a redesign of extension interfaces. If you are going to break it once anyway, trying to build or adopt a cross browser standard isn't a terrible idea.

    • and don't really give a rats ass about

      So you like to keep your rats asses around you? Ewww! Kinda like "I could care less" -- you could? That means you DO care somewhat.

      Mr. Pedantic signing off. See you next week: Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!

      BTW: I agree completely. And ESR only works until the NEXT ESR, when you're finally forced to accept the wonderful features you didn't want.

    • Apparently you want the Firefox developers to do all of the programming and research work for you so you can have this. I'm guessing you'd also like all of this to happen gratis. It seems to me that you would be well served to look into hiring someone to deliver this to you. You want things one could theoretically pay for since Firefox is free (as in freedom) software. I suggest that you ask developers to repackage a Firefox derivative that meets your needs.

      The most telling thing about this is so few other

  • The blacklisting fallacy again. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A list that will, by definition, always contain only things that aren't used in the wild anymore.

    Because the very first thing every malcontent creator will do, is check his content against this list, whenever a new version comes out. And if smart, he will just hot-swap in a new prepared version that cannot be on the list.

    Just like with regular malware and anti-malware software.

    Blacklisting shoung be considered harmful.

    The problem is, how to use a form of smart whitelisting, so that it keeps the web usable w

  • The only thing it's missing now is a decent web browser.

  • despite what Kenneth Auchenberg wants. /s

  • Last time I got frustrated with Firefox (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:42AM (#58040256)
    I went back and checked out Palemoon. But it seemed Palemoon rejected NoScript so I rejected using Palemoon.

    And I hate Chrome, it can not even scroll/re fresh the screen properly and the ads, ads, ads and no NoScript. The whole experience just sucks. The only time I use it is to moderate Slashdot since Firefox does not work no matter what I do.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • Interesting, since I use Firefox to moderate Slashdot.
      • Yes it is, I even uninstalled NoScript and it still did not work. I just count it as one of those odd glitches you run in to in IT. Someday I will reinstall Firefox but not today ;)
    • I have been using Palemoon with NoScript since I switched to Palemoon when FF dropped the old extensions. I have never had a problem. Palemoon will warn you that there are potential conflicts with NoScript, but you can still enable and use it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by solios ( 53048 )

      I use an extension named "ScriptSafe" to give Chrome NoScript-like functionality. The web would be completely unusable without it.

  • Great. I just got done updating FF and had to update all my addons once again that they disappeared on me. If they disappear one more time I'm done with this crap.
  • based on their political bias.

    • Where is the line between a valid political belief, and just fear mongering, portraying falsehoods, trying to scam people out of the money and property?

      • I think the issue is who determines if your political belief is valid and if it will be censored or blocked. Internet Explorer's new 'fake news' warning in Edge is a slippery slope to outright blocking of the content in a future release.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Conservatives want to be scammed, that's why they're against censoring pretty obvious con jobs like Mike "Juicebro" Cerenovich and dietary-supplement pushing Infowars.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        I don't want my web browser to block any of that. It's not its job. Pop up a warning for sites on a list of known phishing/attack sites, that's fine as long as there's no sending my every URL to the mothership to do it. But that's browser security, not content blocking.

  • The last free browser (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:55AM (#58040320) Homepage Journal
    Once Google starts stopping adblocking in Chromium, Firefox will be the last browser to allow the blocking of advertising and related malware. It is only a matter of time until Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc closes the adblock loophole.

    • Re:The last free browser (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BringsApples ( 3418089 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @11:13AM (#58040432)

      Once Google stops adblocking in Chromium...

      You either start or stop, dude.

      English language botched or not, this is still a good point. An add-on to that point: Google, Microsoft and Apple all write operating systems and mozilla doesn't. In the future, I feel like these operating-system-writing companies will invest heavily into laws that require web browsers to be a part of the OS, rather than a program that installs. This will, of course, be in the name of defeating terrorism and baby-rapers. Of course, it's also possible that, given that advertising accounts for about 19% of the nation's total economic output, it's possible that in the future avoiding advertising itself will be illegal.

      • Wrong. You can "start to stop" something. "Once Google begins to stop adblocking in Chromium" is another way of saying that. It will be a long process. But you are right, and I will take it one step further: eventually you won't be allowed to connect to the Internet except on an "approved" locked down device. People don't think that will happen, but there is too much money at stake here.

      • "English language, botched or not"

        I'll take "not" for 500 alex. The original sentence was "Once Google starts stopping adblocking in Chromium".

        You for sure can start stopping. "Pressing the pedal slowly to the floor, miguel starts the process of stopping the car"

        Now, I may write it as "begins" stopping, but really its not wrong enough to glaringly stand out. At least not to me. Infact i read the same words and did not notice. But the reason i am responding is just to say that its really not worth the nazing

  • Even harder to compile from source? (Score:5, Informative)

    by ReneR ( 1057034 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @11:15AM (#58040440)
    Let me guess, they found new creative ways to make it even harder to build from source? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't have mod points but ^^^THIS^^ . I gave up trying to compile Firefox, it's clear they do not want you to.

      Besides that, let's not forget there's still a metric shit load of things I DO NOT WANT in Firefox from previous releases. Until that crap is removed, Mozilla doesn't have a leg to stand on wrt being "better".

      I'm quite sure Google and Microsoft are aware of Mozilla's position. If anything they are taking turns screwing users.

      • Every time I install NetBSD one of the early things I do is build a copy of SeaMonkey from pkgsrc. Firefox is also easy to build, but I like the integrate 'composer' component in Seamonkey for cutting and pasting and saving web content.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It really doesn't get much easier to compile a major browser than hg cloning a repo, running mach bootstraps, and mach build. Unless of course you're one of those intelligent folks who run a niche platform and expects people to support it like it's a major platform for browsing.

  • So the new tracker blocking options are (from TFA):

    - Standard: The default, where Firefox blocks known trackers in Private Browsing Mode. In the future, this setting will also block Third Party tracking cookies.

    - Strict: For people who want a bit more protection and don’t mind if some sites break. This setting means Firefox blocks known trackers in all windows.

    How is that simpler than the current setting descriptions (from my Options->Privacy & Security Window in 64.0.2) with a separate setting for Cookies:

    - Only in private windows

    - Always

    Because "standard/strict" doesn't really sound the same as "only in private windows/always" ...

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @02:37PM (#58041602)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I ran a virgin firefox profile today, and I noted three "recommended stories" from Pocket, including a sponsored one from GoDaddy.

    It sure would be nice if mozilla could learn to walk-the-walk...P>

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by doom ( 14564 )

      .P>

      And it would be cool if slashdot would learn something about markdown, but I guess figuring out unicode would be higher up the list.

      I'm all for curmudgeons resisting change, but you can over do these things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by roca ( 43122 )

      Walk what walk?

      Mozilla's position isn't that all ads are evil and should be banned. It is that ad tech should preserve your privacy.

  • Ugh, the new update breaks my user-chrome CSS settings that changed tabs to bottom. Now they are on top again. :(

    • It breaks my user-chrome CSS, too. The tabs are on the left side, where I like them, but the dynamic translation of table titles to ancient greek is now broken. /s

  • ...is content blocking that doesn't inform the host that content is being blocked. So I stop getting those "hey, we see you're using an ad blocker. And we're not going to let you read the article until you whitelist us" popups in the middle of the screen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by roca ( 43122 )

      If you want the host to not know content is being blocked, the browser needs to download all blocked content, in which case you're giving up one of the main performance advantages of content blocking.

      • If you want the host to not know content is being blocked, the browser needs to download all blocked content, in which case you're giving up one of the main performance advantages of content blocking.

        Ok good point and there are a lot of cases where not downloading content you don't want to see is important -- over wifi or if you're in an area that's still confined to DSL.

        But I have 100/100 over fiber to the house and I'd at least like to have the *option* to trick the host, even if it means downloading ads that I never see. I'll never notice it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chrish ( 4714 )

      That's probably just displayed by default, and then turned off by some JavaScript in their ad scripts. They don't need to get notified.

  • This update broke my tabs-on-bottom userChrome.css settings.

    What was only about 6 lines of code now seems to require a lot more effort - see this github [github.com] for example code.

  • ...the bug on MacOS, that the right clicking in the desk bar is screwed after clicking the "about firefox" until restart.

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