All hail Firefox Dev Edition 44 – animations, memory and all

When Mozilla released the first Firefox Developer Edition there wasn't much difference from the regular Firefox release, but all that changed recently. Firefox DE 44, delivered in early November, packs in a wealth of new features and improvements, particularly for anyone working with HTML5 and CSS3 animation. The Developer …

[DaLo]

In my new voluntary el reg sub-editor role

To download the aforementioned browser click here -> https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/developer/.

You're welcome.

[Quortney Fortensplibe]

Re: In my new voluntary el reg sub-editor role

Thanks.

I'd be interested to know how you came up with the revolutionary idea that linking to the item being discussed in an article might benefit the readership of said article.

Was a long and extensive period of market research required?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great but...

I've been using FF Dev Edition since it existed as a nice separation between "Home" and "Work" and the dev tools are nice. I don't need many of them (I hope I'll never need to deal with animations) but I've always preferred the Firefox dev tools to Chrome.

The main problem I've had is some extensions (such as LiveReload) not upgrading quickly enough to stop the warnings about unsigned add-ons, so I have to turn off the whole warning system and can't just give exceptions to the one or two extensions.

I've also just noticed that Firefox will deprecate Tab Groups, which is proper poo since I find that really useful.

[Dan 55]

Re: It's great but...

So they made tab groups undiscoverable unless the user knows that they need to fish the right icon out of customisation and put it on the toolbar. Now hardly anybody uses it, it's gone because metrics.

Same donkeys in charge of the user interface as ever, I see.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's great but...

Same donkeys in charge of the user interface as ever, I see.

Still the UI could be a lot, lot worse, couldn't it? Not mentioning any particular Redmond-based company, by way of example.

[Fatman]

Re: It's great but...

<quote>Same donkeys in charge of the user interface as ever, I see.</quote>

Do you mean those """donkeys""" that came up with 'Australis'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's great but...

Seems Mozilla can't win. Add features, and they're accused of "bloat". Remove features that next to nobody uses, and all three people in the world who do use that feature will kick up an unholy stink. Impleent a feature similar to Chrome, and they're accused of "just copying Chrome". Fail to implement that feature, and it's "Chrome does that, why doesn't Firefox?".

Maybe those who don't like Firefox could, you know, go and use another browser? Quietly?

[Dan 55]

Re: It's great but...

I think people do like using Firefox, which is exactly why there are complaints.

[phil dude]

Re: It's great but...

@Dan55. THANK YOU for your explanation, I had wondered why such ludicrous decisions were being made!

Icon for the state of FF jumping the shark...

P.

[stonk]

Re: It's great but...

Might I suggest "Tabs Group Helper". It works with the latest FF Dev (I'm using it now)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tab-groups-helper/?src=api

[eldakka]

Re: It's great but...

or tree style tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/

[Quortney Fortensplibe]

Re: It's great but...

LastPAss extension seems to freeze it completely, requiring a force quit.

Which, given the number of websites which require some kind of login these days, makes it pretty unusable for me.

[JonnyBravo]

from from pah hold on comma a minute?

yup, it's monday alright

[sabroni]

There's a "send corrections" link at the top of the comments.

[Graham Triggs]

It's not websites that are the memory problem, but Firefox itself.

[wolfetone]

All well and good

But when are they going to fix the way Firefox uses the computers memory? Like in the way that it can use well over 1GB with just three tabs open in a day when developing sites?

Aside from that, it is a lovely browser to use for the development. But it's a pain in the backside having to restart it mid dev session.

[Forget It]

Re: All well and good

try switching from AdBlock+ to uBlock

that halve the footprint for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: All well and good

You do know you can clear your cache anytime you want?

[Quortney Fortensplibe]

An Eejit Writes...

For some reason the very existence of this version of FF seems to have passed me by. This is the first I've heard of it.

Could someone explain what the difference is between this and 'normal' FF? Reading the article, it seems to be pretty much just describing the Web Developer Tools which are in 'normal' FF anyway.

[Off to download it now and check it out for myself, but would appreciate the info, just in case I can't spot anything different]

[s. pam]

Isn't FF a painful orifice tool?

FF, pah humbug. Rubbish SW.

Deleted from all our systems for FF's owners sins.

End of transmission.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Isn't FF a painful orifice tool?

Meanwhile, on a nearby Star Destroyer:

"Yes Sir, we have captured this peculiar emission as the interloper jumped back into Hyperspace. Analysis reveals that the message has no inherent meaning. We are probably in presence of a Mark II Base Artificial Intelligence going stark raving bonkers due to extensive decay of the interwave positronic connections. Yes Sir. We recommend to disregard this particular bogey."