Mozilla whips out Rusty new Firefox Quantum (and that's a good thing) Mozilla has pushed its much-hyped "Firefox Quantum" browser build into public beta. The build, also known as Firefox 57, is being hailed by Mozilla as the most significant overhaul of Firefox in years, boasting a rewritten browser engine and the integration of multiple new components. Nearly a year in development, Firefox …
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Looks like the three add-ons I find critical won't be ported to FF57: Master Password Timeout, Open in Browser, and Classic Theme Restorer.
(sigh) If I wanted to use a fast browser that's ugly and doesn't have the features I need, I would have simply switched to the deplorable Chrome. Thanks, Mozilla!
Another that won't be ported, that I use quite frequently, is the ......
Update, I was going to say that DownThemAll Download Manager would not be ported, but upon checking the authors website, found that he will be doing so after all. but due to limitations in WebExtensions, it will be a scaled back version.
This is part of what he had to say...
Progress?
September 27, 2017
I decided to make a “lite” DTA web extension after all.
Of course, it will have serious limitations and far fewer features, but that’s a limitation of WebExtensions and what can you do?
On a maybe positive, it should be easy enough to support Chrome too (and Opera, etc?)
I'm going to try it for a few days, looking for bugs. With the encrusted paleocode they were lumbered with from the old days, it was near impossible to address some bugs. Apparently some things - new and old - just couldn't be handled by architectures dreamt of 10 and 15 years ago. Some bugs had multiple attempts at fixes, but which broke too many things and had to be abandoned. Today I came across yet another bug report that was 6 years in the fixing.
I've got crossed toes hoping they've got a platform for the modern age.
Hardly seems secure "good practice" to incorporate screen and audio recording features directly into Firefox and then enable this "beta code" on stable versions RTM versions of Firefox, without any notfication/opt in. So you're enabling buggy beta code that can record screen/audio with "one click" uploading to the cloud for a month.
Who paid Mozilla to add that feature? I think we know who.
Fcuking numpties regards Privacy, might not be selling your Privacy directly, but they are doing everything on the fringes to that effect, this feature conduits data to the powers that be, easily.
I'm a web dev. and been using Firefox for years as there are a number of add-on tools for Firefox that just made life easier than using Chrome, like the Web Developer toolbar. With this now killed by Mozilla removing one add-on framework and replacing it with one that has about 25% of the features I'm seriously considering either dropping back to 56 - or switching to Chrome, something I never thought I'd find myself considering.
Oh, anyone wanting to get their tabs back in the correct place in 57:
1. Find profile folder (%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ on Windows).
2. Open/create a "chrome" sub-folder.
3. Add a "userChrome.css" file containing
#TabsToolbar { -moz-box-ordinal-group: 2; } #nav-bar{ border-top-width: 0px !important; }
4. Save and restart Firefox.
Yes I was a little worried when the screen grabber icon suddenly appeared on the menu with no notification when my FF upgraded to version 55. Bumping off my Majestic SEO tool.
I don't have any need for this since I can just press Print Screen on the rare occasions where I want a screen grab of a webpage
Faster than Chrome? At what? Refresh your app with the debugger running and speed plummets to complete unusability, just like the old firefox - its maxed out my CPU for 4 and 1/2 minutes until I killed the process. And when the debugger is not open, it takes 20-30% longer to open than Chrome.
This is a fairly large app but in comparison, Chrome is instant.
IDK about anyone else, but the actual rendering of the webpage I'm viewing isn't the slow part - that takes like 2 seconds and not being a gnat my attention span is sufficient for that delay. No, the problem I have is the thirteen billion external JS files that every page needs to fetch from ten billion other servers that are too busy to respond in a timely manner. "Waiting for analytics.somefuckingadnetwork.com..." is what holds up my browsing experience, not the 30 extra milliseconds layout rendering takes to sort out the CSS or whatever.
As the post above this one notes, waiting for endless scripts to load is what ruins browsing experience. Your browser may be faster, but most of the time the advantage is lost. This morning I tried to read breitbart.com to see how Goebbels Bannon was gloating about the Alabama election, and got a blank page. Yes, I'm using ScriptBlock (on Chrome, so sue me). Why is it necessary to endure boatloads of Javascript simply to view a site's home page?! Oh, the Breitbart page loaded fast all right, because there was nothing there. (On reflection, I figured there would still be nothing there worth reading if I disabled ScriptBlock, so I didn't bother.)
I appreciate browser makers trying to improve their product, but they're shoveling against the tide until sites wise up and stop dumping tons of garbage into their pages when all people want is CONTENT.
I've been using 57 on Android for weeks now, and am encouraged by the results so far. I'm not having issues with updated extensions I like, or found great alternatives. My point is, ITS STILL BETA! As of today, and has 6 weeks yet to smooth out the wrinkles. I've used 55 concurrently, and I have definitely noticed the increase of speed. So, as a fan, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of doubt.
With that said, I use multiple browsers, just because, none are perfect.But Firefox is definitely my primary used.
I loved using Firefox as my main browser for a long time, but had to ditch it for Vivaldi. Even Vivaldi is now starting to get bloated and I might go back to Firefox if it can be more careful with the memory usage. They also need to do something about the annoying Plugin Container crashes before I move back to Firefox.
i tried 57 quantum beta. it sucks. when it freezes and i turn to task manager to close it my CPU usage is at 100%. my Xfinity TV listings will not load although the page did load after a long wait if i use my VPN and locate myself in Switzerland.
the browsers behave so differently that i use Opera for FB, which means videos won't stream and GIFs won't move. i had to open Chrome to get my TV listings but i've read Chrome is a memory hog. FF for everyday use. i think too many tabs causes it to freeze. how many are too many? the last one you just opened every time.
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