It's 2018 and… wow, you're still using Firefox? All right then, patch these horrid bugs Mozilla's Firefox has been patched to address more than 30 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities. The open-source browser has been updated in both its regular (Firefox 58) and extended support (ESR 52.6) flavors. You should install these as soon as possible. The Firefox 58 update includes fixes for critical memory corruption …
It'll be interesting to see where they go with Rust. From what I've heard the parts that have been Rusted-up are remarkably good, so perhaps they are strongly motivated to get on with rewriting the remainder.
From what I've seen Rust is rapidly becoming the language to use. High level enough to make life easy (though the learning curve is a bit steep), fast, and some really nice tricks, yet low level enough to be a systems language.
The warning signs for everyone are in the Redox OS project; they've done an awful lot of code in a pretty short time. From ground up to an OS that boots and runs a GUI in the time they've taken is pretty impressive. It would interesting to compare their progress to Google's Fuchsia (AFAIK written in C/C++)
I thought that Firefox had gone whole-hog with a Rust engine.
Not whole-hog, which would be bad engineering, but several parts of the browser engine have been replaced with components written in Rust, the largest being the style system. There is a nice overview in the slides accompanying a talk by one of Mozilla engineers. Briefly: FF is 9M lines of C/C++, 160K of which was the old style system, now replaced by an 85K-line rewrite in Rust.
More Rust components will appear in the future.
What stability issues ?
On linux x86_64 57.0{,.4} and 58.0 since late beta have been very stable. Sound in 58 and the betas, on some setups, has been a problem - but I've now got sound working with both pulse and alsa (different installs, obviously - some of my older retained previous systems don't have pulse). And no crashes apart from when I deliberately close Xorg with a large number of open tabs so that I can go back to an earlier system on the same machine (mainly kept for restoring from backups when I do trash the main system, but sometimes booted to check how things used to be if people report problems). And yes, these machines are largely used for building everything from source, to find regressions.
Hell, it even still builds without stylo if you want to take that route (or haven't installed clang - what is it about LLVM users that makes them think everybody installs all the optional extras ?).
But *building* firefox (and more particularly rustc - what, you think I don't build from source ?) OTOH can be a PITA. If you use a distro, be glad they will suffer the pain to build it for you ;-)
Oh, and I had to use 57.0.4 on a win10 machine in the past week - not something I like using, but firefox was working fine.
What Stability issues
Have to agree - pre 57, I was using Firefox less and less and Waterfox and Chromium more and more - since 57, waterfox has been uninstalled as unstable Chromium may well be next if it 'aw snap's me again.....
Loads fast and is light and nippier than it's been in years.
On Archlinux (even when also running Plasma).
Because racism and anti-racism are as bad as each other! Ok, people aren't born racist, but just because someone's decided that they want to discriminate on race doesn't mean we should discriminate against them!! Two wrongs don't make a right so we should stick with just racism rather than doubling up the discrimination! It's simple maths so can't be argued with!!
How about an official MSI package?
www.frontmotion.com/firefox/ But as it's not a Mozilla/Firefox official site, you have no way of knowing if they're putting dodgy stuff into the MSIs.
WebRTC can be used to initiate phone calls. (It probably has voice synthesis as well. In case your internet goes down, it can dial out to blab on on you...)
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/11/webrtc-sending-dtmf-in-firefox/
"Until recently, there had been very little interest expressed by developers to make use of this interface; and, as a consequence, it has been a relatively low priority for the Firefox WebRTC team"
Might explain a few issues mentioned...
Except for Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Edge.
Chrome is a bloated pig that chokes and dies like an infant with how many tabs as I leave open, Safari is long dead on my platforms, Edge is right out because of lack of extensions, Opera is somehow grossly overfeatured and underfeatured at the same time (though it'd be my next choice), and don't even talk about the Linux only browsers.
You picks your tradeoffs. Which is why sometimes my browser is Lynx.
Oddly, I've reached a point where I use different browsers for different use cases.
Firefox for general browsing.
Edge for anything Microsoft related - Office 365, Azure portal
IE for Facebook to prevent facebook leaching into anything else.
Chrome without any extensions for testing or where an extension is causing problems with a site.
Opera just pisses me off to much to have an entry.
I must really have been using an old version. Had to upgrade 4 times to bring ff to current level 58. Sad to see one of my favourite add-ons "Faviconize Tab" (allowed each tab to be thin down to the width of a favicon) gone. FF 58 "kindly" allows you to list legacy add-ons no longer supported, then "helpfully" suggests that you may search for replacements, but when you press the button, it's just a dumb old list of all add-ons.
To be even-handed in criticism, Opera hasn't had its most distinctive and useful feature since Opera 12 (2011?). The feature was "Create Follower Tab". This opened a new, initially blank tab. Whenever you clicked in the current tab, it displayed the content in the Follower Tab, and the current tab stayed loaded. Usually way more handy than the now ubiquitous "Open Link in New Tab". Even then it was buggy to the extent that it didn't remember Follower Tabs between sessions. In the new session, the Follower Tab became a tab like any other. I like to say that "It ain't Opera until it has Follower Tabs". Vivaldi also doesn't have it.
I use Opera developer, Vivaldi, Firefox, simultaneously (24GB RAM helps) with lots of tabs open. Certain sites work better with one than with an other. Multiple accounts at the same site, easy this way instead of logging out and in. I use Sleipnir a bit. Otter rarely. Installed Pale Moon recently, but lightly used. Uninstalled Chrome years ago as hopeless. It must have improved a lot for people to be using it in 2018. My Security Prime Directive is never to use MS products in Windows unless absolutely necessary, because "undocumented features"; so no Edge, and no IE for decades. Guilty secret: I use Process Explorer. Lame excuse: it isn't "really" an MS product. Finally, Lynx. Sorry, it's difficult to get back to a text-only interface. But it's been used in the last couple of years, for sites blushed by the deepest scepticism, but profoundly wanting to be read.
Sorry, there isn't an icon for "Prepare for boring, me young buckaroos."
Plus one for Yandex Browser.
It seems to be a re-skinned version of Opera so, if you like Opera, give it a whirl —especially if, like me, you want to run the same browser across all your devices.
It's the only Android browser (outside of Firefox) that supports extensions* (both Opera and Chrome ones). But, unlike Firefox it doesn't run like a slug on mogadon
*[the extensions code is currently being rewritten. So, only the alpha version supports them at the moment]
I've been using this Firefox browser since the early Netscape days - I can't argue that it's slower than dirt (despite the rewrite). However - I don't trust google, so Opera is my next choice. (IE is not a contender (as I've been using linux for a very long time)).
And so now - on slow machines, I lean toward Opera.
+1 My primary is FF, but its RAM consumption is ghastly, even with the new Quantum. 2-3GB after running a while is common and 700MB @ startup, no tabs is as well.
Like Chrome, similarly chubby, they play great tricks with distributing their flabbiness through several helper processes that make it look like they don't hog as much. Yes, yes, I know the process splitups have other legitimate uses, but I saw enough fawning remarks about Chrome RAM footprint when it first came out to be cynical.
Vivaldi OTOH seems to run on 400-500 MB most of the time. Esp odd when compared with its sire's Chrome footprint. Does unloading all of Google's snoopiness really save that much?
It's still missing some stuff - try viewing the rest of a truncated gmail message for example - but looking interesting already.
And, no, didn't come to V. from Opera.
"Vivaldi OTOH seems to run on 400-500 MB most of the time. Esp odd when compared with its sire's Chrome footprint. Does unloading all of Google's snoopiness really save that much?"
Be interesting to compare Vivaldi to Chromium (Chrome's sire). Google added their slurpy good(bad)ness and DRM support so Netflix will run in it, and called it Chrome.
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Not if you have NoScript (or equivalent).
As usual.
I'm a bit tired of all these articles on browser vulnerabilities that never, ever mention JavaScript blockers. They are the first line of defense and, in my view, they are as good as Star Wars ISD shields. Nothing gets through unless you allow it.
So yeah, maybe Firefox has some security issues in the core, but NoScript is the active energy shield that is protecting it and it is impenetrable.
Let's get JS blockers on all the other platforms, shall we ?
Just fixing browsers so they only run scripts from the domain you're visiting would be a start. Then if I'm compromised on your site it's because you served me a bad script, you can take it down and fix it. B if you're serving from multiple domains you don't control then your being irresponsible and lazy.
When i downloaded an app i don't expect to have to pick up components from a dozen other sites to get it working, how come we allow "web apps" to behave like this?
Hold on, I am a huge fan of NoScript. But it's not uncommon that some stupid site can barely be usable until you've Temporarily Enabled a dozen or so scripts. Totally with @Sabroni on this.
Yes, you can just decide to bail on these sites, but if for some reason you need to proceed, it's best if the core is as clean as possible.
Thinking of the trend towards forcing you to buy movie tickets in advance online for example, another reason why I avoid movie theaters. Those sites are some of the nastiest piles of steaming crud built by drunk illiterate coding monkeys and have JS from all over the place. You'd think parting you with $15/seat for yet another sequel would be enough payday, but no, gotta add ads and trackers.
NoScript can save our bacon but does absolve FF from doing their part.
You can usually ( at least you can in the cinemas and theatres near me ) phone up to book in advance, then pick your tickets up from the front desk, avoiding the website entirely.
When I go to the Cinema, it is most commonly with a voucher that precludes online bookings, so that helps a lot.
I'm running Linux Mint 17.3 64-bit MATE version. I always install all updates, including, of course, Firefox, as soon as they appear.
On some Web pages, Firefox sometimes fails to load all the graphics. Instead there is just a blank box.
Chrome doesn't have this problem.
Are these horrid bugs fully exploitable under Linux or Apple Mac OS X or that other OS that can never be mentioned by name in relation to software defects. Besides aren't all these flaws related to defects in the memory management unit embedded in the underlying hard/soft solution. You know the innovative integrated solution that can't isolate one processes memory from another.
Fucking annoyingly, the FF update destroys ALL your saved data, including all your saved login data.
I've used FF for donkeys years and never had this problem, but now I've lost possibly hundreds of logins.
Oh well, just another fuck you from some engineers who couldn't give a shit less about user experience.
It sounds like your profile became corrupted and your Firefox has created a fresh profile.
You may be able to recover the logins.
"Fucking annoyingly, the FF update destroys ALL your saved data, including all your saved login data.
I've used FF for donkeys years and never had this problem, but now I've lost possibly hundreds of logins."
Just restore from your backup.
You do have backups, don't you? If the data means even a little to you, surely you have backups!
I have always used firefox since leaving IE (aka knowing better) and I have been critical of the direction to look more like chrome, style over substance, memory hogging, etc. But today I updated FF (ubuntu) and it seems to have a firework up its backside, it is blazing! I have said for some time I would like them to focus on performance and improving the user experience (instead of pockets and other 'features') and I just wanted to say my experience today seems to suggest they have done so.
It has been a while before I praised a recent achievement of firefox so I am happy to have something positive about it now.
...wow, I'm still reading The Register?
Because despite being a site run by so-called "IT professionals", they somehow make the decision to belittle people for using what is currently the best open source web browser?
Maybe The Register staff would prefer we all switch to Chrome so that Google can reap more of our sweet, sweet data.
Seriously, whoever wrote this title... bad fucking show.
yes, that is a VERY personal question... it depends what end of the geek/ normal scale you are on... :P :)
speed, speed, speed!!!
- Then you will be using something with almost NO functionality, just to prove you have the fastest...
Its MS, it must be good!! yea, keep believing the lies...
Its famous, industry standard, so managers say its ok to use it!
- yes, based on an **ancient** report (about FF 10 or summat???) that 'da management' have understood.. - so no moaning about 'unknown software, even though FF60 is awfully top heavy, and has a 'new' eg 'ruined', 'too new' app structure alienating all those app devs.. :/
I only keep the last good one (V52) for tesing and 'keep the boss happy'..
I use a good 'mozilla open source' version call Pale moon, that adds a good graphics engine, good functionality. and has even copied over most good old FF addons for use!
This is NOT for 'mad geeks', just for those who want a good browser like FF 20 used to be.. :)
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