Mozilla speeds Firefox release schedule to biweekly

Firefox releases will soon get even closer together – but not ESR ones, which remain annual, with the next one due out soon. The change was announced last week on the [e-mail] mailing list by Mozilla’s director of engineering Sylvestre Ledru: “We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week …

[Tom Chiverton 1]

QWACs. The answer to "how does our certificate authority make money given Lets Encrypt?"

Pointless if course. You *know* the issuance and chains will be bollocked up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey downvoter! Please explain.

[Pascal Monett]

Agreed. Downvoting is so simple.

Proving your point is much less so.

But hey, downvoters are just click-surfing. They're not going to tire themselves with enlightening people as to why they disagree.

[Doctor Syntax]

OP didn't tire himself by explaining what seems to ba a rather longer chain of argument than went into the comment. Perhaps that's what provoked the downvotes. Personally, I'm more inclined to just ignore that sort of post than vote either way.

[_wojtek]

from what I read: QWACs are geared towards actually verified certificates for organisations that are base in legal framework and requirements how the verification should be carried out. And this Firefox version should correctly handle and display / indicate such verifyied certificate AA mandated by eIDAS.

Now, in the past we had EV (extended verification) certificates and browsers displayed them with distinct signage / icon but then with the proliferation of Let's Encrypt (no verification at all beyond simple domain one, which doesn't prevent phishing at all) and commercial EV being carried out willy nilly ("trust me bro" kind of way) browsers decided to basically drop "verified" AA it didn't bring any improved security. eIDAS / QWAC tries to bring it back with legal safeguards and is mostly intended for government and banking sector (from what I read).

Also - besides Let's encrypt there are still CAs that charge you for the certificate so your comment about "forcing making money" is just plain dumb...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for filling in the blanks.

A company I'm familiar with used to use EV certs, but getting they had to move their renewal process forward by a couple of months because their lawyers were so slow to respond. They dropped EV certs and returned to using standard certs...

Bad guys getting EV certs just means they already own your domain and mail server.

[_wojtek]

You are assuming worst-case-scenario there. Though for QWACs simply owning domain shouldn't be enough. It simply puts more obligations on (public) institutions when it comes to obtaining and issuing the certificates. And it's mostly intended for them (see TPS).

In a nutshell LE is great in the sense that it made encryption ubiquitous but we did loose in the process the verification because anyone with a domain can issue certificate for "lIoyds.co.uk" (second letter is capital "i")...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_website_authentication_certificate

[blu3b3rry]

Looking forward to the new ESR

The current ESR (version 140) never got the options to turn off all the AI crap. An ESR with the toggles present in the settings will be more than welcome.

[Mage]

Re: Looking forward to the new ESR

The AI stuff should never have been there. If people want AI they can use Google or DDG AI search.

[Liam Proven]

Re: Looking forward to the new ESR

> The AI stuff should never have been there.

Agreed.

> If people want AI they can use Google or DDG AI search.

Hang on, WTAF? That is not even a straw man.

In-browser LLMs are Not The Same Thing.

Mozilla is using it for translation (100% valid), tab group titling (frippery, waste of resources), summaries (bullshit, doesn't work, don't trust it), chat sidebar (only for the mentally disabled, do not trust anyone who uses this for actual decision making).

None of this applies to search engines.

Sounds like *you* might need it, though!

[Mage]

Even 4 weeks was stupid

This is really crazy!

You work as long as needed on feature changes / additions and test.

or

You fix security or other bugs and release when ready.

Mozilla lot the plot long ago on GUIs. This is insanity.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Even 4 weeks was stupid

Yes, a 2-week release cycle really just means that the users do the testing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: that the users do the testing.

Don't the big projects use AI based testing system these days?

I mostly work alone and rely on my homegrown testing framework [1] that I've built over the past 20 years besides, not everyone can afford to use AI given the latest round of price hikes.

[1] Every bug report test or feature request gets added to the framework.

[Cloudseer]

Re: Even 4 weeks was stupid

Doesn’t mean something has to ship in two weeks, just that there’s an option to every two weeks.

Being able to ship often is a quality indicator for software engineering teams, as it means the shipping processes are robust.

[DS999]

I love that it supports PDF reading and form filling

You encounter lots of PDFs on the web so reading them without a separate app was a nice addition. But why oh why does it have to pull in the whole kitchen sink and do editing, merging, and so forth as well? That's not something you need or expect a web browser to do when it is, you know, browsing the web, that's an Office suite type function.

[zeigerpuppy]

Re: I love that it supports PDF reading and form filling

For a long time there hasn't been a consistent cross-platform solution for PDF edits. By edits, I mean the common annotation operations done by most users (not specialised tools).

Preview on Mac was probably the best example of a reasonable feature set and user experience, but it was Mac only. Adobe tools have been hugely bloated for a long time, and Linux had a variety of overlapping tools that would get the job done but were not very well known.

So I am all for Firefox's approach to this. You can still use your program of choice (set default application in settings), but at least any user can now open a PDF on any OS with Firefox and be able to do common PDF annotations.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: that's an Office suite type function

Personally, I prefer having Redmond as far away from my Personal Computer as possible.

And Office is not free.

So yeah, kudos to Mozilla to clip Borkzilla from one more revenue stream.

[DS999]

Re: that's an Office suite type function

When I say "Office" I mean in a generic sense, so MS Office, LibreOffice, Office 365 and Google Docs all qualify.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I love that it supports PDF reading and form filling

Personally I really don't like a browser attempt to double-guess me as to whether I want to read a PDF immediately or save it for reference. I don't particularly want to have to search for some hieroglyph to tell it to save, nor have the browser decide for itself where to save it. A dialog box with choices of save or open with the system PDF handler and the additional choice of where to save it is just fine most of the time and completely necessary when the PDF is several hundred pages of reference material from archive.org.

[blu3b3rry]

Re: I love that it supports PDF reading and form filling

The other nice thing about having the dialog box is for handling all other downloaded files.

It's also useful as a way to check out the download link you've clicked on is actually downloading what you wanted, as opposed to something trying to sneak onto your machine - beats me who thought automatic handling of downloads was a good feature in a browser from a security perspective.

[DS999]

Re: I love that it supports PDF reading and form filling

about:config

pdfjs.disable --> "true"

[ecofeco]

This is getting ridiculous

I love FF, but the bells and whistles of the whole Internet has gotten ridiculous.

My life is not improved by more clicking. Nor by more options for obscure processes. Sadly, this is the current trend everywhere.

Clicky, click, clicky click, click, click, clicky. Look boss! I'm working!

[IGotOut]

Why?

Really, why?

[jake]

Re: Why?

Keeping up with the Joneses, of course.

There is certainly no technical reason that makes any sense.

[jake]

Because as any fule no ...

... releasing more often, instead of "when those bits are done", ALWAYS results in a better product.

ALWAYS.

_{Your new car is ready, Sir.}

[williamyf]

I settled on ESR for my personal use as soon as the first one was announced, and I do not regret the decistion one bit, even if it becomes a little painful in the last quarter of the life of the browser...

I follow carefully the whattrainarewein, and install the new one as soon as it lands. It is nice to have a modern browser for 4 weeks ;-)

On a more serious note, ESR is important for a few reasons:

1.) Many ISVs and SaaS platforms certify only against the ESR, not against normal release firefox, so, it is important what the new ESR brings to the table, as that is the feature set your are stuck with for a year if you use any of such ISVs SW or SaaS polatforms.

2.) As Liam alluded with the WaterFox example, the ESR is the basis of other important downstream projects. Another example of this is KaiOS. In this day and age not very relevant, but for a loooong while, a very important mobile OS in emerging markets.

3.) Many a Linux distro like Debian, RHEL Suse Leap, AntiX, Slackware, Kali and TAILS have the ESR, and not regular Firefox, as their default browser.

4.) Many an organization mandates ESR as their browser, regardless of the default that their OS ships with.

I have been anouncing the advent of ESR on ./ for a few years now. ¡How quaint of me!

[Pete 2]

Double trouble

> We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week release cadence to a 2-week

Great! New bugs every fortnight.

[Pascal Monett]

a 2-week release schedule

Oh. Because you only need 2 weeks to thoroughly debug every new thing you've programmed ?

Impressive.

Unrealistic, but impressive.

[AMBxx]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

Biweekly can mean both fortnightly and twice weekly! Just be glad it's only fortnightly.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

"Just be glad it's only fortnightly."

For the time being....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

What's that goofy game got to do with it?

[Liam Proven]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

> twice weekly!

That's every half a week, so it's semiweekly.

[PB90210]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

I think they've gone to twice-weekly... it seems only a couple of days since the last one...

[_wojtek]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

counterpoint: maybe they work on the features separately and when the feature is done and tested they then merge it into mainline and ship? most likely it already works like that with 4 weeks schedule because it's would be already to tight to do it differently... so 2 weeks doesn't mean any news feature is developed within 2 weeks..

[jake]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

"and when the feature is done and tested they then merge it into mainline and ship?"

Dude, which Internet are you using?

[_wojtek]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

the regular one.

you are aware that nothing is perfect and nothing can be 100% QA'd - right?

[stiine]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

But they're approaching Microsoft territory here...

[IGotOut]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

"you are aware that nothing is perfect and nothing can be 100% QA'd - right?"

But you can have very good and 95% or piss poor and 10%.

I have to use an app for work that seems to follow this stupid trend of "release new stuff as fast as possible". About 1 in 10 releases completely Bork's the program, so the next release is fixing the previous releases fuck up. 1 in 10 doesn't sound bad, but the heap of crap seems to be updated weekly.

[_wojtek]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

so you can use ESR.

don't get me wrong - I'm mildly annoying with the ridiculous release cycle and we are going from one stupid extreme (release every couoke of years) towards yet another one...

monthly releases are kinda OK and I didn't have much problem with them...

[AMBxx]

Re: a 2-week release schedule

You can do unit testing. Testing the whole application? Not so much.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, a bunch of features absolutely nobody was clamouring for?

[jake]

"So, a bunch of features absolutely nobody was clamouring for?"

It's been that way since Microsoft invented the GUI.

[Doctor Syntax]

The teenagers with the attention span of a goldfish who seem to run so many websites these days will be all over this with their "outdated browser" messages.

[jake]

How very dare you, insulting goldfish like that.

[Doctor Syntax]

You may be right. I believe research has shown goldfishh have longer attention spans than they're traditionally credited with.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Waterfox

the AI-free Waterfox fork,

Pity there's no Debian package for it any more, its tarball or snap :-(

[jake]

Re: Waterfox

What's wrong with installing from the tarball? It always worked for me, either binary install or source install.

_{If there is now a technical reason, be nice ... I haven't used Debian since the sham election for the systemd-cancer ...}

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Waterfox

Nothing, except that there was a package which the maintainer has dropped. It's now a case of cleanup and reinstall, which makes Waterfox a less appealing option for people who want a simpler Windows-style experience.

[just4this]

Re: Waterfox

A recent Waterfox update had a few security fixes that Firefox were not releasing for another two weeks.

Opinions on its frequency aside, a release schedule for features is fair enough. I believe security updates should be as and when ready.

[Liam Proven]

Re: Waterfox

> Pity there's no Debian package for it

https://software.opensuse.org//download.html?project=home%3Ahawkeye116477%3Awaterfox&package=waterfox

Source:

https://github.com/hawkeye116477/waterfox-deb-rpm-arch-AppImage

[Downeaster]

Makes Me Appreciate Waterfox and Vivaldi

The two week release schedule is a bit much. Firefox has for too long tried to keep up with Google. I still appreciate the Firefox ESR releases and use them where i work. I personally prefer Waterfox and its ability to not have AI in in and its ad blocking. I also use Vivaldi sometimes when Waterfox gives me problems. I appreciate Mozilla and all it continues to do to keep an alternate browser. I've used Mozilla since Netscape days. Hoping that the updates return to every four weeks. A pain.

[steelpillow]

Bloatware?

First it was code development, then password management, now increasingly document editing. Moz seem to be sneaking the HTML desktop back in through the upstairs window. What'll it be next, email or online collaboration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bloatware?

What do you get when you cross a thunderbird with a firefox? A phoenix?

[Downeaster]

Re: Bloatware?

Sounds like the old Mozilla Suite is coming back. It had the Netscape email, a browser, an HTML editor, and a messenger. Everything old is new again. This still exists as the Seamonkey Internet Suite.

[steelpillow]

Re: Bloatware?

Sadly, the brilliantly-conceived SeaMonkey Composer web editor is decades out of date and receives fsck-all development. How I miss HoTMetaL Pro's tags-on view. O that Moz would resurrect /that/ side of SeaMonkey Composer.

[steelpillow]

Re: Bloatware?

A thunderbox, I mean -fox?

[LBJsPNS]

Benjamin Bland and his Bugle Band...

...blow the blues biweekly...

[AnonymousCward]

For Linux users there's a major improvement

Firefox 153 includes the new Vulkan Video support contributed through collaborative work between Red Hat and NVIDIA, meaning that you'll get proper Hardware Video Decode support out of the box without needing to rely on the trash heap that is VA-API, which was never truly equivalent to DXVA or D3DVA. There's also ongoing work to sort out encoding as well, and when this is complete, we'll finally have performance parity with Windows for live streams and video calls.

(...and no, Chromium doesn't have any of this yet... Mozilla did good!)

[VoiceOfTruth]

Ridiculous and pointless

I have complained elsewhere about Chrome having too many updates. I don't use Firefox for other reasons. Now there's another reason not to use Firefox.

There are too many non- or micro-features which get rolled out in software. Rolling them out quicker just annoys users more. Realistically Firefox is about at version 6.

[steelpillow]

Re: Ridiculous and pointless

Dunno why you got downvoted there. My round.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ridiculous and pointless

Did your screen reader not tell you the user name?