Android version comes with a completely new design, and empty "What's new" section in Google Play gave no indication it's going be such a major change.
Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool!
I suspect that approximately no one reads that "What's new" section, and they know it. Even Google just leaves it with whatever happened to be in the field in summer of 2018 when they stopped updating it.
This sort of thing (updates as backdoor to get telemetry from people who explicitly opt out of telemetry) is becoming more and more prevalent. GitExtensions also does it - ostensibly a bug, too, but no hurry to fix it of course.
On the other side, Visual Studio forces me to open up a port and log in to MS account - tied to my real name and credit card - so it could upload my usage patterns every month, as a condition of the 'free' license. Perhaps that's the model we're converging towards, even for open source.
This is why I turned off auto update on Firefox, I knew at some point to fenix update was coming down the pipe, and I was not sure if they would bother to inform me of the change.
> Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool!
Oh ffs thanks for the heads up. Re-defaulting settings is a big reason I jumped ship from other companies' products.
In one update Mozilla has more or less destroyed my trust in them. They reset privacy settings and pushed out a major change that leaves virtually no add-ons available with no warning. I don't understand what they were thinking with this.
The ability to share a link and be presented with a menu that let you bookmark or send it to a different device -- gone.
Not particularly pleased with that.
I really sometimes grow very frustrated with Mozilla. In Cory Doctorow's _Eastern Standard Tribe_, some people work as saboteurs, planting really unpopular stupid ideas, and sabotaging clean functionality.
It feels like Mozilla is really rife with such characters.
Completely new design that still lacks pull to refresh. Honestly which developer hates that ui design aspect. It's been filed multiple times and more recently as a bug. at this point it rightfully is a bug
I received a notification before 68.11.0 landed today warning me that an upgrade was coming and things would change. But it was only for 68.11.0 (current stable channel release on Google play store) and not 79.
For me, Fenix on Android is the worst update ever. I use Firefox as my main browser on Android since almost 10 years and my whole mobile workflow depends on the awesome Tab Queue-feature (new tabs from other Apps like Twitter/Slack/Mails are opened in the background).
With Fenix, Mozilla decided to just abandon that feature. Issues are closed, it got removed from the feature list [1] and further questions are ignored.
I fully understand that you can't keep every feature everywhere, but this was THE main benefit of Firefox (besides ublock) for me and if you look at GitHub/Reddit/Twitter I am not the only one.
Now I have to stick to an outdated browser because of an (for me) completely unnecessary, degrading update :/.
- Recently closed tabs (AFAIK "Undo close tab" currently fakes it by not actually closing the tab until the "Undo close tab" popup has disappeared)
- The Firefox share target that actually gave you a choice whether you'd like to open the page in Firefox directly, merely bookmark it or use Sync to send it to some other Firefox instance without having to actually open the page in Firefox first
- Add-on support that isn't limited to a few blessed "Recommended extensions"
- viewing local HTML files is not possible (although admittedly Google hasn't helped there, either, by vastly complicating file system access in recent Android versions, and their purported replacement method is absolutely unsuitable for HTML files that depend on additional resources such as images, styles, scripts, other HTML files etc., but in the end it was still Mozilla's decision to disallow it completely right now)
- about:config
- View source
- bfcache is broken
- cannot force-refresh a page
- the tab import from the previous versions drops all the session history of those tabs, i.e. it only imports the currently viewed page, but you can no longer go back or forward
Same. I blocked the auto-update for Firefox as soon as I saw that the feature hadn't landed in stable.
I hope some other browser picks it up. Would probably be a good fit for Vivaldi, which is meant for power-users who might go through link aggregators a lot.
I don't get what benefit they get from "lock[ing] and limit[ing] conversation to collaborators" on such issues. Why would you want to deliberately cut valuable user feedback? I mean I can't even put a "thumb up" on the issue!
For Wayland users DMA-BUF video textures are now used when the Video Acceleration API (VA-API) is enabled.
I personally saw a number of regressions[0] on Debian testing for video playback on the beta releases for 79, but it largely seems to have settled down now.
>A new stable version of Firefox brings July to a close with the return of shared memory! Firefox 79 also offers a new Promise method, more secure target=_blank links, logical assignment operators, and other updates of interest to web developers.
- Return of shared memory between parts of the same page (including web workers). Parallel processing becomes more efficient, good for complex apps and games.
- Time-traveling debugger of sorts: search for "restart frame".
"The reference-types proposal is now supported. It provides a new type, externref, which can hold any JavaScript value, for example strings, DOM references, or objects."
This is exciting! It opens up faster possibilities for wasm apps
I wonder if we could try something new and have all discussion related to Mozilla or Firefox as a whole, including comparisons to other browsers, privacy, and how much battery it uses on macOS in just one thread so people can collapse it.
One thought, cant one reason to the difference when you checked be that Firefox is the active application and have focus? And do you maybe have any addons in Firefox? Extensions can give bigger energy impact, you can check that under about:performance. Anyways I think both have low energy impact even if safari happens to be abit lower.
Personally I use Firefox on mac and can many times have 100+ tabs and it works without any problems.
It could also be mention that Firefox now use macos coreanimation that drastically improved Firefox battery performance [1]. So give it a real test again, Firefox is really awesome and needs all support :) We need bigger diversity among webbrowsers, not just chromium based.
Safari has been frustratingly aggressive for me. I was working with a fairly heavy Google Spreadsheet and Safari would need to refresh/reload every time it lost focus.
Between Chrome, Firefox, Safari and their plugins it's a dance to get the desired behavior and efficiency. Lazy loading of pages (when you have multiple tabs and close/reopen) can either be really efficient (because they don't even load the page) or annoying (if you don't have Internet or they change/remove the page when you go back to read it).
There has been progress. Firefox is pretty close to Chrome in power usage on macOS now. Safari is still streets ahead of every other browser on power usage though.
Thumbnails are buggy.
Auto complete doesnt work in some cases. No tab reordering, open in new tab order is weird. Home page is worse. No addons... lots of other small annoyances.
And worst of it, no about config. I dont like the direction mozilla is taking. Do they have any reasoning for no abour config.
This is quite a downgrade, I think I am switching to another browser on mobile.
Same question as the last time [0]: I see the benefit of wasm extensions and I see how to enable them in "manual" compilation (for rustc, -C target-feature=+bulk-memory), but I didn't yet find a documented way of using them in wider used setups like wasm-pack. I'd love to try recompiling a full project with these features, but I just can't find out how to do it.
The release notes say "The wasm-bindgen documentation includes guidance for taking advantage of externref from Rust", but I didn't yet find anything about it there either.
I would hope the key presses required to use the native search among opened tabs had changed.
- Ctrl-L to go to the address bar
- release Ctrl (otherwise, the next keypress fail)
- Shift-6 to type "%" in the address bar
- space
- [your query and hit tab/enter to navigate results]
The last bullet is a close to ideal, native search among open tabs and make it so smooth to find an opened tab among dozens. But the key presses necessary to get there? Who can use that without weekly hospital stays for finger RSIs?
I love firefox. If someone, somewhere reads this, please please please think of simpler key presses to use this nice, already built functionality.
(I know non-native extensions provide similar feature. But native would be so cool and stable, especially that it's already built).
In 78 they've added a persistent Google search as a top line in URL bar drop-down list. I couldn't find it documented anywhere neither in release notes nor in help topics.
This update has, for the first time in over 10 years, rendered Firefox pretty much unusable for me on Ubuntu: Both the URL and the search bar are completely broken - neither autocomplete nor searching via google/DDG works. The only way to open a URL is to type it in full. Not cool. I guess I should move to ESR.
[+] [-] shantara|5 years ago|reply
Even more importantly, it has overridden data collection preferences after the update. Check "Settings > Data collection". I had to disable "Marketing data" and "Experiments" toggles. Not cool!
[+] [-] jackbravo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldpie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conradfr|5 years ago|reply
Which is more appropriate than the one about Facebook.
[+] [-] BelleOfTheBall|5 years ago|reply
Uhhh, what the hell. Is that only a thing on Android or should I be checking all of my devices?
[+] [-] sandoooo|5 years ago|reply
On the other side, Visual Studio forces me to open up a port and log in to MS account - tied to my real name and credit card - so it could upload my usage patterns every month, as a condition of the 'free' license. Perhaps that's the model we're converging towards, even for open source.
[+] [-] Multicomp|5 years ago|reply
For once my paranoia paid off!
[+] [-] musicale|5 years ago|reply
It would be nice if Mozilla adopted privacy-by-default rather than opt-out.
[+] [-] inetknght|5 years ago|reply
Oh ffs thanks for the heads up. Re-defaulting settings is a big reason I jumped ship from other companies' products.
[+] [-] tallanvor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WCityMike|5 years ago|reply
Not particularly pleased with that.
I really sometimes grow very frustrated with Mozilla. In Cory Doctorow's _Eastern Standard Tribe_, some people work as saboteurs, planting really unpopular stupid ideas, and sabotaging clean functionality.
It feels like Mozilla is really rife with such characters.
[+] [-] paulie_a|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnord123|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zardoz84|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3ur6ryh3hefhfu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertox|5 years ago|reply
This Firefox Nightly one uses the Gecko rendering engine, while the standard one uses Android's (or Google's?) Chrome Webview. Has this changed?
[+] [-] jpdus|5 years ago|reply
With Fenix, Mozilla decided to just abandon that feature. Issues are closed, it got removed from the feature list [1] and further questions are ignored. I fully understand that you can't keep every feature everywhere, but this was THE main benefit of Firefox (besides ublock) for me and if you look at GitHub/Reddit/Twitter I am not the only one.
Now I have to stick to an outdated browser because of an (for me) completely unnecessary, degrading update :/.
[1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/470
[+] [-] iggldiggl|5 years ago|reply
- Recently closed tabs (AFAIK "Undo close tab" currently fakes it by not actually closing the tab until the "Undo close tab" popup has disappeared)
- The Firefox share target that actually gave you a choice whether you'd like to open the page in Firefox directly, merely bookmark it or use Sync to send it to some other Firefox instance without having to actually open the page in Firefox first
- Add-on support that isn't limited to a few blessed "Recommended extensions"
- viewing local HTML files is not possible (although admittedly Google hasn't helped there, either, by vastly complicating file system access in recent Android versions, and their purported replacement method is absolutely unsuitable for HTML files that depend on additional resources such as images, styles, scripts, other HTML files etc., but in the end it was still Mozilla's decision to disallow it completely right now)
- about:config
- View source
- bfcache is broken
- cannot force-refresh a page
- the tab import from the previous versions drops all the session history of those tabs, i.e. it only imports the currently viewed page, but you can no longer go back or forward
[+] [-] piaste|5 years ago|reply
I hope some other browser picks it up. Would probably be a good fit for Vivaldi, which is meant for power-users who might go through link aggregators a lot.
[+] [-] paulintrognon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agurk|5 years ago|reply
I personally saw a number of regressions[0] on Debian testing for video playback on the beta releases for 79, but it largely seems to have settled down now.
[0] particularly this one: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1643855
(Copied from my comment on the submission for the official release notes)
[+] [-] sp332|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ville|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CUViper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Amorymeltzer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProAm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nine_k|5 years ago|reply
- Return of shared memory between parts of the same page (including web workers). Parallel processing becomes more efficient, good for complex apps and games.
- Time-traveling debugger of sorts: search for "restart frame".
[+] [-] inetknght|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcopolo|5 years ago|reply
This is exciting! It opens up faster possibilities for wasm apps
[+] [-] saagarjha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AnonHP|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freediver|5 years ago|reply
And... Firefox 79 with one active tab is taking 6x more energy than Safari with 20+ tabs.
https://imgur.com/a/LyhnbKZ
Maybe it is better on other OSes, but on macOS nothing beats Webkit in terms of performance.
Not to mention the home page bloat - Firefox is starting to look like cnn of browsers.
[+] [-] Jnr|5 years ago|reply
I just compared clean Firefox install with Safari on macOS and they both show energy impact 0.1
[+] [-] MasterYoda|5 years ago|reply
It could also be mention that Firefox now use macos coreanimation that drastically improved Firefox battery performance [1]. So give it a real test again, Firefox is really awesome and needs all support :) We need bigger diversity among webbrowsers, not just chromium based.
[1] https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...
[+] [-] pfranz|5 years ago|reply
Between Chrome, Firefox, Safari and their plugins it's a dance to get the desired behavior and efficiency. Lazy loading of pages (when you have multiple tabs and close/reopen) can either be really efficient (because they don't even load the page) or annoying (if you don't have Internet or they change/remove the page when you go back to read it).
[+] [-] nicoburns|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shultays|5 years ago|reply
And worst of it, no about config. I dont like the direction mozilla is taking. Do they have any reasoning for no abour config.
This is quite a downgrade, I think I am switching to another browser on mobile.
[+] [-] matsemann|5 years ago|reply
Feels very snappy. Upgrade was a breeze. Only one addon that didn't work, hope full addon support is back soon.
[+] [-] recursive|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrian17|5 years ago|reply
The release notes say "The wasm-bindgen documentation includes guidance for taking advantage of externref from Rust", but I didn't yet find anything about it there either.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690406
[+] [-] jknz|5 years ago|reply
- Ctrl-L to go to the address bar
- release Ctrl (otherwise, the next keypress fail)
- Shift-6 to type "%" in the address bar
- space
- [your query and hit tab/enter to navigate results]
The last bullet is a close to ideal, native search among open tabs and make it so smooth to find an opened tab among dozens. But the key presses necessary to get there? Who can use that without weekly hospital stays for finger RSIs?
I love firefox. If someone, somewhere reads this, please please please think of simpler key presses to use this nice, already built functionality.
(I know non-native extensions provide similar feature. But native would be so cool and stable, especially that it's already built).
[+] [-] ComodoHacker|5 years ago|reply
Does anyone by chance knows how to remove it?
[+] [-] infogulch|5 years ago|reply
aka Menu > Options | Search | Search Suggestions > Provide Search Suggestions
[+] [-] hackcasual|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tumblewit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lytefm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] The_rationalist|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]