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Firefox 57.0 Released

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Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#651

Post by throwanem »

slrz wrote: post #523
Yoric wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(thanks :) ) > As long as you're here: I was told that the old extension API was way too broad, locking in a lot of design choices that were not really considered from the "do we want to maintain this for years and years" perspective. And that the new one is much more focused and considered. Is that the case? Definitely. The old extension mechanism was basically "here is the toolkit we are using to build Firefox, com…

Thank you for your work on Firefox. > This WebExtension API is much smaller, much better documented, and does not expose internals-only stuff. It also doesn't expose a lot of stuff that's useful and not tied to Firefox internals in any way. The browser is one of the most heavily used programs on people's computers. Integrating it with the rest of your system and workflow can have huge payoffs in user experience and p…

I tried that, too. There is no such method at this time that doesn't involve setting up something in between the browser and the editor to marshal between the browser's native messaging API [1] and the editor's desire to operate on text files. I don't think that's insane at all, but the complexity involved did exceed my frankly passing desire to get IAT back - I barely ever use it any more. It shouldn't take a reasonably experienced extension developer more than a day or so to implement, though, I would think.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Na...

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#652

Post by QAPereo »

parmesan wrote: post #116

I just updated - WOW! What an improvement! Compared startup time and scrolling around some over-monetized sites; Behaves just as well as Chrome. Time for a switch again, I've missed FireFox since I started having Chrome as my default browser back in ~2011

Same, and when you add script control with uMatrix it’s just perfect!

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#653

Post by throwanem »

HelloNurse wrote: post #345
developer2 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla absolutely made the right decision to dump a decade's worth of legacy code to improve performance, and make the future happen now. Let's be real: had they supported legacy extensions, extension developers would ignore porting until Mozilla finally said "that's been long enough, we're removing legacy support". The result is simply that the rough transition happens now instead of a couple of years down the line…

You forget the big technical issue: many web extension API features that are needed to port old Firefox extensions do not exist yet (e.g. filesystem access) or are conservatively crippled (e.g. adding buttons, menu items, other GUI elements). Your 2-3 months of frantic effort will start not immediately but in a vague future when the Firefox team feels like improving the web extension API. It is fairly obvious from AP…

"Betraying users"? 52 ESR isn't going anywhere, and I hope you'll forgive me for finding it a strain upon credulity to imagine that any regularly active HN participant could fail to observe even one of the many front-page articles over the past year which have talked about Firefox 57's breaking changes. If it means that much to you, stay on 52 for a year or two, until the extension API and ecosystem have had some time to catch up and stabilize. In the meantime, slinging heated rhetoric on the subject helps nothing and no one.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#654

Post by amirmansour »

rcarmo wrote: post #599
daniel_iversen wrote: post #565

It’s great that FF is now faster but how’s battery life in this new engine? The reason I stuck with safari and only a year ago moved to chrome was that google finally was able to drastically improve battery life on chrome for Mac... where is FF here (their release page doesn’t mention “battery” at all), does anyone know?

Well, I'm running it on a 7-year-old Mac mini (yeah, no battery, I know, but hold on...), and _idle_ Firefox, without focus, is ticking along at 0.7-1.5% CPU time. Safari is zero . Dead still. I type this and it moves to 0.3%. No idea what Firefox is doing... edit: Also, even without focus, Firefox climbs to 8.9% CPU just by hovering my mouse over it. Safari goes to 0.2%.

I'm on one of the latest MacBook Pros and Firefox uses more CPU, RAM, and energy than Safari. I don't mind the extra CPU and RAM usage, but the energy usage needs some work, specially during idle time. On average the energy impact of the new Firefox has been double that of Safari.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#655

Post by Santosh83 »

aquadrop wrote: post #644
callahad wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the privacy / philosophy / openness / counterweight-to-monopolization-of-the-Web angles which Yoric mentioned, you might find we're actually better than Chrome in some areas. Often small things, but I find I prefer the feel of Firefox to Chrome. - If you do frontend work, our CSS grid inspector is unparalleled https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto... - Firefox has built-in tracking p…

You've switched to multiple processes model, but you don't have "task manager" as Chrome. Do you plan to implement it in the future?

about:performance is a somewhat similar substitute for now. You can see stats of the various processes and close or reload tabs.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#656

Post by Yoric »

aquadrop wrote: post #644
callahad wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the privacy / philosophy / openness / counterweight-to-monopolization-of-the-Web angles which Yoric mentioned, you might find we're actually better than Chrome in some areas. Often small things, but I find I prefer the feel of Firefox to Chrome. - If you do frontend work, our CSS grid inspector is unparalleled https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto... - Firefox has built-in tracking p…

You've switched to multiple processes model, but you don't have "task manager" as Chrome. Do you plan to implement it in the future?

Working on it right now, but no ETA yet.

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#657

Post by WC3w6pXxgGd »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #477
manojlds wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it as just as good as chrome, why should I switch? Especially given how good Chrome Dev tools are.

To support a non-profit, so that they actually have the might to fight for us.

Are you under the assumption that profit is bad?

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#658

Post by microtheo »

parmesan wrote: post #116

I just updated - WOW! What an improvement! Compared startup time and scrolling around some over-monetized sites; Behaves just as well as Chrome. Time for a switch again, I've missed FireFox since I started having Chrome as my default browser back in ~2011

Yes, it is even better if you have a precision touchpad and you disable smooth scrolling. Whole new world of reactivity! It is almost as smooth as edge!

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#659

Post by V-2 »

As one of these people who switched away from Firefox to Chrome a long time ago, I was curious to give it another go now that it's revamped and all. I tend to do it very year or so, but something is always wrong.

Unfortunately, I quickly bumped into one simple deal-breaker (the same that discouraged me from using Opera once, if I recall). Firefox adds a few pixels of useless gap space above the tabs, meaning I always have to move the cursor slightly downwards when changing tabs.

Some googling revealed the bug was actually reported over a year ago: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302168

As of now, it persists. Back to Chrome - see you again next year : )

Re: Firefox 57.0 Released

#660

Post by DamnInteresting »

throwanem wrote: post #646
DamnInteresting wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no replacement for ScrapBook, a plugin where I have a decade of stored annotated documents (no hyperbole, my oldest files date from 2007). Ever since I discovered that FF57 was going to kill ScrapBook I had to disable Firefox updates so I don't lose access to ~6GB of stored data. It's a mix of past, present, and future writing research. I know I have access to clumsy workarounds such as copying FF56 to a VM w…

Scrapbook, that takes me back. Haven't used it in a dog's age. But I would be enormously surprised if it did no longer store saved content under your Firefox profile directory, and back when I used it, it just saved the files there and maybe did some link rewriting. Not really a lot of importing necessary to view the content outside the extension - you'd just need to point a browser at its file:// URL. Not sure how m…

Today I spent some time looking at how ScrapBook stores information. It's a bit of a mixed bag, with some plain text files, some XML, some HTML (besides the saved pages themselves). I managed to figure out how it stores folder structure, bookmarks, saved pages, and annotations. Fortunately there's no database, and no encryption, so I can write a tool to extract the information if needed.

The remaining question becomes: how to replace it? What other tool supports all this?:

* Local saving (as opposed to cloud)

* Storing source URL with support for re-fetching

* Bookmarks (for pages that won't save locally in a useful way, such as YouTube)

* "Deep saving," saving the main page AND linked pages, and keeping them bundled together

* Full text search

* Probably other features I do not recall offhand

Even if I can get the data out, it's hard to know where to put it. Most solutions these days are cloud-oriented, which is unappealing to me. I could build my own stand-alone replacement, but what a headache. I could fork ScrapBook and try to make it work with the latest Firefox, but I have no experience in the plugin domain, nor the time to prioritize learning it.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just trying to figure out how to proceed without severe productivity loss.

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