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Firefox 84.0

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Re: Firefox 84.0

#121

Post by rascul »

foepys wrote: post #66
bryanlarsen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is way too valuable as a hedge against Google hegemony to let die. If they ever lose the Google search money hose and become threatened I do expect a Google competitor to realize that and step in with some funding. Microsoft basing Edge on Chromium was a really stupid move on their part for this reason, and I suspect they are starting to realize it. That being said, I only expect it to be maintained at a hedg…

Isn't the reason why many applications and libraries use Chromium due to Gecko's too Firefox-centric APIs? I read a post here on HN a few months (years?) ago where a developer was really trying to use Gecko for their own application and got frustrated so much that they gave up and switched to Chromium.

I've been led to believe that the APIs are mostly undocumented and often changing.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#122

Post by IainIreland »

CJefferson wrote: post #51

Is anyone else worried Firefox on Android is becoming increasingly unusable? How well supported is it my Mozilla I wonder. I often find pages render as blank pages until I refresh, and scrolling will often hang for multiple seconds. I was playing "Jackbox Games" (which is played via the web and PC), and I found those of us on Firefox found the text boxes were broken. Just downloading PDFs was broken for several weeks…

(Mozilla employee, though not working directly on mobile)

Mozilla is invested in Firefox on Android for the long haul. We landed a complete re-architecture this year (Fenix). It hasn't been completely painless -- for example, as you seem to have experienced, we've had to split our development time between working on the new engine and maintaining the old -- but Fenix is already better than Fennec in most ways and is significantly easier to improve moving forward.

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/01/17/a-brand-n...

Re: Firefox 84.0

#123

Post by jackewiehose »

CJefferson wrote: post #51

Is anyone else worried Firefox on Android is becoming increasingly unusable? How well supported is it my Mozilla I wonder. I often find pages render as blank pages until I refresh, and scrolling will often hang for multiple seconds. I was playing "Jackbox Games" (which is played via the web and PC), and I found those of us on Firefox found the text boxes were broken. Just downloading PDFs was broken for several weeks…

I'm very unhappy with the new FF mobile. The user interface is worse than before in every(!) aspect. There's not a single improvement. And everything feels slower. And there is no offline browsing. On a mobile browser! WTF?! And there is no way to save websites. On a mobile browser, which has very limited connectivity due to its nature.

This is just sad. There was a time when I was happy to read about a new FF version for the desktop. Now I'm just waiting that they will ruin it like they did with the mobile version.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#124

Post by cpeterso »

stronglikedan wrote: post #20
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea they even still supported Flash?! I thought they changed their plugin API so many times that it would have been unsupported many years ago.

Major browsers can't ditch Flash until Adobe EOLs it. Too many legacy enterprise apps still rely on it, even though they are likely being frantically reimplemented this month. I'm in that boat.

Enterprises that still rely on legacy Flash apps can pay Adobe partner Harman for a custom standalone Flash host application:

https://services.harman.com/partners/adobe

Adobe, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, and Apple simultaneously announced back in 2017 that Flash would no longer be supported after 2020:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Plugins/Roadmap#See...

Re: Firefox 84.0

#125

Post by Macha »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #57
chinhodado wrote: post #11

I love Firefox, I use it everyday, I can't imagine using a browser without Tree Style Tab, or all the things that I can do in about:config. At the same time, I can't shake off the dreadful feeling that it will eventually die one day. The market share keeps falling year by year. What is the most realistic future for Firefox?

> I can't imagine using a browser without Tree Style Tab, or all the things that I can do in about:config Vivaldi is a configuration juggernaut in my experience. Reminds me of the glory days of Opera. It has a wonderful vertical tab bar too - built-in .

It is unfortunately closed source, however.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#126

Post by SCLeo »

jefftk wrote: post #9

And for developers: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel... The biggest change from my perspective is "Firefox now ensures that localhost URLs — such as http://localhost/ and http://dev.localhost/ — refer to the local host's loopback interface (e.g. http://127.0.0.1 ). As a result, resources loaded from localhost are now assumed to have been delivered securely (see Secure contexts), and also w…

So, does that mean things like WebCrypto (which requires https to be available) will work in development environment now? Or did they already work out of box? I never tried because I assumed they won't work.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#127

Post by AndrewDucker »

IainIreland wrote: post #122
CJefferson wrote: post #51

Is anyone else worried Firefox on Android is becoming increasingly unusable? How well supported is it my Mozilla I wonder. I often find pages render as blank pages until I refresh, and scrolling will often hang for multiple seconds. I was playing "Jackbox Games" (which is played via the web and PC), and I found those of us on Firefox found the text boxes were broken. Just downloading PDFs was broken for several weeks…

(Mozilla employee, though not working directly on mobile) Mozilla is invested in Firefox on Android for the long haul. We landed a complete re-architecture this year (Fenix). It hasn't been completely painless -- for example, as you seem to have experienced, we've had to split our development time between working on the new engine and maintaining the old -- but Fenix is already better than Fennec in most ways and is…

I'm still stuck with the old Firefox for Android until extensions are generally supported. I'm really looking forward to that though, because other than extensions the new one looks great.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#128

Post by Macha »

cpeterso wrote: post #117
input_sh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've completely redesigned it about a year ago, making it much faster, but losing add-on compatibility. So pretty much the same thing that happened to desktops on v57, except a bit worse: only 17 add-ons are currently available in nightly. Still more than what's available on Chrome and Safari on mobile, so it always remained my browser of choice on a phone.

You can install any add-on from addons.mozilla.org in Firefox Nightly for Android: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio...

Right, but choosing between power user features and stability is clearly worse as a user than not having to choose between power user features and stability.

Also isn't there more telemetry on by default in nightly?

Re: Firefox 84.0

#129

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

Macha wrote: post #125
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine using a browser without Tree Style Tab, or all the things that I can do in about:config Vivaldi is a configuration juggernaut in my experience. Reminds me of the glory days of Opera. It has a wonderful vertical tab bar too - built-in .

It is unfortunately closed source, however.

True, I don’t care though.

Re: Firefox 84.0

#130

Post by syndacks »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #127
IainIreland wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Mozilla employee, though not working directly on mobile) Mozilla is invested in Firefox on Android for the long haul. We landed a complete re-architecture this year (Fenix). It hasn't been completely painless -- for example, as you seem to have experienced, we've had to split our development time between working on the new engine and maintaining the old -- but Fenix is already better than Fennec in most ways and is…

I'm still stuck with the old Firefox for Android until extensions are generally supported. I'm really looking forward to that though, because other than extensions the new one looks great.

Same here. Is this slated for a future release? If so, do you know which one?

I've been trying to find an authoritative source to signal when Android FF will support extensions (that previously worked but no longer do) -- any tips much appreciated.

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