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Firefox 27 Released

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Re: Firefox 27 Released

#81

Post by nfoz »

yeukhon wrote: post #73
nfoz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much rather a long-term-stable product with fewer security vulnerabilities that didn't need frequent updates.

False logic. Slow update does not mean you have secure version. You can get ESR if you want the so-called LTS version. Freqeunt update addresses multiple things quickly: (1) security vulnerability, (2) performance regression (3) new features For a software widely used like FF, it is important that they keep the software up-to-date, make the software as slim as possible, and make the software easy to use. If you want…

> Slow update does not mean you have secure version.

This was not my claim. When there are security vulnerabilities I'm happy for the updates to be as quick as possible and as frequent as necessary. The problem is:

> (3) new features

Adding new features has a high chance of new security flaws, when you're operating at the speed of firefox on such an error-prone technology stack.

Different users want to meet this trade-off differently. I want fewer features, in fact I'm ok not to be bleeding-edge compatible with the latest poorly-designed HTML draft spec if it means a more secure browser. It's a question of how and where Mozilla (or other browser teams) organize their effort.

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#82

Post by ubolonton_ »

swannodette wrote: post #20

I see no one has mentioned Firefox 27 is the first major browser to have ES6 generators enabled by default - http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-c... . Callback hell begone!

I have recently started to port core.async to Javascript, inspired by that post. It looks promising so far. https://github.com/ubolonton/js-csp

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#83

Post by jbrooksuk »

Chrome has recently started to be more of a burden for us. We use the Application Shortcuts on our sales teams Windows PCs, which has broken over the last couple of updates:

* Scrollbars have now changed, there are no up and down arrows. This has really confused our elder staff.

* Application shortcuts have started hanging and throwing the "Jim" screen, but the same web pages work fine usually.

* Java is awful to get installed and unfortunately we need that.

These have made me want to try Firefox even more, and seeing Generators has made me switch to the nightly build to see what else is up and coming!

Nice work Mozilla!

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#84

Post by shrikant »

fpgeek wrote: post #49
blinkingled wrote: post #38

I am using FF on Android (both phone and tablet) with sync and great addons like adblock/self destructing cookies/lastpass and am mostly a happy camper. Mozilla has resolved most of the performance issues barring one - compared to Chrome or stock browser the time it takes for FF to go from link tapped to page loading started is a bit annoyingly high. Many times after tapping a link it just sits there doing nothing or…

Firefox is both better and worse than other browsers in dealing with intents. On the worse side, unlike some other browsers Firefox doesn't raise intents for redirected URLs, missing some opportunities to match appropriate apps. I believe the underlying issue is that too many redirect situations are ambiguous (especially if you might not be the default browser). I mostly deal with this with an external wrapper (Brows…

You don't even need to long press to find this out -- if the URL of the site you're on 'supports' being opened in an app, a little grey android icon appears in the address bar. You can tap this icon to open the URL in the related app.

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#85

Post by apaprocki »

lhorie wrote: post #74
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realised yesterday that "yield" in Python (and I guess javascript) is kind of a baby continuation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation ). It can be used to create coroutines and turn async code into sync (looking) code. Really powerful. Anyone interested should learn what continuations are (in Scheme).

I never got the point of generators until I saw Koa.js I always thought generators were merely a way of making convoluted iterators, but when I realized that you can put your application logic inside a generator, in my head, it immediately turned it into a "how did I ever code without this before" kind of feature. I just hope other browsers (especially IE) follow suit in implementing this feature

We (Bloomberg) sponsored Andy Wingo (Igalia) to do the work implementing the new generators in both V8 & SM in parallel, so the world would essentially get them in Chrome (+ Node, Opera) and Firefox at roughly the same time.

We don't use JSC here, so I couldn't make a good case for extending the work to cover Safari as well. Anyone wanting to help implement them in JSC has two good blueprints to work from.

I reached out to the IE team back when Andy was still early in the implementation and let them know what we were doing and what the release timeframe was in the hopes that it would help prioritize generators on their side, but I have yet to hear a peep about IE support.

Maybe all we need are some benchmarks? :)

edit: typo

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#86

Post by zebulom »

pekk wrote: post #60
iamjustin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god, that's ridiculous. Nobody spends half an hour a day waiting on auto updates. The update downloads in the background and takes just a few seconds to install after restarting the browser.

Then Flash prompts for an update, then Acrobat Reader, then Java...

Then Mozilla Thunderbird, then TortoiseGit, then TortoitseSVN, then Sublime Text Editor, then Notepad++, then Notepad++ informs me there is an update of a plugin that I never use, then VLC media player, then Google Chrome, then Oracle VirtualBox, then Visual Studio proudly announces a service pack, then Windows informs me that it wants to reboot in 10 minutes.

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#87

Post by dorkrawk »

cpeterso wrote: post #64
iagooar wrote: post #34

Some time ago I was a Firefox user. Then Chrome came out and I first started using it for free-time browsing, while still developing on Firefox. Later, I decided to fully migrate to Chrome. I've decided to change it again, so I'm going to give Firefox a try during this month. For now, it looks really nice, performance seems to be quite good and the feeling of getting at least a small part of my digital life away from…

Firefox's new Australus UI will be merged to the Aurora channel in just a couple days, if you'd like to try it out (without installing the bleeding edge Nightly channel).

I love the new Australus UI. I've been playing around on Nightly for a bit and I can't wait until that gets rolled into the main branch.

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#88

Post by clarry »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #69
clarry wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still it can't deal with memory pressure, and will just eventually oom & crash.

What's your host environment and browsing habits like (lots of tabs open, many pinned tabs, lots of video, flash video)?

Having just one gigabyte of physical RAM, I run Firefox with a 512M rlimit (the OpenBSD default), as I have to reserve some space for other software too (and swap is painfully slow on the spinning disk).

As far as browsing habits go, I do usually have quite a few tabs open (currently I've got 38, though they're not all loaded; I don't think I often go much over this often). None are pinned. Video is disabled, and I've got no flash or plugins.

I've got three extensions (noscript, https-everywhere, duckduckgo plus). I tend to run with scripts disabled and this helps a lot with memory pressure. Sometimes I make the mistake of thinking I need to enable javascript for something (hi Google), and that's usually when memory usage skyrockets and the thing dumps core :-) But eventually it'll happen even if I don't allow any scripts.

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#89

Post by roryokane »

veganarchocap wrote: post #71

What?! Last time I used it (which felt about a year ago...) was version 3.5.3.

In case you didn’t hear, starting with version 5 (released June 2011) Firefox changed to a different, must faster release schedule. They release a new major version every six weeks or so, but there are fewer changes in each major version than there were in early versions. They changed the schedule to get new features out to users faster. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox#Rapid_relea...

Re: Firefox 27 Released

#90

Post by yeukhon »

nfoz wrote: post #81
yeukhon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False logic. Slow update does not mean you have secure version. You can get ESR if you want the so-called LTS version. Freqeunt update addresses multiple things quickly: (1) security vulnerability, (2) performance regression (3) new features For a software widely used like FF, it is important that they keep the software up-to-date, make the software as slim as possible, and make the software easy to use. If you want…

> Slow update does not mean you have secure version. This was not my claim. When there are security vulnerabilities I'm happy for the updates to be as quick as possible and as frequent as necessary. The problem is: > (3) new features Adding new features has a high chance of new security flaws, when you're operating at the speed of firefox on such an error-prone technology stack. Different users want to meet this trad…

You have to take a couple things into account.

1. FF is a product, meaning if Chrome or Opera or Safari have some shiny features that a lot of developers enjoy to have, FF will very likely implement that feature.

2. Some new features are to replace the old one. For example, the original Firefox sync was pain in the ass and so there will be a new thing called Firefox Account. That's a new feature to user but it's easier to use and makes more sense to users.

3. Some new shiny features are there because of requests. People requested them and developers thought they were useful for users to have. That's inevitable. Unlike Windows, unless you cry to TechCrunch, MS won't care about your email because it's one of the 1000000 emails they receive every day.

In reality, software can't stay in the way the old OS works. Granted, we take Android fun as they roll out new features. But we can't upgrade easily because the phone manufacture and/or the service provider does not provide the stock upgrade (at least this is how my shitty phone works).

I know there are compatibility breakage and some UI decisions are really really bad. For instance, the latest nightly rolls out a different color scheme for web console which I find a huge problem for people with poor eye sight (me) or work long hours. The UI is changing to australis soon (maybe 29, maybe 30, don't remember, they haven't have a final decision yet).

It is actually quite frustrating to work in the browser side. A line of change can impact millions of websites. Often time you have to make a complex patch to make simple adjustment.

Regarding security vulnerability, I personally think they are minor compare to other more common, cheap threats. They are exploitable (and yes some are critical and severe) but when was the last time you find yourself exploited because of browser? It was probably you downloading an infected file. I know this is kind of unethical to say, but I think it is fair to say browser is quite secure these days and attackers are more likely to do things like clickjacking.

I don't remember if Firefox rolls out update (not upgrade) that includes vulnerability fixes or not. Someone correct me on this.

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