Firefox 69.0 Released • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#121

Post by rrix2 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #94

StavrosK wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, how slow could an "if file_exists()" check have been? This smells like deprecation to me, if the user CSS doesn't exist, don't load anything. Boom, no slowdown.

Given that the profile setting is under a subsection of "legacyUserProfileCustomizations", perhaps there's a whole legacy subsystem they spin up to handle it that's only needed for that now? I could see a whole subsystem causing significant enough delay and resource usage to be noticeable, if that's the case.

AFAICT it's Firefox's CSS+HTML engine running the user chrome. You can even open the firefox web inspector on it (open web inspector -> settings -> enable browser chrome and add-on debugging toolboxes) which lets you fiddle with the chrome DOM and modify CSS that way.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#122

Post by bovine3dom » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

feanaro wrote: post #90

dictum wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use userChrome.css and userContent.css, and I get the nagging feeling that the silent end of that sentence is "...when we eventually replace the code that currently enables user customization with faster, less flexible APIs." (I'm paranoid and FUDing because I care: there's some UX low hanging fruit before they could get rid of userChrome.css. For instance, you need userChrome.css to autohide the toolbar in full sc…

Unfortunately, I think you're right. Mozilla has been fighting a slow war on all powerful UI customization. See: the recent killing of Tridactyl.

Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated :)

You can still install Tridactyl in a normal installation of Firefox by following the instructions on our readme [1]. Admittedly, that may cease to be the case if Mozilla ever tire of us; people in locked-down corporate environments would then find it hard or impossible to install Tridactyl but we'd make it as easy as possible for everyone else.

On topic, I'd argue that Mozilla are just desperately trying to cling on to ordinary users; the "war" against power users is a war of (totally understandable) neglect rather than spite.

[1]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/master/readme.md

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#123

Post by dblohm7 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #75

Astrobastard wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These settings (in about:config) makes font rendering look near identical to Chrome for me: gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.enhanced_contrast = 0 gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode = 5 gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families = ""

There has to be some reason why those are not the defaults though, right?

My understanding is that Chrome is the outlier when it comes to font rendering.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#124

Post by pseudalopex » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

Nicksil wrote: post #98

jchook wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also they promised to open source Pocket in 2017, but seem to have zero intention of doing it. Instead, they prioritize controversial integration into the browser itself.

>Also they promised to open source Pocket in 2017, but seem to have zero intention of doing it. Zero intention of doing so or just have yet to do so? Did they say they were no longer considering the option?

It's been 2 years. They have no specific plans to release the server code.[1] They won't say what's been done or has to be done.

[1] https://github.com/Pocket/extension-save-to-pocket/issues/75

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#125

Post by rizwank » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

veidr wrote: post #102

kbenson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm usually in agreement with that, but I admit I've found the occasional article that drew my attention from Firefox's new tab page. Maybe once every week or two over that last couple months. That may or may not be enough to justify its existence (for me, at least), but it's not nothing. I obviously got some value out of it.

Yeah, I get so much value from Pocket that I even switched from Instapaper. It's not Pocket that's the problem, it's the gross attempted force-feeding (that just makes me want to try some other browser like Brave (not an endorsement, just what I personally would investigate next)). How about, instead of "we plastered all this shit from the crap we bought onto every single browser window you henceforth open, you mindl…

Could you share why you prefer Pocket to Instapaper?

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#126

Post by smt88 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

veidr wrote: post #102

kbenson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm usually in agreement with that, but I admit I've found the occasional article that drew my attention from Firefox's new tab page. Maybe once every week or two over that last couple months. That may or may not be enough to justify its existence (for me, at least), but it's not nothing. I obviously got some value out of it.

Yeah, I get so much value from Pocket that I even switched from Instapaper. It's not Pocket that's the problem, it's the gross attempted force-feeding (that just makes me want to try some other browser like Brave (not an endorsement, just what I personally would investigate next)). How about, instead of "we plastered all this shit from the crap we bought onto every single browser window you henceforth open, you mindl…

Last time I installed Brave, the new tab page had a link to a cryptocurrency news site (probably a paid placement).

If you want the least-gross behavior, it's not going to come from a for-profit startup.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#127

Post by jszymborski » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #96

Aardwolf wrote: post #54

> The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound. Good. I know a news website that was on purpose disabling sound on videos to prevent that. So not only does it autoplay, you need to click to unmute anyway to actually hear it! Why do news websites want to shove autoplaying videos on people's throat…

Fantastic news for people, like me, who spend a lot of time with $10/GB hotspot data prices. I'd click a link to a 5KB news article only to find it streaming HD video of talking heads reading the article.

Or even worse (and anecdotally more common), a video that is hardly relevant or from a year-old story.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#128

Post by MBCook » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

la_barba wrote: post #101

denzil_correa wrote: post #20

> macOS users on dual-graphics-card machines (like MacBook Pro) will switch back to the low-power GPU more aggressively, saving battery life. macOS user base can now consider FF as a viable browser alternative.

Does anyone know the technical reason that the OS can't handle that itself?

It tries based on the libraries you’re using. Sounds like they’ve improved what they’re using so the built in heuristics don’t force the dedicated GPU on.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#129

Post by TheRealPomax » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

Honestly the big one for me is being able to finally debug async code, which Chrome has been able to do for a long time, and FF simply couldn't. As someone who uses FF as main browser, not being able to use to for modern code and being forced into using a different browser for proper debugging has been quite frustrating.

Re: Firefox 69.0 Released

#130

Post by Carpetsmoker » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #96

Aardwolf wrote: post #54

> The Block Autoplay feature is enhanced to give users the option to block any video that automatically starts playing, not just those that automatically play with sound. Good. I know a news website that was on purpose disabling sound on videos to prevent that. So not only does it autoplay, you need to click to unmute anyway to actually hear it! Why do news websites want to shove autoplaying videos on people's throat…

Fantastic news for people, like me, who spend a lot of time with $10/GB hotspot data prices. I'd click a link to a 5KB news article only to find it streaming HD video of talking heads reading the article.

> 5KB news article

On what site do you find "5KB news articles"? Pretty much all news sites that I know of load a gigantic amount of useless and obnoxious JavaScript, CSS, images, etc. with or without video.