Firefox 90 • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 90

#151

Post by Asooka » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #147

ninjahattori wrote: post #133

I use and love firefox. I feel sad when I see brave, edge and other new browsers chromium based taking a lead. Firefox by itself is an amazing browser but the company behind it lacks any kind of vision. Brave has its own search, a better startpage, an ad network. From onboarding to incentivising user, they are doing it all very well.

Chromium isn't out of choice it's out of necessity. Unfortunately the newest generation of engineers just see no point in even testing anything but Chrome on a MacBook. This drives me up the wall as someone who's first job required writing CSS that could work in IE6, IE7, Safari, FireFox and Opera and even sometimes IE5.5. To hear devs paid way more than I was back then tell me "can't we just tell them to install Chr…

If it doesn't work right in Firefox and Chrome, it's probably not standards-conformant and thus at a high probability of breaking when Chrome updates its layout engine. That's how I'd present the argument - making sure it works right across browsers makes your code robust against future changes in behaviour.

Re: Firefox 90

#152

Post by olejorgenb » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

jules-jules wrote: post #98

This might get lost but figure if someone knows about it it's here. Old Firefox allowed to double-click between two words and both would get highlighted. This has been removed in the newer versions. Does anybody know if it's possible to manually configure this?

Not an answer but you can double-click on a single word, keep the button pressed and drag-select whole words. When you get used to it it's quite useful.

Re: Firefox 90

#153

Post by notriddle » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #147

ninjahattori wrote: post #133

I use and love firefox. I feel sad when I see brave, edge and other new browsers chromium based taking a lead. Firefox by itself is an amazing browser but the company behind it lacks any kind of vision. Brave has its own search, a better startpage, an ad network. From onboarding to incentivising user, they are doing it all very well.

Chromium isn't out of choice it's out of necessity. Unfortunately the newest generation of engineers just see no point in even testing anything but Chrome on a MacBook. This drives me up the wall as someone who's first job required writing CSS that could work in IE6, IE7, Safari, FireFox and Opera and even sometimes IE5.5. To hear devs paid way more than I was back then tell me "can't we just tell them to install Chr…

> But painfully it’s just lazy or incompetent engineers

There are good arguments in favor of testing and developing for Firefox, but that is not one of them.

Representing the interests of the end-user, in a typical SCRUM-ish development house, is supposed to be the product owner’s job, not the job of individual devs. If management isn’t rewarding cross-browser development, then that’s on management, or maybe even on the end-users. Not the devs. Expecting devs to put work into stuff that won’t be rewarded by their bosses if they succeed, and will likely be punished if something goes wrong, is kinda silly.

It probably doesn’t matter that much, anyway. Firefox is being killed because some of the most popular websites on the internet are made by a competitor, the vertical monopoly between YouTube and Chrome. Everything else is just a distraction.

Re: Firefox 90

#154

Post by grumpyprole » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

bennysomething wrote: post #141

bergheim wrote: post #122

I think Firefox news is what I comment most on here. I don't know why. Well I guess I do. Web browsers, javascript etc is front and center here - which somewhat means the digital world. All my friends use Chrome, and think I'm weird. I think _they_ are. They care about human rights, at least I think they do. But, having Google, an ad company, dictate how our window to the digital world looks like, is now _way worse_…

How is big tech "stifling everything". Big tech has provided the amazing hardware advances over the last few decades. Amazon Google and Microsoft provide amazing platforms that make it way easier for anyone to boostrap a scalable business. I no longer use Chrome, I just prefer Firefox but at the very least chrome gave browsers the kick up the back side they needed, mainly through V8 giving us JavaScript that runs fas…

Actually much of the "hardware advances" were engineered with public money: internet, GPS, GSM, GPRS, battery, touchscreen etc. Big tech certainly takes more than it gives back in taxes. Even worse, some are polluting the planet with their unrepairable e-waste.

Re: Firefox 90

#155

Post by Anthony-G » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #68

johnchristopher wrote: post #56

> The "Open Image in New Tab" context menu item now opens images and media in a background tab by default. Learn more Ahaaaa ! Yes ! I could have sworn it had been the default behavior and it got changed at some point but I never bothered to track that down. Can anyone confirm ?

The default was the same tab until Firefox 88. They changed it to a new tab to match Chrome. And removed the same tab option because they couldn't imagine why anyone would want it.[1] [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1699128#c3

Thanks for the Bugzilla link. It’s making me think that I should log in to my Bugzilla account more often and look out for issues/requests such as this one.

It’s not uncommon for image-hosting sites to use width and height attributes or max-height/max-width styles to get browsers to display high resolution images at a smaller size than the native image (I can often tell by how long it takes for the images to load in the browser). I liked being able to right-click on a image and click the “View image” option from the context menu to open the image in the same tab – at its native resolution. On the much rarer occasion, where there were multiple images on the same page, it was useful to be able to middle-click to open the image in a new background tab.

I was annoyed that they removed this ability in Firefox 88 but now I’m doubly disappointed to discover that the reason was to be more like Chrome. It seems kind of pointless to break decades old functionality just so that there’s even less to differentiate Firefox from competing browsers. I understand that it’s good to maintain consistent UI but just because other mainstream browsers change decades-old behaviour in a particular way doesn’t mean that all browsers should do so. Having said that, Mike Hoye provides a reasoned rationale¹ for many of the recent Firefox UI changes that have annoyed and frustrated long-time Firefox users.

At least now, with Firefox 90, they’ve changed the new image tab from being a foreground tab to a background tab: this should be less annoying.

On a related note, I’ve now had enough time to get used to automatically selecting ‘L’ (instead of ‘A’) when I want to copy a URL into the clipboard (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1701324). I can live with – and adapt to – such changes if the original functionality isn’t completely removed.

Also, I ensure that telemetry is switched on so developers are aware that that users make use of such functionality. Though, in this case, they can’t tell the difference between users right-clicking and choosing “View image” because they explicitly wanted the image in the same tab or because it was the default behaviour. Unfortunately, the UX experts seem to have simply divined that the users who were selecting the “View image” option didn’t really want the pre-existing, long-standing behaviour (open in the same tab.

1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1699128#c77

Re: Firefox 90

#156

Post by laurent92 » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

bergheim wrote: post #122

I think Firefox news is what I comment most on here. I don't know why. Well I guess I do. Web browsers, javascript etc is front and center here - which somewhat means the digital world. All my friends use Chrome, and think I'm weird. I think _they_ are. They care about human rights, at least I think they do. But, having Google, an ad company, dictate how our window to the digital world looks like, is now _way worse_…

> bothered with the values of open source and how this pertains to democracy and human values

It does, but Mozilla is not representative of those values to my opinion. They represent the values on the left of humanism, but are opposed to right values, and therefore it doesn’t embody neutrality or democracy.

They go as far as thinking everyone should share their opinion on gay marriage, and a private donation in that matter is grounds to fire someone. Given their clear left leaning on other public stances, I think activists on the right should be wary of sudden account deletion if they store data with Mozilla (e.g. the password vault).

Not that they could trust Google either, of course. But neutrality would be much better if we mention democracy.

Re: Firefox 90

#157

Post by t-writescode » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

laurent92 wrote: post #156

bergheim wrote: post #122

I think Firefox news is what I comment most on here. I don't know why. Well I guess I do. Web browsers, javascript etc is front and center here - which somewhat means the digital world. All my friends use Chrome, and think I'm weird. I think _they_ are. They care about human rights, at least I think they do. But, having Google, an ad company, dictate how our window to the digital world looks like, is now _way worse_…

> bothered with the values of open source and how this pertains to democracy and human values It does, but Mozilla is not representative of those values to my opinion. They represent the values on the left of humanism, but are opposed to right values, and therefore it doesn’t embody neutrality or democracy. They go as far as thinking everyone should share their opinion on gay marriage, and a private donation in that…

1: democracy isn't neutral, it tends to follow the will of the people

2: Why should I care about the politics of the software company I use, as long as they abide by the stances they say they have regarding my privacy and making the best product possible?

Re: Firefox 90

#158

Post by acwan93 » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #109

agumonkey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and a lot more, it's a bit sad to lose ftp

Why not use an ftp client if you want to use ftp?

Don't know why this comment is being downvoted. I'd prefer to use another client like Transmit or Cyberduck. Having it all in one browser introduces complexity I don't think the team at Mozilla wants.

Re: Firefox 90

#159

Post by hendry » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

Compared to Chrome, Firefox lacks two features for me

1. Native Tab search https://youtu.be/HmWqo4X2IB8 2. Ability to remember my CC details

The feature that Firefox has that my workflow can't live without is simply `Ctrl-Tab` to move quickly between two tabs.

Re: Firefox 90

#160

Post by fleddr » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

I noticed in the comments below how somebody mentioning Firefox's limited market share was heavily downvoted.

I'm a Firefox user since forever, and will keep using it. I also want Mozilla to win, and strongly empathize with their engineers whom are trying to make the best of it.

That said, I think the reality check should not be avoided. There is no good in do-good software without reach.

Based on statcounter, Firefox's market share went from a 2009 peak (32%) to a mere 3.29% as we speak. Just in the last year alone, it bleeds market share from 4.25% to 3.29%.

So it keeps bleeding market share, 12 years in a row. The reason it's still losing market share likely is due to the mobile market still growing in size, whilst Firefox has no presence there: 0.48%.

I have access to a handful of web properties, one of which very large and global (billions of page views). In our dashboards, Firefox does not even exist. It's not in the top 10. Above it are Chromium clones most have never heard of.

So to the "ordinary" world, those without a particular stake in open source, it's a dead browser. It's even smaller than weird regional browsers that most businesses wouldn't explicitly support.

(note that "support" is overstated as most web tech works just fine out of the box in Firefox)

Besides the ordinary world, the grip on the developer community is also lost. Increasingly, I'm seeing developers coding up demos and experiments that break in Firefox, it's not even considered at all, where just a few years ago it was a developer-default browser.

It's an extremely harsh reality check. Effectively Apple, an enemy of the open web, is our only savior against a full Chromium monopoly. Apple actively sabotaging and blocking the progress of the web, is our "hope". How bad can it get?

Anyway, I'm sorry to bring this up, in particular in a release announcement. I bring it up because I believe impact is central to the discussion and trumps any feature and any engineering. If the crash is not reversed somehow, it is inevitable that very hard questions have to be answered.

It's not what I would want. I hope an independent implementation will keep existing forever.