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Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#491

Post by dblohm7 »

bzbarsky wrote: post #192
Sharlin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point I knew it was time to close firefox when the fans started blowing at max speed. In my experience on Mac the guilty party has consistently been the plugin container (or rather something inside it, presumably a bad video codec). `killall plugin-container` fixes the problem without having to restart Firefox, but unfortunately also crashes many if not most tabs (appears everything wants to use a multimedi…

The "plugin-container" executable is used for all sandboxed processes on Windows. That started out as plug-ins, but now includes web renderers. So the "something inside it" could be script on a web page, or part of Gecko's rendering pipeline, or pretty much anything. And killig it crashes tabs because it's the thing rendering those tabs. It might make sense to rename the executable to make things clearer, but there a…

Actually we only use plugin-container for NPAPI on Windows. I believe that MacOS was specifically the platform where we ran into problems.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#492

Post by SomeHacker44 »

brink wrote: post #153
jessemillar wrote: post #129

> With this update, Firefox is introducing scroll anchoring, which ensures that you’re not going to bounce around on the page as these slow-loading ads load. While I love the idea of videos not automatically playing, I'm almost more excited for the scroll anchoring feature.

Same. Have you ever tried to click a link only to accidentally click something else because the page won't stop loading? It's infuriating.

Using the NYT iPhone app on the subway is maddening. Every time you go in and out of cell coverage the whole app pauses while it waits to load ads that will never come. It is so frustrating that I am close to giving up on it entirely.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#493

Post by Jabbermonkey »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #467
Jabbermonkey wrote: post #465

If Firefox had treated TabMixPlus (TMP) and other extensions as first-class citizens when they introduced quantum, I can guarantee I'd be using Firefox today (along with all the less technical people in my extended network, who I'd install it for). Unfortunately, during the transition to quantum and WebExtensions the developers blocked add-ons making changes to the Firefox interface, which crippled TMP and a variety…

the chrome UI is vastly more restrictive than the Firefox one (addons effectively can not modify it in any way), so i'm not sure what you are saying here.

Looks like the current target for feature parity with FF56 may be around 2020 or later, based on projected fixes of critical bugs.

Toolbar:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215064

Session managers:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1427928 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1474130

It shouldn't take three plus years to fix an upgrade. The goal was good, WebExtensions are a significant step forward as a concept. Planning, execution and post-transition management sucked.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#494

Post by StavrosK »

miohtama wrote: post #477
jessemillar wrote: post #129

> With this update, Firefox is introducing scroll anchoring, which ensures that you’re not going to bounce around on the page as these slow-loading ads load. While I love the idea of videos not automatically playing, I'm almost more excited for the scroll anchoring feature.

Excellent news! Next step: TWitter and Facebook streams do not reorganize themselves by an algorithm on a Back button. You can click Back and comment the post that gave you the linked article in the first place.

I don't know what this is, but I recently got an option on the Twitter mobile site to sort the feed latest-first. I wonder if that's some A/B test.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#496

Post by StavrosK »

interfixus wrote: post #301
zhte415 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're also being sarcastic :) Websites did this 15 years ago (miss the HTMLX compliant button at the bottom of the page), and now in large part do not.

I made my first website 22½ years ago. Even as a raw beginner, I knew it was considered sloth and Very Bad Form Indeed not to specify image size in my markup.

"Oh wow, 22 years ago! This guy must be... my... age... Shit."

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#497

Post by roca »

Jabbermonkey wrote: post #465

If Firefox had treated TabMixPlus (TMP) and other extensions as first-class citizens when they introduced quantum, I can guarantee I'd be using Firefox today (along with all the less technical people in my extended network, who I'd install it for). Unfortunately, during the transition to quantum and WebExtensions the developers blocked add-ons making changes to the Firefox interface, which crippled TMP and a variety…

The XUL "let you do anything you want to the browser UI DOM" extensions model had to die in order to solve a host of problems, most importantly Firefox performance issues. If that had happened later than it did, Mozilla would be in a much worse position now.

The real failure was that WebExtensions should have been started several years earlier, but for various reasons that can was kicked down the road. That is an interesting untold story.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#498

Post by Dylan16807 »

pwg wrote: post #378
rayiner wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a page load, why should latency matter once you get below 50 ms? The problem isn’t latency, the problem is that the software stack makes tons of round-trip requests to display some text and images. The modern web makes X11 seem like it was designed by a demoscene coder.

> For a page load, why should latency matter > he problem is that the software stack makes tons of round-trip requests Latency matters because of all of those round-trip requests. Each individual request incurs at least 2x the network latency value (one network latency trip out to the server, another network latency trip back). If browsers did not try to run parallel requests, then all those round trips would sum up…

> If browsers did not try to run parallel requests, then all those round trips would sum up to a substantial overall delay.

That describes zero browsers. And "it's not loading parallel enough" is very much a software stack problem and not a network problem.

We could shove full pages over the wire in 200ms if we tried harder.

Re: Firefox 66.0 Aims to Reduce Online Annoyances

#499

Post by Jabbermonkey »

roca wrote: post #497
Jabbermonkey wrote: post #465

If Firefox had treated TabMixPlus (TMP) and other extensions as first-class citizens when they introduced quantum, I can guarantee I'd be using Firefox today (along with all the less technical people in my extended network, who I'd install it for). Unfortunately, during the transition to quantum and WebExtensions the developers blocked add-ons making changes to the Firefox interface, which crippled TMP and a variety…

The XUL "let you do anything you want to the browser UI DOM" extensions model had to die in order to solve a host of problems, most importantly Firefox performance issues. If that had happened later than it did, Mozilla would be in a much worse position now. The real failure was that WebExtensions should have been started several years earlier, but for various reasons that can was kicked down the road. That is an int…

That's a fair assessment.
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