Firefox 29
firefox.com
firefox.com
For example, they've disabled custom stylesheets in recent releases despite a clear indication that people were sharing themes, they have very old bugs that don't get resolved (like the stupid white flashes on dark themes), major accessibility issues.
Generally they try to appeal and prioritize regular users (which is fine) but go out of their way to make decisions that ignore power users and not even provide alternatives intentionally.
Finally and the most frustrating part is they don't value feedback. https://code.google.com/p/chromium/ is a joke and a waste of time. The most starred issues are often closed to the public when it reaches a certain level and users are asked to submit a new bug again if the old one is not fixed. This means that if there is still a bug, you have to wait months before other users experience it, find the time to search for the bug and star it, reach enough stars to get attention and then get a response. Bugs are often miscategorized and the wrong team has it in its backlog. It's a mess.
There isn't a feature in Chromium or Google Chrome that Firefox doesn't deliver.
Take it from a serious chrome user and extension developer for several years, switch to Firefox if you want to tweak anything that bothers you easily without having to change the damn source code.
Multi-process browsing. It is incredibly annoying when my entire browser locks up because one of the fifty tabs I have open is doing something stupid. That never happened in several years of using Chrome, and it happens several times a day in Firefox.
A crash usually boils down to Javascript taking too long and/or maybe rendering issues with CSS (hardware acceleration). However Chrome is not immune to bad JS and will also slow down your system until the single tab is killed/crashes.
Overall, a crash is not really that dramatic. The browser restarts, all tabs are still there and only load if you click them, you can use Lazarus to auto-save all form inputs and not lose a single point of data and it resumes at the exact position in seconds (no need to scroll either).
Just add NoScript and block the sites where developers can't write decent JS.
>> it happens several times a day in Firefox
If it happens frequently regardless of the sites you're visiting then it must be extensions or hardware acceleration or plugins. i.e a configuration problem and not a FF one
That's true, but with like 8-or-so cores I don't really care or even notice that much (if I notice some tab is eating a lot of CPU power, I just go into the task-manager and kill it, until I need it, at which point I reload it.) No disruption to my browsing experience happens. In firefox, I'll have to close the tab, possibly restart the browser, et cetera.
> The browser restarts, all tabs are still there and only load if you click them
I haven't really used firefox for a while now, but it used to lose tabs occasionally for me. I hope that's fixed nowadays.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis
You can track the E10s team's progress through their weekly meeting notes:
I have to re-start Firefox every 48 hours or else its resource consumption starts affecting the overall system. This is my primary issue with current Firefox versions, although I am aware that I'm an n-sigma outlier.
Intrestingly, however, the Firefox team has been greatly improving memory management, so that currently, even with my completely pathological browser session, Firefox remains usable for 48 hours with 900 tabs open.
Additionally, the history-tracking of the browser is good enough and my google-fu sufficient so I can find anything I need that I've previously visited.
Keeping my tabs lean makes me much happier!
I'm sure you've tried them with your browsing habits, but just to make sure.
Then once the browser is restarted it only loads the tabs you actually click on. A kind of tab lazy loading. I wish Chrome had that feature.
The Page Alarm/Tab Snooze extensions are also good for snoozing tabs for say a month until you need them again http://superuser.com/a/533498/7018
Doing one process per tab, which is what Chrome does, comes at a very steep cost in increased memory usage. If you compare a Chrome and Firefox instance holding 20 or 30 tabs, the memory consumption is going to be dramatically different.
Bill McCloskey did a nice writeup on this back in December: http://billmccloskey.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/multiprocess-f...
His article explains how you can try out the experimental multi-process support in Firefox, but that it works differently to Chrome's. I think Chrome's way of doing it wastes a lot of system resources and that we need to be more clever about how we spend a user's system resources.
The Stylish extension works fine for me http://userstyles.org/
In chrome, because of the limitations of the extensions API, it doesn't cover chrome pages, developer tools or source view. If you pick a dark background in Stylish and visit a site with a white background, you will see flashes of light because the extension takes over after the document was created and chrome stylesheet was applied.
Check out http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1373 for more details
Applescript support. This prevents me from using Firefox.
tell application "Firefox"
activate
set pb to the clipboard
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "l" using command down
keystroke "c" using command down
end tell
set page_url to the clipboard
set the clipboard to pb
end tell
It's a bit of a hassle, but for simple things like 'get url of current tab', 'open new tab', 'switch to tab x', etc, it's reasonably simple and can be scripted.
On this ubuntu machine, "the ability to have a bunch of tabs displaying pdfs open at once" is a really big selling point for chrome.
At least in my experience.
But it's never felt very good on the Mac to me, and it still doesn't. Here's a few early thoughts on this release, from the perspective of a happy Safari user, w/ a pretty (nit-)picky eye.
* Separate address and search bars is old-fashioned. As a user, I don't want to have to make this distinction, and it's hard to imagine most users-on-street wouldn't find this confusing
* The address bar is square edged while the search bar is round edged, which is displeasingly visually. (I realize this is because there's a convention of "search bars are rounded," but the inconsistency remains.)
* Tapping the hamburger menu on the far right, it appears with a combined drop-and-fade-in effect, and then disappears instantly.
This is jarring on the Mac, because it is exactly the opposite of native menu behavior, which is to appear instantly, and disappear with a fade. (I also believe the native behavior makes more sense: when you're tapping a menu, you want to do something, so you don't want to be slowed down by an animation -- just show the menu.)
(Addition of a hamburger bar on the far right at all is suspicious; often it's a UI "dumping ground")
* The "what's new" slideshow that appears at the bottom of the screen has to be controlled by clicking small <- or -> arrows, instead of just scrolling, which feels very outmoded
* The scroller applies a fade effect to incoming content, but only to the text, not the image, which is jarring.
* Multi-touch swipe to go back/forward shows no feedback! (Safari does this best, where the whole page slides away, revealing what's underneath; Chrome does a half-assed thing with arrows fading in, which isn't nearly as nice, but at least better than no feedback.)
Pretty nitpicky, I know, but I recently read an article trumpeting this release of Firefox's incredible attention to detail.
On the Mac at least, I think it still falls short.
Exactly how I like it, I HATE getting search results when I make a type-o, or try to go to an internal site and forget to specify http://
ctrl(cmd)+l to focus omnibar, alt(shift)+enter to open results in a new tab
I use this all the time, small thing but it's awesome! I'm pretty sure it exists in other browsers as well though.
See answer 1, manually set your DNS server in wifi Advances page.
Like the chap above your comment, I absolutely despise having the Firefox differentiation because my habit is to click the address bar and then depending on whether I have realised the mistake before/after hitting enter it's: (1) "S&%^ I have clicked the wrong one, <tab>" (2) "FFS I didn't want http://byron burger locations"
Turns the address bar into an ACTUAL address bar. (Hope I didn't forget any.)
unless you make more gTLD typos than your search queries, the mechanism works great.
Use the customizer. People complain when they change and complain when they don't
> The address bar is square edged while the search bar is round edged, which is displeasingly visually. (I realize this is because there's a convention of "search bars are rounded," but the inconsistency remains.)
Maybe this is just the Mac version. On Linux they both have about a 3px border radius.
>Tapping the hamburger menu on the far right, it appears with a combined drop-and-fade-in effect, and then disappears instantly.
Sounds like a bug, not happening on linux though.
>The scroller applies a fade effect to incoming content, but only to the text, not the image, which is jarring.
Is this only on the slide show or something? That's not really much to complain about. I see web pages with different designs all over the internet.
>Multi-touch swipe
I have multi touch swipe set up for other things, but that sounds like something that needs work.
> Use the customizer.
Most users-on-street don't want to customise either.
Edit: The moderation on this is baffling. Does anyone genuinely believe users want to customise to achieve reasonable defaults?
HN should ban new users from moderating for a year.
Most users on the street aren't on the hacker news forum. Also if you are going to play the "most users on the street" game, then most users on the street aren't going to install a browser that didn't come with the OS.
I don't think anyone said they were.
> then most users on the street aren't going to install a browser that didn't come with the OS.
That's true. So it's even more important to retain them by having sensible defaults.
Not really. What is wrong with having a product that caters to a power user, or a niche group? Why does everything have to be dumbed-down for the "user on the street"? If you want dumbed-down then use the browser that came with your OS. If want something that isn't dumbed-down then you most likely have the know-how to customize your toolbar.
Firefox is a browser for everyone. It focuses on freedom and privacy. The browser that came with your OS most likely does not. There is no minimum level of technical expertise required. The UX is designed to be simple.
Agreed, but nobody in the thread is debating whether people know to customise a tool bar in a web browser.
The only thing that has been questioned is whether most people want to customise a browser to achieve defaults they find reasonable.
What's sensible about mixing three things (location, history and internet-search) into one location?
In Chrome I can't find anything in my history because the browser starts searching the internet instead. It's a horribly frustrating user-experience.
Which you cannot even customize. In Firefox you can customize the behaviour. I know which browser I prefer.
I'm just responding to a comment saying 'customise it'. if the simplicity argument is true, then 'customise it' is not an appropriate suggestion.
The simplicity argument, of course, could not be true, since simplicity may threaten safety in this particular implementation.
You actually need quite a bit of karma (maybe 500?) on Hacker News before you can downvote things, so anybody downvoting you can't be that new of a user.
IME, you can earn a lot of karma quickly with links. I'd say 1/3 of my karma came from links, and initially that's what pushed me over the top. So they're most likely not new users, but anyone with a month of submissions could have crossed that threshold. It makes me wonder if the two karmas, and the features that get enabled, should be separate things.
- the documentation and character support issues can be 'bugs'
- defaults that fit most users are good
- reminding someone being personal of the HN guidelines
...get moderated up, then down to -3 or -4, then back up to 1 again.
Noticing the folk in the conversation there's lots of newish accounts, and some are replying before they've actually read what they're replying to. Downmods for 'I disagree' are more popular now as well.
Since we're talking about one person's preference rather than the results of a user study, that hardly seems relevant.
I can't imagine that most users-on-street would want or benefit from separate address and search fields either.
They might find your position unreasonable, and your absolutism not contributing to the discussion.
It's absolutely not given that Chrome's behaviour is the "reasonable" default.
If you type in the search bar then it automcompletes by sending all of your keystrokes to your search provider. If you type in the address bar then it autocompletes by using your history.
These are two very different use cases, and I appreciate the ability to search my history without notifying google of the name of internal servers.
Customize: rip it out, install foobar(1) addon and/or use search keywords for search engines
Given the new gTLDs, I'm thankful that Firefox still has a separate search box. Say I'm want to know about the "asdfg.cat" file that showed up on my system. If I put that into the URL bar and hit enter, it's going to say "Oh, I know what .cat is, it's the TLD for Catalan related websites. Let's go to asdfg.cat!"
Same goes for things like "mail.app", which had conventionally referred to Apple's mail client on OS X. I have no idea if they'll end up owning that domain or if someone else will. And either way, I didn't want to end up on the web site if I was trying to search for it.
Mainly I don't like that it buries the fact that searching is a separate action and that you can pick what you're doing. And I think it's even more of a problem for inexperienced users, because to them the program is saying "Doing this action will randomly either search or go to some webpage, and you don't understand which will happen."
I also like keeping the search provider dropdown. It calls attention to the fact that you don't have to use google (and I don't). Google obviously has motives to prefer burying this in right click, but I think it fits Mozilla's agenda to leave it as a very visible setting.
i never use ? or quotes, because in 99.9% cases the search is very different from an address, and it's easy to tell which is being proposed. I also love having search recommendation for 5% searches where i am not sure of exact wording.
and yes, it's more of a power user feature, which is why i like it.
I use the address bar primarily (in FF) but the search bar is useful as a "scratch pad" for storing details I want to see briefly. It's certainly an edge case.
But the default has to be to show the search bar because of contracts they have with search partners, I believe.
As a user, I want separate edit bars for separate functions. I don't want Google know everything I type (or mistype) in the address bar. When I type foobar in the address bar please give me anything that returned the web server at foobar or give me an error if there is no foobar or the foobar have no web server. If I want to search foobar then I will type it in the search bar by myself.
...or at least it's that they claim.
EDIT: "they" being Google. http://blog.chromium.org/2008/10/google-chrome-chromium-and-...
I know that they are supposed not to misuse this information, but I would feel much better if they didn't receive it at all.
Reconfirmed this for my Google accounts and in fact it is not storing search history. Ofcourse Google may be tracking it on their end, but I assume very few services don't track, so that's a non-issue (at least for me).
For anyone who wants to check, the url is:
I also use ctrl-L and ctrl-K for navigating and searching, respectively, and I've found the way Chrome handles ctrl-K by focusing on the navigation bar and filling it with a '?' lacking. For instance, it clears my last query, where I often refine queries after quickly inspecting the results I got first time around. The requirement of having a '?' in front of search queries is also annoying, since it hinders a lot of keyboard shortcuts. Most notably, if I change my mind, Ctrl-A doesn't allow me to restart typing a query without manually inserting the '?' again.
What's so complicated?
My final point, letting users decide would be the best option here, and Firefox did exactly this! I managed to reconfigure it into a single address-bar working as search bar too, except search engine auto-completion.
In regards to the whole tinfoil hat comments about Google knowing everything you type, well I hate to burst your bubble but they probably already know everything about you, including but not limited too your inability to spell duck right.
I can't remember the last time I used Firefox intentionally. Chrome replaced it long ago.
As a web dev, I find myself more annoyed at the anomalies of Gecko everyday. I fix more Gecko related bugs than IE11 bugs, and that just feels wrong.
I don't expect this to be a popular opinion, but I have to say based on recent experience that if it wasn't for Chrome, I'd be using IE11 on a PC and Safari on a Mac. Firefox just feels too kludgy every time I use it.
Gecko and Trident are very good in comparison. Google needs a better QA process, especially after forking Webkit.
The only thing that bothers me with Firefox beside some UI is the single process model.
I've taken to changing my Chrome search engine to "https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&complete=0", which does disable the autocomplete behavior, but also appears to give a slightly older version of the search page.
Obviously the proper next step would be to switch to DuckDuckGo.
> Separate address and search bars is old-fashioned.
> As a user, I don't want to have to make this
> distinction, and it's hard to imagine most
> users-on-street wouldn't find this confusing
As you type into the search bar, autocomplete queries are sent to the search provider. This happens even if your intention was not to search, but just to enter URL manually.
In simpler terms: you are telling Google what sites you are visiting even when you don't use Google.
(AndrewDucker mentions this on this thread too, but his comment emphasises the UI aspect, whereas I think the privacy aspect needs to be stressed).
I have around 30 set up, from Wikipedia (w) to Google Image Search (gis), etc.
As power users, we tend to ignore the power of default settings. Their values have to be chosen carefully because only a small part of the public are even aware of them.
Several commenters here seem to imply that they shouldn't be the ones personalising their browsers. Turns out it's the other way around: they are the ones who know how to personalise it, whereas defaults should be about users who don't know how to do it.
Chrome is almost unusable for me because I can no longer type the names of internal websites and have them come up. That single change in its behavior drives me back to Firefox.
Even fewer keystrokes.
Even on startup it isn't that better compared to chrome.
Chrome 11 extensions 1 tab: ~300MB
FF 2 extensions 1 tab: ~200MB
It's not FF 29, it's 28 - but I doubt the memory management improved much in 29.
But to be fair, it's a lot better now than it used to be.
But FF is definitely uses more memory than chrome and with few other resource hungry applications running it becomes practically unusable on my low end laptop.
Either that or you have an addon installed that is using a huge amount of memory.
On my 512MB Raspberry Pi, this used to be FF's greatest strenth. Unfortunately the latest versions are getting nearly as bad as chrome. I wish Mozilla would focus on their strengths and put more resources back into their memshrink project.
When Chrome started to get fat, it was great to have a lightweight alternative like Firefox. But lately even Firefox has been causing my 1GB netbook to thrash. I hate to have to junk a perfectly good machine that is only used for email and browsing just because of software bloat. After doing a factory restore, it looks like that or a lightweight Linux distro(while losing flash and HW accel) are my only options.
There are many memory usage improvements made in firefox that don't appear explicitly in the areweslimyet tests, and there are many others, like better memory usage reporting accuracy and new features that do, thus the apparent increase in memory usage throughout the latest versions that you pointed.
The big reason I really like this is that the address bar is local to the tab, and the search box is window. If you have a topic you want to dive into on another tab, you can safely transcribe information from multiple current tabs and then create a new tab with the search. Especially when some of the information is in the current url.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox
Edit: Fixed typo as pointed below. :D Thanks for nitpicking the nitpicking. :)
I think it worked out for the best -- Firefox is an excellent name and brand. It's hard now to imagine it being something else!
If you need to access it, command-k is your friend.
Monopoly? Before Firefox/Firebird there was Netscape Navigator, which was to be the "Mosaic killer" (hence "Mozilla").
IE was never the only browser around, even on Windows.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet-explorer-usage-da...
What you're missing is that many, many sites were only developed for IE, and only worked at all in IE. No, not "graceful degradation," not "progressive enhancement," that all came a decade later: if you were not using IE, the sites were very broken, even unusable - and nobody cared: after all, Just Use IE Like All The Normal People Do, right?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476541
This bug makes Firefox useless to me and has been around for over 5 years!
This is the third one I'm aware of that is a basic usability thing. Others include a complete failure to browse to sites that present a duplicate SSL certificate, and an odd breakage that results in downloads getting half completed but the UI saying they're complete anyways.
This is how it works on ChromeOS too. It even has a nice black and white effect on the previous page until it's fully loaded.
1. The rounded tabs are simply ugly, and remind me of web design from a decade ago. It's also weird how they go from square to round on rollover. Poor design choice in my opinion.
2. It's far more difficult to find the active tab now. For comparison, the old style (http://static.filehorse.com/screenshots/browsers-and-plugins...). In the new version, I have to scan the toolbar to find the active tab based on the rounded or square edges. It's a lot easier the old way to find a bright active tab on darker, faded out inactive tabs. That's UX 101. It doesn't stop there, the entire toolbar, tabs, search, etc, blends together in a blob of light grey and white right now. Very little distinction between anything.
3. I never liked the orange Firefox button in the top left, it always seemed out of place and forced. Replacing it with an icon and menu is fine, but that icon should be on the left, before the first tab. The menu opening to a grid of icons is also awful. How it transitions to the right when you click something like 'History' is extremely bizarre. I have no idea why they tried to reinvent the wheel here, a typical list menu that everyone is familiar with would work best. That's great you can customize it, but 9/10 people will never use that feature, so it's a step backwards for them.
Overall, I see it as a change for the worse. It's not rocket science here, and nailing down a proper browser interface should be a walk in the park. We're talking about some tabs and a toolbar, there's no excuse for it to be anything but perfect after more than a decade. I'm 100% confident I could knock out a better design, that would be better received by people in a weekend. They have some nice features and design choices, but they got it 90% there, and keep tripping over polishing the remaining 10%.
umm... I don't know if this works on mac too, but at least in the windows Firefox, you actually CAN use the address bar as a search bar. So why two bars? well the search bar also lets you CHOOSE your search engine, unlike Chrome which hardwires you to google. Yes yes, you might say but why would i want to search anywhere else? Well just like you hate having to actually GO to google to search on google, people hate going to wikipedia or wolfram alpha or ask.com etc etc before searching there. So it lets them query their engine of choice right from the bar. Oh and depending on your version, the address bar automatically searches on the engine selected in the search bar.
Now since you are a fairly old user of FF, i don't really understand the need to tell you all this, ut i just felt your nitpick about the searchbar saw this "feature" as a "design flaw"
As I write this, the story is about one hour old, there are 118 other comments and the top voted comment - the top voted comment - is criticism by someone who doesn't use Firefox. The comment is totally without technical analysis of why Firefox does what it does nor does it mention anything that FireFox gets right. The only positive thing the author says involves dragging out some tired anti-microsoft trope.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667040
That's the problem when stories have this sort of velocity. The quality of comments goes down to the point where "It doesn't try to be an Apple product" is what collects the most upvotes. It's little more than trolling for defenses of FireFox and Safari fan upvotes.
Why are you messing with everything, Mozilla? Why are you breaking the UI metaphor? With the tabs on the top, all the elements under it are made to appear a part of that tab. There's no reason that I can see for the tabs to be on top. It doesn't look pretty, it takes extra pixels to render the smooth curve where the tab meets the next bar. Even if I'm insane and it's the same width, it still looks awful.
I've got five HD screens, and everyone is taking the tablet friendly, ergonomic approach. I want consistency. Please stop breaking everything. You're the last good browser, Firefox. Don't ruin it.
Please bring back: tabs on bottom, the permanent forward button, the refresh button, the bottom bar anchor, and the separate back button.
Forward button appears after you click the back button. It is only shown when it could be used.
This and many other improvements reduce visual noise based on analysis of how frequently people used different pieces of browser chrome.
Thank you! This has been driving me crazy. I like my toolbar controls to look like:
back | forward | home | stop | refresh
Yes I know all of the keyboard shortcuts, but I still like to mouse around when applicable and don't want to have to use precision to focus on 1 tiny 8 pixel refresh button on my 28" monitor.
BTW, the refresh button is in the 'menu config', you can drag it to the old place. The stop button and other 'classic' buttons are gone. Meaningless 'browser.tabs.onTop' prepares you for your transition to Chrome.
FF is so frustrating and disappointing. I'm not angry, just sad.
I don't remember any change in the UI in the last two years that was not copying what Chrome does.
So "improve" may be right, but hardly "reinvent".
But to be fair, with Australis, the whole "widgets" thing is new, and I really like how Firefox and add-ons can both use it in the same way.
I was thinking for a second the whole UI might get a shake up, or rather, there would be innovative useful functions, that would set the browser apart.
The bookmark and history managers are still pretty aweful. Some of the UI has been polished, but certainly not all.
The refresh button irritates me, because for some reason it feels smaller.
I feel the whole tab placement is a little moot, as it should follow the OSs style. Quite why we haven't good tab management/redesign/overhaul in modern window managers/desktops yet is beyond me.
Personally I'd rather a tool menu. And a location/search bar, a bookmark manager, and a browser pane. All pretty much separate.
Text input would be a nice centralised overlay/popup as and when needed, which I could make huge or small. In other words help with web forms. Android's Chrome browser kind of does that. In opera I used to be able to float the address bar, but it lost it's 'awesome' qualities - autocomplete etc.
It's OS/UX territory, why reinvent controls and the way we interact with each application? The overall UX ends up feeling like a right hodge-podge.
The Start menu seems to overlap any maximized application when small icons are enabled, but I guess that's slightly worse without the status bar.
You can re-add the title bar permanently by going to Customize and clicking Title Bar in the bottom left corner.
The main reason why I use Status-4-Evar is because when I hover over a link I don't want that link to pop-over the page content, which is what Chrome did first, then Firefox copied like sheep. It's distracting, like a tiny little pop-over in the corner of your eye.
I like having URLs show in a status bar separate to the main web window. It's out of the way, and I just like having my web browser framed by an interface. Is that so wrong?
What's so bad about a status bar? Why is there this idea that everyone wants the full screen web?
First Mozilla forces their CEO to resign, now they're being the soup nazi over the status bar which has been with browsers since day one of web browsers. You call that progress? I call it chopping down an old tree that nobody wanted chopped down.
But yeah, apple is far away from having invented it
If I were to maximize Sublime on Windows, Linux, or OS X (green button), you still have the chrome from the windowing system and the OS's menu bars.
Also, the parent comment makes no claim Apple invented anything, he/she is just drawing a comparison people would be familiar with. Frankly, it's more than a little annoying to me that you have to distract from the topic to make completely non-constructive dig at a company you seem to dislike and completely miss the point of the comparison in doing so.
I don't use sublime, but on Linux (Ubuntu GNOME) when you full screen an app the window decorations are hidden and so are the status/window menus.
Edit: before you downvote, please explain why??
Edit:
Ubuntu "Fullscreen": http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EnulBlkjTEM/Tzo7Fo3l3uI/AAAAAAAAHw...
OS X Fullscreen: http://www3.pcmag.com/media/images/237835-iphoto-11-albums-i...
Is this built in to the stock ubuntu releases? If so, what version?
Not sure about the Unity interface as I have limited experience with it.
I'm using Firefox with the borders set off right now. This gives me a window with no external chrome (no border, no titlebar, no buttons, no scroll area) but set with the standard KDE application bar (which I keep at the bottom a la Win95).
Indeed before Firefox ditched the menubar I used an app to get the same effect pinching a lot of real-estate back (titlebar, menubar, buttonbar). It's interesting that things have moved this way, though not surprising.
Why did Apple make a Full Screen feature in their operating system? Minimalism and simplicity.
Why does Firefox have a fullscreen option? Because most browsers had that option and it's a useful feature once in a while. Not a compelling reference.
They had them well before full screen on OS X became a "thing".
Your reply misses the point that the original comparison was flawed. It was like saying "A bit like why Apple added ASLR" or "A bit like why Apple added CUPS". They invented neither and were first to market with neither.
Yes, if you maximize. However if you go fullscreen (F11) the chrome disappears.
From my perspective, Firefox is working hard to drive me away, by removing its distinguishing features that make it different from Chrome.
I can't say I agree with all of their choices, but I'm running 29 right now and I don't feel like any functionality or customizability is lost from the last version. If you're not looking for the defaults you can change pretty much everything you want with a few add-ons and about 10 minutes or so of configuration.
The status bar IMO should have more things e.g. download status, but the browsers chose not go to that direction. OK, then remove the statusbar and put the link-direction in the location bar instead during the hover.
EDIT: Found this to restore just the addon bar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/the-addon-bar...
Nerdrage subsiding
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
(Or admit that the notification that the author is not verified is meaningless)
edit: Also, on my install, the version there makes Firefox 29 lock up when I click on options. But my profile is pretty ancient.
Yet another feature copied from Opera....
I wonder why you can't just add new blank bars, at either the top or bottom, to fill up to your heart's content with that same Customize mode. That would undo most of the need for things like Status-4-Evar.
This hasn't changed in version 29, by the way. 'Customize' in version 28 also let you juggle controls around any of the menu, navigation, bookmarks or add-on bars pretty generically. In fact, for all the fanfare about how revolutionary a change this new UI is, the only real functional difference in it I can see between 28 and 29 is the removal of the add-on bar, ie. the only one of the bars whose fixed position happened to be at the bottom, rather than the top.
(Of course I don't really believe that this release is specifically intended to troll people who like having some controls at the bottom of their screen, but I must admit that if you did want to do that, then this would be a good way to do it. I'm sticking with 28 until Status-4-Evar catches up. Also thanks for the suggestion of the "Addon Bar" extension elsewhere in the thread, seen and noted.)
I know there's a use case for using seperate windows to group tabs by topic, but I don't like having that organization forced on me.
Also, I don't use a tiling window manager, but they tend to have their own ways of dealing with large numbers of windows, I hear.
:set gui=nonavigationGet this addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/classicthemerest...
Activate the "Bottombar Toolbar" by right clicking somewhere on the top space where the bars are.
Now you have a small bar down there. Open the new funky customization menue and drag the "Statustext"-Element down there.
The only problem is that you'll find your Start-Button above the text...
Somehow I find myself installing even more Add-Ons with every major UI "improvisation" to keep a useful UI. I wish it would be the other way around where you got standard and customized from there.
I spent several hours debugging this. Chiefly the culprit turned out to be "Default Full Zoom Level" extension.
However, during the debugging process, I did a binary search through prefs.js looking for the problem. If I removed this line:
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "29.0");
Classic Theme Restorer probably wasn't the problem. Probably the problem only showed up because that was the first restart post-upgrade (to enable the extension).
About bloody time. Does anyone know why that wasn't the case from the get-go?
Between having to write thread-safe code and custom JS exposure, the overhead could be significant. This has now been greatly improved through the use of automatically generated WebIDL bindings, although C++ is still used and threading issues do have to be dealt with (usually by remoting a runnable to the main thread), so worker versions of an API still aren't free.
New Web APIs implemented by the platform team should usually be designed from the ground-up for worker exposure and have worker support land soon-after or at the same time as the main-thread support. Experimental APIs related to Firefox OS and developed by Firefox OS Gaia teams are more likely to be prototypes implemented in JS for rapid prototyping and will need another rev before they can be exposed to workers. This last bit frequently happens as part of an effort to standardize the API informed by the prototype.
Links for context: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XPCOM/... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/WebIDL_bind...
We ended up writing a goofy little console.log() replacement that sent messages back to the main UI thread for processing and logging, but that kind of thunking is a might-bit janky.
On a related note, transferable objects are handled a bit differently between IE, FF, and Chrome. Some are a bit stricter than others.
http://i.imgur.com/BlPRitn.png
When I'm doing cross browser development I want my stuff to line up in all three browsers.
At least Firefox no longer has the heaviest browser chrome. Safari wins that dubious distinction now by keeping the tabs below the address bar.
I also noticed that Firefox finally added a better option to disable cache for one tab which will be very useful while developing:
http://i.imgur.com/Nc5eamq.png
It's still not as good as Chrome's ability to automatically disable cache while devtools are open, but its way better than what I had to do before, which was override the automatic cache management settings to limit cache to 0 MB of diskspace.
http://i.imgur.com/atYV8Xo.png
If you count it by pixel there is 10px of window drag space above the tabs in Firefox, but 11px of window drag space in Chrome. So technically Firefox would be harder to drag around.
The thing that is bigger in Firefox is the fat tabs, and all the extra space above and below the address bar, which seems to be there solely for the purpose of allowing the back button to be larger than the address bar. It's a nice looking design touch, but not that much more usable, just wasteful.
Edit: Actually, just updated and it looks like they got rid of that...
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
/* correct titlebar icons position */
#titlebar-content > * {
margin-top: -6px;
}
/* Reduce the padding between the URL bar and the tabs/content */
#nav-bar-customization-target {
margin-top: -2px !important;
margin-bottom: -2px !important;
}[1] https://www.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/29.0/whatsnew/?oldvers...
browser.uitour.enabled
It uses the following command to open the menu:
document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent("mozUITour", {bubbles: true, detail: {action: "showMenu", data: {name: "appMenu"} }}))
This code http://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/module... seems to handle to JavaScript event dispatches.
The "mozUITour" API is specific to Firefox 29, and can only be used on mozilla.org, which is a white-listed domain that is hard-coded into the browser.
The API is also pretty basic, in that it can highlight a limited number of target icons, and open a limited choice of menu's. The purpose of the API is strictly for on-boarding flows, such as this. It also only works over https and requires a secure connection.
Please before it say "it spies", show us what it captured and sent to third-parties (ie not YOU).
I for one am displeased when my missives are neutered by my text editors. :)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Code_snippets/In...
Remember, the browser chrome/front-end for Firefox and add-ons is implemented using Web technologies (XUL, JavaScript and CSS) with more or less privileges.
Edit: Fun tip: Choose the Hamburger menu -> DevTools (wrench icon) -> Browser Toolbox and inspect the chrome document like you inspect a web document.
* Can't double click top left corner to close on windows.
* How do i get to the hamburger menu with only my keyboard?
* If my mum accidentally removes something from the hamburger menu, like options, and one day i have to guide her to that option over the phone there are like hundreds of steps to go through. First i have to figure out if she actually is looking at the right menu, then i have to figure out if she actually has the icon on her menu or not. When that is done i have to guide her to the customize menu, then pull the icon back, close the customizer, open the menu again and then click the icon. These steps will all be different depending on how your mum customized the menu. Previously i could just tell her click the top left menu and go to add-ons. There is no standard path to follow (except the alt-key, down-key keyboard fallback still using the old menus from version 3). The hamburger menu should be a shortcut for your favorites, not the only way to find an option. Seriously, it's as if Windows forced you to add a control panel shortcut on the start menu before you can access your network settings. This is trying too hard to be too user "friendly".
* How do i find the dropdown menus for my add-ons? Seem like the only path to get there is again to use the hidden alt, down keyboard fallback and then go to tools.
I was fine with Firefox when it looked like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mozilla_Firefox_3.5.png
One thing that I think FF doesn't get enough credit for is how efficiently it runs these days. I prefer Chrome's developer tools, but for browsing, FF gets my vote.
I wish people would take this attitude more often.
* it's no longer possible to open a new tab by double-clicking in the tabs bar, seriously guys...
* I really liked the Ctrl + / status bar, I used it to drop my add-ons icons, it didn't use much space and I was able to use them whenever I wanted, now I can't do this anymore (except if I overload the top bars with icons I use... say once a week ?) // EDIT: I just figured out I can use the sandwich menu to do this, that's pretty cool
* it's not possible anymore to move the refresh button... WHY ? I loved it on the left with the previous/forward buttons, why would it be in the URL bar ?
* and it seems it's no longer possible to add a button to show the bookmarks (Ctrl+b), there's only this awful double button with "add fav" and this useless menu.
It's beautiful but lacks a lot of customizations that were possible before... I'm really considering switching to another browser (maybe Opera ?)
I think there is a lot of hate here with the tone "I liked it the old way because I was used to it!". New designs change things, that's why they're new. If we didn't ever want anything to change, we'd still be looking at this every day:
http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-old-new-design-2007.png
And just like the old Firefox design, that has more features up front and almost everything today's version has. But I'm glad I see this instead http://cl.ly/image/2d3a0c2h1Z2R.
Maybe I'm an idiot, or not a power user. But I like pretty things and I appreciate Mozilla's effort here. I'll be using Firefox more often.
The real reason I stick with Chrome is because it works so well with my Google accounts and syncs everything I do to my phone.
I could partially move to Firefox if I could find a good way to do bi-directional bookmarks sync between the browsers. I tried XMarks but it would totally fuck up all of my Chrome bookmarks once in a while.
Not only does it sync your usual suspects bookmarks/passwords/history, but it also syncs your installed addons and their settings (if supported). For example it syncs AdBlockPlus's list of whitelisted websites.
Another neat Sync feature is the possibility of seeing the open tabs on all your synced devices. For example I am looking right now on my phone and I can see the add HN comment tab in the mobile version of FF (Android).
On top of that the Sync server is open source so basically you could deploy it yourself if you have privacy concerns, although your data is encrypted before it is uploaded to the server anyway.
Additionally, I am not sure about the new UI yet, but I probably wouldn't care about the changes after I get used to them.
* I just tried and your developer tools don't cause the tab to freeze for 1 second every time I switched into the tab.
* Wanted to see the addons I had, clicked the menu > nice icon that said Add-ons - massive UX win.
I feel at home with this browser. You stand up for privacy and for that you deserve so much more praise than you get. I'm switching to Firefox and see how it goes. The only thing keeping me on Chrome are the Dev Tools, and I want to give Firefox another try.
Can you give steps to reproduce and a test case? Which panel do you have active? What URL are you on?
Any page that had the dev tools open froze for about 1 to 2 seconds when switching back to it.
20 tabs, each with it's dev tools open. Zero lags! I'm in love.
We have a light and dark theme; you can toggle back and forth via the options panel (the little cog sprocket thing top left)
Good:
* Menu bar is hidden by default on Linux and can be opened with Alt (that didn't work before).
Bad:
* Menu ("Firefox") button is still not movable for no obvious reason.
* Reload/Stop button is now forced to be in the URL bar (before users had a choice where to place it). That's pretty annoying, it's very uncomfortable when Back/Forward and Reload buttons are so far apart.
* Bookmarks button is now outside the URL bar and looks bulky.
I had the same gripe you did, if you grab 'classic toolbar buttons', it'll give you the smaller layout with the 'enable small buttons' option on.
My ONLY issue with FF 29. I prefer my back/forward buttons near stop/reload and for both groups to be near the middle after the URL/awesome bar.
I can't find any way of getting rid of the file folders -- not even thru Customize. Anyone found a way?
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css
Then you could, for example, use Ctrl+Q followed by:
Y for YCombinator, F for Facebook, and so forth.
Pressing Ctrl+Q not only switches into that "trigger once mode", it also displays the list of available shortcuts.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ShortcutKey2U...
Firefox 28 had been crashing at least once a day for me (which is rare, I didn't have any crash logs since 2011) so I'm hoping they squashed whatever bug was causing that.
tl;dr It's awesome.
I am not sure what you mean by a bike shed, but it's now a pretty nice bike shed, no?
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178587-firefox-is-still...
But when I click "269 more results", then Tree Style Tab is the first result on that addons.mozilla.org page.
(This isn't the first time I've found add-on search to be a bit wonky. Maybe "everyone" knows to ignore the first results (?), but I don't search for and install add-ons frequently enough to have learned that, quite yet.)
This is like the 3rd or 4th time that minimum tab width settings have been changed. I understand the motivation to change the experience for the typical user. I don't understand the constant churn in what is customizable. If I customized the location of the reload/stop button last time it was moved, is the thought really that I won't want to this time?
I guess there is some argument about the amount of code that needs to be maintained, but if things go the way they go, there will be incremental changes for a year or 2 now, and then a big jarring shift to the new thing that is more fashionable.
I guess the new thing is that they want anything they don't think is a primary feature in an add on, so I expect that's what it will take.
It was just another change to complain about.
/*
* Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning
*/
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* set default namespace to XUL */
.tabbrowser-tab:not([pinned]) {
max-width: 250px !important;
min-width: 100px !important;
}
.tabbrowser-tab:not([fadein]) {
max-width: 1px !important;
min-width: 1px !important;
max-width: 1px;
min-width: 1px;
}
Every god damn time I had to install I had to go in ftp.mozilla.org ...
About 5 years late, but better than never. :-)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
Apart from the UI changes I noticed that memory usage went down considerably. But we'll see how it behaves after some prolonged usage.
The one weird thing I noticed was that my bookmarks are gone. I'm not sure if this happened in this release, or some previous one, or whether I accidentally deleted them somehow.
I'm even surprised I hate the non-active tabs more than the active one.
Sorry about the rant.
I am impressed with the updated supported on the developer tools, although Chrome DevTools still wins in tooling.
- JavaScript profiling (heap, cpu, events)
- DOM events monitoring and breakpoints.
- JavaScript code completion
I'm not sure what the exact criticism is here.
> - JavaScript profiling (heap, cpu, events)
is this what you mean?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Profiler
> - DOM events monitoring and breakpoints.
You can do this now (at least in nightly)
> - JavaScript code completion
Works in the JS console.
> I'm not sure what the exact criticism is here.
How can I see the whole data available to the browser in FF, similar to ChromeDev Tools
https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/re...
> - DOM events monitoring and breakpoints.
> You can do this now (at least in nightly)
Cannot install nightly versions on customers. Good to know it is coming, though.
> > - JavaScript code completion
> Works in the JS console.
But not yet on the Scratchpad, unless I am missing something.
It's a lot different than what chrome does, but I believe they're integrating the resources with the network tab: (scroll to the bottom where the pie charts are.)
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Network_Monit...
> Cannot install nightly versions on customers
Do your customers develop web pages? If so why are they paying you to install a browser?
>But not yet on the Scratchpad
This appears to be true.
Thanks for the link. What about IndexDB, Web SQL and Local Storage?
> Do your customers develop web pages? If so why are they paying you to install a browser?
They surely do. My employer does Fortune 500 consulting and many times we get to use what their IT allows us to.
Not yet, but a storage inspector panel is being worked on: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=970517
It always amuses me when people think the Firefox Developer Tools are equal to the Chrome DevTools. They really can't be using either of them very much.
ChromeDev tools remind me of working in Smalltalk. Still not quite there yet, but real close.
Although I also find quite good that FF tooling is improving, as web development requires testing across all major browsers anyway.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=926449
Here's a screencap of the WIP (ignore the text): https://bug970517.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=841...
> JavaScript profiling (heap, cpu, events)
We have CPU profiling now, but we are in the process of reworking the UI to make it more useful and include a better presentation for events and how they fit into that picture.
I'm working on memory tooling. Here is some more info: http://fitzgeraldnick.com/weblog/54/
And here is a design mockup (won't be exactly like this): https://people.mozilla.org/~dhenein/devtools/memtools/#/memo...
> DOM events monitoring and breakpoints.
We have break on dom events already: http://i.imgur.com/RDy7BXy.jpg
What do mean by monitoring? Would be interested in hearing more about what you're talking about and the use cases.
> JavaScript code completion
We have had this in the console for a long time, and it is coming in the scratchpad very soon: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=968896
> What do mean by monitoring? Would be interested in hearing more about what you're talking about and the use cases.
Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly. I mean this type of information profiling.
https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/ti...
Very useful to track down where some, sometimes pesky, JavaScript code has bound events to the DOM.
This is a big debugging pain, to track down why events are being triggered, or not working, in a certain way and what JavaScript code is responsible for it.
- why can't I drag and drop DOM elements in the inspector?
- Chrome's autocomplete seems smarter. If I go to edit a style and I type `li` Chrome gives me line-height, FF gives me lighting-color?
- I prefer the color highlight when you hover over DOM elements in the inspector, I can see the box model in Chrome but just a dotted outline in FF.
FF's tools do seem to get better and more robust with each update though.
Where are the FF dev tools lacking for you?
edit: also, transparent elements with text on them? Noo! Maybe I am just sensitive.. I don't have the best eyesight, and I don't have the best monitors. In any case, I am thankful for Classic Theme Restorer, which someone mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Edit: I just noticed that the text selection now works as it does in text editors with blinking cursor and all. Great feature!
How did you revert back? Is there some interface option or I have to dig out old download?
Which I hate to say as a diehard Pentadactyl user.
I think it's a marketing strategy to convey active development.
OS X doesn't have that issue, I suspect in part because they are have a more rapid release cycle.
if you had least picked 28 to 29 i don't know.. but theres a million lines of code change between 3 and 29. the js engine is like 50x faster, theres hundreds of new things supported, etc.
When you hover over the close button ('x') on a tab the red outline is square and looks weird on the rounded tab. Why not make the outline rounded or make the 'x' bold on mouseover.
Why use the hamburger icon and not the Firefox logo or the old Firefox button (and keep it on the left side)?
A: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
I searched a bit and found this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=924411 Nothing seems to have happened though, and google maps is far from the only example..
Until you installed an add-on. Or like me, a dozen.
EDIT: I just found the Classic Theme Restorer add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...) which lets me have the best of both wolds. <Yay>
On my debian machine here, running ff beta the biggest part is libxul, which is 55 meg on its own.
I definitely think bookmarks are highly undervalued. To a certain extent, I think curated and cultivated bookmarks even have monetary value.
I've never been a big fan of distro meddling, which is a reason I've been an Arch loyalist for workstation Linux since 2007.
A bug to make this easier for iOS users filed here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1003379
I have used for just a short term (a whole day) and I probably gonna find this or that to dislike. But so far I'm in love with it.
The one at the very top (with "Ctrl+Shift+T" next to it) is the most recently closed one.
You can of course also just use that shortcut.
1. Support for it in most themes is non existent so no more dark themes until they update
2. The Open menu button cannot be moved (Wanted to move it back to the left where the old firefox button used to be)
about:memory
and try to manually clear some up by clicking the links in the free memory section
Because of that, I have to display both bars (I like to see the menu).
Otherwise : good job Firefox team!
Edit: Oh, I see! You were saying that the fact that there is now support could be handy, not asking for it to be supported. ;)
Sorry but i try and this is shit, chrome,opera look better
Digg Killed Digg
As a masculine, 29 year old male...I felt pretty awkward in my own skin.
Part of the problem, though, is that the guys at Pentadactyl messed with userChrome.css as part of the newest pentadactyl builds, which causes a TON of issues with other addons (especially anything that adds a toolbar). Vimperator doesn't do it, but ew Vimperator, so.
Are the people who's sites you're using also okay with you passing URLs on their sites to your search provider? Do you ever accidentally paste confidential text in the wrong field?
Because there is no way to tell if the data is being logged (or, importantly, to prove that it isn't) it is prudent to assume it is, with an infinite retention— will your opinions about sharing todays data change if the search provider's behavior changes tomorrow? if some relevant government changes policy tomorrow? Does the fact that you can't ever take it back concern you?
These are some of the things I think of about it— and are why I wouldn't intentionally use such a feature regardless of how positive I feel about my search provider. And because of these thoughts— especially that I can't really make any binding commitment to future policy, or really guarantee that my policy is being followed (e.g. intelligence agency plants on staff) if I were a search provider I would not run such a service, unless I could figure out a way to build it such that I _couldn't_ turn evil, knowingly or unknowingly today or tomorrow.
It's exactly like using Fastmail. It's a convenience over self-hosted mail that sends all my email to Fastmail. Just like Omnibox, you have a choice to use it, and just like Omnibox, it sends a lot of personal information to a third party.
The reason people don't complain about hosted email is the same reason it's ridiculous to complain about Omnibox. Even though it gives information to the service provider, the service provider provides value on top of that information that makes a vast majority of people prefer it to the alternative, which people also have an option to use (by unchecking a check box or by running their own mail server).
The main difference is that the Omnibar logs all your keystrokes to Google's servers. The Awesome bar searches through the data it already has locally (bookmarks, history, open tabs), and it makes a Google search if the data you entered isn't a URL. Not logging your keystrokes is a privacy feature. On the other hand, the dedicated search field does, and that's its feature.
I personally can't see the difference in usage between the Omnibar and the Awesome bar, apart from the fact that the search suggestions make more sense in the Awesome bar, since it only uses my past searches. Follow my advice: use the brand new interface customization UX and remove the dedicated search field.
I wish the delete feature were more discoverable, however.
Perhaps Mozilla needs to move on from web browsers? Perhaps their work is done, or the torch needs to be taken up by someone who can lead again.
I'm not sure what's in store for Mozilla, but if it's just a Chrome skin on a Mozilla rendering engine, then I don't think it's good.