overcast · 6 years ago

I'm assuming Chrome is reporting back to Google everything you're typing. Privacy is probably what's holding Firefox back.

m4lvin · 6 years ago

It seems there are add-ons for this :-)

https://github.com/kimsey0/FirefoxAutoDict

LoSboccacc · 6 years ago

not a great solution but dictionaries are simple files and you can merge them into the one you consider to be your main language

aashcan · 6 years ago

There used to be the Dictionary Switcher addon, but doesn't work >v57. An alternative I found was https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/automatic-spe...

ronjouch · 6 years ago

Please vote and/or speak up (constructively, no "mee too" comments please) on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687

pier25 · 6 years ago

Yes that's probably the most annoying thing in FF. Chrome does spell checking even when you mix multiple languages in the same sentence.

giancarlostoro · 6 years ago

Weird, Chrome (specifically Electron) always gets confused when I speak English and Spanish all at once and Slack just starts to say everything I spell in English is wrong, it kinda annoys me. I don't think I have experienced this on Firefox.

grantcarthew · 6 years ago

Have a look at https://www.grammarly.com

KitDuncan · 6 years ago

Whether it is on Chrome, Firefox, Android or in my text editor, I'll always disable spell checking. I am also not a native english speaker and seeing those red underlines everywhere is just way too annoying for me.

reportgunner · 6 years ago

Honest question, where does one use a spellchecker in the browser ?

adfkbuvasdas · 6 years ago

Game changer! Now from my POV Firefox is the best desktop browser, period. No caveats.

GhettoMaestro · 6 years ago

The performance is what has kept me on Chrome on Mac. Going to re-install FF now and give it a whirl. Thanks for this info!

danlugo92 · 6 years ago

Would this bring it up to par with safari's power consumption?

nathancahill · 6 years ago

This should be the headline feature. I've been following this bug for so long on Bugzilla. The energy improvement is really incredible.

re4ctor · 6 years ago

More details on the mac improvements https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...

chrischen · 6 years ago

Battery life is my primary concern, and unless they release battery life benchmarks I’d be hard pressed to switch off of Safari.

volkk · 6 years ago

does anybody know if all of these are available in nightly?

antihero · 6 years ago

Trying it out and it absolutely flies!!

mosselman · 6 years ago

This is what I am most excited about. I have been using the improvements through nightly since they were released, I think little more than a month, and I couldn't be happier. I'd hate to have to use Chrome and I welcome the competition to webkit.

jasin · 6 years ago

After years of waiting, it's hard to believe it's finally fixed. Will try this out immediately.

lucasverra · 6 years ago

i am very very eager to test and use this. FF is my main driver but it's a heat machine on my mac 10.11.6. I wonder if i gain something to upgrade my macOS (4g ram :()

s_k_ · 6 years ago

anyone knows how firefox is on iOS? vs Safari/Chrome? :) Want to switch, but wondering whether it's worth it cross-platform

swrobel · 6 years ago

Should this affect memory bloat? Because I still have to restart ffx regularly on my Mac because it uses upward of 8gb RAM over time

soulofmischief · 6 years ago

Glad to have an alternative to Chrome!

Many would argue that Chrome is an alternative to Firefox, given that Firefox predates Chrome as the first real viable browser alternative.

oehpr · 6 years ago

I feel like the websocket inspector was the last thing I was missing, and now that I have it, I only need chrome for compatibility checks.

ivankolev · 6 years ago

Day to day tasks like browsing the DOM, debug, networking, are top notch in both Chrome and FF, haven't found anything infuriating in FF devtools, they are very serious in having snappy and useful experience.

leevlad · 6 years ago

I do a moderate amount of ReactJS dev, and FF has been excellent. I barely noticed the transition from Chrome to FF when it came to my workflows.

eyegor · 6 years ago

Does anyone know of what useful/killer features chrome dev tools have that ff doesn't? I switched to ff full time a few years ago and only open chrome for testing sites. The only thing I notice is that they have slightly different habits as to where they jump in the html when you are using the inspect feature. The only killer Firefox "feature" I can think of is an extension which is much more recent -- eval villain (https://www.hurricanelabs.com/blog/making-easy-dom-xss-actua...).

idoubtit · 6 years ago

My experience is that Chromium DevTools are much more polished than Firefox's. For instance, the network tab is a pain to use with FF on a small screen because the columns have a large default width, so the Method column ("GET") is as large as the URL path column. And you can't resize them. Chromium has a better default, and I can resize them. If I view the detail of a request, pressing Esc will close the details view in Chromium, while it will toggle the console in FF. Even with the mouse, at first I struggled to find how to close the details with FF (the toggling icon is not part of the toggled window, it's next to the filter field!).

giancarlostoro · 6 years ago

Some of those updates are to catch up to Chrome's developer tools. If I were in charge of Firefox, I would honestly have them hire a developer or two to focus solely on the Developer Tools. I'm sure there's many things that browser developer tools could do that we have not even scratched the surface of. I prefer Firefox overall, only use Chrome due to manager only looking at my work on Chrome (it will be deployed in a WebKit container). The DOM Breakpoint feature is one I found out this week about in Chrome, glad it's now in Firefox.

symlinkk · 6 years ago

It has the features that Chrome has but the UI and performance is worse.

taco_emoji · 6 years ago

Couple other features I'd like: - Import from other formats (Keepass, or at least any format Keepass can export to) - Share items with someone else

geraltofrivia · 6 years ago

Agreed. I'm thinking of cancelling my Dashlane subscription and moving to this Password Manager now.

Firefox's Lockwise App (on android) leaves a lot demanding though.

jdlyga · 6 years ago

This is wonderful. I wish they would make Pocket a little less terrible (no forced reader mode for links, etc)

criddell · 6 years ago

Don't you still use a 3rd party solution for app logins on your phone?

robotstate · 6 years ago

Then what happens when you're on a different browser?

pmoriarty · 6 years ago

So when some Firefox tab gets owned by some Javascript exploit, does that mean its integrated password manager could be compromised too?

jonnycomputer · 6 years ago

With a previous update 1-2 years ago, the password manager seemed to lose the ability to force-create and edit new items, which is necessary if you are using it as a general purpose password manager, or for sites that stubbornly refused to play nice. I switched to LastPass, which worked out fairly well, with the family option, so that my spouse and I can share subsets of passwords with each other. But this FF update does look like they've fixed that issue.

woutr_be · 6 years ago

Does it only support passwords? I actually use 1Password for quite a bit of information. (Credit cards, bank accounts, email accounts, servers, and random memberships)

mackrevinack · 6 years ago

personally im trying to move away from keeping everything in one basket but maybe there is some benefit to having a password manager built in vs a 3rd party extension? less attack area?

earlier in this year I switched from bitwarden (which I would still recommend) to keepass because I wanted to fill desktop passwords... but there is the added benefit that you actually don't need a browser extension if you don't want to. instead ive been using the autotype feature that can be run from a hotkey.

eyegor · 6 years ago

But without their own js compiler, chrome couldn't randomly add/deprecate features! It's not like Mozilla existed first and was open source back when Chrome launched. Oh wait, it was open sourced 10 years before Chrome launched! So yeah, I blame greed.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/

SloopJon · 6 years ago

On the contrary, I'd say that competition has been good for all involved. For such a maligned language that was born in a little over a week, JavaScript is better and faster than it has any right to be.

The amount of resources that have gone into improving JavaScript is amazing. I just wonder what some other languages would look like now with that kind of attention.

Orphis · 6 years ago

Speaking as a member of one of the many W3C working groups, I would say that it isn't desirable. When designing a standard, we want to have multiple competing implementations of the standard to ensure it is well defined and understood by users.

Should there be one implementation, we wouldn't be able to say with confidence that we have succeeded for that goal.

stuartd · 6 years ago

Because the interpreter pipeline shares code and data structures [0]: a couple of examples from the link below:

> The Baseline Interpreter uses the same frame layout as the Baseline JIT, but we’ve added some interpreter-specific fields to the frame.

> Because the Baseline Interpreter and JIT are so similar, a lot of the code generation code can be shared too. To do this, we added a templated BaselineCodeGen base class with two derived classes: - BaselineCompiler: used by the Baseline JIT to compile a script’s bytecode to machine code. - BaselineInterpreterGenerator: used to generate the Baseline Interpreter code.

[0] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/08/the-baseline-interpreter-a...

pjc50 · 6 years ago

I believe the Rust rewrite of parts is proceeding, but this tech blog explains what's going on: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/08/the-baseline-interpreter-a...

> The Baseline Interpreter sits between the C++ interpreter and the Baseline JIT and has elements from both. It executes all bytecode instructions with a fixed interpreter loop (like the C++ interpreter). In addition, it uses Inline Caches to improve performance and collect type information (like the Baseline JIT).

Including elements [of code] from both would be considerably harder in another language.

If you read closely it appears the interpreter is "generated" - that it, it's not written directly in C++ or anything at all, but is instead an interpreter emitted by the JIT compiler!

eyegor · 6 years ago

I was under the impression that this was a side goal of the servo project. Of course now it looks like it is it's own thing: https://servo.org/

Does anyone know if servo is supposed to be related to Firefox in some way, or if it is always meant to be independent?

ben0x539 · 6 years ago

Surely if your package manager installs firefox into /usr or whatever, it's not gonna be able to update itself either way, right?

svnpenn · 6 years ago

Its no longer possible with about:config - you must use a JSON file. However be careful - even once you create it, its destroyed upon manual update:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1576400

CamperBob2 · 6 years ago

Wow. With attitudes like this:

"The discussion about the method for disabling updates has been had over and over already, there is nothing left to say about it, and the change will not be reverted. You've been given workarounds for your problem. Please do not reopen this bug or file any others asking the same thing."

... who needs Microsoft?

frereubu · 6 years ago

Don't want to rain on your parade, but this is a long way from being generally available: https://caniuse.com/#search=text-decoration-thickness

11% coverage, and almost all of that is iOS Safari.

mcrider · 6 years ago

Me too -- This is a real quality of life improvement for developers that work with picky designers :)

gwern · 6 years ago

It'll be nice to simplify underline links tremendously once that becomes implemented in IE/Edge & Safari. The existing methods for avoiding underlines overlapping text descenders like Tufte-CSS's method (https://github.com/edwardtufte/tufte-css) are kinda crazy looking, and also cause the occasional bug with text highlighting.

sings · 6 years ago

I wonder if the default values for offset and thickness will respect those declared in the font. And also whether sub-pixel values are allowed? I don’t know how many fonts declare these values, but it would be a shame not to use information that provides values tailored to the font in use.

mgbmtl · 6 years ago

It does not allow notes, only login/password.

I use it to sync passwords with my phone. I like that I can use a fingerprint to unlock the file on my phone (instead of passphrase). I used to put silly passwords on sites I didn't care about (variants on a common password), but now I systematically generate a random password for all sites because there is no loss of convenience.

Timothycquinn · 6 years ago

Saw that too. What a wicked feature. Will make reverse engineering and debugging other peoples code much much easier!

echelon · 6 years ago

These look standard. Chrome already implements them:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-decora...

edoceo · 6 years ago

Just import your CA

firebird84 · 6 years ago

Turns out this was an issue with Firefox's automatic certificate selection logic. I changed it to ask me every time instead of automatically selecting certs, and once it saves my selection it's back to normal. I'm not sure how that changed in this release, but it's at least resolvable.

padenot · 6 years ago

Yes, we (the media team at Mozilla) know about this, and we're having a look.

The algorithm we use it not the best (and I think it's not the only cause of bad quality here), and we're investigating what to do.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1427267 is where we track this issue.

gdsimoes · 6 years ago

I just tried here and it’s not working. Do I need to change any settings?

the_jeremy · 6 years ago

I don't see any mention of this. I made some about:config changes before and got pinch zoom working on Firefox 68, but it only zooms 10% for each discrete pinch gesture I make. Did they update it to be better than this?

majora2007 · 6 years ago

It's not on Chrome's level, but it does have autofill. I hope that is next on their agenda. I love how Chrome prompts for security code and generates based on that.

I switched over to FF recently and just use Chrome for password generation, but looks like I can switch for good.

jacurtis · 6 years ago

> this means that my battery is going to last 4-5x longer with Safari

Well it might last 4-5x longer if you run safari in the background, since that is what you tested. But wouldn't the real test be running both browsers as the active window and comparing those results?

One thing that Safari is incredibly good at (and its' engineers are proud of) is the ability to reduce resource consumption for non-active tabs and windows to nearly zero. This is really good when running on battery because it is a shame to dedicate resources to things that aren't even visible on screen. But this could make the results far more dramatic through your test.

I would hypothesize that Safari still wins your performance test (if you were to re-test using them both as "active" windows), but probably not as dramatically as in the inactive window test.

maximente · 6 years ago

what would be interesting is running with state of the art ad blocking in safari (which IIRC they recently changed) and firefox with ublock origin on multiple domains so as to better approximate advertisement load across the web

i posit that ad blocking is actually a net resource saver, probably not at the level of using safari over firefox but certainly over unprotected firefox

(i am on gnu/linux or else i'd do this myself)

munmaek · 6 years ago

Test: open 10 tabs of techmeme.com, on OSX Catalina (10.15 Beta), on a 2015 retina 13" macbook pro.

Firefox: Threads 71, %CPU 2.5. Energy: 0.4. Opening the tabs all at once took up ~68% CPU. Energy went up to 75.

Safari: threads: 8, %CPU: 0.7-2. When opening the tabs: %CPU: 28%. Energy usage: 2.4.

Firefox grew sluggish when opening that many tabs at once. Safari handled it like a champ.

Pretty bleak for firefox.

paulcarroty · 6 years ago

Something like this happens on my Linux laptop: Firefox eats battery 2-3 times faster than Chrome & cooler activity is much more higher.

Seems like Firefox cares only about Windows.

The_rationalist · 6 years ago

Any number about chrome?

willtim · 6 years ago

IIRC Safari achieves this by suspending the processes in background tabs, which could be running inefficient JavaScript (polling for new ads etc). There's no cross-platform way to do this, but I think Mozilla absolutely need to try and find a way to address this. Web sites cannot be trusted to write efficient well-behaved JavaScript and so the burden of taming it falls upon the browser. There is probably some throttling going on, but clearly not enough. Running background JavaScript should be an opt-in permission, not the default.

BuckRogers · 6 years ago

On Windows I've been testing the new MS Edge because I've noticed my laptop has significantly higher CPU usage running FF. The reduced battery life is one thing, a hot laptop is another. Currently the new Edge is not as well optimized as the original, but there's more to come on that front.

I've been using FF since it was in beta, never left but I'm starting to come around to the reality that native browsers are best optimized for the device. While there's no real native browser to leverage on desktop Linux, on macOS/Windows, native may be the best way to go for most people. This is how break down browsers to friends and family.

Google Chrome- optimized for Google's needs and profit margin.

Microsoft Edge- optimized for your device, if running Windows.

Apple Safari- optimized for your device, if running macOS.

Mozilla Firefox- optimized for the user. Certainly a noble goal, but I increasingly have a "mobile" goal and that trend isn't slowing for anyone.

pfranz · 6 years ago

I just can't imagine Firefox will ever be performant as Safari. One is written for a single platform developed at the same company that develops the hardware and OS (I'm not trying to belittle the Safari team--it's kind of amazing what they do). The other is developed separately, must equally support at least 2 other OSes and has an expectation for supporting older setups.

My problem is that Safari won't work for me as a daily driver so it's not an option. It seems too aggressive in memory management and in reloading.

So I'm very happy to see Firefox improve performance over Firefox-v1.

Scarbutt · 6 years ago

Safari is a high bar to reach but they are getting closer to Chrome.

mthoms · 6 years ago

Firefox users should take a look at the "Auto Tab Discard"[0] extension. It offloads inactive tabs, saving CPU and RAM, (similar to how Safari works).

It doesn't work quite as transparently (or effectively) as Safari's equivalent functionality, but it does make a noticeable difference. It's worked very well for me.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...

samtimalsina · 6 years ago

> However, Firefox wouldn't exist without Google and (to a lesser extent, Google Chrome).

Can you elaborate on this? What kind of bundling and distribution deals?

otachack · 6 years ago

Agree with your points, but piggybacking to post Mozilla's donation page. We can be preemptive and give to them in order to help the cause.

https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/

rusk · 6 years ago

> Without Google's ad business Firefox wouldn't exist

Really? My recollection of events 15 years ago is a little hazy, but wasnt FF a browser-only release of Mozilla, itself Netscape which has been around as long as time itself (~25 years?)

What are we talking about here? There was very definitely a push around 2003 to get FF adopted en masse, and I guess Google probably were a big factor in this ...

Bit of a stretch to say FF wouldn’t have existed otherwise though. There was very definitely some dissatisfaction across the board with IE dominance and its not hard to imagine something like FF being inevitable.

staticassertion · 6 years ago

> I've recently seen a ton of FF fans state that the reason they love Firefox is that it doesn't have ads or track you and preserves your privacy.

> However, Firefox wouldn't exist without Google and (to a lesser extent, Google Chrome).

These are unrelated issues, though. A connection, financial or otherwise, to Google, does not mean that users aren't getting a browser that prioritizes privacy.

johnchristopher · 6 years ago

Oh, please. You make it sound like Mozilla is equivalent to Facebook. Is that a smear campaign ?

You can donate to the Mozilla foundation. Have you ? Have you convinced your company or your friends to do so ?

Because that's a better alternative than outright singling Mozilla out for their ties to Google. Which last time I checked didn't make the user the product of Google like Chrome or Android does.

rusk · 6 years ago

> we see users just outright refusing to pay

I’m not convinced this is true. Surveillance/Market insight/whatever is just too lucrative.

There’s plenty of examples of company’s that make a living by charging for a service but for a company like facebook, for example, excluding users runs counter to their whole business model.

“Charging” customers is hassle. If you can find a way to monetise without all that icky hassle, you will.

make3 · 6 years ago

What is actually disingenuous is equating the search deals to anything Google, like making adblocking harder and downright impossible on mobile

bad_user · 6 years ago

> I'd rather we live in a world where customers paid directly for the product and I was the customer (not the product).

Out of curiosity, what services and products are you paying for?

I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of HN users are still using a @gmail.com email address. And I'm actually in that super small minority that pays for services such as FastMail, Dropbox, Newsblur, 1Password, or YouTube (premium). I also donated to Mozilla among others.

---

The problem is that browsers should be part of the "commons", just like roads, since browsers are indespensible platforms in this day and age.

Are your taxes funding browsers? If no, then are you suggesting that only the privileged should have access to a good, modern browser?

---

Also products like Firefox are very unlike other products, because it's open source, both by license and by how it is developed. If Mozilla dies due to Google pulling the plug on their deal, Firefox is still open source and with enough resources somebody else can pick up its development.

To wit Thunderbird may still live under the Mozilla Foundation, but it is community driven, with donations from individuals being its primary source of funding. And it is moving along. Not as fast and it isn't as polished as its users would want, but it lives.

---

I'd rather use Mozilla's Firefox, instead of products with obscure VC-backed business models that just piggyback on top of Chromium and are thus in no way a threat to Chrome's monopoly.

jorvi · 6 years ago

Hence why I like Brave. Their model is very solid and seems a lot more sustainable than depending on Google as their overlord. Ads are voluntary, displayed as a system notification and vetted by Brave. Watch ads, you get tokens which pay publishers. If you don't want ads, you can buy tokens. If you don't want to buy tokens, you still won't see ads. And except for the first offer there is no nag screen either.

I think Firefox is awesome and it is really bad if we continue the Chrome/blink hegemony, but I can't stand for their decision to not block all ads instead of just trackers, especially on phones. The modern web without a 'real' adblocker is borderline unusable and Firefox prioritizing publishers over users doesn't sit well with me.

Vinnl · 6 years ago

> If you charge for a news site the users will revolt and go somewhere else. (...) Yet a large percentage of these same users will get angry and yell that they're privacy is being sold.

I'd contest that these are largely the same users.

In any case, I support the overall message: it'd be good if Mozilla found additional ways to finance their work, and I'm happy they're actively looking for them.

Santosh83 · 6 years ago

> I'd rather things be direct. I'd rather we live in a world where customers paid directly for the product and I was the customer (not the product).

There is a very simple way to achieve this. Sell your product for money, and provide no other option. The customer gives you money and you give them use of your product. Win-win.

deogeo · 6 years ago

> I'd rather things be direct. I'd rather we live in a world where customers paid directly for the product and I was the customer (not the product).

You don't have that choice - what happens is you pay and become the product. Cable TV used to be ad-free, since you paid for it, then they figured out they can make more money selling ads. There are ads on the buses and subways, even though you have to pay for tickets. Windows 10 shows you ads and spies on you, yet you have to pay for it. You pay for a TV, yet 'smart' features get included, that spy on you and show you ads. You pay for a movie ticket, yet have to sit through 20 minutes of ads before the movie starts.

neilobremski · 6 years ago

I wonder how my younger self from twenty years ago would have responded to me now: I'd prefer to PAY money for software once rather than being suckled by subscriptions, annoyed by ads, frazzled by fingerprinting, or prickled by privacy problems. Give me a nice over-sized box to stick on my desk for fifty bucks and some clean, well-developed software.

Of course in the meantime Firefox and Brave are doing well enough. I still feel as though I'm being towed along and probably the browser makers feel similarly.

bdcravens · 6 years ago

Google also pays Apple a significant sum ($12B in 2019: https://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-en...) to be the search engine default.

treve · 6 years ago

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-lockwise/id1314000270

pmtpmt · 6 years ago

What does it mean?

dredmorbius · 6 years ago

Containers. Better.

Vinnl · 6 years ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/search/?platform=Li...

roca · 6 years ago

Yes, that is true.

You can donate money to Mozilla. However, what Mozilla needs more than anything is more users, so spread the word!

dstaley · 6 years ago

Firefox still doesn't render native OS elements like select boxes and right-click menus, so I have little faith overflow scrolling will ever be fixed.

saagarjha · 6 years ago

But they ship their own browser?

kizer · 6 years ago

Just a slice of my stream of consciousness.

senorjazz · 6 years ago

no, has been in for the last couple of releases IIRC. I know I have it on and I don't use nightly

thenewnewguy · 6 years ago

Settings -> Click "Settings" under network settings (bottom of "General" section) -> Check "Enable DNS over HTTPS" -> Change provider (if you want a different one).

simcop2387 · 6 years ago

Looks like they used to have one, but it's been closed since 2016. https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/the-gear-store-s-last-day/74...

I imagine it either cost too much to run or didn't bring in enough to justify keeping it going unfortunately.

djsumdog · 6 years ago

Have you filed a bug report on their bugzilla? Is there a way they can test test certs? Are there public facing websites or are these all going to be internal/government?

jonny383 · 6 years ago

Excuse my ignorance. What does Firefox have to do with f.lux? I thought f.lux was a separate package that tinted colors on a level lower than the applications themselves?

skore · 6 years ago

You do realize that you are writing this comment on a site literally called "Hacker News", right?

(and yes, that is simply their technical blog)

tom-khagai · 6 years ago

To be fair, it's common practice to measure marketing campaign effectiveness. Mozilla doesn't hide that they share data to "Measure and support our marketing"

"Campaign and Referral Data: This helps Mozilla understand the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns."

"On iOS and Android: Firefox by default sends mobile campaign data to Adjust, our analytics vendor, which has its own privacy policy. Mobile campaign data includes a Google advertising ID, IP address, timestamp, country, language/locale, operating system, and app version. Read the documentation."

Src: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

squiggleblaz · 6 years ago

With Firefox, I'm mostly free. Alternatively, I can let Google be my feudal overlord. Nothing Firefox prohibits is permitted by Google. Easy choice