[HN Gopher] Firefox 86.0
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Firefox 86.0
        
       Author : LopRabbit
       Score  : 274 points
       Date   : 2021-02-26 06:10 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.mozilla.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.mozilla.org)
        
       | fctorial wrote:
       | Firefox is the only option for mobile webdev since it's the only
       | mobile browser with devtools. However I won't use it as my main
       | browser because of insanely frequent (and pointless) major ui
       | changes. It messes with your muscle memory. This isn't beta
       | software, is it?
        
         | viraptor wrote:
         | In the last two years I only noticed: address bar can be on the
         | bottom (user setting), open sites changed from tiles to a list.
         | What other major UI changes have happened? (Or are you talking
         | about desktop UI?)
        
           | fctorial wrote:
           | On desktop, url bar click behavior. It was changed from full
           | selection to cursor, and then reverted.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | > _What other major UI changes have happened?_
           | 
           | It's slow as molasses and loses UI events. I had auto-update
           | turned off so I didn't use the new Firefox for Android until
           | recently, and now I sincerely regret I updated it.
           | 
           | They also did something silly with trying to match your tap
           | to closest link even if your tap falls squarely outside of
           | the link's activation area. It's super annoying on sites with
           | small text, like HN.
           | 
           | On the flip side, the UI being garbage made me stop browsing
           | HN on my phone, so overall, perhaps that's an improvement in
           | terms of my productivity.
        
         | FeepingCreature wrote:
         | Yeah I just have a pinned beta apk from a while back that I
         | will never, ever update.
         | 
         | Same with Firefox on Desktop, for that matter.
        
           | SecurityLagoon wrote:
           | Please update your browser - sitting on old versions is just
           | asking for trouble. If you really want to maintain a
           | consistent interface then use the ESR releases which should
           | basically just be security updates.
        
             | FeepingCreature wrote:
             | Unfortunately, Firefox ESR already doesn't have TabMixPlus
             | support.
             | 
             | I'm on Waterfox Classic on desktop, but that's probably not
             | gonna last forever either. And when that eventually drops
             | support, I'll just stay on the last version until some
             | browser vendor brings multi row tabs back. On mobile, I
             | visit maybe five websites, and the three most common ones
             | don't have ads, so I'm happy with my pinned old Firefox
             | Beta version. And no matter what happens, I'm not upgrading
             | to current Firefox on Android - well, unless the thing that
             | happens is they take that abomination of a UI back behind
             | the shed and put it out of its misery...
             | 
             | The way I look at it, it's unfortunate that the one single
             | browser actually worth using sadly no longer gets security
             | updates. That sucks for me, but I'm also not gonna stop
             | using the browser.
        
         | ihuman wrote:
         | Safari on iOS kind of has devtools, but they're not available
         | on the go, since you still need a desktop computer to access
         | them. Enable the "web inspector" setting in iOS safari and the
         | "show develop menu" in macOS (both in the advanced settings
         | section). When you plug in the iOS device directly into the
         | Mac, it'll show up in the Mac's Safari's develop menu.
         | Unfortunately, this is completely useless if you don't have
         | access to a mac or are away from your computer.
        
         | throwaway077445 wrote:
         | I'm not a webdev, but I think you can use the Desktop Chrome
         | webviews to debug remotely.
         | https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/remo...
         | 
         | This should be possible on Firefox too:
         | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Remote_Debugg...
        
         | veselin wrote:
         | I use Firefox on Android all the time. When I occasionally open
         | Chrome, I see the UI there changes quite often. Now it has tab
         | groups. Maybe a month ago it changed the url bar.
        
           | fctorial wrote:
           | > Now it has tab groups
           | 
           | It's hidden behind a right click menu. So it's a muscle
           | memory friendly change. I don't remember the url bar change
           | to be too disorienting either.
        
             | Zababa wrote:
             | >So it's a muscle memory friendly change
             | 
             | It's not really. Now when you right click (long press) to
             | open a link on a new tab it opens it in the same tab group
             | as your tab. If you then use the button at the top to
             | switch tabs (how it worked before), you are now switching
             | tab groups. To switch tabs in your tab group, you have to
             | do it at the bottom.
        
         | heywherelogingo wrote:
         | Doesn't chrome do the same? I used it last night, opened the
         | history and that was considerably different.
        
       | pmurt7 wrote:
       | I was reading the blog posts of Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker:
       | 
       | https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/author/mitchellmozillacom/
       | 
       | What the fuck? It's almost like a (far-left) political agenda. No
       | words about the browser, the product vision, the future features
       | and so.
       | 
       | Mozilla is doomed.
        
         | afavour wrote:
         | So you're angry at the Mozilla CEO for posting about political
         | topics rather than the browser and product vision?
         | 
         | And yet here you are, in a thread about the Mozilla browser,
         | posting about political topics. Maybe take your own advice?
        
           | swebs wrote:
           | I don't know why you're being so hostile. It was in
           | interesting revelation to me. And pretty surprising too since
           | the last CEO was kicked out for far less.
        
             | jamienicol wrote:
             | Like so often on HN when this comes up, you fail to even
             | get the basic facts right. Such as _which_ CEO was  "kicked
             | out". And it certainly wasn't for far less
        
             | waxpoeticwhy35 wrote:
             | What's bad in that blog? Any particular article?
        
       | helij wrote:
       | My browser history is NCSA Mosaic->Netscape->Firefox. Even when
       | Firefox had its downs I stuck with it. Not sure why. It just felt
       | right. It was always perfect for me.
       | 
       | The only thing I miss are subtitles in Picture-in-Picture mode.
        
         | miroz wrote:
         | This. There maybe are some downsides to Firefox but it still
         | feels better than chrome. I'm staying with it
        
         | BuckRogers wrote:
         | Yup. I will say though, as someone that never left FF, the new
         | Edge is really good on Windows. I'm impressed. Edge is missing
         | some features that make browsing for me, a far more enjoyable
         | experience though. For Firefox, "It just feels right" is the
         | best way to put it.
        
         | dotancohen wrote:
         | Skipped over Phoenix?
        
         | cpeterso wrote:
         | Here's the Firefox bug for Picture-in-Picture subtitles.
         | Unfortunately there has not much progress.
         | 
         | https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1551058
        
       | megous wrote:
       | I wonder if the web engine development pretty much stopped, or
       | developer notes are just less detailed over the last year or so.
       | Those are a shadow of the former self, certainly.
        
         | taranissnark wrote:
         | They did let go of a third of their staff about a year ago.
        
           | megous wrote:
           | I know, all I wonder is whether engine development slowed
           | down or changelog person was let go, or whatever.
        
         | clairity wrote:
         | it's particularly aggravating that form fields have been
         | largely stagnant over the past 20 years. so much repetitive
         | development happens around forms (validations or date/time
         | pickers, for instance) and yet very little effort goes into
         | improving them.
        
         | dblohm7 wrote:
         | Most of the Gecko group was left intact.
        
         | jakub_g wrote:
         | Under "developer" section there's a link with dev focused
         | changelog
         | 
         | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel...
         | 
         | Note also that release schedule is now 4 weeks instead of 6
         | weeks. Hence each release might feel "smaller".
        
           | megous wrote:
           | I was writing about those dev changelogs and not just this
           | release...
        
       | BuckRogers wrote:
       | There's a lot of reasons why Firefox is still the best browser. I
       | never did move to Chrome all these years, and Edge is incredibly
       | impressive on Windows.
       | 
       | I'll detail my opinion on the path forward for Mozilla and
       | Firefox in particular.
       | 
       | Surprisingly it's been Firefox on iOS that's the biggest pull to
       | keep me on FF overall. I think that's the real way forward for
       | them. There's just too many Google nags to switch to Chrome on
       | the desktop. This is limited on mobile, and putting all resources
       | into mobile features is paramount. Then desktop version usage
       | increases due to sync features.
       | 
       | I'm a Windows and iOS user, and on the desktop, zippiness is
       | feature #1. I think they should move to Chromium, as unpopular as
       | that is. It'll save on maintenance and an un-Googled Chromium
       | like Edge is a very good thing. Leave FF exactly as it is, all
       | features intact with Chromium underpinnings, borrow a few
       | features from Vivaldi (horizontal tab support), and you easily
       | have the best browser on the market.
       | 
       | On iOS, it needs support for the URL bar to move to the bottom as
       | on Android. It needs uBlock Origin integrated by default, to
       | borrow from iOS Edge having adblock. Improving dark mode is key.
       | I just can't get it to work properly with DuckDuckGo's homepage.
       | Images are sometimes reversed. I've had to turn it off to get
       | pages to display a their native black background. I'd like to see
       | it work out of the box with Facebook's messenger feature, it
       | tries to redirect to the app, while in Safari this can be set to
       | open in desktop mode and just works. Otherwise, general stability
       | improvements and performance. It used to be very unstable, but
       | its come a long way now. It's my favorite mobile browser.
       | 
       | Would those changes be enough? I'm not sure, but I do know iOS
       | and Android browser support is the only possible way forward
       | other than services like their VPN.
       | 
       | I'm the type of user though that doesn't mind the ads in the URL
       | bar, pretty small ask on Mozilla's part. I also leave telemetry
       | enabled because I want my usage scenario to be in Mozilla's data.
       | As you can guess, I'm not the typical user that thinks Blink vs
       | Gecko is somehow a mighty crusade to save the web. Even if it
       | were where the real battle is, Mozilla is not the entity that's
       | properly armed to take up that fight. Apple or Microsoft would
       | be.
       | 
       | I have other ideas on how to move Mozilla forward and make it a
       | very big player in the tech space. The biggest problem
       | confronting Mozilla today is probably Mozilla. If I had to guess.
       | Trying to convey these ideas to leadership and get a path forward
       | set in the bureaucracy is probably pretty tough.
        
       | tweetle_beetle wrote:
       | > For Firefox users in Canada, credit card management and auto-
       | fill are now enabled.
       | 
       | Apparently this has been available to users in the US since v81,
       | and will be available to other locales in the future. Out of
       | curiosity, how are these features gated geographically?
        
       | forgotmypw17 wrote:
       | What I'd like to see in a browser is a button which resets it to
       | the UI from Firefox 1.0 [1]
       | 
       | OS-provided window border and titlebar
       | 
       | Standard menubar with keyboard hints, always displayed
       | 
       | Five buttons: Back, forward, reload, stop, home
       | 
       | Address bar and separate search field
       | 
       | Status bar which shows me link URL when I hover a link
       | 
       | [1] https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-
       | history/mozilla-f...
       | 
       | Personally, these days I use a keyboard-driven browser without
       | any of that stuff, just the frame, vertical tabs on the right,
       | and a status bar. But for people in my friends and family circle,
       | I think that interface would be infinitely more functional and
       | productive than anything else I've seen.
        
         | dudeinjapan wrote:
         | Should drop CSS support while they're at it.
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | You can turn off CSS in many browsers. It is under the
           | Accessiblity dialog in IE, at least in 6.x. Firefox also
           | supports disabling CSS in older versions, and so does Opera
           | before the crippling WebKit migration.
           | 
           | I can't imagine it being that difficult to implement as a
           | feature. If the setting is on, you would skip interpreting
           | any <style> tags and style= attributes.
           | 
           | Past versions of many browsers support selecting between
           | multiple stylesheets specified by the page, as well as
           | provide _your own_ stylesheet to use in place or in addition
           | to the page 's stylesheet.
           | 
           | (This was one of the main, amazing fucking benefits of CSS,
           | to separate presentation from content, so that users who were
           | hindered by the page's styles could turn it off and still be
           | able to view the content.
           | 
           | And all of it works great if you do it right, because the
           | styles cascade, and, I apologize for repeating myself, the
           | content layer is separate from the presentation layer.
           | 
           | At some point all these features went away, 'cause fuck
           | accessibility, I guess.
           | 
           | Meanwhile, CSS became Turing complete, so security-wise it's
           | like having a second JavaScript which cannot be turned off.
           | 
           | Great progress all around. /s
           | 
           | When people ask me why I spend time on ensuring that I
           | support older browsers in my projects, this is one of the
           | reasons. Sometimes I just want to use a decent fucking
           | browser that's not been lobotomized, and at least I can do it
           | on my own sites.
        
             | progman32 wrote:
             | Was View -> Page Style -> No Style removed for 86?
        
               | forgotmypw17 wrote:
               | The menu is no longer there, AFAIK. I have not spent much
               | time looking for the feature, to be honest, and I no
               | longer keep Firefox installed except when testing, so I
               | won't look for its existence now.
               | 
               | (I usually apt install before testing and apt remove
               | after, because otherwise it often becomes the system
               | default.)
        
               | progman32 wrote:
               | Just checked. It's there.
        
               | forgotmypw17 wrote:
               | Thank you
        
         | ebegnwgnen wrote:
         | Go to Menu -> Customize.
         | 
         | Tick "Title Bar"
         | 
         | Drag & Drop the "search" widget aside your URL bar
         | 
         | Drag & Drop the Five buttons you mention where you want
         | 
         | You're welcome.
         | 
         | (for the status bar URL link preview on hover it's already the
         | case by default)
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | Thank you for your reply. Your suggested solutions are not
           | complete, however.
           | 
           | The status bar is not persistent.
           | 
           | Also, for whatever reason, the URLs displayed in the status
           | bar are cut off with an ellipsis, even when they would fit
           | inside the window.
           | 
           | The menu bar -- File, Edit, View, etc. -- is still not
           | displayed. And when it is displayed, the keyboard
           | accelerators are not. I do realize this is in part the window
           | manager and OS's accomplishments.
           | 
           | By the way, most of the actions you described are not even
           | possible without using the mouse. Firefox, and most desktop
           | applications, used to be 100% accessible without using the
           | mouse. (Mac has always been an exception, but it was covered
           | 100% on Windows and close to complete on GNU.)
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | And have it all reverted at random because well "there seems
           | to be along time since you last used Firefox, do you want to
           | lose all your configurations? Yes. Later."
        
             | AshamedCaptain wrote:
             | Each time I see that prompt I have to pause and consider
             | the otherwise wacky theory that there evil forces trying to
             | cripple Mozilla from the inside.
             | 
             | Why. Just why.
        
               | forgotmypw17 wrote:
               | It's hard to try to come up with another explanation, to
               | be honest. When I try imagine how incompetence can
               | explain everything that's happened with Firefox in the
               | past several years, it feels like I'm going for the gold
               | in the mental gymnastics world championship.
        
           | chrismorgan wrote:
           | However, the status bar is no longer _persistent_ , but only
           | appears when hovering over a link. Also in the past you used
           | to be able to control the text in the status bar via the
           | window.status variable in JavaScript. This was disabled as it
           | was used for malicious purposes (faking link destinations and
           | misleading users by putting page-controlled content in the
           | browser chrome), and after that there didn't seem much point
           | to wasting 20-30px of precious vertical space all the time.
           | 
           | I would also note that the address bar and search box got
           | merged for a good reason, because their functionalities
           | steadily converged over time as the address bar became more
           | powerful and useful. You can still have them split if you
           | really want, but it is unlikely to actually benefit most
           | people.
        
         | stkdump wrote:
         | Can't imagine anyone being happier nowadays without tabs.
        
           | wtallis wrote:
           | Did you ever use Firefox 1.0? It supported tabs.
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | Tabs were always there since before it was even called
           | Firefox.
        
           | astura wrote:
           | Firefox has had tabs since it was in beta (and called
           | Phoenix); It's the reason I started using it back then
           | (~2002)
        
           | simongr3dal wrote:
           | Presumably your application would just be creating new
           | windows and your windowing system would take care of
           | displaying it as either tabs or separate windows.
        
         | jangid wrote:
         | I just want the disconnect button. It used to sit in status
         | bar. I don't want to fetch things when I am reading downloaded
         | articles.
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | Remember when browsers would actually cache pages and not
           | reload them every time you accidentally blinked or moved the
           | mouse cursor?
        
         | lucideer wrote:
         | Everything you listed except for the status bar can be gotten
         | by customising the UI in Firefox (not single-click but pretty
         | easy).
         | 
         | On the other hand, if this is the kind of approach to UI you
         | like personally, I think the Vivaldi browser would be up your
         | alley (sadly not open-source though).
        
           | forgotmypw17 wrote:
           | Sorry, but that is not even close to true, see my other
           | comment describing what doesn't work:
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26276871
           | 
           | Vivaldi is OK, but it's proprietary AFAIK?
        
             | lucideer wrote:
             | Aha, yes sorry: re: the menubar, I am on a Mac so I didn't
             | realise that wasn't restore-able on other systems.
             | 
             | Re: the status bar I had mentioned that, that's
             | unfortunately still missing.
             | 
             | Vivaldi is proprietary sadly :'( But it does tick all of
             | your boxes otherwise.
        
       | blfr wrote:
       | > Firefox now supports simultaneously watching multiple videos in
       | Picture-in-Picture.
       | 
       | Is Adderall the new Aspirin? Or is there some WFH use here that
       | I'm missing.
        
         | driverdan wrote:
         | I watched NASA's stream of Perseverance landing on Mars. It
         | would have been cool to watch a few different landings streams
         | at once since one had good narration and another had better
         | footage.
        
         | iso1631 wrote:
         | I have a fitlet running a pygtk 4screen vlc showing me 3 news
         | networks and a music stream on my 3rd monitor. I can click each
         | one to mute/unmute, mousewheel up/down to change the relative
         | volume, and the entire thing is compeltely separate from my
         | 
         | I can have 4 different sources on at the same time (music in
         | the background - quiet, one of the news channels a bit louder
         | if I'm waiting for something to happen, a corporate all-hands
         | zoom call I'm half listening to on the main computer, and maybe
         | a short video or meme, it's usually 2 or 3 though.
         | 
         | I don't use pip much as the one site I'd use it on (twitter)
         | works hard to stop the video playing as you scroll down anyway.
        
         | _ph_ wrote:
         | While I usually limit myself to one video playing on the
         | computer, when following live events it can happen that you
         | want to have two streams running. E.g. the multiple channels
         | streaming the Starship test flights or watch one video while
         | waiting for another stream to come online.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | I was exactly thinking about the Starship test flights for
           | this. I think that's the only time I've ever had more than a
           | single video playing at once.
        
         | swiley wrote:
         | When I watched YouTube regularly I would often have multiple
         | videos going. Some people talk slowly and YouTube encourages
         | filler in order to hit the 10 minute mark. When most of the
         | videos are like this you can definitely have a couple
         | monologues, some music, and something to read just fine.
        
           | blfr wrote:
           | You can speed up videos on Youtube. Both natively and with
           | yuotube-dl then play locally with mpv or your (lesser)
           | favourite player.
        
             | swiley wrote:
             | This was less clicks and faster.
        
               | wongarsu wrote:
               | Clicking on the gear in the youtube player allows you to
               | set playback speed. Most videos are very watchable on
               | 1.25x or 1.5x speed, on videos that are basically just
               | filler with some information in between I even go to 2x
        
         | joveian wrote:
         | I don't get it either, personally, but I remember reading
         | around high school (90s) a book called "Boost your Brainpower"
         | or something like that. They mostly recommended lots of
         | visualization (they said the trick is to say out loud what you
         | are seeing to improve) but also had a suggestion to watch
         | multiple televisions at the same time, suggesting it would be
         | helpful in some way or another that I have long since
         | forgotten. I never tried any of those, but hopefully in a
         | decade we'll be reading about "the browser feature that boosts
         | your brainpower" and not "the browser feature that made the
         | amphetamine crisis even worse".
        
         | arkitaip wrote:
         | Following a group of streamers at the same time is ideal for
         | this. Currently you need to use 3rd party services.
        
         | astura wrote:
         | Sports immediately comes to mind - Some people I know who are
         | really big into sports like watching/keeping track of multiple
         | games at once.
        
           | wongarsu wrote:
           | Not only multiple games, but also multiple viewpoints of the
           | same game. Twitch added support for that use case for esports
           | (I think as part of their deal with Overwatch League).
        
           | csin wrote:
           | This is a game changer for sports bettors.
           | 
           | Me personally, will probably stick to one video playing in
           | the background. It's more for ambient noise. On days when
           | there are 4 nba games going on simutaneously, I'm far too
           | busy fiddling with my spreadsheet/nba feed to be actually
           | watching the game.
        
         | thebiss wrote:
         | I have two, as yet unsolved, work from home use cases:
         | 
         | - I often would like to watch one team member update Trello or
         | Mural, at the same time as another updates Github, while I
         | update a contract. I'd move those streams to my 4k monitor, to
         | keep them readable, while I work on my primary.
         | 
         | - If I'm running a demo to a client, I'd like to have one
         | stream sharing the demo platform, while another shares video of
         | my haggard face, and a third shows my presentation. I don't
         | want to share my whole desktop, to avoid sharing slack or SMS
         | notifications.
         | 
         | OBS can probably do #2. Nothing does #1.
        
         | everdrive wrote:
         | I never understood this feature either. I can already make
         | multiple browser windows if I want. Definitely not interested
         | in PIP.
        
           | astura wrote:
           | Following along with a tutorial would be a big use case.
        
           | matsemann wrote:
           | I like that I can scale the video as I want. Like on a news-
           | site the only options are often a small inline viewer or full
           | screen. So I use PIP often for that even though I'm staying
           | on the page.
           | 
           | And it's just more convenient than trying to maximize the
           | space of another browser window and making it stay put above
           | other stuff. No extra chrome, no wasted inline space on the
           | page. I can just take a Blender tutorial for instance and
           | move directly above my Blender window and it obscures as
           | little as possible.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | Browser windows have decorations that take space. I don't use
           | PIP often, but it comes in handy when I have limited screen
           | real estate, like watching Netflix on my sidearm in tablet
           | mode, while simultaneously doing something on the web.
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | This is something better solved at the window manager
             | level. E.g. what if I want to have a PIP in my Xterm?
        
               | wongarsu wrote:
               | Sure, if you have a window manager that solves the
               | problem that's great. The rest of the world can use
               | Firefox's inferior integration while they wait for their
               | window manager to get that feature.
        
               | ubercow13 wrote:
               | How does a window manager get rid of Firefox's browser
               | chrome?
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Answer: it doesn't.
               | 
               | The problem is browsers have two layers of decoration:
               | the WM layer (which tiling window managers tend to
               | remove), and the internal layer - the tab bar, address
               | bar, option buttons, borders, etc.
               | 
               | As far as I know, there isn't a way to remove all that
               | without going full screen.
        
               | Macha wrote:
               | In the very first version of firefox with full screen
               | mode it ended up doing just that, rendering full screen
               | inside a normal window area in my tiling WM. It was
               | likely a bug/unimplemented feature at that stage, but to
               | be honest it would have been nice to have as an option
               | prior to pip.
        
               | vifon wrote:
               | For me it makes the fullscreen videos cover only the
               | Firefox window, so they effectively can serve as PIP
               | windows. To be honest, I have no idea how to enable it
               | outside of XMonad, it just worked like this on XMonad
               | many years ago when I switched to it and I actually liked
               | this behavior so here we are.
        
               | ubercow13 wrote:
               | Right but xmonad is very idiosyncratic in that behaviour.
               | I don't know of any other window manager that behaves
               | like that, and while it seems useful in Firefox, it
               | doesn't make much sense to ignore fullscreen requests
               | from an application like mpv which has no chrome anyway,
               | or say a video game which expects to be fullscreen and
               | doesn't know how to dynamically scale its UI down when
               | the window isn't the size it expects.
               | 
               | PiP seems to be a cleaner solution.
        
           | SubiculumCode wrote:
           | PIP also has pin-on-top feature, I believe letting you place
           | the video in a corner over an expanded, in-focus application.
        
           | acdha wrote:
           | I shared the initial reaction the first time I heard about it
           | but completely changed my mind after using it. The big win is
           | for poorly designed sites like YouTube which use non-standard
           | controls and waste a significant majority of the space. I
           | have hot keys to resize windows to screen quarters or halves
           | but for anything less than full screen on my laptop a YouTube
           | video will have less than half of the window devoted to the
           | actual content and the browser chrome will reduce that even
           | further.
           | 
           | If there's something I'm watching but not giving my full
           | attention to - say an event hasn't started yet or someone
           | will be landing a rover on Mars in an hour - this means that
           | I can either have a big chunk of my screen wasted or I can
           | use PiP and have just the thing I care about using a quarter
           | of the space but showing considerably more of the actual
           | content.
           | 
           | Plus, it uses well-tested standard controls so I don't have
           | to play games figuring out whose <script> kiddies don't think
           | about keyboard shortcuts or test their event handlers.
        
           | _ph_ wrote:
           | Most web pages only support two video sizes:
           | 
           | 1. unusably small 2. full screen. Which often means unusably
           | large (27" screen), especially for less-than-HD videos
           | 
           | At least youtube added at some time the cinema mode which
           | allowed the video to occupy the whole window width, that is
           | what I use most of the time. Still, PIP also has the
           | advantage of removing the window decorations, so saving
           | space. Also, they are floating on top of all other windows,
           | which helps, but also occasionally can be annoying.
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | For a serious answer, here's some links:
         | 
         | https://w3c.github.io/picture-in-picture/
         | 
         | https://github.com/w3c/picture-in-picture/blob/master/explai...
         | 
         | https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/10/watch-vide...
         | 
         | https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1463402
         | 
         | https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5729206566649856
         | 
         | Looks to me like it is a standard that web devs requested (e.g.
         | so you can scroll down YouTube or whatever and the video will
         | keep playing in the corner), which Firefox chose to also make
         | an end-user UI for.
        
           | sambe wrote:
           | I think the parent is primarily referring to the _multiple_
           | aspect of it (PiP was already supported).
        
       | alecmg wrote:
       | Found a random improvement: Kraken 1.1 benchmark runs faster now.
       | 
       | Improved from roughly 760 to 700ms on my 5800X.
       | 
       | Still ways to go to reach Chrome at 560ms
        
       | xuhu wrote:
       | How does Total Cookie Protection work with sites that redirect
       | users to authentication providers on other domains ? What about
       | shops that redirect to payment processors that rely on some magic
       | cookie sharing in the background ? What about company.com loading
       | some cookie-dependent content from company-cdn.com ?
        
         | DyslexicAtheist wrote:
         | > What about company.com loading some cookie-dependent content
         | from company-cdn.com ?
         | 
         | I've always tried to set up delivery of all static assets w/out
         | cookies so that I do not incur the performance overhead. Not
         | that it makes a huge difference except on very large sites. But
         | last time I checked, performance & speed-test tools even remove
         | points if this isn't done. Seems this is a feature not a bug or
         | am I missing something?
        
         | Ayesh wrote:
         | As far as I understand, this only affects sub requests
         | (iframes, Ajax requests, scripts, CSS, etc), and not the main
         | request.
         | 
         | In a redirect, the third party site is used as a friest party
         | request, and should not be limited by this.
         | 
         | See same site cookies and referrer policy to limit how much
         | information is leaked to a third party with redirects.
        
       | GolDDranks wrote:
       | One more release to avif!
        
         | gardaani wrote:
         | Would it make sense to skip AVIF and add JPEG XL instead or
         | wait for WebP2? JPEG XL and WebP2 have better image features,
         | such as progressive loading.
        
       | jdlyga wrote:
       | I always used Firefox because it was far ahead of other browsers
       | in terms of UI, such as good tabbed browsing. But now it's gotten
       | rather clunky compared to Chrome. It's been playing catch up for
       | years. For example, Firefox really needs to implement Tab Groups
       | like Chrome. It's such a great feature, and it's a shame that
       | Firefox doesn't have a version of it.
        
         | mippenhappen wrote:
         | >Tab Groups like Chrome
         | 
         | I knew it had added that feature but I didn't actually try it
         | until just now. And oh my god you can FOLD the group... tab
         | management just got a lot better for me!
        
         | buzzy_hacker wrote:
         | I like tree style tabs https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
        
       | eznzt wrote:
       | This new release also includes new ads, seems they forgot to put
       | that in the release notes:
       | https://twitter.com/CohanRobinson/status/1364172683118866433
        
         | leokennis wrote:
         | Oh wow.
         | 
         | Say what you want about Safari being outdated etc. but at least
         | they're not going to pull shit like this.
        
         | lucideer wrote:
         | Don't think the ads are in this release. They're being rolled
         | out to a cohort of users, independent of version.
        
         | bhandziuk wrote:
         | These are nearly unnoticeable because they seem to disappear as
         | soon as you start typing.
        
         | mminer237 wrote:
         | While it's scummy, I had those on 85, so it's not this release.
        
         | Jamieee wrote:
         | From the tweet's Author it's disabled via:
         | 
         | about:config
         | 
         | browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsored
         | 
         | browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites
         | 
         | there is also:
         | 
         | services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.newtabpage.activity-
         | stream.showSponsored
         | 
         | services.sync.prefs.sync.browser.newtabpage.activity-
         | stream.showSponsoredTopSites
        
           | SamuelAdams wrote:
           | Yes, this works. For now. The bigger problem is that this
           | will probably go away at some point and the "sponsored" items
           | will have no way (or a very difficult way) of being removed.
           | 
           | This has happened before with the browser toolbar having an
           | about:config option to disable enlarging behavior, now you
           | have to do some hacky CSS thing.
           | 
           | https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1274579
        
             | JadeNB wrote:
             | Now you don't just have to anticipate having options
             | removed; that's the explicit development plan. (Quote is
             | about a different preference, but I think it makes the
             | style of development clear.)
             | 
             | > We intend to add a keyboard shortcut for this[1]. In the
             | meantime you can revert to the old printing interface by
             | setting the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false`
             | via the page `about:config`. In a few releases time, after
             | we've finished integrating user feedback and polishing
             | rough edges, we intend to remove that preference though.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26275683
        
               | woodrowbarlow wrote:
               | they plan to remove a hidden about:config preference for
               | the system print dialog and replace it with a _dedicated
               | keyboard shortcut_. if you think that's evidence that
               | they want to take away your control, i beg to differ.
        
               | JadeNB wrote:
               | No, to be honest, I misread and thought that the final
               | sentence meant that they were taking all configurability,
               | both preference and keyboard shortcut, away.
        
           | cpeterso wrote:
           | Those preferences are also available in the Firefox UI so
           | they are accessible to non-power users:
           | 
           | 1. Click the "Customize your New Tab page" gear icon on the
           | New Tab page.
           | 
           | 2. Uncheck the "Sponsored Top Sites" and "Sponsored Stories"
           | checkboxes.
        
           | eznzt wrote:
           | I use Firefox ESR just so I don't have to do this every
           | couple months.
        
       | dbg31415 wrote:
       | Firefox is my browser of choice, but it handles streaming video /
       | video calls very poorly on MacOS. My MBP heats up and my battery
       | goes into free fall.
       | 
       | When I watch Twitch or take a Zoom call in Safari the fans may
       | come on, but it never gets anywhere near as hot. Honestly think
       | it's dangerous to the battery life.
       | 
       | According to Apple's Energy Usage stat, Firefox uses "57" where
       | Safari uses "1.7" for the same Zoom call.
       | 
       | Given how much is done on streaming video calls now, love it if
       | Firefox made this a priority.
        
       | wpdev_63 wrote:
       | If anyone from the firefox mobile team is here: please fix the
       | bug where you can't scroll through the tabs when they overflow.
       | Also opening whatsapp links for some reason doesn't open whatsapp
       | but chrome does. This bug and several other nuance things made me
       | go back to chrome mobile which is unfortunate. Especially with
       | the fact that chrome mobile doesn't support plugins.
       | 
       | I am a happy firefox user and the print preview is one of the
       | very few things that made me open chrome backup.
        
         | onelovetwo wrote:
         | While we'll reporting things here, please remove the `delete`
         | to go back, it has fucked me over so many times in text fields.
         | No other browser does it.
        
           | skymt wrote:
           | Backspace will no longer be used for navigation by default in
           | Firefox 87:
           | 
           | https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1041377
           | 
           | That key binding was added for interface compatibility with
           | Internet Explorer, which is less important these days. If
           | you'd like to disable it now, go to about:config and set
           | browser.backspace_action = 2.
        
             | ckcheng wrote:
             | On Linux, browser.backspace_action = 2 was default since
             | 2006-12-07:
             | 
             | http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action
             | 
             | Apparently, you can use value 1 to use backspace to scroll
             | a page if you like!
        
       | 0-_-0 wrote:
       | I wonder if Total Cookie Protection is unnecessary if I have
       | First Party Isolation enabled already
        
         | ihuman wrote:
         | It looks like TCP includes FPI, but isolates more data sources,
         | like the storage APIs and Workers.
         | https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/02/introducing-state-partitio...
        
       | partingshots wrote:
       | Firefox has hundreds of developers. I don't understand why
       | performance isn't on par with Chrome. I try my best to use
       | Firefox to bring support, but sometimes I just have to switch
       | back when things get too laggy.
       | 
       | I'm sorry, but I only have 8 hours a day, and I'm not going to
       | let my productivity flow get ruined.
        
         | dyingkneepad wrote:
         | What are you using that makes the performance difference be
         | even noticeable? With the exception of cases where Firefox is
         | absolutely broken, for me it's good enough. Or when I had
         | crappy extensions, have you tried disabling extensions? I only
         | have uBlock Origin and Firefox Containers these days.
         | 
         | It does sadden me that some sites are starting to refuse to
         | work with Firefox these days... But I won't give up.
        
           | shaicoleman wrote:
           | For me, Google Maps/Apple Maps (on DuckDuckGo) are painfully
           | laggy on Firefox/Linux, even after force enabling all the GPU
           | acceleration options. OpenStreetMap works fine, though.
           | 
           | That said, Google has a long history of making their products
           | glitchy on Firefox, so not sure it's all Firefox's fault.
           | 
           | https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-
           | has...
        
         | sleepless wrote:
         | Do you have numbers for this claim? Looking at
         | https://www.anandtech.com/show/16078/the-2020-browser-battle...
         | your statement does not match the test results. In which cases
         | are things getting laggy for you?
        
         | Tagbert wrote:
         | Are you using Webrender with Firefox? It's off by default but
         | once I turned it on, it sped up FF significantly. No beta
         | issues so far.
        
       | matsemann wrote:
       | Wow, Ctrl+P has now started to open the proper print-interface
       | with a preview! I've helped loads of people over the years
       | complaining about printing in Fx vs Chrome. It used to be so in
       | Fx that selecting Print from the menu opened an interface for
       | printing (ala Chrome), but pressing Ctrl+P just opened standard
       | OS print dialog. So power users never saw the nice print preview.
        
         | bradstewart wrote:
         | Wow. I switched to Firefox around the same time I switched a
         | Mac for work, and just assumed the lack of print preview was a
         | weird macOS thing.
         | 
         | This makes me happy.
        
           | lucideer wrote:
           | fwiw Firefox always had _a_ print preview; it was just behind
           | a different shortcut rather than integrated into the default
           | flow.
        
             | frosted-flakes wrote:
             | The old Print Preview actually allowed you to inspect the
             | page with the Developer Tools. Which was great for
             | debugging print-specific CSS. I don't think that's possible
             | with the new Print Preview, but the new one is better in
             | every other way.
        
               | folknor wrote:
               | Should be possible using the Browser Toolbox to inspect
               | the entire interface? I just checked and the HTML is
               | definitely in the inspector at least, but I'm not sure
               | what your requirements are.
        
               | lights0123 wrote:
               | What do you mean by "Browser Toolbox"? Firefox doesn't
               | have Chrome's @media (print) emulation.
        
             | bradstewart wrote:
             | I would have literally never discovered that without this
             | post. I honestly forgot there was a File->Print button
             | until I read this. Ctrl/cmd+P is jus burned into my muscle
             | memory.
        
           | jwatt wrote:
           | Actually, you were correct. Firefox on Windows and Linux has
           | provided a print preview "since forever", but this is the
           | first time Firefox has had print preview functionality on
           | macOS (outside of using the system print dialog to generate
           | and open a PDF in the Preview app).
        
             | bradstewart wrote:
             | Right. I just assumed Chrome and Safari also lacked print
             | preview on macOS, didn't even think to check.
        
         | callmeal wrote:
         | For those of us that prefer the OS print dialog, how can we
         | stop this madness?
        
           | berelig wrote:
           | There is an option to print using the system dialog on the
           | right panel after you press COMMAND + P
        
           | lucideer wrote:
           | There's a link to the OS print dialog in the new print
           | preview view (not perfect, but better than nothing if you
           | prefer it)
        
             | Wowfunhappy wrote:
             | :( So there's no way to just default to that? In chrome
             | there's a `defaults write` command that does it.
             | 
             | I really dislike this philosophy of replacing the system
             | functionality. Particularly on Mac where the system
             | functionality is quite good. (On Windows and Linux, I
             | admittedly don't care as much, because nothing is ever
             | consistent anyway...)
        
           | jwatt wrote:
           | We intend to add a keyboard shortcut for this[1]. In the
           | meantime you can revert to the old printing interface by
           | setting the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false`
           | via the page `about:config`. In a few releases time, after
           | we've finished integrating user feedback and polishing rough
           | edges, we intend to remove that preference though.
           | 
           | 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950
        
             | nogridbag wrote:
             | We have an application using a web based PDF viewer
             | (PDFTron) and printing PDFs has always been a pain point.
             | That library supports "embedded printing" which only works
             | on Chrome (https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides
             | /print/overv...). So for now we're advising our customers
             | to use Chrome for our application. Do you know if this is
             | something being improved upon? Sorry this is a bit OT!
        
               | jwatt wrote:
               | Offhand I'm not sure what functionality Firefox is
               | missing that has caused them to only support Chrome. I'd
               | be interested in taking a look though if you have their
               | paid support and can persuade them to either file a
               | bug[1] (or to give you sufficient technical information
               | so that you can file a bug).
               | 
               | 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Cor
               | e&comp...
        
               | nogridbag wrote:
               | Thanks! I'll get in contact with their support. Too late
               | to edit my earlier post. The link to their embedded
               | printing is: https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/gu
               | ides/print/overv...
        
             | JadeNB wrote:
             | Why is Firefox, with its devotion to hearing the user's
             | voice, always in such a hurry to remove toggles that
             | express user preferences?
        
               | jwatt wrote:
               | In the general case where that's true I expect it mostly
               | comes down to trying to balance features against
               | available resources and the amount/complexity of the code
               | that needs to be written/maintained. As noted elsewhere
               | in this thread, there were a bunch of layoffs at Mozilla
               | the last year, but even without that it's sometimes
               | necessary to make tough, pragmatic decisions.
               | 
               | In the case of the new print preview/workflow, however, I
               | expect it will provide virtually everyone with a better
               | workflow once we've finished polishing any rough edges.
               | The feedback on places like Reddit indicates that it's
               | already a very clear net win for most users, and I think
               | we can address most of the complaints on
               | support.mozilla.org etc. The eventual removal of the
               | `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference and the old code
               | will simply be because having two print preview
               | implementations adds code complexity and is a maintenance
               | burden.
        
               | JadeNB wrote:
               | Thank you for the reply, which you must get tired of
               | giving but which you nonetheless gave politely.
               | 
               | I understand that the needs of any one user, such as me,
               | with a particular idiosyncratic set of needs and
               | preferences are at odds with those of the body of users
               | as a whole, who need an appropriate balance between
               | customiseability and useability, together with, of
               | course, deliverability--it's no good having a product
               | custom-tailored to fit every possible combination of
               | needs if the developers collapse under the maintenance
               | weight.
               | 
               | I didn't really mean what I said as anything other than a
               | _cri de coeur_ : it sometimes seems that Firefox rode to
               | its current position on the wave of the love and passion
               | of power users, a group of which I am on the periphery,
               | but now cares more about its numerically larger but less
               | devoted casual user base. This is probably the right
               | decision, but it's still frustrating as one of those
               | long-time users (from back in the Phoenix days!).
        
         | drewzero1 wrote:
         | I noticed that! I've been using the print preview from the File
         | menu (a bit cumbersome with menus hidden and without a
         | dedicated shortcut) and noticed that I didn't have the option
         | this week.
         | 
         | I seem to remember the controls for page fit being a little
         | better with the old print preview, but my real complaint is
         | with websites that don't scale well to print rather than
         | Firefox's method of printing them.
        
         | purerandomness wrote:
         | Oh my god! I've never seen the proper print interface and
         | always assumed Mozilla simply didn't care about printing.
        
         | driverdan wrote:
         | This doesn't appear to be new in 86. I'm on 85 and it has
         | preview when I hit Cmd+P.
        
         | betamaxthetape wrote:
         | As someone who always used the Ctrl-P keyboard shortcut, I
         | never even knew that a print-with-preview interface existed in
         | Firefox.
        
           | dtx1 wrote:
           | It never even occured to me to use the menu version. What an
           | upgrade
        
             | agumonkey wrote:
             | you guys made me read the menu shortcuts .. didn't know
             | reader mode and all-tabs had them (in order CTRL-ALT-R and
             | CTRL-SHIFT-TAB)
        
               | _Microft wrote:
               | May I blow your mind? ;)
               | 
               |  _Ctrl-1_ to _Ctrl-8_ accesses the first eight tabs
               | directly, _Ctrl-9_ jumps to the last tab. Enjoy!
        
               | agumonkey wrote:
               | I think you meant Alt-N and yeah I did know (don't even
               | know how but I use it every day since forever..)
        
               | Raphael_Amiard wrote:
               | It'll be alt-n on mac's I think!
        
               | dotancohen wrote:
               | Try Tridactyl. You can access any tab directly with `b`.
        
               | jdfellow wrote:
               | I didn't know about the Ctrl-9. Thanks.
        
           | iso1631 wrote:
           | I'm on Firefox 84, pressing file/print or ctrl-p brings up a
           | preview window on the left, printer selection on the right.
        
             | jwatt wrote:
             | The new print interface has been progressively released to
             | a subset of users over multiple releases. It's only gone to
             | 100% of users as of Firefox 86.
        
               | runarberg wrote:
               | I guess I was in the early rollout. I was in the middle
               | of designing a print layout about a month or two ago when
               | firefox got updated. After a restart I suddenly was
               | missing the print preview option in the menu to test my
               | design. I was really glad to see that I could from now on
               | just press Ctrl + P and get a much better experience.
        
       | ritonlajoie wrote:
       | I'm sorry Firefox, after using you for 3 years, I tried chrome
       | again and for my usage, Chrome seems more reactive to my
       | browsing, faster. I really tried but whenever I play some media,
       | I have issues with my nvidia driver (using windows 10) or stuff
       | like that. I will try again in the future for sure if you are
       | still aroung !
        
       | pentagrama wrote:
       | Not totally related, but someone know if exist an RSS feed to
       | follow the stable Firefox releases? Can't find it on this page.
       | 
       | This Firefox changelogs are awesome to know big improvements and
       | new features on a surface level.
       | 
       | For Chrome I didn't find a proper way to follow the releases even
       | if it has some RSS feeds, I follow the RSS feed of Chrome
       | Releases blog [1] with a tag filter [2] but can't exclude the
       | several point releases, and also the changelogs are not very
       | informative [3]. And the Chrome blog [4] I get some feature
       | announcements but is a mix bag.
       | 
       | [1] https://chromereleases.googleblog.com
       | 
       | [2]
       | http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default...
       | 
       | [3] https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2021/01/stable-
       | channel...
       | 
       | [4] https://blog.google/products/chrome/
        
         | nitrohorse wrote:
         | Interested myself, currently using
         | https://groups.google.com/forum/feed/mozilla.announce/msgs/r...
         | (https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.announce).
        
           | pentagrama wrote:
           | Thank you! That's perfect! And a bit ironic that the RSS feed
           | is on a Google product aka the company that kill Google
           | Reader.
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-26 23:03 UTC)