
Firefox Quantum Lands in Beta, Developer Edition - Vinnl
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/26/firefox-quantum-beta-developer-edition/
======
DiabloD3
As someone that jumped ship from how slow Chrome has gotten and went to
Nightly /w Stylo and (CPU threads - 1) e10s processes enabled about 2
monthsish ago...

Holy damn Firefox is actually fast.

Fair comparison, both having Pocket, uBlock, Evernote, OneNote, Pushbullet,
and Bitwarden; neither of them having an extension the other doesn't. Above
described Firefox Nightly config vs Chrome Dev.

Test machines are a workstation with a i7-4771 @ 3.9ghz, 32GB DDR3-2133,
Radeon 7970 with a trio of 1080p screens (a very fast modern machine from the
Haswell era) and a laptop with a i5-32120M, 8GB of DDR3-1600, Intel HD4000
iGPU feeding a 13" 2560x1600 @ 200% hidpi (an Ivy Bridge era MBPr 13" Late
2012). Both machines run Win10.

Both machines have less real world wait on Firefox than Chrome, and the
interface has less latency between when I do something and it even begins
processing the request. Also, under a ton of windows and tabs, Firefox seems
to use less RAM and the speed gap seems to widen.

I don't care about about artificial benchmarks, btw, they never seem to
measure what actually makes browsers slower for humans.

Edit: Even though I just said I don't care about benchmarks, using Speedometer
2.0-r2216: On the workstation: Firefox 58.0a1 2017-09-26 64bit 61.18 vs Chrome
63.0.3217.0 dev 64-bit 51.67; on the laptop, same versions: Firefox 28.58 vs
Chrome 26.74

So, arguably, flat out benchmarkable performance is the same, with Firefox
just slightly edging ahead (18% and 6% faster). It isn't enough to explain how
fast Firefox feels now.

Edit 2: And now with Edge 40.15063.0.0/EdgeHTML 15.15063: Workstation, 46.72;
Laptop 21.37. Firefox is 34% and 31% faster, Chrome is 25% and 11% faster.

~~~
k__
I switched to Chrome years ago and every time I try Firefox it feels sluggish,
so I don't switch back.

Last time was a week ago :\

~~~
bovermyer
This has been my experience also.

However, I'll try Quantum and see if it improves the situation. I really don't
want to be using Chrome.

~~~
bwat49
57 really is a huge improvement, I can no longer feel any difference in
responsiveness between firefox and chrome.

In some ways I think firefox has actually surpassed chrome (e.g. on my xps 13
touchpad scrolling is much more responsive/smoother in firefox)

~~~
gue5t
Re: touchpad scrolling, make sure you disable "smooth" (animated) scrolling
and enable precise scrolling; on Linux this requires setting MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1
in the environment.

~~~
k__
Nice, thanks!

Everything feels 10 times faster without smooth scrolling, while I have to say
that the nightly already felt blazing fast _with_ smooth scrolling, haha.

~~~
SubiculumCode
This should be off by default. Feels and looks faster. What is the downside?

~~~
gue5t
Tracking the thread through
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1207700](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1207700)
and
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170342](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1170342)
(and ultimately
[https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93539](https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93539)
) it appears that when XI2 is used, focus-out events were not sent in rare
cases under old versions of Xorg. If you're running modern software there
should be no downside.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Thanks. Could the Mozilla installer detect the version of Xorg and set ?

------
gepoch
Lots of comments from people suffering issues and missing their favorite
plugins, so I thought I'd jump in as a former Chrome user.

Firefox quantum is really very good. This is the first time in a long time
that I've been able to entertain switching browsers. It is at least on par
with the speed of chrome, and since I'm moving from chrome, I'm not really
missing any Firefox plugins too much. I've been able to port my most needed
plugins from chrome's app store, and I'm using an "open in chrome" plugin to
bridge the gap with hangouts so that I can have a reasonable workflow at work.
It's been a pleasure to use!

I am currently also experiencing the awesomeness of tab containers. These
things are a godsend, and I think they'll be in every browser before too much
longer.

I have to say, I do feel that Mozilla has sacrificed some of its existing
userbase to make a grab at Chrome's. It's worked in my case, but they've
definitely upended the environments of a lot of people. I hope it pays off for
them. For the first time in a long time though, Firefox feels really fast and
innovative again. I look forward to my next phase of my browser life as an
enthusiastic user.

~~~
baby
I think I'm not the only who wished Tree Style Tabs was integrated as a
default feature of Firefox. It's a primordial configuration to your browsing
experience but it's been constantly stabbed and fixed at every update of
Firefox.

~~~
Manishearth
Seems like Tree Style Tabs got ported to the WebExtensions version now! It
still can't hide the tab bar (API will come in later releases) but it works!

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-
ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

There's also the Tree Tabs extension which I don't like as much.

~~~
mintplant
[https://bugzil.la/1332447](https://bugzil.la/1332447) is the bug for adding a
WebExtensions API for hiding the tab bar.

------
callahad
We have a more developer focused article on the Hacks Blog at
[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-
developer-...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-
edition-fastest-firefox-ever/)

(Previous HN discussion was flagged as a dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15338795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15338795))

~~~
trbn
Congratulations on the new release, it's really amazing!

I'm a web developer and nowadays I'm using a lot of React. I quite often end
up switching to Chrome when I debug to get a useful error message/stack trace.
Is this because Facebook has targeted Chrome or is it simply because Chrome
has better error reporting? If the latter is the case, are you working on
improving this?

~~~
spicyj
If you notice things that React is doing worse in Firefox than Chrome, let us
(React team) know – it's not intentional and we'll want to fix.

------
imple
I can throw my hat into the ring and attest to just how great 57 is. I can
remember the Australis update coming out and receiving a mixed reaction, but I
can't see this update receiving anything but praise. If you've been on Chrome
for a while I'd definitely encourage you to try it out.

As a developer one small thing that's irked me is the recent removal of the
ability for the dev tools to render html responses. There's an bug open here
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1350229](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1350229)
but it seems to have stagnated. It seems like the functionality was removed on
a hunch and it's not been added back in, meaning I have to head to Chrome to
debug some ajax requests. This, and the lack of LastPass support are the only
things holding it back for me.

~~~
gilrain
Just as an aside, I used LastPass for a long time, and held on in discomfort
for a while after their acquisition, but their inability to keep their Firefox
plugin updated or even working finally convinced me to switch to 1Password. I
couldn't be happier, and their Firefox extension is modern and well-done!

~~~
sf_rob
LastPass has announced that they will have their extension updated by the time
57 hits release. I'm not sure it's fair to expect them to have something for
Beta even if their competitors do.

~~~
fgonzag
If you use firefox beta then it's fair to look for a product that supports
your use case.

------
interfixus
I have previously in several HN comments been vocal and adamant about leaving
the Mozilla shipwreck before it foundered on the shoals of 57.

And I may have been wrong.

At long last there is meaningful information on addons.mozilla.org about what
actually works now, and what doesn't. Looking nowhere near as bleak as it all
sounded just a few months ago. I can have my uMatrix, I can have something
Flagfoxish, I can open tabs by rightclicking links, I can have meaningful
search from context menu. I can have something which doesn't look like Chrome.
I may actually give the thing a chance.

~~~
jlgaddis
I've been wanting to go back to Firefox as my "daily browser" for quite a
while but performance was always the thing that made me switch back to Chrome
everytime I tried FF.

I'm sitting on the deck with my iPad at the moment but when I go back in I'm
gonna install one of these newer FF versions (probably nightly) on my primary
workstation (Arch Linux) and give it a fair chance. That box has 16c/32t so I
should see a huge improvement over the currently installed FF 55.

Hopefully it will be good enough to keep me on FF for good (extensions are my
big concern, although I only use a few).

------
doktrin
Wow, it really is blazing fast, and just at a glance I like what they're doing
with the dev tools. Unfortunately...

> Vimperator : "This add-on is not compatible with your version of Firefox."

Ouch. Guess I might need to wait a bit to make this my daily driver. All in
all, though, I have to say I'm really glad to see Firefox is still solidly in
this race - and with a kick ass and quite possibly superior product to boot.

edit :

I didn't realize at the outset that a FF57 version of Vimium was available
(link provided by gogoengie) :

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-
ff/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/)

~~~
xemoka
There's also Saka Key [ [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/saka-
key/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/saka-key/) ] that has an
vim keybindings mode. It looks like currently Vimium-FF cannot open new
tabs...

~~~
gogoengie
Could you be more specific? I don't believe this is a known issue. If you're
experiencing this behavior, you may want to report it:
[https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues](https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues)

Personally, I'm running Firefox 55.0.3 with `vimium-ff` 1.6.0 (current build
on addons.mozilla.org), and the `t` keybinding opens new tabs just like
`Ctrl-t`. Command repetition also works (eg, `5t`).

~~~
xemoka
Sorry, new tabs from links in background, using 'F'. Or at least with
yesterday's version on ff58.0a1

~~~
gogoengie
Ah, cool. Yes, known bug. Reported fixed yesterday (though I've not tried it
myself).

reported:
[https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/2510](https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/2510)

closed with:
[https://github.com/philc/vimium/pull/2602](https://github.com/philc/vimium/pull/2602)

I'm not familiar with their release cycle, so I don't know when it'll hit AMO.

------
childintime
I didn't try the new Firefox yet, but now the only thing possibly holding it
back are its confusing menus and dialogs:

\- we have the artificial distinction between the hamburger menu, the
traditional menu and several (Chrome-like) settings pages

\- yet, obviously, the New Page could function as the entry point to all of
Firefox features: history, favorites, settings, customization, extensions.
This would remove all clutter from the chrome, would be more discoverable, and
would be easily touch compatible.

\- dialogs, really, who want out of window dialogs? If you start with the New
Page, there is a full page to work with, and this also lets the user use
Ctrl+F to search for any hard to spot options. It is also mobile friendly.

And lastly, every single time I download a .exe Firefox asks me what I want to
do with it (I save it every time) and every time I click the checkbox that
says "Do this every time". But the dialog nevertheless keeps returning, with
this useless checkbox enabled, suggesting I didn't click it last time. Very
irritating.

So I hope the new UI improves things, there's quite a lot to gain.

Despite these gripes, it is my default browser, and I'm increasingly impressed
by the incredible work being done.

------
bad_user
Seeing some comments about Firefox vs Chrome on macOS below, here's my
experience ...

After several years of using Chrome I've switched to Firefox and I'm not going
back. I do occasionally use Chrome, like for Node.js profiling.

In terms of performance, Firefox has been behaving better than Chrome for my
usage patterns, using less memory too. Usage patterns matter a lot though. For
example Google's own apps (e.g. G Suite) tend to be optimized for Chrome, but
I'm not using Google's apps that much.

Stability has been improving, e10s is finally here, we've got multi-processing
and it's working. It's not so keen on starting one process per tab as Chrome,
but I like that, as memory usage tends to be better.

I've liked the "sandboxing" of Chrome's extensions, having a permissions
system that's better than nothing, however I trust Firefox's Add-ons more
because Mozilla has a trustworthy review system in place. At the end of the
day, when you give permissions to an Add-on for accessing your data _across
all websites you visit_ , you can always get screwed with a simple and silent
update from that developer and there have been countless of extensions on
Chrome's store turned to spyware over night.

Either way, Firefox now has a permissions system in place, they've been
introducing it gradually.

In terms of features, I love how natural the _Awesome Bar_ is when trying to
go back to a page from history. This is in comparison with Chrome that makes
you do more searches on Google. It also has had some great extensions for tab
management, some of which are now broken due to the transition, but I'm pretty
sure they'll become available again, because hackability is in Firefox's DNA.
Consider that Firefox on Android has supported plugins (and ad blockers) from
day 1, whereas Chrome still doesn't.

But overall, even if Firefox would be the worst one on the market, I would
probably keep using it because it's the only browser whose makers have been
looking after my interests as a user, for example being the only major browser
that tried opposing DRM or patent encumbered video encoding.

~~~
Vinnl
> Mozilla has a trustworthy review system in place

Note that they're switching the review system to a fully automated one
(initially): [https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/09/21/review-wait-
times...](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/09/21/review-wait-times-get-
shorter/)

It's still supposed to be trustworthy though, but I'm guessing Chrome's
similar.

------
Dylan16807
I just wish they would have filled in more missing APIs before mandating web
extensions.

For example there is no way to do a gestures extension that doesn't rely on
buggy DOM injection.

~~~
sorenjan
Yes, it's a real shame that it seems like they don't even care about
extensions anymore, and therefore forces me to stay on the older versions and
miss out on the new and welcome improvements. I'd be more ok with their switch
to web extensions if they had included more powerful API:s, even if they're
not available in other browsers.

My developer edition recently got upgraded to 57, and Greasemonkey stopped
working. Reading what the developer writes it seems as they are going to
rewrite the whole extension from scratch, with a lot of the functionality left
out because it's no longer possible to do.

~~~
addicted
Theyve built a whole development model reliant on extensions (Test Pilot).
They’ve made tremendous progress on enhancing the extensions API.

To say that they don’t care about extensions doesn’t seem to match the efforts
you can see in the browser.

~~~
baby
They def. don't care about Tree Style Tabs which is the reason number one a
lot of people use Firefox.

~~~
callahad
There are functioning development builds of TST as a WebExtension. This is
what it looked like last month:
[https://i.imgur.com/IBx8F6L.png](https://i.imgur.com/IBx8F6L.png)

Not sure how that translates to "not caring."

Edit: Oh, hey, look, the WebExtension version has been published:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-
ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

~~~
baby
1) It’s been constantly broken and re-fixed for years versions after versions

2) they do not reply to his requests or bugfiles

3) they could have made it a default in Firefox

~~~
callahad
And yet here it is, available and working as a WebExtension more than a month
before legacy add-ons go away. The process may look opaque, but as far as
results, I'm really not sure what more you want?

We moved to WebExtensions specifically to fix the problem of constant
breakage. Sure, it adds a layer of abstraction, but there's finally an
explicit interface that we can commit to supporting. The legacy APIs were a
monkeypatching free-for-all that prevented us from landing even minor
improvements or refactors for fear of potentially breaking some add-on
somewhere. Now that we have that interface, we can refactor without breaking
add-ons.

~~~
baby
And it's broken again :/ this time it just plain doesn't work and I can see
the vertical tabs again. This hasn't happened in years...

------
EasyTiger_
I've been trying out the nightly versions of 57 and it's really fast. Would
recommend people try out the Beta.

~~~
baby
Is Tree Style Tab working on it? I've disabled updates until further notice.

~~~
reikonomusha
Tree Style Tab is the killer feature for me and some of my scientist
coworkers. If this disappears or doesn’t work, I’ll probably use Chrome.

~~~
Yoric
Which would be a shame, now that Firefox is (IMHO) better than Chrome, once
again :)

~~~
snaky
Are you kidding? It's like "Blackberry is better than iPhone once again,
finally losing the keyboard".

The main and only distinctive feature of Firefox was programmability (XUL,
XPCOM), and now it's gone. There are forks like PaleMoon and Waterfox though
but for how long.

Firefox had to take that app-platform niche (thanks to XUL, XPCOM) that now
occupies Electron, but failed on that chasing after Chrome.

~~~
minitech
No, it’s not like that at all. Firefox’s performance, memory usage, and UI all
far outstrip Chrome’s in my browsing now; I don’t see any reason to use Chrome
apart from the usual cross-browser testing, and it’s been that way for a year
(?) now.

(And Firefox “forks” have always been a very good way to be behind on security
patches to no benefit.)

------
Mister_Snuggles
Decided to give this a quick try and WOW! I'm blown away by how fast it is!
The speed is incredible!

On the downside, two of the most important extensions I use (uMatrix and
Enpass) don't work with this version of Firefox. It looks like they're both
being updated to support it though, so it's just a matter of waiting til they
get published or installing them by hand.

~~~
jean-
Starting with 1.0.1b5, uMatrix is compatible with the latest Firefox:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/umatrix/versi...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/umatrix/versions/beta)

------
toephu2
I like the fact that Mozilla is honest with the comparison test video and
actually shows Chrome being faster than Firefox on a few sites (e.g.,
Instagram and YouTube).

~~~
JoshTriplett
It's interesting that, even in some cases where Chrome wins, Firefox starts
rendering useful parts of the page sooner. Watch the rendering carefully.

------
nwah1
Love all the new quantum, rust, and servo work. I try to use Firefox
exclusively, for the good of the web, and tell everyone to do likewise.

Only have a few issues with it. Frequently, I find that Firefox Sync doesn't
remember that I'm logged in, particularly after updates, which come
frequently.

Also, Firefox still requires a polyfill to use Web Components, although I
realize that Mozilla has been working to ensure that the standard gets
everything right, rather than just rushing right to approval. I don't know the
status of all that, but I am hopeful that it will be all sorted out soon.

Also hope the churn with the extensions is coming to an end, but happy that
the browser extensions standard is coming together. I prefer that it use an
open standard.

I would also like to see gtk done away with, and a variant of browser.html
used exclusively.

------
magnat
> Firefox Quantum enhances Firefox’s integration with Pocket, the read-it-
> later app that Mozilla acquired last year. When you open a new tab, you’ll
> see currently trending web pages recommended by Pocket users so you won’t
> miss out on what’s hot online, as well as your top sites.

That doesn't sound good. What are the reasons for having bloatware bundled in
instead releasing them as separate add-on or installation option?

~~~
Brakenshire
Pocket is now owned by Mozilla, and is going to be open sourced. What
separates that from any other functionality built into the browser, for
instance Firefox Sync or Autocomplete?

~~~
drdaeman
1\. Firefox Accounts & Sync is a terrible mess. Its security is still
broken[1] and it's insanely over-engineered[2].

I really wish it shouldn't have existed, and instead Mozilla would've focused
on providing an API to build a synchronization service upon. And then,
whatever - their services could've been an pre-bundled extension.

2\. I believe all of those SaaSes (i.e. Firefox Screenshots, too) shouldn't
belong to the browser's _core_. Those could be distributed as pre-bundled
extensions (which they actually are, but in a special way), but not as a part
of the browser itself.

This is highly opinionated, though. I just feel that rather than a browser,
Firefox is becoming something like a service platform. I don't like it for the
same reasons I tend to value self-hosting over the dependence on others'
services, and Free Software over non-free options. I recognize others may feel
very differently and possibly even welcome that.

\---

[1] Authentication pages are still served from network, so if you use it - you
trust Mozilla to not steal (or, better say, not be forced to steal) your
password and the encryption keys. The protocol is stable for quite a while so
I really don't know why they're still not fixing this.

[2] I wrote an alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync implementation, so
while I'm biased I sort of know what I'm talking about here. Four different
authentication protocols (BrowserID, Hawk, OAuth2 and JWT), multiple non-
standard HTTP headers, and the whole system just reeks of the NIH syndrome.

~~~
snaky
Add to this things like
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812348)
and
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814801)
to make the whole picture even worse.

Did you open-sourced your alternative self-hosted Accounts & Sync
implementation?

~~~
drdaeman
Yes, of course. Although I can't vouch for its security and stability - while
I use it myself and it seems to work OK, I'd rather state that it's risky. In
short, the repo is more like a code dump, rather than a properly released
project.

Still, here it is:
[https://gitlab.com/drdaeman/firesync](https://gitlab.com/drdaeman/firesync)

Development is very sporadic, though - you can see it in commit history. And
some parts of code feel dirty (in particular, I've made a bad design decision
when trying to avoid implementing full-fledged OAuth2).

The repo lacks few things:

1) Notes about patched PyBrowserID. It's in the repo, and you can check the
Dockerfile, but not in README.

2) Instructions on installing Kinto - another piece that is used to sync
WebExtension settings[1]. It became mandatory with 57, without it sync fails
and doesn't update "last synced" date (used to work in 56 and below). I'll add
some instructions later, when I'll find time to do so.

\----

[1] BTW, this means that everyone who runs self-hosted Sync but not Accounts
(relying on Mozilla tokens instead) are now storing parts of their data on
Mozilla servers. I don't think this was ever announced, I've only learned
about Kinto when my Firefoxes started to log errors in the browser console. If
you self-host Sync-only and think you may be affected - check
`webextensions.storage.sync.serverURL` value.

------
spiderfarmer
Firefox, I love you, but you and my 15" rMBP (with 4k Dell external monitor)
simply don't get along:
[https://i.imgur.com/rByz7zS.png](https://i.imgur.com/rByz7zS.png)

I don't what causes this, but in the last 2 years it's gotten worse and with
Quantum the CPU usage is even higher. Chrome and Safari don't have this issue.

~~~
angrygoat
I wonder if MacOS just isn't that much of a priority for Firefox? Popular but
heavy sites like Facebook perform quite poorly relative to Chrome on my
(admittedly quite old) early 2013 MBP, but the difference seems to vanish
under Linux or Windows.

I'd love to switch to Firefox, I'm not that keen to be running a browser made
by a gargantuan advertising agency.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> I wonder if MacOS just isn't that much of a priority for Firefox?

Hardly, most Mozilla people I've seen use a Mac, if anything, it's Linux that
is a bit less of a priority it seems.

------
shmerl
Just updated my Firefox beta to 57. A few observations:

1\. It does feel snappier.

2\. Tabs UI looks ugly. Bigger elements than older design, more bulky. Sharp
rectangular shapes of each tab UI element are standing out. It looks like a
touchscreen UI to me, and it's wasteful on a desktop.

3\. It also completely disabled all common add-ons like Adblock Plus and
Stylish. That's a BIG problem. Looks like Adblock Plus has a compatible beta
version at least.

~~~
boxama
2: Note you can select a smaller variant of all (default?) themes. Menu >
Customise > Bottom left > compact.

3: There's quite a few alternative add-ons I've found thus far - uBlock Origin
and Stylus. Sadly I was using Dark Background Light Text whixh has a webext
port only in progress.

~~~
shmerl
Thanks! Compact made it better, similar to how it was before.

------
Vinnl
More info about Firefox Quantum (aka Firefox 57) here:
[https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/quantum/](https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/quantum/)

(Also appears to feature an updated logo.)

~~~
Ambroos
Is this a known issue?

[https://cl.ly/1b2O1g231m47/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-26%20at%2...](https://cl.ly/1b2O1g231m47/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-26%20at%2016.08.31.png)

I'm on High Sierra and the UI at the top seems to do something really really
weird...

~~~
Vinnl
I haven't encountered this, but it'd be great if you could report it:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/)

Who knows, the fix might make it in time for the actual release.

~~~
Ambroos
Looks like it was already reported!
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1401957](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1401957)

------
cygned
As a web developer, I use my browser all day. Speed, stability and feature
support are crucial for me. Firefox hasn’t been so great, lately.

I see the improvents coming with this update. I hope that’s the beginning of
Firefox catching up again.

Keep up the great work!

------
eklavya
I so wanted to use the new Firefox and switch from safari. I searched and was
excited to learn there was an extension for integration with keychain on mac
only to learn that it was no longer supported :(

I understand the push behind web extensions but I don't think there will ever
be a keychain integration addon now.

~~~
AndrewCHM
fwiw there is nothing that web extensions lack that would prevent that from
working

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/Na...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/Native_messaging) exists to allow web extensions to talk
with programs on the computer, its up to someone to write the extension and
executable for that usecase

~~~
Manishearth
The OnePassword extension already does this fwiw.

(The webextension might be in beta? When I installed it a month ago it was in
"beta" and had to be installed directly from their site, idk if they've
uploaded it to the store yet)

------
zeep
It is a lot faster for me... so far, the most noticeable example is when using
the back/forward buttons on Reddit (it used to reload the whole page every
time) but more than half of the extensions that I use haven't been updated yet
to work with Firefox 57. Looks like you can enable legacy extensions,
about:config?filter=extensions.legacy.enabled, but it appears to be only for
installed extensions (you can't add new ones).

~~~
khc
does extensions.legacy.enabled actually work for you? I set it to true but
lastpass is still disabled

~~~
zeep
No it didnt... but I started from a fresh profile and I thought that it was
why

------
romanovcode
Looks amazing. I hope I will finally be able to ditch Chrome!

~~~
Vinnl
Try out the beta and let us know!

------
superdaniel
For people who use password managers, beware that lastpass's extension is not
compatible with the new release. Found that out the hard way.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
That seems more a failure on LastPass's part than Firefox's.

I say this as a LastPass user, they clearly don't give a rat's ass. They've
known about the WebExtension requirement for, what, a year now? Somehow
they're among the first apps to support Android Oreo's autofill API, yet they
can't be bothered to update their Firefox extension.

It's a real pity. I like LastPass. I pay for it. I use their Secure Notes
feature ALOT. But I may still have to switch if they can't get their act
together.

~~~
superdaniel
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. I would probably have switched to 1password
once they raised their prices, but at least my employer pays for lastpass for
me.

------
newfffast
It is so fast. The last time i was this amazed was my first ride in a Tesla
P85.

Excellent job Mozilla.

------
kpwags
I made the switch from Chrome to Firefox a couple of months ago primarily
because of the open source and privacy aspects.

I have to say I was impressed by the speed improvements, and since I started
using Firefox Nightly a couple months ago, it's gotten even faster. Only
complaint is that I don't have a working LastPass plugin yet, though they
claim they'll have it released by the time v57 is finalized.

I'd recommend anyone give it a try for a week or two and see what you think.

EDIT: I meant from Chrome to Firefox

~~~
Vinnl
Haha, it sounds like you meant "from Chrome to Firefox" :)

~~~
kpwags
Oops, yes.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Is the idea here that they'll just keep switching out pieces written in C++
for Rust until all of Firefox is Rust, rather than launching a new product?

~~~
mastax
Not really. Parts of Firefox like Tracemonkey (or whatever they call the js
engine now) aren't going to be rewritten because it would take a decade to do.
I expect that Firefox will always be built more like a C++ project with Rust
components than the other way.

That said "project quantum" is about improving the browser which applies to
all of the code not just the Rust parts.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
I see. The page didn't really go into specifics about _how_ they made Firefox
Quantum faster, so I had assumed that it was faster because they were
rewriting parts in Rust.

~~~
482794793792894
In part, it is because of a Rust component. A new CSS engine, Stylo, is
shipping with 57 and that brought a noticeable performance improvement. In the
foreseeable future there will also be WebRender, which should give an even
bigger improvement, but that wasn't ready for 57.

Another big part is that they recently switched Firefox over to a multiprocess
architecture (Firefox 48) and these performance improvements are now mostly
optimizations that are now possible due to this architecture. Basically
offloading all kinds of slower operations into a background thread. The
optimizations are all over the place, mostly of smaller nature, but taken
together they make a big difference.

And a third point is the new UI. It is partially really just more efficient,
partially uses animations and such to trick your brain into thinking that
things are faster, and then it also now has "tab warm-up", which basically
means that when you hover with your mouse over a tab, it already starts
loading in that tab, so that it's instantly there when you click.

~~~
Vinnl
> it also now has "tab warm-up", which basically means that when you hover
> with your mouse over a tab, it already starts loading in that tab, so that
> it's instantly there when you click.

They actually removed that again for now due to instability, IIRC it's slated
to arrive in Firefox 58.

------
yborg
So I kind of rely on Xmarks since I have to run on multiple browsers, and
afaik it's still the only cross-platform sync system. Unfortunately it's also
pretty much abandonware and highly unlikely to get ported to WebExtensions :/
Is there anything else out there that has similar functionality that would be
compatible?

~~~
callahad
WebExtensions started with Chrome API compatibility as a base, so you may be
able to just download the Chrome version's .crx file, unpack it, and run it in
Firefox, perhaps with some minor tweaks.

You can upload the CRX to
[https://www.extensiontest.com/](https://www.extensiontest.com/) to check if
it's likely to be compatible.

------
sumobob
I didn't believe the metrics, I downloaded it, I feel like Im browsing the web
in the fast lane.

------
willtim
Are there any plans to have Firefox throttle background tabs? This is one
feature from Chrome that is currently stopping me from switching. It's very
useful for laptops with lots of open tabs. The current rate of progress is
definitely impressive though.

~~~
callahad
Yes. Much of that work began landing in Firefox 55, and there's more to come.
We also more aggressively throttle scripts that are sourced from domains on
our tracking protection blacklist, so tracking / advertising scripts won't be
able to ruin your experience.

~~~
willtim
Thank you and keep up the excellent work! I look forward to trying it out (and
at some point switching).

------
supernintendo
Been using Developer Edition for a few months now. A few hiccups here and
there, but overall running well! It's cool to see performance gains with each
update, really speaks to how much work the Firefox team has been putting in
lately.

------
curt15
>Firefox Quantum feels right at home with today’s mouse and touch-driven
operating systems: Windows 10, macOS High Sierra, Android Oreo, and iOS 11.

What about Linux?

~~~
azeirah
Linux is not a touch-driven operating system as far as I know. There are so
many issues with touch in Linux that I don't even know where to start.

But.. that's not what you were getting at, just a tiny rant ;(

~~~
yoz-y
macOS does not support touch at all though

~~~
mastax
macOS supports touch really well, you're just expected to touch a pad not a
screen.

------
tinalumfoil
Bit of an issue for anyone with a touchscreen: No smooth zooming [0].

I eventually switched to firefox regardless, but the issue has been unassigned
for five years. Chrome, Edge and Firefox Android have had this feature for as
long as I can remember.

[0]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789906](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789906)

------
mtgx
That video in the post seems to show Chrome is still significantly faster in
half of the tests shown there. How is that possible? From what Servo was
initially promising (even 3-4x the speed of old Firefox), it didn't look like
Chrome would come close either.

Did they make that many compromises when "porting parts from Servo" to Gecko?
What's hurting Firefox's performance so much that even after implementing
Electrolysis and now Quantum, it still can't be a clear winner over Chrome in
performance? Is it simply a matter of Google "being ahead" in performance
tuning and having more engineers, etc, or is there something fundamentally
wrong with Firefox's codebase compared to Chrome's codebase?

I wish Mozilla was more committed to rewriting Firefox in Rust. Or perhaps it
would be better to have it as a completely new project, like they did with
Firefox Focus, which by the way to me it seems faster than Firefox + ublock
origin on Android, even though it only blocks trackers.

~~~
Vinnl
I guess it mostly comes down to "performance is difficult, and optimisations
for one use case might cause regressions for another".

Note, though, that there's still more to come [1].

Also, I guess the state of Servo can tell you what a tremendous effort
rewriting is, and why that would still take quite a while to finish.

[1] "Project Quantum: There’s more to come" at
[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-
developer-...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-
edition-fastest-firefox-ever/)

~~~
Eridrus
I look forward to seeing the rest land, but that video, while impressively
fair, didn't really leave me excited to install Firefox.

------
jug
This is very nice. I have always _wanted_ to use Firefox because a web built
much for the community is best used on a browser built by the community with
no corporate influences such as trying to push their own "web platform". It's
just that it has felt far too bulky compared to Chrome.

But yeah, this is quite workable, and Quantum WebRender hasn't even landed
yet. By Firefox 60 we should have even more substantial (i.e. noticeable)
improvements.

It's scrolling very smoothly, and the browser rendering sites doesn't seem to
impact typing into the adress bar much. It elegantly passes my personal little
stress test with multiple Periscope tabs running at once, something that near
killed Firefox 56. Honestly it doesn't even really flinch, and that's on an
aging laptop, but an 8 core at that, so I guess the Quantum components so far
in Firefox are happy about this.

------
mderazon
I would love switching but the only thing preventing me is the lack of
profiles like Chrome has. Containers is not the same as you can't have
different extensions for each container like chrome has for each profile.

For example, I have 2 LP accounts one for home and one for work and there's no
way to use both of then at the same time in FF

~~~
callahad
about:profiles -> launch in new browser

More info about profiles at [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-
manager-create-...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-
create-and-remove-firefox-profiles)

~~~
mderazon
Didn't know about this. It's still not nearly as convenient as Chrome. Hard to
switch profiles, hard to distinguish which window is which profile.

~~~
callahad
I agree that the UX isn't anywhere as seamless as Chrome's, though I've seen
add-ons that attempt to fill that niche. Hopefully we'll revisit it once
containers are done.

Personally, I'm on Linux most of the time, so I just bind a hotkey to `firefox
--ProfileManager --new-instance` and I'm off to the races. On Windows, I tend
to add shortcuts to the taskbar for each profile.

Nevertheless, the capability _is_ there. :)

------
INTPnerd
It has MRU tab switch ordering!!! Oh wait, Firefox already had that, I just
didn't care because it was.. Firefox. Now that it is faster, I care. If either
of those is missing I don't care about the browser. It needs to offer MRU tab
switching, and be fast, and be compatible with most websites, or at least with
web standards so that the websites will eventually be compatible with it.
Wait, that was like 3 or 4 things... Anyway, my point is, JUST ADD MRU TO
CHROME ALREADY so I can stop caring about which browser I'm using and just
always use Chrome, please. This is the place where you make a wish and it
comes true right?

------
Touche
Can someone more in the know explain if this uses webrender or not? I thought
that it did...

I have to admit that I'm not super impressed with the results here. Based on
the talk that pcwalton did:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erfnCaeLxSI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erfnCaeLxSI)
I was expected it not to just be a little faster than Chrome, but to, like,
double the speed, or more.

Is it that these are just not good candidates for showing how much faster than
webrender can be? Or has Firefox slowed it down vs. in Servo maybe?

~~~
steveklabnik
WebRender, last I heard, is targeting 58. It's certainly not in this release.

I use it in nightly via the config flag; it is pretty great but there are
still some glitches from time to time.

~~~
Touche
Actually Nightly is what I'm using. Is there a page where I can see the types
of speed advantages that pcwalton showed off in his talk?

~~~
Touche
Oh sorry, you said config flag, I haven't tried this yet.

~~~
steveklabnik
There are multiple; I forget which one is "real" WebRender and I'm on my phone
so I can't check.

Last I was looking at this, the big WebRender flag wasn't expected to be
faster due to the specific way it was integrated, you need the more aggressive
setting to get pure WebRender.

------
karkisuni
Running Safari 11 on High Sierra and got a 90 on the speedometer 2.0 test
referenced. Why are they bragging about a 66?

For reference, ran the test with Firefox Quantum on the same machine and got a
68.

~~~
tzs
I get 35.82 on Safari 11 on El Capitan. What is your hardware? I wonder if I'm
slower because I'm on older hardware, because I'm on an older version of OS X,
or both?

My hardware is a Mac Pro (Early 2009), 2.66 GHz quad core Xeon, 32 GB 1066 MHz
DDR3 ECC RAM, GeForce GT 120 512 MB.

What I get:

    
    
      35.82  Safari 11.0 (11604.1.38.1.7)
      34.89  Firefox 57.0b3
      32.01  Chrome 47.0.2526.106
      31.44  Firefox 58.0a1
      26.77  Firefox 55.0.3
    

I also for comparison gave it a shot on my Surface Pro 4 (Core i7, 2.2 GHz, 16
GB RAM, Intel Iris 540 GPU).

Here are the results for Chrome 60.0.3112.113. Since I was running on battery
I tried this at various power mode settings. Here are the results for Chrome
60.0.3112.113 arranged by power mode setting:

    
    
      70.18  Best performance
      69.61  Best performance (2nd time)
      68.03  Better performance
      50.84  Recommended
      41.33  Battery saver
    

There are two runs of "Best performance" because I did the tests in the order
best, better, recommended, battery saver, and so all but the first may have
benefited from caching from the previous. I ran best again after finishing
battery saver to get a run of best that would have the same caching benefit
the other may have received.

For Firefox 57.0b3 I get:

    
    
      54.34  Best performance
      58.91  Best performance (2nd time)
      57.91  Better performance
      40.51  Recommended
      34.28  Battery saver
    

Edge on best performance gave 34.69.

~~~
karkisuni
I'm on a iMac 2017 with a 3.8ghz i5, so yeah it might due to the newer
hardware.

Interesting that Firefox still scores roughly the same as Safari and Chrome on
your machine too. I don't understand why they'd make this big fuss.

------
burntchicken
Firefox 57 is quite impressive in terms of speed and the fancy new animations,
but unfortunately downgraded back to 56 because none of the extensions I use
have WebExtension variants for some reason? May look for alternatives at some
point but its so sad to see extensions like "Strict Popup Blocker" go because
of lacking API support. Really hope Firefox can work things out with these
extension developers in due time because this extension is a must-have for me.

------
chimen
Any idea how I can get rid of that title bar that sits on top of the tab bar?
In the demo I saw it's not present or it may have been cut from it. Linux

~~~
Vinnl
I think that's not possible yet (but soon):
[https://twitter.com/Sesivany/status/908628645299748865](https://twitter.com/Sesivany/status/908628645299748865)

That said, if you use GNOME Shell, the Pixel Saver extension is great for me:
[https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel-
saver/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel-saver/)

~~~
nol13
Yay! This was my current rabbit hole trying out the new dev edition. That and
trying to hide the tab strip after installing tab-center redux.

Was using ~cryptic setting in Hide Caption Title Bar Plus to accomplish this,
but it not ported yet.

I'll give it to them though it does seem fast.

~~~
Vinnl
People seem to report a modification of userChrome.css to hide the tab bar:
[https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues/1224#issuecomm...](https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues/1224#issuecomment-333048630)

------
mikeytown2
Using a Core2 Duo E7500 (Q1'09) and this is a noticeable improvement; but I
still find chrome faster in that the GUI doesn't stall. Firefox locks up when
typing into a new tab's address bar. Still using Firefox (55) as the daily
driver even though I have to kill it about 8 times a day. FF 57 does fix the
need to kill Firefox but then a couple of the plugins I use are not supported
anymore.

------
roryisok
Hopefully this will also trickle on down to the qbrt project and we'll have an
electron alternative* that's faster and uses less RAM

*a JavaScript one

~~~
azeirah
I'm kind of curious to see about an electron alternative using Servo in a year
or two

------
robbyking
I downloaded FF Quantum this morning and used it throughout the day, and
anecdotally I can say it feels a lot faster than Chrome for casual web
surfing.

That said, speed is only one of a number of factors I consider when choosing a
browser, and between the horrible UI and lack of compatible extensions, I'm
sticking with Chrome for the time being.

------
alanfranzoni
Still no live javascript editing, like Chrome scripts tab? This is a major
setdown that prevents me from using Firefox. Chrome has that since so many
years that I can't believe Firefox still hasn't got it. I think the latest
Firefox releases are fast and good as browsers.. but as a developer, that's a
showstopper.

~~~
humblebee
I've always seen this feature, but never used it. How does it work? I'm
curious if this works well with nodejs build systems, or if this only works
with "workspaces" (does souce maps allow this?).

------
ocdtrekkie
I've been extremely happy with Firefox's recent transformation. I was using
Edge for a while as my primary browser, because it was definitively the
fastest and it was worth tolerating a couple of bugs in exchange. But I'd put
Firefox now as being more or less as performant, and that's before Quantum.

------
nishs
Couldn't the minor speed differences in the comparison video [1] in the post
be attributed to the variable latencies of server responses? Or is that
accounted for somehow?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIywpvHewc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIywpvHewc0)

~~~
nishs
FWIW, this is the tool they used: [https://github.com/WPO-
Foundation/webpagetest](https://github.com/WPO-Foundation/webpagetest)

------
JTenerife
Can you enlighten me what's the thing with the developer edition?

It seems to have features that the standard edition doesn't have. But does the
standard edition have feature the dev edition doesen't?

Or are there some different features? Any of them reason not to use the dev
edition in daily browsing?

~~~
Vinnl
Dev edition is regular Firefox beta with some other defaults (theme, developer
options). The only reason you might not want to use it is because the
stability guarantees are less strong than for stable, but in practice, it
probably runs stable enough.

------
Myrmornis
One thing that stops me switching from Chrome is the multiple profiles and
easy profile switching in Chrome. I have work and personal profiles and then
other profiles for different roles I use in testing web applications. Last
time I checked it wasn't at all convenient to do this in Firefox.

~~~
Vinnl
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)

~~~
Myrmornis
Thanks, not compatible with the new firefox beta, but thanks.

~~~
Vinnl
It says at the top:

> Note: Firefox 57+58 users should Install from our latest GitHub Release [1]

[1]
[https://outgoing.prod.mozaws.net/v1/dc0c83a8fa9601d8fa71a456...](https://outgoing.prod.mozaws.net/v1/dc0c83a8fa9601d8fa71a4560a1055ad954f070fc607b05d7db2f36474856676/https%3A//github.com/mozilla/multi-
account-containers/releases/latest)

------
azinman2
So that benchmark video I assume shows loading from local disk (because if
network then not a fair benchmark)? If that’s the case, most websites seem to
take 8+ seconds and often around 30? Doesn’t this seem insane? It also doesn’t
seem to match my daily experience but I’m not using a stopwatch.

------
teleproto
And I'm just sitting here wondering if they'll ever share some love with the
Android version.

------
dvcrn
I am still with Safari as my main browser for battery life and performance on
Mac. Does anyone have insights how Firefox currently compares? I can't touch
Chrome without sacrificing at least an hour of battery life from my day

------
konart
Might switch to Fox, but only with full support for Chrome extensions. Last
time I checked - most of them didn't work on Nightly (can install with chrome
store foxify, but most of the functionality is dead).

~~~
callahad
Feel free to reach out to those add-on authors and suggest they port to
Firefox. It should be pretty much painless at this point, and we even have an
online linter at [http://extensiontest.com/](http://extensiontest.com/) that
should give them a good idea of what work needs to happen.

------
sixothree
Does anyone know what happened to that new tab groups feature? It allowed you
to be logged into a site with different users in different tabs. I was just
getting to trying it out when it disappeared.

~~~
pkhagah
It can be enabled with extension.

[https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers](https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers)

------
hashkb
I've been using Nightly as much as I can, but with the dev tools open
sometimes it likes to take a 30 second break before sending a request. I
really tried. FF- see you in another 6 months.

------
simlevesque
Quantum has been broken for me for at least a month. Everytime I click on the
right mouse button it goes to the previous page. It never happened on any
browser before including Firefox.

~~~
Yoric
That looks weird. Have you filed a bug?

Also, just in case, have you tried without extensions? Because that looks like
something that a misbehaving WebExtension could easily do.

~~~
simlevesque
I have no WebExtensions installed.

I sent a feedback but I'll file a bug report right now.

edit:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1403187](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1403187)

------
jsudhams
Is there a way to disable screenshot feature all together windows provide
winkey+shift+s so i don't some javascript keep taking screenshot and upload.

~~~
Vinnl
Just not clicking the screenshot button is probably the least amount of effort
;)

------
nurettin
Edge is still the most responsive browser for me when I'm connected to a
remote Windows desktop through a shaky 3g cellular connection.

------
shmerl
Dark theme of the developers tools became too dark (almost black). Is the
older gray/steel color theme still available?

------
tbking
NOTE: This update is going to be incompatible with all the legacy add-ons.
Happened with me. Though, the update's nice.

------
jeffdavis
I heard that the mobile and desktop versions of firefox are different. Is 57
going to be the same engine on both?

~~~
steveklabnik
My understanding is that this is only about the desktop, with android coming
later. And iOS can't use Gecko, so it doesn't count with this kind of thing.

------
JSJunky
That’s neat. However, my Firefox v55.0.3 crashes on a regular basis. I’d
really love to switch back but...

------
cwmma
Since we're on the subject, can anyone recommend a good hacker news formatted
that works with quantum?

------
phkahler
This is all awesome but... Does it run natively on Wayland yet? If not, how
does it perform on Xwayland?

------
taf2
Cool does it have support for Shadow DOM?

------
Froyoh
How does it compare with Safari on Macs?

------
JSJunky
That’s all good. However, my current Firefix Stable: v.55.0.3 crashes on a
regular basis. I’d really live to switch back, after all these Chrome years.

~~~
dblohm7
Have you sent in the crash reports? Go to about:crashes and post some URLs of
crash reports here.

------
davidgerard
> The new, minimalist design introduces square tabs

 __WILD APPLAUSE __

------
agumonkey
> No other browser can do this.

Every other browser can, they just don't as of now.

~~~
castis
Oh boy, I'll bite.

As you're probably well aware, several words in the english language have more
than a single authoritative meaning. The version of 'can' they were probably
using is: "Used to indicate possession of a specified capability or skill".

If the others do not currently possess that ability, then they cannot.

~~~
agumonkey
well I hope so, because I strongly dislike the notion that only some software
"can".

------
timwaagh
This a most pointless decision. making firefox fast at the expense of the
extensions.

why would it make people switch back to FF? because it's 1% faster than
chrome? come on, it's 2k17 and few care about that. Edge might be faster than
both and people still would not use it. FF had its selling point to power
users which is why i'm currently browsing from ff.

Now there is no reason at all to use it. I guess there is no reason not to use
it either however i think people will go with the bigger brand name. Maybe
power users will switch to some more niche browser. Maybe everyone will go to
chrome.

~~~
smacktoward
The two issues are separate -- they didn't change the extensions system to
make Firefox fast, they changed the extensions system because the old
extensions system was a security nightmare.

~~~
482794793792894
It does actually play into performance, too. The new multiprocess architecture
requires that extensions get updated to be compatible with it. It is possible
to achieve that in the old extension API, but every single extension author
would have to do that, which is just not ever going to happen.

Otherwise, if you install a multiprocess-incompatible extension, Firefox will
essentially fall back into single-process whenever that extension does
something. So, then a good portion of the extensions on AMO would come with
severe, for the user inexplicable performance problems. Mozilla would have
just not rolled that out without knowing that the switch to WebExtensions will
clean that all up.

Well, and then besides that there's also the points that 1) the old extension
API is quite complex, so it's comparatively hard for extension authors to
write an extension, especially also qualitatively good extension, 2) the old
extension API was really unstable, basically whenever Mozilla changed
something about Firefox, some extensions broke, and 3) with the new extension
API being based on Chrome's extension API, it becomes often trivial to port
Chrome extensions to Firefox, making it much more likely that Firefox will
continue to have extensions even if Chrome continues to eat up market share.

------
mdek
If you want to try these performance improvements (servo, e10s) but keep
legacy add-on compatibility (at least for now) I suggest installing firefox
56, disabling auto-updates, and making the following changes/additions in
about:config

browser.tabs.remote.autostart true browser.tabs.remote.force-enable true
layout.css.servo.enabled true

This way I get to keep my Tree Style Tab, Lastpass, and a few other add-ons
that haven't yet been ported to WebExtensions.

Convenient FTP link, since it seems right now the automated installers are
jumping between versions 55 and 57:
[https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/56.0b12/](https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/56.0b12/)

~~~
steveklabnik
Elsewhere in the thread it's stated that Tree Style Tabs has shipped a
57-compatible version, and that LastPass will be ready by the time this all
hits stable.

~~~
mdek
True. I did in fact have to explicitly downgrade TST to the <57-compatible
version. The new version apparently doesn't yet support hiding the tab bar
across the top of the browser.

~~~
floatboth
I think the API for hiding the tab bar hasn't landed yet. You can do that with
userChrome.css for now.

------
ScottAS
I think they should rebrand the browser entirely. I want to try this but
imagining the Firefox logo on my computer makes me sick to my stomach -
reminding me of a time when my browser crashed constantly and slowed to a
crawl if I had 5+ tabs open.

