
Firefox 18 - PankajGhosh
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/01/08/you-can-download-firefox-18-for-windows-mac-and-linux-right-now-official-launch-this-week/?fromcat=all
======
unicornporn
I've used Firefox since the time it was called Phoenix. I still use it as my
default browser, but there are two quite simple features in Chrome that I'm
really missing in Firefox:

1\. Exemplary implementation of user accounts. I have a separate user account
for my private Google account (Gmail, Calendar etc), a second for Facebook, a
third for work (separate Twitter and Google accounts) and a third for web
development. I know Firefox has a Profile manager and that it is possible to
use -no-remote to run several profiles at once. But: it does not work very
well at all. Not even with the [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/profileswitch...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/profileswitcher/) addon.

2\. Incognito window can run in parallel with the "normal" browsing session.
This is lovely when I want to see how a website looks in a clean browser. In
Firefox the private session replaces the normal session until i chose to go
back to "unprivate" again.

~~~
huskyr
Seconding 2). Incognito is not just for porn, but very handy to check for
cookie or session related troubles too. Chrome's implementation should be the
default for all private browsing sessions in browsers.

~~~
nossralf
Per-window private browsing is implemented and available in Nightly according
to [1] (so, most likely in Aurora after the release shift this week). So
hopefully it'll be in Firefox 20.

Meta-bug for per-window private browsing in Bugzilla is [2].

[1] [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-development-
highli...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-development-highlights-
per-window-private-browsing-canvas-globalcompositeoperation-new-values/)

[2] <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463027>

~~~
unicornporn
Great news!

------
mcpherrinm
This isn't officially released yet.

If you're the type who would be willing to install this, you should consider
using the Beta channel instead. Beta releases are generally very close to
release quality, and you'd help gather telemetry data earlier.

~~~
freditup
I've been using the beta channel since FF6 (maybe) and, as you said, it's been
quite reliable. It's fun because you feel like you're somehow an insider and
privileged because you get features (that no one but you would care about!)
earlier than everyone else. Yes, these are quite silly feelings, but what the
heck.

~~~
corin_
Sounds like you might enjoy the Nightly channel, in my experience it's been
pretty stable.

~~~
zanny
Aurora is a good compromise. I was on nightly for a few months, and I had one
or two times where something would break. Usually it was just a GUI element
getting misaligned from some change. The worst was when it broke web video for
a day.

I wish there was a reliable Aurora channel on Arch. The pkgbuild system isn't
well suited to keeping up to date with a moving filename target like Firefox.

~~~
km3k
There's an Arch developer named heftig who maintains a custom repository with
Aurora. I've been using it successfully the last few months. I think aurora is
updated daily, but I haven't watched it closely.

Info: <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=117157> Repo 32-bit:
<http://pkgbuild.com/~heftig/repo/i686> Repo 64-bit:
<http://pkgbuild.com/~heftig/repo/x86_64>

~~~
rammark
Another option is to download the latest build [1] and use the built-in
updater.

[1] [https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox-
bu...](https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/tinderbox-
builds/mozilla-aurora-linux64/)

------
Posibyte
_Initial support for the CSS Flexbox Module has been landed. It is disabled by
default but can be enabled by setting layout.css.flexbox.enabled to true._

This is actually a feature I'm waiting to see on at least both Chrome and
Firefox (without vendor prefixes). I haven't been tracking the spec closely
enough to see how close it is to being finalized since the "new" flexbox model
was adopted.

Other changes that interest me for fairly obvious reasons:

    
    
       Preliminary support for WebRTC.
       New HTML scaling algorithm.
       Performance improvements around tab switching.
       Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates.
       Support for W3C touch events impemented, taking the place of MozTouch events.
    

The last one for better, less specific Javascript.

~~~
lillycat
Firefox implements it without prefix (it is finalized). It will be enabled by
default in Fx 20. It supports both horizontal and vertical flexboxes but not
yet multiline flexbox.

Opera supports it fully and without prefix too.

Webkit tends to be (very) late in unprefixing (they are the only ones with
prefix for Animation, Gradients, Transitions nowadays.)

------
bsimpson
Browsers that support TouchEvents: \- Chrome (desktop and mobile) \- Safari
(mobile) \- Firefox (mobile, and now desktop)

Browsers that support Microsoft's proposed PointerEvents: \- Internet Explorer
(desktop and mobile)

I get in theory why having a combined touch/pen/mouse API is a good idea, but
MS's proposal makes handling multiple touches concurrently much harder than it
should be. It'd be nice if they'd get over themselves and implement the same
standard as everyone else (especially if they want to be relevant in a world
where touch interactions are designed primarily for WebKit, while they have
vanishingly low market share in touch-first devices.)

~~~
josteink
From what I've heard Microsoft's PointerEvents offer a better complete model,
without creating a web-standard which involves risks of getting sued by Apple
should you ever dare to implement it.

For once, it seems Microsoft has a better option.

And no, just because it's in WebKit doesn't make it better, much less an
official standard. WebKit is the new IE and it's destructive for the web.
People design for "Webkit" as if it _was_ the standard, and expect everyone
else "to eventually come along". We did see how well that plays out not that
many years ago, but then we did it for MSIE.

As a 5 minute user of Firefox mobile, I can attest to this happening right
now. The mobile web is at this point not even usuable on a non-webkit browser.

This is bad for the web. You are doing it. Please stop doing it.

The only thing good for the web is following web-standards. If you're not
complying to them, you are doing something wrong, and I don't care what your
reason is: You are doing something wrong.

~~~
noibl
> For once, it seems Microsoft has a better option.

Not for the first time. * { box-sizing: border-box; } is a staple of mine.

> WebKit is the new IE and it's destructive for the web.

 _Microsoft has submitted a patch to the WebKit project to extend the open
source rendering engine with a prototype implementation of the Pointer Events
specification that the company is also working on together with Google,
Mozilla, and Opera. ... The first specification, Touch Events, has been
essentially abandoned._ [1]

> The mobile web is at this point not even usuable on a non-webkit browser.
> This is bad for the web. You are doing it. Please stop doing it.

There's no need to hector web developers about this. (I assume that's what you
meant by 'you'.) It's mostly up to the browser makers to hash this out.
Microsoft's contribution to Webkit was an exemplary and, from what I can see,
much-welcomed response to Apple's patent shenanigans over Touch. Let's just
give it time.

It's worth bearing in mind that Android (which ships Webkit by default) is
currently the only mainstream mobile OS that even allows unrestricted use of
independent browser technology, which is partly why Firefox Mobile is only
available for that platform.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2012/12/micros...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2012/12/microsoft-offers-patches-to-webkit-to-aid-touch-
compatibility/)

~~~
bsimpson
I forgot about that. Wonder when/if it will land in Chrome...

------
sequence7
Does anyone know the state of a Modern UI (what used to be called Metro)
version of Firefox. I've recently switched to Windows 8 and love it apart from
the lack of a native Firefox, obviously I can run the desktop version but I'd
rather use the new UI where possible.

The last release/mention I found was a preview [1] in October last year and
then nothing but tumbleweed ...

[1]
[https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/10/04/firefox-m...](https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/10/04/firefox-
metro-preview/)

~~~
padenot
(Mozilla dev here)

I can guarantee you that people are working on it. I don't know the specifics,
but it's coming along. You can follow the commits here [1]. Of course because
it is free software, if you are not afraid to test a early prototype, you can
get a build for every push to the repo. It is a bit complicated (lots of
clicks in our custom CI interface), tell me if you are interested.

[1]: <http://hg.mozilla.org/projects/elm/>, the elm branch being the repo
where people work on Win8 support.

~~~
sequence7
Thanks padenot, it would be great if you could point me in the direction of
where to find the builds.

~~~
mbrubeck
Hi, I'm an engineer on the Metro Firefox team. Here's the best place to get a
nightly build with Metro enabled. Needless to say, these are unsupported
development snapshots and are not ready yet for everyday browsing:

[http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/lates...](http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-
elm/firefox-20.0a1.en-US.win32.installer.exe)

We hope to enable Metro in the main (mozilla-central) nightly builds within
the next few weeks.

------
michael_miller
Can anyone confirm whether final flexbox support was added?
<http://caniuse.com/flexbox> suggests that FF 18 only has support for the old
version of the standard.

~~~
Posibyte
As referenced from Mozilla[1], Firefox and Opera support the new spec without
prefix, Chrome supports it with the -webkit prefix, and Internet Explorer
supports the old-flexbox.

[1]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/CSS/Using_CSS_flexi...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/CSS/Using_CSS_flexible_boxes)

~~~
michael_miller
That page says it's behind a developer flag, and only limited single-line
support is provided. Is the page up to date, or is the feature fully
implemented, and accessible to anyone, regardless of flags?

~~~
kbrosnan
Firefox 20 will contain css3 flexbox unpreffed and unprefixed. Assuming
nothing is found that would make us flip the pref to false during the Aurora
or Beta cycles.

------
IgorPartola
> FIXED: Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages (62178).

Very nice. Check out the test page here:
<https://people.mozilla.com/~bsterne/tests/62178/test.html>

Also, if you can, switch your site to default to HTTPS (redirect from HTTP to
HTTPS right away), especially if you run some kind of an API. I am looking at
you Google, with your Charts API. Last I checked the only way to get those via
HTTPS was through one employee's epic quest to make their API's HTTPS-capable.

~~~
mrng
Huh? :-( <http://i.imgur.com/taamA.png>

~~~
bzbarsky
The relnote is subtly wrong. The functionality has been landed behind a pref,
but it's not on by default yet because there are a few UI issues to sort out.

------
tesmar2
I used firefox up until I ran into a nasty Javascript bug which caused Firebug
to conk out, never hitting the breakpoint. I switched to Chrome and the
breakpoint was hit every time. I got the overall impression that Firefox's
debugging tools weren't as good as Chrome's. Has this changed at all?

~~~
mbrubeck
Firefox now has a built-in debugger (which appeared in Firefox 15, released in
August 2012). This uses a new debugging back-end built by Mozilla's JS and
devtools teams, totally separate from the older Firebug debugger code. It
should be more robust, and has new features like remote debugging of code
running in Firefox for Android.

More info at [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/debugger-responsive-
design...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/07/debugger-responsive-design-view-
and-more-in-firefox-aurora-15/)

------
btipling
Please speed up SVG animations in Firefox 19. d3.js animations can be
painfully slow in Firefox when they aren't in Webkit.

~~~
lillycat
You should fill a bug with a demo in <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org> (with
timing in Fx and in a Webkit browser to show the problem)

They won't read you here.

------
netghost
The retina support is really welcome.

Up until now, using firefox on a retina mac was kind of disappointing.

------
JohnFromBuffalo
I'm still using 3.5.7. What more could you want?

~~~
Trezoid
Security updates? The huge number of performance boosts and resource use
reductions later versions have seen? The very large number of css properties
and selectors added?

------
fyolnish
Firefox version numbers could hardly be any more meaningless.

~~~
depr
Let's not have this discussion again.

