

Firefox 13 Released - Homepage + Speed Improvements - daleharvey
http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/06/05/firefox-has-a-redesigned-home-page-and-new-tab-experience-that-make-browsing-the-web-faster-and-easier/

======
superxor
Obligatory:

Release Notes: <http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/>

Complete list of changes: [http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/bugli...](http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/13.0/releasenotes/buglist.html)

This gotta get me some karma!

------
mbrubeck
This is the first release with SPDY enabled by default. Once most Firefox
users have updated, about half of all web traffic will be from SPDY-enabled
browsers.

~~~
thomasnext
Citation needed! What about users of old versions of Chrome, for example?

~~~
mbrubeck
Chrome has had SPDY enabled for at least a year now -- since around Chrome 10,
I think? And according to Statcounter measurements for this month to date [1],
28.75% of all page views currently come from Chrome 19.

From the same Statcounter numbers, 17.27% of all page views are from Firefox
12. So that's over 46% of page views this month using the latest versions of
Chrome and Firefox. And another few percent are just one or two versions
behind. So a couple of months from now, 50% of page views measured by
Statcounter should come from SPDY-enabled browsers, especially if IE
marketshare keeps shrinking rapidly.

[1] [http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
monthly-201206...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
monthly-201206-201206-bar)

~~~
kibwen
Also interesting: according to that graph, as of June 2012, Firefox's major
stable release at last surpassed IE's major stable release--just a few months
shy of the 10-year anniversary of the release of Firefox 0.1.

EDIT: Ha, actually, drilling back further, looks like that's not true at all:
Firefox's major release has surpassed IE9 for a while now. I was misled by
IE9's slow adoption curve.

------
rdsubhas
Opera introduced Speed Dial in 2007. I can't believe that its getting
published as a major feature today.

On a side note, I find the Chrome New Tab page much cooler. We can drag and
drop favorite sites at the bottom of the new tab page (where it shows "Most
Visited" and "Apps") and it creates our own customized group.

Edit: Fixed typo

~~~
idleloops
Well I don't quite follow this behaviour. But thanks, I hadn't clicked there
before.

~~~
rdsubhas
Yes it is quite undocumented, this is the best I could find:
[http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chrome/lqlO-
zYGki4/zTT...](http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chrome/lqlO-
zYGki4/zTTYiy0cgEcJ)

------
illumen
Discussion on "Why new firefox 13 'load tabs on demand' is bad UX.", some
solutions to the problem, plus comments from a chrome developer on why they
moved away from this behaviour can be found here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069535>

~~~
ars
BTW despite what the article says this is not from firefox 13 - I've had it at
least since 12, and probably even earlier.

~~~
mbrubeck
The option was disabled by default in Firefox 12 and earlier; it is enabled by
default starting with Firefox 13.

------
ditoa
Upgraded last night. Using it today it feels slightly lighter to use, it is
noticeably faster in general and has some nice UI polish that has been needed
for a while. Still my browser of choice. The new tab page got disabled right
away though, don't like it in other browsers and don't like it in Fx. Thank
god for about:config :)

~~~
jyap
Yeah, I don't like the New Tab page either.

For those reading, you can disable the interface entirely (click the grid
button in the top right corner).

------
mmuro
Being able to lock the pseudo class on the inspector is pretty freaking great
(though not quite as intuitive to figure out how just yet). Also, a very happy
change is that the panels remember what you want to have open.

Next on the list should be further integrating the console.

------
ck2
Also, FF 14b6 out tomorrow (I think).

14 works great, no problems with any of the dozens of extensions I use.

------
nhebb
Reminder: If you're like me and don't use FF anymore for anything but testing,
this is a good time to open it up and apply the update. This will save you the
frustration of having the update applied the next time you're in the middle of
working.

------
gouranga
If you don't like the homepage/new tab thing (I don't), as there appears to be
no options pane thing to disable it, do this:

1\. visit about:config

2\. Search for browser.newtabpage.enabled

3\. Set to false

~~~
mbrubeck
You can also just click on the icon in the top right corner of the page to
disable it.

~~~
gouranga
Thank you - much easier :)

------
mjcohenw
I use Firefox on a 2011 MacBook Pro/Lion and I find that memory usage
constantly increases, even when very little is going on (starts at about
200MB, soon reached 500MB). Because of this, I have switched to Chrome, whose
memory stays about 200MB.

My fingers have gotten used to doing command-option-shift-click which opens a
new tab AND switches to it.

~~~
TwoBit
Unless you have a leaking plugin, Firefox is likely doing that for
performance. You have a lot more than 500MB RAM, right? Why not take advantage
of it?

------
tedsuo
I noticed they added a "Most Visited Pages" display when you open a new tab,
much like Safari's "Top Sites", and like with Safari it's turned on by
default.

I wonder how many people accidentally have their porn habit outed the first
time they or a family-member/coworker opens the new version? Surprise!! :D

------
yuhong
This release finally ends support for Win2000 due to the move to VC2010, BTW.

------
fyolnish
They still haven't merged the tabs into the titlebar on os x..

~~~
Erunno
FWIW if you switch Firefox to small icon mode, hide the addon bar (previously
status bar) and the bookmark bar, then Firefox only has a few vertical pixel
less than Chrome for the content area. That's how I use my Firefox at least.

------
gaving
installed on osx; launched; still no lion scrollbars or full screen support

honestly mozilla?

~~~
mbrubeck
Lion full-screen (<http://bugzil.la/639705>) is coming in Firefox 14, which
will be released six weeks from today
(<https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar>). You can use it now on the
Aurora channel (<https://mozilla.org/firefox/aurora/>) and in a few days it'll
also be on the Beta channel (<https://mozilla.org/firefox/beta/>).

Lion-style scrollbars (<http://bugzil.la/636564>) are still in progress. You
can test them on the UX branch:
[https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/mozillas-ux-
nightly...](https://msujaws.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/mozillas-ux-nightly-
build-of-firefox/)

~~~
tomflack
I don't get Mozilla. The first OSX Lion developer preview came out in March of
2011. This kind of (very) slow adoption of platform improvements is the worst
way to win users, and by extension power, to fulfil their mission of a free
and open web.

I honestly can't think of an excuse for not supporting Lion specifics this
late in the game.

~~~
TwoBit
OSX support requires OSX contributors. So don't ask Mozilla what the excuse
is, ask your fellow OSX programmers.

~~~
tomflack
Mozilla take in millions a year from Google. If nobody is contributing to a
major platform - pay someone to. I don't even own a mac, but simply can't
understand how Mozilla are failing so badly at it.

------
pacomerh
Chrome is faster, has great extensions, why would I use Firefox?.

~~~
super_mario
Pentadactyl, Firebug are mostly the reasons I use Firefox. Also I like my
privacy.

~~~
pacomerh
Chrome dev tools are equal as powerful, and regarding the other comment about
speed. I have tried the new firefox and chrome still flows better. The reasons
posted here are not sufficient, sounds like the firefox users are just loyal.

~~~
fceccon
I recently started using Firefox Aurora after years with Chrome, so I'm not a
loyal FF user :) What made me switch is vimperator, I really like being able
to navigate with the keyboard when my MBP is docked and issuing commands by
their name(e.g., I can add a page to pinboard with `:pin`), also it saves some
screen space by removing the navigation toolbar. Another nice feature is
macro-recording, if you are doing a very repetitive task you can record a
macro and run it when needed.

Obviously FF is far from the perfect browser, I hate that it doesn't use
native ui elements on web pages(e.g., the `select` html element) and I think
it's a bit more resource-hungry than Chrome.

~~~
Erunno
"I think it's a bit more resource-hungry than Chrome"

Depends on what you measure and your usage patterns. Firefox runs circles
around Chrome with regards to memory usage and features like "load tabs on
demand" can further lower the general resource usage drastically.

The lack of native UI styling of 'select' elements is a disgrace though,
especially on Mac. Firefox is the last browser to exhibit this and there are
no sign that this will changed in the near future. :-(

