
Firefox 57.0 Released - l2dy
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/57.0/releasenotes/
======
parmesan
I just updated - WOW! What an improvement! Compared startup time and scrolling
around some over-monetized sites; Behaves just as well as Chrome. Time for a
switch again, I've missed FireFox since I started having Chrome as my default
browser back in ~2011

~~~
manojlds
If it as just as good as chrome, why should I switch? Especially given how
good Chrome Dev tools are.

~~~
callahad
Aside from the privacy / philosophy / openness / counterweight-to-
monopolization-of-the-Web angles which Yoric mentioned, you might find we're
actually better than Chrome in some areas. Often small things, but I find I
prefer the _feel_ of Firefox to Chrome.

\- If you do frontend work, our CSS grid inspector is unparalleled
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspector/How_to/Examine_grid_layouts)

\- Firefox has built-in tracking protection
([https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/12/firefox-to-
offer...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/11/12/firefox-to-offer-
tracking-protection-for-all-in-its-next-update/))

\- Powerful add-ons like Tree Style Tab make managing large numbers of tabs
much easier ([https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-
tab/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/))

\- Our WebAssembly performance tends to be better

\- We should have better resource utilization when you have many tabs open

\- You can mute audio on a page clicking the little speaker icon in the tab

If you want to contribute to the DevTools themselves, they're built using
standard web technologies: HTML/JS, React/Redux, etc.
[https://github.com/devtools-html/](https://github.com/devtools-html/)

~~~
aquadrop
You've switched to multiple processes model, but you don't have "task manager"
as Chrome. Do you plan to implement it in the future?

~~~
Yoric
Working on it right now, but no ETA yet.

~~~
aquadrop
Ok, thanks. I hope you make it even more informative than the Chrome's one :)

------
barrkel
Hopefully most of the missing extensions will be developed sooner rather than
later. I have 15 extensions installed, 14 of which are "Legacy".

The most critical one, Tree Style Tabs, has been converted. That was the key
blocker that prevented me from seriously using Chrome. But many more remain;
Cookie Controller, RefControl, some kind of Classic Theme Restorer equivalent
(to get a menu bar back for Bookmarks, at a minimum), etc.

~~~
eoger
Have a look here [0] for legacy extensions replacements.

[0]
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TFcEXMcKrwoIAECIVyBU...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TFcEXMcKrwoIAECIVyBU0GPoSmRqZ7A0VBvqeKYVSww/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
DamnInteresting
There's no replacement for ScrapBook, a plugin where I have a decade of stored
annotated documents (no hyperbole, my oldest files date from 2007). Ever since
I discovered that FF57 was going to kill ScrapBook I had to disable Firefox
updates so I don't lose access to ~6GB of stored data. It's a mix of past,
present, and future writing research.

I know I have access to clumsy workarounds such as copying FF56 to a VM with
updates disabled, or to have parallel Firefox installs, but Scrapbook is a
daily-use tool for me, and clunky workarounds won't last long.

I'm thinking about reverse-engineering the way ScrapBook stores data so I can
write my own migration to something else, but...oof.

Anybody have any suggestions for another plugin/product that offers the same
features? Or, dare I dream, one that can import everything from ScrapBook? My
searches for the latter have come up dry, but perhaps something obscure
exists.

~~~
throwanem
Scrapbook, that takes me back. Haven't used it in a dog's age. But I would be
_enormously_ surprised if it did no longer store saved content under your
Firefox profile directory, and back when I used it, it just saved the files
there and maybe did some link rewriting. Not really a lot of importing
necessary to view the content outside the extension - you'd just need to point
a browser at its file:// URL.

Not sure how much that helps in terms of retaining the actual functionality,
which unless I'm badly mistaken would only be feasible in the WebExtensions
API via the external application messaging interface - and you'd need a
separate program that would receive those messages and do the mirroring for
you, and maybe expose a local HTTP server or some other such horrible hack to
let you fetch the content tree for rendering in the browser as a table of
contents/tree of bookmark-style links. But at least you might not have to lose
what you've got.

~~~
DamnInteresting
Today I spent some time looking at how ScrapBook stores information. It's a
bit of a mixed bag, with some plain text files, some XML, some HTML (besides
the saved pages themselves). I managed to figure out how it stores folder
structure, bookmarks, saved pages, and annotations. Fortunately there's no
database, and no encryption, so I can write a tool to extract the information
if needed.

The remaining question becomes: how to replace it? What other tool supports
all this?:

* Local saving (as opposed to cloud)

* Storing source URL with support for re-fetching

* Bookmarks (for pages that won't save locally in a useful way, such as YouTube)

* "Deep saving," saving the main page AND linked pages, and keeping them bundled together

* Full text search

* Probably other features I do not recall offhand

Even if I can get the data out, it's hard to know where to put it. Most
solutions these days are cloud-oriented, which is unappealing to me. I could
build my own stand-alone replacement, but what a headache. I could fork
ScrapBook and try to make it work with the latest Firefox, but I have no
experience in the plugin domain, nor the time to prioritize learning it.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just trying to figure out how to proceed without
severe productivity loss.

~~~
throwanem
I'd look at the Zotero standalone, but that's just an offhand guess. Other
than that, I got nothin' \- except 52 ESR, which is good for security updates
until some time next year, and won't get the breaking changes from 57.

------
Mizza
I just upgraded. It completely changes the chrome of the browser on OSX and it
is _absolutely hideous_. There are a lots of unnecessary animations that I
find very jarring. I don't know if there's a way to change it back yet.

UPDATE: There is a "Customize Firefox" button which allows modifying the
theme, which fixes the colors, but not the shape of the tabs or the
animations.

UPDATE: In about:config, you can disable some of the animations with
`toolkit.cosmeticAnimations.enabled: false`

UPDATE: You can bring back curved tabs with this:
[https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-
australis](https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis)

~~~
msla
And it's impossible to put the tabs beneath the address bar, or to have actual
toolbars.

Decades of UI/UX knowledge, down the drain. Usability is gone.

~~~
stinky613
> Decades of UI/UX knowledge, down the drain. Usability is gone.

Exactly the opposite; this is an evolution that has been taking place over the
past decade.

Firefox has had tabs-on-top as the default since _Firefox v4.0_ [1]. Chrome
has had tabs-on-top for its entire existence (starting in Sept 2008); Opera
had them before Chrome.

The merits can be argued either way, but don't act like this is sudden or
arbitrary; it's neither.

Consider that maybe--just maybe--the dev teams at Mozilla, Google, et al. have
done some usability studies in the past decade that informed these decisions.

I get that you may prefer tabs below the URL bar, but your claims about the
greater state of UX are baseless and absurd.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmgtW2Iw-
kE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmgtW2Iw-kE) posted June 2010

EDIT: Google made a comic for the release of Chrome 1.0 that includes an
explanation of their original rationale for putting tabs on top.
[https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/big_18.html](https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/big_18.html)

~~~
msla
_De gustibus non est disputandum_

The idea that someone else can know what another wants better than the other
person is absurd. Your arguments might be valid for _defaults_ , but they must
be _configurable defaults_ , because taste is subjective, arbitrary, and,
despite what some believe, _never in error_.

I know what UX I want better than anyone else. Nobody can gainsay my personal
taste.

------
awinder
This is so close to great but can a mac snob ask how to get a more consistent
UI experience out of firefox? I'm totally happy with how everything behaves
inside the web panel but:

    
    
      1.  At a minimum I'd be happy with a toolbar icon set that was a little more in step with OS X design (but willing to hear 
          if I just have misunderstanding of design :D)
      2.  As a reach, os-native menus or at least more native-style menus for things like the toolbar menu

~~~
rvanmil
If only they'd put all the effort spent into trying to imitate macOS into
actually building an AppKit version... I guess that's never going to happen
due to the cross platform nature of Firefox, but it also means (among other
reasons) I'll never use it as my primary browser.

~~~
pcwalton
Firefox uses Cocoa/AppKit extensively. It doesn't "imitiate macOS": it
actually uses the system APIs throughout.

The one thing it doesn't do is to use native widgets to render the UI of the
browser chrome. Using native widgets for Web content in a cross-platform
browser isn't a very attractive proposition, because native widgets either
can't be composited at all (Windows, GTK+) or require that you delegate your
entire graphics stack to the OS-specific compositor for Web content (macOS).
Delegating the entire graphics stack to Core Animation would prevent us from
making any improvements to it (for example, WebRender). Given that a lot of
browser UI (e.g. preferences) is becoming Web content in both Chrome and
Firefox, for consistency's sake it seems better to use the same widgets for
chrome and content.

~~~
rvanmil
I completely understand the reasons, but the result is an application which
does not feel and behave like a native macOS application. It is a lot better
than all the Electron crap out there for sure, but it's still a major reason
why Firefox can't replace Safari for me.

------
Exuma
I trashtalked Firefox being slow forever, I just tried it out and I must say
it's definitely very fast. Great work to the Firefox team.

~~~
barosoa
Blisteringly fast. Great job FF team!

~~~
wickawic
And apparently not all of the performance improvements are even integrated
into the browser yet!

------
dyukqu
For those who look for NoScript replacement, uMatrix[0] (from the maker of
uBlock Origin) has got you covered (with "A Desperately Needed User’s
Guide"[1]).

[0][https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
GB/firefox/addon/umatrix/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
GB/firefox/addon/umatrix/)
[1][http://adamantine.me/index.php/2015/11/18/umatrix-
desperatel...](http://adamantine.me/index.php/2015/11/18/umatrix-desperately-
needed-guide/)

~~~
barosoa
Tried this. It was too complicated and slow enabling every subdomain by hand.

~~~
Crespyl
It is a little fiddly to set up at first, certainly.

There are a few tools to make it easier though: if you're dealing with a site
that uses a lot of semi-random subdomains (like googlevideo or cloudflare),
it's possible to just whitelist the whole domain and get all the subdomains
automatically (and then block individual subdomains if you want).

It might be defeating the purpose, but you can also change the "scope" of the
changes you make by clicking the blue button in the upper left corner of the
panel. You can choose the scope from current domain, current subdomain, or
global "*". If you select global, you can, for example, unblock the various
youtube/googlevideo related embeds/iframes/xhrs there, and then youtube embeds
will work on every site.

The one thing I wish the addon would do is sync my black/whitelists through
Firefox Sync so I didn't have to either redo everything on a new computer, or
go to the trouble of exporting/importing them.

~~~
drdaeman
> sync my black/whitelists through Firefox Sync

It's technically possible, although UX is terrible. Go to uMatrix settings,
make sure to "enable cloud storage" option is set in the "settings" tab, then
manually upload and download rules in the "my rules" tab.

No automatic sync (won't be implemented[1]) and, no merges at the moment
(button's broken[2]).

[1]
[https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/467](https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/467)

[2]
[https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/807](https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/807)

~~~
gorhill
> No automatic sync

By design. Losing all rules because of sync snafu out of control of uMatrix is
the absolute worst case. Importing/merging manually will prevent such
disaster.

~~~
drdaeman
Well, if it would be incremental (passing changelists of rule additions and
deletions rather than state snapshots), then any serious data loss should be
very unlikely. And if deletion log records would contain the deleted records
and prunned only after a short while, things could be even rolled back.

As I get it, it would require significant changes to the code, though.

------
daniel_iversen
It’s great that FF is now faster but how’s battery life in this new engine?
The reason I stuck with safari and only a year ago moved to chrome was that
google finally was able to drastically improve battery life on chrome for
Mac... where is FF here (their release page doesn’t mention “battery” at all),
does anyone know?

~~~
rcarmo
Well, I'm running it on a 7-year-old Mac mini (yeah, no battery, I know, but
hold on...), and _idle_ Firefox, without focus, is ticking along at 0.7-1.5%
CPU time.

Safari is _zero_. Dead still. I type this and it moves to 0.3%.

No idea what Firefox is doing...

edit: Also, even without focus, Firefox climbs to 8.9% CPU just by hovering my
mouse over it. Safari goes to 0.2%.

~~~
daniel_iversen
Mmm thanks! And looks like there are a few anecdotal reports and bugs around
battery drain
[https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7a91ss/battery_lif...](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7a91ss/battery_life_on_firefox_quantum/)
what a shame if there are issues there - would be a showstopper for my
personal usage at least! Hope they haven’t overfocused on speed at the cost of
worse battery life.

------
scott_karana
I too am sad that despite the awesome speed, I'm forced to stick with v56 out
of necessity for my add-ons.

Tab Groups (which was originally a first-class Mozilla feature called
Panorama) absolutely changed my browser workflow, and I can't imagine
regressing...

The new APIs won't support replacement any time soon, and the dev has already
given up, since they'd already had to run a fundraiser once to add
Electrolysis support, just to find that their work would be thrown away in the
near future _anyways_.

And that's just one example... :(

~~~
Sylos
WebExtensions were specifically announced alongside Electrolysis. This is not
Mozilla's fault.

~~~
pseudalopex
When WebExtensions was announced, Electrolysis was already on by default in
Developer Edition, and Mozilla planned to begin blacklisting incompatible
extensions within 3 months.[1] The author of Tab Groups had just finished
rewriting his extensions for Electrolysis.[2] He only gave up 18 months later,
partly because of how frustrating Mozilla made the process of getting missing
functionality added to WebExtensions.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-
dev...](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing-
firefox-add-ons/)

[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170128013037/http://fasezero.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170128013037/http://fasezero.com/lastnotice.html)

~~~
Sylos
Your link 1 is from 2015/08/21\. Electrolysis was rolled out with Firefox 48
on 2016/08/02\. The respective Developer Edition build was released on
2016/04/25.

~~~
pseudalopex
Electrolysis development started in 2009. It was enabled by default in
Developer Edition starting with Firefox 42 (2015/08/11) and opt-in before
that.

Nobody knew in August 2015 that Mozilla would delay the Electrolysis rollout,
allow incompatible extensions would continue working into 2017, pick an
arbitrary date to drop XUL extensions instead of tying it to WebExtensions
milestones, drop the Add-on SDK at the same time, and not really support
gradual porting.

------
cvburgess
Anyone know how the new FireFox compares on battery-life? Safari crushes
Chrome on this front currently, but I'm curious how FireFox compares now.

~~~
mccr8
None of the Firefox Quantum work has looked at power usage, so don't expect
any changes on that front.

~~~
Starwatcher2001
This is mentioned in the release notes:

"AMD VP9 hardware video decoder support for improved video playback with lower
power consumption"

~~~
tedunangst
How many users have AMD laptops?

~~~
dralley
AMD graphics. And since we were talking about Macs, the answer is "a lot"

~~~
revelation
And what is the intersection of "Macs", "AMD graphics" and "battery powered"?

Pretty sure it is the empty set.

~~~
stinky613
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro)
Find in Page "AMD"

------
sleepychu
At last LastPass has released a new version! (FF Developer Edition has passed
beyond the grace period so only allows modern extensions. I've been using
Chrome just for lastpass for months!)

~~~
SnowingXIV
This is what's holding me back from changing mostly. Honestly, lastpass is
great for me but I almost wish built in browser password managers were better.
I used to use Google Chrome's password manager but one time I synced with
another computer or phone and everything got erased and there was no undoing
it. I lost everything. Maybe syncing is better now but after that sync that
thought "hey let's make sure everything is like this brand new device" I
hesitate.

~~~
Santosh83
High time that passwords management was integrated into the OS, where it
belongs. These days its not just sites, but hundreds of apps too that want
your passwords, and browser based extensions can't interface with other apps.
On the other hand a standalone password manager has at best a flaky
interaction with web pages inside a browser window, and often has to be
supported by an in-broswer extension, adding to complexity of code and
interaction.

We need the OS to store credentials and expose a well-defined, OS independent
API for apps/sites to identify themselves securely and request for the user's
authentication. This will go a long way towards mitigating exploits like
cross-site scripting attacks, phishing, software keyloggers, clipboard
sniffers and so on.

I really find it amazing that this is something none of the major OS creators
have tackled in a standarised manner.

~~~
Shorel
I really doubt a Microsoft Windows integrated password manager could be
conveniently accessed from Android, OSX or Ubuntu.

In fact, I imagine almost every OS vendor would try some form of lock-in.

~~~
drdaeman
An application can read from one store and send data to another app to persist
into another store.

The one issue I see is that to sync properly such app would need a changelist
(with the vector clocks and stuff), and the only thing most credential stores
provide is the current state and no history track. An app may implement such
list to itself, though, outside of the OS credential storage - without actual
credentials, just referring to the record IDs so it's not too sensitive.

Another is, such external app would need to repeatedly access the credential
store. If there is no API to detect if the store is locked or not, it may
either require to keep it unlocked, or spam user with access prompts or
something like that.

Oh, and it would be problematic if the store pins records to the applications
and doesn't allow e.g. Chrome to access Firefox passwords and vice versa.
You'll need highly privileged access (root) or somehow hook another app and
inject yourself into its address space (WinHook, Xposed, etc).

But e.g. Windows Vault <-> KDE or Gnome keyring sync is certainly possible. In
theory. Don't know if anyone had ever implemented it in practice, though.

------
dom96
Just upgraded. Definitely feels snappier at first glance, what I'm most
curious about however is how much the speed deteriorates the longer I use it
(if at all). The older version was definitely pretty bad after a couple of
days of uptime.

All in all though. Nice job so far. :)

Edit: I do sorta feel like the tabs are now smaller (when there is a lot of
tabs open), any way to make them bigger?

~~~
r3bl
As far as your edit is concerned, try searching for "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth"
in "about:config".

I know it's available in Beta / Nightly, but I don't know if it got backported
to Stable nor will it.

~~~
dom96
Nice. This works, thanks! :)

------
jp_rider
If you'd like to disable pocket, here are instructions:

[https://help.getpocket.com/article/1025-disabling-pocket-
in-...](https://help.getpocket.com/article/1025-disabling-pocket-in-firefox)

~~~
cptskippy
Unfortunately that doesn't disable the "Recommended by Pocket" crap on the New
Tab Window. I have Firefox installed on 8 different machines and the option to
remove "Recommended by Pocket" in the New Tab Preferences only appears in half
of them.

If you're missing the option then you can open about:config and set
"browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories" to false to get
rid of it. I also blew away the "browser.newtabpage.activity-
stream.feeds.section.topstories.options" key that contains all of the
configuration crap for pocket.

Unfortunately non of this is or the op's settings are synced in your Profile
so you have to change it on all of your machines. :(

~~~
mook
Huh, going through the prefs there it looks like they probably have telemetry
going on in the new tab page. Where all your history goes.

I miss the Mozilla that actually acted like they cared about privacy.

~~~
mintplant
I'm not sure what you're referring to, can you clarify?

~~~
mook
Sure; I'm just complaining about the _existence_ of
`browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry`. I'm not comfortable
having tracking so near user data.

Now that I'm not on a mobile and can actually look at the code, it looks like
it's defined at [1]. I must be reading TelemetryFeed.jsm wrong, though,
because that says addSession() holds on to the URL (as .page) and createPing()
puts it into the ping...

[1]: [https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-
release/file/FIREFOX...](https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-
release/file/FIREFOX_57_0_RELEASE/browser/extensions/activity-
stream/lib/ActivityStream.jsm#l120)

~~~
mintplant
Tracing back through the code, this is only triggered with a URL by the
RemotePages watcher, which notifies when the URL matches one of a whitelist.
The only whitelisted URLs currently are about:home, about:newtab, and
about:tabcrashed.

[https://searchfox.org/mozilla-
central/source/toolkit/modules...](https://searchfox.org/mozilla-
central/source/toolkit/modules/RemotePageManager.jsm#64)

[https://searchfox.org/mozilla-
central/search?q=symbol:%23Rem...](https://searchfox.org/mozilla-
central/search?q=symbol:%23RemotePages&redirect=false)

------
mkup
Firefox Quantum feels very fast, but addon support is disappointing :(

    
    
      + uBlock Origin
      - Self-Destructing Cookies
      - YesScript
      - Video DownloadHelper
      - Save Session

~~~
SllX
Self-Destructing Cookies isn't supported anymore. I just found that out myself
a bit earlier and am giving Cookies AutoDelete a shot.

Edit: Forgot to mention but if you check the add-ons site, you should be able
to find an updated extension for Video DownloadHelper.

~~~
mkup
UPDATE: new version of Video DownloadHelper addon for Quantum Firefox was not
useful for me: it requires external companion app to write files (which I
don't trust and don't want to install). But I found another addon: "Flash and
Video Download", which does its job quite well without any assistance from
external software.

------
richardboegli
For those who still need older plugin system, use Firefox ESR for as long as
possible or switch now to Pale Moon.

I gave FF57 (Quantum) a try during Beta and it was FAST. I am still using Pale
Moon, but installed FF57 to see the improvements, to keep an alternate browser
installed and also because Mozilla "Container Tabs" looks very interesting.
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers)

Using Tree Style Tabs and Container Tabs looks to be AWESOME, once they do a
little bit more polish to switching between containers.

At the moment, they haven't implemented hiding of the horizontal tabs as
Mozilla haven't officially implemented the feature. It is a work in progress
though.

See this workaround to remove tabs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15343940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15343940)

Now that FF57 is out of beta, I'll give it another go.

------
bobcall
This will be the first version of Firefox that I won't be using. The final
straw with me was the "Studies" integration. I've wanted to stop using Firefox
since Pocket and EME was integrated, but I have failed to find anything else
that works for me. I can no longer pretend to trust the Mozilla Foundation or
the Firefox team, given their track record over the last few years. In our
current era, the browser has become a critical piece of software and it is
dangerous to trust an organization who wishes to censor [1][2] and track
users.

[1] Brendan Eich [https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/04/11/did-mozilla-
ce...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/04/11/did-mozilla-ceo-brendan-
eich-deserve-to-be-removed-from-his-position-due-to-his-support-for-
proposition-8/)

[2] Mozilla Information Trust Initiative :
[https://archive.fo/jcJWg](https://archive.fo/jcJWg)

~~~
placeybordeaux
Could you elaborate on how the second source is about censoring/tracking
users?

~~~
bobcall
Creating a single entity who gets to control what is true from its point of
view?

> Mozilla’s Open Innovation team will work with ["like-minded"] technologists
> and artists to develop technology that combats misinformation. Mozilla will
> partner with global media organizations to do this, and also double down on
> our existing product work in the space, like Pocket, Focus, and Coral.

Firefox is the gatekeeper to the web for many and if Mozilla or this
initiative is going to inject their bias in the browser, then it means that
anyone that Mozilla or the Mozilla Information Trust Initiative disagrees with
will get censored or their speech altered. No organization that is run by
humans can make the claim that they won't have a bias one way or another. In
order to have a free society, we must have the freedom to express any idea (no
matter how stupid they might be). People have become too lazy to look at other
sources or challenge what they hear. Ideas need to be challenged in the open
and be able to hold their own weight. We should not need an organization or a
browser making those calls.

------
jcoffland
Without Tab Mix Plus Firefox 57 is not an option for me. Does anyone know of
an extension that allows multiple tab rows? Tab Trees and like extensions
don't cut it. This is the main reason I never switched to Chrome.

It's too bad FF had to abandon it's massive library of legacy extensions for
this upgrade. The myriad of extensions is one of FF's main benefits over other
browsers. I've happily accepted lower performance in trade for configuration
options. I suppose the most popular extensions will eventually be ported.

~~~
petval
The toolbar API still lacks the required features to allow multirow. According
to bugzilla discussions they might add it somewhere in 2018 :( You can also
find contradictory statements from different developers like "this should be
handled by addons" vs. "addons should manipulate only the web content not the
browser itself" etc. It's a mess so maybe if we users push enough they might
understand. See
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1246706](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1246706)

From my point of view they should also provide mouse gestures because the
WebExtensions work only after DOM is loaded and not having gestures on
internal pages is a huge discomfort and user experience dissonance to put it
mildly.

~~~
kk_cz
> "addons should manipulate only the web content not the browser itself"

WTF? Who in their right mind can think that the only reason people installed
add-ons was to manipulate the web content? UI is the main differentiating
factor between browsers, FF strength was the ability to customize UI for user
liking.

------
thinkloop
I'm loving the new FF, my missing feature is being able to open a site as a
desktop app. I use chrome to make different icons/windows/apps for gmail, hn,
reddit, photos, cloud9, etc. Anyone know if there is a way to have a website
shortcut open in its own window and have an icon in the taskbar?

~~~
0xFFC
Exactly, this is the only reason why I don’t use anything other than Chrome.
While I really want to switch to FF. Chrome “add to desktop” does make website
almost as like a desktop app and without unnecessary tabbar and stuff.

I wish firefox could do that.

That being said, I don’t use any native app at all other than a terminal
emulator. Just terminal + vscode + chrome.

~~~
Yoric
For what it's worth, Firefox used to be able to do this (with a few
manipulations). At some point, that feature was killed, because apparently
nobody (except me) was using it :/

It's a shame, because I would really like to be able to move my chat clients
out of the Firefox UI.

~~~
orthecreedence
I REALLY want an Electron/NWJS build on top of Firefox. I would scrap chrome
altogether both for personal use and for building "desktop" apps.

------
hysan
Asked this a week ago in anticipation for the release but got no response.[1]
Whatever happened with Cliqz? Is it still a part of the release?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15643154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15643154)

~~~
Vinnl
It has never been part of the release - it was part of a test rollout to 1% of
_German_ users (not sure if that was of an actual or a beta release).

~~~
hysan
Well for one thing, it was part of an actual release according to Mozilla's
own blog post about it.[1] Second, that still doesn't answer my question about
what happened with regards to Cliqz. Is it still being considered? What were
the results if the test has concluded? Or are they still testing it in 1% of
FF57 downloads to German users? Mozilla has been silent with regards to their
Cliqz test which is why I'm asking.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-
cliqz-i...](https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-
firefox/)

~~~
Vinnl
Right, hence the ellipsis. So if you're not downloading German Firefox you
probably won't have to worry about it.

I don't have an answer to your other question (maybe someone else will),
although since that post says they'll keep us posted and I haven't seen
anything, and since it hasn't been that long ago, I don't think too much has
come of it yet.

------
liuw
I'm using it now. It is really snappy!

There are bugs though. I'm using Debian Stretch. Right click menu doesn't
work: it appears for a fraction of a second then disappears; so does the top-
bar menu of LastPass plugin.

~~~
callahad
Huh, I can't replicate that in Fedora. Are you using a binary downloaded from
Mozilla directly, or from one of the various Debian APT repos? Can you email
me with more info (my HN username @mozilla.com), especially what desktop
environment you're using, X vs Wayland, etc.

~~~
liuw
I downloaded the tarball from Mozilla website. I use i3 with X.

I'm happy to provide more information via email.

------
bobajeff
I wonder when the Android version of Firefox will be updated to 57.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Android will get Quantum with 58, in approximately 6 weeks time.

[https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/31/firefox-58-for-android-
ena...](https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/31/firefox-58-for-android-enable-
quantum-css-engine/)

But even without Quantum Firefox on Android is way faster than Chrome because
it supports ad blocking plugins.

~~~
mtgx
Yeah, I can't wait for FF58 on Android.

TBH FF on Android has felt a little choppy, even with ublock origin enabled.
The Chromium-based Firefox Focus feels faster, but too bad it doesn't support
extensions. Hopefully FF58 will be the best of both worlds on Android soon.

~~~
bryanlarsen
It feels choppy, so it feels slower, even though it renders pages faster
because it's not downloading and rendering ads. A great example of how feel
matters.

~~~
sp332
I agree 100%. I ended up disabling my adblocker on twitter.com just because it
was causing so much jank while I was scrolling.

------
farnsworthy
Nice to see an update, and performance improvements are noticeable.

If you're missing blank tabs like I was, restore blank tabs at
Preferences|When Firefox starts, and set Home Page to `about:blank`.

If you prefer new tabs to be blank as well, that's managed via the gear button
on the new tab page, and by deselecting checked options.

Themes are set at Tools|Add-ons|Themes. (For example, if you want a lighter-
style theme restored.)

I posted more thoughts here:

[https://jaidee.io/articles/on-the-new-firefox](https://jaidee.io/articles/on-
the-new-firefox)

------
choward
The one feature I wanted that chrome has isn't there in Gnome: no worthless
title bar that shows redundant information. I saw screenshots for Gnome with
the title bar missing before Quantum was released, so I had my hopes up.

There is an extension to get rid of it. However, you also have to manually
install some other garbage too. They provide a debian package, but I'm not
using a debian based OS so it's a pain in the ass. I'll stick with Chromium,
thanks.

~~~
Sylos
Relevant bug report:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1283299)

Experimental Nightly build with the Client-Side Decorations that you want
enabled: [https://github.com/stransky/gecko-dev/tree/titlebar-
csd](https://github.com/stransky/gecko-dev/tree/titlebar-csd)

(This link is taken from comment #64 in that bug report.)

------
gog
Judging by the comments, I could be in a minority, but to me this version
feels slower.

There is a noticeable lag before first paint of the page. This is specially
visible if you have a fast site. I was able to click through links on the site
with no lag, now there is a small, but noticeable lag.

Also, where did the "Restore tabs" button go from the homepage?

EDIT: Also, it looks like my fans are running more often, so CPU usage could
be higher as well.

~~~
staticassertion
Do you observe this behavior in a completely new Firefox profile?

------
AndrewStephens
Forgetting about the speed for a moment (which is great), I like the direction
they are taking the user interface. Recent versions of FireFox had terribly
clunky and frustratingly bizarre UI elements, 57 is a huge improvement.

------
cryptos
I hope that firefox will continue to protect users privacy as good as
possible. I'm thinking of super cookies and the like. Other brother vendors
don't seem to be very engaged in this area.

~~~
a254613e
With their recent testing of Cliqz integration I doubt they're really
committed a lot to protecting users privacy.

HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15421708)

~~~
johndoe489
Isn't that turned off when you disable "search suggestions"?

I don't like search suggestions even in Chrome. I find it makes the omnibar
less useful.

The omnibar was the game changer for me when Chrome did it. I never have many
tabs open as I can recall anything I've visited previously by typing a few
words. More often than not what I want is one of the first suggestions.

So to help with this, I turn off search suggestions since they are not
relevant to my past browser activity. I also got in the habit of frequently
using Private window so that my History has more relevant content. It's great
and I'm confident I don't need to bookmark a lot.

------
DC-3
Congratulations to the developers on an important release.

------
shabbyrobe
Just installed it, looks like the update overrode my previously set default of
a blank "new tab" page in favour of their overly fancy, ad infested "new tab
experience" page. Looks like it's time for another scan of about:config for
any other nasties they decided to sneak in there this time.

~~~
DiThi
No need to dive into about:config. Just click the gear icon at the top left to
disable all stuff.

~~~
oblio
On the other hand, for some reason they've decided to make the tab previews
smaller. Now I have a bunch of small thumbnails on a huge page... And now way
to increase their size :(

~~~
DiThi
Have you tried Ctrl-wheel or Ctrl-+ (plus key)?

~~~
oblio
Huh, it's actually saved, I thought it was a temporary setting. Thanks! :)

Still not perfect, since I'm just zooming in some PNGs. And the new thumbnails
are square while most pages that I view are rectangular. But it will do, for
now.

------
dpc94
Has anyone had poor performance on mac? I notice that my fans tend to spin up
quite frequently with normal browsing. I didn't really have this issue with
chrome.

~~~
sirtel
A developer answered in another post

> The point of parallelization is to harness the full power of the CPU. If you
> don’t want that try reducing the content process limit near the bottom of
> general options.

[[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/11/entering-the-quantum-
era-h...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/11/entering-the-quantum-era-how-
firefox-got-fast-again-and-where-its-going-to-get-faster/)]

~~~
bonaldi
It's not murdering battery because it's "harnessing the full power of the
CPU", it's chomping through almost 1% battery a minute on Mac while doing
virtually nothing.

Apparently "vibrance" is one of the culprits and switching to the light or
dark themes can help a lot. But yes, it's destroying battery compared to
Safari for me. Which is a shame, as it's already my default on Windows.

~~~
steveklabnik
Sounds like you should definitely file a bug.

~~~
bonaldi
there is one:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042)
— it was moved to being tracked for v58.

------
beaconfield
w00t! I started using Firefox 1.0 after being a Netscape user back in the day.
I love Mozilla and all they stand for and I'm so excited that they are
releasing Quantum and kicking ass again.

------
majani
Wow, no one's talking about mobile? Have they fixed the lagginess and
inaccurate click detection that routinely crops up on the Android browser?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Mobile FF is built on versions far behind the desktop FF. Give it time.

~~~
nnethercote
It's more complicated than that. Firefox on Android uses much of the core code
that desktop does. But sometimes new features do get enabled on Android a
little later. One example is Stylo, the new style engine, which isn't enabled
on Android yet.

------
atonse
Feels GREAT! Happy to be using this in addition to Safari. I also added uBlock
Origin as an adblocker but would still love if FF eventually included native,
declarative content blocking like Safari (probably less likely given how much
money they get from Google).

~~~
abtinf
I don’t want necessarily want an adblocker built into my web browser. It
creates too much centralized risk and power for the kinds of shenanigans
pulled by ABP or ghostery, and it would hurt adoption of good add-ons like
ublock.

What I DO want to see is something like ublock matrix become a standard
feature. Matrix is an incredible add-on that has made the web more useable and
more debuggable for me. If it was built-in, the defaults would have to be
toned-down or turned off, because it breaks too much of the web, but a simple
“privacy mode” toggle to step up restrictions would be welcome in a private
browsing window.

Call it “War Mode” or “Paranoid Window” when using a private window with maxed
out Matrix.

~~~
atonse
It's not an adblocker. It's a "content blocking" engine. Basically, there are
two pieces to any blocker: the blacklist, and the actual execution (matching
against blacklist rules, and probably executing JS to remove it).

Safari's got a native engine for the execution part. And you pass in the
blacklist with declarative rules. It's the best of both worlds in that you get
competing blacklists, but the actual engine is even faster than JS. And for
security like you said, there aren't any shenanigans since it's literally a
JSON blacklist and can't contain code.

------
huhtenberg
Is there a pre-57 theme for the UI?

The new one is way too minimalist. It also appears to target people with poor
sight all chrome elements suddenly became larger.

EDIT - The upgrade also wiped all GreaseMonkey scripts for some reason. Hmm.

EDIT - Downgraded back to 56. Way too many jarring UI changes as well as the
AddOn breakage to justify the new snappiness. Mozilla also appears to have
pulled the link to the "old releases" page from their main website, so here it
is -
[https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases](https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases)

~~~
oblio
You can reconfigure almost everything back...

For the chrome elements size: Menu -> Customize -> Density -> Compact.

~~~
huhtenberg
Yeah, saw that. That's not "Compact" though, that's "Cluttered".

The top part of the browser window is now an utter mess. I can live with the
new tab style, but the layout with absolutely no vertical spacing/padding and
these new "minimalist" icons is just... ugly, and unnecessary at that. I don't
think I'm the only person who cares for how things _look_ in addition to how
they _work_.

------
leadingthenet
Previous discussion about performance improvements can be found here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15686653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15686653)

------
lizzard
Super fast! And I'm so happy that Tree Style Tab is working smoothly.

------
SAI_Peregrinus
It's nice, I guess. Doesn't feel any faster, but since I tend to load new
links in tabs and then visit them after I've never really noticed page load
times anyway.

------
godelski
It feels a lot snappier, but I definitely am not seeing a memory improvement.
`about:memory` shows ~230MB for the top one, but task manager shows me at
1.3GB. I only have 13 tabs open. Yesterday this same tab set was running about
the same memory. I know my linux computer at home runs lower memory with more
tabs (that one hasn't been updated to 57 yet)

But the browser speed feels A LOT smoother.

Update: In the last hour I'm now reading about 1.8GB at 16 tabs. Still acting
really fast though.

------
frayesto
Anyone else use PocketCasts web player? Chrome is able to play audio at 2.7x
speed without distortion while Firefox still has issues.

Is there a location where I can submit a bug report?

~~~
callahad
We track most of our bugs in Bugzilla
([https://bugzilla.mozilla.org](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org)). Once you've
created an account, go to File a Bug, Core, and choose "Audio/Video: Playback"
as the Component in the form.

(In general, it's fine to chuck bugs into Firefox -> Untriaged and they'll
eventually land in the right place.)

If Bugzilla's a bit of a pain, just let me know and I'll happily file it for
you.

~~~
tmzt
Are Quantum bugs in bugzilla or Github?

~~~
Yoric
Bugzilla. There are a few exceptions, but if you misfile a bug to Bugzilla,
don't worry, it will be moved to Github during triage.

------
awake
Does anyone know of benchmarks comparing this to the current version of
chrome. The Mozilla team only mentions that it’s faster than previous versions
of Firefox.

~~~
scottjad
The benchmark Mozilla highlights for this release (2x faster) is Speedometer
2.0. FF57 is 2x faster than FF52, which came out roughly 7 months ago.

In my own personal testing (you can run on your machine in a couple minutes),
FF57 is 10% faster than FF56 on that benchmark, and Chrome 60 is 10% faster
than FF57.

[https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-
speedometer/2.0/](https://mozilla.github.io/arewefastyet-speedometer/2.0/)

------
rhabarba
IMO, it sucks now.

I like the awesome new speed even on my old Sandy Bridge, but the death of ANY
possibilities to add features to the browser UI is not worth it. Really.

------
akulbe
I wonder why, with Mozilla's pro-web and pro-user focus... why not DuckDuckGo?

~~~
jhasse
They also use Google Analytics for telemetry btw.

------
Asdfbla
Is there a good Vimperator replacement for the new webextension addon system?

~~~
Vinnl
Depends on your needs. If it's mostly the shortcuts, Vimium works pretty well
(at least for me). If you want the full-blown UI customisation, then I'm
afraid extensions are not allowed that anymore due to the associated security
risks.

~~~
zeveb
> If you want the full-blown UI customisation, then I'm afraid extensions are
> not allowed that anymore due to the associated security risks.

That's total BS. It's _my_ software running on _my_ computer. _I_ get to
decide what I consider a security risk, not Mozilla.

~~~
Karunamon
This "user is an idiot" mentality permeates their development culture. As
another example, Mozilla would rather you don't get to access a site _at all_
if it's misconfigured a certain way, rather than putting in any kind of
override.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435013](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435013)
(Ten years old, fixes proposed, questions unanswered. Note the status.)

If I sound upset, it's because this is personally offensive (not to mention
infuriating) to me, and many good-faith questions have gone ignored.

------
b3lvedere
It's fast. Fast!

Thanks!

It seems i also got Ebay as an additional search engine. Oh well.. deleted it.
:)

------
taurath
Gave it a shot. My complaints on 20m of usage (2015 MBP):

1\. Firefox is sitting at 15-20% of my CPU with 2 tabs open. I've never had
the fan come on just from browsing tabs on chrome. I opened gmail while typing
this and now I'm at about 50% of my CPU and the fan is blaring. Something
seems very wrong.

2\. The import from other browser (assuming say I already had an old version
installed and selected "replace" on mac install) option is VERY hidden behind
a bunch of menus. It also didn't import any of my cookies to google, HN, or
probably most other passwords in the keychain.

3\. Resizing a window feels really sluggish and not snappy, as does tabbing
back and forth between tabs. It takes a noticable like 500-800ms to switch to
gmail. Most tabs are around 200-400ms. This feels massively slower than chrome
thus far

4\. The design when typing in the search bar is pretty jarring, filling up a
huge amount with white space.

I'll keep trying but if the CPU doesn't chill out this is basically a non-
starter for me.

------
ramenmeal
I'm trying it out now. Seems fast and I like the UI. I think there is a
feature missing that I require... In chrome I can log into two separate
accounts, my work and my personal. They run as practically two separate
instances of chrome, so I can log into a separate lastpass account for each.
Is this possible with firefox?

~~~
dsschnau
yeah, there is an extension for it: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/multi-account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/)

~~~
mderazon
This is great but unfortunately you can't have separate extensions with it.
For example you can't have 2 Lastpass extensions

------
hayd
Would love to see an Electron-compatible runtime coming from Firefox (using
the new engine), using less memory etc.

Looks like positron used to do this but is now dead :(
[https://github.com/mozilla/positron](https://github.com/mozilla/positron)

------
jlgaddis
To chime in with some of the others, I decided to try out Firefox again [0]
when the FF57 beta/nightly/whatever was first released and am very happy that
I did!

Looks like that was ~48 days ago and I think I've opened up Chromium maybe two
or three times since then.

(WRT extensions, LastPass was the only thing I "missed" (we have Enterprise
for $work) although I normally use the CLI utility instead anyways. They came
out with a beta a few weeks ago and it was actually working great until about
two days ago when it suddenly broke for me. The other extensions I use --
uBlock Origin, Vimium -- have been working just fine.)

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15344018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15344018)

------
pavs
I have to say it's been a while since I have been impressed with a firefox
official release, I have been using nightly for a couple of weeks now.

Another thing to note, and maybe most people don't instinctively realize this,
but Chrome should get a lot of kudos for bringing both browsers and the web
forward in such a short time. Let's not forget - the clusterfuck both Firefox
and IE were before chrome came to the scene. A lot of the implements that
makes Firefox awesome now came from chrome.

Chrome played just as big of a role as FF did to bring IE out of the gutter.

I haven't used IE (or whatever it's current incarnation is called) for a long
time as a daily driver - spend some time about 6 months ago - wasn't
impressed, but still better than what it was before.

Thanks, Chrome team.

------
tolger
Having Reader View available out of the box is huge for me. This is one of the
reasons I prefer Safari when I'm on MacOS. But I use Ubuntu most of the time,
so I'm switching back to Firefox as my default browser. So far, it's been
great.

------
thecollate
It’s blazing fast.. Hoping to see more successful Rust based applications.

------
amelius
It's supposed to be faster, but when I open developer-tools and click on
"Inspector", it takes almost 5 seconds to paint.

EDIT: Okay, tested again; it depends heavily on the website you do this on.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Less than a second here. Yes, I can see it paint, but it's nowhere near 5
seconds. And I'm on a base model Thinkpad T440, hardly a speed machine these
days.

~~~
amelius
Did you wait until the box was fully populated?

~~~
KozmoNau7
Yes.

------
johndoe489
The omnibar is less convenient than Google Chrome: it appears that pressing
DELETE does not actually remove a search suggestion from History. Instead it
seems to be ranked down. This is not useful, there should be a way to
completely remove a suggestion (unless it is currently a bookmark).

In Google Chrome I navigate with the omnibar so much, it was the game changer
for me when Chrome was new. The ability to quickly recall any page I visited
before. Coupled with the ability to finetune these suggestions by removing
unwanted entries.

------
aryehof
Can one run the new version alongside a previous version?

I need to access occasionally extensions unsupported in the new version:
namely Scrapbook and the extension that provides maff file support.

~~~
sundarurfriend
The developer of Waterfox has promised to continue supporting "legacy" add-
ons, so that's an option you can explore.

~~~
Sylos
Mind though, that this effort will almost certainly die off after June 26,
2018. That's the EOL date of Firefox 52 ESR, meaning the actual end of Mozilla
supporting legacy extensions.

This sort of cynic statement is based on this legacy extension system having
been a major maintenance burden for Mozilla, so now one developer or even a
small team trying to take that over, I can hardly imagine to work out.

------
__BrianDGLS__
I'm on windows 7, the new version seems to keep spawning a process which
grinds my machine to a halt.

I've had to open task manager twice now to kill it. Only downloaded it 10
minutes ago.

~~~
acdha
Try starting Firefox in safe mode in case that's some broken extension:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-
is...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-
safe-mode)

~~~
__BrianDGLS__
No extensions installed. Literally just downloaded firefox.

~~~
yoasif_
Sibling comment recommended opening a bug. I concur:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided#h=b...](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided#h=bugForm%7C)

------
zabil
I've been using Firefox nightly after Quantum changes got in and I love it. I
use it as my default browser.

Now that the changes are mainstream I'll be switching to version 57.

But I can't stop using Chrome yet. We write a lot of functional tests and
Chrome is better at it.

It's got libraries like Puppeteer, good Webdriver support and a headless mode
that just works. I can't put my finger on it, but it's difficult to run
automated tests with Firefox.

I hope Firefox gets something like Chrome's DevTools protocol.

------
fred123
Quick performance comparison, FF 57 with only a single tab (upwork.com) and
Chrome latest with 30+ tabs:

Chrome: [https://i.imgur.com/o8f4ZHp.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/o8f4ZHp.gifv)
FF 57: [https://i.imgur.com/kaQl5gN.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/kaQl5gN.gifv)

FF 57 is much slower. Maybe a very specific use case but confirms my
experience so far that FF is much slower than Chrome on basically everything.

------
xpil
It scores 97/100 in ACID3. Not that it matters but stil...

~~~
bzbarsky
Right, because some of the relevant standards got changed slightly in some of
the edge cases ACID3 tests (e.g. to deal with shadow DOM), and browsers got
updated to follow the standards, but the maintainer of ACID3 doesn't want to
change the test. See [https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
archive/2017Jul/000...](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
archive/2017Jul/0003.html)

------
contingencies
Had some lag after install and had to disable smooth scrolling in General
Preferences to sort it. Not sure if I was somehow hallucinating but it's
smooth now. OSX.

~~~
SnowingXIV
Same issue here. Disabling smooth scrolling fixed it.

------
yannovitch
Do you know how many bookmarks it can sync ?

I have 30000+ bookmarks, and I use my bookmark structure all the time on all
my devices, that's my workflow to write later content on my websites ( my
folders = my categories, sort of) and I don't want to change my workflow.

When I was using FF two years ago, it couldn't sync that many bookmarks, and
that's the only reason which was keeping me from using FF (besides speed and
memory usage, but that tend to vary).

------
Washuu
Does anyone know a replacement for Focus Last Selected Tab functionality?
Meaning, when closing a tab, it focuses the previously selected tab before
that one.

------
JohnTHaller
For fans of using Firefox without installing it into Windows (or just trying
it out temporarily without leaving things behind), the portable version is
also available for your cloud folder, portable drive, or local drive:
[https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable](https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable)

------
pfooti
Is there some super-compelling reason why FF doesn't let you inspect websocket
frames? I was taking FF for a drive yesterday, based on the earlier thread,
and it was nice until I started debugging my web app.

I'm not interested in trusting a third party extension with all my network
data either, so the plug-in to do this isn't an option. It's weird, but this
really is a blocker for me for general use.

~~~
callahad
Sorry about that inconvenience. The current plan is to revisit WebSocket
debugging in Q1 next year, per
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885508](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885508).

Part of the delay is the complete rewrite that most of the DevTools are
undergoing. As we move from legacy, in-house solutions (XUL) to standard web
technology (HTML/JS, React/Redux, etc.) as part of the "devtools.html"
project: [https://github.com/devtools-html/](https://github.com/devtools-
html/)

~~~
pfooti
I see the tracking issue has been in bugzilla for years. I get that it is a
tricky map from the raw packets to these frames, but relying on a 3rd party
extension to the point of deprioritizing work on this is a pretty iffy call -
I wasn't excited about trusting an extension at all; that the extension seems
to have been broken in 57 entirely (foreseeably too) just feels meh.

I guess I'm part of a minority of people who does a lot of websockets work?
Well, that's guaranteed to be true - a random feature deep inside the devtools
is probably a deal-breaker for like four people.

~~~
callahad
Very sorry about that. The third party extension _was_ developed by a core
DevTools engineer, just not merged upstream. We'll get there. :)

------
bespoke_engnr
I've just updated and it seems really nice so far. Best of all, the "Tree
Style Tab" extension works again, and it's glorious.

------
chaotic_clanger
* where are my dragons? i mean add-ons

* [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/) leaves original firefox row of tabs opened. so now i have two sets

* ffox currently eats 8-12% of cpu (i.e. almost one whole core) for itself. the consumption does not seem to stop.

------
submeta
This post made me switch from Safari to Firefox. (I abandoned Chrome several
years ago. Don't like Google's philosophy.) Hadn't really been using FF in
ages. It has made tremendous improvements. Super fast startup and navigation.

Also installed a plugin named Vim Vixen. Now I am able to navigate and use the
browser almost without touching the mouse.

Thank you Mozilla. Keep up the good work!

~~~
submeta
Firefox 57 + Duckduckgo = Winning team!

------
w-m
When I'm trying to resize the "Welcome to Firefox" window on a Retina iMac on
10.12.6, the wavy background animation completely freezes. Firefox then takes
more than a second to update the window content and restart the animation.

That particular welcome screen seems like a really poor choice to demonstrate
the supposedly much-improved rendering engine on my machine.

------
dvdhnt
I updated to the beta last night before doing a bit of homework. While working
in Google docs, I noticed that if you right click and try to "paste without
formatting", you get this popup:
[https://cl.ly/3O0n2e3y1p1e](https://cl.ly/3O0n2e3y1p1e)

Has anyone experienced that in a browser other than Firefox?

------
johndoe489
Is it possible in Firefox to remember the "pinned" state of a tab matching a
bookmark when it is closed?

It' be awesome if some of my bookmarks always open in a pinned state.
Examples: rain.today (white noise). ... But I don't want them to be there
everytime I open the browser, hence to remember the pinned preference with
bookmarks.

------
0x49d1
Very nice release, congrats! Are there any plans to improve tab search option
in AwsomeBar? For example now you have to really precisely type the name of
the tab to switch to it. You can add some kind of fuzzy search logic to find
the tab on relatively relevant typing. With >10 tabs open that would be really
useful.

------
pier25
Woah it's super fast.

Anyone knows if the other major browsers are working on a similar approach to
increase performance?

------
esistgut
I would really like a Debian repository like the one used for Chrome,
providing working rolling releases.

------
flyinghamster
Just updated it on Android... and I wish I hadn't.

The very first thing I was greeted with on the "top sites" page was a bunch of
"Recommended by Pocket" links, and no way to disable that.

I can't find anything in about:config to disable this either. How about NO,
goddammit?

Shame on you, Mozilla.

~~~
amadeusw
I also got the firefox for android after seeing the sync feature. However the
tabs don't sync by default and I haven't seen any guide on how to use this
feature. I'd appreciate any pointer in the right direction.

~~~
Sylos
On the desktop (in Firefox 57), you can find your tabs under Library->Synced
Tabs.

On the Android version, they appear on the homepage->History->Synced Devices.

Mind that they don't sync immediately. There's an interval for syncing. You
can lower this interval in about:config by editing one of
services.sync.scheduler.*, also possibly services.sync.syncInterval, but I
don't know for sure what each individual one does. Also, you can tell it to do
a sync right away, on the desktop version with Alt+t, then s; on the Android
version by going into the settings, then tapping on "Firefox Account" at the
top and then "Synchronize now".

------
wnevets
One downside is that there isn't a replacement for the tab wheel scroll add-
on. Very annoying.

------
helper
Whats the status of u2f in firefox 57? Trying to login to gmail I get
"Something went wrong. Remove your Security Key and try again." I enabled
'security.webauth.u2f' and 'security.webauth.webauthn' but that didn't seem to
help :(

~~~
helper
Ah, it works for github.com but not for google. Seems like an issue with the
google login page.

------
wishinghand
A question I have- I've been using Firefox Developer Edition and it says
"57.0b12 (64-bit)" when I check its version. Is it kept in parity (or slightly
ahead) of Firefox? Do I have all of the new features and speed boosts like
Quantum?

------
adventured
Congrats to the Firefox developers and team in general. I've stuck with
Firefox as my primary browser since version 2 or 3, even as it became very
frustratingly slow or resource inefficient compared to Chrome. Version 57 is
tremendous.

------
Drdrdrq
I'm still seeing version 56 on Google Play, is Android version 57 not
available yet?

------
mychael
I write software for the web so speed is secondary. I want to know: Does the
inspector have better/more features than Chrome's Inspector? Does it have
Redux and React Toolbars that are better than the Chrome ones?

~~~
TheCoreh
I believe the React and Redux toolbars are exactly the same as Chrome's

------
barosoa
No video download helper. Anyone got a good way of downloading video streams?

~~~
Max_Mustermann
Have you tried youtube-dl([https://rg3.github.io/youtube-
dl/](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/))?

~~~
barosoa
Not for a while. I was hoping for a browser addon.

------
V-2
As one of these people who switched away from Firefox to Chrome a long time
ago, I was curious to give it another go now that it's revamped and all. I
tend to do it very year or so, but something is always wrong.

Unfortunately, I quickly bumped into one simple deal-breaker (the same that
discouraged me from using Opera once, if I recall). Firefox adds a few pixels
of useless gap space above the tabs, meaning I always have to move the cursor
slightly downwards when changing tabs.

Some googling revealed the bug was actually reported over a year ago:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302168](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302168)

As of now, it persists. Back to Chrome - see you again next year : )

~~~
Santosh83
Not for me. I can slam the cursor to the top edge of the screen and click on a
background tab and it comes to focus just fine. This is of course with Firefox
maximised. Am on Windows 10 just for info... perhaps the UI is slightly
different under your OS...

~~~
V-2
I'm on Windows 10, too, so I assume the UI shouldn't be that far off.

The problem - see the link to Bugzilla I pasted - is supposedly related to the
use of multiple displays (which involves different DPI settings). A small
thing to be sure, but somewhat annoying, given that switching tabs is a fairly
common action when using a web browser.

What's unpleasant is how long it takes to resolve it. From Bugzilla:

> This is a pretty annoying usability regression that will ship in 50. Will we
> be able to fix it for 51?

It's version 57 :)

------
dbg31415
It's great, until you go to stream a video. Then the fans kick on, the
computer gets too hot to hold... Been this way forever, hope Firefox can
address this at some point in a future release.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Pretty much all the extensions I need have been converted to WebExtensions at
this point. DownTheMAll remains the sole holdout at this point, but I really
only use it on one of my workstations.

------
petre
Where do I see the params of post requests in the developer tools? The
parameters tab only shows url params. The old behaviour was to show both.
Also, rendering a 50k json response is slow.

------
esistgut
I use a dark theme on my Gnome desktop and in Firefox default form input
elements follow the theme settings. The textarea I'm typing in here on HN is
barely readable with this colors.

------
ndrake
Here's hoping Hacker News Enhancement Suite becomes available soon.

[https://github.com/etcet/HNES](https://github.com/etcet/HNES)

~~~
throwanem
Take a look at Chrome Store Foxified: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/)

------
citruscomputing
Loading webpages is faster for me, but youtube has a lot of jank and videos
freeze every few seconds. Is anyone else experiencing this, and if so, have
you been able to fix it?

------
johndoe489
On Windows 10, am I dreaming or the font smoothing looks a tiny bit different
(from Google Chrome)?

I kinda like it, small text looks a bit stronger and smoother à-la OS X.

~~~
jhasse
Yes, it has always been different to Chrome (better IMHO).

------
rammy1234
Firefox AGAIN became my favorite. Allows me to control my privacy to the level
I want. Great improvements. I believe there is more to come. YAY !!

------
deisner
I'd feel a little better if the words "secure" or "security" appeared at least
once in the marketing material: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/57.0/whatsnew/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/57.0/whatsnew/), [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/).

~~~
louiz
what concerns do you have regarding firefox’s security?

~~~
deisner
It's just that if security is a core priority, you'd expect to see this
mentioned at least once. Based on what I read, the core priorities are speed,
privacy, and convenience.

Compare this to Chrome, Safari, and Edge (tagline: "A fast and secure browser
that's designed for Windows 10"):
[https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/features.html](https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/features.html),
[https://www.apple.com/safari/](https://www.apple.com/safari/),
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-
edge](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-edge).

Perhaps this is just a marketing or internal communication issue. Did somebody
from security engineering have a seat at the table when the Firefox 57
marketing material was discussed?

~~~
Yoric
For what it's worth, in most companies, marketing material is typically
created by marketing people, with very limited interaction with engineering.

The message for Firefox 57 is performance. This doesn't mean that other stuff
wasn't improved (case in point, better sandboxing), just that you can only
tell one story at a time.

------
gbrown_
Anyone know how to disable the new loading animation? I find the "pulse" at
the end of the animation very distracting.

~~~
Sylos
You can disable "toolkit.cosmeticAnimations.enabled" in about:config.

This affects more than just the pulse, but you'll probably actually be happy
about that...

~~~
gbrown_
Thank you!

------
shady-lady
Glad Tree Style Tabs ported over to 57...but kinda annoying I needed to
uninstall/re-install add-on to get it working again

------
vernie
Will it be possible to get multi-row tabs back?

------
jusjus
Still can't view websocket messages natively in the browser. The add on that
did this don't work in the new version

------
arkitaip
The main thing keeping me tied to Chrome is how it syncs passwords, bookmarks
and history. Is Firefox's sync as good?

~~~
klez
It works for me.

I keep two instances of Firefox (Release and Nighly) on my work computer
(Windows 10), Nightly on my phone (Android) and a couple computers at home
running Firefox ESR (Debian). No problem whatsoever, even with such an
heterogenous setup.

Do you have any particular need that you think steers from the normal and that
Chrome does currently serve? Because for my use case, everything works
perfectly.

~~~
arkitaip
Don't have a particular need, I've just never Firefox's sync feature so I
don't know how well it performs.

------
bwidlar
Just updated, arch linux, great experience. Really really fast, the new dark
theme is great. Thanks to the developers.

------
johndoe489
1) Is it possible to change the shortcut for Private window to CTRL Shift N
somehow like in Chrome? (instead of Ctrl Shift P). (I like that I could use
that shortcut with my left hand (albeit with some nice thumb extension
action).)

2) Any way to remove the bottom bar icons when the omni bar completion box
shows? ... wait... How do I even edit search engines in Firefox? Like say,
typing "yt (space) search term" to do a search on YouTube?

~~~
yoasif_
2) [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-
address...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-search-from-address-bar)

~~~
johndoe489
Yeah this isn't the same at all. For example I don't know how to add a custom
search like:

[http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/%s](http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/%s)

When I add a search via right clicking the search box on that site it doesn't
work.

Plus, the completion UX is great on Chrome, as soon as you press space or tab
aftert he keyword it confirms with a special UX "Search Wikipediea" for
example. Here, you get no feedback whatsoever... if I type sfs 1.1.1.1 is it
going to google that, or is it actually going to search StopForumSpam for the
IP ? I have no idea until I press enter. :(

UPDATE

Looks like you have to use "keywords for bookmarks"

[http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches)

------
MadWombat
So... is there an official guide for downgrading back to an older version? For
those of us who lost functionality?

~~~
e12e
You probably want extended support release, not an old(ish) _unsupported_
version:

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/organizations/faq/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/organizations/faq/)

~~~
MadWombat
It seems that the extended support is only going to last until mid 2018, so
that is not what I want either. Wonder how long Waterfox is going to last.

------
jmh530
Feedly performs like garbage with the new Firefox. 100% of CPU when clicking
on the feed and doesn't go down.

~~~
jmh530
Honestly, I'm having all kinds of problems. I've had to force quit a bunch of
times. Some sites are 100% fine, but others cause CPU to 100% and doesn't come
down. Feedly was the first I noticed, but it happened again on Yahoo Finance
when I clicked on a stock quote. It happened when I went to the new tab
settings and tried to change those. Some things are just really off.

------
intopieces
I've since switched to UnGoogled Chromium but might have to give this a shot
just get TreeStyle Tabs back.

------
fyrstenberg
Do anyone have NoScript working in 57r? The latest dev version from
noscript.net doesn't want to install.

~~~
r3bl
WebExtension version of NoScript is going to be released today:
[https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-
noscript/](https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-noscript/)

------
ProAm
Does anyone know how to make the newtab screen dark? All the user styles seem
not to work anymore?

------
wklm
Did anyone find an easy way to export bookmarks, history etc from chrome to
firefox?

~~~
callahad
The instructions at [https://support.mozilla.org/kb/import-bookmarks-data-
another...](https://support.mozilla.org/kb/import-bookmarks-data-another-
browser) show how to import data from other browsers into Firefox.

------
rexreed
Ever since version 50.0, Firefox consistently crashes / freezes every time I
try to download a file / save-as an image. I've seen this reported by others
as well. This makes Firefox very much unusable for me. Perhaps someone here
will pay attention to that.

(fixed you try to I try to make it more about me ;)

~~~
Yoric
This could be many things, but if it is only when you download/save-as, from
the top of my mind, that sounds like an Anti-Virus bug.

Where did you report it?

~~~
rexreed
He's another person reporting [0]. It happens even on safe mode, and I'm on
Mac OSX without any AV installed. It started happening only a few releases
ago, so not sure what has changed in the download manager. If I go back to,
say, FF 45, then it's all happy.

[0] [https://superuser.com/questions/982182/firefox-freezes-
when-...](https://superuser.com/questions/982182/firefox-freezes-when-
downloading-file)

------
elnygren
TIL Chrome is the _worst_ browser on my Macbook atm.

Not too long ago it was the best.

------
calyhre
Still miss a proper / user-friendly profiles management interface :(

------
Zeklandia
I'm just glad that uBlock₀ works in Firefox 57.0 for Android.

------
el_padrinho
What you think is better, this version or still google chrome?

------
genzoman
I updated to 57 from 56 and now FireFox won't launch :(.

------
godzillabrennus
This is exciting! Glad to see Google Chrome has competition.

------
asfdsfggtfd
Any recommendations for installing the ESR version on Linux?

------
shmerl
What Firefox version is Webrender release scheduled for?

------
gorn
Is there a way to import bookmarks from Chrome?

------
lonk
Scrolling is still laggy and jerky on android.

~~~
distances
Are you on beta/nightly on Android? I feel it's much better now, but still not
as good as Chrome.

The add-on support (uBlock) is absolutely crucial on mobile though so I could
never go back to Chrome.

------
superdaniel
Even the scrolling on macOS is more smooth!

------
SquareWheel
Congrats Firefox team on this release!

------
jeshwanth
Wow, super responsive firefox now :)

------
Shivetya
since 56.0 google maps went black on me and nothing seems to matter. really
confused how something so simple just breaks; I am on OS X fwiw.

I end up swapping to safari for some functions and then using firefox for
others. throw in 57 changes the look for no reason. I don't need dark tabs as
default, updates should not change the user experience without permission

~~~
tmzt
You could try switching off WebGL rendering on maps, if that's still an
option.

------
Kattywumpus
No more Private Tabs.

------
gregorymichael
This is really fast.

------
ryanpcmcquen
Thank you Mozilla!

------
jacknews
vertical tabs?

Seems like vertical-tabs-reloaded no longer works.

------
stesch
Currently no NoScript for Firefox 57.

And no gestures if you are on Mac or Linux.

~~~
clouddrover
But NoScript will be released today:

[https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-
noscript/](https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-noscript/)

~~~
stesch
End of the week.

------
user5994461
The release disabled noscript. Do not update.

------
dsschnau
its so good!

------
Vinnl
From the announcement post [1]:

> As part of our focus on user experience and performance in Firefox Quantum,
> Google will also become our new default search provider in the United States
> and Canada.

Does that mean the deal with Yahoo! has lapsed? And is there a new deal with
Google, or no deal at all? (And what would be the revenue impact of that?)

Edit: Just saw an announcement for this as well [2], with no word about
revenue. Guess that means that Yahoo! isn't paying anymore and that it means
Google is the more sensible choice when nobody pays - though that's still
reading between the lines.

[1] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/introducing-
firefox...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/introducing-firefox-
quantum/)

[2] [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/firefox-features-
go...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/11/14/firefox-features-google-as-
default-search-provider-in-the-u-s-canada-hong-kong-and-taiwan/)

~~~
makapuf
I'd say that the most sensible choice in the absence of any payment,
considering FF sensibility and message, (i.e. according to me) DDG would be
the most sensible default. (edit : clarify)

~~~
dymk
When has any proof ever been given that they’re any more privacy conscious
than any other search engine?

~~~
Finnucane
They're not an ad agency, which is a good enough answer for me.

~~~
dymk
An ad agency has a big incentive to keep your user data to themselves, as
that's their most valuable and competitive resource. Google and Facebook have
a _huge_ incentive to not leak information about their users; why would
someone pay them if that data was available elsewhere?

DDG has every incentive to sell user data, given that they don't have their
own ad network with which to target. How else would they make money off of it?

~~~
Finnucane
[https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-
affiliates](https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates)

~~~
dymk
My point is that "they're not an ad agency" is not an argument that a company
has some incentive to protect user privacy, and "they're an ad agency" is not
an argument that a company is incentivized to sell user data.

~~~
Finnucane
Yeah, okay, DDG _might_ be lying about their privacy promises. They _might_ be
tracking us all ways to Sunday the way Google and Facebook do. They _might_
have some seekrit, back-door ad sales department that nobody knows about and
somehow they've managed to keep secret. Which, of course, is a great method
for making ad sales.

------
masterleep
On first glance, it's got some pretty annoying loading animations for tabs.

~~~
0xcoffee
Yes, even after disabling UI animations, the blue bar above tabs does not go
away. Still looking for a way to disable this.

------
ForFreedom
Absolutely no difference from chrome w.r.t memory usage.

------
Severian
I won't touch it until NoScript is available.

~~~
SadWebDeveloper
+1 m using Chrome + uBO + uMatrix + uBlock Protector while NoScript 10 gets
released.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Slightly confused here: what's the point of "using Chrome instead" when FF
supports all of the addons you're using 'in the mean time' already? Just use
FF with those addons until NoScript gets its official release in tandem with
the official FF release?

~~~
SadWebDeveloper
Every major FF release always come with major bugs followed by a minor release
fixing them a couple of days later, plus it comes with headaches discovering
"Whats New" or for me "What should i disable next" or "What feature they
delete", usually i tolerated those changes because i had NoScript by my side
and now that NoScript disappear the line between Chrome and FF its pretty thin
therefore meanwhile everything settle, m using an already tuned Chrome.

tl;dr FF without NoScript is basically Chrome, without NoScript Firefox is
meaningless to me, it's the only thing that has kept me on Firefox.

------
MadWombat
So... my Firefox just auto-upgraded to 57

* No multi-row tab bar and no way to get it (from Tab Mix Plus)

* Tabs are ugly square and no way to get them rounded

* Tabs are too small and no way to set minimal tab size

* Tabs are all the same color and no way to get them colored again

* No tab groups, the replacement is containers, but there is no way to move an existing tab into a container and no way to only see tabs for a particular container.

* Tab Session Manager seems to provide named sessions, although I have not tested it properly yet

I wouldn't say that the new FF is completely useless, but it has affected my
browsing experience in a strongly negative way. I will give it a few days, but
at this point Chrome might provide more features I actually want (never
thought I would say that).

Edit: Reading other comments in this thread, I found a link to a set of CSS
files that bring rounded tabs back ([https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-
australis](https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis)). Unfortunately it
disables color coding container tabs which makes separating containers a pain.
Well, guess you cannot have everything.

