
Firefox 74 - replax
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/74.0/releasenotes/
======
StavrosK
The Facebook container is great, but I wish there was an option for the built-
in Multi-Account containers to work this way. I've been doing what the
Facebook Container extension does, but with built-in containers, and the
experience is very clunky.

The two biggest issues are that I can't give the container a list of domains
beforehand and say "everything under google.com should open here". I have to
go to each Google subdomain and set it to "always open in this container" with
three or four clicks. The other _major_ issue is that there's no way to have
links outside those domains open outside the container, so whenever I click a
link on Gmail that goes to Github, Github opens in the Google container and I
always have to copy/paste the address to a new tab.

Fixing those two annoyances would make the built-in containers feature
amazing. Maybe I should file a feature request.

EDIT: I have filed a feature request:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621276](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621276)

~~~
comboy
I use FF, I don't use FB, but I still think this is wrong. Browser is not a
place to decide which companies are good and which are bad. As much as I
despise Facebook I still don't think it's fair.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
say it". All companies should have the same access to the technology in user's
browser. Favoring Google by Chrome seems no different than blocking Facebook
by Firefox. It's the same behavior, just a difference in opinions.

edit: to clarify, I am in agreement with the parent comment, the above is just
about Facebook container being a feature

~~~
StavrosK
It's wrong for the browser to give me a way to containerize whatever domain I
want?

~~~
comboy
Absolutely not, but you should be the one choosing the domain.

~~~
StavrosK
I am, Firefox doesn't do this by default.

------
srathi
So Firefox sent me an email with a title "Get Facebook Out". I tried to
unsubscribe, but that forces me to login first, for which I don't remember the
password. So I had to reset the password, and then unsubscribe from their
"tips" emails.

Shouldn't Firefox offer a one click unsubscribe botton?

~~~
finchisko
you are supposed to use facebook login for that :D

------
saberworks
I don't know what is up with mozilla/firefox. I'm still using firefox but not
because I like it, only because the alternatives are worse. I signed up for a
firefox account almost right after they were announced. At the time and
multiple times since I've unsubscribed from "all" their emails because I'm not
interested in them. They just either invent a new list and auto-subscribe me
to it or they just ignore my preferences and spam me anyway. Today I got an
email from mozilla telling me to "Get the 'F' out." So I did, I reset my
password, logged into their service, unsubscribed (again!!) from all their
lists, and then deleted my account. Yes, I was forced to reset my password and
log in just to unsubscribe.

Not mentioned in the changelog for this release is that in the URL bar, when I
start typing and the suggestion list drops down, the first result is now
highlighted in an eye-destroying bright green (even in dark mode, which I'm
using).

~~~
Ohn0
I used to be a fan of FF until chrome. I understand it's bad - but how about
chromium?

Btw, I'm not against looking at FF again, but looking at this changelog and
recent product direction, they honestly feel lost.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
How is chromium better than chrome? It's the same program, minus some blobs.

~~~
tedunangst
Some users may not like the blobs.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I mean, sure, but chromium is still happy to spy on you, integrate with Google
services, and contributes to the Blink monoculture. I'm just surprised that
there are people who would object to Chrome on principle and _not_ to
chromium.

------
spatulon
I'd love to hear if they made any progress in tracking down the 'interesting
WebRender bug' from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22359574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22359574)

~~~
jiripospisil
They have, it's suspected to be caused by a race condition with memory
pressure events [0][1]. It looks like the patch is not included in Firefox 74
though.

[0] [https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/moz-gfx-
newslett...](https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/moz-gfx-
newsletter-51/)

[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1617083](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1617083)

~~~
jbonisteel
yeah our potential fix is on Firefox Beta right now, if people want to try it
out!

------
skrowl
The largest change is disabling TLS 1.0 and 1.1 by default.

Chrome following when 81 gets released (currently in beta).

~~~
tialaramex
Yes, all the major browsers are on board with this plan.

An IETF Best Common Practice document saying to stop using TLS 1.0 (and TLS
1.1 which was rarely used in practice) will probably be published later this
year. I liked this document's original name better but alas it's more
important for people to act on correct advice than for the advice to make me
smile.

[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-moriarty-tls-
oldversi...](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-moriarty-tls-oldversions-
diediedie/)

------
MasterYoda
The 74 release says "New: Facebook container..."

Do they mean the facebook container addon will come as standard, pre-installed
with 74 or do they only mean they updated the addon? Little bit confused,
feels a bit strange if they meant the later (under the new firefox release),
but a at the same time when I updated 73 to 74 I could not see any traces of
the "facebook container" in 74, no added addon. Is it meant fb container
should should be like an pre-installed addon?

~~~
dao-
> Do they mean the facebook container addon will come as standard, pre-
> installed with 74 or do they only mean they updated the addon?

The latter.

~~~
Santosh83
Why is that being mentioned in the main application's release notes? Isn't it
more appropriate on the addon's main page? This confused me too. I thought
they were including Facebook Container by default like they did with Pocket,
then could find no trace of it after updating.

~~~
asveikau
I don't watch mozilla closely other than I run firefox in a couple of places
[including typing this message], and it does seem to me that they often promo
existing features as "new" assuming that people are unfamiliar with them,
which in fairness, a lot of people are probably unfamiliar..

For example when they recently updated their android app, it was phrased as
"our new android app" with the possible implication that it was written from
scratch more recently [I was already using it]. And probably to a lot of
potential users, it might as well be new, because most people are not on it.

Seems a tad slimy/deceptive/over-hyping. But I understand that the public at
large is unaware of the feature set and they wish to make a good impression.

------
MivLives
It's interesting that the patch notes seem to have references to a specific
site. Did they really make changes to Firefox that only target Instagram?

~~~
frenchman99
Probably because the changes relate to Picture-in-Picture, which is not a
standard web feature. Making sure heavily used websites work well seems
logical and Firefox doesn't seem to be messing with web standard here, so it
doesn't create any kind of technical debt going forward.

------
pgm8705
Eagerly awaiting a Firefox release that improves power consumption on Mac to a
point where it is at least close to competitive with Safari. That, plus the
rumors that iOS will soon allow 3rd party default browsers and I'm all in
Firefox for sure.

~~~
AbuAssar
restricting all browsers to use safari is the single killer feature that made
me stick with ios.

If I blacklisted a website in control center it is respected in all browsers
even in private mode.

~~~
hencoappel
> restricting all browsers to use safari is the single killer feature

"killer" is right, "feature" is not. It's very anti-competitive and for those
who don't want to use Safari it means iOS is just not an option.

> If I blacklisted a website in control center it is respected in all browsers
> even in private mode.

This is useful if you're using multiple browsers, but why bother if they're
all Safari?

------
theandrewbailey
> Firefox has added support for the new JavaScript optional chaining operator
> (?.)

Cool! This sounds like something all programming languages should have had
decades ago.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Optional_chaining)

~~~
jmkni
This is only a recent addition to Typescript as well.

I'm working on a project built on Angular7 at the moment, and the version of
Typescript we use is too old for this operator.

What happens when the browser supports an operator the version of Typescript
you are using doesn't?

~~~
untog
> What happens when the browser supports an operator the version of Typescript
> you are using doesn't?

Nothing, because the compiled TypeScript won't contain it. TypeScript is
deliberately conservative about the language features it supports to ensure it
never gets out of sync with JS.

------
neop1x
I am surprised that browsing experience looks mostly the same as it did in the
beginning of web browsing. Browsers are almost operating systems, yet they
look like, well.. content readers. Nowadays I tend to work on several
"projects" or tasks in paralel and for each project I open multiple tabs. I am
opening multiple windows but it's easy to get lost in what each of these
windows belongs to, difficult to switch between them, browser windows all look
the same. Containers are not exactly good for this as they have their own
cookies/local storage (different use case). It seems to me that browsers are
not evolving in the actual end user usability that much. Also, more generally,
why can't we have electron built-in in the browser, integrated with OS (so
windows would look like a native app with it's own icon, title, etc)? Why does
there need to be a separate Electron "browser" for every webapp instead of
reusing already running browser with extra, per-app elevated API access? Why
are browsers using vague version numbering instead of semver as it used to be?
I don't know if FF 74 is the massive upgrade from 73 or if it is similar to
the change from 72 to 73 or 71 to 72. And will it still take 2 seconds to get
visual feedback after clicking the button in that fancy marerial SPA on my
cutting-edge desktop machine?

------
onyva
I wish they’d fix Lockwise on iOS. Not really working. In my case takes ages
to open when set as default, and never auto suggests login for the active
site, either from Firefox or any other app.

~~~
abledon
Why use lock wise over say. 1password or LastPass ?

~~~
onyva
Because I trust Mozilla with my data. Would love it to support alternative
backends, like NextCloud, though.

~~~
nichos
I would suggest bitwarden, it's fully open source. I switched to it from
Mozilla, mostly because of the sharing.

~~~
newscracker
I use Bitwarden, but don't really like the UX. It being a one person endeavor
seems to make the rate of improvement quite slow.

The app itself is quite slow to open on the platforms I've used it on.
Searching for items is also slow. It doesn't allow for custom types (like
WiFi, software licenses and other things), like the commercial ones do.

------
MikusR
After updating Firefox opens this page (using Google trackers)
[https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/74.0/whatsnew/all/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/74.0/whatsnew/all/) with a huge banner for Facebook container.
Notably Mozilla hasn't made or advertises a Google container (probably has
nothing to do with their heavy use of Google analytics or the search deal they
have with Google).

------
jorvi
Please just fix the macOS CoreAnimation patch. It was introduced with so much
fanfare ~6 months ago but it doesn't do anything, in terms of power use, for a
large contingent of Firefox users. Firefox still nukes batteries, especially
with video playing.

------
ptx
"Going forward, only users can install add-ons; they cannot be installed by an
application."

Surely that depends on how hard the application wants to try? I suppose they
might mean that installing add-ons externally is now unsupported.

~~~
notriddle
Windows and macOS both have application-tied sandboxing systems. Maybe they
plan to use that?

------
Waterluvian
It says a lot that there's a new feature bullet for Facebook alone. I wonder
if at some point Firefox is going to be so effective at hampering FB's goals
that FB decides it needs to be crushed

~~~
IanSanders
Firefox has (unfortunately) such an insignificant share that it doesn't make
any difference. Also many companies don't even bother officially supporting it
any more.

~~~
fwup
Google services are extremely slow on Firefox too.

------
dcarmo
I wish Firefox had a good multi-account support like Chrome has. That, and the
fact that iOS 14 might allow to set your default browser would make me move to
use Firefox everywhere.

~~~
Semaphor
Multi-account works great with containers, far superior to chrome.

What you mean is probably multi-profile. I have never used that with chrome,
but with FF I can go to about:profiles to open a new one or (according to a
quick search) have a shortcut to the profile switcher or to a specific
profile. What does Chrome do better?

~~~
cdubzzz
> What does Chrome do better?

I haven't used Chrome in a long time, but this is the primary major thing I
miss from it (possibly the only thing).

E.g. we have a family computer that my spouse and I use. I have set up
separate profiles for us and forced Firefox to ask which profile to use on
launch. But this means that if she has the browser open and has stepped away,
I can't just open a new window, switch to my profile, and do things under it.
I have to fully quit the browser and restart it.

If I remember correctly, with Chrome the profile was essentially tied to the
logged in account and it was possible to have multiple windows open to
different accounts. With Firefox you need to sign out of a Sync account before
logging in to another.

~~~
velosol
Out of curiosity, why not have another user account on the computer? Windows
is pretty simple to move between user accounts as is Linux and, although I
haven't use macOS recently enough to comment, it was pretty easy the last time
I did.

I'm sure our use cases are different but I'd like to understand yours better.

~~~
cdubzzz
Ya know, this never even crossed my mind. Hah. Good point.

------
genpfault
Any way to get rid of this "Your browser is being managed by your
organization" tomfoolery without nuking the relevant code in
EnterprisePolicies.js[1] and rebuilding Firefox?

[1]: [https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-
central/source/toolkit/compo...](https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-
central/source/toolkit/components/enterprisepolicies/EnterprisePolicies.js#568)

~~~
jorams
Can't you ask your organization to get rid of its policies?

~~~
starik36
If it were only that easy.

------
ape4
Even if Facebook is containerized, if you make a purchase on <site>.com they
might just tell Facebook (without the browser involved)

~~~
sp332
But that site would have to know what your Facebook profile is. And with FB
domains blocked outside of the FB container, they're going to have a harder
time putting that info together.

~~~
ape4
Could they just use your email address?

~~~
groovecoder
psst ... check out [https://monitor.firefox.com/protect-my-
email](https://monitor.firefox.com/protect-my-email)

~~~
newscracker
That helps only for breaches involving specific email addresses. What the GP
is hinting at is Facebook having your email address and you using the same
email address on a site for a purchase. Sellers usually upload their
customers' email addresses on to Facebook and other social media platforms so
that they can target these users better. So if you use the same email address
everywhere, then linking all your interactions and transactions is a
certainty.

------
Avi-D-coder
Switched to Firefox nightly and preview recently; it's great once you enable
webrender and mess with a few other about:config options. Lockwise on Android
is the only issue, it doesn't always suggest my saved passwords.

~~~
jmkni
Which about:config options specifically would you recommend?

~~~
Avi-D-coder
I have a blog post in my drafts folder that documents it.

~~~
edoceo
Hoping you post to HN when you publish.

------
maallooc
[https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2020-08/](https://www.mozilla.org/security/advisories/mfsa2020-08/)

Link seems broken.

------
metalliqaz
This release really seems broken to me. Tree Style Tabs broke completely, and
i have problems with non-responsive windows

~~~
kyleee
Ugh that makes me worry, what happened to TST for you?

~~~
abdullahkhalids
I can only close tabs with Ctrl+W. Clicking on the 'x' button does nothing.

~~~
sfink
Something's weird, then, given the number of Mozilla devs who use TST. Try in
safe mode / try in a different profile / file a bug.

(I am running Nightly and am happily clicking away TST tabs with the 'x'.)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Thanks. Reinstalling the extension fixed it.

~~~
mkl
Did that lose your existing tree structure and flatten everything?

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Nope. I did the following steps: (1) uninstall TST (2) restart browser (3)
install TST (4) restart browser.

All the tabs were as is. But I also purposefully did not open or close any
tabs between (2) and (3). Not sure what the impact of that would be.

------
trasz
I still find it somewhat surprising that the FreeBSD pkg is already there,
just hours after release.

~~~
dddddaviddddd
Just note that Firefox (any version) won't be in the quarterly repository for
a few days due to a dependency problem, at least for 12.1-RELEASE:

[https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
ports/2020-March...](https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
ports/2020-March/117932.html)

------
Ohn0
First item listed under New:

> Your login management has improved with the ability to reverse alpha sort
> (Name Z-A)

Cool!

------
baal80spam
Is it me or the security fixes link points to a nonexisting page?

~~~
vesinisa
It might be under embargo. Links up until MFSA2020-07 work.

------
finchisko
I wish disabling extension will not reset all the settings.

------
franczesko
The desktop version should be a lower-level priority in the mobile driven
world. The Android version of the browser is still annoyingly slow and too
complex to be a daily default.

Brave, with it's dead easy setup should be an example to follow.

~~~
Ayesh
Did you try FF preview 4? It's quite good.

------
brynjolf
The browser is unusable on Twitch or YouTube. It is so slow. It also starts
lagging my 2700x CPU, which is insane. As always performance is an issue with
Firefox and always will be

------
Hitton
I guess this means that containers still don't work in private mode.

------
fdghfg
does it still come with google tracking on the welcome screen and a ton of
unapproved communication to mozilla servers?

~~~
vntok
Yes it does.

------
DonCopal
Until Firefox allows Tampermonkey scripts to be loaded from local files, I'm
not switching.

------
Ohn0
> When a video is uploaded with a batch of photos on Instagram ...

Features just for insta? I thought this was a web browser not an instagram
browser. I guess same goes for the facebook container... what's up with
building browser features for facebook? Why no reddit container, or google
container, or amazon container?

~~~
rictic
It's possible this was a layout bug whose most common and visible consequence
was on instagram?

Or does FireFox's picture in picture code have special casing for some sites?

~~~
edoceo
FF has some special cases for specific sites. A bug linked above shows it for
Insta and another for a bank.

------
seumars
A new Firefox release, a new reminder that Firefox hasn't implemented native
context menus in macOS for 20 years.

~~~
macinjosh
It is open source. If you want that feature so badly you've had 20 years to
implement it and submit a patch.

