
Firefox 70 released for Firefox Quantum: Developer Edition - romelsongalia
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/
======
nocture
Worth noting, this landed a patch that moves some of the UI work to Core
Animation on MacOS[1]. More work will happen that builds on top of this, but
some reports in that ticket are promising already.

[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522)

~~~
GeekyBear
Moving from OpenGL to Core Animation has required a huge amount of work, but
even at this early stage (before many of the changes in progress land) the
power savings and performance gains are already significant.

Good work, and much appreciated!

------
archie2
Has there been a significant update to the devtools recently? I've been a
devedition user for years, odd to see it on the front page of HN just linking
to the homepage..

~~~
SquareWheel
This is why I dislike these software posts without context. It's never clear
if there's been an update or if the submitter just discovered them for the
first time.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
I really wish posts like this, and posts that are just random Wikipedia
articles, would have a paragraph (or at least a sentence) from the submitter.

Why is this interesting? For Wikipedia articles about people this is doubly
important because the title is inevitably just the person's name - unless you
already know who that person is there's no hint as to why they are
significant.

~~~
sweeneyrod
Disagree. I like the way this system stops submitters giving their potentially
half-baked opinions on articles, and adds an element of mystery to things.

~~~
duxup
I'm inclined to agree, tossing in the poster's spin tends to drive the topic,
often to odd places rather than the actual thing.

At the same time links to pages without any context as to why leaves me
wondering why I should be looking at this page. Particularly product pages
that are not easy to parse what the point is sometimes.

~~~
Paul-ish
The selection of the article itself is sufficient to add spin.

~~~
duxup
I don't think I understand.

~~~
Paul-ish
Say Google makes a significant change to their ToS. If you link to the ToS,
the title will be "Google ToS". So instead you are left with the option of
linking to a Guardian/buzzfeed/wired blog post that is mostly fluff, doesn't
include the actual ToS text in context, and has a hyperbolic headline. Which
article you chose to post determines the spin.

~~~
duxup
I don't think just listing a product page or a ToS is "spin". Product pages my
be there to talk up their product but we know that.

------
CJefferson
Can anyone explain exactly what's different about this?

Are all these features not in normal Firefox? Is this like a beta of normal
firefox, set of extensions, or a significant fork?

~~~
ptx
I think it's mainly a difference in configuration. The developer version,
IIRC, allows you to install extensions on your own machine without seeking
approval from Mozilla, but on the other hand it apparently subjects you to
additional telemetry:

> Firefox Developer Edition automatically sends feedback to Mozilla ... In
> addition to the data collection described in this Privacy Notice, these
> versions by default may send certain types of web activity and crash data to
> Mozilla and in some cases to our partners.

~~~
bovine3dom
If you just want to be able to install unsigned extensions with neither the
extra bugs from running a beta nor the telemetry, you can use the far less
advertised "unbranded builds" of Firefox [1] instead.

[1]: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-
ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Bu...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-
ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Builds)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Don't the unbranded builds also lack automatic updating?

~~~
bovine3dom
It's possible. Last I heard was that the unbranded builds were too eager to
update [1] so it could well have been disabled totally. The Mozilla wiki
doesn't mention anything about updating being disabled which to me implies it
is not. If you find out for certain, please let me know!

I don't personally use the builds as Mozilla has not yet blocked signing of
our extensions and `web-ext run` serves me well for development. Automated
signing is not brilliantly documented but works well enough [2-3] to ensure
that our builds are tested by real users before we release a stable version.

[1]: [https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637](https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637)

[2]:
[https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df8...](https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df815e9cd8c27bf7a56b0527bbd/scripts/sign#L5)

[3]:
[https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild....](https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild.sh)

------
fareesh
I can't seem to make the switch away from Chromium devtools. I don't know
whether it's because I am habituated to the Chromium ones or whether there is
something klunky about the Firefox devtools that I can't put my finger on.

~~~
philliphaydon
Other than the web socket support in Chrome, the FF dev tools are a billion
times better than Chrome now. I cannot work without the css layout overlays
from FF dev tools. Makes working with grid layouts insanely easy.

~~~
rndgermandude
The Chrome profiler is a lot better (IMO) than the one Firefox ships. But then
there is [https://profiler.firefox.com/](https://profiler.firefox.com/)

The debugger/sources view in Firefox also seems buggier still. E.g. a lot of
times while it correctly displays source-mapped locations in the console,
clicking on those source links will not actually go to the right place in the
source view (it will either end up in the packed source or it will not go to
the correct line in the source-mapped file even tho the console link gave the
correct line).

One thing I miss that Firefox does not have at all is the Layers view. Which
would be especially important since such things are browser specific and
debugging performance/memory issues and making sure the engine uses a sane set
of compositing layers can be important sometimes.

But the feature I miss most in my tiny corner of the world by a large margin
is the Websocket support indeed. This is the thing that always makes me go
back to Chrome devtools.

~~~
digitarald
WebSocket inspector will be in DevEdition next week!

------
AlphaWeaver
FYI, this post is because Firefox 70 was released for Firefox Quantum:
Developer Edition.

Should the title be changed?

------
karthickshiva
Why Firefox is not allowing us to edit JS code as allowed by Chrome.

------
zaphirplane
What’s the Mozilla community like for external contributions? Before the big
google dollars it seemed cliquey and now seems mostly paid people. Is that
accurate ?

I wonder what happens to Firefox if the search dollars run out and companies
are uniting behind chrome/WebKit

~~~
The_rationalist
I regularly watch commits from webkit, chromium, gecko-dev and servo.

Webkit is developed almost exclusively by Apple (or more maintained because
development is very slow, btw I suspect that Apple will drop webkit as it
become too far behind) There are also a few igalia devs and one Sony dev + one
Gmail dev.

Chromium is developed by so many people, Google, Microsoft, opera, QT,
hardware makers (ARM, Intel, nvidia), some enterprises, and many contributors
(I wonder if chromium has more opensource non paid contributor than gecko)

Servo is mostly developed by paid mozilla devs, but had major improvements
made by contributors. Proportionally far more non paid contributor than the
gecko of today, I expect mostly because they work on github which is more
friendly than bugzilla and mailing lists...

Gecko dev today non paid developers are a few minority.

If Firefox does not die by himself, expect Google to slowly stop paying them
Thus mozilla will die which would be a great loss.

Mozilla could save it's future, mozilla could become sustainable: I made a
proposal here:
[https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/24026](https://github.com/servo/servo/issues/24026)

~~~
leadingthenet
What a terrible argument. I really don’t understand how people don’t see the
negative effects of browser monoculture. I feel like I’d just be rehashing the
same old points :(

~~~
The_rationalist
Which argument? Firefox is dying, it's a fact, watch the marketshare over
time.

Were you referring to my proposal on github?

~~~
leadingthenet
> Were you referring to my proposal on github?

I was, yes.

~~~
The_rationalist
Sorry but what's your alternative? I understand that it does not please you (I
actually think that mozilla merging with chromium would be a good thing and we
disagree on that)

 _But_ you can't disagree with my plan? It would mean you have an alternative
(you probably don't), or that you wish that the trend continue and that
mozilla die (you don't actually wish that)

~~~
TheGoddessInari
Google can't even get its own house in order. Working with web brokenness is
_all_ to do with Chrome monoculture these days. You have to make crazy
workarounds even for electron-based apps.

A monoculture inherently creates fragility and inflexibility without the need
to compete or collaborate.

Chrome removing ad blocker functionality is one reason why Mozilla is sorely
needed.

Unfortunately, people don't realize that they are the product with Google, and
ever more invasive spying will always the norm with them.

Dont drink the Kool-aid.

------
tajstar
Quantum has been out for some time but it seems have updated some of the dev
tools as well as added in a new shape editor and fonts panel, something that
is not available in chrome. looking forward to trying these out.

------
iicc
Would love to see something like this for Android (Android firefox doesn't
have developer tools to save space).

~~~
The_rationalist
It's not to save space, they could download it opt-in.. It's because they
don't have the resources and have many P1 features to catch up.

------
demarq
Even though I stayed away from FF because of it's macos issues, I found myself
using it(normal ff) for development. I'm not the only one at work either.

It's a weird angle for a browser to compete from, but I guess it's working.

------
rasfincher
Am I crazy or does Option-Command-S not open the Debugger as it says in the
Debugger tutorial?

~~~
OrgNet
You made me discover a new shortcut... <ctrl>-<shift>-<s> opens the screenshot
tool ... too bad they removed the cloud hosting feature though...

------
gigatexal
Not a front end dev but this looks really neat.

------
badrabbit
What happened to Servo?

------
lovetocode
Did they fix the memory bloat on Mac OS? It’s pretty much useless to me on
MacOS.

~~~
tbassetto
I saw a tweet recently about macOS power consumption fixes:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/pcwalton/status/11661937700160798...](https://mobile.twitter.com/pcwalton/status/1166193770016079872)

Haven't noticed any memory bloat myself though (= it consumes a lot of memory,
like any browsers). It's somewhere between Safari and Chrome.

~~~
The_rationalist
Random question: Do you use safari? Do you see significant performance
differences with chrome? Do you see broken/partially broken websites on safari
vs chrome ?

~~~
tbassetto
I only use Safari on my personal computer. And at work I use Firefox for
development, and Safari for personal stuff. I used to use Chrome but nowadays
it's very rare (testing something specific).

The thing is, Chrome actually feels snappier than both Firefox and Safari when
I am using it, probably because it's profile is empty (almost no extensions,
no history, etc.).

I rarely see broken websites, with any browser. And usually it's because of my
ad-blocking extensions. Google websites are slower on Firefox, but rumours are
saying that it's almost on purpose… (one more reason to not use Google
products like Chrome).

------
maxheadroom
Should the title have a (2017) at the end, since Quantum initially came out
then[0,1]? (I understand it points to a current-version but it seems like,
from the comments, it's being mistaken for having recently been released.)

[0] - [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/26/firefox-quantum-
bet...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/09/26/firefox-quantum-beta-
developer-edition/)

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history#Firefo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history#Firefox_52_through_59)

~~~
Kuinox
No, i'm using the developer edition and got the update only this morning. But
I don't know if something have changed...

~~~
wlesieutre
Today updated to 70.b1, according to the About Firefox Developer Edition
window.

It has a "What's new" link next to the version number, but it links to a 404:
[https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/70.0beta/releasenotes](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/70.0beta/releasenotes)

EDIT - I put in a bug report on the release notes link, response says that
release notes will come out next week

~~~
lizzard
Hi there. You can also refer to the 70 nightly notes at
[https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/70.0a1/releasenotes/](https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/70.0a1/releasenotes/)
for now.

