
Firefox 61.0 Released - l2dy
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/61.0/releasenotes/
======
ktosobcy
Great release. I had issues with previous releases (58-60) on MBP, where quite
a lot of pages would cause high CPU usage and in turn overheating of the
machine but after this upgrade the problem (at least it seems so) went away.
And it also feels snappier.

And now the dark theme also applies to address bar and hamburger menu which is
nice bonus.

~~~
adpirz
If this is true, I would finally be ready to dump Chrome. I had the same
issues, and I couldn't figure out what was causing it, but the app regularly
ran hot. Will give this round a go.

UPDATE: So far, so good! Multiple account containers open, lots of different
websites that usually would cause problems, and so far it's running fine! Also
had Ghostery left installed and uninstalled that as well as it also hogged CPU
time on Chrome, so that may have had an effect. All in all, think this is
g'bye, Chrome.

~~~
kemayo
Sort of tangential, but as an account-containers user, have you found a decent
way to achieve making the current container "sticky", so that new tabs opened
in a given window go directly to that container?

I currently use Chrome's account profiles for this, so I have a desktop where
my work profile lives and a desktop where my personal profile lives, and this
makes links followed from other applications Just Work so long as I'm on the
right desktop for them. I could probably get used to a slightly more awkward
workflow, and the history being annoyingly shared between them, but...

EDIT: ah, well, I found the relevant github issue. Looks like there's years of
arguing yet to go! [https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-
containers/issues/3...](https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-
containers/issues/319)

~~~
IlGrigiore
I have been using the Conex extension. It opens the new tab in the same
container as the currently active tab and you can enable the preference to
make it so that it asks you which container you want to use before opening an
external link.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/conex/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/conex/)

~~~
kemayo
I've written my own now, which just approximates the Chrome behavior. (I
looked at Conex after you linked it, and it didn't quite do what I felt was
right.)

[https://github.com/kemayo/firefox-sticky-
containers](https://github.com/kemayo/firefox-sticky-containers)

I'm currently seeing whether #webextensions on irc.mozilla.org feels like
ripping it to shreds, but I'll put it up on AMO after that's done.

------
anarcat
My favorite improvements are:

* On-by-default support for the latest draft of the TLS 1.3 specification

* Convenient access to more search engines: You can now add search engines to the address bar “Search with” tool from the page action menu when on a webpage that provides an OpenSearch plugin

~~~
Someone1234
> Convenient access to more search engines

When I read that I was hoping they'd let me add a search engine to the
existing "Select Text -> Right Click -> Search Google for '[Selected]'."

All I want is to be able to highlight page text and search YouTube, Amazon, or
Google for it.

Right now I use an extension called "Swift Selection Search" but I'd prefer
not to need it, the search engines are already part of the browser, I just
need them on the context menu.

~~~
Ajedi32
Personally, I was hoping for a Chrome-style "start typing name of website then
hit tab to search that site". That's one of the biggest features I miss
whenever I use Firefox.

------
hd4
Anyone else think the really significant change is going to be when Webrender
finally enters the stable channel? It's already stable for me on nightly and
is what makes the single largest difference to my experience, everything is so
much smoother (instantaneous) and uses less resources. The reason I even
switched away to Chrome from Firefox to start with was performance, I came
back when FF's performance started eclipsing Chrome's again.

~~~
dingaling
Webrender won't run on older intehrated GPUs which don't support the required
OpenGL level ( 2.2? something like that ). For example it won't run on amy of
our four home laptops.

I can't imagine them enabling it by default until that user base is next to
zero. I suppose they might prompt the user to flick a switch if supported but
they'll still have to support Gecko for some time.

~~~
hd4
Those must be seriously old, because it runs fine for me on a 2010 laptop (on
it's last legs) with a Nvidia GPU, it actually runs better than my other newer
laptop which doesn't have a discrete GPU. Both have an Opengl version newer
than 3.0 so that probably is the limiting factor.

------
Vinnl
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions
> to hide tabs

This should theoretically make it possible to restore the Panorama Tab Group
functionality that I, among others, loved. Haven't tried 61 yet because it
hasn't hit Ubuntu yet, but this extension should do the trick:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-
view...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/)

------
hyperrail
This is interesting to me:

 _Access to FTP subresources inside http(s) pages has been blocked_

I thought immediately: what about FTPS (FTP over SSL or TLS)? So I checked,
and apparently Mozilla has had a 17 year old feature request for FTPS support!

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464)

This request was only definitively rejected a few days ago with note of “vague
plans” to remove FTP support entirely from Firefox, but no more info than
that.

------
l2dy
Also [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-
sols...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-solstice/).

------
axelfontaine
GMail now finally works with Yubikeys! Switching from Chrome is now finally
possible.

~~~
drewg123
This is awesome news. As a BSD user, the U2F stuff crashes chromium. I've been
waiting forever for FF to work with U2F.

How about Duo secured sites?

~~~
floatboth
Which BSD? :)

I ported u2f-hid-rs (the library Firefox uses) to FreeBSD, it's been in the
www/firefox port for a while and now accepted into mozilla-central I think.

The Chromium FreeBSD port also has had U2F support for a while.

~~~
drewg123
FreeBSD.

I'll have to try it the next time I update

------
lucb1e
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions
> to hide tabs

About damn time. It doesn't seem to be implemented yet, though, as [1] still
notes that it's not possible to hide the tab bar.

Checking my list, I think decent mouse gestures (that work on all pages and
without having to have a page fully loaded) is the last big item remaining. I
suppose I'll finally upgrade from Firefox 55 to 61 then, once this is
implemented (or I'll implement it myself next month, when I have more time)
and only have to say goodbye to gestures... took only about 9 months for them
to get APIs implemented after breaking the vast majority without alternatives!

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-
re...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/)

Edit: Never mind, that's not actually what this means. It's about hiding
individual tabs from the tab bar, not sure to what end... Firefox 55 it is.

~~~
seba_dos1
Hiding the tab bar is easy with userChrome.css -
[https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-
Twe...](https://github.com/eoger/tabcenter-redux/wiki/Custom-CSS-Tweaks#hide-
the-horizontal-tab-strip-15)

~~~
lucb1e
Ah, I didn't know about that. Thanks!

Looks like we should again start installing add-ons like we used to install
the famous old toolbars, from executables/binaries which can modify things
outside of the browser.

------
brightball
There are only 2 things keeping me from using Firefox as my primary browser at
this point.

1\. After the switch to Quantum, the part of the Lastpass extension that lets
me copy my password from the drop down went away. It's a pain to have to open
the vault every time I want to do that and it works fine in Chrome. I don't
know what happened there, but it's enough of a pain that it keeps me out of
Firefox.

2\. Google Meet. I don't know if there's an easy way to open Google Meet links
in Chrome automatically, but we use it for work and the IE6 style browser
requirement is a problem.

Those 2 friction points are the only thing standing between me and a permanent
change.

EDIT: Apparently the Lastpass thing is the only bit holding me back now.

~~~
nwah1
This post claims Meet is supported.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/webrtc/firefox-is-now-supported-
by-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/webrtc/firefox-is-now-supported-by-google-
hangouts-and-meet/)

~~~
brightball
Great news. I'll try it out.

~~~
y-satellite
I've been using Hangouts on Firefox a fair bit recently. Video chats work
fine, though I've noticed occasional glitches with the UI if I leave it open
after the laptop goes to sleep. A reload fixes it, though.

------
nightski
I'd love to switch to FF. But does anyone know why the JavaScript debugger is
so painfully slow? It makes debugging certain problems super frustrating as
compared to Chrome. Is it doing more than Chrome is? Any chance this might be
resolved one day?

------
woumn
I always get so excited for new Firefox releases. Then I read the patch notes
and never see that they've fixed performance for MacOS. I've tried everything
I can find online, but Firefox just performs so terribly on my Macbook Pro. In
the meantime, I use Opera (with little to no complaints).

~~~
rhencke
What issues do you hit? I've been running on two MacBook Pros (one mid-2012,
one mid-2015) and never had any issues. Everything's smooth as butter.

~~~
tapoxi
I think the last time I ran into this issue it was a bug involving DPI
scaling. If you're not running at the "default" scale, you'll have performance
problems.

------
wooque
Still no VA-API support aka hardware accelerated video on Linux.

Chromium has working patch, it's not upstreamed yet (in progress), but there
are unofficial community packages for Ubuntu and Arch.

So if you are using Linux, especially on laptop, Chromium is the only choice.

~~~
polski-g
What about Google Chrome on linux?

~~~
wooque
Google Chrome is official release from Google and thus still does not include
patch as it's not upstreamed yet

------
Beldur
FireFox 61 Release Notes for Developers:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/Firefox/Releases/61](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/Firefox/Releases/61)

~~~
arendtio
> The "Forget" button,... now clears service workers and their caches.

Hooray :-) Decent Dev-Tools for service workers are essential for a good PWA
developer experience.

------
mnm1
I wish they would add a setting for minimum zoom or remember my zoom levels
after clearing caches. As it is, it does neither and the many add-ons that
claim to do either don't work properly. It's fine to remove or not add
functionality that's well supported by add-ons but this isn't by any add-on
I've tried. The other major thing is the cpu usage while playing videos is
simply unacceptable. A 2013 rmbp can't play one video these days? It can in
Chrome without issues like skipping so this is just shit work by the ff team.
Other than that I'm impressed by the browser. Dev tools are far superior to
chrome especially the console. But after six months or so with ff, I've
switched back to chromium. At least with chromium I know exactly which videos
will play and which won't (drm). With ff, it depends on how ff feels that day.
That is simply unacceptable for such a major browser.

------
andrepd
Eh. Still using v56, since two crucial extensions are still unported to WebEx.
These are indispensable to my workflow; I cannot even think of browsing the
web without them.

~~~
eridius
What extensions? If you list them here, maybe someone will have suggestions
for alternatives.

~~~
ars
Tab groups.

~~~
eridius
I never used them myself, but I know I've seen recommendations for a few
different extensions that provide similar (though not identical)
functionality.

~~~
ars
They would need to be backward compatible, because redoing all the tab groups
I have setup is not something I want to do.

Although I suspect I may be forced to.....

------
WalterGR
Is Tree Style Tab as good as it was before all the Quantum changes?

The last time I tried it in a recent Firefox, I had to modify the user chrome
by hand, the extension was incredibly slow even on modern hardware, and there
wasn’t feature parity with previous versions.

I ended up going with Firefox 52ESR.

~~~
buovjaga
The only remaining quirk with TST I have noticed is that sometimes on launch,
tab groups open expanded even though I had them collapsed. Then I have to
first collapse any child groups before it agrees to collapse the whole thing.

piroor is putting in a ton of work, see:
[https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master](https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/commits/master)

edit: oh, I've just ignored the tab strip at the top, so no comments on the
tab hiding :)

~~~
WalterGR
Wow that is a lot of Github commits. The last release is about a month ago...
Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code? Looking at
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/Yo...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions/Your_first_WebExtension#Installing) it seems like it might
be possible, but you'd have to manually 'install' the extension every time you
start Firefox...

~~~
buovjaga
> Have you ever tried using the bleeding edge code?

Nah, I have just soldiered on with all the quirks in releases so far :)

------
nixpulvis
I'm still hoping to see an update that brings `performance.now()` back into
spec. Seems the other browsers figured it out.

~~~
mintplant
No, the other browsers just don't care as much about preventing side channel
attacks.

~~~
nixpulvis
Is that actually the case? I've read a few things that seem to imply they've
fixed the timing attcks without breaking the spec, but this was all heresay
and unsubstantiated claims.

------
dark_ph0enix
Still seems like there's no first party support for container sync.

~~~
bambamboom
Sorry about the bad news but sync dev is completely dead. Mozilla is scared of
touching that code base. So don't expect any improvements or additions there .

~~~
ianbicking
Though this was true for many years, there is now a team dedicated to sync
development. (But there's a big backlog for them to work through!)

~~~
bambamboom
Page shot is fantastic btw. No nonsense clipping in Linux (I use onenote on
Windows and would love if shots could be exported outside as easily as they
are created)

~~~
arwineap
Do you need to do something through "testpilot" to get this feature?

I'm confused if this is a feature or an addon, and how testpilot relates

~~~
bambamboom
Once you enable testpilot, you can see the experiments. I think the page opens
by itself after enabling. Select page shot and click a couple of buttons on
different screens.

------
jbernardo95
When is Firefox bringing smooth pinch to zoom to macOS ?

~~~
lintroller
Are there a substantial number of macOS users using touchscreens?

EDIT: I don't know how I forgot about pinch to zoom via the trackpad. While my
original question did start me down an interesting rabbit hole of touchscreen
MacOS, I 100% agree that a lack of smooth pinch to zoom via the trackpad
detracts from the overall user experience.

~~~
msh
You Can pinch to zoom using the mousepad om MacBooks.

~~~
bwat49
on windows laptops with precision touchpad too

------
TekMol
Can Firefox meanwhile play video via hardware acceleration on Linux or does it
still use the CPU?

~~~
jackewiehose
Not sure if this is related but my firefox/linux experience with video is also
bad:

    
    
      - tearing all the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing)
      - Netflix doesn't support HD on linux
      - Amazon doesn't support HD on linux (for movies. But shows seem to be 1080p)

~~~
bscphil
> \- Netflix doesn't support HD on linux

True that they don't support it, not true that it doesn't work, thanks to the
wonderful people who take the time to fix other people's bugs.
[https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox](https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox)

------
amorousf00p
Got to say -- the latest releases have been a return to the dark ages of
firefox. Constant crashes, tab reloads that crash the browser, distorted
graphics, high cpu usage, etc...

I'd use almost anything else at this point.

~~~
wazoox
Didn't see anything like this. There were some graphical glitches in the early
Quantum releases, that disappeared with version 60 entirely.

------
vanderZwan
> _A more consistent user experience: Improvements for dark theme support
> across the entire Firefox user interface_

I know it's a bit petty to focus on this one, but I hope it includes a proper
dark new tab. Currently the blinding white flash when I open a new one is
painful on the eyes at night.

~~~
sydd
How do you make websites dark? 99% of the sites I use are white: maps, HN,
Reddit (OK, this has a dark theme in beta), Stack Overflow,...

~~~
noisem4ker
Addon: Dark Background and Light Text [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/dark-backgrou...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/dark-background-light-text/)

------
option_greek
I'm curious what everyone has done to their FF interface with plugins and
extensions. Here is mine:
[https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV](https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV)

Feel free to post yours as a comment below :)

~~~
johnpowell
I haven't added any extensions to modify the appearance. But I did tweak
userChrome.css slightly.

[https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m](https://imgur.com/a/QgnG04m)

------
Annatar
Nope, since Mozilla doesn’t support illumos-based operating systems, I‘m
boycotting Firefox.

------
overcast
I wish Firefox would have a "great suspender" feature. Memory just gets chewed
up with a zillion tabs open. They should time out and free up memory. My only
option now is just to close, and reopen after a day.

~~~
greglindahl
One issue that affects folks with a zillion tabs is that some extensions add a
lot of memory usage to every tab. AdBlock Plus is one offender; uBlock Origin
is much lighter weight.

~~~
overcast
Yeh I'm pretty lightweight on extensions, I use only a couple, and uBlock over
Adblock. It's just that sites chew through memory over time, and I'm not going
to diagnose each one. Firefox already has the feature built in, when you
restart the browser, those tabs don't spin up until you access them. They just
need to use that functionality on a timer.

~~~
greglindahl
In that case, there are some extensions that sleep tabs, and you can use
about:memory to figure out which ones are the leakers. Maybe the Firefox crew
could figure out how to build this in, it's definitely a case where Chrome's
policy means that websites might not fix their leaks because they don't cause
problems in Chrome.

------
childintime
Another pet pieve: try closing the window with the regular session _before_
the window with the private tabs... your session is lost like it was 1999. As
occurs when Windows benevolently dictates a restart.

------
aorth
Great release. I feel like momentum has slowed down since the massive version
57 "Quantum" debut, but I haven't had any problems with Firefox on macOS or
Linux since then. Keep it up, Mozilla!

------
hliyan
Did anyone else discover the "Good News" voice in Firefox's reader mode text-
to-voice? It reads the current page to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance"!

~~~
yoasif_
Pretty sure that is just macOS.

[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1488112)

~~~
hliyan
Ah, thanks for the tip.

------
dbg31415
CPU usage seems lower. Especially on streaming videos. Am I seeing things or
is that intended? Nice though, my MBP fans don't spin nearly as much when
surfing today.

------
debacle
Do we have on by default privacy sandboxing yet?

------
fwdpropaganda
How come I always find out about Firefox updates from HN faster than actually
getting the updates? Honest question.

~~~
cpeterso
Mozilla throttles auto-updates for the first week or so to watch for surprise
regressions. Firefox Beta and Nightly users are not representative of Release
channel users, who often have slower hardware, less RAM, and crashy anti virus
software. You can bypass the throttling by opening the About Firefox dialog to
force an update check.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> You can bypass the throttling by opening the About Firefox dialog to force
> an update check.

This didn't work. Opening that dialog doesn't seem to trigger anything, and I
don't see any button within it either.

------
ddtaylor
Does anyone know how long it will take to hit the standard Kubuntu or Debian
repositories?

~~~
ufo
Debian Stable (stretch) is stuck with Firefox ESR. IIRC it was due to issues
with Rust packaging.

Firefox 61 should be available in Debian Sid and Ubuntu pretty soon though.

~~~
vbernat
Debian is using Firefox ESR as a compromise to stability since it is not
possible to keep older versions while fixing security bugs. Rust is an issue
also for Firefox ESR too (when upgrading from 52 to 60).

~~~
ufo
Yes, Debian uses ESR by default but usually you could easily install the
latest version from backports. In the current cycle this is exceptionally not
possible, due to rust packaging issues.

[https://mozilla.debian.net/](https://mozilla.debian.net/)

~~~
steveklabnik
What are those issues? This is the first time I’m hearing of this. If there’s
something we can do please let me know!

~~~
glandium
Simply that there's no rustc package in Debian stable at the moment.
Hopefully, we'll have one for ESR60, but that won't solve the problem for
newer releases of Firefox that will require a newer version.

~~~
steveklabnik
Ah okay. Thanks.

~~~
glandium
Actually, correction: there _is_ a rustc package in Debian stable: 1.14. ESR60
requires 1.24.

~~~
steveklabnik
Ah right, I remember now. We missed the cutoff for 1.15 by two days.

------
kim0
Is there a way to use Chromecast with Firefox yet? Sigh Google

------
marcrosoft
I would switch to Firefox if I could figure out how to disable smooth scroll.
It's enabled by default and requires 3 rotations of the scroll wheel to move
an inch down the page.

~~~
sammoth
Open about:config and search for 'wheel'. There are ~50 options for tweaking
scrolling, including one to disable smooth scroll and ones to tweak the scroll
distance.

------
lostmsu
Can I now have my tab groups back?

~~~
yoasif_
Try one of the alternatives? [https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-
US/firefox/collections/cris_70...](https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-
US/firefox/collections/cris_70/favorites/)

~~~
epage
Unfortunately, none of these document how they store tabs. For example, I've
been using Tab Session Manager and it will randomly lose information.

I'd love it if these were backed by bookmarks or something so I get sync, etc.

------
glintik
Mozilla, when will you fix scrollbar width issue? I’ll say you 1000 times
“thank you” when it happens.

~~~
robin_reala
What is the issue?

~~~
glintik
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=547260)
9 years old

~~~
abrowne
Personally I'd say 1000 no thanks if they implemented that. The scrollbars are
part of the application chrome, not content. I should choose how to style
them, through my OS, not a website I visit.

~~~
glintik
Anyway, you can apply own user CSS styles in Chrome.

~~~
abrowne
Yes, and I assume Firefox would let you turn it off, in about:config at least.
So I'm fine with it being implemented ;-)

------
bambamboom
I cannot upgrade until I have a proper vimperator replacement :(

~~~
sirn
You can try either Tridactyl[1] or Vim-Vixen[2]. They come pretty close to the
Vimperator experience (although with WebExtension limitations).

I'd recommend Tridactyl with native extension though (install the extension
and type :installnative), as they've done a really great job re-implementing
Vimperator features using a wrapper Python script (e.g. support for
.tridactylrc, modifying UI[3], open with external editors, etc.)

[1]:
[https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl](https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl)
(use the beta)

[2]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-
vixen/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/)

[3]: [https://imgur.com/7vQANhV](https://imgur.com/7vQANhV) here's `guiset gui
none` with buffer list open

~~~
dri_ft
Thanks for the tip-offs! I too have been stranded without a decent vimperator
replacement for a while. Currently using Saka-Keys but not in love with it, so
I'll experiment with these.

------
taf2
was eager to try but "upgrade failed" \- will try full download later

