Firefox 23 is available

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/23.0/releasenotes/

by lambda_cube • 13 years ago

95 110 13 years ago

lambda_cube4• 13 years ago

I know that the release notes still says Firefox Beta when I submit this, but my browser just updated itself to version 23. The beta release notes usually are pretty accurate when it comes which features will be in the next stable version.

I believe the new baseline compiler is included in this release as described here:

https://blog.mozilla.org/javascript/2013/04/05/the-baseline-...

If that is the case it's the most interesting new feature for me, but I'm a compiler guy :-)

M4v3R2• 13 years ago

Support for new scrollbar style in Mac OS X 10.7 and newer

Finally. That one took quite a long time for them. It looks simple in the change log, but I suspect that it was actually quite a big change under the hood.

EDIT: Woops, it seems that this is an error on release page, since they've hit a regression [1] and they've pulled the feature, it's due to come back in v24. And is seems I was right that this was actually a pretty big change under the hood [2].

EDIT 2: And they now removed the error about new scrollbar from the article.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636564#c244

[2] https://bug636564.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=744...

actionscripted• 13 years ago

Scrollbars aren't bad at the moment, but this one has bothered me for a while: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780726

A quick resize (redraw) fixes things, but it's the only app on my machine that tweaks like that going from space to space.

maxcan• 13 years ago

sayonara <blink> tag. you won't be missed.

sirn• 13 years ago

For those who upgraded and still see the old scrollbar: despite what Beta Release Note said, Lion-style scrollbar is not in this release due to regression. It will be available in Firefox 24 instead[1]:

The new scrollbars has been disabled on Beta for Firefox 23 due to a serious regression. It is now scheduled to be released in Firefox 24 as long as there are no serious regressions.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636564

workbench2• 13 years ago

What a joke

6cxs2hd6• 13 years ago

I'm really looking forward to the overhaul on the road map that moves more things off the main UI thread.

I keep switching from Chrome to Firefox for reasons of principle ... and keep switching back to Chrome for reasons of performance. I hate myself, but can't help it. Firefox will briefly freeze scrolling a long page. Firefox will beach ball for 15 seconds after resuming laptop from sleep. And so on. None of it is crash/burn awful, but it adds up to be just irritating enough that it makes me mental. I tolerate it until I can't (for a couple weeks), then switch back to Chrome. Just did so yesterday, which is why I'm ranting in response to this headline.

This on OS X. Couple years ago when I was using Windows 7 all the time, Firefox was great. IME the fit/finish on OS X is not the same.

tl;dr: Firefox, I want to love you and be exclusive. Please change.

robin_reala2• 13 years ago

Firefox will beach ball for 15 seconds after resuming laptop from sleep.

That really doesn’t sound like normal behaviour? Have you tried the ‘Reset Firefox’ button on about:support? More info at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-preferences-fix-p...

esalman3• 13 years ago

Reset is not really an option when you have your chosen extensions installed and customized.

acomjean• 13 years ago

I love firefox too. But for me it always starts slowing down half way through the day (about the same time as I do). Maybe its firebug? This has happened on windows and mac. Restarting it makes it work better, like myself after lunch.

Its still my favorite browser though.

nhebb• 13 years ago

Go to about:memory then click the "Minimize memory usage" button.

P.S. If anyone knows how to add that button to the FF toolbar, I would consider you a minor deity for at least a whole day.

azakai• 13 years ago

Firebug can definitely slow down the browser. You can try browsing for a while without it, perhaps using a separate profile.

cyphax3• 13 years ago

I could've written this myself. I love Firefox and I used it for years but at some point it became rather unusable and after it forgot which tabs I had pinned as app tabs for the fifth or so time (because I had to kill a completely unresponsive Firefox, this happened often) I was angry enough to actually give Chrome a try. It is SO much more responsive, even just the UI. I've kept Firefox up-to-date but I don't want to keep switching back and forth so I haven't made a switch back. I hope I'll get to, though.

This is all on a Windows 7 machine though, rather than OSX.

slacka• 13 years ago

Firefox has come so far from the memory hogging 4.0 days. Like others here, I give it a shot ever few month and UI responsiveness always sends me back to Chrome. The resurrected electrolysis project can’t come soon enough.

The irony is what use to be its greatest flaw, memory usage/leaks, is now it's greatest strength. Around Chrome 15+ memory usage started ballooning and was too much for my 2GB netbook. A laggy UI is much better than an unresponsive system from thrashing RAM.

polyvisual• 13 years ago

Yup, I have very similar problems.

Google+ is a great example - it slows to a crawl after a few minutes of browsing - it particularly becomes unusable when I scroll down and it loads more content via AJAX.

I'm on Xubuntu 13.04.

nfoz• 13 years ago

Reminds me of early web when Microsoft's websites always worked a lot better in IE than other browsers. And maybe they still do.

glogla• 13 years ago

Really? I switched from Chrome to Firefox because the Firefox is way faster on my MacBook. Do you have any heavy mods installed?

MrGando• 13 years ago

For me it has been the same, happy to be back in Firefox.

pbreit• 13 years ago

Same boat. I switched recently (when switching feed readers!) and cannot believe how lousy the performance is and inelegant the UI. Very jerky scrolling, flashes to re-render CSS, beachballs, stalls, ancient UI paradigms...

After using chrome and even safari, the UI feels so "thick". I think maybe a release or 3 focused entirely on performance and UI cleaning may be in order.

ishansharma3• 13 years ago

Well, I am on Windows 7 and it is fine enough but at times, it does get slow. I also keep changing between Chrome and Firefox. Chrome just feels way faster.

Apart from that, Chrome has very nice features that make life easier.

The PDF preview of Chrome is great. It can rival the PDF viewers on desktops easily. Heck, it helped once when I had to get a printout at a shop and they didn't have PDF Reader installed. I just dropped PDF onto Chrome and we had a PDF reader that could print. I know about PDF.js but it is not so good!

Next, the UI could be improved. Firefox has its upsides as well. I love the hidden status bar. I have dropped all my extension icons there. Now, with one shortcut, they are accessible and for normal browsing, don't come in between. But Chrome's way of managing extension icons is great, and one thing that particulary drives mad with FF is that there are no visible zoom controls. I have been using it on and off for a year now but I still don't know how to find if I'm zoomed in or not.

Chrome has really good Flash integration and I didn't know that I did not have Flash Player installed till I started using Firefox. What is stopping them from bundling a plugin like Chrome?

zobzu2• 13 years ago

I use PDF.js in FF it seems fine for a PDF reader. Its integrated and reasonably fast

esalman3• 13 years ago

I have a 1.07GHz Core-i5 laptop (with Nvidia Optimus) at home and 3GHz Core-i5 desktop at work. I happily use Firefox (Aurora) at work, but at home I have to use Chrome because Firefox is simply way too laggy (it improves a bit when run with Nvidia).

robin_reala2• 13 years ago

The biggy for me is <input type="range"/> support. I’ve already ripped jQuery UI out of an internal project today; it was only there because of that omission.

undershirt• 13 years ago

Man, that was a long time coming! Glad it's finally here.

ihsw• 13 years ago

The very large banner at the top of the page seems to indicate that this is a beta release, so shouldn't that be indicated in the submission title? I was excited about a new release of Firefox (namely to see if performance improved), but if this is beta then I won't be touching it.

sp3323• 13 years ago

The mobile version seems to have the old version of the banner. The desktop version says: "(First offered to release channel users on August 6, 2013)"

dchest2• 13 years ago

Haha, the note about removing <blink> tag is enclosed in <blink></blink>.

conradfr• 13 years ago

Which apparently does not work in IE10 & Chrome either.

I guess you can still implement it easily in JS though.

gholap• 13 years ago

Nice find! I wonder what prompted to look at the code there...

lambda_cube4• 13 years ago

If you view the page with Firefox version <= 22, that paragraph is blinking, very easy to notice :-) (annoyingly easy!)

LandoCalrissian• 13 years ago

It's now gone from every browser I think, that was a funny legacy feature I wish they would have left in just for fun.

runn1ng• 13 years ago

Geocities are gone. <blink> is gone.

Pretty soon, <marquee> will be gone too. At least animated gifs are still stronger than ever.

oinksoft• 13 years ago

Is there any good reason for removing the distinctive behavior of an element that so many older websites use, even if it is considered a design faux pas? History should not be destroyed.

Zelphyr• 13 years ago

I agree that history should not be destroyed and in sites that have old pages with the blink tag it won't be. But I think its fine for the browser makers to remove old cruft. Especially in this case where the behavior can easily be replicated in Javascript.

mhurron• 13 years ago

Non-standard element.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_element

mmuro3• 13 years ago

It feels like OSX will be on Mavericks before the Lion scroll bars are supported in Firefox.

I've been using Safari a lot lately. Only thing I'm not crazy about is the inspector. It's easily the worst of all the browsers, but at least they are fixing that in the next update.

Jgrubb• 13 years ago

Just out of curiosity, why Safari?

M4v3R2• 13 years ago

I also use Safari on a daily basis, with Chrome when testing web apps.

- iClouds tab sync

- quite fast

- two-finger swipe for back/forward with nice "cover" effect

- scrolling is silky smooth*

- iCloud keychain*

* available on Mavericks. Scrolling was good enough earlier, but on Mavericks its butter smooth.

mmuro3• 13 years ago

I just don't like Chrome, for one. But, I really like the scrolling, pinch to zoom, swipe to go backwards, bookmark syncing across my multiple computers, etc.

The inspector, as flawed as it is, has some nice features. I don't have Mavericks, but I believe these updates are coming: https://www.webkit.org/blog/2518/state-of-web-inspector/

kalleboo• 13 years ago

It blows the other browsers away in scrolling performance on a retina display laptop. Chrome has gotten a lot better recently, but it's still worse enough that it's worth putting up with Safari's weaknesses.

workbench2• 13 years ago

UI is just way better than anything else out there

UI feels and IS more native than anything else out there

Performance is better than Firefox and only worse than Chrome in beta technologies and a few edge cases

jfb• 13 years ago

I prefer Safari because it integrates into the Apple ecosystem, including e.g. iCloud tabs, Keychain integration, gesture support; because it's a native application; because it's perfectly performant; because it doesn't phone home. I don't write web applications or even use many, so my needs are well satisfied.

stephen_g2• 13 years ago

That's interesting - I prefer Safari's web inspector to any other browser... The updates look cool, but currently I find it way more useful than Firefox or Chrome's inspectors.

mmuro3• 13 years ago

It drives me crazy it can't remember where I'm at when I refresh and then automatically collapses the code, too.

If you know a way around that, I would love to know.

pitterpatter• 13 years ago

It feels like OSX will be on Mavericks before the Lion scroll bars are supported in Firefox.

I use Nightly so I've had the new scroll bars for quite a while now, so I'm inclined to believe they'll be landing sooner rather than later.

ciferkey• 13 years ago

The network monitor addition to the developer tools is a welcome change. Now I won't have to switch into chrome for that.

MisterWebz• 13 years ago

Same here. However, it's still not showing local resources that are not being loaded because the path or the name of the script or stylesheet is wrong.

levosmetalo2• 13 years ago

It's funny to read those release feature announcements while running on Aurora channel which is on 24.0a2 right now, and 25 in a few days.

aclevernickname4• 13 years ago

How are you finding the Aurora channel to be, stability-wise?

levosmetalo2• 13 years ago

Never had any stability problems for more then a year now, on both work Windows 7 x64 and various Linux variants at home.

A year ago there were a few addon problems here and there, but these days addon authors are used to the new release cycle, so I don't have even these problems anymore.

chrisblackwell• 13 years ago

Wasn't this the release that was suppose to disable third-party cookies by default? What happend?

lambda_cube4• 13 years ago

That was supposed to be switched on by default in Firefox 22, but Mozilla noticed some issue with it. The feature is there in FF22, but you have to switch it on yourself. If you you want to know more about the issues, you can read what Brendan Eich had to say:

https://brendaneich.com/2013/06/the-cookie-clearinghouse/

01Michael10• 13 years ago

Firefox 23 release notes... https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/23.0/releasenotes/

CapitalistCartr• 13 years ago

So what about "Disable Javascript" option to be removed in Firefox 23? Was it? That is a dealbreaker for me.

cyphax3• 13 years ago

They removed the checkbox from the options but if you look in about:config you can disable Javascript.

So that's a yes and a no? :P

ender7• 13 years ago

It was, but there are many addons that will turn it off for you.

babuskov• 13 years ago

I'm using web developer extension anyway. Disabling/enabling JS is a matter of 2 clicks in its menu.

_greim_• 13 years ago

Also a dealbreaker, no "disable HTML" option. It's critical to my daily workflow to be able to turn off all content and browse the web in peace and silence.

nsmartt3• 13 years ago

The idea is that non-technical users shouldn't have options in preferences that will break the web for them, and that technical users will use about:config or an add-on (e.g. NoScript). I find it difficult to argue with that.

edit: clarity. total rewrite.

Gormo4• 13 years ago

"Non-technical users" is a contradiction in terms. If you're using technology, you're a "technical user".

If you don't know how certain options work, you should leave them alone; but if you don't leave them alone and something breaks, it takes only common sense and not specialized knowledge to suspect that the thing you changed has some relationship to the thing that broke.

De-featuring software for the presumptive convenience of a presumptive lowest-common-denominator user is not a good practice.

millerm• 13 years ago

Well, for savvy users:

In the location bar type about:config

Search for javascript.enabled

You can turn it off there by simply double-clicking the entry.

mannix• 13 years ago

Yeah, after you click a huge "VOID MY WARRANTY" button. I am surprised they made this change after the recent tor exit node exploit...

stephen_g2• 13 years ago

They should have just renamed it "Break almost every web site" instead.

oneeyedpigeon• 13 years ago

Citation required for the claim that "almost every" web site is so badly put together that it breaks if you show up without JS.

hrjet• 13 years ago

I am disappointed too.

Although it's not a deal breaker for me (I am savvy enough to use about:config, NoScript, etc), I think this is bad for users in general. Many of them are not tech-savvy enough to dig into hidden configuration options. Though they certainly deserve better security when they browse the web.

negativity2• 13 years ago

...and remember, kids. JavaScript is now compulsory.

sp3323• 13 years ago

You can, as always, install NoScript or other js-control extensions. Or if you want to break all js everywhere, head to about:config.

scott_karana• 13 years ago

By what definition of compulsory?

negativity2• 13 years ago

In that inexperienced users are not well-informed of the option to disallow it, and might not understand that indiscriminate, promiscuous execution of JavaScript as a default behavior can be hazardous. ...at least as hazardous as connecting to unencrypted Wi-Fi.

To whit: http://beefproject.com/

New users aren't even readily informed that JavaScript is a thing.

melling• 13 years ago

It's great to finally see that Firefox is updating almost everyone like Chrome.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-weekly-201322-...

Those first few (dozen?) releases people constantly complained about the version number changes, the rapid release cycle, and there was quite a bit of fragmention.

There days there are a billion people getting a new HTML5 browser every 6 weeks.

ishansharma3• 13 years ago

Link is broken.

It is great seeing people update fast. I am waiting for the day when IE 6-8 usage goes down to 0.

shmerl• 13 years ago

Looks like gstreamer support for non-free codecs (like H.264) is not enabled in this build yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=794282#c78

CmdrKrool• 13 years ago

Nasty surprise for me: 'Remove the ability to not "Always show the tab bar"' https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=855370

'browser.tabs.autoHide' config also removed, tab bar now always visible no matter what.

Add-on to restore old behaviour: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/hide-tab-bar-... (There is an unnecessary gradient to the background of my navigation toolbar now though.)

Discussion threads of indignant catharsis: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.support.fire... http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2687123

mhaymo• 13 years ago

The keyword.URL setting (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyword.URL) was also removed, and of course addons have been made to re-enable it:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keywordurl-ha...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keyword-searc...

I didn't understand why they would disable this feature which I love so much, but reading the bug explained that it was to prevent malicious apps from being able to change the default search in a way that is not easily reverted by users (keyword.URL can only be changed through about:config). Makes sense to me, and fortunately we have add-ons which can restore this functionality :)

sbi2• 13 years ago

I see that Mozilla is now signing hashes of Firefox downloads with a 4096-bit RSA key. But the key used to sign firefox-23.0.tar.bz2 (id 0x057CC3EB15A0A4BC) is only self-signed and was created three weeks ago. It's not on pgp.mit.edu. Is there any actual way to "validate the authenticity of these keys in an out-of-band manner" as the KEYS file recommends?

zobzu2• 13 years ago

the primary key is 2B90 598A 745E 992F 315E 22C5 8AB1 3296 3A06 537A not 5445 390E F5D0 C2EC FB8A 6201 057C C3EB 15A0 A4BC

if you search for the primary its there (at least it's on pgp.mit.edu as far as I can see) it's the primary that you need to trust for the trust to work

For FF 23:

gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.asc gpg: Signature made Tue 30 Jul 2013 09:32:39 PM PDT using RSA key ID 15A0A4BC gpg: Good signature from "Mozilla Software Releases <releases@mozilla.org>" gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature! gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner. Primary key fingerprint: 2B90 598A 745E 992F 315E 22C5 8AB1 3296 3A06 537A Subkey fingerprint: 5445 390E F5D0 C2EC FB8A 6201 057C C3EB 15A0 A4BC

gpg --sign-key 0x8AB132963A06537A

gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.asc gpg: Signature made Tue 30 Jul 2013 09:32:39 PM PDT using RSA key ID 15A0A4BC gpg: Good signature from "Mozilla Software Releases <releases@mozilla.org>"

It is however, indeed, only self-signed right now as far as I can see.

sbi2• 13 years ago

Thanks; I had searched on pgp.mit.edu for the primary key but forgot to add the hex prefix 0x.

Curiously, the 1024 bit DSA key used for some previous releases (0x7f4d66451ebcab3a) has been signed by "Someone at Mozilla Should Sign the Release Key (so users can verify the key's owner!) <anonymous@lulz.example.com>".

ck23• 13 years ago

Stuck on FF21 until they fix the scaling on windows xp

Which might never happen :-(

gecko• 13 years ago

Why on Earth would you not upgrade to at least Windows 7?

drcube• 13 years ago

I'm on XP at work. I get a new computer in January though and all the new ones have W7. I must have been one of the last people to get an XP computer here.

This OS is what, 12 years old now? Linux was on version 2.4.x when XP came out. OSX wasn't around yet, or was brand spanking new. I hate MS as much as anyone but that's still pretty impressive.

ck23• 13 years ago

Why again do I need Windows 7?

I mean other than developers purposely breaking things that already worked under XP?

Siecje2• 13 years ago

My biggest issue with Firefox is that it is hard to copy the html of a form or table, using the developer tools.

kbrosnan• 13 years ago

Is the following what you are doing? Is there a dev tool that makes that flow better?

* inspect the element

* right click on either the element in the breadcrumb view or in the source view

* select copy outer html

* paste into your document

fixed formatting

Siecje2• 13 years ago

I'm surprised the <blink> tag was removed, just for historical reasons.

glub0t• 13 years ago

Some of configuration setting has been removed or burried deep in about:config. Now I can not find TLS 1.0 checkbox, because I am hoping this release support TLS 1.1 and 1.2. But, there is no sign of this support.

Beside that, I love FF. Thank you for this release and everything.

Firefox 23 is available

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