Firefox 60.0 release overview

Martin Brinkmann
May 9, 2018
Updated • May 10, 2018
Firefox
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70

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 60 Stable and Firefox 60 ESR later today. The new version of the web browser moves the Firefox ESR channel from version 52.x to 60.x. That's a major move considering that Firefox 52.x is a pre-Firefox 57 release that still supports legacy add-ons.

Firefox 60.0 ESR does not support legacy add-ons anymore and there are other fundamental differences between 52.x and 60.x such as dropped support for Windows XP or Vista, and no support for Java or Silverlight anymore.

Work on WebExtensions APIs continues and Mozilla added or improved several APIs that Firefox add-on developers may use to create extensions.

Note: I was asked to reboot the Windows PC to complete the Firefox 60 installation. This did not happened in the past.

Executive Summary

Firefox 60.0 download and update

Mozilla will release Firefox 60.0, Firefox ESR 60.0 and Firefox ESR 52.8 on May 9, 2018. Most Firefox users get the update through the automatic update functionality of the web browser but downloads for all supported versions are available on Mozilla's website as well at the time of publication.

You can run a manual check for updates with a click on Menu > Help > About Firefox. Firefox runs an update check then and will download and install any new version that is returned as part of the check.

If you prefer to download Firefox manually, use the following links that point to Mozilla to do so.

Firefox 60.0 Changes

New Policy Engine for Enterprise Environments

firefox policies

In time for the release of the next Extended Support Release for Firefox comes a new Policy Engine that Mozilla has been working on.

Designed specifically for deployment in Enterprise environments, the new engine can be used in home environments as well for the most part.

You can download policy template files from Mozilla's GitHub website. It is likely that they will be offered on the official Firefox ESR website as well.

You can use the policies to configure Firefox automatically on deployment.

Sponsored stories for some U.S users on New Tab Page

Firefox users from the United States may see sponsored stories by Pocket on the New Tab Page. Mozilla promises that no-personal data is collected and that its approach was privacy-conscious.

You can turn off sponsored stories with a click on the cogwheel icon on the New Tab Page. There you find the "show sponsored stories" option listed which you can uncheck.

Other changes

  • Symantec certificates issued before June 2016 are distrusted.
  • The Reader View shortcut was remapped to F9 for "better compatibility with keyboard layouts that use AltGr".
  • Cookies and Site Storage section redesigned in preferences.
  • New Tab Page uses a responsive layout so that more content is displayed to widescreen display users.
  • Highlights on the New Tab Page may show websites saved to Pocket.
  • Additional options to reorder sections and content on the page.
  • Bookmarks don't support multiple keywords for the same URL unless different POST data is used.
  • Skia graphics library update to 66.
  • Improved WebRTC audio performance and playback on Linux.
  • Support for locale Occitan (oc).

Firefox 60.0 Issues

Just one issue listed. When you disable sponsored stories on Firefox's New Tab Page, the next time you open a new tab page may still show a sponsored tile.

Developer Changes

  • Mozilla removed the dom.workers.enabled preference. In other words: Workers cannot be disabled anymore (see 1434934).
  • Debugging and development improvements.
  • Proxy API improvements. About:preferences highlights if extensions control proxy preferences.
  • ECMAScript 2015 modules enabled by default (see 1438139).
  • The Web Authentication API is enabled (see 1432542).
  • The WebVR API is available on mac OS X now (see 1438044).
  • Tab API improvements.
  • Theme API improvements.
  • Support for application cache on insecure sites is deprecated.

Firefox 60.0 for Android

Firefox 60.0 for Android gets the new parallel CSS engine known as Stylo. Firefox Desktop users got Stylo with the release of Firefox 57, and Android users get it now with the new release. The new rendering engine improves page rendering time significantly.

Mozilla added a View Page Source option to the Page Action menu.

Security updates / fixes

Several security issues fixed including one rated as critical. Check the full listing here.

Outlook

The next Firefox release is on June 26, 2018. Firefox Stable will move to Firefox 61, and Firefox ESR will be offered as Firefox ESR 52.9 and Firefox ESR 60.1. Firefox 52.9 is the last version of Firefox that supports the legacy add-on system and Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Additional information / sources

Summary
Firefox 60.0 release overview
Article Name
Firefox 60.0 release overview
Description
The release data of the web browsersMozilla Firefox 60.0 and Firefox ESR 60.0 is May 9, 2018. Our release overview provides you with detailed information on major improvements, new features and changes.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Jody Thornton said on September 17, 2018 at 11:02 pm
    Reply

    I posted this question over at MozillaZine forum. I notice that the Default theme is marked as “legacy”. Wha???

    The light and dark themes can be chosen, but not the Default theme.I changed the pref to enable “legacy” extensions (I didn’t even though I could still do that on release versions). Now the theme will run, but I found it odd that the theme is still marked as “Legacy”

    I’m running Quantum ESR 60.2.0 on Windows 8 Pro x64. I tried in Safe Mode, but the theme is still marked as “legacy” in Add-Ons.

    Any one able to wrap their head around that one?

  2. Anonymous said on May 26, 2018 at 2:27 pm
    Reply

    icecat ftw

  3. Croatoan said on May 15, 2018 at 9:10 pm
    Reply

    I now have small thumbnails on New Tab page. Where is option for big thumbnails?

  4. oe said on May 14, 2018 at 9:15 am
    Reply

    .. but one can add “dom.workers.enabled” (true/false) manually ?

    1. oe said on May 15, 2018 at 5:15 pm
      Reply

      just to not talk nonsense to anyone: sören told me, this has no effect.

  5. Anonymous said on May 13, 2018 at 12:19 pm
    Reply

    With Firefox 59 or even Waterfox, using Violentmonkey, for an unknown reason suddenly all my scripts stopped working. With Pale Moon no problemo hehe.

  6. Cinikal said on May 12, 2018 at 6:47 pm
    Reply

    Except for setting up and getting used to the Temporary Containers Extension this release is showing to be the most stable yet. Page loads are crazy fast even with weak signal. Edge still beats Firefox launch by a couple seconds but with Edge being baked in and me running 60 portable think will let that slide @:7

    Side note if you have not tried Temporary Containers Extension yet your missing out. The bits of color it brings to the dark theme alone is worth a look. Try “Automatic Mode” and “Random Container Color”.

  7. TelV said on May 11, 2018 at 3:10 pm
    Reply

    FF ESR updated to 52.8.0 due to a security vulnerability: https://www.securitytracker.com/id/1040898

  8. Brian said on May 10, 2018 at 8:16 pm
    Reply

    Hi folks. First time commenter here : )

    Heres the deal: It seems to me that Firefox has changed the way (for some strange reason) cookies are erased through the “options” page in Window 7.

    In order to erase any cookies through the “options” window you need to 1) select cookies you wish to erase 2) click save (an smaller window will pop up asking if this/these are the cookie/cookies you wish to delete) 3) RELOAD the “options” window for this to properly take effect.

    If there is any other strange changes that I discover Ill let you know : )

  9. noone said on May 10, 2018 at 2:09 am
    Reply

    Martin, you mentioned under “Developer Changes”, that dom.workers.enabled was removed from Firefox 60, but I’m running Firefox 60 and dom.workers.enabled still shows up on my about:config (thank goodness!).

    Setting dom.workers.enabled to false hasn’t broken anything for me.

    IMO, it’s stupid to prevent users from disabling “features” in Firefox. If I wanted a browser that prevented the users from disabling “features” that are a potential security risk (i.e. service workers = silently installing in the background w/o user notification/starting w/o user notification by itself w/o my opening the website), then I’d use Chrome as my primary browser.

  10. Tom Hawack said on May 9, 2018 at 9:55 pm
    Reply

    After having updated Firefox 59 to 60, after having updated my user.js file on the basis of gHacks-user.js (alpha for Firefox 60), my impression at this time is that, in the scope of Firefox Quantum (57+),
    FF58 over 57 : progress
    FF59 over 58 : progress
    FF60 over 59 : decline

    The enforcement of activity-stream — even with its xpi removed as all others if Firefox’s features folder — is more than perceptible because it sticks to the browser; Pants even writes in the user.js file “Activity Stream is the default homepage/newtab in FF57+”, as well as “It is based on metadata and browsing behavior, and includes telemetry and web content such as snippets, top stories (pocket), top sites, etc.”

    That’s the major point IMO, and leads towards a pad horizon. Too much. You have on the top activity-stream and underneath newtab and homepage, and I consider this as a naughty policy.

    There’s also the new TRR (Trusted Recursive Resolver), a Firefox specific DNS-over-HTTPS performed here with Cloudflare (moreover?!). Not good as well (default is disabled : don’t enable). DoH is more than a valid DNS tool, but either install it system-wide (several servers available besides Cloudflare) or avoid it as browser-specific, IMO. I run DNScrypt-Proxy which handles DoH …. system-wide.

    I dislike as well the individual cookie management removal [https://www.ghacks.net/2018/02/26/mozilla-removes-individual-cookie-management-in-firefox-60/], I dislike the idea of associating cookie and data permissions. Again this is in the “take it all or take none” scheme, a trend nowadays.

    No enthusiasm here regarding this latest Firefox 60. Yet I know no other browser closer to my requirements, so I’ll stick to Firefox, for the time being anyway.

    1. Anonymous said on May 10, 2018 at 6:38 pm
      Reply

      The open source Chromium(not Chrome) fits your need

      1. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2018 at 12:27 am
        Reply

        Certainly not, even Chromium (Chrome is rather “definitely not”).

        As I wrote it, I keep Firefox as my main browser and feel comforted in this choice when I know that the Tor browser is built on Firefox, not Chrome, Chromium, Vivaldi, Edge (Tor built on Edge, lol!) but on Firefox.

        What I notice as well with Firefox is that the points I may happen to disagree with have for the vast majority of them their settings accessible via the about:config. This is essential.

      2. John Fenderson said on May 10, 2018 at 10:37 pm
        Reply

        Chrom(ium) is nonstarter for me. For all the issues I have with Quantum, if I had to choose between it and Chrom(ium), Quantum wins.

  11. Rick A. said on May 9, 2018 at 9:22 pm
    Reply

    Well, i just updated to Firefox 60, and i didn’t asked to reboot. i’m using Windows 10 Home 1709.

    BUT, after installing 60 and being asked to restart Firefox, Firefox didn’t restore session like it always does, and it won’t give me the option to restore that session. Thankfully i only had about:memory , chrome://browser/content/preferences/cookies.xul and about:preferences#privacy pinned, which are all easy to re-add, i don’t think i’ll be pinning about:preferences#privacy anymore because the cookie box is different now and isn’t gonna be as useful.

    BUT even more, there is no more Mozilla Firefox Start Page? And no way to completely disable “Activity Stream” in about:config? There is no preference to toggle it now. WTF !?!

    i just toggled and reset quite a few things in about:config after searching “activity-stream” and now at least when i open a new tab it’s completely blank and no gear icon at the top right, but when i click the home button i still see the gear icon at the top right, but i can’t get the Mozilla Firefox Start Page back, and i can’t find anything about it in about:config.

    Any suggestions on getting the Mozilla Firefox Start Page back or at least removing the gear icon when i click the Home Button, anyone please ?

    1. Rick A. said on May 10, 2018 at 3:27 pm
      Reply

      Further info is i wanted to test something with Activity Stream and i can’t get it back in a New Tab, even if i reset everything in about:config after searching Activity-Stream , lol.

      1. Rick A. said on May 10, 2018 at 4:42 pm
        Reply

        Okay, i had to search New Tab in about:config and Reset browser.newtabpage.enabled to get Activity Stream to show in a new tab.

      2. Jody Thornton said on May 11, 2018 at 1:35 am
        Reply

        I run Quantum at work. I tried installing New Tabs Plus, and I still can creae my custom new tab page (Whew! – er, for now)

    2. Jody Thornton said on May 10, 2018 at 1:10 pm
      Reply

      I was using that Newtab Page Plus plugin (only because I couldn’t get Quantum to maintain more than three rows of sites. I wonder if it can get around the enforced Activity Stream nonsense.

  12. A. said on May 9, 2018 at 2:21 pm
    Reply

    Someone help me here: “Bookmarks don’t support multiple keywords for the same URL unless different POST data is used.” WTF? Does this mean my multiple-keyword-bookmarks will loose their keywords? Or I will simply be unable to add (and edit?) multiple-keyword-bookmarks(‘ keywords)?

    And why is this? This sound so stupid. Is there any good reason for this?

    1. A. said on May 9, 2018 at 2:24 pm
      Reply

      Just noticed I may have made a confusion (as English is not my native language): keywords are not tags. I was thinking about tags… Sorry. :-(

  13. Chrome steals your data cookies and eggs said on May 9, 2018 at 1:28 pm
    Reply

    Wew lads, if you want to have the fastest BUTTERY SMOOTHEST browser on the market right now go download Firefox Nightly and enable WebRender IT’S FREEEEAKAAING FAST AND SMOOOOOOOOOTH WOW

    Mozilla great job there! I love the 60+FPS of WebRender!

    1. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2018 at 12:33 am
      Reply

      Is this a placebo effect, I don’t think so : here on latest stable Firefox 60.0 I’ve just enabled Webrender and the browser seems to be swifter, maybe with less of a difference then when applied with latest nightly builds but perceptible (no experience, could be placebo but I don’t think so) :

      // enable Webrender
      user_pref(“gfx.webrender.all”, true); // Default FF60 = false
      user_pref(“gfx.webrender.enabled”, true); // Default FF60 = false

      1. Jody Thornton said on May 11, 2018 at 3:22 am
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack:

        Just applied these changes to Quantum 60 at work. Holy Crap! After restarting Firefox, it really does fly. Pages load as if they’re cached. There is a visible improvement.

      2. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2018 at 7:28 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton, nice to hear that. I haven’t noted a difference as obvious as yours seems to be (or I was dreaming again) but I did have the feeling of a slight page rendering enhancement.

        Why is Webrender set to false on Firefox 60? As I understand it Webrender is a work in progress, more advanced on Firefox nightly builds where it seems to be true by default. Maybe is this why it isn’t yet activated on FF60, unless to consider possible side effects not correctly handled by FF60… no idea really.

      3. Chrome steals your data cookies and eggs said on May 12, 2018 at 3:31 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack

        There are still a lot of things that are missing/disabled with WebRender which make it slower in some cases.

        https://ceddit.com/r/firefox/comments/8afdzi/webrender_refresh_driver_throttling_is_now_in/

        Optimizations aren’t even there yet. Also as a WebRender dev said:

        > WebRender will not be shipping on Intel GPUs at first. Our intent is to ship on discrete desktop GPUs first. There are some memory bandwidth optimizations that we’d like to make before shipping on Intel

        By the way what is your graphics card and OS? WebRender works currently best with NVidia+Windows.

    2. Jody Thornton said on May 9, 2018 at 5:46 pm
      Reply

      Is that the same as enabling “Stylo”?

      1. Chrome steals your data cookies and eggs said on May 9, 2018 at 9:57 pm
        Reply

        @Jody Thornton

        No, “stylo” relates to the CSS engine, WebRender is something entirely different, see Lin Clark’s illustrations in the hacks.mozilla.org blog post that explains WebRender and Stylo.

      2. Jody Thornton said on May 10, 2018 at 8:54 am
        Reply

        Got it – when does WebRender hit stable releases?

      3. Chrome steals your data cookies and eggs said on May 10, 2018 at 2:04 pm
        Reply
    3. Bobby Phoenix said on May 9, 2018 at 2:48 pm
      Reply

      You always crack me up! Every time in the comments you post about Nightly and WebRender. Every…single…time……. Thanks for the laughs!

  14. TelV said on May 9, 2018 at 12:11 pm
    Reply

    Just updated ESR, but was only offered 52.7.4 That also shows on the direct download link.

    I’m not bothered though since I use Waterfox mainly these days. I switched from Basilisk because I can’t find an addon which will turn grey text fonts to black which will work on that browser.

    1. Cinikal said on May 9, 2018 at 2:22 pm
      Reply

      https://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Mozilla%20Firefox%2C%20Portable%20Ed./

      Portable Stable and ESR, folders are listed with nothing in them. 0.0 Could be days though at lest has in the past

  15. Anonymous said on May 9, 2018 at 12:07 pm
    Reply

    Reboot is needed on Windows 7 but not on Windows 10

    1. Tom Hawack said on May 10, 2018 at 11:54 pm
      Reply

      I always install Firefox cleanly (uninstall+install, profile(s) untouched by uninstall of course), so concerning Firefox 60 with a clean install and no reboot required is not relevant.

      What I know because I had experienced it is that a Firefox uninstall will always require a reboot if the user had added files in his Firefox install directory. Because I proceed to uninstall first I remember that I had been asked to reboot because I had forgotten to remove two Autoconfig files dealing of course with Firefox but not installed by the browser.

    2. Anonymous said on May 10, 2018 at 8:45 pm
      Reply

      If upgrading Firefox requires a system reboot, perhaps it is to due to some Firefox process unexpectedly still running in the background, despite having exited Firefox before the upgrade-installation.

      Another possible reason could be real-time antivirus program interfering with the installation.

    3. Martin Brinkmann said on May 9, 2018 at 12:59 pm
      Reply

      I got the request on a Windows 10 machine.

      1. Even Monkeys Fall from Trees said on May 10, 2018 at 7:21 am
        Reply

        “I was asked to reboot the Windows PC to complete the Firefox 60 installation.”

        Updated yesterday evening on Win10, no reboot was required.

  16. Yuliya said on May 9, 2018 at 11:45 am
    Reply

    >Just one issue listed. When you disable sponsored stories on Firefox’s New Tab Page, the next time you open a new tab page may still show a sponsored tile.
    It’s like they learned from Microsoft. Do they happen to be near each other?

    >Workers cannot be disabled anymore
    They learned this from Google and Cthe Chromium team – switch the flag for user, then remove it entirely, because to hell with user’s choice!

    In a related note, I was not asked for a restart. I use x64 FireFox on Windows 7.

    Do yourselves a favour and just remove this crap entirely from your FireFox install:

    del /S /Q “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\browser\features\*” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\gmp-clearkey\*” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\crashreporter.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.VisualElementsManifest.xml” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\maintenanceservice.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\maintenanceservice_installer.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\minidump-analyzer.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\pingsender.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe.sig” “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-hang-ui.exe”

    Save as .bat and run (after every update) as admin. More than half the problems are gone just by deleting this garbage.

    1. michal said on May 9, 2018 at 2:10 pm
      Reply

      Regarding telemetry:

      And you write this comment using MS Windows? You do realize, that in case of FF you have a clear and viable option to opt-out, while in Windows it simply not there?

      1. Yuliya said on May 9, 2018 at 3:12 pm
        Reply

        Are you refering to the part where I said that Mozilla learned from Microsoft? I was refering to the ads seemingly turning themselves on, even though you switched them off. Something that my Windows 7 does not have. And the fact that Windows 10 is misbehaving (or rather it behaves well, but you’re not the one it is listening to) does not mean Mozilla should copy this behaviour, or that it is acceptable in any way.

  17. Comment said on May 9, 2018 at 10:58 am
    Reply

    Most flags here are self explanatory. If you don’t know what something does, do an online search and convince yourself you really don’t need that flag. I’m sure there’s people actually using HTML5 notifications or other stuff listed here. If all you want is a browser for viewing the web without any additional gadgets, this list is for you.

    Stop telemetry and oftentimes useless features:

    browser.ping-centre.telemetry
    toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.reportingpolicy.firstRun
    toolkit.telemetry.shutdownPingSender.enabled
    toolkit.telemetry.unified
    toolkit.telemetry.updatePing.enabled
    experiments.enabled
    experiments.activeExperiment
    experiments.supported
    datareporting.healthreport.uploadEnabled
    nsITelemetry.canRecordBase
    nsITelemetry.canRecordExtended
    browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry
    browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.telemetry
    extensions.screenshots.disabled
    extensions.pocket.enabled
    geo.enabled
    dom.push.enabled
    browser.library.activity-stream.enabled

    Stop the prevention of context menus:

    dom.event.contextmenu.enabled

    Stop fullscreen warnings and animations:

    full-screen-api.transition-duration.enter 0 0
    full-screen-api.transition-duration.leave 0 0
    full-screen-api.warning.timeout 0

    Stop lazy tab reloading when reopening firefox:

    browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand

    Stop caching to disk:

    browser.cache.disk.enable

    Stop truncation of URLs in the omnibar:

    browser.urlbar.trimURLs

    Stop hardware acceleration as it tends to drop frames in 1080p60fps (and better) youtube videos – at least for me and I’ve got a very quick machine:

    media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled
    media.hardware-video-decoding.force-enabled

    Toggle these accordingly to your needs.
    If you know about more than these, I would love to hear about them.

    1. Pants said on May 9, 2018 at 4:28 pm
      Reply

      > geo.enabled
      The default for geo is to prompt (via a doorhanger) which can be annoying eg prompt fatigue. Since FF58, you can set that default behavior. By all means, lock down geo if you wish (like TBB do), or if you want more flexibility, then leave it enabled and default block. This way you can set per site permission overrides. Note: if you are using privacy.resistFingerprinting, this blocks geo (for now: see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441295).

      user_pref(“permissions.default.geo”, 2); // 0=always ask (default), 1=allow, 2=block

      > dom.event.contextmenu.enabled
      No need to disable this. Leave it as true. Shift-Right-Click will always give you FF’s context menu

      > nsITelemetry.canRecordBase
      > nsITelemetry.canRecordExtended
      These do not seem to exist. Certainly not on DXR

      > If you know about more than these, I would love to hear about them
      Sure. I know a couple more – check it out: https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js/blob/master/user.js

    2. michal said on May 9, 2018 at 2:07 pm
      Reply

      why should I stop telemetry? It’s not like FB that keeps profiling their users all the time for advertising purposes. FF telemetry serves for sole purpose of knowing how software is used, what features are used, what goes wrong…

      1. John Fenderson said on May 9, 2018 at 5:06 pm
        Reply

        If you don’t object to it, then don’t stop the telemetry. It’s good to be able to, though, for those of use who do object it.

  18. Facts said on May 9, 2018 at 9:58 am
    Reply

    > In other words: Workers cannot be disabled anymore

    Wrong. Yes, they still can, via a worker CSP policy set by an extension like uBO or uMatrix.

    1. ams said on May 10, 2018 at 12:46 am
      Reply

      thanks for mentioning. I was wondering this exact thing when I read the article ~~ wondering whether or not CSP policy could be used to marshall workers

  19. Nobloat said on May 9, 2018 at 9:39 am
    Reply

    If Mozilla wants really to become a serious big player, they should think about the following:

    The majority wants a feature set exactly like Chrome – Nothing else and nothing different. And as long as Mozilla features the smallest trace of additional “customization” like moving buttons and fields around they can not convince the majority of Chrome users. Customization is bloat, even the smallest trace of it. Mozilla has done much right since Quantum arrived. But as long as they are scared to do the last necessary step, the long they will fail.

    If you want to make things right, do it as soon as possible. Another big delay of Mozilla not fully understanding the changing of times they will not survive!

    1. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2018 at 12:15 am
      Reply

      @Nobloat, if your intention is to discredit Firefox in a smart non-aggressive way then the try is worthy, worthy in the form but far less in the content.

      You are not demonstrating but concerned with your beliefs based on nothing as an argument of your conclusion.

      I have no idea of the ratio of Firefox users who consider the browser’s openness to tweaks and extensions far more elaborated than in any other browser (even, still with Quantum) as amakor reason to stick with it, but I cannot imagine users who would consider a less opened Firefox as an argument to choose it : all other browsers offer that already!

      Firefox had the reputation of being tweakable but otherwise far less skilled than competitors. This has changed, Firefox Quantum is a new era! The paradox is that it is this very shift to the best available browser technology that may push me once in a while to consider it is failing, precisely because I happen to regret times of the past where tweaking was the king feature.

      Your point confronted to mine may lead to a synthesis : Firefox Quantum is making its way to conciliate as best as possible the challenges of tomorrow with the users’ ability to carry on with tweaks, in terms of cosmetic but before all with an incredible amount of browser settings available in the browser’s about:config.

      Finally, differences contribute to progress, never similarity.

    2. ULBoom said on May 10, 2018 at 12:23 am
      Reply

      Chrome’s a search based ad server. Woolyss Chromium w/No sync, RTC and Widevine is the only Chrome variant I consider using or even allow on our devices. Identical browsing in Chrome and FF gives vastly different results with Chrome aping far more of your movements with ads and throwing up captchas for no good reason. On a positive note, Edge is even worse than Chrome. Edge is where all the replaced highway billboards go to die.

    3. Anonymous said on May 9, 2018 at 9:29 pm
      Reply

      I think NoBloat’s comments is meant to be read as satirical sarcasm against Mozilla’s mission to become Chrome.

      Firefox can’t become fully Chrome or even out-Chrome Chrome (& take over the world), if it were to retain any trace of user customization.

    4. Farid Le Fleur said on May 9, 2018 at 8:51 pm
      Reply

      @Nobloat That is the big issue a lot of people have with recent Mozilla and their new user base. Because you new guys are so arrogant, respect-less and you do not see other opinions as valuable. Which can also be applied seamlessly towards Mozilla as a whole! You see yourself as the one and only user base which counts, no matter if the fact is reality that enthusiasts have been the first who supported Mozilla and Firefox! That they have been Mozilla’s most dedicated vocal supportive user base, until Mozilla has driven them away because they wanted to gather simple users.

      You know that still a lot of people want customization. You simple users think you have the right to decide how something should work. How about having your simple features and our complex features side by side? Never have been thinking of such a solution?

      People have the fear that

      “all Mozilla users can be criticized as being dumb simple users”

      Well, you do know that you and many others on various media are fueling that prejudice with your behavior – Which makes it simple to view the Mozilla community AND their developers in a very negative way.

      And decrease of reputation has been quite substantial since quite some time now. That is the way why i prefer the Pale Moon community and their browser and why i prefer Vivaldi and their community every day over Firefox and their community.

      Nuff said!

    5. Sophie said on May 9, 2018 at 2:40 pm
      Reply

      Did I read you right, that you want any last vestiges of customisation removed, so that Firefox can be just like Chrome?

      Just don’t know how you reached the conclusion, that most or all Firefox users would want what you describe.

    6. Iron Heart said on May 9, 2018 at 12:20 pm
      Reply

      @Nobloat

      You must be joking. Are you still believing that becoming more like Chrome will get Mozilla more market share? Well, the numbers tell a different story. Copying what is already there is certainly an incentive to switch.

      1. michal said on May 9, 2018 at 2:04 pm
        Reply

        How does it make sense to switch to Chrome, which is far more limited than FF, and made by a company with questionable reputation in terms of privacy. Ok, not questionable – bad reputation.

    7. Jody Thornton said on May 9, 2018 at 11:13 am
      Reply

      Hmmmm – I saw your almost exact same post NoBloat, over in the other thread. I want SOME customization, but I’m fine with Quantum just like it is. It’s much faster, but I still prefer Quantum to Chrome. I don’t want it to be EXACTLY the same. Then where is the choice?

  20. Wojak said on May 9, 2018 at 8:49 am
    Reply

    “Mozilla removed the dom.workers.enabled preference. In other words: Workers cannot be disabled anymore”

    Nice, sites are now able to mine bitcoins in multiple threads even on background!
    Based Mozilla, there is no point to use Firefox when Chromium have same functionalities.

    1. Mola Ram, CEO Microsoft said on May 10, 2018 at 3:41 am
      Reply

      Don’t you use uBlock, noscript, etc? You’re not going to get any miners, but with Chrome you’re guaranteed Google will spy on you unless you block every Google & 1e100.net server.

  21. Anonymous said on May 9, 2018 at 8:34 am
    Reply

    Mozilla removed the dom.workers.enabled preference. According to a developer “Its not feasible to disable workers completely in firefox because the browser itself depends on them”.

    New Mozilla’s Theory: From darkness will spring the light.

    1. Anonymous said on May 10, 2018 at 7:03 pm
      Reply

      It can still be disabled through ublock/uMatrix

  22. Long_lived_FF52ESR said on May 9, 2018 at 7:51 am
    Reply

    An era has ended. Farewell firefox.

    1. Pants said on May 9, 2018 at 4:33 pm
      Reply

      > An era has ended. Farewell firefox.

      Support for ESR52.x does not end until September [1]. You have 12 more weeks to be buddies with Firefox before you “have” to jump ship (which is entirely your choice). Enjoy

      [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar

      1. Iron Heart said on May 9, 2018 at 6:02 pm
        Reply

        @Pants

        Waterfox 56 is based on Fireox 56, and Firefox 56 > Firefox 52, obviously. Firefox 55 had notable startup performance improvements, that alone would be a good reason to use Waterfox over Firefox 52 ESR. Just saying.

      2. Pants said on May 9, 2018 at 7:25 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart

        People can do what they like :) I was just letting “Long_lived_FF52ESR” that his “long lived” browser version will “live” for 12 more weeks. What he does after that is up to him. I never ever mentioned Waterfox. I’m not interested in it to be honest :)

        But yup, you’re totally right, 55+56 had a lot of the speed gains. If that’s a priority for someone, then go for it.

    2. Zevel said on May 9, 2018 at 8:17 am
      Reply

      I want the ability to run my “old” XUL add-ons, but I understand that most new ones will be web extensions as XUL based browsers do not have a critical mass of users.

      So… hello Waterfox?

      Is there a good guide for migrating?

      1. Anonymous said on May 9, 2018 at 5:36 pm
        Reply

        Using Waterfox will just delay the old addons’ death. When Waterfox use the next ESR as the base, you can’t no longer use the old addons.

        Mozilla already removed RDF from Gecko starting from Firefox 62: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=833098

      2. TelV said on May 9, 2018 at 12:14 pm
        Reply

        If you want to run legacy addons in Waterfox, make sure you disable e10s (multiprocess) before you install them.

      3. Iron Heart said on May 9, 2018 at 9:06 am
        Reply

        @Zevel

        Waterfox should import your profile upon its first start. At least it did for me.

      4. cramie said on May 9, 2018 at 11:50 am
        Reply

        Yeah, install and run. It copies your profile over and once you login it synch’s your stuff as normal.

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