Mozilla launches new Firefox today

Fudzilla ^ | 11/15/2017 | Nick Farrell

[Elderberry]

Quantum it is rather good

Mozilla today launched Firefox 57, branded Firefox Quantum, for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. We have been running it for a month or so and it is rather good.

Mozilla calls Quantum “by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004”, but even ignoring the hyperbole it does bring much needed performance improvements and a visual redesign to the Firefox stable.

Firefox 57 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. The Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play, and the iOS version - which is usually updated separately from the other platforms - should eventually arrive on Apple’s App Store.

Mozilla says that Firefox Quantum is twice as fast as Firefox was six months ago, and according to the still in development) Speedometer 2.0 benchmark, it also uses 30 percent less memory than Chrome.

While Firefox has historically run mostly on just one CPU core, Firefox Quantum finally takes advantage of multiple CPU cores on desktop and mobile. Firefox Quantum features a faster CSS engine written in Rust that runs quickly, in parallel across multiple CPU cores, instead of running in one slower sequence on a single core.

Firefox Quantum prioritizes the tab being used before other tabs you have open in the background. It includes a new CSS engine called Stylo, which takes better advantage of multiple CPU cores that are optimised for low power consumption.

[central_va]

I’m a Thunderbird user as well.”

I'll drink to that!

What's the word?

[csvset]

No Script should be ready by the end of the week as per Giorgio Maone.

No Script

[ConservativeMind]

Opera is owner by China now.

Enjoy the spying.

[ConservativeMind]

Opera is now owned by China.

[snarkpup]

I've settled on Waterfox and Pale Moon as Firefox replacements for the forseeable future. My notes are here. I haven't upgraded (or "sidegraded", as I call it) to 57 and have no immediate plans to.

Firefox (at least the old one) is the only browser I have found that decently runs the HTML Validator extension (with View Source and no crashing). This is now the only thing I use Firefox for. Since I only need to validate pages I have made myself, security updates are not an issue; so it probably doesn't matter if it eventually goes to seed.

[CatOwner]

Opera is now owned by China.

Yeah, my one concern with Opera. It's a very close second to Brave in speed, with the benefit of having a good selection of add-ons vs. none for Brave. Opera is also without all of the issues that seem to be plaguing Vivaldi right now, although Vivaldi has a more flexible menu area.

[uncbob]

Used that link
many thanks

[uncbob]

I went with that version
Works great
thanks

[litehaus]

“Don’t like using Mozzlia products after what they did to Brenden Eich.”

Needs repetition all the time.

I still have version 4 on an OLD machine.

Methinks the improvements mean - easier for the folks buying our info records from mozilla...

[TomGuy]

You would think they could at least put out a request to extension developers to prepare new compatible extensions ahead of time.

They did. And many extension developers told them to take a hike. They have been burning extension developers for several years with their changes in the rapid release versions. Many developers bailed a long time ago because they did not have time to re-develop their extensions every few weeks.

Half of the extensions I use will not run on the last 10 or so versions of Firefox. Most of them will still run on the 32-bit versions of Mozilla-based browsers, such as Cyberfox, Palemoon, Comodo Ice Dragon.

[ridesthemiles]

Is that why my computer is sooooo slow today? I am falling asleep here.

[ridesthemiles]

Is that why my computer is sooooo slow today? I am falling asleep here.

[Elderberry]

Until I backed it off of my machine, every time I reloaded a page, my machine would freeze for 10-15 seconds, or so.

[jjotto]

Probably. Quantum is notably slower for me too. I’ll switch back, or to something else. It’s ridiculous.

[JoeProBono]

On the Internets we wallow in dirty hands

[Caipirabob]

SCREW MOZILLA

Mozilla CEO Resigns After Obama IRS Leaks His Prop-8 Donation to Gay-Advocacy Group (Updated)

[rxsid]

ah, that would explain all those Chinese advertisements and weird computer behavior then. i couldn't figure out why my bank account kept getting drained.

thanks for the info, time to make the switch.

[Right Wing Assault]

If you are still on 54, your setup is not auto-updating. Just leave things alone.

But, if it does update, go here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox

[JoeProBono]

I use Waterfox and have bogged it down with add-ons. This Mozilla release has, if nothing else, reminded me how fast a browser can be, but I’m still not discarding my well armored Waterfox. I use different browsers for different purposes.

[Admin Moderator]

In the future, place your browser news in chat.