Goodbye Firefox

ddrueding

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There is something to be said for the Chrome system - it just keeps itself up-to-date all by itself and you never even know it's doing it. Most of the time you are not even aware what version you are running.

Your version of Firefox doesn't do this? Within a couple days of a new release the new version is just installed on the machine on load. Sure you can speed it up by going to "Help -> About", but no need to do anything.
 

P5-133XL

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Inevitably Chrome will upload a problem version to everyone. I can't say it has happened to me yet, but it is just a matter of time. On the other hand I really like being able to activate or deactivate particular functions/capabilities that they are experimenting with with chrome://flags/
 

Santilli

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One website, run by the NCAA, arbitersports.com, seems to work by far the best when using the latest IE.
I use it for that one website pretty much exclusively.

Latest version of FF doesn't seem to like Twitter login.

But works on Chrome. Go figure.

Just downloaded Palemoon. Seems ok, and I like the old layout. Can't figure out why they moved the bookmarks access to the far top right on chrome, Palemoon, etc. I liked it in the middle of the page, and it seems less work to access....
 

P5-133XL

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Chrome allows both right and left justified bookmark folders (at the same time) but I do not think centered is an option. No, I don't remember how I did it, but I definitely have both.
 

Tannin

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Your version of Firefox doesn't do this? Within a couple days of a new release the new version is just installed on the machine on load. Sure you can speed it up by going to "Help -> About", but no need to do anything apart from tear your hair out when it breaks all of your extensions. Again.

^ There you go Dave. Fixed it for you.
 

Handruin

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Do you all often encounter broken add-ons after an update? I don't recall ever having one broken after an update. I often read posts of people complaining or joking about this but I've not yet experienced it.
 

ddrueding

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Do you all often encounter broken add-ons after an update? I don't recall ever having one broken after an update. I often read posts of people complaining or joking about this but I've not yet experienced it.

Same, but I clearly don't care as much about customizing my browser experience. ABP is the only one I install as default.
 

Tannin

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I try to keep my add-ons to a minimum. Most of them are little better than bling anyway. But there are two or three or four important ones and they get broken about ... oh ... I guess one of them breaks about every third major version. I hate it whenever that dreaded "please wait, Firefox is installing updates" message comes up 'coz I never know when it's going to break an add-on and force me to spend time I don't have buggerising around looking for a fix. The Firefox Development Morons should check your add-ons before the update breaks something, not check afterwards and say "sorry, we broke it".
 

Howell

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Can you not turn off the auto updating to stay just a little behind the cutting edge? Since the add-ons are third party developed there would need to be a mechanism for those developers to give a thumbs up for the browser upgrade. The user should not have to manage that.
 

Mercutio

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You can.

The main reason applications become incompatible is Firefox UX designers really hate the Add-ons bar at the bottom of the screen. They have tried to remove it at least twice, and that is the reason that fairly popular add-ons like ForecastFox do not work right now.

I am very aware of which Add-ons I use and need. I can install all of them in under two minutes. I feel that this is a more than equitable amount of time since no other browser offers some of those features natively or from their own add-on ecosystem.
 

snowhiker

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I still use Firefox, but it's been a PITA lately.

1) I get the "Firefox is already running/can't start another instance" error. You have to load task manager, end process, then you can load firefox.

2) Sites like https://www.schneier.com/ come up with "Secure Connection Failed".

3) Random crashes.

4) Bunch of shit I'm forgetting at the moment.

sigh.
 

ddrueding

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I still use Firefox, but it's been a PITA lately.

1) I get the "Firefox is already running/can't start another instance" error. You have to load task manager, end process, then you can load firefox.

2) Sites like https://www.schneier.com/ come up with "Secure Connection Failed".

3) Random crashes.

4) Bunch of shit I'm forgetting at the moment.

sigh.

Sounds like more of a general computer issue to me?
 

Mercutio

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I still use Firefox, but it's been a PITA lately.

I'd concur that there's something else. Maybe you've got a plug-in that isn't closing cleanly?

But I am seeing that Firefox on my two main systems is spending a lot more time around or at the 2GB RAM mark. I don't care all that much since I pay for the RAM so that I can use it, but on the other hand AFAIK there's still no official 64-bit build for Windows and the current trends in web design ("infinite scrolling" etc) definitely make me think that no one is trying to limit RAM usage any more.
 

mubs

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I've been seeing a fair bit of "Firefox is already running". This used to be a problem some years back, but they fixed it. Now there's a relapse.
 

snowhiker

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Well Firefox is up to version 30.0 now and I still get this error message.....

An error occurred during a connection to www.schneier.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). (Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)

...when trying to connect to https://www.schneier.com/

I don't even care about reading that site, but annoyed Firefox errors out.

Tried restarting Firefox with addons disabled. Didn't help. I googled and all the Mozilla pages are for "older" versions of Firefox. Sigh.

Don't want to have to re-install Firefox/plugins but I'll probably have no choice.

My pop is getting the same error when connecting to: https://www.facebook.com/ he's using Chrome as it works on FB. Annoying error.
 

Mercutio

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Schneier.com comes up for me and if Facebook was generally broken on any browser it would be international news. Self-absorbed moms and frat boys everywhere would be inconsolable.
 

snowhiker

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Schneier.com comes up for me and if Facebook was generally broken on any browser it would be international news. Self-absorbed moms and frat boys everywhere would be inconsolable.

Schneier.com comes up with FF for me as well.

Yeah I figured it's working for everybody else. Seems my security certificate(s) or settings or whatever is/are borked with no obvious solution to fix things.

I agree with you about FB but pop and his wife are still gonna keep using it. So that has to work, and it doesn't with Firefox. Re-install didn't help. I'm guessing there are some setting/configs in registery not being fixed/updated on re-install.
 

snowhiker

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Try creating a new profile and see if that works.

My problem got fixed but I'm not sure what I did.

Reinstalled Firefox. Nope. I went into "about:config" and typed "SSL" in search box, and reset all user defined values back to default. But that didn't work. Restarted everything. Zip. Googled around and noticed the CreditCarma site didn't load either. Googled those errors. Don't remember changing anything else and then it just started working. Weird.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions.
 

sedrosken

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...no one is trying to limit RAM usage any more.

Yeah, I'd agree with you there. I've been finding that I can't have near as many tabs open on my P4 as I can the laptop, not just because the P4 is weaker, but it starts swapping to disk way too soon. I had my RAM half full if that and it slows to unusable speeds. Chrome here, occasionally IE and even Netscape 4.8 and 3.04 Pro Gold (you wouldn't think it, but they install and run without a hitch mostly... 3.04 crashes on trying to load google though... something about a javascript recursion or something... didn't think 3.04 had javascript but whatever...).

Either way I can't have as many tabs open as I used to be able to. I'm one of those people who will have something like 20 tabs open at once... it's my ADHD rearing its ugly head. Still, I used to be able to do 30!

Just finished putting the finishing touches on my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS x64 install today. Got LXDE installed, but I don't consider it to be Lubuntu because I went with the lxde-core package instead of the lubuntu-desktop package. Built it from the ground up.
 

sedrosken

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I've been having stability issues with x64 Chrome (and Chromium) under Ubuntu, so I've checked out FF again. Surprisingly, after some tweaks (and classic theme restorer, oldtabs, and a FF 2 theme...) it's running quite smoothly. I'm not having the issues that I did with Pale Moon, and everything is surprisingly speedy and slick. It's a more enjoyable experience than Chrome, at least right now. They said that x64 Chrome is more stable, faster, and more secure than x86. I never had a single issue whatsoever with x86 Chrome, and then I have all the issues in the world when I decide to jump to x64? Coincidence? I think not. I haven't quite figured out how to force the software center to install the x86 version, so for now I'm stuck with FF. It's quite the blast from the past, really. I only jumped onto the Firefox then-not-quite-bandwagon back when version 2 was the newest one, with 3 coming out a month later.

I switched back to Ubuntu proper. I found that Unity, clunky though it is, is about the best I can hope for from this machine in terms of the usability:speed:eyecandy ratio. I'm sure I could use GNOME 3 on here; I mean, I did use it for a (very) short timeframe on the P4, and it didn't run too bad. But I don't like GNOME 3. MATE, while familiar, is slow (I can start Caja and wait whole minutes to browse my files). KDE 4, while very attractive (in fact, when I get a beefier system that's what I plan on migrating to) is also very slow. LXDE has wayyy too much that I have to get whole new tools to configure. IceWM is a nightmare to set up. XFCE is cool and all, but I... just don't like it for some ungodly reason... in fact, I probably could've installed MATE and Thunar... hmmmmmm... good idea, me. I just might do that. I certainly have HDD space to burn. With the proper Ubuntu clean install, I don't have to worry about the stupid things like making my systray icons show up like they're supposed to.
 

Tannin

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Now I am really angry with these morons.

Firefox 31 has deliberately and maliciously disabled important tab usability preferences, in particular, the single tab close button functionality, which is vital to anyone who uses it for serious work with any large number of tabs.

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/04/30/mozilla-removes-tab-close-button-preference-firefox/

You can still tell Firefox what you want it to do in about:config, but the bastard moron committee designing the UI now has Firefox ignore your choice. It has gone from bad to very, very bad.

(I have to use Firefox to design web pages. It has long since been demoted to 4th or 5th choice browser on my systems, but when I'm looking up lots of stuff and testing with two or three of the better browsers (i.e., not firefox), I still often need something like Firefox to go hunting up more info on - typically a search followed by multiple tabs of results. Multi-tabs in Firefox are now borked worse than Chrome.)
 

sedrosken

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I use a bunch of addons so I don't have to deal with Firefox's latest UI bullcrap, but I agree that I shouldn't have to install a bunch of addons to fix what should already be a choice anyway.

And since I installed Windows 8.1 I can't use the classic FF 2.x theme anymore, because it looks weird and I have to have the menu bar with it and the menu bar tries to manifest itself in the title bar and it's all just a big friggin mess.

Out of curiosity, Tannin, what browser is your first choice? I see that you bash FF and Chrome, two very popular alternatives to IE (some would go as far as to say the only alternatives).
 

sedrosken

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Erm, disregard that bit about being unable to use the classic theme properly. Just figured it out. Classic theme restorer has soooo many options it'll make your head spin.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Firefox 31 has deliberately and maliciously disabled important tab usability preferences, in particular, the single tab close button functionality, which is vital to anyone who uses it for serious work with any large number of tabs.

I'm the post-child for using shit-tons of tabs. I have 91 of them open in Firefox right now and another 12 in Chrome.
But what's the functional change? The "X" moves with the open tab. You still have to navigate to the tab to select it and close it. I can understand being annoyed with losing the per-tab close, but I can still right click close tab, click the relevant tab and X or type a CTRL-W.

I agree that this isn't something they should be removing and I'm sure it'll be back in the form of an add-on, but knowing that you have a lifelong dislike for using those. Perhaps the lesson we should take here is to be thankful that it's relatively simple to modify our browsers into the software we want, instead of being forced to use shitty interfaces (see: every Apple UI ever; Ribbon toolbars) at all times.
 

ddrueding

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Interesting. Once upon a time, Firefox displayed the tab close function differently, and I went through quite a bit of effort to make it so that each tab had its own x. But I will admit that taking away the option is annoying.
 

CityK

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Now I am really angry with these morons.
Me too.

I do not want to spend large amounts of time every few releases trying to restore functionality that previously existed. Installing FF31 yesterday has completely removed my folders and bookmarks from whatever bar its called. Empty. Blank. Nada.

Fucking idiots. Nothing is intuitive in the design whatsoever.
 

CityK

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I went through quite a bit of effort to make it ....
That sums it up right there -- its increasingly taking quite a bit of effort to maintain it in a way that is familiar and desirable.
 

Mercutio

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Me too.

I do not want to spend large amounts of time every few releases trying to restore functionality that previously existed. Installing FF31 yesterday has completely removed my folders and bookmarks from whatever bar its called. Empty. Blank. Nada.

You should have backups in %appdata%/roaming/mozilla/firefox/profiles/profilename/bookmarkbackups.

Firefox normally makes a backup every day and keeps about 2 weeks' worth of copies.
 

CityK

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You should have backups in %appdata%/roaming/mozilla/firefox/profiles/profilename/bookmarkbackups.

Firefox normally makes a backup every day and keeps about 2 weeks' worth of copies.
That's not the problem ... bookmarks are still there (I now have to access them via "Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks" and when the "Library" opens, I need to click on "Bookmarks Toolbar" ... that is very inconvenient)

The problem is in the browser's GUI. I have a menu bar (which also contains a few buttons, the url box, and the search box), then some other bar which apparently is not the bookmarks bar ( but which previously contained all the folders and bookmarks etc that I like to access). Below that is where the tabs open up.

If I right click over the toolbars, the bookmarks toolbar is not even ticked in the menu that pulls up. Ticking it just adds yet another empty toolbar row above the tabs and below the menu bar row.

Another thing -- I right clicked over the menu bar (actually the home icon) and selected Move to Menu ... the home icon disappeared. No idea how to get it back.


FF used to be so good. It seriously blows goats now.
 

ddrueding

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That sums it up right there -- its increasingly taking quite a bit of effort to maintain it in a way that is familiar and desirable.

My point was that before they didn't have tab close buttons on each tab and now they do. At least the default interface is getting better. Rarely do I spend any time customizing the interface, I typically just use what they give me.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I want the constellation of icons to the left of the address bar to be Home, Refresh, Back/Forward. I use an Add-on to make the Stop button kill animations, so I'm sure I'm in the minority of people who still use Stop as well. Mostly I think that putting Refresh at the end of the Address bar is stupid, especially if that means it's 1500 pixels away from where it used to be.
Also, Firefox taking a UI cue from IE is deeply disappointing.
 

sedrosken

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Well, FF took the cue from IE, who took it from Chrome... I believe.

It's like how all the browsers used their useragents to pretend they were anything but what they were.
 

Mercutio

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Nope. Chrome has a Reload button to the left of the address bar. IE is the one that put Reload off to the right where it doesn't belong.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I've been using Waterfox lately. I loaded up 80 pages of tumblrs full of animated .gifs and crap and got RAM utilization up over 3.5GB for the waterfox process and I've left them there while I do my normal browsing. I'd say that it's working fine, though I suspect that if I loaded several tabs of crappy flash video players (Liveleak, break.com etc), the plugin-container process would still have issues.
 

Tannin

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Out of curiosity, Tannin, what browser is your first choice? I see that you bash FF and Chrome, two very popular alternatives to IE (some would go as far as to say the only alternatives).

1: Opera. (Real Opera, not that rubbish Chrome clone they call "Opera" now.) Won't go for much longer now, the web is very slowly changing.

2: Sea Monkey

3: Pale Moon

I use all three of those a lot.

.............

daylight


4: Firefox with Classic Theme Restorer and one or two other add-ons to make it usable. There are some add-ins I sometimes need which I don't like having on all the time taking up space and CPU cycles, so they go into Firefox 'coz I only run it when I want those add-ins. Every now and then I nuke the whole setup and reinstall to keep it clean. Any site that generates stuff I want to keep (bookmarks, cookies, stored passwords, history etc.) I visit in Pale Moon or SM or Opera instead. My Firefox install is always disposable.

.............

more daylight

5: Chrome. I hardly use Chrome, mostly only for Google Maps, which it seems to do better than other browsers. (No surprise there.) The tab-handling is primitive and the bookmark system hopeless, so it very seldom gets much of a workout.

From time to time I try a few others. Safari is pretty much just an out-of-date Chrome with lots of extra bugs. Vivaldi is promising but still in alpha; a long way of being ready for prime time, but worth keeping an eye on. Ditto with Otter. Three or four others haven't made enough of an impression to leave their names in my head.
 

Mercutio

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I actually think IE 11 with ABP 1.3 installed ranks higher than Chrome. Which isn't so much saying something nice about IE as saying something is seriously wrong with Chrome now.
 
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