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.<p>And now the dark theme also applies to address bar and hamburger menu which is nice bonus.
My favorite improvements are:<p>* On-by-default support for the latest draft of the TLS 1.3 specification<p>* 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
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.
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs<p>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: <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/panorama-view...</a>
This is interesting to me:<p><i>Access to FTP subresources inside http(s) pages has been blocked</i><p>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!<p><a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464" rel="nofollow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85464</a><p>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.
Also <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-solstice/" rel="nofollow">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/06/firefox-61-quantum-of-sols...</a>.
> More customization for tab management: added support to allow WebExtensions to hide tabs<p>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.<p>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!<p>[1] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-re...</a><p>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.
There are only 2 things keeping me from using Firefox as my primary browser at this point.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Those 2 friction points are the only thing standing between me and a permanent change.<p>EDIT: Apparently the Lastpass thing is the only bit holding me back now.
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?
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).
Still no VA-API support aka hardware accelerated video on Linux.<p>Chromium has working patch, it's not upstreamed yet (in progress), but there are unofficial community packages for Ubuntu and Arch.<p>So if you are using Linux, especially on laptop, Chromium is the only choice.
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.
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.
Is Tree Style Tab as good as it was before all the Quantum changes?<p>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.<p>I ended up going with Firefox 52ESR.
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...<p>I'd use almost anything else at this point.
> <i>A more consistent user experience: Improvements for dark theme support across the entire Firefox user interface</i><p>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.
I'm curious what everyone has done to their FF interface with plugins and extensions. Here is mine:
<a href="https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/AYjMsOV</a><p>Feel free to post yours as a comment below :)
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.
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.
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!
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"!
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.
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.