I see no one has mentioned Firefox 27 is the first major browser to have ES6 generators enabled by default - <a href="http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-csp/" rel="nofollow">http://swannodette.github.io/2013/08/24/es6-generators-and-c...</a>. Callback hell begone!
Some time ago I was a Firefox user. Then Chrome came out and I first started using it for free-time browsing, while still developing on Firefox. Later, I decided to fully migrate to Chrome.<p>I've decided to change it again, so I'm going to give Firefox a try during this month. For now, it looks really nice, performance seems to be quite good and the feeling of getting at least a small part of my digital life away from Google feels nice as well.<p>Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Firefox' developer tools.<p>I'd be really happy if Firefox convinced me to stay, as I really love what Mozilla is doing for the web community.
The second bullet is important, having up to date TLS is a big deal in today's security/spy conscience world. Its possible to currently get (if you monkey around in about:config), but default settings are powerful since the average user won't bother. And I mean average-user type average user, not average hackernews reader/poster.
2013 was such a good hear for Mozilla that I now looked at this release and was thinking - "blah! just another FF release". I then realised what had happened. They have developed so much momentum and such a good track record that I have taken their best product's release for granted...
Chrome has recently started to be more of a burden for us. We use the Application Shortcuts on our sales teams Windows PCs, which has broken over the last couple of updates:<p>* Scrollbars have now changed, there are no up and down arrows. This has really confused our elder staff.<p>* Application shortcuts have started hanging and throwing the "Jim" screen, but the same web pages work fine usually.<p>* Java is awful to get installed and unfortunately we need that.<p>These have made me want to try Firefox even more, and seeing Generators has made me switch to the nightly build to see what else is up and coming!<p>Nice work Mozilla!
In related news: HTTPSeverywhere is now available for Firefox on Android. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-safer-with-https-everywhere" rel="nofollow">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-...</a>
Release notes include a link to a list of new contributors and their contributions. Never noticed that before.<p><a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new-contributors/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2014/02/03/firefox-27-new...</a><p>Looked up some past numbers:<p><pre><code> Firefox 24: 43 new contributors, 32 volunteers
Firefox 25: 51 new contributors, 39 volunteers
Firefox 26: 43 new contributors, 27 volunteers
Firefox 27: 41 new contributors, 35 volunteers
</code></pre>
I think Mozilla considers its employees and the employees of known major contributing companies to not be volunteers.
I am using FF on Android (both phone and tablet) with sync and great addons like adblock/self destructing cookies/lastpass and am mostly a happy camper. Mozilla has resolved most of the performance issues barring one - compared to Chrome or stock browser the time it takes for FF to go from link tapped to page loading started is a bit annoyingly high. Many times after tapping a link it just sits there doing nothing or showing the spinner in the URL bar for quite some time.<p>Not sure if it's the addons but I recall having similar issue on a fresh install. If anyone from Mozilla reading this has any pointers, please let me know.<p>Edit: Also the one other thing that frequently bugs me is FF not honoring the Android intent system. YouTube and Play Store links when opened in FF give me no option of opening them in their respective apps - it goes straight to the URL. I guess I'll file a bug for this issue.
Anybody know when Firefox 28 will be released? That's the one I'm excited for since it'll finally fix a bug with Firefox and flex-wrap: <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901" rel="nofollow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939901</a><p>Edit: Looks like it'll release in March: <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28</a><p>Worth noting for designers since it'll implement background-blend-mode too: <a href="https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/web-design-technique/6b51bf53743a</a>
The glsl shader editor isn't announced in the release notes. It is supposed to be included in FF 27.<p><a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders-with-firefox-developer-tools/" rel="nofollow">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/11/live-editing-webgl-shaders...</a>
One interesting this is that all JS_ exports in their libraries have been removed. This kills support for things like GWT DevMode [0] among other plugins. This is good for security, bad for GWT.<p>[0] <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/QSEjbhhHB4g" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Google-Web-Toolkit/Q...</a>
Major browser updates used to be fun. Nowadays they just merge security updates and bump the numbers. Most won't even notice and just complain about the mandatory restart.
One disturbing thing about Mozilla security is that most of the "Critical" flaws[1] in their list would be marked as "High" on Chrome because of Chrome's superior security model.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firef...</a>
What are the market share stats like on FF versions these days? Presumably the auto-update feature means the vast majority are using the latest FF within a few weeks?
I'm glad prettify source in the dev tools is finally in the build (It's been in beta for a while). It'll be a huge help working with JavaScript.
According to the release notes Flash is fixed. But after updating, I still can't get Flash to work with Firefox on my Android 4.4.2 Nexus 7. Flash works fine with Dolphin though. Bummer.
Nice that canvas dashed lines are now working, but there are still a lot of html5 features that either aren't implemented or are buggy: audio recording with getUserMedia sometimes turns off after a few seconds, drag+drop images from another website isn't implemented (only file upload from your own computer supported), no screen sharing. I've had to put a "try chrome if you have problems" message at the top of our app, as chrome is currently the only browser that fully supports all of the html5 features that we use.