Firefox releases come out every 6 weeks. It helps to put something in the title that explains what's interesting about this one.
the return of shared memory
> At the start of 2018, Shared Memory and high-resolution timers were effectively disabled in light of Spectre. In 2020, a new, more secure approach has been standardized to re-enable shared memory.
mondo details here https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/07/safely-reviving-shared-mem...
more secure target=_blank links
> To prevent the DOM property window.opener from being abused by untrusted third-party sites, Firefox 79 now automatically sets rel=noopener for all links that contain target=_blank.
Only took what, three years since that vulnerability was found?
Unthinkingly following Chrome, Firefox started doing this too. To my knowledge, Firefox still defaults to doing this, but I could be mistaken.
"Preferences > Search > Search Bar" allows you to add back the separate bar. And you can toggle search suggestions in the address bar as well. I don't see how that breaks anything or that it is a "serious UI change".
And finally, the security implications of search suggestions in the address bar are debatable for the end user.
And the security patches for FF are bundles with the release, so if you want security fixes you also HAVE to take whatever UI or feature changes FF put into the browser. You shouldnt force users to relearn functionality for a piece of utility software in order to get fixes for CVEs. I understand its easier for them, but having to retrain people every couple of weeks because there is a new FF release isn't ideal.
Yes, exactly. The amount of UI/UX churn in Firefox is pretty crazy and I'm sure discourages some number of people from updating regularly. Mozilla "fixed" that issue on the desktop versions by completely removing the easy options for letting users decide for themselves when to update, rather than just making auto-updates the default.
I just don't get it. Does Mozilla have a problem with too many developers and needing to invent things to keep them occupied with?
> But its crazy that you have to accept serious UI/UX changes to get security fixes too.
It is sad, but it basically seems par for the course for big, semi-commercial software. I don't like Mozilla, but I appreciate them making an alternative to the massive Chrome near-monopoly that's not only just as fast and lighter but competitively easy to use for normal people. I personally switched to Waterfox years ago, and Pale Moon not long after that. It receives some security fixes slightly after FF (they're fixed after Mozilla publishes the issue), but some of them are not applicable (http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml) . Overall, to me then Pentadactyl is worth worse than that, and I think you might love the UI.
I totally get why they do it too, Im a big Mozilla fan and have been for a long time. Im glad there is browser competition, I love their take on Add-ons and allowing the user to make decisions for themselves. They are fighting the good fight, Im just expressing my opinions on things I don't like, but Im still going to use FF. I did stop upgrading with version 76 because it was just too much change and disruptive enough for me to downgrade and turn off the installer.
Ive never seen Pentadactyl, Ill check it out.
This is interesting, I always figured it was the opposite. Many casual users don't know or care much about the difference between a search bar and a url bar and just want to type something in and get a result. Personally though I prefer having separate search and url fields because the actions are more precise.
On more than a couple occasions I've tried to make a web search in Chrome's url bar that the browser insisted was a nonsensical url. I know there's a flag to enforce one behavior or the other, but I can't ever remember it and honestly don't feel like having to memorize magic words to get basic functionality working.
It's easy to remember because the shortcut for the URL/Omnibar is more often cited as Ctrl-L.