Firefox 59, 'By Far the Biggest Update Since Firefox 1.0', Arrives With Faster Page Loads and Improved Private Browsing

An anonymous reader shares a VentureBeat report: Mozilla today launched Firefox 59 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." Version 59 brings faster page load times, private browsing mode that strips path information, and Android Assist. In related news, Mozilla is giving Amazon Fire TV owners a new design later this week that lets them save their preferred websites by pinning them to the Firefox home screen. Enterprise users also have something to look forward to: On Wednesday, Firefox Quantum for Enterprise is entering the beta phase. Firefox 59 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.

Re:

[thegreatbob]

I'm on 45.9.0 ESR for most of my productive purposes (with the necessary blocking plugins, of course), PM for most everything "fun" and/or where security might be of concern. However, I'll probably beat 52 into shape sometime soon as 45 is a bit... crusty. This is an easily identified case of "the new version simply cannot fulfill my needs". I understand a desire to simplify, but you know, a car doesn't technically need 4 wheels, doors, windows, seatbelts, etc... but they definitely make it a lot more usefu

Re:

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Which addons do you actually need, that aren't available in FF57+?

Re:

[nmb3000]

I gave up and went to 56 after getting warnings from Google apps saying my browser version was no longer supported. 56 is the last version to support XUL addons, so my entire browser hasn't gone to the new shit UI and shit functionality, but it's still new enough to be fully supported.

I don't know what I'll do when 56 gets too old or a severe security issue is discovered and Mozilla refuses to backport the fix. Honestly I'm hoping something better has come along by then - perhaps a real fork of Firefox th

Re:

[BenFenner]

Pale Moon is a true fork of Firefox that I've been using for over 3 years now instead of Firefox. It maintains XUL support as one of its main goals, and plenty of Firefox add-on creators have moved over to it. It also maintains the fully customizable UI from earlier version of Firefox.
I'm not sure about the future for Web Extensions in Pale Moon. I know they are working on a move to UXP (Unified XUL Platform) which possibly includes Web Extension support? It's worth a look for sure.

Not what the article said

[duckintheface]

The headline says Firefox 59 is the "biggest update since Firefox 1". But it is Firefox Quantum which is described that way, not 59. Could someone please RTFA.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to read it but FF59 was taking too long, so I went ahead and posted the summary as-is

Re:

[n3tcat]

The headline says Firefox 59 is the "biggest update since Firefox 1". But it is Firefox Quantum which is described that way, not 59. Could someone please RTFA.

The article says 59 builds on quantum. Did you skim the article?

The headline and the summary disagree

[tepples]

The headline says 59 is "biggest", while the summary says 59 builds on Quantum (that is, 57), and Quantum is "biggest".

Re:

[HideyoshiJP]

Yeah, the way I read it was that 59 was the "biggest update since Firefox 1," and I was like... wait, bigger than the actual first Quantum release?

Re:

[Kopp]

Yeah I thought : "didn't they already say that for 57 and Quantum ?"

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

> Disabling Javascript across the board just breaks most websites.

No, not those I care about (save very few).

Thing is, all web "designers" now assume every browser "does" javascript because browser "vendors" (and Mozilla is among the worst here) have been nudging users into just giving in.

This is the Internet equivalent of dumping garbage on the streets, to the detriment of all. What we get is bitcoin mining "plugins", and Meltdown deployment via Javascript in the browser (sandboxing? HA! "next time we g

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Then use NoScript, as someone said above. Or disable javascript in the dev tools.

But you're going to keep crying like the little girl you are.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

> Then use NoScript, as someone said above. Or disable javascript in the dev tools.

NoScript under quantum has been a shitshow. Crippled and clumsy compared to prior versions.

> But you're going to keep crying like the little girl you are.

FFS. Javascript has been a necessary component of every single browser exploit for well over a decade now. There is nothing even remotely childish about wanting vastly better control over the #1 security bottleneck on the internet.

Re:

[Rakarra]

Subject: Gimme my "disable javascript" checkbox back.

Disabling Javascript across the board just breaks most websites. This is why the feature is gone. You should use the NoScript [mozilla.org] add-on to Firefox instead (It blocks more than Javascript, too!)

Unfortunately, the new redesigned Noscript has a fucking awful interface. So much worse than the old one.

Re:

[mentil]

It's not as bad as it was in the first days of the 10.0 release. I actually had scripts fully enabled for a few days before I realized I had it configured wrong. But I agree it still needs work, and is missing a bunch of options 5.0 had which improved privacy and security.

Thanks Mozilla Team

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox is still the only browser I trust. Keep up the great work!

Re:

[gnick]

Firefox is still the only browser I trust.

Well there's IE, Chrome, and Opera. Assuming of course that you trust MS, Google, and the Chinese.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

And how much of that is extensions that Google pulled out of their ass in the last year that aren't actually part of the spec?

Re:

[Tablizer]

Pulling a Microsoft, eh?

Re:

[bn-7bc]

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not up to speed on web standards, what standards hav google "åulled oute of their ass" lately, that is if we ignore the whole AMP thing?

Re:

[MobyDisk]

FYI: I think the parent used https://html5test.com/ [html5test.com]

Donation incoming.

[BenFenner]

Another update I don't have to suffer thanks to Moonchild Productions.
Time to donate $59 toward the Pale Moon project.

Re:

[sinij]

Matching Firefox release version number with a same-number donation to Pale Moon could turn into serious money very quickly.

Re:

[BenFenner]

Personally, I like the idea of tying it to Firefox releases, and their insanely high version numbers at that.

If $59 is too much, then cut it in half, or if that's too much, just do $5.90, or figure out your own rubric if you want to donate similar to how I do.

This is my third donation using this technique.

Re:

[williamyf]

Another Update I do not have to suffer, thanks to Firefox ESR.

No need to go to some fork (I am not saying PaleMoon is bad, just that it is a fork).

If you use your browser for WORK, just let the desktop guys be the gamma testers, and enjoy full compatibility and support from your web-tools, plug-ins, iLO tools from the big players (Oracle, Huawei, Cisco, HPE, Lenovo, Dell, SAP, etc.).

Of course, the fact that Palemoon, safari, chrome, etc are not supported by the big enterprise guys does not reflect on the qu

Re:

[BenFenner]

You're assuming every change that makes it to Firefox ESR is desirable, and couldn't possibly be a show stopper.
After two or three of such changes, the last one was ultimately my show stopper, and Firefox was no longer a viable option. It happened to others before my switch, and it has happened to others after my switch. At some point, they may finally change something you care enough about to abandon.

Re:

[Bryansix]

I have like 500 tabs open. Maybe it's that one tab that is requiring 1.9 GB of ram. Or maybe you have a malware infection.

Re:

[danomac]

Well sure, Firefox lets you quickly reopen closed tabs, it's not going to free memory that quickly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"about:memory" and press minimize memory usage button.

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

Meh, there's little value in being a drama queen. All the add-ons I used before Firefox 57 still worked after Firefox 57, and so do over 9,000 other add-ons.

Re:

[bekeleven]

Many of mine did not. For that matter, neither did any of my UI tweaks.

Anyway, since I'm everybody, clearly the update is unusable.

Re: get back to me when all of my addons work

[dunkelfalke]

I have used only three addons, two of them stopped working after the update and the authors say that they can't port them. These two were the only reason to keep using Firefox, so I simply have switched to Opera. No drama, just facts.

Re: get back to me when all of my addons work

[theweatherelectric]

I simply have switched to Opera

So.. you switched to a browser with WebExtensions based add-ons? Might as well have keep using Firefox.

Re: get back to me when all of my addons work

[dunkelfalke]

Opera is faster and several web extensions that were poor substitutes for the addons I have used previously didn't work with Firefox at all because apparently the Firefox implementation of web extensions is only partially compatible to Chrome and Opera.

Re:get back to me when all of my addons work

[fafalone]

theweatherelectic is a paid promoter. His comments, nearly exclusively on Firefox stories (he's recently started commenting on some others after repeatedly being called out for lying about his affiliations, look back further in post history and you'll see absolutely exclusivity to Firefox stories before I and others began calling him out), and always starting within minutes of one being posted, repeat Mozilla talking points and downplay or deny every negative aspect of updates. Take this comment here, bragging about all his addons and 9000 others working, as if that excuses major limitations that count as "working", and the many very popular plugins that absolutely do not work. All of yours work? Well half of mine do not work and do not have equivalents.

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

theweatherelectic is a paid promoter.

What a bizarre conspiracy theory.

All of yours work? Well half of mine do not work and do not have equivalents.

Then guess what, kid: your experience is not universal. It's a much simpler explanation than the fantasy world you've constructed for yourself.

Re:

[fafalone]

I've offered extensive justification based on your behavior. You've offered absolutely nothing except "nuh uh" and ad hominen in response. Nobody is always there to comment on stories within minutes of them being posted, but only on one specific topic, across months and months, and always using the same talking points as the official pages, largely aimed at persuading those with criticisms to think their points aren't valid or important, continually advocating updating no matter what your use case, unless

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

I've offered extensive justification

Yes, "justification" is exactly the word. No proof, no actual evidence, just rumor and innuendo. Just self-reinforcing delusion. Your claims are bizarre.

Just think about what you're saying logically. You're claiming that Mozilla pays people to go "undercover", on Slashdot of all places, to comment on Firefox. I think you're dramatically overstating the importance of Slashdot in the scheme of things. And why would Mozilla do that? The way they promote Firefox is through blog posts, media interviews, and g

Re:

[fafalone]

Lots of companies tell employees to post positive endorsements on social media without disclosing their affiliation. It's hardly some unheard thing. Bottom line, is there is no other more likely explanation for your observed posting pattern. Even your denial hyperbole lends credence to my case, you're constantly calling the idea bizarre and insane despite it very clearly being at a minimum highly suspect (and always the idea, you will never address any of the specific behaviors that led to it, pretty clearl

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

Even your denial

Ah, belief perseverance [wikipedia.org]. I understand.

Re:

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Jesus christ on a horse, shut the fuck up already.

Re:

[Kopp]

Maybe you should simply get an old 14" CRT screen with 640x480 screen resolution and you'll get what you want. Otherwise, I see no fundamental changes except the color of icons ... and the hidding of the useless File Edit View... controls. (which appear by the simple press of Alt key)

Re:

[MobyDisk]

That would be great. Right now if you want to make a kiosk device, the only browser that has enterprise long-term support is IE11. Chrome and FF don't have any kind of enterprise support. And Microsoft doesn't support Edge in their long-term support branch. If you purchase their embedded Windows or server Windows, it doesn't have Edge and there is no installer to add it.

Re:

[bn-7bc]

market share is rather poinless ehen it comes to XP, It is EOL and therfor shuld not be used on anything connected to a network with internet access, at which point a bprwser becomes rather less interresting unless you hav an internal web app

Extensions killed the beast

[vossman77]

I have been using Firefox since when it was only part of mozilla, but I have since moved to Waterfox, because I have not been able to replace my old extensions. And the newer version of my old extensions, e.g. noscript, really slow down the new firefox browser.

https://www.waterfoxproject.or... [waterfoxproject.org]

Re:

[Xenolith0]

I myself switched over to Pale Moon [palemoon.org] once Firefox started killing off features and pretending to be Chrome.

I would recommend you ditch NoScript and check out uMatrix [github.com]. It is a full, and better (and without the whole AdBlock controversy) replacement to NoScript. As well as CookieMonster, and other resource blockers, allowing control over loading of not just JS/Cookies but also CSS, images, media, and more.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use uMatrix you should combine with uBlock, since uBlock provides useful replacement scripts for some websites so they keep working even when their shitty scripts are blocked.

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

I would recommend you ditch NoScript and check out uMatrix

The latest versions of uMatrix [mozilla.org] are WebExtensions based. I imagine they'll get bored with maintaining the XUL version eventually and stop development on it.

Re: No thanks, I'll stick with Firefox ESR

[p91paul]

59 will be the new ESR shortly...

Re:

[NJRoadfan]

The hardware accelerated rendering is horribly broken in 59 leading to half rendered web pages. This is reproducible across several machines/configurations, so it isn't a bad video driver. Turning it off fixes the problem. On one older machine, turning off hardware acceleration actually lowered CPU usage and sped up browsing! It also seems to have fixed the broken printing problem I've been having on one machine (FF only outputs blank pages after multiprocess/e10s is turned on).

Still...

[DarkRookie]

Still no support for the old add ons.

Firefox Private Browsing

[Quantum gravity]

If you use private browsing, FF59 removes "referrer values" when you click a link. And you can also change the default referer behavior for the browser. See: https://blog.mozilla.org/secur... [mozilla.org]

Not sure if a bug...

[brad3378]

In version 58 and all prior versions you could type "about:" in the URL window to quickly determine which version you were running. In 59, this feature is no longer available, however you can still type "about:ram" to check RAM usage.

Re:

[theweatherelectric]

p.s. FYI: "about:ram" doesn't work

Use about:memory. There's also about:support and about:mozilla.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This. The entire reason firefox ditches the broken old add on implementation is because it's full of security holes.
Making a fork to keep using the a vulnerable API is stupid.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in the real world where people don't use a whole 3 addons and are actually capable of testing the new Fireshit to see what a shitpile in terms of addons it is, half the addon replacements come with stripped down addons that are shadows of their former selves - useless, a quarter can't be ported because new system doesn't allow deeper interaction between Fireshit and the OS like Open With because "muh security" (as if power users give a shit), and the leftover quarter barely works with some minor s

Re:

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Try again, this time without the pointless name-calling.

Come on, I know you can do it.

Re:Pale Moon Browser 27.8.1 has been released

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleh... Seamonkey (the real Netscape) still has all of you beat, even (especially) after all these years. We should celebrate its stability, at least in its user interface.

Re:

[janeil]

I don't see why this comment is modded funny! Seamonkey still works great, and the web works with it just fine. It is the real mozilla.

Re:Pale Moon Browser 27.8.1 has been released

[arth1]

PaleMoon is alas no longer an option at work, as it won't work on Enterprise Linux 6 anymore, the still supported and last systemd free major OS family.
And building it on my gentoo machine at home is not an option either, as I have to install and switch to old gcc 4.9 compilers just to get it to build.

Seamonkey is no problem building, but alas, there are a few sites it doesn't work with. Like the Kinja empire and BofA.
So Firefox it is, at least for now.