Mozilla Firefox 100 Now Available With Various Improvements

[ssokolow]

In 2022, Firefox still can't do one of the most basic features of a desktop application Every time I start Firefox, I have to move the window.

For a variety of reasons (insufficient support for enabling "resist fingerprinting" but faking the reports rather than forcing the window size, occasional accidental 'game changed the resolution and threw off all my window positions', etc.), I just have a Python script named fix_window_positions.py which uses wmctrl to move Firefox and various other things into their correct dimensions.

[arQon]

It has been a constant annoyance for web developers, that when the content initially fits the window, no scrollbars are displayed, but when the content happens to grow larger than the viewport, then scrollbars will appear and the webpage will visibly shift a few pixels to the left, also potentially changing width due to proportional sizing etc.

1000% pure bullshit. As if the idea that variable-sized documents never existed before. You know, in like, word processors nsuch. ffs.

We had GUIs for 30+ years and it was literally never a problem: it only became one because some assclown with zero competence decided to turn it into one for the sake of their ego, in direct conflict with the whole point of HTML. Web "developers" were the CAUSE of the problem, not somehow victims of it, and certainly not the solution to it.

[vladimir86]

You will find similar stories in any organization. There are, and always will be people that, for the life of them, cannot be technology savvy, no matter their gender, age or level of education. One day I saw a Windows PC with 3 (!!!) antivirus software installed and the user was surprised when I told you are not supposed to do that.

To be fair, installing 3 antivirus programs in your computer, I'll say it is not being tech savvy. l. Having to tell you constantly how to press a button is just being stupid.

[Old Grouch]

To be fair, installing 3 antivirus programs in your computer, I'll say it is not being tech savvy. l. Having to tell you constantly how to press a button is just being stupid.

50% of people have a below average IQ.

While a lot of problems are caused by ignorance, which can be remedied, others are caused by people assuming that everybody is either as intelligent as they are or not realising other people have different skills than they do. I haven't learned how to knit. That does not make me stupid, but possible lazy (although there is a limit to how many things one person can learn to be at least competent at). I have also had to deal with people who are suffering age-related cognitive decline, which is both sad and not pretty.

So I would not be so quick to judge other people's apparent difficulties. Its worthwhile to learn to be humble and try and work out why other people find things that are simple for you difficult. One possible reason is that they are relatively cognitively impaired, which they can do little about, but you can work to mitigate. They might be lazy, which means it's important to find the right incentive (carrot, not stick). Some people have extremely low self-worth and display learned helplessness. They need encouragement and support. Calling people stupid is not constructive, and won't solve the problem. Have some respect for people who might be dealing with problems you know nothing about, and work out ways of helping them.

[arQon]

As the 3 months age of the bug report show.

6 months, not 3. It's "only" 3 releases though.

> It seems that Mozilla doesn't care that without hardware acceleration many laptops consume more power, overheat and are louder because of the always spinning fans.

Harsh, but essentially true, yes. The part you left out was "NON-WINDOWS laptops", and that's why.

> I can't believe that it was working fine, without disabling the sandbox and now they cannot or don't want to fix the regression no matter how many disadvantages it has and how important it is

Because "muh sekuritteh!", which is tech's version of "think of the children" these days.
Seems kinda weird though to have people here cry that every time Wayland fails to deliver on functionality, but then turn around and give Mozilla grief for it. Funny, huh?

> But yet they have the time to always break the UI and usability with the always obsession of removing more free space, in the worst possible way where the width of screens is more than enough for everything.

Which, wow - deja vu all over again. So CSD that doubles the height of a title bar and makes UIs inconsistent is awesome, but Firefox removing compact mode and breaking the UI is bad. Exact same behavior, just different people doing it. I wonder why that's "the greatest thing evah!" when it's one group, but "the worst possible way" when it's another one?

> I wonder WTF will the Snap guys will do with the always-forced-upgraded to latest version Snap version.

"Eat shit", obviously.
I mean, it's not like this is the exact obvious scenario used to argue against one of the (MANY) utterly braindead aspects of Snap's design 5 years ago. Oh, right, of course it was, because you would have to be blind not to see it coming.

You know, Snap being a steaming pile of garbage may well be the only topic even everyone here can agree on - albeit usually for two very different reasons.

> Mozilla seems to be on a path where it treats Linux users like third world citizens

You make that sound like it's something new. Remind me, HOW many years has accelerated video been working under Windows?

I get it though, really. Between the bickering over VAAPI vs NVAPI vs at least two other options at the time, as usual the Linux "community" - i.e. the multi-billion dollar companies that all think they own Linux and can make their "vision" of it the One True Way, because they've already successfully done so multiple times in the past - it took nearly 10 years to even have a consensus on what to target. All for < 1% of the market. It annoys the hell out of me too, but TBH sometimes it's hard to blame them for that attitude.

Wanna see something funny? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1619523
That's from 20 releases ago, and it's nearly a full bingo card. "muh sekuritteh", "I'm not interested in doing this myself, but I'll block any attempt by someone else to provide a patch", "WaYlAnD iS tEh FuTuRe, don't support X", literally not even testing that the *build* was correct let alone the runtime, rejecting user feedback that showed it didn't actually work, and so on. The only thing it's missing is "blame nvidia". :P

> wondering why Linux distros are switching from Firefox to other browsers as the default browser and many users are leaving Firefox in general.

"SOME Linux distros", FTFY, and the "why" is the same reason most of Firefox's users left years ago: because Google makes damn sure that their sites only work properly in Chrome; and now, "because Chrome is what users (and especially, newbies) are used to".

Whether Mozilla is sabotaging the FF UI because they don't understand that, or because it's the only thing they can do about it, or because their UI team sucks donkey balls, is something only they know. Given Baker's literal sabotage of the company so she could triple her own salary though, the answer is probably "All of the above and more".

I agree, comparatively Firefox has only been getting worse and worse for several years now, and that's even just against itself let alone other browsers, aside from the rare but significant occasions that it actually delivered real work instead of just yet another incompatible crippled UI update. But I used Chrome for months on the Pi, specifically because it DOES have working HW accel, and that was enough to convince me that I'd never use it on a real machine. So this is it. It's like democracy: not actually good, but still better than the alternatives.

But hey, just like every time someone brings up Wayland not supporting something, or GNOME "always breaking the UI and usability with the always obsession of removing more free space, in the worst possible way where the width of screens is more than enough for everything", we know what the answer is: "You just don't want to learn anything new", "Fork it and fix it yourself", "Muh sekuritteh!", and so on. Why should Firefox be any different?

(Yeah, it's been a rough couple of days and I needed to vent...)

[direc85]

FF100 removed my extensions. Anyone else with such issue?

[vladimir86]

50% of people have a below average IQ.

While a lot of problems are caused by ignorance, which can be remedied, others are caused by people assuming that everybody is either as intelligent as they are or not realising other people have different skills than they do. I haven't learned how to knit. That does not make me stupid, but possible lazy (although there is a limit to how many things one person can learn to be at least competent at). I have also had to deal with people who are suffering age-related cognitive decline, which is both sad and not pretty.

So I would not be so quick to judge other people's apparent difficulties. Its worthwhile to learn to be humble and try and work out why other people find things that are simple for you difficult. One possible reason is that they are relatively cognitively impaired, which they can do little about, but you can work to mitigate. They might be lazy, which means it's important to find the right incentive (carrot, not stick). Some people have extremely low self-worth and display learned helplessness. They need encouragement and support. Calling people stupid is not constructive, and won't solve the problem. Have some respect for people who might be dealing with problems you know nothing about, and work out ways of helping them.

You might be right. However, the kind of example I was referring is about a person who might or might not be stupid. (She is a civil worker. I don't know in Germany where this happened, but where I come from accessing civil service is extremely hard and requires lots of study, even for the worst paid and with less responsibility positions).
But her problem is not knowing how to configure her computer, or nothing technical. Just she only needs to press a button on the printer. The same button all the time. And when she does need to, she stops her job and bothers coworkers until someone else does it or explains it to her.

I am harsh because I suffered someone like that in the past. I think most people have. And it is very annoying and unnecessary. Of course I don't know what really happened there, if the story is true, or exaggerated. But It just activated my memory and made shiver. I never said that person at my workplace how stupid I tough he was, because I don't want him to feel bad about asking questions, but it sure feels good to vent it out!

[billyswong]

Which, wow - deja vu all over again. So CSD that doubles the height of a title bar and makes UIs inconsistent is awesome, but Firefox removing compact mode and breaking the UI is bad. Exact same behavior, just different people doing it. I wonder why that's "the greatest thing evah!" when it's one group, but "the worst possible way" when it's another one?

I think those that push CSD and GNOME 3 / 4 UI are the same group of people who also remove compact mode in Firefox and also more recently, the file download or open dialog there. Those who applaud applaud both and those who lament lament both. People are probably more consistent than what you portray here.

[vladimir86]

Just tested it. I don't get the scrollbar flack.

Yes, I am actually very unhappy about Firefox. How they treat non Windows users like rubbish, and how it force feeds its users unwanted UI changes. I actually went to SeaMonkey as default browser long ago because of that. I also think that the tiny scrollbars, etc won't cater for people with disabilities. I also hate how not too long ago they fired a huge amount of people while its CEO has a scandalous and undeserved high salary.

But the disappearing scrollbars ain't the most stupid force feed change it has done so far: While they disappear if your mouse is idle for about 3 seconds, they reappear as soon as you move it, even if the cursor is far from them.
Mind, they are still stupidly narrow, and hard to see, but not in any way worse than they where since many releases ago when they changed that. Just the same.

So considering how they cock up badly at each release, I'll give them only 3/100 on the usual Firefox "screw your users" meter.

Just as some user hinted: Firefox sucks, but there is simply not alternative (well, yes, I said I use SeaMonkey, but I can't remove Firefox because some pages won't display in SeaMonkey. And I even need the even suckier Chromium from when such pages won't even load in Firefox. You just can't choose not to have them installed as backup, as much as you might hate them. Hurray for capitalism' s "offer and demand" non existing laws! )

[schmidtbag]

erm... I'm not sure why everyone seems to have the memory of a goldfish, but this was *GNOME's* decision, not Firefox's. Like 8 years ago.

erm... we know. It makes sense that GNOME did it because many applications would actually benefit from it.

Also, GNOME doesn't speak for Mozilla.