Firefox 63.0 Available With WebExtensions On Linux Now Run In Their Own Process

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Firefox 63.0 Available With WebExtensions On Linux Now Run In Their Own Process

Ahead of the expected official release announcement tomorrow, Firefox 63.0 is now available from the Mozilla servers...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-63.0-Available

[Danny3]

Firefox 63.0 is notable for Windows desktop in that there's no more user freedom and the user is now too stupid to take decisions for himself.
They decided to remove the option that allows you to choose that you don't want Firefox to check for updates.
Congratulations to Firefox's developers for making it the Windows 10 of browsers.
Who the fuck cares about what the stupid user wants, right?
Welcome to a plethora of toolbars, popups, notifications reminding you to upgrade to the latest version.
What if the latest version is crap and I don't want it ?
What if Microsoft buys Firefox and I don't want it ?

I wonder how do the stupid developers think about the following use case:
I installed Firefox on both my parents computers...
On each of their computers there is Windows 7 with 2 accounts:
1. Danny (my account) -> Administrator account
2. <Name> (where <Name> is their name) -> standard account
Besides the above configuration, I also installed Deep freeze, which froze the C:/ (system) partition to a point that I chose so it will make it even harder for them to break the OS.

Now, if one of my parents want to install / update a program, they can't because of the standard account limitations.
Let's say that they pass somehow past this step, they still can't install / update a program because of the Deep freeze limitations which will undo every installation changes.

So for what the fuck is good to have all these annoyances to my parents about upgrading Firefox when it's impossible for them to do it ?
This already happened in the past until I learned how to turn it off from the settings page.
Now they got the brilliant idea of removing the option completely.

Helpful guys here... please don't remind me that there are still possible to do this by editing some text files in some location.
I don't have the time to jump through hoops on each Firefox install to make it obey my decisions. I don't have time for this crap.
I will just ditch Firefox from both my computer and my parents computers and I will probably install ungoogled Chromium until something better comes along.

[Pentarctagon]

Firefox 63.0 is notable for Windows desktop in that there's no more user freedom and the user is now too stupid to take decisions for himself.
They decided to remove the option that allows you to choose that you don't want Firefox to check for updates.
Congratulations to Firefox's developers for making it the Windows 10 of browsers.
Who the fuck cares about what the stupid user wants, right?
Welcome to a plethora of toolbars, popups, notifications reminding you to upgrade to the latest version.
What if the latest version is crap and I don't want it ?
What if Microsoft buys Firefox and I don't want it ?

I wonder how do the stupid developers think about the following use case:
I installed Firefox on both my parents computers...
On each of their computers there is Windows 7 with 2 accounts:
1. Danny (my account) -> Administrator account
2. <Name> (where <Name> is their name) -> standard account
Besides the above configuration, I also installed Deep freeze, which froze the C:/ (system) partition to a point that I chose so it will make it even harder for them to break the OS.

Now, if one of my parents want to install / update a program, they can't because of the standard account limitations.
Let's say that they pass somehow past this step, they still can't install / update a program because of the Deep freeze limitations which will undo every installation changes.

So for what the fuck is good to have all these annoyances to my parents about upgrading Firefox when it's impossible for them to do it ?
This already happened in the past until I learned how to turn it off from the settings page.
Now they got the brilliant idea of removing the option completely.

Helpful guys here... please don't remind me that there are still possible to do this by editing some text files in some location.
I don't have the time to jump through hoops on each Firefox install to make it obey my decisions. I don't have time for this crap.
I will just ditch Firefox from both my computer and my parents computers and I will probably install ungoogled Chromium until something better comes along.

And you posted this here because... ?

[Danny3]

And you posted this here because... ?

They say Firefox is free software and yet they remove one more freedom
I wonder how many freedoms you need to remove from a software until you can call it not free anymore?
Of course, I Forgot to mention that Firefox for Linux is even worse because it's updated with system updates.
So on Linux Firefox never had this freedom to remove it now.
But of course this is not Firefox fault that the system updates user's programs and you are always forced to use only the latest versions.
So I think that posting here makes people realize that Firefox started sucking on othe OSes too, not only on Linux and that Firefox doesn't give more freedom than Chrome let's say anymore.

[paupav]

apt-mark hold firefox

[DanL]

whine whine whine

Use Pale Moon or stick to Firefox ESR, unless you really like running insecure versions of a web browser.

[ssokolow]

They say Firefox is free software and yet they remove one more freedom
I wonder how many freedoms you need to remove from a software until you can call it not free anymore?
Of course, I Forgot to mention that Firefox for Linux is even worse because it's updated with system updates.
So on Linux Firefox never had this freedom to remove it now.
But of course this is not Firefox fault that the system updates user's programs and you are always forced to use only the latest versions.
So I think that posting here makes people realize that Firefox started sucking on othe OSes too, not only on Linux and that Firefox doesn't give more freedom than Chrome let's say anymore.

Regardless of whether that's true or not, a quick wander through the relevant section of MDN will show that WebExtensions has added a whole bunch of APIs and API extensions that Chrome has yet to provide equivalents for.

For example, Firefox allows extensions to add sidebars, supports a more powerful HTTP request filtering API that Chrome doesn't offer, and allows adding custom context menu entries in places Chrome doesn't, like tabs, entries in the bookmarks toolbar or menu, and password fields (specifically, as opposed to all editable fields).

It's also still possible to perform deep UI customization using userChrome.css hacks, which Chrome has never had.

Firefox is still far superior to Chrome for me on those grounds alone, not to mention that Firefox is developed by a public-interest non-profit while Chrome is developed by a targeted advertising company.

[Hibbelharry]

Sticking to versions of any Software not accompanied by any security related bugfixes, and the software doing active communication with the uncontrolled outside world, is not an option. It's dumb behaviour.

Especially on Windows machines you'll pay for that. Just see how many unpatched old Windows installations are running out there, being part of botnets and sending spam all day long, because users think they're smart and don't do updates. They're not smart.

This whole forced autoupdate stuff is a reaction to that fact and a legit solution to keep the web vital. The proof of problems is there. It's not a theory fact, it's a a practical problem.

Take your freedom and use it smart, you really should. You just shouldn't think that beeing free allows you to do just any moron thing.

If you don't want every feature Update Firefox ESR is the way to go. It's much more conservatively updated with less risk of breaking things.

[Big_Mama]

Sticking to versions of any Software not accompanied by any security related bugfixes, and the software doing active communication with the uncontrolled outside world, is not an option. It's dumb behaviour.

Especially on Windows machines you'll pay for that. Just see how many unpatched old Windows installations are running out there, being part of botnets and sending spam all day long, because users think they're smart and don't do updates. They're not smart.

This whole forced autoupdate stuff is a reaction to that fact and a legit solution to keep the web vital. The proof of problems is there. It's not a theory fact, it's a a practical problem.

Take your freedom and use it smart, you really should. You just shouldn't think that beeing free allows you to do just any moron thing.

If you don't want every feature Update Firefox ESR is the way to go. It's much more conservatively updated with less risk of breaking things.

Then I hope some day your government will force you to eat broccoli every day. Because broccoli is healthy and reduces the risks of spreading viruses. And if you don't like broccoli, five big boys will come to you and show you how much you like broccoli. Because that seems like a totally legit solution to your government.

Remember: The end does't justify the means.

On topic: I don't have anything against auto updates, not even as default setting. But I like to have the choice, because some times you have very good reason to do not the allegedly "right thing"

[jpg44]

Use Pale Moon or stick to Firefox ESR, unless you really like running insecure versions of a web browser.

I would strongly advise against that. Pale Moon and ESR both lack a sandbox for content process. Gecko is a very old and crufty code base, with lots of sloppy code written by people who had no business going anywhere near C code running in a browser. There ARE major security vulnerabilities in this code base that are uncorrected. At least with Firefox you get that piece of crap sandboxed and isolated. If you run that Pale Moon basically the browser process is completely unconfined.

Secondly, on the updates thing. I strongly recommend installing the most recent version when it is released. It seems most versions of firefox these days correct major security problems. Firefox 62 plugged several remote execution bugs in the Javascript implementation. There are more of these bugs in the gecko code base.