Firefox 91 Released As New ESR Base, HTTPS First Policy For Private Mode

[RichieFrame]

Finally a new ESR, 78 was hot garbage, none of the rendering bugs introduced since 68 ever seemed to have gotten fixed (posting from 78.12)

[Daktyl198]

How many features did they remove this release? How much did they change the UI *again* despite nothing but negative feedback from their users?

I’ve used Firefox for over a decade but a month ago I switched to Vivaldi and haven’t looked back. Firefox still has some advantages… but one has to wonder how long before they’re removed. At least I don’t have to learn a new touch-focused UI on my browser every 3 months now.

[cynic]

Users running beta (92) on the Wayland backend (`MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1`, unfortunately still not on by default) may want to try out the compositor backend (`gfx.webrender.compositor.force-enabled` in `about:config`). It aims to bring the Wayland backend on par with the CoreAnimation and DirectComposition backends on MacOS/Win respectively concerning energy efficiency. It does so by offloading compositing work to the Wayland compositor by using subsurfaces and other advanced Wayland features. That allows to e.g. paint page content only once and, when scrolling, just instructing the Wayland compositor to move that content around, reducing GPU work.

Edit: only try this if you run a recent (dot)release of Gnome/Kwin/Sway - older versions have serious bugs, many of them found while developing this feature.

See also https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/201...ore-animation/

nice, feels a lot better, thanks for sharing this trick!

[cynic]

How many features did they remove this release? How much did they change the UI *again* despite nothing but negative feedback from their users?

I’ve used Firefox for over a decade but a month ago I switched to Vivaldi and haven’t looked back. Firefox still has some advantages… but one has to wonder how long before they’re removed. At least I don’t have to learn a new touch-focused UI on my browser every 3 months now.

how do you know what's goin on in 3 month if you only used it for one month?

[Mez']

Users running beta (92) on the Wayland backend (`MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1`, unfortunately still not on by default) may want to try out the compositor backend (`gfx.webrender.compositor.force-enabled` in `about:config`). It aims to bring the Wayland backend on par with the CoreAnimation and DirectComposition backends on MacOS/Win respectively concerning energy efficiency. It does so by offloading compositing work to the Wayland compositor by using subsurfaces and other advanced Wayland features. That allows to e.g. paint page content only once and, when scrolling, just instructing the Wayland compositor to move that content around, reducing GPU work.

Edit: only try this if you run a recent (dot)release of Gnome/Kwin/Sway - older versions have serious bugs, many of them found while developing this feature.

See also https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/201...ore-animation/

I had to deactivate it for Firefox 89, as this specific setting was crashing Firefox entirely (only on wayland with MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1). Not too keen on reactivating it.

Edit: Yet I'm curious and tried it on nightly (92). Doesn't seem to crash the browser anymore, and it's weirdly snappy! Could be a killer if Firefox can be that snappy yet featured compared to the race car void of the unfeatured Chrome.

[treba]

I had to deactivate it for Firefox 89, as this specific setting was crashing Firefox entirely (only on wayland with MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1). Not too keen on reactivating it.

Edit: Yet I'm curious and tried it on nightly (92). Doesn't seem to crash the browser anymore, and it's weirdly snappy! Could be a killer if Firefox can be that snappy yet featured compared to the race car void of the unfeatured Chrome.

Hm, that sounds unlikely as it shouldn't have had *any* effect before 90 (in Linux that is). On 90 though - yeah, that'd be not surprising. 92 is the first version where it's pretty stable.

[Mez']

Hm, that sounds unlikely as it shouldn't have had *any* effect before 90 (in Linux that is). On 90 though - yeah, that'd be not surprising. 92 is the first version where it's pretty stable.

You are correct. It was on 90.
The mix up with 89 is due to the fact that I also did some research back then as my CSS for tabs below URL bar was broken.
After Proton and the many UI breakages during its coming of age (86 to 89) and the wayland fiasco on 90, I hope for smoother next few versions, so that I don't waste time again to get the pieces back together.

[user1]

For me, the scroll wheel speed has increased with this update. Am I the only one?

[perpetually high]

For me, the scroll wheel speed has increased with this update. Am I the only one?

Funny that you were the last post, I was just about to post about this.

I had to go into about:config and change general.smoothScroll.currentVelocityWeighting from 0.25 to 0.1

Can be lowered even more, but I think 0.1 is a good balance. Weird how they changed it on us.

[kn00tcn]

Funny that you were the last post, I was just about to post about this.

I had to go into about:config and change general.smoothScroll.currentVelocityWeighting from 0.25 to 0.1

Can be lowered even more, but I think 0.1 is a good balance. Weird how they changed it on us.

it already is 0.25 on FF90, are you sure something else didnt change or that it's now picking up on an OS mouse scroll setting

but i find the defaults too slow or little for years in the first place, so i've had mousewheel.min_line_scroll_amount set to 44 for a while


EDIT: a decade ago i even used a mousewheel addon that increased the distance/speed the more you scrolled the wheel, so it allowed for short precision then a flick to fly down long pages

what is the point of stepping only a few pixels per wheel, same for zooming a tiny bit in games