Scrollbars on Linux and Windows 11 won’t take space by default.
Can we please stop this (ever-continuing) trend? I originally thought auto-hiding scrollbars were a cool design trick until I realized just how much a scrollbar adds to UX: it’s a permanently visible representation of how big a document is, and how far along in it I am.
Another release, yet more Firefox UI/UX changes seemingly just for the sake of change (which I guess is also the state of the modern web, in many ways, so it’s somewhat fitting).
I’m not sure about Windows/Linux, but on macOS you can just rest two fingers on the trackpad to make the scrollbar in the current app visible. You don’t have to scroll the app, just rest your fingers on the trackpad.
And when you connect a non-Apple mouse to a Mac, the scrollbars become permanently visible by default.
Because of this, I haven’t found auto-hiding scrollbars to be a usability issue at all.
This seems to be playing a little loose with the facts. At some point Firefox changed their versioning system to match Chrome, I assume so that it wouldn’t sound like Firefox was older or behind Chrome in development. Firefox did not literally travel from 1.0 to 100. So it probably either has fewer or more than 100 versions, depending on how you count. UPDATE: OK I was wrong, and that was sloppy of me, I should have actually checked instead of relying on my flawed memory. There are in fact at least 100 versions of Firefox. Seems like there are probably more than 100, but it’s not misleading to say that there are 100 versions if there are more than 100.
That said, this looks like a great release with useful features. Caption for picture-in-picture video seems helpful, and I’m intrigued by “Users can now choose preferred color schemes for websites.” On Android, they finally have HTTPS-only mode, so I can ditch the HTTPS Everywhere extension.
Oh, but they did. In the early days they used a more “traditional” way of using the second number, so we had 1.5, and 3.5, and 3.6. After 5.0 (if I’m reading Wikipedia correctly) they switched to increasing the major version for every release regardless of its perceived significance. So there were in fact more than 100 Firefox releases.
I kinda dislike this “bump major version” every release scheme, since it robs me of the ability to visually determine what may have really changed. For example, v2.5 to v2.6 is a “safe” upgrade, while v2.5 to v3.0 potentially has breaking changes. Now moving from v99 to v100 to v101, well, gotta carefully read release notes every single time.
Oracle did something similar with JDK. We were on JDK 6 for several years, then 7 and then 8, until they ingested steroids and now we are on JDK 18! :-) :-)
Changing the user interface (e.g. keyboard shortcuts) in backwards-incompatible ways, for one.
And while it’s true that “Firefox is an application”, it’s also effectively a library with an API that’s used by numerous extensions, which has also been broken by new releases sometimes.
My take is that it is the APIs that should be versioned because applications may expose multiple APIs that change at different rates and the version numbers are typically of interest to the API consumers, but not to human users.
I don’t think UI changes should be versioned. Just seems like a way to generate arguments.
It doesn’t apply to consumer software like Firefox, really. It’s not a library for which you care if it’s compatible. I don’t think version numbers even matter for consumer software these days.
Those are all backported to the ESR release, right? I’ve just noticed that my distro packages that; perhaps I should switch to it as a way to get the security fixes without the constant stream of CADT UI “improvements”…
Users can now choose preferred color schemes for websites. Theme authors can now make better decisions about which color scheme Firefox uses for menus. Web content appearance can now be changed in Settings.
This is pretty exciting. I’ve been seeing Lobsters (and a number of other websites) in dark-mode for months now because I have my overall firefox theme set to alpenglow and this somehow causes firefox to send the headers to websites that request dark-mode. It’s kind of annoying and I’m glad they’re making this toggleable at the browser level.
Excited for captions on picture-in-picture. I’m not hearing impaired, as far as I know, but I sure feel like I am when I try to watch anything without captions these days.
Can we please stop this (ever-continuing) trend? I originally thought auto-hiding scrollbars were a cool design trick until I realized just how much a scrollbar adds to UX: it’s a permanently visible representation of how big a document is, and how far along in it I am.
Another release, yet more Firefox UI/UX changes seemingly just for the sake of change (which I guess is also the state of the modern web, in many ways, so it’s somewhat fitting).
What I find interesting is they admit it harms accessibility - that’s why you can turn it back on under accessibility options.
Why do we find it acceptable for gratuitous inaccessibility by default instead of vice versa?
Here, “they” is Windows, not Firefox. It is Windows that categorized scrollbar visibility as an accessibility option.
I’m not sure about Windows/Linux, but on macOS you can just rest two fingers on the trackpad to make the scrollbar in the current app visible. You don’t have to scroll the app, just rest your fingers on the trackpad.
And when you connect a non-Apple mouse to a Mac, the scrollbars become permanently visible by default.
Because of this, I haven’t found auto-hiding scrollbars to be a usability issue at all.
On Mac you can also toggle scroll bars back on for all apps in the system preferences, which is what I do
Seems to be app specific, because this works in Firefox 100 but not in Chrome 101.
A what now?
Firefox also makes Fenix for Android. Here is some information on profiling Java code for Fenix:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Fenix/Profilers_and_Tools
The page even says to not use the Firefox Profiler if you:
Which I guess is now outdated!
TIL that Firefox ships a JDK?
Yeah was surprised by that one too. I assume they forget the Script in JavaScript.
This version is excellent! Great job, Mozilla! I particularly like the new PiP features and the Mac-specific improvements.
This seems to be playing a little loose with the facts. At some point Firefox changed their versioning system to match Chrome, I assume so that it wouldn’t sound like Firefox was older or behind Chrome in development. Firefox did not literally travel from 1.0 to 100. So it probably either has fewer or more than 100 versions, depending on how you count.UPDATE: OK I was wrong, and that was sloppy of me, I should have actually checked instead of relying on my flawed memory. There are in fact at least 100 versions of Firefox. Seems like there are probably more than 100, but it’s not misleading to say that there are 100 versions if there are more than 100.That said, this looks like a great release with useful features. Caption for picture-in-picture video seems helpful, and I’m intrigued by “Users can now choose preferred color schemes for websites.” On Android, they finally have HTTPS-only mode, so I can ditch the HTTPS Everywhere extension.
Wikipedia lists 100 major versions from 1 to 100.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_version_history
What did happen is that Mozilla adopted a 4 week release cycle in 2019 while Chrome was on a 6 week cycle until Q3 2021.
They didn’t change their version scheme, they increased their release cadence.
Oh, but they did. In the early days they used a more “traditional” way of using the second number, so we had 1.5, and 3.5, and 3.6. After 5.0 (if I’m reading Wikipedia correctly) they switched to increasing the major version for every release regardless of its perceived significance. So there were in fact more than 100 Firefox releases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_early_version_history
I kinda dislike this “bump major version” every release scheme, since it robs me of the ability to visually determine what may have really changed. For example, v2.5 to v2.6 is a “safe” upgrade, while v2.5 to v3.0 potentially has breaking changes. Now moving from v99 to v100 to v101, well, gotta carefully read release notes every single time.
Oracle did something similar with JDK. We were on JDK 6 for several years, then 7 and then 8, until they ingested steroids and now we are on JDK 18! :-) :-)
Sure for libraries, languages and APIs, but Firefox is an application. What is a breaking change in an application?
I got really bummed when Chromium dropped the ability to operate over X forwarding in SSH a few years ago, back before I ditched Chromium.
Changing the user interface (e.g. keyboard shortcuts) in backwards-incompatible ways, for one.
And while it’s true that “Firefox is an application”, it’s also effectively a library with an API that’s used by numerous extensions, which has also been broken by new releases sometimes.
My take is that it is the APIs that should be versioned because applications may expose multiple APIs that change at different rates and the version numbers are typically of interest to the API consumers, but not to human users.
I don’t think UI changes should be versioned. Just seems like a way to generate arguments.
It doesn’t apply to consumer software like Firefox, really. It’s not a library for which you care if it’s compatible. I don’t think version numbers even matter for consumer software these days.
Every release contains important security updates. Can’t really skip a version.
Those are all backported to the ESR release, right? I’ve just noticed that my distro packages that; perhaps I should switch to it as a way to get the security fixes without the constant stream of CADT UI “improvements”…
Most. Not all, because different features and such. You can compare the security advisories.
Oh, yeah, I guess that’s right. I was focused in on when they changed the release cycle and didn’t think about changes earlier than that. Thank you.
This is pretty exciting. I’ve been seeing Lobsters (and a number of other websites) in dark-mode for months now because I have my overall firefox theme set to alpenglow and this somehow causes firefox to send the headers to websites that request dark-mode. It’s kind of annoying and I’m glad they’re making this toggleable at the browser level.
Here we go again.
Excited for captions on picture-in-picture. I’m not hearing impaired, as far as I know, but I sure feel like I am when I try to watch anything without captions these days.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1370494
Oh dear God! They want to decrease market share even more.
You may find it useful:
On ESR with blocked updates.