So they’re only now implementing sandboxes? I foresee a lot of bugs and vulnerabilities which, if not handled properly, will severely harm Firefox’s reputation.
If Mozilla doesn’t get this multi process change right, and doesn’t do it quickly, it might be the end of Firefox. They’re now in a position where everyone is aware there’s a big problem, so without a proper solution they won’t be able to sweep this under the rug.
I haven’t encountered unique extensions to Firefox, but I see your point. My idea of Firefox users these days is entirely technical people just because most use either Safari/IE or “Google” to get online.
Is there anything like Tree Style Tab for Chrom(e|ium) that is worth using? I’ve previously tried Sidewise Tree Style Tabs, but it doesn’t work so well with a tiling window manager.
Firefox has had sandboxes for plugins (Flash/Acrobat/Silverlight/etc.) for ages, but sandboxes for web content are not yet mainstream. They’ve been in development for what feels like a decade, and available on Nightly for maybe a few years, but Mozilla has been very slow and cautious about actually rolling the change out for a few reasons: firstly, the whole Firefox architecture was designed around a single-process design, so it’s taken a long while for them to pay down that technical debt to make it possible. Secondly, the Firefox add-on APIs were designed around that same single-process design, so they had to come up with a new approach and be sure the ecosystem would be ready for add-on authors to port their old add-ons across before beginning the migration.
Security-conscious, Firefox users on Windows traditionally used 3rd party software for this. Running it in Sandboxie and/or with DefenseWall was common on the forums with laypeople. Lots of NoScript users out there, too. I saw SELinux profiles for Firefox plus browser VM’s. I think vast majority of Firefox and Chrome users don’t care about security of either in practice, though. Others got by despite Firefox team being so behind on this.
The about:support page shows if the multi-process mode is enabled, a value of Multiprocess Windows > 0 indicates that the feature is active.
It wasn’t activated by default for my firefox installation, because the compatibility of some addons was unclear, thus I force enabled the feature by setting browser.tabs.remote.force-enable to true in about:config.
So they’re only now implementing sandboxes? I foresee a lot of bugs and vulnerabilities which, if not handled properly, will severely harm Firefox’s reputation.
If Mozilla doesn’t get this multi process change right, and doesn’t do it quickly, it might be the end of Firefox. They’re now in a position where everyone is aware there’s a big problem, so without a proper solution they won’t be able to sweep this under the rug.
As a Firefox user, I hope this works out.
I don’t think the average Firefox user cares. They just prefer it over Chrome due to their favorite extensions or they’re anti-Google.
I haven’t encountered unique extensions to Firefox, but I see your point. My idea of Firefox users these days is entirely technical people just because most use either Safari/IE or “Google” to get online.
Is there anything like Tree Style Tab for Chrom(e|ium) that is worth using? I’ve previously tried Sidewise Tree Style Tabs, but it doesn’t work so well with a tiling window manager.
I don’t think there will be average users for long unless something like servo makes it start blowing other browsers out of the water.
Firefox has had sandboxes for plugins (Flash/Acrobat/Silverlight/etc.) for ages, but sandboxes for web content are not yet mainstream. They’ve been in development for what feels like a decade, and available on Nightly for maybe a few years, but Mozilla has been very slow and cautious about actually rolling the change out for a few reasons: firstly, the whole Firefox architecture was designed around a single-process design, so it’s taken a long while for them to pay down that technical debt to make it possible. Secondly, the Firefox add-on APIs were designed around that same single-process design, so they had to come up with a new approach and be sure the ecosystem would be ready for add-on authors to port their old add-ons across before beginning the migration.
Security-conscious, Firefox users on Windows traditionally used 3rd party software for this. Running it in Sandboxie and/or with DefenseWall was common on the forums with laypeople. Lots of NoScript users out there, too. I saw SELinux profiles for Firefox plus browser VM’s. I think vast majority of Firefox and Chrome users don’t care about security of either in practice, though. Others got by despite Firefox team being so behind on this.
The
about:supportpage shows if the multi-process mode is enabled, a value ofMultiprocess Windows> 0 indicates that the feature is active. It wasn’t activated by default for my firefox installation, because the compatibility of some addons was unclear, thus I force enabled the feature by settingbrowser.tabs.remote.force-enabletotrueinabout:config.