Firefox 57 Lands, Faster Than Ever - And Power Users Fire Back

Even if I had 2 years of warning, I wouldn’t have been able to reprogram my brain. I need accessibility tools to use the web. From what I’ve read, webextensions can’t block as much of the blinding and migraine-inducing animation as Xul could. Calling people’s accessibility tools “boat anchors” is insulting.

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Mozilla’s kicking people off the new versions of Firefox.

You’re spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about older versions of Firefox, and Basilisk, and other alternatives. I’ve tried Chrome’s web-page, as well as Opera, Vivaldi, Safari, and others, and none of these are accessible.

You insult those of us Mozilla’s kicking off.

So is it so surprising that I for one react with fear, uncertainty, and doubt about how long I’ll be able to use the internet? And anger about the standards of 2017, which enable more and more animation, without addressing accessibility tools to block that animation?

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Yes you did:

P.S. I wrote this in response to Enso’s P.S., which came after my previous reply.

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It’s been the sort of week that makes one feel like complaining, and since this thread is on one of the many annoyances, I’m going to indulge. Sorry for everyone whose time this wastes; you have been properly warned. I can move it to the whining thread if you like.

I’m not a power user, and have generally enjoyed FF with minimal adjustments, but FF57 still has managed to start me off with distaste. Because – and I’m not sure I’m unusual in this – it’s annoying to be worrying about other things, and then have your UI shift from what you’re habituated to. Sure, the changes are little, but involuntary so irksome.

And on this I maybe am alone, but I am not able to get used to the new tabs. No other program I have looks like them, and I’m glad of that, since they now come with a glowing blue indicator that breaks the top line. It’s like having a one-tile-out-of-place mosaic, a one-step-too-short staircase, a one-letter-off kerning right in my browser. Small but always feels like it needs fixing. It’s actively uncomfortable to have in a program I use all the time.

Needless to say the documentation is only about how much I should love what they did. If you don’t, it’s on you to figure out what you can change. Spacing is in options; is tab highlighting? Initial searches only find compliments on how much people who didn’t like Firefox should like this one.

After some time it turns out I can fix it by creating and editing userChrome.css. Awesome. You know, it would have taken less time to install something like Opera. The question left is, which do I think is more likely to be something I can stick with, without it abruptly shifting again? It’s hard to say, but FF is not exactly showing it’s anything they care about.

And that’s speaking as someone who doesn’t have any serious limitations in what they can use, just enough UI experience to feel when something is out of place. So yes, I can easily imagine lots of people with even moderate requirements would be seriously worried about being excluded by updates that can change what they need at any time. Why wouldn’t Mozilla?

MarjaE linked a worthwhile article about edge cases; but even without that, I don’t know anyone who appreciates bundling interface redesigns with important updates. Why the heck do companies, let alone one dedicated to “service for people” and keeping things “accessible to all”, not get that?

There, that’s the end of my venting. Congratulations on reading to the end of it; I wish I had something here to make it worth your while, but not today. :expressionless:

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I haven’t seen even a beta version of NoScript for FF57 so far, and I’ve been looking. The developers were initially saying that the updated version would be out the day after 57’s release… and then that expanded to “end of the week”… and I haven’t seen any new updates since.

I went ahead and updated… I don’t use a LOT of addons, so NoScript’s the only one that I’m really waiting on. I do really miss Download Statusbar, since it made it a lot easier to monitor my downloads and act on them when finished.

I’m also not fond of the tabs going all the way to the top of the window, since it means hunting for a spot to use to drag the window around - I actually re-enabled the menu bar just to “correct” that issue (you can also enable the window border, but that doesn’t get themed and looks ugly). While I was at it, I moved some of the controls like the home and refresh buttons to more logical places (my mouse is normally on the right-hand side of the window, and that’s where the “new tab” button is, so why make me go all the way to the left side just to go to a home page?)

On the bright side, the upgrade does seem to have gotten rid of the issue I was having where FF would occasionally just randomly freeze for periods of time after it had been running for a day or so.

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Firefox for Android is fantastic. I don’t use many addons on mobile (just uBlock Origin and Greasemonkey) and it seems to be snappy enough. It’ll always use more battery than Chrome, and I’m OK with that.

(I don’t understand the outcry against Australis - then again, I used FXchrome.)

Giorgio Maone (NoScript author) talks about options for NoScript users here (from 2017/11/14):

https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-noscript/

Let me repeat that: your safest option for the next few days is Firefox 52 ESR, which will receive security updates until June 2018.

That’s “safest” with respect to NoScript functionality, which he says isn’t all there yet for the WebExtensions version, and not with respect to the safety of Firefox itself.

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On the other hand, the new version of addons.mozilla.org is easier to navigate.

  • “block animation” mostly yields adblockers, and a couple video blockers; that’s not enough.

  • Configuration Mania hasn’t been updated for Firefox 57. Not sure if it can be.

  • uBlock Origin may have been updated. YesScript hasn’t been updated, though YesScript 2 might work.

  • QuickJava and an alternative called Prefbar can’t be updated.

  • Kill Button has disappeared. SuperStop seems to remain, but it can’t do as much.

  • Flashstopper and alternatives such as Flashstop haven’t been updated. Not sure if they can be.

  • Refresh Blocker hasn’t been updated. Some sites flash due to frequent refreshes.

  • No Small Text hasn’t been updated.

  • Activate Reader View hasn’t been updated.

  • GreaseMonkey and Stylish have been updated, but not all styles work. If I knew more about programming, I’d probably convert all styles so I had working duplicates, and update one of the extensions to see which styles break.

  • Translate This! hasn’t been updated.

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Good to know, thanks. Hopefully he’ll get everything worked out for WebExtensions soon, then it’ll be a non-issue.

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Can I have it on my phone?

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Yeah!

Is phonefox coming with unlock origin?

More issues with 57:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1185878

The only place I see that is above the tab I’ve got currently open, which is also white instead of black, so it is now easy for multiple reasons to figure out which tab I’m on at any given time. I really like it!

Although, “glowing” blue? It’s just a very thin medium blue at the top of the tab on my screen.

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Ah, yes, this difference is not so good!

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Been using it a couple days now. Super love it. Faster, lower CPU footprint. Even bloated, shitty websites like Moodle load much faster.

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And, of course, shortly after I post that, the NoScript dev posts an update:

here’s my update: the week, at least in Italy, finishes on Sunday night, there’s no “disaster recovery” going on, and NoScript 10’s delay on Firefox 57’s release is still going to be measured in days, not weeks.

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From a user’s point of view, they “still” work, but I understand the issues that made the upgrade necessary, and appreciate the work involved in making both Firefox and the extensions better.

By coincidence this happened a week after I got a new computer, so I’m hassling with learning Windows 10 and a new version of Paintshop Pro, and all the other upgrades required. :scream:

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