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Firefox browser version 57

turok

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Messages
12,365
Is ~a week away from being ported onto its developer's FF Alpha "Nightly" channel, and eventually will become their Beta, then standard version, the latter perhaps as soon as November (currently v-55).


I was using Firefox v-52.2.1 ESR (extended release), which had, until recently, permitted the vulnerable Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash Player to still be used, so that I could view old Flash-based videos online w/o needing to download and view them with WMP or VLC. YT has vids almost exclusively coded in HTML5 now. Apparently only the Microsoft Internet Exploder browser receives Flash patches and updates from Adobe.

Firefox 57's strict adherence to their new "Web Extensions" protocol with this release will mean that many, if not most of the 3rd party add-ons and themes with "legacy" encoding will no longer function and cannot be installed or updated. Presently they still can be used through the "about:config" operation, and going into FF Nightly's guts to change "extensions.legacy.enabled" from false to true, but not after 57 goes from Alpha to Beta.

I have been using Firefox since it was first named Firebird ca '03, and much preferred it over Google Chrome/Chromium, as well as its browser copy-cats, like Opera, its Vivaldi fork, SRWare Iron, ect...this is b/c Firefox is/was much more configurable, esp security-privacy wise, and its TEXT-displayed addons and themes can be sorted by "most users, ratings, popularity, and date" including development or Beta channel versions...UNLIKE the Chrome Store's ad-banner-like add-ons which must be clicked on to see WTF purpose that they might do or don't actually serve. Using older versions of these extensions, as well as checking potential conflicts between them after being installed is not easily accomplished. The Chrome browser does not natively support changing how text and colors are displayed internally or online, w/o perhaps using or creating a userscript via the Tampermonkey add-on.

I downloaded and installed Firefox Nightly v-56 yesterday, so that I could test it out, while using my favorite add-ons in it, and be able to see which ones won't work when 57 is added. But instead of being given the option to install it into the named folder that I had created prior, it overwrote and destroyed my previous Firefox ESR install, that I had spent months personalizing.

So as a result, I am fucking done with using Firefox, as I would guess that most of their still as yet remaining loyal userbase will also soon be, when v-57 becomes the standard. I have downloaded and installed the Palemoon browser, which is an 8 year old fork of Firefox, whose developers created in response to Mozdev's Firefox sudden urge to rapid-release minor incremental improvements and bug-fixes, so to mimic Google Chrome/Chromium, who are now like on version 85.098659 or something.

There is also the Seamonkey browser, that was resurrected from the original Mozilla Suite, that I began to use with my first broadband-internet connected tower PC in '01, which birthed the first tabbed Phoenix browser that became Mozilla Firebird/Fox. There was also another fork of the Gecko-engined Firebird browser, named Flock, but that only lasted a couple years before being abandoned.



ala ESPN's now long-extinct messageboards, which I still recall fondly b/c of our ability to lurk and troll upon rival fans team-boards, it seems like the owners of software and popular sites just can't resist fucking with it...or until their changes kill their original purposes and popularity. Hopefully that will soon also become the fate of the monopoly Amazon and Facebook. Some free and popular formerly open-source software, such as Red Hat/Mandrake Linux, Partition Magic, and Sandboxie. become enterprise or "shareware" requiring a paid subscription, and/or the free versions are stripped down to mere ineffectiveness.
 
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I'm using their 55 beta and so far so good. But all my add ons, I only have a few, show legacy but they all work besides one. I actually like Pale Moon quite a bit so I've been using them most of the time..

My main problem with Firefox, too many updated browsers. Add on creators can't keep up and even I get tired of it.
 
I did try to backup my Firefox ESR install via using the 3rd party add-on titled FEBE, but it hung up and froze several times when ~83% completed, and skipped over a few parts of the process, even after I had unchecked the parts of the full backup causing problems in the extension's settings...oh, well.

Both Palemoon and Seamonkey pubicly support a limited amount of extensions and themes, and there are still quite a few that I have occasionally or frequently used in the past which aren't listed, so the only way to fnd out if they work or not, is by installing them, if they aren't grayed-out in Firefox's add-ons webpages.


There is also Linux rebranded Iceweasel browser, that recently was ported for use with Windows, the "Portable Apps" version of Firefox, and some lesser-knowns such as Waterfox (Mac) Hackerfox, pcx-Firefox, Securedfox, Cyberfox-portable, Private-Fox..that are available on the Sourceforge website for download, but a couple haven't been updated in a year or more...and are somewhat risky tweaked builds of FF.
 
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I did try to backup my Firefox ESR install via using the 3rd party add-on titled FEBE, but it hung up and froze several times when ~83% completed, and skipped over a few parts of the process, even after I had unchecked the parts of the full backup causing problems in the extenson's settings...oh, well.

Both Palemoon and Seamonkey pubicly support a limited amount of extensions and themes, and there are still quite a few that I have occasionally or frequently used in the past which aren't listed, so the only way to fnd out if they work or not, is by installing them, iif they aren't grayed-out in Firefox's add-ons webpages.


There is also Linux rebranded Iceweasel browser, that recently was ported for use with Windows, the "Portable Apps" version of Firefox, and some lesser-knowns such as Waterfox (Mac) Hackerfox, pcx-Firefox, Securedfox, Cyberfox-portable, Private-Fox..that are available on the Sourceforge website for download, but a couple haven't been updated in a year or more...and are somewhat risky tweaked builds of FF.

Great thing about the grayed out add on' you can still get a older version. I've done that with a couple and they've worked fine.
 
Maybe the Mozdevs will finally get around to fixing Firefox' crazy memory consumption issues...or @ least for those of us who can't afford PCs/laptops with quad-core processors and 8+ GBs of memory installed...or this uber-expensive behemoth laptop:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnpoAIfUWIk
 
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Maybe the Mozdevs will finally get around to fixing Firefox' crazy memory consumption issues...or @ least for those of us who can't afford PCs/laptops with quad-core processors and 8+ GBs of memory installed...or this uber-expensive behemoth laptop:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnpoAIfUWIk

latest
 
Maybe the Mozdevs will finally get around to fixing Firefox' crazy memory consumption issues...or @ least for those of us who can't afford PCs/laptops with quad-core processors and 8+ GBs of memory installed.



Not to be nosy....but quad-core and 8 gigs is pretty much standard even on low end machines for the last several years now isn't it? Or are you running something 8+ years old?
 
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Not to be nosy....but quad-core and 8 gigs is pretty much standard even on low end machines for the last several years now isn't it? Or are you running something 8+ years old?


You guessed correctly...and in fact the 8 year-old laptop that I am using now, just happens to be the 4th one which someone who my wife or I knew that gave theirs to me, when they had bought a new one over the past 10 years..or I wouldn't have had any to use at all. This b/c I have been living upon a fixed disability income, and too many other things take precedence over even thinking about spending $200 on a used or refurbished laptop. That may/will change in about a year and a half, when my full RR retirement and fed pensions kick in, as long as we don't go into a depression, hyper-inflation, or a deep recession before then.


My next-door neighbor is allowing me to use her Wifi connection for $20 a month, but before that I hacked/cracked into many WPA2 TKIP PSK encrypted signals b/c I know how to, but doing so is of course, hella-illegal.

Would like to learn how to code, using various types of programming languages...someday, anyway...as when I was of HS/college age, all that there was to learn was FORTRAN, COBOL, and Basic, no computer science classes.
 
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