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goalieskates
Premium Member
join:2004-09-12
land of big

2 recommendations

goalieskates to FF4m3

Premium Member

to FF4m3

Re: Firefox 'New Tab' Feature Exposes Users' Secured Info

quote:
We are aware of the concern and have a fix that will be released in a future version of Firefox.
I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, but this is a good example of why they need to slow down their release schedule a little. You can't just say "oops" and count on the user base all getting the word they need to change a setting.

After all, with silent updates Mozilla took responsibility for security, and they pushed the hell out of FF13 with dire warnings about same.

Snowy
Lock him up!!!
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI

Snowy

Premium Member

said by goalieskates:

quote:
We are aware of the concern and have a fix that will be released in a future version of Firefox.
I'm sure it wasn't deliberate,

It wasn't an accident.
The developers thought it was a good feature.

Anon users
@anonymouse.org

Anon users

Anon

Oh, i see, Mozilla didn't fix 10.0.5esr for Flash 11.3 bug to push ya to v13... fine, my https is very safe with AES256, not RC4
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to Snowy

Premium Member

to Snowy
said by Snowy:

said by goalieskates:

quote:
We are aware of the concern and have a fix that will be released in a future version of Firefox.
I'm sure it wasn't deliberate,

It wasn't an accident.
The developers thought it was a good feature.

No, they thought that since Chrome has the feature, and Opera then decided to add it, that Fx better have it also....heaven forbid that Fx actually be a unique browser rather than a "me too" one constantly imitating the rival it fears.

rcdailey
Dragoonfly
Premium Member
join:2005-03-29
Rialto, CA

1 recommendation

rcdailey

Premium Member

I am glad to see that it is easy to turn the new tab feature off, because it was somewhat annoying to have the screen open with all the "thumbnails." To find out that using the thumbnails, which I never did, to open a link would be a security issue, was more than annoying.
Bobby_Peru
Premium Member
join:2003-06-16

Bobby_Peru

Premium Member

said by rcdailey:

I am glad to see that it is easy to turn the new tab feature off, because it was somewhat annoying to have the screen open with all the "thumbnails." To find out that using the thumbnails, which I never did, to open a link would be a security issue, was more than annoying.

Luddite!

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to Snowy

Premium Member

to Snowy
quote:
The developers thought it was a good feature.
Well it is a good feature IMO abet not planned out with an eye on security yet as it is easily disabled the issue is fixing it and letting users now about the potential security issue.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
said by Mele20:

....heaven forbid that Fx actually be a unique browser rather than a "me too" one constantly imitating the rival it fears.

 
Very True.

More recently along the way, Fx has changed many functionalities/layouts/appearances to be more like the newer IE, enough so that MY goat has been gotten.

I feel that one of the larger OLD reasons for many of us switching to earlier Fx from IE (other than security) was that M$ had made such drastic changes in IE7 (& Vista) that Fx became a way to have a newer browser which looked more like IE6, but with TABs, a reason quite valid at the time.

Xioden
Premium Member
join:2008-06-10
Monticello, NY

Xioden

Premium Member

said by Davesnothere:

said by Mele20:

....heaven forbid that Fx actually be a unique browser rather than a "me too" one constantly imitating the rival it fears.

 
Very True.

More recently along the way, Fx has changed many functionalities/layouts/appearances to be more like the newer IE, enough so that MY goat has been gotten.

My Firefox 13 looks and functions (on the surface) to how it did before they made massive changes to it for Firefox 4. It's the joy of extensions and appearences.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

1 recommendation

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by Xioden:

My Firefox 13 looks and functions (on the surface) how it did before they made massive changes to it for Firefox 4. It's the joy of extensions and appearances.

 
This is not my own saying, but I get plenty of mileage out of it :

CHANGE isn't necessarily PROGRESS.

To expand upon what I suggested in the remainder of my above post which you quoted, FireFox 4 was a crossroads for me.

The last version of FF which I still sometimes use in my own machines is their 3.6 series.

Ah yes, folks, remember 3.6 ? - the last FireFox before they started changing the major version numbers nearly every time we wiped our collective arses ?

Even FF 3.6 (and/or some version between it and 2.0) also introduced changes for the sake of changes, but I tolerated those.

I submit that from a cosmetic and ergonomic viewpoint, IE versions 5 and 6 were the pinnacle of browser GUIs - simple yet CUSTOMIZABLE in layout (unlike later IE), and other than adding tabbed browsing, no other changes in default appearance were necessary after that point in browser development.

I now mostly use IE8 (tried IE9 but M$ took away some IE8 functions which mattered to me), and am cautiously optimistic about current Opera series 11+ (it includes a VERY customizable layout).

Opera also still supports Win2k, and Win2K is not dead yet.

EDIT : One More Thing [RIP Peter Falk] :

When Google finally brings Chrome out of BETA, I MIGHT consider trying it.

Xioden
Premium Member
join:2008-06-10
Monticello, NY

Xioden

Premium Member

Click for full size
said by Davesnothere:

said by Xioden:

My Firefox 13 looks and functions (on the surface) how it did before they made massive changes to it for Firefox 4. It's the joy of extensions and appearances.

 
This is not my own saying, but I get plenty of mileage out of it :

CHANGE isn't necessarily PROGRESS.

To expand upon what I suggested in the remainder of my above post which you quoted, FireFox 4 was a crossroads for me.

The last version of FF which I still sometimes use in my own machines is their 3.6 series.

Ah yes, folks, remember 3.6 ? - the last FireFox before they started changing the major version numbers nearly every time we wiped our collective arses ?

Even FF 3.6 (and/or some version between it and 2.0) also introduced changes for the sake of changes, but I tolerated those.

I submit that from a cosmetic and ergonomic viewpoint, IE versions 5 and 6 were the pinnacle of browser GUIs - simple yet CUSTOMIZABLE in layout (unlike later IE), and other than adding tabbed browsing, no other changes in default appearance were necessary after that point in browser development.

Yup, I agree, I also would have stuck with Firefox 3.6 more likely than not had I not been able to change it back to how it was (see screenshot). I don't have the bookmark toolbar showing (and I didn't disable addons), but other than that, my addons, and a slightly different back/forward button and combined refresh and stop button it looks and feels the same.

This and this are all that is need to get it back the 3.6 look.

I also use Chrome a lot for videos/netflix/etc. It has a pop-out+always on top option for any video which I find handy.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

2 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by Xioden:

Yup, I agree, I also would have stuck with Firefox 3.6 more likely than not had I not been able to change it back to how it was (see screenshot). I don't have the bookmark toolbar showing (and I didn't disable addons), but other than that, my addons, and a slightly different back/forward button and combined refresh and stop button it looks and feels the same.

This and this are all that is need to get it back the 3.6 look.

I also use Chrome a lot for videos/netflix/etc. It has a pop-out+always on top option for any video which I find handy.

 
Thanks for posting that.

I'll investigate the add-ons, though I think that I demonstrated to myself with version 12 of FF that I could move things around pretty effectively even from a default install and no add-ons.

However, I have some recent other beefs with FF, such as why there is no more 'SAVE ALL TABs as GROUP' option when you click Bookmarks in the top menu - this happened around ver 4 or 5.

There are other issues, and I'll post as they come to mind.

BTW, some irony for y'all is that FF is still issuing updates for series 3.6 and you can find them on sites like FileHippo_com.

And I just got one today from this March : 3.6.28

FF4m3
@verizon.net

FF4m3

Anon

said by Davesnothere:

BTW, some irony for y'all is that FF is still issuing updates for series 3.6

And I just got one today from this March : 3.6.28

said by Mozilla :

Firefox 3.6 is no longer supported

Firefox 3.6.28 is the last version of the old Firefox and won't be updated with security and stability fixes.

FF4m3

FF4m3 to Xioden

Anon

to Xioden
Click for full size
FF 13.0.1 Top
Click for full size
FF 13.0.1 Bottom
said by Xioden:

My Firefox 13 looks and functions (on the surface) to how it did before they made massive changes to it for Firefox 4. It's the joy of extensions and appearences.

+1 (see my FF 13.0.1 above)

I arrange, add, remove and change as I please.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

 
Now THAT's efficient use of space !

A while ago I did similar on IE6, but with the buttons to the LEFT of the menues.

Unfortunately, AFAIK all newer IE does not let anything else share the menu bar, though I would be pleased to hear of a registry edit, if anybody has one.

I once saw a version of McAfee Security which managed to do that for its own bar components, but of course I could not reverse engineer their app to see how they did it.

The same idea as yours also pretty much worked for me in FF12 on a recent Linux install.

Another idea I discovered was to use the Link/Bookmark bar with a series of FOLDERS on it, and each one acts as a drop-down menu for its category of bookmark. - This procedure seems to works in IE, FireFox, and Opera, so far tested.

Is FF still as much of a memory hog as in the past ?

That has been my main reason for using it less and less.
19579823 (banned)
An Awesome Dude
join:2003-08-04

19579823 (banned) to Grail Knight

Member

to Grail Knight

 

quote:
Well it is a good feature IMO abet not planned out with an eye on security yet as it is easily disabled the issue is fixing it and letting users now about the potential security issue.
Sadly Grail most ppl DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIER PRIVACY ANYMORE which is why they do things like this! (Thinking no one will say anything)

Chuck Mason
@switchvpn.com

Chuck Mason

Anon

I lost confidence in FF quite some time ago. For one, having to mess around in about:config to turn up privacy is unacceptable. for another, having pbm to be a bit of a pita instead of a simple toggle is a bit curious.

I become worried when they started their unholy alliance with Google. Anything google always raises red flags for me. I mean I can see if they worked out something with a privacy oriented site, like Duck or Ixquick, but google? Lately, having some of the best privacy addons being delisted off their addons repository is also a bit worrisome.

Then we add this HTTPS session capture rubbish, which they should have seen immediately - and don't hotfix ASAP simply adds icing to the cake. I don't trust them, and neither should you.

Grail Knight

Premium Member
join:2003-05-31
Valhalla

Grail Knight to 19579823

Premium Member

to 19579823
Well we are talking about developers here not most people.
The Fx devs have stated they will fix the issue. I do not believe the Fx devs did this because they want to weaken Fx security.

therube
join:2004-11-11
Randallstown, MD

therube to Davesnothere

Member

to Davesnothere

Re: Firefox 'New Tab' Feature Exposes Users' Secured Info

quote:
Is FF still as much of a memory hog as in the past ?
Is it, was it?
Open the same sites in various browsers & compare.
therube

therube to Chuck Mason

Member

to Chuck Mason

Re:  

quote:
mess around in about:config
Many features in FF are purposely UI barren, you know, to "dumb down" the browser for the masses.
quote:
when they started their unholy alliance with Google
That was a long time ago.
quote:
Duck or Ixquick
And you trust them?

Going forward, FF Google searches will be done over HTTPS.
You want Duck to Ix, you are free to change to them.
You don't want Google, you are free to change from them.
quote:
some of the best privacy addons being delisted off their addons
Such as? And why were they removed?

And why would you even place trust in the addons at all?

Further browser extensions are open doors to infect users.
quote:
HTTPS session capture
It is not an HTTPS session capture feature.
It is a feature that they implemented that happened to capture HTTPS screenshots.

FF4m3
@bhn.net

FF4m3 to Davesnothere

Anon

to Davesnothere

Re: Firefox 'New Tab' Feature Exposes Users' Secured Info

said by Davesnothere:

Now THAT's efficient use of space !

Thanks. I want the page displayed as large as possible while maintaining FF funtional access.
said by Davesnothere:

Is FF still as much of a memory hog as in the past ?

Glad you asked...

Full info & test results for the following @ Lifehacker: Browser Speed Tests: Chrome 19, Firefox 13, Internet Explorer 9, and Opera 12 - 12 Jun 2012:
said by Lifehacker :

Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs Open) Winner: Firefox!
Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs and Five Extensions) Winner: Firefox!

We debated ditching "overall scores" this time around, since it becomes harder and harder to tally them up fairly, and it's more important to look at each individual category than it is some arbitrary score. But everyone likes a winner, so we've kept this section at the end for those of you handing out trophies, and the scores are:

Firefox: 81%
Opera: 68%
Chrome: 62%
Internet Explorer: 41%

Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

said by FF4m3 :

Glad you asked...

Full info & test results for the following @ Lifehacker: Browser Speed Tests: Chrome 19, Firefox 13, Internet Explorer 9, and Opera 12 - 12 Jun 2012:

said by Lifehacker :

Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs Open) Winner: Firefox!
Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs and Five Extensions) Winner: Firefox!

We debated ditching "overall scores" this time around, since it becomes harder and harder to tally them up fairly, and it's more important to look at each individual category than it is some arbitrary score. But everyone likes a winner, so we've kept this section at the end for those of you handing out trophies, and the scores are:

Firefox: 81%
Opera: 68%
Chrome: 62%
Internet Explorer: 41%

This new feature of tricking the user into thinking their tabs are fully loaded is just that... a trick. I want all tabs fully loaded before I use the browser. I don't mind waiting for them to load. I am referring to cold restore. I don't use cold boot so could care less which browser is fastest then. I usually tell Session Manager to restore the last session (occasionally some other session) but I never tell it to start a new session. That's on Fx and SM. Opera 12 is awful now for cold restore. It used to be fast. I hate being tricked into thinking all tabs are fully loaded when they are not at all on Opera 12. I still can't use Opera until all tabs fully load because so much CPU is used to restore the tabs. Maybe when I get a new computer that will not be a problem. But then I don't want anything loading in the background (this is one reason I turn off crap like defrag in the background and indexing in the background). Opera tries to second guess me as to which tabs to load first. It is not possible to always correctly second guess humans and what they want (when that becomes possible then machines will have won and humans will cease to exist) so I don't see the point as Opera chooses the wrong tabs to load first and the feature is useless anyway because I still have to wait for all tabs to fully load to use Opera! I watch Task Manager, which I always have running in the systray, and wait until CPU usage is normal again before trying to use Opera.

I wonder on Fx 13 what happens when you use some tab extension (s) or some session manager extension? (I have Fx 10 ESR). I assume it/they take/s over and then it doesn't matter what Fx 13 has done as far as just loading one or two tabs fully. TBE loads the tabs one after another, I have to wait through 30-50 tabs loading before I can use Fx. But that is ok because I have a desktop that is rarely rebooted/booted and I seldom close Fx or my other browsers. It looks to me like this feature is designed for laptop users.

I was puzzled by Life Hacker's results for Chrome for cold restore. I stopped using Iron awhile back as it was causing my computer to crash but when I was using Iron, I was impressed with Iron being fast for cold restore. Maybe that has changed in later versions or maybe Life Hacker's tests would be different if run on XP.

On a lighter note, are there no superstitious users? Why use Fx 13 at all? Why didn't Mozilla just skip "13"?

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

3 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by Mele20:

This new feature of tricking the user into thinking their tabs are fully loaded is just that... a trick....

....Maybe that has changed in later versions or maybe Life Hacker's tests would be different if run on XP.

On a lighter note, are there no superstitious users? Why use Fx 13 at all? Why didn't Mozilla just skip "13"?

 
& Trix R 4 Kids ! [Silly Wabbit]

While I appreciate the link to those tests, can anyone show us tests comparing all of the newcomers to IE8 (as IE9 is a bad joke, IMNSHO), and with using XP with SP3 for all tests ?

Also, show us tests with mem-hog pages like those at at »www.pcmag.com

Show us tests of pages with lotsa FLASH.

Show us tests of 50+ pages at a time - simultaneously, even. [Snagglepuss]

THEN we'll see who's who !

[sarcasm]
As for skipping 13 - don't worry, they WILL - or it will SEEM like it - just like they skipped 5 thru 12 instead of calling each of them 4-point-something-or-other !
[/sarcasm]

EDIT : to add sarcasm tags

FF4m3
@bhn.net

FF4m3

Anon

said by Davesnothere:

As for skipping 13 - don't worry, they WILL - or it will SEEM like it

Really? Version 13.0 was released on June 5, 2012. The current version is 13.0.1.

InvisiBill
join:2004-12-01
Saranac, MI

InvisiBill to Davesnothere

Member

to Davesnothere
said by Davesnothere:

Is FF still as much of a memory hog as in the past ?

That has been my main reason for using it less and less.

A lot of work has gone into improving Firefox's memory usage in the past few versions. Check out the MemShrink project. Firefox is on par with or better than other current browsers in most cases. Since they're all different programs written differently, exact memory usage will depend on exactly how you're using the browser. With X number of tabs open, Chrome may be better than Firefox. With Y number of tabs open, Firefox may be better than Chrome. When this plugin or that plugin is in use, this browser or that browser may be better. The best test is really to try them yourself with the stuff you're doing and see which works best for you.

If you've been using Firefox for a while and had massive memory leaks there's a good chance you were simply told, "It's probably an addon's fault." The improvements made to Firefox's diagnostic information reports have been able to prove this.
quote:
Some of the zombie compartments were due to defects in Firefox itself, and these were generally fixed fairly quickly. However, it soon became clear that the majority of them are due to add-ons. It's quite easy to unintentionally create zombie compartments in add-ons. In the worst case, add-ons could leak the compartment of every single site visited.

This led to some lively discussion about how best to handle these leaks, because they are defects in third-party code that is largely out of Mozilla's control, and yet they make Firefox look bad.
Earlier versions of McAfee's addon actually leaked so bad that they've been blacklisted - it's not just random bad coders that had some really bad memory leaks in their addons.

On top of that you have the problem that many people confuse memory usage with memory leaks. There are many values that can be tweaked to change how much memory Firefox uses for certain features. Some may default to high values that use a lot of RAM to give the best performance. While you don't want your browser sucking all your memory away from system stuff, unused RAM is wasted RAM. Trying to make Firefox (or any other program) needlessly frugal with RAM could result in slowing it down unnecessarily. As always, it's a tradeoff, and changing some settings could certainly result in improvements on individual systems.

And with Firefox being open source, you're always free to change it to your own liking if they seriously muck it up. That's assuming it's not a configurable option and there's no addon to handle it.

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
said by Mele20:

This new feature of tricking the user into thinking their tabs are fully loaded is just that... a trick.

Are you referring to the New Tab feature in Firefox? How would this trick anyone in to thinking their tabs are fully loaded. It does not do that, it is not reported to do that.

New Tab Page – show, hide and customize top sites | How to | Firefox Help
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

I am talking about cold restore. I hate that in any browser. I want all tabs fully loaded before I start to use the browser.

chrisretusn
Retired
Premium Member
join:2007-08-13
Philippines

chrisretusn

Premium Member

Oh OK. Tracing your post back did not clear that up. Thanks.

therube
join:2004-11-11
Randallstown, MD

1 edit

therube to Mele20

Member

to Mele20
quote:
This new feature of tricking the user into thinking their tabs are fully loaded is just that... a trick. I want all tabs fully loaded before I use the browser. I don't mind waiting for them to load.
It is no trick.
Getting snappy – performance optimizations in Firefox 13

If you don't like how it works now, change it so it works how it used to. (It looks like browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs in SeaMonkey & browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand[?] in FF.)
therube

therube to Davesnothere

Member

to Davesnothere
quote:
Show us tests of 50+ pages at a time - simultaneously, even.
Right.
And if I had an efficient way to port my current 522 tabs in 47 windows to Chrome/IE, I'd give you those numbers!