Firefox

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A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox

founded 4 years ago
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Go to about:config and type groups, it's being actively developed.

There's also another API that you can actually use if you're a developer in Browser Toolbox, enable Browser Toolbox and type gBrowser.addTabGroup, you can add tabs to group using this API, and if you find a way to append it to Tab Tray you should be able to create something like this image:

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I know vimium works in firefox, however I ran into this 4 year issue: https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/3674

Is there an alternative that doesn't have that issue?

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I use a 14px bitmap font as part of my system theme. It is set to display at 14px in my gtk theme which works for tabs, bookmarks, right-click menus, and other parts of Firefox UI, but the Firefox address bar doesn't seem to be the same size and is blurry.

How do I change the font size of the address bar? Is there an element I can target in userChrome?

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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  • Firefox Nightly 131 introduces vertical tabs and an improved sidebar, enhancing tab management and multitasking for users with many open tabs.
  • The vertical tabs feature, similar to Microsoft Edge, keeps tabs organized on the left-hand side and can be customized via Firefox Labs settings.
  • Additional features include AI chatbot integration in the sidebar and ongoing development of tab grouping and profile management tools.
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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Mozilla’s system only measures the success rate of ads—it doesn’t help companies target those ads—and it’s less susceptible to abuse, EFF’s Lena Cohen told @[email protected]. “It’s much more privacy-preserving than Google’s version of the same feature.”

https://mastodon.social/@eff/112922761259324925

Privacy experts say the new toggle is mostly harmless, but Firefox users saw it as a betrayal.

“They made this technology for advertisers, specifically,” says Jonah Aragon, founder of the Privacy Guides website. “There’s no direct benefit to the user in creating this. It’s software that only serves a party other than the user.”

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Mozilla has a close relationship with Google, as most of Firefox's revenue comes from the agreement keeping Google as the browser's default search engine. However, the search giant is now officially a monopoly, and a future court decision could have an unprecedented impact on Mozilla's ability to keep things "business as usual."

United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the leading search provider for computing platforms and web browsers on PC and mobile devices.

Most of the $21 billion spent went to Apple in exchange for setting Google as the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The judge will now need to decide on a penalty for the company's actions, including the potential of forcing Google to stop payments to its search "partners completely," which could have dire consequences for smaller companies like Mozilla.

Its most recent financials show Mozilla gets $510 million out of its $593 million in total revenue from its Google partnership. This precarious financial position is a side effect of its deal with Alphabet, which made Google the search engine default for newer Firefox installations.

The open-source web browser has experienced a steady market share decline over the past few years. Meanwhile, Mozilla management was paid millions to develop a new "vision" of a theoretical future with AI chatbots. Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation managing Firefox development, could find itself in a severe struggle for revenue if Google's money suddenly dried up.

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Hello all,

As you may be aware, Firefox introduced on-device translations on the desktop a few months ago and according to this knowledge base page it has been available since version 126, but unfortunately only on some unnamed devices.

Do you know of any way (i.e. preferences in about:config) to forcefully enable the feature?

Thanks in advance

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PSA (?): just got this popup in Firefox when i was on an amazon product page. looked into it a bit because it seemed weird and it turns out if you click the big "yes, try it" button, you agree to mandatory binding arbitration with Fakespot and you waive your right to bring a class action lawsuit against them. this is awesome thank you so much mozilla very cool

https://queer.party/@m04/112872517189786676

So, Mozilla adds an AI review features for products you view using Firefox. Other than being very useless, it's T&C are as anti-consumer as it possibly can be. It's like mozilla saying directly "we don't care about your privacy".

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I'm actually pissed. I and many other users on the forum got an email from Chris Hayes on this:

Hello,

This is a friendly email to make you aware that your personal email address is currently visible to the whole internet via Mozilla's Discourse forum. It will show up in Google Search results. The affected email is the one that this email was sent to.

Many users may not be aware that their email address is publicly visible and Mozilla has not done anything about it in the 4 years it has been known, so I've taken this into my own hands to inform you.

What can you do?

You can update your profile name to be something else (actually, profile name is completely optional, so you can leave it blank if you want).

Steps to update profile name:

  1. If you search for "Mozilla Discourse forum" it should be one of the first results.
  2. Login. (Top-right)
  3. Click on your profile picture at the top right.
  4. Then, click on your username, at the top of the dropdown menu.
  5. Click on the "Preferences" button.
  6. Change the "Name" field, and click "Save Changes".

How did this happen?

There's a misconfiguration with Mozilla's Discourse forum that when you sign up with your Firefox account, it will by default use your personal email address as your profile's public name.

This is not a new issue, and has been known since 2020. The Mozilla Discourse forum is not actively maintained by Mozilla, so this has yet to be fixed.

You are one of 4,630 other users impacted by this privacy issue. It impacts 19% of all forum users, and 28% of new users.

More information:

There's a Discourse discussion about this problem here: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/email-is-displayed-by-default-for-the-new-account/92266

If you have connections to Mozilla, please help escalate this issue to the right people. This is a serious and long-standing privacy issue at an organization that should value "Privacy by default".

Sincerely,@chrisA fellow Mozillian

I am not Mozilla: This is not an official Mozilla email, I do not represent or work for Mozilla. This is an email from a fellow community member spreading awareness of this unaddressed privacy issue.

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So we run VMware, and this morning I go and check a thing, and Firefox gives me an error.. connection insecure cert is invalid

No I don’t have the exact verbiage

But Edge and Chrome opened it just fine. Whisky Tango?

It was a rekeyed , and re installed the cert for an easy ish fix.

But I’m far more weirded out that FF slapped it down ; and the other two were like; Ja sure no problem…

??

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

I'm almost sorry to ask this, but does anyone have experience with Firefox on Linux taking a long time to open? I'm running Pop!_OS on a fairly modern machine. All other programs open pretty quickly, but Firefox seems to drag its feet on startup. Once it's open it's great, no problems with speed.

I have tried disabling extensions (ublock origin, sponsorblock, decentraleyes, i still don't care about cookies) and I have tried setting my default profile as one without any custom user.js (I have a profile with Arkenfox and one with Betterfox's user.js). Nothing I have done so far has seemed to make any difference, but Help->Troubleshoot Mode allows Firefox to open quickly, so there must be something that I can disable that is causing the issue... Any ideas? Thanks.

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GitHub Maintained GitHub Maintained Visitors

Betterfox

31% faster than regular Firefox1 :rocket:

about:config tweaks to enhance Mozilla Firefox.

:new: Now with ESR support.

Made for everyday browsing

A secure, blazing fast browsing experience. Without breakage.

Betterfox is an opinionated preference list inspired by the law of diminishing returns and the minimum effective dose.

Required reading

If you don't have it already: Get Firefox

  1. Create a backup profile.
  2. Download the user.js file here (Right click > Save Link As…).
  3. Review Common Overrides and make any necessary changes.
  4. Open Firefox. In the URL bar, type about:profiles and press Enter.
  5. For the profile you want to use (or use default), click Open Folder in the Root Directory section.
  6. Move the user.js file into the folder.

After restarting Firefox:

  1. Get an ad blocker like uBlock Origin with our recommended filters.
  2. Enable DNS-level protection with NextDNS. Use the link and support this page!
    • Check out our configuration guide for the best experience.
    • See how to quickly enable secure DNS in Firefox.

Simple goals

  1. Minimalism: get what isn't needed out of the way
  2. Efficiency: unleash Firefox's ability to be fast and performant
  3. Privacy: protect your data without causing site breakage

Simple configs

Fastfox, Securefox, Peskyfox, and Smoothfox are guides to settings within Firefox.

The user.js — a configuration file that controls Firefox settings — is curated from these guides.

List Description
Fastfox Increase Firefox's browsing speed. Give Chrome a run for its money!
Securefox Protect user data without causing site breakage.
Peskyfox Provide a clean, distraction-free browsing experience.
Smoothfox Get Edge-like smooth scrolling on your favorite browser — or choose something more your style.
user.js All the essentials. None of the breakage. This is your user.js.

Recognition

Browser Integration

YouTube

Podcasts

Articles

Guides

Reviews

  • “I use this one ... The performance is absolutely amazing. There’s definitely a huge difference when it comes to loading sites.” - DIRIKtv
  • "BetterFox ... will provide good-enough privacy and help with performance." - Qdoit12Super
  • "...drastically changed the experience with Firefox for me. Improved speed, security, smoothness, and removed clutter." - AppDate
  • "Firefox with uBlock Origin extension and tuned with Betterfox is faster than Safari." - cugeloid
  • "I don't think I could use Firefox without Betterfox." - Professional_Fun4616
  • "The best collection of tweaks available." - AuRiMaS
  • "FF is now much snappier!" - whotheff
  • "...the experience is so good now I don’t think I’ll go back to any of the chromium based browsers." - Mr_Compromise

Support

If you like the project, leave a :star: (top right) and become a stargazer!

Stargazers repo roster for @yokoffing/Betterfox

Credit

  • Betterfox mirrors the ongoing work provided by arkenfox. Additionally, this repository includes content reproduced or adapted from other sources. Credit for overlapping material goes to the original authors.
  • Appreciation goes to the Firefox team and developers working on Bugzilla, fighting for the open web.
  • A special thanks to Alex Kontos of Waterfox for his collaboration in v.116.
  • Many thanks to the 2021 Ghostery team for testing Betterfox at scale in its early days.
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I'm doing a quick review of the Addons that I am using on my Windows PC. I've had a look at some of the previous posts to try to get an idea of where things are at

Currently I have the following Container related Addons but I think things have moved on a bit since I looked at this.

This means that opening Facebook and Google automatically goes into relevant containers and using Switch I can create separate containers for Work, Banking etc.

I noticed that I'm not using Mozzilla's Multi-Account Containers

Ideally I'd like to be able to:

  • Have Facebook and Google Open in their own containers
  • Potentially open separate containers for different Google Accounts
  • Allocate other domains to open by default in a specific container (e.g a list of Bank websites into a specific container) but be able to override that
  • Have links from Thunderbird open in relevant containers

What are people using in terms of Container addons?

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

It's a short blog post, but essentially talks about a world beyond surveillance advertising.

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