Firefox Quantum is out

[jean claud 45]

The developers mainly focused their work on the speed and ergonomics of the browser. The heart of the software has been reworked to improve performance. It consumes 30% less RAM than its previous version.

To dress up this new high-performance browser, they also designed Photon UI. This is a new user interface with a minimalist design that is faster and intuitive. The goal of Photon UI is to modernize and simplify web browsing. The interface has been designed by studying user behavior to best meet their needs.

BUT most of our favorite add ons doesn't work anymore ...

The first tests show an enhanced privacy and security ...anyway if you don't like it remain Pale Moon and Waterfox

 

 

 

 

[go558a83nk 364]

I'm using it, though I do feel a little naked not having some of the add-ons I liked.

 

Namely, Ssleuth and Privacy Settings are missing for me.  I think Privacy Settings will come along.  But, SSleuth won't work unless Mozilla add a missing API.

[Casper31 73]

I am going to use quantum if privacy I use are available.Noscript  is ready this week for instance.

Perhaps the new Firefox is faster ,uses less mem,but at the end privacy is more important ,for me.

Have a good weekend.

 

Casper

[OmniNegro 155]

Quantum was a huge step backward in my opinion. While I do not entirely disagree with the long term goals, they broke the extensions that always made Firefox great. And while I appreciate the thought, I have a list of legacy extensions than now do nothing and cannot in this version be compelled to work. (That was a nice touch for the browser to at least show me what extensions it is not going to use so I can seek replacements.)

 

Unfortunately it would seem there is no such thing as a perfect browser anymore. Waterfox will not work with ANY advertisement blocker extension for some reason I have yet to determine. Pale Moon, while lean, is also featureless and void of the same beloved extensions that make Firefox great. Chrome... Not even considering anything made by Google, not even if they swear on a stack of Bibles that they will not betray me.

 

So I guess I am either stuck with Quantum, or I could install a portable version of an earlier Firefox and see if it will do everything I want.

 

Good luck to anyone considering a change. You may need it more than you think.

[zhang888 1066]

Some extension developers might need some more time to adjust for the new WebExtensions API.

Overall it's a good step forward, and most "important" extensions such as HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript and uBlock Origin are supported.

 

You can always use Firefox ESR in the meantime, it is branched from version 52 with backward compatibility and upstream patches.

Tor Browser is branched from ESR as well.

[jean claud 45]

Well i don't know if it's a good or a bad thing the first tests about privacy are rather good ( ipcheck.info, browserleaks, amiunique) better than Firefox56 but like go558 and Casper31 , I feel naked without my favorites extensions.

We will see ...

ps : Zhang, Noscript isen't supported yet by Quantum

Have a nice week end all

[go558a83nk 364]

So far I like Quantum's speed, though I disagree with their statement that it saves memory.

[larky 40]

I installed it yesterday. Seems faster, but I gotta agree with go558a83nk above as for me it seems to be using almost twice the amount of memory than the previous version did.

[serenacat 83]

Software developers can really come to hate the "bit rot" of "cruft" building up over years and many adaptions and evolutions and additions by many different programmers, and find a huge relief to redesign and reimplement with better language and a cohesive team project. Currently valuable addons will be updated, or replaced by functionally similar new ones, where possible with the new API.

But different people will have various amounts of pain and avoidance for some time.

It is handy having a virtual machine setup, in my guest Linux Mint I intend to run FF56 until enough addons available, with Chromium (not Chrome) as a "virgin" browser without any addons for odd occasions, and FF57+ in the host Windows 10 with addons to monitor and "beta".

But my FF55 in Mint got crashed by an automatic addon update, and was forced to FF56 rather than hunt the culprit, so fingers crossed.

[NaDre 157]

 

... and most "important" extensions such as ...NoScript .. are supported.

...

 

As of this moment Noscript is not supported. But when I first updated, the redirect for finding a replacement for Noscript pointed to uMatrix.

 

I think I am now a convert to uMatrix. All Noscript restricts is scripts. And there are other issues that uMatrix restricts. It is only because I have tried uMatrix that I am now aware of these activities by some sites I use.

 

By default uMatrix does not restrict scripts from the "1st party" site. And this makes a lot of sense to me. Most sites are unusable if scripts are disabled. My white list for Noscript was HUGE for this reason.

 

Also uMatrix can have accesses granted to allow non-1st-party scripts (or other elements) on a 1st-party basis. I use a site that will not work if Google analytics is blocked. Obviously it can check somehow. Now I can allow Google analytics just from that site. Can Noscript do that? Maybe. But not the last time I looked. I think it is "bye bye" to Noscript for me.

 

By the way, I think the main reason for the change to add-ons was that the old API was a huge security issue. Bad actors could do all sorts of things with no controls. Java had similar issues at first. And perhaps these were never really addressed. And it is disappearing from web sites. I think Mozilla saw similar issues ahead for add-ons.

[De Facto Pantalones 12]

I like Quantum... alot! I also liked NoScript alot! But in the few days since FF 57’s release, I had to give uBlock Origin more attention bc I, like many, felt naked without my trusty NoScript AddOn.

 

Short learning curve, and wayyy friendlier than NoScript. Give the Advanced settings a look. Here’s a couple links that might help you get over missing NoScript. (No disrespect to NoScript!). Check it...

Advanced

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Advanced-user-features

 

Medium

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode Those couple links might get you tweaking Ublocj settings and familiarizing with more of its tools.

[jean claud 45]

NoScript is supported again by FireFox Quantum

[OmniNegro 155]

Why not double up? No-Script and uBlock together can and does work wonders that neither can manage alone. I just wish uMatrix would remember settings for sites between sessions....

[NaDre 157]

... I just wish uMatrix would remember settings for sites between sessions....

 

There is a symbol of a lock that you can click to do this. "Save all temporary changes for this scope." when you hover the mouse over it. Also clicking the black bar at the top (where the title "uMatrix 1.1.10" is) to get to the "dashboard", and then using the "My rules" tab is helpful in this context.

 

It does take a while to realize all of the stuff uMatrix can do. Just do a lot of clicking. Better documentation might be good. But I am still sold on it.

 

EDIT:

 

A bit more clicking lead me to the wiki for uMatrix. For example:

 

https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/The-popup-panel

 

https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Rules-syntax

[serenacat 83]

Yes, still learning what uMatrix can do, but tailoring, and remembering, is easy for each website frequently used.

 

Very impressed by the design and programming skills of Raymond Hill, who also does uBlock Origin, and they work well together. Someone might offer him lots of money / work from home or wherever / when you feel like it.

 

The NoScript authors seem to have put quite a bit of effort into substitute/surrogate scripts to maintain functionality of some popular websites rather than just blocking. I do not use them much, but will keep NoScript added but disabled just in case needed.

 

One negative of FF Quantum is reduced user options. Even cookie handling is obscure, and so far the "Cookie Autodelete" seems the best addon I have found for FF57. about:config is still there, but a more user friendly gui for useful/non-destructive "fine tuning" would be a nice addon.

[De Facto Pantalones 12]

Why not double up? No-Script and uBlock together can and does work wonders that neither can manage alone. I just wish uMatrix would remember settings for sites between sessions....

You liking the new NoScript UI?  I tried it for a couple days (when it was basically Beta) and gave up b/c that UI was too different, no time to figure it out.  uBlock Advanced is simple.  Giorgio probably tightened up NS since its Quantum launch... maybe worth giving it another shot? 

 

Sidenote, off topic for this post, but topical for thread...  most of you know this, but for anyone who doesn't -take a look at your Firewall rules after any Firefox update.  FF.exe likes to make a home w/in your inbound/outbound... I use Eddie, so I always remove the new firewall rule any/all FF updates create.     

[Guest]

Noscript looks shite.

 

Came to this thread to see if it was just my computer messing up

 

Any way to revert back to the normal look?

[serenacat 83]

I was happily running FF56 on Linux Mint 18.2 which seemed to run both old and new WE addons okay for quite a few weeks.

Then updated Mint to 18.3. Without any warning in "Whats new", or "Release notes", or "How to update" blog, it updated to FF57 ! ! !

This is contrary to  the usual Mint "let the user decide" policy re kernel, display manager, etc "optional updates". Why so sneaky and destructive ?

I have not yet spent time burrowing into "apt" for update to previous versions from repository, like most people, other things to do. Grrr.

[jean claud 45]

Just a little recapitulation of some privacy extensions supported by Firefox 57:

​

* decentraleyes (Mozilla Public License, version 2.0)

* Disconnect (GPLV3) or Privacy Badger (GPLV3)

* Https everywhere (Custom License)

* Canvas Defender (BSD License) or Shape Shifter (GPLV3) or CanvasBlocker (MPLV2)

* User Agent Switcher (GPLV3) or User-Agent Switcher  (MPLV2) or Custom User-Agent (Revived)  (MPLV2)

* Noscript (GPLV2) or No-Script Suite Lite (revived)  (MPLV2) or Whitelist or Blacklist JavaScript (GPLV3) or Policy Control - JavaScript and Flash blocker (MPLV2)

* uBlock Origin (GPLV3) + uBO-Scope (GPLV3)

* Cookie AutoDelete (MIT/X11 License) or Cookie Cleaner (Cookie Eraser)  (MPLV2) ou EditThisCookie  (GPLV3) ou Remove Cookies Button (licence BSD)

* pure-url (GPLV3) or Neat URL (GPLV2) ) or au-revoir-utm (WTFPLV2) or Link Cleaner (GPLV3) or ClearURLs (MPLV2)

* Smart Referer (WTFPLV2)

​* Umatrix version 1.0.0 (GPLV3)

​

[De Facto Pantalones 12]

about:config Firefox 57 tweaks  

 

For those of you who need Flash and can't disable it (I need it to for some work related pages), I found this tweak to anonymize ones Flash settings a bit... 

 

From https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2230541 

 

Win7, for e.g., go to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash, edit the mms.cfg file with (and see lnk)...

 

AVHardwareDisable=1
DisableDeviceFontEnumeration=1
DisableSockets=1
ThirdPartyStorage=0
LocalStorageLimit=1
AssetCacheSize=0
FileDownloadDisable=1
FileUploadDisable=1
LegacyDomainMatching=0

 

Check out the new settings using http://ip-check.info/

 

Another about:config setting I used after looking-into the site above...

create a new string, name preference 'general.useragent.override',  enter string value similar to Tor's,  ' Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 '.

 

Try a before and after for both settings using the JonDomyn link above.  You can also do the same steps above creating a new string, ' general.platform.override' , w/ 'Win32' value. 

 

I disliked toggling privacy.resistFingerprinting to true (b/c I used multiple monitors).  

 

Toggling 'network.http.referer.spoofSource' to true is another nice option (new to 57 -I think). 

 

Prob. a worthless excercise, but why not?  I edit my userprefs.js with a different country code, at browser.search.countryCode & browser.search.region. 

 

I'm still testing w/ harder '2' settings for network referer settings... so far no problems

network.http.referer.trimmingPolicy
network.http.referer.XOriginPolicy
network.http.referer.XOriginTrimmingPolicy

 

Tons of other about:config tweaks we can share, but those are a handful of my faves.  Please share any suggestions fellow AirVPN readers for your fave FF 57 about:config tweaks (and/or userChrome.css suggestions).  That would be cool.  

 

Personally, I dig that Flash tweak & wanted to share...  it's been around a while, but new to me.  I got carried away with some others... sorry for long post.     

 

Thanks,

DfP

[De Facto Pantalones 12]

I saw a FF "Containers" mention posted elsewhere in Airvpn Forums, but if you haven't checked it... damn, you will prob. dig these "Containers" option(s) [new to me, I know it's been around Beta for a while].  So for e.g., for work I have to log-in to a proprietary database... through the course of work I'm narrowing different data sets and bullsh*t, but sometimes I need to give prompt attention to something different w/in said database (it may be a cursory search that takes a minute or two).  So instead of saving all my work & starting a new task from scratch, like in times past using standard browser tab(s), I simply open a new container tab, log-in to database, 2-4-6, I'm able to work on a quick side-project or whatnot.   

 

Cookie Auto-Delete Add-On enables Containers by default -which imho is the best cookie handler since Self Destructing Cookies (RIP).  Oh yeah, don't confuse "Self-Destroying Cookies" w/ aforementioned Self-Destructing Cookies.  I noticed Self Destroying Cookies is sometimes flagged as Ad/Malware (but it's buggy as hell, more so -I made the mistake confusing the two when 57 first dropped).  Cookie Auto-Delete is where its at. 

 

If inclined, try the hardened ghacks user.js profile -its less buggy & pretty smooth these days... https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js

 

Sorry to hijack this thread!  word

[DoNotBelieveTheMyth 3]

I think I am now a convert to uMatrix. All Noscript restricts is scripts. And there are other issues that uMatrix restricts. It is only because I have tried uMatrix that I am now aware of these activities by some sites I use.

 

By default uMatrix does not restrict scripts from the "1st party" site. And this makes a lot of sense to me. Most sites are unusable if scripts are disabled. My white list for Noscript was HUGE for this reason.

 

Also uMatrix can have accesses granted to allow non-1st-party scripts (or other elements) on a 1st-party basis. I use a site that will not work if Google analytics is blocked. Obviously it can check somehow. Now I can allow Google analytics just from that site. Can Noscript do that? Maybe. But not the last time I looked. I think it is "bye bye" to Noscript for me.

 

Thank you! Been using Noscript for a while but always hated that I was never in control. Just installed this addon, and, let's say I will be busy for a while in the menus. Tons of options, true control, and it compliments Ublock which I have been using anyway. Thanks for the tip!

[De Facto Pantalones 12]

Yes, still learning what uMatrix can do, but tailoring, and remembering, is easy for each website frequently used.

 

Very impressed by the design and programming skills of Raymond Hill, who also does uBlock Origin, and they work well together. Someone might offer him lots of money / work from home or wherever / when you feel like it.

Hi.  After looking around elsewhere I thought I'd ask in the forums here.  Is there any benefit to doubling-up w/ both uBlock and uMatrix? 

If one uses uBlock Advanced settings (hardening up w/ some strict global settings)... why bother w/ uMatrix? 

I try to keep my Add-Ons to a handful (removed NoScripts, for eg)... and uBlock more than suffices in blocking dubious scripts. 

 

Here's a decent thread on the topic but varied opinions https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/enhancing-ublock-origin-with-umatrix.388704/

Thanks in advance for any user feedback!