Introducing the New Firefox: Firefox Quantum

[Brink]

It’s fast. Really fast. Firefox Quantum is over twice as fast as Firefox from 6 months ago, built on a completely overhauled core engine with brand new technology stolen from our advanced research group, and graced with a beautiful new look designed to get out of the way and let you do what you do best: surf a ton of pages, open a zillion tabs, all guilt free because Firefox Quantum uses less memory than the competition. Your computer will thank you.

It’s by far the biggest update we’ve had since we launched Firefox 1.0 in 2004, it’s just flat out better in every way. If you go and install it right now, you’ll immediately notice the difference, accompanied by a feeling of mild euphoria. If you’re curious about what we did, read on.

The first thing you’ll notice is the speed. Go on, open some tabs and have some fun. The second thing you’ll notice is the new User Interface (UI). We call this initiative Photon, and its goal is to modernize and unify anything that we call Firefox while taking advantage of the speedy new engine. You guessed it: the Photon UI itself is incredibly fast and smooth. To create Photon, our user research team studied how people browsed the web. We looked at real world hardware to make Firefox look great on any display, and we made sure that Firefox looks and works like Firefox regardless of the device you’re using. Our designers created a system that scales to more than just current hardware but lets us expand in the future. Plus, our Pocket integration goes one step further, which includes Pocket recommendationsalongside your most visited pages.

As part of our focus on user experience and performance in Firefox Quantum, Google will also become our new default search provider in the United States and Canada. With more than 60 search providers pre-installed across more than 90 languages, Firefox has more choice in search providers than any other browser.

We made many, many performance improvements in the browser’s core and shipped a new CSS engine, Stylo, that takes better advantage of today’s hardware with multiple cores that are optimized for low power consumption. We’ve also improved Firefox so that the tab you’re on gets prioritized over all others, making better use of your valuable system resources. We’ve done all this work on top of the multi-process foundation that we launched this past June. And we’re not done yet. David Bryant who first told you about Project Quantum explains what’s to come and what we’re doing to continue to improve your browser’s performance.

Here’s a look at the new Firefox browser in action:



Making Firefox look, feel and perform faster was no small feat. Employees and volunteers from around the world worked in record time to create the best Firefox yet. Let’s take a moment to take a look at what we accomplished this past year to make this happen:

The New Firefox Quantum By the Numbers

(more fun facts at the Firefox Frontier blog)

How many authors contributed code?

• More than 700 authors contributed code to Firefox since the August 6th release.

How many volunteers contributed to code development?

• 80 contributors from all over the world, with nearly every time-zone represented in round-the-clock awesomeness!

How many ways can you customize the toolbar in the new Firefox?

• There are 265,252,859,191,742,656,903,069,040,640,000 more ways to customize the new Firefox toolbar right out of the box!

We’ve already heard from many voices about Firefox Quantum while it was in beta, and here’s what they have to say:

“[Firefox] flies.” — @DaveVoyles
“This is called mind blowing stuff.” — @sndp_007
“Flipping fast” — @cubicgarden
“It’s quite a leap” or “IT’S SO FAST” — @felixreiseberg
“Its speed is ����” — @sayo_paul​

Check out the new Firefox browser on Windows, Mac or Linux. The new appearance will also be available on iOS and Android.

There’s more that could be said about all the amazing work that went into Quantum, or about some of the exciting stuff in the very near future, but at this point you should stop reading and download Firefox Quantum, because it will make you happy.

Source: Introducing the New Firefox: Firefox Quantum - The Mozilla Blog

 

[Layback Bear]

I have just update to Firefox 57/Quantum.
It seem to be very fast and working as it should.
I don't use a lot of add-on's or extensions.

Jack

 

[strollin]

I upgraded as well. I suppose it's faster but I never considered previous versions to be particularly slow.

A couple of the extensions I use are now disabled so I will need to find replacements for them.

 

[ranett]

So far so good over here.

 

[tetraps]

It looks impressive. When the dust settles I'll probably split my browsing between Firefox Quantum and Vivaldi.

 

[Layback Bear]

I'm always looking for reliability. A few seconds one way or the other is no big deal.

Jack

 

[TechnoMage2016]

I'm setting up a new system with Windows 7 Ultimate, so I thought I'd just as well install the newest Firefox. I downloaded and installed the new Firefox Quantum, 57.0 and so far so good.

It's not so different from my previous version as to throw me any curves.
It does seem to run well though. I'm expecting NO problems.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

 

[BlueGuy]

I thought that a power user like you would also use NoScript, more than once did it save my bacon by limiting dodgy sites and their background scripts from running. Another reason why, if there's no replacement, I'm going to miss Cookie Controller, which is marked "Legacy" in my standard Ff.
I won't be an early adopter anyhow, prefer waiting to see others experience and what work-arounds others come up with. As I said in the other post, got until next summer to keep using the ESR.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

I know you think you're suggesting something new, but you're not.

I have indeed tried No Script, but found it troublesome and invasive, and finally dumped it.

I like things with very little 'User Intervention' required.

 

[BlueGuy]

I wasn't dissing you, no need to dis me. Sure, NS can be a handful at first, especially if you crank up the protections too high, but as one learns what the sub-processes are by checking what is blocked and what sites and parts of sites should be marked as 'untrusted' .
It evens out over time and you can go your own way without having to tinker with it.
This morning after the Tuesday upgrades, including my portable versions of the web browsers, I found FFv57 to be very agreeable and problem free, aside from not having any W.E. replacements for NoScript, Saved Password Editor and Cookie Controller *(YET)* . With my main complaint of not having the tabs below the navigation/search bar, but rather in the middle, between same and the menu bar. If that can't be changed by manually editing/writing the userChrome.css. Which I haven't quite mastered yet because in the past I haven't had to. Right now I'm still searching for Aris's posts in which he talks about changing the location of FF57's tab bar, though I did find his notes where he said Mozilla removed extension ability to manipulate the UI. Here is the thread:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2827985&start=5460
I originally came here myself just for tips and help on Windows 7 itself, but most of what I needed is/was in the tutorials{Thank You, Brink & others.}. Hence my otherwise limited participation in these forums, that includes the W10 forum. As a result, unlike others, I've had little need to call out for help here.

Plenty of time to solve these issues with FF57 while using the ESR. If replacements arrive for the three extensions mentioned above, I could most likely live with the tabs not being where I want them. Its early days yet, I'll give developers time to catch up, so far 57 is looking good, especially with "IownAmoneyPit's" "Maple" treatment of the classic theme within W7.

Good day

 

[jadinolf]

What hurts me the most is that I lost ReminderFox which I rely on heavily.
I am sick and it has helped me so much with my appointments.
I hope the folks who wrote it fix it for the new version of the browser.

 

[lffoar]

I just wish they would ensure all the add-ons will work "out of the box" before they dish out updates.
For a couple of seconds extra speed, I'd rather have my add-ons back
Anyway I'm back on 56 and stopped FF from updating ao's and that's where I'll stay until it's sorted

 

[spencer1]

I just wish they would ensure all the add-ons will work "out of the box" before they dish out updates.
For a couple of seconds extra speed, I'd rather have my add-ons back
Anyway I'm back on 56 and stopped FF from updating ao's and that's where I'll stay until it's sorted

I'm with you! Unfortunately, the Firefox add-on platform has been changed to WebExtensions. That means legacy add-ons will no longer work unless they are completely rewritten, and a lot of them can't be rewritten because WebExtensions is so different from the previous platform. I'm currently using Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) which keeps version 56 intact, but continues to give security updates for it. This will last until next summer. Then I will have to look into Firefox alternatives such as Pale Moon.

ETA: Actually the current ESR uses 52 not 56, but 52 has the same "look, feel and function" as 56. Security updates for this ESR will continue until next summer. Hope I didn't confuse y'all too much.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

I accepted the upgrade to Firefox Quantum, with fingers crossed, expecting a "Frankenfox", but that was not the case, as it's never been the case since I first got Ver. 1.0. The upgrade was almost totally seamless, except for a few things I like to set up, that were not so easy to find. But I'm on FF Q. right now and not seeing anything that makes it look strange or alien.
As with all other versions, for some time now, I use www.startpage.com as my search engine. It's private and safe.

I can't honestly say that I can see the 2x faster that's advertised, but it's definitely Quick and so far I'm enjoying it. I'm pretty sure that those who like to load their browser down with add-ons, won't see the speed that I'm seeing. I just don't do that! I believe in doing everything on my Computer with the old KISS method. (Keep It Simple Stupid!) And for 37 years, that has served me well.

I see that Mozilla has already released ver. 58.0 in Beta. I never take the Betas, but I find that interesting.

Cheers Mates,
TechnoMage

 

[michael diemer]

As with all other versions, for some time now, I use www.startpage.com as my search engine. It's private and safe.

I see the word "Google Enhanced" there on Start Page. To me, that spells "not private." Maybe I'm wrong, but I run as fast as I can from all things Google. Nothing suggests Big Brother to me more. Don't let the Silicon Valley techies take over the world.

 

[mrjimphelps]

Startpage strips out all of your personally identifiable information, then feeds your search through Google. So you get all the benefits of Google, without giving up your privacy.

 

[lehnerus2000]

There are two things I absolutely must have in Firefox: a script blocker, and a YouTube downloader.

DownloadHelper stopped working in Pale Moon (on W7) many months ago.

I use this online site to grab videos:
<CENSORED>

In Linux Mint, DownloadHelper still worked in Firefox (up to v56).
I'll have to block FF updates in Linux Mint.

 

[RoasterMen]

The new FireFox is significantly fast on my system. ABP is running on the new FireFox version with no problems at all.

 

[Barman58]

Gentlemen, Please take a moment to read the forum rules

please pay particular attention to those pertaining to ad blocking and Piracy

 

[Anak]

It is faster, but it made itself the default browser on both my 7&10 machines without any input from me and now I need to figure out how to turn that off.