3 Steps You Can Take To Reduce The Firefox 4 Memory Leak

I have found Google Chrome to be a memory hog on a variety of computers using Windows and Linux. So am back to Firefox for now. Firefox uses less CPU and memory than all the current browsers. Below is an article to make Firefox even faster by using even less memory. Enjoy.

Tina Sieber,On 16^th June, 2011

Mozilla Firefox

Since the introduction of Chrome and the advancement of Internet Explorer to version 9, Firefox has been losing ground rapidly. Innovation is lacking and problems are amassing. One major issue is that Firefox 4 swallows up more RAM than any other version before it. Its memory usage has become almost abusive and working with a browser that turns your computer into a snail is no fun.
If you are looking for ways to tame the beast, I may have some clues! In this article I will show you 3 steps to reduce and limit the chunk Firefox bites off your RAM. I will start with the obvious, but in the last step, we will dive deep into the heart of your browser.

Prologue

I have been using Firefox for many years and have carried over my profile from each version and computer to the next. Over the years, I have accumulated hundreds of bookmarks, dozens of extensions (most disabled), and several plugins. So by version 4, Firefox has grown to a respectable size. You could call it a monster.
To show you that the tips I’m sharing do have an effect, I have documented how memory usage improved on my machine as I went from one step to the next. Unfortunately, I found that Firefox leaks memory, thus I recorded the value after a few minutes, even though in all cases it continued to increase. This is not 100% exact, but it still gives you a good idea of how well each step works.


Counting: 29 open tabs, 31 extensions
State of affairs: 700,740K

1. Close Or Hibernate Tabs

In case you didn’t know this already, the outrageous amount of memory Firefox uses, correlates with the even more outrageous amount of open tabs you cannot get yourself to close. Unfortunately, the easiest way to save a lot of RAM, is to close a lot of tabs.
If you cannot close all of them for the love of it, how about managing your tabs with the help of one of the following extensions:

• BarTab
  Loads a tab only when it is visited and lets you unload tabs from memory either manually or automatically.
• Memory Fox
  Fixes Firefox memory leaks and releases RAM.
• Load Tabs Progressively
  Limits the number of concurrent loading tabs. Similar to BarTab.
• TabGroups Manager
  Allows you to organize tabs in groups and hibernate groups, removing them from memory.

Personally, I work with TabGroups Manager. The extension helps me to keep the amount of open tabs at bay, and this is how I could remove 13 tabs from memory all at once.
For more about tabs, see this article: The 5 Best Firefox 4 Addons For Tabbed Browsing.

Counting: 16 open tabs, 31 extensions
Memory usage: 496,860K

2. Remove Add-Ons

Running add-ons, i.e. extensions, themes, or plugins, eat up quite a bit of RAM. So go through your collection and remove those that you never use. Before entirely removing them, you can disable them and see whether that significantly improves the memory leak. Go to > Firefox > Add-ons and switch between > Extensions > Appearance and > Plugins. Be sure to update them via the > Tools for all add-ons button.

Counting: 16 open tabs, 21 extensions
Memory usage: 443,916K

3. About:Config Hacks

There are several very potent hacks that control how much memory Firefox can or will use. None of them had a huge effect in my demonstration, but your results may vary.

Limit Firefox’ RAM usage

Type > about:config into the URL bar, promise to be careful, and scroll to > browser.cache.disk.capacity. The default value depends on how much RAM you have installed. Double-click it to change the value. Do not limit the RAM usage too aggressively, especially not below the amount of RAM Firefox is using as you apply this hack, so be sure to check first! In my case around 400,000K was a realistic value.

Allow Windows to Claim Back RAM when Firefox is Minimized

With this hack enabled, Windows will be able to claim back RAM more aggressively. In > about:config right-click anywhere and select > New > Boolean and enter > config.trim_on_minimize as the preference name. Double-click the new entry to set its value to > true. Restart Firefox to enable the changes.

Limit Memory Storage for Open Tabs

The last about:config preference we are going to look at is > browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers. The default value is -1, which will automatically determine the maximum amount of pages stored in memory, based on the total amount of RAM. In other word, the bigger your RAM and the more tabs you have open, the bigger the chunk that Firefox will take. You can set this value to zero to not store any pages in memory or to 1 for 32MB, 2 for 64MB, 3 for 128MB etc.
More information about this preference can be found in the mozillaZine. I went with 3 for 128MB.
Status: No change in tabs or add-ons, all hacks applied.
Memory usage: ~400,000K (maximized) and ~350,000 (minimized)

Epilogue

All steps brought some improvement, but the end result was still not very satisfying. Besides, the real problem with Firefox 4 is the memory leak, which in my case was mainly caused by open tabs. Firefox’ memory usage would climb on and on with no way to stop it, other than to close all tabs. When I closed all tabs except for one, Firefox used about 230,000K. With a virgin profile, memory usage went down to around 48,000K; finally a realistic value, but sadly with almost every little bit of customization removed.
Status: virgin Firefox profile, 1 tab open
Memory usage: ~48,000K

The conclusion is that Firefox has a problem, but if you love your open tabs and add-ons, you will have to put up with it. If you prefer a lean and fast browser however, simply ditch everything, create a new profile, and be very restrictive with what you add.
Finally, you may also want to try the tips from this article: 5 Things To Do When Firefox Runs Slow But Other Browsers Run Fast.
So what are you going to do? Hold on to your stuff or browse lightly?

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-steps-reduce-firefox-4-memory-leak/

Firefox is still the least secure web browser, falls to four zero-day exploits at Pwn2Own

By Sebastian Anthony on March 17, 2014 at 9:09 am
At Pwn2Own 2014, an annual computer hackfest in Vancouver, Mozilla’s Firefox has proven yet again that it’s the least secure major web browser. While all four major web browsers — Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari — were successfully exploited, for a grand total of $850,000 in prize money awarded to successful security researchers, Firefox was by far the least secure browser, racking up no less than four zero-day vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities, if they were in the wild, would allow a hacker to do just about anything with your computer if you visited a specially crafted website.


Firefox has never had a great record at Pwn2Own. While the format of the contest has generally changed every year since its inauguration in 2007 (different platforms, different rules, different attack vectors), Firefox has been involved in some way or another since 2009. While Chrome went unhacked in 2009, 2010, and 2011, the only year that Firefox wasn’t hacked was 2011. Since 2012, however, as security researchers have grown ever more wiley, every major browser has fallen to at least one zero-day vulnerability. That four separate vulnerabilities were found in Firefox at Pwn2Own 2014, however, is impressive. (Read: The death of Firefox.)


Firefox’s weaker security is generally attributed to its lack of a sandbox — a shell or firewall around a piece of software that keeps it segregated from the rest of the operating system. In theory, the sandbox should prevent the browser from running other programs, reading the contents of your RAM, or opening other files. Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer (newer versions) all have a sandbox, while Firefox does not. In short, if someone finds a big enough vulnerability in Firefox, there’s nothing preventing them from gaining complete access to your computer. It is slightly disconcerting that security researchers found four such vulnerabilities in just three days at Pwn2Own. (Read: How to surf safely: From LastPass to tin foil hats, and everything in between.)

The key to improving Firefox security: Multiple processes

Somewhat fortunately for us, since Pwn2Own 2013, all of the vulnerabilities are reported to the web browser makers so that they can be fixed in a timely fashion. Still, it is a good reminder that Firefox might not be the best choice of browser if security is one of your primary concerns when surfing the web. As for why Firefox doesn’t have a sandbox, it’s most likely because it was conceived in an era when security on the web was still a nascent and naive topic. Chrome, which was developed a few years later, was intentionally designed from the outset to be very fast and secure. Likewise, Microsoft went through a complete overhaul between IE8 an IE9, adding a sandbox and other modern features so that it could actually stand next to its peers without being snickered at. Mozilla would like to add sandboxing to Firefox, it’s very hard to add sandboxing to a program that wasn’t originally designed for it. (For technical people: It’s closely linked to the Electrolysis project, which will eventually give Firefox per-tab processes.)


A grand total of $850,00 in prize money was given out to security researchers at Pwn2Own 2014. Much like 2012 and 2013, French security firm Vupen had a very strong showing, taking home $400,000 for a total of 11 zero-day vulnerabilities, covering Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Adobe Flash and Reader. George Hotz (yes, Geohot of PlayStation and iOS hacking fame) took home $50,000 for a Firefox exploit. The prize money is awarded by the Zero-Day Initiative (owned by TippingPoint, which was acquired by HP), which actually buys the vulnerabilities from the hackers, so that they can improve the security of TippingPoint/HP products.

Link: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178587-firefox-is-still-the-least-secure-web-browser-falls-to-four-zero-day-exploits-at-pwn2own

Article: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

Reposted...today
Firefox has a problem. It has fallen behind, with development stalled on the most crucial, most difficult problems. Many of the most significant improvements in Firefox over the past few years have simply been copying changes made in Chrome.
We wish Firefox was better, but the reality is that it’s still not as good as Chrome. With so many former Firefox developers now working on Chrome at Google, perhaps it makes sense that the innovation has been happening in Chrome, not Firefox.

 

No Multi-Process Architecture

CPUs are gaining more and more cores, becoming capable of doing more work in parallel. Single-core CPUs have become unheard of, and even the lowest-power computers have dual-core CPUs at the least. The future is an ever-increasing amount of CPU cores, and computer programs will have to become capable of doing more work in parallel to take advantage of all this processing power.
Chrome deals with this by having a multi-process architecture. Every website you have open runs in its own process. Background processes, like extensions and apps doing work in the background, run in their own process. Browser plug-ins also run in their own process. Crucially, Chrome’s user interface runs in its own process, as well.
if you have a modern multi-core CPU, Chrome will use it intelligently and perform well, dividing work up between CPUs. It can do many things at once and Chrome’s interface should never stutter and hiccup as pages load in the background.
Firefox is another matter. Firefox uses a single-process architecture, although plugins now run in a separate process. If you open five browser tabs, the main Firefox process has to load and render them as well as handle the Firefox user interface, so the browser will be nowhere near as responsive as Chrome. If one of the pages crashes, it will bring the whole browser down with it.
This is still extremely noticeable — on a powerful Intel Core i7 CPU, Chrome performs perfectly yet Firefox’s interface stutters and slows down as multiple pages load, at least in my experience. It just isn’t as smooth, and it’s because of Firefox’s dated architecture.





Mozilla was working on a solution for this. It was called Electrolysis, development began in 2009, and it was a project to make Firefox into a proper multi-process browser. Electrolysis was “put on hold for the foreseeable future” in 2011, with Mozilla stating that “Electrolysis is a huge undertaking” and that they would be pursuing “a number of smaller initiatives” to improve browser responsiveness in the short term.
Mozilla recently restarted the Electrolysis project in May 2013, so if we’re lucky we’ll see a multi-process Firefox at some point. Even Internet Explorer has multi-process features as of Internet Explorer 8, so Firefox is way behind — and just now starting the hard work of catching up after stopping the project in 2011.


Years Behind Chrome: 4.7 and counting

Firefox Doesn’t Use a Security Sandbox

Chrome and Internet Explorer use a modern Windows feature called “low integrity mode” or “protected mode” to run browser processes with as few user permissions as possible. If a browser vulnerability was discovered and exploited in Chrome or IE, the exploiter would also have to use some sort of additional vulnerability to escape the security sandbox and gain access to the rest of the system.
This feature has been around since Windows Vista, which was released over six years ago. However, Mozilla is still working on the “low rights Firefox” feature and there’s no time-frame for when sandboxing features will roll out to users.  Sandboxing isn’t a cure-all, but it’s an important security feature found in other modern browsers.
Comments on Firefox’s bug tracker indicate that developers will be looking at sandboxing the Windows 8 Modern Firefox app, Firefox OS, and experimental Servo browser on OS X. There’s no indication that anyone is working on sandboxing the Windows desktop version of Firefox at the moment. That’s clearly the most popular, most vulnerable version of Firefox that needs the most protecting.


Years Behind Chrome: 4.7 and counting

 

Firefox Wants a Desktop Web App Store

Mozilla is adamant that web apps and web technologies will replace the need for desktop software and native mobile apps, offering a cross-platform future where HTML5 apps run on every platform.
To this end, Mozilla wants to create its own web app store, known as the Firefox Marketplace. This feature is available in Firefox for Android and will be part of Firefox OS. Firefox OS is itself a mobile operating system that’s launching years after it should have — later than even Microsoft’s Windows Phone and BlackBerry’s BlackBerry 10, two mobile operating systems that have a long uphill fight ahead of them because they were launched so late.
However, you can only use the Firefox Marketplace on Firefox for Android at the moment. Mozilla has been talking about releasing a Firefox Marketplace for the desktop for years, but they’ve decided to focus only on mobile for now. The desktop Firefox Marketplace will be released in the future. In the meantime, Chrome has had the Chrome Web Store for years. New Chrome packaged apps will soon extend the functionality of Chrome web apps, making more of a splash.
Mozilla wants to be pushing web apps and open web technologies on the desktop, but they’re not doing it — Google is.

Years Behind Chrome: 2.5 and counting

 

 

Examples of Firefox Lagging Behind Chrome

Firefox has caught up in many ways over the years, but many of its changes have simply been copying the way Google Chrome works:

• Multi-Window Private Browsing: Firefox recently gained the ability to open a private-browsing window alongside a normal browsing window, a much-wished-for feature that has been in Chrome since the beginning.
• Frequent Updates: After Chrome launched, Firefox moved to a more frequent release schedule, like Chrome’s.
• Extensions That Can Handle Browser Upgrades: Firefox then had to work on updating its extension API, allowing extensions to install without restarting and to function seamlessly without breaking after browser-version upgrades — just like how they worked on Chrome.
• PDF Viewer: Firefox recently gained an integrated PDF viewer, long after such a feature launched in Chrome.
• User Interface Design: All browsers have followed Chrome’s lead in switching to a more minimal browser interface, including Firefox. Recent UI mockups suggest even more Chrome-like interface may be in Firefox’s future.
• Out-of-Process Plugins: While Firefox doesn’t have proper multi-process features like Chrome, it did add a feature that allows plug-ins like Flash to run in their own process so they don’t crash the rest of the browser.
• JavaScript Performance: Like all other browsers, Firefox was pushed to dramatically improve its JavaScript performance after Chrome showed up with its huge lead in JavaScript performance over everyone.

Taken as a whole, it’s clear to see that Chrome has been leading the pack in browser innovation for years.

We Wish Firefox Was Better

We’re not just trying to attack Firefox here. It was once the best browser, and Mozilla deserves credit for eating into Internet Explorer 6′s market share, showing Microsoft that they could lose their place and forcing them to restart their halted Internet Explorer development. They also deserve credit for making the web more standardized, eliminating websites that say they’re “Designed for Internet Explorer.” This has allowed other browsers to step in — the most popular ones being Chrome and Safari. Firefox laid the groundwork, and Mozilla has been a tireless fighter for open standards.
It’s good for the web to have Mozilla as a browser vendor that isn’t tied to a single large corporation, as Microsoft, Google, and Apple own the other top browsers. The fact that we have an open-source browser created by a non-profit organization only looking to make the web a better is great for the web.
That’s why it’s a shame Mozilla has allowed Firefox to fall so far behind. Halting development on Electrolysis and still having not implemented sandboxing security features are signs that Mozilla hasn’t been prepared to knuckle-down and do the really hard low-level work to improve Firefox’s performance and security. Many of the other changes they’ve made have imitated changes made in Chrome much earlier.
Firefox is still the best browser in some ways. For example, if you need the most powerful browser extension framework, Firefox has it. But we wish Firefox was more competitive in other ways. In 2013, a browser should be a multi-process application with proper security sandboxing. But Firefox isn’t — in fact, it has fallen behind Internet Explorer when it comes to these two important features.

---

There was once a powerful browser known as the Mozilla suite. It was too big and bloated for its own good, so a group of developers decided to create a new, minimal browser from its core technologies. They called it Phoenix, and it evolved into the Firefox we know today. If Mozilla can’t turn Firefox into a modern browser because of all the legacy code getting in the way, perhaps we need a Phoenix 2.0.

Image Credit: Régis Leroy on Flickr

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/165264/heres-why-firefox-is-still-years-behind-google-chrome/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130613

Chrome 34, Firefox 29, Internet Explorer 11: Memory Use 2014

By Martin Brinkmann on January 2, 2014 in Internet 28

I bench marked the memory use of popular web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Opera back in 2012, and a lot happened since then.
Back then, the Opera browser came first followed by Mozilla Firefox, then Internet Explorer and finally Google Chrome.

All browsers made big progress since then. Firefox jumped by 13 versions, Chrome by 12, Internet Explorer by 2, and Opera switched to Chromium.
Back then, I only looked at the memory use when ten websites were loaded in each browser. This time, I will look at three different scenarios with 5, 15 and 40 open tabs in each browser respectively.
This should cover more real-world scenarios.
Benchmark parameters

• Test system: Windows 8.1 Professional 64-bit, 8 Gigabytes of RAM.
• Browsers: Mozilla Firefox 29 Nightly, Google Chrome Dev 34, Internet Explorer 11
• All browsers without browser extensions, and plug-ins disabled.
• The 5 websites: ghacks.net, google.com, bing.com, leo.org, lifehacker.com
• The 15 websites: softpedia.com, microsoft.com, reddit.com, news.ycombinator.com, youtube.com, amazon.com, petmoz.com, donationcoder.com, wordpress.com, ebay.com, and the top 5 websites.
• The top 40 websites: yandex.ru, paypal.com, apple.com, imdb.com, bbc.co.uk, stackoverflow.com, imgur.com, alibaba.com, netflix.com, cnn.com  godaddy.com, dailymotion.com, dailymail.co.uk, weather.com, wikipedia.com, deviantart.com, huffingtonpost.com, avg.com, mediafire.com, yelp.com, wikihow.com, foxnews.com, theguardian.com, forbes.com, sourceforge.com, plus the top 15 and top 5 websites.

Results

I made the decision to start with 5 pages, measure the memory use, open another 10, measure again, then the remaining 25 for the last measure.
After that, I decided to close the 25 pages to go down to 15 again, measure that, then close another 10 pages so that I would end up with the top 5, and measure again.
All measurements are taken from Chrome's about:memory page. Note that this, at least in theory, will make Chrome use extra memory as it needs to be displayed by the browser (about 24,000 k it seems)
Update: We have added Chrome 31 Stable and Firefox 26 Stable to the benchmark results:
Five open tabs

• Google Chrome 34: 258,589 k
• Firefox 26: 246,288 k
• Firefox 29: 225,552 k
• Google Chrome 31: 224,946k
• Internet Explorer 11: 221989 k

Fifteen open tabs

• Internet Explorer 11: 550869 k
• Google Chrome 31: 485,282 k
• Google Chrome 34: 448,015 k
• Firefox 26: 332,212 k
• Firefox 29: 327,060 k

Forty open tabs

• Internet Explorer 11: 1547254 k
• Google Chrome 31: 1,255,641 k
• Google Chrome 34: 1,167,298 k
• Firefox 29: 779,100 k
• Firefox 26: 704,128 k

Down to 15 tabs

• Internet Explorer 11: 595,373 k
• Google Chrome 31: 526,544 k
• Google Chrome 34: 514,872 k
• Firefox 26: 510,116 k
• Firefox 29: 442654 k

Down to 5 tabs

• Internet Explorer 11: 377683 k
• Firefox 26: 371,156 k
• Firefox 29: 358404 k
• Google Chrome 31: 263,991
• Google Chrome 34: 275722 k

Key findings

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 performed worst in four of the five benchmarks. It performed best initially with only 5 tabs open in each browser, but landed last in all four consecutive benchmarks.

Google Chrome too made first place only once after nearly all tabs were closed again in all browsers. It seems to release memory faster or more efficiently than Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Firefox takes the crown as a heavy duty browser. It performed best with 15, 40 and down to 15 open tabs and never went above the 1 Gigabyte mark, while the two other browsers did.

In fact, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 used about twice as much memory as Firefox with 40 tabs open.


It is interesting to note that Microsoft's web browser recovered memory some time after it went down to only 5 open tabs. A few minutes later, its use dropped down to about 260,000 k of memory usage, while Firefox's usage dropped only by about 40,000 k to 318,816.

Closing Words

Depending on how you use your Internet browser, you may fare well in regards to memory use with each of them. If you have lots of tabs open at all times, then you will benefit from using Firefox the most, as the browser is the most memory efficient when it comes to opening a lot of tabs.

If you open and close tabs regularly, you may want to consider using Google Chrome or even Internet Explorer instead, as they appear to recover memory more quickly than Firefox.

Memory use should not play a big role if you are using a computer with plenty of RAM installed. If you have 4 or more Gigabytes of RAM, then it should not usually be a problem if the browser jumps to 1 or even 1.5 Gigabytes of RAM usage.
If you have less than that though, you may benefit from using a memory efficient browser such as Firefox, instead of Chrome or Internet Explorer.

Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/01/02/chrome-34-firefox-29-internet-explorer-11-memory-use-2014/

Firefox 28 released

Firefox 28: Find out what is new

By Martin Brinkmann on March 18, 2014 in Firefox 11

The Firefox 28.0 update introduces several new technologies to the browser. Mozilla has added VP9 video decoding support, support for Opus in WebM, improved volume controls for HTML5 media, and its GamePad api to the browser.

Mozilla is about to release upgrades for all Firefox channels. The stable version of Firefox will be upgraded from Firefox 27.0.1 to Firefox 28 in the coming 24 hour period, while Beta, Aurora and Nightly releases will see a version bump as well to 29.0, 30.0 and 31.0 respectively. Firefox ESR users last but not least will be upgraded to version 24.4.0 in that time period.

The updates are already available on third-party download sites and the official Mozilla FTP server. While it is possible to download the update early, there is always the chance that last minute changes force Mozilla to push out another build as the final update.
To check which version of Firefox you are running, tap on the Alt-key, and select Help > About Firefox from the menu, or load about:support right away.
Downloads will be made available on the official Mozilla website later today. If you have configured automatic updates, you will receive the update automatically the next time you run the Firefox web browser.
Please note that Mozilla distributes so-called net installers or stubs by default. Read this guide to find out how you can download Firefox offline installers.

Firefox 28 Changes

Mozilla planned to release Firefox for Metro, a specialized version of the web browser for Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system with Firefox 28 but decided to pull it in the last minute. The organization made the decision to stop the development at this point in time to concentrate on improvements and products
that are higher up on the priority list right now.
On to the improvements in this version:

The GamePad API has been finalized and is now enabled by default

The GamePad API was launched in Firefox 24, but was locked behind a preference for the time being. While you could enable it by setting dom.gamepad.enabled to true on the Firefox about:config page, that is no longer necessary once Firefox Stable gets updated to version 28 as it is enabled by default then.
The API is also implemented in Chrome, also the browser supports a slightly different set of features.
Web developers can use the api to create games and applications that make use of gamepads, so that gamepads can be used to control actions on the screen. A basic example is a game that supports gamepads next to keyboard, mouse or touch input.
A very basic test is available here.


Volume control for HTML5 audio and video



This introduces an always visible horizontal volume slider on all HTML5 audio and video files that you play in the Firefox web browser.
A vertical slider was used previously, and there were cases where it was not displayed properly to the user.
Check out bug 649490 for additional information about the implementation and reasoning.
Support for VP9 video decoder and Opus in WebM added
Firefox can now play VP9 encoded videos in WebM format. If you open this test page in Firefox 27.0.1 or earlier, you get an error message that the VP9 video cannot be played, while the VP8 video plays fine.
Opening the same page in Firefox 28 or newer plays both videos fine.

Mozilla is currently working on implementing part of MSE to pass the HTML5 video test on YouTube's HTML5 test page.

WebVTT support added
The Web Video Text Tracks Format can be used to display text tracks using the <track> element, for instance in the form of video subtitles or captions.
Information about Mozilla's implementation are listed here on this page.
Developer changes
Mozilla is working on the platform constantly, which means that new technologies get added or old ones removed. Developers should check the additional information and sources listing at the end of the article for links to pages that detail all changes for developers.
This listing contains just the highlights:

1. Dark theme and split console mode added to Web Console in Developer Tools.
2. Inspector now features a color picker in rules view.
3. You can now prettify minified JavaScript files in the Debugger. Here you can now also inspect the value of a variable while debugging.
4. CSS: Support for multi-line flexbox, background-blend-mode property and none value for font-variant-ligatures.
5. WebVIT has been switched on by default.
6. Various interface, api and DOM changes such as implementation of the File constructor, improving privacy by stopping navigator.plugins from being enumerable, or activation of the GamePad API by default.
7. Opus in WebM is now supported.
8. The VP9 video decoder is now supported.
9. Support of SPDY/2 has been removed.

 Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/03/18/firefox-28-find-new/

Firefox 28 released: Windows 8 Metro version removed at the last moment because it only had 1,000 users

• By Sebastian Anthony on March 18, 2014 at 8:11 am
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Firefox 28 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android has been released. For Android, version 28 adds a lot of cool features  – such as predictive lookup from the address (Awesome) bar, the addition of quick share buttons, and support for OpenSearch. On the desktop side of the equation, though, Firefox 28 adds support for the VP9 video codec… and that’s about it. Why I hear you ask? Well, Firefox 28 was meant to include the long-awaited Windows 8 Metro version of the browser — but at the last minute, citing almost zero demand for Windows 8′s Metro interface, Mozilla’s vice president for Firefox decided to terminate the project and pull the code out of version 28.


Speaking on Mozilla’s official Firefox Beta blog, vice president Jonathan Nightingale paints a stark picture of Microsoft’s touch-oriented Metro interface. Back in 2012, when the Firefox for Metro team was formed, Nightingale — like Microsoft — really did think that the Metro interface would be “the next battleground for the Web. Windows is a massive ecosystem and Microsoft pushes its new platforms hard.” In Nightingale’s defense, I think we all thought that the Metro interface would at least experience some measure of success. I don’t think anyone predicted that Windows 8′s touch interface would tank as hard as it has done.

Firefox for Windows 8, Metro version. This is what it would’ve looked like, if it hadn’t been pulled. [Image credit: Ghacks]

Anyway, after a lot of hard work, Firefox for Windows 8 Touch was eventually released to the alpha and beta testing public. To help with the testing process, Mozilla tracks the usage of its alpha and beta browsers — and, in the case of Metro, the usage statistics were very bad indeed:

“In the months since, as the team built and tested and refined the product, we’ve been watching Metro’s adoption. From what we can see, it’s pretty flat. On any given day we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we’ve never seen more than 1000 active daily users in the Metro environment.”

As a result, Mozilla was faced with a hard decision: Ship the Metro version of Firefox, knowing that it hadn’t been appropriately beta tested and was probably still full of bugs… or just pull it completely. There was another option — to continue developing and testing it for future release — but, given how few people are interested in the Metro version, Mozilla decided to focus its efforts on other areas. “If we release a product, we maintain it through end of life. When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact.”

The Metro version of Chrome looks more like Chrome OS than anything else

Nightingale admits that Firefox now runs the risk of being caught with its pants down if Metro suddenly becomes very popular (Chrome has had a stable Metro version since January) — but honestly, I think at this point we can all agree that any gains made by Metro will come as a result of painstakingly small victories won by Microsoft over a scale of months and years, not days and weeks.


Download Firefox 28 for Windows / Mac / Linux / Android (will be updated later today)– or see the full release notes

Source: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178659-firefox-28-released-windows-8-metro-version-removed-at-the-last-moment-because-it-only-had-1000-users

What’s New

• NEW

  VP9 video decoding implemented

• NEW

  Mac OS X: Notification Center support for web notifications

• NEW

  Volume control for HTML5 audio/video

• NEW

  Support for Opus in WebM

• CHANGED

  Now that spdy/3 is implemented support for spdy/2 has been removed and servers without spdy/3 will negotiate to http/1 without any penalty

• DEVELOPER

  Support for MathML 2.0 'mathvariant' attribute

• DEVELOPER

  Background thread hang reporting

• DEVELOPER

  Support for multi-line flexbox in layout

• FIXED

  Various security fixes

Known Issues

• Unresolved

  Echo cancellation on apprtc.appspot.com fails (see 974537)

  Unresolved on v28 Resolved in v29
• Unresolved

  Text Rendering Issues on Windows 7 with Platform Update KB2670838 (MSIE 10 Prerequisite) or on Windows 8.1 has a workaround (see 812695)

What’s New

• NEW

  VP9 video decoding implemented

• NEW

  Mac OS X: Notification Center support for web notifications

• NEW

  Volume control for HTML5 audio/video

• NEW

  Support for Opus in WebM

• CHANGED

  Now that spdy/3 is implemented support for spdy/2 has been removed and servers without spdy/3 will negotiate to http/1 without any penalty

• DEVELOPER

  Support for MathML 2.0 'mathvariant' attribute

• DEVELOPER

  Background thread hang reporting

• DEVELOPER

  Support for multi-line flexbox in layout

• FIXED

  Various security fixes

Known Issues

• Unresolved

  Echo cancellation on apprtc.appspot.com fails (see 974537)

  Unresolved on v28 Resolved in v29
• Unresolved

  Text Rendering Issues on Windows 7 with Platform Update KB2670838 (MSIE 10 Prerequisite) or on Windows 8.1 has a workaround (see 812695)

Best Windows 8.1 Browser: Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Internet Explorer

By Cherlynn Low, LAPTOP Staff Writer | Mar 7, 2014 04:35 PM EDT




When it comes to Web browsing on your Windows 8 tablet, chances are you’ve already picked your favorite browser for the job. But you might be missing out. The best browsers can enhance your surfing experience with fast speeds, comprehensive standards support and intuitive navigation. We put the three leading browsers for Windows 8′s “Metro” mode — Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer — to the test to see which one will serve you best.

Round 1: Interface (30 points)

From button placement to changing tabs, your browser’s layout is fundamental to how quickly and comfortably you can surf the Web.
Chrome for Windows 8′s Metro mode simulates a Chrome OS desktop, with the familiar browser layout open as a window accompanied by app icons for Gmail, Google search, Docs and YouTube in a taskbar at the bottom. Apart from the surrounding desktop, Google’s browser for Metro mode is no different from its desktop version, with navigation icons and the URL bar positioned at the top.

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Both Internet Explorer and Firefox in Metro mode place the navigation panel at the bottom for easier access with your thumbs. Internet Explorer’s navigation panel is somewhat cluttered, with buttons for Back, Refresh, Tabs, Favorites and Settings sitting along a URL and search bar. Firefox employs a cleaner approach, with just Back, Favorites, Pin and Options buttons next to its Awesome Bar (URL and Search field).





These bottom panels in both Firefox and Internet Explorer auto-hide so you can enjoy full-screen viewing. However, Firefox goes a step further to make things easier and prettier by overlaying translucent Back and New Tab buttons on the left and right of the screen so you don’t have to leave a full screen just to open a new tab.
All three browsers support swiping left and right to move through back and forward through visited pages.


Internet Explorer and Firefox both helpfully suggest sites you might be looking for as you enter a URL or keyword in the address bar, and these results are tiled just above the field so you can easily tap them. But when it comes to scrolling through the tabs you have open, Internet Explorer has the edge, displaying them just above the address bar when you hit Tabs while Firefox docks them at the top of the screen.
Each time you open a new tab, Firefox displays a pretty speed dial of your recent, most visited pages and your most frequented bookmarks so you don’t have to waste time typing URLs. Internet Explorer suggests frequent sites, but only within a black panel above the keyboard, which affords it less space.





When it comes to switching between Desktop and Metro modes, Firefox offers the most seamless transition. You can easily re-launch the browser in your preferred format by tapping the Options button next to the Awesome Bar, and your open tabs are preserved whenever you switch. Chrome provides easy access to the re-launch tool, but its tiny interface makes the option hard to find, and neither browser maintains your open tabs. Internet Explorer maintains two different and unrelated browsers at the same time, one for desktop and one for Metro.
Winner: Firefox. We love the simple navigation panel, the helpful new tab page and the seamless switching between desktop and Metro modes.

Round 2: Speed (30 points)

Though the performance of your Web connection and your CPU do more to determine your overall surfing speed, your browser also has a role to play.
Using the Numion website loading stopwatch tool, we measured how long it took each browser to load NYTimes.com and Laptopmag.com. Between each round of tests, carried out on the same Windows 8.1 tablet (Acer Iconia W4) over the same Wi-Fi connection, we cleared the cache for each browser.





Across all the different pages, Firefox consistently emerged as the speediest browser. It fully loaded NYTimes.com and Laptopmag.com in an average of 3.21 seconds and 4.85 seconds, respectively. Internet Explorer came in second overall, pushing the same sites through in an average of 4.17 seconds and 5.41 seconds. Chrome brought up the rear, displaying NYTimes.com and Laptopmag.com in 5.06 seconds and 6.94 seconds.





Firefox also proved fastest in the SunSpider JavaScript speed test. Scoring 573.6 milliseconds on average, the open-source browser just barely beat Internet Explorer (576.8 ms average) and Chrome (598.6 ms average).
Chrome took the lead in HTML5 loading speeds, however, beating the others on Peacekeeper with its score of 1,156. Firefox followed with 879, while Internet Explorer delivered a poorer 672.


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On more taxing tasks, such as rendering a complex WebGL (Web Graphics Language) environment, Firefox lost its lead to Chrome. While Firefox maintained 45 fps with 50 fish and 41 fps with 100 fish in the tank simulation (Chrome got 40 / 39 fps), Google’s browser pulled ahead when 250 fish were thrown in the mix, providing 37 fps against Firefox’s 32 fps. Internet Explorer delivered a poorer 43 fps at 50 fish, 39 fps at 100 fps and a weak 29 fps with 250 fish.


While Chrome delivered better Peacekeeper scores, the app’s performance was unfortunately clunky and glitchy during our testing. This means that while HTML5-heavy pages may load faster on Chrome, you’ll spend so much time trying to open tabs because the overall experience is frustratingly slow.
Winner: Firefox. Blazing page loading speeds and overall faster performance makes this app the Flash of the browser world.

Round 3: Special Features (20 points)

Since Chrome for Windows 8 is basically the desktop version of the browser bundled with Google’s OS, you get access to a world of more than 30,000 apps, extensions and add-ons that make your browser more feature-rich. You also get tab indicators to show you, at a glance, which of your pages is making noise or playing a video.





Given the mobile environment, though, the usefulness of these features is questionable. Each Chrome tab is tiny on an 8-inch tablet’s screen, and the indicator symbols become minuscule and hard to see. (The experience on larger screens is more comfortable.) You’re also less likely to use a Chrome Web app such as Pixlr Photo Editor when you can use Photoshop Express and other full-fledged programs on your device.
Both Internet Explorer and Firefox offer useful special features, such as Do Not Track to signal to servers not to record your presence. While all three browsers can be used in Windows 8.1′s split screen mode, only Internet Explorer can be docked side by side with another window of itself. This is especially useful for times when you want to compare two different cinema listings, for example. You can’t do this with Chrome or Firefox.





Internet Explorer, not surprisingly, boasts comprehensive native integration. You can pin specific sites to your Start screen as a Live Tile to get notifications when the Web page is updated, split the display between up to four windows for side-by-side browsing and easily call numbers on websites with Skype Click to Call. A built-in Reading List app lets you save pages and read them when you have time later. Microsoft’s browser also boasts a Flip ahead feature that lets you scroll through parts of a multi-page article by swiping from the right side of the screen to go to the next page.


MORE: 8 Worst Windows 8 Annoyances and How to Fix Them
Internet Explorer 11 comes with Adobe Flash installed out-of-the-box so you don’t have to go through the troublesome process of loading the plug-in for yourself. The browser can also detect your gyroscope so you can use websites that make use of the hardware just like an app. However, few sites actually use this feature.


Winner: Internet Explorer. It’s no surprise that the default browser comes packed with excellent device integration, and we especially like being able to view two websites side by side.

Round 4: Standards Support (15 points)

The extent to which a browser supports various Web standards can greatly impact how much you enjoy your favorite sites. A good browser should be able to interpret and display most Web languages or plug-ins such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript so that you can experience a page the way a developer intended.
We put all three browsers through a series of tests to see how well they supported common Web standards.





Chrome stood out when it came to HTML5 support, scoring 505 out of 555 on the HTML5test.com benchmark. This test checks to see if your browser is capable of displaying common HTML5 features, such as drag-and-drop, graphics rendering, geolocation and device orientation.
Firefox came in second with 458, while Internet Explorer delivered a mere 372. Internet Explorer also met just five of seven HTML5 capabilities on the Peacekeeper test where Firefox and Chrome both met all seven.


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Chrome also did well on CSS3 support, scoring 60 percent on the CSS3 test and beating Firefox (58 percent) and Internet Explorer (53 percent).
Thanks to its support of the Lazyload tag, Internet Explorer 11 can also let developers lower the priority of an item, keeping unwanted items like ads from clogging up bandwidth while you load a site.
Winner: Chrome. Google’s browser better supports common Web standards, with Firefox coming in a close second.

Round 5: Syncability (15 points)

Often, you want to move from your mobile device to your desktop for a fuller reading experience, but transferring your many open tabs can be troublesome. Thankfully, all three browsers let you sync your content across devices so you won’t have to manually hunt down the specific site you were reading. Some browsers do this better, bookmarking your last position on the page so you can pick up right where you left off.





With Chrome, simply sign into your Google account to pull your open tabs across various linked devices. You can choose to open pages by clicking Recent Tabs under the Options button, which saves not only pages that are open on connected systems but also a full browsing history of the past four months. You can also search this log, arranged in chronological order, so hunting for that one page you visited that one time about an obscure topic is easy.





Firefox Sync’s setup process is somewhat tedious. You’ll have to sign in to your Firefox account via the browser in the desktop environment. The browser generates three sets of short codes, which you’ll have to enter into the device you want to link to your account. Getting to the page to input these codes takes quite a few steps, which is troublesome.
Once you’ve gone through the setup process, Firefox lets you sync your add-ons, bookmarks, history, tabs and preferences, and save passwords. It’s a nifty feature since you won’t have to retype passwords into pages you’ve already signed into – Firefox Sync remembers and fills those fields in for you. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to sync your open tabs. The feature also doesn’t work properly if you have beta and production versions of Firefox installed on the same device.





You can only sync content on Internet Explorer across Windows 8.1 devices, which limits the usefulness of this feature. It’s also tedious to set up; you’ll need to enable Web Browser in Sync Settings in each of your Windows 8.1 devices after you’ve signed into them. We would prefer being able to sign into and pull open tabs and preferences directly from Internet Explorer itself rather than having to dig into the pits of Microsoft’s settings.
Once your devices are set up, though, the interface for IE is fairly simple. Just click the drop-down arrow next to Tabs when you open a new tab and you can open any page from your connected devices.
Winner: Chrome. A simple sign-in process without the need to create a separate account if you already are a user of Google’s other services gives Chrome the edge. A comprehensive backlog of visited pages is another plus.

Verdict

 

Speedy load times, a clean interface and good support for standards make Firefox our top browser for Windows 8.1′s Modern environment. While Chrome has better support for Web standards and simpler syncing capabilities, it desperately needs a touch-optimized interface. Also, throughout our testing, Chrome was by far the glitchiest browser, often crashing or refusing to register our touch.
Like Firefox, Internet Explorer has a touch-friendly interface and it adds the advantage of being able to launch more than one Metro window, but slower speeds, worse standards support and a completely separate desktop browser hold it back. Bottom line: You can’t go wrong with Mozilla’s browser for your Windows 8.1 device.





Source: http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-windows-8-browser