back to article Mozilla looses Firefox 43, including Windows 64-bit variant

Mozilla has released version 43 of its Firefox web browser, introducing a 64-bit version for Windows and crushing four critical and seven serious vulnerabilities. The browser should now enjoy the security and performance boosts of 64-bit systems with fatter heap sizes to help fire up things like browser games and better …

Page:

  1. druck Silver badge
    Meh

    Shame it doesn't automatically upgrade you from 32 to 64 bit.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      FAIL

      They're not even offering the 64 bit download from front page, you have to hunt around.

      1. Spiracle

        I downloaded the 64-bit version and let it upgrade upon which it installed the 64-bit executables into C:\Program Files (x86). This kicked off my OCD. Luckily a fresh install seems to put them in the right place.

      2. BillG
        Megaphone

        Firefox 43! Now Using Three Times More RAM!

        Truth in advertising.

        1. DrXym

          Re: Firefox 43! Now Using Three Times More RAM!

          "Firefox 43! Now Using Three Times More RAM!"

          More realistically probably 1.2-1.5 times as much. Depends how they hold refs to Javascript in memory. Running a 32-bit app on a 64-bit OS isn't free either and goes through thunks and shims so it's not all one way. In addition 64-bit programs have access to more registers so they might perform faster despite their higher memory overheads. It's probably worth going 64-bit if you have 8GB or more.

          People make a big deal of memory consumption but modern browsers including Firefox take the reasonable stance that if you have free memory that they may as well use it to improve performance.

      3. Gene Cash Silver badge

        > They're not even offering the 64 bit download from front page, you have to hunt around

        Just like they used to do for the Linux x64 builds! Nostalgia!

  2. Alister
    Headmaster

    Given that nobody seems able to spell the word correctly anymore, I wonder how many read that headline as "Mozilla Loses Firefox 43".

    1. dotdavid
      Headmaster

      Your right. I red it as "Mozilla Loses Firefox For Free"

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Your right. I red it as "Mozilla Loses Firefox For Free"

        ahem, while we're on the subject of correct spelling… ;-)

        1. dogged

          thatwasthejoke.jpg

        2. dotdavid

          "ahem, while we're on the subject of correct spelling… ;-)"

          You obviously red my comment but didn't see the other deliberate mistake :-)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      lose...looses

      looses, as in 'Let Loose'?

      1. Alister

        Re: lose...looses

        @AC

        Um yeeesss? My point, exactly.

        Increasingly, I see commentards spelling lose - as in mislay or cease to have, as loose.

        Hence my comment.

        1. DJV Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: lose...looses

          And, many times, was there heard the swoosh sound of things going high over clueless heads.

          Have a beer, Alister!

      2. Florida1920

        Re: lose...looses

        looses, as in 'Let Loose'?

        Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of plug-in incompatibility!

        Mozilla, FFS, you let in Flash? It's almost 2016 -- Give us ad and script blocking without having to add plug-ins!

    3. saxicola

      I thought it was great to to see "looses" used correctly for once. I suspect that may have been the deliberate intention of the headline author. Made my day.

    4. Ed_UK
      Headmaster

      "Given that nobody seems able to spell the word correctly anymore ..."

      While you're at it, "anymore" is not an English word, although Merkins accept it. Here, it should be two separate words. Same goes for other non-words like "everytime" etc.

  3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Add-on compatibility

    Just upgraded and discovered that several plugins including PageSpeed no longer work. Not such a problem for me at the moment but worth checking before upgrading.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Add-on compatibility

      LastPass for me... But checked in the store, there is a validated version available. Worth double checking.

    2. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: Add-on compatibility

      I always found this to be the reason I shy away from FF. Plugins or extensions break, users can't do what they did yesterday... the sky is falling, the water is rising etc.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Add-on compatibility

        In this instance, they are moving away from unsigned add-ons to using signed add-ons to theoretically improve security. But if you add-on is no longer actively maintained, you might encounter problems.

        1. Dave K

          Re: Add-on compatibility

          Or you run into other issues, such as with FlashBlock where the current download points you to a version released in November, because the later version released in early December to fix some issues has yet to be signed.

          Thankfully, Pale Moon doesn't enforce the silly signing thing, so the later version works without hiccups. Interestingly, I find it strange that Mozilla are only just releasing 64bit Firefox into the wild, whereas Pale Moon, Waterfox and other such forks of Firefox have been happily available in 64bit mainstream versions for years....

    3. Neil 44

      Re: Add-on compatibility - Facebook purity

      Sounds like the "really useful" FB Purity is being impacted by the new FireFox:

      https://www.facebook.com/fluffbustingpurity/posts/10153641397712559

      1. Jos V

        Re: Add-on compatibility - Facebook purity

        "FB purity"... Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

        Not too bothered though. All FB related links are sent to 127.0.0.1 on this here laptop.

    4. Sebastian A

      Re: Add-on compatibility

      Add-ons are one thing, but have they stopped f'ing with the UI at every release yet? So sick of them constantly moving stuff around...

  4. Known Hero

    Memory woes ?

    Are they still an issue in the new ver ? or yet again are we yet again releasing a press release

  5. Bronek Kozicki
    Go

    woohoo!

    Firefox will now be able to utilize all of my 16GB RAM, leaving nothing for other applications! Wait. No, maybe I just stick with 32bit version.

    1. DrXym

      Re: woohoo!

      Firefox (and other modern browsers) allocate memory if you have a lot free in order to cache content, hang onto compiled JS and so on. Once system memory starts getting short (e.g. because you start a game or another large app), browsers respond by releasing some of that memory.

      Would you rather the memory just sat there unused?

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Unhappy

    First impression

    It disabled all my Kaspersky add-ins.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: First impression

      Try setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false in about:config, maybe you'll have to close and open the browser afterwards.

      This is planned to stop working in Firefox 44 so you'll need to change over to the ESR build before the next update if you still want unsigned addons to work after then.

      1. Werner McGoole

        Re: First impression

        Yep, this version of Firefox now enforces signing of extensions, although there is still an over-ride switch - at least until the next version, when that disappears. The need to have every darned extension signed by Mozilla has been heavily criticised by those who develop extensions for their own use, both on ease-of-use grounds plus the fact it can't possibly work. But Moz has pushed on regardless.

        Except that there has been a recent change of heart as the reality of what they are doing has become clearer (https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/12/01/de-coupling-reviews-from-signing-unlisted-add-ons/). From the way the announcement is phrased, you could easily miss what it means. In rough translation, it says:

        "If an extension isn't going to appear on the official Mozilla site, then they will automatically sign it (via a web API) with no checks whatsoever."

        Yes, it would appear that Mozilla are so determined that signing is a "good idea" that they're now prepared to sign code from anyone, anywhere; malware or not.

  7. cmrayer
    Paris Hilton

    er sure?

    Waterfox i.e. 64 bit Firefox, has been around for years...

    1. MrRimmerSIR!

      Re: er sure?

      Same for Palemoon.

    2. Fitz_

      Re: er sure?

      I hope Firefox64 doesn't share Waterfox's horrendous memory leaks.

  8. King Jack

    Coolpreviews not compatable

    Went to update Coolpreviews only to find out that it has been bought by Yahoo! Then shut down for a 'streamlined' service. Why do turd companies buy stuff only to shut it down and offer no replacement?

  9. pip25
    FAIL

    Article missed the most important change

    Signing addons is now compulsory, non-signed addons are disabled upon upgrade, which causes the issues other commenters experienced. You can override this with an "about:config" flag, but they want to remove that flag in the next release, making addons no longer supported by their developers completely unusable. Let's just say I'm less than thrilled about this. :/

    1. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: Article missed the most important change

      Mozilla seem determined to trash what users liked about Firefox, e.g the recent chrome aping (lack of) menus irritated many users.

      Now as the huge ecosystem of addins / extensions is the only real advantage of Firefox, they seem determined in breaking that too

  10. The Travelling Dangleberries

    Old style search engine picker only available with CTR

    The new style search box is now "compulsory" as the about:config fix has gone. You need Classic Theme Restorer to get the old drop down search engine picker back.

    I usually have six DDG and six Google search engines for searches in different countries/languages installed in my browsers. The new search engine picker just presents me with six identical icons and I need to hover over each to see which one it which. The old search box drop down allows me to see the titles of each search engine which makes locating the right one very easy.

    Yet another unhelpful UI change from Mozilla for no obvious benefit.

    1. Arctic fox
      Thumb Up

      @The Travelling Dangleberries Re: "Classic Theme Restorer"

      Thanks for that heads up - appreciate it.

    2. Saul Dobney

      Re: Old style search engine picker only available with CTR

      I do a load of research and f you do regularly swap between search engines for different searches (eg Google in various countries, dictionaries, manuals, encyclopedia, film sites, Amazon, scholar cross-checking) the enforced switch to the new style search is really frustrating. The new style is just so clunky, unintuitive and such a step backwards.

      Things like if you've entered some text, choosing a search engine runs the search instead of switching the suggestions list. And there is initially no obvious indicator of which search engine is default on the menu line - so if you have to start typing to know which search engine is set. At least in the old release you could turn the new style off.

    3. Adrian 4

      Re: Old style search engine picker only available with CTR

      It also changes the layout of the box containing the search icons, so they swap places when the browser window size changes.

  11. MrWibble

    MSE

    A good bit of the upgrade was that Youtube automatically uses HTML5 now, rather than flash (on Ubuntu). It's been a long time having to manually switch to the HTML5 player whenever cookies get deleted.

  12. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    It seems the old sync protocol has bit the dust

    And they haven't deigned to put out documentation or an at-least half working reference server for the new sync protocol, so no local sync server for you.

  13. Adrian Smart

    Terminological inexactitude

    Given that nowadays most new software is inferior to the previous version, surely the correct expression should be "Mozilla has excreted version 43 of its increasingly irrelevant browser"?

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Terminological inexactitude

      Yup, I'm still on an ancient ESR version, with no plans to update, ever.

  14. CAPS LOCK

    Is 'Hello' any closer to working...

    ... I can't be bothered to check, it's too depressing...

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone had to ask

    So, is it or is it not more safe to look at smut now?

  16. Richard Lloyd

    Had 64-bit Firefox for ages...

    Linux has had official 64-bit Firefox for ages and even Windows users have had both official (nightly) and unofficial (Palemoon/Waterfox) 64-bit builds too, so 64-bit isn't big news for those who really wanted it on Windows.

    One minor relief on the Linux side is that they've postponed the move from GTK+2 to GTK+3 until maybe version 45 in March next year - at which point it would break on at least one prominent LTS distro (CentOS 6) that's got support until Nov 2020.

  17. s. pam Silver badge
    Facepalm

    How about "World has flushed Firefox"?

    The lack of modernisation coupled with the malware and lack of security updates mean to many it is flushed from their $home, $work, and $life.

    Shame, they fscked things up so badly they handed the market to Chrome.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Re: How about "World has flushed Firefox"?

      Modernisation like getting a 64-bit version out (about time too)?

      Security updates like the ones described in the article?

      Getting plugins signed to help fight against, amongst other things, malware?

      Do you people even read the articles any more, or do you just see a piece of software you don't use and immediately start writing the comment slagging it off?

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like