back to article Firefox hits prime time as version 37 manifests

Version 37 of Firefox is upon us, for ye olde PCs and Android. It's not the Mozilla Foundation's most revolutionary release by a long shot, with the headline feature being the inclusion of a new “Heartbeat” user feedback feature that “provides real-time understanding of our existing Desktop user population” and “ties user …

  1. John Tserkezis

    Even more phoning home?

    I'll just wait till we find out what the config options are to turn that off before I upgrade. It's like we all have unlimited bandwidth here or something.

    1. PleebSmash
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Even more phoning home?

      I'm running the developer edition, 38.0a2.

      about:preferences#advanced

      I'm assuming it's the checkbox labeled "Enable Firefox Developer Edition Health Report". It seems to be unchecked by default, so it could be opt-in (I don't recall changing any defaults since I installed this version). If you check that, you can also check "Share additional data (i.e., Telemetry)". Under that is "Enable Crash Reporter".

      The links in this post are the "Learn More" links in the browser's preferences.

  2. Kevin 6

    So does it change search engine settings, button layouts, and basically fuck up every other setting known to mankind like most the prior updates in the past few months?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Nope. I just updated. Looks the same.

  3. Geoffrey W

    On this day, even this early (at least where I am) I trust nothing I read on the internet, at least less than I usually do. That heart beat feature sounds iffy somehow...

    1. Captain DaFt

      Unfortunately, this one came out yesterday, and isn't an April fools joke, just the usual Firefox crap.

      There is a fix: In about:config - set browser.selfsupport.url to ""

      Or... just switch to Pale Moon or SeaMonkey.

      1. Geoffrey W

        So :-

        "provides real-time understanding of our existing Desktop user population” and “ties user perception to technical information..."

        Actually means something?

  4. Purple-Stater

    Feedback

    I'll be quite happy to provide daily feedback of "restore the ability for tabs-not-on-top and bring back the add-on bar without needing mods".

    1. Jad

      Re: Feedback

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/

      :)

      1. Purple-Stater

        Re: Feedback

        "...without needing mods"

        I do use ClassicThemeRestorer, but even with it putting the add-on bar back, FireFox will not let you install older add-ons that need it.

  5. Mage Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Meh

    Perhaps wait for 37.0.1

    They seem to make a lot of gratuitous stupid changes.

    Why not simply concentrate on stability, security and performance? or is that not cool looking?

    1. j j

      Re: Meh

      Should have actually read the article this time.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Meh

      Opportunistic encryption not good enough for you?

      http://bitsup.blogspot.it/2015/03/opportunistic-encryption-for-firefox.html

      Something for El Reg to implement server-side...

  6. EddieD

    Bookmarks.

    Have they brought back a nice, user-friendly, drop down menu - hierarchical or otherwise - of bookmarks, that doesn't involve a lot of tedious messing around and installing yet another add-on to restore functionality?

    1. Paratrooping Parrot
      Happy

      Re: Bookmarks.

      For drop down menu, just press the ALT key on the keyboard. This is on Windows. I don't know about other versions.

      1. Thecowking

        Re: Bookmarks.

        Works on Linux too. If you don't want to always have to press alt, you can right click on the bar and select "menu bar" to show it all the time.

        I wasn't aware there was another way to access bookmarks.

  7. Phuq Witt
    Facepalm

    Two-Fingers?

    Any news on whether they've fixed the 2-finger scrolling bug on OSX?

    It has only been there since 2013 and Version 25

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=927702

  8. Florida1920
    Paris Hilton

    Wait a minute

    Settings here are for manual update, not auto. Just checked my 36.0.4 (Win) (Help --> About) and it says Firefox is up to date.

    1. RFC822

      Re: Wait a minute

      "Me too" or "+1" or whatever it that people say these days.

      My work laptop and my personal laptop both upgraded to 37, but my main desktop tells me that it's on 36,0,4 and claims to be up to date.

  9. halfbaked

    Browser features

    This release, like most, doesn't seem to add much functionality of interest. Perhaps some Reg reader can enlighten me on why the following don't seem to be available:

    1. The ability to work out how much space is needed for pics and video windows to that the text on a webpage doesn't have to jump about for a while after it is opened.

    2. The ability to note my screen size and offer paging rather than scrolling through 'webpages' of text. Everybody accepts that paging is best for text and all readers do it.

    1. wdmot

      Re: Browser features

      A feature I'd like is to disable auto-play of any HTML5 media. It's very annoying when I'm scrolling down a page and suddenly video (ad or news or whatever) starts playing. And yes, I have media.autoplay.enabled set to false, and no, I don't have Flash installed. I want to be able to choose which video to play, and it must not rely on web programmers writing their code properly. NoScript has a roundabout way of doing this, but I don't see why it shouldn't be part of the browser itself, and easier to use.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Browser features

      1. The page doesn't include the tags which specify image sizes so the page has to be reflowed when the images are downloaded and the size is known.

      2. Can be done in HTML5.

      Edit: didn't downvote you.

  10. DanceMan

    Switched to Pale Moon

    On my primary home computer. Still have others on FF ESR. This article prompted me to check and update PM. I'd tried it a year ago and something in my extensions went awry, but I'm liking it now and it's happy with my package of extensions.

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