Mozilla burns Firefox on old Androids Mozilla's decided that enough is enough for old versions of Android, and will stop supporting its browser on Gingerbread and Honeycomb. For those who can't keep up with Google's Android naming scheme, Gingerbread was version 2.3 and Honeycomb was 3.0. Mozilla's lost its taste for both and will no longer support Android 3.0 …
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/
Don't leave home without it.
"Does it not save and restore the tree automatically when you quit and launch Firefox?"
Yes it does, but this can become a nightmare scenario if you have lots of tabs and lots of windows open.
It was recommended to me to use BarTab Heavy in addition to Tree Style Tabs.
It unloads tabs for you and let's you treat them like bookmarks. Also, when restarting Firefox, only the active tab in each window is fetched. REALLY cuts down on bandwidth and thrashing.
Also, when restarting Firefox, only the active tab in each window is fetched. REALLY cuts down on bandwidth and thrashing.
I don't know if it's TreeStyleTab, or a setting I tweaked yonks ago, but my Firefoxes (Iceweasels) only load the tab contents the first time you actually view that tab. So there's no bandwidth thrashing unless you manually get it to reload all tabs.
I do remember Firefox doing what you describe at one point, but that was a long time ago now.
Personally I've found tab groups quite useful to group related open tabs and avoid a long line of illegible tab names at the top of the browser window, so I must be one of those rare souls who will miss them. Of course, making them virtually undiscoverable if you don't know they're a thing won't have exactly helped take-up.
Ruari Odegård (ex-Opera dev) touted this particular feature yesterday when promoting the most recent version of Vivaldi
I don't use Vivaldi for everything but it does seem to have much the same kind of spirit of Opera of old.
Elsewhere Opere devs tout native ad-blocking as if 2003 had never happened. At least I think it was 2003 when Opera introduced ad-blocking. Before there were even extensions for other browsers.
That makes three of us, I also have installed the plug in, the alternative is sadness and regret.
When it comes to Jira, it's especially handy if you make a group for sub tickets of a master ticket. Oh and when a task has multiple issues associated with it, having them in a tab group really helps you see what you need to look out for and what's new bugs.
oh, wait, that browser is also really slow and resource addicted and probably outdated.
I am not a COF (yet), but I do miss the old systems (no, not "when the 'print' key acted like a 'hang / discard all changes' key" - as the BOFH observed)... it seems that I too pick features to use that "nobody wants or ever uses".
Waaay ahead of you, Firefox - I stopped updating the millisecond they started also asking for permission to use the microphone and precise location (and everything else under the sun). It's actually almost funny how many app developers think "but I know I'm perfectly honest and square - why would anyone not trust me completely?!?"
Waaay ahead of you, Firefox - I stopped updating the millisecond they started also asking for permission to use the microphone and precise location
What browser are you using then?
There may be totally legit reasons for asking these permissions. The microphone could be required for e.g. Firefox Hello service. And location is something that different websites may ask for - you can still deny access inside the browser. For example I am "punching in" when when starting and ending my workday with my phone using a simple mobile website - the website also collects location data required by my employer.
Would be great if you could install the software while denying permissions, though.
You frame these like they are good and reasonable things...
Yes, my employee expects me to punch in at my work place.
Even though I'm just an employee I have no problem with this because it'll weed out those people who just punch in at home and continue sleep even though they claim to be at a customer or remote office or such.
Presuming they don't know how to operate a VPN.
Does your office really have a vast tonnage of employees who would punch in from home and sleep? I'm betting not. So really they're throwing technology at a problem which could have been solved with one or two well-placed firings, meanwhile casting a veil of suspicion over their entire workforce.
I say run, don't walk, to a new job. Even the unemployment line would be preferable.
@AC - A test for reasonableness...do you have to specifically opt in to telemetry or do you have to:
1: Find out about it
2: Go through the settings until you find the bit that (hopefully) turns off telemetry
3: Do it again for location?
Sure there are probably specific use cases where this sort of data is both reasonable and agreed to by all parties. Unless it's opt in, though, it's a data slurp.
@AC - A test for reasonableness..
My employer has been open and told about this. It's a very simple mobile website where I login with my credentials and I've allowed this site to access the location data, i.e. at street address level. After I have punched in or out I close the browser and there's no more location data or other telemetry. This allows me to punch in at e.g. customer site or at the server farm instead of having to start my day at the main office where my chair and table are located. I can also clock overtime easily without filling forms.
IANAL so can't say whether my employer has the right for my location data while punching in or out, and I haven't found this too invading of my privacy.
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And in my experience, those users CAN'T really use Firefox because the specifications of their phones (if they're using Gingerbread phones that have resolution and RAM limitations, not to mention comparatively weak processors) make the program a bit out of their weight class.
Not to mention they probably contain never-will-be-patched vulnerabilities. And if the phone's obscure enough (I happen to own one such that I bought on the cheap while abroad), getting a custom ROM for it may not be an option.
All the modern browsers are irrelevance on older devices because of memory use (needed to go moar faster with modern websites). Opera Mini is a great choice for such devices and is well-maintained by Opera precisely for this market.
OTOH I suspect the numbers of users in developing countries on older versions (< 4.x) of Android is very small. They skipped it initially because hardware was too expensive. Once handsets became available for less than $ 100 they came with Android > 4 on them.
"Does Firefox work acceptably on older android devices?"
Yes. I have a rooted Nook Tablet (original) running Gingerbread and I have Firefox installed. Note that it seems you must stay under v34, as anything newer simply causes grief (more grief than usual for Firefox on Gingerbread, it is not 100% perfect but acceptable).
While I'm a long time and nearly exclusive FF user on PCs, and I do use it on Android, the damn thing is the least stable browser I've seen on Android. Merely resizing the screen will cause crashes sometimes on my Samsung device. I like FF for the UI and the way it's the only browser that will consistently render the desktop version of sites on sites that insist on giving you the mobile version, but I've nearly stopped using it anyway due to how unreliable it is.
When they binned fine-grained cookie control ("accept/deny this cookie" dialogs) that was the end of the road for Firefox for me.
I think that the real Firefox developers have left the house. The only "developers" left are the resume-padding "look ma! imma firefox developer!!" losers. They remove features because it's beyond their ability to add new ones. How else do you explain things like removing working useful features like the tabs preferences for absolutely no reason?
I think that you're right about the real developers having left the house, and I think the reason is the new management decision to go after the "average" user. As the average user expertise keeps going down, due to more people into that group, the browser features keep disappearing because less people know how to use them.
Who wants to work for a place that is less and less challenging every day? Firefox is now a Frankenstein browser with so many necessary Add-ons.
Time for a new open source browser that caters to demanding people. I wouldn't mind paying for a browser that got better all the time, instead of dumber...
I had to quit using Firefox on my Android devices (both 5 and 4) because I have run across too many web sites where Firefox won't work. I run into problems where you can't correctly select a link in a web site. You click with a mouse, touchpad, or screen tap and a different link gets activated. Had to rely on the non-firefox Browser that was preinstalled on the tablets.
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