Firefox 57 fights back and EPIC’s Google store tracking algorithm complaint (Page 2 of 2)

Updated 14th November 2017—Firefox goes Quantum

And with the Firefox Quantum (Firefox 57) release today some surprises, some good, some not so, and a rapturous hand waving intro-screen a little too reminiscent of that location bar retitled as “awesome bar” perhaps.

Giorgio Maone’s indispensable for some NoScript did not manage to make the migrating to Web Extensions after all.

With several other add-ons in my list not managing either, but a good job done by Moz with a “find a replacement” button for legacy extension, uMatrix (addons.mozilla.org) seemingly doing a fair—if with a lot more grid-based “allow this”, “don’t allow that” involved—job in place of NoScript for me, with all due respect to authors in that such detail may be exactly what particular users may require.

Thankful I am that I ported over the extension that were not going to make it over to ESR-based TOR browser yesterday, thus supporting those legacy add-ons till June ’18.

Updated 19th November 2017

But indeed, NoScript is attempting to get a Quantum compatible version:

Hopefully by the end of the week then.

Updated 20th November 2017

Available for Quantum today, with an improvement on the interface of old: NoScript Security Suite (addons.mozilla.org).

(22nd Nov. 2017: Although after a few days I’m concluding it’s become somewhat slow—almost doubling the load time—with some sites that it did not used to be; lets hope that improves and meanwhile, having got to grips with it, uMatrix is looking somewhat appealing—at least for now.

And so far the reviews in the digital press have been good:

Faster and even more minimalist, Firefox Quantum makes Chrome look old (digitaltrends.com).

For sure, it being fast to boot and responsive compared to the infuriating restart every few hours RAM hogging, finicky clunker Firefox had become. But time will tell if it was no so little but still too late, and whether baby was indeed thrown out with the legacy add-ons bathwater.

Updated 15th November 2017

But along with the switch to Gecko sitting somewhat nearer to Chromium it is perhaps no really surprising that past attempts to walk a separate path from Google tend to a miserable detour before finding yourself back on the same path you’d hoped to leave, as perhaps many attempting to switch to anything other than Google search quickly find themselves:

Google’s back: It’s Firefox’s default search engine again, after Mozilla ends Yahoo deal (zdnet.com).

Bravely attempting to find revenue source upon which it is ultimately dependent elsewhere and worth remembering that Yahoo search is actually Bing search, Google or Bing search results being what all other search engines return in whatever repackage that suits.

Recent/related stories