Firefox Release Includes Total Cookie Protection and Multiple Picture-in-Picture(blog.mozilla.org)
blog.mozilla.org
Firefox Release Includes Total Cookie Protection and Multiple Picture-in-Picture
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/02/23/latest-firefox-release-includes-multiple-picture-in-picture-and-total-cookie-protection/
169 comments
I would pay for an ad-free experience so they have a stable source of income.
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agreed. having ff funded by not google /ads will be huge
Donate to the Mozilla Foundation and then turn that stuff off.
If only the Mozilla foundation would spend their money on Firefox only ...
I thought spending money on Firefox OS and rust projects was money well spent at the time. Wish it had continued
They don't spend donations on Firefox at all.
Do you have a source for this?
I was pretty sure they said it fairly plainly on their own site but what I could immediately find was more roundabout. You can see the things donations are used for here: https://foundation.mozilla.org
For a more straightforward statement, try this HN post relaying one user's correspondence with the Mozilla Foundation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20895624
For a more straightforward statement, try this HN post relaying one user's correspondence with the Mozilla Foundation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20895624
I make monthly donations to Mozilla to support their cause. I will stop my donations and migrate to a different browser if they continue down this path.
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We get the browser for free and these are just ads, not trackers - they are not stealing our data like Chrome, FB, and the rest.
I have nothing against straight ads.
I have nothing against straight ads.
I agree. But I use those links for quick links to site I visit a lot. THis gets in my way
Unfortunately, "ads" has become a synonym for many people to tracking and privacy and invasive elements, when like most things it encompasses a whole spectrum from minimal and informative (the name of the restaurant on the outside of the building)to manipulative and annoying. People feelings about one particularly negative segment of a spectrum often overflow into other examples and taint their feeling. It's just how people are.
I also have nothing against straight ads. Who knows how Mozilla will implement this though, and whether it will be more annoying than useful. I have some suspicions, but I'll reserve judgement until I've experienced them, since I sometimes have a hard time predicting correctly (as I suspect many people do) because the topic is somewhat emotionally charged.
I also have nothing against straight ads. Who knows how Mozilla will implement this though, and whether it will be more annoying than useful. I have some suspicions, but I'll reserve judgement until I've experienced them, since I sometimes have a hard time predicting correctly (as I suspect many people do) because the topic is somewhat emotionally charged.
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> I have nothing against straight ads.
Why? It's almost always noise nobody wants to see. Advertising hurts usability by definition. Putting ads in the address bar of all places is actually hostile to users: people who are used to finding bookmarks that way will end up opening sponsored links instead due to muscle memory.
Why? It's almost always noise nobody wants to see. Advertising hurts usability by definition. Putting ads in the address bar of all places is actually hostile to users: people who are used to finding bookmarks that way will end up opening sponsored links instead due to muscle memory.
Why not? The bills have to be paid. Wouldn't you rather they monetize their product in a responsible way than join the others? We live in the real world after all.
The responsible way to monetize something is to charge for it. Advertising makes it normal to have "free" products and people become slaves to it. Can't say or do anything they don't like lest they kill your income.
Sure, let's all build tree houses and live in them. If only problems can just be solved by willing the solution you want!
That's exactly what everyone should do. Instead of letting them get away with it, we should block it all unconditionally and by default, forcing them to find another solution that's acceptable. Linux distributions in particular are in the perfect position to patch this out and improve user experience for all their users.
But it's also Firefox, just go into about:config and turn it off if you don't like it and presto?
Yeah until the pref just stops working one day.
You just described all software ever released. Things always stop working one day and then we're forced to learn/get used to a new thing.
It's great to have an out. But are those synchronized? Because I find the increasing number of tweaks difficult to remember. Tyranny of the default is real.
Put any preferred tweaks in a user.js file in the profile directory, // commented with meanings and reasons,
and save wetware memory.
When I was young and enthusiastic I used to maintain user and chrome CSS overrides like that. Synced via DropBox no less!
Now I am older and tired of doing the symlinking every time I setup a new install of Ff.
Now I am older and tired of doing the symlinking every time I setup a new install of Ff.
Just copy your ~/.mozilla everywhere. I too have been using the same profile for about a decade, across many machines.
How often do you set up new installs?
I've been moving around the same firefox install since Opera died.
I've been moving around the same firefox install since Opera died.
Oh they're trying to remove that ability as well:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1543752
It's a slow and steady advance, not something that happens overnight.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1543752
It's a slow and steady advance, not something that happens overnight.
Personally my concern is more fundamental than that.
If mozilla is moving towards expanding advertising in FF from the developer, then they're changing their incentive structure in a way that makes putting ads in front of my eyes against my wishes more and more beneficial to them.
I can't see this as a good step forward. It only leads to places where they're incentivized to make the browser worse to make more money.
If mozilla is moving towards expanding advertising in FF from the developer, then they're changing their incentive structure in a way that makes putting ads in front of my eyes against my wishes more and more beneficial to them.
I can't see this as a good step forward. It only leads to places where they're incentivized to make the browser worse to make more money.
> I have nothing against straight ads.
I do. They are actively hostile to the user experience. I will criticise any update to software that deliberately makes the user experience worse.
I do. They are actively hostile to the user experience. I will criticise any update to software that deliberately makes the user experience worse.
Ok, well suggest a different way they can make money then. No, donations are not cutting it.
> No, donations are not cutting it
It probably doesn't help that you can't choose to donate to/for Firefox. If you disagree with other things Mozilla is doing, perhaps moreso than the things you agree with, then you don't really have much options.
For many people, advertisements - especially ones enabled without announcement, sneakily - are simply an unacceptable red line, nomatter how important Mozilla thinks they are.
It probably doesn't help that you can't choose to donate to/for Firefox. If you disagree with other things Mozilla is doing, perhaps moreso than the things you agree with, then you don't really have much options.
For many people, advertisements - especially ones enabled without announcement, sneakily - are simply an unacceptable red line, nomatter how important Mozilla thinks they are.
Right, now the goalposts have shifted. You aren’t donating because “you can’t donate specifically to Firefox, only to Mozilla as a whole”. What ridiculous excuse will you people come up with next?
Alright, I'll bite. I donate quite a bit of my income to FOSS projects (which is pretty low due to living in the third world, so it's not a lot of money). I would gladly donate specifically towards Firefox development, but they are not spending donations on Firefox at all, and I would rather spend that cast (which I don't have a lot of) towards some other technical goal like Wayland infrastructure development, instead of wasting it (as I see it) to advance some social goal in the US which is completely alien to me.
I should also add that I never disable any telemetry in Firefox or anything that helps them earn a cent or two (as long as it does not abuse my privacy too much, and there were not a lot of those during 15+ years of using Firefox exclusively.)
I should also add that I never disable any telemetry in Firefox or anything that helps them earn a cent or two (as long as it does not abuse my privacy too much, and there were not a lot of those during 15+ years of using Firefox exclusively.)
It's not really shifting the goalposts if your suggestion was donate to Firefox and the answer is you can't.
I would donate to specific bugs.
The problem is not that your donations will go to other things but including Firefox. The problem is that there is no way for the money of your donations to end up in funding Firefox development. Mozilla Foundation money does not flow towards Firefox corporation.
Note, I've heard that Mozilla takes donations, but I don't think Firefox does.
Personally I don't mind at all if Mozilla wants to display ads in Treeherder or in their corporate offices, I wouldn't even feel like I want to pay to remove those :)
My point being, I don't expect firefox donations would amount to very many millions, but it's important to note that today the option doesn't really even exist.
Personally I don't mind at all if Mozilla wants to display ads in Treeherder or in their corporate offices, I wouldn't even feel like I want to pay to remove those :)
My point being, I don't expect firefox donations would amount to very many millions, but it's important to note that today the option doesn't really even exist.
> Ok, well suggest a different way they can make money then.
Don't.
If that means not doing further development, great. Leave that to people who want to make the software better, not worse.
If you can find a way to monetise software, that's fantastic, but if that monetisation requires degrading quality I have no respect for it.
Don't.
If that means not doing further development, great. Leave that to people who want to make the software better, not worse.
If you can find a way to monetise software, that's fantastic, but if that monetisation requires degrading quality I have no respect for it.
Guess what, “the people who want to make the software better” can start today! Just fork it, it’s all open source! Wait, why hasn’t that happened yet? Is it because those people have bills to pay? Hmm...
> Wait, why hasn’t that happened yet?
You mean apart from Pale Moon, Basilisk, Waterfox, Tor, XB, Iceweasel, Swiftfox, Swiftweasel, Cometbird, and IceDragon?
Yeah no idea why that thing that has happened several times hasn't happened.
You mean apart from Pale Moon, Basilisk, Waterfox, Tor, XB, Iceweasel, Swiftfox, Swiftweasel, Cometbird, and IceDragon?
Yeah no idea why that thing that has happened several times hasn't happened.
Charge for it, like any other product. Opera used to do it, a long time ago. I think it was about $40 for a license.
How's that going to work when Firefox is free-as-in-freedom? Or are you suggesting they go closed source?
I don't think donations go towards browser development. Goes more towards general Internet advocacy, social justice campaigns, and salaries of employees of the Foundation who don't work on Firefox.
You realise how weird this sounds, right? Presumably you donate because you care about the Mozilla mission, and those ads are there because donations alone aren't enough, and relying purely on Google's money is also not a great strategy. What do you want them to do, invent money out of thin air?
And it's still Firefox: if you're upset enough to consider "migration to a different browser", why not instead get upset enough to just look up the pref that turns them off? Because that's the whole point of Firefox: you're still in control of your browser, and almost everything is yours to set to your liking, even if it's not in the normal options UI. Don't want those ads? Hit up about:config, turn them off, problem solved?
And in the mean time, Mozilla still needs your help, because breaking today's Chrome dominance by offering a better product (not just a competing one. People don't switch if the offering is more of the same) is orders of magnitudes more difficult than when they broke IE's dominance many decades ago.
And it's still Firefox: if you're upset enough to consider "migration to a different browser", why not instead get upset enough to just look up the pref that turns them off? Because that's the whole point of Firefox: you're still in control of your browser, and almost everything is yours to set to your liking, even if it's not in the normal options UI. Don't want those ads? Hit up about:config, turn them off, problem solved?
And in the mean time, Mozilla still needs your help, because breaking today's Chrome dominance by offering a better product (not just a competing one. People don't switch if the offering is more of the same) is orders of magnitudes more difficult than when they broke IE's dominance many decades ago.
Adding ads, unannounced, and purposely placing them where they know people will accidentally open them due to muscle memory is some absolute user-hostile garbage. They know exactly what they are doing.
More importantly, it's not just ads. This is another example in a long line of conveniently whoops-didn't-mean-to thumbs in the eyes of users. Mozilla has this weird split-brain, one step forward two steps back mentality when it comes to building and fighting for their users.
It's exhausting to see this pattern play out over and over, so it absolutely makes sense that people will eventually get fed up with it and stop donating.
More importantly, it's not just ads. This is another example in a long line of conveniently whoops-didn't-mean-to thumbs in the eyes of users. Mozilla has this weird split-brain, one step forward two steps back mentality when it comes to building and fighting for their users.
It's exhausting to see this pattern play out over and over, so it absolutely makes sense that people will eventually get fed up with it and stop donating.
> Mozilla has this weird split-brain, one step forward two steps back mentality when it comes to building and fighting for their users.
The forward people and the backward people are probably different people.
The forward people and the backward people are probably different people.
> You realise how weird this sounds, right? Presumably you donate because you care about the Mozilla mission, and those ads are there because donations alone aren't enough, and relying purely on Google's money is also not a great strategy
It also feels weird to donate to have an ad-free, privacy first, open source browser and get ads in it.
> And it's still Firefox: if you're upset enough to consider "migration to a different browser", why not instead get upset enough to just look up the pref that turns them off?
Default settings matter. "Just turn it off" is not a valid suggestion in my opinion.
It also feels weird to donate to have an ad-free, privacy first, open source browser and get ads in it.
> And it's still Firefox: if you're upset enough to consider "migration to a different browser", why not instead get upset enough to just look up the pref that turns them off?
Default settings matter. "Just turn it off" is not a valid suggestion in my opinion.
That's not what you donate to? You don't donations to the firefox application, you donate to Mozilla. It's not a "pay to get a better browser" scheme, you're donating because you care about their mission, and Mozilla uses that money to further that mission. Firefox does not get funded by donation, it has its own revenue stream and it's been losing money for years, so do you want it to at least not die? Then you'll have to accept that they _need_ money and unless you happen to have a cool few hundred million lying around to sign over directly for Firefox as a non-donation, no-obligations-other-than-it-goes-to-firefox sponsor partnership, this is how hard it is to get money in this landscape.
You know what most sites and services do when they need our help? They ask.
If Mozilla is going broke, ask for donations by all means! Slap ads all over Firefox by all means.
Get my consent first though, eh? Give me a chance to open my wallet before you start ruining the only reason I interact with your company.
Can I note this is not the first time Firefox had made people think they've been hacked for monetary gain. I also disabled any and all checkboxes that involved being experimented on which they have ignored for this one.
Remember when they promised it wouldn't happen again? I do.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-investigates-mr-robot-fire...
If Mozilla is going broke, ask for donations by all means! Slap ads all over Firefox by all means.
Get my consent first though, eh? Give me a chance to open my wallet before you start ruining the only reason I interact with your company.
Can I note this is not the first time Firefox had made people think they've been hacked for monetary gain. I also disabled any and all checkboxes that involved being experimented on which they have ignored for this one.
Remember when they promised it wouldn't happen again? I do.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-investigates-mr-robot-fire...
I absolutely do, and this is nothing like the mr. robot nonsense. Browsers constantly pull the rug from under you, firefox is on the same level of offender as Chrome in that respect, but at least in firefox you get to then go "actually, no", instead of going "well I guess I'm fucked, time to get used to this. Again"
> invent money out of thin air?
This is the exact businessmodel of Brave. So apparently is is not that strange a suggestion.
This is the exact businessmodel of Brave. So apparently is is not that strange a suggestion.
I meant what is 'money' anyway? :)
> What do you want them to do, invent money out of thin air?
You're talking of Bitcoin donations, right? ;-)
You're talking of Bitcoin donations, right? ;-)
Not after the Tesla thing =D
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How many ads could they add to the browser before you'd agree with them?
> You realise how weird this sounds, right? Presumably you donate because you care about the Mozilla mission, and those ads are there because donations alone aren't enough, and relying purely on Google's money is also not a great strategy. What do you want them to do, invent money out of thin air?
If Facebook made 32.03 per user last year, I think it's fair to say that Mozilla will probably do even better if they offer an ad-free subscription option for e.g. 36/y across their entire suite of services.
It's not weird to expect Mozilla to do their best to try and remain solvent.
If Facebook made 32.03 per user last year, I think it's fair to say that Mozilla will probably do even better if they offer an ad-free subscription option for e.g. 36/y across their entire suite of services.
It's not weird to expect Mozilla to do their best to try and remain solvent.
I'm afraid I'm understanding this correctly:
Near 100% of Mozilla users would agree to get the $36/year subscription?
Near 100% of Mozilla users would agree to get the $36/year subscription?
> I'm afraid I'm understanding this correctly:
> Near 100% of Mozilla users would agree to get the $36/year subscription?
No, not at all.
And I'm surprised at how many downvotes this is getting, but the basic concept is that at $36/y, each person paying that amount will assuredly be donating more to Mozilla than Mozilla would be making from ads on that user. I couldn't find any numbers on what Mozilla makes from ads, but I'd be surprised if it approached what Facebook makes per user.
> Near 100% of Mozilla users would agree to get the $36/year subscription?
No, not at all.
And I'm surprised at how many downvotes this is getting, but the basic concept is that at $36/y, each person paying that amount will assuredly be donating more to Mozilla than Mozilla would be making from ads on that user. I couldn't find any numbers on what Mozilla makes from ads, but I'd be surprised if it approached what Facebook makes per user.
Not at all. Most of them will do what everybody does when there are free (as in beer) alternatives: use the free one.
Looks like they mentioned this here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sponsor-privacy
It's apparently being trialed to a limited subset of users.
It's apparently being trialed to a limited subset of users.
AKA they want to see what kind of backslash they will have to weather before they roll this out.
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Thanks for restoring order to my world view. I always face Firefox updates these days with trepidation about what fundamental interface functionality they're going to turn from perfectly adequate to shit this time.
The present update seemed to break the pattern, but apparently things are going according to expectations after all.
And so far it's a bug that has an off-switch. Best kind. Much obliged for the documentation.
And so far it's a bug that has an off-switch. Best kind. Much obliged for the documentation.
At this point, I dream of a competitor arriving. One that that would be supported by the community and actually care about competent users, like Firefox once was.
AFAICT, Firefox (Mozilla Corporation) wants dumb users, an expanding platform they control and ad money.
There is no way to donate for Firefox development, nor can you pay for support, nor specific development or feature requests. People would throw money at them, yet they try finding creative ways to monetize their users in an effort to "diversify sources of income".
Meanwhile they continue to show they are in control of your browser - ignoring user preferences, hotpatching, A/B tests, dozens of requests without a single page open and no way to disable, numerous ways of advertising...
I still consider Firefox the lesser evil, but the stage is ripe for an uprising.
AFAICT, Firefox (Mozilla Corporation) wants dumb users, an expanding platform they control and ad money.
There is no way to donate for Firefox development, nor can you pay for support, nor specific development or feature requests. People would throw money at them, yet they try finding creative ways to monetize their users in an effort to "diversify sources of income".
Meanwhile they continue to show they are in control of your browser - ignoring user preferences, hotpatching, A/B tests, dozens of requests without a single page open and no way to disable, numerous ways of advertising...
I still consider Firefox the lesser evil, but the stage is ripe for an uprising.
Amazon and eBay search defaults are already there in any standard Firefox installation. Now, in this UX test, they are marking them as sponsored, making them more transparent not less.
I can't reproduce that. How do I reproduce that?
Apparently it's an A/B test thing. I was a lucky winner. All I did was update (Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS)
To confirm I disabled all plugins immediately to ensure it was bog standard Firefox (which is why I was so irritated at the time, proper threw off my day).
Bonus it had the Amazon tracking code "admpdesktopuk-21", which if you do a search reveals a bunch of plugins that went rogue.
E: apologies I can't track down the source where I saw it was an ab test
To confirm I disabled all plugins immediately to ensure it was bog standard Firefox (which is why I was so irritated at the time, proper threw off my day).
Bonus it had the Amazon tracking code "admpdesktopuk-21", which if you do a search reveals a bunch of plugins that went rogue.
E: apologies I can't track down the source where I saw it was an ab test
I am seeing it in my Windows firefox install.
Can confirm I get this in Firefox on Fedora 33.
I like to support Mozilla and I know they need funds... But don't mess with my interface. This is a bad bad move.
Why is the default enabled? Defaults are supposed to be sane and this is anything but sane or desired.
Presumably shipping ads ( or 'sponsored content') off by default would leave them with a low adoption rate... this is the sort of feature that people don't really request in their browsers.
Fortunately, this probably doesn't do any extra tracking. Unfortunately, that means my distribution (Debian) probably isn't going to protect me from these sort of features now and in the future, as I don't think this breaks the DFSG.
I wish I didn't have to be on the lookout for user-hostile change from an org like mozilla, one of the few big tech companies that tries to fight for users. I too would much rather pay for firefox development than see more ads in my browser :/
Fortunately, this probably doesn't do any extra tracking. Unfortunately, that means my distribution (Debian) probably isn't going to protect me from these sort of features now and in the future, as I don't think this breaks the DFSG.
I wish I didn't have to be on the lookout for user-hostile change from an org like mozilla, one of the few big tech companies that tries to fight for users. I too would much rather pay for firefox development than see more ads in my browser :/
> Presumably shipping ads ( or 'sponsored content') off by default would leave them with a low adoption rate... this is the sort of feature that people don't really request in their browsers.
Geez almost like users don't want sponsored content in their address bar...
Geez almost like users don't want sponsored content in their address bar...
That is just a silly question. Of course nobody will go through the trouble of opening their settings just to enable ads. But if they are on by default many people (including me) won't mind them enough to bother turning them off again.
Its only silly if you look at it from one perspective. Looking at it from the customer's point of view, its quite reasonable. Looking at it from the business point of view, its justifiable experience degradation for cost of doing business.
I don't think as a user its unreasonable for me to expect software vendors to do the right thing for me. Whether they do it or not is their choice, I'm still rightfully allowed to complain about it.
I don't think as a user its unreasonable for me to expect software vendors to do the right thing for me. Whether they do it or not is their choice, I'm still rightfully allowed to complain about it.
As a user I want them to do things that make business sense, because I want them to have the money to keep developing the browser. If that means an occasional minor inconvenience for me I'm okay with that.
I don't use products that inconvenience me when there are other options available that provide superior experience.
reminds me of brave
I find useful the Picture-in-Picture feature when was introduced, but find it really annoying that the icon has to be visible on every video (on mouse hover), and I disable it.
Hope they introduce an option to show a PiP icon on the address bar when a video is on the tab, which is less intrusive, like the Reader View icon/feature.
Hope they introduce an option to show a PiP icon on the address bar when a video is on the tab, which is less intrusive, like the Reader View icon/feature.
That's a terrible UI for pages with multiple videos.
Disagree.
When the page has multiple videos, the icon can show options to PiP them individually or PiP them all.
Also users should still have the option to show the PiP button over each video.
When the page has multiple videos, the icon can show options to PiP them individually or PiP them all.
Also users should still have the option to show the PiP button over each video.
The technical details of Total Cookie Protection are going to be of interest to any web dev: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Pri...
It's not enabled by default (it's part of Strict privacy controls), but I think the heuristics it's using might be copied by other browser or extensions implementing similar features. I don't love the amount of "heuristics-based" features being added to browsers, since they're not always easy to discover as a developer, but it's certainly better than a whitelist/blacklist system like Google"s used for certain features. The console.log entries that article mentions should help a bit with debugging as well.
It's not enabled by default (it's part of Strict privacy controls), but I think the heuristics it's using might be copied by other browser or extensions implementing similar features. I don't love the amount of "heuristics-based" features being added to browsers, since they're not always easy to discover as a developer, but it's certainly better than a whitelist/blacklist system like Google"s used for certain features. The console.log entries that article mentions should help a bit with debugging as well.
What do people use Picture in Picture for? I have still never found a use for it, on any of the devices I have that support it.
Listening / watching YT video essays while doing something else. Having a borderless floating video is preferrable to having issues with getting a full browser window to float on top.
(Especially on tablets.)
(Especially on tablets.)
I have long been using an external player for all videos (with a Firefox extension to launch it) so that I can
- Switch to other tabs and still see the video
- Use the shortcuts of the native player same as for local video files
- Use all the features of the native player including better hardware acceleration
I guess this feature helps with the first of these while not requiring additional setup.
- Switch to other tabs and still see the video
- Use the shortcuts of the native player same as for local video files
- Use all the features of the native player including better hardware acceleration
I guess this feature helps with the first of these while not requiring additional setup.
I use it when I'm drawing on my Cintiq to have a small video in the corner I can idly watch while drawing.
When playing video games I can use PiP to place a video on top of my fullscreen game.
When playing video games I can use PiP to place a video on top of my fullscreen game.
I most often use it when reading a news article that has a short clip, to be able to scroll down to read the rest of the article while playing the clip so I can keep an eye on when the interesting part comes.
Also for keeping covid press conferences open while I do other stuff. I could move the tab to a new window and then resize it to only show the video, but this is far less effort.
Also for keeping covid press conferences open while I do other stuff. I could move the tab to a new window and then resize it to only show the video, but this is far less effort.
Yeah I hate when i click that button. if i want to do something else i close the video.
Keep a small video playing a local Comission of inquiry whilst working
watching a video while you browse other stuff
Can’t you just...pop out the window like any other? I don’t get it
You can, but it’ll just be a window then with all the rest of the stuff on that webpage and all the browser/OS chrome taking up space. PiP you just get that video independently and nothing else taking up space.
too much wasted space. Also some sites shrink down the video if you shrink down the window (i.e. no theater mode).
Does that stay on top of all windows and use minimal UI chrome?
I was wondering : What is the purpose of picture in picture? I don't have any use case for it and was curious about who does.
I haven't used it much, but it does allow you to not have to pull a tab out for youtube or the like if you want to watch something on the side while doing something else, and it does it with zero extra interface, which is nice (it's always annoying when I want to resize a video in the window to take almost all the window size and there's useless padding I can't easily bypass).
I've used it when I am multitasking (watching something fun while "working") or while taking notes on the video.
Same - especially when there's a rocket launch or other long-running stream. I shrink the PIP view to a tiny thumbnail in a corner of the screen so I don't miss anything.
I use it to make it easy to pass the video only to OBS Studio - the video shows up as a separate window.
I use PiP in Safari, and I find it useful for watching a video in a small window in the corner of my screen without having to keep the page the video was on (YouTube, etc.) open. That way, I can watch the video while reading other tabs, or working in other windows.
It's nice because PiP (at least Safari's/macOS' implementation) keeps the video above all other windows, and it even carries over into other Spaces.
In short: multitasking.
It's nice because PiP (at least Safari's/macOS' implementation) keeps the video above all other windows, and it even carries over into other Spaces.
In short: multitasking.
I've used it to put video from web based video chat on top of a full screen video, while still keeping focus on the main video. I mainly browse with a whole bunch of tabs open instead of multiple windows, so it's useful to pull a video out of a page and be able to navigate away and continue watching instead of dragging to a new window which would take up more space and get lost more easily. I've also used it for checking docs while following video tutorials, or watching recorded classes while looking at assignment pages.
opening a sports game stream and keeping it on top in the corner while doing something else (my use case)
It is rare, but sometimes a video embedded in a web page has no option to make it full screen. I can click the PIP button in Firefox, then I can double-click it to make it full screen. Nice workaround for those moments.
Maybe they should just add that option for all videos.
I use it for when I want to watch multiple streams of the same event.
I LOVE the picture in picture feature. It's nice for multitasking - I can pull up a video and put it on top of any other full-screen app or webpage.
It's kinda baffling me, I can't do two things at the same time. At best I listen to music, but any words (podcast) or visual distraction totally pulls me off of what I was doing.
Same goes with using a chat feature while in a different meeting.
So the whole picture in picture to me is more distraction.
I'm glad to see some people find it valuable because I was failing to find its usefulness.
Same goes with using a chat feature while in a different meeting.
So the whole picture in picture to me is more distraction.
I'm glad to see some people find it valuable because I was failing to find its usefulness.
I've run into videos where the option is either to watch a tiny video as-is in the page (too small), or make it full screen (too large), with no in-between option. Twitch clips are an example of this.
If I pop the video out via PiP, I can resize it to a comfortable inbetween size.
If I pop the video out via PiP, I can resize it to a comfortable inbetween size.
I use it literally all the time: i watch a video while i do other low intensity stuff, like browsing or messaging.
> If a tracker tracker.example (as classified by the Enhanced Tracking Protection) redirects to a non-tracker a.example and tracker.example received user interaction as a first-party within the last 45 days, tracker.example is granted storage access to a.example for 15 minutes.
Why is Mozilla creating a special exception for Facebook (and Google) while those two are the worst privacy invaders?
Why is Mozilla creating a special exception for Facebook (and Google) while those two are the worst privacy invaders?
We just had a big thread about Total Cookie Protection:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26237404
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26237404
I guess multi PiP makes sense. But I'd really like to be able to show any element in PiP, not just videos
I used to have an add-on that did exactly this. Don't know if it made the Web extension jump.
Actually, what I'd really like is to be able to use PiP through the standard https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Picture-in-... at all
Good to see that in last few releases, no needless UI changes were introduced (which were causing dramas in the past).
Brace yourself: major UI revamp coming around Firefox 89, https://google.com/search?q=firefox%20proton
> The new Proton interface is much easier on the eye the original interface.
It looks almost exactly the same to me, just a couple things shuffled around.
Anyway, I think it's perfect exactly how it is.
It looks almost exactly the same to me, just a couple things shuffled around.
Anyway, I think it's perfect exactly how it is.
oh no, the megabar is still there
RIP CTRL-SHIFT-B
Is there any privacy benifit to use containers now with the new isolations built into firefox? I'm using cookie autodelete + Containers, So now its either isolate and keep them or Isolate and delete them. I quite like this.
Containers aren't going to give you additional protection against third-party cookies with this feature. But, you still have other useful benefits like having different sessions open on the same websites using containers, or just grouping websites by forcing them into specific containers (Work/Personal/Random etc..).
I'm not the one who asked the question but am in the same position. All third-party content is off, I'm using a long-term container for stuff where I need to be logged, and temporary containers and no first-party cookies for everything else. I do have some bugs with the interaction of both so I'm happy if I can have the same think with stock Firefox
I use containers to maintain multiple logins for the same site. It's handy to log in to the analytics + hosting account etc all in one container.
Multiple PiP is a great idea
PiP is one of those things that never seemed particularly useful to me until I started using it, and now it’s one of my favourite features
For some odd reason I don't get the PiP icon on the firefox demo video. It works well on different youtube videos though :)
Is there a possibility sites just begin blocking Firefox?
It's only ~8% of the desktop market share and ~4% across all devices. It doesn't seem inconceivable sites just give up supporting it if they're not getting the ad revenue.
It's only ~8% of the desktop market share and ~4% across all devices. It doesn't seem inconceivable sites just give up supporting it if they're not getting the ad revenue.
technically impossible, firefox would be forced to pretend to be another browser.
What, you mean like this? (from Chrome)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36
With fingerprinting it's not impossible. Quoting a recent Webkit thread[1] in which Google blocked all sign in from non-Safari WebKit browsers:
> But if Google does this properly and uses more sophisticated browser fingerprinting techniques, Epiphany is done for. This could be an existential threat for non-Safari WebKit browsers. Nobody is going to be interested in using a browser that doesn't support Google websites. Google's expressly-stated goal is to block embedded browser frameworks and non-supported browsers from signing into Google accounts. The blog post says: "This block affects CEF-based apps and other non-supported browsers." It says: "We do not allow sign-in from browsers based on frameworks like CEF or Embedded Internet Explorer."
[1] https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2020-November/...
> But if Google does this properly and uses more sophisticated browser fingerprinting techniques, Epiphany is done for. This could be an existential threat for non-Safari WebKit browsers. Nobody is going to be interested in using a browser that doesn't support Google websites. Google's expressly-stated goal is to block embedded browser frameworks and non-supported browsers from signing into Google accounts. The blog post says: "This block affects CEF-based apps and other non-supported browsers." It says: "We do not allow sign-in from browsers based on frameworks like CEF or Embedded Internet Explorer."
[1] https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2020-November/...
wow, if you're still using chrome it might be time to re-asses that.
Even if technically impossible, by simply not supporting it - which is already happening - FF will just lose additional market share. I'm at a point where I keep an additional Chromium installed along with my nicely configured FF, because of how many sites doesn't work.
8% is a lot! and Firefox isn't alone, Safari is also on the same path.
They would still get ad revenue, it just might be notably less since the ads are less targeted.
Microsoft's Skype web client already blocks Firefox. But it's easily rectified by changing the user agent to Chrome or Edge.
As an example, Slack doesn't support audio calls in Firefox on Linux.
That just means I tell my colleagues I can't receive Slack audio calls and we use an alternative tool for that.
There is momentum in a choice like that though and even if Slack were to add Firefox support tomorrow we probably wouldn't switch to using them for audio.
They do offer an election based app for Linux but I'm not interested in that over head when I can just keep a browser tab open for Slack chat.
For me you either support open standards or you don't get used.
That just means I tell my colleagues I can't receive Slack audio calls and we use an alternative tool for that.
There is momentum in a choice like that though and even if Slack were to add Firefox support tomorrow we probably wouldn't switch to using them for audio.
They do offer an election based app for Linux but I'm not interested in that over head when I can just keep a browser tab open for Slack chat.
For me you either support open standards or you don't get used.
[deleted]
but still no shortcut to show PiP.
also no shortcut to pin and unpin tab.
Firefox is great, major downsides for me are the lack of good shortcut (especially for macOS).
Firefox is great, major downsides for me are the lack of good shortcut (especially for macOS).
Still no subtitles for picture-in-picture though =(
I'm not complaining I asked for multiple picture-in-picture.
Cool, but when will they release a feature that makes it so I can run a Zoom call without turning my MBP into a toaster hot enough to melt diamonds?
Zoom is a different software, so I don't really see a connection to Firefox. Am I missing something?
Zoom calls in Firefox -- a lot of people don't download the software but just run it in browser.
Does it run hotter than in other browsers? It seems likely that it's Zoom's problem.
It's all streaming. Twitch, YouTube.
Running any of those on Firefox, vs. other browsers, is a lot hotter.
I did a post about it and according to Apple's "Energy Usage" Firefox was like 50x higher than Safari and 30x higher than Chrome on the same sort of streaming call.
Try it for yourself next time you're on a Zoom call.
Firefox is my browser of choice, but so annoying that they don't take battery use / optimization seriously.
Running any of those on Firefox, vs. other browsers, is a lot hotter.
I did a post about it and according to Apple's "Energy Usage" Firefox was like 50x higher than Safari and 30x higher than Chrome on the same sort of streaming call.
Try it for yourself next time you're on a Zoom call.
Firefox is my browser of choice, but so annoying that they don't take battery use / optimization seriously.
This is what happens when apple forces browsers to use Safari's rendering engine. Could it be better, sure. Use an OS that allows Firefox to use its own renderer if it bugs you that much.
You're mixing up macOS and iOS. The user is referring to Firefox on a MacBook Pro where there are no restrictions on choice of rendering engine.
You're also mixing up symptoms. If all browsers were forced to use the same rendering engine, you'd see little divergence of CPU/energy usage. The user is seeing a wild divergence—which is what you might expect when browsers are using different rendering engines.
You're also mixing up talking points. People have accused Safari of being many things, but being profligate with CPU/energy usage is certainly not one of them.
You're also mixing up symptoms. If all browsers were forced to use the same rendering engine, you'd see little divergence of CPU/energy usage. The user is seeing a wild divergence—which is what you might expect when browsers are using different rendering engines.
You're also mixing up talking points. People have accused Safari of being many things, but being profligate with CPU/energy usage is certainly not one of them.
So it's a Webkit issue? Honestly haven't got a clue what caused it. Just wish they'd fix it. Love all the privacy features of Firefox... but I have no inherent love for Gecko. Like that's all behind the scenes stuff. Does it matter, from a privacy perspective? Any insight into the aversion to using Webkit? Chrome uses Webkit on MacOS and Blink on Windows, yeah? Seems like the way to go.
I want my Mac Hardware, it feels nice. I want to use Firefox, I trust it and I like that I can automatically clear cookies and history on close... The fact that Chrome pushes you to sign in is so fundamentally offensive to me. Just super-creepy. So I want Firefox on Mac, but I have no strong feelings towards Gecko one way or the other, if that's what's causing my computer to over heat... wish they'd just swap it out for Webkit.
I want my Mac Hardware, it feels nice. I want to use Firefox, I trust it and I like that I can automatically clear cookies and history on close... The fact that Chrome pushes you to sign in is so fundamentally offensive to me. Just super-creepy. So I want Firefox on Mac, but I have no strong feelings towards Gecko one way or the other, if that's what's causing my computer to over heat... wish they'd just swap it out for Webkit.
Being Apple-built software, Safari/Webkit will always take advantage of all the hardware accelerated graphics capabilities and optimisations available in Mac laptops.
Firefox/Gecko has an excellent rendering engine but Mozilla has often been late to the party with hardware acceleration on Mac.
It's also worth noting that Safari doesn't necessarily support all the same video codecs as Firefox, so for example Zoom might be using hardware accelerated h264 in Safari whereas in Firefox might use a more advanced codec (e.g. VP9) for which your MacBook might have no hardware acceleration capability. If this is the case, Firefox ought to give users the option to disable support for these non-accelerated codecs when running on battery power.
Firefox/Gecko has an excellent rendering engine but Mozilla has often been late to the party with hardware acceleration on Mac.
It's also worth noting that Safari doesn't necessarily support all the same video codecs as Firefox, so for example Zoom might be using hardware accelerated h264 in Safari whereas in Firefox might use a more advanced codec (e.g. VP9) for which your MacBook might have no hardware acceleration capability. If this is the case, Firefox ought to give users the option to disable support for these non-accelerated codecs when running on battery power.
> So it's a Webkit issue?
It's not a Webkit issue. The parent comment is confusing iOS with macOS and the rendering engine used by Firefox on macOS.
It's not a Webkit issue. The parent comment is confusing iOS with macOS and the rendering engine used by Firefox on macOS.
Cool. But I alreasy had everything I wanted in Firefox, but one thing. Can I please have a non-buggy backdrop-filter: blur enabled and working by default in my Fitefox?
Please don’t derail threads like this. Your comment is so generic that it could be posted to any of a hundred different posts completely unchanged, which means it has nothing to do with the post at all. Write a blog post about it and post that to HN if you want your feature request to receive attention.
I believe that property is still in the draft phase. I'm sure they'll implement it properly soon.
https://twitter.com/CohanRobinson/status/1364172683118866433
E: saved you a click on my own link. In about:config you can disable this by setting the following to false
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsored
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsoredTopSites