Why you SHOULD be using Firefox

Vimes · 5 Jun 2021 at 07:31

Build 89 seems to be working fine, I have flipped from using Chrome as my default back to FF. I do try and keep using the same browser across devices, what I am missing on my android phone with FF is the Home button and the ability to pull down and let go a page to refresh it. I also liked the tab open listing on chrome over that of FF, not a biggy tho.

Longbow · 5 Jun 2021 at 12:11

lsg1r said:
Noticed this as well (might have happened earlier but far more noticeable on 89 though). Either a small delay or in some cases it just doesn't even want to load the page and needs refreshing.... almost like it's struggling with 'locating the website' (so dns maybe) because when it does load the page it's just as fast as before. The sites being affected are completely random.

Definitely occurring before 89, I would just create a new tab and then the URL would work again.

yashiro · 5 Jun 2021 at 16:39

I've never had anything like that on the desktop browser.

V F · 5 Jun 2021 at 16:59

Longbow said:
Definitely occurring before 89, I would just create a new tab and then the URL would work again.

I started getting this after only 89 was installed.

Rroff · 5 Jun 2021 at 17:25

Been happening awhile for me but for some reason first manifest on my Windows 8 tablet about 2-3 months ago or so it is only with 89 it has started happening more regularly and more impactful. Before the odd occasion it would happen you could just open a new tab and/or a second attempt to load the URL would work with 89 sometimes no amount of opening new tabs or windows works unless you restart the browser the only thing which does work is either opening a new tab or window via following a link on a page already loaded then going to the new site or for some reason going to the "Help->More Troubleshooting Information" page then going to where you want to go. In those instances even stuff like "about:config" won't work so I don't think it is a HTTPS related problem even though for some reason so far enabling HTTPS only mode seems to stop the problem happening (for compatibility reasons though that is a bit inconvenient to run on some of my systems).

Going to "Help->More Troubleshooting Information" only fixes it for that tab though, opening another tab the same thing happens until you restart FF.

yashiro · 5 Jun 2021 at 18:15

Are all these machines not on Windows 10? It could be some issue with out of date security certificates which is why forcing fake HTTPS rectifies it.

It could also be some issue with a firewall blocking port 443. Some kind of SSL handshake failure.

G J · 5 Jun 2021 at 21:30

Terrible new look as all the tabs look blended together/hard to see so thanks for the setting to change the it back.

Also when you right click on a tab theres a New Tab menu before this update it used to be reload tab, again I've been reloading tabs like this for years and now I keep making new blank tabs.

Why do software developers have to keep messing around with things like this but dont allow you to revert it back to how it was before, its a waste of time and its annoying to find fixes/work arounds.

V F · 6 Jun 2021 at 00:06

yashiro said:
Are all these machines not on Windows 10? It could be some issue with out of date security certificates which is why forcing fake HTTPS rectifies it.

It could also be some issue with a firewall blocking port 443. Some kind of SSL handshake failure.

20H2 19042.985 here. I never ever had it until 89 was installed.

yashiro · 6 Jun 2021 at 00:17

G J said:
Terrible new look as all the tabs look blended together/hard to see so thanks for the setting to change the it back.

Also when you right click on a tab theres a New Tab menu before this update it used to be reload tab, again I've been reloading tabs like this for years and now I keep making new blank tabs.

Why do software developers have to keep messing around with things like this but dont allow you to revert it back to how it was before, its a waste of time and its annoying to find fixes/work arounds.

You can use this to edit all context menus. https://github.com/stonecrusher/simpleMenuWizard

You need to install this as per the instructions then edit tab-context.css. Simply uncomment the top two lines of the block.

Code:

#tabContextMenu #context_openANewTab,                      /* New Tab                 */
#tabContextMenu #context_openANewTab + menuseparator,      /******** Separator ********/

Rroff · 6 Jun 2021 at 00:19

yashiro said:
Are all these machines not on Windows 10? It could be some issue with out of date security certificates which is why forcing fake HTTPS rectifies it.

It could also be some issue with a firewall blocking port 443. Some kind of SSL handshake failure.

Happening with Windows 7, 8 and 10 for me. Over a mixture of hardware varying from Intel 3xxx to 10xxx series CPUs.

Need to test a bit more to see if it is in any way related to a specific internet connection as I'm using several different connections.

Orcvader · 6 Jun 2021 at 10:53

Rroff said:
Been happening awhile for me but for some reason first manifest on my Windows 8 tablet about 2-3 months ago or so it is only with 89 it has started happening more regularly and more impactful. Before the odd occasion it would happen you could just open a new tab and/or a second attempt to load the URL would work with 89 sometimes no amount of opening new tabs or windows works unless you restart the browser the only thing which does work is either opening a new tab or window via following a link on a page already loaded then going to the new site or for some reason going to the "Help->More Troubleshooting Information" page then going to where you want to go. In those instances even stuff like "about:config" won't work so I don't think it is a HTTPS related problem even though for some reason so far enabling HTTPS only mode seems to stop the problem happening (for compatibility reasons though that is a bit inconvenient to run on some of my systems).

Going to "Help->More Troubleshooting Information" only fixes it for that tab though, opening another tab the same thing happens until you restart FF.

Do you have DNS over HTTPS enabled? I've seen this happening to Edge when I enabled on there and only restarting the browser fixed it, and disabling the feature caused no more problems. Have yet to notice it with Firefox though. Both browsers tested with Cloudflare.

Rroff · 6 Jun 2021 at 15:29

Orcvader said:
Do you have DNS over HTTPS enabled? I've seen this happening to Edge when I enabled on there and only restarting the browser fixed it, and disabling the feature caused no more problems. Have yet to notice it with Firefox though. Both browsers tested with Cloudflare.

Nope don't use that - I've tried enabling and disabling it seems to make no difference.

Rroff · 7 Jun 2021 at 16:32

Another thing I'm noticing with 89 - when I start a system up again the tabs can be from any random point in the last approx. 30 minutes or so from when I last closed the browser and/or shutdown. Didn't used to happen before. Today I started up one system and had 2 tabs for Wikipedia pages which I'd closed around 20 minutes before I shut the system down.

yashiro · 7 Jun 2021 at 17:40

There is that a config variable controls how often your session is saved in the background. Maybe you've altered it or the session just didn't get saved and it reloaded the last saved session file. It's not a new bug with 89, it's been a little screwy for years.

Rroff · 7 Jun 2021 at 17:45

yashiro said:
There is that a config variable controls how often your session is saved in the background. Maybe you've altered it or the session just didn't get saved and it reloaded the last saved session file. It's not a new bug with 89, it's been a little screwy for years.

Mine is on defaults, 15 seconds, etc. I've only had it happen in the past very rarely and usually because something malfunctioned. It seems to be happening about 30% of the time on 89 and not just one system.

Murphy · 7 Jun 2021 at 23:32

If you really wanted you could use the developer toolbox to maybe discover what's causing it. Hamburger menu, Web Developer, Browser toolbox. When that opens in a frame at the bottom click on the three dots, go to settings, tick enable remote debugging and Enable chrome and add-on debugging toolbox.

If I've not missed a step that should trigger a popup (may need to close the network toolbox and reopen it) asking if you want to allow a remote connection, once that's done when the problem happens again you can check the network connections made, the console, or anything else that may hint at the problem.

Rroff · 7 Jun 2021 at 23:59

Murphy said:
If you really wanted you could use the developer toolbox to maybe discover what's causing it. Hamburger menu, Web Developer, Browser toolbox. When that opens in a frame at the bottom click on the three dots, go to settings, tick enable remote debugging and Enable chrome and add-on debugging toolbox.

If I've not missed a step that should trigger a popup (may need to close the network toolbox and reopen it) asking if you want to allow a remote connection, once that's done when the problem happens again you can check the network connections made, the console, or anything else that may hint at the problem.

That isn't showing anything that points to any specific problem. In the developer console there is some preload exceptions with .js resources because they weren't used in a timely fashion when a tab doesn't load (I'm guessing a symptom rather than the root of the problem) but I've not yet had an instance where subsequent retries fail as well to see what happens there. Also a warning about the behaviour of some cookies which I think is probably unrelated.

Rroff · 8 Jun 2021 at 02:20

Sigh and constant DRM issues - Netflix can usually work around it by toggling DRM on and off in the options but Amazon just flat out refuses to play HD or higher quality content like 80% of the time.

This is getting a bit ridiculous but some stuff is requiring 89 to work due to DRM reasons, etc. bleh. Don't really want to use another browser but this situation is just getting stupid.

EDIT: Meh completely resetting the browser seems to fix it but meh.

Murphy · 8 Jun 2021 at 06:12

Rroff said:
... but I've not yet had an instance where subsequent retries fail as well to see what happens there.

That's why i suggested using the remote debugging, without that you can't get to see what happens before/as the new tab opens. Once it's enabled you get a separate window that allows you to debug the entire browser and not just the tab that you've selected to have the toolbox open on.

Rroff · 8 Jun 2021 at 06:17

Murphy said:
That's why i suggested using the remote debugging, without that you can't get to see what happens before/as the new tab opens. Once it's enabled you get a separate window that allows you to debug the entire browser and not just the tab that you've selected to have the toolbox open on.

It is confusing as it isn't really showing me anything network activity wise it is like I've not done anything but the browser console is spitting out a bunch of warnings about resource pre-loads not being accessed in time pointing at .js locations relevant to the site (not had it happen yet when I've thought to try visiting a site I've never visited before to see if it is some kind of caching issue or something).