updates Meet the browser: Firefox Next

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

HiDPI has landed in the beta channel and still looks all kinds of wrong even if you set it to not respect the OS scaling. The fact that there is no easy way to tune the browser should make the average user happy. Ugh.

How does it look "all kinds of wrong"? It just making Firefox respect the screen DPI and render the same as any other app (Just as a higher quality vs. upscaling the backing buffer)

[ambiance]

How does it look "all kinds of wrong"? It just making Firefox respect the screen DPI and render the same as any other app (Just as a higher quality vs. upscaling the backing buffer)

The spacing on the headline is all kings of wrong and this is one of many website rendering issues. The only option shouldn't be to edit an about:config entry and even then the browser doesn't look right. Changing the DPI in Windows 8 is also not an option as it looks terrible at 100 (Some say terrible no matter what DPI). It's like they've taken Firefox and mated it with a phone with oversized buttons. It's not a good look. Here's hoping they get this right before it hits the release channel.

[tyler78]

Damn! This was why I uninstalled Aurora and installed Beta. Now it has landed in beta. This might be the reason I drop Firefox. Every button and bookmark looks terribly big and bad and blurry. It's like I'm using a very old pc with 800x600 resolution or a big and old phone. I can't begin to describe how terrible this is.

[ambiance]

Damn! This was why I uninstalled Aurora and installed Beta. Now it has landed in beta. This might be the reason I drop Firefox. Every button and bookmark looks terribly big and bad and blurry. It's like I'm using a very old pc with 800x600 resolution or a big and old phone. I can't begin to describe how terrible this is.

Tell me about it. The only thing stopping me from switching to Chrome is that Adblock Plus is still better, but if they don't sort this out I will make Chrome my primary and Firefox my secondary.

[tyler78]

Just look at the address bar. It looks so much worse in person.

Here is the old one:

And here is the new one:

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Tell me about it. The only thing stopping me from switching to Chrome is that Adblock Plus is still better, but if they don't sort this out I will make Chrome my primary and Firefox my secondary.

You do know Chrome is going to do the same thing, right?

Are you guys changing the system font size or the system DPI? It looks like you're just making text bigger in some screenshots.

Edit: Wait, in the "TSN" screenshot, the headlines are done in Flash, and Flash is ignoring the system DPI. The rest of the page is fine, but Flash content is rendering too small. The same thing will happen in Chrome to, since it's an Adobe fault.

[tyler78]

Are you guys changing the system font size or the system DPI? It looks like you're just making text bigger in some screenshots.

I didn't do anything except updating Firefox. I opened up my pc(Win8), click on the Firefox icon, it updated itself and voila! My wtf face.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Then what is your system DPI/zoom set to?

[tyler78]

I think this is the setting:

It's Turkish. Sorry about that. Setting is "Middle - %125(Default)"

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

So yeah, that's going to make everything look bigger. Not sure why Windows is defaulting to 125% scale, but set it to 100% to make the blurry images go away (Of course then the entire UI is going to be smaller, so if you want both you'll either have to wait for websites to adapt, or deal with it)

[ambiance]

So yeah, that's going to make everything look bigger. Not sure why Windows is defaulting to 125% scale, but set it to 100% to make the blurry images go away (Of course then the entire UI is going to be smaller, so if you want both you'll either have to wait for websites to adapt, or deal with it)

The thing is 125% is the default setting for Windows 8 and it looks bad at 100%. Looks like were stuck between a rock and an ugly stick. When are the changes landing in the stable branch of Chrome?

Edit: I guess I'll have to get used to it as there is no escape. What are the advantages of HiDPI to the old way of rendering?

[ViperAFK]

The thing is 125% is the default setting for Windows 8 and it looks bad at 100%. Looks like were stuck between a rock and an ugly stick. When are the changes landing in the stable branch of Chrome?

Edit: I guess I'll have to get used to it as there is no escape. What are the advantages of HiDPI to the old way of rendering?

My windows 8 defaults to 100%... I have not touched the setting at all and this was a clean install of windows 8 RTM: http://i.imgur.com/Xb0VgtT.png

Windows 8 must set the default DPI automatically according to the display size/resolution or something, because for me it clear says (default) next to 100.

Anyway, all firefox is doing is properly respecting the DPI. Other browsers will be doing the same. this is an important feature to have with higher pixel density displays being more common.

Its going to be implemented in chrome too: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=149881, so good luck switching to chrome to "escape" it.

[ambiance]

My windows 8 defaults to 100%... I have not touched the setting at all and this was a clean install of windows 8 RTM: http://i.imgur.com/Xb0VgtT.png

Windows 8 must set the default DPI automatically according to the display size/resolution or something, because for me it clear says (default) next to 100.

Anyway, all firefox is doing is properly respecting the DPI. Other browsers will be doing the same. this is an important feature to have with higher pixel density displays being more common.

Its going to be implemented in chrome too: http://code.google.c...etail?id=149881, so good luck switching to chrome to "escape" it.

I'm using a 24" @ 1920x1200, so it probably is set automatically. When I set it to 100% the taskbar is too small. Also,

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

...

Edit: I guess I'll have to get used to it as there is no escape. What are the advantages of HiDPI to the old way of rendering?

It keeps objects the same physical size regardless of the underlying screen density i.e. a 15" 1440x900 display should look the same as a 15" 2880x1800 display, everything will just be clearer on the higher density screen.

Without it, stuff would vary in size dramatically, you'd have the same sized screens but some would have everything drawn at half the physical size, etc.

Edit: Oh yeah, and it lets you decouple screen resolution from screen size, so if you want a larger screen you don't have to care about the resolution. And a higher density screen allows for better scaling of the interface components (Since you have more freedom to position objects, so stuff doesn't end up on half pixel boundaries or such)

[+Red King Subscriber²]

Those are simple windows settings - icons should not be blurry for simple visual adjustments,

Although it can be worse, like Firefox crashing when you charge your theme color from green to purple - saying that purple has not been supported yet because green and all other colors are more popular or some****

[dysgenics]

when/why did they back out the change to the bookmarks button?

[+Zlip792 MVC]

when/why did they back out the change to the bookmarks button?

they did backout weeks back.. Now star is back..

[dysgenics]

bummer

[Max Norris]

I only have one gripe about FF 21--my jumplists no longer work. (I had a long list of shortcuts in the jumplist from the pinned taskbar icon in Win7 Ultimate)...if I uninstall 21 and reinstall version 20, the jumplist comes back, but I can't add new shortcuts to the jumplist after I install version 21.

This one's been bugging me for a couple of months too, showed up back when v21 was in nightly, one of those little things that I frequently use and missed. Got fixed yesterday, working again in the nightly (v24) build.

[nub]

The issue with hidpi is because all the images (icons, tabs, etc) need to be redone in a higher resolution. It currently blows up the 100% dpi images and it looks blurry. Favicons are another issue since 15x15 is the standard size and few sites offer higher resolution favicons.

If you don't want firefox to be HiDPI, here is the solution

set layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.0 (in about:config)

[mancode20]

Regarding the latest Beta 4 of Firefox 22: What's up with this new feature of not loading tabs until you click on them? Not sure if I like that or not, but it does seem to make things run smoother if the tab isn't loaded until you actually click on it. If this is unloading the tab from memory, then I guess the extension UnloadTab is now obsolete. Is there a way to turn this off? Note: Unchecking don't load tabs until selected does NOT fix this. It seems to be a permanent feature just introduced in Beta 4. It wasn't working like this before, and now Unload Tab does NOT work at all. How can I fix this?

[+Red King Subscriber²]

So they still don't get that they can load other tabs on the other 3+ CPU Cores peoples have these days? -.-

[+Zlip792 MVC]

So they still don't get that they can load other tabs on the other 3+ CPU Cores peoples have these days? -.-

Firefox does perform many functions of the main thread... Although not multi-threaded or multi-core supported but they will reach it since electrolysis project now ones again back online.

[mancode20]

22 Beta 4 has really changed something that messed up some core functions of the browser. TVRage.com and Addic7ed.com do not display properly. Also, tabs don't auto load when clicking on links anymore. They only load when you actually click on them This means an extension like Unload Tab no longer works. There appears to be a new behavior that doesn't change the color of visited links until you actually click on and load the link. That sounds good and practical in theory, but the problem is now I am noticing that some sites won't change the color of visited links at all, even after you click on them. I am going back to either Beta 3 or 21 Final. I did not have these issues with 22 Beta 3. Anyone else having these issues with the latest beta? Can anyone get Unload Tab to work with 22 Beta 4?

[mancode20]

It seems like my issue is related to Unload Tab. Removing it fixed my page layout issues.