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Apr 12, 2001
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Firefox has released an update for its iOS browser that offers interface improvements and a faster browsing experience.

Firefox v5.0 promises faster web page loading times combined with significant battery savings, according to the browser's development team. Mozilla claims up to a 40 percent reduction in CPU usage and up to a 30 percent reduction in memory usage, although it notes results may vary between users.

menu-button-cropped.jpg

Aside from speed improvements and power savings, the main interface has seen a number of new additions. Top of the list is a new menu on the toolbar that allows for easier navigation and quick access to frequently used features - from adding a bookmark to finding text in page.

Mozilla has also tried to make tab management a less frustrating experience on smaller screens, with the introduction of a 'Close All Tabs' option and an 'Undo' option to easily recover them, as well as a simpler method of navigating open tabs.

Users can also now set their favorite site as their homepage, which can be accessed at any time via the Home button in the new main menu.

addsearchcustom.jpg

In addition, users can now search sites with a search box (Amazon, for example) using a new magnifying glass button above the keyboard.

To add a website to the list of search engines accessed from the new tool, users simply need to go to the site in question and tap on the magnifying glass.

Firefox web browser is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Redesigned Firefox for iOS Claims Faster Load Times, Less Battery Drain
 
In addition, users can now search sites with a search box (Amazon, for example) using a new magnifying glass button above the keyboard.

To add a website to the list of search engines accessed from the new tool, users simply need to go to the site in question and tap on the magnifying glass.

That's freaking amazing.
That's precisely the technology you need to enable a feature I came up with the other day...
I'd love to have a search box to specifically search a couple of bookmarked websites I frequently use as research databases.

I know you can set up a custom Google search, but then you still get the Google search results page and that's often much less efficient than a website's search function.

I may find the name of a game mentioned somewhere for the domain xyz.com, but it's not an article about it.
So Google may yield results that aren't relevant when the website search is optimized for what people expect to get returned.

tl;dr:
I want a combined results page for a bunch of sites using site searches.
Someone make it happen!

Glassed Silver:mac
 
I want to see if they can optimize Firefox to actually battle against Safari and Chrome on the desktop side.
 
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Already crashed on first launch, tried MR and nothing. Quit and relaunched and now it's working.
Doesn't seem snapper.
 
That's freaking amazing.
That's precisely the technology you need to enable a feature I came up with the other day...
I'd love to have a search box to specifically search a couple of bookmarked websites I frequently use as research databases.

I know you can set up a custom Google search, but then you still get the Google search results page and that's often much less efficient than a website's search function.

I may find the name of a game mentioned somewhere for the domain xyz.com, but it's not an article about it.
So Google may yield results that aren't relevant when the website search is optimized for what people expect to get returned.

tl;dr:
I want a combined results page for a bunch of sites using site searches.
Someone make it happen!

Glassed Silver:mac

This is literally on Firefox for Mac and has been for months at least.
 
I have to say that I'm impressed. These are useful, novel features that contribute to a better user experience. Kudos to Firefox.

If Firefox can demonstrably compete with Safari on the desktop and on mobile in terms of speed and battery life, I would be willing to make the switch. Until then, however, the convenience of Safari on both OS X and iOS with iCloud integration and the addition of not having to create a separate user account for shared tabs, etc. - plus the battery life issue - means that Safari wins out in my books.
 
Are thes enumbers: "40 percent reduction in CPU usage and up to a 30 percent reduction in memory usage" compared to Safari or Firefox's previous version?
 
This is literally on Firefox for Mac and has been for months at least.
Really? Does it bundle the different searches or do I have to search each source separately (search bar "pick provider" style)?

I wouldn't know, because just recently I downloaded Firefox again, because I need it for a specific addon.

I have to say that I'm impressed. These are useful, novel features that contribute to a better user experience. Kudos to Firefox.

If Firefox can demonstrably compete with Safari on the desktop and on mobile in terms of speed and battery life, I would be willing to make the switch. Until then, however, the convenience of Safari on both OS X and iOS with iCloud integration and the addition of not having to create a separate user account for shared tabs, etc. - plus the battery life issue - means that Safari wins out in my books.

I feel you, for me it's mostly integration into the macOS/iOS keychain.
That is HUGE for me.

And with iOS 10 finally - supposedly - getting unlimited tabs (not a day too early... as if it kept more than a couple active in memory anyways...) there's less reason to look around.
There is one big advantage to Firefox: extension.
Especially for Safari this is getting worse and worse by the year.
Paying Apple 100 bucks a year to develop and share a convenience addon that you make available for free, because you need it yourself anyways? Here's the bill, sucker!

****ing ridiculous and greedy.
Meanwhile, we still can't have mobile extensions for Safari.

I'd also love to have theme support for Safari, but I understand that Apple has never been into theming a lot. Still, it's something I enjoy greatly with Chrome.
I know it's made by Google, etc etc... but it's a fairly nice browser, provided you don't run it on a portable Mac.

Only issue I have with it is that Chrome eventually got pretty pesky with developer-mode installed extensions.
A similarity to what I don't like with Safari.

Glassed Silver:mac
 
Last edited:
If Firefox can demonstrably compete with Safari on the desktop and on mobile in terms of speed and battery life, I would be willing to make the switch. Until then, however, the convenience of Safari on both OS X and iOS with iCloud integration and the addition of not having to create a separate user account for shared tabs, etc. - plus the battery life issue - means that Safari wins out in my books.
True for Mac-only users. However, for those of us who want or need to use other operating systems as well, Firefox continues to be a great browser. Its ability to sync across platforms with a Firefox account, huge extension ecosystem, and focus on privacy still make it my browser of choice.
 
Thank you FireFox, I love the free apps. More browsers keeps tabs organized more.

Any one know whats the Max. open tab limits on FireFox for iOS?
 
True for Mac-only users. However, for those of us who want or need to use other operating systems as well, Firefox continues to be a great browser. Its ability to sync across platforms with a Firefox account, huge extension ecosystem, and focus on privacy still make it my browser of choice.

I agree. Firefox is my go-to browser when I'm working on Windows (but I don't usually have to take advantage of cross-platform features when I'm on Windows so they don't affect me in the same way that they might affect others.)
 
Firefox for Windows works well, not so much with OSX, seems like it crashes more often than not.
 
Hopefully I can use it now with this update. It's been completely unusable for me since the last update, as it'd work for a few seconds, and then just crash.
 
True for Mac-only users. However, for those of us who want or need to use other operating systems as well, Firefox continues to be a great browser. Its ability to sync across platforms with a Firefox account, huge extension ecosystem, and focus on privacy still make it my browser of choice.

Agreed. Safari on OS X, Firefox on Windows!
 
Really? Does it bundle the different searches or do I have to search each source separately (search bar "pick provider" style)?

I wouldn't know, because just recently I downloaded Firefox again, because I need it for a specific addon.


Sorry for the late response.

And, for me, it included a lot of things on the base but I think some are addons.

Just click the search icon and you'll get this.
mEHK6oN.png
 
Sorry for the late response.

And, for me, it included a lot of things on the base but I think some are addons.

Just click the search icon and you'll get this.
mEHK6oN.png
You must have gotten my question wrong, because I didn't mean classic search providers like Amazon, Wikipedia and Google.

What I'm all about is sites that have their own searches but don't provide these browser search addons AND I want to search multiple pages AT ONCE. :)

For example:

http://www.mobygames.com
http://ogdb.eu/index.php
http://www.retrocollect.com/videogamedatabase/search/

etc etc etc...
Sometimes one page returns a result, sometimes multiple pages do.
It's quite tiring when doing research on some games trying to aggregate all the profile-style info you can find to go to sometimes 5-10 pages to search PER title.

If there was a way to combine these searches, the search functions the pages themselves use and not just Google's custom search parameters, that'd be AMAZING.

Glassed Silver:mac
 
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