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Mozilla Firefox is a fast, full-featured Web browser. Firefox includes pop-up blocking; tab-browsing; integrated Google search; simplified privacy controls; a streamlined browser window that shows you more of the page than any other browser; and a number of additional features that work with you to help you get the most out of your time online.Mozilla Firefox was once a fast, full-featured Web browser, then it aged and now suffers from bloat due to poor development and unnecessary features. Firefox basic feature set includes useful things such as pop-up blocking; tab-browsing; and privacy controls. Update: Firefox Quantum / Firefox 57 has completely upset the functionality and visual layout of the Firefox Web Browser. If Firefox Quantum is unacceptable to you, and you wish to maintain the latest level of browser security you have the option of switching to their '''[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-to-firefox-extended-support-release-esr Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR)]''' for personal use. This give you the look, feel, and functionality of their previous releases and you will still continue to receive security updates.Firefox has a tabbed interface; includes a pop-up blocker; built-in, multiple search tools; and built-in RSS reader. It is stable and free.Version 3.0.5 added official releases for the Bengali, Esperanto, Galician, Hindi, and Latvian languages; replaced the End-User License Agreement with a new "Know Your Rights" info bar on initial install; fixed several security and stability issues.Update: '''Firefox Quantum / Firefox 57''' has completely upset the functionality and visual layout of the Firefox Web Browser. If Firefox Quantum is unacceptable to you, and you wish to maintain the latest level of browser security you have the option of switching to their '''[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-to-firefox-extended-support-release-esr Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR)]''' for personal use. This give you the look, feel, and functionality of their previous releases and you will still continue to receive security updates.Firefox has a tabbed interface; includes a pop-up blocker; built-in, multiple search tools; and built-in RSS reader. It is stable and free.'''To install the Firefox ESR on Ubuntu see [[Firefox Extended Support Release]].''' Version 3.0.5 added official releases for the Bengali, Esperanto, Galician, Hindi, and Latvian languages; replaced the End-User License Agreement with a new "Know Your Rights" info bar on initial install; fixed several security and stability issues.Firefox's tabbed browsing, RSS support, security features, and overall cool factor make it more attractive than Internet Explorer. Switching from MSIE to Firefox will dramatically increase the security of an Internet connected PC.Firefox's tabbed browsing, RSS support, security features, and overall cool factor make it more attractive than Internet Explorer. Switching from MSIE to Firefox will dramatically increase the security of an Internet connected PC. This point is somewhat less significant now that Micro$oft has dropped MSIE and switched to Edge which uses Chromium.=== secure DNS: Firefox Invasion of Privacy and Security Alert ===Firefox browser will ignore your network DNS by default in favor of [[DNS over HTTPS]] (aka DoH) or a type of Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR). They should face legal action over this... Mozilla using their DNS-over-HTTPS by default, bypassing your LAN DNS security filtering. This is now ENABLED by DEFAULT and you have to dig though settings to disable it or take action using a network firewall to block the destination."''This is actually potential a huge privacy issue as it is written that [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/issues/1051 Firefox by default will route all your DNS traffic] to an external source beyond your control and without your accept and knowledge, and who is the external DNS hosting company and what will they do with all the data they collect?''" Answer: At present it is Cloudflare and the purpose besides their claim of security is Data Mining: they want to know more about you!* In settings look for and uncheck "'''Enable DNS over HTTPS'''" to prevent a report of all web sites (via DNS query) being sent to a 3rd party. They can see a list of where you go on the web and store that for data collection purposes such as profiling you for marketing, analytics, or something far more nefarious. * From about:config a user can set network.trr.mode to 5 to completely disable TRR. [[File:firefoxsettingdns-over-https.jpg|thumb|illustration showing default setting, change this to Off|none|175px]]To signal that their local DNS resolver implements special features that make the network unsuitable for DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), network administrators may configure their networks to modify DNS requests for the following special-purpose domain, called a canary domain: '''use-application-dns.net'''. Firefox is using '''https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query''' for the actual DNS resolution being performed.The Firefox Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) is named such in that "they" trust the DNS resolver, because they are in control. Network Administrators will mostly prefer to trust their own resolver, because my trusted resolver is certainly not what Mozilla trusts as a resolver. Quoted from a firewall vendor source, "''Mozilla has partnered with Cloudflare so that means TRR DNS queries are sent there and not to the intended server. Some people already use Cloudflare, or they don't care where the queries go, so that's a wash or a net gain. If you do not trust Cloudflare or do not want to put all your eggs in the Cloudflare basket, that's not so good.''"=== WebExtensions API ===When did Firefox adopt the WebExtensions API?In August of 2015, Mozilla announced that the legacy XPCOM- and XUL-based extension systems would be deprecated in favor of the WebExtension API. Between that date and November, 2017, both legacy and WebExtension add-ons were supported in some fashion. With the release of Firefox 57 (Quantum) in November, 2017, WebExtensions became the only supported API for extension development. Why WebExtensions and not Jetpack?The WebExtensions API has some inherent technology advantages, such as built-in support for content blocking used by popular ad-blocking extensions, that Jetpack lacked. More importantly, though, basing the initial implementation of WebExtensions on Chrome's API meant that Firefox could leverage a large population of Chrome extensions (larger than Jetpack add-ons) and extension developers. Those developers who stayed with the common APIs were also able to work off of a common codebase, and port extensions more simply between browsers.== Other Tricks ===== Block Google Doodles Without any Special Extension ===This trick can be used to block images from any particular site or domain, including google.com to block annoying google doodles.#Right-click on the Google Doodle image. Choose "View Image Info"#Observe the site domain in the box, located below and left is a checkbox with the option "Block Images From"#check the box and close the dialog, then reload Google.===Dark Theme and Force Pages to Dark Background===You can force the Firefox interface to dark colors, white on black. This is a two part thing, in consideration that the Theme setting is only for the interface and the color override for pages is part of "Language and Appearance." ''Verified in version 115.3.1esr (64-bit)''#click the hamburger menu, choose "Add-ons and themes"#click on "Themes" and enable "Dark"Unlike Chrome this won't override many pages making them dark. You can configure this behavior and choose the color scheme for web sites.# hamburger menu, settings, general, Language and Appearance# (a) "Website appearance" - Some websites adapt their color scheme based on your preferences. Choose which color scheme you’d like to use for those sites. # (b) "Colors" - Override Firefox’s default colors for text, website backgrounds, and links. And you can "Override the colors specified..."[[File:firefox115esrdarktext.jpg|thumb|none|Language and Appearance|200px]]===Website Blocking Paste From Clipboard===Some misguided companies employing stupid web developers and web security consultants think they're increasing security by disabling your ability to paste into form fields, such as the password field or even a field for an email address. Really they are just being obnoxious. Firefox and related browsers such as Palemoon and Waterfox allow you to disable this frustrating restriction by modification of a configuration setting. Head on over to about:config and change the following key from TRUE to FALSE. You want it to be set to FALSE so that it doesn't obey web site requests to block your clipboard. Search for dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled in the search box. Double-click on the setting to change the value from "true" to "false". dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled FALSE== Alternatives ==Firefox Quantum / Firefox 57 has a nasty UI and has excessive resource consumption meaning it runs slowly on anything except the latest hardware. The Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) is better but on Linux Ubuntu or Mint it seems to be a dog and also very resource intensive. Running Firefox and Chrome at the same time or Firefox and Evolution at the same time seems to result in Internet browsing grinding to a slow crawl if not a complete stop. Lets face it, the current Mozilla team is really screwing up Firefox and as an alternative Chrome lacks adequate privacy and security.One alternative to the regular firefox is [[Firefox Extended Support Release]] also by Mozilla.There are alternatives that work with the same rendering engine, or share a similar UI with Firefox, and seem to perform better. * [[Pale Moon]] web browser - The superior UI of the classic Firefox and a much smaller memory footprint (runs fast on linux!) and compatible with many Firefox extensions including [[NoScript]]. Pale Moon version 27 running with the NoScript extension for added security was capable of correctly rendering popular sites including eBay and Amazon.com with complete functionality. Furthermore, as with Amazon.com being site burdened with excessive JavaScript and CSS and has always been problematic when using Firefox, runs very nicely on Pale Moon. The rendering speed of Amazon.com with the exception added to NoScript allowing full site features active was just as fast as with Chrome. The only criticism of Pale Moon at this time is the installation process would be better if compatible with the APT package management tool rather than their installer, although their installer works fine with the exception of a glitch in the home user cache directory.In the pursuit for better security some analysts advise that you use specific web browsers for specific types of tasks. For example, the browser that you casually surf the web with should not be the same one as you use to do online banking or other security related tasks. One nice alternative to Firefox is a browser called Waterfox. Waterfox was created to be a 64bit browser and to reduce the amount of telemetry Mozilla receives and other 3rd parties related to the invasion of your privacy. Waterfox offers more configuration freedom as compared to Firefox. We recommend using Waterfox over Firefox for better privacy, configurability, and an enhanced browsing experience. Waterfox was for a short time owned by System1, which is the same company that bought search engine StartPage but since has returned to its former status as an independent project. Waterfox has moved into release of its 4th generation. Waterfox Classic is still around, though it appears to no longer share the same code repository or immediate resources with the newest generation of Waterfox.
