Firefox 137 out with new dedicated search dropdown in omnibar

1

Firefox has long given users the ability to make a one-time search with their non-default search engine, but the new interface makes it way more obvious, with some great changes:

image
image687×472 87.7 KB

Search Term Persistence: Now when you refine a search in the address bar, the original term sticks around, making it easier to adjust your queries and find exactly what you’re looking for.

This is really cool. It’s actually the primary reason I have a split omnibar and search bar. The other reason is so I know I can only make searches with the right bar (no accidentally connecting to a website). But maybe I’ll reconsider!

There are some other cool search changes as well.

This is a massive change:

Now you can sign PDFs without leaving Firefox. Save your signatures to re-use later.

Woo!

There’s also this awful change:

Support HEVC playback on Linux.

It doesn’t say whether it’s hardware decoding only but I hope there’s no software decoding. Actually, I have no idea how they would be allowed to implement software decoding.

Anyway, I’d really love not to see HEVC on the web in the future. But it’s not like Firefox is going to change that by refusing to do what Chrome has already done.

(oh and there are tab groups too, I guess, who cares)

Because there’s no way I could get away with not saying this: Firefox had a privacy policy change last month that was near-universally panned. They changed the language in the end but there’s still one obvious loophole. I still trust Mozilla Corp more than any other tech company of that size, but the bar never left the ground.

Firefox is still my browser of choice regardless. If Google made a better browser, I might switch to a Chromium base one day. But they don’t, so I won’t.

Some huge changes have come to Firefox lately! 136 had vertical tabs, which I now use everywhere. 137 has tab groups, search bar changes, and PDF signing. And PWAs are probably next!

What a great year for Firefox development.

1 Like
2

think i’ll keep my separate search bar

didn’t know much at all about HEVC other than it’s apparently more efficient, so i was curious why you said this was an “awful change”

High Efficiency Video Coding - Wikipedia

HEVC contains technologies covered by patents owned by the organizations that participated in the JCT-VC. Implementing a device or software application that uses HEVC may require a license from HEVC patent holders.

yeah, 'nuff said

i’m in the same boat - it’s the lessor evil

while i admire what the devs are doing regarding privacy, i have lost respect for Moz corporate and i wonder if there may be any conflicts/disconnects between the devs and their corporate overlord and how this may affect the fox down the line

1 Like
3

I could get on my soapbox about video codecs and patents for many paragraphs, but I’m sure nobody wants that :slight_smile:

Suffice to say:

  • HEVC/H.265 is heavily patent encumbered until the end of the 2030s.
  • AVC/H.264 is the current standard format on the web (and everywhere else), and it’s patent-encumbered until the end of this decade. Which means the day of reckoning is soon!
  • The royalty-free AV1 codec, the big new collab between Alliance for Open Media members like Google, Mozilla, Netflix, Apple, etc. (which isn’t so new anymore) is finally getting some hardware encoders/decoders in devices like phones. It’s finally taking off! It’s essentially a competitor to HEVC. Providing decoding support for HEVC in popular browsers is legitimising it and making the battle harder. Let’s go beyond patented codecs!
    (I’m impressed Google was able to hold back from implementing HEVC support for over a decade though, but so much for boldly scrapping H.264 support)
  • Patents are the reason DaVinci Resolve can’t decode/encode H.264/AAC on Linux. They’re also why Fedora/openSUSE can’t play H.264 by default and is a terrible experience for newcomers. Most of those problems will be fixed in ~2030. They’re also why dumb stuff like OpenH264 exists and is the only reason Mozilla can play back H.264 video (thanks for taking the hit, though, Cisco).

The situation is a little more complicated than that because Sisvel has made hundreds of patent infringement claims on AV1 that AOM has hired Unified Patents to fight in court over the past few years, resulting in some H.264/H.265 patents being revoked.

Ahem. I’ll stop there!

I worry about that too. It’s why I’m watching Ladybird development closely (they even have Mojeek in the default search engine list). Servo could be cool, too, depending on how things shake out.

But at least for the short-term, I think Firefox will become better software rather than worse software. The last two releases have delivered features the userbase has been begging for for years.

4

Does that mean they have removed the search bar?

If so, that matters greatly: Multiple Choice in Search | Mojeek Blog

1 Like
5

I hope not! It was never there by default, but I hope they don’t remove the option of having a dedicated search bar.

I mean, I don’t see why they would. They’ve given users the ability to customise the chrome of the browser for a long time.

I decided to check out Firefox 137 with the latest Flatpak (as Arch doesn’t have it in the repos yet), but this change does not appear to have rolled out to that package, as it’s a staged rollout. I’m still able to add a dedicated search bar in 137.

It’s probably hidden as an about:config option to enable the new search options, or might even be a key-value pair you need to add specifically.

Edit: The preference is browser.urlbar.scotchBonnet.enableOverride.

And you can still have a dedicated search bar. The “make a one-time search with a non-default engine” feature is just more obvious for average users!

1 Like
6

just an FYI if you don’t already know - for testing, that’s fine, but the flatpak version of firefox shouldn’t be used for regular browsing apparently

1 Like
7

This is a good point! I’m already aware, but yeah.

Seirdy’s note about it: Flatpak and web browsers - Seirdy

The Firefox developers disagree for what it’s worth: 1756236 - Figure out how to chroot/use namespace isolation in flatpak

There are…a lot of threads about this. I don’t remember whether that’s the one I meant to point to. It’s not something I know much about.

Here’s a Fedora Discussion thread about it: Security problems with Flatpak Browsers (Firefox, Chromium), bubblejail, seccomp, user namespaces - Fedora Discussion

2 Likes
8

Guess you’re probably not referring to the chatbots in the side bar.

1 Like
9

For those who like to play Mozilla Whack-a-Mole, the latest settings to change are:

dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled = false

browser.ml.chat.enabled = false

1 Like
10

Win some, lose some…