Originally published at Sharonda.net on September 27th, 2017.
Added to SMWoodfin.WordPress.com on October 31st, 2017.
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I want to tell you that I hopped from Godzilla to Mozilla, but it was yesterday’s Firefox article at Ars Technica which sent me off to download Firefox Developer Edition 57.0b3. I had thought about downloading some iteration of Firefox 57, just to get myself ready for when certain extensions I’ve relied on for years (‘though less so in recent ones) become obsolete. The Ars article made me want to stop thinking and start doing.
I haven’t actually done much with 57, yet, aside from starting this blog post and taking a bunch of screenshots, so please bear with me. I haven’t installed any extensions, and I’m already missing having either an ad blocker or NoScript on board. But this post will mostly be about how awesome 57 DE looks.
There may be overlap between the features I’m highlighting in this post and features which exist in the current stable version of Firefox. In fact, I’m sure that’s the case. I keep Firefox on hand for InFormEnter, but it hasn’t been my default browser in a very long time. Truthfully, since Vivaldi‘s notes feature stepped up to handle what I used to do with the aforementioned Firefox extension, and running OS X/Mac OS reduces the urgency of using something like NoScript, I haven’t used Firefox much, at all. I open it from time to time, make sure it’s updated, see what’s new, get frustrated, then go back to browsing in Chrome or, more likely, Vivaldi.
The fact remains that I am writing this post in Firefox Developer Edition, and that’s the most I’ve done in a Mozilla browser since I was able to weed it out of my Zazzle workflow. And, since noodling with Sharonda.net is how I’m most likely to test a browser, expect far too many screenshots of FDE 57’s developer tools:
The bottom of the browser window is the default position for FDE 57’s developer tools, but it can be changed to a side position:
Or even switched to a separate window:
It can also be switched to Responsive Design Mode, which gives the option to choose from a healthy list of device views:
(Kudos on including a Kindle Fire! Any Kindle Fire!)
And, apparently, I no longer need to install Colorzilla in Firefox:
I wonder when that happened?
FDE 57.0b3 also sports some sleek and pretty page-loading graphics on those lovely square tabs mentioned in the Ars article.
I’ll not only accept, but embrace the criticism that this review is wholly superficial. It is. I’ve got little else to go on besides how this iteration of Firefox looks, and really, it looks beautiful.
Mozilla’s totally willing to tell you so, itself:
“The Beast adopted new raiment and studied the ways of Time and Space and Light and the Flow of energy through the Universe. From its studies, the Beast fashioned new structures from oxidised metal and proclaimed their glories. And the Beast’s followers rejoiced, finding renewed purpose in these teachings.”
Want to check it out for yourself? You can download the Firefox Developer Edition from Mozilla.org.
