• Waterfox Current and G3 add back what Mozilla taketh away

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    #2343645

    I used Waterfox (which turned into Waterfox Classic) for a few years after the release of Firefox Quantum, but as its internal feature set was frozen at the Firefox 56 level, I began to have issues with it not working with some sites, so I reluctantly went back to Firefox proper.

    Fortunately, I’d discovered modifications to userChrome.css by Aris, the author of Custom Theme Restorer. In its never-ending goal to be Chrome, Mozilla had removed features from Firefox that many of us consider essential, and Custom Theme Restorer let us have them back. Of course, when the next thing that was lopped off of Firefox was the ability to use Firefox addons like CTR, that didn’t work anymore. The weaker Chrome-style addons that (poorly) replaced the Firefox-type XUL/XPCOM addons couldn’t put back what Mozilla had removed. Fortunately, the custom CSS duplicates enough of the functionality of CTR to make Firefox look and behave much as I want it to.

    I haven’t paid much attention to Waterfox since I moved on from Waterfox Classic. Classic is not the only Waterfox… there’s also Waterfox Current and Waterfox G3.

    I just took another look at the newest Waterfox, which is G3, and discovered that they’d implemented the much-requested option to put the tab bar between the content and the URL bar. Even Vivaldi (which is meant to be a highly configurable browser that has every conceivable option) doesn’t have that, even though it’s been requested for a few years by now. I was able to do it with a custom stylesheet (same idea as userChrome.css), but having it available from the settings menu is far better.

    As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve also put the option to have a status bar back in. As with the original status bar and the one that the Classic addon Status-4-Evar added back in, it is possible to move the addon icons to the new status bar. Vivaldi also has an optional status bar, but it’s not possible to put the addon icons in it. As with Vivaldi’s status bar, the new Waterfox one has a page zoom control on the right side, though there’s no option to remove it that I was able to find. Fortunately, a little bit of custom css in userChrome.css is able to get rid of it. I’ve had the page zoom controls between the URL box and the search box since forever ago, and that made the one in the status bar redundant.

    This is a really promising direction for Waterfox. If they add back all of the things Mozilla removed, it won’t even matter that the classic addons don’t work anymore. The main reason I ever needed them in the first place was to fix what Mozilla had done to Firefox! As long as I could revert the UI changes Mozilla made with each successive release, I didn’t mind too much that they’d made them.

    I wonder if Waterfox devs would be willing to add back the unread tab status and the option to not fire the select-all action when the URL bar is focused, two other things Mozilla recently ripped out that have made it a much worse product than it was before in the way I use it. Vivaldi has both of these options natively, by contrast (unlike Chromium, the base for Vivaldi), and in Firefox, I’ve spackled over the hole Mozilla left where the unread tab status used to be with an addon. It’s not as good as the real thing… it only simulates having an unread tab state (which means that restored tabs don’t retain their previously unread state), while Vivaldi seems to have the real thing.

    With Firefox, addons are unfortunately not able to change the behavior of the URL bar when it is clicked anymore. The classic addons could have, but not the current Webextensions. Clicking the URL bar always selects all now, which makes it behave differently than everything else in my OS (KDE Plasma on Linux), which is kind of ironic given that the Mozilla excuse for doing this was to make it behave the same as every OS. That’s just something I’ve had to put up with in Firefox, which is a real annoyance given that even when I used Windows, I’d had Firefox set to not select all on click. If I click on the URL itself, it’s because I want the cursor in the precise spot I have clicked so that I can insert or delete part of the URL… I don’t want to replace the entire thing with whatever I am about to type. I’m very much in the habit of pressing CTRL-A for select-all before typing anything if I want to get rid of it, since that’s how everything else works in KDE. I’d like to have my browser work the same as the rest of it, like it did before they decided to make it work the same by making it not work the same.

    My personal ox has been gored numerous times in the years that Mozilla has been pursuing Chrome. For every one that I’ve personally noticed, I’d guess there are several that I haven’t.

    If you prefer the classic tab-bar under the URL bar appearance or the status bar, Waterfox G3 or Current may be worth a look.

     

    Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
    XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
    Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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    • #2344268

      Everything you mentioned can easily be customized with either about:config changes or add ons.  The ad company that is now the major investor in Startpage also controls, or owns, it’s not clear, Waterfox.  No point in Waterfox any more.

      Try Firefox ESR, it’s much streamlined compared to the rapid release version.  If you need containers, stay with rapid release.  Learn about:config and you’ll be able to get most anything you want from FF.  It’s still vastly more configurable for behavior, appearance and privacy than any Chromia.  Make a profile backup before playing.  Here’s what all the good settings do:

      https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/blob/master/user.js

      Oakenpants has been doing this for years and provides, by far, the most complete collection of changes.

      Your profile is in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

      Just copy the folder with the most recent date somewhere.  If you blow up the browser experimenting, replace the bad profile with the saved one and start again.  NOTE what you changed as you go along, only do a few at a time.  The profile updates as you make changes.  If a group of changes are successful, save the profile again so you don’t have to start over.  You have to close and open the browser to fully implement changes.

      Good luck, you’ll love the results!

      • #2344283

        Everything you mentioned can easily be customized with either about:config changes or add ons.

        Not true. Addons (for all Firefox versions 57+) cannot restore the status bar or put the tabs below the URL bar, and there are no prefs to do that either.

        You can simulate having an actual status bar with Aris’ custom stylesheets, but it is really a repositioned and repurposed bookmarks toolbar. Having a native solution is better.

        Addons and prefs also cannot restore single-process mode (which I have no use for, but many people on here have cited that as something they would want), as Waterfox can. You can reduce the content processes to 1, but there will still be separate processes for other things.

        Waterfox also has all of the telemetry code removed. I don’t care if it’s there; I can just turn it off, and I consider that a done deal, but a lot of people are bothered that it even exists.

        Finally, the builds of Waterfox you get from the semi-official Linux repos are all set up to work nicely with KDE Plasma, which Firefox (from Mozilla itself or from Ubuntu) is not. Mozilla is hostile to KDE for some reason, and even though Chrome works flawlessly with KDE Plasma out of the box, that’s the one feature they are not willing to copy. That’s why I’ve been using OpenSUSE’s version of Firefox, which has the same modifications as Waterfox to work with KDE. OpenSUSE is actually the developer of the patch.

        It doesn’t bother me that Waterfox is owned by the parent company of Startpage. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically full of data collection. If it is ever shown that it does collect and send data, that would be a deal-breaker, but until then, it’s just bare suspicion.

        I am not actually using Waterfox G3, though. This post was just a heads-up in case anyone was interested. I’m attempting to make Vivaldi work well enough to move, as I am really becoming fed up with Mozilla. I just can’t tolerate the stuttery, juddering scrolling that all Chromium derivatives have (Windows and Linux alike). How the entire realm of PCs with touchpads (laptops, in other words) has managed to tolerate this is beyond me. It happens on my slow Acer Swift with an Elan touchpad, and it happens on my speedy Dell G3 laptop with a Synaptics touchpad. I’ve booted to Windows 10, and Chromium derivatives there are just as bad. The Chrome addons that are supposed to smooth things out only work to a point.

        That is really the only thing holding me back at this point. Mozilla seems to be trying to kill Firefox off, and they’re succeeding. Why they would do this, I do not know, but it’s just a matter of time until they remove something that I am not willing to live without (unread tabs is one of those, but fortunately, an addon simulates this well enough for the time being). When they take another shot at wrecking the UI for Firefox 89(?), it’s quite possible that the UI customizations in userChrome.css won’t be able to fix it anymore, and these are not optional to me.

         

        Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
        XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
        Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

    • #2344302

      Finally, the builds of Waterfox you get from the semi-official Linux repos are all set up to work nicely with KDE Plasma, which Firefox (from Mozilla itself or from Ubuntu) is not.


      @Ascaris
      , this caught my eye. In what way would you say that Waterfox works nicely with KDE Plasma that Firefox does not?

       

      • #2360362

        I didn’t see this message the first time around. Sorry about that!

        First, it’s only the builds of Waterfox from the Hawkeye/Venghan repo that have the KDE modifications. The one you get from the Waterfox site is the standard version, which is like Firefox proper.

        Firefox for Linux only uses the GTK (GNOME, Xfce, Cinnamon, Mate) file load/save dialog, even when it is running on a non-GTK desktop environment (KDE or LXqt). In recent Kubuntu, it uses the XDG desktop portal to use the native KDE dialog, but it’s not perfect (more below).

        Mozilla has been hostile to KDE for a long time. Eleven years ago, someone filed a bug asking for Mozilla to make Firefox blend as well with KDE as it does with GTK desktops, but they quickly closed it with a “Resolved WONTFIX.” They said that would be something that would be done with the Qt port of Firefox (KDE uses Qt), but they cancelled the Qt port shortly thereafter, yet for the next 11 years, still “WONTFIX” on making Firefox play nice with KDE.

        By contrast, Chromium and the derivatives I have tried all use the KDE native dialog flawlessly when running on KDE. Wouldn’t you know, the one thing they refuse to copy is the thing I most want them to!

        In the face of Mozilla’s recalcitrance, OpenSUSE stepped up and created a patch and a tiny stub program that make Firefox blend with KDE as nicely as Chromium does. Firefox has refused to implement the patch, as the use of a companion program is hacky, but they also refuse to implement a non-hacky way of doing it the way Chrome does. Ubuntu has apparently also declined the invitation to use the patch on the version they offer.

        OpenSUSE patches their own Firefox in their repo using this patch, even on the OpenSUSE variants that do not use KDE. If KDE is not present, the patch and stub program do nothing– Firefox works the same as always. If KDE is present, it uses the KDE load/save dialogs properly, and supposedly the patch also integrates with the KDE system file types (where the regular Firefox only does that with GNOME, I guess. I haven’t investigated it beyond the file dialogs).

        The regular Waterfox you get as a .tar.gz from the Waterfox site does not have the OpenSUSE patch, and will not use the XDG desktop portal by default (you can make it do so really easily if you want, but the patch is better!), but the one in the Hawkeye (Venghan) repo does. Venghan is the name he goes by on /r/waterfox, where he is one of the mods. He patches and builds Waterfox for all of the common distros, and has repos for all of them (hosted by OpenSUSE also). Since the patch has no effect on non-KDE distros, he just offers the patched version, which he calls waterfox-kpe (for KDE Plasma Edition).  He used to have separate ones, but it’s more work, and for the non-KDE user, the patch doesn’t do anything, so now he does the same as OpenSUSE and just offers the universal version, since there is no harm in having the patch when not on KDE.

        Recently, the official Firefox has gained support for the XDG desktop portal, which is meant to provide native dialogs for Flatpak and other cross-distro setups. One Mozilla dev advised against using this in the non-Flatpak Firefox, as it may have unintended effects, but Kubuntu is set up out of the box to use the XDG desktop portal for Firefox, so when using Firefox, you will see the native KDE file load/save dialogs. It’s not as good as the patch, though, as the very handy ability to mouse over the filename of a file in the save dialog and to see a preview in the right pane does not work in the XDG portal. The right pane is disabled and the checkbox to enable it is grayed out, as is the “automatically select filename extension” checkbox. In addition, after a file is saved, Firefox hangs for several seconds on my systems using the XDG portal, and it does not do that with the patched version.

        I have not found anyone who offers the patched Firefox for Ubuntu variants (Kubuntu, Neon, etc.), but I did find that I could convert the OpenSUSE Firefox from .rpm format to .deb using ‘alien,’ and I later found that all I had to do is extract one file (libxul.so) from the OpenSUSE Leap 15.2 version of Firefox and replace the same file in the Ubuntu version. Leap 15.2 usually comes with ESR, so the version I use is their experimental build with the main release. If you use the Tumbleweed Firefox, you will need to update some libraries for it to work. I updated those on my desktop and G3, while on the XPS I just use the Leap version.

        Note that if you do that, it will still be necessary to convert the ‘kmozillahelper’ package from OpenSUSE .rpm to .deb to make the patch work. Alien is in the Ubuntu repo, so you can grab it with Synaptic or use ‘sudo apt get alien’ from the command line. The command to use with alien (I know of no GUI for it unfortunately) to convert the file is ‘sudo alien –scripts file.rpm’, where file.rpm is changed to the name of the actual rpm. That will create a .deb version in the same directory that can be installed like any other .deb. It works fine with the kmozillahelper, but more complex programs (like Firefox itself) will probably need some adjusting after installation to make them work properly.

        Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
        XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
        Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

        1 user thanked author for this post.
    • #2360229

      Waterfox classic stopped working for me today.  I’ve removed and reinstalled and get the same thing.

      • #2360337

        Stopped how?
        Any error messages?
        What Windows version?
        When did you last update / patch Windows?

        cheers, Paul

    • #2360426

      Ascaris, I use Waterfox “Classic,” and the reason I am not switching to G3 is that it does not import my profile from “Classic” (that I keep up to date), or at least I have not found a way to make it do that. This means that all my “starred” web sites are not showing anywhere in G3’s bookmark toolbar (where I prefer to have them) or anywhere else. In fact, when I first tried to installed G3, the first thing I got was a warning from Waterfox about this profile issue in a textbox popup. So that first time, when I went ahead anyways and installed G3 in spite the warning, I found none of my bookmarked sites anywhere there and right away uninstalled G3. During a quite recent new attempt to install G3, I received the same popup message as before and, therefore, passed on installing G3. And that is why I am still with “Classic,” Never liked “Current”, by the way for much the same reasons I don’t like FireFox. So right now, it is just “Classic” for me.

      Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

      MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
      Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
      macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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