Plugins are dead, as much as you might dislike it they aren't coming back. Adobe has announced they will no longer be developing Flash, Java is starting to wind down the Java Plugin, everything is moving away from closed plugins to a more open internet. I do think it's interesting you think that Flash wasn't slow, as it was, often-times, slower than the HTML5 that replaced it, and on top of that it was notoriously insecure.

I know one thing that will continue to make your internet surfing experience slow and horribly insecure, and that it staying on an old browser. By not updating, you don't get the speed improvements and security fixes, not to mention new web features that a modern web browser brings.

I urge you to give Firefox 56 a try. It's going to be much faster than the version you use now, and on top of that, we have 57 coming in a few weeks which is even faster, as it includes the new Firefox Quantum engine improvements.

If you still have problems, I'd suggest trying a Firefox Refresh. It might clean things up for you. But by far the worst thing you can do is use an old browser and get left behind by the web.

I gave firefox 56 a try, both 64-bit and 32-bit. I am not happy with the results. This is why I went back to version 51 for the Plugin support. Old computer / New computer same results and is not the profile. IT IS BECAUSE OF JAVASCRIPT and browser caching.

Java is on over 4 billion devices. Is Mozilla offering for free to update every device that uses Java to a different language? I don't think so.

Did you know that our US Court systems websites were designed in Java. I have a lot of customers that are lawyers that have to log into the Court's website that require the Java plugin to work properly. What does Mozilla have to say about that. I doubt Mozilla is planing on re-writing everyones elses website to not use Java.

So for those people, Mozilla loses support from the US court system, because they are not updating their website for a while.

BTW. Today, I stopped using Firefox for my personal web surfing. Browser caching is driving my crazy. Why is there browser caching, when there are cookies. They are the same thing.

Hi ecornell, if your business or your happiness in life depends on the Java plugin, and you don't want to use Internet Explorer, you can use the Extended Support Release of Firefox 52 to use plugins other than Flash. You'll need the 32-bit version to run Java.

ESR was first developed to meet the needs of large organizations that wanted Firefox to change much more slowly, but anyone can run it. It will retain the features of Firefox 52 and get regular security updates through next Spring.

• More information on this change and ESR: Why do Java, Silverlight, Adobe Acrobat and other plugins no longer work?
• Installers: https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/organizations/all/

ecornell said

Did you know that our US Court systems websites were designed in Java. I have a lot of customers that are lawyers that have to log into the Court's website that require the Java plugin to work properly. What does Mozilla have to say about that. I doubt Mozilla is planing on re-writing everyones elses website to not use Java.

As you may know, Oracle has encouraging sites to switch to Java Web Start to preserve their investment in Java applet code. Java Web Start triggers an external Java host program to run the converted "applet" rather than having it run in the browser. For example, the USPTO converted last Fall (they are fee supported, which may have made it easier for them than for the courts): https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/checking-application-status/pair-announcements

Server-side Java (JSP) is not affected by this issue because the server delivers standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to Firefox.

Browser caching is driving my crazy. Why is there browser caching, when there are cookies. They are the same thing.

Why do you say they are the same thing??

• Browser cache: storage for pages, images, and other files previously downloaded from a site so the browser can use them again from a local copy and save on bandwidth/downloading time. Stored in a huge folder.

• Cookies: snippets of text websites ask Firefox to store and send to the site with every request to maintain context in your use of the site. Stored in a database.

If you want to disable caching and see how that changes your experience -- assuming you have a fast connection -- here's how (in Firefox 51-52). Call up the Options page:

• Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
• Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
• Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
• Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

In the left column, click Advanced. Then on the right side, with the "Network" mini-tab active, click the "Clear Now" button, then check the box to override the automatic size and try 0 (that's a zero).

I have tried the new version of Firefox. I would agree it is faster, however it still bogs down with the high intense web pages. Javascript, Jquery, Ajack, JSON, and any other form of Javascript, still has major memory leaks causing the browser become sluggish. Since these programming language is never finished loading in the background. Firefox can not print, while the page is loading. Can this message get removed and print anyways. I was hoping this would be fixed with the new version of Firefox.

You can do a few things:

Disable Accessibility Services How do I disable Accessibility Services?

Update your Graphics Driver Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL

Make sure you have no unnecessary add-ons enabled

ecornell said

Since these programming language is never finished loading in the background. Firefox can not print, while the page is loading. Can this message get removed and print anyways.

Often you can stop the page load at its current state by clicking the X button in the toolbar (the reload button is an X while a page is still loading). Does that work on the problem page(s)?