Mozilla reboots with Firefox 57
Breakthrough
What’s new in Firefox 57 Quantum – and why does it matter so much?
Firefox 57 Quantum is probably the most important release in the Mozilla browser's 15-year history. Firefox 57 (FF57) is the biggest upgrade cycle yet for Firefox and the stakes are high: Public acceptance of FF57 is important for Mozilla's future health.
Market observers say the overall Firefox marketshare is somewhere between 8 and 12 percent. By comparison, Google Chrome weighs in closer to 60 percent. Firefox fares better within the Linux community, though, where many users prefer it for ideological reasons while others are attracted to its impressive range of extensions. But even among the Linux crowd, Chrome has been closing the gap in recent years.
Setting the Stage
One mistake Mozilla made was the failed excursion into Firefox OS. Mozilla spent a great deal of money on the ill-fated mobile OS, and the Firefox OS effort used up valuable developer resources, thus slowing down work on Mozilla's flagship browser. In addition, integrating the online bookmarking service Pocket and the WebRTC service Hello added more bloat. Mozilla also annoyed some customers by displaying ads on the New Tab page and by collecting too much data.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.