New Tab Glitch in Firefox 38.01

[ameerat42]

Just recently on one computer the New Tab "+" button does not work.
I can open a new tab if I click the mouse wheel in the tab bar.

After combing the internet, and fiddling (carefully!) in about:config, nothing has changed.

So, I'm putting it out there.

Ta.
Am.

[Warbler]

Beta version 39.2 is available, and I'm running version 39. No tab problem in it.

[ameerat42]

Ta Warbs. Will givvertalook.

[arthurking83]

is that version 38.0.1 .. or as you have typed it .. 38.01?

I literally just had a notification to update and accepted it .. but to version 38.0.5(now).

I may(or may not) have been on 38.0.1 prior to this update, but not sure.

I haven't seen any glitches with new tabs using the + method in any version.

Have you tried to update to the latest(which I got at abt 8PM or so) which is now 38.0.5?

[ameerat42]

Ta AK. Yes, 38.0.1. Will look for that update 2morrow, as I have shut that one down and it takes 5 mins to boot up.
Am.

[Kym]

39.0 beta 2 here - no issue

[ameerat42]

Ta Kym. This just happened the other day. I only deleted some programs and some stupid old bar from FF I never used.
Speedbit.

[Kym]

FYI My plugins... (bold are probably useful to the general user)

1. Adblock Plus (v2.6.9.1-signed) — Ads were yesterday!
2. DownThemAll! (v3.0b6) — The mass downloader for Firefox.
3. Exif Viewer (v2.00.1-signed) — Extracts and displays the Exif (Exchangeable Image File), IPTC-NAA/IIM (International Press Telecommunications Council / Newspaper Association of America / Information Interchange Model), and IPTC Core (Adobe XMP, Extensible Metadata Platform) metadata, as stored by digital still cameras, in both local and remote JPEG images.
4. FEBE (v8.7.1-signed) — Backup your Firefox data
5. FxIF (v0.4.8.1.1-signed) — View EXIF data in image properties
6. Greasemonkey (v3.2) — A User Script Manager for Firefox
7. Net Usage Item (v1.2.366.1) — Displays your internet usage on the toolbar.
8. Nightly Tester Tools (v3.7.1-signed) — Useful tools for the nightly tester.
9. Open in IE (v1.4.1-signed) — Opens selected link or page in a new Internet Explorer window
10. SixOrNot (v1.0.1.1-signed) — IPv6 status indicator
11. SQLite Manager (v0.8.3.1-signed) — Manage any SQLite database on your computer
12. Tab Mix Plus (v0.4.1.8pre.150317a1) — Tab browsing with an added boost.
13. Web Developer (v1.2.5.1-signed) — Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

[ameerat42]

Ta Kym. That no. 7 looks interesting. Will add.

[Tannin]

Firefox has had new tab problems for years. There must be something wrong in the underlying code as the issue pops up and goes away at random. Mostly, it's the CONTROL-TAB keyboard control that goes out to lunch. Curiously, I have never noticed this problem with either of the two excellent Firefox relatves, Seamonkey and Pale Moon, only with Firefox. There is no apparent pattern to it but it's a right pain and they probably aren't very interested in fixing it, they are far too busy ripping useful features out of the interface and pretending to be Chrome.

[ameerat42]

Ta Tannin. I have tried so many things I just give up now. At least I can open a new tab by clicking the mouse wheel in the blue tab space:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Tannin]

Cheers Ameerat. One thing you could do is switch to Pale Moon - http://www.palemoon.org - which is an improved version of Firefox. Pale Moon is based on the same code but has several differences. It leaves out several bloated features that most people never use (I can't remember what these are, suffice to say that I have never used any of them, nor do I know anyone who does) to improve speed and performs a number of speed optimisations for modern processors. The result is that it is smaller, faster, and more stable. The downside is that it doesn't work for a very small number of people with weird hardware or special needs. (You are most unlikely to be one of them.)

Pale Moon retains the well-tested and familiar Firefox interface and the chief developer is on record as saying that he will never adopt Firefox's unpopular new "Australis" interface which is basically an ill-thought-out copy of Chrome. (If you like Chrome, why wouldn't you just run Chrome in the first place?) In short, these days Pale Moon is more like Firefox than Firefox. You can use most (not all) Firefox plugins, plus some Pale Moon specific ones. Well worth switching to and very easy to use.

Another alternative is the excellent Seamonkey - http://seamonkey-project.org - which is the original browser from which Firefox (and later Pale Moon too) descends. Seamonkey is old school in the very best way. You may or may not like that. It is also probably the most easily and extensively customisable browser you can get today, so you can make it work exactly the way you want it to work. (Nothing offers the power and simplicity of the old Presto-based Opera, or even comes close, but sadly that pioneering product has been abandoned by its owners and is getting very dated now. The product now marketed as "Opera" is nothing of the kind, it's just another clone of Chrome/Safari and brings nothing worth mentioning to the table.)

[ameerat42]

Ta for this comprehensive info, Tannin. I am only concerned about "which is a secure/most secure browser?" Most people
discount IE and Chrome in this regard. I guess that is why I have stuck with (and get stuck in) FFox.
Am.

[Tannin]

Cheers Am. A very wise point of view! The three main Gecko-family browsers (Seamonkey, Firefox and Pale Moon) share essentially the same update and security qualities. All three use a common core of code to do the heavy lifting, and, in general, update it at much the same time. Seamonkey and Pale Moon tend not to go in for the excessive minor-feature updates and user interface changes that Firefox insists on: as a rule, they seem to save up their non-essential updates until they are doing a security update anyway.

Chrome's security is generally regarded as fairly decent (probably not as good as the Gecko browsers, but still pretty good despite the odd dumb mistake). It's the all-your-data-are-belong-to-us privacy-robbing nature of Chrome that a lot of people object to. I haven't looked into either aspect of Chrome for myself as I strongly dislike the dumbed-down user interface and seldom use any of the Webkit family browsers anyway (Chrome, Safari, the new fake Opera, and one or two others), so I'm just reporting the general consensus among techheads. Still, they are usually right about this sort of thing.

[ameerat42]

I'm now using Pale Moon:D:D

[ameerat42]

An UPDATE on the Browser Pale Moon
As Tannin said, this is a "sibling" of FireFox. {?Same group of developers or something. This one's by "MoonChild".)

At first appearance I was rather :)ed with it. SO I set about starting to customise it a bit: set a home page, a few add-ons...

Now a couple of things didn't sit too well:

1) I could not tell Pale Moon via its settings to open a new tab with the Home Page showing. Instead, it opened up a logo page or one other search engine. (The amusingly
named "DuckduckGo".) OK, to do what I wanted I had to go into "about:config". It worked.

2) Now, more troublesome than that was one thing I COULDN'T fix: displayed ads and pop-ups. This would normally be a simple matter of installing Ad Block Plus.
I did this, noting along the way that the version number was NOT 2.6.9.1 like I have in FireFox, but rather 2.6.6.1. So I tried it - I still had ads! I installed another three such
ad stoppers: the ADP Pop-up add on, Image and Flash blocker, and Pop-up Controller. I tried them together and separately - with laborious browser restarts in between.
RESULT: I still got ads.

SO, the upshot is: I haven't yet put Pale Moon on the computer that had the FFox glitch. Dunno if I will now.

A BTW is that this is so similar looking in every regard to FFox, I can only tell them apart by the shape of the tabs (rounded in FF, squared in PM).

Well, that's that.

Am(for now).

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, PS: In FFox, I've ONLY got Ad Block Plus.

[Tannin]

https://addons.palemoon.org/extensions/privacy-and-security/adblock-latitude/

- - - Updated - - -

"Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser."

"Adblock Latitude is designed to be a drop in replacement for ABP and will utilize all your exsisting settings. However, ABL is more than that. It intends to also replace Adblock Edge by removing the hard coded Acceptable Ads feature."

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, one more thing. Adblock Lattitude is supposed to be superior to Adblock Plus, but I wouldn't know, I've never tried it. Instead I use the most advanced adblocker of all. It's free, highly customisable, and very nearly 100% effective. It is inside my head. :)

On the wonderful old Opera, if something gets past the mental ad-blocker by flashing objectionally or making noise or some such, right-click, select "block content", click on the ad. Shazam! That ad, and all other content from the slimebags who put it there is gone, not just on that page, on any page anywhere. Couple that with the easy per-site Javascript block and you have the simplest, easiest, most effective system ever. Sadly, that is the old Opera, so now you have to make do with Sea Monkey or Pale Moon or Firefox and manage as best you can.

[ameerat42]

Thanks for this, T. It was really only the annoying ads that were still stopping me from using PM.

Will give it a whirl.

- - - Updated - - -

UPDATE UPDATE!

Tops, Tannin, Ta. - No, I haven't got the sTTuTTers, I'm just :Ding because Adblock Latitude is working fine.
Am.