Disclaimer: Support volunteers do not speak for Mozilla.

When memory "leaks" are tracked down to specific causes, they get fixed. The problem usually is the diagnosis, and I suspect more often than not, it's the way Firefox tries to keep so much in memory rather than a true "leak" (which I believe is when memory is not properly reclaimed for use by other pages after the user has left a page and it ages out of session history).

Do you want to name particular sites? There are some people at Mozilla that reach out to popular sites to solve problems. I don't think they necessarily read this forum, but perhaps someone can pass the word along.

Of course, some sites are so busy stuffing their pages with worthless content that they bring the problem on themselves, but it is the users that suffer so it needs to be dealt with in some manner...

As for sites not letting users shop with their browser of choice, that's why it's good to have competition. ;-)

I have been to a number of 'stores' and never saw such a notice.

What kind of issues are you talking about? Is this about Firefox marking HTTP connection as untrusted or does content fail to load?

If you use extensions ("3-bar" menu button# or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) that can block content (e.g. Adblock Plus, NoScript, Flash Block, Ghostery) then always make sure such extensions do not block wanted content.

I cant help thinking maybe there is some other reason for such a brush off.

If the site is not actually allowing the Firefox browser to be used that is unusual but not totally unheard of. Although one may expect a shopping site to be glad of any visits that could be turned in to sales or even just advert click throughs as they all are potential profit makers.

If the site is failing to work somehow could it be because you are using adblockers or script blockers yourself. Those can result in unexpected behaviour.

Using a lot of memory is not necessarily always a bad thing. If you have a lot of spare RAM memory then considering using the 64 bit version of Firefox may make the most of that capacity. If we knew which major retailer you are having problems with and example pages we may be able to check what happens ourselves when we visit the sites.

If you are having memory issues it may help you to look at

• Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix

I can no longer access my MasterCard information online through my credit union; I contacted EZcard's tech support and was told that their site simply does not work with Firefox anymore since v53 dropped, and that it was a known issue which they could not fix because it was a problem with Firefox, not with their architecture.

They recommended I use Internet Explorer. INTERNET EXPLORER.

I don't know why Mozilla is so dead set on scoring own-goals with the last few versions, but I'm just about done with this browser; if I can't even get basic functionality out of it anymore while it's eating between one and two gigs of memory, I don't have a lot of incentive not to switch to Chrome. Google may be evil overlords, but at least they just ignore users instead of trying to pretend that boilerplate excuses about "too many tabs" or "32 bit" are the same as "providing solutions" or "helping", and they probably won't try to blame memory hogging behavior on add-ons and extensions that are exactly the same as they have been through a dozen or more previous versions.

TexasUberAlles said

their site simply does not work with Firefox anymore since v53 dropped, and that it was a known issue which they could not fix

Dropped? Dropped what? Perhaps Java.

Install Older Version Of Firefox {web link} Be sure to read everything here.

If you still want to downgrade, look under; I still want to downgrade. Click the Directory of other versions and languages link. Look for the directory of the version that you want. But, remember that old versions may have security issues.

You should also check out Firefox; Extended Support Release {web link} ESR Notes System Requirements

FredMcD said

Install Older Version Of Firefox {web link}

Yeah, upgrading back to 49.0-- the last stable version that actually worked properly-- is the next step.

TexasUberAlles said

I can no longer access my MasterCard information online through my credit union; I contacted EZcard's tech support and was told that their site simply does not work with Firefox anymore since v53 dropped, and that it was a known issue which they could not fix because it was a problem with Firefox, not with their architecture.

This one: https://www.ezcardinfo.com/ ?

I didn't find any bug reports on file for that site. Did they provide any more specific information? If not, what is the contact information for their support? Maybe they'll give some more details if asked.

Some of my original statement can be disregarded (ie "memory leaks", etc.)

However contrary to the opinions of several Mozilla apologists, the reality is that Mozilla is trying to bully many large corporate consumer websites by removing all support for JAVA and other features - no other browser is doing this.

Mozilla (with the exception of FF 52.1.0 ESR - which is a limited, end-of-life-product) has abandoned support for many sites - these sites are simply not going to accommodate Mozilla's stupidity.

Again, no other browser is trying to bully these sites.

I will not list the names of the corporations, at which I have actually spoken with supervisory web development staff members - they do not need to be told what to do by a company who no longer follows current industry standards.

However, I will mention the 3 industries those companies are in, just to eliminate the small-minded notion that they are just little, inconsequential businesses throwing temper tantrums. Each of these companies are among the largest in their respective businesses:

1. A very large retailer with a very large consumer website providing access to consumer perks at the physical store level, as well as web sales of items not carried in the physical stores and consumer health advice - which runs on JAVA. This site is now non-functional with any version of FF newer than 52.1.0 ESR - they will not be re-writing their entire site just to accommodate Mozilla, since it works fine with FF 52.1.0 ESR (until it dies), as well as working perfectly with IE/Edge and Chrome (which they recommend.)

2. One of the largest communications company's sites for consumer access to their accounts for the many services they offer. This site does not seem to use JAVA, but the current versions of FF (52.1.0 ESR to 53.x) do not behave well on their site - again, rather than re-write their site to accommodate Mozilla, they are recommending IE/Edge and Chrome.

3. One of the US's largest bank's consumer/business account and services web site no longer works well with FF (52.1.0 ESR to 53.x) - and again, rather than re-write their site to accommodate Mozilla, they are recommending IE/Edge and Chrome.

In addition to calling web site supervisors at each of the 3 businesses listed above, I have contacted the developers of 2 of the "Add-Ons" that I use daily, regarding small issues. In both cases, the developers said that they are no longer maintaining their "Add-Ons" since Mozilla will soon eliminate them.

Mozilla is making some absolutely stupid, anti-user decisions.

Without JAVA or "Add-Ons," FF itself is now an "end-of-life-product." No further version will be usable on many web sites and 52.1.0 ESR (only marginally usable) will lose support in 2018.

There will be no reason for large company's to re-write their sites to accommodate Mozilla. They will simply recommend IE/Edge and Chrome.

Hi Doug, re: #1, Chrome hasn't run the Java plugin since around September 2015, so there must be some other explanation for the problem.

I certainly take your point that some websites do not care about supporting Firefox users.

As a support forum, we can make suggestions for particular cases, but we don't set policy for Mozilla or make changes to the product.

You shouldn't confuse Java and JavaScript. Support for JavaScript won't be removed as this is a built-in language that doesn't depend upon external plugins. Websites that really use Java will have to move to another way for browsers to work with Java (the applet element can no longer be used) and Oracle is fully aware of this. It is only that websites will have to update their code to work with modern browsers. This has been announced several years ago. In a lot of cases it is content blocking software/extensions that block wanted content that have to blame or people simply make adjustments to Firefox that break websites. Google Chrome also doesn't support Java, so if the website works with Google Chrome then it is likely that JavaScript is used and not Java.

The same with media files where websites need to move to the built-in HTML5 media player instead of using an external plugin to play that you need to install and keep up to date yourself. New addons will appear that are based upon Web Extensions. Unfortunately XUL based extensions can't be used anymore (Fx 55 marks them already as Legacy), but more and more APIs will be added to Firefox to make it possible for more extensions to get converted.

• https://www.fxsitecompat.com/en-CA/docs/2016/applet-support-will-be-removed/

Migrating Java Applets to the Java Network Launching Protocol

• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/deploy/applet_dev_guide.html #CIADJHDC

jscher2000 and cor-el,

1. I have not verified that the above 3 major web sites do work with Google Chrome - I will not install it on my PC, I simply repeated the advice of the web site supervisory staff members of all 3 corporations.

2. I have not verified that the above 3 major web sites do work with Edge - I will not install it on my PC, I am staying at Win 7-64-bit until it dies.

3. I HAVE verified that each site works perfectly with IE 11.

4. I DO know the difference between JAVA & JAVA-Script - example #1 in my 4 May 17 entry, above, uses a "great deal of JAVA" as per additional emails with their corporate web site supervisory staff - NOT JAVA-Script.

5. It is not that web sites do not want to support FireFox - MOZILLA has stopped supporting them and FireFox is therefore becoming an "end-of-life" product.

6. Not only has Mozilla tried to bully web sites, it currently is trying to trick, bully, fool (you pick the verb) users into avoiding the ESR path:

• When I received a Mozilla Pop-Up (2017.05.05) notifying me of a "recommended" update's availability (52.1.0ESR to 52.1.1ESR);

• I clicked on "View more information about this update;"

• This opens https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.1.1/releasenotes/ which has no real info on 52.1.1ESR - from this page, and 1 subsequent 1, the user is given 3 "opportunities" to "download FireFox" EVERY ONE OF THE SUPPOSED ESR DOWNLOADS FORCE THE USER TO UPGRADE TO 53.0.2 WITH NO SUPPORT FOR 52.1.1ESR;

• The only ways to update to 52.1.1ESR, is to totally ignore any offers of "more information" (which there is none) and to update either from the pop-up or from Help/About.

These attempts to force users to do without JAVA is very obnoxious - Mozilla "may" not intend to mislead users, but that is the effect.

Doug said

This opens https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.1.1/releasenotes/ which has no real info on 52.1.1ESR - from this page, and 1 subsequent 1, the user is given 3 "opportunities" to "download FireFox" EVERY ONE OF THE SUPPOSED ESR DOWNLOADS FORCE THE USER TO UPGRADE TO 53.0.2 WITH NO SUPPORT FOR 52.1.1ESR;

That is a bug with the new consolidated release notes page. This "shared footer" problem also affects beta and the mobile platforms; all of them point to the same desktop version download link/button. While I saw a fix pending for those other cases, I didn't see one for ESR so I filed a new bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362900.

No need to comment there unless I made an error in the description. See:

• Bugzilla Etiquette
• Voting

Also, the reason there is limited information on changes within the ESR series after 52.0esr is that very little changes with ESR updates, just critical security and crash fixes.

4. I DO know the difference between JAVA & JAVA-Script - example #1 in my 4 May 17 entry, above, uses a "great deal of JAVA" as per additional emails with their corporate web site supervisory staff - NOT JAVA-Script.

Where does it use Java -- in the browser or on the server? The key question is whether their site requires the user's browser to have the Java plugin. If the site runs in Chrome and Edge, then it can't be necessary. I understand that you aren't going to be checking that yourself, and that you aren't going to tell us what site it is.

Have you seen this 2016 blog from Oracle the Java Plugin people

• Moving to a Plugin-Free Web
  https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/moving-to-a-plugin-free-web

By: Dalibor Topic | Principal Product Manager
By late 2015, many browser vendors have either removed or announced timelines { https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/entry/npapi_plugin_perspectives_and_the ) for the removal of standards based plugin support, eliminating the ability to embed Flash, Silverlight, Java and other plugin based technologies.

With modern browser vendors working to restrict and reduce plugin support in their products, developers of applications that rely on the Java browser plugin need to consider alternative options such as migrating from Java Applets (which rely on a browser plugin) to the plugin-free Java Web Start technology. { http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/javaws/ )

Oracle plans to deprecate the Java browser plugin in JDK 9. This technology will be removed from the Oracle JDK and JRE in a future Java SE release. ....

If you wish to post where your comments may be seen by developers and decision makers please consider posting in one of the official Mozilla main fora|mailing lists.

• https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
  • You may find the topic or a very similar one already exists.
  • It is probably best to post a short comment initially and ask where the best place is to discuss the subject.
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jscher2000 said

"Where does it use Java -- in the browser or on the server? The key question is whether their site requires the user's browser to have the Java plugin. If the site runs in Chrome and Edge, then it can't be necessary. I understand that you aren't going to be checking that yourself, and that you aren't going to tell us what site it is."

As per the website supervisory staff at Corporation #1 above, I made sure that I had updated the "JAVA PLUGIN." With IE 11, the site works perfectly, as do the other 2.

Even with the plugin, in FF 52.1.1 ESR, the site works partially, and the other 2 are a little flakey, but do work. WITH FF 53.x, none of these 3 sites are accessible, but are with IE 11.

You can also download the test pilot extension and activate pulse which you can use to tell developers which sites work well and which sites might not work so well in Firefox and with that data, hopefully the developers will try their best to improve the websites.

Of course if you say what the sites are and give an example of a web page for each site with a screen shot of how it is broken in Firefox but working in IE we can all understand what is being discussed and may be able to give better comments.

That also ensbles anyone interested to test ourselves in Firefox and other modern major browsers.

It could make your conjecture much more compelling.