I'm still using the Fox. It's better now. I found some tweaks. I browsed quite a few guides, and found out that quite a few old options no longer apply in the new version... but some still do! And they help, a little, so here's a little list of those for those of you who might need them.

For starters, type in about:config in your address bar, and then experiment (at your own risk) with setting the following:

browser.download.animateNotifications to False
security.dialog_enable_delay to 0
network.dns.disableIPv6 to True
browser.tabs.animate to False
browser.display.show_image_placeholders to False
browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers to 0

For finishers, type in about:memory in your address bar, and 'Minimize memory usage'. This should minimize memory usage.

A few other things I've been doing a long time now that speed things up: keep any extensions you don't need disabled by default, clear your cache and history every once in a while, don't let the browser add-on list get bloated, and if all else fails: about:support. Reset the browser.

Resetting the browser will reset some things, of course, so use that as a last resort if you have settings and history you'd like to save. It's been a while since I last did that. For now, these tweaks seem to be working pretty well.

A week ago I almost bought a reseller.

It was Black Friday. A hosting company I've been following for a long time had this amazing deal, yet the catch was that you had to subscribe for three years to get the best price. A lot of hosting companies do that. I really considered it. I almost bought it, but it turned out I didn't have enough money loaded onto my credit card (which does not as the name might imply allow credit), and so I thought some more about it and realized... I really don't need that reseller after all.

Is this the right time for me to get into the hosting business? Do I really want to get into the hosting business?

I've bought a reseller account before. Twice, actually. Maybe more. One of those hosts died. That other time I signed up on a deal like this, and ended up just hosting a single site on the reseller for two years... without even getting a proper hosting page up. Needless to say it didn't run the profit I planned. Good thing it was a good deal - though of course more expensive than any good deal I could have taken on a shared host.

I thought I learned my lesson then, and yet the prospect of fast cash keeps coming back to haunt me...

It's never that simple. If you want to start a business you have to prepared. You have to put your all into it, and though maybe I might be willing to do that some day I'm really not there yet, and I don't know if I ever will be, so I'll stick to the shared accounts I have and abide my time until time comes for such a decision. Till then... I think blogging's pretty nice. I should spend more time on this. Writing about earlier failed hosting ventures and acquisitions, maybe? If anyone wants another story just let me know.

That thing I wrote about FireFox? I was wrong! It does use more resources.

Though they claim that it's both faster and less resource-intense than Chrome, it's certainly not faster for me than it used to be. The bigger improvements seem to have come at the expense of additional system resource usage, and I'm sad to say my computer can't keep up with the added demand without lag. Maybe it's addons. Maybe they're not properly optimized for the new. I see a lot more processes now than I used to.

Before the update FireFox ran faster than Chrome, for me, on this computer, but the tables have now turned.

I've run into a few issues loading particular pages as well, though not sure this has to do with the browser or other addons.

The main problem though: tabs load slow. Toggling between tabs goes slow. Overall there's just a lot of slowness involved that I was hoping this new version would somehow not only manage to avoid but actually solve. Unfortunately all progress comes at a cost

Another irritating thing I've noticed is how that little collective menu I mentioned earlier also doesn't preserve folder structure, and I do have to open up the bookmarks section completely to reach those. I figured out the shortcut on my own though. CTRL + B.

To B or not to B... I think I'll look around for previous-format-preserving-plugins soon, like they used to have with the previous version: preserving the little bookmark icon you could have available directly in the bookmark bar. I still wonder why they removed that one. It was perfect.

Otherwise all is working well, and the design is starting to feel normal. The change did come with some improvements, but not as great ones as I was hoping, and the ones they marketed so much were not improvements, but rather degradations in functionality. For me.

What's the hardware norm 2017? Whatever it is it seems I'm falling behind, but then again I live in a privileged country, with considerably newer hardware than some, so it makes me wonder how others are experiencing this change. Is it really best for all? Is it right to increase hardware requirements so much for the one browser that's previously been the low-end alternative among the giants?

If it had all the features of Vivaldi, combined with current performance, then I wouldn't mind. But it feels like the cost is too large, when I see little overall improvement. For me.

The fire's fading, but I'll stick with the Fox for now. Hope these improvements further improve, and the load-decreasing miracle I hope for comes to be so we can once again browse the web in a blaze of speed.

Don't faux the fire.

So I just received this email...

I'd actually written the release date on my calendar, for November 18, but either they're ahead of schedule or I got the date wrong. Whichever the case: it's out today, and I'm hyped to hear it! You can read the official blog post about it here.

I don't usually look forward to new versions this much, but I've heard great things about this one in particular, to the point where it seemed almost like a new browser entirely. The most important improvements are clearly regarding speed, and yet it supposedly uses just half the resources of before! I just gave it a whirr and... first impressions are so-so.

It does feel fast. It starts well, and is easy to browse with, but new tabs actually open slower than before. If I'm not mistaken it boots slower as well. I assume they've been testing it on a bit higher-end systems, and that the improvements are better experienced on such a system. Of course there's probably a bit new bloatware. New features. Improved support for various elements. More code, in other words. Unfortunate but hopefully useful necessities in the name of progress.

It does seem to use less resources however, which is currently the #1 thing I care about, and I'm hoping I might be able to start playing HTML5 games without them crashing on me now, among other things. I used to have to play some of those in Chrome. O_o

Visually the interface isn't all that different, though it's even more square (why oh why), and there are a few things that annoy me a bit, like...

Read on...

Just noticed VEVO are no longer letting their videos play outside of YT.

I probably have their videos in prominent places all over the site by now, not least in the 200+ music video posts of which the latest can be seen below, but what do you know... suddenly it became a whole lot more difficult to view videos as they're meant to be viewed. Whenever you want to. At the click of a button without site-swapping to see the stream.

I understand their choice - of course they want people to view the videos at the source, but at the same time I really don't like it. I'll keep embedding videos as usual, VEVO content or no, but it's a sad day for all of us who embed other people's content on our blogs... though that sounds like a bad thing it's really the best method to share, and spread anything you appreciate or want to grow.

Seems like a good time to start featuring less-known artists, and giving recognition to those who really want it, and allow embeds outside the source. I just hope the industry doesn't take after VEVO and start going the same way, doing the same thing, now that I think about it...

What the hell VEVO! You're going to get so much shit for this from all kinds of users, and it's not like your rep couldn't use some improving, not the other way around. Surely it's in the interest of everyone to share and keep content relevant and popular, and it'll better your revenue too: no matter where these videos play the ads still show, and the more places people embed them the more they'll play.

Hope you rethink this strategy and revert these highly constricting video-sharing limitations. For you, for the artists and for the audience.

I compared my old wp-config file to a new one recently, and it looks like the header message had changed, from...

/**
* The base configurations of the WordPress.
*
* This file has the following configurations: MySQL settings, Table Prefix,
* Secret Keys, WordPress Language, and ABSPATH. You can find more information
* by visiting {@link http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php Editing
* wp-config.php} Codex page. You can get the MySQL settings from your web host.
*
* This file is used by the wp-config.php creation script during the
* installation. You don't have to use the web site, you can just copy this file
* to "wp-config.php" and fill in the values.
*
* @package WordPress
*/

...to...

/**
* The base configuration for WordPress
*
* The wp-config.php creation script uses this file during the
* installation. You don't have to use the web site, you can
* copy this file to "wp-config.php" and fill in the values.
*
* This file contains the following configurations:
*
* * MySQL settings
* * Secret keys
* * Database table prefix
* * ABSPATH
*
* @link https://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php
*
* @package WordPress
*/

Looks a bit better, right? Probably a bit less character too. I also can't believe they had a typo in the first one, it was such a huge platform even then. XD

The old version must be ancient by now. I have no idea in which version they made the change, or if it's gone through more than one revision since then, but two versions at least ten years apart... maybe fun to leave a note before I swap out all these headers for the new. For reference. For historical value. And most importantly: for nostalgia.