2015

Remove ‘Get Windows 10’ (GWX)

Most people who were running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 before Windows 10 was released this past July who didn’t want it removed (and also hid) KB3035583 from their Windows Updates. But, what about people who bought a new Windows 8.1 computer or reinstalled Windows 7/8.1 AFTER Windows 10 was released? I ran into this scenario last week after a couple family members purchased new Windows 8.1 PCs (yes, you can still get Windows 8.1 PC’s) and the machines download and installed KB3035583. I thought this would be a simple fix, remove and hide KB3035583 and all would be well. As it turns…

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Enforced Extension Signing Delayed until Early 2016

Bug 1203584 was filed on September 10th, 2015 indicates Mozilla has delay the enforced extension signing (unsigned add-ons can not be installed…period) until Firefox 44 coming in late January 2016. This means that unsigned add-ons may still be installed in Firefox 41-43 if you set the xpinstall.signatures.required preference in about:config to FALSE. Not sure as to the reason for this change as the bug simply stated: We’ve decided to push turning the pref for signing requirements on out to 43 so need to turn it off in aurora/beta. Forcing the pref on will be pushed out to 44  

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TBird 38.2.0 Issues coming out of Sleep/Hibernate

There are a couple issues with Thunderbird 38.2.0 when starting up from a long sleep or hibernate (especially overnight). First is Bug 1196662 Thunderbird not checking for mails and becomes unresponsive after hibernation (problem is caused by upgrade to Thunderbird 38.2.0). While I have not experienced issues Thunderbird becoming unresponsive I have noticed I need to click the ‘Get Messages Button’ in order to ‘kick-start’ Thunderbird to periodically and automatically check for new messages. Second which appears to be related to the first and affects those who are using Lighting: Bug 1199994 Today pane date incorrect after overnight hibernate [TypeError: this.mDeferred is null]. I have…

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Google ends NPAPI Support with Chrome 45

People are still complaining about how Mozilla is removing support for NPAPI plugins (Silverlight and Java specifically) in the upcoming Windows 64-Bit release of Firefox (now tentatively scheduled for Firefox 42 in November) even though the move is not that unusual given the trend to move away from NPAPI plugins by other browsers. Microsoft’s Edge Browser (Windows 10 only) does not support Active X or any of the NPAPI plugins (Flash is integrated not a plugin). On Tuesday, September 1st Google released Chrome 45 which ended the browser’s support of NPAPI plugins as well. I found this out when I…

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Pepper Flash with Firefox?

I don’t know anything about this distro but the use of Pepper Flash with Firefox is interesting.I’m wondering if the other “flavors” will do this. Notable changes: Nemo updated to 2.6.7 Running kernel 3.13.0-63 Firefox 40.0.3 Fixed Grub installing issues. Fixed Docky & Network issues after waking from suspend. Using Pepper Flash in Firefox instead of Adobe Flash. Added the H.265/HEVC Codec for VLC. Source: Pinguy OS

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No Win64 Firefox Until Firefox 42?

The plans to ‘officially’ release a Win64 release of Firefox have now been pushed back to Firefox 42 (November 2015). As you may recall it was suppose to be Firefox 40 (August 2015) then was pushed to Firefox 41 (September 2015). The reason for the delay as described in Bug 1185532 has to do with the sandboxing feature for the 64-Bit Flash not working correctly.

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Firefox 40.0.3 Released

Mozilla release an emergency update for the Firefox 40 branch on Thursday, August 27th with Firefox 40.0.3 release. This release addressed the following issues: Disable the asynchronous plugin initialization (1198590) Fix a segmentation fault in the GStreamer support (GNU/Linux) (1145230) Fix a startup crash when using DisplayLink (Windows Only) (1195844) Fix a regression with some Japanese fonts used in the <input> field (1194055) On some sites, the selection in a select combox box using the mouse could be broken (1194733) Some search partner codes were missing (1195683) Various security fixes   User should be prompted to update or can do…

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Mozilla Ruining Firefox?

I’m using Pale Moon but not because standard FF was crashing (I don’t remember the last time it did), I just hated the new UI. “A week ago, Mozilla shed some light on its future, laying out a plan on how the browser is going to dramatically change in the upcoming months. While most of us understood “Chrome extensions are coming to Firefox,” it is not as simple as we all thought.“… The Mozilla dev team has a pretty solid plan on how they can change the browser “always crashing” image, and even if we don’t like it, this includes…

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How to Limit Windows 10 Forced Updates

Note: I use the word ‘limit’ in lieu of ‘stop’ because Windows 10 Home users can not stop Security Updates, which there is really no reason as for the most part Security Updates have been trouble free. There are three different methods you can try, to stop Windows 10 from automatically installing updates (new drivers and software features). These updates have been particularly troublesome for ‘fast ring’ users and the patches to fix these broken updates have caused endless crashing loops. The method which use choose to use will depend if you are a Home, Pro or Enterprise user as well as the type…

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Dealing with WordPress White Screen of Death

A White Screen of Death in WordPress occurs when PHP has crashed. Usually this is caused by malformed coding which causes the interpreter to stop processing the page. Most common reasons include installing incompatible plugins or themes. Remember many years ago troubleshooting a White Screen for someone and determined that they had installed a Joomla theme in WordPress. While they both used the same file structure there are vast differences between WordPress and Joomla.  WordPress has made several enhancements over the last couple years that greatly reduce the likelihood of there being a White Screen of Death such as performing…

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