Back in February we mentioned Extension Signing Coming Later in 2015. Recently the Mozilla Add-ons Blog posted a follow up The Case for Extension Signing. There is a lot of interesting information in this article, including this very shocking statistic which puts into prospective just how badly broken the current Mozilla Firefox add-on system is: The Web experienced by tech-savvy developers, however, is not the Web experienced by most people. While only fourteen add-ons hosted on our addons.mozilla.org site have more than a million users, and only two of those have more than 3 million, many tens of millions of users have non-hosted…
Articles by ElGuru
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This seems to be a common error some people encounter with Firefox. First, XPCOM has nothing to do with Windows XP, rather it is Cross Platform Component Object Model. It is a cross-platform component model from Mozilla (more info at Wikipedia). Not sure what causes this error other than a file or files for XPCOM in the main Firefox uninstall some how get removed or corrupted. However, the fix is fairly simple and painless: re-install Firefox. Uninstalling Firefox will NOT remove your profile folder or settings, it simply removes the Firefox browser from your computer. Once you have removed Firefox, (using another browser)…
I thought I had done a post earlier in regards to Mozilla Revoking Trust in one CNNIC Intermediate Certificate. Turns out I had not. Also had planned on posting more about this earlier this weekend as Mozilla took further actions against the CNNIC certificate authority on Thursday, April 2nd. I did mention this briefly in the Firefox 37.0.1 Released post, but wanted to take a moment and explain about this in a little more detail. About 2-weeks ago on March 23rd, from the Mozilla Security Blog: China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a non-profit organization administrated by Cyberspace Administration of China…
Mozilla released an emergency update to Firefox 37 on April 3, 2015 with Firefox 37.0.1. This update did address start-up crashes due to graphics hardware and third party software. However, there were two security fixes to address a couple recently released Mozilla Foundation Security Advisories (MFSA): MFSA 2015-44 Critical: Certificate verification bypass through the HTTP/2 Alt-Svc header [Firefox 37 Desktop] MFSA 2015-43 High: Loading privileged content through Reader mode [Firefox 37 Android/Firefox 38 Beta (Desktop)] The now disabled HTTP/2 Alt-Svc header aka Opportunistic Encryption For Firefox was introduced in the Firefox 37 from earlier in the week. There has been several security issues/breaches…
Mozilla released the final scheduled update for the Thunderbird 31 branch on Tuesday, March 31 with Thunderbird 31.6.0. Release notes. Users may be prompted to update to the newest release of Thunderbird or can do so manually within Thunderbird by going to Help > About Thunderbird and following the update prompts. Users may also manually download and install the Thunderbird update via the getthunderbird.com site. The next scheduled update for the Thunderbird will be May 12, 2015 with Thunderbird 38.0.
Mozilla released an update to Firefox on March 31, 2015 with Firefox 37. There are several new features and fixes for this release and these can be viewed in the release notes. Users may be prompted to update to the newest release (36.0) of Firefox or can do so manually within Firefox by going to Help > About Firefox and following the update prompts. Users may also manually download and install the newest Firefox update the getfirefox.com site. The next scheduled update for Firefox is May 12th, 2015 with Firefox 38.
Mozilla released another emergency security update for Firefox 36 on March 21, 2015 with Firefox 36.0.4. This update has more Security fixes for issues disclosed at HP Zero Day Initiative’s Pwn2Own contest. Depending on their update settings, users should be prompted shortly to update to Firefox 36.0.4 or can also force the update by going to the Firefox Help Menu and selecting About Firefox then follow the prompts. Alternatively, users my also go to getfirefox.com and download and install the latest version of Firefox there. The next scheduled release for Firefox is March 31st with Firefox 37.
Google, is starting panic. For the first time since 2008 their market share as dropped below 75%. The reason behind this sudden decline and panic is Mozilla’s decision back in November 2014 not to renew the agreement (default browser search engine) they had with Google, instead opting to sign a five-year deal with Yahoo. Not surprisingly, Yahoo’s market share has increased as a result of this deal to 10.6% (up 2% since the agreement started back in November). Well, Google is not too happy about this and is trying to get Firefox user back. While Google is still the clear market leader, it is…
Mozilla released an emergency security update for Firefox 36 on March 20, 2015 with Firefox 36.0.3. This update has Security fixes for issues disclosed at HP Zero Day Initiative’s Pwn2Own contest. Depending on their update settings, users should be prompted shortly to update to Firefox 36.0.3 or can also force the update by going to the Firefox Help Menu and selecting About Firefox then follow the prompts. Alternatively, users my also go to getfirefox.com and download and install the latest version of Firefox there. The next scheduled release for Firefox is March 31st with Firefox 37.
Contrary to the rumors, Mozilla Thunderbird usage is not declining. In fact, usage is still increasing steadily. Mozilla measures program usage by Active Daily Installations (ADI), which is the number of pings that Mozilla servers receive as installations do their daily plugin block-list update. This is not the same as the number of active users, since some users don’t access their program each day, and some installations are behind firewalls. An estimate of active monthly users is typically done by multiplying the ADI by a factor of 3. There is a more detailed breakdown of the growth, plus the top 10…