Browsers

Mozilla: Windows 10 and Users Choice

Mozilla Future Releases has published the article Windows 10 and User Choice, which talks about some the changes that have occurred with Firefox as a result of Windows 10. Besides Windows 10 making Edge your default browser (unless you do a custom install), web searches using Cortana are done though Bing. The article goes on to explain how they have been able to workaround some these changes. But first, they talk about the UI change in regards to the search feature for the Windows 10 version of Firefox: User choice is a core principle with which we design our products….

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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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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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Experimental Private Browsing now in Firefox Beta

As mentioned in the Three Pillars of Firefox from July 2015. The Uniquely Firefox Pillar hinted towards an improved private browsing mode. In the past Private Browsing would not show up in your history, or keep cookies and temporary files. So, now Mozilla has expanded on what happens in a private browsing session and has rolled this out in the current Firefox 40 Beta. Our hypothesis is that when you open a Private Browsing window in Firefox you’re sending a signal that you want more control over your privacy than current private browsing experiences actually provide. The experimental Private Browsing enhancements ready…

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Mozilla to Depreciate add-ons using XUL, XPCOM, or XBL

Back in July Mozilla’s Dave Camp had talked about in his email how to get Firefox away from being dependent on XBL and XUL. At that time, many on mozillaZine were concerned that this could have dire consequences on the future of Firefox as trying to move away from a development system that has been used for the past decade would not be easy. If anything, it would require a complete rewrite/redesign of the desktop version of Firefox. Many had hoped this would be like a campaign promise and people would forget about it. Unfortunately, Mozilla has lived up their…

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Enable 1080p YouTube Support in Firefox 40 for Linux

“You can check if your browser supports all the codecs for YouTube by checking the YouTube HTML5 Video Player website, which list everything supported on your PC. If you have a Linux systems and Firefox 40, it’s likely that some of those codecs will have a red sign, meaning that they are not enabled. All you have to do is open about:config and make the following changes. Please make sure that you don’t change anything else. …” Source: Softpedia

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Firefox 41 (and Headaches) Coming September 22nd

Mozilla is moving right along with getting Firefox 41 ready to ship for the September 22nd release. Having had a chance to play with the current Beta version of Firefox 41, here are THREE major changes users should be aware of to avoid headaches upon updating/downloading: New ‘New Tab’ behavior. Gone are the days users could set their preference as to what comes up when they open a new tab via the browser.newtab.url preference in about:config. Nope, that was being ‘exploited’ so Mozilla removed this functionality that has been in Firefox since Firefox 13 (June 2012). There is a simple solution, Custom New…

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