With the recent panic around Meltdown and Spectre, Microsoft MSFT 454,46 +2,87 +0,64% was quick to release Security Updates to address these vulnerabilities. For many users with AMD AMD 126,69 -0,22 -0,17% powered computers running WIndows 10, they no longer have to worry about these vulnerabilities thanks to the forced security updates pushed out by Microsoft this past week. The bad news is for these users is their device is now an over-priced paperweight. The updates have caused these devices are now unbootable (BSOD on boot-up) Again since non-enterprise users can not stop these updates it is very much Microsoft’s fault…
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Despite its best attempts to capture a slice of the smartphone market, Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has officially terminated support for Windows Phone 8.1, ushering in the end of an era where the PC-maker sought to directly compete with Apple’s iPhone and Android-powered devices, which have since created a smartphone duopoly. Never really much got into Windows Phones, I think the biggest turn off for me besides the vertical scrolling between screens was lack of apps compared to Android or even Apple. I wonder how much longer Windows Phones are going to last as I am sure Microsoft’s…
Mozilla has announced Firefox will continue to be supported for Windows XP and Vista users into most of 2017. Here is the timeline for continued support ub 2017: March 2017 users will (automatically) be moved to Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR). September 2017 Mozilla will end support for Windows XP and Vista users. via Firefox Future Release
Mozilla released an update to the Thunderbird 38.5.x branch on January 7th, 2016. Thunderbird 38.5.1 is for Windows users and implemented using a SHA-256 signing certificate for Windows builds, to meet new signing requirements. This was the final step of the replacing the now deprecated (as of 01/01/2016) SHA-1 signing certificates. Windows XP SP2 users: You can not update from Thunderbird 38.4.0 (or older) to 38.5.0 automatically. You will need to manually download and install Thunderbird 38.5.0 from here and then update to the current version of Thunderbird. Windows Vista/Server 2008 SP2 users: If you are running into issues trying to install Thunderbird…
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.
The machine I upgraded to Windows 10 on Saturday did not have Thunderbird installed. I did a clean install of Thunderbird 38.1.0 with a clean profile. Upon first run I noticed Lightening was already there along with some options at the bottom: First run of a fresh install of Thunderbird 39.1.0 I like the way Mozilla has this setup that you can either keep or disable Lightning. This is what they should have done with Pocket in Firefox.
Javaun Moradi announced earlier in bug 1181014 (this was the bug about how to ‘market’ the Win64 builds on Mozilla.org): Folks, we’ve decided not to release win64 builds in Fx40. We have many improvements coming in 41 — sandboxing and NPAPI whitelisting, and possibly some other fixes — and it makes sense to hold. I as much as anyone want to see 64 launch, but given the enthusiasm, it’s better to wait for a product that has safety and polish 41 will bring. He also commented in bug 1180792 (enabling Win64 builds on release channel): Our original plan was a quiet soft-launch in 40,…
In a very odd move Mozilla has made a change to the latest Firefox Nightly (Firefox 42) Win64 which only allows the Shockwave Flash NPAPI plugin. Note: the Prime Content Decryption and Open H264 are now standard all will always be supported. While Shockwave Flash is still supported Silverlight is not. Simple enough, just install the plugin and you’re ready to go. Users won’t be able to install Silverlight in the Win64 version of Firefox since it is not allowed. Microsoft’s Silverlight is used by Netflix and Amazon Video along with many other Video on Demand (VOD) sites (especially outside the US). This is a result…
I reported last week that Windows 10 has changed the way you setup your Default Apps. The biggest change is this has to be done within Windows System Settings, not from within the application. If you attempt to have the application to tell Windows it wants to be the default application you will get this annoying and unhelpful message: For Firefox, Mozilla has implemented a change coming with Firefox 40 that will open the Default Apps setting in Windows 10 when the user tries to make Firefox the default browser within Firefox. This is needed because it appears when a user…
In many ways I hope I am wrong about this. Firefox is still a good browser (compared to Internet Explorer at least), but the Mozilla Developers continue to be indifferent towards the users. They have also deviated away from the original goals of keeping Firefox as small and lean as possible. In 2014, Firefox saw a drop in user base when the dramatic (and unwanted) user interface change known as Australia’s landed. Though most, if not all the changes made by this could be undone with The Classic Theme Restorer (CTR) add-on. Fastforward a year later and Mozilla Developers are still doing…