Mozilla released an update for Window users with Firefox 20.0.1 on April 11th, 2013. This update addresses issues around handling UNC paths. See bug 846848 for more information. Depending on update settings (Tools > Options… > Advanced > Update Tab), users will be prompted to update within in the next 48-hours. Windows users can also go to Help > About Firefox and click the Check for Updates button. Users may also manually download and install Firefox via getfirefox.com. The next scheduled releases will be Firefox 21.0 and 17.0.6esr on May 14th, 2013.
Windows
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It has been a little under a week since I got my new Windows 8 PC. So far, I am impressed with Windows 8 as far as performance as concerned. Boot-up is quick and resuming from hibernation is fast, about 10-seconds from power-up to desktop. It mounts USB Flash drives almost instantly. The User Interface on the other hand, not so great. A couple weeks ago I had installed Windows 8 in a virtual environment on the system I just replaced. This gave me a chance to play with Windows 8 a bit before the time came (a lot sooner than I expected) that I…
Mozilla has released the next update for Firefox with Firefox 20. New in this release include: Per-window Private Browsing. New download experience. Ability to close hanging plugins, without the browser hanging. See the Release Notes for more details and complete list of changes. Also released was an update for Firefox 17esr (Firefox for Organization) with 17.0.5esr. The Firefox esr update only contains bug fixes and security/stability updates. Depending on the operating system and update settings (Tools > Options… > Advanced > Update Tab), users will be prompted to update within in the next 48-hours. Windows users can also go to…
Had an opportunity last week to test out Windows 8 Professional. I did this on my Windows 7 Ultimate machine using Oracle’s VirtualBox free VM software. I have to say I was impressed at how well Windows 8 handled, especially since I was running it with only 2 GB of (virtual) RAM. I launched IE10 (which is very different from IE9) so I could download and install Chrome and Firefox. Now, the two biggest complaints about Windows 8 is that you have to boot into the Metro (or Modern) UI and the removal of the Start Menu. Last week, there was an…
So, has anyone really felt they were “forced” to use Internet Explorer with Windows? It is not like Microsoft won’t allow you to download and install another browser (you do have to use IE to do that though). Further, how is bundling Internet Explorer with Windows anti-competitive? It is not like the makers of Chrome, Firefox or Opera are losing revenue because of Internet Explorer (may be with ads, but not the browser itself). I can think of one scenario where it would be “anti-competitive” would be if the other browsers were not free and neither was IE, unless it…
Last year Microsoft discovered and acknowledged there was “mishap” with Windows 7 SP1 sold in the EU. Since 2009 Microsoft has been required for new installs of Windows in EU to present a “Browser Ballot” pop-up giving the user the choice of which will allow the user to choose which browser they wanted to use. This was a result of an Anti-Trust investigation against Microsoft which claimed that Microsoft was being anti-competitive for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. More so, the EU felt Microsoft having the most common operating system was forcing Windows user to use Internet Explore with out letting them know up front of…
Java Release 7 Update 11 (released January 13, 2013) fixes this issue. More info here. US Department of Homeland Security is advising computer uses to temporarily disable their browsers’ Java Plugin(s). This comes after after Thursday’s advisory concerning vulnerabilities in the current Java 7 Release 10 plugin. Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java’s coding that creates an opening for criminal activity and other high-tech mischief. How to disable Java plugin on your browser: Firefox: in the address bar type about:addons and press enter. The add-ons manager will open. On the left side select Plugins. Locate the plugins you want to disable and click the Disable button. Note: a browser restart may…
The move away from Flash is ever so slow, but at least there is movement. Starting with Firefox 20 (due out in April 2013) Windows users will have support for H.264 videos via the Windows Media Foundation Playback. Also Firefox for Windows will be able to support AAC audio in MP4 and M4A files, and MP3 audio files without having to rely on third-party plug-ins such as Flash and QuickTime. This feature is available, but not enabled on the current Windows Firefox Nightly Builds. Those currently using (can also get it here) the current Firefox 20 wishing to take advantage of this…
It seems Benjamin Smedberg has had a change of heart (or was it all the negative feedback) in his earlier decision to discontinue the Firefox 64-Bit Windows builds. After I announced my decision to disable 64-bit Windows nightlies, there was significant negative feedback. After reviewing that feedback, and consulting with Release Engineering, I believe that we can keep a set of users happy by making a modification to the original plan. At this point, the Mozilla project does not have the resources to actively support this use case. Making these builds, however, is not a significant burden on our Release Engineering…
” Some users of the Firefox web browser have reported issues with blurry fonts after updating it to the latest release version Firefox 17.0. The issue seems to only affect users running the Windows operating system … “…Note that Thunderbird 17.0 is likely affected by the same bug as well. …” Temporary solution ghacks.net/2012/11/24/firefox-17-0-1-to-fix-blurry-font-issue-in-the-browser/