Items tagged with Mozilla
Firefox users have spoken up and Mozilla has listened. Firefox 68 is available today for iOS and desktop, with the new update including a number of features like dark mode for Firefox Reader View, new extensions and bookmark editing, and more options for IT professionals. Firefox or “Firefox Quantum” desktop and iOS users can now enjoy “blackout shades” in Firefox Reader View. Reader View strips away extras like advertisements and allows users to alter the size and color of a page’s text. Before this update, “dark mode” only affected the text. Now dark mode will apply to all sections of a page, including sidebars and images. Mozilla has also created a...
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Most Android users simply use Google Chrome by default for their browser because it's there and well, it works. However, there are plenty of alternative browsers out there for the Android platform including Firefox, which is getting a big update today. The new browser is being dubbed the Firefox Preview in its early development state (it was developed under the codename Fenix) and is up to twice as fast as the preceding versions of Firefox for Android. The GeckoView engine, which is optimized for mobile, is said to allow for speedy feature updates from Mozilla, and it nabs some of the same privacy-centric features from the desktop Firefox browser to keep all of your data safe. "Firefox Preview...
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It is common knowledge that websites like to track your activity through cookies, but might we be giving up a bit too much privacy when surfing the web? The answer may depend on the specific browser you are using. In a recent examination of Google Chrome, a tech expert said he uncovered some startling differences in how Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox browsers treat user privacy. Geoffrey A. Fowler is a technology journalist for The Washington Post. It was there that he posted an opinion piece on why he feels that "Chrome has become surveillance software," and why he made the switch to Firefox. The article sits behind a paywall, but has been reprinted at a few other places (hit the link in the Via...
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You may have only recently updated your Firefox browser to build 67.0, but guess what? You should mash the update button once gain. The latest version, build 67.0.3, contains a fix for a major security vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild, according to Mozilla. Leaving Firefox unpatched is not a good idea. Listed as "CVE-2019-11707: Type confusion in Array.pop," Mozilla considers the vulnerability to be a critical one. It was discovered by a member of Google's Project Zero team and Coinbase Security, and promptly addressed with an update. "A type confusion vulnerability can occur when manipulating JavaScript objects due to issues in Array.pop. This can allow for an exploitable...
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Have you updated your web browser lately? If the answer is "no" and you are running Firefox (or Firefox Quantum, as Mozilla calls it these days), there is a new build available, version 67.0. This is a finalized release and not a beta build, and it brings with it improved performance and some new features, including a cryptocurrency mining blocker. The latter would have been more useful when cryptocurrency mining was booming, but hey, better late than never, right? To Mozilla's credit, the crypto-market is highly volatile, and who knows if we will see another surge in interest. If so, it's nice to know that the latest version of Firefox offers some level of protection against unwittingly mining...
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Mozilla this week offered an apology to Firefox users over for temporarily breaking add-ons last weekend, and then issuing a temporary fix that collected telemetry data. Simply put, Mozilla admits it "failed" its users. That said, the company says it has a permanent fix in place, and promises to delete usage data that was collected. "An error on our part prevented new add-ons from being installed, and stopped existing add-ons from working. Now that we’ve been able to restore this functionality for the majority of Firefox users, we want to explain a bit about what happened and tell you what comes next," Mozilla stated in a blog post. Mozilla went on to explain that it wanted to push out...
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Firefox is a web browser that is used by lots of people, even if it's not the dominant browser on the market. That dominant browser is Google Chrome. Mozilla is the company behind Firefox, and it has worked hard to improve the browser with new features like increased security to protect users from cryptominers and other security issues. Mozilla also recently released a native ARM64 Firefox browser for Windows machines powered by Snapdragon processors. A former Mozilla executive is now claiming that Google undermined Firefox development. Google was formerly a Mozilla business partner despite having a competing web browser during some of that partnership. According to former Mozilla executive Jonathan...
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Microsoft and Qualcomm are really pushing to get customers interested in ARM-powered Windows 10 machines. There’s no question that the Windows 10 scene is currently dominated by x86-64 processors from Intel and AMD, but ARM-powered systems promise to offer enough muscle for consumers to handle everyday tasks while delivering unmatched battery life. But in order to win customers over, there needs to be an abundance of native apps for the Windows 10 on ARM platform to deliver on the performance front. To that end Mozilla announced today that it has released a beta of the native ARM64 version of its popular Firefox browser. That means that if you’re running a Windows 10 device that...
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At a cursory glance, it may seem like cryptocurrency mining is firmly in the rear view mirror, along with all of the unwanted side effects (GPU shortages, browser hijacking, and so forth), but not so fast. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have seen a sharp rise in recent weeks. Does that mean we have to worry about sneaky web code using our browsers to mine cryptocurrencies? That remains to be seen, though to prevent that sort of thing, Mozilla is making some changes to Firefox. Mozilla stated in a blog post that it has added a feature to block fingerprinting and cryptomining in Firefox Nightly, as an option for users to turn on. Firefox Nightly is a pre-release version of Firefox that gets...
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Firefox Send, a file transfer service that Mozilla first introduced in beta form back in 2017, is now fully available for the public to try out. Mozilla has repositioned Firefox as an alternative browser with a heavy focus and security and privacy, and Firefox Send is an extension of this philosophy. With Firefox Send, you can head over to send.firefox.com and transfer files up to 1TB in size to another person. You can use any browser -- not just Firefox -- to initiate the transfer. This is done completely free of charge, and there are no strings attached. In addition, Firefox Send uses end-to-end encryption to ensure that your data is safe. Wisely, Mozilla is providing granular...
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In order to avoid erecting a paywall, webmasters who want to keep their content 'free' must walk a fine line between delivering ads to pay the bills (and writers), and not overwhelming readers, who might be tempted to enable an ad blocker. In a sense, browser makers also have a balancing act on their hands. One thing they seem to agree on, though, is that autoplaying audible video and audio is undesirable, and so Mozilla is planning to crack down on this with Firefox 66. "We know that unsolicited volume can be a great source of distraction and frustration for users of the web. So we are making changes to how Firefox handles playing media with sound. We want to make sure web developers are aware...
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There are mixed opinions on Microsoft's decision to rebuild its Edge browser around Chromium, the same open source platform that powers Google's own Chrome browser. For at least one Microsoft programmer, however, the decision is not only the right one for Edge, but Mozilla should "get down from its philosophical ivory tower" and do the same thing with Firefox. Microsoft announced its own plans to embrace Chromium in December, saying at the time that it would be a somewhat slow transition over the course of this year, with its first preview build expected to debut in early 2019. What this ultimately entails is ripping out its browser's EdgeHTML rendering and Chakra JavaScript engines, and replacing...
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Yesterday, a story critical of Google was making the rounds purported to be from a former intern that worked on the Microsoft Edge team. Joshua Bakita detailed one particular instance in which Google allegedly altered site code to make Google apps/website either not render properly or perform poorly on competing browsers. "For example, they recently added a hidden empty div over YouTube videos that causes our hardware acceleration fast-path to bail," wrote Bakita. "Prior to that, our fairly state-of-the-art video acceleration put us well ahead of Chrome on video playback time on battery, but almost the instant they broke things on YouTube, they started advertising Chrome's dominance...
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A bug in Firefox that was first reported 12 years ago is still being exploited by malicious websites. The bug essentially allows a malicious site to ensnare a user by repeatedly showing them an "Authentication Required" pop-up login box. When the users tries to close the login box, a new one appears. The only way out is to close the browser. Users have reported this flaw in Firefox several times over the years, including yesterday (Saturday), but it's never been resolved. Here's the most recent report (edited for clarity)... "When I was browsing some site, a pop-up ad window appeared... At first I thought it is just an annoying advertising site and I went to close it," the user wrote. "However,...
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