Items tagged with Mozilla
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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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Earlier this week a rumor surfaced that Microsoft was moving its Edge browser from its own custom EdgeHTML rendering engine over to Chromium. Microsoft confirmed that rumor as accurate yesterday despite not giving a firm timeline for when the move would happen. All Microsoft said for a timetable was "in the next year or so" and noted that Edge on Chromium would be updated more frequently and would land for macOS. Naturally, Mozilla isn't happy at all about Microsoft's decision on adopting Chromium. Mozilla says that Microsoft is "officially giving up" on an independent shared platform for the internet....
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The Firefox team is cooking up a new batch of experimental add-ons at its Test Pilot site to help make your life hopefully a little easier. One of the add-ons that Mozilla cooked up is Price Wise, which designed to help you track price drops on items you have been thinking about buying. Other extensions at Mozilla's Firefox Test Pilot page aim to make it easier to work and collaborate with others on projects that require multiple web pages of research. As Black Friday is fast approaching, let's start by taking a look at Price Wise. To use this feature, all you need to do is navigate to...
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Mozilla is taking the web browser experience to the next level. Mozilla has just released Firefox Reality, the first dedicated VR web browser. The browser is free and available to download for Viveport, Oculus Go, and Google DayDream headsets. This is the first web browser intended to be used entirely in a VR headset. Andre Vrignaud, Head of Mixed Reality Platform Strategy at Mozilla, remarked “We had to rethink everything, including navigation, text-input, environments, search and more... The result is a browser that is built for the medium it serves.” Users will be able to visit...
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Mozilla introduced its Test Pilot program to allow users to test experimental features on the desktop version of its Firefox web browser. Mozilla is now expanding Test Pilot to the mobile space with Firefox Lockbox and Firefox Notes. Both Lockbox and Notes are standalone mobile apps and are capable of syncing with their desktop Firefox counterparts. Lockbox is a password manager that helps you manage all of your online accounts. Given that Lockbox can sync between your desktop and your smartphone, you'll never have to worry about remembering a password you created on your laptop when...
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Data breaches have become way too common, and we are not just talking about personal accounts being compromised through phishing attacks, malware, and the like. Companies with an online presence (so pretty much every company in the world) are targets, and since many sites require that you register with an email account, there's a good chance your information has fallen into the wrong hands. As an added security precaution, Mozilla plans to test a new Firefox Monitor security feature using data from the 'Have I Been Pwned' (HIPB) website. Created by Troy Hunt, HIPB is a website where you can input...
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Digital assistants are now a part of everyday life for many users, whether it's barking out commands at Siri on an iPhone, summoning Google Now (or later Duplex) on an Android device, asking Cortana to look something up in Windows 10, shouting at Samsung's Bixby on a Galaxy device, or asking Amazon's Alexa to perform one of its many skills. So what's next in the AI assistant space? Mozilla is building a new voice-controlled web browser called Scout. We all know Mozilla as the developer of Firefox, one of the popular browsers that people turn to when they don't want to use Internet Explorer or Edge...
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Ads are what drive much of the web experience as we know it—without them, more websites would have to erect paywalls or figure out other ways of generating revenue. Typically that means seeing ads on webpages. However, a similar business model is creeping into Firefox, with Mozilla announcing plans to add sponsored content to new tabs in Firefox 60 in the US later this month. "We believe the Internet can do better. So earlier this year, we started to explore a new model and showed an occasional sponsored story in Pocket’s recommendation section on Firefox New Tab. Starting today, we’re...
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Mozilla has announced the launch of Firefox 59, which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new release builds on Firefox Quantum and is a significant update for fans of the browser. Among the performance enhancements of the new browser include faster load times for content on the Firefox Home page. The faster page load times are thanks in part to loading from the networked cache or the cache on the user hard drive. Graphics rendering has been improved thanks to a move to Off-Main-Thread Painting (OMTP) for Mac users; this feature landed for Windows and Linux back in Firefox 58....
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Mozilla ended 2017 with a bang by retooling its Firefox browser with a focus on speed with the release of Firefox 57. Now called Firefox Quantum (it is okay to still refer to it as simply Firefox), Mozilla's browser is noticeably faster than previous versions—over twice as fast, according to Mozilla. It is a solid foundation to build upon, and Mozilla is doing that, with Firefox 58 bringing even more improvements to browser space. If you are a Firefox user, you can initiate an update to the latest release by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the upper-right corner, clicking on Help,...
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Isn't it nice when malware authors make it easy to remove their dirty code? Sometimes all you have to do is open the Control Panel and uninstall the offending program, just like any other application. And for browsers, simply nuke the extension that is causing trouble. Unfortunately, some recent browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox are making things difficult on users by cleverly hiding their whereabouts. The extensions in question hijack Chrome and Firefox to redirect web searches and drive up click counts on YouTube videos, presumably to generate ad revenue. That in and of itself is not...
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