Brain R Bondy has posted an update on the status of Firefox for Windows 8 Metro Modern User Interface. There is quite a bit of progress in getting Firefox adapted to run in this unique Windows 8 interface: Crash reporting pdfjs (Built in PDF viewer without the need for a plugin) Windowless Flash, although full screen flash doesn’t work yet Some accessibility hooks Front end event refactoring to be faster and to treat mouse input normally and distinct from touch input File pickers updated to be asynchronous on all platforms because it was needed for WinRT Front end awesomescreen work…
Articles by ElGuru
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Mozilla announced earlier today they have added older (older than 5.1.0) versions of Microsoft’s Silverlight Plugin to the Plugins blocklist for Mac OS X (no word yet if this will be extended to include Windows users). Unlike the recent JAVA plugin blocking, this plugin block is not due to a security volunerabitly. Instead, these older versions of Silverlight are causing stability issues including crahses on Microsoft’s Hotmail site. Users are urged to check to ensure they are running a more recent version of Silverlight (as well as other plugins such as JAVA and Flash/Shockwave) and check the status of their…
A while back we mentioned that Firefox was working on getting a Windows 8 Metro Modern User Interface prototype going. There are some ‘internal builds’ that have been completed, but so far no Alpha or Beta release. This topic came up on Sunday in the Firefox Build forums today as a beta users was looking for the Windows 8 builds of Firefox and then also trying to get the Windows 8 Metro Modern UI of IE10 working. Turns out in Windows 8 you can only have one browser using the Modern UI in Windows 8. Further, this browser needs to be your…
Depending on how you have your Firefox setup to handle updates (Firefox Button > Options > Advanced > Update), you will be prompted when there is an update for Firefox. You have the option of doing the update then or to have Firefox remind you later. The problem with later is it is 24-hours later which still may not be a good time to stop what you are doing to shut down Firefox (albeit the update only takes a couple minutes to install). You can change the frequency of the reminder by changing the value for ‘later’ via an about:config tweak. Keep…
Thunderbird 15 is coming out this Tuesday, August 21st and there are a couple User Interface (UI) changes as part of the new Australis UI. The tabs have been redesigned to look like well tabs (similar to what you see in Google Chrome). There has been some other small refinements in appearance of the UI as well. Also, when you are customizing your toolbars, there is no longer an option for ‘small icons’. Note: The ‘small icons’ change currently only affects Windows builds. Linux builds still had the ‘small icons’ option (have not heard about Mac users). Interestingly though, looking on my Windows 7…
Users should ensure sure they have the most recent versions of Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Java Developers Kit (JDK) plugins (note not all users may be using these plug-ins). Due to an increasingly exploited voluntarily found in the older versions of JRE and JDK plugins Mozilla is actively blocking outdated versions of these plugins. This vulnerability—present in the older versions of the JDK and JRE—is actively being exploited, and is a potential risk to users. To mitigate this risk, we have added affected versions of the Java plugin (Version 6 Update 32 and below as well as Version 7…
Mozilla has released Firefox 14.0.1 for Windows, Mac and Linux desktop users as well as Android users on Tuesday, July 17th, 2012. Note: there was not a Firefox 14.0.0 release. Users will prompted to update within the next 72-hours or can manually update via Help > About Firefox or can download and install from the getfirefox.com site. New stuff in Firefox 14.0.1 includes: Google searches now utilize HTTPS Full screen support for Mac OS X Lion implemented Plugins can now be configured to only load on click (requires an about:config change) The Awesome Bar now auto-completes typed URLs For information about Firefox 14.0.1 see the release notes:…
Mozilla has released an update to Thunderbird on Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 for Windows, Mac and Linux. Thunderbird 14 includes Various fixes and performance improvements as well as security fixes. Users will prompted to update within the next 72-hours or can manually update via Help > About Thunderbird or can download and install Thunderbird from here. There is one known issue in regards to issues with RSS feeds, see the release notes for more information. Lighting Users: upon first run of Thunderbird 14, an add-on compatibility check with be done. At that time you will be prompted to update from…
Mozilla announced on July 6th they will longer be doing new development (feature) with Thunderbird, instead they will just continue to provide security and stability updates. To be honest, I really don’t know of anything else I would want Thunderbird to be able to do than what it can right now. After all, it is marketed as an email client. The only exception would be an integrated calendar but the Lightning or (better) EarlyLight add-ons take care of that. I have never really care to use Thunderbird for RSS feeds or even as a news reader (not that my ISP offers access to newgroups anymore). I certainly had…
ALERT: As of version 15 released on August 29th, Waterfox now comes with bloatware and will attempt to install said bloatware without your knowledge or permission. Read more: Waterfox 15 & AVG. Linux and Mac users have enjoyed having a 64-bit versions of Firefox available to them for nearly the past two years. However, for us Windows users, Mozilla has been teasing us and/or dragging their feet with 64-Bit Firefox. As a point of clarification I should say that there has been since Firefox 4 (may be even further back) 64-bit Windows builds on the Nightly Developmental channel. These are not official releases and have never made…