Just some miscellaneous news and linkage on web-browsers.
Firefox/Mozilla
- Firefox 39: Find out what is new - gHacks Tech News
- Add-on to control ‘new tab’ page? - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- Bypass About:Config & Toggle Privacy Preferences From The Toolbar [Firefox] – AddictiveTips
- uBlock Origin's Logger highlights the extension's activity - gHacks Tech News
- Mozilla removes option to change New Tab Page from Firefox - gHacks Tech News
- Firefox 41 ships with massive memory improvements for Adblock Plus - gHacks Tech News
- Mozilla Pushing out Windows 64-Bit Firefox - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- Researchers point out the holes in NoScript's default whitelist – Help Net Security
- Which Firefox features would you like to see removed and which polished? - gHacks Tech News
- Three Pillars of Firefox - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- Three Pillars Update - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- Other Firefox Announcements - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
PaleMoon
So in the comments of a recent GSD browser news post, El Guru posted an observation that if Mozilla continues their feature bloat direction, it may drive many more Firefox users to the Pale Moon browser project. I’m lightly familiar with Pale Moon but haven’t used it except for fiddling around. Firefox public\Developer, Vivaldi, and Chromium all take up most of my browser usage attention.
That said, I’m going to start paying much closer attention to the Pale Moon project, particularly if the “Three Pillars” philosophy/strategy doesn’t bear visible fruit.
- Pale Moon Fork and Why I Moved To It - Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- The Pale Moon Project - homepage
- Pale Moon to switch from Gecko to Goanna rendering engine - gHacks Tech News
Vivaldi
- Snapshot 1.0.219.3 - A cleaner Speed Dial and lots of fixes – Vivaldi.net team blog
- Snapshot 1.0.209.3 More visual improvements and better mouse support – Vivaldi.net team blog
- Snapshot 1.0.212 - On our way to TP4 – Vivaldi.net team blog
Chrome
- Hard Drive filling up? Check Chrome's File System folder - gHacks Tech News
Browser Security & Privacy Issues
- Understanding HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and preloading it into the browser – Troy Hunt blog
- Mike O'Neill on Twitter: "WebRTC being used now by embedded 3rd party on nytimes.com to report visitors' local IP addresses – Mike O’Neill on Twitter via SwiftonSecurity on Twitter
- Websites can now use WebRTC to determine your local IP address, bypassing VPN – PIA. from that post’s comment threads…
- IF you're using Firefox, use about:config, search for 'media.peerconnection.enabled' and set it to FALSE
- For Chrome/Iron users there is no setting built in to disable but there is WebRTC Block extension.
Note: Web services that depend on WebRTC may fail to work properly (or at all) if you disable this setting so if you do, don’t forget so you can enable as needed or use NoScript … and maybe uBlock Origin to manage them on a per-site basis.
- Sites may detect the local IP address in browsers supporting WebRTC - gHacks Tech News
Cheers!
--Claus Valca
2 comments:
Keep in mind that a lot of the Mozilla news (including the Three Pillars) came about from the annual Mozilla retreat in Whistler, BC. One of the mods on mozillaZine summed all these 'announcements' as "Someone spiked the Kool Aide at Whistler".
Mozilla needs to stop the train, backup and rethink what they are doing with Firefox. There is major stuff that still needs to be done such as Win64 (though that looks like it may actually be a reality now...or it could crash and burn like so many other things, Electrolysis aka E10s aka Multi-Process and how about giving users back the control of their own browser. If Mozilla keeps going the way they are it is not going to end well.
The backlash from Pocket is fine example and just wait until users find out that they need an add-on to change their new tab page or they can't add their favorite extensions when they reinstall Firefox because those extensions are not "signed".
I read somewhere, want to say mozillaZine, that it was after Firefox 4 when things changed and a lot of that was because the original founding developers had left Mozilla. They were the ones that had the mission of a lightweight and customizable browser, not the bloated and restricted mess it is becoming today.
Oddly enough I have yet to try Pale Moon, but I know my father is and he loves it.
Interesting about rendering engine change in Pale Moon. More so on the legal ramifications, which make me wonder if Mozilla is hinting that may "crack down" on using the Gecko name unless you are using certain features/elements of Gecko. Which in the case of The Pale Moon Project, those feature/elements may not be desirable. Could I see Mozilla doing like that? Well, ask me a couple years ago and I would said no, but now...I wouldn't put it past them.
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