Firefox 23 Arrives With New Logo, Mixed Content Blocker, and Network Monitor

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 23 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Improvements include the addition of a share button, mixed content blocker, and network monitor on the desktop side (release notes). The new desktop version was available on the organization's FTP servers last night, but that was just the initial release of the installers. Firefox 23 has now officially been released over on Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play."

Comments

Removed "Disable Javascript" check box

[sconeu]

AND... user prefs returned to default?

Thank the FSM I'm using NoScript.

Re:Removed "Disable Javascript" check box

[Anonymous Coward]

And it doubles down the devilry with: “Load images automatically” ... removed from preferences and reset to defaults

So they re-enable javascript and image loading on people who actively disabled them. Removing the option from preferences isn't evil but silently re-enabling them is criminal. My apologies to them if they throw up a "we would like to re-enable these features" dialog on upgrade, but it certainly doesn't sound like it.

Frankly I hope some people get their boxes owned as a result, sue mozilla and take them to the cleaners. Even some mobile users could get them for data charges incurred. If I used it, I'd have 50M daily data cap before I went into 2c/M charging on my payg sim, how many "average" tabs would I have to have open by default on launch for the JS+images to chew through my limit (remember _everything_ JS and image related would be uncached at that point)?

Re:Removed "Disable Javascript" check box

[BenFenner]

You can not autoHide tabs any longer. They've removed the option from the UI, and the entry in about:config is no longer honored. It has been completely stripped. I'm stuck with FF 22 until they reserve this decision.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[The MAZZTer]

If Facebook is blocked then users will be unable to use any Facebook integration features in Firefox... I don't see a problem here?

Javascript is ON, period.

[Anonymous Coward]

CHANGED: “Enable JavaScript” preference checkbox has been removed and user-set values will be reset to the default.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[LandGator]

Perhaps edit the HOSTS file so that facebook.com is sent to 127.0.0.1 ? Set and forget solution.

Mixed Content blocker is awesome for security, but

[gQuigs]

..many sites still need to be updated to work with it. Likely some behind the firewall stuff as well. (And many of these sites break in IE10 and Chrome as well)

See here for full details: https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2013/05/16/mixed-content-blocking-in-firefox-aurora/

Basically it prevents loading active content (JS/CSS/etc) from a non-HTTPS source when the page is HTTPS.

Also, if you are a HTTPS Everywhere user and wondering why sites like XKCD and NYtimes are no longer HTTPS, this is why.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[h4rr4r]

No.
That is not funny and moreover is stupid.

Block facebook at the firewall and be done with it.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[KiloByte]

Adblock works just great as a first line of defense against Facebook. Same for any other http/https-based spyware sites.

I for one hate those buggers so much I also serve an empty zone for {facebook,fbcdn}.{com,net} and friends in my DNS, and block their IP ranges just in case some new domain pops up, but that's probably overkill. If you don't trust your co-workers to not muck with Adblock settings, you can do the DNS trick. If you want my zone management scripts, shout, I can clean them up for public consumption.

Re:A new logo?? Eyeroll

[Desler]

Phoenix was the original name of Firefox until there were trademark issues woth Phoenix Technologies. Then it was callef Firebird but was changed because of the Firebird database project. It was not until Feb 2004 that it was finally named Firefox.

Re:Dumbing down is out of hand

[BenFenner]

Here's one example. The browser.tabs.autoHide functionality has been completely stripped. You can no longer hide the tab bar. There was an explosion of posts about it today, so I'm not the only one crying over the loss of this feature.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[Animats]

Yes, there's a way to turn it off. Go to "about:config" and set "social.enabled" to False. This was previously the default.

Re:LOL

[nmb3000]

Wow a share button?!?!

This is what Mozilla is wasting time on now?

Don't forget the NEW LOGO!

http://cdn.thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/06/firefox_logo.png

I'm at a loss for words, but that picture tells you everything you need to know about the UI/art direction types at Mozilla. It's painful.

Pale Moon Rocks!

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Pale Moon is a Firefox variant optimized for Windows and modern processors, but also keeps most of the missing features and interface complained about here on Slashdot. It also works with NoScript and the handful of other add-ons I've tried.

Contrary to what Mozilla has done with their redesign of the user interface, Pale Moon will continue to provide a familiar set of controls and visual feedback similar to previous versions, including grouped navigation buttons of a decent size, a bookmarks toolbar that is enabled by default, tabs next to page content by default (easily switchable) and not in the least a functional status bar, to name a few things.

Re:I hope there's an easy social integration disab

[unrtst]

Why not praise them for their amazing work on...

Because a simple option to disable or hide the social integration feature should be included.

In this release, they also REMOVED the checkbox options for:
* Enable javascript
* Load images automatically
* Always show the tab bar ...AND those options will be reset to the defaults! (ie. if you did set them before, too bad - your settings will NOT be retained, and you'll have go dig through about:config to set them back to how you had already chosen to customize them).
IE. There's plenty of room for a new checkbox.

Of course, I'm 99% sure the about:config will include options to control the new social features, so GGP's point is probably moot, or at least not as big a deal, but it certainly should have some way to disable it. IMO, that should be in the easily accessible preferences, but that's being continuously gutted and dumbed down.

I don't get why the social thing isn't simply an add on. It could even be distributed with FF by default, but it makes little sense to include it as part of FF proper.